The great erotic is a man whose inward being rests on emotion,
who must bring this emotion to its climax--and who is wrecked on the
incompleteness of human feeling. We recognise in him one of the tragic
figures at the confines of humanity. For it is the final tragedy of a
soul impelled by the inexorable will to self-realisation, to be broken
on the wheel of human limitations.
The tragedy of the great man of action is less conditioned by principle
than the tragedy of other types of greatness, because he is not limited
by the universal restrictions of humanity, but by individual and
accidental ones. He recognises, partly because of his unmetaphysical
constitution, no limits to human activity, and in gaining his individual
object, he reaches a relative end. It is otherwise with the thinker, the
artist, the religious enthusiast and the lover. The thinker possesses
the highest intellectual endowments; he represents cognisant humanity,
and his portion is the anguish of realising that the essence of being
cannot be grasped by the intellect.
Pages:
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430