praiseworthy. A great civilization begins to form when men reach an agreement as to what is desirable and praiseworthy. The leading Athenians, in their best period, reached such an agreement; and that is why, whether you meditate on their art, their poetry, or their philosophy, whether you gaze at the frieze of the Parthenon, or read a drama of Sophocles, or the prayer of Socrates, you feel yourself in the presence of one and the same formative spirit—one superb stream of energy, superbly controlled by a religious belief that moral and physical symmetry are the most desirable and praiseworthy things in the outer and the inner man.
The prospects for our American civilization depend at present upon our capacity for a similar religious integration. Our present task is, primarily, to become clear in our minds as to what is our own formative spirit. The remedy for our present discontents is indicated by the character of the malady. The remedy is, first, to help the average man to an understanding of his own nature, so that he may recognize more fully what part the things of the mind and the imagination may play in the satisfaction of his suppressed desires. It is to help him to recognize that even an intellectual and imaginative
