We study the
world, but not yet with intent to school our hearts and tastes,
broaden our natures, and know our fellow-men as comrades rather
than as phenomena; with purpose, rather, to build up bodies of
critical doctrine and provide ourselves with theses. That,
surely, is not the truly humanizing way in which to take the air
of the world. Man is much more than a "rational being," and lives
more by sympathies and impressions than by conclusions. It
darkens his eyes and dries up the wells of his humanity to be
forever in search of doctrine. We need wholesome, experiencing
natures, I dare affirm, much more than we need sound reasoning.
III
Take life in the large view, and we are most reasonable when we
seek that which is most wholesome and tonic for our natures as a
whole; and we know, when we put aside pedantry, that the great
middle object in life--the object that lies between religion on
one hand, and food and clothing on the other, establishing our
average levels of achievement--the excellent golden mean, is,
not to be learned, but to be human beings in all the wide and
genial meaning of the term. Does the age hinder? Do its many
interests distract us when we would plan our discipline,
determine our duty, clarify our ideals? It is the more necessary
that we should ask ourselves what it is that is demanded of us,
if we would fit our qualities to meet the new tests.
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