God may well forgive us, for "we know not what to do."
Just as the sum of force is always identical in the material universe,
and presents a spectacle not of diminution nor of augmentation but
simply of constant metamorphosis, so it is not impossible that the sum
of good is in reality always the same, and that therefore all progress
on one side is compensated inversely on another side. If this were so we
ought never to say that period or a people is absolutely and as a whole
superior to another time or another people, but only that there is
superiority in certain points. The great difference between man and man
would, on these principles, consist in the art of transforming vitality
into spirituality, and latent power into useful energy. The same
difference would hold good between nation and nation, so that the object
of the simultaneous or successive competition of mankind in history
would be the extraction of the maximum of humanity from a given amount
of animality. Education, morals, and politics would be only variations
of the same art, the art of living--that is to say, of disengaging the
pure form and subtlest essence of our individual being.
April 26, 1868. (_Sunday, Mid-day_).--A gloomy morning. On all sides a
depressing outlook, and within, disgust with self.
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