Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/35

 present state of the Ego and the World. It is among the poor and obscure, however, that the ideal often finds its sincerest expression; for those who make it their business often speculate in certain tangible concrete forms of it—reform formulas—that are neither useful in a general way nor attractive. The poor man, on the other hand, concerns not himself with reforms; nor does he entertain such visions of a regenerated world as might obstruct the way to his immediate needs. His ideal, it is true, may consist in having a home instead of a slum-hole; in sending his children to school instead of the factory; in being free to work whenever and wherever he please, instead of being a slave to capital or to labor. It is nevertheless an ideal, which, although obviously material, has in it a spirituality that can revolutionnizerevolutionize [sic] the world. He sincerely desires to improve his own condition and to give the world better and healthier children. And this desire, though it be only partly realized in a lifetime, is the heritage of the ideal, which