Spencer Heath Archive

Item 104

Penciled fragment by Heath on a very long, lined notepad.

About 1950

 

 

Original in item 102

 

 

The College of Liberal Arts

Its Ultimate Ideal

 

Every thoughtful individual entertains ideals of goodness, truth and beauty — absolutes towards which he can move and aspire but which his own limitations forbid him ever fully to attain. And these conceptual absolutes are no less valuable for their being only relatively and never absolutely attainable. They afford no final goals, but they do establish the directions in which the affairs of men can lead them into endless yet never perfect realizations of their hopes and dreams.

     It is the same with the institutions of men. Unless they are ideally conceived as moving towards absolute and hence unattainable goals there is no ideal guidance, no certain direction, for limited yet ever-expanding achievement towards absolute ideals.

    This power of conceiving ideals, this subjective conceptual capacity that knows no limitations or bounds, this power of conceiving the Absolute as God, is what distinguishes the spiritual, the creative, from the merely animal, the unregenerate man. This unlimited power to dream, this inspiration of the Divine is the key to man’s creative power, his power … ¹⁰⁴

/Breaks off/

 

/How about amending the last paragraph as follows to round this item off? -Editor:

    This power of conceiving ideals, this subjective conceptual capacity that knows no limitations or bounds, this unlimited power to dream — of conceiving the Absolute as God — distinguishes the spiritual, the creative, from the merely animal, the unregenerate man. This inspiration of the Divine is the key to man’s creative power. /