Digestion, which was just now counted a greater good than sight, might
still be rightly reckoned a lower; for while it contributes more
largely to the constitution of the human organism, it on that very
account expresses less the purposes to which that organism will be
put. It is true we have seen how in any organism every power is both
means and end. It would be impossible, then, to part out its powers,
and call some altogether great and others altogether high. But though
there is purpose in all, and construction in all, certain are more
markedly the one than the other. Some express the superintending
functions; others, the subservient. Some condition, others are
conditioned by. In man, for example, the intellectual powers certainly
serve our bodily needs. But that is not their principal office;
rather, in them the aims of the entire human being receive expression.
To abolish the distinction of high and low would be to try to
obliterate from our understanding of the world all estimates of the
comparative worth of its parts; and with these estimates its rational
order would also disappear. Such attempts have often been made. In
extreme polytheism there are no superiors among the gods and no
inferiors, and chaos consequently reigns. A similar chaos is projected
into life when, as in the poetry of Walt Whitman, all grades of
importance are stripped from the powers of man and each is ranked as
of equal dignity with every other.
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