{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_65714/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_65714","id":"gutenberg_65714","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65714","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conduct of life","English essays -- 20th century","Ethics","Philosophy"],"text":"THE DANCE OF LIFE\n\n\n\n\n                           THE DANCE OF LIFE\n\n                                   BY\n                             HAVELOCK ELLIS\n\n         AUTHOR OF \u201cIMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS,\u201d \u201cAFFIRMATIONS,\u201d\n                       \u201cESSAYS IN WAR-TIME,\u201d ETC.\n\n                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n                        HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n                     The Riverside Press Cambridge\n\n\n\n\n    COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HAVELOCK ELLIS\n\n    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n    SECOND IMPRESSION, JUNE, 1923\n    THIRD IMPRESSION, AUGUST, 1923\n    FOURTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1923\n    FIFTH IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1923\n    SIXTH IMPRESSION, NOVEMBER, 1923\n    SEVENTH IMPRESSION, DECEMBER, 1923\n    EIGHTH IMPRESSION, FEBRUARY, 1924\n    NINTH IMPRESSION, JULY, 1924\n    TENTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1924\n    ELEVENTH IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1924\n    TWELFTH IMPRESSION, DECEMBER, 1924\n\n\n    The Riverside Press\n    CAMBRIDGE \u00b7 MASSACHUSETTS\n    PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE\n\n\nTHIS book was planned many years ago. As to the idea running through it,\nI cannot say when that arose. My feeling is, it was born with me. On\nreflection, indeed, it seems possible the seeds fell imperceptibly in\nyouth\u2014from F. A. Lange, maybe, and other sources\u2014to germinate unseen in\na congenial soil. However that may be, the idea underlies much that I\nhave written. Even the present book began to be written, and to be\npublished in a preliminary form, more than fifteen years ago. Perhaps I\nmay be allowed to seek consolation for my slowness, however vainly, in\nthe saying of Rodin that \u201cslowness is beauty,\u201d and certainly it is the\nslowest dances that have been to me most beautiful to see, while, in the\ndance of life, the achievement of a civilisation in beauty seems to be\ninversely to the rapidity of its pace.\n\nMoreover, the book remains incomplete, not merely in the sense that I\nwould desire still to be changing and adding to each chapter, but even\nincomplete by the absence of many chapters for which I had gathered\nmaterial, and twenty years ago should have been surprised to find\nmissing. For there are many arts, not among those we conventionally call\n\u201cfine,\u201d which seem to me fundamental for living. But now I put forth the\nbook as it stands, deliberately, without remorse, well content so to do.\n\nOnce that would not have been possible. A book must be completed as it\nhad been originally planned, finished, rounded, polished. As a man grows\nolder his ideals change. Thoroughness is often an admirable ideal. But\nit is an ideal to be adopted with discrimination, having due reference\nto the nature of the work in hand. An artist, it seems to me now, has\nnot always to finish his work in every detail; by not doing so he may\nsucceed in making the spectator his co-worker, and put into his hands\nthe tool to carry on the work which, as it lies before him, beneath its\nveil of yet partly unworked material, still stretches into infinity.\nWhere there is most labour there is not always most life, and by doing\nless, provided only he has known how to do well, the artist may achieve\nmore.\n\nHe will not, I hope, achieve complete consistency. In fact a part of the\nmethod of such a book as this, written over a long period of years, is\nto reveal a continual slight inconsistency. That is not an evil, but\nrather the avoidance of an evil. We cannot remain consistent with the\nworld save by growing inconsistent with our own past selves. The man who\nconsistently\u2014as he fondly supposes \u201clogically\u201d\u2014clings to an unchanging\nopinion is suspended from a hook which has ceased to exist. \u201cI thought\nit was she, and she thought it was me, and when we come near it weren\u2019t\nneither one of us\u201d\u2014that metaphysical statement holds, with a touch of\nexaggeration, a truth we must always bear in mind concerning the\nrelation of subject and object. They can neither of them possess\nconsistency; they have both changed before they come up with one\nanother. Not that such inconsistency is a random flux or a shallow\nopportunism. We change, and the world changes, in accordance with the\nunderlying organisation, and inconsistency, so conditioned by truth to\nthe whole, becomes the higher consistency of life. I am therefore able\nto recognise and accept the fact that, again and again in this book, I\nhave come up against what, superficially regarded, seemed to be the same\nfact, and each time have brought back a slightly different report, for\nit had changed and I had changed. The world is various, of infinite\niridescent aspect, and until I attain to a correspondingly infinite\nvariety of statement I remain far from anything that could in any sense\nbe described as \u201ctruth.\u201d We only see a great opal that never looks the\nsame this time as when we looked last time. \u201cHe never painted to-day\nquite the same as he had painted yesterday,\u201d Elie Faure says of Renoir,\nand it seems to me natural and right that it should have been so. I have\nnever seen the same world twice. That, indeed, is but to repeat the\nHeraclitean saying\u2014an imperfect saying, for it is only the half of the\nlarger, more modern synthesis I have already quoted\u2014that no man bathes\ntwice in the same stream. Yet\u2014and this opposing fact is fully as\nsignificant\u2014we really have to accept a continuous stream as constituted\nin our minds; it flows in the same direction; it coheres in what is more\nor less the same shape. Much the same may be said of the ever-changing\nbather whom the stream receives. So that, after all, there is not only\nvariety, but also unity. The diversity of the Many is balanced by the\nstability of the One. That is why life must always be a dance, for that\nis what a dance is: perpetual slightly varied movements which are yet\nalways held true to the shape of the whole.\n\nWe verge on philosophy. The whole of this book is on the threshold of\nphilosophy. I hasten to add that it remains there. No dogmas are here\nset forth to claim any general validity. Not that even the technical\nphilosopher always cares to make that claim. Mr. F. H. Bradley, one of\nthe most influential of modern English philosophers, who wrote at the\noutset of his career, \u201cOn all questions, if you push me far enough, at\npresent I end in doubts and perplexities,\u201d still says, forty years\nlater, that if asked to define his principles rigidly, \u201cI become\npuzzled.\u201d For even a cheese-mite, one imagines, could only with\ndifficulty attain an adequate metaphysical conception of a cheese, and\nhow much more difficult the task is for Man, whose everyday intelligence\nseems to move on a plane so much like that of a cheese-mite and yet has\nso vastly more complex a web of phenomena to synthetise.\n\nIt is clear how hesitant and tentative must be the attitude of one who,\nhaving found his life-work elsewhere than in the field of technical\nphilosophy, may incidentally feel the need, even if only playfully, to\nspeculate concerning his function and place in the universe. Such\nspeculation is merely the instinctive impulse of the ordinary person to\nseek the wider implications bound up with his own little activities. It\nis philosophy only in the simple sense in which the Greeks understood\nphilosophy, merely a philosophy of life, of one\u2019s own life, in the wide\nworld. The technical philosopher does something quite different when he\npasses over the threshold and shuts himself up in his study\u2014\n\n                        \u201cVeux-tu d\u00e9couvrir le monde,\n                        Ferme tes yeux, Rosemonde\u201d\u2014\n\nand emerges with great tomes that are hard to buy, hard to read, and,\nlet us be sure, hard to write. But of Socrates, as of the English\nphilosopher Falstaff, we are not told that he wrote anything.\n\nSo that if it may seem to some that this book reveals the expansive\ninfluence of that great classico-mathematical Renaissance in which it is\nour high privilege to live, and that they find here \u201crelativity\u201d applied\nto life, I am not so sure. It sometimes seems to me that, in the first\nplace, we, the common herd, mould the great movements of our age, and\nonly in the second place do they mould us. I think it was so even in the\ngreat earlier classico-mathematical Renaissance. We associate it with\nDescartes. But Descartes could have effected nothing if an innumerable\ncrowd in many fields had not created the atmosphere by which he was\nenabled to breathe the breath of life. We may here profitably bear in\nmind all that Spengler has shown concerning the unity of spirit\nunderlying the most diverse elements in an age\u2019s productivity. Roger\nBacon had in him the genius to create such a Renaissance three centuries\nearlier; there was no atmosphere for him to live in and he was stifled.\nBut Malherbe, who worshipped Number and Measure as devoutly as\nDescartes, was born half a century before him. That silent, colossal,\nferocious Norman\u2014vividly brought before us by Tallement des R\u00e9aux, to\nwhom, rather than to Saint-Simon, we owe the real picture of\nseventeenth-century France\u2014was possessed by the genius of destruction,\nfor he had the natural instinct of the Viking, and he swept all the\nlovely Romantic spirit of old France so completely away that it has\nscarcely ever revived since until the days of Verlaine. But he had the\nNorman classico-mathematical architectonic spirit\u2014he might have said,\nlike Descartes, as truly as it ever can be said in literature, _Omnia\napud me mathematica fiunt_\u2014and he introduced into the world a new rule\nof Order. Given a Malherbe, a Descartes could hardly fail to follow, a\nFrench Academy must come into existence almost at the same time as the\n\u201cDiscours de la M\u00e9thode,\u201d and Le N\u00f4tre must already be drawing the\ngeometrical designs of the gardens of Versailles. Descartes, it should\nbe remembered, could not have worked without support; he was a man of\ntimid and yielding character, though he had once been a soldier, not of\nthe heroic temper of Roger Bacon. If Descartes could have been put back\ninto Roger Bacon\u2019s place, he would have thought many of Bacon\u2019s\nthoughts. But we should never have known it. He nervously burnt one of\nhis works when he heard of Galileo\u2019s condemnation, and it was fortunate\nthat the Church was slow to recognise how terrible a Bolshevist had\nentered the spiritual world with this man, and never realised that his\nbooks must be placed on the Index until he was already dead.\n\nSo it is to-day. We, too, witness a classico-mathematical Renaissance.\nIt is bringing us a new vision of the universe, but also a new vision of\nhuman life. That is why it is necessary to insist upon life as a dance.\nThis is not a mere metaphor. The dance is the rule of number and of\nrhythm and of measure and of order, of the controlling influence of\nform, of the subordination of the parts to the whole. That is what a\ndance is. And these same properties also make up the classic spirit, not\nonly in life, but, still more clearly and definitely, in the universe\nitself. We are strictly correct when we regard not only life but the\nuniverse as a dance. For the universe is made up of a certain number of\nelements, less than a hundred, and the \u201cperiodic law\u201d of these elements\nis metrical. They are ranged, that is to say, not haphazard, not in\ngroups, but by number, and those of like quality appear at fixed and\nregular intervals. Thus our world is, even fundamentally, a dance, a\nsingle metrical stanza in a poem which will be for ever hidden from us,\nexcept in so far as the philosophers, who are to-day even here applying\nthe methods of mathematics, may believe that they have imparted to it\nthe character of objective knowledge.\n\nI call this movement of to-day, as that of the seventeenth century,\nclassico-mathematical. And I regard the dance (without prejudice to a\ndistinction made later in this volume) as essentially its symbol. This\nis not to belittle the Romantic elements of the world, which are equally\nof its essence. But the vast exuberant energies and immeasurable\npossibilities of the first day may perhaps be best estimated when we\nhave reached their final outcome on the sixth day of creation.\n\nHowever that may be, the analogy of the two historical periods in\nquestion remains, and I believe that we may consider it holds good to\nthe extent that the strictly mathematical elements of the later period\nare not the earliest to appear, but that we are in the presence of a\nprocess that has been in subtle movement in many fields for half a\ncentury. If it is significant that Descartes appeared a few years after\nMalherbe, it is equally significant that Einstein was immediately\npreceded by the Russian ballet. We gaze in admiration at the artist who\nsits at the organ, but we have been blowing the bellows; and the great\nperformer\u2019s music would have been inaudible had it not been for us.\n\nThis is the spirit in which I have written. We are all engaged\u2014not\nmerely one or two prominent persons here and there\u2014in creating the\nspiritual world. I have never written but with the thought that the\nreader, even though he may not know it, is already on my side. Only so\ncould I write with that sincerity and simplicity without which it would\nnot seem to me worth while to write at all. That may be seen in the\nsaying which I set on the forefront of my earliest book, \u201cThe New\nSpirit\u201d: he who carries farthest his most intimate feelings is simply\nthe first in file of a great number of other men, and one becomes\ntypical by being to the utmost degree one\u2019s self. That saying I chose\nwith much deliberation and complete conviction because it went to the\nroot of my book. On the surface it obviously referred to the great\nfigures I was there concerned with, representing what I regarded\u2014by no\nmeans in the poor sense of mere modernity\u2014as the New Spirit in life.\nThey had all gone to the depths of their own souls and thence brought to\nthe surface and expressed\u2014audaciously or beautifully, pungently or\npoignantly\u2014intimate impulses and emotions which, shocking as they may\nhave seemed at the time, are now seen to be those of an innumerable\ncompany of their fellow men and women. But it was also a book of\npersonal affirmations. Beneath the obvious meaning of that motto on the\ntitle-page lay the more private meaning that I was myself setting forth\nsecret impulses which might some day be found to express the emotions\nalso of others. In the thirty-five years that have since passed, the\nsaying has often recurred to my mind, and if I have sought in vain to\nmake it mine I find no adequate justification for the work of my life.\n\nAnd now, as I said at the outset, I am even prepared to think that that\nis the function of all books that are real books. There are other\nclasses of so-called books: there is the class of history books and the\nclass of forensic books, that is to say, the books of facts and the\nbooks of argument. No one would wish to belittle either kind. But when\nwe think of a book proper, in the sense that a Bible means a book, we\nmean more than this. We mean, that is to say, a revelation of something\nthat had remained latent, unconscious, perhaps even more or less\nintentionally repressed, within the writer\u2019s own soul, which is,\nultimately, the soul of mankind. These books are apt to repel; nothing,\nindeed, is so likely to shock us at first as the manifest revelation of\nourselves. Therefore, such books may have to knock again and again at\nthe closed door of our hearts. \u201cWho is there?\u201d we carelessly cry, and we\ncannot open the door; we bid the importunate stranger, whatever he may\nbe, to go away; until, as in the apologue of the Persian mystic, at last\nwe seem to hear the voice outside saying: \u201cIt is thyself.\u201d\n\nH. E.\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\nI. INTRODUCTION 1\n\nII. THE ART OF DANCING 36\n\nIII. THE ART OF THINKING 68\n\nIV. THE ART OF WRITING 141\n\nV. THE ART OF RELIGION 191\n\nVI. THE ART OF MORALS 244\n\nVII. CONCLUSION 285\n\nINDEX 359\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nIT has always been difficult for Man to realise that his life is all an\nart. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so. For\nthat is always how he has more or less acted it. At the beginning,\nindeed, the primitive philosopher whose business it was to account for\nthe origin of things usually came to the conclusion that the whole\nuniverse was a work of art, created by some Supreme Artist, in the way\nof artists, out of material that was practically nothing, even out of\nhis own excretions, a method which, as children sometimes instinctively\nfeel, is a kind of creative art. The most familiar to us of these\nprimitive philosophical statements\u2014and really a statement that is as\ntypical as any\u2014is that of the Hebrews in the first chapter of their Book\nof Genesis. We read there how the whole cosmos was fashioned out of\nnothing, in a measurable period of time by the art of one Jehovah, who\nproceeded methodically by first forming it in the rough, and gradually\nworking in the details, the finest and most delicate last, just as a\nsculptor might fashion a statue. We may find many statements of the like\nkind even as far away as the Pacific.[1] And\u2014also even at the same\ndistance\u2014the artist and the craftsman, who resembled the divine creator\nof the world by making the most beautiful and useful things for Mankind,\nhimself also partook of the same divine nature. Thus, in Samoa, as also\nin Tonga, the carpenter, who built canoes, occupied a high and almost\nsacred position, approaching that of the priest. Even among ourselves,\nwith our Roman traditions, the name Pontiff, or Bridge-Builder, remains\nthat of an imposing and hieratic personage.\n\nBut that is only the primitive view of the world. When Man developed,\nwhen he became more scientific and more moralistic, however much his\npractice remained essentially that of the artist, his conception became\nmuch less so. He was learning to discover the mystery of measurement; he\nwas approaching the beginnings of geometry and mathematics; he was at\nthe same time becoming warlike. So he saw things in straight lines, more\nrigidly; he formulated laws and commandments. It was, Einstein assures\nus, the right way. But it was, at all events in the first place, most\nunfavourable to the view of life as an art. It remains so even to-day.\n\nYet there are always some who, deliberately or by instinct, have\nperceived the immense significance in life of the conception of art.\nThat is especially so as regards the finest thinkers of the two\ncountries which, so far as we may divine,\u2014however difficult it may here\nbe to speak positively and by demonstration,\u2014have had the finest\ncivilisations, China and Greece. The wisest and most recognisably\ngreatest practical philosophers of both these lands have believed that\nthe whole of life, even government, is an art of definitely like kind\nwith the other arts, such as that of music or the dance. We may, for\ninstance, recall to memory one of the most typical of Greeks. Of\nProtagoras, calumniated by Plato,\u2014though, it is interesting to observe\nthat Plato\u2019s own transcendental doctrine of Ideas has been regarded as\nan effort to escape from the solvent influence of Protagoras\u2019 logic,\u2014it\nis possible for the modern historian of philosophy to say that \u201cthe\ngreatness of this man can scarcely be measured.\u201d It was with measurement\nthat his most famous saying was concerned: \u201cMan is the measure of all\nthings, of those which exist and of those which have no existence.\u201d It\nwas by his insistence on Man as the active creator of life and\nknowledge, the artist of the world, moulding it to his own measure, that\nProtagoras is interesting to us to-day. He recognised that there are no\nabsolute criteria by which to judge actions. He was the father of\nrelativism and of phenomenalism, probably the initiator of the modern\ndoctrine that the definitions of geometry are only approximately true\nabstractions from empirical experiences. We need not, and probably\nshould not, suppose that in undermining dogmatism he was setting up an\nindividual subjectivism. It was the function of Man in the world, rather\nthan of the individual, that he had in mind when he enunciated his great\nprinciple, and it was with the reduction of human activity and conduct\nto art that he was mainly concerned. His projects for the art of living\nbegan with speech, and he was a pioneer in the arts of language, the\ninitiator of modern grammar. He wrote treatises on many special arts, as\nwell as the general treatise \u201cOn the Art\u201d among the pseudo-Hippocratic\nwritings,\u2014if we may with Gomperz attribute it to him,\u2014which embodies the\nspirit of modern positive science.[2]\n\nHippias, the philosopher of Elis, a contemporary of Protagoras, and like\nhim commonly classed among the \u201cSophists,\u201d cultivated the largest ideal\nof life as an art which embraced all arts, common to all mankind as a\nfellowship of brothers, and at one with natural law which transcends the\nconvention of human laws. Plato made fun of him, and that was not hard\nto do, for a philosopher who conceived the art of living as so large\ncould not possibly at every point adequately play at it. But at this\ndistance it is his ideal that mainly concerns us, and he really was\nhighly accomplished, even a pioneer, in many of the multifarious\nactivities he undertook. He was a remarkable mathematician; he was an\nastronomer and geometer; he was a copious poet in the most diverse\nmodes, and, moreover, wrote on phonetics, rhythm, music, and mnemonics;\nhe discussed the theories of sculpture and painting; he was both\nmythologist and ethnologist, as well as a student of chronology; he had\nmastered many of the artistic crafts. On one occasion, it is said, he\nappeared at the Olympic gathering in garments which, from the sandals on\nhis feet to the girdle round his waist and the rings on his fingers, had\nbeen made by his own hands. Such a being of kaleidoscopic versatility,\nGomperz remarks, we call contemptuously a Jack-of-all-trades. We believe\nin subordinating a man to his work. But other ages have judged\ndifferently. The fellow citizens of Hippias thought him worthy to be\ntheir ambassador to the Peloponnesus. In another age of immense human\nactivity, the Renaissance, the vast-ranging energies of Leo Alberti were\nhonoured, and in yet a later like age, Diderot\u2014Pantophile as Voltaire\ncalled him\u2014displayed a like fiery energy of wide-ranging interests,\nalthough it was no longer possible to attain the same level of\nwide-ranging accomplishment. Of course the work of Hippias was of\nunequal value, but some of it was of firm quality and he shrank from no\nlabour. He seems to have possessed a gracious modesty, quite unlike the\nconceited pomposity Plato was pleased to attribute to him. He attached\nmore importance than was common among the Greeks to devotion to truth,\nand he was cosmopolitan in spirit. He was famous for his distinction\nbetween Convention and Nature, and Plato put into his mouth the words:\n\u201cAll of you who are here present I reckon to be kinsmen and friends and\nfellow citizens, and by nature, not by law; for by nature like is akin\nto like, whereas law is the tyrant of mankind, and often compels us to\ndo many things that are against nature.\u201d Hippias was in the line of\nthose whose supreme ideal is totality of existence. Ulysses, as Benn\nremarks, was in Greek myth the representative of the ideal, and its\nsupreme representative in real life has in modern times been Goethe.[3]\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nBUT, in actual fact, is life essentially an art? Let us look at the\nmatter more closely, and see what life is like, as people have lived it.\nThis is the more necessary to do since, to-day at all events, there are\nsimple-minded people\u2014well-meaning honest people whom we should not\nignore\u2014who pooh-pooh such an idea. They point to the eccentric\nindividuals in our Western civilisation who make a little idol they call\n\u201cArt,\u201d and fall down and worship it, sing incomprehensible chants in its\nhonour, and spend most of their time in pouring contempt on the people\nwho refuse to recognise that this worship of \u201cArt\u201d is the one thing\nneeded for what they may or may not call the \u201cmoral uplift\u201d of the age\nthey live in. We must avoid the error of the good simple-minded folk in\nwhose eyes these \u201cArty\u201d people loom so large. They are not large, they\nare merely the morbid symptoms of a social disease; they are the\nfantastic reaction of a society which as a whole has ceased to move\nalong the true course of any real and living art. For that has nothing\nto do with the eccentricities of a small religious sect worshipping in a\nLittle Bethel; it is the large movement of the common life of a\ncommunity, indeed simply the outward and visible form of that life.\n\nThus the whole conception of art has been so narrowed and so debased\namong us that, on the one hand, the use of the word in its large and\nnatural sense seems either unintelligible or eccentric, while, on the\nother hand, even if accepted, it still remains so unfamiliar that its\nimmense significance for our whole vision of life in the world is\nscarcely at first seen. This is not altogether due to our natural\nobtusity, or to the absence of a due elimination of subnormal stocks\namong us, however much we may be pleased to attribute to that dysgenic\nfactor. It seems largely inevitable. That is to say that, so far as we\nin our modern civilisation are concerned, it is the outcome of the\nsocial process of two thousand years, the result of the breakup of the\nclassic tradition of thought into various parts which under post-classic\ninfluences have been pursued separately.[4] Religion or the desire for\nthe salvation of our souls, \u201cArt\u201d or the desire for beautification,\nScience or the search for the reasons of things\u2014these conations of the\nmind, which are really three aspects of the same profound impulse, have\nbeen allowed to furrow each its own narrow separate channel, in\nalienation from the others, and so they have all been impeded in their\ngreater function of fertilising life.\n\nIt is interesting to observe, I may note in passing, how totally new an\naspect a phenomenon may take on when transformed from some other channel\ninto that of art. We may take, for instance, that remarkable phenomenon\ncalled Napoleon, as impressive an individualistic manifestation as we\ncould well find in human history during recent centuries, and consider\ntwo contemporary, almost simultaneous, estimates of it. A distinguished\nEnglish writer, Mr. H. G. Wells, in a notable and even famous book, his\n\u201cOutline of History,\u201d sets down a judgment of Napoleon throughout a\nwhole chapter. Now Mr. Wells moves in the ethico-religious channel. He\nwakes up every morning, it is said, with a rule for the guidance of\nlife; some of his critics say that it is every morning a new rule, and\nothers that the rule is neither ethical nor religious; but we are here\nconcerned only with the channel and not with the direction of the\nstream. In the \u201cOutline\u201d Mr. Wells pronounces his ethico-religious\nanathema of Napoleon, \u201cthis dark little archaic personage, hard,\ncompact, capable, unscrupulous, imitative, and neatly vulgar.\u201d The\n\u201carchaic\u201d\u2014the old-fashioned, outworn\u2014element attributed to Napoleon, is\naccentuated again later, for Mr. Wells has an extremely low opinion\n(hardly justifiable, one may remark in passing) of primitive man.\nNapoleon was \u201ca reminder of ancient evils, a thing like the bacterium of\nsome pestilence\u201d; \u201cthe figure he makes in history is one of almost\nincredible self-conceit, of vanity, greed, and cunning, of callous\ncontempt and disregard of all who trusted him.\u201d There is no figure, Mr.\nWells asserts, so completely antithetical to the figure of Jesus of\nNazareth. He was \u201ca scoundrel, bright and complete.\u201d\n\nThere is no occasion to question this condemnation when we place\nourselves in the channel along which Mr. Wells moves; it is probably\ninevitable; we may even accept it heartily. Yet, however right along\nthat line, that is not the only line in which we may move. Moreover\u2014and\nthis is the point which concerns us\u2014it is possible to enter a sphere in\nwhich no such merely negative, condemnatory, and dissatisfying a\nconclusion need be reached. For obviously it is dissatisfying. It is not\nfinally acceptable that so supreme a protagonist of humanity, acclaimed\nby millions, of whom many gladly died for him, and still occupying so\nlarge and glorious a place in the human imagination, should be dismissed\nin the end as merely an unmitigated scoundrel. For so to condemn him is\nto condemn Man who made him what he was. He must have answered some\nlyric cry in the human heart. That other sphere in which Napoleon wears\na different aspect is the sphere of art in the larger and fundamental\nsense. \u00c9lie Faure, a French critic, an excellent historian of art in the\nordinary sense, is able also to grasp art in the larger sense because he\nis not only a man of letters but of science, a man with medical training\nand experience, who has lived in the open world, not, as the critic of\nliterature and art so often appears to be, a man living in a damp\ncellar. Just after Wells issued his \u201cOutline,\u201d \u00c9lie Faure, who probably\nknew nothing about it since he reads no English, published a book on\nNapoleon which some may consider the most remarkable book on that\nsubject they have ever come across. For to Faure Napoleon is a great\nlyric artist.\n\nIt is hard not to believe that Faure had Wells\u2019s chapter on Napoleon\nopen before him, he speaks so much to the point. He entitled the first\nchapter of his \u201cNapol\u00e9on\u201d \u201cJesus and He,\u201d and at once pierces to what\nWells, too, had perceived to be the core of the matter in hand: \u201cFrom\nthe point of view of morality he is not to be defended and is even\nincomprehensible. In fact he violates law, he kills, he sows vengeance\nand death. But also he dictates law, he tracks and crushes crime, he\nestablishes order everywhere. He is an assassin. He is also a judge. In\nthe ranks he would deserve the rope. At the summit he is pure,\ndistributing recompense and punishment with a firm hand. He is a monster\nwith two faces, like all of us perhaps, in any case like God, for those\nwho have praised Napoleon and those who have blamed him have alike not\nunderstood that the Devil is the other face of God.\u201d From the moral\npoint of view, Faure says (just as Wells had said), Napoleon is\nAntichrist. But from this standpoint of art, all grows clear. He is a\npoet of action, as Jesus was, and like him he stands apart. These two,\nand these two alone among the world\u2019s supremely great men of whom we\nhave any definite knowledge, \u201cacted out their dream instead of dreaming\ntheir action.\u201d It is possible that Napoleon himself was able to estimate\nthe moral value of that acted dream. As he once stood before the grave\nof Rousseau, he observed: \u201cIt would have been better for the repose of\nFrance if that man and I had never existed.\u201d Yet we cannot be sure. \u201cIs\nnot repose the death of the world?\u201d asks Faure. \u201cHad not Rousseau and\nNapoleon precisely the mission of troubling that repose? In another of\nthe profound and almost impersonal sayings that sometimes fell from his\nlips, Napoleon observed with a still deeper intuition of his own\nfunction in the world: \u201cI love power. But it is as an artist that I love\nit. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out of it sounds\nand chords and harmonies. I love it as an artist.\u201d As an artist! These\nwords were the inspiration of this finely illuminating study of\nNapoleon, which, while free from all desire to defend or admire, yet\nseems to explain Napoleon, in the larger sense to justify his right to a\nplace in the human story, so imparting a final satisfaction which Wells,\nwe feel, could he have escaped from the bonds of the narrow conception\nof life that bound him, had in him the spirit and the intelligence also\nto bestow upon us.\n\nBut it is time to turn from this aside. It is always possible to dispute\nabout individuals, even when so happy an illustration chances to come\nbefore us. We are not here concerned with exceptional persons, but with\nthe interpretation of general and normal human civilisations.\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nI TAKE, almost at random, the example of a primitive people. There are\nmany others that would do as well or better. But this happens to come to\nhand, and it has the advantage not only of being a primitive people, but\none living on an island, so possessing until lately its own\nlittle-impaired indigenous culture, as far as possible remote in space\nfrom our own; the record also has been made, as carefully and as\nimpartially as one can well expect, by a missionary\u2019s wife who speaks\nfrom a knowledge covering over twenty years.[5] It is almost needless to\nadd that she is as little concerned with any theory of the art of life\nas the people she is describing.\n\nThe Loyalty Islands lie to the east of New Caledonia, and have belonged\nto France for more than half a century. They are thus situated in much\nthe same latitude as Egypt is in the Northern hemisphere, but with a\nclimate tempered by the ocean. It is with the Island of Lifu that we are\nmainly concerned. There are no streams or mountains in this island,\nthough a ridge of high rocks with large and beautiful caves contains\nstalactites and stalagmites and deep pools of fresh water; these pools,\nbefore the coming of the Christians, were the abode of the spirits of\nthe departed, and therefore greatly reverenced. A dying man would say to\nhis friends: \u201cI will meet you all again in the caves where the\nstalactites are.\u201d\n\nThe Loyalty Islanders, who are of average European stature, are a\nhandsome race, except for their thick lips and dilated nostrils, which,\nhowever, are much less pronounced than among African negroes. They have\nsoft large brown eyes, wavy black hair, white teeth, and rich brown skin\nof varying depth. Each tribe has its own well-defined territory and its\nown chief. Although possessing high moral qualities, they are a\nlaughter-loving people, and neither their climate nor their mode of life\ndemands prolonged hard labour, but they can work as well as the average\nBriton, if need be, for several consecutive days, and, when the need is\nover, lounge or ramble, sleep or talk. The basis of their culture\u2014and\nthat is doubtless the significant fact for us\u2014is artistic. Every one\nlearned music, dancing, and song. Therefore it is natural for them to\nregard rhythm and grace in all the actions of life, and almost a matter\nof instinct to cultivate beauty in all social relationships. Men and\nboys spent much time in tattooing and polishing their brown skins, in\ndyeing and dressing their long wavy hair (golden locks, as much admired\nas they always have been in Europe, being obtained by the use of lime),\nand in anointing their bodies. These occupations were, of course,\nconfined to the men, for man is naturally the ornamental sex and woman\nthe useful sex. The women gave no attention to their hair, except to\nkeep it short. It was the men also who used oils and perfumes, not the\nwomen, who, however, wore bracelets above the elbow and beautiful long\nstrings of jade beads. No clothing is worn until the age of twenty-five\nor thirty, and then all dress alike, except that chiefs fasten the\ngirdle differently and wear more elaborate ornaments. These people have\nsweet and musical voices and they cultivate them. They are good at\nlearning languages and they are great orators. The Lifuan language is\nsoft and liquid, one word running into another pleasantly to the ear,\nand it is so expressive that one may sometimes understand the meaning by\nthe sound. In one of these islands, Uvea, so great is the eloquence of\nthe people that they employ oratory to catch fish, whom indeed they\nregard in their legends as half human, and it is believed that a shoal\nof fish, when thus politely plied with compliments from a canoe, will\neventually, and quite spontaneously, beach themselves spellbound.\n\nFor a primitive people the art of life is necessarily of large part\nconcerned with eating. It is recognised that no one can go hungry when\nhis neighbour has food, so no one was called upon to make any great\ndemonstration of gratitude on receiving a gift. Help rendered to another\nwas help to one\u2019s self, if it contributed to the common weal, and what I\ndo for you to-day you will do for me to-morrow. There was implicit\ntrust, and goods were left about without fear of theft, which was rare\nand punishable by death. It was not theft, however, if, when the owner\nwas looking, one took an article one wanted. To tell a lie, also, with\nintent to deceive, was a serious offence, though to tell a lie when one\nwas afraid to speak the truth was excusable. The Lifuans are fond of\nfood, but much etiquette is practised in eating. The food must be\nconveyed to the mouth gracefully, daintily, leisurely. Every one helped\nhimself to the food immediately in front of him, without hurry, without\nreaching out for dainty morsels (which were often offered to women), for\nevery one looked after his neighbour, and every one naturally felt that\nhe was his brother\u2019s keeper. So it was usual to invite passers-by\ncordially to share in the repast. \u201cIn the matter of food and eating,\u201d\nMrs. Hadfield adds, \u201cthey might put many of our countrymen to shame.\u201d\nNot only must one never eat quickly, or notice dainties that are not\nnear one, but it would be indelicate to eat in the presence of people\nwho are not themselves eating. One must always share, however small\none\u2019s portion, and one must do so pleasantly; one must accept also what\nis offered, but slowly, reluctantly; having accepted it, you may, if you\nlike, openly pass it on to some one else. In old days the Lifuans were,\noccasionally, cannibals, not, it would seem, either from necessity or\nany ritual reason, but because, like some peoples elsewhere, they liked\nit, having, indeed, at times, a kind of craving for animal food. If a\nman had twenty or thirty wives and a large family, it would be quite\ncorrect if, now and then, he cooked one of his own children, although\npresumably he might prefer that some one else\u2019s child was chosen. The\nchild would be cooked whole, wrapped in banana or coconut leaves. The\nsocial inconveniences of this practice have now been recognised. But\nthey still feel the utmost respect and reverence for the dead and fail\nto find anything offensive or repulsive in a corpse. \u201cWhy should there\nbe, seeing it was once our food?\u201d Nor have they any fear of death. To\nvermin they seem to have little objection, but otherwise they have a\nstrong love of cleanliness. The idea of using manure in agricultural\noperations seems to them disgusting, and they never do use it. \u201cThe sea\nwas the public playground.\u201d Mothers take their little ones for sea-baths\nlong before they can walk, and small children learn to swim as they\nlearn to walk, without teaching. With their reverence for death is\nassociated a reverence for old age. \u201cOld age is a term of respect, and\nevery one is pleased to be taken for older than he is since old age is\nhonoured.\u201d Still, regard for others was general\u2014not confined to the\naged. In the church nowadays the lepers are seated on a separate bench,\nand when the bench is occupied by a leper healthy women will sometimes\ninsist on sitting with him; they could not bear to see the old man\nsitting alone as though he had no friends. There was much demonstration\non meeting friends after absence. A Lifuan always said \u201cOlea\u201d (\u201cThank\nyou\u201d) for any good news, though not affecting him personally, as though\nit were a gift, for he was glad to be able to rejoice with another.\nBeing divided into small tribes, each with its own autocratic chief, war\nwas sometimes inevitable. It was attended by much etiquette, which was\nalways strictly observed. The Lifuans were not acquainted with the\ncivilised custom of making rules for warfare and breaking them when war\nactually broke out. Several days\u2019 notice must be given before\nhostilities were commenced. Women and children, in contrast to the\npractice of civilised warfare, were never molested. As soon as half a\ndozen fighters were put out of action on one side, the chief of that\nside would give the command to cease fighting and the war was over. An\nindemnity was then paid by the conquerors to the vanquished, and not, as\namong civilised peoples, by the vanquished to the conquerors. It was\nfelt to be the conquered rather than the conqueror who needed\nconsolation, and it also seemed desirable to show that no feeling of\nanimosity was left behind. This was not only a delicate mark of\nconsideration to the vanquished, but also very good policy, as, by\nneglecting it, some Europeans may have had cause to learn. This whole\nLifuan art of living has, however, been undermined by the arrival of\nChristianity with its usual accompaniments. The Lifuans are substituting\nEuropean vices for their own virtues. Their simplicity and confidence\nare passing away, though, even yet, Mrs. Hadfield says, they are\nconspicuous for their honesty, truthfulness, good-humour, kindness, and\npoliteness, remaining a manly and intelligent people.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nTHE Lifuans furnish an illustration which seems decisive. But they are\nsavages, and on that account their example may be invalidated. It is\nwell to take another illustration from a people whose high and\nlong-continued civilisation is now undisputed.\n\nThe civilisation of China is ancient: that has long been a familiar\nfact. But for more than a thousand years it was merely a legend to\nWestern Europeans; none had ever reached China, or, if they had, they\nhad never returned to tell the tale; there were too many fierce and\njealous barbarians between the East and the West. It was not until the\nend of the thirteenth century, in the pages of Marco Polo, the Venetian\nColumbus of the East,\u2014for it was an Italian who discovered the Old World\nas well as the New,\u2014that China at last took definite shape alike as a\nconcrete fact and a marvellous dream. Later, Italian and Portuguese\ntravellers described it, and it is interesting to note what they had to\nsay. Thus Perera in the sixteenth century, in a narrative which Willes\ntranslated for Hakluyt\u2019s \u201cVoyages,\u201d presents a detailed picture of\nChinese life with an admiration all the more impressive since we cannot\nhelp feeling how alien that civilisation was to the Catholic traveller\nand how many troubles he had himself to encounter. He is astonished, not\nonly by the splendour of the lives of the Chinese on the material side,\nalike in large things and in small, but by their fine manners in all the\nordinary course of life, the courtesy in which they seemed to him to\nexceed all other nations, and in the fair dealing which far surpassed\nthat of all other Gentiles and Moors, while in the exercise of justice\nhe found them superior even to many Christians, for they do justice to\nunknown strangers, which in Christendom is rare; moreover, there were\nhospitals in every city and no beggars were ever to be seen. It was a\nvision of splendour and delicacy and humanity, which he might have seen,\nhere and there, in the courts of princes in Europe, but nowhere in the\nWest on so vast a scale as in China.\n\nThe picture which Marco Polo, the first European to reach China (at all\nevents in what we may call modern times), presented in the thirteenth\ncentury was yet more impressive, and that need not surprise us, for when\nhe saw China it was still in its great Augustan age of the Sung Dynasty.\nHe represents the city of Hang-Chau as the most beautiful and sumptuous\nin the world, and we must remember that he himself belonged to Venice,\nsoon to be known as the most beautiful and sumptuous city of Europe, and\nhad acquired no small knowledge of the world. As he describes its life,\nso exquisite and refined in its civilisation, so humane, so peaceful, so\njoyous, so well ordered, so happily shared by the whole population, we\nrealise that here had been reached the highest point of urban\ncivilisation to which Man has ever attained. Marco Polo can think of no\nword to apply to it\u2014and that again and again\u2014but Paradise.\n\nThe China of to-day seems less strange and astonishing to the Westerner.\nIt may even seem akin to him\u2014partly through its decline, partly through\nhis own progress in civilisation\u2014by virtue of its direct and practical\ncharacter. That is the conclusion of a sensitive and thoughtful\ntraveller in India and Japan and China, G. Lowes Dickinson. He is\nimpressed by the friendliness, the profound humanity, the gaiety, of the\nChinese, by the unequalled self-respect, independence, and courtesy of\nthe common people. \u201cThe fundamental attitude of the Chinese towards life\nis, and has always been, that of the most modern West, nearer to us now\nthan to our medi\u00e6val ancestors, infinitely nearer to us than India.\u201d[6]\n\nSo far it may seem scarcely as artists that these travellers regard the\nChinese. They insist on their cheerful, practical, social,\ngood-mannered, tolerant, peaceable, humane way of regarding life, on the\nremarkably educable spirit in which they are willing, and easily able,\nto change even ancient and deep-rooted habits when it seems convenient\nand beneficial to do so; they are willing to take the world lightly, and\nseem devoid of those obstinate conservative instincts by which we are\nguided in Europe. The \u201cResident in Peking\u201d says they are the least\nromantic of peoples. He says it with a _nuance_ of dispraise, but Lowes\nDickinson says precisely the same thing about Chinese poetry, and with\nno such _nuance_: \u201cIt is of all poetry I know the most human and the\nleast symbolic or romantic. It contemplates life just as it presents\nitself, without any veil of ideas, any rhetoric or sentiment; it simply\nclears away the obstruction which habit has built up between us and the\nbeauty of things and leaves that, showing in its own nature.\u201d Every one\nwho has learnt to enjoy Chinese poetry will appreciate the delicate\nprecision of this comment. The quality of their poetry seems to fall\ninto line with the simple, direct, childlike quality which all observers\nnote in the Chinese themselves. The unsympathetic \u201cResident in Peking\u201d\ndescribes the well-known etiquette of politeness in China: \u201cA Chinaman\nwill inquire of what noble country you are. You return the question, and\nhe will say his lowly province is so-and-so. He will invite you to do\nhim the honour of directing your jewelled feet to his degraded house.\nYou reply that you, a discredited worm, will crawl into his magnificent\npalace.\u201d Life becomes all play. Ceremony\u2014the Chinese are unequalled for\nceremony, and a Government Department, the Board of Rites and\nCeremonies, exists to administer it\u2014is nothing but more or less\ncrystallised play. Not only is ceremony here \u201calmost an instinct,\u201d but,\nit has been said, \u201cA Chinese thinks in theatrical terms.\u201d We are coming\nnear to the sphere of art.\n\nThe quality of play in the Chinese character and Chinese civilisation\nhas impressed alike them who have seen China from afar and by actual\ncontact. It used to be said that the Chinese had invented gunpowder long\nbefore Europeans and done nothing with it but make fireworks. That\nseemed to the whole Western world a terrible blindness to the valuable\nuses of gunpowder, and it is only of late years that a European\ncommentator has ventured to remark that \u201cthe proper use of gunpowder is\nobviously to make fireworks, which may be very beautiful things, not to\nkill men.\u201d Certainly the Chinese, at all events, appreciate to the full\nthis proper use of gunpowder. \u201cOne of the most obvious characteristics\nof the Chinese is their love of fireworks,\u201d we are told. The gravest\npeople and the most intellectual occupy themselves with fireworks, and\nif the works of Bergson, in which pyrotechnical allusions are so\nfrequent, are ever translated into Chinese, one can well believe that\nChina will produce enthusiastic Bergsonians. All toys are popular;\neverybody, it is said, buys toys of one sort or another: paper\nwindmills, rattles, Chinese lanterns, and of course kites, which have an\nalmost sacred significance. They delight, also, in more complicated\ngames of skill, including an elaborate form of chess, far more difficult\nthan ours.[7] It is unnecessary to add that to philosophy, a higher and\nmore refined form of play, the Chinese are peculiarly addicted, and\nphilosophic discussion is naturally woven in with an \u201cart of exquisite\nenjoyment\u201d\u2014carried probably to greater perfection than anywhere else in\nthe world. Bertrand Russell, who makes this remark, in the suggestive\ncomments on his own visit to China, observes how this simple,\nchild-like, yet profound attitude towards life results in a liberation\nof the impulses to play and enjoyment which \u201cmakes Chinese life\nunbelievably restful and delightful after the solemn cruelties of the\nWest.\u201d We are reminded of Gourmont\u2019s remark that \u201cpleasure is a human\ncreation, a delicate art, to which, as for music or painting, only a few\nare apt.\u201d\n\nThe social polity which brings together the people who thus view life is\nat once singular and appropriate. I well remember how in youth a new\nvolume of the Sacred Books of the East Series, a part of the Confucian\nL\u00ee-k\u00ee, came into my hands and how delighted I was to learn that in China\nlife was regulated by music and ceremony. That was the beginning of an\ninterest in China that has not ceased to grow, though now, when it has\nbecome a sort of fashion to exalt the spiritual qualities of the Chinese\nabove those of other peoples, one may well feel disinclined to admit any\ninterest in China. But the conception itself, since it seems to have had\nits beginning at least a thousand years before Christ, may properly be\nconsidered independently of our Western fashions. It is Propriety\u2014the\nwhole ceremony of life\u2014in which all harmonious intercourse subsists; it\nis \u201cthe channel by which we apprehend the ways of Heaven,\u201d in no\nsupernatural sense, for it is on the earth and not in the skies that the\nConfucian Heaven lies concealed. But if human feelings, the\ninstincts\u2014for in this matter the ancient Chinese were at one with our\nmodern psychologists,\u2014are the field that has to be cultivated, and it is\nceremony that ploughs it, and the seeds of right action that are to be\nplanted on it, and discipline that is to weed it, and love that is to\ngather in the fruits, it is in music, and the joy and peace that\naccompany music, that it all ends. Indeed, it is also in music that it\nall begins. For the sphere in which ceremonies act is Man\u2019s external\nlife; his internal life is the sphere of music. It is music that moulds\nthe manners and customs that are comprised under ceremony, for Confucius\nheld that there can be music without sound where \u201cvirtue is deep and\nsilent\u201d; and we are reminded of the \u201cCrescendo of Silences\u201d on the\nChinese pavilion in Villiers de l\u2019Isle Adam\u2019s story, \u201cLe Secret de\nl\u2019ancienne Musique.\u201d It is music that regulates the heart and mind and\nwith that development brings joy, and joy brings repose. And so \u201cMan\nbecame Heaven.\u201d \u201cLet ceremonies and music have their course until the\nearth is filled with them!\u201d\n\nIt is sometimes said that among Chinese moralists and philosophers\nLao-tze, the deepest of them all, alone stands aside from the chorus in\npraise of music and ceremony. When once Confucius came to consult\nLao-tze concerning the rules of propriety, and reverence for the\nteaching of the sages of antiquity, we are told, Lao-tze replied: \u201cThe\nmen of whom you speak, sir, have, if you please, together with their\nbones, mouldered.\u201d Confucius went away, puzzled if not dissatisfied He\nwas willing to work not only from within outwards, but from without\ninwards, because he allowed so large a place for social solidity, for\ntraditionalism, for paternalism, though he recognised that ceremony is\nsubordinate in the scheme of life, as colour is in a painting, the\npicture being the real thing. Lao-tze was an individualist and a mystic.\nHe was little concerned with moralities in the ordinary sense. He\nrecognised no action but from within outwards. But though Confucius\ncould scarcely have altogether grasped his conception, he was quite able\nto grasp that of Confucius, and his indifference to tradition, to rule\nand propriety was simply an insistence on essential reality, on \u201cmusic.\u201d\n\u201cCeremonies,\u201d he said, \u201care the outward expression of inward feeling.\u201d\nHe was no more opposed to the fundamental Chinese conception than George\nFox was opposed to Christianity in refusing to observe the mere forms\nand ceremonies of the Church. A sound Confucianism is the outward\nmanifestation of Taoism (as Lao-tze himself taught it), just as a sound\nsocialism is the outward manifestation of a genuine individualism. It\nhas been well said that Chinese socialistic solidarity rests on an\nindividualistic basis, it is not a bureaucratic State socialism; it\nworks from within outward. (One of the first European visitors to China\nremarked that there a street was like a home.) This is well shown by so\ngreat and typical a Chinese philosopher as Meh-ti,[8] who lived shortly\nafter Confucius, in the fifth century B.C. He taught universal love,\nwith universal equality, and for him to love meant to act. He admitted\nan element of self-interest as a motive for such an attitude. He desired\nto universalise mutual self-help. Following Confucius, but yet several\ncenturies before Jesus, he declared that a man should love his\nneighbour, his fellow man, as himself. \u201cWhen he sees his fellow hungry,\nhe feeds him; when he sees him cold, he clothes him; ill, he nurses him;\ndead, he buries him.\u201d This, he said, was by no means opposed to filial\npiety; for if one cares for the parents of others, they in turn will\ncare for his. But, it was brought against him, the power of egoism? The\nMaster agreed. Yet, he said, Man accepts more difficult things. He can\nrenounce joy, life itself, for even absurd and ridiculous ends. A single\ngeneration, he added, such is the power of imitation, might suffice to\nchange a people\u2019s customs. But Meh-ti remained placid. He remarked that\nthe great ones of the earth were against human solidarity and equality;\nhe left it at that. He took no refuge in mysticism. Practical social\naction was the sole end he had in view, and we have to remember that his\nideals are largely embodied in Chinese institutions.[9]\n\nWe may understand now how it is that in China, and in China alone among\nthe great surviving civilisations, we find that art animates the whole\nof life, even its morality. \u201cThis universal presence of art,\u201d remarks an\nacute yet discriminating observer, \u00c9mile Hovelaque, whom I have already\nquoted,[10] \u201cmanifested in the smallest utensil, the humblest stalls,\nthe notices on the shops, the handwriting, the rhythm of movement,\nalways regular and measured, as though to the tune of unheard music,\nannounces a civilisation which is complete in itself, elaborated in the\nsmallest detail, penetrated by one spirit, which no interruption ever\nbreaks, a harmony which becomes at length a hallucinatory and\noverwhelming obsession.\u201d Or, as another writer has summed up the Chinese\nattitude: \u201cFor them the art of life is one, as this world and the other\nare one. Their aim is to make the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.\u201d\n\nIt is obvious that a natural temperament in which the art-impulse is so\nall-embracing, and the \u00e6sthetic sensibility so acute, might well have\nbeen of a perilous instability. We could scarcely have been surprised\nif, like that surpassing episode in Egyptian history of which Akhenaten\nwas the leader and Tell-el-Amarna the tomb, it had only endured for a\nmoment. Yet Chinese civilisation, which has throughout shown the\ndominating power of this sensitive temperament, has lasted longer than\nany other. The reason is that the very excesses of their temperament\nforced the Chinese to fortify themselves against its perils. The Great\nWall, built more than two thousand years ago, and still to-day almost\nthe most impressive work of man on the earth, is typical of this\nattitude of the Chinese. They have exercised a stupendous energy in\nfortifying themselves against the natural enemies of their own\ntemperament. When one looks at it from this point of view, it is easy to\nsee that, alike in its large outlines and its small details, Chinese\nlife is always the art of balancing an \u00e6sthetic temperament and guarding\nagainst its excesses. We see this in the whole of the ancient and still\nprevailing system of Confucian morality with its insistence on formal\nceremony, even when, departing from the thought of its most influential\nfounder,\u2014for ceremonialism in China would have existed even if Confucius\nhad not lived,\u2014it tended to become merely an external formalism. We see\nit in the massive solidarity of Chinese life, the systematic social\norganisation by which individual responsibility, even though leaving\nindividuality itself intact, is merged in the responsibility of the\nfamily and the still larger group. We see it in the whole drift of\nChinese philosophy, which is throughout sedative and contemplative. We\nsee it in the element of stoicism on the one hand and cruelty on the\nother which in so genuinely good-natured a people would otherwise seem\npuzzling. The Chinese love of flowers and gardens and landscape scenery\nis in the same direction, and indeed one may say much the same of\nChinese painting and Chinese poetry.[11] That is why it is only to-day\nthat we in the West have reached the point of nervous susceptibility\nwhich enables us in some degree to comprehend the \u00e6sthetic supremacy\nwhich the Chinese reached more than a thousand years ago.\n\nThus, during its extremely long history\u2014for the other great\ncivilisations with which it was once contemporary have passed away or\nbeen disintegrated and transformed\u2014Chinese civilisation has borne\nwitness to the great fact that all human life is art. It may be because\nthey have realised this so thoroughly that the Chinese have been able to\npreserve their civilisation so long, through all the violent shocks to\nwhich it has been subjected. There can be no doubt, however, that,\nduring the greater part of the last thousand years, there has been,\nhowever slow and gradual, a decline in the vitality of Chinese\ncivilisation, largely due, it may well be, to the crushing pressure of\nan excessive population. For, however remarkable the admiration which\nChina arouses even to-day, its finest flowering periods in the special\narts lie far in the past, while in the art of living itself the Chinese\nhave long grown languid. The different reports of ancient and modern\ntravellers regarding one definite social manifestation, the prevalence\nof beggary, cannot fail to tell us something regarding the significant\nform of their social life. Modern travellers complain of the plague\nconstituted by the prevalence of beggars in China; they are even a fixed\nand permanent institution on a trades-union basis. But in the sixteenth\ncentury Galeotto Perera noticed with surprise in China the absence of\nbeggars, as Marco Polo had before him, and Friar Gaspar de Cruz remarked\nthat the Chinese so abhorred idleness that they gave no alms to the poor\nand mocked at the Portuguese for doing so: \u201cWhy give alms to a knave?\nLet him go and earn it.\u201d Their own priests, he adds, they sometimes\nwhipped as being knaves. (It should be noted at the same time that it\nwas considered reasonable only to give half the day to work, the other\nhalf to joy and recreation.) But they built great asylums for the\nhelpless poor, and found employment for blind women, gorgeously dressed\nand painted with ceruse and vermilion, as prostitutes, who were more\nesteemed in early China than they have been since. That is a curious\ninstance of the unflinching practicality still shown by the Chinese in\nendless ways. The undoubted lassitude in the later phases of this\nlong-lived Chinese culture has led to features in the art of life, such\nas beggary and dirt among the poor, not manifested in the younger\noffshoot of Chinese and Korean culture in Japan, though it is only fair\nto point out that impartial English observers, like Parker, consider\nthis prevalence of vermin and dirt as simply due to the prevalence of\npoverty, and not greater than we find among the poor in England and\nelsewhere in the West. Marco Polo speaks of three hundred public baths\nin one city alone in his time. We note also that in the more specialised\narts the transcendence of China belongs to the past, and even sometimes\na remote past. It is so in the art of philosophy, and the arts of poetry\nand painting. It is so also in the art of pottery, in which Chinese\nsupremacy over the rest of the world has been longest recognised\u2014has not\nthe word \u201cchina\u201d for centuries been our name for the finest pottery?\u2014and\nis most beyond measure. Our knowledge of the pottery of various cultures\nexcels that of any other human products because of all it is the most\nperdurable. We can better estimate their relative \u00e6sthetic worth now\nthan in the days when a general reverence for Greek antiquity led to a\npopular belief in the beauty of Greek pottery, though scarcely a single\ntype of its many forms can fairly be so considered or even be compared\nto the products of the Minoan predecessors of Greek culture, however\ninteresting they may still remain for us as the awkward and\ninappropriate foundation for exquisite little pictures. The greatest age\nof this universal human art was in China and was over many centuries\nago. But with what devotion, with what absolute concentration of the\nspirit, the Chinese potters of the great period struggled with the\nproblem of art is finely illustrated by the well-known story which an\nold Chinese historian tells of the sacrifice of the divine T\u2019ung, the\nspirit who protects potters. It happened that a complicated problem had\nbaffled the potters. T\u2019ung laid down his life to serve them and to\nachieve the solution of the problem. He plunged into the fire and the\nbowl came out perfect. \u201cThe vessel\u2019s perfect glaze is the god\u2019s fat and\nblood; the body material is the god\u2019s body of flesh; the blue of the\ndecoration, with the brilliant lustre of gems, is the essence of the\ngod\u2019s pure spirit.\u201d That story embodies the Chinese symbol of the art of\nliving, just as we embody our symbol of that art in the Crucifixion of\nJesus. The form is diverse; the essence is the same.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nIT will be seen that when we analyse the experiences of life and look at\nit simply, in the old-fashioned way, liberated from the artificial\ncomplexities of a temporary and now, it may be, departing civilisation,\nwhat we find is easy to sum up. We find, that is to say, that Man has\nforced himself to move along this line, and that line, and the other\nline. But it is the same water of life that runs in all these channels.\nUntil we have ascended to a height where this is clear, to see all our\nlittle dogmatisms will but lead us astray.\n\nWe may illuminatingly change the analogy and turn to the field of\nchemistry. All these various elements of life are but, as it were,\nallotropic forms of the same element. The most fundamental among these\nforms is that of art, for life in all its forms, even morality in the\nnarrowest sense, is, as Duprat has argued, a matter of technique, and\ntechnique at once brings us to the elements of art. If we would\nunderstand what we are dealing with, we may, therefore, best study these\nforms under that of art.\n\nThere is, however, a deeper chemical analogy than this to be seen. It\nmay well be, indeed, that it is more than an analogy. In chemistry we\nare dealing, not merely with the elements of life, but with the elements\nof the world, even of what we call our universe. It is not unreasonable\nto think that the same law holds good for both. We see that the forms of\nlife may all be found, and then better understood, in one form. Some\nday, perhaps, we shall also see that that fact is only a corollary of\nthe larger fact\u2014or, if any one prefers so to regard it, the smaller\nfact\u2014that the chemical elements of our world can be regarded as all only\ntransmutations of one element. From of old, men instinctively divined\nthat this might be so, though they were merely concerned to change the\nelements into gold, the element which they most highly valued. In our\nown times this transmutation is beginning to become, on a minute scale,\na demonstrable fact, though it would seem easier to transmute elements\ninto lead than into gold. Matter, we are thus coming to see, may not be\na confused variety of separate substances, but simply a different\nquantitative arrangement of a single fundamental stuff, which might\npossibly be identical with hydrogen or some other already known element.\nSimilarly we may now believe that the men of old who thought that all\nhuman life was made of one stuff were not altogether wrong, and we may,\nwith greater assurance than they were able to claim, analyse the modes\nof human action into different quantitative or other arrangements of\nwhich the most fundamental may well be identical with art.\n\nThis may perhaps become clearer if we consider more in detail one of the\nseparate arts, selecting the most widely symbolic of all, the art that\nis most clearly made of the stuff of life, and so able to translate most\ntruly and clearly into beautiful form the various modalities of life.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  See, for instance, Turner\u2019s _Samoa_, chap. 1. Usually, however, in the\n  Pacific, creation was accomplished, in a more genuinely evolutionary\n  manner, by a long series of progressive generations.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, vol. I, book III, chap. VI.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  I have here mainly followed Gomperz (_Greek Thinkers_, vol. I, pp.\n  430-34); there is not now, however, much controversy over the position\n  of Hippias, which there is now, indeed, rather a tendency to\n  exaggerate, considering how small is the basis of knowledge we\n  possess. Thus Dupr\u00e9el (_La L\u00e9gende Socratique_, p. 432), regarding him\n  as the most misunderstood of the great Sophists, declares that Hippias\n  is \u201cthe thinker who conceived the universality of science, just as\n  Prodicus caught glimpses of the synthesis of the social sciences.\n  Hippias is the philosopher of science, the Great Logician, just as\n  Prodicus is the Great Moralist.\u201d He compares him to Pico della\n  Mirandola as a Humanist and to Leibnitz in power of wide synthesis.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  Strictly speaking, in the technical sense of that much-abused word,\n  this is \u201cdecadence.\u201d (I refer to the sense in which I defined\n  \u201cdecadence\u201d many years ago in _Affirmations_, pp. 175-87.) So that\n  while the minor arts have sometimes been classic and sometimes\n  decadent, the major art of living during the last two thousand years,\n  although one can think of great men who have maintained the larger\n  classic ideal, has mainly been decadent.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  Emma Hadfield, _Among the Natives of the Loyalty Group_. 