ix EXPERIENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION 163 



until the two terms of the relation are completely under- 

 stood, but which it is constantly necessary to state and 

 re-state in the light of the best available knowledge. 



5. To many people the march of science seems to narrow 

 the world. The truer view is that it has enormously 

 expanded our conceptions of what is possible in Reality. 

 Hence it is that partly as cause, partly as effect, but 

 altogether in sympathy with the lines of movement already 

 sketched, the idea of the Infinite plays a central part in 

 modern philosophy. Modern thought may almost be said 

 to have reversed the attitude of man to this idea. When 

 the Pythagoreans ranged the One, the Finite and the Good 

 on one side, and the Plural, the Unlimited and the Bad on 

 the other, they expressed the characteristic feeling of the 

 Greek thinker and of the Greek artist. Order, proportion 

 and all that we now call organic unity were the essentials 

 of the Greek ideal. They emerge out of the formless as 

 Aristotle's specific forms arise out of shapeless Matter in 

 its impulse towards the divine. Growth is necessary to 

 them, but necessary as a means. It is valuable only on 

 the way to perfection, which once reached, what need of 

 further growth? Now this static perfection is almost 

 intolerable to the modern. It bores him like the mediaeval 

 heaven. Movement of itself has become part of the ideal. 

 The fragmentary, with its suggestions of something vaster, 

 the < broken arc, 3 the tattered banner of the forlorn hope 

 have a greater charm than the rounded whole and the polish 

 of perfection ; as the gloom, the half lights, the long vistas 

 of dim unending Gothic aisles appeal with a force which 

 classical symmetry can no longer match. The contrast has 

 been stated once for all by a master whose sympathies with 

 both sides were keen and perfectly instructed. 



To-day's brief passion limits their range 



It seethes with the morrow for us, and more, 



They are perfect. How else ? They shall never change. 

 We are faulty. Why not ? We have time in store. 



What we know and do is a living fragment whose fibres 

 and tendrils stretch out into an immensity beyond, and all 



