THE PURPOSE OF MORAL EFFORT

the individuals who take part in the controversies, reformations, révolutions — are being led by a way that we know not ; we are building other and bigger than we know ; the more inmiediate end which we seek is by no means the same as the ultimate end towards which the immanent Truth or Idéal is bringing on the race-life, and it is at least possible that " that one far-off divine event " may be as well served by our failure to achieve our perceived objective, as by our success. But so far as the individual aspect of Moral Effort is concerned — and it is with this that we hâve more particularly to do hère — ^we are not in the position of the rank and file who must not reason why ; we oxe at any rate pofential " masters of our Fate," and it would be to our advantage to hâve some clear idea as to what the purpose of the moral Uf e may be ; we should then engage in it with inteUigence as well as strength, with knowledge as well as zeal.

It is probable that the ordinary man is under a delusion as to what the purpose and end of moral effort may be. If he were interrogated, he would say that moral striving, so f ar as individual life is concerned, looks toWards the fashioning of perfect moral beings ; and so far as social Hfe is concerned, the building up of a perfect state, a final and permanent kingdom of heaven upon earth. This answer is the obvions and natural one, and therefore most Ukely the wrong one ; it is the delusion of horizontaUsm, due to

THE DELUSION OF HORIZONTALISM 155

the fact that we tend to express even spiritual movement in terms of space and time. The true Une of progress is vertical, not horizontal ; it is the graduai disclosure of what is deeper within, not the slow attainment of that which is farther on. The idea of a perfect moral being coming at last, after the moulding and polishing of years (perhaps âges) of expérience, to stand amid an immortal company of similarly perfected beings, will hâve to be relegated to the place whither, already, the idea of a heaven " far beyond the clouds" has gone. It is indeed conceivable that, in course of time, perfect moral beings, and a perfect moral sodety, should come into existence on the earth ; but that could only be when the main life-stream had receded from those places and was moving forward otherwhere. For Life, so far as we are able to understand it, is not concerned about producing perfections of any kind, is not at ail interested in them. A perfected thing is a thing which Life has finished with. Perfection is never found in the main*stream, but only in the backwaters, of Life. Perfections are side-issues, not main issues, of Life. A perfect organisation only arises when the primai lifepulses hâve subsided, and an attenuated and slowly stagnating energy has nothing to do but to weave its shroud. Perfection is the legend written across the dead end of a cul-de-sac. There are perfections in Nature — a wasp's nest, for example, or a bee-hive — but thèse occur at