Made to possess them, did appear
A small and little thing!_

We may safely go some way even beyond this, and lay it down for
unchallengeable truth that over and above Man's consciousness of being
the eye of the Universe and receptacle, however imperfect, of its great
harmony, he has a native impulse to merge himself in that harmony and be
one with it: a spirit in his heart (as the Scripture puts it) "of
adoption, whereby we cry, _Abba, Father_"--_And because ye are sons, God
hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba,
Father._ In his daily life he is for ever seeking after harmony in
avoidance of chaos, cultivating personal habits after the clock; in his
civic life forming governments, attempting hierarchies, laws,
constitutions, by which (as he hopes) a system of society will work in
tune, almost automatically. When he fights he has learnt that his
fighting men shall march in rhythm and deploy rhythmically, and they do
so to regimental music. If he haul rope or weigh anchor, setting out to
sea, or haul up his ship on a beach, he has proved by experiment that
these operations are performed more than twice as easily when done to a
tune. But these are dull, less than half-conscious, imitations of the
great harmony for which, when he starts out to understand and interpret
it consciously, he must use the most godlike of all his gifts. Now the
most godlike of all human gifts--the singular gift separating Man from
the brutes--is speech. If he can harmonise speech he has taught his
first and peculiar faculty to obey the great rhythm: "I will sing and
give praise," says the Psalmist, "with the best member that I have."
Thus by harmonising speech (in a fashion we will discuss by and by), he
arrives at _Poetry_.

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