“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
-Proverbs 14:12 (ESV)

What we wish we had and what the world actually contains are often two different things. As I have written previously here, ambition and restlessness — what some have called divine discontent — can spur a man toward beneficial innovation. We can point to literally hundreds of inventions that have solved seemingly intractable problems, improving and extending life all over the world.

Then there are those so-called improvements — based on flawed assumptions — that create unintended consequences that are worse than the problem they purport to solve.

The bug is a feature

The author and poet, Rudyard Kipling, warned of these kinds of solutions nearly 100 years ago. In his 1919 poem, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” he pointed out the folly of breaking the laws of God and nature, instead of working within them.

Before we visit the poetry corner, I want to explain that a copybook is a teaching aid that contains sayings or verses, followed by blank sections. The student is to practice writing and penmanship by reading and copying the prescribed passages. Copybooks also provide moral instruction, so that students spent their time reading, copying and internalizing worthwhile ideas. Enter Kipling:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
-Rudyard Kipling

We see the same sort of untethered thinking that Kipling warns against in domain after domain — from widespread Vitamin D deficiency resulting from sunblock and fear of sunlight, to increased Malaria deaths following the worldwide ban on DDT, to political and social programs that presume the perfectibility of man. 

If you are restless and feel compelled to solve one of the great problems, listen to wisdom and make sure your solution conforms to the moral and physical laws of the world that is.

So how about you? In what ways do you measure your thinking against natural and divine law? Add your comments below.