And this disease effects
the most complete ruin when its seat is in the highest organs.
Dyspepsia is bad enough, but mania or idiocy is infinitely worse.
And our moral powers are always enfeebled, and often diseased, from
lack of strong exercise. And some blind guides, seeing only the
disease, cry out for the extirpation of the whole faculty, as some
physicians are said to propose the removal of the vermiform
appendage in children. Similarly might the drunkard argue against
the value of brain, because it aches after a debauch. Our work is
hard labor, and we gain no enjoyment in the use of our mental
powers; for the enjoyment of any activity is proportional to the
height and glory of the purpose for which it is employed. As long as
we are content to use only our lower mental faculties and to gain
low ends, our use of even these will be feeble and ineffectual, and
our lives will be poor, weak, and unhappy.
But future man will subordinate these lower powers to the higher. He
will utilize all that there is in him. And his efficiency must be
vastly greater than ours. And finally, and most important, these men
will be all-powerful, because they have so conformed to environment
that all its forces combine to work with them.
England under Elizabeth seemed to rise above itself. Think of
Holland, under William the Silent, defying all the power of Spain.
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