Thus, and thus only, shall man
overcome the allurements of these lower endowments and receive the
rewards of "him that overcometh."
Thus prosperity and adversity, success and failure, continually test
a man. If he can rise superior to these, can subjugate them and make
them subserve his moral progress, he survives; if he is mastered by
them, he perishes. Through these does natural selection mainly work
to find and train great souls. They are the threads of the sieve of
destiny.
In this struggle man must fight against overwhelming odds, and the
cost of victory is dear. He must be prepared, like Socrates, to "bid
farewell to those things which most men count honors, and look
onward to the truth." He appears to the world at large, often to
himself, eminently unpractical. The majority against his view and
vote will usually be overwhelming. Truth is a stern goddess, and she
will often bid him draw sword and stand against his nearest and
dearest friends. The issue will often appear to him exceeding
doubtful. The grander the truth for which he is fighting, the
greater the need of its defence and enforcement, the greater the
probability that he will never live to see its triumph. The hero
must be a man of gigantic faith. But all his ancestors have had to
make a similar choice and to fight a similar battle.
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