xii ACTIVITY AND SUBSTANCE 227 



come to the conflict and the friction that wear out our 

 world ; whereas, if we consent to look for possibilities of 

 harmony, our willingness may be the first condition of 

 success. And even for the proximate purposes of 

 ordinary life, there is perhaps some practical value in the 

 contemplation of a metaphysical ideal which can stimulate 

 us to be active, and to develop all our powers to the 

 utmost, while at the same time warning us that such 

 self-realisation must assume the form, not of a hideous, 

 barbarous, and neurotic restlessness, nor of an infinite (and 

 therefore futile) struggle, but of an activity which, 

 transcending change and time, preserves itself in an 

 harmonious equipoise. 



