mind before it can reap its golden harvest. Social control and intelligence can mitigate the effects of such contingencies and prevent many of them, but they cannot be eliminated. For man is limited, and the world he can control is much smaller than the world beyond his control. From this no counsel of resignation follows, precisely because these events are accidents. Wise resignation can be made only before what is certain, and, by definition, these events are not.
All genuine opportunities of choice are specific. Every resolution of a choice involves to some degree a reconstruction of the self, society, and the world. Every intelligent reconstruction is an experiment, guided by laws already known, to achieve mastery over concrete problems. To the extent that we are committed to a democratic philosophy, we cannot entrust the present political and social choices before us to an event-making man, or to an uncontrolled élite. As democrats, whatever planning we do must be planning for a free society in which every citizen can participate in the determination of collective policy. Intelligent policies of planning, directed toward the liberation of diversity of talents, can also safeguard the preservation of areas of personal life in which each personality is free to make his own decisions.
