And
matter, unconsciousness, tends to be less and less, tends to be nothing,
its thirst being a thirst for repose. Spirit says: I wish to be! and
matter answers: I wish not to be!
And in the order of human life, the individual would tend, under the
sole instigation of the instinct of preservation, the creator of the
material world, to destruction, to annihilation, if it were not for
society, which, in implanting in him the instinct of perpetuation, the
creator of the spiritual world, lifts and impels him towards the All,
towards immortalization. And everything that man does as a mere
individual, opposed to society, for the sake of his own preservation,
and at the expense of society, if need be, is bad; and everything that
he does as a social person, for the sake of the society in which he
himself is included, for the sake of its perpetuation and of the
perpetuation of himself in it, is good. And many of those who seem to be
the greatest egoists, trampling everything under their feet in their
zeal to bring their work to a successful issue, are in reality men
whose souls are aflame and overflowing with charity, for they subject
and subordinate their petty personal I to the social I that has a
mission to accomplish.
He who would tie the working of love, of spiritualization, of
liberation, to transitory and individual forms, crucifies God in matter;
he crucifies God who makes the ideal subservient to his own temporal
interests or worldly glory.
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