Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all
is made of one piece; that plaintiff and defendant, friend and enemy,
animal and planet, food and eater, are of one kind. In astronomy, is
vast space, but no foreign system; in geology, vast time, but the same
laws as to-day. Why should we be afraid of Nature, which is no other
than "philosophy and theology embodied"? Why should we fear to be
crushed by savage elements, we who are made up of the same elements? Let
us build to the Beautiful Necessity, which makes man brave in believing
that he cannot shun a danger that is appointed, nor incur one that is
not; to the Necessity which rudely or softly educates him to the
perception that there are no contingencies; that Law rules throughout
existence, a Law which is not intelligent but intelligence,—not personal
nor impersonal,—it disdains words and passes understanding; it dissolves
persons; it vivifies nature; yet solicits the pure in heart to draw on
all its omnipotence.
II.
POWER.
His tongue was framed to music,
And his hand was armed with skill,
His face was the mould of beauty,
And his heart the throne of will.
POWER.
There is not yet any inventory of a man’s faculties, any more than a
bible of his opinions. Who shall set a limit to the influence of a
human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry
nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if
there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will
accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force
to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense
instrumentalities organize around them. Life is a search after power;
and this is an element with which the world is so saturated,—there is no
chink or crevice in which it is not lodged,—that no honest seeking goes
unrewarded. A man should prize events and possessions as the ore in
which this fine mineral is found; and he can well afford to let events
and possessions, and the breath of the body go, if their value has been
added to him in the shape of power. If he have secured the elixir, he
can spare the wide gardens from which it was distilled. A cultivated
man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which nature works,
and the education of the will is the flowering and result of all this
geology and astronomy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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