less, and he falls back, through despondency and satiety, to barbarism.  Why does he not stay on this hill-top he has reached, and look away to the mountains beyond, and resolve to scale those greater heights?  Because he is ignorant, and seeing a great glittering in the distance, drops his eyes bewildered and dazzled, and goes back for rest to the shadowy side of his familiar hill.  Yet there is now and then one brave enough to gaze fixedly on this glittering, and to decipher something of the shape within it.  Poets and philosophers, thinkers and teachers,—­all those who are the “elder brothers of the race,”—­have beheld this sight from time to time, and some among them have recognised in the bewildering glitter the outlines of the Gates of Gold.

Those Gates admit us to the sanctuary of man’s own nature, to the place whence his life-power comes, and where he is priest of the shrine of life.  That it is possible to enter here, to pass through those Gates, some one or two have shown us.  Plato, Shakespeare, and a few other strong ones have gone through and spoken to us in veiled language on the near side of the Gates.  When the strong man has crossed the threshold he speaks no more to those at the other side.  And even the words he utters when he is outside are so full of mystery, so veiled and profound, that only those who follow in his steps can see the light within them.

IV

What men desire is to ascertain how to exchange pain for pleasure; that is, to find out in what way consciousness may be regulated in order that the sensation which is most agreeable is the one that is experienced.  Whether this can be discovered by dint of human thought is at least a question worth considering.

If the mind of man is turned upon any given subject with a sufficient concentration, he obtains illumination with regard to it sooner or later.  The particular individual in whom the final illumination appears is called a genius, an inventor, one inspired; but he is only the crown of a great mental work created by unknown men about him, and receding back from him through long vistas of distance.  Without them he would not have had his material to deal with.  Even the poet requires innumerable poetasters to feed upon.  He is the essence of the poetic power of his time, and of the times before him.  It is impossible to separate an individual of any species from his kin.

If, therefore, instead of accepting the unknown as unknowable, men were with one accord to turn their thoughts towards it, those Golden Gates would not remain so inexorably shut.  It does but need a strong hand to push them open.  The courage to enter them is the courage to search the recesses of one’s own nature without fear and without shame.  In the fine part, the essence, the flavor of the man, is found the key which unlocks those great Gates.  And when they open, what is it that is found?