THE MEANIN6 OF PERFECTION

It is, as a matter of fact, the only perfection which is possible.

We use the word " perfection " in the sensé of strict confonnity to standard; we q>eak of a perfect copy, or of a perfect spedmen; in the sensé, also, of fitness to purpose, as when we praise a perfect fit, or a perfect instrument. In neither of thèse sensés, however, is the idea applicable to God, who has no standard toconform to, and who, as the great " I am/' the " Beginning and the Ending," has no purpose to serve. The perfection of God can only be defined in terms of pure spontaneity, directness, unmotivedness, in self-expression ; with Him, law, life, and impidse "are one thing." Anthropomorphically, He is, in ail His acts, Himself and from the heart. Création is His play, as the Sanskrit term impUes — unmotived sdf-forthpouring.

He causeth the sun to shine upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust.

So far, therefore, as perfection is set before us as the end of life— and it is well that it should be, since it is one with Freedom and Happiness^we must not seek it as the issue of the process of being moulded, whether by force or consent, into conformity with some extemal standard of virtue; but rather along the Une of acquiring with increasing surety and strength the ability to live out our Uves finely, freely, fully, from the heart, making them loyally and without shame

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as complète an expression as possible of what we are — " perfect, as the Father is perfect."

It need scarcely be said that the virtues are devices whereby the social order tries to protect and préserve itself as against the spontaneity and impulsiveness of the individual ; they are no less valid or worthy in their place on that account ; but to perceive this is to see that personal perfection, if it is at ail a dignified aspiration, cannot be attained by conformity to conventional standards, and submission to the moulding pressure of organized opinion. The virtues are not ends in themselves, but hâve Society's end of self-preservation to serve. We are, therefore, only mocked and self-deluded if we make the practice of the virtues an end in itself ; it is a means to an end.

That your Self be in your act, as the mother is in the child — be this your fonnula of Virtue.^

The perfect lif e is the lif e lîved from the heart ; it is the f ree Uf e, the créative lif e. The attainment of perfection is, like the attainment of Freedom, the disclosure of the more inward life-centre, its establishment, the gathering and knitting together of the personality there, so that the Self may be expressed theref rom, not loosely or spasmodically, or with mère impulse of bravado and défiance, but with fine temper, constancy, holiness, selflove, and measureless trust.

The practice of the virtues is seen, then, to be

^ Nietzsche, Tkus Spahe Zarathustra^

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a means to the attainment of Virtue, in the Nietzschean sensé ; and the discipline and labour of moral effort, like pain, looks towards the growth and delivery of the Soûl.

There is something other than moral perfection at issue ; you are not to aim at being a perfect moral being, but to enter heartily into the moral conflict, expecting your arrivai therethrough at a point, as it were, of higher personal standing from which " everything shall be perfect to you." The moral lif e is not the highest life. There is a beyond morality. There is a deeper than the moral consciousness.

I do not tum you back from sdf-seeldng ; on the contrary, I know tîiat you shaU never rest tiU you hâve found your Self ;

If you seek it in Duty, Goodness, Renunciation, they are very well for a time ; but you will do better. ^

Just as the ultimate issue of the compétitive struggle for existence in the sub-human kingdom is not the création of perfect animais, but the birth of a higher order of créature, so the idtimate issue of moral effort is not reaUzed in the moral plane. Moral pains are the birth-pains of another and a deeper than the moral consciousness. Morality is a midwife, its end is that the Son of God be delivered in us. What we win in the moral conflict is ourselves at a higher point. " The law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ."

* T. D., p. loi.

IdoSTHE ISStÊ ÛF MOtlAL CONFLICT

We hâve said that it is an advantage to the 1 man who is engaged in the practice of the moral lif e to hâve some understanding of what its end may be. As commonly presented, the moral lif e is a dreary and' hopeless afiair. The process of becoming better and better, or being more and more highly poUshed morally, is a wearisome and unromantic business at best ; ail the more so because the approach to the Idéal of Perfection requires an infinité time, and is like the asymptotic curve which constantly approximates to, but never meets, the ordinate; the vision of the everreceding rainbow, or of the " leagues and stiU more leagues/' is in time depressing to the stoutest heart. Moreover, the man who aims at continuons moral improvement as an end in itself finds — probably to his intense disappointment — that if ail the zest and swing and passion and vitality hâve not been worked out of him, he is constantly the victim of sudden impulses and surgent feelings and waves of exhilarating exubérant lif e which sweep him oiï his f eet, inrupt upon his virtuous habit,- spoil his pretty plans for himself , and thrust him caught imawares out of botmds. The Church, plapng Society's game, teaches him to regard such things as evil, and of the devil ; makes him ashamed of himself ; calls him to repentance and the " getting up and beginning again." To such a man, it will be a real help to know that while moral effort is not to be despised, still less to be avoided, its end is not

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moral perfection, the getting better and better according to some objective conventional standard. The moral plane mnst be lived through, but must ultimately be transcended. The practice of morality anses on the plane of opposition between good and evil ; that opposition must be f aithfully dealt vnth for so far, and so long, as may be necessary ; but its significance is f oimd in a résistance the confronting of which develops the deeper latencies of personality ; and, sooner or later, it must be left behind, the very effort and striving having raised the man to a higher point from which he sees everjrthing to be perf ect, seeming evil manifests as good, and Satan is revealed as Lover and Son of God.

Lo 1 the Moral laws so long swathingthe seul, loosing, parting at last for the libération of that which they prepared.*

We hâve now come within sight of the problem of good and evil to which C arpenter ofiers a solution contained, at any rate in its most dramatic form, in a striking and completely original poem, " The Secret of Time and Satan."

The problem of good and evil can only arise in an imperfect world. If the world were either perf ectly good, or perf ectly evil, there would be no problem. The problem arises in respect of human lif e only because it shares the imperfection of the world ; there is no problem of good and