The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other SketchesJordan, David Starr
Philosophy
The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches
Jordan, David Starr
Essays
It is to the training of the genuine man that the universities of the
world are devoted. They call for the higher sacrifice, the sacrifice
of those who have powers not needed in the common struggle of life, and
who have, therefore, something over and beyond this struggle to give to
their fellows. Large or small, whatever the gift may be, the world
needs it all, and to every good gift the world will respond a
thousand-fold. Strength begets strength, and wisdom leads to wisdom.
"There is always room for the man of force, and he makes room for
many." It is the strong, wise, and good of the past who have made our
lives possible. It is the great human men, the "men in the natural
order," that have made it possible for "the plain, common men," that
make up civilization, to live, rather than merely to vegetate.
We hear those among us sometimes who complain of the shortness of life,
the smallness of truth, the limited stage on which man is forced to
act. But the men who thus complain are not men who have filled this
little stage with their action. The man who has learned to serve the
Lord never complains that his Master does not give him enough to do.
The man who helps his fellow-men does not stand about with idle hands
to find men worthy of his assistance. He who leads a worthy life never
vexes himself with the question as to whether life is worth living.
We know that all our powers are products of the needs and duties of our
ancestors. Wisdom too great to be translated into action is an
absurdity. For wisdom is only knowing what it is best to do next.
Virtue is only doing it. Virtue and happiness have never been far
apart from each other. To know and to do is the essence of the highest
service. Those the world has a right to honor are those who found
enough in the world to do. The fields are always white to their
harvest.
Alexander the Great had conquered his neighbors in Greece and Asia
Minor, the only world he knew. Then he sighed for more worlds to
conquer. But other worlds he knew nothing of lay all about him. The
secrets of the rocks he had never suspected. Steam, electricity, the
growth of trees, the fall of snow,--all these were mysteries to him.
The only conquest he knew, the subjection of men's bodies, went but a
little way. All the men who in his lifetime knew the name of Alexander
the Great could find encampment on the Palo Alto farm. The great world
of men in his day was beyond his knowledge. His world was a very small
one, and of this he had seen but a little corner.
For the need of more worlds to conquer is no badge of strength. It is
the stamp of ignorance. It is the cry only of him who knows that the
great earth about him still stands unconquered. No Lincoln ever sighed
for more nations to save; no Luther for more churches to purify; no
Darwin that nature had not more hidden secrets which he might follow to
their depths; no Agassiz that the thoughts of God were all exhausted
before he was born.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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