Читать книгу Human Work онлайн

30 страница из 74

That superstitious respect for the aged which distinguishes China is giving way to a respect for wisdom, for knowledge, for judgment, and ability wherever manifested; and if we swing too far toward honour for the young, it is a healthy extreme to counterbalance the huge and heavy back action of the past. The mind of man is now being opened to perceptions of facts as he finds them, rather than the retention of old stories, and is exercised more in free, responsible action during its early years.

We are beginning to learn now something of the true history of our race—what we rose from, and how we have risen; what forces urged us most, what conditions helped us most. We are seeing with increasing clearness the desirable lines of action, and how best to follow them. Alert, intelligent, and active among the great currents of social evolution, we can do much to promote their effects. Here we can let them alone, there we can oppose our allied wills against some eddy of reversionary tendency, or check the growth of some disadvantageous excess; we can use our consciousness to choose between the varying forces, and such individual power as we possess to steer among them.