Nevertheless, the problem of origins, human and other, is not the
least whit nearer its solution. In due time the Evolution theory will
have to abate its vehemence, cannot be allow'd to dominate every thing
else, and will have to take its place as a segment of the circle, the
cluster--as but one of many theories, many thoughts, of profoundest
value--and re-adjusting and differentiating much, yet leaving the
divine secrets just as inexplicable and unreachable as before--maybe
more so.
_Then furthermore_--What is finally to be done by priest or poet--and
by priest or poet only--amid all the stupendous and dazzling novelties
of our century, with the advent of America, and of science and
democracy--remains just as indispensable, after all the work of the
grand astronomers, chemists, linguists, historians, and explorers
of the last hundred years--and the wondrous German and other
metaphysicians of that time--and will continue to remain, needed,
America and here, just the same as in the world of Europe, or Asia,
of a hundred, or a thousand, or several thousand years ago. I think
indeed _more_ needed, to furnish statements from the present points,
the added arriere, and the unspeakably immenser vistas of to-day.
Only, the priests and poets of the modern, at least as exalted as any
in the past, fully absorbing and appreciating the results of the
past, in the commonalty of all humanity, all time, (the main results
already, for there is perhaps nothing more, or at any rate not much,
strictly new, only more important modern combinations, and new
relative adjustments,) must indeed recast the old metal, the already
achiev'd material, into and through new moulds, current forms.
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