But while the herd instinct of those "who want to march through life together, along the collective path, shoulder to shoulder, wool rubbing wool and the head down" (José Ortega y Gasset)—is of the animalistic order, the romantic spirit is purely human, divine.

The great achievements — sanctity, heroism, holy wisdom, the beatific vision — are not eagerly sought for by the herdist who like the beasts of the field longs to be a "secure" animal (to use an expression of Peter Wust) instead of being proud to remain an "insecure" animal, which man is by nature and in the order of things. Hostile to adventure, which after all was one of the great magnetic powers of the Middle Ages, the herdist moves cautiously in the broad stream of the mediocre masses avoiding all extremes except those in a frenzied mass hysteria. Yet Christianity is an extreme. The yoke of Christ is not a lesser menace to his meager and miserable personality than the iron postulates of the Cross — of the same Cross which is a flat denial of his shining rule of the "fifty-fifty," and disturbing to all his cautious calculations and plannings. Only the select can be closely confronted with the Absolute without taking flight. Only the saints, but not the "commonsensical" herd, can and