On Value and Significance

Alfred Noyes, The Unknown God

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field

I recently finished reading The Unknown God (1934) by Alfred Noyes, which I shared a quote from previously. The book is his story of conversion from agnosticism to Catholicism, though I found it largely to be a masterful critique of 19th-century agnostics and, fundamentally, a dive into reality itself.

Every short chapter left me more impressed than the next, and I now have a 6,000-word document of quotes I pulled so I could go back over them later. But the one that really stood out, and the longest one at that, was chapter 17, where Noyes discusses issues of value and significance in light of the incredible facts humanity was learning about the universe.