1920. It\n  would no doubt have been more satisfactory to select a people like the\n  Fijians rather than the Lifuans, for they represented a more robust\n  and accomplished form of a rather similar culture, but their culture\n  has receded into the past,\u2014and the same may be said of the Marquesans\n  of whom Melville left, in _Typee_, a famous and delightful picture\n  which other records confirm,\u2014while that of the Lifuans is still\n  recent.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  G. Lowes Dickinson, _An Essay on the Civilisations of India, China,\n  and Japan_ (1914), p. 47. No doubt there are shades to be added to\n  this picture. They may be found in a book, published two years\n  earlier, _China as it Really Is_, by \u201ca Resident in Peking\u201d who claims\n  to have been born in China. Chinese culture has receded, in part\n  swamped by over-population, and concerning a land where to-day, it has\n  lately been said, \u201cmagnificence, crudity, delicacy, fetidity, and\n  fragrance are blended,\u201d it is easy for Westerners to show violent\n  difference of opinion.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  See, for instance, the chapter on games in Professor E. H. Parker\u2019s\n  _China: Past and Present_. Reference may be made to the same author\u2019s\n  important and impartial larger work, _China: Its History_, with a\n  discriminating chapter on Chinese personal characteristics. Perhaps,\n  the most penetrating study of Chinese psychology is, however, Arthur\n  H. Smith\u2019s _Chinese Characteristics_.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  His ideas have been studied by Madame Alexandra David, _Le Philosophe\n  Meh-ti et l\u2019Id\u00e9e de Solidarit\u00e9_. London, 1907.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Eug\u00e8ne Simon, _La Cit\u00e9 Chinoise_.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  E. Hovelaque, _La Chine_ (Paris, 1920), p. 47.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  This point has not escaped the more acute students of Chinese\n  civilisation. Thus Dr. John Steele, in his edition of the _I-Li_,\n  remarks that \u201cceremonial was far from being a series of observances,\n  empty and unprofitable, such as it degenerated into in later time. It\n  was meant to inculcate that habit of self-control and ordered action\n  which was the expression of a mind fully instructed in the inner\n  meaning of things, and sensitive to every impression.\u201d Still more\n  clearly, Reginald Farrer wrote, in _On the Eaves of the World_, that\n  \u201cthe philosophic calm that the Chinese deliberately cultivate is their\n  necessary armour to protect the excessive susceptibility to emotion.\n  The Chinese would be for ever the victims of their nerves had they not\n  for four thousand years pursued reason and self-control with\n  self-protective enthusiasm.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n                           THE ART OF DANCING\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nDANCING and building are the two primary and essential arts. The art of\ndancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves\nfirst in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the\nbeginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end\nthey unite. Music, acting, poetry proceed in the one mighty stream;\nsculpture, painting, all the arts of design, in the other. There is no\nprimary art outside these two arts, for their origin is far earlier than\nman himself; and dancing came first.[12]\n\nThat is one reason why dancing, however it may at times be scorned by\npassing fashions, has a profound and eternal attraction even for those\none might suppose farthest from its influence. The joyous beat of the\nfeet of children, the cosmic play of philosophers\u2019 thoughts rise and\nfall according to the same laws of rhythm. If we are indifferent to the\nart of dancing, we have failed to understand, not merely the supreme\nmanifestation of physical life, but also the supreme symbol of spiritual\nlife.\n\nThe significance of dancing, in the wide sense, thus lies in the fact\nthat it is simply an intimate concrete appeal of a general rhythm, that\ngeneral rhythm which marks, not life only, but the universe, if one may\nstill be allowed so to name the sum of the cosmic influences that reach\nus. We need not, indeed, go so far as the planets or the stars and\noutline their ethereal dances. We have but to stand on the seashore and\nwatch the waves that beat at our feet, to observe that at nearly regular\nintervals this seemingly monotonous rhythm is accentuated for several\nbeats, so that the waves are really dancing the measure of a tune. It\nneed surprise us not at all that rhythm, ever tending to be moulded into\na tune, should mark all the physical and spiritual manifestations of\nlife. Dancing is the primitive expression alike of religion and of\nlove\u2014of religion from the earliest human times we know of and of love\nfrom a period long anterior to the coming of man. The art of dancing,\nmoreover, is intimately entwined with all human tradition of war, of\nlabour, of pleasure, of education, while some of the wisest philosophers\nand the most ancient civilisations have regarded the dance as the\npattern in accordance with which the moral life of men must be woven. To\nrealise, therefore, what dancing means for mankind\u2014the poignancy and the\nmany-sidedness of its appeal\u2014we must survey the whole sweep of human\nlife, both at its highest and at its deepest moments.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\n\u201cWHAT do you dance?\u201d When a man belonging to one branch of the great\nBantu division of mankind met a member of another, said Livingstone,\nthat was the question he asked. What a man danced, that was his tribe,\nhis social customs, his religion; for, as an anthropologist has put it,\n\u201ca savage does not preach his religion, he dances it.\u201d\n\nThere are peoples in the world who have no secular dances, only\nreligious dances; and some investigators believe with Gerland that every\ndance was of religious origin. That view may seem too extreme, even if\nwe admit that some even of our modern dances, like the waltz, may have\nbeen originally religious. Even still (as Skene has shown among the\nArabs and Swahili of Africa) so various are dances and their functions\namong some peoples that they cover the larger part of life. Yet we have\nto remember that for primitive man there is no such thing as religion\napart from life, for religion covers everything. Dancing is a magical\noperation for the attainment of real and important ends of every kind.\nIt was clearly of immense benefit to the individual and to society, by\nimparting strength and adding organised harmony. It seemed reasonable to\nsuppose that it attained other beneficial ends, that were incalculable,\nfor calling down blessings or warding off misfortunes. We may conclude,\nwith Wundt, that the dance was, in the beginning, the expression of the\nwhole man, for the whole man was religious.[13]\n\nThus, among primitive peoples, religion being so large a part of life,\nthe dance inevitably becomes of supreme religious importance. To dance\nwas at once both to worship and to pray. Just as we still find in our\nPrayer Books that there are divine services for all the great\nfundamental acts of life,\u2014for birth, for marriage, for death,\u2014as well as\nfor the cosmic procession of the world as marked by ecclesiastical\nfestivals, and for the great catastrophes of nature, such as droughts,\nso also it has ever been among primitive peoples. For all the solemn\noccasions of life, for bridals and for funerals, for seed-time and for\nharvest, for war and for peace, for all these things there were fitting\ndances. To-day we find religious people who in church pray for rain or\nfor the restoration of their friends to health. Their forefathers also\ndesired these things, but, instead of praying for them, they danced for\nthem the fitting dance which tradition had handed down, and which the\nchief or the medicine-man solemnly conducted. The gods themselves\ndanced, as the stars dance in the sky\u2014so at least the Mexicans, and we\nmay be sure many other peoples, have held; and to dance is therefore to\nimitate the gods, to work with them, perhaps to persuade them to work in\nthe direction of our own desires. \u201cWork for us!\u201d is the song-refrain,\nexpressed or implied, of every religious dance. In the worship of solar\ndeities in various countries, it was customary to dance round the altar,\nas the stars dance round the sun. Even in Europe the popular belief that\nthe sun dances on Easter Sunday has perhaps scarcely yet died out. To\ndance is to take part in the cosmic control of the world. Every sacred\nDionysian dance is an imitation of the divine dance.\n\nAll religions, and not merely those of primitive character, have been at\nthe outset, and sometimes throughout, in some measure saltatory. That\nwas recognised even in the ancient world by acute observers, like\nLucian, who remarks in his essay on dancing that \u201cyou cannot find a\nsingle ancient mystery in which there is no dancing; in fact most people\nsay of the devotees of the Mysteries that \u2018they dance them out.\u2019\u201d This\nis so all over the world. It is not more pronounced in early\nChristianity, and among the ancient Hebrews who danced before the ark,\nthan among the Australian aborigines whose great corroborees are\nreligious dances conducted by the medicine-men with their sacred staves\nin their hands. Every American Indian tribe seems to have had its own\nreligious dances, varied and elaborate, often with a richness of meaning\nwhich the patient study of modern investigators has but slowly revealed.\nThe Shamans in the remote steppes of Northern Siberia have their\necstatic religious dances, and in modern Europe the Turkish\ndervishes\u2014perhaps of related stock\u2014still dance in their cloisters\nsimilar ecstatic dances, combined with song and prayer, as a regular\npart of devotional service.\n\nThese religious dances, it may be observed, are sometimes ecstatic,\nsometimes pantomimic. It is natural that this should be so. By each road\nit is possible to penetrate towards the divine mystery of the world. The\nauto-intoxication of rapturous movement brings the devotees, for a while\nat least, into that self-forgetful union with the not-self which the\nmystic ever seeks. The ecstatic Hindu dance in honour of the pre-Aryan\nhill god, afterwards Siva, became in time a great symbol, \u201cthe clearest\nimage of the _activity_ of God,\u201d it has been called, \u201cwhich any art or\nreligion can boast of.\u201d[14] Pantomimic dances, on the other hand, with\ntheir effort to heighten natural expression and to imitate natural\nprocess, bring the dancers into the divine sphere of creation and enable\nthem to assist vicariously in the energy of the gods. The dance thus\nbecomes the presentation of a divine drama, the vital re\u00ebnactment of a\nsacred history, in which the worshipper is enabled to play a real\npart.[15] In this way ritual arises.\n\nIt is in this sphere\u2014highly primitive as it is\u2014of pantomimic dancing\ncrystallised in ritual, rather than in the sphere of ecstatic dancing,\nthat we may to-day in civilisation witness the survivals of the dance in\nreligion. The divine services of the American Indian, said Lewis Morgan,\ntook the form of \u201cset dances, each with its own name, songs, steps, and\ncostume.\u201d At this point the early Christian, worshipping the Divine\nBody, was able to join in spiritual communion with the ancient Egyptian\nor the later Japanese[16] or the modern American Indian. They are all\nalike privileged to enter, each in his own way, a sacred mystery, and to\nparticipate in the sacrifice of a heavenly Mass.\n\nWhat by some is considered to be the earliest known Christian ritual\u2014the\n\u201cHymn of Jesus\u201d assigned to the second century\u2014is nothing but a sacred\ndance. Eusebius in the third century stated that Philo\u2019s description of\nthe worship of the Therapeuts agreed at all points with Christian\ncustom, and that meant the prominence of dancing, to which indeed\nEusebius often refers in connection with Christian worship. It has been\nsupposed by some that the Christian Church was originally a theatre, the\nchoir being the raised stage, even the word \u201cchoir,\u201d it is argued,\nmeaning an enclosed space for dancing. It is certain that at the\nEucharist the faithful gesticulated with their hands, danced with their\nfeet, flung their bodies about. Chrysostom, who referred to this\nbehaviour round the Holy Table at Antioch, only objected to drunken\nexcesses in connection with it; the custom itself he evidently regarded\nas traditional and right.\n\nWhile the central function of Christian worship is a sacred drama, a\ndivine pantomime, the associations of Christianity and dancing are by no\nmeans confined to the ritual of the Mass and its later more attenuated\ntransformations. The very idea of dancing had a sacred and mystic\nmeaning to the early Christians, who had meditated profoundly on the\ntext, \u201cWe have piped unto you and ye have not danced.\u201d Origen prayed\nthat above all things there may be made operative in us the mystery \u201cof\nthe stars dancing in Heaven for the salvation of the Universe.\u201d So that\nthe monks of the Cistercian Order, who in a later age worked for the\nworld more especially by praying for it (\u201corare est laborare\u201d), were\nengaged in the same task on earth as the stars in Heaven; dancing and\npraying are the same thing. St. Basil, who was so enamoured of natural\nthings, described the angels dancing in Heaven, and later the author of\nthe \u201cDieta Salutis\u201d (said to have been St. Bonaventura), which is\nsupposed to have influenced Dante in assigning so large a place to\ndancing in the \u201cParadiso,\u201d described dancing as the occupation of the\ninmates of Heaven, and Christ as the leader of the dance. Even in more\nmodern times an ancient Cornish carol sang of the life of Jesus as a\ndance, and represented him as declaring that he died in order that man\n\u201cmay come unto the general dance.\u201d[17]\n\nThis attitude could not fail to be reflected in practice. Genuine\ndancing, not merely formalised and unrecognisable dancing, such as the\ntraditionalised Mass, must have been frequently introduced into\nChristian worship in early times. Until a few centuries ago it remained\nnot uncommon, and it even still persists in remote corners of the\nChristian world. In English cathedrals dancing went on until the\nfourteenth century. At Paris, Limoges, and elsewhere in France, the\npriests danced in the choir at Easter up to the seventeenth century, in\nRoussillon up to the eighteenth century. Roussillon is a Catalan\nprovince with Spanish traditions, and it is in Spain, where dancing is a\ndeeper and more passionate impulse than elsewhere in Europe, that\nreligious dancing took firmest root and flourished longest. In the\ncathedrals of Seville, Toledo, Valencia, and Jeres there was formerly\ndancing, though it now only survives at a few special festivals in the\nfirst.[18] At Alaro in Mallorca, also at the present day, a dancing\ncompany called Els Cosiers, on the festival of St. Roch, the patron\nsaint of the place, dance in the church in fanciful costumes with\ntambourines, up to the steps of the high altar, immediately after Mass,\nand then dance out of the church. In another part of the Christian\nworld, in the Abyssinian Church\u2014an offshoot of the Eastern\nChurch\u2014dancing is also said still to form part of the worship.\n\nDancing, we may see throughout the world, has been so essential, so\nfundamental, a part of all vital and undegenerate religion, that,\nwhenever a new religion appears, a religion of the spirit and not merely\nan an\u00e6mic religion of the intellect, we should still have to ask of it\nthe question of the Bantu: \u201cWhat do you dance?\u201d\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nDancing is not only intimately associated with religion, it has an\nequally intimate association with love. Here, indeed, the relationship\nis even more primitive, for it is far older than man. Dancing, said\nLucian, is as old as love. Among insects and among birds it may be said\nthat dancing is often an essential part of love. In courtship the male\ndances, sometimes in rivalry with other males, in order to charm the\nfemale; then, after a short or long interval, the female is aroused to\nshare his ardour and join in the dance; the final climax of the dance is\nthe union of the lovers. Among the mammals most nearly related to man,\nindeed, dancing is but little developed: their energies are more\nvariously diffused, though a close observer of the apes, Dr. Louis\nRobinson, has pointed out that the \u201cspasmodic jerking of the\nchimpanzee\u2019s feeble legs,\u201d pounding the partition of his cage, is the\ncrude motion out of which \u201cthe heavenly alchemy of evolution has created\nthe divine movements of Pavlova\u201d; but it must be remembered that the\nanthropoid apes are offshoots only from the stock that produced Man, his\ncousins and not his ancestors. It is the more primitive love-dance of\ninsects and birds that seems to reappear among human savages in various\nparts of the world, notably in Africa, and in a conventionalised and\nsymbolised form it is still danced in civilisation to-day. Indeed, it is\nin this aspect that dancing has so often aroused reprobation, from the\ndays of early Christianity until the present, among those for whom the\ndance has merely been, in the words of a seventeenth-century writer, a\nseries of \u201cimmodest and dissolute movements by which the cupidity of the\nflesh is aroused.\u201d\n\nBut in nature and among primitive peoples it has its value precisely on\nthis account. It is a process of courtship and, even more than that, it\nis a novitiate for love, and a novitiate which was found to be an\nadmirable training for love. Among some peoples, indeed, as the Omahas,\nthe same word meant both to dance and to love. By his beauty, his\nenergy, his skill, the male must win the female, so impressing the image\nof himself on her imagination that finally her desire is aroused to\novercome her reticence. That is the task of the male throughout nature,\nand in innumerable species besides Man it has been found that the school\nin which the task may best be learnt is the dancing-school. Those who\nhave not the skill and the strength to learn are left behind, and, as\nthey are probably the least capable members of the race, it may be in\nthis way that a kind of sexual selection has been embodied in\nunconscious eugenics, and aided the higher development of the race. The\nmoths and the butterflies, the African ostrich and the Sumatran argus\npheasant, with their fellows innumerable, have been the precursors of\nman in the strenuous school of erotic dancing, fitting themselves for\nselection by the females of their choice as the most splendid\nprogenitors of the future race.[19]\n\nFrom this point of view, it is clear, the dance performed a double\nfunction. On the one hand, the tendency to dance, arising under the\nobscure stress of this impulse, brought out the best possibilities the\nindividual held the promise of; on the other hand, at the moment of\ncourtship, the display of the activities thus acquired developed on the\nsensory side all the latent possibilities of beauty which at last became\nconscious in man. That this came about we cannot easily escape\nconcluding. How it came about, how it happens that some of the least\nintelligent of creatures thus developed a beauty and a grace that are\nenchanting even to our human eyes, is a miracle, even if not affected by\nthe mystery of sex, which we cannot yet comprehend.\n\nWhen we survey the human world, the erotic dance of the animal world is\nseen not to have lost, but rather to have gained, influence. It is no\nlonger the males alone who are thus competing for the love of the\nfemales. It comes about by a modification in the earlier method of\nselection that often not only the men dance for the women, but the women\nfor the men, each striving in a storm of rivalry to arouse and attract\nthe desire of the other. In innumerable parts of the world the season of\nlove is a time which the nubile of each sex devote to dancing in each\nother\u2019s presence, sometimes one sex, sometimes the other, sometimes\nboth, in the frantic effort to display all the force and energy, the\nskill and endurance, the beauty and grace, which at this moment are\nyearning within them to be poured into the stream of the race\u2019s life.\n\nFrom this point of view we may better understand the immense ardour with\nwhich every part of the wonderful human body has been brought into the\nplay of the dance. The men and women of races spread all over the world\nhave shown a marvellous skill and patience in imparting rhythm and\nmeasure to the most unlikely, the most rebellious regions of the body,\nall wrought by desire into potent and dazzling images. To the vigorous\nraces of Northern Europe in their cold damp climate, dancing comes\nnaturally to be dancing of the legs, so naturally that the English poet,\nas a matter of course, assumes that the dance of Salome was a \u201ctwinkling\nof the feet.\u201d[20] But on the opposite side of the world, in Japan and\nnotably in Java and Madagascar, dancing may be exclusively dancing of\nthe arms and hands, in some of the South Sea Islands of the hands and\nfingers alone. Dancing may even be carried on in the seated posture, as\noccurs at Fiji in a dance connected with the preparation of the sacred\ndrink, ava. In some districts of Southern Tunisia dancing, again, is\ndancing of the hair, and all night long, till they perhaps fall\nexhausted, the marriageable girls will move their heads to the rhythm of\na song, maintaining their hair in perpetual balance and sway. Elsewhere,\nnotably in Africa, but also sometimes in Polynesia, as well as in the\ndances that had established themselves in ancient Rome, dancing is\ndancing of the body, with vibratory or rotatory movements of breasts or\nflanks. The complete dance along these lines is, however, that in which\nthe play of all the chief muscle-groups of the body is harmoniously\ninterwoven. When both sexes take part in such an exercise, developed\ninto an idealised yet passionate pantomime of love, we have the complete\nerotic dance. In the beautiful ancient civilisation of the Pacific, it\nis probable that this ideal was sometimes reached, and at Tahiti, in\n1772, an old voyager crudely and summarily described the native dance as\n\u201can endless variety of posturings and wagglings of the body, hands,\nfeet, eyes, lips, and tongue, in which they keep splendid time to the\nmeasure.\u201d In Spain the dance of this kind has sometimes attained its\nnoblest and most harmoniously beautiful expression. From the narratives\nof travellers, it would appear that it was especially in the eighteenth\ncentury that among all classes in Spain dancing of this kind was\npopular. The Church tacitly encouraged it, an Aragonese Canon told\nBaretti in 1770, in spite of its occasional indecorum, as a useful\nsafety-valve for the emotions. It was not less seductive to the foreign\nspectator than to the people themselves. The grave traveller Peyron,\ntowards the end of the century, growing eloquent over the languorous and\nflexible movements of the dance, the bewitching attitude, the voluptuous\ncurves of the arms, declares that, when one sees a beautiful Spanish\nwoman dance, one is inclined to fling all philosophy to the winds. And\neven that highly respectable Anglican clergyman, the Reverend Joseph\nTownsend, was constrained to state that he could \u201calmost persuade\nmyself\u201d that if the fandango were suddenly played in church the gravest\nworshippers would start up to join in that \u201clascivious pantomime.\u201d There\nwe have the rock against which the primitive dance of sexual selection\nsuffers shipwreck as civilisation advances. And that prejudice of\ncivilisation becomes so ingrained that it is brought to bear even on the\nprimitive dance. The pygmies of Africa are described by Sir H. H.\nJohnston as a very decorous and highly moral people, but their dances,\nhe adds, are not so. Yet these dances, though to the eyes of Johnston,\nblinded by European civilisation, \u201cgrossly indecent,\u201d he honestly, and\ninconsistently, adds, are \u201cdanced reverently.\u201d\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nFrom the vital function of dancing in love, and its sacred function in\nreligion, to dancing as an art, a profession, an amusement, may seem, at\nthe first glance, a sudden leap. In reality the transition is gradual,\nand it began to be made at a very early period in diverse parts of the\nglobe. All the matters that enter into courtship tend to fall under the\nsway of art; their \u00e6sthetic pleasure is a secondary reflection of their\nprimary vital joy. Dancing could not fail to be first in manifesting\nthis tendency. But even religious dancing swiftly exhibited the same\ntransformation; dancing, like priesthood, became a profession, and\ndancers, like priests, formed a caste. This, for instance, took place in\nold Hawaii. The hula dance was a religious dance; it required a special\neducation and an arduous training; moreover, it involved the observance\nof important taboos and the exercise of sacred rites; by the very fact\nof its high specialisation it came to be carried out by paid performers,\na professional caste. In India, again, the Devadasis, or sacred dancing\ngirls, are at once both religious and professional dancers. They are\nmarried to gods, they are taught dancing by the Brahmins, they figure in\nreligious ceremonies, and their dances represent the life of the god\nthey are married to as well as the emotions of love they experience for\nhim. Yet, at the same time, they also give professional performances in\nthe houses of rich private persons who pay for them. It thus comes about\nthat to the foreigner the Devadasis scarcely seem very unlike the\nRamedjenis, the dancers of the street, who are of very different origin,\nand mimic in their performances the play of merely human passions. The\nPortuguese conquerors of India called both kinds of dancers\nindiscriminately Balheideras (or dancers) which we have corrupted in\nBayaderes.[21]\n\nIn our modern world professional dancing as an art has become altogether\ndivorced from religion, and even, in any biological sense, from love; it\nis scarcely even possible, so far as Western civilisation is concerned,\nto trace back the tradition to either source. If we survey the\ndevelopment of dancing as an art in Europe, it seems to me that we have\nto recognise two streams of tradition which have sometimes merged, but\nyet remain in their ideals and their tendencies essentially distinct. I\nwould call these traditions the Classical, which is much the more\nancient and fundamental, and may be said to be of Egyptian origin, and\nthe Romantic, which is of Italian origin, chiefly known to us as the\nballet. The first is, in its pure form, solo dancing\u2014though it may be\ndanced in couples and many together\u2014and is based on the rhythmic beauty\nand expressiveness of the simple human personality when its energy is\nconcentrated in measured yet passionate movement. The second is\nconcerted dancing, mimetic and picturesque, wherein the individual is\nsubordinated to the wider and variegated rhythm of the group. It may be\neasy to devise another classification, but this is simple and\ninstructive enough for our purpose.\n\nThere can scarcely be a doubt that Egypt has been for many thousands of\nyears, as indeed it still remains, a great dancing centre, the most\ninfluential dancing-school the world has ever seen, radiating its\ninfluence to south and east and north. We may perhaps even agree with\nthe historian of the dance who terms it \u201cthe mother-country of all\ncivilised dancing.\u201d We are not entirely dependent on the ancient\nwall-pictures of Egypt for our knowledge of Egyptian skill in the art.\nSacred mysteries, it is known, were danced in the temples, and queens\nand princesses took part in the orchestras that accompanied them. It is\nsignificant that the musical instruments still peculiarly associated\nwith the dance were originated or developed in Egypt; the guitar is an\nEgyptian instrument and its name was a hieroglyph already used when the\nPyramids were being built; the cymbal, the tambourine, triangles,\ncastanets, in one form or another, were all familiar to the ancient\nEgyptians, and with the Egyptian art of dancing they must have spread\nall round the shores of the Mediterranean, the great focus of our\ncivilisation, at a very early date.[22] Even beyond the Mediterranean,\nat Cadiz, dancing that was essentially Egyptian in character was\nestablished, and Cadiz became the dancing-school of Spain. The Nile and\nCadiz were thus the two great centres of ancient dancing, and Martial\nmentions them both together, for each supplied its dancers to Rome. This\ndancing, alike whether Egyptian or Gaditanian, was the expression of the\nindividual dancer\u2019s body and art; the garments played but a small part\nin it, they were frequently transparent, and sometimes discarded\naltogether. It was, and it remains, simple, personal, passionate\ndancing, classic, therefore, in the same sense as, on the side of\nliterature, the poetry of Catullus is classic.[23]\n\nAncient Greek dancing was essentially classic dancing, as here\nunderstood. On the Greek vases, as reproduced in Emmanuel\u2019s attractive\nbook on Greek dancing and elsewhere, we find the same play of the arms,\nthe same sideward turn, the same extreme backward extension of the body,\nwhich had long before been represented in Egyptian monuments. Many\nsupposedly modern movements in dancing were certainly already common\nboth to Egyptian and Greek dancing, as well as the clapping of hands to\nkeep time which is still an accompaniment of Spanish dancing. It seems\nclear, however, that, on this general classic and Mediterranean basis,\nGreek dancing had a development so refined and so special\u2014though in\ntechnical elaboration of steps, it seems likely, inferior to modern\ndancing\u2014that it exercised no influence outside Greece. Dancing became,\nindeed, the most characteristic and the most generally cultivated of\nGreek arts. Pindar, in a splendid Oxyrhynchine fragment, described\nHellas, in what seemed to him supreme praise, as \u201cthe land of lovely\ndancing,\u201d and Athen\u00e6us pointed out that he calls Apollo the Dancer. It\nmay well be that the Greek drama arose out of dance and song, and that\nthe dance throughout was an essential and plastic element in it. Even if\nwe reject the statement of Aristotle that tragedy arose out of the\nDionysian dithyramb, the alternative suppositions (such as Ridgeway\u2019s\ntheory of dancing round the tombs of the dead) equally involve the same\nelements. It has often been pointed out that poetry in Greece demanded a\npractical knowledge of all that could be included under \u201cdancing.\u201d\n\u00c6schylus is said to have developed the technique of dancing and\nSophocles danced in his own dramas. In these developments, no doubt,\nGreek dancing tended to overpass the fundamental limits of classic\ndancing and foreshadowed the ballet.[24]\n\nThe real germ of the ballet, however, is to be found in Rome, where the\npantomime with its concerted and picturesque method of expressive action\nwas developed, and Italy is the home of Romantic dancing. The same\nimpulse which produced the pantomime produced, more than a thousand\nyears later in the same Italian region, the modern ballet. In both\ncases, one is inclined to think, we may trace the influence of the same\nEtruscan and Tuscan race which so long has had its seat there, a race\nwith a genius for expressive, dramatic, picturesque art. We see it on\nthe walls of Etruscan tombs and again in pictures of Botticelli and his\nfellow Tuscans. The modern ballet, it is generally believed, had its\norigin in the spectacular pageants at the marriage of Galeazzo Visconti,\nDuke of Milan, in 1489. The fashion for such performances spread to the\nother Italian courts, including Florence, and Catherine de\u2019 Medici, when\nshe became Queen of France, brought the Italian ballet to Paris. Here it\nspeedily became fashionable. Kings and queens were its admirers and even\ntook part in it; great statesmen were its patrons. Before long, and\nespecially in the great age of Louis XIV, it became an established\ninstitution, still an adjunct of opera but with a vital life and growth\nof its own, maintained by distinguished musicians, artists, and dancers.\nRomantic dancing, to a much greater extent than what I have called\nClassic dancing, which depends so largely on simple personal qualities,\ntends to be vitalised by transplantation and the absorption of new\ninfluences, provided that the essential basis of technique and tradition\nis preserved in the new development. Lulli in the seventeenth century\nbrought women into the ballet; Camargo discarded the complicated\ncostumes and shortened the skirt, so rendering possible not only her own\nlively and vigorous method, but all the freedom and airy grace of later\ndancing. It was Noverre who by his ideas worked out at Stuttgart, and\nsoon brought to Paris by Gaetan Vestris, made the ballet a new and\ncomplete art form; this Swiss-French genius not only elaborated plot\nrevealed by gesture and dance alone, but, just as another and greater\nSwiss-French genius about the same time brought sentiment and emotion\ninto the novel, he brought it into the ballet. In the French ballet of\nthe eighteenth century a very high degree of perfection seems thus to\nhave been reached, while in Italy, where the ballet had originated, it\ndecayed, and Milan, which had been its source, became the nursery of a\ntradition of devitalised technique carried to the finest point of\ndelicate perfection. The influence of the French school was maintained\nas a living force into the nineteenth century,\u2014when it was renovated\nafresh by the new spirit of the age and Taglioni became the most\nethereal embodiment of the spirit of the Romantic movement in a form\nthat was genuinely classic,\u2014overspreading the world by the genius of a\nfew individual dancers. When they had gone, the ballet slowly and\nsteadily declined. As it declined as an art, so also it declined in\ncredit and in popularity; it became scarcely respectable even to admire\ndancing. Thirty or forty years ago, those of us who still appreciated\ndancing as an art\u2014and how few they were!\u2014had to seek for it painfully\nand sometimes in strange surroundings. A recent historian of dancing, in\na book published so lately as 1906, declared that \u201cthe ballet is now a\nthing of the past, and, with the modern change of ideas, a thing that is\nnever likely to be resuscitated.\u201d That historian never mentioned Russian\nballet, yet his book was scarcely published before the Russian ballet\narrived to scatter ridicule over his rash prophecy by raising the ballet\nto a pitch of perfection it can rarely have surpassed, as an expressive,\nemotional, even passionate form of living art.\n\nThe Russian ballet was an offshoot from the French ballet and\nillustrates once more the vivifying effect of transplantation on the art\nof Romantic dancing. The Empress Anna introduced it in 1735 and\nappointed a French ballet-master and a Neapolitan composer to carry it\non; it reached a high degree of technical perfection during the\nfollowing hundred years, on the traditional lines, and the principal\ndancers were all imported from Italy. It was not until recent years that\nthis firm discipline and these ancient traditions were vitalised into an\nart form of exquisite and vivid beauty by the influence of the soil in\nwhich they had slowly taken root. This contact, when at last it was\neffected, mainly by the genius of Fokine and the enterprise of\nDiaghilev, involved a kind of revolution, for its outcome, while genuine\nballet, has yet all the effect of delicious novelty. The tradition by\nitself was in Russia an exotic without real life, and had nothing to\ngive to the world; on the other hand, a Russian ballet apart from that\ntradition, if we can conceive such a thing, would have been formless,\nextravagant, bizarre, not subdued to any fine \u00e6sthetic ends. What we see\nhere, in the Russian ballet as we know it to-day, is a splendid and\narduous technical tradition, brought at last\u2014by the combined skill of\ndesigners, composers, and dancers\u2014into real fusion with an environment\nfrom which during more than a century it had been held apart; Russian\ngenius for music, Russian feeling for rhythm, Russian skill in the use\nof bright colour, and, not least, the Russian orgiastic temperament, the\nRussian spirit of tender poetic melancholy, and the general Slav passion\nfor folk-dancing, shown in other branches of the race also, Polish,\nBohemian, Bulgarian, and Servian. At almost the same time what I have\ntermed Classic dancing was independently revived in America by Isadora\nDuncan, bringing back what seemed to be the free naturalism of the Greek\ndance, and Ruth St. Denis, seeking to discover and revitalise the\nsecrets of the old Indian and Egyptian traditions. Whenever now we find\nany restored art of theatrical dancing, as in the Swedish ballet, it has\nbeen inspired more or less, by an eclectic blending of these two revived\nforms, the Romantic from Russia, the Classic from America. The result\nhas been that our age sees one of the most splendid movements in the\nwhole history of the ballet.\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nDancing as an art, we may be sure, cannot die out, but will always be\nundergoing a rebirth. Not merely as an art, but also as a social custom,\nit perpetually emerges afresh from the soul of the people. Less than a\ncentury ago the polka thus arose, extemporised by the Bohemian servant\ngirl Anna Slezakova out of her own head for the joy of her own heart,\nand only rendered a permanent form, apt for world-wide popularity, by\nthe accident that it was observed and noted down by an artist. Dancing\nhas for ever been in existence as a spontaneous custom, a social\ndiscipline. Thus it is, finally, that dancing meets us, not only as\nlove, as religion, as art, but also as morals.\n\nAll human work, under natural conditions, is a kind of dance. In a large\nand learned book, supported by an immense amount of evidence, Karl\nB\u00fccher has argued that work differs from the dance, not in kind, but\nonly in degree, since they are both essentially rhythmic. There is a\ngood reason why work should be rhythmic, for all great combined efforts,\nthe efforts by which alone great constructions such as those of\nmegalithic days could be carried out, must be harmonised. It has even\nbeen argued that this necessity is the source of human speech, and we\nhave the so-called Yo-heave-ho theory of languages. In the memory of\nthose who have ever lived on a sailing ship\u2014that loveliest of human\ncreations now disappearing from the world\u2014there will always linger the\necho of the chanties which sailors sang as they hoisted the topsail yard\nor wound the capstan or worked the pumps. That is the type of primitive\ncombined work, and it is indeed difficult to see how such work can be\neffectively accomplished without such a device for regulating the\nrhythmic energy of the muscles. The dance rhythm of work has thus acted\nsocialisingly in a parallel line with the dance rhythms of the arts, and\nindeed in part as their inspirer. The Greeks, it has been too fancifully\nsuggested, by insight or by intuition understood this when they fabled\nthat Orpheus, whom they regarded as the earliest poet, was specially\nconcerned with moving stones and trees. B\u00fccher has pointed out that even\npoetic metre may be conceived as arising out of work; metre is the\nrhythmic stamping of feet, as in the technique of verse it is still\nmetaphorically called; iambics and trochees, spondees and anap\u00e6sts and\ndactyls, may still be heard among blacksmiths smiting the anvil or\nnavvies wielding their hammers in the streets. In so far as they arose\nout of work, music and singing and dancing are naturally a single art. A\npoet must always write to a tune, said Swinburne. Herein the ancient\nballad of Europe is a significant type. It is, as the name indicates, a\ndance as much as a song, performed by a singer who sang the story and a\nchorus who danced and shouted the apparently meaningless refrain; it is\nabsolutely the chanty of the sailors and is equally apt for the purposes\nof concerted work.[25] Yet our most complicated musical forms are\nevolved from similar dances. The symphony is but a development of a\ndance suite, in the first place folk-dances, such as Bach and Handel\ncomposed. Indeed a dance still lingers always at the heart of music and\neven the heart of the composer. Mozart, who was himself an accomplished\ndancer, used often to say, so his wife stated, that it was dancing, not\nmusic, that he really cared for. Wagner believed that Beethoven\u2019s\nSeventh Symphony\u2014to some of us the most fascinating of them and the most\npurely musical\u2014was an apotheosis of the dance, and, even if that belief\nthrows no light on the intention of Beethoven, it is at least a\nrevelation of Wagner\u2019s own feeling for the dance.\n\nIt is, however, the dance itself, apart from the work and apart from the\nother arts, which, in the opinion of many to-day, has had a decisive\ninfluence in socialising, that is to say in moralising, the human\nspecies. Work showed the necessity of harmonious rhythmic co\u00f6peration,\nbut the dance developed that rhythmic co\u00f6peration and imparted a\nbeneficent impetus to all human activities. It was Grosse, in his\n\u201cBeginnings of Art,\u201d who first clearly set forth the high social\nsignificance of the dance in the creation of human civilisation. The\nparticipants in a dance, as all observers of savages have noted, exhibit\na wonderful unison; they are, as it were, fused into a single being\nstirred by a single impulse. Social unification is thus accomplished.\nApart from war, this is the chief factor making for social solidarity in\nprimitive life; it was indeed the best training for war. It has been a\ntwofold influence; on the one hand, it aided unity of action and method\nin evolution: on the other, it had the invaluable function\u2014for man is\nnaturally a timid animal\u2014of imparting courage; the universal drum, as\nLouis Robinson remarks, has been an immense influence in human affairs.\nEven among the Romans, with their highly developed military system,\ndancing and war were definitely allied; the Salii constituted a college\nof sacred military dancers; the dancing season was March, the war-god\u2019s\nmonth and the beginning of the war season, and all through that month\nthere were dances in triple measure before the temples and round the\naltars, with songs so ancient that not even the priests could understand\nthem. We may trace a similar influence of dancing in all the co\u00f6perative\narts of life. All our most advanced civilisation, Grosse insisted, is\nbased on dancing. It is the dance that socialised man.\n\nThus, in the large sense, dancing has possessed peculiar value as a\nmethod of national education. As civilisation grew self-conscious, this\nwas realised. \u201cOne may judge of a king,\u201d according to ancient Chinese\nmaxim, \u201cby the state of dancing during his reign.\u201d So also among the\nGreeks; it has been said that dancing and music lay at the foundation of\nthe whole political and military as well as religious organisation of\nthe Dorian states.\n\nIn the narrow sense, in individual education, the great importance of\ndancing came to be realised, even at an early stage of human\ndevelopment, and still more in the ancient civilisations. \u201cA good\neducation,\u201d Plato declared in the \u201cLaws,\u201d the final work of his old age,\n\u201cconsists in knowing how to sing and dance well.\u201d And in our own day one\nof the keenest and most enlightened of educationists has lamented the\ndecay of dancing; the revival of dancing, Stanley Hall declares, is\nimperatively needed to give poise to the nerves, schooling to the\nemotions, strength to the will, and to harmonise the feelings and the\nintellect with the body which supports them.\n\nIt can scarcely be said that these functions of dancing are yet\ngenerally realised and embodied afresh in education. For, if it is true\nthat dancing engendered morality, it is also true that in the end, by\nthe irony of fate, morality, grown insolent, sought to crush its own\nparent, and for a time succeeded only too well. Four centuries ago\ndancing was attacked by that spirit, in England called Puritanism, which\nwas then spread over the greater part of Europe, just as active in\nBohemia as in England, and which has, indeed, been described as a\ngeneral onset of developing Urbanism against the old Ruralism. It made\nno distinction between good and bad, nor paused to consider what would\ncome when dancing went. So it was that, as Remy de Gourmont remarks, the\ndrinking-shop conquered the dance, and alcohol replaced the violin.\n\nBut when we look at the function of dancing in life from a higher and\nwider standpoint, this episode in its history ceases to occupy so large\na place. The conquest over dancing has never proved in the end a matter\nfor rejoicing, even to morality, while an art which has been so\nintimately mixed with all the finest and deepest springs of life has\nalways asserted itself afresh. For dancing is the loftiest, the most\nmoving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere\ntranslation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. It is the only\nart, as Rahel Varnhagen said, of which we ourselves are the stuff. Even\nif we are not ourselves dancers, but merely the spectators of the dance,\nwe are still\u2014according to that Lippsian doctrine of _Einf\u00fchlung_ or\n\u201cempathy\u201d by Groos termed \u201cthe play of inner imitation\u201d\u2014which here, at\nall events, we may accept as true\u2014feeling ourselves in the dancer who is\nmanifesting and expressing the latent impulses of our own being.\n\nIt thus comes about that, beyond its manifold practical significance,\ndancing has always been felt to possess also a symbolic significance.\nMarcus Aurelius was accustomed to regard the art of life as like the\ndancer\u2019s art, though that Imperial Stoic could not resist adding that in\nsome respects it was more like the wrestler\u2019s art. \u201cI doubt not yet to\nmake a figure in the great Dance of Life that shall amuse the spectators\nin the sky,\u201d said, long after, Blake, in the same strenuous spirit. In\nour own time, Nietzsche, from first to last, showed himself possessed by\nthe conception of the art of life as a dance, in which the dancer\nachieves the rhythmic freedom and harmony of his soul beneath the shadow\nof a hundred Damoclean swords. He said the same thing of his style, for\nto him the style and the man were one: \u201cMy style,\u201d he wrote to his\nintimate friend Rohde, \u201cis a dance.\u201d \u201cEvery day I count wasted,\u201d he said\nagain, \u201cin which there has been no dancing.\u201d The dance lies at the\nbeginning of art, and we find it also at the end. The first creators of\ncivilisation were making the dance, and the philosopher of a later age,\nhovering over the dark abyss of insanity, with bleeding feet and muscles\nstrained to the breaking point, still seems to himself to be weaving the\nmaze of the dance.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  It is even possible that, in earlier than human times, dancing and\n  architecture may have been the result of the same impulse. The nest of\n  birds is the chief early form of building, and Edmund Selous has\n  suggested (_Zo\u00f6logist_, December, 1901) that the nest may first have\n  arisen as an accidental result of the ecstatic sexual dance of birds.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  \u201cNot the epic song, but the dance,\u201d Wundt says (_V\u00f6lkerpsychologie_,\n  3d ed. 1911, Bd. 1, Teil 1, p. 277), \u201caccompanied by a monotonous and\n  often meaningless song, constitutes everywhere the most primitive,\n  and, in spite of that primitiveness, the most highly developed art.\n  Whether as a ritual dance, or as a pure emotional expression of the\n  joy in rhythmic bodily movement, it rules the life of primitive men to\n  such a degree that all other forms of art are subordinate to it.\u201d\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  See an interesting essay in _The Dance of Siva: Fourteen Indian\n  Essays_, by Ananda Coomaraswamy. New York, 1918.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  This view was clearly put forward, long ago, by W. W. Newell at the\n  International Congress of Anthropology at Chicago in 1893. It has\n  become almost a commonplace since.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  See a charming paper by Marcella Azra Hincks, \u201cThe Art of Dancing in\n  Japan,\u201d _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1906. Pantomimic dancing, which\n  has played a highly important part in Japan, was introduced into\n  religion from China, it is said, in the earliest time, and was not\n  adapted to secular purposes until the sixteenth century.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  I owe some of these facts to an interesting article by G. R. Mead,\n  \u201cThe Sacred Dance of Jesus,\u201d _The Quest_, October, 1910.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  The dance of the Seises in Seville Cathedral is evidently of great\n  antiquity, though it was so much a matter of course that we do not\n  hear of it until 1690, when the Archbishop of the day, in opposition\n  to the Chapter, wished to suppress it. A decree of the King was\n  finally obtained permitting it, provided it was performed only by men,\n  so that evidently, before that date, girls as well as boys took part\n  in it. Rev. John Morris, \u201cDancing in Churches,\u201d _The Month_, December,\n  1892; also a valuable article on the Seises by J. B. Trend, in _Music\n  and Letters_, January, 1921.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  See, for references, Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of\n  Sex_, vol. III; _Analysis of the Sexual Impulse_, pp. 29, etc.; and\n  Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, vol. I, chap. XIII, p. 470.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  At an earlier period, however, the dance of Salome was understood much\n  more freely and often more accurately. As Enlart has pointed out, on a\n  capital in the twelfth-century cloister of Moissac, Salome holds a\n  kind of castanets in her raised hands as she dances; on one of the\n  western portals of Rouen Cathedral, at the beginning of the sixteenth\n  century, she is dancing on her hands; while at Hemelverdeghem she is\n  really executing the _morisco_, the \u201c_danse du ventre_.\u201d\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  For an excellent account of dancing in India, now being degraded by\n  modern civilisation, see Otto Rothfeld, _Women of India_, chap. VII,\n  \u201cThe Dancing Girl,\u201d 1922.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  I may hazard the suggestion that the gypsies may possibly have\n  acquired their rather unaccountable name of Egyptians, not so much\n  because they had passed through Egypt, the reason which is generally\n  suggested,\u2014for they must have passed through many countries,\u2014but\n  because of their proficiency in dances of the recognised Egyptian\n  type.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  It is interesting to observe that Egypt still retains, almost\n  unchanged through fifty centuries, its traditions, technique, and\n  skill in dancing, while, as in ancient Egyptian dancing, the garment\n  forms an almost or quite negligible element in the art. Loret remarks\n  that a charming Egyptian dancer of the Eighteenth Dynasty, whose\n  picture in her transparent gauze he reproduces, is an exact portrait\n  of a charming Almeh of to-day whom he has seen dancing in Thebes with\n  the same figure, the same dressing of the hair, the same jewels. I\n  hear from a physician, a gyn\u00e6cologist now practising in Egypt, that a\n  dancing-girl can lie on her back, and with a full glass of water\n  standing on one side of her abdomen and an empty glass on the other,\n  can by the contraction of the muscles on the side supporting the full\n  glass, project the water from it, so as to fill the empty glass. This,\n  of course, is not strictly dancing, but it is part of the technique\n  which underlies classic dancing and it witnesses to the thoroughness\n  with which the technical side of Egyptian dancing is still cultivated.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  \u201cWe must learn to regard the form of the Greek drama as a dance form,\u201d\n  says G. Warre Cornish in an interesting article on \u201cGreek Drama and\n  the Dance\u201d (_Fortnightly Review_, February, 1913), \u201ca musical\n  symphonic dance-vision, through which the history of Greece and the\n  soul of man are portrayed.\u201d\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  It should perhaps be remarked that in recent times it has been denied\n  that the old ballads were built up on dance songs. Miss Pound, for\n  instance, in a book on the subject, argues that they were of\n  aristocratic and not communal origin, which may well be, though the\n  absence of the dance element does not seem to follow.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n                          THE ART OF THINKING\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nHERBERT SPENCER pointed out, in his early essay on \u201cThe Genesis of\nScience,\u201d that science arose out of art, and that even yet the\ndistinction is \u201cpurely conventional,\u201d for \u201cit is impossible to say when\nart ends and science begins.\u201d Spencer was here using \u201cart\u201d in the\nfundamental sense according to which all practice is of the nature of\nart. Yet it is of interest to find a thinker now commonly regarded as so\nprosaic asserting a view which to most prosaic people seems fanciful. To\nthe ordinary solid man, to any would-be apostle of common sense,\nscience\u2014and by \u201cscience\u201d he usually means applied science\u2014seems the\nexact opposite of the vagaries and virtuosities that the hard-headed\n_homme moyen sensuel_ is accustomed to look upon as \u201cart.\u201d\n\nYet the distinction is modern. In classic times there was no such\ndistinction. The \u201csciences\u201d\u2014reasonably, as we may now see, and not\nfancifully as was afterwards supposed\u2014were \u201cthe arts of the mind.\u201d In\nthe Middle Ages the same liberal studies\u2014grammar, logic, geometry,\nmusic, and the rest\u2014could be spoken of either as \u201csciences\u201d or as\n\u201carts,\u201d and for Roger Bacon, who in the thirteenth century was so\ngenuine a man of science, every branch of study or learning was a\n\u201cscientia.\u201d I am inclined to think that it was the Mathematical\nRenaissance of the seventeenth century which introduced the undue\nemphasis on the distinction between \u201cscience\u201d and \u201cart.\u201d \u201cAll the\nsciences are so bound together,\u201d wrote Descartes, the banner-bearer of\nthat Renaissance, in his \u201cR\u00e8gles pour la Direction de l\u2019Esprit,\u201d \u201cthat\nit is much easier to learn them all at once than to learn one alone by\ndetaching it from the others.\u201d He added that we could not say the same\nof the arts. Yet we might perhaps say of arts and sciences that we can\nonly understand them all together, and we may certainly say, as\nDescartes proceeded to say of the sciences alone, that they all emanate\nfrom the same focus, however diversely coloured by the media they pass\nthrough or the objects they encounter. At that moment, however, it was\nno doubt practically useful, however theoretically unsound, to\noveremphasise the distinction between \u201cscience,\u201d with its new\ninstrumental precision, and \u201cart.\u201d[26] At the same time the tradition of\nthe old usage was not completely put aside, and a Master of \u201cArts\u201d\nremained a master of such sciences as the directors of education\nsucceeded in recognising until the middle of the nineteenth century. By\nthat time the development of the sciences, and especially of the\nphysical sciences, as \u201cthe discovery of truth,\u201d led to a renewed\nemphasis on them which resulted in the practical restriction of the term\n\u201cart\u201d to what are ordinarily called the fine arts. More formally,\nscience became the study of what were supposed to be demonstrable and\nsystematically classifiable truths regarding the facts of the world; art\nwas separated off as the play of human impulses in making things. Sir\nSidney Colvin, in the \u201cEncyclop\u00e6dia Britannica,\u201d after discussing the\nmatter (which Mill had already discussed at length in his \u201cLogic\u201d and\ndecided that the difference is that Science is in the Indicative Mood\nand Art in the Imperative Mood), concluded that science is \u201cordered\nknowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them,\u201d or\nthat \u201cScience consists in knowing, Art consists in doing.\u201d Men of\nscience, like Sir E. Ray Lankester, accepted this conclusion. That was\nas far as it was possible to go in the nineteenth century.\n\nBut the years pass, and the progress of science itself, especially the\nsciences of the mind, has upset this distinction. The analysis of\n\u201cknowing\u201d showed that it was not such a merely passive and receptive\nmethod of recognising \u201ctruth\u201d as scientists had innocently supposed.\nThis is probably admitted now by the Realists among philosophers as well\nas by the Idealists. Dr. Charles Singer, perhaps our most learned\nhistorian of science, now defines science, no longer as a body of\norganized knowledge, but as \u201cthe process which makes knowledge,\u201d as\n\u201cknowledge in the making\u201d; that is to say, \u201cthe growing edge between the\nunknown and the known.\u201d[27] As soon as we thus regard it, as a _making_\nprocess, it becomes one with art. Even physical science is perpetually\nlaying aside the \u201cfacts\u201d which it thought it knew, and learning to\nreplace them by other \u201cfacts\u201d which it comes to know as more\nsatisfactory in presenting an intelligible view of the world. The\nanalysis of \u201cknowing\u201d shows that this is not only a legitimate but an\ninevitable process. Such a process is active and creative. It clearly\npartakes at least as much of the nature of \u201cdoing\u201d as of \u201cknowing.\u201d It\ninvolves qualities which on another plane, sometimes indeed on the same\nplane, are essentially those involved in doing. The craftsman who moulds\nconceptions with his mind cannot be put in a fundamentally different\nclass from the craftsman who moulds conceptions with his hand, any more\nthan the poet can be put in a totally different class from the painter.\nIt is no longer possible to deny that science is of the nature of art.\n\nSo it is that in the fundamental sense, and even, it will have to be\nadded, in a sense that comprehends the extravagancies of wild variations\nfrom the norm, we have to recognise that the true man of science is an\nartist. Like the lunatic, the lover, the poet (as a great physician, Sir\nWilliam Osler, has said), the student is \u201cof imagination all compact.\u201d\nIt was by his \u201cwonderful imagination,\u201d it has been well pointed out,\nthat Newton was constantly discovering new tracks and new processes in\nthe region of the unknown. The extraordinary various life-work of\nHelmholtz, who initiated the valuation of beauty on a physiological\nbasis, scientifically precise as it was, had, as Einstein has remarked,\nan \u00e6sthetic colouring. \u201cThere is no such thing as an unimaginative\nscientific man,\u201d a distinguished professor of mechanics and mathematics\ndeclared some years ago, and if we are careful to remember that not\nevery man who believes that his life is devoted to science is really a\n\u201cscientific man,\u201d that statement is literally true.[28] It is not only\ntrue of the scientific man in the special sense; it is also true of the\nphilosopher. In every philosopher\u2019s work, a philosophic writer has\nremarked, \u201cthe construction of a complete system of conceptions is not\ncarried out simply in the interests of knowledge. Its underlying motive\nis \u00e6sthetic. It is the work of a creative artist.\u201d[29] The intellectual\nlives of a Plato or a Dante, Professor Graham Wallas from a different\nstandpoint has remarked, \u201cwere largely guided and sustained by their\ndelight in the sheer beauty of the rhythmic relation between law and\ninstance, species and individual, or cause and effect.\u201d[30]\n\nThat remark, with its reference to the laws and rhythm in the universe,\ncalls to mind the great initiator, so far as our knowledge extends back,\nof scientific research in our European world. Pythagoras is a dim\nfigure, and there is no need here to insist unduly on his significance.\nBut there is not the slightest doubt about the nature of that\nsignificance in its bearing on the point before us. Dim and legendary as\nhe now appears to us, Pythagoras was no doubt a real person, born in the\nsixth century before Christ, at Samos, and by his association with that\ngreat shipping centre doubtless enabled to voyage afar and glean the\nwisdom of the ancient world. In antiquity he was regarded, Cicero\nremarks, as the inventor of philosophy, and still to-day he is estimated\nto be one of the most original figures, not only of Greece, but the\nworld. He is a figure full of interest from many points of view, however\nveiled in mist, but he only concerns us here because he represents the\nbeginning of what we call \u201cscience\u201d\u2014that is to say, measurable knowledge\nat its growing point\u2014and because he definitely represents it as arising\nout of what we all conventionally recognise as \u201cart,\u201d and as, indeed,\nassociated with the spirit of art, even its most fantastic forms, all\nthe way. Pythagoras was a passionate lover of music, and it was thus\nthat he came to make the enormously fruitful discovery that pitch of\nsound depends upon the length of the vibrating chord. Therein it became\nclear that law and spatial quantity ruled even in fields which had\nseemed most independent of quantitative order. The beginning of the\ngreat science of mechanics was firmly set up. The discovery was no\naccident. Even his rather hostile contemporary Heraclitus said of\nPythagoras that he had \u201cpractised research and inquiry beyond all other\nmen.\u201d He was certainly a brilliant mathematician; he was, also, not only\nan astronomer, but the first, so far as we know, to recognise that the\nearth is a sphere,\u2014so setting up the ladder which was to reach at last\nto the Copernican conception,\u2014while his followers took the further step\nof affirming that the earth was not the centre of our cosmic system, but\nconcentrically related. So that Pythagoras may not only be called the\nFather of Philosophy, but, with better right the Father of Science in\nthe modern exact sense. Yet he remained fundamentally an artist even in\nthe conventional sense. His free play of imagination and emotion, his\ndelight in the ravishing charm of beauty and of harmony, however it may\nsometimes have led him astray,\u2014and introduced the reverence for Number\nwhich so long entwined fancy too closely with science,\u2014yet, as Gomperz\nputs it, gave soaring wings to the power of his severe reason.[31]\n\nOne other great dim figure of early European antiquity shares with\nPythagoras the philosophic dominance over our world, and that is the\nPlatonic Socrates, or, as we might perhaps say, the Socratic Plato. And\nhere, too, we are in the presence of a philosopher, if not a scientist,\nwho was a supreme artist. Here again, also, we encounter a legendary\nfigure concealing a more or less real human person. But there is a\ndifference. While all are agreed that, in Pythagoras we have a great and\nbrilliant figure dimly seen, there are many who consider that in\nSocrates we have a small and dim figure grown great and brilliant in the\nPlatonic medium through which alone he has been really influential in\nour world, for without Plato the name of Socrates would have scarcely\nbeen mentioned. The problem of the Pythagorean legend may be said to be\nsettled. But the problem of the Socratic legend is still under\ndiscussion. We cannot, moreover, quite put it aside as merely of\nacademic interest, for its solution, if ever reached, would touch that\ngreat vital problem of art in the actual world with which we are here\nthroughout concerned.\n\nIf one examines any large standard history of Greece, like Grote\u2019s to\nmention one of the oldest and best, one is fairly sure to find a long\nchapter on the life of Socrates. Such a chapter is inserted, without\napology, without explanation, without compunction, as a matter of\ncourse, in a so-called \u201chistory,\u201d and nearly every one, even to-day,\nstill seems to take it as a matter of course. Few seem to possess the\ncritical and analytical mind necessary for the examination of the\ndocuments on which the \u201chistory\u201d rests. If they approached this chapter\nin a questioning spirit, they might perhaps discover that it was not\nuntil about half a century after the time of the real Socrates that any\n\u201chistorical\u201d evidence for the existence of our legendary Socrates begins\nto appear.[32] Few people seem to realise that even of Plato himself we\nknow nothing certain that could not be held in a single sentence. The\n\u201cbiographies\u201d of Plato began to be written four hundred years after his\ndeath. It should be easy to estimate their value.\n\nThere are three elements\u2014one of them immeasurably more important than\nthe other two\u2014of which the composite portrait of our modern Socrates is\nmade up: Xenophon, Plato, the dramatists. To the contribution furnished\nby the first, not much weight is usually attached. Yet it should really\nhave been regarded as extremely illuminating. It suggests that the\nsubject of \u201cSocrates\u201d was a sort of school exercise, useful practice in\nrhetoric or in dialectics. The very fact that Xenophon\u2019s Socrates was so\nreminiscent of his creator ought to have been instructive.[33] It has,\nhowever, taken scholars some time to recognise this, and Karl Jo\u00ebl, who\nspent fifteen of the best years of his life over the Xenophontic\nSocrates, to discover that the figure was just as much a fiction as the\nPlatonic Socrates, has lately confessed that he thinks those years\nrather wasted. It might have been clear earlier that what Plato had done\nwas really just the same thing so far as method was concerned, though a\ntotally different thing in result because done by the most richly\nendowed of poet-philosophers, the most consummate of artists. For that\nis probably how we ought to regard Plato, and not, like some, as merely\na great mystificator. It is true that Plato was the master of irony, and\nthat \u201cirony,\u201d in its fundamental meaning, is, as Gomperz points out,\n\u201cpleasure in mystifying.\u201d But while Plato\u2019s irony possesses a\nsignificance which we must always keep before us, it is yet only one of\nthe elements of his vast and versatile mind.\n\nIt is to the third of these sources that some modern investigators are\nnow inclined to attach primary significance. It was on the stage\u2014in the\nbranch of drama that kept more closely in touch with life than that\nwhich had fallen into the hands of the prose dialecticians and\nrhetoricians\u2014that we seem to find the shadow of the real Socrates. But\nhe was not the Socrates of the dramatic dialogues of Plato or even of\nXenophon; he was a minor Sophist, an inferior Diogenes, yet a remarkable\nfigure, arresting and disturbing, whose idiosyncrasies were quite\nperceptible to the crowd. It was an original figure, hardly the\nembodiment of a turning-point in philosophy, but fruitful of great\npossibilities, so that we could hardly be surprised if the master of\nphilosophic drama took it over from real life and the stage for his own\npurposes.