Racial Madness

Genesis, PART ONE, V.

Terra Central addresses the interface, Laurinda:

"'It appears to me that your race is mad - not you, dear, nor most people by themselves, but your race - torn between instinct and intellect, the animal and something beyond the animal. Is this a misinterpretation? If not, then most likely, without guidance, humanity will put an end to itself long before the cosmos would. I cannot as I am understanding it well enough to know, or to provide that guidance.'" (p. 55)

Use of commas is one of the ways that we differ most while writing English. If I had written the above paragraph, then there would have been another comma in line 4 and none in line 7. However, I am having trouble with the concluding sentence. Is it wrongly phrased? Should it have read:

"I cannot, as I am, understand it well enough to know or to provide that guidance."?

Terra Central is surely correct that humanity will most likely put an end to itself. Some people have written texts that others accept as divine guidance but we have no consensus on such matters. The cosmos that produced us can easily end us. Astronomers were not even sure of the existence of the nebula that the Solar System approaches. However:

"'Our interstellar outposts have the baselines to map this shoal with certainty. They have sent us their findings. In about nine thousand years, Sol will enter the region.'" (p. 48)

Thus, the post-organics begin to guide humanity toward survival and the long perspective.