Beings that are distinct find an enhancement of their exist-
ence in a union of heart or interest. Indeed, this power of
interpenetration has always been accepted as a mark of
mental and moral greatness. ' We should call those "great



2i6 SELF AND NEIGHBOUR

personalities," not who were most shut up within a world
of their own — these would rather be madmen or idiots —
but those whom we should call men of universal genius,
such as Plato or Shakespeare or Goethe, in whom we find the
least eccentricity, the least restricted capacity of sharing
the thoughts and feehngs of others.' ^ And as it is with
mental excellence, so it is with moral exaltation. The man
who identifies his Ufe-interest with increasing numbers of
people of different natures and circumstances rises to higher
heights of greatness. The ethical wUl, so far from finding
the existence of other wills the obstinate problem which it is
to the intellect, finds, on the contrary, that these other wills
present an opportunity. A mother does not feel herself
diminished in any way because her soul goes out to the soul
of her child. Indeed, it is the very merging of her soul
with that of her cMld which brings to her an enhancement
of existence. And, generally speaking, men feel an exalta-
tion of experience in proportion to their power to inter-
penetrate for good the fives of their feUows. Analogously,
God is truly God when regarded as the loving Father of
many children. The intellect, we admit, cannot form a
systematic whole out of God and man. But such a Whole
presents no difficulty on the view that the interpenetrative
wiU of a Divine Father makes His children one with Him-
self by His love.
