has striven to express himself com-
pletely in a material which, however
masterfully used, can never give its
ultimate form to a spiritual concep-
tion. It is not an evidence of failure,
but a prophecy of greater achieve-
ment. A world in which the work
was as great as the worker, the piece
of art as the artist, would be a finished
world in more senses than one; a
world in which all work is inadequate
to contain the energy of the worker,
all art insufficient to express the soul
of the artist, is necessarily a prophetic
world, bearing witness to the presence
of a creative force in workers and
artists immeasurably beyond the ca-
pacity of any perishable material to
receive or to preserve.

A rational Idealism is, therefore,
not only indestructible in a race which
does not violate the laws of life, but

[[264]]

p263 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p264w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p265

v?