Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/182

 of the individual to his primal state, where he will retain his pristine dignity and maintain himself as a human entity in the divine and political systems of the world, without being below or above them, subordinate or superior. He will build within their boundaries, the castle, the fortress of his freedom. But to build it on a political fiction is as bad as building it on a religious chimera. For whether as an instrument in the hands of a government or in the hands of a spiritual hierarchy, man is equally a slave. Indeed, the 'part-of-the-whole' idea, when announced and accepted as a dogma or a law, is a libel upon humankind, an insult to its innate nobility. No, the individual is not a means to an end.

What avails it to know that I am free, if I can not realize this freedom in a definite, specific existence? But can it be realized wholly by a revolt only against a hierarchy or a state? It depends upon the nature and scope of the revolt. If we are concerned in breaking the fetters that