\n\nTo make clear to myself the possible way\u2014I am far from asserting it was\nthe actual way\u2014in which our legendary Socrates arose, I sometimes think\nof Chidley. Chidley was an Australian Sophist and Cynic, in the good\nsense of both these words, and without doubt, it seems to me, the most\noriginal and remarkable figure that has ever appeared in Australia, of\nwhich, however, he was not a native, though he spent nearly his whole\nlife there. He was always poor, and like most philosophers he was born\nwith a morbid nervous disposition, though he acquired a fine and robust\nframe. He was liable not only to the shock of outward circumstances but\nof inward impulses; these he had in the past often succumbed to, and\nonly slowly and painfully gained the complete mastery over as he gained\npossession of his own philosophy. For all his falls, which he felt\nacutely, as Augustine and Bunyan as well as Rousseau felt such lapses,\nthere was in him a real nobility, an even ascetic firmness and purity of\ncharacter. I never met him, but I knew him more intimately, perhaps,\nthan those who came in contact with him. For many years I was in touch\nwith him, and his last letter was written shortly before his death; he\nalways felt I ought to be persuaded of the truth he had to reveal and\nnever quite understood my sympathetic attitude of scepticism. He had\ndevoured all the philosophic literature he could lay hold of, but his\nphilosophy\u2014in the Greek sense, as a way of life, and not in our modern\nsense as a system of notions\u2014was his own: a new vision of Nature\u2019s\nsimplicity and wholeness, only new because it had struck on a new\nsensibility and sometimes in excessive and fantastic ways, but he held\nhis faith with unbending devotion, and never ceased to believe that all\nwould accept the vision when once they beheld it. So he went about the\nstreets in Sydney, clad (as a concession to public feeling) in bathing\ndrawers, finding anywhere he could the Stoa which might serve for him,\nto argue and discuss, among all who were willing, with eager faith, keen\nmind, and pungent speech. A few were won, but most were disturbed and\nshocked. The police persistently harassed him; they felt bound to\ninterfere with what seemed such an outrage on the prim decency of the\nstreets; and as he quietly persisted in following his own course, and it\nwas hard to bring any serious charge against him, they called in the aid\nof the doctors, and henceforth he was in and out of the asylum instead\nof the prison. No one need be blamed; it was nobody\u2019s fault; if a man\ntransgresses the ordinary respectable notions of decency, he must be a\ncriminal, and if he is not a criminal, he must be a lunatic; the social\norganisation takes no account of philosophers; the philosophic\nHipparchia and her husband must not nowadays consummate their marriage\nin public, and our modern philosophers meekly agree that philosophy is\nto have nothing to do with a life. Every one in the case seems to have\nbehaved with due conventional propriety, just as every one behaved\naround the deathbed of Tolstoy\u2019s Ivan Ilitch. It was Chidley\u2019s deathbed\nthey were preparing, and he knew it, but he unflinchingly grasped the\ncup they held out to him and drank it to the dregs. He felt he could do\nno other. There was no fabled hemlock in it, but it was just as deadly\nas though it had been accompanied by all the dramatic symbolisation of a\nformal condemnation to death, such as had really been recorded (Plato\nwell knew) in old Athenian annals. There was no Plato in Sydney. But if\nthere had been, it is hard to conceive any figure more fit for the ends\nof his transforming art. Through that inspiring medium the plebeian\nSophist and Cynic, while yet retaining something of the asperity of his\noriginal shape, would have taken on a new glory, his bizarreries would\nhave been spiritualised and his morbidities become the signs of mystic\npossession, his fate would have appeared as consecrated in form as it\ngenuinely was in substance, he would have been the mouthpiece, not only\nof the truths he really uttered, but of a divine eloquence on the verge\nof which he had in real life only trembled, and, like Socrates in the\nhands of Plato, he would have passed, as all the finest philosophy\npasses at last, into music.[34] So in the end Chidley would have entered\nmodern history, just as Socrates entered ancient history, the Saint and\nMartyr of Philosophy.[35]\n\nIf it should so be that, as we learn to see him truly, the figure of the\nreal Socrates must diminish in magnitude, then\u2014and that is the point\nwhich concerns us here\u2014the glory of the artist who made him what he has\nbecome for us is immensely enhanced. No longer the merely apt and\nbrilliant disciple of a great master, he becomes himself master and\nlord, the radiant creator of the chief figure in European philosophy,\nthe most marvellous artist the world has ever known. So that when we\nlook back at the spiritual history of Europe, it may become possible to\nsay that its two supreme figures, the Martyr of Philosophy and the\nMartyr of Religion, were both\u2014however real the two human persons out of\nwhich they were formed\u2014the work of man\u2019s imagination. For there, on the\none hand, we see the most accomplished of European thinkers, and on the\nother a little band of barbarians, awkwardly using just the same Greek\nlanguage, working with an unconscious skill which even transcends all\nthat conscious skill could have achieved, yet both bearing immortal\nwitness to the truth that the human soul only lives truly in art and can\nonly be ruled through art. So it is that in art lies the solution of the\nconflicts of philosophy. There we see Realism, or the discovery of\nthings, one with Idealism, or the creation of things. Art is the\nembodied harmony of their conflict. That could not be more exquisitely\nsymbolised than by these two supreme figures in the spiritual life of\nEurope, the Platonic Socrates and the Gospel Jesus, both alike presented\nto us, it is so significant to observe, as masters of irony.\n\nThere has never again been so great an artist in philosophy, so supreme\na dramatist, as Plato. But in later times philosophers themselves have\noften been willing to admit that even if they were not, like Plato,\ndramatists, there was poetry and art in their vocation. \u201cOne does not\nsee why the sense for Philosophy should be more generally diffused than\nthat for poetry,\u201d remarked Schelling, evidently regarding them as on the\nsame plane. F. A. Lange followed with his memorable \u201cHistory of\nMaterialism,\u201d in which the conception of philosophy as a poetic art was\nclearly set forth. \u201cPhilosophy is pure art,\u201d says in our own days a\ndistinguished thinker who is in especially close touch with the\nreligious philosophy of the East. \u201cThe thinker works with laws of\nthought and scientific facts in just the same sense as the musical\ncomposer with tones. He must find accords, he must think out sequences,\nhe must set the part in a necessary relation to the whole. But for that\nhe needs art.\u201d[36] Bergson regards philosophy as an art, and Croce, the\nmore than rival of Bergson in popular esteem, and with interesting\npoints of contact with the French philosopher, though his standpoint is\nso different, has repeatedly pointed out\u2014as regards Nietzsche, for\ninstance, and even as regards a philosopher to whom he is so closely\nrelated as Hegel\u2014that we may read philosophy for its poetic rather than\nits historic truth. Croce\u2019s position in this matter is not, indeed, easy\nto state quite simply. He includes \u00e6sthetics in philosophy, but he would\nnot regard philosophy as an art. For him art is the first and lowest\nstratum in the mind, not in rank, but in order, and on it the other\nstrata are laid and combine with it. Or, as he elsewhere says, \u201cart is\nthe root of our whole theoretic life. Without root there can be neither\nflower nor fruit.\u201d[37] But for Croce art is not itself flower or fruit.\nThe \u201cConcept\u201d and other abstractions have to be brought in before Croce\nis satisfied that he has attained reality. It may, perhaps, indeed, be\npermitted, even to an admirer of the skill with which Croce spreads out\nsuch wide expanses of thought, to suggest that, in spite of his anxiety\nto keep close to the concrete, he is not therein always successful, and\nthat he tends to move in verbal circles, as may perhaps happen to a\nphilosopher who would reduce the philosophy of art to the philosophy of\nlanguage. But, however that may be, it is a noteworthy fact that the\nclose relationship of art and philosophy is admitted by the two most\nconspicuous philosophers of to-day, raised to popular eminence in spite\nof themselves, the Philosopher of Other-worldliness and the Philosopher\nof This-worldliness.\n\nIf we turn to England, we find that, in an age and a land wherein it was\nnot so easy to make the assertion as it has now more generally become,\nSir Leslie Stephen, in harmony, whether or not he knew it, with F. A.\nLange, wrote to Lord Morley (as he later became) in the last century: \u201cI\nthink that a philosophy is really made more of poetry than of logic; and\nthe real value of both poetry and philosophy is not the pretended\nreasoning, but the exposition in one form or other of a certain view of\nlife.\u201d It is, we see, just what they have all been saying, and if it is\ntrue of men of science and philosophers, who are the typical\nrepresentatives of human thinking, it is even true of every man on earth\nwho thinks, ever since the day when conscious thinking began. The world\nis an unrelated mass of impressions, as it first strikes our infant\nsenses, falling at random on the sensory mechanism, and all appearing as\nit were on the same plane. For an infant the moon is no farther away\nthan his mother\u2019s breast, even though he possesses an inherited mental\napparatus fitted to co\u00f6rdinate and distinguish the two. It is only when\nwe begin to think, that we can arrange these unrelated impressions into\nintelligible groups, and thinking is thus of the nature of art.[38]\n\nAll such art, moreover, may yet be said to be an invention of fictions.\nThat great and fundamental truth, which underlies so much modern\nphilosophy, has been expounded in the clearest and most detailed manner\nby Hans Vaihinger in his \u201cPhilosophie des Als Ob.\u201d\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nHANS VAIHINGER is still little known in England;[39] and that is the\nmore remarkable as he has always been strongly attached to English\nthought, of which his famous book reveals an intimate knowledge. In\nearly life he had mixed much with English people, for whom he has a deep\nregard, and learnt to revere, not only Darwin, but Hume and J. S. Mill,\nwho exerted a decisive influence on his own philosophic development. At\nthe beginning of his career he projected a history of English\nphilosophy, but interest in that subject was then so small in Germany\nthat he had regretfully to abandon his scheme, and was drawn instead,\nthrough no active effort on his part, to make the study of Kant the\nby-product of his own more distinctive work, yet it was a fitting study,\nfor in Kant he saw the germs of the doctrine of the \u201cas if,\u201d that is to\nsay, the practical significance of fiction in human life, though that is\nnot the idea traditionally associated with Kant, who, indeed, was not\nhimself clear about it, while his insight was further darkened by his\nreactionary tendencies; yet Vaihinger found that it really played a\nlarge part in Kant\u2019s work and might even be regarded as his special and\npersonal way of regarding things; he was not so much a metaphysician,\nVaihinger remarks, as a metaphorician. Yet even in his Kantian studies\nthe English influence was felt, for Vaihinger\u2019s work has here been to\ntake up the Neo-Kantism of F. A. Lange and to develop it in an empirical\nand positivistic direction.\n\nThere was evidently something in Vaihinger\u2019s spirit that allied him to\nthe English spirit. We may see that in his portrait; it is not the face\nof the philosophic dreamer, the scholarly man of the study, but the\neager, forceful head of the practical man of action, the daring\nadventurer, the man who seems made to struggle with the concrete things\nof the world, the kind of man, that is to say, whom we consider\npeculiarly English. That, indeed, is the kind of man he would have been;\nthat is the kind of life, a social life full of activity and of sport,\nthat he desired to lead. But it was impossible. An extreme and lifelong\nshort-sightedness proved a handicap of which he has never ceased to be\nconscious. So it came about that his practical energy was, as it were,\nsublimated into a philosophy which yet retained the same forceful\ndynamic quality.\n\nFor the rest, his origin, training, and vocation seem all to have been\nsufficiently German. He came, like many other eminent men, out of a\nSwabian parsonage, and was himself intended for theology, only branching\noff into philosophy after his university career was well advanced. At\nthe age of sixteen he was deeply influenced, as so many others have\nbeen, by Herder\u2019s \u201cIdeen zur Geschichte der Menschheit\u201d; that not only\nharmonised with his own tendency at the time towards a mixed theism and\npantheism, but it first planted within him the conception of evolution\nin human history, proceeding from an animal origin, which became a\nfundamental element of his mental constitution. When a year later he\ncame across Darwin\u2019s doctrines he felt that he knew them beforehand.\nThese influences were balanced by that of Plato, through whose \u201cIdeas\u201d\nhe caught his first glimpse of an \u201cAs-If world.\u201d A little later the\nstrenuous training of one of his teachers in the logical analysis of\nLatin syntax, especially in the use of the conjunctions, furnished the\nsource from which subsequently he drew that now well-known phrase. It\nwas in these years that he reached the view, which he has since\ndefinitely advocated, that philosophy should not be made a separate\nstudy, but should become a natural part and corollary of every study,\nsince philosophy cannot be fruitfully regarded as a discipline by\nitself. Without psychology, especially, he finds that philosophy is\nmerely \u201ca methodic abstraction.\u201d A weighty influence of these days was\nconstituted by the poems and essays of Schiller, a Swabian like himself,\nand, indeed, associated with the history of his own family. Schiller was\nnot only an inspiring influence, but it was in Schiller\u2019s saying, \u201cError\nalone is life, and knowledge is death,\u201d that he found (however\nunjustifiably) the first expression of his own \u201cfictionalism,\u201d while\nSchiller\u2019s doctrine of the play impulse as the basis of artistic\ncreation and enjoyment seemed the prophecy of his own later doctrine,\nfor in play he saw later the \u201cas if\u201d as the kernel of \u00e6sthetic practice\nand contemplation.\n\nAt the age of eighteen Vaihinger proceeded to the Swabian University of\nT\u00fcbingen and here was free to let his wide-ranging, eager mind follow\nits own impulses. He revealed a taste for the natural sciences and with\nthis the old Greek nature philosophers, especially Anaximander, for the\nsake of their anticipations of modern evolutionary doctrines. Aristotle\nalso occupied him, later Spinoza, and, above all, Kant, though it was\nchiefly the metaphysical antinomies and the practical reason which\nfascinated him. As ever, it was what made for practice that seemed\nmostly to concern him. Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, the\nofficial German idealists, said nothing to him. He turned from them to\nSchopenhauer, and thence he drew the pessimisms, the irrationalism, and\nthe voluntarism which became permanent features of his system of\nthought. The irrationalism, as he himself points out, was completely\nopposed to all early influences on him, but it lay in his own personal\ncircumstances. The contrast between his temperamental impulse to\nenergetic practical action in every direction, and the reserve,\npassivity, and isolation which myopia enforced, seemed to him absolutely\nirrational and sharpened his vision for all the irrationality of\nexistence. So that a philosophy which, like Schopenhauer\u2019s, truthfully\nrecognised and allowed for the irrational element in existence came like\na revelation. As to Vaihinger\u2019s pessimism, that, as we might expect, is\nhardly of what would be generally considered a pessimistic character. It\nis merely a recognition of the fact that most people are over-sanguine\nand thereby come to grief, whereas a little touch of pessimism would\nhave preserved them from much misery. Long before the Great War,\nVaihinger felt that many Germans were over-sanguine regarding the\nmilitary power of their Empire, and of Germany\u2019s place in the world, and\nthat such optimism might easily conduce to war and disaster. In 1911 he\neven planned to publish anonymously in Switzerland a pamphlet entitled\n\u201cFinis Germani\u00e6,\u201d with the motto \u201cQuos Deus vult perdere, prius\ndementat,\u201d and was only prevented by a sudden development of the\neye-trouble. Vaihinger points out that an unjustified optimism had for a\nlong time past led in the politics of Germany\u2014and also, he might have\nsaid, of the countries later opposed to her\u2014to lack of foresight,\nover-haste, and arrogance; he might have added that a very slight touch\nof pessimism would also have enabled these countries, on both sides, to\ndiscover the not very remote truth that even the victors in such a\ncontest would suffer scarcely less than the conquered. In early life\nVaihinger had playfully defined Man as a \u201cspecies of ape afflicted by\nmegalomania\u201d; he admits that, whatever truth lies behind the definition,\nthe statement is somewhat exaggerated. Yet it is certainly strange to\nobserve, one may comment, how many people seem to feel vain of their own\nungratified optimism when the place where optimism most flourishes is\nthe lunatic asylum. They never seem to pause to reflect on the goal that\nlies ahead of them, though there must be few who on looking back cannot\nperceive what terrible accidents they might have foreseen and avoided by\nthe aid of a little pessimism. When the gods, to ruin a man, first make\nhim mad, they do it, almost invariably, by making him an optimist. One\nmight hazard the assertion that the chief philosophic distinction\nbetween classic antiquity and modern civilisation is the prevalence in\nthe latter of a facile optimism; and the fact that of all ancient\nwriters the most popular in modern times has been the complacently\noptimistic (or really hedonistic) Horace is hardly due to his technical\nvirtuosity. He who would walk sanely amid the opposing perils in the\npath of life always needs a little optimism; he also needs a little\npessimism.\n\nReference has been made to Vaihinger\u2019s devouring appetite for knowledge.\nThis, indeed, was extraordinary, and of almost universal range. There\nseem to have been few fields with which he failed to come in touch,\neither through books or by personal intercourse with experts. He found\nhis way into all the natural sciences, he was drawn to Greek arch\u00e6ology\nand German philosophy; he began the study of Sanscrit with Roth. Then,\nrealising that he had completely neglected mathematics, he devoted\nhimself with ardour to analytic geometry and infinitesimals, a study\nwhich later he found philosophically fruitful. Finally, in 1874, he may\nbe said to have rounded the circle of his self-development by reading\nthe just published enlarged and much improved edition of F. A. Lange\u2019s\n\u201cHistory of Materialism.\u201d Here he realised the presence of a spirit of\nthe noblest order, equipped with the widest culture and the finest\nlucidity of vision, the keenest religious radicalism combined with\nlarge-hearted tolerance and lofty moral equilibrium, all manifested in a\ncompleted master-work. Moreover, the standpoint of F. A. Lange was\nprecisely that which Vaihinger had been independently struggling\ntowards, for it brought into view that doctrine of the place of fiction\nin life which he had already seen ahead. It is not surprising that he\nshould generously and enthusiastically acclaim Lange as master and\nleader, though his subsequent work is his own, and has carried ideas of\nwhich Lange held only the seeds to new and fruitful development.[40]\n\nIt was in 1876-77 that Vaihinger wrote his book, a marvellous\nachievement for so youthful a thinker, for he was then only about\ntwenty-five years of age. A final revision it never underwent, and there\nremain various peculiarities about the form into which it is cast. The\nserious failure in eyesight seems to have been the main reason for\ndelaying the publication of a work which the author felt to be too\nrevolutionary to put forth in an imperfect form. He preferred to leave\nit for posthumous publication.\n\nBut the world was not standing still, and during the next thirty years\nmany things happened. Vaihinger found the new sect of Pragmatists coming\ninto fashion with ideas resembling his own, though in a cruder shape,\nwhich seemed to render philosophy the \u201cmeretrix theologorum.\u201d Many\ndistinguished thinkers were working towards an attitude more or less\nlike his own, especially Nietzsche, whom (like many others even to-day)\nhe had long regarded with prejudice and avoided, but now discovered to\nbe \u201ca great liberator\u201d with congenial veins of thought. Vaihinger\nrealised that his conception was being independently put forward from\nvarious sides, often in forms that to him seemed imperfect or vicious.\nIt was no longer advisable to hold back his book. In 1911, therefore,\n\u201cDie Philosophie des Als Ob\u201d appeared.\n\nThe problem which Vaihinger set out to solve was this: How comes it\nabout that with consciously false ideas we yet reach conclusions that\nare in harmony with Nature and appeal to us as Truth? That we do so is\nobvious, especially in the \u201cexact\u201d branches of science. In mathematics\nit is notorious that we start from absurdities to reach a realm of law,\nand our whole conception of the nature of the world is based on a\nfoundation which we believe to have no existence. For even the most\nsober scientific investigator in science, the most thoroughgoing\nPositivist, cannot dispense with fiction; he must at least make use of\ncategories, and they are already fictions, analogical fictions, or\nlabels, which give us the same pleasure as children receive when they\nare told the \u201cname\u201d of a thing. Fiction is, indeed, an indispensable\nsupplement to logic, or even a part of it; whether we are working\ninductively or deductively, both ways hang closely together with\nfiction; and axioms, though they seek to be primary verities, are more\nakin to fiction. If we had realised the nature of axioms, the doctrine\nof Einstein, which sweeps away axioms so familiar to us that they seem\nobvious truths, and substitutes others which seem absurd because they\nare unfamiliar, might not have been so bewildering.\n\nPhysics, especially mathematical physics, Vaihinger explains in detail,\nhas been based, and fruitfully based, on fictions. The infinite,\ninfinitely little or infinitely great, while helpful in lightening our\nmental operations, is a fiction. The Greeks disliked and avoided it, and\n\u201cthe gradual formation of this conception is one of the most charming\nand instructive themes in the history of science,\u201d indeed, one of the\nmost noteworthy spectacles in the history of the human spirit; we see\nthe working of a logical impulse first feeling in the dark, gradually\nconstructing ideas fitted to yield precious service, yet full of\nhopeless contradictions, without any relation to the real world. That\nabsolute space is a fiction, Vaihinger points out, is no new idea.\nHobbes had declared it was only a _phantasma_; Leibnitz, who agreed,\nadded that it was merely \u201cthe idolum of a few modern Englishmen,\u201d and\ncalled time, extension, and movement \u201c_choses id\u00e9ales_.\u201d Berkeley, in\nattacking the defective conceptions of the mathematicians, failed to see\nthat it was by means of, and not in spite of, these logically defective\nconceptions that they attained logically valuable results. All the marks\nof fiction were set up on the mathematician\u2019s pure space; it was\nimpossible and unthinkable: yet it proved useful and fruitful.\n\nThe tautological fiction of \u201cForce\u201d\u2014an empty reduplication of the fact\nof a succession of relationships\u2014is one that we constantly fall back on\nwith immense satisfaction and with the feeling of having achieved\nsomething; it has been a highly convenient fiction which has aided\nrepresentation and experience. It is one of the most famous, and also,\nit must be added, one of the most fatal of fantasies. For when we talk\nof, for instance, a \u201clife-force\u201d and its _\u00e9lan_, or whatever other\ndainty term we like to apply to it, we are not only summarily mingling\ntogether many separate phenomena, but we are running the risk that our\nconception may be taken for something that really exists. There is\nalways temptation, when two processes tend to follow each other, to call\nthe property of the first to be followed by the other its \u201cforce,\u201d and\nto measure that force by the magnitude of the result. In reality we only\nhave succession and coexistence, and the \u201cforce\u201d is something that we\nimagine.\n\nWe must not, therefore, treat our imagination with contempt as was\nformerly the fashion, but rather the reverse. The two great periods of\nEnglish Philosophy, Vaihinger remarks, ended with Ockham and with Hume,\nwho each took up, in effect, the fictional point of view, but both too\nmuch on the merely negative side, without realising the positive and\nconstructive value of fictions. English law has above all realised it,\neven, he adds, to the point of absurdity. Nothing is so precious as\nfiction, provided only one chooses the right fiction. \u201cMatter\u201d is such a\nfiction. There are still people who speak with lofty contempt of\n\u201cMaterialism\u201d; they mean well, but they are unhappy in their terms of\nabuse. When Berkeley demonstrated the impossibility of \u201cmatter,\u201d he\nthought he could afford to throw away the conception as useless. He was\nquite wrong; it is logically contradictory ideas that are the most\nvaluable. Matter is a fiction, just as the fundamental ideas with which\nthe sciences generally operate are mostly fictions, and the scientific\nmaterialisation of the world has proved a necessary and useful fiction,\nonly harmful when we regard it as hypothesis and therefore possibly\ntrue. The representative world is a system of fictions. It is a symbol\nby the help of which we orient ourselves. The business of science is to\nmake the symbol ever more adequate, but it remains a symbol, a means of\naction, for action is the last end of thinking.\n\nThe \u201catom,\u201d to which matter is ultimately reduced, is regarded by\nVaihinger as equally a fiction, though it was at first viewed as an\nhypothesis, and it may be added that since he wrote it seems to have\nreturned to the stage of hypothesis.[41] But when with Boscovich the\n\u201catom\u201d was regarded as simply the bearer of energy, it became \u201cliterally\na hypostatised nothing.\u201d We have to realise at the same time that every\n\u201cthing\u201d is a \u201csummatory fiction,\u201d for to say, as is often said, that a\n\u201cthing\u201d has properties and yet has a real existence apart from its\nproperties is obviously only a convenient manner of speech, a \u201cverbal\nfiction.\u201d The \u201cforce of attraction,\u201d as Newton himself pointed out,\nbelongs to the same class of summatory fictions.\n\nVaihinger is throughout careful to distinguish fiction alike from\nhypothesis and dogma. He regards the distinction as, methodologically,\nhighly important, though not always easy to make. The \u201cdogma\u201d is put\nforward as an absolute and unquestionable truth; the \u201chypothesis\u201d is a\npossible or probable truth, such as Darwin\u2019s doctrine of descent; the\n\u201cfiction\u201d is impossible, but it enables us to reach what for us is\nrelatively truth, and, above all, while hypothesis simply contributes to\nknowledge, fiction thus used becomes a guide to practical action and\nindispensable to what we feel to be progress. Thus the mighty and\ncivilising structure of Roman law was built up by the aid of what the\nRomans themselves recognised as fictions, while in the different and\nmore flexible system of English laws a constant inspiration to action\nhas been furnished by the supposed privileges gained by Magna Carta,\nthough we now recognise them as fictitious. Many of our ideas tend to go\nthrough the three stages of Dogma, Hypothesis, and Fiction, sometimes in\nthat order and sometimes in the reverse order. Hypothesis especially\npresents a state of labile stability which is unpleasant to the mind, so\nit tends to become either dogma or fiction. The ideas of Christianity,\nbeginning as dogmas, have passed through all three stages in the minds\nof thinkers during recent centuries: the myths of Plato, beginning as\nfiction, not only passed through the three stages, but then passed back\nagain, being now again regarded as fiction. The scientifically valuable\nfiction is a child of modern times, but we have already emerged from the\nperiod when the use of fiction was confined to the exact sciences.\n\nThus we find fiction fruitfully flourishing in the biological and social\nsciences and even in the highest spheres of human spiritual activity.\nThe Linn\u00e6an and similar classificatory systems are fictions, even though\nput forward as hypotheses, having their value simply as pictures, as\nforms of representation, but leading to contradictions and liable to be\nreplaced by other systems which present more helpful pictures. There are\nstill people who disdain Adam Smith\u2019s \u201ceconomic man,\u201d as though\nproceeding from a purely selfish view of life, although Buckle,\nforestalling Vaihinger, long ago explained that Smith was deliberately\nmaking use of a \u201cvalid artifice,\u201d separating facts that he knew to be in\nnature inseparable\u2014he based his moral theory on a totally different kind\nof man\u2014because so he could reach results approximately true to the\nobserved phenomena. Bentham also adopted a fiction for his own system,\nthough believing it to be an hypothesis, and Mill criticised it as being\n\u201cgeometrical\u201d; the criticism is correct, comments Vaihinger, but the\nmethod was not thereby invalidated, for in complicated fields no other\nmethod can be fruitfully used.\n\nThe same law holds when we approach our highest and most sacred\nconceptions. It was recognised by enlightened philosophers and\ntheologians before Vaihinger that the difference between body and soul\nis not different from that between matter and force,\u2014a provisional and\nuseful distinction,\u2014that light and darkness, life and death, are\nabstractions, necessary, indeed, but in their application to reality\nalways to be used with precaution. On the threshold of the moral world\nwe meet the idea of Freedom, \u201cone of the weightiest conceptions man has\never formed,\u201d once a dogma, in course of time an hypothesis, now in the\neyes of many a fiction; yet we cannot do without it, even although we\nmay be firmly convinced that our acts are determined by laws that cannot\nbe broken. Many other great conceptions have tended to follow the same\ncourse. God, the Soul, Immortality, the Moral World-Order. The critical\nhearers understand what is meant when these great words are used, and if\nthe uncritical misunderstand, that, adds Vaihinger, may sometimes be\nalso useful. For these things are Ideals, and all Ideals are, logically\nspeaking, fictions. As Science leads to the Imaginary, so Life leads to\nthe Impossible; without them we cannot reach the heights we are born to\nscale. \u201cTaken literally, however, our most valuable conceptions are\nworthless.\u201d\n\nWhen we review the vast field which Vaihinger summarises, we find that\nthinking and existing must ever be on two different planes. The attempt\nof Hegel and his followers to transform subjective processes into\nobjective world-processes, Vaihinger maintains, will not work out. The\nThing-in-Itself, the Absolute, remains a fiction, though the ultimate\nand most necessary fiction, for without it representation would be\nunintelligible. We can only regard reality as a Heraclitean flux of\nhappening\u2014though Vaihinger fails to point out that this \u201creality\u201d also\ncan only be an image or symbol\u2014and our thinking would itself be fluid if\nit were not that by fiction we obtain imaginary standpoints and\nboundaries by which to gain control of the flow of reality. It is the\nspecial art and object of thinking to attain existence by quite other\nmethods than that of existence itself. But the wish by so doing to\nunderstand the world is both unrealisable and foolish, for we are only\ntrying to comprehend our own fictions. We can never solve the so-called\nworld-riddle because what seem riddles to us are merely the\ncontradictions we have ourselves created. Yet, though the way of\nthinking cannot be the way of being, since they stand on such different\nfoundations, thinking always has a kind of parallelism with being, and\nthough we make our reckoning with a reality that we falsify, yet the\npractical result tends to come out right. Just because thinking is\ndifferent from reality, its forms must also be different in order to\ncorrespond with reality. Our conceptions, our conventional signs, have a\nfictive function to perform; thinking in its lower grades is comparable\nto paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry.\n\nImagination is thus a constitutive part of all thinking. We may make\ndistinctions between practical scientific thinking and disinterested\n\u00e6sthetic thinking. Yet all thinking is finally a comparison. Scientific\nfictions are parallel with \u00e6sthetic fictions. The poet is the type of\nall thinkers: there is no sharp boundary between the region of poetry\nand the region of science. Both alike are not ends in themselves, but\nmeans to higher ends.\n\nVaihinger\u2019s doctrine of the \u201cas if\u201d is not immune from criticism on more\nthan one side, and it is fairly obvious that, however sound the general\nprinciple, particular \u201cfictions\u201d may alter their status, and have even\ndone so since the book was written. Moreover, the doctrine is not always\nquite congruous with itself. Nor can it be said that Vaihinger ever\nreally answered the question with which he set out. In philosophy,\nhowever, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the\nthings that are met with by the way. And Vaihinger\u2019s philosophy is not\nonly of interest because it presents so clearly and vigorously a\nprevailing tendency in modern thought. Rightly understood, it supplies a\nfortifying influence to those who may have seen their cherished\nspiritual edifice, whatever it may be, fall around them and are tempted\nto a mood of disillusionment. We make our own world; when we have made\nit awry, we can remake it, approximately truer, though it cannot be\nabsolutely true, to the facts. It will never be finally made; we are\nalways stretching forth to larger and better fictions which answer more\ntruly to our growing knowledge and experience. Even when we walk, it is\nonly by a series of regulated errors, Vaihinger well points out, a\nperpetual succession of falls to one side and the other side. Our whole\nprogress through life is of the same nature; all thinking is a regulated\nerror. For we cannot, as Vaihinger insists, choose our errors at random\nor in accordance with what happens to please us; such fictions are only\ntoo likely to turn into deadening dogmas: the old _vis dormitiva_ is the\ntype of them, mere husks that are of no vital use and help us not at\nall. There are good fictions and bad fictions just as there are good\npoets and bad poets. It is in the choice and regulation of our errors,\nin our readiness to accept ever-closer approximations to the\nunattainable reality, that we think rightly and live rightly. We triumph\nin so far as we succeed in that regulation. \u201cA lost battle,\u201d Foch,\nquoting De Maistre, lays down in his \u201cPrincipes de Guerre,\u201d \u201cis a battle\none thinks one has lost\u201d; the battle is won by the fiction that it is\nwon. It is so also in the battle of life, in the whole art of living.\nFreud regards dreaming as fiction that helps us to sleep; thinking we\nmay regard as fiction that helps us to live. Man lives by imagination.\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nYET what we consider our highest activities arise out of what we are\naccustomed to regard as the lowest. That is, indeed, merely a necessary\nresult of evolution; bipeds like ourselves spring out of many-limbed\ncreatures whom we should now regard as little better than vermin, and\nthe adult human creature whose eyes, as he sometimes imagines, are fixed\non the stars, was a few years earlier merely a small animal crawling on\nall fours. The impulse of the philosopher, of the man of science, of any\nordinary person who sometimes thinks about seemingly abstract or\ndisinterested questions\u2014we must include the whole range of the play of\nthought in response to the stimulus of curiosity\u2014may seem at the first\nglance to be a quite secondary and remote product of the great primary\ninstincts. Yet it is not difficult to bring this secondary impulse into\ndirect relation with the fundamental primary instincts, even, and\nperhaps indeed chiefly, with the instinct of sex. On the mental\nside\u2014which is not, of course, its fundamental side\u2014the sexual instinct\nis mainly, perhaps solely, a reaction to the stimulus of curiosity.\nBeneath that mental surface the really active force is a physiologically\nbased instinct urgent towards action, but the boy or girl who first\nbecomes conscious of the mental stimulus is unaware of the instinct it\nsprings from, and may even disregard as unimportant its specific\nphysiological manifestations. The child is only conscious of new\ncuriosities, and these it persistently seeks to satisfy at any available\nor likely source of information, aided by the strenuous efforts of its\nown restlessly active imagination. It is in exactly the same position as\nthe metaphysician, or the biologist, or any thinker who is faced by\ncomplex and yet unsolved problems. And the child is at first baffled by\njust the same kind of obstacles, due, not like those of the thinker, to\nthe silence of recalcitrant Nature, but to the silence of parents and\nteachers, or to their deliberate efforts to lead him astray.\n\nWhere do babies come from? That is perhaps for many children the\nearliest scientific problem that is in this way rendered so difficult of\nsolution. No satisfying solution comes from the sources of information\nto which the child is wont to appeal. He is left to such slight\nimperfect observations as he can himself make; on such clues his\nsearching intellect works and with the aid of imagination weaves a\ntheory, more or less remote from the truth, which may possibly explain\nthe phenomena. It is a genuine scientific process\u2014the play of intellect\nand imagination around a few fragments of observed fact\u2014and it is\nundoubtedly a valuable discipline for the childish mind, though if it is\ntoo prolonged it may impede or distort natural development, and if the\nresulting theory is radically false it may lead, as the theories of\nscientific adults sometimes lead, if not speedily corrected, to various\nunfortunate results.\n\nA little later, when he has ceased to be a child and puberty is\napproaching, another question is apt to arise in the boy\u2019s mind: What is\na woman like? There is also, less often and more carefully concealed,\nthe corresponding curiosity in the girl\u2019s mind. Earlier this question\nhad seemed of no interest; it had never even occurred to ask it; there\nwas little realisation\u2014sometimes none at all\u2014of any sexual difference.\nNow it sometimes becomes a question of singular urgency, in the solution\nof which it is necessary for the boy to concentrate all the scientific\napparatus at his command. For there may be no ways of solving it\ndirectly, least of all for a well-behaved, self-respecting boy or a shy,\nmodest girl. The youthful intellect is thus held in full tension, and\nits developing energy directed into all sorts of new channels in order\nto form an imaginative picture of the unknown reality, fascinating\nbecause incompletely known. All the chief recognised mental processes of\ndogma, hypothesis, and fiction, developed in the history of the race,\nare to this end instinctively created afresh in the youthful individual\nmind, endlessly formed and re-formed and tested in order to fill in the\npicture. The young investigator becomes a diligent student of literature\nand laboriously examines the relevant passages he finds in the Bible or\nother ancient primitive naked books. He examines statues and pictures.\nPerhaps he finds some old elementary manual of anatomy, but here the\nlong list of structures with Latin names proves far more baffling than\nhelpful to the youthful investigator who can in no possible way fit them\nall into the smooth surface shown by the statues. Yet the creative and\ncritical habit of thought, the scientific mind generated by this search,\nis destined to be of immense value, and long outlives the time when the\neagerly sought triangular spot, having fulfilled its intellectual\nfunction, has become a familiar region, viewed with indifference, or at\nmost a homely tenderness.\n\nThat was but a brief and passing episode, however permanently beneficial\nits results might prove. With the achievement of puberty, with the\ncoming of adolescence, a larger and higher passion fills the youth\u2019s\nsoul. He forgets the woman\u2019s body, his idealism seems to raise him above\nthe physical: it is the woman\u2019s personality\u2014most likely some particular\nwoman\u2019s personality\u2014that he desires to know and to grasp.\n\nA twofold development tends to take place at this age\u2014in those youths,\nthat is to say, who possess the latent attitude for psychic\ndevelopment\u2014and that in two diverse directions, both equally away from\ndefinite physical desire, which at this age is sometimes, though not\nalways, at its least prominent place in consciousness. On the one hand\nthere is an attraction for an idealised person\u2014perhaps a rather remote\nperson, for such most easily lend themselves to idealisation\u2014of the\nopposite (or occasionally the same) sex, it may sometimes for a time\neven be the heroine of a novel. Such an ideal attraction acts as an\nimaginative and emotional ferment. The imagination is stimulated to\nconstruct for the first time, from such material as it has come across,\nor can derive from within, the coherent picture of a desirable person.\nThe emotions are trained and disciplined to play around the figure thus\nconstructed with a new impersonal and unselfish, even self-sacrificing,\ndevotion. But this process is not enough to use up all the energies of\nthe developing mind, and the less so as such impulses are unlikely by\ntheir very nature to receive any considerable degree of gratification,\nfor they are of a nature to which no adequate response is possible.\n\nThus it happens in adolescence that this new stream of psychic energy,\nemotional and intellectual, generated from within, concurrently with its\nprimary personal function of moulding the object of love, streams over\ninto another larger and more impersonal channel. It is, indeed, lifted\non to a higher plane and transformed, to exercise a fresh function by\ninitiating new objects of ideal desire. The radiant images of religion\nand of art as well as of science\u2014however true it may be that they have\nalso other adjuvant sources\u2014thus begin to emerge from the depths beneath\nconsciousness. They tend to absorb and to embody the new energy, while\nits primary personal object may sink into the background, or at this age\neven fail to be conscious at all.\n\nThis process\u2014the process in which all abstract thinking is born as well\nas all artistic creation\u2014must to some slight extent take place in every\nperson whose mental activity is not entirely confined to the immediate\nobjects of sense. But in persons of more complex psychic organisation it\nis a process of fundamental importance. In those of the highest complex\norganisation, indeed, it becomes what we term genius. In the most\nmagnificent achievements of poetry and philosophy, of art and of\nscience, it is no longer forbidden to see the ultimate root in this\nadolescent development.\n\nTo some a glimpse of this great truth has from time to time appeared.\nFerrero, who occupied himself with psychology before attaining eminence\nas a brilliant historian, suggested thirty years ago that the art\nimpulse and its allied manifestations are transformed sexual instinct;\nthe sexual impulse is \u201cthe raw material, so to speak, from which art\nsprings\u201d; he connected that transformation with a less development of\nthe sexual emotions in women; but that was much too hasty an assumption,\nfor apart from the fact that such transformation could never be\ncomplete, and probably less so in women than in men, we have also to\nconsider the nature of the two organisms through which the transformed\nemotions would operate, probably unlike in the sexes, for the work done\nby two machines obviously does not depend entirely upon feeding them\nwith the same amount of fuel, but also on the construction of the two\nengines. M\u00f6bius, a brilliant and original, if not erratic, German\npsychologist, who was also concerned with the question of difference in\nthe amount of sexual energy, regarded the art impulse as a kind of\nsexual secondary character. That is to say, no doubt,\u2014if we develop the\nsuggestion,\u2014that just as the external features of the male and his\nexternal activities, in the ascending zo\u00f6logical series, have been\ndeveloped out of the impulse of repressed organic sexual desire striving\nto manifest itself ever more urgently in the struggle to overcome the\ncoyness of the female, so on the psychic side there has been a parallel\nimpulse, if of later development, to carry on the same task in forms of\nart which have afterwards acquired an independent activity and a yet\nfurther growth dissociated from this primary biological function. We\nthink of the natural ornaments which adorn male animals from far down in\nthe scale even up to man, of the additions made thereto by tattooing and\ndecoration and garments and jewels, of the parades and dances and songs\nand musical serenades found among lower animals as well as Man, together\nwith the love-lyrics of savages, furnishing the beginnings of the most\nexquisite arts of civilisation.\n\nIt is to be noted, however, that these suggestions introduce an\nassumption of male superiority, or male inferiority\u2014according to our\nscheme of values\u2014which unnecessarily prejudices and confuses the issue.\nWe have to consider the question of the origin of art apart from any\nsupposed predominance of its manifestations in one sex or the other. In\nmy own conception\u2014put forward a quarter of a century ago\u2014of what I\ncalled auto-erotic activities, it was on such a basis that I sought to\nplace it, since I regarded those auto-erotic phenomena as arising from\nthe impeded spontaneous sexual energy of the organism and extending from\nsimple physical processes to the highest psychic manifestations; \u201cit is\nimpossible to say what finest elements in art, in morals, in\ncivilisation generally, may not really be rooted in an auto-erotic\nimpulse,\u201d though I was careful to add that the transmutation of sexual\nenergy into other forms of force must not be regarded as itself\ncompletely accounting for all the finest human aptitudes of sympathy and\nart and religion.[42]\n\nIt is along this path, it may perhaps be claimed,\u2014as dimly glimpsed by\nNietzsche, Hinton, and other earlier thinkers,\u2014that the main explanation\nof the dynamic process by which the arts, in the widest sense, have come\ninto being, is now chiefly being explored. One thinks of Freud and\nespecially of Dr. Otto Rank, perhaps the most brilliant and clairvoyant\nof the younger investigators who still stand by the master\u2019s side. In\n1905 Rank wrote a little essay on the artist[43] in which this mechanism\nis set forth and the artist placed, in what the psycho-analytic author\nconsiders his due place, between the ordinary dreamer at one end and the\nneurotic subject at the other, the lower forms of art, such as\nmyth-making, standing near to dreams, and the higher forms, such as the\ndrama, philosophy, and the founding of religions, near to\npsycho-neurosis, but all possessing a sublimated life-force which has\nits root in some modification of sexual energy.\n\nIt may often seem that, in these attempts to explain the artist, the man\nof science is passed over or left in the background, and that is true.\nBut art and science, as we now know, have the same roots. The supreme\nmen of science are recognisably artists, and the earliest forms of art,\nwhich are very early indeed,\u2014Sir Arthur Evans has suggested that men may\nhave drawn before they talked,\u2014were doubtless associated with magic,\nwhich was primitive man\u2019s science, or, at all events, his nearest\napproximation to science. The connection of the scientific instinct with\nthe sexual instinct is not, indeed, a merely recent insight. Many years\nago it was clearly stated by a famous Dutch author. \u201cNature, who must\nact wisely at the risk of annihilation,\u201d wrote Multatuli at the\nconclusion of his short story, \u201cThe Adventures of Little Walter,\u201d \u201chas\nherein acted wisely by turning all her powers in one direction.\nMoralists and psychologists have long since recognised, without\ninquiring into the causes, that curiosity is one of the main elements of\nlove. Yet they were only thinking of sexual love, and by raising the two\nrelated termini in corresponding wise on to a higher plane I believe\nthat the noble thirst for knowledge springs from the same soil in which\nnoble love grows. To press through, to reveal, to possess, to direct,\nand to ennoble, that is the task and the longing, alike of the lover and\nthe natural discoverer. So that every Ross or Franklin is a Werther of\nthe Pole, and whoever is in love is a Mungo Park of the spirit.\u201d\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nAS soon as we begin to think about the world around us in what we vainly\ncall a disinterested way\u2014for disinterest is, as Leibnitz said, a\nchimera, and there remains a superior interest\u2014we become youths and\nlovers and artists, and there is at the same time a significant strain\nof sexual imagery in our thought.[44] Among ourselves this is not always\nclear; we have been dulled by the routine of civilisation and the\nartificial formalities of what is called education. It is clear in the\nmythop\u0153ic creation of comparative primitive thought, but in civilisation\nit is in the work of men of genius\u2014poets, philosophers, painters, and,\nas we have to recognise, men of science\u2014that this trait is most\nconspicuously manifested. To realise this it is sufficient to\ncontemplate the personality and activity of one of the earliest great\nmodern men of science, of Leonardo da Vinci. Until recent times it would\nhave seemed rather strange so to describe Leonardo da Vinci. He still\nseemed, as he was in his own time, primarily a painter, an artist in the\nconventionally narrow sense, and as such one of the greatest, fit to\npaint, as Browning put it, one of the four walls of the New Jerusalem.\nYet even his contemporaries who so acclaimed him were a little worried\nabout Leonardo in this capacity. He accomplished so little, he worked so\nslowly, he left so much unfinished, he seemed to them so volatile and\nunstable. He was an enigma to which they never secured the key. They\nfailed to see, though it is clearly to be read even in his face, that no\nman ever possessed a more piercing concentration of vision, a more fixed\npower of attention, a more unshakable force of will. All that Leonardo\nachieved in painting and in sculpture and in architecture, however novel\nor grandiose, was, as Solmi, the highly competent Vincian scholar has\nremarked, merely a concession to his age, in reality a violence done to\nhis own nature, and from youth to old age he had directed his whole\nstrength to one end: the knowledge and the mastery of Nature. In our own\ntime, a sensitive, alert, widely informed critic of art, Bernhard\nBerenson, setting out with the conventional veneration for Leonardo as a\npainter, slowly, as the years went by and his judgment grew more mature,\nadopted a more critical attitude, bringing down his achievements in art\nto moderate dimensions, yet without taking any interest in Leonardo as a\nstupendous artist in science. We may well understand that vein of\ncontempt for the crowd, even as it almost seems the hatred for human\nsociety, the spirit of Timon, which runs across Leonardo\u2019s writings,\nblended, no doubt inevitably blended, with his vein of human sweetness.\nThis stern devotee of knowledge declared, like the author of \u201cThe\nImitation of Christ,\u201d that \u201cLove conquers all things.\u201d There is here no\ndiscrepancy. The man who poured a contemptuous flood of irony and\ndenunciation over the most sacred social institutions and their most\nrespectable representatives was the same man\u2014the Gospels tell us\u2014who\nbrooded with the wings of a maternal tenderness over the pathos of human\nthings.\n\nWhen, indeed, our imagination plays with the idea of a future Overman,\nit is Leonardo who comes before us as his forerunner. Vasari, who had\nnever seen Leonardo, but has written so admirable an account of him, can\nonly describe him as \u201csupernatural\u201d and \u201cdivine.\u201d In more recent times\nNietzsche remarked of Leonardo that \u201cthere is something super-European\nand silent in him, the characteristic of one who has seen too wide a\ncircle of things good and evil.\u201d There Nietzsche touches, even though\nvaguely, more nearly than Vasari could, the distinguishing mark of this\nendlessly baffling and enchanting figure. Every man of genius sees the\nworld at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy.\nBut it is usually a measurable angle. We cannot measure the angle at\nwhich Leonardo stands; he strikes athwart the line of our conventional\nhuman thought in ways that are sometimes a revelation and sometimes an\nimpenetrable mystery. We are reminded of the saying of Heraclitus: \u201cMen\nhold some things wrong and some right; God holds all things fair.\u201d The\ndispute as to whether he was above all an artist or a man of science is\na foolish and even unmeaning dispute. In the vast orbit in which\nLeonardo moved the distinction had little or no existence. That was\ninexplicable to his contemporaries whose opinions Vasari echoes. They\ncould not understand that he was not of the crowd of makers of pretty\nthings who filled the workshops of Florence. They saw a man of beautiful\naspect and fine proportions, with a long curled beard and wearing a\nrose-coloured tunic, and they called him a craftsman, an artist, and\nthought him rather fantastic. But the medium in which this artist worked\nwas Nature, the medium in which the scientist works; every problem in\npainting was to Leonardo a problem in science, every problem in physics\nhe approached in the spirit of the artist. \u201cHuman ingenuity,\u201d he said,\n\u201ccan never devise anything more simple and more beautiful, or more to\nthe purpose, than Nature does.\u201d For him, as later for Spinoza, reality\nand perfection were the same thing. Both aspects of life he treats as\npart of his task\u2014the extension of the field of human knowledge, the\nintension of the power of human skill; for art, or, as he called it,\npractice, without science, he said, is a boat without a rudder.\nCertainly he occupied himself much with painting, the common medium of\nself-expression in his day, though he produced so few pictures; he even\nwrote a treatise on painting; he possessed, indeed, a wider perception\nof its possibilities than any artist who ever lived. \u201cHere is the\ncreator of modern landscape!\u201d exclaimed Corot before Leonardo\u2019s\npictures, and a remarkable description he has left of the precise\neffects of colour and light produced when a woman in white stands on\ngreen grass in bright sunshine shows that Leonardo clearly apprehended\nthe _plein-airiste\u2019s_ problem. Doubtless it will prove possible to show\nthat he foresaw still later methods. He rejected these methods because\nit seemed to him that the artist could work most freely by moving midway\nbetween light and darkness, and, indeed, he, first of painters,\nsucceeded in combining them\u2014just as he said also that Pleasure and Pain\nshould be imaged as twins since they are ever together, yet back to back\nbecause ever contrary\u2014and devised the method of _chiaroscuro_, by which\nlight reveals the richness of shade and shade heightens the brightness\nof light. No invention could be more characteristic of this man whose\ngrasp of the world ever involved the union of opposites, and the\nopposites both apprehended more intensely than falls to the lot of other\nmen.\n\nYet it is noteworthy that Leonardo constantly speaks of the artist\u2019s\nfunction as searching into and imitating Nature, a view which the\northodox artist anathematises. But Leonardo was not the orthodox artist,\nnot even, perhaps, as he is traditionally regarded, one of the world\u2019s\nsupreme painters. For one may sympathise with Mr. Berenson\u2019s engaging\nattempt\u2014unconvincing as it has seemed\u2014to \u201cexpose\u201d Leonardo. The drawings\nMr. Berenson, like every one else, admires whole-heartedly, but, save\nfor the unfinished \u201cAdoration,\u201d which he regards as a summit of art, he\nfinds the paintings mostly meaningless and repellent. He cannot rank\nLeonardo as an artist higher than Botticelli, and concludes that he was\nnot so much a great painter as a great inventor in painting. With that\nconclusion it is possible that Leonardo himself would have agreed.\nPainting was to him, he said, a subtle invention whereby philosophical\nspeculation can be applied to all the qualities of forms. He seemed to\nhimself to be, here and always, a man standing at the mouth of the\ngloomy cavern of Nature with arched back, one hand resting on his knee\nand the other shading his eyes, as he peers intently into the darkness,\npossessed by fear and desire, fear of the threatening gloom of that\ncavern, desire to discover what miracle it might hold. We are far here\nfrom the traditional attitude of the painter; we are nearer to the\nattitude of that great seeker into the mysteries of Nature, one of the\nvery few born of women to whom we can ever even passingly compare\nLeonardo, who felt in old age that he had only been a child gathering\nshells and pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of truth.\n\nIt is almost as plausible to regard Leonardo as primarily an engineer as\nprimarily a painter. He offered his services as a military engineer and\narchitect to the Duke of Milan and set forth at length his manifold\nclaims which include, one may note, the ability to construct what we\nshould now, without hesitation, describe as \u201ctanks.\u201d At a later period\nhe actually was appointed architect and engineer-general to C\u00e6sar\nBorgia, and in this capacity was engaged on a variety of works. He has,\nindeed, been described as the founder of professional engineering. He\nwas the seer of coming steam engines and of steam navigation and\ntransportation. He was, again, the inventor of innumerable varieties of\nballistic machines and ordnance, of steam guns and breech-loading arms\nwith screw breech-lock. His science always tended to become applied\nscience. Experience shows the road to practice, he said, science is the\nguide to art. Thus he saw every problem in the world as in the wide\nsense a problem in engineering. All nature was a dynamic process of\nforces beautifully effecting work, and it is this as it were distinctive\nvision of the world as a whole which seems to give Leonardo that\nmarvellous flair for detecting vital mechanism in every field. It is\nimpossible even to indicate summarily the vast extent of the region in\nwhich he was creating a new world, from the statement, which he set down\nin large letters, \u201cThe sun does not move,\u201d the earth being, he said, a\nstar, \u201cmuch like the moon,\u201d down to such ingenious original devices as\nthe construction of a diving-bell, a swimming-belt, and a parachute of\nadequate dimensions, while, as is now well known, Leonardo not only\nmeditated with concentrated attention on the problem of flight, but\nrealised scientifically the difficulties to be encountered, and made\ningenious attempts to overcome them in the designing of flying-machines.\nIt is enough\u2014following expert scientific guidance\u2014to enumerate a few\npoints: he studied botany in the biological spirit; he was a founder of\ngeology, discovering the significance of fossils and realising the\nimportance of river erosion; by his studies in the theories of mechanics\nand their utilization in peace and war he made himself the prototype of\nthe modern man of science. He was in turn biologist in every field of\nvital mechanism, and the inaugurator before Vesalius (who, however, knew\nnothing of his predecessor\u2019s work) of the minute study of anatomy by\ndirect investigation (after he had found that Galen could not be relied\non) and _post-mortem_ dissections; he nearly anticipated Harvey\u2019s\nconception of the circulation of the blood by studying the nature of the\nheart as a pump. He was hydraulician, hydrographer, geometrician,\nalgebraist, mechanician, optician.[45] These are but a few of the fields\nin which Leonardo\u2019s marvellous insight into the nature of the forces\nthat make the world and his divining art of the methods of employing\nthem to human use have of late years been revealed. For centuries they\nwere concealed in notebooks scattered through Europe and with difficulty\ndecipherable. Yet they are not embodied in vague utterances or casual\nintuitions, but display a laborious concentration on the precise details\nof the difficulties to be overcome; nor was patient industry in him, as\noften happens, the substitute for natural facility, for he was a person\nof marvellous natural facility, and, like such persons, most eloquent\nand persuasive in speech. At the same time his more general and\nreflective conclusions are expressed in a style combining the maximum of\nclarity with the maximum of concision,\u2014far, indeed, removed from the\ncharacteristic florid redundancy of Italian prose,\u2014which makes Leonardo,\nin addition to all else, a supreme master of language.[46]\n\nYet the man to whom we must credit these vast intellectual achievements\nwas no abstracted philosopher shut up in a laboratory. He was, even to\nlook upon, one of the most attractive and vivid figures that ever walked\nthe earth. As has sometimes happened with divine and mysterious persons,\nhe was the natural child of his mother, Caterina, of whom we are only\ntold that she was \u201cof good blood,\u201d belonging to Vinci like Ser Piero the\nfather, and that a few years after Leonardo\u2019s birth she became the\nreputable wife of a citizen of his native town. Ser Piero da Vinci was a\nnotary, of a race of notaries, but the busiest notary in Florence and\nevidently a man of robust vigour; he married four times and his youngest\nchild was fifty years the junior of Leonardo. We hear of the\nextraordinary physical strength of Leonardo himself, of his grace and\ncharm, of his accomplishments in youth, especially in singing and\nplaying on the flute, though he had but an elementary school education.\nExcept for what he learnt in the workshop of the many-sided but then\nstill youthful Verrocchio, he was his own schoolmaster, and was thus\nenabled to attain that absolute emancipation from authority and\ntradition which made him indifferent even to the Greeks, to whom he was\nmost akin. He was left-handed; his peculiar method of writing long\nraised the suspicion that it was deliberately adopted for concealment,\nbut it is to-day recognised as simply the ordinary mirror-writing of a\nleft-handed child without training. This was not the only anomaly in\nLeonardo\u2019s strange nature. We now know that he was repeatedly charged as\na youth on suspicion of homosexual offences; the result remains obscure,\nbut there is some reason to think he knew the inside of a prison.\nThroughout life he loved to surround himself with beautiful youths,\nthough no tradition of license or vice clings to his name. The precise\nnature of his sexual temperament remains obscure. It mocks us, but\nhaunts us from out of his most famous pictures. There is, for instance,\nthe \u201cJohn the Baptist\u201d of the Louvre, which we may dismiss with the\ndistinguished art critic of to-day as an impudent blasphemy or brood\nover long, without being clearly able to determine into what obscure\nregion of the Freudian Unconscious Leonardo had here adventured. Freud\nhimself has devoted one of his most fascinating essays to a\npsychoanalytic interpretation of Leonardo\u2019s enigmatic personality. He\nadmits it is a speculation; we may take it or leave it. But Freud has\nrightly apprehended that in Leonardo sexual passion was largely\nsublimated into intellectual passion, in accordance with his own saying,\n\u201cNothing can be loved or hated unless first we have knowledge of it,\u201d\nor, as he elsewhere said, \u201cTrue and great love springs out of great\nknowledge, and where you know little you can love but little or not at\nall.\u201d So it was that Leonardo became a master of life. Vasari could\nreport of him\u2014almost in the words it was reported of another supreme but\nwidely different figure, the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier\u2014that \u201cwith the\nsplendour of his most beautiful countenance he made serene every broken\nspirit.\u201d To possess by self-mastery the sources of love and hate is to\ntranscend good and evil and so to possess the Overman\u2019s power of binding\nup the hearts that are broken by good and evil.\n\nEvery person of genius is in some degree at once man, woman, and child.\nLeonardo was all three in the extreme degree and yet without any\napparent conflict. The infantile strain is unquestioned, and, apart from\nthe problem of his sexual temperament, Leonardo was a child even in his\nextraordinary delight in devising fantastic toys and contriving\ndisconcerting tricks. His more than feminine tenderness is equally\nclear, alike in his pictures and in his life. Isabella d\u2019Este, in asking\nhim to paint the boy Jesus in the Temple, justly referred to \u201cthe\ngentleness and sweetness which mark your art.\u201d His tenderness was shown\nnot only towards human beings, but to all living things, animals and\neven plants, and it would appear that he was a vegetarian. Yet at the\nsame time he was emphatically masculine, altogether free from weakness\nor softness. He delighted in ugliness as well as in beauty; he liked\nvisiting the hospitals to study the sick in his thirst for knowledge; he\npondered over battles and fighting; he showed no compunction in planning\ndevilish engines of military destruction. His mind was of a definitely\nrealistic and positive cast; though there seems no field of thought he\nfailed to enter, he never touched metaphysics, and though his worship of\nNature has the emotional tone of religion, even of ecstasy, he was\nclearly disdainful of the established religions, and perpetually shocked\n\u201cthe timid friends of God.\u201d By precept and by practice he proclaimed the\nlofty solitude of the individual soul, and he felt only contempt for the\nherd. We see how this temper became impressed on his face in his own\ndrawing of himself in old age, with that intent and ruthless gaze\nwrapped in intellectual contemplation of the outspread world.\n\nLeonardo comes before us, indeed, in the end, as a figure for awe rather\nthan for love. Yet, as the noblest type of the Overman we faintly try to\nconceive, Leonardo is the foe, not of man, but of the enemies of man.\nThe great secrets that with clear vision his stern grip tore from\nNature, the new instruments of power that his energy wrought, they were\nall for the use and delight of mankind. So Leonardo is the everlasting\nembodiment of that brooding human spirit whose task never dies. Still\nto-day it stands at the mouth of the gloomy cavern of Nature, even of\nHuman Nature, with bent back and shaded eyes, seeking intently to\npenetrate the gloom beyond, with the fear of that threatening darkness,\nwith the desire of what redeeming miracle it yet perchance may hold.\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nTHAT Leonardo da Vinci was not only supremely great in science, but the\nincarnation of the spirit of science, the artist and lover of Nature, is\na fact it is well to bear in mind. Many mistakes would be avoided if it\nwere more clearly present to consciousness. We should no longer find the\nartists in design absurdly chafing under what they considered the\nbondage of the artists in thought. It would no longer be possible, as it\nwas some years ago, and may be still, for a narrow-minded pedagogue like\nBruneti\u00e8re, however useful in his own field, to be greeted as a prophet\nwhen he fatuously proclaimed what he termed \u201cthe bankruptcy of science.