Note 15 — Early Poems

This passage is very obscurely expressed, but the general meaning is clear: “Until endurance grow sinewed with action, and the full-grown will, circled through all experiences grow or become law, be identified with law, and commeasure perfect freedom”. The true moral ideal is to bring the will into absolute harmony with law, so that virtuous action becomes an instinct, the will no longer rebelling against the law, “service” being in very truth “perfect freedom”.