plausible
excuse for our struggles with ourselves, in a simple acceptance of
the ultimate duality.

It is enough for us, in these moods, that we have on the one hand a
consciousness of "love" and on the other a consciousness of
"malice." It is enough for us, in these moods, that we have on the
one hand a consciousness of truth and beauty and nobility; and on
the other a consciousness of unreality, of hideousness, and of evil.
But there come other, deeper, more desperate moods, when, out of
intolerable and unspeakable loneliness our soul sinking back into
its own depths refuses to be satisfied with a mere recognition of
this ultimate duality.

At these moments the soul seems to rend and tear at the very roots
of this duality. It takes these ideas of beauty and truth and
goodness and subjects them to a savage and merciless analysis. It
takes the emotion of love and the emotion of malice and tries to
force its way behind them. It turns upon itself, in its insane
trouble, and seeks to get itself out of its own way and to efface
itself, so that "something" beyond itself may flow into its place.

At these moments the soul's complex vision is roused to a supreme
pitch of rhythmic energy. The apex-thought of its focussed
attributes gathers itself together to pierce the mystery. Like a strain
of indescribable music the apex-thought rests upon itself and
brings each element of its being into harmony with every other.

This ultimate harmony of the complex vision may be compared to
a music which is so intense that it becomes silence. And in this
"silence," wherein the apex-thought becomes at once a creator and
a discoverer, the pain and distress of the struggle seems suddenly
to disappear and an indescribable happiness flows in upon the
soul. At this moment when this consummation is reached the
soul's complex vision becomes aware that the ideas of beauty,
truth and goodness are not mental abstractions or material qualities
or evolutionary by-products, but are the very purpose and meaning
of life. It becomes aware that the emotion of love is not a mental
abstraction or a psychological accident or a biological necessity
but the secret of the whole struggle and the explanation of the
whole drama.

It becomes aware that this truth, this beauty, this nobility find their
unity and harmony in nothing less than in the emotion of love. It
becomes aware that these three primordial "ideas" are only varying
facets and aspects of one un