In other words, they are not amenable to easy change or renovation. They perpetuate themselves because, in turn, human beings themselves are prone to act out of two different natures the pre-rational and the rational, the one open to enquiry, prepared for adaptation. This second state, the fluid one, itself follows on a state of heightened awareness, of imaginative perception. It is to be in constant touch with essential human values, as also to be possessed of a realistic knowledge of the material means, in order so to effectuate those values. In the fluid state, as I term it, there is no sacrosanctity attached to means.
Holiness inheres only in the essentials.
Fresh adaptation, here, becomes quite improbable in relation to new environments. The truth of essential values is lost. Rigidity, inflexibility, conformity, these are the consequences. Thus institutions, at once useful and inescapable in the pursuit of the necessary, the good or the truthful life, very often become ends in themselves. But with luck, and given a degree of sophistication, these institutions remain what they are means to serve the individual, materially or spiritually.