38 



SCIENCE. 



[N. ,S. Vol. VII. No. 159. 



some basis ia experience and in acquaint- 

 ance with some of the best models. 



Let us, first of all, try to get at some gen- 

 eral principle which may serve to guide our 

 judgment of ideals, and by the aid of which 

 we may be able to formulate an answer to 

 the question proposed. 



As all will allow, ideals are absolutely 

 indispensable to progress, and always safe 

 provided they are kept growing. Like all 

 biological things, live ideals oi-iginate by 

 germination, and their growth is subject to 

 no limit except in mental petrifaction. 

 Growth and adaptability are as natural 

 and necessary to them as to living organ- 

 isms. Here we have, then, an unfailing 

 test for the soundness or relative merit of 

 ideals. Seeds may be kept for years with- 

 out sensible change or loss of power to ger- 

 minate. But it is because they are kept, 

 not planted and cultivated. Once planted, 

 they must grow or rot. So it is with ideals. 

 The unchanged ideal that we sometimes 

 hear boasted of is at best but a dormant 

 germ, not a plant with roots and branches 

 in functional activitj'. If an ideal stands 

 for anything which is growing and develop- 

 ing, then it must also grow, or be sup- 

 planted by one that will grow. It is easy, 

 of course, to conceive of ideals a hundred 

 years or more ahead of possible realization ; 

 but such ideals could have no vital con- 

 nection with present needs, and long before 

 the time of possible realization they would 

 cease to be the best, if the best conceivable 

 at the start. 



"We are here, then, concerned only with 

 ideals rooted in experience and continually 

 expanding above and in advance of experi- 

 ence. The moment growth ceases, that 

 moment the work of the ideal is done. 

 Something fails at the roots and you have 

 waste mental timber to be cleared away 

 as soon as possible to make room for the 

 new seed. 



Let us here take warning of one danger 



to which we are all liable — the danger of 

 adopting ideals and adhering to them as 

 finalities, forgetting that progress in the 

 model is not only possible, but essential to 

 progress in achievement. The danger is all 

 the greater in the case of ideals lying out- 

 side our special field of work, which we are 

 unable to test and improve by our own 

 efforts. The head may thus become stored 

 with a lot of fixed mental furniture, and 

 the possessor become the victim of an il- 

 lusion, from the charms of which it is diflB- 

 cult to disenchant him. He falls into 

 admiration of his furniture, taking most 

 pride in its unchangeableness. It was, per- 

 haps, the best to be found in the market at 

 the time of installment, and he finds pleas- 

 ure in the conceit that what was the best is 

 and must remain the best. He sees new 

 developments in the market, but his pride 

 and inertia content him with the old. The 

 illusion now takes full possession of him, 

 and every departure from his own ideals 

 seems like abandonment of the higher for 

 the lower standard of excellence. His con- 

 ceit grows instead of his ideals, and every 

 annual ring added to its thickness renders 

 it the more impervious. 



Can any one say he has never met this 

 illusion ? Then a warning may have more 

 pertinency than I should have ventured to 

 claim for it. 



To conclude these introductory remarks 

 let me again emphasize the all-important 

 qualification of the sound ideal and name 

 the prime condition of its usefulness. The 

 qualification is vitality and the capacity for 

 unlimited growth and development. The 

 condition is absolute freedom for growth in 

 all directions compatible with the symmet- 

 rical development of the science as a whole. 

 Please remember that the question of means 

 does not now concern us. We must first get 

 at principles, leaving details of execution to 

 be worked out afterwards in harmony there- 

 with. N"o one can foresee what means may 



