Mind the Master Force
By Alexander Campbell
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As there is not one lawless atom in the material universe, so there is not one irresponsible agent in the social system. The order of material nature is, indeed the outward symbol of the order of spiritual nature, and that is the order of obedient dependence. We shall, then, enter the holy place of moral obligation by passing leisurely through the outer court of physical obligation.
In the material universe all the inferior masses are under law to the superior. One of the sublime designs of the creator is that all the central masses of the universe shall not only be the largest masses in their respective systems, but also radiating centers to their systems. Thus he has constituted the great masses perennial fountains of beneficence to all the subordinate masses that move around them. Our own bright orb, representative of all the suns of creation, is an unwasting fountain of life to its own glorious system. No sooner does he show his radiant face than floods of life teem from his bosom upon some thirty attendant planets, which, in sublime majesty and in expressive silence, ceaselessly move around him. These are the sensible demonstrations of his bounty to his waiting retinue of worlds. What other emanations of goodness he vouchsafes to those who obey him are yet unknown, and perhaps unknowable to us while confined to this our native planet. In the purer and more elevated regions of ether he may perhaps generate and mature the ultimate and more recondite elements of the vital principle, which, combining with our atmosphere, quicken it with all the rudimental principles of animal existence.
In the realms of matter, so far as fact, observation, and analogy authenticate any conclusion, the law is universal, viz., that the minors must be subject to the majors; that the inferior masses shall depend on the superior for all that gives them life and comfort. But that the satellites of all systems and of all ranks requite their suns in some way by receiving from them their beneficence, and thereby maintaining, through their respective gravities, their central positions and perpetual quiescence, while they all move forward in one grand concert around the throne of the Eternal, in awful grandeur musing his praise, is not to be questioned or doubted by any one conversant with God's grand system of designs. On these sublime though simple principles are suspended the order, beauty, and felicity of the universe. Destroy this, and a scene of disorder, confu-
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Such is also the order of the intellectual system. One great mind, nature's spiritual and eternal hub, constitutes the mighty centre around which, in their respective orbits, all pure minds, primary or secondary--angelic or human-- revolve. In this system the great minds as certainly govern the inferior as in material nature the large masses govern the less. Now, as the power of mind consists of intelligence, educated mind must as certainly govern uneducated mind, and the more vigorous and talented the less favored, as the great material masses govern the inferior.
The beauty as well as the happiness of the universe requires inequality. Equal lines, smooth surfaces, and eternal plains have no beauty. We must have hill and dale, mountain and valley, sea and land, suns of all magnitudes, worlds of all sizes, minds of all dimensions, and persons and faces of divers casts and colors, to constitute a beautiful and happy world. We must have sexes, conditions, and circumstances-- empires, nations, and families--diversities in person, mind, manners, in order to the communication and reception of happiness. Hence, our numerous and various wants are not only incentives to action, but sources of pleasure, both simple and complex--physical, intellectual and moral.
Hence the foundation and the philosophy of unequal minds--unequal in power, in capacity, and in taste-- unequal in intelligence, activity and energy. The inequalities of mind are as numerous and various as the inequalities of matter. One mind sports with worlds--another with atoms. One man perches himself on Mount Chimborazo and communes with the stars; another delves into the earth in search of hidden treasures, and buries himself in mines and minerals. One man moves along with the tardiness of the ox in the drudgery of life; another ascends in a balloon and soars above the clouds. Here we find a Newton measuring the comet's path, a Franklin stealing fire from heaven, a Columbus in search of a new world; and there a sportsman with his hounds in quest of a fox. One delights in his revelling and song, in riotous living and the giddy dance; another, in locking up his golden pelf in an iron chest. Talk we, then, of minds equally endowed by nature or improved by art! No such minds ever composed any community. Varieties, all manner of varieties, are essential to society. The world needs the rich and the poor, the young and the aged, the learned and the unlearned, the healthy and the infirm, the cheerful and the melancholic. These call forth all our energies, open channels for all the social virtues, lay the basis of our various responsibilities, and constitute much of the happiness of this life. They furnish opportunities for communicating and receiving benefits.
