The twofold desire which we all experience,--to accept and rest in the ordinary undeveloped self, and at the same time to exalt and magnify it,--is the surest and most fruitful source of moral evil.

Indeed, it may be doubted if there is any source of moral evil, apart from those which are purely sensual, which has not at least an underground connection with this.

If we are to "cap" this deadly fountain, and so prevent it from desolating human life, we must realise, once and for all, that the two desires which master us cannot be simultaneously gratified; that we cannot both rest in the ordinary self and magnify it; that we can magnify it only by _making it great_, by helping it to grow.

When we have realised this, we shall be ready to receive the further lesson that in proportion as the self magnifies itself by the natural process of growth, so does its desire to magnify itself gradually die away,--die away with the dawning consciousness that in and through the process of its growth it is outgrowing itself, forgetting itself, escaping from itself, that the thing which so ardently desired to be magnified is in fact ceasing to be.

This vital truth,--which my visits to Utopia have borne in upon me,--that healthy and harmonious growth is in its very essence _out_growth or escape from self, has depths of meaning which are waiting to be fathomed.