square itself to these things in its own way, and fill in the details
of its individual moral code according to its needs. So it seems, at
least, to one limited thinker.

To be frank, upon that common ground of decent behaviour, pride and
self-respect, health and the heroic habit of thinking, we need for
ourselves not so much rules as wisdom, and for others not, indeed, a
foolish and indiscriminate toleration but at least patience, arrests of
judgment, and the honest endeavour to understand. Now to help the
imagination in these judgments, to enlarge and interpret experience, is
most certainly one of the functions of literature. A good biography may
give facts of infinite suggestion, and the great multitude of novels at
present are, in fact, experiments in the science of this central field
of human action, experiments in the "way of looking at" various cases
and situations. They may be very misleading experiments, it is true,
done with adulterated substances, dangerous chemicals, dirty flasks and
unsound balances; but that is a question of their quality and not of
their nature, they are experiments for all that. A good novel may
become a very potent and convincing experiment indeed. Books in these
matters are often so much quieter and cooler as counsellors than
friends. And there, in truth, is my whole mind in this matter.

Meanwhile, as we work each one to solve his own problems, the young
people are growing up about us.


Sec. 2


How do the young people arrive at knowledge and at their interpretation