Page:Religion of a Sceptic (IA religionofscepti00powy).djvu/35

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THE RELIGION OF A SCEPTIC

tion of One Man's dying in order that the wickedness of all men should be purged away!

If any rational-minded or ethical-minded critic of this strange doctrine declares that he finds more beauty in the philosophical notion of "Karma" than in this, it is impossible to convert him by any argument.

A vision of all the derelicts and abjects in the world, all the blighted and broken victims of their own wilful vice, suddenly receiving complete healing in one great Lethean wave of absolution, either strikes a person's æsthetic sense as more beautiful than any conceivable law of "Karma," or it does not. And if it does not, nothing that one can say in defence of it can make any difference.

The ultimate quality of beauty in the world differs in this very thing from truth and goodness; in that, while these latter can be justified by argument, beauty can never be justified by argument.

No one can be persuaded by logical reasoning to see why certain magical lines in Shakespeare or Keats are more lovely than certain clever psychological passages, say, in Browning or in Meredith. It is something that hits the mind with a direct impact, like the impact of ice or flame.

For the appeal of beauty is always an imagi-

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