Sir Richmond went off at a tangent again. "I suppose you have
watched any number of babies?"'
"Not nearly as many as a general practitioner would do.
There's a lot of rage about most of them at first, male or
female. "
"Queer little eddies of fury. . . . Recently--it happens--
I've been seeing one. A spit of red wrath, clenching its
fists and squalling threats at a damned disobedient
universe."
The doctor was struck by an idea and glanced quickly and
questioningly at his companion's profile.
"Blind driving force," said Sir Richmond, musing.
"Isn't that after all what we really are?" he asked the
doctor. "Essentially--Rage. A rage in dead matter, making it
alive."
"Schopenhauer," footnoted the doctor. "Boehme."
"Plain fact, "said Sir Richmond. "No Rage--no Go."
"But rage without discipline?"
"Discipline afterwards. The rage first."
"But rage against what? And FOR what?"
"Against the Universe. And for--? That's more difficult. What
IS the little beast squalling itself crimson for? Ultimately?
. . . What is it clutching after? In the long run, what will
it get?"
("Yours the car in distress what sent this?" asked an
unheeded voice.)
"Of course, if you were to say 'desire'," said Dr. Martineau,
"then you would be in line with the psychoanalysts. They talk
of LIBIDO, meaning a sort of fundamental desire. Jung speaks
of it at times almost as if it were the universal driving
force."
"No," said Sir Richmond, in love with his new idea. "Not
desire. Desire would have a definite direction, and that is
just what this driving force hasn't. It's rage."
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