CHAPTER XVIII 



THE New Dominant. 

 I mean "primarily" all that opposes Exclusionism 



That Development or Progress or Evolution is Attempt to Posi- 

 tivize, and is a mechanism by which a positive existence is recruited 

 that what we call existence is the womb of infinitude, and is itself 

 only incubatory that eventually all attempts are broken down by 

 the falsely excluded. Subjectively, the breaking down is aided by 

 our own sense of false and narrow limitations. So the classic and 

 academic artists wrought positivist paintings, and expressed the 

 only ideal that I am conscious of, though we so often hear of 

 "ideals" instead of different manifestations, artistically, scientifi- 

 cally, theologically, politically, of the One Ideal. They sought to 

 satisfy, in its artistic aspect, cosmic craving for unity or completeness, 

 sometimes called harmony, called beauty in some aspects. By disre- 

 gard they sought completeness. But the light-effects that they disre- 

 garded, and their narrow confinement to standardized subjects 

 brought on the revolt of the Impressionists. So the Puritans tried to 

 systematize, and they disregarded physical needs, or vices, or relaxa- 

 tions: they were invaded and overthrown when their narrowness be- 

 came obvious and intolerable. All things strive for positiveness, for 

 themselves, or for quasi-systems of which they are parts. Formality 

 and the mathematic, the regular and the uniform are aspects of the 

 positive state but the Positive is the Universal so all attempted 

 positiveness that seems to satisfy in the aspects of formality and 

 regularity, sooner or later disqualifies in the aspect of wideness or 

 universalness. So there is revolt against the science of to-day, be- 

 cause the formulated utterances that were regarded as final truths 

 in a past generation, are now seen to be insufficiencies. Every 

 pronouncement that has opposed our own acceptances has beea 

 found to be a composition like any academic painting: something 

 that is arbitrarily cut off from relations with environment, or framed 

 off from interfering and disturbing data, or outlined with disregards. 

 Our own attempt has been to take in the included, but also to take 

 in the excluded into wider expressions. We accept, however, that 



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