This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt: ...centuries, and prevented all Europe from splitting into fragments; the belief in political liberty has made the American people a "peculiar people," and has caused them to be the controlling power in modern political revolutions. The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the period of Political Revolution are reactions ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt: ...centuries, and prevented all Europe from splitting into fragments; the belief in political liberty has made the American people a "peculiar people," and has caused them to be the controlling power in modern political revolutions. The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the period of Political Revolution are reactions against uncongenial conditions, and are evidences of growth toward an ideal. What is true of national life is true of individual life. When belief in an individual becomes the embodiment of a true conception of beautiful and harmonious relationships, it becomes the most potent factor in life for the production and realization of the true and the beautiful; it becomes the only means of idealizing the real; it becomes the guiding star in man's pilgrimage to the beautiful city of the ideal. The world is not to be degraded into a material thing. Air and water, mountain and meadow, sunshine and cloud are more than their names denote. There is a conception rife that makes the whole material creation the sign and disclosure of a spiritual order. It is this conception that changes the farmer into man on the farm; that changes thinking man into man thinking; that frees the artisan from the routine of his craft; that makes life not an end within itself, but only a means to an end. Contemplated from this point of view, the ideal becomes the most practical element in human progress. It becomes that aspect of the order of life which makes life intelligible and endurablethat great fact that makes it possible for us to live, move, and have bur being; it becomes the want of our common nature, the demand for something more than everyday facts which tend to place a commercial value on that which is best in our experience. Into all hearts the spirit of th...
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