into that larger world of truth which is open to those races alone
which live a whole life. It is for this reason that the drama must
always hold the first place among those forms which the art of
literature has perfected; it is for this reason that Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, and Goethe, consciously or unconsciously, chose those
forms of expression which are specially adapted to represent and
illustrate life in action; it is for this reason, among others, that
these writers must always play so great a part in the work of
educating the race. Culture is, above all things, real and vital;
knowledge may deal with abstractions and unrelated bits of fact, but
culture must always fasten upon those things which are significant in
a spiritual order. It has to do with the knowledge which may become
incorporate in a man's nature, and with that knowledge especially
which has come to humanity through action. It is this deeper knowledge
which holds a lighted torch aloft in the deepest recesses of the soul,
or over those abysses of possible experience which open on all sides
about every man, which is to be found in the pages of Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, and Goethe, and of all those great artists who have seen
men in those decisive and significant moments when they strike into
the movement of history, or, through their deeds and sufferings, the
order of life suddenly shines forth.




Chapter XXII.

The Interpretation of Idealism.