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Page 52
With that deep look into the inmost secrets of human experience which
sounds strangely autobiographical, Browning wrote in "Rabbi Ben Ezra,"
"Praise be thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see love now perfect too;
Perfect I call thy plan;
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!"
"Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term;
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the germ."
Those last lines condense Browning's creed concerning man. He is "for
aye removed from the developed brute," and is "a god in the germ."
Browning holds that while in the future there will surely be expansion
of soul, evolution as a physical process is at an end. Henceforward
there will be no passing from one species to another. Species have to do
with physical organisms, not with spirits. Soul in man is but God "in
the germ."
Emerson and Matthew Arnold have written much about education. The one
foretells a day when the soul, after mounting and meliorating, finds
that even the hells are turned into benefit; and the other makes his own
the thought of Bishop Wilson that culture is a study of perfection, and
that the soul must ever seek increased life, increased light, and
increased power.
Education is the word of the hour and of the century. It is believed to
be the panacea for all ills, individual and social. But, precisely, what
does this passion for education signify if not that, either
intelligently or otherwise, all believe in the perfectibility of the
soul, and that it will have all the time that it needs for the process.
The absorbing devotion to intellectual training suggests the inquiry as
to whether many who affirm that they are agnostic concerning immortality
are not in reality earnest in their faith; for why should they seek the
culture of that which fades, as the flowers fade; when it approaches
life's winter? But, whether faith in continuance of being is firm or
frail, few doubt the perfectibility of spirit, because, beyond almost
all things, they are seeking its perfection. Literature, which is but
the thoughts of the great souls of successive periods recorded,
prophesies a day when all that hinders or taints shall be done away, and
when the divine in the germ shall have grown to large and fair
proportions. If there were no other light the outlook would still be
inspiring. It is well sometimes to ask ourselves what we were made to
be--not these bodies which are clearly decaying--but these spirits
which seem to grow younger with the passage of time. I have sometimes
thought that the very idea of second childhood is itself a prophecy of
the soul's eternal youth. Certain it is that we are the masters of the
years. The oldest persons that we know are usually the youngest in their
sympathies and ideals. Sorrow and opposition should not destroy, but
only strengthen the spiritual powers. Intelligence grows from more to
more. The sure reward of love is the capacity and opportunity for larger
love. Virtuous choices gradually become the law of liberty. These facts
are index fingers pointing toward large and loving, strenuous and
sympathetic manhood. And toward such human types, as a matter of fact,
the race has been moving. The expectation of the seers and prophets,
also, has been of a golden age in which all souls will have had time,
and opportunity, of reaching the far-off but splendid goal. Believing,
as we do, that death is never a finality, but that it is only an
incident in progress; that instead of being an end it is only freedom
from limitation, we find ourselves often vaguely, but ever eagerly,
asking, To what are all these souls tending? Toward a state glorious
beyond language to utter we deeply feel. But has no clearer voice
spoken? At last we have reached the end of our inquiry. If any other
voices speak they must sound from above. We stand by the unseen like
children by the ocean's shore. They know that beyond the storms and
waves lie fair and wealthy lands, but the waters separate and their eyes
are weak. So we stand before the future, and ask, Toward what goal are
all this education, experience and discipline tending? Are they
perfecting souls which at last are to be laid away with the bodies which
were fortunate enough to win an earlier death? It would be impiety to
believe that. Then indeed should we be put to "permanent intellectual
confusion." If all the voices of the soul are mockeries, then life is
worse than a mistake--it is a crime.
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