Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/24



XPERIENCE is knowledge; but knowledge, when it is sought only as a material resource, is not always a blessing. Experience is wisdom; but wisdom, with those who lack vision, is not always power. Experience is tolerance; but tolerance, when it is induced by apathy, is not in the least a virtue. But even though experience often woos cynicism, breeds complaisance, and engenders cowardice, it has in it, nevertheless, the seeds of knowledge and wisdom and power.

Some one, if not ourselves, is better, to be sure, for what we know. Some one, if not ourselves, is wiser for what we suffer. A thought in the crucible of life melts into the thought of the world; the footsteps of a pioneer become ultimately the highway of a nation; the heroism of an individual becomes the trodden path of a race. Every human action, collective or