Welsh Journals

negation," but a comprehensive absorption. The self on this view of negations and affirmations is painfully divided against itself and cannot expect ever to enjoy real existence or attain to anything. Selection is not determined by a complicated pro- cess of rejection or suppression. I fear, however, that many of our anomalies and abuses spring from this radically wrong and indefensible atti- tude to the whole problem of life and virtue, and the want of a more positive view and outlook. Those people who nurse fondly the myth of the "dwy natur mewn un person" and who "fight" fervently for the victory of one "natur" over the other, should not complain if they are obliged to lay down their arms from the utter exhaustion of hopelessness. He who wastes time pondering heavily over what should be accepted or rejected in life only shows that he is still below the poverty line in all matters affecting the self and its devel opment, and it is clear evidence that he does not know himself-the first requisite of human well- being. Yet we pin our faith on cumbrous and circuitous ratiocinations rather than on the sug- gestions and intuitions of the soul. If rejection and suppression are coterminous, then neither the one nor the other is true. The process of selection does, however, in relation to objects and things involve rejection, not by conscious action but by unconscious determination. Where emotional forces are concerned the process does not involve even an unconscious determination of suppression, on the contrary it involves an un- conscious determination of absorption. The ap- parently anarchic forces of our nature are caught up and marshalled in the interest of the person- ality of which they are the elemental determinants. "The repressive and disciplinary aspects of religion and morality" only serve to deprive those who come under the repression and discipline of either from inheriting the heaven which the former offers, and from enjoying the respecta- bility which the latter establishes. We judge the world by the magnitude of its scrapheaps and not by the dignity of its edifices. Hinging upon this we have the threadbare theory of sacrifice and the Cross, for neither of which can I find place in the categories of virtue. Jesus Christ is with me in this particular. Sacrificial qualities cannot represent, nor enhance the value of the progressive power of men or gods. To sacrifice is to do nothing effectual. It is service we desire, not sacrifice. Sacrifice is an exaction impo ed upon the vanquished in the struggles of life. The Cross is the "symbol of the principle of sacrifice" which unfortunately holds too high a place in the estimation of men The Editor would be much obliged if Contributors, when submitting Articles or Poems, would state their full title, degrees, past and present offices, or occupations, publications, &c. both in its historical and quasi-historical or religious sense. The belief has been inculcated into us that the way of the Cross is the way of life, and some people have gone so far as to represent the Cross as the symbol of service,-a remarkable instance of intellectual (?) juggling. Perhaps it is a progression and not a regression to pass from the sacrifice of animals and things with which men were at one time accustomed to propitiate the anger of an offended deity, to the sacrifice of men and of self. Nevertheless, the same objection applies to all forms, they serve no constructive purpose. Here again we are up against the towering dilemma of negation. The one other aspect in which we are invited to repose belief, is the aspect which I should like to call the negation of the adversary. To do battle with the evil like Bunyan's heroes is deemed upon this view, the worthiest credential to the plaudits of God and the angels. The man who goes out to fight sin and evil is, I am fairly convinced, bent upon a mad expedition from which he will never return; and must be doing human-kind the greatest disservice by such Quixotic enterprises. The self should be organ- ised for a higher cause, and its forces marshalled for worthier purposes. The militant attitude to life is the vain attitude of those people who have not been able or who have not attempted to in- spire order into their lives and who follow the will-o'-the-wisp of every real or imaginary evil to engage themselves in real or imaginary hostilities. The way of life is the way of moral and social activities,-the way of elemental inter- penetrations. Virtue is not estimated by the quantity or quality of the good we possess: virtue is the index of the quantity and quality of the good we perform. Human life is the sponta- neous expression of the appreciation of relations, and the cultivated self is the one best able to express that appreciation, and the one best suited to beneficially observe the integrity of those relations. The positive frame of mind characteristic of the new humanism of our age is decisively an eman- cipation and a penetration. It is a revision-and I hope a drastic one-of our scale of values, and the presentation of new values. Whether we have been able to cultivate advantageously our natural forces, and establish firmly the all- embracing co-ordinating principle of the Self in which those forces are given scope and freedom, I dare not hope. It is gratifying to see a new generation seeking new worlds for old," and seeking a fuller and richer experience in the great adventure to which we are born.