THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 187 



practical to the theoretical side of our subject. The 

 rise and fall of nations, the growth and decline of 

 societies, is an assured fact. Yet the impulse towards 

 human perfectioning works on, changing the field of 

 its labours as imperceptibly and as surely as a river 

 works its way from side to side of a valley. The 

 suggestion there thrown out, that the material 

 humanity on which the creating impulse has to work, 

 becomes recalcitrant when pressed too far, deserves 

 further consideration. 



" Now understand me well," says the American 

 poet-philosopher "it is provided in the essence of 

 things that from any fruition of success, no matter 

 what, shall come forth something to make a greater 

 struggle necessary." 



Let us ask ourselves seriously whether it may not 

 be this greater struggle, this more searching purifica- 

 tion, that human society, once it has reached a certain 

 level of progress and comfort, declines to enter upon. 

 And on that refusal hangs its downfall. Instincts of 

 social responsibility, feelings of pity and compassion, 

 quite as much as desire for luxury and comfort, have 

 necessarily developed to carry it thus far along the 

 upward path. 



But, blinded by the success of its mission, ceasing to 

 perceive a paternal chastening, and feeling only punish- 

 ment, shrinking from the strain of a further effort, 

 losing sight of the eternal verities and cumbered with 

 much serving, it stands still, hesitates and falls, pushed 

 beyond the limit of human endurance. It is then that 

 we need the help of religions and philosophies that 

 postulate the divine nature of man. Where man has 



