SORROW AND ADVERSITY 189 



man. But when we stop to think that with the ac- 

 tual conquest of the environment goes an equilibra- 

 tion that lowers the vitality of the organism, the solu- 

 tion is not so simple as it would appear. Harmoni- 

 ous adjustment, a sense of peace, may mean death, 

 not an enlarged, uplifting unification. 



As all progress for the non-moral creature has 

 been occasioned by a certain lack of adjustment be- 

 tween the internal and external conditions, likewise 

 all progress for the moral one must come through 

 suffering. " Deep tragedy," said Napoleon, " is the 

 school of great men." Bitter failure and cruel dis- 

 appointment ; sorrow and death ; ay, these are move- 

 ments into an unexplored space! And if such are 

 not vouchsafed us as individuals, we have to attain 

 them through others hence the significance of love 

 for the unfolding of personality. And it is clear that 

 the greater the number of elements which enter into 

 one's personal equation, the more difficult will be the 

 solution. 



It is a matter of common observation that the 

 growth of the higher perceptive faculty is* strangely 

 concomitant with adversity. The intuitive person is 

 a person who has suffered. When conditions press 

 sufficiently hard, a new table of distribution may be 

 the only means for survival. Thus we proceed to 

 make a virtue of necessity and so come to the recogni- 

 tion of other values which we denominate spiritual 

 because we have not as yet spatialised them. The 



