The view here suggested is no sentimental optimism. The drama of the universe is no comedy or even melodrama, but a tragedy or epic of heroism, and more especially is this the character of the history of the spirit which is in Man and is Man. The evil we enact is real evil, the only real evil, the checks which our disobedience or disloyalty imposes upon the course of good, are genuine retardations or frustrations; nevertheless they are not wholly evil, for nothing is such, but are the means which the spirit that has begotten them, utilizes in its eternal Progress and wins out of them a richness, a complex and varied harmony to which they are compelled to contribute. Our ideal of action must therefore in principleacknowledge as essential, what I have called the 'tragic' character suggested by the spectacle of the war, the fear and agony which we imagine in Nature and comprehendingly discern in human history. The Progress which we can achieve or contribute to—which we can make our ideal of action—is one which cannot rightly be conceived otherwise than in its essence a victory over evil, and that it may be evil, it must come and be done in the dark. For the spirit in progressing deposits what, being abandoned by it, corrupts into venomous evil, but except in meeting and combating that, it cannot progress. And it can only combat it by getting to know it, for in darkness and ignorance it can make no secure advance.
It has been profoundly said that to know all is to forgive all. Let us rather say that in coming to know its own past, the Spirit which is in Man can without undoing it—that it cannot—make it contributory to its own wealth of being, can, as I have said, utilize it for its own purposes, which are summed up in the knowing of itself. There is and can be nothing in its deeds which it cannot know, and so digest and assimilate and absorb into its own substance.
In this interpretation of the meaning—the veiled but not hidden meaning of what has taken place and is taking place in the world—or rather in us and enacted by us, I seem to myself not to be expressing any private imagination or supposition which may or may not be so, but a certainty that it must be so. Either it is so or 'the pillared firmament is rottenness and earth's base built on stubble'. And this means that everywhere and always, but most specially and centrally and potently in man's spirit, there is Progress, in spite of checks and hindrances which come from within it, a constant if chequered advance in true worth or value. And that knowledge I build on grounded and reasoned hope that it will andmust continue—how, I do not know, but can only surmise and conjecture and imagine.
To the question, What, then, ought we to do? I can only reply first and foremost, Labour to retain this truth, fostering and developing it, verifying it as we have been doing in all the varied departments of human experience, exercising our imaginations while at the same time sobering and controlling them by the light that comes from it. If we are true to it and do not through slackness forget and lose it, we shall find arising spontaneously out of the depths of our self worthy and feasible ideals of action, the pursuit of which will not betray us or leave us without an ever-growing assurance that in bending and directing all our powers to their realization we are the agents of that Progress which is the source of all being and all worth whatsoever. If we will to learn from our own past, we can convert anything that is evil in it into an occasion, an opportunity, a means to good which without it were not possible. Thus we can even do what seems utterly impossible, for we can without forgetting or ignoring or denying, forgive ourselves even the evil which we have done. Yes, even the darkest and worst evil, the disloyalty to ourselves, to the best and deepest within us, which all but achieved the impossibility of finally defeating the march of Progress. For the basis and ground of our belief in the reality, and therefore the eternity, of Progress lies in this, that the now known nature of the Spirit which is in Man and not in Man alone, is that it can heal any wounds that it can inflict upon itself, can find in its own errors and failures, in its own mistakes and misdeeds, if it only will, the materials of richer and fuller and worthier life.
Transcriber's NotesPage26: Opening and closing quotes added to "Beg humbly that he unlock the door."Page89:Suma TheologicasicPage92: course amended to coarsePage165: preventible amended to preventablePage299: missing word "is" added ("so far as it is realized")The footnote number is for footnote 81 is missing in the original text. The location of the number that has been added is only an assumption.Discrepancies between the Table of Contents and chapter headings ("Government"/"Progress in Government"; "Industry"/"Progress in Industry"; "Art"/"Progress in Art"; "Science"/"Progress in Science" and "Philosophy"/"Progress in Philosophy") have been retained.
Page26: Opening and closing quotes added to "Beg humbly that he unlock the door."
Page89:Suma Theologicasic
Page92: course amended to coarse
Page165: preventible amended to preventable
Page299: missing word "is" added ("so far as it is realized")
The footnote number is for footnote 81 is missing in the original text. The location of the number that has been added is only an assumption.
Discrepancies between the Table of Contents and chapter headings ("Government"/"Progress in Government"; "Industry"/"Progress in Industry"; "Art"/"Progress in Art"; "Science"/"Progress in Science" and "Philosophy"/"Progress in Philosophy") have been retained.