is primarily of value, not as affording a case that can be argued with
ingenuity, but as enshrining one great principle that shines through and
informs the rest, that illumines the mind of the individual, that warms,
clarifies and invigorates--that, so to speak, puts the mind in focus,
gets the facts of existence into perspective, and gives the individual
everything in its right place and true proportion. It brings a man to
the point where he does not dispute but believes. He has been wandering
about cold and irresolute, tasting all philosophies, or none, and
drinking deep despair. He does not understand the want in his soul while
he has been looking for some panacea for its cure till the great light
streams on him, and instead of receiving something he finds himself.
That is it. There is a power of vision latent in us, clouded by error;
the true philosophy dissipates the cloud and leaves the vision clear,
wonderful and inspiring. He who acquired that vision is impervious to
argument--it is not that he despises argument; on the contrary, he
always uses it to its full strength. But he has had awakened within him
something which the mere logician can never deduce, and that mysterious
something is the explanation of his transformed life. He was a doubter,
a falterer, a failure; he has become a believer, a fighter, a conqueror.
You miss his significance completely when you take him for a theorist.
The theorist propounds a view to which he must convert the world; the
philosopher has a rule of life to immediately put into practice. His
spirit flashes with a swiftness that can be encircled by no theory. It
is his glory to have over and above a new penetrating argument in the
mind--a new and wonderful vitality in the blood. The unbeliever, near
by, still muddled by his cold theories, will argue and debate till his
intellect is in a tangle. He fails to see that a man of intellectual
agility might frame a theory and argue it out ably, and then suddenly
turn over and with equal dexterity argue the other side. Do we not have
set debates with speakers appointed on each side? That is dialectic--a