This practically
amounts to saying that much that it is legitimate to admire in
this field need nevertheless not be imitated, and that religious
phenomena, like all other human phenomena, are subject to the law
of the golden mean. Political reformers accomplish their
successive tasks in the history of nations by being blind for the
time to other causes. Great schools of art work out the effects
which it is their mission to reveal, at the cost of a
one-sidedness for which other schools must make amends. We
accept a John Howard, a Mazzini, a Botticelli, a Michael Angelo,
with a kind of indulgence. We are glad they existed to show us
that way, but we are glad there are also other ways of seeing and
taking life. So of many of the saints whom we have looked at.
We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately
extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the
example. The conduct we blame ourselves for not following lies
nearer to the middle line of human effort. It is less dependent
on particular beliefs and doctrines. It is such as wears well in
different ages, such as under different skies all judges are able
to commend.
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