and produce a seed
capable of bringing forth a still more perfect flower. And it is no
easy matter for us to burst through our own shells, strike our roots
far down into the soil of common humanity and common animality,
and there firmly rooted strike up skyward, stand faithfully to our
ideal, and produce something which will have capacity for still
further improvement. Immense and sustained effort is required of us
for this to be accomplished.

Each man finds he has to battle with himself to make way for all the
best in himself to come to the front. Each has to battle with the
circumstances in which he is placed in order to find scope for the
exercise of the best in himself. Each has to break his way through, as
that wonder of Nature, poor primitive man, had to battle his way
through the impediments of the tropical forests and the brute beasts
by which he was surrounded. And just as primitive man was not the
animal provided with the thickest hide like the rhinoceros, nor with
sharpest claws like the lion, nor with the fiercest temper like the
tiger, but was of all his fellows the one with the most sensitive
nature, so are those nearest the ideal the most delicately sensitive of
mankind.

The ideal is never approached, much less attained, except by men
and women of the most highly-strung natures--natures peculiarly
susceptible to pain. And with this extra susceptibility to pain they
have to expose to the risk of wounds and bruises the most sensitive
parts of their natures. Suffering is therefore inevitably their lot. It is
the invariable attendant of progress however beneficent.
Excruciating pain each expects to have to endure--as every
expectant mother and every soldier anticipates on the physical plane.

We find, too, that in working out our ideal we are not only required
to endure pain, but to submit to the sternest discipline. First, we need
self-discipline. Each individual finds that he is required to exercise
his faculties to the full, make the utmost of himself, attain to the
highest of which he is capable, and be ready for any sacrifice. So he
must train his faculties to the highest. He is required also to work in
concert with his fellows. The stern obligation is therefore upon him
to forgo his own private advantage in order that the common end
may be achieved. This obligation he has readily to acknowledge and
submit to. He has also to acknowledge what he owes to Nature, what
is his _duty_ to Nature. And that