verse; one would be unwilling not to progress; but how can one ever be satisfied while one is struggling towards the unattained? As we are hemmed in on all sides by limits and restraints we can never hope for satisfaction. There is nothing for it but to face the idea of an unsatisfied eternity,—an idea which almost makes one long to disbelieve in immortality. The weariness of always striving and never attaining, of always longing and never getting, would lead, if one allowed one's self to dwell on it, to a despair in which extinction would be our fondest hope, not only for ourselves but for humanity. One can only turn one's attention steadily to the grandeur of eternal progress, and dwell on the attainable, carefully avoiding the thought of the unattainable. But the feeling of unsatisfaction nevertheless remains."

"The old theological view gave some hope of satisfaction in the end. One could wait millions of years if only one had the prospect of getting it some day. It is impossible to return to the heaven of one's childhood. But there was less unsatisfaction then. The God of one's childhood was at rest; but now the idea of progress forms a necessary part of our conception of the Deity. How can there be satisfaction, even for God, while there is an unattained? And how can there ever be any satisfaction

for man, when not only an unattained, but an unattainable, must lie for ever beyond his reach? God and man alike are working on, progressing; so far it is bright, all the brighter and nobler for showing us more in common between the two than we had at first supposed. But both alike are hemmed in by limitations, both alike are confronted by the great Impossible; and in face of this I see no prospect of satisfaction for God or man now or ever. It seems as if there ought to be something to correspond to our longing. If there be in all conscious intelligences an endless desire, impossible in the nature of things ever to be gratified, the universe must be at heart irrational. And belief in the rationality of the universe is the last stronghold of our faith. If that goes, nothing remains. Unless there is a Supreme Reason pervading all things, we are practically without a God. There may exist a Being greater than ourselves, perhaps greater even than we can ever conceive. But impossibility is greater still; reason and love are comparatively helpless; God and man alike are ultimately powerless."

Now that is brilliant writing; but I venture to think it contains a lurking fallacy.

There are two ideals of life diametrically opposed -the ideal of rest and the ideal of progress. These

are mutually exclusive. You cannot move on and stand still in the same indivisible moment of time. It is evident that so far as you are at rest, you cannot be progressing; in so far as you are progressing, you cannot be at rest. The pessimists generally assume that the best kind of world would be one in which all sentient creatures, from the beginning of their lives to the end, were in possession of everything which they were capable of desiring. But this is an assumption which fills me with amazement, especially when I find it made, as I so often do, by persons of refinement and culture, whose own experience should teach them that there is something far better than sensuous repose. If an uninterrupted state of complete satisfaction be the highest life, then assuredly this earth of ours is the worst possible world. We ought to have been kept, miraculously if need be, from everything that could be even momentarily unpleasant. We should have been taught, by instinct or revelation or in some other fashion, everything we ever required to know. But the whole genius of our existence is different. We have to find things out for ourselves, if we want to know them; we have to learn what is called "experience" by failure and mistakes; we have to live-if we live at all-by effort, conflict, pain. The key-note of our life is discipline, and

the end of our life is progress. The pessimists generally seem to take it for granted that discipline is a nuisance and progress a bore. But my correspondent holds a somewhat different position. She is wiser, but less consistent. She speaks of the grandeur of eternal progress. But she complains that there does not go along with this the apathy of eternal repose. It is like the demand for a line with only one end. How can I ever be satisfied, she asks, while struggling towards the unattained? How could you ever be satisfied, I reply, unless there were an unattained to struggle towards? The existence of the unattained is the sine quà non of progress.

The consciousness of unsatisfaction seems to me nothing else than the consciousness of our powers. My correspondent has told us that scenery, music and happiness make us most sensible of the fact that we are not satisfied. I think she is right. For scenery, music and happiness make us most sensible of the infinite possibilities of our nature. And if this consciousness of unsatisfaction is to be called pain, remember it is pain which we prefer to any inferior pleasure, it is pain which we endeavour and delight to feel, it is the pain of ecstasy.

Progress no doubt involves effort and work; but effort and work are in themselves agreeable. It is

all very well to talk of the pleasures of rest; and rest is certainly pleasant enough when we are fatigued. But the pleasures of exercise are infinitely greater. Who would be asleep when he might be hunting or rowing or playing tennis? And I do not at all agree with my correspondent in thinking that our changed views about heaven are a loss. On the contrary I think they are a decided gain. According to the old-fashioned theology, heaven was a place of eternal idleness, where even the Deity had nothing to do. There was repose, no doubt, but it was the repose of death. All the noblest natures recoiled from the thought of spending eternity in such a place, and in such a way. They felt that the life of earth was far diviner in spite of the pain which it sometimes involved. They were right. To my mind the saddest world in which there was progress would be infinitely more suggestive of reason than the happiest world in which there was none.

Of course if progress were impossible, the desire for it would be a curse; if the unattained were always to be unattainable, the longing for it would be hell. But the bitterest pessimist must admit that we are constantly attaining the unattained, ay that we are constantly attaining the unattainable. How many things are to-day commonplaces in