As M. Comte truly says, the
highest minds, even now, live in thought with the great dead, far more
than with the living; and, next to the dead, with those ideal human
beings yet to come, whom they are never destined to see. If we honour as
we ought those who have served mankind in the past, we shall feel that
we are also working for those benefactors by serving that to which their
lives were devoted. And when reflection, guided by history, has taught
us the intimacy of the connexion of every age of humanity with every
other, making us see in the earthly destiny of mankind the playing out
of a great drama, or the action of a prolonged epic, all the generations
of mankind become indissolubly united into a single image, combining all
the power over the mind of the idea of Posterity, with our best feelings
towards the living world which surrounds us, and towards the
predecessors who have made us what we are. That the ennobling power of
this grand conception may have its full efficacy, we should, with M.
Comte, regard the Grand Etre, Humanity, or Mankind, as composed, in the
past, solely of those who, in every age and variety of position, have
played their part worthily in life.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167