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REV. STEWART A. MCDOWALL, M.A., B.D., ON 



be shown that the roads are convergent. Then, even if we 

 could not go the whole way along one or other, we could at 

 least plot a diagram of the bits we and our friends had traversed, 

 and then take a ruler and produce the lines, and find out that 

 in all probability they did meet in one point — unless one of 

 them turned off suddenly, which is not likely. 



I started this lecture by saying that I would try to indicate 

 one or two of the ways in which this modified form of Croce's 

 theory of Beauty might influence the reconstruction of the 

 philosophy of Christianity,, and to offer one or two practical 

 suggestions. Let me end by attempting to fulfil these promises. 

 The first topic is impKcit in all that we have been saying. If it 

 be true that our first contact with Reality is in its essence 

 aesthetic ; if it be true that it is only on the basis of aesthetic 

 expression that we can rear our edifice of thought, and that 

 our practical activities are dependent on these and interact 

 with them ; and if it be further true that our intuition is an 

 intuition of relation, and the Reality really is reciprocal personal 

 relation, or Love ; then the religion of the God of Love must 

 take account of these things. If Love is true to itself, it seems 

 likely that it must eternally be creative, and that its creation 

 must be always full of beauty, because it expresses Love's 

 knowledge of itself as the ultimate Reality, and as personal. 

 Personal Love can only create reciprocal relationships, if it is 

 to be satisfied, and such relationships must be free. Therefore 

 it must limit itself , to give this freedom. The creation is beautiful, 

 but it is only beautiful — is only a one-sided relation — as the 

 necessary preliminary to becoming Love, which is a two-sided 

 relation, in which Beauty is completed in something yet more 

 perfect. 



These thoughts must be included in our conception of God 

 and of His Activity. They must equally be included in our 

 conception of man, who also loves, who also creates, who is so 

 identical in his personality with God that he is potentially 

 capable of entering into the perfect union with Him, losing all 

 but his self-identity in that completed bond of Love. Moreover, 

 we must admit that a life devoted to the understanding of beauty 

 may lead to God as surely as a life devoted to the imderstanding 

 of truth or even of goodness. For the search for understanding 

 of beauty needs as utter sincerity as the others, as strenuous a 

 discipline, as fastidious a rejection of the unworthy. Even 

 as you cannot define one or other of these three without finding 



