COMPULSION OF NATURE-ACTION 309 



IV. The Militant Phase of Intelligent Action 



The recognition that elemental social truths are 

 saving virtues provides not merely a new means to so- 

 cial life, it also creates the will to cherish and protect 

 these virtues as social properties and guarantees of 

 personal safety. 



Thus the abolition of slavery does not in itself rep- 

 resent the whole gain to humanity. This discovery of 

 the way in which things could not be done produced 

 a veritable intellectual mutation, or mental reorienta- 

 tion, of permanent value, whereof the fruits as yet are 

 in the bud. 



The sharper, clearer vision of personal peril in 

 slavery created a haunting, ever present fear of it; and 

 out of that fear the purpose grew and the will power 

 was born to seek out the spirit of slavery wherever it 

 lurked, in order to destroy it. When that militant 

 phase was reached, slavery needed but show itself to 

 be attacked as though it were an assassin, or a common 

 enemy of mankind. Here man was evidently acting 

 under the compulsion of a truth, clearly visualized; 

 while acting intelligently and consciously, he was 

 nevertheless unconscious of the compulsion under 

 which he was voluntarily acting. 



This is a good illustration of the growth of men- 

 tal imagery into truth and constructive vital action, 

 showing the usual way in which a mental concept passes 

 through its earlier embryonic phases to the altruistic 

 phase of its maturity. In this case, as in prohibition, 

 woman's suffrage, militarism, and so many others of 

 a similar character, we may see how slavery, as a 



