II

If we carefully consider the constitution of
man and its tendencies, it would seem as if
there were two definite directions in which he
grows. He is like a tree which strikes its roots
into the ground while it throws up young
branches towards the heavens. These two lines
which go outward from the central personal
point are to him clear, definite, and intelligible.
He calls one good and the other evil. But
man is not, according to any analogy, observation,
or experience, a straight line. Would
that he were, and that life, or progress, or
development, or whatever we choose to call it,
meant merely following one straight road or
another, as the religionists pretend it does.
The whole question, the mighty problem,
would be very easily solved then. But it is not
so easy to go to hell as preachers declare it
to be. It is as hard a task as to find one's
way to the Golden Gate! A man may wreck
himself utterly in sense-pleasure,--may debase
his whole nature, as it seems,--yet he fails
of becoming the perfect devil, for there is still
the spark of divine light within him. He tries
to choose the broad road which leads to
destruction, and enters bravely on his headlong
career. But very soon he is checked and
startled by some unthought-of tendency in