... Straightway man in general has become to them so sweet a
thing that the infatuation has seemed to the rest of their fellows to be a
celestial madness. Beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for
kissing, because humanity had touched the garb; there were no longer any
menial acts, but only welcome services.... Remember by how much man is the
subtlest circumstance in the world; at how many points he can attach
relationships; how manifold and perennial he is in his results. All other
things are dull, meager, tame beside him."[69]
It may be added that even if we still believe that lover and artist and
saint are drawing the main elements of their conceptions from the depths
of their own consciousness, there is a sense in which they are coming
nearer to the truth of things than those for whom their conceptions are
mere illusions. The aptitude for realizing beauty has involved an
adjustment of the nerves and the associated brain centers through
countless ages that began before man was. When the vision of supreme
beauty is slowly or suddenly realized by anyone, with a reverberation that
extends throughout his organism, he has attained to something which for
his species, and for far more than his species, is truth, and can only be
illusion to one who has artificially placed himself outside the stream of
life.
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