right, but it has its limits; and these limits
it would be well to define with the utmost exactness, for whatever may
trespass beyond must infallibly weaken the growth of that other side of
ourselves, the flower that the leaves round about it will either stifle
or nourish. And humanity, that so long has been watching this flower,
studying it so intently, noting its subtlest, most fleeting perfumes
and shades, is most often content to abandon to the caprice of the
temperament, be this evil or good, to the passing moment, or to chance,
the government of the unconscious forces that will, like the leaves, be
discreetly active, sustaining, life-giving, or profoundly selfish,
destructive, and fatal. Hitherto, perhaps, this may have been done
with impunity; for the ideal of mankind (which at the start was
concerned with the body alone) wavered long between matter and spirit.
To-day, however, it clings, with ever profounder conviction, to the
human intelligence. We no longer strive to compete with the lion, the
panther, the great anthropoid ape, in force or agility; in beauty with
the flower or the shine of the stars on the sea. The utilisation by
our intellect of every unconscious force, the gradual subjugation of
matter and the search for its secret--these at present appear the most
evident aim of our race, and its most probable mission. In the days of
doubt there was no satisfaction, or even excess, but was excusable, and
moral, so long as it wrought no irreparable loss of strength or actual
organic harm. But now that the mission of the race is becoming more
clearly defined, the duty is on us to leave on one side whatever is not
directly helpful to the spiritual part of our being. Sterile pleasures
of the body must be gradually sacrificed; indeed, in a word, all that
is not in absolute harmony with a larger, more durable energy of
thought; all the little "harmless" delights which, however inoffensive
comparatively, keep alive by example and habit the prejudice in favour
of inferior enjoyment, and usurp the place that belongs to the
satisfactions of the intellect. These last differ from those of the
body, whose development some may assist and others retard. Into the
elysian fields of thought enters no satisfaction but brings with it
youth, and strength, and ardour; nor is there a thing in this world on
which the mind thrives more readily than the ecstasy, nay, the debauch,
of eagerness, comprehension, and wonder.