His jealousy for
maintaining the just boundaries whether of art or speculation may warn
them to check with timely dikes the tendency of their thought to diffuse
inundation. Their fondness in aesthetic discussion for a nomenclature
subtile enough to split a hair at which even a Thomist would have
despaired, is rebuked by the clear simplicity of his style.[163] But he
is no exclusive property of Germany. As a complete man, constant,
generous, full of honest courage, as a hardy follower of Thought wherever
she might lead him, above all, as a confessor of that Truth which is
forever revealing itself to the seeker, and is the more loved because
never wholly revealable, he is an ennobling possession of mankind. Let
his own striking words characterize him:--
"Not the truth of which any one is, or supposes himself to be, possessed,
but the upright endeavor he has made to arrive at truth, makes the worth
of the man. For not by the possession, but by the investigation, of truth
are his powers expanded, wherein alone his ever-growing perfection
consists. Possession makes us easy, indolent, proud.
"If God held all truth shut in his right hand, and in his left nothing
but the ever-restless instinct for truth, though with the condition of
for ever and ever erring, and should say to me, Choose! I should bow
humbly to his left hand, and say, Father, give! pure truth is for Thee
alone!"
It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death.
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