Because, perhaps, it is the only creative power in the universe of which we have first hand experience. There is a wonder and a glory in the capacity of the human being to turn the neutral energy of nature into a force for good. Some heavenly alchemy hides its secret in the heart of man. No one can set down the formula for a Gandhi, nor, for that matter, for a Nero. What a man will do with his life-span and allotted powers remains a mystery until he does it.
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Let us acknowledge and accept the first value. Man does have the potentialities of measureless greatness. His high schemes breathe the atmosphere of eternity, as though that in him which cleaves to nobility—as guilelessly and unself-consciously as a child smiles—cannot possibly die out of the world. Let us say that each one of us has a token of the Infinite within him, and that there are moments when we know it full well
And so we come to try to explore the anatomy of the subjective universe—to rationalize our faith—an undertaking for which we have little precedent and almost no practice. For centuries, now, we have refused to be conscious metaphysicians. For information about the soul, we have said impatiently, go to poets or pulpits; meanwhile, do not bother us; we are busy with practical matters. We are looting a continent, spanning an ocean, harnessing a Niagara. We are also erecting a scientific tower that will surely reach to Reality, because we are building it out of facts, all facts.
Of late, however, a growing sense of the inapplicability of all these facts to the major issues of life has opened the way to independent wondering about the nature of man. Scientific method may be founded upon deterministic assumptions, but human choice is founded on the feeling of freedom, and all the while we have been theorizing in terms of Determinism, we have been acting in terms of Freedom—relative freedom, at least.
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At this point it is necessary to admit that metaphysics is always dangerous. It is dangerous because it so easily lapses into theology, and when this happens, we are right back at the beginning of things, so far as the liberation of the mind is 4 concerned. For theology is that brand of metaphysics which has lost its license to practice among free men. Theology always claims acceptance on the ground that the innate deficiencies of the mind require some help from on High. Theology begins by telling us we are weak, and ends by manacling our stre