Proof

In our ventures to establish indisputable proof, often, we cast aside the purest forms of evidence. This tendency to complicate that which is simple, is a flaw peculiar to the human animal. Perhaps it is the boredom of acceptance that we fear, and thus we refuse to admit that things can indeed be as they seem. With what would we fill our hours and days if not the quest to expose things not readily apparent? In this way, nothing may exist in the human mind that does not also hold some promise of depth. To appreciate a thing requires our belief that its surface is but one of countless layers. Else we tire of its simplicity and discard it. But suppose the value of a thing were of a piece with its outward appearance? How simple! But could such a thing be possible? Would that it were, might our days be filled rather with the experience of things than with their examination?  

 

Wisdom warns that to trust appearance is to go down willingly to the art of deception. And so, the less artful a thing, the more we mistrust it, the more we interrogate its existence. We punish simplicity with incredulity. And, of course, the more elaborate a design, the more easily we place it among the objects of our admiration and acceptance.

 

The abstract mind is regarded always the superior of the literal. Action informed by forethought is finer than impetuosity. And in all things, generally, we are instructed not by Nature, but by our experience of civilization, to counsel our thoughts before our feelings.

 

In this way, too, knowledge precedes intelligence.

 

Now, animals suffer the unkind judgment of their intelligence merely by the exuberance of their actions. Forethought exists, perhaps, in some measure, but they appear uncomplicated and perfectly happy to do as they feel and not as they think.

           

To act is, itself, proof of intelligence, though to the human mind, it appears well the opposite. I offer that before we lay bare the surface, we may yet discover profundity in the simplicity of form.