, and that her ideal,
so far as we are able to judge, is an ideal of Divine Fellowship, is the
conclusion at which we have now arrived. But we shall understand
Nature better, and so see her Beauty more fully, if we can
understand how she works out this ideal in detail. And we shall best
understand how she works it out if we examine what goes on within
our own selves and see how _we_ work out the ideal with which we
believe Nature herself has inspired us. For it is in ourselves that the
dominating spirit of Nature is most clearly manifested to us. And
being ourselves the instruments and agents of Nature, and informed
through and through with her spirit, we ought to be able to
understand how she works if only we look carefully enough into the
working of our own inner selves.

What we find is that under the inspiration of the genius of Nature we
are perpetually projecting in front of us a pattern or standard of what
we think we ought to be, or should like to be, and of what we think
our country and the world ought to be. We set up an ideal. It is
generally very vague. But there is always at the back of our minds
an idea of something more perfect. And this idea we bring out from
time to time from its seclusion and set up before us as an end to aim
at.

Sometimes we deliberately try to draw the outlines of this ideal
more definitely. Each of us will picture a slightly different ideal to
the rest. The ideal men will differ just as much as actual men, and
the ideal countries as much as actual countries. No two will be
exactly alike. And each of us will probably make his ideal man very
different from himself--perhaps the exact opposite, for each will be
peculiarly conscious of his own imperfections and shortcomings.

But if the ideal man which each sets up differs in small particulars
from what others set up, the general outline of all will probably be
very much the same, as men in general are much the same when
compared with other animals. All will be based on the idea of
fellowship. So aided by examples chosen from among our friends,
we may here attempt to build up an ideal type of man. For the effort
will help us to realise better both what Nature is aiming at and how
she works.

Formerly we might have drawn this ideal man upright, straight, rigid,
unbending. More recently we might have drawn him as a super-man,
the fittest-to-survive kind of man, all muscular will, intent only on
bending every other will to his and cr