Against this aimless Realism, we must oppose idealization, and especially that which is its highest expression, Myth. And let no one say that it is impossible at this stage in Man's history to resuscitate Myth. The past has certainly lost its mystery for us, and it was in the past, at the source of Humanity, that the old poets set their sublime fictions. But the future is still ours, and there, at Man's goal, our myths must be planted. And thither, indeed, has set the great literature of the last hundred years. Faust, Mephistopheles, Brand, Peer Gynt, Zarathustra--there were no greater figures in the literature of the last century--were all myths, and all forecasts of the future. The soil out of which literature grows, then, has not yet been exhausted! If we but break away from Realism, if we make Art symbolic, if we bring about a marriage between Art and Religion, Art will rise again. That this is possible, we who have faith in the Future _must_ believe. V CREATIVE LOVE 144 _Creative Love_ To us who nourish hopes for the future of Man, the important distinction to be drawn in Love is not that between the sacred and the profane. We ask, rather, Is our Love creative or barren? That Love should bring happiness, or union, or fulfilment, seems to us not such a very great matter! The will to create something, out of oneself, not oneself, whether it be in bodies, or in Art or Philosophy--that is the thing for ever worthy of our reverence. There is another Love; that whose end is enjoyment. It is the enemy of creative Love. It is the Love which, in various forms, is known as Liberalism, or Humanitarianism, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Sympathy is its central dogma; and it is never tired of exalting itself at the expense of the other Love, which it calls cruel, senseless and unholy. But the same blasphemy is here repeated that Socrates once was guilty of and afterwards so divinely atoned. For it is not creative Love, but sympathetic Love, that is unholy. This would spare the beloved the pangs of love, even if, in doing so, it had to sacrifice the fruits of love. It springs from disbelief in existence. Life is suffering, it cries, suffering must be alleviated, and, therefore, Life must be abated, weakened and lamed! And this love is barren. But creative Love does not bring enjoyment, but rapture and pain. It is the will to suffer gladly; it finds relief from the pains of existence, not in alleviation, but in creation. This Love is, indeed, a Siren--we would not mitigate the awfulness of that symbol--luring Man to peril, perhaps to shipwreck. Yet, by the holiest law of his being, he listens, he follows. And, if his ears have been sealed by reason he _unseals_ them again, he listens with his very soul, yielding to that which is for him certainly danger, perhaps Death, knowing that, even in Death, he will be affirming Life in the highest. This Love, the earnest of future greatness, this terrible,