Here are Lincoln's primal postulates in social economics. Moral imperatives are over every man. Moral freedom is in every breast. Within the nethermost foundations of any mortal's share in any social fellowship must rest his own self-wrought integrity and self-respect. To make that social fellowship in any form perpetually secure each man must seek with all his heart and with continual willing sacrifice the lasting welfare of every party and of every part. That this be safely guaranteed each man must learn to estimate his brother-man, not by epaulets and coins, but by immortal standards, such as only living persons can achieve. To make this social league invincible within, each member in the fellowship must show a true humility, abjuring all temptation or desire to be a despot or a grandee. And through it all this social compact must be cherished and revered as ordained by a God of pure and sovereign truth and love. Thus by friendly ministry, in unpretending honesty, in brother-kindliness, as sharing in a common immortality, under the favor and in the fear of God, may fellowmen in multitudes be fellow citizens in a civic order that may hope for perpetual prosperity. This is the resounding message that Lincoln's life transmuted into speech through his pathetic and inspiring rise from poverty. HIS PHILOSOPHY--THE PROBLEM OF REALITY The study of Lincoln's moral versatility, examined in a former chapter, ranging as it does through all the measure of the moral realm, verges all along its border on the domain of philosophy. Lincoln has scant familiarity, it is true, with the rubrics and the problems, the theories and the methods of the schools. His boyhood was in the wilderness; locusts and wild honey were his food. Such education as he achieved was in pathetic isolation. It was a naked earth, unfurnished with any aids or guides, from which his homely hard-earned wisdom was laboriously wrung. But his Maker dowered him with a mind attempered to defiance of every difficulty. And, however stern the face of his life's fortune might become, his sterner will and diligence found in her solitudes her choicest treasures. To minds that nimbly traverse many books, thinking to have gained the substance of great truths, when they have only gained vain forms, this may seem to be impossible. But Lincoln's mind had traversed severest discipline. He found rare substance of intellectual wealth. And he knew its solid worth. Of this, as has been shown, his first inaugural yields shining proof. Almost every sentence is as the oracle of a sage.