still predicted from the bottom of the heart, would organize itself, as
do now the rose and the air and the sun.
I say, _do not choose;_ but that is a figure of speech by which I would
distinguish what is commonly called _choice_ among men, and which is a
partial act, the choice of the hands, of the eyes, of the appetites,
and not a whole act of the man. But that which I call right or
goodness, is the choice of my constitution; and that which I call
heaven, and inwardly aspire after, is the state or circumstance
desirable to my constitution; and the action which I in all my years
tend to do, is the work for my faculties. We must hold a man amenable
to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an
excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade.
What business has he with an evil trade? Has he not a _calling_ in his
character?
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one
direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently
inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river;
he runs against obstructions on every side but one, on that side all
obstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening
channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his
organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself
in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when
it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the
more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his
work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly
proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by
the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do
somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he
has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward
“signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men,”
is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one
mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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