Page:The Genius of America (1923).pdf/87

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moral, but also the intellectual and the political and social and æsthetic capacities of man, so that he may achieve the harmonious perfection of his whole nature, body and soul. To this vision of the good life, Puritanism has come by inevitable steps in its pilgrimage through the ages.

What have I been trying to demonstrate by this long review of the Puritan tradition? This, above all: that the Puritan is profoundly in! sympathy with the modern spirit, is indeed the formative force in the modern spirit.

In order to make this point perfectly clear, I must take the liberty of repeating here what I have already said elsewhere by way of a description of the modern spirit:

"A great part of our lives, as we all feel in our educational period, is occupied with learning how to do and to be what others have been and have done before us. But presently we discover that the world is changing around us, and that the secrets of the masters and the experience of our elders do not wholly suffice to establish us effectively in our younger world. We discover within us needs, aspirations, powers, of which the generation that educated us seems unaware, or towards which it appears to be indifferent, unsympathetic, or even actively hos-