Excerpt from Civilization Civilized
Of what use is that which is so high, so pure, so beautiful, that none save the very few can comprehend or grasp its benefit and beauty? Of what use is the ideal to the millions?
The ideal is the most powerful, the most potent, of all forces moving humanity. The higher, the sublimer the thought, the greater the effect produced. Though millions grasp not the sublime truth expressed, there are those who, standing next in progression, receive its full light, and who in turn reflect it in a sufficiently lesser degree, tempered to meet the conditions and grasp of those below, and those, again, reflect it in a further subdued degree to meet those still below, and so on and on down from link to link the force is communicated, and step by step the chain is drawn upward, until each link stands where its predecessor formerly stood, - a step in advance of the past, - and thus have we progress.
Thus the higher, sublimer, mere spiritual the thought, be it centuries in advance of the comprehension of the mass, its light and force goes scintilating down into the darkness, reflecting from mind to mind, as the sun gleams from atoms to atoms, vitalizing the whole, that which is nearest entering into, and that which is farthest approaching nearer. Thus the holier, fairer our aspiration or dream, the greater the force exercised, the heavier the weight lifted, the more numerous the lives raised nearer and nearer the light.
Come down with me into this gloomy cellar. How chilling is its mildew-laden atmosphere! What a shudder seizes us as we enter its silence! What an inexpressible feeling of earth chills our marrow, fills our thoughts with shapes of corpses as we inhale its black and fetid exhalations!
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