His soul's wings never furled."
The bliss of endeavour, the infinite worth of the consciousness of failure, with its evidence of coming triumph, "the spark which disturbs our clod," these are the essence of his optimistic interpretation of human life, and also of his robust ethical doctrine.
"Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!"A
A: Rabbi Ben Ezra.
And he prolongs the battle beyond time, for the battle is the moral life and man's best, and therefore God's best in man. The struggle upward from the brute, may, indeed end with death. But this only means that man "has learned the uses of the flesh," and there are in him other potencies to evolve: