Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/51

 digress. And whatever you do, avoid the futilities of knowledge, the superfluities of culture. This is good advice, no doubt, to a plumber, a grocer, or a politician. But is there any truth in it to a man of intellectual and spiritual aspirations? A negation, to echo, Carlyle, never established a government; indifference never founded a religion. Only a well-rounded intellect, a spirit nourished in the eternal sources of intelligence and culture, of justice and wisdom, is a safeguard against both indifference and skepticism.

But have we to-day such well-rounded intellects, such finished personalities, where the mind and the soul are equally developed, where a sheer joy in knowledge is sought and held out as the highest and noblest of all attainments? We have nowadays what might be called, either a hothouse intellect endowed with an adamant will, or a naturally powerful intellect debased by a vulgar soul. There are strong minds wrapt in a limited, dried-up