Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/132

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • lowness and triviality." And in the beginning he

wrote: "Our day of small calculations and petty utilities must first pass away; our vision of the true expediencies must reach further and deeper; our resolution to search for the highest verities, to give up all and follow them, must first become the supreme part of ourselves." The loss by compromise to ourselves and others is certain, while its gain is uncertain and problematical.

In the first place, one believes this because compromise makes no contribution to the settlement of the real issue over truth. It is true that all the boundaries between truth and error are not clear and sharply drawn lines. Often there is a gray and misty region between. And much truth is only slowly and gradually won. But the ideal of truth is clearer than the sun and as pure as the character of God. And we have a far richer chance of winning it and all that it brings with it, if we both think and live it uncompromisingly. "The political spirit," says Mr. Morley in noble words, "is the great force in throwing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place. The evil does not stop here. This achievement has indirectly countenanced the postponement of intellectual methods, and the diminution of the sense of intellectual responsibility, by a school that is anything rather than political. Theology has borrowed, and coloured for her own use, the principles which were first