Lectures and Miscellanies

Remove, then, the existing bondage of human- ity, remove those factitious restraints which keep appetite and passion on the perpetual look out for escape, like steam from an overcharged boiler, and their force would instantly become conservative instead of destructive. For man is destined by the very necessity of his creation, for nothing but the obedience of his inward and divine self-hood, for the obedience of God within him. Even while he is utterly unconscious of his true or inmost self- hood, the aim of his whole existence, the end of all his struggle and toil is to realize it, and when it does dawn upon him, it sheds a complete calm upon the turbid sea of his outward relations. The effect is irresistible. You cannot arouse a man to self-respect, to a sense of his proper hu- manity, to a consciousness of the divinity which constitutes his being, without rendering him supe- DEMOCRACY AND ITS ISSUES. 49