of works, of varying charm and power; but the books which are
fountain-heads of vitality, ideas, and beauty, are few in number.
These original and dominant creations may be called the books of life,
if one may venture to modify De Quincey's well-worn phrase. For that
which is deepest in this group of masterpieces is not power, but
something greater and more inclusive, of which power is but a single
form of expression,--life; that quintessence of the unbroken
experience and activity of the race which includes not only thought,
power, beauty, and every kind of skill, but, below all these, the
living soul of the living man.

If it be true, as many believe, that the fundamental process of the
universe, so far as we can understand it, is not intellectual, but
vital, it follows that the deepest things which men have learned have
come to them not as the result of processes of thought, but as the
result of the process of living. It is evident that certain definite
purposes are being wrought out through physical forms, processes, and
forces; science reveals clearly enough certain great lines of
development. In like manner, although with very significant
differences, certain deep lines of growth and expansion become more
and more clear in human history. Through the bare process of living,
men not only learn fundamental facts about themselves and their world,
but they are evidently working out certain purposes. Of these purposes
they do not, it is true, possess full knowledge; but complete
knowledge is necessary neither for the demonstration of the existence
of the purpose nor for those ethical and intellectual uses which that
knowledge serves. The life of the race is a revelation of the nature
of man, of the character of his relations with his surroundings, and
of the certain great lines of development along which the race is
moving. Every leading race has its characteristic thought concerning