A FREE MAN'S WORSHIP 51 



When first the opposition of fact and ideal grows fully 

 visible, a spirit of fiery revolt, of fierce hatred of the gods, 

 seems necessary to the assertion of freedom. To defy 

 with Promethean constancy a hostile universe, to keep 

 its evil always in view, always actively hated, to refuse 

 no pain that the malice of Power can invent, appears to 

 be the duty of all who will not bow before the inevitable. 

 But indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our 

 thoughts to be occupied with an evil world ; and in the 

 fierceness of desire from which rebellion springs there is 

 a kind of self-assertion which it is necessary for the wise 

 to overcome. Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, 

 but not of our desires ; the Stoic freedom in which 

 wisdom consists is found in the submission of our desires, 

 but not of our thoughts. From the submission of our 

 desires springs the virtue of resignation ; from the free- 

 dom of our thoughts springs the whole world of art and 

 philosophy, and the vision of beauty by which, at last, 

 we half reconquer the reluctant world. But the vision 

 of beauty is possible only to unfettered contemplation, 

 to thoughts not weighted by the load of eager wishes ; 

 and thus Freedom comes only to those who no longer 

 ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal 

 goods that are subject to the mutations of Time. 



Although the necessity of renunciation is evidence of 

 the existence of evil, yet Christianity, in preaching it, 

 has shown a wisdom exceeding that of the Promethean 

 philosophy of rebellion. It must be admitted that, of 

 the things we desire, some, though they prove impossible, 

 are yet real goods ; others, however, as ardently longed 

 for, do not form part of a fully purified ideal. The belief 

 that what must be renounced is bad, though sometimes 

 false, is far less often false than untamed passion sup- 

 poses ; and the creed of religion, by providing a reason 



