WHAT IS MAN?

Upon the walls of Emerson Hall is chiselled in marble (which only in man's conceit is pereternal) the question: "What is Man?"

That is a large question for even the wisest men. And the wisest men are never alive in any given age. Although they, the wisest men of ancient and more philosophical years, might have found some answer to the question in this year of grace.

We are eternally surprised that man can play so well the beast. We marvel at his selfishness, his blindness, his brutality, his sin. We marvel, we, who are men.

We should not marvel at man's selfishness. We should rather marvel at his grand unselfishness, which, however blind, is magnificent.

He will throw away his poor life, which is all that remains sure to him in eternity, for the dream of a distant ideal. Surely such love is not among the beasts. Man is an animal gifted with mind, set in a world which was not made for mind. He is a being whom we may curse with reverence.