[25] 'L'Attente' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). [26] 'L'Attente' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). [27] 'La Folie' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). [28] (_La Multiple Splendeur_). [29] _Les Rythmes Souverains._ THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR La vie est à monter et non pas à descendre. É.V., 'Les Rêves,' Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu. É.V., 'La Vie.' The metaphysical ideal crystallised by Verhaeren from his contemplation of life, which was at first wildly passionate, but then more and more synoptical and logical, has been called unity. He has himself recently, in answer to a question submitted to various men of letters, confirmed this conception as part of his programme. 'It seems to me,' he says, 'that poetry is bound ere long to be merged in a very clear Pantheism. More and more the unity of the world is admitted by upright and healthy minds. That old dualism between the soul and the body, between God and the universe, is becoming effaced. Man is a fragment of the architecture of the world. He understands and is conscious of the entity of which he is a part.... He feels that he is encompassed and dominated, while at the same time he himself encompasses and dominates. By reason of his own miracles he is becoming, in some sort, that personal God that his ancestors believed in. Now I ask, is it possible that lyric exaltation should long remain indifferent to such an unchaining of human power, should hesitate to celebrate such a vast spectacle of grandeur? The poet of to-day has only to surrender himself to what he sees, hears, imagines, conjectures, for works to be born of his heart and brain that are young, vibrating, and new.'[1] But he who would build up the whole image must not make a halt at this stage of knowledge: over against the logical ordering of external things he must set another of inward things; against the knowledge of life he must set the feeling of life. He must set up an ethical ideal as well as a metaphysical ideal, a commandment of life corresponding to his law of life.