"
You see how that perception lifted him above the average level of his
people? He was showing his capacity for higher and nobler civilization.
It is just this ability in the man to wonder, to see something to
wonder at, to worship, to admire, which lifts him one grade higher than
that of the average level of his tribe. So that which makes man a man
is the capacity in him to admire. All admiration is the essence, the
root, of worship. And, the more things a man admires, the greater and
nobler type of man he is seen to be. If he can admire music, if he can
admire painting, if he can admire sculpture, if he can admire poetry,
if he can admire literature of every kind, if he can admire grand
architecture, the beautiful monuments of the world, we say, Here is a
large, all-round type of man. We estimate his dignity, his greatness,
by the capacity that he shows for worship in its lower type; for
worship is simply looking up with admiration.
There is another quality about this worship that I wish to speak of. It
is the power that is capable of transforming a man, making him over
into the likeness of that which he admires. You find the man without
this capacity, and you know it is hopeless to appeal to him, hopeless
to set up ideals, hopeless to place before him enticing examples. There
is nothing in him to which these things appeal. Take Alexander the
Great. It is said he carried around with him a copy of the Iliad, and
that Achilles was his ideal of a hero.
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