that nature had hidden in it, of having played it as it should be played."
Now these spirits of the great society are ranked in three orders according to the completeness of their felicity, which is almost the same thing as saying, according to the completeness of their powers of expression, the perfectness with which they have accomplished their will. In the lowest order, are those who have managed only to stammer forth some truth; in the second order are those who have expressed some truth beautifully; and in the third and highest order are those who have expressed a great truth beautifully in speech and act. But not even the spirits in the highest order are utterly satisfied with their achievements. Continually before them, imagination projects an elusive vision of the perfect truth, the perfect beauty, the perfect goodness of which the reality is hidden in the bosom of the All-Perfect. Dreamers like Plato and Augustine represented this vision as an ideal republic and as the city of God. Even the strongly practical, the utilitarian, society of ancient Rome, the masters of the world, felt this teasing, irresistible impulse towards the absolute, recognized this impulse in themselves and deified it in their temples to Fides, Cle-
