o blind and selfish! helpless as the beast

who sees no meaning in a soul released

and given flesh to grow in—to work through!

think you that god has nothing else to do

than babble endlessly the same set phrase?

are life’s great spreading, upward-reaching ways

laid for the beasts to climb on till the top

is reached in you, you think, and there you stop!

they were raised up, obedient to force

which lifted them, unwitting of their course.

you have new power, new consciousness, new sight;

you can help god! you stand in the great light

of seeing him at work. you can go on

and walk with him, and feel the glory won.

and here you sit, content to toil and strive

to keep your kind of animal alive!

why, friends! god is not through!

the universe is not complete in you.

you’re just as bound to follow out his plan

and sink yourself in ever-growing man

as ever were the earliest, crudest eggs

to grow to vertebrates with arms and legs.

society holds not its present height

merely that you may bring a child to light;

but you and yours live only in the plan

that’s working out a higher kind of man;

a higher kind of life, that shall let grow

new powers and nobler duties than you know.

rise to the thought! live in the widening race!

help make the state more like god’s dwelling-place!

new paths for life divine, as yet untrod,—

a social body for the soul of god!