in one direction; to a finding of some wider and more enduring
reality, some objective for the self's life and love. It is a seeking of
the Eternal, in some form. I allow that thanks to the fog in which we
live muffled, such a first seeking, and above all such a finding of the
Eternal is not for us a very easy thing. The sense of quest, of
disillusion, of something lacking, is more common among modern men than
its resolution in discovery. Nevertheless the quest does mean that there
is a solution: and that those who are persevering must find it in the
end. The world into which our desire is truly turned, is somehow
revealed to us. The revelation, always partial and relative, is of
course conditioned by our capacity, the character of our longing and the
experiences of our past. In spiritual matters we behold that which we
are: here following, on higher levels, the laws which govern aesthetic
apprehension.

So, dissatisfied with its world-view and realizing that it is
incomplete, the self seeks at first hand, though not always with clear
consciousness of its nature, the Reality which is the object of
religion. When it finds this Reality, the discovery, however partial, is
for it the overwhelming revelation of an objective Fact; and it is swept
by a love and awe which it did not know itself to possess. And now it
sees; dimly, yet in a sufficiently disconcerting way, the Pattern in the
Mount; the rich complex of existence as it were transmuted, full of
charity and beauty, governed by another series of adjustments. Life
looks different to it. As Fox said, "Creation gives out another smell
than before."[144] There is only one thing more disconcerting than this,
and that is seeing the pattern actualized in a fellow human being:
living face to face with human sanctity, in its great simplicity and
supernatural love, joy, peace. For, when we glimpse Eternal Beauty in
the universe, we can say with the hero of "Callista," "It is beyond me!"
But, when we see it transfiguring human character, we know that it is
not beyond the power of the race. It is here, to be had. Its existence
as a form of life creates a standard, and lays an obligation on us all.

Suppose then that the self, urged by this new pressure, accepts the
obligation and measures itself by the standard. It then becomes apparent
that this Fact which it sought for and has seen is not merely added to
its old universe, as in mediaeval pictures Paradise with its circles
over-