Page 249 - erewhon

perfectly well knows what will happen, and will stake his
whole fortune thereon.
‘And this is a great blessing; for it is the foundation on
which morality and science are built. The assurance that the
future is no arbitrary and changeable thing, but that like
futures will invariably follow like presents, is the ground-
work on which we lay all our plans—the faith on which we
do every conscious action of our lives. If this were not so we
should be without a guide; we should have no confidence in
acting, and hence we should never act, for there would be
no knowing that the results which will follow now will be
the same as those which followed before.
‘Who would plough or sow if he disbelieved in the fixity
of the future? Who would throw water on a blazing house
if the action of water upon fire were uncertain? Men will
only do their utmost when they feel certain that the future
will discover itself against them if their utmost has not been
done. The feeling of such a certainty is a constituent part of
the sum of the forces at work upon them, and will act most
powerfully on the best and most moral men. Those who are
most firmly persuaded that the future is immutably bound
up with the present in which their work is lying, will best
husband their present, and till it with the greatest care. The
future must be a lottery to those who think that the same
combinations can sometimes precede one set of results, and
sometimes another. If their belief is sincere they will specu-
late instead of working: these ought to be the immoral men;
the others have the strongest spur to exertion and morality,
if their belief is a living one.

Erewhon