A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and CharacterHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Character; Self-culture
But, instead of giving man long legs, God gave him a mind able to make
locomotives. Instead of telescopic eyes, he gave man mind to invent
far-seeing glasses. Instead of a thousand fingers for weaving, he gave
man five fingers and genius for inventing a thousand steel fingers to
do his spinning. Wealth is not in things, but in the brain that shapes
raw material. Vast was the sum of gold taken out of California, but
this nation might well pay down a hundred Californias for a man to
invent a process to make coal drive the engine without the
intervention of steam. That inventor would enable the street cars for
one cent to carry the people of the tenement-house district ten miles
into the country in ten minutes, and thereby, through sunshine and
fresh air and solitude, would solve a hundred problems that now vex
the statesman and the moralist. A young botanist in Kansas has just
announced his purpose to cross the milkweed and the strawberry, so
that hereafter strawberries and cream may grow upon the same bush. His
task may be doomed to failure, but that youth at least understands
that thought turned the wild rice into wheat; thought turned the sweet
briar into the crimson rose; brains mixed the pigments for Paul
Veronese, and gave the canvas worth a few florins the value of tens of
thousand of dollars. Already wise thoughts have turned the barbarian
into a gentleman and citizen, and some glad day thoughts will crown
man with the attributes and qualities of God.
Of old, the Greek philosopher described the origin of man. One day
Ceres, in crossing a stream, saw a human face emerging from the soil.
It was the face of a man. Standing by this earth-born creature, the
goddess extricated his head and chest; but left his legs fastened in
the soil. Now, the invisible friends that free man from his earth
fetters are those divine visitors called ideas and thoughts. God hath
made thoughts to be golden chariots, in which the soul is swept upward
into the heavenly heights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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