408 Life as a Fine Art. 



trate its veil, like the mist on yon far horizon, near the 

 ocean's outermost verge, crown the finite realm of the seen 

 with a halo of infinite suggestion, and beckon us on to a 

 limitless voyage of discovery. 



Life is, indeed, for each individual largely what he chooses 

 to make it. Granting the limitations of environment, of 

 inheritance, of finite imperfection, it is within the power of 

 each and every one of us to find in these very limitations the 

 spur to noble endeavor, the promise of progressive attain- 

 ment, the hope for that which at the instant is far beyond 

 the reach of our finite powers. This realization of life's 

 opportunities, I say, is within the reach of all : but whether 

 the potency shall become achievement ; whether in maturity 

 of years the promises of earlier life shall find fulfillment ; 

 whether we shall retain the hope and zest and enthusiasm 

 of youth, depends mainly on the character of our ideals on 

 the prevailing attitude of the individual soul toward life 

 and the problems suggested by its daily experiences. In 

 speaking of Life as a Fine Art, therefore, I aim to hold up 

 an ideal, not impossible of realization, of what it should 

 be ; not merely to portray its present actualities, which are 

 too often far removed from a standard of ideal excellence. 

 We should always remember, with Mr. Spencer, that " that 

 which the best human nature is capable of is within the 

 reach of human nature at large." 



Man, as we find him and as he is revealed to us in his- 

 tory, regards life in one of three possible ways, which we 

 may roughly classify as the empirical, the scientific or legal, 

 and the artistic or philosophical. If we would know what 

 life really is, we must grasp its essential characteristics in 

 each of these several stages of man's mental evolution, for, 

 as Prof. Schurman has well remarked, " the full nature of 

 any reality reveals itself only in the totality of its develop- 

 ment."* Primitive man, using this term inclusively, as 

 descriptive of a degree of culture rather than of an era of 

 time for there are many survivals of the earliest phase of 

 intellectual development at the present day primitive man 

 is naturally imitative, lacking in originality and individual- 

 ity of character, impersonal, empirical. That life, for the 

 prehistoric ancestors of the race, was clothed in somewhat 

 somber hues, we can well believe ; yet we may easily picture 

 its shadows too deeply by judging of their conditions of ex- 

 istence from our own advanced subjective standpoint. If 



* The Belief in God. 



