broken--when there is either too complete a submission to tradition
and authority, or too violent a rejection of it--full greatness is not
achieved.

In complete lives, the two things overlap: and so perfectly that no
sharp distinction is made between the gifts of authority and of fresh
experience. Traditional formulae, as we all know, are often used because
they are found to tally with life, to light up dark corners of our own
spirits and give names to experiences which we want to define.
Ceremonial deeds are used to actualize free contacts with Reality. And
we need not be surprised that they can do this; since tradition
represents the crystallization, and handling on under symbols, of all
the spiritual experiences of the race.

Therefore the man or woman of the Spirit will always accept and use some
tradition; and unless he does so, he is not of much use to his
fellow-men. He must not, then, be discredited on account of the
symbolic system he adopts; but must be allowed to tell his news in his
own way. We must not refuse to find reality within the Hindu's account
of his joyous life-giving communion with Ram, any more than we refuse to
find it within the Christian's description of his personal converse with
Christ. We must not discredit the assurance which comes to the devout
Buddhist who faithfully follows the Middle Way, or deny that Pagan
sacramentalism was to its initiates a channel of grace. For all these
are children of tradition, occupy a given place in the stream of
history; and commonly they are better, not worse, for accepting this
fact with all that it involves. And on the other hand, as we shall see
when we come to discuss the laws of suggestion and the function of
belief, the weight of tradition presses the loyal and humble soul which
accepts it, to such an interpretation of its own spiritual intuitions as
its Church, its creed, its environment give to it. Thus St. Catherine of
Genoa, St. Teresa, even Ruysbroeck, are able to describe their intuitive
communion with God in strictly Catholic terms; and by so doing renew,
enrich and explicate the content of those terms for those who follow
them. Those who could not harmonize their own vision of reality with the
current formulae--Fox, Wesley or Blake, driven into opposition by the
sterility of the contemporary Church--were forced to find elsewhere some
tradition through which to maintain contact with the past. Fox found it
in the Bible; Wesley in patristic Chr