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the perception of the complexity of life could bring only baffling confusion. There must be definite conditions of growth, of character, of happiness, of influence. And it is psychology's highest task to instruct us as to these conditions of our own life.

II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMON

WORK AND DUTIES

And just here lie, too, for practical living, the seriousness and value of common every-day work and of prosaic duties, as the clearest-sighted have always seen. It is in these that the actual essential conditions come out most clearly. It is interesting to notice that the very language of our most wise and useful proverbs shows that they have been wrought out in the realm of common toil of various kinds. We shall certainly not solve our greater and more distant problems by ignoring those smaller and more immediate. Because of the complex intertwining of things, as in science, so in life, we can never safely slight small matters. Our principles never so plainly rule as when they lead us to care in their slighter, more delicate, and more thoughtful manifestations.

It is true that in sight of the infinite goal, the exercises and aims and discords of our daily living may seem petty enough,-"and yet," as Lotze says-and I know no nobler passage in all his writing-"and yet we must continue these exercises, devote to these contracted aims all the ardor of our souls, painfully feel these discords, and again and again renew the conflict concerning them; our life would not be ennobled by depreciation of its conditions, and of the stage which it offers to our struggling energy." We get control of the principles of life only by some real working of them out,-only by the laboratory method.

Here lies the significance of Lowell's "work done squarely and unwasted days"; of Gannett's new beatitude, "Blessed be drudgery"; of the Bishop of Exeter's statement, that "of all work that produces results, nine-tenths must be drudgery." And there is to be, too, no "blue-rose melancholy," that thinks it could do great things if conditions were altogether otherwise-if the roses were only blue. We are called to face the exact circumstances in which we are, and faithfully to fulfil the conditions there demanded.

III. NO MAGICAL INHERITANCE

In the best things, then, there can be no short-cuts, no sudden leaps, no transcendental flights, no magical inheritance in vision. Long periods of gradual growth precede the harvest. Steady fulfilment of conditionsdaily, hourly, detailed, faithful- can alone bring great hours of vision, and can alone make great hours of vision fruitful. The vision of the goal is inspiring, but it must not make us discontented with the road thereto. Dreaming of the goal is not attainment of it, nor is working oneself up to belief in a goal already attained. It is far safer for us to say with one of the world's best fighters, "I count not myself yet to have apprehended," than to sing with the modern religionist, "I've reached the land of corn and wine."

Character and acquaintance-the two best things in the gift of life, and the very essence of religion are both growths and active achievements, never a magical inheritance. They are not given outright, and God himself cannot so create them. They can only become in time and under conditions; but this time given and these conditions fulfilled, you

can count on results. This is the point of that remarkable modern stanza of E. R. Sill:

"Forenoon, and afternoon, and night;- Forenoon,
And afternoon, and night; Forenoon, and - what?
The empty song repeats itself. No more?
Yea, that is life; make this forenoon sublime,
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,
And time is conquered, and thy crown is won."

IV. NO CONDITIONS IN GENERAL

But-and we need to heed it-there are no conditions in general, only conditions in particular. We develop power or character not by a general striving, not by resolving in general, but only by definite, concrete applications in definite relations. This ignoring of the particular is one of the great errors, both of common asceticism and of common mysticism. General self-denial and general surrender to God that involve no particulars in actual life are fruitless enough. On the contrary, general forms or types of activity, "a given 'set' of the brain as a whole," may result from repeated particular associated acts. So Royce says: "It is known, for instance, that 'fickleness' of conduct, irrational change of plan of behavior, can itself

become a hopelessly fixed habit in a given brain."1

There is the more need of insistence upon the careful pointing out of the precise particular conditions in the moral and spiritual life, both because of the marked scientific temper of our times, and because the natural temperament of the reformer or the religious worker, with its emphasis upon ideals, is often accompanied by theoretical vagueness and an unwillingness to use practical means, and so tends to make him neglectful of accurate study of the precise conditions for the attainment of these ideals. It is a great thing for a man to combine vision of the ideal with the scientific method; this calls for the best in two opposing temperaments the sentimental and the choleric.

What answer, now, has psychology to make to the inquiry for the exact conditions on which growth depends? Our second great inference from psychology should suggest the actual conditions-bodily and mental; for modern psychology emphasizes the unity of man- the unity of mind and body, and the unity of the mind itself.

1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 69; cf. also James' Psychology: Vol. I, p. 126.

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