I determined to get rid of my
ignorance and to endure such limitations of knowledge no longer. Is
there, I asked, any place where at least a portion of my stupidity may
be set aside? I removed a little fraction at school, but revealed also
enormous expanses which I had not suspected before. I therefore
pressed on farther, and to-day am still engaged in the almost hopeless
attempt to extirpate my ignorance. What incites me continually is the
sense of how small I am, not that which a few moments ago seemed my
best incentive--the picture of myself as large. That on the whole has
had comparatively little influence. Of course I do not assert that we
are altogether without visions of a larger life. That is far from
being the case. Were it so, desire would cease. We must contrast the
poverty of the present with the fullness of a possible future, or we
should not incline to turn from that present. Yet our grand driving
force is that sense of limitation, of want or need, which was
discussed in the last chapter. And our aim is rather at a better than
at a best, at the removal of some small distinct hindrance than at
arrival at a completed goal. We come upon excellence piecemeal, and do
not, like the architect, look upon it in its entirety at the outset.
Yet in the pursuit of this "better," the more vividly we can figure
the coming stages, the more easily will they be attained.
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