\u201d\nUnfortunately so many of the people who masquerade under the name of\n\u201cmen of science\u201d have no sort of title to that name. They may be doing\ngood and honest work by accumulating in little cells the facts which\nothers, more truly inspired by the spirit of science, may one day work\non; they may be doing more or less necessary work by the application to\npractical life of the discoveries which genuine men of science have\nmade. But they themselves have just as much, and no more, claim to use\nthe name of \u201cscience\u201d as the men who make the pots and dishes piled up\nin a crockery shop have to use the name of \u201cart.\u201d[47] They have not yet\neven learnt that \u201cscience\u201d is not the accumulation of knowledge in the\nsense of piling up isolated facts, but the active organisation of\nknowledge, the application to the world of the cutting edge of a\nmarvellously delicate instrument, and that this task is impossible\nwithout the widest range of vision and the most restless fertility of\nimagination.\n\nOf such more genuine men of science\u2014to name one whom by virtue of\nseveral common interests I was sometimes privileged to come near\u2014was\nFrancis Galton. He was not a professional man of science; he was even\nwilling that his love of science should be accounted simply a hobby.\nFrom the standpoint of the ordinary professional scientific man he was\nprobably an amateur. He was not even, as some have been, a learned\namateur. I doubt whether he had really mastered the literature of any\nsubject, though I do not doubt that that mattered little. When he heard\nof some famous worker in a field he was exploring, he would look up that\nman\u2019s work; so it was with Weismann in the field of heredity. And, as I\nwould note with a smile in reading his letters, Galton was not able to\nspell Weismann\u2019s name correctly.[48] His attitude in science might be\nsaid to be pioneering much like that of the pioneers of museums in the\nlater seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries, men like Tradescant\nand Ashmole and Evelyn and Sloane: an insatiable curiosity in things\nthat were only just beginning, or had not yet begun, to arouse\ncuriosity. So it was that when I made some personal experiments with the\nMexican cactus, mescal (_Anhalonium Lewinii_), to explore its\nvision-producing qualities, then quite unknown in England, Galton was\neagerly interested and wanted to experiment on himself, though\nultimately dissuaded on account of his advanced age. But, on this basis,\nGalton\u2019s curiosity was not the mere inquisitiveness of the child, it was\nco\u00f6rdinated with an almost uniquely organised brain as keen as it was\nwell-balanced. So that on the one hand his curiosity was transformed\ninto methods that were endlessly ingenious and inventive, and on the\nother it was guided and held in check by inflexible caution and good\nsense. And he knew how to preserve that exquisite balance without any\nsolemnity or tension or self-assertion, but playfully and graciously,\nwith the most unfailing modesty. It was this rare combination of\nqualities\u2014one may see it all in his \u201cInquiries into Human Faculty\u201d\u2014which\nmade him the very type of the man of genius, operating, not by\nprofession or by deliberate training, but by natural function, throwing\nlight on the dark places of the world and creating science in\nout-of-the-way fields of human experience which before had been left to\ncaprice or not even perceived at all. Throughout he was an artist and\nif, as is reported, he spent the last year of his life chiefly in\nwriting a novel, that was of a piece with the whole of his marvellous\nactivity; he had never been doing anything else. Only his romances were\nreal.\n\nGalton\u2019s yet more famous cousin, Charles Darwin, presents in equal\npurity the lover and the artist in the sphere of Nature and Science. No\ndoubt there were once many obtuse persons to whom these names seemed\nscarcely to fit when applied to Darwin. There have been people to whom\nDarwin scarcely seemed a man of genius, merely a dry laborious\npedestrian student of facts. He himself even\u2014as many people find it\ndifficult to forget\u2014once lamented his indifference to poetry and art.\nBut Darwin was one of those elect persons in whose subconscious, if not\nin their conscious, nature is implanted the realisation that \u201cscience\n_is_ poetry,\u201d and in a field altogether remote from the poetry and art\nof convention he was alike poet and artist. Only a man so endowed could\nfrom a suggestion received on reading Malthus have conceived of natural\nselection as a chief moulding creative force of an infinite succession\nof living forms; so also of his fantastic theory of pangenesis. Even in\ntrifling matters of experiment, such as setting a musician to play the\nbassoon in his greenhouse, to ascertain whether music affected plants,\nhe had all the inventive imagination of poet or of artist. He was poet\nand artist\u2014though I doubt if this has been pointed out\u2014in his whole\nattitude towards Nature. He worked hard, but to him work was a kind of\nplay, and it may well be that with his fragile health he could not have\ncarried on his work if it had not been play. Again and again in his\n\u201cLife and Letters\u201d we find the description of his observations or\nexperiments introduced by some such phrase as: \u201cI was infinitely\namused.\u201d And he remarks of a biological problem that it was like a game\nof chess. I doubt, indeed, whether any great man of science was more of\nan artist than Darwin, more consciously aware that he was playing with\nthe world, more deliciously thrilled by the fun of life. That man may\nwell have found \u201cpoetry and art\u201d dull who himself had created the theory\nof sexual selection which made the whole becoming of life art and the\nsecret of it poetry.[49]\n\nIt is not alone among biologists, from whose standpoint it may be judged\neasier to reach, since they are concerned with living Nature, that we\nfind the attitude of the lover and the artist. We find it just as well\nmarked when the man of genius plays in what some might think the arid\nfield of the physicist. Faraday worked in a laboratory, a simple one,\nindeed, but the kind of place which might be supposed fatal to the true\nspirit of science, and without his researches in magnetic electricity we\nmight have missed, with or without a pang, those most practical machines\nof our modern life, the dynamo and the telephone. Yet Faraday had no\npractical ends in view; it has been possible to say of him that he\ninvestigated Nature as a poet investigates the emotions. That would not\nhave sufficed to make him the supreme man of science he was. His\nbiographer, Dr. Bence Jones, who knew him well, concludes that Faraday\u2019s\nfirst great characteristic was his trust in facts, and his second his\nimagination. There we are brought to the roots of his nature. Only, it\nis important to remember, these two characteristics were not separate\nand distinct. In themselves they may be opposing traits; it was because\nin Faraday they were held together in vital tension that he became so\npotent an instrument of research into Nature\u2019s secrets. Tyndall, who was\nhis friend and fellow worker, seems to have perceived this. \u201cThe force\nof his imagination,\u201d wrote Tyndall, \u201cwas enormous,\u201d\u2014he \u201crose from the\nsmallest beginnings to the greatest ends,\u201d from \u201cbubbles of oxygen and\nnitrogen to the atmospheric envelope of the earth itself,\u201d\u2014but \u201che\nbridled it like a mighty rider.\u201d Faraday himself said to the same\neffect: \u201cLet the imagination go, guarding it by judgment and principles,\nbut holding it in and directing it by experiment.\u201d Elsewhere he has\nremarked that in youth he was, and he might have added that he still\nremained, \u201ca very lively imaginative person and could believe in the\n\u2018Arabian Nights\u2019 as easily as in the \u2018Encyclop\u00e6dia\u2019.\u201d But he soon\nacquired almost an instinct for testing facts by experiment, for\ndistrusting such alleged facts as he had not so tested, and for\naccepting all the conclusions that he had thus reached with a complete\nindifference to commonly accepted beliefs. (It is true he was a faithful\nand devout elder in the Sandemanian Church, and that is not the least\nfascinating trait in this fascinating man.) Tyndall has insisted on both\nof these aspects of Faraday\u2019s mental activity. He had \u201cwonderful\nvivacity,\u201d he was \u201ca man of excitable and fiery nature,\u201d and \u201cunderneath\nhis sweetness was the heat of a volcano.\u201d He himself believed that there\nwas a Celtic strain in his heredity; there was a tradition that the\nfamily came from Ireland; I cannot find that there are any Faradays, or\npeople of any name resembling Faraday, now in Ireland, but Tyndall,\nbeing himself an Irishman, liked to believe that the tradition was\nsound. It would only account for the emotionally vivacious side of this\nnature. There was also the other side, on which Tyndall also insists:\nthe love of order, the extreme tenacity, the high self-discipline able\nto convert the fire within into a clear concentrated glow. In the fusion\nof these two qualities \u201che was a prophet,\u201d says Tyndall, \u201cand often\nwrought by an inspiration to be understood by sympathy alone.\u201d His\nexpansive emotional imagination became the servant of truth, and sprang\ninto life at its touch. In carrying out physical experiments he would\nexperience a childlike joy and his eyes sparkled. \u201cEven to his latest\ndays he would almost dance for joy at being shown a new experiment.\u201d\nSilvanus Thompson, in his book on Faraday, insists (as Tyndall had) on\nthe association with this childlike joy in imaginative extravagance of\nthe perpetual impulse to test and to prove, \u201cyet never hesitating to\npush to their logical conclusions the ideas suggested by experiment,\nhowever widely they might seem to lead from the accepted modes of\nthought.\u201d His method was the method of the \u201cArabian Nights,\u201d transferred\nto the region of facts.\n\nFaraday was not a mathematician. But if we turn to Kepler, who moved in\nthe sphere of abstract calculation, we find precisely the same\ncombination of characteristics. It was to Kepler, rather than to\nCopernicus, that we owe the establishment of the heliocentric theory of\nour universe, and Kepler, more than any man, was the precursor of\nNewton. It has been said that if Kepler had never lived it is difficult\nto conceive who could have taken his place and achieved his special part\nin the scientific creation of our universe. For that pioneering part was\nrequired a singular blend of seemingly opposed qualities. Only a wildly\ndaring, original, and adventurous spirit could break away from the\nage-long traditions and rigid preconceptions which had ruled astronomy\nfor thousands of years. Only an endlessly patient, careful, laborious,\nprecise investigator could set up the new revolutionary conceptions\nneeded to replace these traditions and preconceptions. Kepler supplied\nthis rare combination of faculties. He possessed the most absurdly\nextravagant imagination; he developed a greater regard for accuracy in\ncalculation than the world had ever known. He was willing to believe\nthat the earth was a kind of animal, and would not have been surprised\nto find that it possessed lungs or gills. At the same time so set was he\non securing the precise truth, so patiently laborious, that some of his\nmost elaborate calculations were repeated, and without the help of\nlogarithms, even seventy times. The two essential qualities that make\nthe supreme artist in science have never been so clearly made manifest\nas in Kepler.\n\nKepler may well bring us to Einstein, the greatest pioneer in the\ncomprehension of the universe since his day, and, indeed, one who is\nmore than a pioneer, since he already seems to have won a place beside\nNewton. It is a significant fact that Einstein, though he possesses an\nextremely cautious, critical mind, and is regarded as conspicuous for\nhis common sense, has a profound admiration for Kepler, whom he\nfrequently quotes. For Einstein also is an imaginative artist.[50]\n\nEinstein is obviously an artist, even in appearance, as has often been\nnoted by those who have met him; \u201che looks far more the musician than\nthe man of science,\u201d one writes, while those who know him well say that\nhe is \u201cessentially as much an artist as a discoverer.\u201d As a matter of\nfact he is an artist in one of the most commonly recognised arts, being\nan accomplished musician, a good violinist, it is said, while\nimprovisation on the piano, he himself says, is \u201ca necessity of his\nlife.\u201d His face, we are told, is illumined when he listens to music; he\nloves Bach and Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner much less, while\nto Chopin, Schumann, and the so-called romantics in music, as we might\nanticipate, he is indifferent. His love of music is inborn; it developed\nwhen, as a child, he would think out little songs \u201cin praise of God,\u201d\nand sing them by himself; music, Nature, and God began, even at that\nearly age, to become a kind of unity to him. \u201cMusic,\u201d said Leibnitz, \u201cis\nthe pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being\naware that it is counting.\u201d It is the most abstract, the most nearly\nmathematical of the arts\u2014we may recall how music and mathematics had\ntheir scientific origin together in the discovery of Pythagoras\u2014and it\nis not surprising that it should be Einstein\u2019s favorite art.[51] It is\neven more natural that, next to music, he should be attracted to\narchitecture\u2014the art which Goethe called \u201cfrozen music\u201d\u2014for here we are\nactually plunged into mechanics, here statics and dynamics are\ntransformed into visible beauty. To painting he is indifferent, but he\nis drawn to literature, although no great reader. In literature, indeed,\nit would seem that it is not so much art that he seeks as emotion; in\nthis field it is no longer the austerely architectonic that draws him;\nthus he is not attracted to Ibsen; he is greatly attracted to Cervantes\nas well as Keller and Strindberg; he has a profound admiration for\nShakespeare, but is cooler towards Goethe, while it would seem that\nthere is no writer to whom he is more fervently attached than the most\nhighly emotional, the most profoundly disintegrated in nervous\norganisation of all great writers, Dostoievsky, especially his\nmasterpiece, \u201cThe Brothers Karamazov.\u201d \u201cDostoievsky gives me more than\nany scientist, more than Gauss.\u201d All literary analysis or \u00e6sthetic\nsubtlety, it seems to Einstein, fails to penetrate to the heart of a\nwork like \u201cThe Karamazovs,\u201d it can only be grasped by the feelings. His\nface lights up when he speaks of it and he can find no word but \u201cethical\nsatisfaction.\u201d For ethics in the ordinary sense, as a system, means\nlittle to Einstein; he would not even include it in the sciences; it is\nthe ethical joy embodied in art which satisfies him. Moreover, it is\nsaid, the keynote of Einstein\u2019s emotional existence is the cry of\nSophocles\u2019 Antigone: \u201cI am not here to hate with you, but to love with\nyou.\u201d The best that life has to offer, he feels, is a face glowing with\nhappiness. He is an advanced democrat and pacifist rather than (as is\nsometimes supposed) a socialist; he believes in the internationality of\nall intellectual work and sees no reason why this should destroy\nnational characteristics.\n\nEinstein is not\u2014and this is the essential point to make clear\u2014merely an\nartist in his moments of leisure and play, as a great statesman may play\ngolf or a great soldier grow orchids. He retains the same attitude in\nthe whole of his work. He traces science to its roots in emotion, which\nis exactly where art also is rooted. Of Max Planck, the physicist, for\nwhom he has great admiration, Einstein has said: \u201cThe emotional\ncondition which fits him for his task is akin to that of a devotee or a\nlover.\u201d We may say the same, it would seem, of Einstein himself. He is\nnot even to be included, as some might have supposed, in that rigid sect\nwhich asserts that all real science is precise measurement; he\nrecognises that the biological sciences must be largely independent of\nmathematics. If mathematics were the only path of science, he once\nremarked, Nature would have been illegible for Goethe, who had a\nnon-mathematical, even anti-mathematical, mind, and yet possessed a\npower of intuition greater than that of many an exact investigator.[52]\nAll great achievements in science, he holds, start from intuition. This\nhe constantly repeats, although he adds that the intuition must not\nstand alone, for invention also is required. He is disposed to regard\nmany scientific discoveries commonly regarded the work of pure thought\nas really works of art. He would have this view embodied in all\neducation, making education a free and living process, with no drilling\nof the memory and no examinations, mainly a process of appeal to the\nsenses in order to draw out delicate reactions. With his end, and even\nfor the sake of acquiring ethical personality, he would have every child\nlearn a handicraft, joinery, bookbinding, or other, and, like \u00c9lie\nFaure,[53] he has great faith in the educational value of the cinema. We\nsee that behind all Einstein\u2019s activity lies the conception that the\nphysicist\u2019s work is to attain a picture, \u201ca world-picture,\u201d as he calls\nit. \u201cI agree with Schopenhauer,\u201d Einstein said at a celebration in\nhonour of Planck in 1918, \u201cthat one of the most powerful motives that\nattract people to science and art is the longing to escape from everyday\nlife with its painful coarseness and desolating bareness, and to break\nthe fetters of their own ever-changing desires. It impels those of\nkeener sensibility out of their personal existences into the world of\nobjective perception and understanding. It is a motive force of like\nkind to that which drives the dweller in noisy confused cities to\nrestful Alpine heights whence he seems to have an outlook on eternity.\nAssociated with this negative motive is the positive motive which impels\nmen to seek a simplified synoptic view of the world conformable to their\nown nature, overcoming the world by replacing it with this picture. The\npainter, the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, all do this, each in\nhis own way.\u201d Spengler has elaborately argued that there is a perfect\nidentity of physics, mathematics, religion, and great art.[54] We might\nfairly be allowed to point to Einstein as a lofty embodiment of that\nidentity.\n\nHere, where we reach the sphere of mathematics, we are among processes\nwhich seem to some the most inhuman of all human activities and the most\nremote from poetry. Yet it is here that the artist has the fullest scope\nfor his imagination. \u201cMathematics,\u201d says Bertrand Russell in his\n\u201cMysticism and Logic,\u201d \u201cmay be defined as the subject in which we never\nknow what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.\u201d\nWe are in the imaginative sphere of art, and the mathematician is\nengaged in a work of creation which resembles music in its orderliness,\nand is yet reproducing on another plane the order of the universe, and\nso becoming as it were a music of the spheres. It is not surprising that\nthe greatest mathematicians have again and again appealed to the arts in\norder to find some analogy to their own work. They have indeed found it\nin the most various arts, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, although\nit would certainly seem that it is in music, the most abstract of the\narts, the art of number and of time, that we find the closest analogy.\n\u201cThe mathematician\u2019s best work is art,\u201d said Mittag-Lefler, \u201ca high and\nperfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear\nand limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch each other.\u201d\nAnd Sylvester wrote in his \u201cTheory of Reciprocants\u201d: \u201cDoes it not seem\nas if Algebra had attained to the dignity of a fine art, in which the\nworkman has a free hand to develop his conceptions, as in a musical\ntheme or a subject for painting? It has reached a point in which every\nproperly developed algebraical composition, like a skilful landscape, is\nexpected to suggest the notion of an infinite distance lying beyond the\nlimits of the canvas.\u201d \u201cMathematics, rightly viewed,\u201d says Bertrand\nRussell again, \u201cpossesses not only truth, but supreme beauty\u2014a beauty\ncold and austere, like that of sculpture.... The true spirit of delight,\nthe exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the\ntouchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as\nsurely as in poetry.\u201d\n\nThe mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human\nthought. But it is the same ladder which we have all of us been always\nascending, alike from the infancy of the individual and the infancy of\nthe race. Moli\u00e8re\u2019s Jourdain had been speaking prose for more than forty\nyears without knowing it. Mankind has been thinking poetry throughout\nits long career and remained equally ignorant.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  It would not appear that the pioneers of the Mathematical Renaissance\n  of the twentieth century are inclined to imitate Descartes in this\n  matter. Einstein would certainly not, and many apostles of physical\n  science to-day (see, e.g., Professor Smithells, _From a Modern\n  University: Some Aims and Aspirations of Science_) insist on the\n  \u00e6sthetic, imaginative, and other \u201cart\u201d qualities of science.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  C. Singer. \u201cWhat is Science?\u201d _British Medical Journal_, 25th June,\n  1921. Singer refuses the name of \u201cscience\u201d in the strict sense to\n  fields of completely organised knowledge which have ceased growing,\n  like human anatomy (though, of course, the anatomist still remains a\n  man of science by working outwards into adjoining related fields),\n  preferring to term any such field of completed knowledge a\n  _discipline_. This seems convenient and I should like to regard it as\n  sound. It is not, however, compatible with the old doctrine of Mill\n  and Colvin and Ray Lankester, for it excludes from the field of\n  science exactly what they regarded as most typically science, and some\n  one might possibly ask whether in other departments, like Hellenic\n  sculpture or Sung pottery, a completed art ceases to be art.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  It has often been pointed out that the imaginative application of\n  science\u2014artistic ideas like that of the steam locomotive, the\n  flying-machine heavier than air, the telegraph, the telephone, and\n  many others\u2014were even at the moment of their being achieved,\n  elaborately shown to be \u201cimpossible\u201d by men who had been too hastily\n  hoisted up to positions of \u201cscientific\u201d eminence.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  J. B. Baillie, _Studies in Human Nature_ (1921), p. 221. This point\n  has become familiar ever since F. A. Lange published his almost\n  epoch-marking work, _The History of Materialism_, which has made so\n  deep an impress on many modern thinkers from Nietzsche to Vaihinger;\n  it is indeed a book which can never be forgotten (I speak from\n  experience) by any one who read it in youth.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  G. Wallas, _The Great Society_, p. 107.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, vol. I, chap. III, where will be found an\n  attractive account of Pythagoras\u2019 career and position.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  Always, it may perhaps be noted in passing, it seems to have been\n  difficult for the sober and solemn Northerner, especially of England,\n  to enter into the Greek spirit, all the more since that spirit was\n  only the spirit of a sprinkling of people amid a hostile mass about as\n  unlike anything we conventionally call \u201cGreek\u201d as could well be\n  imagined, so that, as \u00c9lie Faure, the historian of art, has lately\n  remarked, Greek art is a biological \u201cmonstrosity.\u201d (Yet, I would ask,\n  might we not say the same of France or of England?) That is why it is\n  usually so irritating to read books written about the Greeks by\n  barbarians; they slur over or ignore what they do not like and, one\n  suspects, they instinctively misinterpret what they think they do\n  like. Better even the most imperfect knowledge of a few original\n  texts, better even only a few days on the Acropolis, than the\n  second-hand opinions of other people. And if we must have a book about\n  the Greeks, there is always Athen\u00e6us, much nearer to them in time and\n  in spirit, with all his gossip, than any Northern barbarian, and an\n  everlasting delight.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  Along another line it should have been clear that the dialogues of the\n  philosophers were drama and not history. It would appear (Croiset,\n  _Litt\u00e9rature Grecque_, vol. III, pp. 448 _et seq._) that with\n  Epicharmus of Cos, who was settled in Megara at the beginning of the\n  fifth century, philosophic comedy flourished brilliantly at Syracuse,\n  and indeed fragments of his formal philosophic dialogue survive. Thus\n  it is suggested that Athenian comedy and sophistic prose dialogues may\n  be regarded as two branches drawn from the ancient prototype of such\n  Syracusan comedy, itself ultimately derived from Ionian philosophy. It\n  is worth noting, I might add, that when we first hear of the Platonic\n  dialogues they were being grouped in trilogies and tetralogies like\n  the Greek dramas; that indicates, at all events, what their earliest\n  editors thought about them. It is also interesting to note that the\n  writer of, at the present moment, the latest handbook to Plato,\n  Professor A. E. Taylor (_Plato_, 1922, pp. 32-33), regards the\n  \u201cSocrates\u201d of Plato as no historical figure, not even a mask of Plato\n  himself, but simply \u201cthe hero of the Platonic drama,\u201d of which we have\n  to approach in much the same way as the work of \u201ca great dramatist or\n  novelist.\u201d\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  He had often been bidden in dreams to make music, said the Platonic\n  Socrates in _Ph\u00e6do_, and he had imagined that that was meant to\n  encourage him in the pursuit of philosophy, \u201cwhich is the noblest and\n  best of music.\u201d\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  In discussing Socrates I have made some use of Professor Dupr\u00e9el\u2019s\n  remarkable book, _La L\u00e9gende Socratique_ (1922). Dupr\u00e9el himself, with\n  a little touch of irony, recommends a careful perusal of the beautiful\n  and monumental works erected by Zeller and Grote and Gomperz to the\n  honour of Socrates.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n  Count Hermann Keyserling, _Philosophie als Kunst_ (1920), p. 2. He\n  associates this with the need for a philosophy to possess a subjective\n  personal character, without which it can have no value, indeed no\n  content at all.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n  Croce, _Problemi d\u2019 Estetica_, p. 15. I have to admit, for myself,\n  that, while admiring the calm breadth of Croce\u2019s wide outlook, it is\n  sometimes my misfortune, in spite of myself, when I go to his works,\n  to play the part of a Balaam _\u00e0 rebours_. I go forth to bless: and,\n  somehow, I curse.\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n  James Hinton, a pioneer in so many fields, clearly saw that thinking\n  is really an art fifty years ago. \u201cThinking is no mere mechanical\n  process,\u201d he wrote (_Chapters on the Art of Thinking_, pp. 43 _et\n  seq._), \u201cit is a great Art, the chief of all the Arts.... Those only\n  can be called thinkers who have a native gift, a special endowment for\n  the work, and have been trained, besides, by assiduous culture. And\n  though we continually assume that every one is capable of thinking, do\n  we not all feel that there is somehow a fallacy in this assumption? Do\n  we not feel that what people set up as their \u2018reasons\u2019 for\n  disbelieving or believing are often nothing of the sort?... The Art\n  faculty is Imagination, the power of seeing the unseen, the power also\n  of putting ourselves out of the centre, of reducing ourselves to our\n  true proportions, of truly using our own impressions. And is not this\n  in reality the chief element in the work of the thinker?... Science\n  _is_ poetry.\u201d\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n  So far, indeed, as I am aware, I was responsible for the first English\n  account of his work (outside philosophical journals); it appeared in\n  the London _Nation and Athen\u00e6um_ a few years ago, and is partly\n  embodied in the present chapter.\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n  I have based this sketch on an attractive and illuminating account of\n  his own development written by Professor Vaihinger for Dr. Raymund\n  Schmidt\u2019s highly valuable series, _Die Deutsche Philosophie der\n  Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen_ (1921), vol. II.\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n  \u201cMost workers on the problem of atomic constitution,\u201d remarks Sir\n  Ernest Rutherford (_Nature_, 5th August, 1922), \u201ctake as a working\n  hypothesis that the atoms of matter are purely electrical structures,\n  and that ultimately it is hoped to explain all the properties of atoms\n  as a result of certain combinations of the two fundamental units of\n  positive and negative electricity, the proton and electron.\u201d\n\nFootnote 42:\n\n  Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. I.\n\nFootnote 43:\n\n  Otto Rank, _Der K\u00fcnstler: Ans\u00e4tze zu einer Sexual Psychologie_.\n\nFootnote 44:\n\n  The sexual strain in the symbolism of language is touched on in my\n  _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. V, and similar traits in\n  primitive legends have been emphasised\u2014many would say\n  over-emphasised\u2014by Freud and Jung.\n\nFootnote 45:\n\n  Einstein, in conversation with Moszkowski, expressed doubt as to the\n  reality of Leonardo\u2019s previsions of modern science. But it scarcely\n  appeared that he had investigated the matter, while the definite\n  testimony of the experts in many fields who have done so cannot be put\n  aside.\n\nFootnote 46:\n\n  For the Italian reader of Leonardo the fat little volume of\n  _Frammenti_, edited by Dr. Solmi and published by Barb\u00e8ra, is a\n  precious and inexhaustible pocket companion. For the English reader\n  Mr. MacCurdy\u2019s larger but much less extensive volume of extracts from\n  the _Note-Books_, or the still further abridged _Thoughts_, must\n  suffice. Herbert Horne\u2019s annotated version of Vasari\u2019s _Life_ is\n  excellent for Leonardo\u2019s personality and career.\n\nFootnote 47:\n\n  Morley Roberts, who might be regarded as a pupil in the school of\n  Leonardo and trained like him in the field of art, has in various\n  places of his suggestive book, _Warfare in the Human Body_, sprinkled\n  irony over the examples he has come across of ignorant specialists\n  claiming to be men of \u201cscience.\u201d\n\nFootnote 48:\n\n  Needless to say, I do not mention this to belittle Galton. A careful\n  attention to words, which in its extreme form becomes pedantry, is by\n  no means necessarily associated with a careful attention to things.\n  Until recent times English writers, even the greatest, were always\n  negligent in spelling; it would be foolish to suppose they were\n  therefore negligent in thinking.\n\nFootnote 49:\n\n  Darwin even overestimated the \u00e6sthetic element in his theory of sexual\n  selection, and (I have had occasion elsewhere to point out)\n  unnecessarily prejudiced that theory by sometimes unwarily assuming a\n  conscious \u00e6sthetic element.\n\nFootnote 50:\n\n  It is probable that the reason why it is often difficult to trace the\n  imaginative artist in great men of supposedly abstract science is the\n  paucity of intimate information about them. Even their scientific\n  friends have rarely had the patience, or even perhaps the\n  intelligence, to observe them reverently and to record their\n  observations. We know almost nothing that is intimately personal about\n  Newton. As regards Einstein, we are fortunate in possessing the book\n  of Moszkowski, _Einstein_ (translated into English under the title of\n  _Einstein the Searcher_), which contains many instructive\n  conversations and observations by a highly intelligent and\n  appreciative admirer, who has set them down in a Boswellian spirit\n  that faintly recalls Eckermann\u2019s book on Goethe (which, indeed,\n  Moszkowski had in mind), though falling far short of that supreme\n  achievement. The statements in the text are mainly gleaned from\n  Moszkowski.\n\nFootnote 51:\n\n  Spengler holds (_Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, vol. X, p. 329) that\n  the development of music throughout its various stages in our European\n  culture really has been closely related with the stages of the\n  development of mathematics.\n\nFootnote 52:\n\n  I would here refer to a searching investigation, \u201cGoethe und die\n  mathematische Physik: Eine Erkenntnistheoretische Studie,\u201d in Ernst\n  Cassirer\u2019s _Idee und Gestalt_ (1921). It is here shown that in some\n  respects Goethe pointed the way along which mathematical physics, by\n  following its own paths, has since travelled, and that even when most\n  non-mathematical Goethe\u2019s scientific attitude was justifiable.\n\nFootnote 53:\n\n  See the remarkable essay, \u201cDe la Cin\u00e9plastique,\u201d in \u00c9lie Faure\u2019s\n  _L\u2019Arbre d\u2019\u00c9den_ (1922). It is, however, a future and regenerated\n  cinema for which \u00c9lie Faure looks, \u201cto become the art of the crowd,\n  the powerful centre of communion in which new symphonic forms will be\n  born in the tumult of passions and utilized for fine and elevating\n  \u00e6sthetic ends.\u201d\n\nFootnote 54:\n\n  O. Spengler, _Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, vol. I, p. 576.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n                           THE ART OF WRITING\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nFROM time to time we are solemnly warned that in the hands of modern\nwriters language has fallen into a morbid state. It has become\ndegenerate, if not, indeed, the victim of \u201csenile ataxy\u201d or \u201cgeneral\nparalysis.\u201d Certainly it is well that our monitors should seek to arouse\nin us the wholesome spirit of self-criticism. Whether we write ill or\nwell, we can never be too seriously concerned with what it is that we\nare attempting to do. We may always be grateful to those who stimulate\nus to a more wakeful activity in pursuing a task which can never be\ncarried to perfection.\n\nYet these monitors seldom fail at the same time to arouse a deep revolt\nin our minds. We are not only impressed by the critic\u2019s own inability to\nwrite any better than those he criticises. We are moved to question the\nvalidity of nearly all the rules he lays down for our guidance. We are\ninclined to dispute altogether the soundness of the premises from which\nhe starts. Of these three terms of our revolt, covering comprehensively\nthe whole ground, the first may be put aside\u2014since the ancient retort is\nalways ineffective and it helps the patient not at all to bid the\nphysician heal himself\u2014and we may take the last first.\n\nMen are always apt to bow down before the superior might of their\nancestors. It has been so always and everywhere. Even the author of the\nonce well-known book of Genesis believed that \u201cthere were giants in the\nearth in those days,\u201d the mighty men which were of old, the men of\nrenown, and still to-day among ourselves no plaint is more common than\nthat concerning the physical degeneracy of modern men as compared with\nour ancestors of a few centuries ago. Now and then, indeed, there comes\nalong a man of science, like Professor Parsons, who has measured the\nbones from the remains of the ancestors we still see piled up in the\ncrypt at Hythe, and finds that\u2014however fine the occasional\nexceptions\u2014the average height of those men and women was decidedly less\nthan that of their present-day descendants. Fortunately for the vitality\nof tradition, we cherish a wholesome distrust of science. And so it is\nwith our average literary stature. The academic critic regards himself\nas the special depository of the accepted tradition, and far be it from\nhim to condescend to any mere scientific inquiry into the actual facts.\nHe half awakens from slumber to murmur the expected denunciation of his\nown time, and therewith returns to slumber. He usually seems unaware\nthat even three centuries ago, in the finest period of English prose,\nSwift, certainly himself a supreme master, was already lamenting \u201cthe\ncorruption of our style.\u201d\n\nIf it is asserted that the average writer of to-day has not equalled the\nsupreme writer of some earlier age,\u2014there are but one or two in any\nage,\u2014we can only ejaculate: Strange if he had! Yet that is all that the\nacademic critic usually seems to mean. If he would take the trouble to\ncompare the average prose writer of to-day with the average writer of\neven so great an age as the Elizabethan, he might easily convince\nhimself that the former, whatever his imperfections, need not fear the\ncomparison. Whether or not Progress in general may be described as \u201cthe\nexchange of one nuisance for another nuisance,\u201d it is certainly so with\nthe progress of style, and the imperfections of our average everyday\nwriting are balanced by the quite other imperfections of our\nforefathers\u2019 writing. What, for instance, need we envy in the literary\nmethods of that great and miscellaneous band of writers whom Hakluyt\nbrought together in those admirable volumes which are truly great and\nreally fascinating only for reasons that have nothing to do with style?\nRaleigh himself here shows no distinction in his narrative of that\ndiscreditable episode,\u2014as he clearly and rightly felt it to be,\u2014the loss\nof the _Revenge_ by the wilful Grenville. Most of them are bald,\nsavourless, monotonous, stating the obvious facts in the obvious way,\nbut hopelessly failing to make clear, when rarely they attempt it,\nanything that is not obvious. They have none of the little unconscious\ntricks of manner which worry the critic to-day. But their whole manner\nis one commonplace trick from which they never escape. They are only\nrelieved by its simplicity and by the novelty which comes through age.\nWe have to remember that all mediocrity is impersonal and that when we\nencourage its manifestations on printed pages we merely make mediocrity\nmore conspicuous. Nor can that be remedied by teaching the mediocre to\ncultivate tricks of fashion or of vanity. There is more personality in\nClaude Bernard\u2019s \u201cLe\u00e7ons de Physiologie Exp\u00e9rimentales,\u201d a great critic\nof life and letters has pointed out, Remy de Gourmont, than in Musset\u2019s\n\u201cConfession d\u2019un Enfant du Si\u00e8cle.\u201d For personality is not something\nthat can be sought; it is a radiance that is diffused spontaneously. It\nmay even be most manifest when most avoided, and no writer\u2014the remark\nhas doubtless often been made before\u2014can be more personal than Flaubert\nwho had made almost a gospel of Impersonality. But the absence of\nresearch for personality, however meritorious, will not suffice to bring\npersonality out of mediocrity.\n\nMoreover, the obvious fact seems often to be overlooked by the critic\nthat a vastly larger proportion of the population now write, and see\ntheir writing printed. We live in what we call a democratic age in which\nall are compulsorily taught how to make pothooks and hangers on paper.\nSo that every nincompoop\u2014in the attenuated sense of the term\u2014as soon as\nhe puts a pen in ink feels that he has become, like M. Jourdain, a\nwriter of prose. That feeling is justified only in a very limited sense,\nand if we wish to compare the condition of things to-day with that in an\nage when people wrote at the bidding of some urgent stimulus from\nwithout or from within, we have at the outset to delete certainly over\nninety-five per cent of our modern so-called writers before we institute\nany comparison. The writers thus struck out, it may be added, cannot\nfail to include many persons of much note in the world. There are all\nsorts of people to-day who write from all sorts of motives other than a\ngenuine aptitude for writing. To suppose that there can be any\ncomparison at this point of the present with the past and to dodder over\nthe decay of our language would seem a senile proceeding if we do not\nhappen to know that it occurs in all ages, and that, even at the time\nwhen our prose speech was as near to perfection as it is ever likely to\nbe, its critics were bemoaning its corruption, lamenting, for instance,\nthe indolent new practice of increasing sibilation by changing\n\u201carriveth\u201d into \u201carrives\u201d and pronouncing \u201cwalked\u201d as \u201cwalkd,\u201d sometimes\nin their criticisms showing no more knowledge of the history and methods\nof growth of English than our academic critics show to-day.\n\nFor we know what to-day they tell us; it is not hard to know, their\nexhortations, though few, are repeated in so psittaceous a manner. One\nthinks, for instance, of that solemn warning against the enormity of the\nsplit infinitive which has done so much to aggravate the Pharisaism of\nthe bad writers who scrupulously avoid it. This superstition seems to\nhave had its origin in a false analogy with Latin in which the\ninfinitive is never split for the good reason that it is impossible to\nsplit. In the greater freedom of English it is possible and has been\ndone for at least the last five hundred years by the greatest masters of\nEnglish; only the good writer never uses this form helplessly and\ninvoluntarily, but with a definite object; and that is the only rule to\nobserve. An absolute prohibition in this matter is the mark of those who\nare too ignorant, or else too unintelligent, to recognise a usage which\nis of the essence of English speech.[55]\n\nOne may perhaps refer, again, to those who lay down that every sentence\nmust end on a significant word, never on a preposition, and who\nreprobate what has been technically termed the post-habited prefix. They\nare the same worthy and would-be old-fashioned people who think that a\npiece of music must always end monotonously on a banging chord. Only\nhere they have not, any more than in music, even the virtue\u2014if such it\nbe\u2014of old fashion, for the final so-called preposition is in the genius\nof the English language and associated with the Scandinavian\u2014in the\nwider ancient sense Danish\u2014strain of English, one of the finest strains\nit owns, imparting much of the plastic force which renders it flexible,\nthe element which helped to save it from the straitlaced tendency of\nAnglo-Saxon and the awkward formality of Latin and French influence. The\nfoolish prejudice we are here concerned with seems to date from a period\nwhen the example of French, in which the final preposition is\nimpossible, happened to be dominant. Its use in English is associated\nwith the informal grace and simplicity, the variety of tender cadence,\nwhich our tongue admits.\n\nIn such matters as the \u201csplit infinitive\u201d and the \u201cpost-habited\npreposition,\u201d there should never have been any doubt as to the complete\nvalidity and authority of the questioned usages. But there are other\npoints at which some even good critics may be tempted to accept the\ncondemnation of the literary grammarians. It is sufficient to mention\none: the nominative use of the pronoun \u201cme.\u201d Yet, surely, any one who\nconsiders social practice as well as psychological necessity should not\nfail to see that we must recognise a double use of \u201cme\u201d in English. The\nFrench, who in such matters seem to have possessed a finer social and\npsychological tact, have realised that je cannot be the sole nominative\nof the first person and have supplemented it by _moi_ (_mi_ from\n_mihi_). The Frenchman, when asked who is there, does not reply \u201cJe!\u201d\nBut the would-be English purist is supposed to be reduced to replying\n\u201cI!\u201d Royal Cleopatra asks the Messenger: \u201cIs she as tall as me?\u201d The\nwould-be purist no doubt transmutes this as he reads into: \u201cIs she as\ntall as I?\u201d We need not envy him.\n\nSuch an example indicates how independent the free and wholesome life of\nlanguage is of grammatical rules. This is not to diminish the importance\nof the grammarian\u2019s task, but simply to define it, as the formulator,\nand not the lawgiver, of usage. His rules are useful, not merely in\norder to know how best to keep them, but in order to know how best to\nbreak them. Without them freedom might become licence. Yet even licence,\nwe have to recognise, is the necessary offscouring of speech in its\nsupreme manifestations of vitality and force. English speech was never\nmore syntactically licentious than in the sixteenth century, but it was\nnever more alive, never more fitly the material for a great artist to\nmould. So it is that in the sixteenth century we find Shakespeare. In\npost-Dryden days (though Dryden was an excellent writer and engaged on\nan admirable task) a supreme artist in English speech became impossible,\nand if a Shakespeare had appeared all his strength would have been\nwasted in a vain struggle with the grammarians. French speech has run a\nsimilar and almost synchronous course with English. There was a\nmagnificently natural force and wealth in sixteenth-century French: in\nRabelais it had been even extravagantly exuberant; in Montaigne it is\nstill flexible and various\u2014_ondoyant et divers_\u2014and still full of\nnatural delight and freedom. But after Malherbe and his fellows French\nspeech acquired orderliness, precision, and formality; they were\nexcellent qualities, no doubt, but had to be paid for by some degree of\nthinness and primness, even some stiffening of the joints. Rousseau came\nand poured fresh blood from Switzerland into the language and a new\nineffable grace that was all his own; so that if we now hesitate to say,\nwith Landor, that he excels all the moderns for harmony, it is only\nbecause they have learnt what he taught; and the later Romantics, under\nthe banner of Hugo, imparted colour and brilliance. Yet all the great\nartists who have wrestled with French speech for a century have never\nbeen able to restore the scent and the savour and the substance which\nVillon and Montaigne without visible effort could once find within its\nborders. In this as in other matters what we call Progress means the\ndiscovery of new desirable qualities, and therewith the loss of other\nqualities that were at least equally desirable.\n\nThen there is yet another warning which, especially in recent times, is\nissued at frequent intervals, and that is against the use of verbal\ncounters, of worn or even worn-out phrases, of what we commonly fall\nback on modern French to call _clich\u00e9s_. We mean thereby the use of old\nstereotyped phrases\u2014Goethe called them \u201cstamped\u201d or _gestempelt_\u2014to save\nthe trouble of making a new living phrase to suit our meaning. The word\n_clich\u00e9_ is thus typographic, though, it so happens, it is derived from\nan old French word of phonetic meaning, _cliqueter_ or _cliquer_\n(related to the German _klatschen_), which we already have in English as\nto \u201cclick\u201d or to \u201cclack,\u201d in a sense which well supplements its more\nmodern technical sense for this literary end. Yet the warning against\n_clich\u00e9s_ is vain. The good writer, by the very fact that he is alive\nand craves speech that is vivid, as _clich\u00e9s_ never are, instinctively\navoids their excessive use, while the nervous and bad writer, in his\ntremulous anxiety to avoid these tabooed _clich\u00e9s_, falls into the most\ndeplorable habits, like the late Mr. Robert Ross, who at one time was so\nanxious to avoid _clich\u00e9s_ that he acquired the habit of using them in\nan inverted form and wrote a prose that made one feel like walking on\nsharp flints; for, though a macadamized road may not be so good to walk\nin as a flowered meadow, it is better than a macadamized road with each\nstone turned upside down and the sharp edge uppermost. As a matter of\nfact it is impossible to avoid the use of _clich\u00e9s_ and counters in\nspeech, and if it were possible the results would be in the highest\ndegree tedious and painful. The word \u201c_clich\u00e9_\u201d itself, we have seen, is\na _clich\u00e9_, a worn counter of a word, with its original meaning all\neffaced, and even its secondary meaning now only just visible. That, if\nthose folk who condemn _clich\u00e9s_ only had the intelligence to perceive\nit, is a significant fact. You cannot avoid using _clich\u00e9s_, not even in\nthe very act of condemning them. They include, if we only look keenly\nenough, nearly the whole of language, almost every separate word. If one\ncould avoid them one would be unintelligible. Even those common phrases\nwhich it is peculiarly meet to call counters are not to be absolutely\ncondemned. They have become so common to use because so fit to use, as\nBaudelaire understood when he spoke of \u201cthe immense depth of thought in\nvulgar locutions.\u201d[56] There is only one rule to follow here,\u2014and it is\nsimply the rule in every part of art,\u2014to know what one is doing, not to\ngo sheeplike with the flock, ignorantly, unthinkingly, heedlessly, but\nto mould speech to expression the most truly one knows how. If, indeed,\nwe are seeking clarity and the precise expression of thought, there is\nnothing we may not do if only we know how to do it\u2014but that \u201cif\u201d might\nwell be in capitals. One who has spent the best part of his life in\ntrying to write things that had not been written before, and that were\nvery difficult to write, may perhaps be allowed to confess the hardness\nof this task.\n\nTo write is thus an arduous intellectual task, a process which calls for\nthe highest tension of the muscles in the escalade of a heaven which the\nstrongest and bravest and alertest can never hope to take by violence.\nHe has to be true,\u2014whether it is in the external world he is working or\nin his own internal world,\u2014and as truth can only be seen through his own\ntemperament, he is engaged in moulding the expression of a combination\nwhich has never been seen in the world before.\n\nIt is sometimes said that the great writer seldom quotes, and that in\nthe main is true, for he finds it difficult to mix an alien music of\nthought and speech with his own. Montaigne, it is also said, is an\nexception, but that is scarcely true. What Montaigne quoted he often\ntranslated and so moulded to the pattern of his own mind. The same may\nbe said of Robert Burton. If it had not been so these writers (almost\ncertainly Burton) could scarcely have attained to the rank of great\nauthors. The significant fact to note, however, is not that the great\nwriter rarely quotes, but that he knows how to quote. Schopenhauer was\nhere a master. He possessed a marvellous flair for fine sayings in\nremote books, and these he would now and again let fall like jewels on\nhis page, with so happy a skill that they seem to be created for the\nspot on which they fell. It is the little writer rather than the great\nwriter who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is really\nnever doing anything else.[57]\n\nIt is not in writing only, in all art, in all science, the task before\neach is that defined by Bacon: _man added to Nature_. It is so also in\npainting, as a great artist of modern time, C\u00e9zanne, recognised even in\nthose same words: \u201cHe who wishes to make art,\u201d he once said to Vollard,\n\u201cmust follow Bacon, who defined the artist as \u2018Homo additus Natur\u00e6.\u2019\u201d So\nit is that the artist, if he has succeeded in being true to his\nfunction, is necessarily one who makes all things new.[58] That\nremarkable artist who wrote the Book of the Revelation has expressed\nthis in his allegorical, perhaps unconscious, Oriental way, for he\nrepresents the artist as hearing the divine spirit from the throne\nwithin him uttering the command: \u201cBehold, I make all things new. Write!\u201d\nThe command is similar whatever the art may be, though it is here the\nprivilege of the writer to find his own art set forth as the inspired\nensample of all art.\n\nThus it is that to write is a strenuous intellectual task not to be\nachieved without the exercise of the best trained and most deliberate\nrational faculties. That is the outcome of the whole argument up to this\npoint. There is so much bad writing in the world because writing has\nbeen dominated by ignorance and habit and prudery, and not least by the\nacademic teachers and critics who have known nothing of what they claim\nto teach and were often themselves singular examples of how not to\nwrite. There has, on the other hand, been a little good writing here and\nthere in the world, through the ages, because a few possessed not only\ncourage and passion and patience, but knowledge and the concentrated\nintellectual attention, and the resolution to seek truth, and the\nconviction that, as they imagined, the genius they sought consisted in\ntaking pains.\n\nYet, if that were all, many people would become great writers who, as we\nwell know, will never become writers; if that were all, writing could\nscarcely even be regarded as an art. For art, or one side of it,\ntranscends conscious knowledge; a poet, as Landor remarked, \u201cis not\naware of all that he knows, and seems at last to know as little about it\nas a silkworm knows about the fineness of her thread.\u201d Yet the same\ngreat writer has also said of good poetry, and with equal truth, that\n\u201cthe ignorant and inexpert lose half its pleasures.\u201d We always move on\ntwo feet, as \u00c9lie Faure remarks in his \u201cL\u2019Arbre d\u2019\u00c9den,\u201d the two poles\nof knowledge and of desire, the one a matter of deliberate acquirement\nand the other of profound instinct, and all our movements are a\nperpetual leap from one to the other, seeking a centre of gravity we\nnever attain.[59] So the achievement of style in writing, as in all\nhuman intercourse, is something more than an infinite capacity for\ntaking pains. It is also defined\u2014and, sometimes I think, supremely well\ndefined\u2014as \u201cgrace seasoned with salt.\u201d Beyond all that can be achieved\nby knowledge and effort, there must be the spontaneous grace that\nsprings up like a fountain from the depth of a beautifully harmonious\nnature, and there must be also the quality which the Spaniards call\n\u201csal,\u201d and so rightly admire in the speech of the women of the people of\ntheir own land, the salt quality which gives savour and point and\nantiseptic virtue.[60]\n\nThe best literary prose speech is simply the idealisation in the heaven\nof art of the finest common speech of earth, simply, yet never reached\nfor more than a moment in a nation\u2019s long history. In Greece it was\nimmortally and radiantly achieved by Plato; in England it was attained\nfor a few years during the last years of the seventeenth and the first\nyears of the eighteenth centuries, lingering on, indeed, here and there\nto the end of that century until crushed between the pedantry of Johnson\nand the poetic licence of the Romantics. But for the rest only the most\nhappily endowed genius can even attain for a rare moment the perfection\nof the Pauline ideal of \u201cgrace seasoned with salt.\u201d\n\nIt is fortunate, no doubt, that an age of machinery is well content with\nmachine-made writing. It would be in bad taste\u2014too physiological, too\nsentimental, altogether too antiquated\u2014to refer to the symbolical\nsignificance of the highly relevant fact that the heart, while\nundoubtedly a machine, is at the same time a sensitively pulsating organ\nwith fleshy strings stretched from ventricle to valves, a harp on which\nthe great artist may play until our hearts also throb in unison. Yet\nthere are some to whom it still seems that, beyond mechanical skill, the\ncadences of the artist\u2019s speech are the cadences of his heart, and the\nfootfalls of his rhythm the footfalls of his spirit, in a great\nadventure across the universe.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nTHUS we do not always realise that learning to write is partly a matter\nof individual instinct. This is so even of that writing which, as\nchildren, we learnt in copybooks with engraved maxims at the head of the\npage. There are some, indeed, probably the majority, who quickly achieve\nthe ability to present a passable imitation of the irreproachable model\npresented to them. There are some who cannot. I speak as one who knows,\nfor I recall how my first schoolmaster, a sarcastic little Frenchman,\nirritated by my unchastenable hand, would sometimes demand if I wrote\nwith the kitchen poker, or again assert that I kept a tame spider to run\nover the page, while a later teacher, who was an individualist and more\ntolerant, yet sometimes felt called upon to murmur, in a tone of dubious\noptimism: \u201cYou will have a hand of your own, my boy.\u201d It is not lack of\ndocility that is in question, but an imperative demand of the nervous\nsystem which the efforts of the will may indeed bend but cannot crush.\n\nYet the writers who cheerfully lay down the laws of style seldom realise\nthis complexity and mystery enwrapping even so simple a matter as\nhandwriting. No one can say how much atavistic recurrence from remote\nancestors, how much family nervous habit, how much wayward yet\ndeep-rooted personal idiosyncrasy deflect the child\u2019s patient efforts to\nimitate the copperplate model which is set before him. The son often\nwrites like the father, even though he may seldom or never see his\nfather\u2019s handwriting; brothers may write singularly alike, though taught\nby different teachers and even in different continents. It has been\nnoted of the ancient and distinguished family of the Tyrrells that their\nhandwriting in the parish books of Stowmarket remained the same\nthroughout many generations. I have noticed, in a relation of my own,\npeculiarities of handwriting identical with those of an ancestor two\ncenturies ago whose writing he certainly never saw. The resemblance is\noften not that of exact formation, but of general air or underlying\nstructure.[61] One is tempted to think that often, in this as in other\nmatters, the possibilities are limited, and that when the child is\nformed in his mother\u2019s womb Nature cast the same old dice and the same\nold combinations inevitably tend to recur. But that notion scarcely fits\nall the facts, and our growing knowledge of the infinite subtlety of\nheredity, of its presence even in the most seemingly elusive psychic\ncharacters, indicates that the dice may be loaded and fall in accord\nwith harmonies we fail to perceive. The development of Mendelian\nanalysis may in time help us to understand them.\n\nThe part in style which belongs to atavism, to heredity, to unconscious\ninstinct, is probably very large. It eludes us to an even greater extent\nthan the corresponding part in handwriting because the man of letters\nmay have none among his ancestors who sought expression in style, so\nthat only one Milton speaks for a mute inglorious family, and how far he\nspeaks truly remains a matter of doubt. We only divine the truth when we\nknow the character and deeds of the family. There could be no more\ninstructive revelation of family history in style than is furnished by\nCarlyle. There had never been any writer in the Carlyle family, and if\nthere had, Carlyle at the time when his manner of writing was formed,\nwould scarcely have sought to imitate them. Yet we could not conceive\nthis stern, laborious, plebeian family of Lowland Scots\u2014with its remote\nTeutonic affinities, its coarseness, its narrowness, its assertive\ninarticulative force\u2014in any more fitting verbal translation than was\ngiven it by this its last son, the pathetic little figure with the face\nof a lost child, who wrote in a padded room and turned the rough\nmuscular and reproductive activity of his fathers into more than half a\ncentury of eloquent chatter concerning Work and Silence, so writing his\nname in letters of gold on the dome of the British Museum.[62]\n\nWhen we consider the characteristics, not of the family, but of the\nrace, it is easier to find examples of the force of ancestry, even\nremote ancestry, overcoming environment and dominating style.\nShakespeare and Bacon were both Elizabethans who both lived from youth\nupwards in London, and even moved to some extent almost in the same\ncircles. Yet all the influences of tradition and environment, which\nsometimes seem to us so strong, scarcely sufficed to spread even the\nfaintest veneer of similarity over their style, and we could seldom\nmistake a sentence of one for a sentence of the other. We always know\nthat Shakespeare\u2014with his gay extravagance and redundancy, his essential\nidealism\u2014came of a people that had been changed in character from the\nsurrounding stock by a Celtic infolding of the receding British to\nWales.[63] We never fail to realise that Bacon\u2014with his instinctive\ngravity and temperance, the suppressed ardour of his aspiring\nintellectual passion, his temperamental naturalism\u2014was rooted deep in\nthat East Anglian soil which he had never so much as visited. In\nShakespeare\u2019s veins there dances the blood of the men who made the\n\u201cMabinogion\u201d; we recognise Bacon as a man of the same countryside which\nproduced the forefathers of Emerson. Or we may consider the mingled\nBreton and Gascon ancestry of Renan, in whose brain, in the very contour\nand melody of his style, the ancient bards of Brittany have joined hands\nwith the tribe of Montaigne and Brant\u00f4me and the rest. Or, to take one\nmore example, we can scarcely fail to recognise in the style of Sir\nThomas Browne\u2014as later, may be, in that of Hawthorne\u2014the glamour of\nwhich the latent aptitude had been handed on by ancestors who dwelt on\nthe borders of Wales.\n\nIn these examples hereditary influence can be clearly distinguished from\nmerely external and traditional influences. Not that we need imply a\ndisparagement of tradition: it is the foundation of civilised progress.\nSpeech itself is a tradition, a naturally developed convention, and in\nthat indeed it has its universal applicability and use. It is the crude\namorphous material of art, of music and poetry. But on its formal side,\nwhatever its supreme significance as the instrument and medium of\nexpression, speech is a natural convention, an accumulated tradition.\n\nEven tradition, however, is often simply the corporeal embodiment, as it\nwere, of heredity. Behind many a great writer\u2019s personality there stands\ntradition, and behind tradition the race. That is well illustrated in\nthe style of Addison. This style\u2014with a resilient fibre underneath its\ndelicacy and yet a certain freedom as of conversational familiarity\u2014has\nas its most easily marked structural signature a tendency to a usage it\nhas already been necessary to mention: the tendency to allow the\npreposition to lag to the end of the sentence rather than to come tautly\nbefore the pronoun with which in Latin it is combined. In a century in\nwhich the Latin-French elements of English were to become developed, as\nin Gibbon and Johnson, to the utmost, the totally different physiognomy\nof Addison\u2019s prose remained conspicuous,\u2014though really far from\nnovel,\u2014and to the sciolists of a bygone age it seemed marked by\ncarelessness, if not licence, at the best by personal idiosyncrasy. Yet,\nas a matter of fact, we know it was nothing of the kind. Addison, as his\nname indicates, was of the stock of the Scandinavian English, and the\nCumberland district he belonged to is largely Scandinavian; the\nadjoining peninsula of Furness, which swarms with similar patronymics,\nis indeed one of the most purely Scandinavian spots in England. Now in\nthe Scandinavian languages, as we know, and in the English dialects\nbased upon them, the preposition comes usually at the end of the\nsentence, and Scandinavian structural elements form an integral part of\nEnglish, even more than Latin-French, for it has been the part of the\nlatter rather to enrich the vocabulary than to mould the structure of\nour tongue. So that, instead of introducing a personal idiosyncrasy or\nperpetrating a questionable licence, Addison was continuing his own\nancestral traditions and at the same time asserting an organic\nprerogative of English speech. It may be added that Addison reveals his\nScandinavian affinities not merely in the material structure, but in the\nspiritual quality, of his work. This delicate sympathetic observation,\nthe vein of gentle melancholy, the quiet restrained humour, meet us\nagain in modern Norwegian authors like Jonas Lie.\n\nWhen we put aside these ancestral and traditional influences, there is\nstill much in the writer\u2019s art which, even if personal, we can only term\ninstinctive. This may be said of that music which at their finest\nmoments belongs to all the great writers of prose. Every writer has his\nown music, though there are few in whom it becomes audible save at rare\nand precious intervals. The prose of the writer who can deliberately\nmake his own personal cadences monotonously audible all the time grows\nwearisome; it affects us as a tedious mannerism. This is a kind of\nmachine-made prose which indeed it requires a clever artisan to produce;\nbut, as Landor said, \u201che must be a bad writer to whom there are no\ninequalities.\u201d The great writers, though they are always themselves,\nattain the perfect music of their style under the stress of a stimulus\nadequate to arouse it. Their music is the audible translation of\nemotion, and only arises when the waves of emotion are stirred. It is\nnot properly speaking a voluntary effect. We can but say that the winds\nof the spirit are breathed upon the surface of style, and they lift it\ninto rhythmic movement. And for each writer these waves have their own\nspecial rate of vibration, their peculiar shape and interval. The rich\ndeep slow tones of Bacon have nothing in common with the haunting,\nlong-drawn melody, faint and tremulous, of Newman; the high metallic\nfalsetto ring of De Quincey\u2019s rhetoric is far away from the pensive\nlow-toned music of Pater.\n\nImitation, as psychologists have taught us to realise, is a part of\ninstinct. When we begin to learn to write, it rarely happens that we are\nnot imitators, and, for the most part, unconsciously. The verse of every\nyoung poet, however original he may afterwards grow, usually has plainly\nwritten across it the rhythmic signature of some great master whose work\nchances to be abroad in the world; once it was usually Tennyson, then\nSwinburne, now various later poets; the same thing happens with prose,\nbut the rhythm of the signature is less easy to hear.\n\nAs a writer slowly finds his own centre of gravity, the influence of the\nrhythm of other writers ceases to be perceptible except in so far as it\ncoincides with his own natural movement and _tempo_. That is a familiar\nfact. We less easily realise, perhaps, that not only the tunes but the\nnotes that they are formed of are, in every great writer, his own. In\nother words, he creates even his vocabulary. That is so not only in the\nmore obvious sense that out of the mass of words that make up a language\nevery writer uses only a limited number and even among these has his\nwords of predilection.[64] It is in the meanings he gives to words, to\nnames, that a writer creates his vocabulary. All language, we know, is\nimagery and metaphor; even the simplest names of the elementary things\nare metaphors based on resemblances that suggested themselves to the\nprimitive men who made language. It is not otherwise with the aboriginal\nman of genius who uses language to express his new vision of the world.