Like the rest of the sore-smitten and wounded world, he screamed to the
sky for Justice, and, like the rest of the world, forgot or did not know
that Justice is only a part of Truth, and therefore as far beyond man's
reach as Truth itself. Justice can only be conceived by humanity, and
that man should even imagine any abstraction so glorious is wonderful,
and to his credit. But Justice lies not only beyond our power to mete to
our fellows; it forms no part of the Creator's methods with us or this
particular mote in the beam of the Universe. Man has never received
Justice, as he understands it, and never will; and his own poor,
flagrant, fallible travesty of it, erected to save him from himself, and
called Law, more nearly approximates to Justice than the treatment which
has ever been apportioned to humanity. Before this eternal spectacle of
illogical austerity, therefore, man, in self-defence and to comfort his
craving and his weakness, has clung to the cheerful conceit of
immortality; has pathetically credited the First Cause with a grand
ultimate intention concerning each suffering atom; has assured himself
that eternity shall wipe away all tears and blood, shall reward the
actors in this puppet-show with golden crowns and nobler parts in a
nobler playhouse. Human dreams of justice are responsible for this
yearning towards another life, not the dogmas of religion; and the
conviction undoubtedly has to be thanked for much individual right
conduct. But it happens that an increasing number of intellects can find
solace in these theories no longer; it happens that the liberty of free
thought (which is the only liberty man may claim) will not longer be
bound with these puny chains. Many detect no just argument for a future
life; they admit that adequate estimate of abstract Justice is beyond
them; they suspect that Justice is a human conceit; and they see no
cause why its attributes should be credited to the Creator in His
dealings with the created, for the sufficient reason that Justice has
never been consistently exhibited by Him. The natural conclusion of such
thought need not be pursued here. Suffice it that, taking their stand on
pure reason, such thinkers deny the least evidence of any life beyond
the grave; to them, therefore, this ephemeral progression is the
beginning and the end, and they live every precious moment with a
yearning zest beyond the power of conventional intellects to conceive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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