INTRODUCTION 



doctrine that has merely to be preached, over and 

 over, in the same terms, cannot possibly be the 

 whole truth. No man ought to be merely a faith- 

 ful disciple of any other man. Yes, no man ought 

 to be a mere disciple even of himself. We live 

 spiritually by outliving our formulas, and by thus 

 enriching our sense of their deeper meaning. 

 Now the disciples of the first sort do not live 

 in this larger and more spiritual sense. They 

 repeat. And true life is never mere repetition. 

 On the other hand, there are disciples of a sec- 

 ond sort. They are men who have been at- 

 tracted to a new doctrine by the fact that it gave 

 expression, in a novel way, to some large and 

 deep interest which had already grown up in 

 themselves, and which had already come, more 

 or less independently, to their own conscious- 

 ness. They thus bring to the new teaching, from 

 the first, their own personal contribution. The 

 truth that they gain is changed as it enters their 

 souls. The seed that the sower strews upon their 

 fields springs up in their soil, and bears fruit, — 

 thirty, sixty, an hundred fold. They return to 

 their master his own with usury. Such men are 

 the disciples that it is worth while for a master 

 to have. Disciples of the first sort often become, 

 as Schopenhauer said, mere magnifying mirrors 

 wherein one sees, enlarged, all the defects of a 

 doctrine. Disciples of the second sort cooperate 

 xxxviii 



