The existence of a general law does not exclude exceptions. The fact
that in the case of human beings we have to take into consideration a
powerful factor that does not come into play in the domain of zoölogy
and botany--the immortal soul--makes impossible the drawing of exact
deductions from precedents therein established. This determining touch
of the divine, which is no result of biological processes, but stands
outside the limitations of heredity and environment and education, may
manifest itself quite as well in one class as in another, for "God is no
respecter of persons." As has been said before, there is no difference
in degree as between immortal souls. The point is, however, that each is
linked to a specific congeries of tendencies, limitations, effective or
defective agencies, that are what they have been made by the parents of
the race. These may be such as enable the soul to triumph in its earthly
experience and in its bodily housing; they may be such as will bring
about failure and defeat. It is not that the soul builds itself "more
stately mansions"; it is that these are provided for it by the physical
processes of life, and it is almost the first duty of man to see that
they are well built.
Again, the soul is single and personal; as it is not a plexus of
inherited tendencies, so it is not heritable, and a great soul showing
suddenly in the dusk of a dull race contributes nothing of its essential
quality to the issue of the body it has made its house. The stews of a
mill town may suddenly be illuminated by the radiance of a divine soul,
to the amazement of profligate parents and the confusion of eugenists;
but unless the unsolvable mystery of life has determined on a new
species, and so by a sudden influx of the _élan vital_ cuts off the line
of physical succession and establishes one that is wholly new, then the
brightness dies away with the passing of the splendid soul, and the
established tendencies resume their sway.
The bearing of this theory on the actions of society is immediate.
Through the complete disregard of race-values that has obtained during
the last two or three centuries, and the emergence and complete
supremacy in all categories of life of human groups of low potential,
civilization has been brought down to a level where it is threatened
with disaster. If recovery is to be effected and a second era of "dark
ages" avoided, there must be an entirely new evaluation of things, a new
estimate of the principles and methods that obtained under Modernism,
and a fearless adventure into fields that may prove not to be so
unfamiliar as might at first appear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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