But what of the appetite, if you will pardon the expression, for
truth and right? All attainment only strengthens it; and, instead of
enslaving, it makes men ever more free. And yet what a power there
is in the appetite for truth and righteousness? In obedience to it
man gives his body to be burned, or pours out his life-blood drop by
drop for its attainment, and rejoices in the sacrifice. There are
victims to appetite: there are only martyrs to truth. This soul
hunger for truth and right, growing more intense as the soul is
filled with the object of desire, is the only one capable of
indefinite development and dominance of the will. This must be and
is the mental goal of animal development, if man has a future
corresponding in length at all to his past. Otherwise the history of
life becomes a "story told by an idiot." For its satisfaction is the
only one which never causes satiety, and of which over-indulgence is
impossible. All others lead only to a slough of despond, or the
deeper and more treacherous slough of contentment, beyond which rise
no delectable mountains or golden city.
And now in closing let me call your attention to one thought of
practical vital importance.
According to the theory which we have agreed to adopt, higher
species have arisen through a process of natural selection, those
species surviving which are best conformed to their environment.
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