Evil has no place in the ultimatum, as will be found when that great diplomatic document is pronounced.
I reverence Nature, though she is wholly unaware of the homage I pay her. She is president of the abeternal, adeternal commonwealth, in which every atom exercises its vote, and yields her the beneficent despotism over all, that can be never shaken.
Those who can climb, in mental sight, their pleasant little knoll, and survey the surroundings, are burdened not with reverence for their fellow-men. They are conscious of no inferiority in the presence of their betters, so slight is the difference between the great and small; and they are conscious of no superiority in the presence of their inferiors.
All are so alike in actual importance among the so mighty things around, that were all who have lived, or are yet existing, to be arranged in a line, beginning with Shakespeare and Newton, Homer and Pythagoras, Phidias and Aristotle, Bacon, John Hunter and Goethe, followed by professors and students, labourers and mendicants, and ending with those who slobber while they talk,—and were the best made to stand forward in advance of the others in a degree proportioned to their excellence, the line of human beings, viewed at no great distance, would appear as straight as a ray of light.
LXVII.
Wisdom is an attribute of old age; not because the faculties grow keener, but rather because the feelings are less vivid, whence there is less bias. By this change the mind becomes more patient, more just, therefore, towards those of opposite opinions; and this should, above most other things, bring toleration to bear on religion.
Men like Disraeli, who are a creed unto themselves, are strongly impressed with the importance of religion to an ignorant country. They are aware that it is unlike what is discovered to us by Nature, that it is a sort of distinguished stranger in the great system of things, of so highly impressive a presence as to be a rival force.
In truth, religion is, in every respect, a power; and in relation to Nature it is imperium in imperio, and is even more strong than Nature in the minds of men.