260 HUMANISM 



XIV 



They have to be sought with infinite pains, and ere we 

 have dragged them forth and proved them valid, lo, death 

 comes and, ruthlessly impartial, cuts short the careers of 

 the man of science and of the man of pleasure. Life is 

 imperfect and fragmentary all round, not only in the 

 eyes of ethics. Emotionally, intellectually and aestheti 

 cally, life as it stands is no less inadequate than ethically. 

 The ideals of Happiness, Knowledge and Beauty postulate 

 realisation no less and in no other way than Goodness ; 

 the murky atmosphere of earth, poisoned by the breath 

 of death, no less derides their possibility. What we ask, 

 then, for one we ask for all, and we ask it in obedience 

 to the same law of our being, that life must show itself 

 congruous with the ideals from which it draws its value. 



And (3), these ideals are not only cognate, but 

 coincident ; we cannot in the last resort affirm one while 

 denying the rest ; nothing short of a complete harmony 

 can wholly satisfy us. Truth, Goodness, Happiness and 

 Beauty are all indispensable factors in Perfection, the 

 varying facets which the one ideal reveals to our various 

 modes of striving. 1 



This is generally denied only by the votaries of the 

 ideal of Truth, and so it will perhaps suffice if I content 

 myself with pointing out to them how untenable is their 

 position. We have all heard some postulate of human 

 feeling met with the cold sneer of a short-sighted science 

 and the query, Why should the universe take account of 

 goodness and its completion ? Well, I contend that if 

 this sneer is worth anything it must be extended so as to 

 include all human activity, that we might with equal 

 cogency go on to ask, Why, then, should the universe 

 take account of Knowledge and its establishment, or of 

 Happiness and its attainment ? We have, I claim, no 

 logical ground for supposing the world to be knowable, 

 and yet utterly disregardful of Happiness and Goodness. 

 For a world supposed to be wholly knowable, i.e. wholly 

 harmonious with our intellectual demands, while remaining 

 wholly discordant with our emotional nature, would ipso 



1 See Riddles of the Sphinx, ch. xii. 9. 



