I feel that this excerpt of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos illustrates his idealsas a Naturalist. This passage discusses how he feels that humans areinferior compared to the vast “superiority” or the ‘Cosmos’. It’s almostas if he gives the universe a character and considers it a physicalidentity. His statement “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or everwill be.” Coincides with the Naturalist principle of the physical being allthere is.
Sagan also refers to the Naturalist ideal that the physical reality isexperienced with all 5 of the senses, with this quote: “Our feeblestcontemplations of the Cosmos stir us – there is a tingling in the spine, acatch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of a fallingfrom a height.”Naturalists believe life is accidental. Sagan portrays this belief bysaying, “…They remind us that humans have evolved to a wonder, thatunderstanding is a joy… Our future depends on how well we know thisCosmos in which we float like a moat of dust in the sky.”Sagan’s idea of reality is that everything is bigger and morecomplicated than our human minds can perceive and survival consists of morethan life alone. To Sagan, humans are “young, curious, and brave” but alsofeeble in our attempts to understand the world because the “Cosmos” is somuch more vast to our human inferiority. Humans have made so manydiscoveries and achievements, but we have only begun to scratch the surfaceof everything the universe has to offer. Our future relies on our abilityto progress, survive, and “evolve” into creatures with complete knowledgeof our “Cosmos.”
