He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.

Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.

We might have the sense that our grip on things leaves something ungripped and that release of what we experience is appropriate to the urgency or palpability that comes with the experience.

With the reading of the martyrology my sub-conscious came alive, and my thoughts darted to so many circulars: “… And the Visitatrices shall arrange for the retreats within their conscriptions.” “Oh, my word,” I thought. “She is the Visitatrix and here I’ve been hob[-]nobbing with her as though she were a happy little private …”