s us greater and greater inflows of every kind of good, so
our out-giving will increase, not by depriving ourselves of any
expansion of our own life that we may desire, but by finding that every
expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expanding the life
of others. "Live and let live" is the motto of the true opulence.

XV

BEAUTY

Do we sufficiently direct our thoughts to the subject of Beauty? I think
not. We are too apt to regard Beauty as a merely superficial thing, and
do not realise all that it implies. This was not the case with the great
thinkers of the ancient world--see the place which no less a one than
Plato gives to Beauty as the expression of all that is highest and
greatest in the system of the universe. These great men of old were no
superficial thinkers, and, therefore, would never have elevated to the
supreme place that which is only superficial. Therefore, we shall do
well to ask what it is that these great minds found in the idea of
Beauty which made it thus appeal to them as the most perfect outward
expression of all that lies deepest in the fundamental laws of Being. It
is because, rightly apprehended, Beauty represents the supremest living
quality of Thought. It is the glorious overflowing of fulness of Love
which indicates the presence of infinite reserves of Power behind it. It
is the joyous profusion that shows the possession of inexhaustible
stores of wealth which can afford to be thus lavish and yet remain as
exhaustless as before. Read aright, Beauty is the index to the whole
nature of Being.

Beauty is the externalisation of Harmony, and Harmony is the
co-ordinated working of all the powers of Being, both in the individual
and in the relation of the individual to the Infinite from which it
springs; and therefore this Harmony conducts us at once into the
presence of the innermost undifferentiated Life. Thus Beauty is in most
immediate touch with the very arcanum of Life; it is the brightness of
glory spreading itself over the sanctuary of the Divine Spirit. For if,
viewed from without, Beauty is the province of the artist and the poet,
and lays hold of our emotions and appeals directly to the innermost
feelings of our heart, calling up the response of that within us which
recognises itself in the harmony perceived without, this is only because
it speeds across the bridge of Reason with such quick feet that we pass
from the outmost to the inmost and back again in the t