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Today's podcast has been edited and adapted from a book of essays by Stephen Padgett, published in 1911. This much I remember of Aristotle, that he calls wonder the beginning of the love of wisdom.

To have a right judgment of our surroundings, we must wonder at them, and be surprised that

they and we are met together.

So long as we exercise this quickening sense of wonder, there is hope for us, and some justification

of our presence here on earth.

Because we all are on the road that leads toward wisdom, and they alone are incorrigible

fools to whom nature comes natural.

Once we have fallen into the bad habit of taking for granted what nature gives us,

and have ceased to be amazed, it may be fairly said that in the midst of life we are in death.

For one might as well be dead as alive, to look with dull eyes at the world, not finding it wonderful.

So excellent is wonder that we must not profane its name in common use.

For example, there is the phrase, I wonder if.

You can be sure that he or she, who turns the sentence thusly, is careless in speech and

oblivious of the rights of words.

It is impossible to wonder if.

You simply are not thinking, nor even trying to think. I wonder if it will be nice tomorrow. You could

hardly find a worse sentence. Never wonder if, always wonder at. The dawn of one more day,

wet or fine, is wonderful.

If it be fine, wonder at the sunshine. If it be wet, at the rain. Each drop a miracle.

Wonder if is not worth saying, not worth answering.

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