f all conceivable dogmas is the dogma that
there is such a thing as absolute truth, absolute beauty, absolute
good and absolute love.

The attraction of such a dogma for the mind of man is undoubtedly
due to the spirit of evil or of malice. For nothing offers a more
frozen resistance to the creative power than such a faith.
Compared with our human visions of these ideas the vision of
these "companions of men" must be thought of as relatively
complete. And complete it is, with regard to its general synthesis
and orientation. But it is not really complete; and can never be so.
For when we consider the nature of love alone, it becomes
ridiculous to speak of an absolute or complete love. If the love of
these "companions of men" became at any moment incapable of a
deeper and wider manifestation, at that very moment the whole
stream of life would cease, the malice of the adversary would
prevail, and nothingness would swallow up the universe. It is
because we are compelled to regard the complex vision, including
all its basic attributes, as the vision of a personal soul, that it is
a false and misleading conception to view these "companions of
men" as a mere ideal.

An ideal is nothing if not expressed in personality. Subjectively
every ideal is the ideal of "some one," an ideal of a conscious,
personal, and living entity. Objectively every ideal must be
embodied in "some one": and must be a standard, a measure, a
rhythm, of various energies synthesized in a living soul. This is
really the crux of the whole matter. Vaguely and obscurely do we
all feel the pressure of these deep and secret impulses. Profoundly
do we feel that these mysterious "ideas," which give life its
dramatic intensity, are part of the depths of our own soul and part
of the depths of the souls of the immortals. And yet though they
are so essentially part of us and part of the universe, they remain
vague, obscure, contradictory, confused, inchoate; only gradually
assuming coherent substance and form as the "rapport" between
man and his invisible companions grows clearer and clearer.

We are confronted at this point by one of the most difficult of all
dilemmas. If by reason of the fact that we are driven to regard
personality as the most real thing in the universe we are compelled
toward the act of faith which recognizes one side of the eternal
duality of things as embodied in actual living souls, how is it that
we are not equally compelled to a similar