To Know When One's Self

And The Fifteenth Century Was An Impassioned Age, So Ardent And Serious In Its Pursuit Of Art That It Consecrated Everything With Which Art Had To Ad As A Religious Object.

Great Passions May Give Us A Quickened Sense Of Life, Ecstasy And Sorrow Of Love, The Various Forms Of Enthusiastic Activity, Disinterested Or Otherwise, Which Comes Naturally To Many Of Us.

Philosophical Theories Or Ideas, As Points Of View, Instruments Of Criticism, May Help Us To Gather Up What Might Otherwise Pass Unregarded By Us.

To Higher Or Lower Ends, They [the Majority Of Mankind] Move Too Often With Something Of A Sad Countenance, With Hurried And Ignoble Gait, Becoming, Unconsciously, Something Like Thorns, In Their Anxiety To Bear Grapes; It Being Possible For People, In The Pursuit Of Even Great Ends, To Become Themselves Thin And Impoverished In Spirit And Temper, Thus Diminishing The Sum Of Perfection In The World, At Its Very Sources.

The Service Of Philosophy, Of Speculative Culture, Towards The Human Spirit, Is To Rouse, To Startle It To A Life Of Constant And Eager Observation.