, consequently, of
fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small
number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members
the trouble of forming their own character.... If they are of a
strong character, and break their fetters, they become a mark for
the society which has not succeeded in reducing them to commonplace,
to point at with solemn warning as "wild," "erratic," and the
like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara River for not
flowing smoothly between its banks, like a Dutch canal.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mill: _Essay on Liberty_, chap. III.]

THE ACTIVE AND THE CONTEMPLATIVE. One final distinction
must be made, one that cuts across all the types of self hitherto
discussed, namely, the distinction between the man of
action and the man of thought. One need not go far in literature
or in life to find the contrast made. In the Scriptures
Mary is set over against Martha, Rachel against Leah.
Hamlet and Ulysses are permanent representations of the
melancholy thinker and the exuberant adventurer. The
business man and the executive may be put over against the
poet and the scholar; the strenuous organizer and administrator
over against the quiet philosopher. Both have their
outstanding uses, and, in their extreme forms, their
outstanding defects. The active type, as we say, "gets things
done." He builds bridges and industries; he manages markets
and men. His eye is on the practical; he is dependable,
rapid, and efficient. In an industrial civilization he is the
great heroic type. The statesman and the railroad builder,
the newspaper editors and the political leaders captivate the
imaginations as they control the destinies of mankind.

On the other hand, there are those who stand aside (either
from incapacity or disinclination or both) from the management
of affairs and the life of action, and spend their lives in
observation and contemplation. Plato and Aristotle regarded
this as the highest type of life; it may have been because they
were themselves both philosophers. In its extreme form it
is exhibited in such men as Spinoza or Kant, spending their
lives in practical obscurity, speculating on time and space and
eternity. But it is apparent in less extreme types. The
"patient observer," the genial spectator of other men's actions
is not infrequent. When he has literary gifts he is a philosopher
or a poet. Lucretius in a famous passage stated the
contemplative ideal, contra