,
not even the cruelty of nature, now defeats or can defeat my faith,
however much it perplexes my mind.

And though I say that scheme passes my understanding, nevertheless I
hope you will see no inconsistency when I say that necessarily it has an
aspect towards me that I find imperative.

It has an aspect that I can perceive, however dimly and fluctuatingly.

I take it that to perceive this aspect to the utmost of my mental power
and to shape my acts according to that perception is my function in the
scheme; that if I hold steadfastly to that conception, I am SAVED. I
find in that idea of perceiving the scheme as a whole towards me and in
this attempt to perceive, that something to which all my other emotions
and passions may contribute by gathering and contributing experience,
and through which the synthesis of my life becomes possible.

Let me try to convey to you what it is I perceive, what aspect this
scheme seems to bear on the whole towards me.

The essential fact in man's history to my sense is the slow unfolding
of a sense of community with his kind, of the possibilities of
co-operations leading to scarce dreamt-of collective powers, of a
synthesis of the species, of the development of a common general idea, a
common general purpose out of a present confusion. In that awakening of
the species, one's OWN PERSONAL BEING LIVES AND MOVES--A PART OF IT AND
CONTRIBUTING TO IT. ONE'S INDIVIDUAL EXISTENCE IS NOT SO ENTIRELY CUT
OFF AS IT SEEMS AT FIRST; ONE'S ENTIRELY SEPARATE INDIVIDUALITY IS
ANOTHER, A PROFOUNDER, AMONG THE SUBTLE INHERENT DELUSIONS OF THE HUMAN
MIND. Between you and me as we set our minds together, and between us
and the rest of mankind, there is SOMETHING, something real, something
that rises through us and is neither you nor me, that comprehends us,
that is thinking here and using me and you to play against each other in
that thinking just as my finger and thumb play against each other as I
hold this pen with which I write.

Let me point out that this is no sentimental or mystical statement. It
is hard fact as any hard fact we know. We, you and I, are not only parts
in a thought process, but parts of one flow of blood and life. Let me
put that in a way that may be new to some readers. Let me remind you
of what is sometimes told as a jest, the fact that the number of one's
ancestors increases as we look back in time. Disregarding the chances of
intermarriage, each one of us had two parents, f