activity, we
are synthesizing the material of experience into unities the
independent reality of which is beyond proof, nay, beyond the
possibility of a shadow of evidence. And yet the life of intelligence,
like the joy of contemplation, lies entirely in the formation and
inter-relation of these unities. This activity yields us all the objects
with which we can deal, and endows them with the finer and more
intimate part of their beauty. The most perfect of these forms,
judged by its affinity to our powers and its stability in the presence
of our experience, is the one with which we should be content; no
other kind of veracity could add to its value.

The greatest feats of synthesis which the human mind has yet
accomplished will, indeed, be probably surpassed and all ideals yet
formed be superseded, because they were not based upon enough
experience, or did not fit that experience with adequate precision.
It is also possible that changes in the character of the facts, or in
the powers of intelligence, should necessitate a continual
reconstruction of our world. But unless human nature suffers an
inconceivable change, the chief intellectual and aesthetic value of
our ideas will always come from the creative action of the
imagination.

PART IV

EXPRESSION

_Expression defined._

Sec. 48. We have found in the beauty of material and form the
objectification of certain pleasures connected with the process of
direct perception, with the formation, in the one case of a sensation,
or quality, in the other of a synthesis of sensations or qualities. But
the human consciousness is not a perfectly clear mirror, with
distinct boundaries and clear-cut images, determinate in number
and exhaustively perceived. Our ideas half emerge for a moment
from the dim continuum of vital feeling and diffused sense, and are
hardly fixed before they are changed and transformed, by the
shifting of attention and the perception of new relations, into ideas
of really different objects. This fluidity of the mind would make
reflection impossible, did we not fix in words and other symbols
certain abstract contents; we thus become capable of recognizing
in one perception the repetition of another, and of recognizing in
certain recurrences of impressions a persistent object. This
discrimination and classification of the contents of consciousness
is the work of perception and understanding, and the pleasures that
accompany these activities make the b