[38] Is there not such a thing as the philosophy of American history
and politics? And if so, what is it?... Wise men say there are two
sets of wills to nations and to persons--one set that acts and works
from explainable motives--from teaching, intelligence, judgment,
circumstance, caprice, emulation, greed, etc.--and then another set,
perhaps deep, hidden, unsuspected, yet often more potent than the
first, refusing to be argued with, rising as it were out of abysses,
resistlessly urging on speakers, doers, communities, unwitting to
themselves--the poet to his fieriest words--the race to pursue its
loftiest ideal. Indeed, the paradox of a nation's life and career,
with all its wondrous contradictions, can probably only be explain'd
from these two wills, sometimes conflicting, each operating in its
sphere, combining in races or in persons, and producing strangest
results.
Let us hope there is (indeed, can there be any doubt there is?) this
great unconscious and abysmic second will also running through the
average nationality and career of America. Let us hope that, amid
all the dangers and defections of the present, and through all the
processes of the conscious will, it alone is the permanent and
sovereign force, destined to carry on the New World to fulfil its
destinies in the future--to resolutely pursue those destinies, age
upon age; to build, far, far beyond its past vision, present thought;
to form and fashion, and for the general type, men and women more
noble, more athletic than the world has yet seen; to gradually, firmly
blend, from all the States, with all varieties, a friendly, happy,
free, religious nationality--a nationality not only the richest, most
inventive, most productive and materialistic the world has yet known,
but compacted indissolubly, and out of whose ample and solid bulk,
and giving purpose and finish to it, conscience, morals, and all the
spiritual attributes, shall surely rise, like spires above some group
of edifices, firm-footed on the earth, yet scaling space and heaven.
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