Spencer Heath Archive

Item 506.

No date

Original is in item 505.

An order and a benevolence that constitutes the beauty — the only abiding reality — in the phenomenal world of change

All men have physical power in vast abundance. If it were not so they had not through their long past subdued nature by their arts on the one hand while they destroyed each other by their wars and preparations for wars on the other.

The masses of men have vast emotional power for good or ill — urge to action — great fear or great courage, great hate or great love. But all this power of desire effectuates nothing without knowledge, and knowledge is not abundant among the masses of men. Only a few have the information — the factual knowledge of what is going on in nature and among men, still less of what has happened in the past. And without such knowledge the emotional power of men is vain. They turn in circles, set themselves against themselves, reducing their energies to naught. But when the knowledge of the few is added to the power of the many then men can accomplish what they desire, be it base or high, be it their aim to create or be it their aim to destroy.

So the union of knowledge with power may lift men up into love and beauty or it may cast them down into hate and hell.