OUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY 187 



the ideal for ourselves, and make laws and establish 

 customs to ensure its attainment. We are not the 

 slaves of a despotic ruler, or pawns in the hand of 

 an external player. Within the limits of Nature's 

 constitution, the laws we obey are laws of our own 

 making ; the authority we obey is the authority 

 which we ourselves have set up ; and both authority 

 and laws we can change in accordance with the 

 growing requirements of the ideal which we our- 

 selves are perfecting. 



W r e go forward, therefore, with inextinguishable 

 faith in the value of what we are battling for, 

 and in the worthwhileness of all our efforts and 

 endurances. And though the ideal with which 

 Nature has inspired us makes us restless and discon- 

 tented, provokes us to increasing effort, causes us 

 endless pain and suffering, and exacts from us the 

 sacrifice even of our lives, we nevertheless love to 

 have the ideal, and love Nature for implanting it 

 in us. 



And now that we have seen what is the nature 

 of Nature, what is the end she has before her, and 

 how she works to accomplish her end, we feel that 

 we have gone a long way towards knowing and 

 understanding her. We have had a vision of the 

 hidden Divinity by which she is inspired. And 

 this mysterious Power we have not found reigning 

 remote in the empty spaces of the heavens. We 

 have found it dwelling in every minutest particle of 

 which this Earth and all the world is built, and 

 of which we ourselves also are made — dwelling in 

 the earth, and in the air, and in the stars ; and in 



