LITEEAET VALUES 15 



of the writer, it cannot take rank as good litera- 

 ture. To become literature, truth must be perpet- 

 ually reborn, reincarnated, and begin life anew. 



A successful utterance always has value, always 

 has truth, though in its purely intellectual aspects it 

 may not correspond with the truth as we see it. I 

 cannot accept all of Euskin's views upon our civili- 

 zation or all of Tolstoi's upon art, yet I see that 

 they speak the truth as it defines itself to their 

 minds and feelings. A counter-statement may be 

 equally true. The struggle for existence goes on in 

 the ideal world as well as in the real. The strong- 

 est mind, the fittest statement, survives for the time 

 being. That a system of philosophy or religion 

 perishes or is laid aside is not because it is not or 

 was not true, but because it is not true to the new 

 minds and under the new conditions. It no longer 

 expresses what the world thinks and feels. It is 

 outgrown. Was not Calvinism true to our fathers ? 

 It is no longer true to us because we were born at a 

 later day in the world. With regard to truths of 

 science, we may say, once a truth always a truth, 

 because the world of fact and of things is always 

 under the same law, but the truth of sentiments and 

 emotions changes with changing minds and hearts. 

 The tree of life, unlike all other trees, bears differ- 

 ent fruit to each generation. What our fathers 

 found nourishing and satisfying in religion, in art, 

 in philosophy, we find tasteless and stale. Every 

 gospel has its day. The moral and intellectual hori- 

 zon of the race is perpetually changing. 



