There are two terms of the series of progress which we should always keep before us. The one is the starting-point, and the other the final goal. The former is the cave man; the latter is the divine man. We know in a measure what sort of being the cave man was. Instructed by anthropologists, we know how poor and mean were the beginnings of humanity on earth. But of that other term of progress—the goal of progress, the divine man of whom the cave man was the germ, the first rough draft—of the man who is to be, our notions are vague. He rises before us, indeed, in a vision of glory, but his shape is nebulous. And the result of progress is just this, that it makes us more and more able to define the outlines of that shape, to draw sharply and finely the noble lineaments of that face; that it makes us more and more able to see the divine, the perfect man, the only begotten son of all the spirits of the myriads of the generations of men—the man that is to be, the perfection of our imperfection.
The perfect man has never yet appeared on earth. The perfect man is an apparition of light and beauty rising in the boundless infinite, an ideal to be more and more clothed with particularity. The purpose for which we exist is to help to create the perfect man, to incarnate him more and more in ourselves and in others.
That the lofty form of man may be wholly disengaged from the encompassing clay, that the traces of our bestial ancestry may be wholly purged from our nature, that our spirits may stand erect as our bodies already do—this, I think, is the end for which we exist.
Every man, however humble, is worthy of reverence because, in his limited sphere, he can be a beneficent, forward-working agent, he can help a little to create the perfect man. Every child is a possible avatar of the more perfect man. On every child the whole past lays its burdens, and of the outcome of its life the whole future is expectant.
The way to overcome dejection is to energise our nature vigorously. An eminent physician is quoted as saying: “I firmly believe that one-half of the confirmed invalids could be cured of their maladies if they were compelled to live busy and active lives, and had no time to fret over their miseries. The will has a wonderfully strong and direct influence over the body. Good work is the safeguard of health. The way to live well is to work well.” If this be true, even when the cause of the dejection is corporeal, how much more likely is it to be true where the cause is seated in the mind.