CORROBORATIVE READINGS 



" The essential fact in man's history to my sense is 

 the slow unfolding of a sense of community with his kind, 

 of the possibilities of co-operations leading to scarce- 

 dreamt-of collective powers, of a synthesis of the 

 species, of the development of a common general idea, 

 a common general purpose out of a present confusion. 

 In that awakening of the species, one's own personal 

 being lives and moves a part of it and contributing 

 to it. One's individual existence is not so entirely cut 

 off as it seems at first; one's entirely separate individu- 

 ality is another, a profounder, among the subtle inherent 

 delusions of the human mind. Between you and me as 

 we set our minds together, and between us and the rest 

 of mankind, there is something, something real, something 

 that rises through us and* is neither you nor me, that 

 comprehends us, that is thinking here and using me and 

 you to play against each other in that thinking just as 

 my finger and thumb play against each other as I hold 

 this pen with which I write. ... I see myself in life 

 as part of a great physical being that strains and I be- 

 lieve grows towards Beauty, and of a great mental being 

 that strains and I believe grows towards knowledge and 

 power. In this persuasion that I am a gatherer of ex- 

 perience, a mere tentacle that arranged thought beside 

 thought for this Being of the Species, this Being that 

 grows beautiful and powerful, in this persuasion I find 

 the ruling idea of which I stand in need, the ruling idea 

 that reconciles and adjudicates among my warring mo- 



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