"'The end of a man is an action, and not a thought, though it be the
noblest,' as Carlyle has well written," he triumphantly quoted to me,
as, leaning over the little railing of the yacht, watching, at least I
was, the smooth, green water gliding under the clean-cutting keel, we
had been talking earnestly for some time. "A thought has value only as
it is a potential action; if the action be abortive, the thought is as
useless as a crank that fails to move an engine-wheel."
"Then, if action is the wheel, and thought only the crank, what does
the body of your engine represent? For what purpose are your wheels
turning? For the sake of merely moving?"
"No," said he, "moving to promote another action, and _that_
another,--and----so on _ad infinitum_."
"Then you leave out of your scheme a real engine, with a journey to
accomplish, and an end to arrive at; for so wheels would only move
wheels, and there would be an endless chain of machinery, with no plan,
no object for its existence. Does not the very necessity we feel of
having a reason for the existence, the operation of anything, a large
plan in which to gather up all ravelled threads of various objects,
proclaim thought as the final end, the real thing, of which action,
more especially human action, is but the inadequate visible expression?
What kinds of action does Carlyle mean, that are to be the wheels for
our obedient thoughts to set in motion? Hand, arm, leg, foot action?
These are all our operative machinery.
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