In this power of taking from the past and pushing on to the future, the balance maintained between stability and novelty, we find one of their abiding characteristics.

When this balance is broken--when there is either too complete a submission to tradition and authority, or too violent a rejection of it--full greatness is not achieved.
In complete lives, the two things overlap: and so perfectly that no sharp distinction is made between the gifts of authority and of fresh experience.

Traditional formulae, as we all know, are often used because they are found to tally with life, to light up dark corners of our own spirits and give names to experiences which we want to define.
Ceremonial deeds are used to actualize free contacts with Reality.

And we need not be surprised that they can do this; since tradition represents the crystallization, and handling on under symbols, of all the spiritual experiences of the race.
Therefore the man or woman of the Spirit will always accept and use some tradition; and unless he does so, he is not of much use to his fellow-men.

He must not, then, be discredited on account of the symbolic system he adopts; but must be allowed to tell his news in his own way.