\nHe sees things charged with energy, or brilliant with colour, or\nbreathing out perfume, that the writers who came before him had\noverlooked, and to designate these things he must use names which convey\nthe qualities he has perceived. Guided by his own new personal\nsensations and perceptions, he creates his metaphorical vocabulary. If\nwe examine the style of Montaigne, so fresh and personal and inventive,\nwe see that its originality lies largely in its vocabulary, which is\nnot, like that of Rabelais, manufactured afresh, but has its novelty in\nits metaphorical values, such new values being tried and tempered at\nevery step, to the measure of the highly individual person behind them,\nwho thereby exerts his creative force. In later days Huysmans, who\nindeed saw the world at a more eccentric angle than Montaigne, yet with\nunflinching veracity and absolute devotion, set himself to the task of\ncreating his own vocabulary, and at first the unfamiliarity of its\nbeauty estranges us.\n\nTo think of Huysmans is to be led towards an aspect of style not to be\npassed over. To say that the artist in words is expressing a new vision\nof the world and seeking the designations for things as he sees them, is\na large part of the truth, and, I would say, perhaps the most important\npart of it. For most of us, I suppose (as I know it has been for me),\nour vision of Nature has been largely, though by no means entirely,\nconstituted by pictures we have seen, by poems we have read, that left\nan abiding memory. That is to say that Nature comes to us through an\natmosphere which is the emanation of supreme artists who once thrilled\nus. But we are here concerned with the process of the artist\u2019s work and\nnot with his \u00e6sthetic influence. The artist finds that words have a rich\ncontent of their own, they are alive and they flourish or decay. They\nsend out connecting threads in every direction, they throb with meaning\nthat ever changes and reverberates afar. The writer is not always, or\noften, merely preparing a _catalogue raisonn\u00e9_ of things, he is an\nartist and his pigments are words. Often he merely takes his suggestions\nfrom the things of the world and makes his own pictures without any real\nresemblance to the scene it is supposed to depict. Dujardin tells us\nthat he once took Huysmans to a Wagner concert; he scarcely listened to\nthe music, but he was fascinated by the programme the attendant handed\nto him; he went home to write a brilliant page on \u201cTannh\u00e4user.\u201d\nMallarm\u00e9, on the other hand, was soaked in music; to him music was the\nvoice of the world, and it was the aim of poetry to express the world by\nitself becoming music; he stood on a height like a pioneer and looked\ntowards the Promised Land, trying to catch intimations of a new\nsensibility and a future art, but a great master of language, like\nHuysmans, he never was. Huysmans has written superb pages about Gustave\nMoreau and F\u00e9licien Rops, thinking, no doubt, that he was revealing\nsupreme artists (though we need not follow too closely the fashion of\ndepreciating either of those artists), but he was really only attracted\nto their programmes and therein experiencing a stimulus that chanced to\nbe peculiarly fitted for drawing out his own special art. Baudelaire\nwould have written less gorgeously, but he would have produced a more\nfinal critical estimate.\n\nYet even the greatest writers are affected by the intoxication of mere\nwords in the artistry of language. Shakespeare is, constantly, and, not\ncontent with \u201cmaking the green one red,\u201d he must needs at the same time\n\u201cthe multitudinous seas incarnadine.\u201d It is conspicuous in Keats (as\nLeigh Hunt, perhaps his first sensitively acute critic, clearly\nexplained), and often, as in \u201cThe Eve of St. Agnes,\u201d where he seemed to\nbe concerned with beautiful things, he was really concerned with\nbeautiful words. In that way he is sometimes rather misleading for the\ntoo youthful reader; \u201cporphyry\u201d seemed to me a marvellous substance when\nas a boy of twelve I read of it in Keats, and I imagine that Keats\nhimself would have been surprised, had he lived long enough to walk to\nSt. Thomas\u2019s Hospital over the new London Bridge, when told that he was\ntreading a granite that was porphyritic. I recall how Verlaine would\nsometimes repeat in varying tones some rather unfamiliar word, rolling\nit round and round in his mouth, sucking it like a sweetmeat, licking\nthe sound into the shape that pleased him; some people may perhaps have\nfound a little bizarre the single words (\u201cGreen,\u201d for example) which he\nsometimes made the title of a song, but if they adopt the preliminary\nVerlainian process they may understand how he had fitted such words to\nmusic and meaning.\n\nThe most obviously beautiful things in the world of Nature are birds and\nflowers and the stones we call precious. But the attitude of the poet in\nthe presence of Nature is precisely that of Huysmans in the presence of\nart: it is the programme that interests him. Of birds the knowledge of\npoets generally is of the most generalised and elementary kind; they are\nthe laughing-stock of the ornithologist; they are only a stage removed\nfrom the standpoint of the painter who was introducing a tree into his\nlandscape and when asked what tree, replied, \u201cOh, just the ordinary\ntree.\u201d Even Goethe mistook the finches by the roadside for larks. The\npoet, one may be sure, even to-day seldom carries in his pocket the\nlittle \u201cF\u00fchrer durch unsere Vogelwelt\u201d of Bernhard Hoffmann, and has\nprobably never so much as heard of it. Of flowers his knowledge seems to\nbe limited by the quality of the flower\u2019s name. I have long cherished an\nexquisite and quite common English wild-flower, but have never come\nacross a poem about it, for its unattractive name is the stitchwort, and\nit is only lately that even in prose it has met (from Mr. Salt) with due\nappreciation. As regards precious stones the same may be said, and in\nthe galleries of the Geological Museum it has hardly seemed to me that,\namong the few visitors, there were poets (unless I chanced to bring one\nmyself) to brood over all that beauty. It is the word and its inner\nreverberation with which the poet is really concerned, even sometimes\nperhaps deliberately. When Milton misused the word \u201ceglantine\u201d one\nrealises the unconscious appeal to him of the name and one cannot feel\nquite sure that it was altogether unconscious. Coleridge has been\nsolemnly reproved for speaking of the \u201cloud\u201d bassoon. But it was to the\ntimbre of the word, not of the instrument, that Coleridge was\nresponding, and had he been informed that the bassoon is not loud, I\ndoubt not he would have replied: \u201cWell, if it is not loud it ought to\nbe.\u201d On the plane on which Coleridge moved \u201cthe loud bassoon\u201d was\nabsolutely right. We see that the artist in speech moves among words\nrather than among things. Originally, it is true, words are closely\nrelated to things, but in their far reverberation they have become\nenriched by many associations, saturated with many colours; they have\nacquired a life of their own, moving on another plane than that of\nthings, and it is on that plane that the artist in words is, as an\nartist, concerned with them.\n\nIt thus comes about that the artist in words, like the artist in\npigments, is perpetually passing between two planes\u2014the plane of new\nvision and the plane of new creation. He is sometimes remoulding the\nexternal world and sometimes the internal world; sometimes, by\npredilection, lingering more on one plane than on the other plane. The\nartist in words is not irresistibly drawn to the exact study of things\nor moved by the strong love of Nature. The poets who describe Nature\nmost minutely and most faithfully are not usually the great poets. That\nis intelligible because the poet\u2014even the poet in the wide sense who\nalso uses prose\u2014is primarily the instrument of human emotion and not of\nscientific observation. Yet that poet possesses immense resources of\nstrength who in early life has stored within him the minute knowledge of\nsome field of the actual external world.[65] One may doubt, indeed,\nwhether there has been any supreme poet, from Homer on, who has not had\nthis inner reservoir of sensitive impressions to draw from. The youthful\nShakespeare who wrote the poems, with their minute descriptions, was not\na great poet, as the youthful Marlowe was, but he was storing up the\nmaterial which, when he had developed into a great poet, he could draw\non at need with a careless and assured hand. Without such reservoirs,\nthe novelists also would never attain to that touch of the poet which,\nbeyond their story-telling power, can stir our hearts. \u201c\u00c0 la Recherche\ndu Temps Perdu\u201d is the name of a great modern book, but every novelist\nduring part of his time has been a Ulysses on a perilous voyage of\nadventure for that far home. One thinks of George Eliot and her early\nintimacy with the life of country people, of Hardy who had acquired so\nacute a sensitivity to the sounds of Nature, of Conrad who had caught\nthe flashes of penetrating vision which came to the sailor on deck; and\nin so far as they move away into scenes where they cannot draw from\nthose ancient reservoirs, the adventures of these artists, however\nbrilliant they may become, lose their power of intimate appeal. The most\nextravagant example of this to-day is the Spanish novelist Blasco\nIba\u00f1ez, who wrote of the Valencian _huerta_ that had saturated his youth\nin novels that were penetrating and poignant, and then turned to writing\nfor the cosmopolitan crowd novels about anything, that were completely\nnegligible.\n\nWe grow familiar in time with the style of the great writers, and when\nwe read them we translate them easily and unconsciously, as we translate\na foreign language we are familiar with; we understand the vocabulary\nbecause we have learnt to know the special seal of the creative person\nwho moulded the vocabulary. But at the outset the great writer may be\nalmost as unintelligible to us as though he were writing in a language\nwe had never learnt. In the now remote days when \u201cLeaves of Grass\u201d was a\nnew book in the world, few who looked into it for the first time,\nhowever honestly, but were repelled and perhaps even violently repelled,\nand it is hard to realise now that once those who fell on Swinburne\u2019s\n\u201cPoems and Ballads\u201d saw at first only picturesque hieroglyphics to which\nthey had no key. But even to-day how many there are who find Proust\nunreadable and Joyce unintelligible. Until we find the door and the clue\nthe new writer remains obscure. Therein lies the truth of Landor\u2019s\nsaying that the poet must himself create the beings who are to enjoy his\nParadise.\n\nFor most of those who deliberately seek to learn to write, words seem\ngenerally to be felt as of less importance than the art of arranging\nthem. It is thus that the learner in writing tends to become the devoted\nstudent of grammar and syntax whom we came across at the outset. That is\nindeed a tendency which always increases. Civilisation develops with a\nconscious adhesion to formal order, and the writer\u2014writing by fashion or\nby ambition and not by divine right of creative instinct\u2014follows the\ncourse of civilisation. It is an unfortunate tendency, for those whom it\naffects conquer by their number. As we know, writing that is real is not\nlearnt that way. Just as the solar system was not made in accordance\nwith the astronomer\u2019s laws, so writing is not made by the laws of\ngrammar. Astronomer and grammarian alike can only come in at the end, to\ngive a generalised description of what usually happens in the respective\nfields it pleases them to explore. When a new comet, cosmic or literary,\nenters their sky, it is their descriptions which have to be readjusted,\nand not the comet. There seems to be no more pronounced mark of the\ndecadence of a people and its literature than a servile and rigid\nsubserviency to rule. It can only make for ossification, for anchylosis,\nfor petrification, all the milestones on the road of death. In every age\nof democratic plebeianism, where each man thinks he is as good a writer\nas the others, and takes his laws from the others, having no laws of his\nown nature, it is down this steep path that men, in a flock, inevitably\nrun.\n\nWe may find an illustration of the plebeian anchylosis of advancing\ncivilisation in the minor matter of spelling. We cannot, it is true,\noverlook the fact that writing is read and that its appearance cannot be\nquite disregarded. Yet, ultimately, it appeals to the ear, and spelling\ncan have little to do with style. The laws of spelling, properly\nspeaking, are few or none, and in the great ages men have understood\nthis and boldly acted accordingly. They exercised a fine personal\ndiscretion in the matter and permitted without question a wide range of\nvariation. Shakespeare, as we know, even spelt his own name in several\ndifferent ways, all equally correct. When that great old Elizabethan\nmariner, Sir Martin Frobisher, entered on one of his rare and hazardous\nadventures with the pen, he created spelling absolutely afresh, in the\nspirit of simple heroism with which he was always ready to sail out into\nstrange seas. His epistolary adventures are, certainly, more interesting\nthan admirable, but we have no reason to suppose that the distinguished\npersons to whom these letters were addressed viewed them with any\ndisdain. More an\u00e6mic ages cannot endure creative vitality even in\nspelling, and so it comes about that in periods when everything\nbeautiful and handmade gives place to manufactured articles made\nwholesale, uniform, and cheap, the same principles are applied to words,\nand spelling becomes a mechanic trade. We must have our spelling\nuniform, even if uniformly bad.[66] Just as the man who, having out of\nsheer ignorance eaten the wrong end of his asparagus, was thenceforth\ncompelled to declare that he preferred that end, so it is with our race\nin the matter of spelling; our ancestors, by chance or by ignorance,\ntended to adopt certain forms of spelling and we, their children, are\nforced to declare that we prefer those forms. Thus we have not only lost\nall individuality in spelling, but we pride ourselves on our loss and\nmagnify our anchylosis. In England it has become almost impossible to\nflex our stiffened mental joints sufficiently to press out a single\nletter, in America it is almost impossible to extend them enough to\nadmit that letter. It is convenient, we say, to be rigid and formal in\nthese things, and therewith we are content; it matters little to us that\nwe have thereby killed the life of our words and only gained the\nconveniency of death. It would be likewise convenient, no doubt, if men\nand women could be turned into rigid geometrical diagrams,\u2014as indeed our\nlegislators sometimes seem to think that they already are,\u2014but we should\npay by yielding up all the infinite variations, the beautiful\nsinuosities, that had once made up life.\n\nThere can be no doubt that in the much greater matter of style we have\npaid heavily for the attainment of our slavish adherence to mechanical\nrules, however convenient, however inevitable. The beautiful\nincorrection, as we are now compelled to regard it, that so often marked\nthe great and even the small writers of the seventeenth century, has\nbeen lost, for all can now write what any find it easy to read, what\nnone have any consuming desire to read. But when Sir Thomas Browne wrote\nhis \u201cReligio Medici\u201d it was with an art made up of obedience to personal\nlaw and abandonment to free inspiration which still ravishes us. It is\nextraordinary how far indifference or incorrection of style may be\ncarried and yet remain completely adequate even to complex and subtle\nends. Pepys wrote his \u201cDiary,\u201d at the outset of a life full of strenuous\nwork and not a little pleasure, with a rare devotion indeed, but with a\nconcision and carelessness, a single eye on the fact itself, and an\nextraordinary absence of self-consciousness which rob it of all claim to\npossess what we conventionally term style. Yet in this vehicle he has\nperfectly conveyed not merely the most vividly realised and delightfully\ndetailed picture of a past age ever achieved in any language, but he\nhas, moreover, painted a psychological portrait of himself which for its\nserenely impartial justice, its subtle gradations, its bold\njuxtapositions of colours, has all the qualities of the finest\nVelasquez. There is no style here, we say, merely the diarist, writing\nwith careless poignant vitality for his own eye, and yet no style that\nwe could conceive would be better fitted, or so well fitted, for the\nmiracle that has here been effected.\n\nThe personal freedom of Browne led up to splendour, and that of Pepys to\nclarity. But while splendour is not the whole of writing, neither,\nalthough one returns to it again and again, is clarity. Here we come\nfrom another side on to a point we had already reached. Bergson, in\nreply to the question: \u201cComment doivent \u00e9crire les Philosophes?\u201d lets\nfall some observations, which, as he himself remarks, concern other\nwriters beside philosophers. A technical word, he remarks, even a word\ninvented for the occasion or used in a special sense, is always in its\nplace provided the instructed reader\u2014though the difficulty, as he fails\nto point out, is to be sure of possessing this instructed reader\u2014accepts\nit so easily as not even to notice it, and he proceeds to say that in\nphilosophic prose, and in all prose, and indeed in all the arts, \u201cthe\nperfect expression is that which has come so naturally, or rather so\nnecessarily, by virtue of so imperious a predestination, that we do not\npause before it, but go straight on to what it seeks to express, as\nthough it were blended with the idea; it became invisible by force of\nbeing transparent.\u201d[67] That is well said. Bergson also is on the side\nof clarity. Yet I do not feel that that is all there is to say. Style is\nnot a sheet of glass in which the only thing that matters is the absence\nof flaws. Bergson\u2019s own style is not so diaphanous that one never pauses\nto admire its quality, nor, as a hostile critic (Edouard Dujardin) has\nshown, is it always so clear as to be transparent. The dancer in prose\nas well as in verse\u2014philosopher or whatever he may be\u2014must reveal all\nhis limbs through the garment he wears; yet the garment must have its\nown proper beauty, and there is a failure of art, a failure of\nrevelation, if it possesses no beauty. Style indeed is not really a mere\ninvisible transparent medium, it is not really a garment, but, as\nGourmont said, the very thought itself. It is the miraculous\ntransubstantiation of a spiritual body, given to us in the only form in\nwhich we may receive and absorb that body, and unless its clarity is\nbalanced by its beauty it is not adequate to sustain that most high\nfunction. No doubt, if we lean on one side more than the other, it is\nclarity rather than beauty which we should choose, for on the other side\nwe may have, indeed, a Sir Thomas Browne, and there we are conscious not\nso much of a transubstantiation as of a garment, with thick embroidery,\nindeed, and glistening jewels, but we are not always sure that much is\nhidden beneath. A step further and we reach D\u2019Annunzio, a splendid mask\nwith nothing beneath, just as in the streets of Rome one may sometimes\nmeet a Franciscan friar with a head superb as a Roman Emperor\u2019s and yet,\none divines, it means nothing. The Italian writer, it is significant to\nnote, chose so ostentatiously magnificent a name as Gabriele D\u2019Annunzio\nto conceal a real name which was nothing. The great angels of\nannunciation create the beauty of their own real names. Who now finds\nShakespeare ridiculous? And how lovely a name is Keats!\n\nAs a part of the harmony of art, which is necessarily made out of\nconflict, we have to view that perpetual seeming alternation between the\ntwo planes\u2014the plane of vision and the plane of creation, the form\nwithin and the garment that clothes it\u2014which may sometimes distract the\nartist himself. The prophet Jeremiah once said (and modern prophets have\ndoubtless had occasion to recognise the truth of his remark) that he\nseemed to the people round him only as \u201cone that hath a pleasant voice\nand can play well on an instrument.\u201d But he failed to understand that it\nwas only through this quality of voice and instrument that his\nlamentations had any vital force or even any being, and that if the poem\ngoes the message goes. Indeed, that is true of all his fellow prophets\nof the Old Testament and the New who have fascinated mankind with the\nsound of those harps that they had once hung by the waters of Babylon.\nThe whole Bible, we may be very sure, would have long ago been forgotten\nby all but a few intelligent arch\u00e6ologists, if men had not heard in it,\nagain and again and again, \u201cone that hath a pleasant voice and can play\nwell on an instrument.\u201d Socrates said that philosophy was simply music.\nBut the same might be said of religion. The divine dance of satyrs and\nnymphs to the sound of pipes\u2014it is the symbol of life which in one form\nor another has floated before human eyes from the days of the sculptors\nof Greek bas-reliefs to the men of our own day who catch the glimpse of\nnew harmonies in the pages of \u201cL\u2019Esprit Nouveau.\u201d We cannot but follow\nthe piper that knows how to play, even to our own destruction. There may\nbe much that is objectionable about Man. But he has that engaging trait.\nAnd the world will end when he has lost it.\n\nOne asks one\u2019s self how it was that the old way of writing, as a\npersonal art, gave place to the new way of writing, as a mere impersonal\npseudo-science, rigidly bound by formal and artificial rules. The\nanswer, no doubt, is to be found in the existence of a great new current\nof thought which began mightily to stir in men\u2019s minds towards the end\nof the seventeenth century. It will be remembered that it was at that\ntime, both in England and France, that the new devitalised, though more\nflexible, prose appeared, with its precision and accuracy, its conscious\norderliness, its deliberate method. But only a few years before, over\nFrance and England alike, a great intellectual wave had swept, imparting\nto the mathematical and geometrical sciences, to astronomy, physics, and\nallied studies, an impetus that they had never received before on so\ngreat a scale. Descartes in France and Newton in England stand out as\nthe typical representatives of the movement. If that movement had to\nexert any influence on language\u2014and we know how sensitively language\nreacts to thought\u2014it could have been manifested in no other way than by\nthe change which actually took place. And there was every opportunity\nfor that influence to be exerted.[68] This sudden expansion of the\nmathematical and geometrical sciences was so great and novel that\ninterest in it was not confined to a small band of men of science: it\nexcited the man in the street, the woman in the drawing-room; it was\nindeed a woman, a bright and gay woman of the world, who translated\nNewton\u2019s profound book into French. Thus it was that the new qualities\nof style were invented, not merely to express new qualities of thought,\nbut because new scientific ideals were moving within the minds of men. A\nsimilar reaction of thought on language took place at the beginning of\nthe nineteenth century, when an attempt was made to vitalise language\nonce more, and to break the rigid and formal moulds the previous century\nhad constructed. The attempt was immediately preceded by the awakening\nof a new group of sciences, but this time the sciences of life, the\nbiological studies associated with Cuvier and Lamarck, with John Hunter\nand Erasmus Darwin. With the twentieth century we see the temporary\nexhaustion of the biological spirit with its historical form in science\nand its romantic form in art, and we have a neo-classic spirit which has\ninvolved a renaissance of the mathematical sciences and, even before\nthat, was beginning to affect speech.\n\nTo admire the old writers, because for them writing was an art to be\nexercised freely and not a vain attempt to follow after the ideals of\nthe abstract sciences, thus by no means implies a contempt for that\ndecorum and orderliness without which all written speech must be\nineffective and obscure. The great writers in the great ages, standing\nabove classicism and above romanticism, have always observed this\ndecorum and orderliness. In their hands such observance was not a\nservile and rigid adherence to external rules, but a beautiful\nconvention, an instinctive fine breeding, such as is naturally observed\nin human intercourse when it is not broken down by intimacy or by any\ngreat crisis of life or of death.\n\nThe freedom of art by no means involves the easiness of art. It may\nrather, indeed, be said the difficulty increases with freedom, for to\nmake things in accordance with patterns is ever the easiest task. The\nproblem is equally arduous for those who, so far as their craft is\nconscious, seek an impersonal and for those who seek a personal ideal of\nstyle. Flaubert sought\u2014in vain, it is true\u2014to be the most objective of\nartists and to mould speech with heroic energy in shapes of abstract\nperfection. Nietzsche, one of the most personal artists in style, sought\nlikewise, in his own words, to work at a page of prose as a sculptor\nworks at a statue. Though the result is not perhaps fundamentally\ndifferent, whichever ideal it is that, consciously or instinctively, is\nfollowed, the personal road of style is doubtless theoretically\u2014though\nnot necessarily in practice\u2014the sounder, usually also that which moves\nmost of us more profoundly. The great prose writers of the Second Empire\nin France made an unparalleled effort to carve or paint impersonal\nprose, but its final beauty and effectiveness seem scarcely equal to the\nsplendid energy it embodies. Jules de Goncourt, his brother thought,\nliterally died from the mental exhaustion of his unceasing struggle to\nattain an objective style adequate to express the subtle texture of the\nworld as he saw it. But, while the Goncourts are great figures in\nliterary history, they have pioneered no new road, nor are they of the\nwriters whom men continuously love to read; for it is as a document that\nthe \u201cJournal\u201d remains of enduring value.\n\nYet the great writers of any school bear witness, each in his own way,\nthat, deeper than these conventions and decorums of style, there is a\nlaw which no writer can escape from, a law which must needs be learnt,\nbut can never be taught. That is the law of the logic of thought. All\nthe conventional rules of the construction of speech may be put aside if\na writer is thereby enabled to follow more closely and lucidly the form\nand process of his thought. It is the law of that logic that he must for\never follow and in attaining it alone find rest. He may say of it as\ndevoutly as Dante: \u201cIn la sua voluntade \u00e8 nostra pace.\u201d All progress in\nliterary style lies in the heroic resolve to cast aside accretions and\nexuberances, all the conventions of a past age that were once beautiful\nbecause alive and are now false because dead. The simple and naked\nbeauty of Swift\u2019s style, sometimes so keen and poignant, rests\nabsolutely on this truth to the logic of his thought. The twin qualities\nof flexibility and intimacy are of the essence of all progress in the\nart of language, and in their progressive achievement lies the\nattainment of great literature. If we compare Shakespeare with his\npredecessors and contemporaries, we can scarcely say that in imaginative\nforce he is vastly superior to Marlowe, or in intellectual grip to\nJonson, but he immeasurably surpasses them in flexibility and in\nintimacy. He was able with an incomparable art to weave a garment of\nspeech so flexible in its strength, so intimate in its transparence,\nthat it lent itself to every shade of emotion and the quickest turns of\nthought. When we compare the heavy and formal letters of Bacon, even to\nhis closest friends, with the \u201cFamiliar Letters\u201d of the vivacious\nWelshman Howell, we can scarcely believe the two men were\ncontemporaries, so incomparably more expressive, so flexible and so\nintimate, is the style of Howell. All the writers who influence those\nwho come after them have done so by the same method. They have thrown\naside the awkward and outworn garments of speech, they have woven a\nsimpler and more familiar speech, able to express subtleties or\naudacities that before seemed inexpressible. That was once done in\nEnglish verse by Cowper and Wordsworth, in English prose by Addison and\nLamb. That has been done in French to-day by Proust and in English by\nJoyce. When a great writer, like Carlyle or Browning, creates a speech\nof his own which is too clumsy to be flexible and too heavy to be\nintimate, he may arouse the admiration of his fellows, but he leaves no\ntraces on the speech of the men who come after him. It is not easy to\nbelieve that such will be Joyce\u2019s fate. His \u201cUlysses\u201d\u2014carrying to a much\nfurther point qualities that began to appear in his earlier work\u2014has\nbeen hailed as epoch-making in English literature, though a\ndistinguished critic holds that it is this rather by closing than by\nopening an epoch. It would still be preparing a new road, and as thus\noperative we may accept it without necessarily judging it to be at the\nsame time a master-work, provided we understand what it is that has been\nhere attempted. This huge Odyssey is an ordinary day\u2019s history in the\nordinary life of one ordinary man and the persons of his immediate\nenvironment. It is here sought to reproduce as Art the whole of the\nman\u2019s physical and psychic activity during that period, omitting\nnothing, not even the actions which the most naturalistic of novelists\nhad hitherto thought too trivial or too indelicate to mention. Not only\nthe thoughts and impulses that result in action, but also the thoughts\nand emotions that drift aimlessly across the field of his consciousness,\nare here; and, in the presentation of this combined inner and outer\nlife, Joyce has sometimes placed both on the same plane, achieving a new\nsimplicity of style, though we may at first sometimes find it hard to\ndivine what is outer and what inner. Moreover, he never hesitates, when\nhe pleases, to change the tone of his style and even to adopt without\nnotice, in a deliberately ironical and chameleon-like fashion, the\nmanner of other writers. In these ways Joyce has here achieved that new\nintimacy of vision, that new flexibility of expression, which are of the\nessence of all great literature at its vitally moving point of advance.\nHe has succeeded in realising and making manifest in art what others had\npassed over or failed to see. If in that difficult and dangerous task he\nhas failed, as some of us may believe, to reach either complete clarity\nor complete beauty, he has at all events made it possible for those who\ncome after to reach a new height which, without the help of the road he\nhad constructed, they might have missed, or even failed to conceive, and\nthat is enough for any writer\u2019s fame.\n\nWhen we turn to Proust we are in the presence of a writer about whom, no\ndoubt, there is no violent dispute. There may be much about his work\nthat is disturbing to many, but he was not concerned, like Joyce, to\naffront so many prejudices, and in France it is not even necessary, for\nthe road has already been prepared by heroic pioneers of old during a\nthousand years. But the writer who brings a new revelation is not\nnecessarily called upon to invite the execration of the herd. That is a\nrisk he must be called upon to face, it is not an inevitable fate. When\nthe mob yell: \u201cCrucify him! Crucify him!\u201d the artist, in whatever\nmedium, hears a voice from Heaven: \u201cThis is my beloved son.\u201d Yet it is\nconceivable that the more perfectly a new revelation is achieved the\nless antagonism it arouses. Proust has undoubtedly been the master of a\nnew intimacy of vision, a new flexibility of expression, even though the\nstyle through which the revelation has been made, perhaps necessarily on\naccount of the complexity involved, has remained a little difficult and\nalso, it must be said, a little negligent. But it has achieved a\nconsiderable degree of clarity and a high degree of beauty. So there is\nless difficulty in recognising a great masterpiece in \u201c\u00c0 la Recherche du\nTemps Perdu\u201d than if it were more conspicuously the work of a daring\npioneer. It is seen as the revelation of a new \u00e6sthetic sensibility\nembodied in a new and fitting style. Marcel Proust has experienced\nclearly what others have felt dimly or not at all. The significance of\nhis work is thus altogether apart from the power of its dramatic\nincidents or its qualities as a novel. To the critic of defective\nintelligence, craving for scenes of sensation, it has sometimes seemed\nthat \u201c\u00c0 l\u2019Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleur\u201d is the least important\nsection of Proust\u2019s work. Yet it is on that quiet and uneventful tract\nof his narrative that Proust has most surely set the stamp of his\ngenius, a genius, I should like to add, which is peculiarly congenial to\nthe English mind because it was in the English tradition, rather than in\nthe French tradition, that Proust was moving.[69]\n\nNo doubt it is possible for a writer to go far by the exercise of a\nfinely attentive docility. By a dutiful study of what other people have\nsaid, by a refined cleverness in catching their tricks, and avoiding\ntheir subtleties, their profundities, their audacities, by, in short, a\npatient perseverance in writing out copperplate maxims in elegant\ncopybooks, he can become at last, like Stevenson, the idol of the crowd.\nBut the great writer can only learn out of himself. He learns to write\nas a child learns to walk. For the laws of the logic of thought are not\nother than those of physical movement. There is stumbling, awkwardness,\nhesitation, experiment\u2014before at last the learner attains the perfect\ncommand of that divine rhythm and perilous poise in which he asserts his\nsupreme human privilege. But the process of his learning rests\nultimately on his own structure and function and not on others\u2019 example.\n\u201cStyle must be founded upon models\u201d; it is the rule set up by the pedant\nwho knows nothing of what style means. For the style that is founded on\na model is the negation of style.\n\nThe ardour and heroism of great achievement in style never grow less as\nthe ages pass, but rather tend to grow more. That is so, not merely\nbecause the hardest tasks are left for the last, but because of the ever\nincreasing impediments placed in the path of style by the piling up of\nmechanical rules and rigid conventions. It is doubtful whether on the\nwhole the forces of life really gain on the surrounding inertia of\ndeath. The greatest writers must spend the blood and sweat of their\nsouls, amid the execration and disdain of their contemporaries, in\nbreaking the old moulds of style and pouring their fresh life into new\nmoulds. From Dante to Carducci, from Rabelais to Proust, from Chaucer to\nWhitman, the giants of letters have been engaged in this life-giving\ntask, and behind them the forces of death swiftly gather again. Here\nthere is always room for the hero. No man, indeed, can write anything\nthat matters who is not a hero at heart, even though to the people who\npass him in the street or know him in the house he may seem as gentle as\nany dove. If all progress lies in an ever greater flexibility and\nintimacy of speech, a finer adaptation to the heights and depths of the\nmobile human soul, the task can never be finally completed. Every writer\nis called afresh to reveal new strata of life. By digging in his own\nsoul he becomes the discoverer of the soul of his family, of his nation,\nof the race, of the heart of humanity. For the great writer finds style\nas the mystic find God, in his own soul. It is the final utterance of a\nsigh, which none could utter before him, and which all can who follow.\n\nIn the end, it will be seen we return at last to the point from which we\nstart. We have completed the cycle of an art\u2019s evolution,\u2014and it might,\nindeed, be any other art as much as writing,\u2014reaching in the final sweep\nof ever wider flights the fact from which we started, but seeing it\nanew, with a fresh universal significance. Writing is an arduous\nspiritual and intellectual task, only to be achieved by patient and\ndeliberate labour and much daring. Yet therewith we are only at the\nbeginning. Writing is also the expression of individual personality,\nwhich springs up spontaneously, or is slowly drawn up from within, out\nof a well of inner emotions which none may command. But even with these\ntwo opposite factors we have not attained the complete synthesis. For\nstyle in the full sense is more than the deliberate and designed\ncreation, more even than the unconscious and involuntary creation, of\nthe individual man who therein expresses himself. The self that he thus\nexpresses is a bundle of inherited tendencies that came the man himself\ncan never entirely know whence. It is by the instinctive stress of a\nhighly sensitive, or slightly abnormal constitution, that he is impelled\nto instil these tendencies into the alien magic of words. The stylum\nwherewith he strives to write himself on the yet blank pages of the\nworld may have the obstinate vigour of the metal rod or the wild and\nquavering waywardness of an insect\u2019s wing, but behind it lie forces that\nextend into infinity. It moves us because it is itself moved by pulses\nwhich in varying measure we also have inherited, and because its primary\nsource is in the heart of a cosmos from which we ourselves spring.\n\nFootnote 55:\n\n  It may be as well to point that it is the amateur literary grammarian\n  and not the expert who is at fault in these matters. The attitude of\n  the expert (as in C. T. Onions, _Advanced English Syntax_) is entirely\n  reasonable.\n\nFootnote 56:\n\n  It is interesting to note that another aristocratic master of speech\n  had also made just the same observation. Landor puts into the mouth of\n  Horne Tooke the words: \u201cNo expression can become a vulgarism which has\n  not a broad foundation. The language of the vulgar hath its source in\n  physics: in known, comprehended, and operative things.\u201d At the same\n  time Landor was as stern a judge as Baudelaire of the random use of\n  _clich\u00e9s_.\n\nFootnote 57:\n\n  Speaking as a writer who has been much quoted,\u2014it ought to be a\n  satisfaction, but I have had my doubts,\u2014I may say that I have observed\n  that those who quote belong mostly to two classes, one consisting of\n  good, or at all events indifferent, writers, and the other of bad\n  writers. Those of the first class quote with fair precision and due\n  acknowledgement, those of the second with no precision, and only the\n  vaguest intimation, or none at all, that they are quoting. This would\n  seem to indicate that the good writer is more honest than the bad\n  writer, but that conclusion may be unjust to the bad writer. The fact\n  is that, having little thought or knowledge of his own, he is not\n  fully conscious of what he is doing. He is like a greedy child who,\n  seeing food in front of him, snatches it at random, without being able\n  to recognise whether or not it is his own. There is, however, a third\n  class of those who cannot resist the temptation of deliberately\n  putting forth the painfully achieved thought or knowledge of others as\n  their own, sometimes, perhaps, seeking to gloss over the lapse with:\n  \u201cAs every one knows\u2014\u201d\n\nFootnote 58:\n\n  Croce, who is no doubt the most instructive literary critic of our\n  time, has, in his own way, insisted on this essential fact. As he\n  would put it, there are no objective standards of judgment; we cannot\n  approach a work of art with our laws and categories. We have to\n  comprehend the artist\u2019s own values, and only then are we fit to\n  pronounce any judgment on his work. The task of the literary critic is\n  thus immensely more difficult than it is vulgarly supposed to be. The\n  same holds good, I would add, of criticism in the fields of art, not\n  excluding the art of love and the arts of living in general.\n\nFootnote 59:\n\n  \u201cThis search is the art of all great thinkers, of all great artists,\n  indeed of all those who, even without attaining expression, desire to\n  live deeply. If the dance brings us so near to God, it is, I believe,\n  because it symbolizes for us the movement of this gesture.\u201d (\u00c9lie\n  Faure, _L\u2019Arbre d\u2019\u00c9den_, p. 318.)\n\nFootnote 60:\n\n  This is that \u201cdivine malice\u201d which Nietzsche, in _Ecce Homo_, speaking\n  of Heine (\u201cone day Heine and I will be regarded as by far the greatest\n  artists of the German language,\u201d he says rather egotistically, but\n  perhaps truly) considered essential to perfection. \u201cI estimate the\n  value of men and of races,\u201d he added, \u201cby their need to identify their\n  God with a satyr,\u201d a hard saying, no doubt, to the modern man, but it\n  has its meaning.\n\nFootnote 61:\n\n  Since this was written I have found that Laycock, whose subtle\n  observation pioneered so many later ideas, long ago noted (\u201cSome\n  Organic Laws of Memory,\u201d _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1875)\n  reversion to ancestral modes of handwriting.\n\nFootnote 62:\n\n  This was written fifteen years ago, and as Carlyle has of late been\n  unduly depreciated I would add that, while strictly to the present\n  point, it is not put forward as an estimate of Carlyle\u2019s genius. That\n  I seem to have attempted twenty-five years earlier in a private letter\n  (to my friend the late Reverend Angus Mackay) I may here perhaps be\n  allowed to quote. It was in 1883, soon after the publication of\n  Carlyle\u2019s _Reminiscences_: \u201cThis is not Carlylese, but it is finer.\n  The popular judgment is hopelessly wrong. We can never understand\n  Carlyle till we get rid of the \u2018great prophet\u2019 notion. Carlyle is not\n  (as we were once taught) a \u2018great moral teacher,\u2019 but, in the high\n  sense, a great _comedian_. His books are wonderful comedies. He is the\n  Scotch Aristophanes, as Rabelais is the French and Heine the German\n  Aristophanes\u2014of course, with the intense northern imagination, more\n  clumsy, more imperfect, more profound than the Greek. But, at a long\n  distance, there is a close resemblance to Aristophanes with the same\n  mixture of audacity in method and conservatism in spirit. Carlyle\u2019s\n  account of Lamb seems in the true sense Aristophanic. His humour is,\n  too, as broad as he dares (some curious resemblances there, too). In\n  his lyrical outbursts, again, he follows Aristophanes, and again at a\n  distance. Of course he cannot be compared as an artist. He has not,\n  like Rabelais, created a world to play with, but, like Aristophanes\n  generally, he sports with the things that are.\u201d That youthful estimate\n  was alien to popular opinion then because Carlyle was idolised; it is\n  now, no doubt, equally alien for an opposite reason. It is only on\n  extremes that the indolent popular mind can rest.\n\nFootnote 63:\n\n  J. Beddoe, _The Races of Britain_, p. 254.\n\nFootnote 64:\n\n  I once studied, as an example, colour-words in various writers,\n  finding that every poet has his own colour formula. Variations in\n  length of sentence and peculiarities of usage in metre have often been\n  studied. Reference is made to some of these studies by A. Niceforo,\n  \u201cMetodo Statistico e Documenti Litterari,\u201d _Revista d\u2019Italia_, August,\n  1917.\n\nFootnote 65:\n\n  \u201cThe Muses are the daughters of Memory,\u201d Paul Morand tells us that\n  Proust would say; \u201cthere is no art without recollection,\u201d and\n  certainly it is supremely true of Proust\u2019s art. It is that element of\n  art which imparts at once both atmosphere and poignant intimacy,\n  external farness with internal nearness. The lyrics of Thomas Hardy\n  owe their intimacy of appeal to the dominance in them of recollection\n  (in _Late Lyrics and Earlier_ one might say it is never absent), and\n  that is why they can scarcely be fully appreciated save by those who\n  are no longer very young.\n\nFootnote 66:\n\n  The Oxford University Press publishes a little volume of _Rules for\n  Compositors and Readers_ in which this uniform is set forth. It is a\n  useful and interesting manual, but one wonders how many unnecessary\n  and even undesirable usages\u2014including that morbid desire to cling to\n  the _ize_ termination (charming as an eccentricity but hideous as a\n  rule) when _ise_ would suffice\u2014are hereby fostered. Even when we leave\n  out of consideration the great historical tradition of variety in this\n  matter, it is doubtful, when we consider them comprehensively, whether\n  the advantages of encouraging every one to spell like his fellows\n  overbalances the advantages of encouraging every one to spell unlike\n  his fellows. When I was a teacher in the Australian bush I derived far\n  less enjoyment from the more or less \u201ccorrectly\u201d spelt exercises of my\n  pupils than from the occasional notes I received from their parents\n  who, never having been taught to spell, were able to spell in the\n  grand manner. We are wilfully throwing away an endless source of\n  delight.\n\nFootnote 67:\n\n  _Le Monde Nouveau_, 15th December, 1922.\n\nFootnote 68:\n\n  Ferris Greenslet (in his study of _Joseph Glanvill_, p. 183),\n  referring to the Cartesian influence on English prose style, quotes\n  from Sprat\u2019s _History of the Royal Society_ that the Society \u201cexacted\n  from its members a close, naked, natural way of speaking, positive\n  expressions, a native easiness, bringing all things as near the\n  mathematic plainness as they can.\u201d The Society passed a resolution to\n  reject \u201call amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style.\u201d\n\nFootnote 69:\n\n  If it is asked why I take examples of a quality in art that is\n  universal from literary personalities that to many are questionable,\n  even morbid or perverse, rather than from some more normal and\n  unquestioned figure, Thomas Hardy, for example, I would reply that I\n  have always regarded it as more helpful and instructive to take\n  examples that are still questionable rather than to fall back on the\n  unquestionable that all will accept tamely without thought. Forty\n  years ago, when Hardy\u2019s genius was scarcely at all recognised, it\n  seemed worth while to me to set forth the quality of his genius.\n  To-day, when that quality is unquestioned, and Hardy receives general\n  love and reverence, it would seem idle and unprofitable to do so.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n                          THE ART OF RELIGION\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nRELIGION is a large word, of good import and of evil import, and with\nthe general discussion of religion we are not in this place concerned.\nIts quintessential core\u2014which is the art of finding our emotional\nrelationship to the world conceived as a whole\u2014is all that here matters,\nand it is best termed \u201cMysticism.\u201d No doubt it needs some courage to use\nthat word. It is the common label of abuse applied to every\npseudo-spiritual thing that is held up for contempt. Yet it would be\nfoolish to allow ourselves to be deflected from the right use of a word\nby the accident of its abuse. \u201cMysticism,\u201d however often misused, will\nhere be used, because it is the correct term for the relationship of the\nSelf to the Not-Self, of the individual to a Whole, when, going beyond\nhis own personal ends, he discovers his adjustment to larger ends, in\nharmony or devotion or love.\n\nIt has become a commonplace among the unthinking, or those who think\nbadly, to assume an opposition of hostility between mysticism and\nscience.[70] If \u201cscience\u201d is, as we have some reason to believe, an art,\nif \u201cmysticism\u201d also is an art, the opposition can scarcely be radical\nsince they must both spring from the same root in natural human\nactivity.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nIF, indeed, by \u201cscience\u201d we mean the organisation of an intellectual\nrelationship to the world we live in adequate to give us some degree of\npower over that world, and if by \u201cmysticism\u201d we mean the joyful\norganisation of an emotional relationship to the world conceived as a\nwhole,[71] the opposition which we usually assume to exist between them\nis of comparatively modern origin.\n\nAmong savage peoples such an opposition can scarcely be said to have any\nexistence. The very fact that science, in the strict sense, seems often\nto begin with the stars might itself have suggested that the basis of\nscience is mystical contemplation. Not only is there usually no\nopposition between the \u201cscientific\u201d and the \u201cmystical\u201d attitude among\npeoples we may fairly call primitive, but the two attitudes may be\ncombined in the same person. The \u201cmedicine-man\u201d is not more an embryonic\nman of science than he is an embryonic mystic; he is both equally. He\ncultivates not only magic but holiness, he achieves the conquest of his\nown soul, he enters into harmony with the universe; and in doing this,\nand partly, indeed, through doing this, his knowledge is increased, his\nsensations and power of observation are rendered acute, and he is\nenabled so to gain organised knowledge of natural processes that he can\nto some extent foresee or even control those processes. He is the\nancestor alike of the hermit following after sanctity and of the\ninventor crystallising discoveries into profitable patents. Such is the\nmedicine-man wherever we may find him in his typical shape\u2014which he\ncannot always adequately achieve\u2014all over the world, around Torres\nStraits just as much as around Behring\u2019s Straits. Yet we have failed to\ngrasp the significance of this fact.\n\nIt is the business of the _Shaman_, as on the mystical side we may\nconveniently term the medicine-man, to place himself under the\nconditions\u2014and even in primitive life those conditions are varied and\nsubtle\u2014which bring his will into harmony with the essence of the world,\nso that he grows one with that essence, that its will becomes his will,\nand, reversely, that, in a sense, his will becomes its. Herewith, in\nthis unity with the spirit of the world, the possibility of magic and\nthe power to control the operation of Nature are introduced into human\nthought, with its core of reality and its endless trail of absurdity,\npersisting even into advanced civilisation.\n\nBut this harmony with the essence of the universe, this control of\nNature through oneness with Nature, is not only at the heart of\nreligion; it is also at the heart of science. It is only by the\npossession of an acquired or inborn temperament attuned to the\ntemperament of Nature that a Faraday or an Edison, that any scientific\ndiscoverer or inventor, can achieve his results. And the primitive\nmedicine-man, who on the religious side has attained harmony of the self\nwith the Not-Self, and by obeying learnt to command, cannot fail on the\nscientific side also, under the special conditions of his isolated life,\nto acquire an insight into natural methods, a practical power over human\nactivities and over the treatment of disease, such as on the imaginative\nand emotional side he already possesses. If we are able to see this\nessential and double attitude of the _Shaman_\u2014medicine-man\u2014if we are\nable to eliminate all the extraneous absurdities and the extravagancies\nwhich conceal the real nature of his function in the primitive world,\nthe problem of science and mysticism, and their relationship to each\nother, ceases to have difficulties for us.\n\nIt is as well to point out, before passing on, that the investigators of\nprimitive thought are not altogether in agreement with one another on\nthis question of the relation of science to magic, and have complicated\nthe question by drawing a distinction between magic (understood as man\u2019s\nclaim to control Nature) and religion (understood as man\u2019s submission to\nNature). The difficulties seem due to an attempt to introduce clear-cut\ndefinitions at a stage of thought where none such existed. That\nmedicine-men and priests cultivated science, while wrapping it up in\noccult and magical forms, seems indicated by the earliest historical\ntraditions of the Near East. Herbert Spencer long ago brought together\nmuch of the evidence on this point. McDougall to-day in his \u201cSocial\nPsychology\u201d (Chapter XIII) accepts magic as the origin of science, and\nFrazer in the early edition of his \u201cGolden Bough\u201d regarded magic as \u201cthe\nsavage equivalent of our natural science.\u201d Marett[72] \u201cprofoundly\ndoubts\u201d this, and declares that if we can use the word \u201cscience\u201d at all\nin such a context, magic is occult science and the very antithesis of\nnatural science. While all that Marett states is admirably true on the\nbasis of his own definitions, he scarcely seems to realise the virtue of\nthe word \u201cequivalent,\u201d while at the same time, it may be, his definition\nof magic is too narrow. Silberer, from the psycho-analytic standpoint,\naccepting the development of exact science from one branch of magic,\npoints out that science is, on the one hand, the recognition of\nconcealed natural laws and, on the other, the dynamisation of psychic\npower,[73] and thus falls into two great classes, according as its\noperation is external or internal. This seems a true and subtle\ndistinction which Marett has overlooked. In the latest edition of his\nwork,[74] Frazer has not insisted on the relation or analogy of science\nto magic, but has been content to point out that Man has passed through\nthe three stages of magic, religion, and science. \u201cIn magic Man depends\non his own strength to meet the difficulties and dangers that beset him\non every side. He believes in a certain established order of Nature on\nwhich he can surely count, and which he can manipulate for his own\nends.\u201d Then he finds he has overestimated his own powers and he humbly\ntakes the road of religion, leaving the universe to the more or less\ncapricious will of a higher power. But he finds this view inadequate and\nhe proceeds to revert in a measure to the older standpoint of magic by\npostulating explicitly what in magic had only been implicitly assumed,\n\u201cto wit, an inflexible regularity in the order of natural events which,\nif carefully observed, enables us to foresee their course with\ncertainty, and to act accordingly.\u201d So that science, in Frazer\u2019s view,\nis not so much directly derived from magic as itself in its original\nshape one with magic, and Man has proceeded, not in a straight line, but\nin a spiral.\n\nThe profound significance of this early personage is, however, surely\nclear. If science and mysticism are alike based on fundamental natural\ninstincts, appearing spontaneously all over the world; if, moreover,\nthey naturally tend to be embodied in the same individual, in such a way\nthat each impulse would seem to be dependent on the other for its full\ndevelopment; then there can be no ground for accepting any disharmony\nbetween them. The course of human evolution involves a division of\nlabour, a specialisation of science and of mysticism along special lines\nand in separate individuals.[75] But a fundamental antagonism of the\ntwo, it becomes evident, is not to be thought of; it is unthinkable,\neven absurd. If at some period in the course of civilisation we\nseriously find that our science and our religion are antagonistic, then\nthere must be something wrong either with our science or with our\nreligion. Perhaps not seldom there may be something wrong with both. For\nif the natural impulses which normally work best together are separated\nand specialised in different persons, we may expect to find a\nconcomitant state of atrophy and hypertrophy, both alike morbid. The\nscientific person will become atrophied on the mystical side, the\nmystical person will become atrophied on the scientific side. Each will\nbecome morbidly hypertrophied on his own side. But the assumption that,\nbecause there is a lack of harmony between opposing pathological states,\nthere must also be a similar lack of harmony in the normal state, is\nunreasonable. We must severely put out of count alike the hypertrophied\nscientific people with atrophied religious instincts, and the\nhypertrophied religious people with atrophied scientific instincts.\nNeither group can help us here; they only introduce confusion. We have\nto examine the matter critically, to go back to the beginning, to take\nso wide a survey of the phenomena that their seemingly conflicting\nelements fall into harmony.\n\nThe fact, in the first place, that the person with an overdeveloped\nreligious sense combined with an underdeveloped scientific sense\nnecessarily conflicts with a person in whom the reverse state of affairs\nexists, cannot be doubted, nor is the reason of it obscure. It is\ndifficult to conceive a Darwin and a St. Theresa entering with full and\ngenuine sympathy into each other\u2019s point of view. And that is so by no\nmeans because the two attitudes, stripped of all but their essentials,\nare irreconcilable. If we strip St. Theresa of her atrophied\npseudo-science, which in her case was mostly theological \u201cscience,\u201d\nthere was nothing in her attitude which would not have seemed to\nharmonise and to exalt that absolute adoration and service to natural\ntruth which inspired Darwin. If we strip Darwin of that atrophied sense\nof poetry and the arts which he deplored, and that an\u00e6mic secular\nconception of the universe as a whole which he seems to have accepted\nwithout deploring, there was nothing in his attitude which would not\nhave served to fertilise and enrich the spiritual exaltation of Theresa\nand even to have removed far from her that temptation to _acedia_ or\nslothfulness which all the mystics who are mystics only have recognised\nas their besetting sin, minimised as it was, in Theresa, by her\npractical activities. Yet, being as they were persons of supreme genius\ndeveloped on opposite sides of their common human nature, an impassable\ngulf lies between them. It lies equally between much more ordinary\npeople who yet show the same common character of being undergrown on one\nside, overgrown on the other.\n\nThis difficulty is not diminished when the person who is thus\nhypertrophied on one side and atrophied on the other suddenly wakes up\nto his one-sided state and hastily attempts to remedy it. The very fact\nthat such a one-sided development has come about indicates that there\nhas probably been a congenital basis for it, an innate disharmony which\nmust require infinite patience and special personal experience to\novercome. But the heroic and ostentatious manner in which these\nill-balanced people hastily attempt the athletic feat of restoring their\nspiritual balance has frequently aroused the interest, and too often the\namusement, of the spectator. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most\nquintessentially scientific persons the world has seen, a searcher who\nmade the most stupendous effort to picture the universe intelligently on\nits purely intelligible side, seems to have realised in old age, when he\nwas, indeed, approaching senility, that the vast hypertrophy of his\nfaculties on that side had not been compensated by any development on\nthe religious side. He forthwith set himself to the interpretation of\nthe Book of Daniel and puzzled over the prophecies of the Book of\nRevelation, with the same scientifically serious air as though he were\nanalysing the spectrum. In reality he had not reached the sphere of\nreligion at all; he had merely exchanged good science for bad science.\nSuch senile efforts to penetrate, ere yet life is quite over, the\nmystery of religion recall, and, indeed, have a real analogy to, that\nfinal effort of the emotionally starved to grasp at love which has been\ncalled \u201cold maid\u2019s insanity\u201d; and just as in this aberration the woman\nwho has all her life put love into the subconscious background of her\nmind is overcome by an eruption of the suppressed emotions and driven to\ncreate baseless legends of which she is herself the heroine, so the\nscientific man who has put religion into the subconscious and scarcely\nknown that there is such a thing may become in the end the victim of an\nimaginary religion. In our own time we may have witnessed attempts of\nthe scientific mind to become religious, which, without amounting to\nmental aberration, are yet highly instructive. It would be a\ndouble-edged compliment, in this connection, to compare Sir Oliver Lodge\nto Sir Isaac Newton. But after devoting himself for many years to purely\nphysical research, Lodge also, as he has confessed, found that he had\noverlooked the religious side of life, and therefore set himself with\ncharacteristic energy to the task\u2014the stages of which are described in a\nlong series of books\u2014of developing this atrophied side of his nature.\nUnlike Newton, who was worried about the future, Lodge became worried\nabout the past. Just as Newton found what he was contented to regard as\nreligious peace in speculating on the meaning of the Books of Daniel and\nRevelation, so Lodge found a similar satisfaction in speculations\nconcerning the origin of the soul and in hunting out tags from the poets\nto support his speculations. So fascinating was this occupation that it\nseemed to him to constitute a great \u201cmessage\u201d to the world. \u201cMy message\nis that there is some great truth in the idea of pre\u00ebxistence, not an\nobvious truth, nor one easy to formulate\u2014a truth difficult to\nexpress\u2014not to be identified with the guesses of reincarnation and\ntransmigration, which may be fanciful. We may not have been individuals\nbefore, but we are chips or fragments of a great mass of mind, of\nspirit, and of life\u2014drops, as it were, taken out of a germinal reservoir\nof life, and incubated until incarnate in a material body.\u201d[76] The\ngenuine mystic would smile if asked to accept as a divine message these\nphraseological gropings in the darkness, with their culmination in the\ngospel of \u201cincubated drops.\u201d They certainly represent an attempt to get\nat a real fact. But the mystic is not troubled by speculations about the\norigin of the individual, or theories of pre\u00ebxistence, fantastic myths\nwhich belong to the earlier Plato\u2019s stage of thought. It is abundantly\nevident that when the hypertrophied man of science seeks to cultivate\nhis atrophied religious instincts it is with the utmost difficulty that\nhe escapes from science. His conversion to religion merely means, for\nthe most part, that he has exchanged sound science for pseudo-science.\n\nSimilarly, when the man with hypertrophied religious instincts seeks to\ncultivate his atrophied scientific instincts, the results are scarcely\nsatisfactory. Here, indeed, we are concerned with a phenomenon that is\nrarer than the reverse process. The reason may not be far to seek. The\ninstinct of religion develops earlier in the history of a race than the\ninstinct of science. The man who has found the massive satisfaction of\nhis religious cravings is seldom at any stage conscious of scientific\ncravings; he is apt to feel that he already possesses the supreme\nknowledge. The religious doubters who vaguely feel that their faith is\nat variance with science are merely the creatures of creeds, the product\nof Churches; they are not the genuine mystics. The genuine mystics who\nhave exercised their scientific instincts have generally found scope for\nsuch exercise within an enlarged theological scheme which they regarded\nas part of their religion. So it was that St. Augustine found scope for\nhis full and vivid, if capricious, intellectual impulses; so also\nAquinas, in whom there was doubtless less of the mystic and more of the\nscientist, found scope for the rational and orderly development of a\nkeen intelligence which has made him an authority and even a pioneer for\nmany who are absolutely indifferent to his theology.\n\nAgain we see that to understand the real relations of science and\nmysticism, we must return to ages when, on neither side, had any\naccumulated mass of dead traditions effected an artificial divorce\nbetween two great natural instincts. It has already been pointed out\nthat if we go outside civilisation the divorce is not found; the savage\nmystic is also the savage man of science, the priest and the doctor are\none.[77] It is so also for the most part in barbarism, among the ancient\nHebrews for instance, and not only among their priests, but even among\ntheir prophets. It appears that the most usual Hebrew word for what we\nterm the \u201cprophet\u201d signified \u201cone who bursts forth,\u201d presumably into the\nutterance of spiritual verities, and the less usual words signify\n\u201cseer.\u201d That is to say, the prophet was primarily a man of religion,\nsecondarily a man of science. And that predictive element in the\nprophet\u2019s function, which to persons lacking in religious instinct seems\nthe whole of his function, has no relationship at all to religion; it is\na function of science. It is an insight into cause and effect, a\nconception of sequences based on extended observation and enabling the\n\u201cprophet\u201d to assert that certain lines of action will probably lead to\nthe degeneration of a stock, or to the decay of a nation. It is a sort\nof applied history. \u201cProphecy\u201d has no more to do with religion than have\nthe forecasts of the Meteorological Bureau, which also are a kind of\napplied science in earlier stages associated with religion.\n\nIf, keeping within the sphere of civilisation, we go back as far as we\ncan, the conclusion we reach is not greatly different. The earliest of\nthe great mystics in historical times is Lao-tze. He lived six hundred\nyears earlier than Jesus, a hundred years earlier than Sakya-Muni, and\nhe was more quintessentially a mystic than either. He was, moreover,\nincomparably nearer than either to the point of view of science. Even\nhis occupation in life was, in relation to his age and land, of a\nscientific character; he was, if we may trust uncertain tradition,\nkeeper of the archives. In the substance of his work this harmony of\nreligion and science is throughout traceable, the very word \u201cTao,\u201d which\nto Lao-tze is the symbol of all that to which religion may mystically\nunite us, is susceptible of being translated \u201cReason,\u201d although that\nword remains inadequate to its full meaning. There are no theological or\nmetaphysical speculations here concerning God (the very word only occurs\nonce and may be a later interpolation), the soul, or immortality. The\ndelicate and profound art of Lao-tze largely lies in the skill with\nwhich he expresses spiritual verities in the form of natural truths. His\naffirmations not only go to the core of religion, but they express the\nessential methods of science. This man has the mystic\u2019s heart, but he\nhas also the physicist\u2019s touch and the biologist\u2019s eye. He moves in a\nsphere in which religion and science are one.\n\nIf we pass to more modern times and the little European corner of the\nworld, around the Mediterranean shores, which is the cradle of our\nlatter-day civilisation, again and again we find traces of this\nfundamental unity of mysticism and science. It may well be that we never\nagain find it in quite so pure a form as in Lao-tze, quite so free from\nall admixture alike of bad religion and bad science. The exuberant\nunbalanced activity of our race, the restless acquisitiveness\u2014already\nmanifested in the sphere of ideas and traditions before it led to the\nproduction of millionaires\u2014soon became an ever-growing impediment to\nsuch unity of spiritual impulses. Among the supple and yet ferocious\nGreeks, indeed, versatility and recklessness seem at a first glance\nalways to have stood in the way of approach to the essential terms of\nthis problem. It was only when the Greeks began to absorb Oriental\ninfluences, we are inclined to say, that they became genuine mystics,\nand as they approached mysticism they left science behind.