Books and Culture by Hamilton Wright Mabie
page 31 of 116 (26%)
page 31 of 116 (26%)
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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 |
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