It is a part of every atom, for all atoms are alive, and this upward impulse is in every one of them. It is in the instinct of the bee, the ant, and in all forms of insect and animal life.
The same kind of urge that is in the seed buried out of sight and which is ever pushing it up and out through the soil, prodding it to develop itself to the utmost and to give its beauty and fragrance to the world, is in each one of us. It is ever pushing us, urging us on to fuller and completer expression, to a larger, more beautiful life.
But for this desire to get on and get up, this God-urge, everything, even the universe itself, would collapse. Inertia would bring everything to a standstill.
If we obey this call we expand, blossom into beauty and develop into fruitage, but if we neglect or dissipate it, if we only half obey it, we remain mere scrub plants, without flower or fruitage.
That mysterious urge within us never allows us to rest but is always prodding us for our good, because there is no limit to human growth there is no satisfying human ambition--man’s higher aspiration. When we reach the height which looks so attractive from below, we find our new position as unsatisfying as the old, and a perpetual call to go higher still rings in our ears. A divine impulse constantly urges us to reach our highest ideal.
“Faith and the ideal still remain the most powerful levers of progress and of happiness,” says Jean Finot.
“Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object,” asked Thoreau, “and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them,--that it was a vain endeavor?”
Aspiration finally becomes inspiration and ennobles the whole life.
When the general habit of always aspiring, moving upwards and climbing to something higher and better is formed, all the undesirable qualities and the vicious habits will fade away; they will die from lack of nourishment. Only those things grow in our nature which are fed. The quickest way to kill them is to cut off their nourishment.
The craving for something higher and better is the best possible antidote or remedy for the lower tendencies which one wishes to get rid of.