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The efforts and exploits of the men of action lie before the world's eyes like an open book and whoever thinks it worth his while can decipher what they were, did, and what they were compelled to leave undone. It is not so with those whose attainments and adventures belong to the inner world which they built up; to judge how far they succeeded is a perplexing task even if they have told us a great deal about themselves, as the poets and artists among them, intentionally or not, are bound to do. To an outsider, when he tries to explore them, these private worlds are labyrinths which make him lose his direction and never get to the center.
Poets, philosophers, prophets, scientists and other dreamers have an indirect influence and history which is more lasting than the one the greatest men of action can boast of. Their imprint on their own epoch may be slight, but it becomes more marked with the passing of time; their inner experiences have more intense consequences than historical events and their dreams outweigh and outlive the mightiest deeds.
The strong appeal that they have for mankind is due to the promise of a new way toward inner freedom which they hold out. Yet only a small number of them have proved strong and free enough to fulfill their promise. The teaching that flowed out from the others was not the pure wine of their dreams but a strongly adulterated, artificial product, a compromise between the freedom of the spirit and a strictly controlled, rigid Ego. The outcome had to move on tortuous lines in order to avoid certain prohibited regions. Their message became involved and self-contradictory: partly it was the good message —evangel—of liberation, partly an enticement into slavery. They made their personal inhibitions become general laws; after liberating