§ 17. And farther, observe, that even when some effect is finally intended, you cannot call it the person’s deed, unless it is what he intended.
If an ignorant person, purposing evil, accidentally does good, (as if a thief’s disturbing a family should lead them to discover in time that their house was on fire); or vice versâ, if an ignorant person intending good, accidentally does evil (as if a child should give hemlock to his companions for celery), in neither case do you call them the doers of what may result. So that in order to be a true deed, it is necessary that the effect of it should be foreseen. Which, ultimately, it cannot be, but by a person who knows, and in his deed obeys, the laws of the universe, and of its Maker. And this knowledge is in its highest form, respecting the will of the Ruling Spirit, called Trust. For it is not the knowledge that a thing is, but that, according to the promise and nature of the Ruling Spirit, a thing will be. Also obedience in its highest form is not obedience to a constant and compulsory law, but a persuaded or voluntary yielded obedience to an issued command; and so far as it was a persuaded submission to command, it was anciently called, in a passive sense, “persuasion,” or πίστις, and in so far as it alone assuredly did, and it alone could do, what it meant to do, and was therefore the root and essence of all human deed, it was called by the Latins the “doing,” or fides, which has passed into the French foi and the English faith. And therefore because in His doing always certain, and in His speaking always true, His name who leads the armies of Heaven is “Faithful and True,”[5] and all deeds which are done in alliance with those armies, be they small or great, are essentially deeds of faith, which therefore, and in this one stern, eternal, sense, subdues all kingdoms, and turns to flight the armies of the aliens, and is at once the source and the substance of all human deed, rightly so called.
§ 18. Thus far then of practical persons, once called believers, as set forth in the last word of the noblest group of words ever, so far as I know, uttered by simple man concerning his practice, being the final testimony of the leaders of a great practical nation, whose deed thenceforward became an example of deed to mankind:
| Ω ξεῖν᾿, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις, ὃτι τῇδε Κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασί πειθόμενοι. |
“O stranger! (we pray thee), tell the Lacedæmonians that we are lying here, having obeyed their words.”
§ 19. What, let us ask next, is the ruling character of the person who produces—the creator or maker, anciently called the poet?
We have seen what a deed is. What then is a “creation”? Nay, it may be replied, to “create” cannot be said of man’s labor.
On the contrary, it not only can be said, but is and must be said continually. You certainly do not talk of creating a watch, or creating a shoe; nevertheless you do talk of creating a feeling. Why is this?
Look back to the greatest of all creation, that of the world. Suppose the trees had been ever so well or so ingeniously put together, stem and leaf, yet if they had not been able to grow, would they have been well created? Or suppose the fish had been cut and stitched finely out of skin and whalebone; yet, cast upon the waters, had not been able to swim? Or suppose Adam and Eve had been made in the softest clay, ever so neatly, and set at the foot of the tree of knowledge, fastened up to it, quite unable to fall, or do anything else, would they have been well created, or in any true sense created at all?
§ 20. It will, perhaps, appear to you, after a little farther thought, that to create anything in reality is to put life into it.