lowing
the type is blind. It does not only follow the type involuntarily and
compulsorily, but does not know that it is following it. We might
certainly have been made to conform to the Type in the higher sphere
with no more knowledge or power of choice than animals or automata. But
then we should not have been men. It is a possible case, but not
possible to the kind of protoplasm with which men are furnished. Owing
to the peculiar characteristics of this protoplasm an additional and
exceptional provision is essential.

The first demand is that being conscious and having this power of
choice, the mind should have an adequate knowledge of what it is to
choose. Some revelation of the Type, that is to say, is necessary. And
as that revelation can only come from the Type, we must look there for
it.

We are confronted at once with the Incarnation. There we find how the
Christ-Life has clothed Himself with matter, taken literal flesh, and
dwelt among us. The Incarnation is the Life revealing the Type. Men are
long since agreed that this is the end of the Incarnation--the revealing
of God. But why should God be revealed? Why, indeed, but for man? Why
but that "beholding as in a glass the glory of the only begotten we
should be changed into the same image?"

To meet the power of choice, however, something more was necessary than
the mere revelation of the Type--it was necessary that the Type should
be the highest conceivable Type. In other words, the Type must be an
Ideal. For all true human growth, effort, and achievement, an ideal is
acknowledged to be indispensable. And all men accordingly whose lives
are based on principle, have set themselves an ideal, more or less
perfect. It is this which first deflects the will from what is based,
and turns the wayward life to what is holy. So much is true as mere
philosophy. But philosophy failed to present men with their ideal. It
has never been suggested that Christianity has failed. Believers and
unbelievers have been compelled to acknowledge that Christianity holds
up to the world the missing Type, the Perfect Man.

The recognition of the Ideal is the first step in the direction of
Conformity. But let it be clearly observed that it is but a step. There
is no vital connection between merely seeing the Ideal and being
conformed to it. Thousands admire Christ who never become Christians.

But the great question still remains, How is the Christian to be
conformed to the Type, or