154 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



we are sure of picking up only desirable stitches. 



To the extent that we allow the subjective mind 

 to take precedence of the rational, we rehabilitate the 

 primitive elements in us. And further, we are lend- 

 ing ourselves to the process of devolution, for there 

 is no standing still in the life-stream ; Romanticism is 

 a retrograde movement until it creates for itself a 

 new classicism. 



The vital law of one's being is not to be found 

 through the emotions. Its discovery demands, as 

 Mr. Irving Babbitt has ably shown in his New Lao- 

 Jcoon, not only effective thinking, but effective self- 

 discipline. The way of individual growth is one of 

 concentration and selection; the law of the higher 

 unity is self-constraint and not self-expansion. 



While the way of the progressively larger life is a 

 fixed one, the individual unit is free to take it or not 

 as he chooses. If he would realise a complete self- 

 hood, he must do so through his relations to others ; 

 there is no development for him apart from his fel- 

 lows, but the degree of this self-realisation lies with 

 himself. Although he may not be free to set up his 

 own life-function, he may, nevertheless, choose the 

 element with respect to which he would integrate it. 

 In other words, he may decide what for him shall con- 

 stitute the " eternal values." Concerning the ques- 

 tion of freedom, the mathematician will find solace in 

 the fact that the constant of integration allows for a 

 certain amount of indetermination ; the individual 



