But while we would not underestimate the value and necessity of growth in knowledge, we must as clearly recognize that the intellect is not the centre and essence of man’s being.  Knowledge, while the surest form of wealth of which no one can rob us, and the best as the stepping-stone to the highest well-being, is like wealth in one respect:  it is not character and can be used for good or evil.  If my neighbor uses his greater knowledge as a means of overreaching us all, it injures us and ruins him.

Our emotions, and this is but another word for our motives, stand far nearer to the centre of life; for they control our conduct and directly determine what we are.  Knowledge of environment is good, but of what real and permanent use is such knowledge without conformity?  Our real weakness is not our ignorance; we know the good, but lack the will and purpose to live it out.  And this is because the thought of truth and goodness excites no such strength of feeling as that of some lower gratification.  We cannot perhaps overrate the value of intellect; we certainly underrate the value of emotion and feeling.  “Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth.”  It does not require great intellect, it does require intense feeling to be a hero.  We slander the emotions by calling people emotional because they are always talking about their feelings; but deep feeling is always silent.  It is not fashionable to feel deeply, and we are dwarfed by this conventionality.  We have almost ceased to wonder, and hence we have almost ceased to learn; for the wise old Greeks knew that wonder is the mother of wisdom.

The man of the future will probably be a man of strong appetites, for he will be healthy; he will be prudent, because wise; but he will hold his appetites well in leash.  He will trample upon mere prudential considerations at the call of truth or right.  For in him these highest motives will be absolute monarchs, and they are the only motives which can enable a man to face rack and stake without flinching.  He will be a hero because he feels intensely.  In other words, he will be a man of gigantic will, because he has a great heart.  And in the man of the future all these powers will be not only highly developed; they will be rightly proportioned and duly subordinated.  He will be a well-balanced man.  But how few complete men we now see.

We see the strong will without the clear intellect to guide it; the gush of feeling either directed toward low ends or evaporating in sentiment; the clear head with the cold heart.  The high development of one mental power seems to draw away all strength and vitality from the rest.  How rarely do we find the strong will guided by the keen intellect toward the highest aims clearly discerned.  Memory and imagination must always play their part in the joy set before us.  But in addition to all these, the white heat of feeling, of which man alone is capable, is necessary for his grandest efforts.  Such a