\n\nYet there was a vein of mysticism in the Greeks from the first, not\nalone due to seeds from the East flung to germinate fruitfully in Greek\nsoil, though perhaps to that Ionian element of the Near East which was\nan essential part of the Greek spirit. All that Karl Jo\u00ebl of Basel has\nsought to work out concerning the evolution of the Greek philosophic\nspirit has a bearing on this point. We are wrong, he believes, to look\non the early Greek philosophers of Nature as mainly physicists, treating\nthe religious and poetic mystic elements in them as mere archaisms,\nconcessions, or contradictions. Hellas needed, and possessed, an early\nRomantic spirit, if we understand the Romantic spirit, not merely\nthrough its reactionary offshoots, but as a deep mystico-lyrical\nexpression; it was comparable in early Greece to the Romantic spirit of\nthe great creative men of the early Renaissance or the early nineteenth\ncentury, and the Apollinian classic spirit was developed out of an\nordered discipline and formulation of the Dionysian spirit more\nmystically near to Nature.[78] If we bear this in mind we are helped to\nunderstand much in the religious life of Greece which seems not to\nharmonise with what we conventionally call \u201cclassic.\u201d\n\nIn the dim figure of Pythagoras we perhaps see not only a great leader\nof physical science, but also a great initiator in spiritual mystery. It\nis, at any rate, fairly clear that he established religious brotherhoods\nof carefully selected candidates, women as well as men being eligible,\nand living on so lofty and aristocratic a level that the populace of\nMagna Grecia, who could not understand them, decided out of resentment\nto burn them alive, and the whole order was annihilated about B.C. 500.\nBut exactly how far these early Pythagoreans, whose community has been\ncompared to the medi\u00e6val orders of chivalry, were mystics, we may\nimagine as we list, in the light of the Pythagorean echoes we find here\nand there in Plato. On the whole we scarcely go to the Greeks for a\nclear exposition of what we now term \u201cmysticism.\u201d We see more of it in\nLucretius than we can divine in his master Epicurus. And we see it still\nmore clearly in the Stoics. We can, indeed, nowhere find a more pure and\nconcise statement than in Marcus Aurelius of the mystical core of\nreligion as the union in love and harmony and devotion of the self with\nthe Not-Self.\n\nIf Lucretius may be accounted the first of moderns in the identification\nof mysticism and science, he has been followed by many, even though, one\nsometimes thinks, with an ever-increasing difficulty, a drooping of the\nwings of mystical aspiration, a limping of the feet of scientific\nprogress. Leonardo and Giordano Bruno and Spinoza and Goethe, each with\na little imperfection on one side or the other, if not on both sides,\nhave moved in a sphere in which the impulses of religion are felt to\nspring from the same centre as the impulses of science. Einstein, whose\nattitude in many ways is so interesting, closely associates the longing\nfor pure knowledge with religious feeling, and he has remarked that \u201cin\nevery true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence.\u201d\nHe is inclined to attach significance to the fact that so many great men\nof science\u2014Newton, Descartes, Gauss, Helmholtz\u2014have been in one way or\nanother religious. If we cannot altogether include such men as\nSwedenborg and Faraday in the same group, it is because we cannot feel\nthat in them the two impulses, however highly developed, really spring\nfrom the same centre or really make a true harmony. We suspect that\nthese men and their like kept their mysticism in a science-proof\ncompartment of their minds, and their science in a mysticism-proof\ncompartment; we tremble for the explosive result, should the wall of\npartition ever be broken down.\n\nThe difficulty, we see again, has been that, on each hand, there has\nbeen a growth of non-essential traditions around the pure and vital\nimpulse, and the obvious disharmony of these two sets of accretions\nconceals the underlying harmony of the impulses themselves. The\npossibility of reaching the natural harmony is thus not necessarily by\nvirtue of any rare degree of intellectual attainment, nor by any rare\ngift of inborn spiritual temperament,\u2014though either of these may in some\ncases be operative,\u2014but rather by the happy chance that the burden of\ntradition on each side has fallen and that the mystical impulse is free\nto play without a dead metaphysical theology, the scientific impulse\nwithout a dead metaphysical formalism. It is a happy chance that may\nbefall the simple more easily than the wise and learned.\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nTHE foregoing considerations have perhaps cleared the way to a\nrealisation that when we look broadly at the matter, when we clear away\nall the accumulated superstitions, the unreasoned prepossessions, on\neither side, and so reach firm ground, not only is there no opposition\nbetween science and mysticism, but in their essence, and at the outset,\nthey are closely related. The seeming divorce between them is due to a\nfalse and unbalanced development on either side, if not on both sides.\n\nYet all such considerations cannot suffice to make present to us this\nunity of apparent opposites. There is, indeed, it has often seemed to\nme, a certain futility in all discussion of the relative claims of\nscience and religion. This is a matter which, in the last resort, lies\nbeyond the sphere of argument. It depends not only on a man\u2019s entire\npsychic equipment, brought with him at birth and never to be\nfundamentally changed, but it is the outcome of his own intimate\nexperience during life. It cannot be profitably discussed because it is\nexperiential.\n\nIt seems to me, therefore, that, having gone so far, and stated what I\nconsider to be the relations of mysticism and science as revealed in\nhuman history, I am bound to go further and to state my personal grounds\nfor believing that the harmonious satisfaction alike of the religious\nimpulse and the scientific impulse may be attained to-day by an\nordinarily balanced person in whom both impulses crave for satisfaction.\nThere is, indeed, a serious difficulty. To set forth a personal\nreligious experience for the first time requires considerable\nresolution, and not least to one who is inclined to suspect that the\nexperiences usually so set forth can be of no profound or significant\nnature; that if the underlying motives of a man\u2019s life can be brought to\nthe surface and put into words their vital motive power is gone. Even\nthe fact that more than forty years have passed since the experience\ntook place scarcely suffices to make the confession of it easy. But I\nrecall to mind that the first original book I ever planned (and in fact\nbegan to write) was a book, impersonal though suggested by personal\nexperience, on the foundations of religion.[79] I put it aside, saying\nto myself I would complete it in old age, because it seemed to me that\nthe problem of religion will always be fresh, while there were other\nproblems more pressingly in need of speedy investigation. Now, it may\nbe, I begin to feel the time has come to carry that early project a\nstage further.\n\nLike many of the generation to which I belonged, I was brought up far\nfrom the Sunday-school atmosphere of conventional religiosity. I\nreceived little religious instruction outside the home, but there I was\nmade to feel, from my earliest years, that religion is a very vital and\npersonal matter with which the world and the fashion of it had nothing\nto do. To that teaching, while still scarcely more than a child, I\nresponded in a wholehearted way. Necessarily the exercise of this early\nimpulse followed the paths prescribed for it by my environment. I\naccepted the creed set before me; I privately studied the New Testament\nfor my own satisfaction; I honestly endeavoured, strictly in private, to\nmould my actions and impulses on what seemed to be Christian lines.\nThere was no obtrusive outward evidence of this; outside the home,\nmoreover, I moved in a world which might be indifferent but was not\nactively hostile to my inner aspirations, and, if the need for any\nexternal affirmation had become inevitable, I should, I am certain, have\ninvoked other than religious grounds for my protest. Religion, as I\ninstinctively felt then and as I consciously believe now, is a private\nmatter, as love is. This was my mental state at the age of twelve.\n\nThen came the period of emotional and intellectual expansion, when the\nscientific and critical instincts began to germinate. These were\ncompletely spontaneous and not stimulated by any influences of the\nenvironment. To inquire, to question, to investigate the qualities of\nthe things around us and to search out their causes, is as native an\nimpulse as the religious impulse would be found to be if only we would\nrefrain from exciting it artificially. In the first place, this\nscientific impulse was not greatly concerned with the traditional body\nof beliefs which were then inextricably entwined in my mind with the\nexercise of the religious instinct. In so far, indeed, as it touched\nthem it took up their defence. Thus I read Renan\u2019s \u201cLife of Jesus,\u201d and\nthe facile sentiment of this book, the attitude of artistic\nreconstruction, aroused a criticism which led me to overlook any\nunderlying sounder qualities. Yet all the time the inquiring and\ncritical impulse was a slowly permeating and invading influence, and its\napplication to religion was from time to time stimulated by books,\nalthough such application was in no slightest degree favoured by the\nsocial environment. When, too, at the age of fifteen, I came to read\nSwinburne\u2019s \u201cSongs before Sunrise,\u201d\u2014although the book made no very\npersonal appeal to me,\u2014I realised that it was possible to present in an\nattractively modern emotional light religious beliefs which were\nincompatible with Christianity, and even actively hostile to its creed.\nThe process of disintegration took place in slow stages that were not\nperceived until the process was complete. Then at last I realised that I\nno longer possessed any religious faith. All the Christian dogmas I had\nbeen brought up to accept unquestioned had slipped away, and they had\ndragged with them what I had experienced of religion, for I could not\nthen so far analyse all that is roughly lumped together as \u201creligion\u201d as\nto disentangle the essential from the accidental. Such analysis, to be\neffectively convincing, demanded personal experiences I was not\npossessed of.\n\nI was now seventeen years of age. The loss of religious faith had\nproduced no change in conduct, save that religious observances, which\nhad never been ostentatiously performed, were dropped, so far as they\nmight be without hurting the feelings of others. The revolution was so\ngradual and so natural that even inwardly the shock was not great, while\nvarious activities, the growth of mental aptitudes, sufficiently served\nto occupy the mind. It was only during periods of depression that the\nabsence of faith as a satisfaction of the religious impulse became at\nall acutely felt. Possibly it might have been felt less acutely if I\ncould have realised that there was even a real benefit in the cutting\ndown and clearing away of traditional and non-vital beliefs. Not only\nwas it a wholesome and strenuous effort to obey at all costs the call of\nwhat was felt as \u201ctruth,\u201d and therefore having in it a spirit of\nreligion even though directed against religion, but it was evidently\nfavourable to the training of intelligence. The man who has never\nwrestled with his early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and\nthat yet is not truly his own,\u2014for no faith is our own that we have not\narduously won,\u2014has missed not only a moral but an intellectual\ndiscipline. The absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and\nrender all his work in the world ineffective. He has missed a training\nin criticism, in analysis, in open-mindedness, in the resolutely\nimpersonal treatment of personal problems, which no other training can\ncompensate. He is, for the most part, condemned to live in a mental\njungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths\nthat enclose him and his eyes too weak to find the light.\n\nWhile, however, I had adopted, without knowing it, the best course to\nsteel the power of thinking and to render possible a patient, humble,\nself-forgetful attitude towards Nature, there were times when I became\npainfully, almost despairingly, conscious of the unsatisfied cravings of\nthe religious impulse. These moods were emphasised even by the books I\nread which argued that religion, in the only sense in which I understood\nreligion, was unnecessary, and that science, whether or not formulated\ninto a creed, furnished all that we need to ask in this direction. I\nwell remember the painful feelings with which I read at this time D. F.\nStrauss\u2019s \u201cThe Old Faith and the New.\u201d It is a scientific creed set down\nin old age, with much comfortable complacency, by a man who found\nconsiderable satisfaction in the evening of life in the enjoyment of\nHaydn\u2019s quartets and Munich brown beer. They are both excellent things,\nas I am now willing to grant, but they are a sorry source of inspiration\nwhen one is seventeen and consumed by a thirst for impossibly remote\nideals. Moreover, the philosophic horizon of this man was as limited and\nas prosaic as the \u00e6sthetic atmosphere in which he lived. I had to\nacknowledge to myself that the scientific principles of the universe as\nStrauss laid them down presented, so far as I knew, the utmost scope in\nwhich the human spirit could move. But what a poor scope! I knew nothing\nof the way that Nietzsche, about that time, had demolished Strauss. But\nI had the feeling that the universe was represented as a sort of factory\nfilled by an inextricable web of wheels and looms and flying shuttles,\nin a deafening din. That, it seemed, was the world as the most competent\nscientific authorities declared it to be made. It was a world I was\nprepared to accept, and yet a world in which, I felt, I could only\nwander restlessly, an ignorant and homeless child. Sometimes, no doubt,\nthere were other visions of the universe a little less disheartening,\nsuch as that presented by Herbert Spencer\u2019s \u201cFirst Principles.\u201d But the\ndominant feeling always was that while the scientific outlook, by which\nI mainly meant the outlook of Darwin and Huxley, commended itself to me\nas presenting a sound view of the world, on the emotional side I was a\nstranger to that world, if, indeed, I would not, with Omar, \u201cshatter it\nto bits.\u201d\n\nAt the same time, it must be noted, there was no fault to find with the\ngeneral trend of my life and activities. I was fully occupied, with\ndaily duties as well as with the actively interested contemplation of an\never-enlarging intellectual horizon. This was very notably the case at\nthe age of nineteen, three years after all vestiges of religious faith\nhad disappeared from the psychic surface.\n\nI was still interested in religious and philosophic questions, and it so\nchanced that at this time I read the \u201cLife in Nature\u201d of James Hinton,\nwho had already attracted my attention as a genuine man of science with\nyet an original and personal grasp of religion. I had read the book six\nmonths before and it had not greatly impressed me. Now, I no longer know\nwhy, I read it again, and the effect was very different. Evidently by\nthis time my mind had reached a stage of saturated solution which needed\nbut the shock of the right contact to recrystallise in forms that were a\nrevelation to me. Here evidently the right contact was applied. Hinton\nin this book showed himself a scientific biologist who carried the\nmechanistic explanation of life even further than was then usual.[80]\nBut he was a man of highly passionate type of intellect, and what might\notherwise be formal and abstract was for him soaked in emotion. Thus,\nwhile he saw the world as an orderly mechanism, he was not content, like\nStrauss, to stop there and see in it nothing else. As he viewed it, the\nmechanism was not the mechanism of a factory, it was vital, with all the\nglow and warmth and beauty of life; it was, therefore, something which\nnot only the intellect might accept, but the heart might cling to. The\nbearing of this conception on my state of mind is obvious. It acted with\nthe swiftness of an electric contact; the dull aching tension was\nremoved; the two opposing psychic tendencies were fused in delicious\nharmony, and my whole attitude towards the universe was changed. It was\nno longer an attitude of hostility and dread, but of confidence and\nlove. My self was one with the Not-Self, my will one with the universal\nwill. I seemed to walk in light; my feet scarcely touched the ground; I\nhad entered a new world.\n\nThe effect of that swift revolution was permanent. At first there was a\nmoment or two of wavering, and then the primary exaltation subsided into\nan attitude of calm serenity towards all those questions that had once\nseemed so torturing. In regard to all these matters I had become\npermanently satisfied and at rest, yet absolutely unfettered and free. I\nwas not troubled about the origin of the \u201csoul\u201d or about its destiny; I\nwas entirely prepared to accept any analysis of the \u201csoul\u201d which might\ncommend itself as reasonable. Neither was I troubled about the existence\nof any superior being or beings, and I was ready to see that all the\nwords and forms by which men try to picture spiritual realities are mere\nmetaphors and images of an inward experience. There was not a single\nclause in my religious creed because I held no creed. I had found that\ndogmas were\u2014not, as I had once imagined, true, not, as I had afterwards\nsupposed, false,\u2014but the mere empty shadows of intimate personal\nexperience. I had become indifferent to shadows, for I held the\nsubstance. I had sacrificed what I held dearest at the call of what\nseemed to be Truth, and now I was repaid a thousand-fold. Henceforth I\ncould face life with confidence and joy, for my heart was at one with\nthe world and whatever might prove to be in harmony with the world could\nnot be out of harmony with me.[81]\n\nThus, it might seem to many, nothing whatever had happened; I had not\ngained one single definite belief that could be expressed in a\nscientific formula or hardened into a religious creed. That, indeed, is\nthe essence of such a process. A \u201cconversion\u201d is not, as is often\nassumed, a turning towards a belief. More strictly, it is a turning\nround, a revolution; it has no primary reference to any external object.\nAs the greater mystics have often understood, \u201cthe Kingdom of Heaven is\nwithin.\u201d To put the matter a little more precisely, the change is\nfundamentally a readjustment of psychic elements to each other, enabling\nthe whole machine to work harmoniously. There is no necessary\nintroduction of new ideas; there is much more likely to be a casting out\nof dead ideas which have clogged the vital process. The psychic\norganism\u2014which in conventional religion is called the \u201csoul\u201d\u2014had not\nbeen in harmony with itself; now it is revolving truly on its own axis,\nand in doing so it simultaneously finds its true orbit in the cosmic\nsystem. In becoming one with itself, it becomes one with the\nuniverse.[82]\n\nThe process, it will be seen, is thus really rather analogous to that\nwhich on the physical plane takes place in a person whose jaw or arm is\ndislocated, whether by some inordinate effort or some sudden shock with\nthe external world. The miserable man with a dislocated jaw is out of\nharmony with himself and with the universe. All his efforts cannot\nreduce the dislocation, nor can his friends help him; he may even come\nto think there is no cure. But a surgeon comes along, and with a slight\npressure of his two thumbs, applied at the right spot, downwards and\nbackwards, the jaw springs into place, the man is restored to\nharmony\u2014and the universe is transformed. If he is ignorant enough, he\nwill be ready to fall on his knees before his deliverer as a divine\nbeing. We are concerned with what is called a \u201cspiritual\u201d process,\u2014for\nit is an accepted and necessary convention to distinguish between the\n\u201cspiritual\u201d and the \u201cphysical,\u201d\u2014but this crude and imperfect analogy may\nhelp some minds to understand what is meant.\n\nThus may be explained what may seem to some the curious fact that I\nnever for a moment thought of accepting as a gospel the book which had\nbrought me a stimulus of such inestimable value. The person in whom\n\u201cconversion\u201d takes place is too often told that the process is connected\nin some magical manner with a supernatural influence of some kind, a\nbook, a creed, a church, or what not. I had read this book before and it\nhad left me unmoved; I knew that the book was merely the surgeon\u2019s\ntouch, that the change had its source in me and not in the book. I never\nlooked into the book again; I cannot tell where or how my copy of it\ndisappeared; for all that I know, having accomplished its mission, it\nwas drawn up again to Heaven in a sheet. As regards James Hinton, I was\ninterested in him before the date of the episode here narrated; I am\ninterested in him still.[83]\n\nIt may further be noted that this process of \u201cconversion\u201d cannot be\nregarded as the outcome of despair or as a protective regression towards\nchildhood. The unfortunate individual, we sometimes imagine, who is\nbereft of religious faith sinks deeper and deeper into despondency,\nuntil finally he unconsciously seeks the relief of his woes by plunging\ninto an abyss of emotions, thereby committing intellectual suicide. On\nthe contrary, the period in which this event occurred was not a period\nof dejection either mental or physical. I was fully occupied; I lived a\nhealthy, open-air life, in a fine climate, amid beautiful scenery; I was\nrevelling in new studies and the growing consciousness of new powers.\nInstead of being the ultimate stage in a process of descent, or a return\nto childhood, such psychic revolution may much more fittingly be\nregarded as the climax of an ascensional movement. It is the final\ncasting off of childish things, the initiation into complete manhood.\n\nThere is nothing ascetic in such a process. One is sometimes tempted to\nthink that to approve mysticism is to preach asceticism. Certainly many\nmystics have been ascetic. But that has been the accident of their\nphilosophy, and not the essence of their religion. Asceticism has,\nindeed, nothing to do with normal religion. It is, at the best, the\noutcome of a set of philosophical dogmas concerning the relationship of\nthe body to the soul and the existence of a transcendental spiritual\nworld. That is philosophy, of a sort, not religion. Plotinus, who has\nbeen so immensely influential in our Western world because he was the\nmain channel by which Greek spiritual tendencies reached us, to become\nlater embodied in Christianity, is usually regarded as a typical mystic,\nthough he was primarily a philosopher, and he was inclined to be\nascetic. Therein we may not consider him typically Greek, but the early\nphilosophical doctrine of Plato concerning the transcendental world of\n\u201cIdeas\u201d easily lent itself to developments favourable to an ascetic\nlife. Plotinus, indeed, was not disposed to any extreme ascetic\nposition. The purification of the soul meant for him \u201cto detach it from\nthe body, and to elevate it to a spiritual world.\u201d But he would not have\nsympathised with the harsh dualism of flesh and spirit which often\nflourished among Christian ascetics. He lived celibate, but he was\nwilling to regard sex desire as beautiful, though a delusion.[84] When\nwe put aside the philosophic doctrines with which it may be associated,\nit is seen that asceticism is merely an adjuvant discipline to what we\nmust regard as pathological forms of mysticism.\n\nPeople who come in contact with the phenomenon of \u201cconversion\u201d are\nobsessed by the notion that it must have something to do with morality.\nThey seem to fancy that it is something that happens to a person leading\na bad life whereby he suddenly leads a good life. That is a delusion.\nWhatever virtue morality may possess, it is outside the mystic\u2019s sphere.\nNo doubt a person who has been initiated into this mystery is likely to\nbe moral because he is henceforth in harmony with himself, and such a\nman is usually, by a natural impulse, in harmony also with others. Like\nLeonardo, who through the glow of his adoration of Nature was as truly a\nmystic as St. Francis, even by contact with him \u201cevery broken heart is\nmade serene.\u201d But a religious man is not necessarily a moral man. That\nis to say that we must by no means expect to find that the religious\nman, even when he is in harmony with his fellows, is necessarily in\nharmony with the moral laws of his age. We fall into sad confusion if we\ntake for granted that a mystic is what we conventionally term a \u201cmoral\u201d\nman. Jesus, as we know, was almost as immoral from the standpoint of the\nsociety in which he moved as he would be in our society. That, no doubt,\nis an extreme example, yet the same holds good, in a minor degree, of\nmany other mystics, even in very recent times. The satyrs and the fauns\nwere minor divinities in antiquity, and in later times we have been apt\nto misunderstand their holy functions and abuse their sacred names.\n\nNot only is there no necessary moral change in such a process, still\nless is there any necessary intellectual change. Religion need not\ninvolve intellectual suicide. On the intellectual side there may be no\nobvious change whatever. No new creed or dogma had been adopted.[85] It\nmight rather be said that, on the contrary, some prepossessions,\nhitherto unconscious, had been realised and cast out. The operations of\nreason, so far from being fettered, can be effected with greater freedom\nand on a larger scale. Under favourable conditions the religious\nprocess, indeed, throughout directly contributes to strengthen the\nscientific attitude. The mere fact that one has been impelled by the\nsincerity of one\u2019s religious faith to question, to analyse, and finally\nto destroy one\u2019s religious creed, is itself an incomparable training for\nthe intelligence. In this task reason is submitted to the hardest tests;\nit has every temptation to allow itself to be lulled into sleepy repose\nor cajoled into specious reconciliations. If it is true to itself here\nit is steeled for every other task in the world, for no other task can\never demand so complete a self-sacrifice at the call of Truth. Indeed,\nthe final restoration of the religious impulse on a higher plane may\nitself be said to re\u00ebnforce the scientific impulse, for it removes that\nsense of psychic disharmony which is a subconscious fetter on the\nrational activity. The new inward harmony, proceeding from a psychic\ncentre that is at one alike with itself and with the Not-Self, imparts\nconfidence to every operation of the intellect. All the metaphysical\nimages of faith in the unseen\u2014too familiar in the mystical experiences\nof men of all religions to need specification\u2014are now on the side of\nscience. For he who is thus held in his path can pursue that path with\nserenity and trust, however daring its course may sometimes seem.\n\nIt appears to me, therefore, on the basis of personal experience, that\nthe process thus outlined is a natural process. The harmony of the\nreligious impulse and of the scientific impulse is not merely a\nconclusion to be deduced from the history of the past. It is a living\nfact to-day. However obscured it may sometimes be, the process lies in\nhuman nature and is still open to all to experience.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nIF the development of the religious instinct and the development of the\nscientific instinct are alike natural, and if the possibility of the\nharmony of the two instincts is a verifiable fact of experience, how is\nit, one may ask, that there has ever been any dispute on the matter? Why\nhas not this natural experience been the experience of all?\n\nVarious considerations may help to make clear to us how it has happened\nthat a process which might reasonably be supposed to be intimate and\nsacred should have become so obscured and so deformed that it has been\nfiercely bandied about by opposing factions. At the outset, as we have\nseen, among comparatively primitive peoples, it really is a simple and\nnatural process carried out harmoniously with no sense of conflict. A\nman, it would seem, was not then overburdened by the still unwritten\ntraditions of the race. He was comparatively free to exercise his own\nimpulses unfettered by the chains forged out of the dead impulses of\nthose who had gone before him.\n\nIt is the same still among uncultivated persons of our own race in\ncivilisation. I well remember how once, during a long ride through the\nAustralian bush with a settler, a quiet, uncommunicative man with whom I\nhad long been acquainted, he suddenly told me how at times he would\nascend to the top of a hill and become lost to himself and to everything\nas he stood in contemplation of the scene around him. Those moments of\necstasy, of self-forgetful union with the divine beauty of Nature, were\nentirely compatible with the rational outlook of a simple, hard-working\nman who never went to church, for there was no church of any kind to go\nto, but at such moments had in his own humble way, like Moses, met God\nin a mountain. There can be no doubt that such an experience is not\nuncommon among simple folk unencumbered by tradition, even when of\ncivilised race.\n\nThe burden of traditions, of conventions, of castes has too often proved\nfatal alike to the manifestation of the religious impulse and the\nscientific impulse. It is unnecessary to point out how easily this\nhappens in the case of the religious impulse. It is only too familiar a\nfact how, when the impulse of religion first germinates in the young\nsoul, the ghouls of the Churches rush out of their caverns, seize on the\nunhappy victim of the divine effluence and proceed to assure him that\nhis rapture is, not a natural manifestation, as free as the sunlight and\nas gracious as the unfolding of a rose, but the manifest sign that he\nhas been branded by a supernatural force and fettered for ever to a dead\ntheological creed. Too often he is thus caught by the bait of his own\nrapture; the hook is firmly fixed in his jaw and he is drawn whither his\nblind guides will; his wings droop and fall away; so far as the finer\nissues of life are concerned, he is done for and damned.[86]\n\nBut the process is not so very different on the scientific side, though\nhere it is more subtly concealed. The youth in whom the natural impulse\nof science arises is sternly told that the spontaneous movement of his\nintelligence towards Nature and truth is nothing, for the one thing\nneedful is that he shall be put to discipline, and trained in the\nscientific traditions of the ages. The desirability of such training for\nthe effective questioning of Nature is so clear that both teacher and\npupil are apt to overlook the fact that it involves much that is not\nscience at all: all sorts of dead traditions, unrealised fragments of\nancient metaphysical systems, prepossessions and limitations, conscious\nor unconscious, the obedience to arbitrary authorities. It is never made\nclear to him that science also is an art. So that the actual outcome may\nbe that the finally accomplished man of science has as little of the\nscientific impulse as the fully fledged religious man need have of the\nreligious impulse; he becomes the victim of another kind of\necclesiastical sectarianism.\n\nThere is one special piece of ancient metaphysics which until recently\nscientific and religious sects have alike combined to support: the\nfiction of \u201cmatter,\u201d which we passingly came upon when considering the\nart of thinking. It is a fiction that has much to answer for in\ndistorting the scientific spirit and in creating an artificial\nopposition between science and religion. All sorts of antique\nmetaphysical peculiarities, inherited from the decadence of Greek\nphilosophy, were attributed to \u201cmatter\u201d and they were mostly of a bad\ncharacter; all the good qualities were attributed to \u201cspirit\u201d; \u201cmatter\u201d\nplayed the Devil\u2019s part to this more divine \u201cspirit.\u201d Thus it was that\n\u201cmaterialistic\u201d came to be a term signifying all that is most heavy,\nopaque, depressing, soul-destroying, and diabolical in the universe. The\nparty of traditionalised religion fostered this fiction and the party of\ntraditionalised science frequently adopted it, cheerily proposing to\nfind infinite potentialities in this despised metaphysical substance. So\nthat \u201cmatter\u201d which was on one side trodden underfoot was on the other\nside brandished overhead as a glorious banner.\n\nYet \u201cmatter,\u201d as psychologically minded philosophers at last began to\npoint out, is merely a substance we have ourselves invented to account\nfor our sensations. We see, we touch, we hear, we smell, and by a\nbrilliant synthetic effort of imagination we put together all those\nsensations and picture to ourselves \u201cmatter\u201d as being the source of\nthem. Science itself is now purging \u201cmatter\u201d of its complicated\nmetaphysical properties. That \u201cmatter,\u201d the nature of which Dr. Johnson,\nas Boswell tells us, thought he had settled by \u201cstriking his foot with\nmighty force against a large stone,\u201d is coming to be regarded as merely\nan electrical emanation. We now accept even that transmutation of the\nelements of which the alchemists dreamed. It is true that we still think\nof \u201cmatter\u201d as having weight. But so cautious a physicist as Sir Joseph\nThomson long ago pointed out that weight is only an \u201capparently\u201d\ninvariable property of matter. So that \u201cmatter\u201d becomes almost as\n\u201cethereal\u201d as \u201cspirit,\u201d and, indeed, scarcely distinguishable from\n\u201cspirit.\u201d The spontaneous affirmation of the mystic that he lives in the\nspiritual world here and now will then be, in other words, merely the\nsame affirmation which the man of science has more laboriously reached.\nThe man, therefore, who is terrified by \u201cmaterialism\u201d has reached the\nfinal outpost of absurdity. He is a simple-minded person who places his\nown hand before his eyes and cries out in horror: The Universe has\ndisappeared!\n\nWe have not only to realise how our own prepossessions and the\nmetaphysical figments of our own creation have obscured the simple\nrealities of religion and science alike; we have also to see that our\ntimid dread lest religion should kill our science, or science kill our\nreligion, is equally fatal here. He who would gain his life must be\nwilling to lose it, and it is by being honest to one\u2019s self and to the\nfacts by applying courageously the measuring rod of Truth, that in the\nend salvation is found. Here, it is true, there are those who smilingly\nassure us that by adopting such a method we shall merely put ourselves\nin the wrong and endure much unnecessary suffering. There is no such\nthing as \u201cTruth,\u201d they declare, regarded as an objective impersonal\nreality; we do not \u201cdiscover\u201d truth, we invent it. Therefore your\nbusiness is to invent a truth which shall harmoniously satisfy the needs\nof your nature and aid your efficiency in practical life. That we are\njustified in being dishonest towards truth has even been argued from the\ndoctrine of relativity by some who failed to realise that that doctrine\nis here hardly relative. Certainly the philosophers of recent times,\nfrom Nietzsche to Croce, have loved to analyse the idea of \u201ctruth\u201d and\nto show that it by no means signifies what we used to suppose it\nsignified. But to show that truth is fluid, or even the creation of the\nindividual mind, is by no means to show that we can at will play fast\nand loose with it to suit our own momentary convenience. If we do we\nmerely find ourselves, at the end, in a pool where we must tramp round\nand round in intellectual slush out of which there is no issue. One may\nwell doubt whether any Pragmatist has ever really invented his truth\nthat way. Practically, just as the best result is attained by the man\nwho acts as though free-will were a reality and who exerts it, so in\nthis matter, also, practically, in the end the best result is attained\nby assuming that truth is an objective reality which we must patiently\nseek, and in accordance with which we must discipline our own wayward\nimpulses. There is no transcendent objective truth, each one of us is an\nartist creating his own truth from the phenomena presented to him, but\nif in that creation he allows any alien emotional or practical\nconsiderations to influence him he is a bad artist and his work is\nwrought for destruction. From the pragmatic point of view, it may thus\nbe said that if the use of the measuring-rod of truth as an objective\nstandard produces the best practical results, that use is pragmatically\njustified. But if so, we are exactly in the same position as we were\nbefore the pragmatist arrived; we can get on as well without him, if not\nbetter, for we run the risk that he may confuse the issues for us. It is\nreally on the theoretic rather than the practical side that he is\nhelpful.\n\nIt is not only the Pragmatist whose well-meant efforts to find an easy\nreconciliation of belief and practice, and indirectly the concord of\nreligion and science, come to grief because he has not realised that the\nwalls of the spiritual world can only be scaled with much expenditure of\ntreasure, not without blood and sweat, that we cannot glide luxuriously\nto Heaven in his motor-car. We are also met by the old-fashioned\nIntuitionist.[87] It is no accident that the Intuitionist so often walks\nhand in hand with the Pragmatist; they are engaged in the same tasks.\nThere is, we have seen, the impulse of science which must work through\nintelligence; there is, also, the impulse of religion in the\nsatisfaction of which intelligence can only take a very humble place at\nthe antechamber of the sanctuary. To admit, therefore, that reason\ncannot extend into the religious sphere is absolutely sound so long as\nwe realise that reason has a coordinate right to lay down the rules in\nits own sphere of intelligence. But in men of a certain mental type the\ntwo tendencies are alike so deeply implanted that they cannot escape\nthem: they are not only impelled to go beyond intelligence, but they are\nalso impelled to carry intelligence with them outside its sphere. The\nsphere of intelligence is limited, they say, and rightly; the soul has\nother impulses besides that of intelligence and life needs more than\nknowledge for its complete satisfaction. But in the hands of these\npeople the faculty of \u201cintuition,\u201d which is to supplant that of\nintelligence, itself results in a product which by them is called\n\u201cknowledge,\u201d and so spuriously bears the hall-mark which belongs to the\nproduct of intelligence.\n\nBut the result is disastrous. Not only is an illegitimate confusion\nintroduced, but, by attributing to the impulse of religion a character\nwhich it is neither entitled to nor in need of, we merely discredit it\nin the eyes of intelligence. The philosopher of intuition, even in\ndenying intelligence, is apt to remain so predominantly intelligent\nthat, even in entering what is for him the sphere of religion, he still\nmoves in an atmosphere of rarefied intelligence. He is farther from the\nKingdom of Heaven than the simple man who is quite incapable of\nunderstanding the philosopher\u2019s theory, but yet may be able to follow\nhis own religious impulse without foisting into it an intellectual\ncontent. For even the simple man may be one with the great mystics who\nall declare that the unspeakable quality they have acquired, as Eckhart\nputs it, \u201chath no image.\u201d It is not in the sphere of intellection, it\nbrings no knowledge; it is the outcome of the natural instinct of the\nindividual soul.\n\nNo doubt there really are people in whom the instincts of religion and\nof science alike are developed in so rudimentary a degree, if developed\nat all, that they never become conscious. The religious instinct is not\nan essential instinct. Even the instinct of sex, which is much more\nfundamental than either of these, is not absolutely essential. A very\nlittle bundle of instincts and impulses is indispensable to a man on his\nway down the path of life to a peaceful and humble grave. A man\u2019s\nequipment of tendencies, on the lowest plane, needs to be more complex\nand diverse than an oyster\u2019s, yet not so very much more. The equipment\nof the higher animals, moreover, is needed less for the good of the\nindividual than for the good of the race. We cannot, therefore, be\nsurprised if the persons in whom the superfluous instincts are\nrudimentary fail to understand them, confusing them and overlaying them\nwith each other and with much that is outside both. The wonder would be\nif it were otherwise.\n\nWhen all deduction has been made of the mental and emotional confusions\nwhich have obscured men\u2019s vision, we cannot fail to conclude, it seems\nto me, that Science and Mysticism are nearer to each other than some\nwould have us believe. At the beginning of human cultures, far from\nbeing opposed, they may even be said to be identical. From time to time,\nin later ages, brilliant examples have appeared of men who have\npossessed both instincts in a high degree and have even fused the two\ntogether, while among the humble in spirit and the lowly in intellect it\nis probable that in all ages innumerable men have by instinct harmonised\ntheir religion with their intelligence. But as the accumulated\nexperiences of civilisation have been preserved and handed on from\ngeneration to generation, this free and vital play of the instincts has\nbeen largely paralysed. On each side fossilised traditions have\naccumulated so thickly, the garments of dead metaphysics have been\nwrapped so closely around every manifestation alike of the religious\ninstinct and the scientific instinct\u2014for even what we call \u201ccommon\nsense\u201d is really a hardened mass of dead metaphysics\u2014that not many\npersons can succeed in revealing one of these instincts in its naked\nbeauty, and very few can succeed in so revealing both instincts. Hence a\nperpetual antagonism. It may be, however, we are beginning to realise\nthat there are no metaphysical formulas to suit all men, but that every\nman must be the artist of his own philosophy. As we realise that, it\nbecomes easier than it was before to liberate ourselves from a dead\nmetaphysics, and so to give free play alike to the religious instinct\nand the scientific instinct. A man must not swallow more beliefs than he\ncan digest; no man can absorb all the traditions of the past; what he\nfills himself with will only be a poison to work to his own\nauto-intoxication.\n\nAlong all these lines we see more clearly than before the real harmony\nbetween Mysticism and Science. We see, also, that all arguments are\nmeaningless until we gain personal experience. One must win one\u2019s own\nplace in the spiritual world painfully and alone. There is no other way\nof salvation. The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a\nwilderness.\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nIT may seem that we have been harping overmuch on a single string of\nwhat is really a very rich instrument, when the whole exalted art of\nreligion is brought down to the argument of its relationship to science.\nThe core of religion is mysticism, it is admitted. And yet where are all\nthe great mystics? Why nothing of the Neo-Platonists in whom the whole\nmovement of modern mysticism began, of their glorious pupils in the\nMoslem world, of Ramon Lull and Francis of Assisi and Fran\u00e7ois Xavier\nand John of the Cross and George Fox and the \u201cDe Imitatione Christi\u201d and\n\u201cTowards Democracy\u201d? There is no end to that list of glorious names, and\nthey are all passed by.\n\nTo write of the mystics, whether Pagan or Christian or Islamic, is a\nmost delightful task. It has been done, and often very well done. The\nmystics are not only themselves an incarnation of beauty, but they\nreflect beauty on all who with understanding approach them.\n\nMoreover, in the phenomena of religious mysticism we have a key\u2014if we\nonly knew it\u2014to many of the most precious human things which on the\nsurface may seem to have nothing in them of religion. For this is an art\nwhich instinctively reveals to us the secrets of other arts. It presents\nto us in the most naked and essential way the inward experience which\nhas inspired men to find modes of expression which are transmutations of\nthe art of religion and yet have on the surface nothing to indicate that\nthis is so. It has often been seen in poetry and in music and in\npainting. One might say that it is scarcely possible to understand\ncompletely the poetry of Shelley or the music of C\u00e9sar Franck or the\npictures of Van Gogh unless there is somewhere within an intimation of\nthe secret of mysticism. This is so not because of any imperfection in\nthe achieved work of such men in poetry and in music and in\npainting,\u2014for work that fails to contain its own justification is always\nbad work,\u2014but because we shall not be in possession of the clue to\nexplain the existence of that work. We may even go beyond the sphere of\nthe recognised arts altogether, and say that the whole love of Nature\nand landscape, which in modern times has been so greatly developed,\nlargely through Rousseau, the chief creator of our modern spiritual\nworld, is not intelligible if we are altogether ignorant of what\nreligion means.\n\nBut we are not so much concerned here with the rich and variegated\ngarments the impulse of religion puts on, or with its possible\ntransmutations, as with the simple and naked shape of those impulses\nwhen bared of all garments. It was peculiarly important to present the\nimpulse of mysticism naked because, of all the fundamental human\nimpulses, that is the one most often so richly wrapped round with\ngorgeous and fantastic garments that, alike to the eye of the ordinary\nman and the acute philosopher, there has seemed to be no living thing\ninside at all. It was necessary to strip off all these garments, to\nappeal to simple personal direct experience for the actual core of fact,\nand to show that that core, so far from being soluble by analysis into\nwhat science counts as nothing, is itself, like every other natural\norganic function, a fact of science.\n\nIt is enough here, where we are concerned only with the primary stuff of\nart, the bare simple technique of the human dance, to have brought into\nas clear a light as may be the altogether natural mechanism which lies\nbehind all the most magnificent fantasies of the mystic impulse, and\nwould still subsist and operate even though they were all cast into the\nflames. That is why it has seemed necessary to dwell all the time on the\ndeep-lying harmony of the mystic\u2019s attitude with the scientific man\u2019s\nattitude. It is a harmony which rests on the faith that they are\neternally separate, however close, however intimately co\u00f6perative. When\nthe mystic professes that, as such, he has knowledge of the same order\nas the man of science, or when the scientist claims that, as such, he\nhas emotion which is like that of the man of religion, each of them\ndeceives himself. He has introduced a confusion where no confusion need\nbe; perhaps, indeed, he has even committed that sin against the Holy\nGhost of his own spiritual integrity for which there is no forgiveness.\nThe function of intellectual thought\u2014which is that of the art of\nscience\u2014may, certainly, be invaluable for religion; it makes possible\nthe purgation of all that pseudo-science, all that philosophy, good or\nbad, which has poisoned and encrusted the simple spontaneous impulse of\nmysticism in the open air of Nature and in the face of the sun. The man\nof science may be a mystic, but cannot be a true mystic unless he is so\nrelentless a man of science that he can tolerate no alien science in his\nmysticism. The mystic may be a man of science, but he will not be a good\nman of science unless he understands that science must be kept for ever\nbright and pure from all admixture of mystical emotion; the fountain of\nhis emotion must never rust the keenness of his analytic scalpel. It is\nuseless to pretend that any such rustiness can ever convert the scalpel\ninto a mystical implement, though it can be an admirable aid in cutting\ntowards the mystical core of things, and perhaps if there were more\nrelentless scientific men there would be more men of pure mystic vision.\nScience by itself, good or bad, can never be religion, any more than\nreligion by itself can ever be science, or even philosophy.\n\nIt is by looking back into the past that we see the facts in an\nessential simplicity less easy to reach in more sophisticated ages. We\nneed not again go so far back as the medicine-men of Africa and Siberia.\nMysticism in pagan antiquity, however less intimate to us and less\nseductive than that of later times, is perhaps better fitted to reveal\nto us its true nature. The Greeks believed in the spiritual value of\n\u201cconversion\u201d as devoutly as our Christian sects and they went beyond\nmost such sects in their elaborately systematic methods for obtaining\nit, no doubt for the most part as superficially as has been common among\nChristians. It is supposed that almost the whole population of Athens\nmust have experienced the Eleusinian initiation. These methods, as we\nknow, were embodied in the Mysteries associated with Dionysus and\nDemeter and Orpheus and the rest, the most famous and typical being\nthose of Attic Eleusis.[88] We too often see those ancient Greek\nMysteries through a concealing mist, partly because it was rightly felt\nthat matters of spiritual experience were not things to talk about, so\nthat precise information is lacking, partly because the early\nChristians, having their own very similar Mysteries to uphold, were\ncareful to speak evil of Pagan Mysteries, and partly because the Pagan\nMysteries no doubt really tended to degenerate with the general decay of\nclassic culture. But in their large simple essential outlines they seem\nto be fairly clear. For just as there was nothing \u201corgiastic\u201d in our\nsense in the Greek \u201corgies,\u201d which were simply ritual acts, so there was\nnothing, in our sense, \u201cmysterious\u201d in the Mysteries. We are not to\nsuppose, as is sometimes supposed, that their essence was a secret\ndoctrine, or even that the exhibition of a secret rite was the sole\nobject, although it came in as part of the method. A mystery meant a\nspiritual process of initiation, which was, indeed, necessarily a secret\nto those who had not yet experienced it, but had nothing in itself\n\u201cmysterious\u201d beyond what inheres to-day to the process in any Christian\n\u201crevival,\u201d which is the nearest analogue to the Greek Mystery. It is\nonly \u201cmysterious\u201d in the sense that it cannot be expressed, any more\nthan the sexual embrace can be expressed, in words, but can only be\nknown by experience. A preliminary process of purification, the\ninfluence of suggestion, a certain religious faith, a solemn and\ndramatic ritual carried out under the most impressive circumstances,\nhaving a real analogy to the Catholic\u2019s Mass, which also is a function,\nat once dramatic and sacred, which culminates in a spiritual communion\nwith the Divine\u2014all this may contribute to the end which was, as it\nalways must be in religion, simply a change of inner attitude, a sudden\nexalting realisation of a new relationship to eternal things. The\nphilosophers understood this; Aristotle was careful to point out, in an\nextant fragment, that what was gained in the Mysteries was not\ninstruction but impressions and emotions, and Plato had not hesitated to\nregard the illumination which came to the initiate in philosophy as of\nthe nature of that acquired in the Mysteries. So it was natural that\nwhen Christianity took the place of Paganism the same process went on\nwith only a change in external circumstances. Baptism in the early\nChurch\u2014before it sank to the mere magical sort of rite it later\nbecame\u2014was of the nature of initiation into a Mystery, preceded by\ncareful preparation, and the baptised initiate was sometimes crowned\nwith a garland as the initiated were at Eleusis.\n\nWhen we go out of Athens along the beautiful road that leads to the\nwretched village of Eleusis and linger among the vast and complicated\nruins of the chief shrine of mysticism in our Western world, rich in\nassociations that seem to stretch back to the Neolithic Age and suggest\na time when the mystery of the blossoming of the soul was one with the\nmystery of the upspringing of the corn, it may be that our thoughts by\nno unnatural transition pass from the myth of Demeter and Kore to the\nremembrance of what we may have heard or know of the manifestations of\nthe spirit among barbarian northerners of other faiths or of no faith in\nfar Britain and America and even of their meetings of so-called\n\u201crevival.\u201d For it is always the same thing that Man is doing, however\nvarious and fantastic the disguises he adopts. And sometimes the\nrevelation of the new life, springing up from within, comes amid the\ncrowd in the feverish atmosphere of artificial shrines, maybe soon to\nshrivel up, and sometimes the blossoming forth takes place, perhaps more\nfavourably, in the open air and under the light of the sun and amid the\nflowers, as it were to a happy faun among the hills. But when all\ndisguises have been stripped away, it is always and everywhere the same\nsimple process, a spiritual function which is almost a physiological\nfunction, an art which Nature makes. That is all.\n\nFootnote 70:\n\n  It is scarcely necessary to remark that if we choose to give to\n  \u201cmysticism\u201d a definition incompatible with \u201cscience,\u201d the opposition\n  cannot be removed. This is, for example, done by Croce, who yet\n  recognises as highly important a process of \u201cconversion\u201d which is\n  nothing else but mysticism as here understood. (See, e.g., Piccoli,\n  _Benedetto Croce_, p. 184.) Only he has left himself no name to apply\n  to it.\n\nFootnote 71:\n\n  \u201cThe endeavour of the human mind to enjoy the blessedness of actual\n  communion with the highest,\u201d which is Pringle Pattison\u2019s widely\n  accepted definition of mysticism, I prefer not to use because it is\n  ambiguous. The \u201cendeavour,\u201d while it indicates that we are concerned\n  with an art, also suggests its strained pathological forms, while\n  \u201cactual communion\u201d lends itself to ontological interpretations.\n\nFootnote 72:\n\n  _The Threshold of Religion_ (1914), p. 48.\n\nFootnote 73:\n\n  _Zentralblatt f\u00fcr Psychoanalyse_ (1911), p. 272.\n\nFootnote 74:\n\n  _Golden Bough_, \u201cBalder the Beautiful,\u201d vol. II, pp. 304-05.\n\nFootnote 75:\n\n  Farnell even asserts (in his _Greek Hero Cults_) that \u201cit is\n  impossible to quote a single example of any one of the higher\n  world-religions working in harmony with the development of physical\n  science.\u201d He finds a \u201cspecial and unique\u201d exception in the cult of\n  Asclepios at Cos and Epidauros and Pergamon, where, after the fourth\n  century B.C., were physicians, practising a rational medical science,\n  who were also official priests of the Asclepios temples.\n\nFootnote 76:\n\n  Sir Oliver Lodge, _Reason and Belief_, p. 19.\n\nFootnote 77:\n\n  It is scarcely necessary to point out that a differentiation of\n  function has to be made sooner or later, and sometimes it is made\n  soon. This was so among the Todas of India. \u201cCertain Todas,\u201d says Dr.\n  Rivers (_The Todas_, 1906, p. 249), \u201chave the power of divination,\n  others are sorcerers, and others again have the power of curing\n  diseases by means of spells and rites, while all three functions are\n  quite separate from those of the priest or sharman. The Todas have\n  advanced some way towards civilisation of function in this respect,\n  and have as separate members of the community their prophets, their\n  magicians, and their medicine-men in addition to their priests.\u201d\n\nFootnote 78:\n\n  Jo\u00ebl, _Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Romantik_\n  (1903); _Nietzsche und die Romantik_ (1905). But I am here quoting\n  from Professor Jo\u00ebl\u2019s account of his own philosophical development in\n  _Die Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart_, vol. I (1921).\n\nFootnote 79:\n\n  In connection with this scheme, it may be interesting to note, I\n  prepared, in 1879, a _questionnaire_ on \u201cconversion,\u201d on the lines of\n  the investigations which some years later began to be so fruitfully\n  carried out by the psychologists of religion in America.\n\nFootnote 80:\n\n  It must be remembered that for science the mechanistic assumption\n  always remains; it is, as Vaihinger would say, a necessary fiction. To\n  abandon it is to abandon science. Driesch, the most prominent vitalist\n  of our time, has realised this, and in his account of his own mental\n  development (_Die Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart_, vol. I, 1921)\n  he shows how, beginning as a pupil of Haeckel and working at zo\u00f6logy\n  for many years, after adopting the theory of vitalism he abandoned all\n  zo\u00f6logical work and became a professor of philosophy. When the\n  religious spectator, or the \u00e6sthetic spectator (as is well illustrated\n  in the French review _L\u2019Esprit Nouveau_), sees the \u201cmachinery\u201d as\n  something else than machinery he is legitimately going outside the\n  sphere of science, but he is not thereby destroying the basic\n  assumption of science.\n\nFootnote 81:\n\n  Long ago Edith Simcox (in a passage of her _Natural Law_ which chanced\n  to strike my attention very soon after the episode above narrated)\n  well described \u201cconversion\u201d as a \u201cspiritual revolution,\u201d not based on\n  any single rational consideration, but due to the \u201ccumulative evidence\n  of cognate impressions\u201d resulting, at a particular moment, not in a\n  change of belief, but in a total rearrangement and recolouring of\n  beliefs and impressions, with the supreme result that the order of the\n  universe is apprehended no longer as hostile, but as friendly. This is\n  the fundamental fact of \u201cconversion,\u201d which is the gate of mysticism.\n\nFootnote 82:\n\n  How we are to analyse the conception of \u201cuniverse\u201d\u2014apart from its\n  personal emotional tone, which is what mainly concerns us\u2014is, of\n  course, a matter that must be left altogether open and free. Sir James\n  Frazer at the end of his _Golden Bough_ (\u201cBalder the Beautiful,\u201d vol.\n  II, p. 306) finds that the \u201cuniverse\u201d is an \u201cever-shifting\n  phantasmagoria of thought,\u201d or, he adds, suddenly shifting to a less\n  idealistic and more realistic standpoint, \u201cshadows on the screen.\u201d\n  That is a literary artist\u2019s metaphysical way of describing the matter\n  and could not occur to any one who was not familiar with the magic\n  lantern which has now developed into the cinema, beloved of\n  philosophers for its symbolic significance. Mr. Bertrand Russell, a\n  more abstract artist, who would reject any such \u201cimaginative\n  admixture\u201d as he would find in Frazer\u2019s view, once severely refused to\n  recognise any such thing as a \u201cuniverse,\u201d but has since less austerely\n  admitted that there is, after all, a \u201cset of appearances,\u201d which may\n  fairly be labelled \u201creality,\u201d so long as we do not assume \u201ca\n  mysterious Thing-in-Itself behind the appearances.\u201d (_Nation_, 6th\n  January, 1923.) But there are always some people who think that an\n  \u201cappearance\u201d must be an appearance of _Something_, and that when a\n  \u201cshadow\u201d is cast on the screen of our sensory apparatus it must be\n  cast by _Something_. So every one defines the \u201cuniverse\u201d in his own\n  way, and no two people\u2014not even the same person long\u2014can define it in\n  the same way. We have to recognise that even the humblest of us is\n  entitled to his own \u201cuniverse.\u201d\n\nFootnote 83:\n\n  The simple and essential outlines of \u201cconversion\u201d have been obscured\n  because chiefly studied in the Churches among people whose\n  prepossessions and superstitions have rendered it a highly complex\n  process, and mixed up with questions of right and wrong living which,\n  important as they are, properly form no part of religion. The man who\n  waits to lead a decent life until he has \u201csaved his soul\u201d is not\n  likely to possess a soul that is worth saving. How much ignorance\n  prevails in regard to \u201cconversion,\u201d even among the leaders of\n  religious opinion, and what violent contrasts of opinion\u2014in which\n  sometimes both the opposing parties are mistaken\u2014was well illustrated\n  by a discussion on the subject at the Church Congress at Sheffield in\n  1922. A distinguished Churchman well defined \u201cconversion\u201d as a\n  unification of character, involving the whole man,\u2014will, intellect,\n  and emotion,\u2014by which a \u201cnew self\u201d was achieved; but he also thought\n  that this great revolutionary process consisted usually in giving up\n  some \u201cdefinite bad habit,\u201d very much doubted whether sudden conversion\n  was a normal phenomenon at all, and made no attempt to distinguish\n  between that kind of \u201cconversion\u201d which is merely the result of\n  suggestion and auto-suggestion, after a kind of hysterical attack\n  produced by feverish emotional appeals, and that which is spontaneous\n  and of lifelong effect. Another speaker went to the opposite extreme\n  by asserting that \u201cconversion\u201d is an absolutely necessary process, and\n  an Archbishop finally swept away \u201cconversion\u201d altogether by declaring\n  that the whole of the religious life (and the whole of the irreligious\n  life?) is a process of conversion. (_The Times_, 12th October, 1922.)\n  It may be a satisfaction to some to realise that this is a matter on\n  which it is vain to go to the Churches for light.\n\nFootnote 84:\n\n  Dean Inge (_Philosophy of Plotinus_, vol. II, p. 165) has some remarks\n  on Plotinus in relation to asceticism.\n\nFootnote 85:\n\n  Jules de Gaultier (_La Philosophie officielle et la Philosophie_, p.\n  150) refers to those Buddhist monks the symbol of whose faith was\n  contained in one syllable: _Om_. But those monks, he adds, belonged to\n  \u201cthe only philosophic race that ever existed\u201d and by the aid of their\n  pure faith, placed on a foundation which no argumentation can upset,\n  all the religious philosophies of the Judeo-Helleno-Christian\n  tradition are but as fairy-tales told to children.\n\nFootnote 86:\n\n  We must always remember that \u201cChurch\u201d and \u201creligion,\u201d though often\n  confused, are far from being interchangeable terms. \u201cReligion\u201d is a\n  natural impulse, \u201cChurch\u201d is a social institution. The confusion is\n  unfortunate. Thus Freud (_Group Psychology_, p. 51) speaks of the\n  probability of religion disappearing and Socialism taking its place.\n  He means not \u201creligion,\u201d but a \u201cChurch.\u201d We cannot speak of a natural\n  impulse disappearing, an institution easily may.\n\nFootnote 87:\n\n  It must be remembered that \u201cintuition\u201d is a word with all sorts of\n  philosophical meanings, in addition to its psychological meanings\n  (which were studied some years ago by Dearborn in the _Psychological\n  Review_). For the ancient philosophic writers, from the Neo-Platonists\n  on, it was usually a sort of special organ for coming in contact with\n  supernatural realities; for Bergson it is at once a method superior to\n  the intellect for obtaining knowledge and a method of \u00e6sthetic\n  contemplation; for Croce it is solely \u00e6sthetic, and art is at once\n  \u201cintuition\u201d and \u201cexpression\u201d (by which he means the formation of\n  internal images). For Croce, when the mind \u201cintuits\u201d by \u201cexpressing,\u201d\n  the result is art. There is no \u201creligion\u201d for Croce except philosophy.\n\nFootnote 88:\n\n  The modern literature of the Mysteries, especially of Eleusis, is very\n  extensive and elaborate in many languages. I will only mention here a\n  small and not very recent book, Cheetham\u2019s Hulsean Lectures on _The\n  Mysteries Pagan and Christian_ (1897) as for ordinary readers\n  sufficiently indicating the general significance of the Mysteries.\n  There is, yet briefer, a more modern discussion of the matter in the\n  Chapter on \u201cReligion\u201d by Dr. W. R. Inge in R. W. Livingstone\u2019s useful\n  collection of essays, _The Legacy of Greece_ (1921).\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n                           THE ART OF MORALS\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nNO man has ever counted the books that have been written about morals.\nNo subject seems so fascinating to the human mind. It may well be,\nindeed, that nothing imports us so much as to know how to live. Yet it\ncan scarcely be that on any subject are the books that have been written\nmore unprofitable, one might even say unnecessary.\n\nFor when we look at the matter objectively it is, after all, fairly\nsimple. If we turn our attention to any collective community, at any\ntime and place, in its moral aspect, we may regard it as an army on the\nmarch along a road of life more or less encompassed by danger. That,\nindeed, is scarcely a metaphor; that is what life, viewed in its moral\naspect, may really be considered. When thus considered, we see that it\nconsists of an extremely small advance guard in front, formed of persons\nwith a limited freedom of moral action and able to act as patrols in\nvarious directions, of a larger body in the rear, in ancient military\nlanguage called the blackguard and not without its uses, and in the main\nof a great compact majority with which we must always be chiefly\nconcerned since they really are the army; they are the community. What\nwe call \u201cmorals\u201d is simply blind obedience to words of command\u2014whether\nor not issued by leaders the army believes it has itself chosen\u2014of which\nthe significance is hidden, and beyond this the duty of keeping in step\nwith the others, or of trying to keep in step, or of pretending to do\nso.[89] It is an automatic, almost unconscious process and only becomes\nacutely conscious when the individual is hopelessly out of step; then he\nmay be relegated to the rear blackguard. But that happens seldom. So\nthere is little need to be concerned about it. Even if it happened very\noften, nothing overwhelming would have taken place; it would merely be\nthat what we called the blackguard had now become the main army, though\nwith a different discipline. We are, indeed, simply concerned with a\ndiscipline or routine which in this field is properly described as\n_custom_, and the word _morals_ essentially means _custom_. That is what\nmorals must always be for the mass, and, indeed, to some extent for all,\na discipline, and, as we have already seen, a discipline cannot properly\nbe regarded as a science or an art. The innumerable books on morals,\nsince they have usually confused and befogged this simple and central\nfact, cannot fail to be rather unprofitable. That, it would seem, is\nwhat the writers thought\u2014at all events about those the others had\nwritten\u2014or else they would not have considered it necessary for\nthemselves to add to the number. It was not only an unprofitable task,\nit was also\u2014except in so far as an objectively scientific attitude has\nbeen assumed\u2014aimless. For, although the morals of a community at one\ntime and place is never the same as that of another or even the same\ncommunity at another time and place, it is a complex web of conditions\nthat produces the difference, and it must have been evident that to\nattempt to affect it was idle.[90] There is no occasion for any one who\nis told that he has written a \u201cmoral\u201d book to be unduly elated, or when\nhe is told that his book is \u201cimmoral\u201d to be unduly cast down. The\nsignificance of these adjectives is strictly limited. Neither the one\nbook nor the other can have more than the faintest effect on the march\nof the great compact majority of the social army.\n\nYet, while all this is so, there is still some interest in the question\nof morals. For, after all, there is the small body of individuals ahead,\nalertly eager to find the road, with a sensitive flair for all the\npossibilities the future may hold. When the compact majority, blind and\nautomatic and unconscious, follows after, to tramp along the road these\npioneers have discovered, it may seem but a dull road. But before they\nreached it that road was interesting, even passionately interesting.