The Supreme Gift by John Burroughs

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 9, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 31.

The Supreme Gift

By John Burroughs

MAN has no wings, and yet he can soar above the clouds; he is not swift of foot, and yet he can outspeed the fleetest hound or horse; he has but feeble weapons in his organization, and yet he can slay or master all the great beasts; his eye is not so sharp as that of the eagle or the vulture, and yet he can see into the farthest depths of sidereal space; he has only very feeble occult powers of communication with his fellows, and yet he can talk around the world and send his voice across mountains and deserts; his hands are weak things beside a lion’s paw or an elephant’s trunk, and yet he can move mountains and stay rivers and set bounds to the wildest seas. His dog can out-smell him and out-run him and out-bite him, and yet his dog looks up to him as a god. He has erring reason in place of unerring instinct, and yet he has changed the face of the planet.

Without the specialization of the lower animals—their wonderful adaption to particular ends—their tools, their weapons, their strength, their speed, man yet makes them all his servants. His brain is more than a match for all the special advantages nature has given them. The one gift of reason makes him supreme in the world.—John Burroughs.

Yet with that reason unsubmitted to God, unguided by God, man himself becomes a brute.