THE GREEKS AND BROWNING 415 



striving to be truthful in life and thought, seekers after ever- 

 growing truth and light, we shall become worthy of a wider 

 philosophy and religion including all men and women in 

 ties of loving and truthful sympathy. Truth will not lead us 

 wrong, though for a moment we are plunged "into a dark 

 tremendous sea of cloud. It is but for a time." We shall 

 arise. 



I, for one, do not fear the dangers that many claim will 

 fall if the discrimination of good and evil be left to the indi 1 

 vidual. But these conditions contain an active, quickly mov- 

 ing, truthful, progressive ethics. The man or woman sunk in 

 lowest degradation, sin, or crime is the laggard, and when 

 pathological conditions do not explain the status, then poverty, 

 a deplorable social state, love of luxury, the delights from 

 money possession do. Seekers of vice for its own sake and 

 for its supposed gains are not those seeking Truth for Truth's 

 sake and God's. 



The greatest necessity of life, far beyond any other sort 

 of prosperity, a necessity of our soul and body, is the struggle 

 for the Good, and by research it is our duty to find out what 

 is evil. With the diversity of men's and women's minds, 

 there will be a corresponding diversity of what is good and 

 what is evil. Never mind, let us have all diversities; out of 

 the confusion of many tongues we shall find the middle way 

 paved with blocks of truth leading towards the ultimate good. 

 Every working hour of our lives should be devoted to the 

 pursuit of the Good. When the relative good found has 

 passed over into evil, because we have gained in knowledge 

 and know that what seemed good in ignorance is so no more, 

 then must this former good be spurned as lesser good and 

 the soul must aspire again to dig through error's crust. At 

 last the sparkling transparent stream is found, the soul drinks 

 of the inspiring waters, and pauses never again to define and 

 distinguish the good from the evil. 



It has occurred to some that there is no purer motive than 

 the pursuit of the higher Truth, the ideal Truth; and to ex- 

 press these quests in the thoughts and deeds of every-day life 

 is not only a duty, but an inspiration. Call such motives a 



