The right to life comes before the right to liberty on Jefferson’s list, and for good reason. We must understand life in order to enjoy liberty. When we know where the regularities of the universe halt, and where our own inspiration begins, we can navigate the borderland in between. We have to respect what is, peel away from it, transform it, and create something we think should be. The more we know about the facts of the universe, the better equipped we are to change it by realizing values. And we know an extraordinary amount.
