In view of this moan from so many of the writers who have the public
ear, especially in Europe, it is the more important to keep before us
the fact that we are children of a race but partially developed at best.
Compared with what will one day be within human scope our actual reach
is only a little beyond impotence. I say this not merely at a venture,
but on the strength of what has happened in the past. We are not a
people which has accomplished much, but one on the way to
accomplishment. The achievements of which we can boast are relatively
like those of a child of five who boasts that he can count. Our whole
world-condition shows us to be racially incompetent, and able to produce
no more than incompetent leaders. That is our present high-water mark,
and with our high-water mark we must learn to be satisfied.

Escaping from matter we are still within the grasp of matter, and shall
probably so continue for generations to come. Our struggles must
therefore be largely with matter, till little by little we achieve its
domination. In proportion as the individual does so now he reaps the
reward of his victory; and in proportion as he reaps that reward fear is
overcome. Our primary fear being fear of matter, much is gained by
grasping the fact which modern science for the past ten or fifteen years
has been carefully putting before us--vainly as far as most of us are
concerned--that what we call matter is a force subject to the control of
mind, while the directing of mind rests wholly with ourselves. Since we
have controlled matter to make it in so many ways a hostile force, it
ought to be within our power to turn it in our favour.



VIII