LETTER XXIII
THE
STARS OF MAN’S DESTINY
November 24,
1917.
Has
it occurred to you that the powers that have in charge the progress of the
world may be obliged to use methods repugnant to your desires, in order to
accomplish inevitable purposes at the time when they are due? Man, by
rebelling against the tendencies of cosmic progress, may retard it—for a
time; but when the wave rises high enough it will carry him along against
his will, and inevitable effects are produced in spite of his rebellion.
Take this war. The hour had struck on the
world clock when races of men should work together for a common purpose.
They rebelled in their fear that each would not get his share of world
benefits; so the world was attacked by a common enemy, and the races have
had to unite for a common purpose, that of preserving civilization from
the destruction that threatens it.
Could this war have been prevented? By prevision, yes. But no
one with influence enough to be heard respectfully had that prevision. Those
who stand high in the world’s regard have generally so concentrated upon
their individual work and their individual ambitions, that they have lost
the ability to see impersonally and to see the world as a whole. Some can
see as a whole the tendencies of their own country; few can see the world
tendency.
And I tell you now that if, when this
universal war is ended, the races do not recognize the necessity to unite in
a federation for the good of all, there will be after forty years little
left of all that has been accomplished during that marvelous nineteenth
century which saw material progress equaling that of the preceding two
thousand years.
Can man not see the stars of his destiny without being struck on
the head with a hammer? If man will not work for the good of the whole, then
the whole has to be threatened. It is so threatened now, if you could see
it.
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