Cannot this
cosmic and divine become oars? Is the war of all against all, the
preying of man upon man, a higher type of balanced action? I shrink form
believing it. Some theorists imagine that the phase of selfish brutality
is the last phase of all. They must be wrong. Justice will prevail, and
justice is not selfishness. Independence of intellect, combined with
goodness of heart, will be the agents of a result, which will be the
compromise required.
March 1, 1881.--I have just been glancing over the affairs of the world
in the newspaper. What a Babel it is! But it is very pleasant to be able
to make the tour of the planet and review the human race in an hour. It
gives one a sense of ubiquity. A newspaper in the twentieth century will
be composed of eight or ten daily bulletins--political, religious,
scientific, literary, artistic, commercial, meteorological, military,
economical, social, legal, and financial; and will be divided into two
parts only--_Urbs_ and _Orbis_. The need of totalizing, of simplifying,
will bring about the general use of such graphic methods as permit of
series and comparisons. We shall end by feeling the pulse of the race
and the globe as easily as that of a sick man, and we shall count the
palpitations of the universal life, just as we shall hear the grass
growing, or the sunspots clashing, and catch the first stirrings of
volcanic disturbances.
Pages:
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656