\n\nThe reason is that, for those who, in any age, are thus situated, life\nis not merely a discipline. It is, or it may become, really an art.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nTHAT living is or may be an art, and the moralist the critic of that\nart, is a very ancient belief. It was especially widespread among the\nGreeks. To the Greeks, indeed, this belief was so ingrained and\ninstinctive that it became an implicitly assumed attitude rather than a\ndefinitely expressed faith. It was natural to them to speak of a\nvirtuous person as we should speak of a beautiful person. The \u201cgood\u201d was\nthe \u201cbeautiful\u201d; the sphere of ethics for the Greeks was not\ndistinguished from the sphere of \u00e6sthetics. In Sophocles, above all\npoets, we gather the idea of a natural agreement between duty and\ninclination which is at once both beauty and moral order. But it is the\nbeautiful that seems to be most fundamental in \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u1f78\u03bd, which was the\nnoble, the honourable, but fundamentally the beautiful. \u201cBeauty is the\nfirst of all things,\u201d said Isocrates, the famous orator; \u201cnothing that\nis devoid of beauty is prized.... The admiration for virtue comes to\nthis, that of all manifestation of life, virtue is the most beautiful.\u201d\nThe supremely beautiful was, for the finer sort of Greeks, instinctively\nif not always consciously, the supremely divine, and the Argive Hera, it\nhas been said, \u201chas more divinity in her countenance than any Madonna of\nthem all.\u201d That is how it came to pass that we have no word in our\nspeech to apply to the Greek conception; \u00e6sthetics for us is apart from\nall the serious business of life, and the attempt to introduce it there\nseems merely comic. But the Greeks spoke of life itself as a craft or a\nfine art. Protagoras, who appears to-day as a pioneer of modern science,\nwas yet mainly concerned to regard living as an art, or as the sum of\nmany crafts, and the Platonic Socrates, his opponent, still always\nassumed that the moralist\u2019s position is that of a critic of a craft. So\ninfluential a moralist as Aristotle remarks in a matter-of-fact way, in\nhis \u201cPoetics,\u201d that if we wish to ascertain whether an act is, or is\nnot, morally right we must consider not merely the intrinsic quality of\nthe act, but the person who does it, the person to whom it is done, the\ntime, the means, the motive. Such an attitude towards life puts out of\ncourt any appeal to rigid moral laws; it meant that an act must befit\nits particular relationships at a particular moment, and that its moral\nvalue could, therefore, only be judged by the standard of the\nspectator\u2019s instinctive feeling for proportion and harmony. That is the\nattitude we adopt towards a work of art.\n\nIt may well appear strange to those who cherish the modern idea of\n\u201c\u00e6stheticism\u201d that the most complete statement of the Greek attitude has\ncome down to us in the writings of a philosopher, an Alexandrian Greek\nwho lived and taught in Rome in the third century of our Christian Era,\nwhen the Greek world had vanished, a religious mystic, moreover, whose\nlife and teaching were penetrated by an austere ascetic severity which\nsome would count medi\u00e6val rather than Greek.[91] It is in Plotinus, a\nthinker whose inspiring influence still lives to-day, that we probably\nfind the Greek attitude, in its loftiest aspect, best mirrored, and it\nwas probably through channels that came from Plotinus\u2014though their\nsource was usually unrecognised\u2014that the Greek moral spirit has chiefly\nreached modern times. Many great thinkers and moralists of the\neighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has been claimed, were\nultimately indebted to Plotinus, who represented the only genuinely\ncreative effort of the Greek spirit in the third century.[92]\n\nPlotinus seems to have had little interest in art, as commonly\nunderstood, and he was an impatient, rapid, and disorderly writer, not\neven troubling to spell correctly. All his art was in the spiritual\nsphere. It is impossible to separate \u00e6sthetics, as he understood it,\nfrom ethics and religion. In the beautiful discourse on Beauty, which\nforms one of the chapters of his first \u201cEnnead,\u201d it is mainly with\nspiritual beauty that he is concerned. But he insists that it _is_\nbeauty, beauty of the same quality as that of the physical world, which\ninheres in goodness, \u201cnor may those tell of the splendour of Virtue who\nhave never known the face of Justice and of Wisdom beautiful beyond the\nbeauty of Evening and of Dawn.\u201d It is a beauty, he further\nstates,\u2014though here he seems to be passing out of the purely \u00e6sthetic\nsphere,\u2014that arouses emotions of love. \u201cThis is the spirit that Beauty\nmust ever induce, wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love,\nand a trembling that is also delight. For the unseen all this may be\nfelt as for the seen, and this souls feel for it, every soul in some\ndegree, but those the more deeply who are the more truly apt to this\nhigher love\u2014just as all take delight in the beauty of the body, but all\nare not strung as sharply, and those only that feel the keener wound are\nknown as Lovers.\u201d Goodness and Truth were on the same plane for Plotinus\nas Beauty. It may even be said that Beauty was the most fundamental of\nall, to be identified ultimately as the Absolute, as Reality itself. So\nit was natural that in the sphere of morals he should speak\nindifferently either of \u201cextirpating evil and implanting goodness\u201d or of\n\u201cintroducing order and beauty to replace goodness\u201d\u2014in either case \u201cwe\ntalk of real things.\u201d \u201cVirtue is a natural concordance among the\nphenomena of the soul, vice a discord.\u201d But Plotinus definitely rejects\nthe notion that beauty is only symmetry, and so he avoids the narrow\nconception of some more modern \u00e6sthetic moralists, notably Hutcheson.\nHow, then, he asks, could the sun be beautiful, or gold, or light, or\nnight, or the stars? \u201cBeauty is something more than symmetry, and\nsymmetry owes its beauty to a remoter principle\u201d\u2014its affinity, in the\nopinion of Plotinus, with the \u201cIdeal Form,\u201d immediately recognised and\nconfirmed by the soul.\n\nIt may seem to some that Plotinus reduces to absurdity the conception of\nmorality as \u00e6sthetics, and it may well be that the Greeks of the great\nperiod were wiser when they left the nature of morals less explicit. Yet\nPlotinus had in him the root of the matter. He had risen to the\nconception that the moral life of the soul is a dance; \u201cConsider the\nperformers in a choral dance: they sing together, though each one has\nhis own particular part, and sometimes one voice is heard while the\nothers are silent; and each brings to the chorus something of his own;\nit is not enough that all lift their voices together; each must sing,\nchoicely, his own part in the music set for him. So it is with the\nSoul.\u201d[93] The Hellenic extension of the \u00e6sthetic emotion, as Benn\npointed out, involved no weakening of the moral fibre. That is so, we\nsee, and even emphatically so, when it becomes definitely explicit as in\nPlotinus, and revolutionarily hostile to all those ideals of the moral\nlife which most people have been accustomed to consider modern.\n\nAs usually among the Greeks, it is only implicitly, also, that we detect\nthis attitude among the Romans, the pupils of the Greeks. For the most\npart, the Romans, whose impulses of art were very limited, whose\npractical mind craved precision and definition, proved rebellious to the\nidea that living is an art; yet it may well be that they still retained\nthat idea at the core of their morality. It is interesting to note that\nSt. Augustine, who stood on the threshold between the old Roman and new\nChristian worlds was able to write: \u201cThe art of living well and rightly\nis the definition that the ancients give of \u2018virtue.\u2019\u201d For the Latins\nbelieved that _ars_ was derived from the Greek word for virtue,\n\u1f00\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03ae.[94] Yet there really remained a difference between the Greek and\nthe Roman views of morals. The Greek view, it is universally admitted,\nwas \u00e6sthetic, in the most definite sense; the Roman was not, and when\nCicero wishes to translate a Greek reference to a \u201cbeautiful\u201d action it\nbecomes an \u201chonourable\u201d action. The Greek was concerned with what he\nhimself felt about his actions; the Roman was concerned with what they\nwould look like to other people, and the credit, or discredit, that\nwould be reflected back on himself.\n\nThe Hebrews never even dreamed of such an art. Their attitude is\nsufficiently embodied in the story of Moses and that visit to Sinai\nwhich resulted in the production of the table of Ten Commandments which\nwe may still see inscribed in old churches. For even our modern feeling\nabout morals is largely Jewish, in some measure Roman, and scarcely\nGreek at all. We still accept, in theory at all events, the Mosaic\nconception of morality as a code of rigid and inflexible rules,\narbitrarily ordained, and to be blindly obeyed.\n\nThe conception of morality as an art, which Christendom once disdained,\nseems now again to be finding favour in men\u2019s eyes. The path has been\nmade smooth for it by great thinkers of various complexion, who,\ndiffering in many fundamental points, all alike assert the relativity of\ntruth and the inaptitude of rigid maxims to serve as guiding forces in\nlife. They also assert, for a large part, implicitly or explicitly, the\nauthority of art.\n\nThe nineteenth century was usually inspired by the maxims of Kant, and\nlifted its hat reverently when it heard Kant declaiming his famous\nsayings concerning the supremacy of an inflexible moral law. Kant had,\nindeed, felt the stream of influence which flowed from Shaftesbury, and\nhe sought to mix up \u00e6sthetics with his system. But he had nothing of the\ngenuine artist\u2019s spirit. The art of morals was to him a set of maxims,\ncold, rigid, precise. A sympathetic biographer has said of him that the\nmaxims were the man. They are sometimes fine maxims. But as guides, as\nmotives to practical action in the world? The maxims of the\nvaletudinarian professor at K\u00f6nigsberg scarcely seem that to us to-day.\nStill less can we harmonise maxims with art. Nor do we any longer\nsuppose that we are impertinent in referring to the philosopher\u2019s\npersonality. In the investigation of the solar spectrum personality may\ncount for little; in the investigation of moral laws it counts for much.\nFor personality is the very stuff of morals. The moral maxims of an\nelderly professor in a provincial university town have their interest.\nBut so have those of a Casanova. And the moral maxims of a Goethe may\npossibly have more interest than either. There is the rigid categorical\nimperative of Kant; and there is also that other dictum, less rigid but\nmore reminiscent of Greece, which some well-inspired person has put into\nthe mouth of Walt Whitman: \u201cWhatever tastes sweet to the most perfect\nperson, that is finally right.\u201d\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nFUNDAMENTALLY considered, there are two roads by which we may travel\ntowards the moral ends of life: the road of Tradition, which is\nultimately that of Instinct, pursued by the many, and the road of what\nseems to be Reason\u2014sought out by the few. And in the end these two roads\nare but the same road, for reason also is an instinct. It is true that\nthe ingenuity of analytic investigators like Henry Sidgwick has\nsucceeded in enumerating various \u201cmethods of ethics.\u201d But, roughly\nspeaking, there can only be these two main roads of life, and only one\nhas proved supremely important. It has been by following the path of\ntradition moulded by instinct that man reached the threshold of\ncivilisation: whatever may have been the benefits he derived from the\nguidance of reason he never consciously allowed reason to control his\nmoral life. Tables of commandments have ever been \u201cgiven by God\u201d; they\nrepresented, that is to say, obscure impulses of the organism striving\nto respond to practical needs. No one dreamed of commending them by\ndeclaring that they were reasonable.\n\nIt is clear how Instinct and Tradition, thus working together, act\nvitally and beneficently in moulding the moral life of primitive\npeoples. The \u201cdivine command\u201d was always a command conditioned by the\nspecial circumstance under which the tribe lived. That is so even when\nthe moral law is to our civilised eyes \u201cunnatural.\u201d The infanticide of\nPolynesian islanders, where the means of subsistence and the\npossibilities of expansion were limited, was obviously a necessary\nmeasure, beneficent and humane in its effects. The killing of the aged\namong the migrant Eskimos was equally a necessary and kindly measure,\nrecognised as such by the victims themselves, when it was essential that\nevery member of the community should be able to help himself. Primitive\nrules of moral action, greatly as they differ among themselves, are all\nmore or less advantageous and helpful on the road of primitive life. It\nis true that they allow very little, if any, scope for divergent\nindividual moral action, but that, too, was advantageous.\n\nBut that, also, is the rock on which an instinctive traditional morality\nmust strike as civilisation is approached. The tribe has no longer the\nsame unity. Social differentiation has tended to make the family a unit,\nand psychic differentiation to make even the separate individuals units.\nThe community of interests of the whole tribe has been broken up, and\ntherewith traditional morality has lost alike its value and its power.\n\nThe development of abstract intelligence, which coincides with\ncivilisation, works in the same direction. Reason is, indeed, on one\nside an integrating force, for it shows that the assumption of\ntraditional morality\u2014the identity of the individual\u2019s interests with the\ninterests of the community\u2014is soundly based. But it is also a\ndisintegrating force. For if it reveals a general unity in the ends of\nliving, it devises infinitely various and perplexingly distracting\nexcuses for living. Before the active invasion of reason living had been\nan art, or at all events a discipline, highly conventionalised and even\nritualistic, but the motive forces of living lay in life itself and had\nall the binding sanction of instincts; the penalty of every failure in\nliving, it was felt, would be swiftly and automatically experienced. To\napply reason here was to introduce a powerful solvent into morals.\nObjectively it made morality clearer but subjectively it destroyed the\nexisting motives for morality; it deprived man, to use the fashionable\nphraseology of the present day, of a vital illusion.\n\nThus we have morality in the fundamental sense, the actual practices of\nthe main army of the population, while in front a variegated procession\nof prancing philosophers gaily flaunt their moral theories before the\nworld. Kant, whose personal moral problems were concerned with eating\nsweetmeats,[95] and other philosophers of varyingly inferior calibre,\nwere regarded as the lawgivers of morality, though they carried little\nenough weight with the world at large.\n\nThus it comes about that abstract moral speculations, culminating in\nrigid maxims, are necessarily sterile and vain. They move in the sphere\nof reason, and that is the sphere of comprehension, but not of vital\naction. In this way there arises a moral dualism in civilised man.\nObjectively he has become like the gods and able to distinguish the ends\nof life; he has eaten of the fruit of the tree and has knowledge of good\nand evil. Subjectively he is still not far removed from the savage,\noftenest stirred to action by a confused web of emotional motives, among\nwhich the interwoven strands of civilised reason are as likely to\nproduce discord or paralysis as to furnish efficient guides, a state of\nmind first, and perhaps best, set forth in its extreme form by\nShakespeare in Hamlet. On the one hand he cannot return to the primitive\nstate in which all the motives for living flowed harmoniously in the\nsame channel; he cannot divest himself of his illuminating reason; he\ncannot recede from his hardly acquired personal individuality. On the\nother hand he can never expect, he can never even reasonably hope, that\nreason will ever hold in leash the emotions. It is clear that along\nneither path separately can the civilised man pursue his way in\nharmonious balance with himself. We begin to realise that what we need\nis not a code of beautifully cut-and-dried maxims\u2014whether emanating from\nsacred mountains or from philosophers\u2019 studies\u2014but a happy combination\nof two different ways of living. We need, that is, a traditional and\ninstinctive way of living, based on real motor instincts, which will\nblend with reason and the manifold needs of personality, instead of\nbeing destroyed by their solvent actions, as rigid rules inevitably are.\nOur only valid rule is a creative impulse that is one with the\nilluminative power of intelligence.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nAT the beginning of the eighteenth century, the seed-time of our modern\nideas, as it has so often seemed to be, the English people, having in\nart at length brought their language to a fine degree of clarity and\nprecision, and having just passed through a highly stimulating period of\ndominant Puritanism in life, became much interested in philosophy,\npsychology, and ethics. Their interest was, indeed, often superficial\nand amateurish, though they were soon to produce some of the most\nnotable figures in the whole history of thought. The third Earl of\nShaftesbury, one of the earliest of the group, himself illustrated this\nunsystematic method of thinking. He was an amateur, an aristocratic\namateur, careless of consistency, and not by any means concerned to\nerect a philosophic system. Not that he was a worse thinker on that\naccount. The world\u2019s greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; for\nhigh thinking is the outcome of fine and independent living, and for\nthat a professorial chair offers no special opportunities. Shaftesbury\nwas, moreover, a man of fragile physical constitution, as Kant was; but,\nunlike Kant, he was not a childish hypochondriac in seclusion, but a man\nin the world, heroically seeking to live a complete and harmonious life.\nBy temperament he was a Stoic, and he wrote a characteristic book of\n\u201cExercises,\u201d as he proposed to call what his modern editor calls the\n\u201cPhilosophical Regimen,\u201d in which he consciously seeks to discipline\nhimself in fine thinking and right living, plainly acknowledging that he\nis the disciple of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. But Shaftesbury was\nalso a man of genius, and as such it was his good fortune to throw\nafresh into the stream of thought a fruitful conception, in part\nabsorbed, indeed, from Greece, and long implicit in men\u2019s minds, but\nnever before made clearly recognisable as a moral theory and an ethical\ntemper, susceptible of being labelled by the philosophic historian, as\nit since has been under the name, passable no doubt as any other, of\n\u201c\u00c6sthetic Intuitionism.\u201d\n\nGreek morality, it has been well said, is not a conflict of light and\ndarkness, of good and evil, the clear choice between the broad road that\nleads to destruction and the narrow path of salvation: it is \u201can\nartistic balance of light and shade.\u201d Gizycki, remarking that\nShaftesbury has more affinity to the Greeks than perhaps any other\nmodern moralist, says that \u201cthe key lay not only in his head, but in his\nheart, for like can only be recognised by like.\u201d[96] We have to remember\nat the same time that Shaftesbury was really something of a classical\nscholar, even from childhood. Born in 1671, the grandson of the foremost\nEnglish statesman of his time, the first Earl, Anthony Cooper, he had\nthe advantage of the wise oversight of his grandfather, who placed with\nhim as a companion in childhood a lady who knew both Greek and Latin so\nwell that she could converse fluently in both languages. So it was that\nby the age of eleven he was familiar with the two classic tongues and\nliteratures. That doubtless was also a key to his intimate feeling for\nthe classic spirit, though it would not have sufficed without a native\naffinity. He became the pupil of Locke, and at fifteen he went to Italy,\nto spend a considerable time there. He knew France also, and the French\ntongue, so well that he was often taken for a native. He lived for some\ntime in Holland, and there formed a friendship with Bayle, which began\nbefore the latter was aware of his friend\u2019s rank and lasted till Bayle\u2019s\ndeath. In Holland he may have been slightly influenced by Grotius.[97]\nShaftesbury was not of robust constitution; he suffered from asthma, and\nhis health was further affected by his zeal in public affairs as well as\nhis enthusiasm in study, for his morality was not that of a recluse, but\nof a man who played an active part in life, not only in social\nbenevolence, like his descendant the enlightened philanthropic Earl of\nthe nineteenth century, but in the establishment of civil freedom and\ntoleration. Locke wrote of his pupil (who was not, however, in agreement\nwith his tutor\u2019s philosophic standpoint,[98] though he always treated\nhim with consideration) that \u201cthe sword was too sharp for the scabbard.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe seems,\u201d wrote of Shaftesbury his unfriendly contemporary Mandeville,\n\u201cto require and expect goodness in his species as we do a sweet taste in\ngrapes and China oranges, of which, if any of them are sour, we boldly\npronounce that they are not come to that perfection their nature is\ncapable of.\u201d In a certain sense this was correct. Shaftesbury, it has\nbeen said, was the father of that new ethics which recognises that\nNature is not a mere impulse of self-preservation, as Hobbes thought,\nbut also a racial impulse, having regard to others; there are social\ninclinations in the individual, he realised, that go beyond individual\nends. (Referring to the famous dictum of Hobbes, _Homo homini lupus_, he\nobserves: \u201cTo say in disparagement of Man \u2018that he is to Man a wolf\u2019\nappears somewhat absurd when one considers that wolves are to wolves\nvery kind and loving creatures.\u201d) Therewith \u201cgoodness\u201d was seen,\nvirtually for the first time in the modern period, to be as \u201cnatural\u201d as\nthe sweetness of ripe fruit.\n\nThere was another reason, a fundamental physiological and psychological\nreason, why \u201cgoodness\u201d of actions and the \u201csweetness\u201d of fruits are\nequally natural, a reason that would, no doubt, have been found strange\nboth by Mandeville and Shaftesbury. Morality, Shaftesbury describes as\n\u201cthe taste of beauty and the relish of what is decent,\u201d and the \u201csense\nof beauty\u201d is ultimately the same as the \u201cmoral sense.\u201d \u201cMy first\nendeavour,\u201d wrote Shaftesbury, \u201cmust be to distinguish the true taste of\nfruits, refine my palate, and establish a just relish in the kind.\u201d He\nthought, evidently, that he was merely using a metaphor. But he was\nspeaking essentially in the direct, straightforward way of natural and\nprimitive Man. At the foundation, \u201csweetness\u201d and \u201cgoodness\u201d are the\nsame thing. That can still be detected in the very structure of\nlanguage, not only of primitive languages, but those of the most\ncivilised peoples. That morality is, in the strict sense, a matter of\ntaste, of \u00e6sthetics, of what the Greeks called \u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, is conclusively\nshown by the fact that in the most widely separated tongues\u2014possibly\nwherever the matter has been carefully investigated\u2014moral goodness is,\nat the outset, expressed in terms of _taste_. What is _good_ is what is\n_sweet_, and sometimes, also, _salt_.[99] Primitive peoples have highly\ndeveloped the sensory side of their mental life, and their vocabularies\nbear witness to the intimate connection of sensations of taste and touch\nwith emotional tone. There is, indeed, no occasion to go beyond our own\nEuropean traditions to see that the expression of moral qualities is\nbased on fundamental sensory qualities of taste. In Latin _suavis_ is\n_sweet_, but even in Latin it became a moral quality, and its English\nderivatives have been entirely deflected from physical to moral\nqualities, while _bitter_ is at once a physical quality and a poignantly\nmoral quality. In Sanskrit and Persian and Arabic _salt_ is not only a\nphysical taste but the name for lustre and grace and beauty.[100] It\nseems well in passing to point out that the deeper we penetrate the more\nfundamentally we find the \u00e6sthetic conception of morals grounded in\nNature. But not every one cares to penetrate any deeper and there is no\nneed to insist.\n\nShaftesbury held that human actions should have a beauty of symmetry and\nproportion and harmony, which appeal to us, not because they accord with\nany rule or maxim (although they may conceivably be susceptible of\nmeasurement), but because they satisfy our instinctive feelings, evoking\nan approval which is strictly an \u00e6sthetic judgment of moral action. This\ninstinctive judgment was not, as Shaftesbury understood it, a guide to\naction. He held, rightly enough, that the impulse to action is\nfundamental and primary, that fine action is the outcome of finely\ntempered natures. It is a feeling for the just time and measure of human\npassion, and maxims are useless to him whose nature is ill-balanced.\n\u201cVirtue is no other than the love of order and beauty in society.\u201d\n\u00c6sthetic appreciation of the act, and even an ecstatic pleasure in it,\nare part of our \u00e6sthetic delight in Nature generally, which includes\nMan. Nature, it is clear, plays a large part in this conception of the\nmoral life. To lack balance on any plane of moral conduct is to be\nunnatural; \u201cNature is not mocked,\u201d said Shaftesbury. She is a miracle,\nfor miracles are not things that are performed, but things that are\nperceived, and to fail here is to fail in perception of the divinity of\nNature, to do violence to her, and to court moral destruction. A return\nto Nature is not a return to ignorance or savagery, but to the first\ninstinctive feeling for the beauty of well-proportioned affections. \u201cThe\nmost natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth,\u201d he\nasserts, and he recurs again and again to \u201cthe beauty of honesty.\u201d\n\u201c_Dulce et decorum est_ was his sole reason,\u201d he says of the classical\npagan, adding: \u201cAnd this is still a good reason.\u201d In learning how to\nact, he thought, we are \u201clearning to become artists.\u201d It seems natural\nto him to refer to the magistrate as an artist; \u201cthe magistrate, if he\nbe an artist,\u201d he incidentally says. We must not make morality depend on\nauthority. The true artist, in any art, will never act below his\ncharacter. \u201cLet who will make it for you as you fancy,\u201d the artist\ndeclares; \u201cI know it to be wrong. Whatever I have made hitherto has been\ntrue work. And neither for your sake or anybody\u2019s else shall I put my\nhand to any other.\u201d \u201cThis is virtue!\u201d exclaims Shaftesbury. \u201cThis\ndisposition transferred to the whole of life perfects a character. For\nthere is a workmanship and a truth in actions.\u201d\n\nShaftesbury, it may be repeated, was an amateur, not only in philosophy,\nbut even in the arts. He regarded literature as one of the schoolmasters\nfor fine living, yet he has not been generally regarded as a fine artist\nin writing, though, directly or indirectly, he helped to inspire not\nonly Pope, but Thomson and Cowper and Wordsworth. He was inevitably\ninterested in painting, but his tastes were merely those of the ordinary\nconnoisseur of his time. This gives a certain superficiality to his\ngeneral \u00e6sthetic vision, though it was far from true, as the theologians\nsupposed, that he was lacking in seriousness. His chief immediate\nfollowers, like Hutcheson, came out of Calvinistic Puritanism. He was\nhimself an austere Stoic who adapted himself to the tone of the\nwell-bred world he lived in. But if an amateur, he was an amateur of\ngenius. He threw a vast and fruitful conception\u2014caught from the\n\u201cPoetics\u201d of Aristotle, \u201cthe Great Master of Arts,\u201d and developed with\nfine insight\u2014into our modern world. Most of the great European thinkers\nof the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were in some measure\ninspired, influenced, or anticipated by Shaftesbury. Even Kant, though\nhe was unsympathetic and niggardly of appreciation, helped to develop\nthe conception Shaftesbury first formulated. To-day we see it on every\nhand. It is slowly and subtly moulding the whole of our modern morality.\n\n\u201cThe greatest Greek of modern times\u201d\u2014so he appears to those who study\nhis work to-day. It is through Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury alone that\nGreek morals, in their finest essence, have been a vivifying influence\nin our modern world. Georg von Gizycki, who has perhaps most clearly\napprehended Shaftesbury\u2019s place in morals, indicates that place with\nprecision and justice when he states that \u201che furnished the _elements_\nof a moral philosophy which fits into the frame of a truly scientific\nconception of the world.\u201d[101] That was a service to the modern world so\ngreat and so daring that it could scarcely meet with approval from his\nfellow countrymen. The more keenly philosophical Scotch, indeed,\nrecognised him, first of all Hume, and he was accepted and embodied as a\nkind of founder by the so-called Scottish School, though so toned down\nand adulterated and adapted to popular tastes and needs, that in the end\nhe was thereby discredited. But the English never even adulterated him;\nthey clung to the antiquated and eschatological Paley, bringing forth\nedition after edition of his works whereon to discipline their youthful\nminds. That led naturally on to the English Utilitarians in morality,\nwho would disdain to look at anything that could be called Greek. Sir\nLeslie Stephen, who was the vigorous and capable interpreter to the\ngeneral public of Utilitarianism, could see nothing good whatever in\nShaftesbury; he viewed him with contemptuous pity and could only murmur:\n\u201cPoor Shaftesbury!\u201d\n\nMeanwhile Shaftesbury\u2019s fame had from the first been pursuing a very\ndifferent course in France and Germany, for it is the people outside a\nman\u2019s own country who anticipate the verdict of posterity. Leibnitz,\nwhose vast genius was on some sides akin (Shaftesbury has, indeed, been\ntermed \u201cthe Leibnitz of morals\u201d), admired the English thinker, and the\nuniversal Voltaire recognised him. Montesquieu placed him on a\nfour-square summit with Plato and Montaigne and Malebranche. The\nenthusiastic Diderot, seeing in Shaftesbury the exponent of the\nnaturalistic ethics of his own temperament, translated a large part of\nhis chief book in 1745. Herder, who inspired so many of the chief\nthinkers of the nineteenth century and even of to-day, was himself\nlargely inspired by Shaftesbury, whom he once called \u201cthe virtuoso of\nhumanity,\u201d regarding his writings as, even in form, well-nigh worthy of\nGreek antiquity, and long proposed to make a comparative study of the\nethical conceptions of Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Shaftesbury, but\nunfortunately never carried out that happy idea. Rousseau, not only by\ncontact of ideas, but the spontaneous effort of his own nature towards\nautonomous harmony, was in touch with Shaftesbury, and so helped to\nbring his ideals into the general stream of modern life. Shaftesbury,\ndirectly or indirectly, inspired the early influential French Socialists\nand Communists. On the other hand he has equally inspired the moralists\nof individualism. Even the Spanish-American Rod\u00f3, one of the most\ndelicately aristocratic of modern moralists in recent time, puts forth\nconceptions, which, consciously or unconsciously, are precisely those of\nShaftesbury. Rod\u00f3 believes that all moral evil is a dissonance in the\n\u00e6sthetic of conduct and that the moral task in character is that of the\nsculptor in marble: \u201cVirtue is a kind of art, a divine art.\u201d Even Croce,\nwho began by making a deep division between art and life, holds that\nthere can be no great critic of art who is not also a great critic of\nlife, for \u00e6sthetic criticism is really itself a criticism of life, and\nhis whole philosophy may be regarded as representing a stage of\ntransition between the old traditional view of the world and that\nconception towards which in the modern world our gaze is turned.[102]\n\nAs Shaftesbury had stated the matter, however, it was left on the whole\nvague and large. He made no very clear distinction between the creative\nartistic impulse in life and critical \u00e6sthetic appreciation. In the\nsphere of morals we must often be content to wait until our activity is\ncompleted to appreciate its beauty or its ugliness.[103] On the\nbackground of general \u00e6sthetic judgment we have to concentrate on the\nforces of creative artistic activity, whose work it is painfully to\nmould the clay of moral action, and forge its iron, long before the\n\u00e6sthetic criterion can be applied to the final product. The artist\u2019s\nwork in life is full of struggle and toil; it is only the spectator of\nmorals who can assume the calm \u00e6sthetic attitude. Shaftesbury, indeed,\nevidently recognised this, but it was not enough to say, as he said,\nthat we may prepare ourselves for moral action by study in literature.\nOne may be willing to regard living as an art, and yet be of opinion\nthat it is as unsatisfactory to learn the art of living in literature as\nto learn, let us say, the art of music in architecture.\n\nYet we must not allow these considerations to lead us away from the\ngreat fact that Shaftesbury clearly realised\u2014what modern psychology\nemphasises\u2014that desires can only be countered by desires, that reason\ncannot affect appetite. \u201cThat which is of original and pure nature,\u201d he\ndeclared, \u201cnothing besides contrary habit and custom (a second nature)\nis able to displace. There is no speculative opinion, persuasion, or\nbelief, which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy\nit.\u201d Where he went beyond some modern psychologists is in his Hellenic\nperception that in this sphere of instinct we are amid the play of art\nto which \u00e6sthetic criteria alone can be applied.\n\nIt was necessary to concentrate and apply these large general ideas. To\nsome extent this was done by Shaftesbury\u2019s immediate successors and\nfollowers, such as Hutcheson and Arbuckle, who taught that man is,\nethically, an artist whose work is his own life. They concentrated\nattention on the really creative aspects of the artist in life, \u00e6sthetic\nappreciation of the finished product being regarded as secondary. For\nall art is, primarily, not a contemplation, but a doing, a creative\naction, and morality is so pre\u00ebminently.\n\nShaftesbury, with his followers Arbuckle and Hutcheson, may be regarded\nas the founders of \u00e6sthetics; it was Hutcheson, though he happened to be\nthe least genuinely \u00e6sthetic in temperament of the three, who wrote the\nfirst modern treatise on \u00e6sthetics. Together, also, they may be said to\nhave been the revivalists of Hellenism, that is to say, of the Hellenic\nspirit, or rather of the classic spirit, for it often came through Roman\nchannels. Shaftesbury was, as Eucken has well said, the Greek spirit\namong English thinkers. He represented an inevitable reaction against\nPuritanism, a reaction which is still going on\u2014indeed, here and there\nonly just beginning. As Puritanism had achieved so notable a victory in\nEngland, it was natural that in England the first great champion of\nHellenism should appear. It is to Oliver Cromwell and Praise-God\nBarebones that we owe Shaftesbury.\n\nAfter Shaftesbury it is Arbuckle who first deserves attention, though he\nwrote so little that he never attained the prominence he deserved.[104]\nHe was a Dublin physician of Scottish ancestry, the friend of Swift, by\nwhom he was highly esteemed, and he was a cripple from boyhood. He was a\nman of genuine artistic temperament, though the art he was attracted to\nwas not, as with Shaftesbury, the sculptor\u2019s or the painter\u2019s, but the\npoet\u2019s. It was not so much intuition on which he insisted, but\nimagination as formative of a character; moral approval seemed to him\nthoroughly \u00e6sthetic, part of an imaginative act which framed the ideal\nof a beautiful personality, externalising itself in action. When Robert\nBridges, the poet of our own time, suggests (in his \u201cNecessity of\nPoetry\u201d) that \u201cmorals is that part of Poetry which deals with conduct,\u201d\nhe is speaking in the spirit of Arbuckle. An earlier and greater poet\nwas still nearer to Arbuckle. \u201cA man to be greatly good,\u201d said Shelley\nin his \u201cDefence of Poetry,\u201d \u201cmust imagine intensely and\ncomprehensively.... The great instrument of moral good is the\nimagination.\u201d If, indeed, with Adam Smith and Schopenhauer, we choose to\nbase morals on sympathy we really are thereby making the poet\u2019s\nimagination the great moral instrument. Morals was for Arbuckle a\ndisinterested \u00e6sthetic harmony, and he had caught much of the genuine\nGreek spirit.\n\nHutcheson was in this respect less successful. Though he had occupied\nhimself with \u00e6sthetics he had little true \u00e6sthetic feeling; and though\nhe accomplished much for the revival of Greek studies his own sympathies\nwere really with the Roman Stoics, with Cicero, with Marcus Aurelius,\nand in this way he was led towards Christianity, to which Shaftesbury\nwas really alien. He democratised if not vulgarised, and diluted if not\ndebased, Shaftesbury\u2019s loftier conception. In his too widely sympathetic\nand receptive mind the Shaftesburian ideal was not only Romanised, not\nonly Christianised; it was plunged into a miscellaneously eclectic mass\nthat often became inconsistent and incoherent. In the long run, in spite\nof his great immediate success, he injured in these ways the cause he\nadvocated. He overemphasised the passively \u00e6sthetic side of morals; he\ndwelt on the term \u201cmoral sense,\u201d by Shaftesbury only occasionally used,\nas it had long previously been by Aristotle (and then only in the sense\nof \u201cnatural temper\u201d by analogy with the physical senses), and this term\nwas long a stumbling-block in the eyes of innocent philosophic critics,\ntoo easily befooled by words, who failed to see that, as Libby has\npointed out, the underlying idea simply is, as held by Shaftesbury, that\n\u00e6sthetic notions of proportion and symmetry depend upon the native\nstructure of the mind and only so constitute a \u201cmoral sense.\u201d[105] What\nHutcheson, as distinct from Shaftesbury, meant by a \u201cmoral sense\u201d\u2014really\na conative instinct\u2014is sufficiently indicated by the fact that he was\ninclined to consider the conjugal and parental affections as a \u201csense\u201d\nbecause natural. He desired to shut out reason, and cognitive elements,\nand that again brought him to the conception of morality as instinctive.\nHutcheson\u2019s conception of \u201csense\u201d was defective as being too liable to\nbe regarded as passive rather than as conative, though conation was\nimplied. The fact that the \u201cmoral sense\u201d was really instinct, and had\nnothing whatever to do with \u201cinnate ideas,\u201d as many have ignorantly\nsupposed, was clearly seen by Hutcheson\u2019s opponents. The chief objection\nbrought forward by the Reverend John Balguy in 1728, in the first part\nof his \u201cFoundation of Moral Goodness,\u201d was precisely that Hutcheson\nbased morality on instinct and so had allowed \u201csome degree of morality\nto animals.\u201d[106] It was Hutcheson\u2019s fine and impressive personality,\nhis high character, his eloquence, his influential position, which\nenabled him to keep alive the conception of morals he preached, and even\nto give it an effective force, throughout the European world, it might\nnot otherwise easily have exerted. Philosophy was to Hutcheson the art\nof living\u2014as it was to the old Greek philosophers\u2014rather than a question\nof metaphysics, and he was careless of consistency in thinking, an\nopen-minded eclectic who insisted that life itself is the great matter.\nThat, no doubt, was the reason why he had so immense an influence. It\nwas mainly through Hutcheson that the more aristocratic spirit of\nShaftesbury was poured into the circulatory channels of the world\u2019s\nlife. Hume and Adam Smith and Reid were either the pupils of Hutcheson\nor directly influenced by him. He was a great personality rather than a\ngreat thinker, and it was as such that he exerted so much force in\nphilosophy.[107]\n\nWith Schiller, whose attitude was not, however, based directly on\nShaftesbury, the \u00e6sthetic conception of morals, which in its definitely\nconscious form had up till then been especially English, may be said to\nhave entered the main stream of culture. Schiller regarded the identity\nof Duty and Inclination as the ideal goal of human development, and\nlooked on the Genius of Beauty as the chief guide of life. Wilhelm von\nHumboldt, one of the greatest spirits of that age, was moved by the same\nideas, throughout his life, much as in many respects he changed, and\neven shortly before his death wrote in deprecation of the notion that\nconformity to duty is the final aim of morality. Goethe, who was the\nintimate friend of both Schiller and Humboldt, largely shared the same\nattitude, and through him it has had a subtle and boundless influence.\nKant, who, it has been said, mistook Duty for a Prussian drill-sergeant,\nstill ruled the academic moral world. But a new vivifying and moulding\nforce had entered the larger moral world, and to-day we may detect its\npresence on every side.\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nIt has often been brought against the conception of morality as an art\nthat it lacks seriousness. It seems to many people to involve an easy,\nself-indulgent, dilettante way of looking at life. Certainly it is not\nthe way of the Old Testament. Except in imaginative literature\u2014it was,\nindeed, an enormous and fateful exception\u2014the Hebrews were no \u201c\u00e6sthetic\nintuitionists.\u201d They hated art, for the rest, and in face of the\nproblems of living they were not in the habit of considering the lilies\nhow they grow. It was not the beauty of holiness, but the stern rod of a\njealous Jehovah, which they craved for their encouragement along the\npath of Duty. And it is the Hebrew mode of feeling which has been, more\nor less violently and imperfectly, grafted into our Christianity.[108]\n\nIt is a complete mistake, however, to suppose that those for whom life\nis an art have entered on an easy path, with nothing but enjoyment and\nself-indulgence before them. The reverse is nearer to the truth. It is\nprobably the hedonist who had better choose rules if he only cares to\nmake life pleasant.[109] For the artist life is always a discipline, and\nno discipline can be without pain. That is so even of dancing, which of\nall the arts is most associated in the popular mind with pleasure. To\nlearn to dance is the most austere of disciplines, and even for those\nwho have attained to the summit of its art often remains a discipline\nnot to be exercised without heroism. The dancer seems a thing of joy,\nbut we are told that this famous dancer\u2019s slippers are filled with blood\nwhen the dance is over, and that one falls down pulseless and deathlike\non leaving the stage, and the other must spend the day in darkness and\nsilence. \u201cIt is no small advantage,\u201d said Nietzsche, \u201cto have a hundred\nDamoclean swords suspended above one\u2019s head; that is how one learns to\ndance, that is how one attains \u2018freedom of movement.\u2019\u201d[110]\n\nFor as pain is entwined in an essential element in the perfect\nachievement of that which seems naturally the most pleasurable of the\narts, so it is with the whole art of living, of which dancing is the\nsupreme symbol. There is no separating Pain and Pleasure without making\nthe first meaningless for all vital ends and the second turn to ashes.\nTo exalt pleasure is to exalt pain; and we cannot understand the meaning\nof pain unless we understand the place of pleasure in the art of life.\nIn England, James Hinton sought to make that clear, equally against\nthose who failed to see that pain is as necessary morally as it\nundoubtedly is biologically, and against those who would puritanically\nrefuse to accept the morality of pleasure.[111] It is no doubt important\nto resist pain, but it is also important that it should be there to\nresist. Even when we look at the matter no longer subjectively but\nobjectively, we must accept pain in any sound \u00e6sthetic or metaphysical\npicture of the world.[112]\n\nWe must not be surprised, therefore, that this way of looking at life as\nan art has spontaneously commended itself to men of the gravest and\ndeepest character, in all other respects widely unlike. Shaftesbury was\ntemperamentally a Stoic whose fragile constitution involved a perpetual\nendeavour to mould life to the form of his ideal. And if we go back to\nMarcus Aurelius we find an austere and heroic man whose whole life, as\nwe trace it in his \u201cMeditations,\u201d was a splendid struggle, a man\nwho\u2014even, it seems, unconsciously\u2014had adopted the \u00e6sthetic criterion of\nmoral goodness and the artistic conception of moral action. Dancing and\nwrestling express to his eyes the activity of the man who is striving to\nlive, and the goodness of moral actions instinctively appears to him as\nthe beauty of natural objects; it is to Marcus Aurelius that we owe that\nimmortal utterance of \u00e6sthetic intuitionism: \u201cAs though the emerald\nshould say: \u2018Whatever happens I must be emerald.\u2019\u201d There could be no man\nmore unlike the Roman Emperor, or in any more remote field of action,\nthan the French saint and philanthropist Vincent de Paul. At once a\ngenuine Christian mystic and a very wise and marvellously effective man\nof action, Vincent de Paul adopts precisely the same simile of the moral\nattitude that had long before been put forth by Plotinus and in the next\ncentury was again to be taken up by Shaftesbury: \u201cMy daughters,\u201d he\nwrote to the Sisters of Charity, \u201cwe are each like a block of stone\nwhich is to be transferred into a statue. What must the sculptor do to\ncarry out his design? First of all he must take the hammer and chip off\nall that he does not need. For this purpose he strikes the stone so\nviolently that if you were watching him you would say he intended to\nbreak it to pieces. Then, when he has got rid of the rougher parts, he\ntakes a smaller hammer, and afterwards a chisel, to begin the face with\nall the features. When that has taken form, he uses other and finer\ntools to bring it to that perfection he has intended for his statue.\u201d If\nwe desire to find a spiritual artist as unlike as possible to Vincent de\nPaul we may take Nietzsche. Alien as any man could ever be to a cheap or\nsuperficial vision of the moral life, and far too intellectually keen to\nconfuse moral problems with purely \u00e6sthetic problems, Nietzsche, when\nfaced by the problem of living, sets himself\u2014almost as instinctively as\nMarcus Aurelius or Vincent de Paul\u2014at the standpoint of art. \u201cAlles\nLeben ist Streit um Geschmack und Schmecken.\u201d It is a crucial passage in\n\u201cZarathustra\u201d: \u201cAll life is a dispute about taste and tasting! Taste:\nthat is weight and at the same time scales and weigher; and woe to all\nliving things that would live without dispute about weight and scales\nand weigher!\u201d For this gospel of taste is no easy gospel. A man must\nmake himself a work of art, Nietzsche again and again declares, moulded\ninto beauty by suffering, for such art is the highest morality, the\nmorality of the Creator.\n\nThere is a certain indefiniteness about the conception of morality as an\nartistic impulse, to be judged by an \u00e6sthetic criterion, which is\nprofoundly repugnant to at least two classes of minds fully entitled to\nmake their antipathy felt. In the first place, it makes no appeal to the\nabstract reasoner, indifferent to the manifoldly concrete problems of\nliving. For the man whose brain is hypertrophied and his practical life\nshrivelled to an insignificant routine\u2014the man of whom Kant is the\nsupreme type\u2014it is always a temptation to rationalise morality. Such a\npure intellectualist, overlooking the fact that human beings are not\nmathematical figures, may even desire to transform ethics into a species\nof geometry. That we may see in Spinoza, a nobler and more inspiring\nfigure, no doubt, but of the same temperament as Kant. The impulses and\ndesires of ordinary men and women are manifold, inconstant, often\nconflicting, and sometimes overwhelming. \u201cMorality is a fact of\nsensibility,\u201d remarks Jules de Gaultier; \u201cit has no need to have\nrecourse to reason for its affirmations.\u201d But to men of the\nintellectualist type this consideration is almost negligible; all the\npassions and affections of humanity seem to them meek as sheep which\nthey may shepherd, and pen within the flimsiest hurdles. William Blake,\nwho could cut down to that central core of the world where all things\nare fused together, knew better when he said that the only golden rule\nof life is \u201cthe great and golden rule of art.\u201d James Hinton was for ever\nexpatiating on the close resemblance between the methods of art, as\nshown especially in painting, and the methods of moral action. Thoreau,\nwho also belonged to this tribe, declared, in the same spirit as Blake,\nthat there is no golden rule in morals, for rules are only current\nsilver; \u201cit is golden not to have any rule at all.\u201d\n\nThere is another quite different type of person who shares this\nantipathy to the indefiniteness of \u00e6sthetic morality: the ambitious\nmoral reformer. The man of this class is usually by no means devoid of\nstrong passions; but for the most part he possesses no great\nintellectual calibre and so is unable to estimate the force and\ncomplexity of human impulses. The moral reformer, eager to introduce the\nmillennium here and now by the aid of the newest mechanical devices, is\nrighteously indignant with anything so vague as an \u00e6sthetic morality. He\nmust have definite rules and regulations, clear-cut laws and by-laws,\nwith an arbitrary list of penalties attached, to be duly inflicted in\nthis world or the next. The popular conception of Moses, descending from\nthe sacred mount with a brand-new table of commandments, which he\ndeclares have been delivered to him by God, though he is ready to smash\nthem to pieces on the slightest provocation, furnishes a delightful\nimage of the typical moral reformer of every age. It is, however, only\nin savage and barbarous stages of society, or among the uncultivated\nclasses of civilisation, that the men of this type can find their\nfaithful followers.\n\nYet there is more to be said. That very indefiniteness of the criterion\nof moral action, falsely supposed to be a disadvantage, is really the\nprime condition for effective moral action. The academic philosophers of\nethics, had they possessed virility enough to enter the field of real\nlife, would have realised\u2014as we cannot expect the moral reformers\nblinded by the smoke of their own fanaticism to realise\u2014that the slavery\nto rigid formulas which they preached was the death of all high moral\nresponsibility. Life must always be a great adventure, with risks on\nevery hand; a clear-sighted eye, a many-sided sympathy, a fine daring,\nan endless patience, are for ever necessary to all good living. With\nsuch qualities alone may the artist in life reach success; without them\neven the most devoted slave to formulas can only meet disaster. No\nreasonable moral being may draw breath in the world without an open-eyed\nfreedom of choice, and if the moral world is to be governed by laws,\nbetter to people it with automatic machines than with living men and\nwomen.\n\nIn our human world the precision of mechanism is for ever impossible.\nThe indefiniteness of morality is a part of its necessary imperfection.\nThere is not only room in morality for the high aspiration, the\ncourageous decision, the tonic thrill of the muscles of the soul, but we\nhave to admit also sacrifice and pain. The lesser good, our own or that\nof others, is merged in a larger good, and that cannot be without some\nrending of the heart. So all moral action, however in the end it may be\njustified by its harmony and balance, is in the making cruel and in a\nsense even immoral. Therein lies the final justification of the \u00e6sthetic\nconception of morality. It opens a wider perspective and reveals loftier\nstandpoints; it shows how the seeming loss is part of an ultimate gain,\nso restoring that harmony and beauty which the unintelligent partisans\nof a hard and barren duty so often destroy for ever. \u201cArt,\u201d as Paulhan\ndeclares, \u201cis often more moral than morality itself.\u201d Or, as Jules de\nGaultier holds, \u201cArt is in a certain sense the only morality which life\nadmits.\u201d In so far as we can infuse it with the spirit and method of\nart, we have transformed morality into something beyond morality; it has\nbecome the complete embodiment of the Dance of Life.\n\nFootnote 89:\n\n  What we call crime is, at the beginning, usually an effort to get, or\n  to pretend to get, into step, but, being a violent or miscalculated\n  effort, it is liable to fail, and the criminal falls to the rear of\n  the social army. \u201cI believe that most murders are really committed by\n  Mrs. Grundy,\u201d a woman writes to me, and, with the due qualification,\n  the saying is worthy of meditation. That is why justice is impotent to\n  prevent or even to punish murder, for Mrs. Grundy is within all of us,\n  being a part of the social discipline, and cannot be hanged.\n\nFootnote 90:\n\n  Herbert Spencer, writing to a correspondent, once well expressed the\n  harmlessness\u2014if we choose so to regard it\u2014of moral teaching: \u201cAfter\n  nearly two thousand years\u2019 preaching of the religion of amity, the\n  religion of enmity remains predominant, and Europe is peopled by two\n  hundred million pagans, masquerading as Christians, who revile those\n  who wish them to act on the principles they profess.\u201d\n\nFootnote 91:\n\n  But later asceticism was strictly the outcome of a Greek tendency, to\n  be traced in Plato, developed through Antisthenes, through Zeno,\n  through Epictetus, who all desired to liberate the soul from the bonds\n  of matter. The Neo-Platonists carried this tendency further, for in\n  their time, the prevailing anarchy and confusion rendered the world\n  and society less than ever a fitting haven for the soul. It was not\n  Christianity that made the world ascetic (and there were elements of\n  hedonism in the teaching of Jesus), but the world that made\n  Christianity ascetic, and it was easy for a Christian to become a\n  Neo-Platonist, for they were both being moulded by the same forces.\n\nFootnote 92:\n\n  Maurice Croiset devotes a few luminous critical pages to Plotinus in\n  the Croisets\u2019 _Histoire de la Litt\u00e9rature Grecque_, vol. V, pp.\n  820-31. As an extended account of Plotinus, from a more\n  enthusiastically sympathetic standpoint, there are Dr. Inge\u2019s\n  well-known Gifford Lectures, _The Philosophy of Plotinus_ (1918); I\n  may also mention a careful scholastic study, _L\u2019Esth\u00e9tique de Plotin_\n  (1913), by Cochez, of Louvain, who regards Plotinus as the climax of\n  the objective \u00e6sthetics of antiquity and the beginning of the road to\n  modern subjective \u00e6sthetics.\n\nFootnote 93:\n\n  _Ennead_, bk. III, chap. VI. I have mostly followed the translation of\n  Stephen McKenna.\n\nFootnote 94:\n\n  St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, bk. IV, chap. XXI.\n\nFootnote 95:\n\n  Kant was habitually cold and calm. But he was very fond of dried\n  fruits and used to have them specially imported for him by his friend\n  Motherby. \u201cAt one time he was eagerly expecting a vessel with French\n  fruits which he had ordered, and he had already invited some friends\n  to a dinner at which they were to be served. The vessel was, however,\n  delayed a number of days by a storm. When it arrived, Kant was\n  informed that the provisions had become short on account of the delay,\n  and that the crew had eaten his fruit. Kant was so angry that he\n  declared they ought rather to have starved than to have touched it.\n  Surprised at this irritation, Motherby said, \u2018Professor, you cannot be\n  in earnest.\u2019 Kant answered, \u2018I am really in earnest,\u2019 and went away.\n  Afterwards he was sorry.\u201d (Quoted by Stuckenberg, _The Life of Kant_,\n  p. 138.) But still it was quite in accordance with Kantian morality\n  that the sailors should have starved.\n\nFootnote 96:\n\n  Georg von Gizycki, _Die Ethik David Hume\u2019s_, p. 11.\n\nFootnote 97:\n\n  F. C. Sharp, _Mind_ (1912), p. 388.\n\nFootnote 98:\n\n  Shaftesbury held that Locke swept away too much and failed to allow\n  for inborn instincts (or \u201csenses,\u201d as he sometimes called them)\n  developing naturally. We now see that he was right.\n\nFootnote 99:\n\n  There is no need to refer to the value of salt, and therefore the\n  appreciation of the flavour of salt, to primitive people. Still\n  to-day, in Spain, _sal_ (salt) is popularly used for a more or less\n  intellectual and moral quality which is highly admired.\n\nFootnote 100:\n\n  Dr. C. S. Myers has touched on this point in _Reports of the Cambridge\n  Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. II, part II, chap.\n  IV; also \u201cThe Taste-Names of Primitive Peoples,\u201d _British Journal of\n  Psychology_, June, 1904.\n\nFootnote 101:\n\n  Dr. Georg von Gizycki, _Die Philosophie Shaftesbury\u2019s_ (1876); and the\n  same author\u2019s _Die Ethik David Hume\u2019s_ (1878).\n\nFootnote 102:\n\n  It should be added that Croce is himself moving in this direction, and\n  in, for instance, _Il Carattere di Totalit\u00e0 della Espressione\n  Artistica_ (1917), he recognises the universality of art.\n\nFootnote 103:\n\n  Stanley Hall remarks in criticising Kant\u2019s moral \u00e6sthetics: \u201cThe\n  beauty of virtue is only seen in contemplating it and the act of doing\n  it has no beauty to the doer at the moment.\u201d (G. Stanley Hall, \u201cWhy\n  Kant is Passing,\u201d _American Journal of Psychology_, July, 1912.)\n\nFootnote 104:\n\n  See article on Arbuckle by W. R. Scott in _Mind_, April, 1899.\n\nFootnote 105:\n\n  See a helpful paper by M. F. Libby, \u201cInfluence of the Idea of \u00c6sthetic\n  Proportion on the Ethics of Shaftesbury,\u201d _American Journal of\n  Psychology_, May-October, 1901.\n\nFootnote 106:\n\n  We find fallacious criticism of the \u201cmoral sense\u201d down to almost\n  recent times, in, for instance, McDougall\u2019s _Social Psychology_, even\n  though McDougall, by his insistence on the instinctive basis of\n  morality, was himself carrying on the tradition of Shaftesbury and\n  Hutcheson. But McDougall also dragged in \u201csome prescribed code of\n  conduct,\u201d though he neglected to mention who is to \u201cprescribe\u201d it.\n\nFootnote 107:\n\n  See W. R. Scott, _Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position\n  in the History of Philosophy_. (1900.)\n\nFootnote 108:\n\n  It is noteworthy, however, that the \u00e6sthetic view of morals has had\n  advocates, not only among the more latitudinarian Protestants, but in\n  Catholicism. A few years ago the Reverend Dr. Kolbe published a book\n  on _The Art of Life_, designed to show that just as the sculptor works\n  with hammer and chisel to shape a block of marble into a form of\n  beauty, so Man, by the power of grace, the illumination of faith, and\n  the instrument of prayer, works to transform his soul. But this simile\n  of the sculptor, which has appealed so strongly alike to Christian and\n  anti-Christian moralists, proceeds, whether or not they knew it, from\n  Plotinus, who, in his famous chapter on Beauty, bids us note the\n  sculptor. \u201cHe cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line\n  lighter, this other purer, until a living face has grown upon his\n  work. So do you also cut away all that is excessive, straighten all\n  that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, make all one\n  glow of beauty, and never cease chiselling your statue until the\n  godlike splendour shines on you from it, and the perfect goodness\n  stands, surely, in the stainless shrine.\u201d\n\nFootnote 109:\n\n  \u201cThey who pitched the goal of their aspiration so high knew that the\n  paths leading up to it were rough and steep and long,\u201d remarks A. W.\n  Benn (_The Greek Philosophers_, 1914, p. 57); \u201cthey said \u2018the\n  beautiful is hard\u2019\u2014hard to judge, hard to win, hard to keep.\u201d\n\nFootnote 110:\n\n  _Der Wille zur Macht_, p. 358.\n\nFootnote 111:\n\n  Mrs. Havelock Ellis, _James Hinton_, 1918.\n\nFootnote 112:\n\n  This has been well seen by Jules de Gaultier: \u201cThe joys and the\n  sorrows which fill life are, the one and the other,\u201d he says (_La\n  D\u00e9pendance de la Morale et l\u2019Ind\u00e9pendance des M\u0153urs_, p. 340),\n  \u201celements of spectacular interest, and without the mixture of both\n  that interest would be abolished. To make of the representative worth\n  of phenomena their justification in view of a spectacular end alone,\n  avoids the objection by which the moral thesis is faced, the fact of\n  pain. Pain becomes, on the contrary, the correlative of pleasure, an\n  indispensable means for its realization. Such a thesis is in agreement\n  with the nature of things, instead of being wounded by their\n  existence.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n                               CONCLUSION\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nLIFE, we have seen, may be regarded as an art. But we cannot help\nseeking to measure, quantitatively if not qualitatively, our mode of\nlife. We do so, for the most part, instinctively rather than\nscientifically. It gratifies us to imagine that, as a race, we have\nreached a point on the road of progress beyond that vouchsafed to our\nbenighted predecessors, and that, as individuals or as nations, it is\ngiven to us, fortunately,\u2014or, rather, through our superior merits,\u2014to\nenjoy a finer degree of civilisation than the individuals and the\nnations around us. This feeling has been common to most or all branches\nof the human race. In the classic world of antiquity they called\noutsiders, indiscriminately, \u201cbarbarians\u201d\u2014a denomination which took on\nan increasingly depreciative sense; and even the lowest savages\nsometimes call their own tribe by a word which means \u201cmen,\u201d thereby\nimplying that all other peoples are not worthy of the name.\n\nBut in recent centuries there has been an attempt to be more precise, to\ngive definite values to the feeling within us. All sorts of dogmatic\nstandards have been set up by which to measure the degree of a people\u2019s\ncivilisation. The development of demography and social statistics in\ncivilised countries during the past century should, it has seemed,\nrender such comparison easy. Yet the more carefully we look into the\nnature of these standards the more dubious they become. On the one hand,\ncivilisation is so complex that no one test furnishes an adequate\nstandard. On the other hand, the methods of statistics are so variable\nand uncertain, so apt to be influenced by circumstance, that it is never\npossible to be sure that one is operating with figures of equal weight.\n\nRecently this has been well and elaborately shown by Professor Niceforo,\nthe Italian sociologist and statistician.[113] It is to be remembered\nthat Niceforo has himself been a daring pioneer in the measurement of\nlife. He has applied the statistical method not only to the natural and\nsocial sciences, but even to art, especially literature. When,\ntherefore, he discusses the whole question of the validity of the\nmeasurement of civilisation, his conclusions deserve respect. They are\nthe more worthy of consideration since his originality in the\nstatistical field is balanced by his learning, and it is not easy to\nrecall any scientific attempts in this field which he has failed to\nmention somewhere in his book, if only in a footnote.\n\nThe difficulties begin at the outset, and might well serve to bar even\nthe entrance to discussion. We want to measure the height to which we\nhave been able to build our \u201ccivilisation\u201d towards the skies; we want to\nmeasure the progress we have made in our great dance of life towards the\nunknown future goal, and we have no idea what either \u201ccivilisation\u201d or\n\u201cprogress\u201d means.[114] This difficulty is so crucial, for it involves\nthe very essence of the matter, that it is better to place it aside and\nsimply go ahead, without deciding, for the present, precisely what the\nultimate significance of the measurements we can make may prove to be.\nQuite sufficient other difficulties await us.\n\nThere is, first of all, the bewildering number of social phenomena we\ncan now attempt to measure. Two centuries ago there were no comparable\nsets of figures whereby to measure one community against another\ncommunity, though at the end of the eighteenth century Boisguillebert\nwas already speaking of the possibility of constructing a \u201cbarometer of\nprosperity.\u201d Even the most elementary measurable fact of all, the\nnumbering of peoples, was carried out so casually and imperfectly and\nindirectly, if at all, that its growth and extent could hardly be\ncompared with profit in any two nations. As the life of a community\nincreases in stability and orderliness and organisation, registration\nincidentally grows elaborate, and thereby the possibility of the\nby-product of statistics. This aspect of social life began to become\npronounced during the nineteenth century, and it was in the middle of\nthat century that Quetelet appeared, by no means as the first to use\nsocial statistics, but the first great pioneer in the manipulation of\nsuch figures in a scientific manner, with a large and philosophical\noutlook on their real significance.[115] Since then the possible number\nof such means of numerical comparison has much increased. The difficulty\nnow is to know which are the most truly indicative of real superiority.\n\nBut before we consider that, again even at the outset, there is another\ndifficulty. Our apparently comparable figures are often not really\ncomparable. Each country or province or town puts forth its own sets of\nstatistics and each set may be quite comparable within itself. But when\nwe begin critically to compare one set with another set, all sorts of\nfallacies appear. We have to allow, not only for varying accuracy and\ncompleteness, but for difference of method in collecting and registering\nthe facts, and for all sorts of qualifying circumstances which may exist\nat one place or time, and not at other places or times with which we are\nseeking comparison.\n\nThe word \u201ccivilisation\u201d is of recent formation. It came from France, but\neven in France in a Dictionary of 1727 it cannot be found, though the\nverb _civiliser_ existed as far back as 1694, meaning to polish manners,\nto render sociable, to become urbane, one might say, as a result of\nbecoming urban, of living as a citizen in cities. We have to recognise,\nof course, that the idea of civilisation is relative; that any community\nand any age has its own civilisation, and its own ideals of\ncivilisation. But, that assumed, we may provisionally assert\u2014and we\nshall be in general accordance with Niceforo\u2014that, in its most\ncomprehensive sense, the art of civilisation includes the three groups\nof _material_ facts, _intellectual_ facts, and _moral_ (with\n_political_) facts, so covering all the essential facts in our life.