Because if a man has _not_ his rations in advance, for any excursion of any kind that he proposes to himself, he must stay with his Tribe. He may swear at it aloud or under his breath. He may tell himself and his friends what splendid things he would do were he his own master, but as his Tribe goes so must he go--for his belly’s sake. When and as it lies, so must he lie. Its people must be his people, and its God must be his God. Some men may accept this dispensation; some may question it. It is to the latter that I would speak. Remember always that, except for the appliances we make, the rates at which we move ourselves and our possessions through space, and the words which we use, nothing in life changes. The utmost any generation can do is to rebaptize each spiritual or emotional rebirth in its own tongue. Then it goes to its grave hot and bothered, because no new birth has been vouchsafed for its salvation, or even its relief. And your generation succeeds to an unpromising and dishevelled heritage. In addition to your own sins, which will be numerous but quite normal, you have to carry the extra handicap of the sins of your fathers. This, it is possible that many of you have already made clear to your immediate circle. But the point you probably omitted (as our generation did, when we used to deliver _our_ magnificent, unpublished orations De Juventute) is that no shortcomings on the part of others can save us from the consequences of our own shortcomings. It is also true that you were brought into this world without being consulted. But even this disability, from which, by the way, Adam suffered, though it may justify our adopting a critical attitude towards First Causes, will not in the long run nourish our physical or mental needs. There seems, moreover, to be an unscientific objection on the part of First Causes against being enquired of.