To serve a society faithfully, whether as a scavenger of Rome or as king of the French, is an honor to any man. But to serve society in any capacity promotive of its moral advancement is the highest style and dignity of man. True, indeed, that in the great category of moral improvement there are numerous departments, and consequently many offices. There are authors, teachers of all schools, ministers of all grades, missionaries of all mercies, ambassadors of all ranks, employed as conservators, redeemers, and benefactors of men. These, in the tendencies and bearings of their respective functions, sweep the largest circles in human affairs. They extend not only to the individual first benefited, not only to those temporarily benefited by him, in a long series of generations, but breaking through the confines of time and space, those benefits reach into eternity and spread themselves over fields of blessings, waving with eternal harvests of felicity to multitudes of participants which the arithmetic of time wholly fails to compute, either in number or magnitude. The whole vista of time is but the shaft of a grand telescope through which to see, at the proper angle, the teeming harvests of eternal blessedness flowing into the bosoms of the great moral benefactors of human kind. To choose a calling of this sort
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If men are held responsible, not only for all the evil they have done, but also for all the good they might have done, as undoubtedly they will be; and if they are to be rewarded, not for having genius and talent, but for having used them in accordance with the Divine will and the dictates of conscience, then what immense and overwhelming interests are merged in the question. To what calling should men of great parts and of good education devote themselves? Taste, inclination, and talent are altogether, and always, to be taken into account in a matter of such thrilling interest. But we are speaking of men of genius in general, and not of a particular class. The historic painter may, like our great West, give us Bible characters and Bible scenes. We may as well have the patriarchal scenes, tabernacle and temple scenes, official personages and festivals upon the walls of our rooms and museums, as the island of Calypso, or the ruins of the Capitol, or the Pantheon, or the panorama of Mexico, Paris, or Waterloo. The poet may sing of Zion, and Siloam, of Jerusalem and its King, as well as the wrath of Achilles, the siege of Troy, or the adventures of Aeneas. An orator may as well plead for God as for man, for eternity as for time, for heaven as for earth; he may as well plead for man's salvation as for his political rights and immunities; and the same learning and eloquence that gain for a client a good inheritance or a fair reputation might have gained for him an unfading crown and an enduring inheritance. It depends upon the taste of the man of genius of any peculiar kind to what cause he may supremely devote it. It is his duty, however, to bring it to the best market and to consecrate it to the noblest and most exalted good.
But, finally, it is not only incumbent on men of genius that they cultivate their talents to the greatest perfection, and that they select the noblest and most useful calling, but that they also prosecute them with the greatest vigor, and devote themselves to them with the most persevering assiduity. It is not he that enters upon any career, or starts in any race, but he that runs well and perseveringly, that gains the plaudits of others, or the approval of his own conscience.
Life is a great struggle. It is one splendid campaign, a race, a contest for interests, honors, and pleasures of the highest character and of the most enduring importance. Happy the man of genius who cultivates all his powers with a reference thereunto, who chooses the most noble calling, and who prosecutes it with all his might. Such a one, ultimately, secures to himself the admiration of all the great, the wise, the good. Such a one will always enjoy the approbation of his own judgment and conscience, and, better still, the approbation of his God and Redeemer. How pleasing to him who has run the glorious race, to survey from the lofty summit of his eternal fame the cumulative results of an active life, developed in the light of eternity! How transporting to contemplate the proximate and the remote, the direct and the indirect beatific fruits of his labors reflected from the bright countenances of enraptured myriads, beaming with grateful emotion to him as the honored instrument of having inducted them into those paths of righteousness which led them into the fruition of riches, honors, and pleasures boundless as the universe and enduring as the ages of eternity!
(Editor's Note: We are indebted for this excerpt from one of Campbell's speeches to Rick Sparks, who discovered it in one of the volumes of World's Best Orations. The original speech was delivered at Miami University in 1844.)