Man has three questions to put to his Environment, three symbols of his
incompleteness. They come from three different centers of his being. The
first is the question of the intellect, What is Truth? The natural
Environment answers, "Increase of Knowledge increaseth Sorrow," and
"much study is a Weariness." Christ replies, "Learn of Me, and ye shall
find Rest." Contrast the world's word "Weariness" with Christ's word
"Rest." No other teacher since the world began has ever associated
"learn" with "Rest." Learn of me, says the philosopher, and you shall
find Restlessness. Learn of Me, says Christ, and ye shall find Rest.
Thought, which the godless man has cursed, that eternally starved yet
ever living specter, finds at last its imperishable glory; Thought is
complete in Him. The second question is sent up from the moral nature,
Who will show us any good? And again we have a contrast: the world's
verdict, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" and Christ's,
"There is none good but God only." And finally, there is the lonely cry
of the spirit, most pathetic and most deep of all, Where is he whom my
soul seeketh? And the yearning is met as before, "I looked on my right
hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me; refuge failed
me; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord: I said, Thou
are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living."[83]
Are these the directions in which men in these days are seeking to
complete their lives? The completion of Life is just now a supreme
question. It is important to observe how it is being answered. If we ask
Science or Philosophy they will refer us to Evolution. The struggle for
Life, they assure us, is steadily eliminating imperfect forms, and as
the fittest continue to survive we shall have a gradual perfecting of
being. That is to say, that completeness is to be sought for in the
organism--we are to be complete in Nature and in ourselves. To
Evolution, certainly, all men will look for a further perfecting of
Life. But it must be an Evolution which includes all the factors.
Civilization, it may be said, will deal with the second factor. It will
improve the Environment step by step as it improves the organism, or the
organism as it improves the Environment. This is well, and it will
perfect Life up to a point. But beyond that it cannot carry us. As the
possibilities of the natural Life become more defined, its
impossibilities will become the more appalling. The most perfect
civilization would leave the best part of us still incomplete. Men will
have to give up the experiment of attempting to live in half an
Environment. Half an Environment will give but half a Life. Half an
Environment? He whose correspondences are with this world alone has only
a thousandth part, a fraction, the mere rim and shade of an Environment,
and only the fraction of a Life. How long will it take Science to
believe its own creed, that the material universe we see around us is
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