40 NATURE S GOOD: A CONVERSATION 



good the commonest, every man is a mystic and 

 the most so in his best moments. 



What an idle contradiction that Moore and Ar 

 thur should try to adduce proofs of the supremacy 

 of ideal values in the universe ! The sole possible 

 proof is the proof that actually exists the direct 

 unhindered realization of those values. For each 

 value brings with it of necessity its own depth of 

 being. Let the pride of intellect and the pride of 

 will cease their clamor, and in the silences Being 

 speaks its own final word, not an argument or ex 

 ternal ground of belief, but the self-impartation of 

 itself to the soul. Who are the prophets and 

 teachers of the ages? Those who have been ac 

 cessible at the greatest depths to these communica 

 tions. 



Grimes. I suppose that poverty and possibly 

 disease are specially competent ministers to the 

 spiritual vision ? The moral is obvious. Economic 

 changes are purely irrelevant, because purely ma 

 terial and external. Indeed, upon the whole, ef 

 forts at reform are undesirable, for they distract 

 attention from the fact that the final thing, the 

 vision of good, is totally disconnected from ex 

 ternal circumstance. I do not say, Stair, you per 

 sonally believe this ; but is not such a quietism the 

 logical conclusion of all mysticism? 



Stair. This is not so true as to say that in your 

 efforts at reform you are really inspired by the 



