This my readers will already have felt and
will have begun to rebel against my insistence that self-sacrifice is
the fulfillment of our being. For though it is true that when
opposition arises between the conjunct and separate selves our largest
safety is with the former, the very fact that such opposition is
possible involves tragedy. One part of the nature becomes arrayed
against another. We must die to live. Our lower goods are found
incompatible with our higher. Pleasure, comfort, property, friends,
possibly life itself, have become hostile to our more inclusive aims
and must be cast aside. It is true that when the tragic antithesis is
presented and we can reach our higher goods only by loss of the lower,
hesitation is ruin. It is true too that on account of that element of
self-assertion to which I have drawn, attention, the genuine
sacrificer is ordinarily unaware of any such tragedy. But none the
less tragedy is there. To suppose it absent would strip sacrifice of
what we regard as most characteristic.
Nor can we pause here. Those who would call self-sacrifice a glorious
madness have still further justification. A leap into the dark we must
at least admit it to be, For trace it rationally as far as we may,
there always remains uncertainty at the close. There is, for example,
uncertainty about ultimate results.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145