Creed and Deed: A Series of DiscoursesAdler, Felix
Religion
Creed and Deed: A Series of Discourses
Adler, Felix
Ethical culture movement; Ethics; Religion
The priest shall be a teacher of the "Ideal," but what is the Ideal and
how distinguish it from the Real. Regard the trees, behold their number,
the wondrous plenitude of their kinds.. There is the lithe and slender
pine, the mighty oak, the stately palm, the tender willow. Alike
yet most unlike. And who has ever seen the perfect tree! Observe the
expressive features of the human face. How many thousands of such faces
are born into the world each year and yet no two alike. By what fine
shades, what scarce perceptible curves, what delicate touches has
nature's chisel marked them each apart. Graceful forms and lovely faces
there are, yet perfect none. Now the Ideal is the perfection of the
Real. To find it we must go beyond the Realities. We study the nature of
the tree, of man. We note the suggestions of the various parts, complete
and produce them in utmost harmony, each perfect in itself, each serving
by its own perfection, the rounded symmetry of the whole. In the image
thus created we grasp the ideal form. Art with its genial enchantments,
creates such images and gives them permanence in pure types of immortal
significance. Art is idealism of form.
The intellect also, which looks out from behind the features, the
indwelling man, exhibits the same twofold aspect of the Real and Ideal.
Our real thoughts are incomplete and inadequate. We are led astray a
thousand times by false analogies, we are decoyed into the labyrinths
of fancy, we become the victims of impression, the toys of circumstance.
But deep down in the basic structure of the mind are true laws, unerring
guides. Logic expresses them, logic is the idealism of intellect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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