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And, after all, the humane spirit, which is the motive power of all true schemes of reform, is, by its very essence, independent of belief in what is commonly called "success." We work for an ideal, not because we believe the ideal is destined to be triumphant, but because we are impelled so to work, and cannot, without violence to our best instincts, act otherwise. We protest against cruelty and injustice for the same reason, not merely because we feel that the dawn of a better day is at hand, but because such a protest has to be made, and we know intuitively that we must help to make it. Of the event we can have no absolute assurance—it rests for other minds and other hands than our—but we can at least be assured that we have done what was natural and inevitable to us, and that, whether successful or unsuccessful, there was no other course for a thoughtful man to take. (en) |
