Now the aim at personal perfection is precisely of this sort. As
servants of righteousness we cannot accept any other precept than "Be
ye perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." But we know
such perfection to be unattainable, Yet I sometimes doubt whether we
state the matter truly so. Would it not be juster to say that
perfection can always be attained, and that it is about the only thing
which can be? We might well say of all the infinite ideals that they
differ from the finite ones simply in this, that the finite can be
attained but once, and then are ended, while the infinite are
continually attained. At no moment of his life shall the merchant be
cut off from becoming richer, or the scholar from growing wiser, or
the public benefactor from acquiring further fame. These aims, then,
are always attainable; for in them what we think of as the goal is
not, as in other cases, a single point which, once reached, renders
the rest of life useless and listless. The goal here is the line of
increase. To be moving along that line should be our daily endeavor.
Our proper utterance should be, "I was never so good as to-day, and I
hope never to be so bad again."



XI

But when we have seen how slender is our actual perfection, how slight
must be reckoned the attainment of personality at any moment, we are
brought face to face with the profound problem of its possible extent.
How far can the self be developed? Infinitely? Is each one of us an
infinite being? I will not say so. I do not like to make a statement
which runs beyond my own experience. But confining myself to this, let
us see what it will show.