It is not an
evidence of failure, but a prophecy of greater achievement. A world in
which the work was as great as the worker, the piece of art as the
artist, would be a finished world in more senses than one; a world in
which all work is inadequate to contain the energy of the worker, all
art insufficient to express the soul of the artist, is necessarily a
prophetic world, bearing witness to the presence of a creative force
in workers and artists immeasurably beyond the capacity of any
perishable material to receive or to preserve.
A rational Idealism is, therefore, not only indestructible in a race
which does not violate the laws of life, but is instilled into the
higher order of minds by the order of life as revealed by science,
history, and the arts. And this idealistic tendency is not only the
poetic temper; it is the hope and safeguard of society. The real
perils of the race are not material; they are always spiritual; and no
peril could be greater than the loss of faith and hope in the
possibility of attaining the best things. If men are ever bereft of
their instinctive or rational conviction that they have the power
ultimately to bring institutions of all kinds into harmony with their
higher conceptions, they will sink into the lethargy of despair or the
slough of sensualism.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174