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Page 49
"How pure at heart and sound in head,
With what Divine affections bold,
Should be the man whose thought would hold
An hour's communion with the dead."
THE GOAL
But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time,
But Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life in perfect labor writ,
O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,--
What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor, tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,--
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?
--_The Crystal._ Sidney Lanier.
XII
_THE GOAL_
If the cosmic process in the physical sphere culminated with the
appearance of man, and if, since that culmination, its movement has been
toward the perfection of the soul, it is fit and proper that this book
should end with a study of the goal toward which the human spirit is
pressing. Is it possible for us, with our limitations, to have an
adequate conception of the man that is to be "when the times are ripe"
and the "crowning race" walks this earth of ours?--or, if not this
earth, at least, dwells in the spiritual city? The fascination of this
subject has been widely recognized. The answer must be secured from many
sources. Only in imagination can we follow the lines along which the
spirit will move in the far-off ages, and yet our conclusions will not
be wholly imaginative, for the direction in which those lines are
tending is clearly perceived. Under the circumstances, therefore,
imagination may not be an untrustworthy guide. We are now to deal with
prophecies, some of them easy and some of them difficult to read. But
reading prophecies is not prophesying. I shall not prophesy, but rather
endeavor to understand and to interpret a few of the many voices which
have spoken, and are speaking, on this subject.
The soul is itself a prediction of what it is to be. It utters a various
language.
The growth of intelligence is prophetic. Savage tribes suggest the
original condition of primitive man. The pigmies in Africa afford hints
of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. From such as they, and from lower types
still, the race has slowly and painfully risen. In them a certain rude
intelligence appears. They have cunning rather than reason. They are
half akin to brute and half akin to man. A kind of selfish intelligence
characterizes their thinking. They lack a sense of proportion and
relation. Before the ant a man looms as large as a mountain before us.
An insect does not see things as they are but as they seem to it. Growth
in intelligence necessitates a truer appreciation of proportions and
relations. The pigmy also sees little but himself, but years and
experience leave behind them wisdom. The civilized races have all risen
from barbarism and savagery--that is, from a state of imperfect thinking
as well as of imperfect loving and choosing. Experience and culture
bring larger knowledge and a more equable balance of the faculties. No
man should be measured by his achievement in any one field of endeavor.
He may paint like Titian and be as voluptuous; he may write tragedies
like Shakespeare and have no logic; he may be a gatherer of facts like
Darwin and have no power of philosophic analysis. The intellect grows
steadily toward perfection of vision and logical strength, and also and
quite as significantly, toward harmony in the development of all the
powers of thought.
The contrast between the selfish cunning of an African pigmy and the
large and noble minds which are steadily multiplying, is a prophecy of
the man who will dwell on this earth when the vision is clear and the
power of rational judgment is perfected.
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