You do not put
your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as
not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider
that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men,
and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is
possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them,
and, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put my head
deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker
of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself
that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to
treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my
requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then,
like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be
satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And,
above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a
purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some
effect; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the
rocks and trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41