--cases of men
of quite humble origin who have attained to high degrees of mental
and spiritual development. These have hitherto been regarded as
exceptional cases. But Egeria has convinced me that under favourable
conditions the _average_ child can become the rare exception, and
attain to what is usually regarded as a remarkably high degree of
mental and spiritual development. Innocent joy, self-forgetfulness,
communal devotion, heartfelt goodwill, gracious manners--to speak of
spiritual development only--are characteristics of _every_ Utopian
child. What are we to infer from this? The bullace ideal is
realisable (under favourable conditions) by each individual bullace
tree,--but the plum ideal is not. The English rustic ideal is
realisable by each individual rustic child. _But so is the human
ideal in Utopia._

But what of the children who do not belong to Utopia? What would have
happened to the Utopian children if there had been no Egeria to lead
them into the path of self-realisation? They would have lived and
died ordinary English rustics,--healthy bullaces, but in no respect
or degree plums. Egeria has convinced me that the average child,
besides being born mentally and spiritually healthy, has immense
capacity on every side of his being. The plum ideal is the true
nature of the plum, but is not the true nature of the bullace. But
Egeria has convinced me that the human ideal--the divine self--is the
true nature of each of us, even of the average rustic child; and she
has also convinced me that each of us can go a long way towards
realising that ideal. Had there been no Egeria in Utopia, the
Utopians would have lived and died undeveloped, having arrived at a
maturity of a kind, the maturity of the bullace as distinguished from
that of the plum, but having failed to realise in any appreciable
degree what the Utopian experiment has proved to be their true
nature. What then? Is this the end of the average man? Will Nature
admit final defeat? The curve of a man's life, as it sweeps round
from birth to death, passes through the point of apparent maturity;
but the real nature of the man has never ripened, and when he
descends into the grave he is still the embryo of his true self.
Will the true self never be realised? Never, if death is indeed the
end of life. But in that case the man will have failed to fulfil the
central purpose of Nature, and, alone among her children, will have
escaped from the control of her all-p