To The Modern Spirit Nothing Is, Or

We Need Some Imaginative Stimulus, Some Not Impossible Ideal Such As May Shape Vague Hope, And Transform It Into Effective Desire, To Carry Us Year After Year, Without Disgust, Through The Routine-work Which Is So Large A Part Of Life.

For Us Necessity Is Not As Of Old An Image Without Us, With Whom We Can Do Warfare; It Is A Magic Web Woven Through And Through Us, Like That Magnetic System Of Which Modern Science Speaks, Penetrating Us With A Network Subtler Than Our Subtlest Nerves, Yet Bearing In It The Central Forces Of The World.

All Art Does But Consist In The Removal Of Surplusage.

To The Modern Spirit Nothing Is, Or Can Be Rightly Known, Except Relatively And Under Conditions.

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.