Illustrations of a Law of Evolution of Thought [pp. 373-393]

ILL USTRA TIONS OF A LA W OF E VOL UTION OF THOUGHT.383
-increasing in beauty of form until it finally becomes a fit expression of a perfected humanity.
To illustrate: Man is, as it were, placed here on this earth
houseless and homeless, and his work is to build him a house
which shall be a fit emblem of his perfected or ideal nature-a
structure which shall be not only a house in which to dwell, but
,also a fit temple wherein to worship God. But, on the one hand,
what can he know of the principles of this glorious architecture?
It is the last result of his perfected reason. On the other hand,
how shall he improve reason unless he have a house to shelter
him-a school-house wherein his reason may be disciplined and
strengthened? What can he do? Only one tiing. He hastily
constructs a temporary building in which to live while he slowly
-from generation to generation grows in strength and skill and
:gathers materials for the future and more glorious temple. The
first may be a restraint, often a tyrannous restraint, but is the
necessary condition of social life, and therefore of the growth
,of humanity; the second when completed will be the beautiful
expression, the glorious embodiment of our perfected nature, no
longer restrained, but devoted to enjoyment and worship. But
alas! our lot just now seems to have fallen on evil days. We
are even now in an almost helpless transition state. We have
torn down the old building associated in our minds only with
oppression and restraint, but have not yet constructed nor even
yet understood the principles of the construction of the more
glorious new. Meanwhile we are scattered abroad gathering
materials and living in shanties. But let us not despair. The
materials are slowly gathering-the construction will surely
commence.
Art. No department of human activity shows the law more
.clearly than the useful arts. All art is at first empirical, i.e., the
result of more or less blind trials and the successive survival of
-the best results. Yet such trials are not wholly blind, but always more or less directed by a dim intuitive perception of nature's laws-an instinct, an unformulated inherited wisdom.
Such art, tho on a far higher plane, is yet in some sense similar to
the constructive art of lower animals. Under the guidance of
such intuitive wisdom directing trial, art may reach a high degree
of perfection, but sooner or later, on a lower or higher plane, its