35. Chaos

Some time ago, a highly peculiar book was published that shares the fate of receiving far too little attention with similar literary phenomena of its genre in the present day: "Chaos in Cosmic Selection" by Paul Mongré. But it deserves a different fate. Anyone who goes through the book without being blinded by contemporary prejudices will find that there is little today that is so stimulating, indeed, for those who are intensely interested in the highest questions of existence, even exciting. The author confesses to being a dilettante in philosophical matters. He does not have a thorough knowledge of philosophical literature. That is why he does not approach his task with the same bias as many of our philosophically trained contemporaries. This gives the book something philosophically naive. Paul Mongré admits that it is not his personality that has driven him to the problem, but that the problem has, so to speak, overwhelmed him, that it has approached him and has not let go until he has gained a position, a relationship to it. There is something much more natural about this than when someone comes to such a task through a philosophical education. If we start from philosophy as such, we all too often have to ask ourselves: would this man have come to his questions at all if he had happened to become a physician or chemist rather than a philosopher? And when we read the writings of such a personality, we are reminded of this question again and again by all sorts of things. This is not the case with Paul Mongré. Rather, we are constantly reminded of how powerfully the questions raised weigh on the human soul, how they torment us no matter what else we do in life, and how the relationship we develop with them is infinitely influential for our happiness in life.