The nature of our political controversies
provoked passion, and passion has become dominant in our politics.
Passion truly is a power in humanity, but it should never enter into
national policy. It is a dangerous element in human life, though it is
an essential part of our strangely compounded nature. But in national
life it is the most dangerous of all guides. There are springs of power
in ourselves which in passion we draw on and are amazed at their depth
and intensity, yet we do not make these the master light of our being,
but rather those divine laws which we have apprehended and brooded upon,
and which shine with clear and steady light in our souls. As creatures
rise in the scale of being the dominant factor in life changes. In
vegetation it may be appetite; instinct in bird and beast for man a
life at once passionate and intellectual; but the greater beings, the
stars and planets, must wheel in the heavens under the guidance of
inexorable and inflexible law. Now the State is higher in the scale of
being than the individual, and it should be dominated solely by moral
and intellectual principles.
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