Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.”
And yet—and here we notice a marked inconsistency in the great mediæval poet and philosopher—it is an angel who bears these mortal souls across the sea and brings them to the foot of this mountain, and another angel repeatedly restrains them from returning on their way, even when they have passed the Gate of Grace; and by the diamond threshold, beyond which none may pass without his bidding, sits a third angel, to whom one may approach only by a miracle of God’s grace. In all this journey, then, the “intellect and art” which accompany the traveller play, we must confess, a very limited rôle.
This great question, however, of the moral dynamic is, for the moment, not my theme, and its answer is, I doubt not, to be finally reached only by the way of personal experience. Only this is to be said, once more, that one’s self-discipline begins with the discipline of the will. First of all comes the definite resolution to pursue one worthy end of life with singleness of mind and to turn from all that is opposed to it. Given this decision of the will, and there follows the capacity to act. And this search is not in vain, when one determines to make it a universal and an unreserved search, and to recognize the power that is attained as the only possible proof that the right way has been found. Whatever brings with it no sense of supporting, calming, ethical power is not true, and whatever does contribute this power must, at least, have some degree of truth in it. In the future, any philosophy of life which proposes to be more effective than our present philosophy must meet this test. All else leads astray.
“Why is it that we shrink away
When death, our friend, draws near some day?
We see the shadowy presence stand,
But not the gift within the hand!
So shrinks from love the human heart
As though, like death, love came to part,
For where love enters, self must die