\n\nMaterial facts, which we are apt to consider the most easily measurable,\ninclude quantity and distribution of population, production of wealth,\nthe consumption of food and luxuries, the standard of life. Intellectual\nfacts include both the diffusion and degree of instruction and creative\nactivity in genius. Moral facts include the prevalence of honesty,\njustice, pity, and self-sacrifice, the position of women and the care of\nchildren. They are the most important of all for the quality of a\ncivilisation. Voltaire pointed out that \u201cpity and justice are the\nfoundations of society,\u201d and, long previously, Pericles in Thucydides\ndescribed the degradation of the Peloponnesians among whom every one\nthinks only of his own advantage, and every one believes that his own\nnegligence of other things will pass unperceived. Plato in his\n\u201cRepublic\u201d made justice the foundation of harmony in the outer life and\nthe inner life, while in modern times various philosophers, like\nShadworth Hodgson, have emphasised that doctrine of Plato\u2019s. The whole\nart of government comes under this head and the whole treatment of human\npersonality.\n\nThe comparative prevalence of criminality has long been the test most\ncomplacently adopted by those who seek to measure civilisation on its\nmoral and most fundamental aspect. Crime is merely a name for the most\nobvious, extreme, and directly dangerous forms of what we call\nimmorality\u2014that is to say, departure from the norm in manners and\ncustoms. Therefore the highest civilisation is that with the least\ncrime. But is it so? The more carefully we look into the matter, the\nmore difficult it becomes to apply this test. We find that even at the\noutset. Every civilised community has its own way of dealing with\ncriminal statistics and the discrepancies thus introduced are so great\nthat this fact alone makes comparisons almost impossible. It is scarcely\nnecessary to point out that varying skill and thoroughness in the\ndetection of crime, and varying severity in the attitude towards it,\nnecessarily count for much. Of not less significance is the legislative\nactivity of the community; the greater the number of laws, the greater\nthe number of offences against them. If, for instance, Prohibition is\nintroduced into a country, the amount of delinquency in that country is\nenormously increased, but it would be rash to assert that the country\nhas thereby been sensibly lowered in the scale of civilisation. To avoid\nthis difficulty, it has been proposed to take into consideration only\nwhat are called \u201cnatural crimes\u201d; that is, those everywhere regarded as\npunishable. But, even then, there is a still more disconcerting\nconsideration. For, after all, the criminality of a country is a\nby-product of its energy in business and in the whole conduct of\naffairs. It is a poisonous excretion, but excretion is the measure of\nvital metabolism. There are, moreover, the so-called evolutive social\ncrimes, which spring from motives not lower but higher than those ruling\nthe society in which they arise.[116] Therefore, we cannot be sure that\nwe ought not to regard the most criminal country as that which in some\naspects possesses the highest civilisation.\n\nLet us turn to the intellectual aspect of civilisation. Here we have at\nleast two highly important and quite fairly measurable facts to\nconsider: the production of creative genius and the degree and diffusion\nof general instruction. If we consider the matter abstractly, it is\nhighly probable that we shall declare that no civilisation can be worth\nwhile unless it is rich in creative genius and unless the population\ngenerally exhibits a sufficiently cultured level of education out of\nwhich such genius may arise freely and into which the seeds it produces\nmay fruitfully fall. Yet, what do we find? Alike, whether we go back to\nthe earliest civilisations we have definite information about or turn to\nthe latest stages of civilisation we know to-day, we fail to see any\ncorrespondence between these two essential conditions of civilisation.\nAmong peoples in a low state of culture, among savages generally, such\ninstruction and education as exists really is generally diffused; every\nmember of the community is initiated into the tribal traditions; yet, no\nobservers of such peoples seem to note the emergence of individuals of\nstrikingly productive genius. That, so far as we know, began to appear,\nand, indeed, in marvellous variety and excellence, in Greece, and the\ncivilisation of Greece (as later the more powerful but coarser\ncivilisation of Rome) was built up on a broad basis of slavery, which\nnowadays\u2014except, of course, when disguised as industry\u2014we no longer\nregard as compatible with high civilisation.\n\nAncient Greece, indeed, may suggest to us to ask whether the genius of a\ncountry be not directly opposed to the temper of the population of that\ncountry, and its \u201cleaders\u201d really be its outcasts. (Some believe that\nmany, if not all, countries of to-day might serve to suggest the same\nquestion.) If we want to imagine the real spirit of Greece, we may have\nto think of a figure with a touch of Ulysses, indeed, but with more of\nThersites.[117] The Greeks who interest us to-day were exceptional\npeople, usually imprisoned, exiled, or slain by the more truly\nrepresentative Greeks of their time. When Plato and the others set forth\nso persistently an ideal of wise moderation they were really putting\nup\u2014and in vain\u2014a supplication for mercy to a people who, as they had\ngood ground for realising, knew nothing of wisdom, and scoffed at\nmoderation, and were mainly inspired by ferocity and intrigue.\n\nTo turn to a more recent example, consider the splendid efflorescence of\ngenius in Russia during the central years of the last century, still a\nvivifying influence on the literature and music of the world; yet the\npopulation of Russia had only just been delivered, nominally at least,\nfrom serfdom, and still remained at the intellectual and economic level\nof serfs. To-day, education has become diffused in the Western world.\nYet no one would dream of asserting that genius is more prevalent.\nConsider the United States, for instance, during the past half-century.\nIt would surely be hard to find any country, except Germany, where\neducation is more highly esteemed or better understood, and where\ninstruction is more widely diffused. Yet, so far as the production of\nhigh original genius is concerned, an old Italian city, like Florence,\nwith a few thousand inhabitants, had far more to show than all the\nUnited States put together. So that we are at a loss how to apply the\nintellectual test to the measurement of civilisation. It would almost\nseem that the two essential elements of this test are mutually\nincompatible.\n\nLet us fall back on the simple solid fundamental test furnished by the\nmaterial aspect of civilisation. Here we are among elementary facts and\nthe first that began to be measured. Yet our difficulties, instead of\ndiminishing, rather increase. It is here, too, that we chiefly meet with\nwhat Niceforo has called \u201cthe paradoxical symptoms of superiority in\nprogress,\u201d though I should prefer to call them ambivalent; that is to\nsay, that, while from one point of view they indicate superiority, from\nanother, even though some may call it a lower point of view, they appear\nto indicate inferiority. This is well illustrated by the test of growth\nof population, or the height of the birth-rate, better by the birth-rate\nconsidered in relation to the death-rate, for they cannot be\nintelligibly considered apart. The law of Nature is reproduction, and if\nan intellectual rabbit were able to study human civilisation he would\nundoubtedly regard rapidity of multiplication, in which he has himself\nattained so high a degree of proficiency, as evidence of progress in\ncivilisation. In fact, as we know, there are even human beings who take\nthe same view, whence we have what has been termed \u201cRabbitism\u201d in men.\nYet, if anything is clear in this obscure field, it is that the whole\ntendency of evolution is towards a diminishing birth-rate.[118] The most\ncivilised countries everywhere, and the most civilised people in them,\nare those with the lowest birth-rate. Therefore, we have here to measure\nthe height of civilisation by a test which, if carried to an extreme,\nwould mean the disappearance of civilisation. Another such ambivalent\ntest is the consumption of luxuries of which alcohol and tobacco are the\ntypes. There is held to be no surer test of civilisation than the\nincrease per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol\nand tobacco are recognisably poisons, so that their consumption has only\nto be carried far enough to destroy civilisation altogether. Again, take\nthe prevalence of suicide. That, without doubt, is a test of height in\ncivilisation; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and\nintellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it\nsnaps. We should be justified in regarding as very questionable a high\ncivilisation which failed to show a high suicide-rate. Yet suicide is\nthe sign of failure, misery, and despair. How can we regard the\nprevalence of failure, misery, and despair as the mark of high\ncivilisation?\n\nThus, whichever of the three groups of facts we attempt to measure, it\nappears on examination almost hopelessly complex. We have to try to make\nour methods correspondingly complex. Niceforo had invoked co-variation,\nor simultaneous and sympathetic changes in various factors of\ncivilisation; he explains the index number, and he appeals to\nmathematics for aid out of the difficulties. He also attempts to\ncombine, with the help of diagrams, a single picture out of these\nawkward and contradictory tests. The example he gives is that of France\nduring the fifty years preceding the war. It is an interesting example\nbecause there is reason to consider France as, in some respects, the\nmost highly civilised of countries. What are the chief significant\nmeasurable marks of this superiority? Niceforo selects about a dozen,\nand, avoiding the difficult attempt to compare France with other\ncountries, he confines himself to the more easily practicable task of\nascertaining whether, or in what respects, the general art of\ncivilisation in France, the movement of the collective life, has been\nupward or downward. When the different categories are translated,\naccording to recognised methods, into index numbers, taking the original\nfigures from the official \u201cR\u00e9sum\u00e9\u201d of French statistics, it is found\nthat each line of movement follows throughout the same direction, though\noften in zigzag fashion, and never turns back on itself. In this way it\nappears that the consumption of coal has been more than doubled, the\nconsumption of luxuries (sugar, coffee, alcohol) nearly doubled, the\nconsumption of food per head (as tested by cheese and potatoes) also\nincreasing. Suicide has increased fifty per cent; wealth has increased\nslightly and irregularly; the upward movement of population has been\nextremely slight and partly due to immigration; the death-rate has\nfallen, though not so much as the birth-rate; the number of persons\nconvicted of offence by the courts has fallen; the proportion of\nilliterate persons has diminished; divorces have greatly increased, and\nalso the number of syndicalist workers, but these two movements are of\ncomparative recent growth.\n\nThis example well shows what it is possible to do by the most easily\navailable and generally accepted tests by which to measure the progress\nof a community in the art of civilisation. Every one of the tests\napplied to France reveals an upward tendency of civilisation, though\nsome of them, such as the fall in the death-rate, are not strongly\npronounced and much smaller than may be found in many other countries.\nYet, at the same time, while we have to admit that each of these lines\nof movement indicates an upward tendency of civilisation, it by no means\nfollows that we can view them all with complete satisfaction. It may\neven be said that some of them have only to be carried further in order\nto indicate dissolution and decay. The consumption of luxuries, for\ninstance, as already noted, is the consumption of poisons. The increase\nof wealth means little unless we take into account its distribution. The\nincrease of syndicalism, while it is a sign of increased independence,\nintelligence, and social aspiration among the workers, is also a sign\nthat the social system is becoming regarded as unsound. So that, while\nall these tests may be said to indicate a rising civilisation, they yet\ndo not invalidate the wise conclusion of Niceforo that a civilisation is\nnever an exclusive mass of benefits, but a mass of values, positive and\nnegative, and it may even be said that most often the conquest of a\nbenefit in one domain of a civilisation brings into another domain of\nthat civilisation inevitable evils. Long ago, Montesquieu had spoken of\nthe evils of civilisation and left the question of the value of\ncivilisation open, while Rousseau, more passionately, had decided\nagainst civilisation.\n\nWe see the whole question from another point, yet not incongruously,\nwhen we turn to Professor William McDougall\u2019s Lowell Lectures, \u201cIs\nAmerica Safe for Democracy?\u201d since republished under the more general\ntitle \u201cNational Welfare and National Decay,\u201d for the author recognises\nthat the questions he deals with go to the root of all high\ncivilisation. As he truly observes, civilisation grows constantly more\ncomplex and also less subject to the automatically balancing influence\nof national selection, more dependent for its stability on our\nconstantly regulative and foreseeing control. Yet, while the\nintellectual task placed upon us is ever growing heavier, our brains are\nnot growing correspondingly heavier to bear it. There is, as Remy de\nGourmont often pointed out, no good reason to suppose that we are in any\nway innately superior to our savage ancestors, who had at least as good\nphysical constitutions and at least as large brains. The result is that\nthe small minority among us which alone can attempt to cope with our\ncomplexly developing civilisation comes to the top by means of what\nArs\u00e8ne Dumont called social capillarity, and McDougall the social\nladder. The small upper stratum is of high quality, the large lower\nstratum of poor quality, and with a tendency to feeble-mindedness. It is\nto this large lower stratum that, with our democratic tendencies, we\nassign the political and other guidance of the community, and it is this\nlower stratum which has the higher birth-rate, since with all high\ncivilisation the normal birth-rate is low.[119] McDougall is not\nconcerned with the precise measurement of civilisation, and may not be\nfamiliar with the attempts that have been made in that direction. It is\nhis object to point out the necessity in high civilisation for a\ndeliberate and purposive art of eugenics, if we would prevent the\neventual shipwreck of civilisation. But we see how his conclusions\nemphasise those difficulties in the measurement of civilisation which\nNiceforo has so clearly set forth.\n\nMcDougall is repeating what many, especially among eugenists, have\npreviously said. While not disputing the element of truth in the facts\nand arguments brought forward from this side, it may be pointed out that\nthey are often overstated. This has been well argued by Carr-Saunders in\nhis valuable and almost monumental work, \u201cThe Population Problem,\u201d and\nhis opinion is the more worthy of attention as he is himself a worker in\nthe cause of eugenics. He points out that the social ladder is, after\nall, hard to climb, and that it only removes a few individuals from the\nlower social stratum, while among those who thus climb, even though they\ndo not sink back, regression to the mean is ever in operation so that\nthey do not greatly enrich in the end the class they have climbed up to.\nMoreover, as Carr-Saunders pertinently asks, are we so sure that the\nqualities that mark successful climbers\u2014self-assertion, acquisition,\nemulation\u2014are highly desirable? \u201cIt may even be,\u201d he adds, \u201cthat we\nmight view a diminution in the average strength of some of the qualities\nwhich mark the successful at least with equanimity.\u201d Taken altogether,\nit would seem that the differences between social classes may mainly be\nexplained by environmental influences. There is, however, ground to\nrecognise a slight intellectual superiority in the upper social class,\napart from environment, and so great is the significance for\ncivilisation of quality that even when the difference seems slight it\nmust not be regarded as negligible.[120]\n\nMore than half a century ago, indeed, George Sand pointed out that we\nmust distinguish between the civilisation of _quantity_ and the\ncivilisation of _quality_. As the great Morgagni had said much earlier,\nit is not enough to count, we must evaluate; \u201cobservations are not to be\nnumbered, they are to be weighed.\u201d It is not the biggest things that are\nthe most civilised things. The largest structures of Hindu or Egyptian\nart are outweighed by the temples on the Acropolis of Athens, and\nsimilarly, as Bryce, who had studied the matter so thoroughly, was wont\nto insist, it is the smallest democracies which to-day stand highest in\nthe scale. We have seen that there is much in civilisation which we may\nprofitably measure, yet, when we seek to scale the last heights of\ncivilisation, the ladder of our \u201cmetrology\u201d comes to grief. \u201cThe methods\nof the mind are too weak,\u201d as Comte said, \u201cand the Universe is too\ncomplex.\u201d Life, even the life of the civilised community, is an art, and\nthe too much is as fatal as the too little. We may say of civilisation,\nas Renan said of truth, that it lies in a _nuance_. Gumplowicz believed\nthat civilisation is the beginning of disease; Ars\u00e8ne Dumont thought\nthat it inevitably held within itself a toxic principle, a principle by\nwhich it is itself in time poisoned. The more rapidly a civilisation\nprogresses, the sooner it dies for another to arise in its place. That\nmay not seem to every one a cheerful prospect. Yet, if our civilisation\nhas failed to enable us to look further than our own egoistic ends, what\nhas our civilisation been worth?\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nTHE attempt to apply measurement to civilisation is, therefore, a\nfailure. That is, indeed, only another way of saying that civilisation,\nthe whole manifold web of life, is an art. We may dissect out a vast\nnumber of separate threads and measure them. It is quite worth while to\ndo so. But the results of such anatomical investigation admit of the\nmost diverse interpretation, and, at the best, can furnish no adequate\ncriterion of the worth of a complex living civilisation.\n\nYet, although there is no precise measurement of the total value of any\nlarge form of life, we can still make an estimate of its value. We can\napproach it, that is to say, as a work of art. We can even reach a\ncertain approximation to agreement in the formation of such estimates.\n\nWhen Protagoras said that \u201cMan is the measure of all things,\u201d he uttered\na dictum which has been variously interpreted, but from the standpoint\nwe have now reached, from which Man is seen to be pre\u00ebminently an\nartist, it is a monition to us that we cannot to the measurement of life\napply our instruments of precision, and cut life down to their graduated\nmarks. They have, indeed, their immensely valuable uses, but it is\nstrictly as instruments and not as ends of living or criteria of the\nworth of life. It is in the failure to grasp this that the human tragedy\nhas often consisted, and for over two thousand years the dictum of\nProtagoras has been held up for the pacification of that tragedy, for\nthe most part, in vain. Protagoras was one of those \u201cSophists\u201d who have\nbeen presented to our contempt in absurd traditional shapes ever since\nPlato caricatured them\u2014though it may well be that some, as, it has been\nsuggested, Gorgias, may have given colour to the caricature\u2014and it is\nonly to-day that it is possible to declare that we must place the names\nof Protagoras, of Prodicus, of Hippias, even of Gorgias, beside those of\nHerodotus, Pindar, and Pericles.[121]\n\nIt is in the sphere of morals that the conflict has often been most\npoignant. I have already tried to indicate how revolutionary is the\nchange which the thoughts of many have had to undergo. This struggle of\na living and flexible and growing morality against a morality that is\nrigid and inflexible and dead has at some periods of human history been\nalmost dramatically presented. It was so in the seventeenth century\naround the new moral discoveries of the Jesuits; and the Jesuits were\nrewarded by becoming almost until to-day a by-word for all that is\nmorally poisonous and crooked and false\u2014for all that is \u201cJesuitical.\u201d\nThere was once a great quarrel between the Jesuits and the Jansenists\u2014a\nquarrel which is scarcely dead yet, for all Christendom took sides in\nit\u2014and the Jansenists had the supreme good fortune to entrap on their\nside a great man of genius whose onslaught on the Jesuits, \u201cLes\nProvinciales,\u201d is even still supposed by many people to have settled the\nquestion. They are allowed so to suppose because no one now reads \u201cLes\nProvinciales.\u201d But Remy de Gourmont, who was not only a student of\nunread books but a powerfully live thinker, read \u201cLes Provinciales,\u201d and\nfound, as he set forth in \u201cLe Chemin de Velours,\u201d that it was the\nJesuits who were more nearly in the right, more truly on the road of\nadvance, than Pascal. As Gourmont showed by citation, there were Jesuit\ndoctrines put forth by Pascal with rhetorical irony as though the mere\nstatement sufficed to condemn them, which need only to be liberated from\ntheir irony, and we might nowadays add to them. Thus spake Zarathustra.\nPascal was a geometrician who (though he, indeed, once wrote in his\n\u201cPens\u00e9es\u201d: \u201cThere is no general rule\u201d) desired to deal with the\nvariable, obscure, and unstable complexities of human action as though\nthey were problems in mathematics. But the Jesuits, while it is true\nthat they still accepted the existence of absolute rules, realised that\nrules must be made adjustable to the varying needs of life. They thus\nbecame the pioneers of many conceptions which are accepted in modern\npractice.[122] Their doctrine of invincible ignorance was a discovery of\nthat kind, forecasting some of the opinions now held regarding\nresponsibility. But in that age, as Gourmont pointed out, \u201cto proclaim\nthat there might be a sin or an offence without guilty parties was an\nact of intellectual audacity, as well as scientific probity.\u201d Nowadays\nthe Jesuits (together, it is interesting to note, with their baroque\narchitecture) are coming into credit, and casuistry again seems\nreputable. To establish that there can be no single inflexible moral\ncode for all individuals has been, and indeed remains, a difficult and\ndelicate task, yet the more profoundly one considers it, the more\nclearly it becomes visible that what once seemed a dead and rigid code\nof morality must more and more become a living act of casuistry. The\nJesuits, because they had a glimmer of this truth, represented, as\nGourmont concluded, the honest and most acceptable part of Christianity,\nresponding to the necessities of life, and were rendering a service to\ncivilisation which we should never forget.\n\nThere are some who may not very cordially go to the Jesuits as an\nexample of the effort to liberate men from the burden of a subservience\nto rigid little rules, towards the unification of life as an active\nprocess, however influential they may be admitted to be among the\npioneers of that movement. Yet we may turn in what direction we will, we\nshall perpetually find the same movement under other disguises. There\nis, for instance, Mr. Bertrand Russell, who is, for many, the most\ninteresting and stimulating thinker to be found in England to-day. He\nmight scarcely desire to be associated with the Jesuits. Yet he also\nseeks to unify life and even in an essentially religious spirit. His way\nof putting this, in his \u201cPrinciples of Social Reconstruction,\u201d is to\nstate that man\u2019s impulses may be divided into those that are creative\nand those that are possessive, that is to say, concerned with\nacquisition. The impulses of the second class are a source of inner and\nouter disharmony and they involve conflict; \u201cit is preoccupation with\npossessions more than anything else that prevents men from living freely\nand nobly\u201d; it is the creative impulse in which real life consists, and\n\u201cthe typical creative impulse is that of the artist.\u201d Now this\nconception (which was that Plato assigned to the \u201cguardians\u201d in his\ncommunistic State) may be a little too narrowly religious for those\nwhose position in life renders a certain \u201cpreoccupation with\npossessions\u201d inevitable; it is useless to expect us all to become, at\npresent, fakirs and Franciscans, \u201ccounting nothing one\u2019s own, save only\none\u2019s harp.\u201d But in regarding the creative impulses as the essential\npart of life, and as typically manifested in the form of art, Bertrand\nRussell is clearly in the great line of movement with which we have been\nthroughout concerned. We must only at the same time\u2014as we shall see\nlater\u2014remember that the distinction between the \u201ccreative\u201d and the\n\u201cpossessive\u201d impulses, although convenient, is superficial. In creation\nwe have not really put aside the possessive instinct, we may even have\nintensified it. For it has been reasonably argued that it is precisely\nthe deep urgency of the impulse to possess which stirs the creative\nartist. He creates because that is the best way, or the only way, of\ngratifying his passionate desire to possess. Two men desire to possess a\nwoman, and one seizes her, the other writes a \u201cVita Nuova\u201d about her;\nthey have both gratified the instinct of possession, and the second, it\nmay be, most satisfyingly and most lastingly. So that\u2014apart from the\nimpossibility, and even the undesirability, of dispensing with the\npossessive instinct\u2014it may be well to recognise that the real question\nis one of values in possession. We must needs lay up treasure; but the\nfine artist in living, so far as may be, lays up his treasure in Heaven.\n\nIn recent time some alert thinkers have been moved to attempt to measure\nthe art of civilisation by less impossibly exact methods than of old, by\nthe standard of art, and even of fine art. In a remarkable book on \u201cThe\nRevelations of Civilisation\u201d\u2014published about three years before the\noutbreak of that Great War which some have supposed to date a\nrevolutionary point in civilisation\u2014Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, who has\nexpert knowledge of the Egyptian civilisation which was second to none\nin its importance for mankind, has set forth a statement of the cycles\nto which all civilisations are subject. Civilisation, he points out, is\nessentially an intermittent phenomenon. We have to compare the various\nperiods of civilisation and observe what they have in common in order to\nfind the general type. \u201cIt should be examined like any other action of\nNature; its recurrences should be studied, and all the principles which\nunderlie its variations should be defined.\u201d Sculpture, he believes, may\nbe taken as a criterion, not because it is the most important, but\nbecause it is the most convenient and easily available, test. We may say\nwith the old Etruscans that every race has its Great Year\u2014it sprouts,\nflourishes, decays, and dies. The simile, Petrie adds, is the more\nprecise because there are always irregular fluctuations of the seasonal\nweather. There have been eight periods of civilisation, he reckons, in\ncalculable human history. We are now near the end of the eighth, which\nreached its climax about the year 1800; since then there have been\nmerely archaistic revivals, the value of which may be variously\ninterpreted. He scarcely thinks we can expect another period of\ncivilisation to arise for several centuries at least. The average length\nof a period of civilisation is 1330 years. Ours Petrie dates from about\nA.D. 450. It has always needed a fresh race to produce a new period of\ncivilisation. In Europe, between A.D. 300 and 600, some fifteen new\nraces broke in from north and east for slow mixture. \u201cIf,\u201d he concluded,\n\u201cthe source of every civilisation has lain in race mixture, it may be\nthat eugenics will, in some future civilisation, carefully segregate\nfine races, and prohibit continual mixture, until they have a distinct\ntype, which will start a new civilisation when transplanted. The future\nprogress of Man may depend as much on isolation to establish a type as\non fusion of types when established.\u201d\n\nAt the time when Flinders Petrie was publishing his suggestive book, Dr.\nOswald Spengler, apparently in complete ignorance of it, was engaged in\na far more elaborate work, not actually published till after the War, in\nwhich an analogous conception of the growth and decay of civilisations\nwas put forward in a more philosophic way, perhaps more debatable on\naccount of the complex detail in which the conception was worked\nout.[123] Petrie had considered the matter in a summary empiric manner\nwith close reference to the actual forces viewed broadly. Spengler\u2019s\nmanner is narrower, more subjective, and more metaphysical. He\ndistinguishes\u2014though he also recognises eight periods\u2014between \u201cculture\u201d\nand \u201ccivilisation.\u201d It is the first that is really vital and profitable;\na \u201ccivilisation\u201d is the decaying later stage of a \u201cculture,\u201d its\ninevitable fate. Herein it reaches its climax. \u201cCivilisations are the\nmost externalised and artistic conditions of which the higher embodiment\nof Man is capable. They are a spiritual senility, an end which with\ninner necessity is reached again and again.\u201d[124] The transition from\n\u201cculture\u201d to \u201ccivilisation\u201d in ancient times took place, Spengler holds,\nin the fourth century, and in the modern West in the nineteenth. But,\nlike Petrie, though more implicitly, he recognises the prominent place\nof the art activities in the whole process, and he explicitly emphasises\nthe interesting way in which those activities which are generally\nregarded as of the nature of art are interwoven with others not so\ngenerally regarded.\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nHOWEVER we look at it, we see that Man, whether he works individually or\ncollectively, may conveniently be regarded, in the comprehensive sense,\nas an artist, a bad artist, maybe, for the most part, but still an\nartist. His civilisation\u2014if that is the term we choose to apply to the\ntotal sum of his group activities\u2014is always an art, or a complex of\narts. It is an art that is to be measured, or left immeasurable. That\nquestion, we have seen, we may best leave open. Another question that\nmight be put is easy to deal with more summarily: What is Art?\n\nWe may deal with it summarily because it is an ultimate question and\nthere can be no final answer to ultimate questions. As soon as we begin\nto ask such questions, as soon as we begin to look at any phenomenon as\nan end in itself, we are on the perilous slope of metaphysics, where no\nagreement can, or should be, possible. The question of measurement was\nplausible, and needed careful consideration. What is Art? is a question\nwhich, if we are wise, we shall deal with as Pilate dealt with that like\nquestion: What is Truth?\n\nHow futile the question is, we may realise when we examine the book\nwhich Tolstoy in old age wrote to answer it. Here is a man who was\nhimself, in his own field, one of the world\u2019s supreme artists. He could\nnot fail to say one or two true things, as when he points out that \u201call\nhuman existence is full of art, from cradle songs and dances to the\noffices of religion and public ceremonial\u2014it is all equally art. Art, in\nthe large sense, impregnates our whole life.\u201d But on the main point all\nthat Tolstoy can do is to bring together a large miscellaneous\ncollection of definitions\u2014without seeing that as individual opinions\nthey all have their rightness\u2014and then to add one of his own, not much\nworse, nor much better, than any of the others. Thereto he appends some\nof his own opinions on artists, whence it appears that Hugo, Dickens,\nGeorge Eliot, Dostoievsky, Maupassant, Millet, Bastien-Lepage, and Jules\nBreton\u2014and not always they\u2014are the artists whom he considers great; it\nis not a list to treat with contempt, but he goes on to pour contempt on\nthose who venerate Sophocles and Aristophanes and Dante and Shakespeare\nand Milton and Michelangelo and Bach and Beethoven and Manet. \u201cMy own\nartistic works,\u201d he adds, \u201cI rank among bad art, excepting a few short\nstories.\u201d It seems a reduction of the whole question, What is Art? to\nabsurdity, if one may be permitted to say so at a time when Tolstoy\nwould appear to be the pioneer of some of our most approved modern\ncritics.\n\nThus we see the reason why all the people who come forward to define\nart\u2014each with his own little measuring-rod quite different from\neverybody else\u2019s\u2014inevitably make themselves ridiculous. It is true they\nare all of them right. That is just why they are ridiculous: each has\nmistaken the one drop of water he has measured for the whole ocean. Art\ncannot be defined because it is infinite. It is no accident that poetry,\nwhich has so often seemed the typical art, means a _making_. The artist\nis a maker. Art is merely a name we are pleased to give to what can only\nbe the whole stream of action which\u2014in order to impart to it selection\nand an unconscious or even conscious aim\u2014is poured through the nervous\ncircuit of a human animal or some other animal having a more or less\nsimilar nervous organisation. For a cat is an artist as well as a man,\nand some would say more than a man, while a bee is not only an obvious\nartist, but perhaps even the typical natural and unconscious artist.\nThere is no defining art; there is only the attempt to distinguish\nbetween good art and bad art.\n\nThus it is that I find no escape from the Aristotelian position of\nShakespeare that\n\n               \u201cNature is made better by no mean\n               But Nature makes that mean....\n                               This is an art\n               Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but\n               The art itself is Nature.\u201d\n\nAnd that this conception is Aristotelian, even the essential Greek\nconception, is no testimony to Shakespeare\u2019s scholarship. It is merely\nthe proof that here we are in the presence of one of these great\nultimate facts of the world which cannot but be sensitively perceived by\nthe finest spirits, however far apart in time and space. Aristotle,\naltogether in the same spirit as Shakespeare, insisted that the works of\nman\u2019s making, a State, for example, are natural, though Art partly\ncompletes what Nature is herself sometimes unable to bring to\nperfection, and even then that man is only exercising methods which,\nafter all, are those of Nature. Nature needs Man\u2019s art in order to\nachieve many natural things, and Man, in fulfilling that need, is only\nfollowing the guidance of Nature in seeming to make things which are all\nthe time growing by themselves.[125] Art is thus scarcely more than the\nnatural midwife of Nature.\n\nThere is, however, one distinguishing mark of Art which at this stage,\nas we conclude our survey, must be clearly indicated. It has been\nsubsumed, as the acute reader will not have failed to note, throughout.\nBut it has, for the most part, been deliberately left implicit. It has\nconstantly been assumed, that is to say, that Art is the sum of all the\nactive energies of Mankind. We must in this matter of necessity follow\nAristotle, who in his \u201cPolitics\u201d spoke, as a matter of course, of all\nthose who practice \u201cmedicine, gymnastics, and the arts in general\u201d as\n\u201cartists.\u201d Art is the moulding force of every culture that Man during\nhis long course has at any time or place produced. It is the reality of\nwhat we imperfectly term \u201cmorality.\u201d It is all human creation.\n\nYet creation, in the active visible constructive sense, is not the whole\nof Man. It is not even the whole of what Man has been accustomed to call\nGod. When, by what is now termed a process of Narcissism, Man created\nGod in his own image, as we may instructively observe in the first\nchapter of the Hebrew Book of Genesis, he assigned to him six parts of\nactive creational work, one part of passive contemplation of that work.\nThat one seventh part\u2014and an immensely important part\u2014has not come under\nour consideration. In other words, we have been looking at Man the\nartist, not at Man the \u00e6sthetician.\n\nThere was more than one reason why these two aspects of human faculty\nwere held clearly apart throughout our discussion. Not only is it even\nless possible to agree about \u00e6sthetics, where the variety of individual\njudgment is rightly larger, than about art (ancient and familiar is the\nsaying, _De gustibus_\u2014), but to confuse art and \u00e6sthetics leads us into\nlamentable confusion. We may note this in the pioneers of the modern\nrevival of what Sidgwick called \u201c\u00e6sthetic Intuitionism\u201d in the\neighteenth century, and especially in Hutcheson, though Hutcheson\u2019s work\nis independent of consistency, which he can scarcely even be said to\nhave sought. They never sufficiently emphasised the distinction between\nart and \u00e6sthetics, between, that is to say, what we may possibly, if we\nlike, call the dynamic and the static aspects of human action. Herein is\nthe whole difference between work, for art is essentially work, and the\nspectacular contemplation of work, which \u00e6sthetics essentially is. The\ntwo things are ultimately one, but alike in the special arts and in that\nart of life commonly spoken of as morals, where we are not usually\nconcerned with ultimates, the two must be clearly held apart. From the\npoint of view of art we are concerned with the internal impulse to guide\nthe activities in the lines of good work. It is only when we look at the\nwork of art from the outside, whether in the more specialised arts or in\nthe art of life, that we are concerned with \u00e6sthetic contemplation, that\nactivity of vision which creates beauty, however we may please to define\nbeauty, and even though we see it so widely as to be able to say with\nRemy de Gourmont: \u201cWherever life is, there is beauty,\u201d[126] provided,\none may add, that there is the \u00e6sthetic contemplation in which it must\nbe mirrored.\n\nIt is in relation with art, not with \u00e6sthetics, it may be noted in\npassing, that we are concerned with morals. That was once a question of\nseemingly such immense import that men were willing to spiritually slay\neach other over it. But it is not a question at all from the standpoint\nwhich has here from the outset been taken. Morals, for us to-day, is a\nspecies of which art is the genus. It is an art, and like all arts it\nnecessarily has its own laws. We are concerned with the art of morals:\nwe cannot speak of art _and_ morals. To take \u201cart\u201d and \u201cmorals\u201d and\n\u201creligion,\u201d and stir them up, however vigorously, into an indigestible\nplum-pudding, as Ruskin used to do, is no longer possible.[127] This is\na question which\u2014like so many other furiously debated questions\u2014only\ncame into existence because the disputants on both sides were ignorant\nof the matter they were disputing about. It is no longer to be taken\nseriously, though it has its interest because the dispute has so often\nrecurred, not only in recent days, but equally among the Greeks of\nPlato\u2019s days. The Greeks had a kind of \u00e6sthetic morality. It was\ninstinctive with them, and that is why it is so significant for us. But\nthey seldom seem to have succeeded in thinking \u00e6sthetic problems clearly\nout. The attitude of their philosophers towards many of the special\narts, even the arts in which they were themselves supreme, to us seem\nunreasonable. While they magnified the art, they often belittled the\nartist, and felt an aristocratic horror for anything that assimilated a\nman to a craftsman; for craftsman meant for them vulgarian. Plato\nhimself was all for goody-goody literature and in our days would be an\nenthusiastic patron of Sunday-school stories. He would forbid any\nnovelist to represent a good man as ever miserable or a wicked man as\never happy. The whole tendency of the discussion in the third book of\nthe \u201cRepublic\u201d is towards the conclusion that literature must be\noccupied exclusively with the representation of the virtuous man,\nprovided, of course, that he was not a slave or a craftsman, for to such\nno virtue worthy of imitation should ever be attributed. Towards the end\nof his long life, Plato remained of the same opinion; in the second book\nof \u201cThe Laws\u201d it is with the maxims of virtue that he will have the poet\nsolely concerned. The reason for this ultra-puritanical attitude, which\nwas by no means in practice that of the Greeks themselves, seems not\nhard to divine. The very fact that their morality was temperamentally\n\u00e6sthetic instinctively impelled them, when they were thinking\nphilosophically, to moralise art generally; they had not yet reached the\nstandpoint which would enable them to see that art might be consonant\nwith morality without being artificially pressed into a narrow moral\nmould. Aristotle was conspicuously among those, if not the first, who\ntook a broader and saner view. In opposition to the common Greek view\nthat the object of art is to teach morals, Aristotle clearly expressed\nthe totally different view that poetry in the wide sense\u2014the special art\nwhich he and the Greeks generally were alone much concerned to\ndiscuss\u2014is an emotional delight, having pleasure as its direct end, and\nonly indirectly a moral end by virtue of its cathartic effects. Therein\nhe reached an \u00e6sthetic standpoint, yet it was so novel that he could not\nsecurely retain it and was constantly falling back towards the old moral\nconception of art.[128]\n\nWe may call it a step in advance. Yet it was not a complete statement of\nthe matter. Indeed, it established the unreal conflict between two\nopposing conceptions, each unsound because incomplete, which loose\nthinkers have carried on ever since. To assert that poetry exists for\nmorals is merely to assert that one art exists for the sake of another\nart, which at the best is rather a futile statement, while, so far as it\nis really accepted, it cannot fail to crush the art thus subordinated.\nIf we have the insight to see that an art has its own part of life, we\nshall also see that it has its own intrinsic morality, which cannot be\nthe morality of morals or of any other art than itself. We may here\nprofitably bear in mind that antinomy between morals and morality on\nwhich Jules de Gaultier has often insisted. The Puritan\u2019s strait-jacket\nshows the vigour of his external morals; it also bears witness to the\nlack of internal morality which necessitates that control. Again, on the\nother hand, it is argued that art gives pleasure. Very true. Even the\nart of morals gives pleasure. But to assert that therein lies its sole\nend and aim is an altogether feeble and inadequate conclusion, unless we\ngo further and proceed to inquire what \u201cpleasure\u201d means. If we fail to\ntake that further step, it remains a conclusion which may be said to\nmerge into the conclusion that art is aimless; that, rather, its aim is\nto be aimless, and so to lift us out of the struggle and turmoil of\nlife. That was the elaborately developed argument of Schopenhauer:\nart\u2014whether in music, in philosophy, in painting, in poetry\u2014is useless;\n\u201cto be useless is the mark of genius, its patent of nobility. All other\nworks of men are there for the preservation or alleviation of our\nexistence; but this alone not; it alone is there for its own sake; and\nis in this sense to be regarded as the flower, or the pure essence, of\nexistence. That is why in its enjoyment our heart rises, for we are\nthereby lifted above the heavy earthen atmosphere of necessity.\u201d[129]\nLife is a struggle of the will; but in art the will has become\nobjective, fit for pure contemplation, and genius consists in an eminent\naptitude for contemplation. The ordinary man, said Schopenhauer, plods\nthrough the dark world with his lantern turned on the things he wants;\nthe man of genius sees the world by the light of the sun. In modern\ntimes Bergson adopted that view of Schopenhauer\u2019s, with a terminology of\nhis own, and all he said under this head may be regarded as a charming\nfantasia on the Schopenhauerian theme: \u201cGenius is the most complete\nobjectivity.\u201d Most of us, it seems to Bergson, never see reality at all;\nwe only see the labels we have fixed on things to mark for us their\nusefulness.[130] A veil is interposed between us and the reality of\nthings. The artist, the man of genius, raises this veil and reveals\nNature to us. He is naturally endowed with a detachment from life, and\nso possesses as it were a virginal freshness in seeing, hearing, or\nthinking. That is \u201cintuition,\u201d an instinct that has become\ndisinterested. \u201cArt has no other object but to remove the practically\nuseful symbols, the conventional and socially accepted generalities, so\nas to bring us face to face with reality itself.\u201d[131] Art would thus be\nfulfilling its function the more completely the further it removed us\nfrom ordinary life, or, more strictly, from any personal interest in\nlife. That was also Remy de Gourmont\u2019s opinion, though I do not know how\nfar he directly derived it from Schopenhauer. \u201cIf we give to art a moral\naim,\u201d he wrote, \u201cit ceases to exist, for it ceases to be useless. Art is\nincompatible with a moral or religious aim. It is unintelligible to the\ncrowd because the crowd is not disinterested and knows only the\nprinciple of utility.\u201d But the difficulty of making definite affirmation\nin this field, the perpetual need to allow for _nuances_ which often on\nthe surface involve contradictions, is seen when we find that so great\nan artist as Einstein\u2014for so we may here fairly call him\u2014and one so\nlittle of a formal \u00e6sthetician, agrees with Schopenhauer. \u201cI agree with\nSchopenhauer,\u201d he said to Moszkowski, \u201cthat one of the most powerful\nmotives that attract people to science and art is the longing to escape\nfrom everyday life, with its painful coarseness and unconsoling\nbarrenness, and to break the fetters of their own ever-changing desires.\nMan seeks to form a simplified synoptical view of the world conformable\nto his own nature, to overcome the world by replacing it with his\npicture. The painter, the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, each\ndoes this in his own way. He transfers the centre of his emotional life\nto this picture, to find a surer haven of peace than the sphere of his\nturbulent personal experience offers.\u201d That is a sound statement of the\nfacts, yet it is absurd to call such an achievement \u201cuseless.\u201d\n\nPerhaps, however, what philosophers have really meant when they have\nsaid that art (it is the so-called fine arts only that they have in\nmind) is useless, is that _an art must not be consciously pursued for\nany primary useful end outside itself_. That is true. It is even true of\nmorals, that is to say the art of living. To live in the conscious\nprimary pursuit of a \u201cuseful\u201d end\u2014such as one of the fine arts\u2014outside\nliving itself is to live badly; to declare, like Andr\u00e9 Gide, that\n\u201coutside the doctrine of \u2018Art for Art\u2019 I know not where to find any\nreason for living,\u201d may well be the legitimate expression of a personal\nfeeling, but, unless understood in the sense here taken, it is not a\nphilosophical statement which can be brought under the species of\neternity, being, indeed, one of those confusions of substances which\nare, metaphysically, damnable. So, again, in the art of science: the\nmost useful applications of science have sprung from discoveries that\nwere completely useless for purposes outside pure science, so far as the\naim of the discoverer went, or even so far as he ever knew. If he had\nbeen bent on \u201cuseful\u201d ends, he would probably have made no discovery at\nall. But the bare statement that \u201cart is useless\u201d is so vague as to be\nreally meaningless, if not inaccurate and misleading.\n\nTherefore, Nietzsche was perhaps making a profound statement when he\ndeclared that art is the great stimulus to life; it produces joy as an\naid to life; it possesses a usefulness, that is to say, which transcends\nits direct aim. The artist is one who sees life as beauty, and art is\nthus fulfilling its function the more completely, the more deeply it\nenables us to penetrate into life. It seems, however, that Nietzsche\ninsufficiently guarded his statement. Art for art\u2019s sake, said\nNietzsche, is \u201ca dangerous principle,\u201d like truth for truth\u2019s sake and\ngoodness for goodness\u2019 sake. Art, knowledge, and morality are simply\nmeans, he declared, and valuable for their \u201clife-promoting tendency.\u201d\n(There is here a pioneering suggestion of the American doctrine of\nPragmatism, according to which how a thing \u201cworks\u201d is the test of its\nvalidity, but Nietzsche can by no means be counted a Pragmatist.) To\nlook thus at the matter was certainly, with Schopenhauer and with\nGourmont, to put aside the superficial moral function of art, and to\nrecognise in it a larger sociological function. It was on the\nsociological function of art that Guyau, who was so penetrating and\nsympathetic a thinker, insisted in his book, posthumously published in\n1889, \u201cL\u2019Art au Point de Vue Sociologique.\u201d He argued that art, while\nremaining independent, is at the foundation one with morals and with\nreligion. He believed in a profound unity of all these terms: life,\nmorality, society, religion, art. \u201cArt, in a word, is life.\u201d So that, as\nhe pointed out, there is no conflict between the theory of art for art,\nproperly interpreted, and the theory that assigns to art a moral and\nsocial function. It is clear that Guyau was on the right road, although\nhis statement was confusingly awkward in form. He deformed his\nstatement, moreover, through his perpetual tendency to insist on the\nspontaneously socialising organisation of human groups\u2014a tendency which\nhas endeared him to all who adopt an anarchist conception of\nsociety\u2014and, forgetting that he had placed morals only at the depth of\nart and not on the surface, he commits himself to the supremely false\ndictum: \u201cArt is, above everything, a phenomenon of sociability,\u201d and the\nlike statements, far too closely resembling the doctrinary\npronouncements of Tolstoy. For sociability is an indirect end of art: it\ncannot be its direct aim. We are here not far from the ambiguous\ndoctrine that art is \u201cexpression,\u201d for \u201cexpression\u201d may be too easily\nconfused with \u201ccommunication.\u201d[132]\n\nAll these eminent philosophers\u2014though they meant something which so far\nas it went was true\u2014have failed to produce a satisfying statement\nbecause they have none of them understood how to ask the question which\nthey were trying to answer. They failed to understand that morals is\njust as much an art as any other vital psychic function of man; they\nfailed to see that, though art must be free from the dominance of\nmorals, it by no means followed that it has no morality of its own, if\nmorality involves the organised integrity which all vital phenomena must\npossess; they failed to realise that, since the arts are simply the sum\nof the active functions which spring out of the single human organism,\nwe are not called upon to worry over any imaginary conflicts between\nfunctions which are necessarily harmonious because they are all one at\nthe root. We cannot too often repeat the pregnant maxim of Bacon that\nthe right question is the half of knowledge. Here we might almost say\nthat it is the whole of knowledge. It seems, therefore, unnecessary to\npursue the subject further. He who cannot himself pursue it further had\nbest leave it alone.\n\nBut when we enter the \u00e6sthetic sphere we are no longer artists. That,\nindeed, is inevitable if we regard the arts as the sum of all the active\nfunctions of the organism. Rickert, with his methodical vision of the\nworld,\u2014for he insists that we must have some sort of system,\u2014has\npresented what he regards as a reasonable scheme in a tabular form at\nthe end of the first volume of his \u201cSystem.\u201d[133] He divides Reality\ninto two great divisions: the monistic and asocial Contemplative and the\npluralistic and social Active. To the first belong the spheres of Logic,\n\u00c6sthetics, and Mysticism, with their values, truth, beauty, impersonal\nholiness; to the second, Ethics, Erotics, the Philosophy of Religion,\nwith their values, morality, happiness, personal holiness. This view of\nthe matter is the more significant as Rickert stands aside from the\ntradition represented by Nietzsche and returns to the Kantian current,\nenriched, indeed, and perhaps not quite consistently, by Goethe. It\nseems probable that all Rickert\u2019s active attitudes towards reality may\nfairly be called Art, and all the contemplative attitudes, \u00c6sthetics.\n\nThere is in fact nothing novel in the distinction which underlies this\nclassification, and it has been recognised ever since the days of\nBaumgarten, the commonly accepted founder of modern \u00e6sthetics, not to go\nfurther back.[134] Art is the active practical exercise of a single\ndiscipline: \u00e6sthetics is the philosophic appreciation of any or all the\narts. Art is concerned with the more or less unconscious creation of\nbeauty: \u00e6sthetics is concerned with its discovery and contemplation.\n\u00c6sthetics is the metaphysical side of all productive living.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nTHIS complete unlikeness on the surface between art and \u00e6sthetics\u2014for\nultimately and fundamentally they are at one\u2014has to be emphasised, for\nthe failure to distinguish them has led to confusion and verbosity. The\npractice of morals, we must ever remember, is not a matter of \u00e6sthetics;\nit is a matter of art. It has not, nor has any other art, an immediate\nand obvious relationship to the creation of beauty.[135] What the artist\nin life, as in any other art, is directly concerned to express is not\nprimarily beauty; it is much more likely to seem to him to be truth (it\nis interesting to note that Einstein, so much an artist in thought,\ninsists that he is simply concerned with truth), and what he produces\nmay seem at first to all the world, and even possibly to himself, to be\nugly. It is so in the sphere of morals. For morals is still concerned\nwith the possessive instinct, not with the creation of beauty, with the\nneeds and the satisfaction of the needs, with the industrial and\neconomic activities, with the military activities to which they fatally\ntend. But the \u00e6sthetic attitude, as Gaultier expresses it, is the\nradiant smile on the human face which in its primitive phases was\nanatomically built up to subserve crude vital needs; as he elsewhere\nmore abstractly expresses it, \u201cBeauty is an attitude of sensibility.\u201d It\nis the task of \u00e6sthetics, often a slow and painful task, to see\nart\u2014including the art of Nature, some would insist\u2014as beauty. That, it\nhas to be added, is no mean task. It is, on the contrary, essential. It\nis essential to sweep away in art all that is ultimately found to be\nfundamentally ugly, whether by being, at the one end, distastefully\npretty, or, at the other, hopelessly crude. For ugliness produces nausea\nof the stomach and sets the teeth on edge. It does so literally, not\nmetaphorically. Ugliness, since it interferes with digestion, since it\ndisturbs the nervous system, impairs the forces of life. For when we are\ntalking \u00e6sthetics (as the word itself indicates) we are ultimately\ntalking physiologically. Even our metaphysics\u2014if it is to have any\nmeaning for us\u2014must have a physical side. Unless we hold that fact in\nmind, we shall talk astray and are likely to say little that is to the\npoint.\n\nArt has to be seen as beauty and it is the function of \u00e6sthetics so to\nsee it. How slowly and painfully the function works every one must know\nby observing the \u00e6sthetic judgments of other people, if not by recalling\nhis own experiences. I know in my own experience how hardly and\nsubconsciously this process works. In the matter of pictures, for\ninstance, I have found throughout life, from Rubens in adolescence to\nC\u00e9zanne in recent years, that a revelation of the beauty of a painter\u2019s\nwork which, on the surface, is alien or repulsive to one\u2019s sensibility,\ncame only after years of contemplation, and then most often by a sudden\nrevelation, in a flash, by a direct intuition of the beauty of some\nparticular picture which henceforth became the clue to all the painter\u2019s\nwork. It is a process comparable to that which is in religion termed\n\u201cconversion,\u201d and, indeed, of like nature.[136] So also it is in\nliterature. And in life? We are accustomed to suppose that a moral\naction is much easier to judge than a picture of C\u00e9zanne. We do not\ndream of bringing the same patient and attentive, as it were \u00e6sthetic,\nspirit to life as we bring to painting. Perhaps we are right,\nconsidering what poor bungling artists most of us are in living. For\n\u201cart is easy, life is difficult,\u201d as Liszt used to say. The reason, of\ncourse, is that the art of living differs from the external arts in that\nwe cannot exclude the introduction of alien elements into its texture.\nOur art of living, when we achieve it, is of so high and fine a quality\nprecisely because it so largely lies in harmoniously weaving into the\ntexture elements that we have not ourselves chosen, or that, having\nchosen, we cannot throw aside. Yet it is the attitude of the spectators\nthat helps to perpetuate that bungling.\n\nIt is Plotinus whom we may fairly regard as the founder of \u00c6sthetics in\nthe philosophic sense, and it was as formulated by Plotinus, though this\nwe sometimes fail to recognise, that the Greek attitude in these\nmatters, however sometimes modified, has come down to us.[137] We may be\nforgiven for not always recognising it, because it is rather strange\nthat it should be so. It is strange, that is to say, that the \u00e6sthetic\nattitude, which we regard as so emphatically Greek, should have been\nleft for formulation until the Greek world had passed away, that it\nshould not have been Plato, but an Alexandrian, living in Rome seven\ncenturies after him, who set forth what seems to us a distinctively\nPlatonic view of life.[138] The Greeks, indeed, seem to have recognised,\napart from the lower merely \u201cethical\u201d virtues of habit and custom, the\nhigher \u201cintellectual\u201d virtues which were deliberately planned, and so of\nthe nature of art. But Plotinus definitely recognised the \u00e6sthetic\ncontemplation of Beauty, together with the One and the Good, as three\naspects of the Absolute.[139] He thus at once placed \u00e6sthetics on the\nhighest possible pedestal, beside religion and morals; he placed it\nabove art, or as comprehending art, for he insisted that Contemplation\nis an active quality, so that all human creative energy may be regarded\nas the by-play of contemplation. That was to carry rather far the\nfunction of \u00e6sthetic contemplation. But it served to stamp for ever, on\nthe minds of all sensitive to that stamp who came after, the definite\nrealisation of the sublimest, the most nearly divine, of human\naptitudes. Every great spirit has furnished the measure of his greatness\nby the more or less completeness in which at the ultimate outpost of his\nvision over the world he has attained to that active contemplation of\nlife as a spectacle which Shakespeare finally embodied in the figure of\nProspero.\n\nIt may be interesting to note in passing that, psychologically\nconsidered, all \u00e6sthetic enjoyment among the ordinary population,\nneither artists in the narrow sense nor philosophers, still necessarily\npartakes to some degree of genuine \u00e6sthetic contemplation, and that such\ncontemplation seems to fall roughly into two classes, to one or other of\nwhich every one who experiences \u00e6sthetic enjoyment belongs. These have,\nI believe, been defined by M\u00fcller-Freienfels as that of the \u201cZuschauer,\u201d\nwho feels that he is looking on, and that of the \u201cMitspieler,\u201d who feels\nthat he is joining in; on the one side, we may say, he who knows he is\nlooking on, the _spectator_, and on the other he who imaginatively joins\nin, the _participator_. The people of the first group are those, it may\nbe, in whom the sensory nervous apparatus is highly developed and they\nare able to adopt the most typical and complete \u00e6sthetic attitude; the\npeople of the other group would seem to be most developed on the motor\nnervous side and they are those who themselves desire to be artists.\nGroos, who has developed the \u00e6sthetic side of \u201cmiterleben,\u201d is of this\ntemperament, and he had at first supposed that every one was like him in\nthis respect.[140] Plotinus, who held that contemplation embraced\nactivity, must surely have been of this temperament. Coleridge was\nemphatically of the other temperament, _spectator haud particeps_, as he\nhimself said. But, at all events in northern countries, that is probably\nnot the more common temperament. The \u00e6sthetic attitude of the crowds who\ngo to watch football matches is probably much more that of the\nimaginative participator than of the pure spectator.\n\nThere is no occasion here to trace the history of \u00e6sthetic\ncontemplation. Yet it may be worth while to note that it was clearly\npresent to the mind of the fine thinker and great moralist who brought\nthe old Greek idea back into the modern world. In the \u201cPhilosophical\nRegimen\u201d (as it has been named) brought to light a few years ago, in\nwhich Shaftesbury set down his self-communings, we find him writing in\none place: \u201cIn the morning am I to see anew? Am I to be present yet\nlonger and content? I am not weary, nor ever can be, of such a\nspectacle, such a theatre, such a presence, nor at acting whatever part\nsuch a master assigns me. Be it ever so long, I stay and am willing to\nsee on whilst my sight continues sound; whilst I can be a spectator,\nsuch as I ought to be; whilst I can see reverently, justly, with\nunderstanding and applause. And when I see no more, I retire, not\ndisdainfully, but in reverence to the spectacle and master, giving\nthanks.... Away, man! rise, wipe thy mouth, throw up thy napkin and have\ndone. A bellyful (they say) is as good as a feast.\u201d\n\nThat may seem but a simple and homely way of stating the matter, though\na few years later, in 1727, a yet greater spirit than Shaftesbury,\nSwift, combining the conception of life as \u00e6sthetic contemplation with\nthat of life as art, wrote in a letter, \u201cLife is a tragedy, wherein we\nsit as spectators awhile, and then act our own part in it.\u201d If we desire\na more systematically philosophical statement we may turn to the\ndistinguished thinker of to-day who in many volumes has most powerfully\npresented the same essential conception, with all its implications, of\nlife as a spectacle. \u201cTirez le rideau; la farce est jou\u00e9e.\u201d That\nShakespearian utterance, which used to be attributed to Rabelais on his\ndeath-bed, and Swift\u2019s comment on life, and Shaftesbury\u2019s intimate\nmeditation, would seem to be\u2014on the philosophic and apart from the moral\nside of life\u2014entirely in the spirit that Jules de Gaultier has so\nelaborately developed. The world is a spectacle, and all the men and\nwomen the actors on its stage. Enjoy the spectacle while you will,\nwhether comedy or tragedy, enter into the spirit of its manifold\nrichness and beauty, yet take it not too seriously, even when you leave\nit and the curtains are drawn that conceal it for ever from your eyes,\ngrown weary at last.\n\nSuch a conception, indeed, was already to be seen in a deliberately\nphilosophical form in Schopenhauer (who, no doubt, influenced Gaultier)\nand, later, Nietzsche, especially the early Nietzsche, although he never\nentirely abandoned it; his break with Wagner, however, whom he had\nregarded as the typical artist, led him to become suddenly rather\ncritical of art and artists, as we see in \u201cHuman-all-too-Human,\u201d which\nimmediately followed \u201cWagner in Bayreuth,\u201d and he became inclined to\nlook on the artist, in the narrow sense, as only \u201ca splendid relic of\nthe past,\u201d not, indeed, altogether losing his earlier conception, but\ndisposed to believe that \u201cthe scientific man is the finest development\nof the artistic man.\u201d In his essay on Wagner he had presented art as the\nessentially metaphysical activity of Man, here following Schopenhauer.\n\u201cEvery genius,\u201d well said Schopenhauer, \u201cis a great child; he gazes out\nat the world as something strange, a spectacle, and therefore with\npurely objective interest.\u201d That is to say that the highest attitude\nattainable by man towards life is that of \u00e6sthetic contemplation. But it\ntook on a different character in Nietzsche. In 1878 Nietzsche wrote of\nhis early essay on Wagner: \u201cAt that time I believed that the world was\ncreated from the \u00e6sthetic standpoint, as a play, and that as a moral\nphenomenon it was a deception: on that account I came to the conclusion\nthat the world was only to be justified as an \u00e6sthetic phenomenon.\u201d[141]\nAt the end of his active career Nietzsche was once more reproducing this\nproposition in many ways. Jules de Gaultier has much interested himself\nin Nietzsche, but he had already reached, no doubt through Schopenhauer,\na rather similar conception before he came in contact with Nietzsche\u2019s\nwork, and in the present day he is certainly the thinker who has most\nsystematically and philosophically elaborated the conception.[142]\n\nGaultier is most generally known by that perhaps not quite happily\nchosen term of \u201cBovarism,\u201d embodied in the title of his earliest book\nand abstracted from Flaubert\u2019s heroine, which stands for one of his most\ncharacteristic conceptions, and, indeed, in a large sense, for the\ncentral idea of his philosophy. In its primary psychological sense\nBovarism is the tendency\u2014the unconscious tendency of Emma Bovary and,\nmore or less, all of us\u2014to conceive of ourselves as other than we are.\nOur picture of the world, for good or for evil, is an idealised picture,\na fiction, a waking dream, an _als ob_, as Vaihinger would say. But when\nwe idealise the world we begin by first idealising ourselves. We imagine\nourselves other than we are, and in so imagining, as Gaultier clearly\nrealises, we tend to mould ourselves, so that reality becomes a\nprolongation of fiction. As Meister Eckhart long since finely said: \u201cA\nman is what he loves.\u201d A similar thought was in Plato\u2019s mind. In modern\ntimes a variation of this same idea has been worked out, not as by\nGaultier from the philosophic side, but from the medical and more\nespecially the psycho-analytic side, by Dr. Alfred Adler of Vienna.[143]\nAdler has suggestively shown how often a man\u2019s or a woman\u2019s character is\nconstituted by a process of fiction,\u2014that is by making an ideal of what\nit is, or what it ought to be,\u2014and then so far as possible moulding it\ninto the shape of that fiction, a process which is often interwoven with\nmorbid elements, especially with an original basis of organic defect,\nthe reaction being an effort, sometimes successful, to overcome that\ndefect, and even to transform it into a conspicuous quality, as when\nDemosthenes, who was a stutterer, made himself a great orator. Even\nthinkers may not wholly escape this tendency, and I think it would be\neasily possible to show that, for instance, Nietzsche was moved by what\nAdler calls the \u201cmasculine protest\u201d; one remembers how shrinkingly\ndelicate Nietzsche was towards women and how emphatically he declared\nthey should never be approached without a whip. Adler owed nothing to\nGaultier, of whom he seems to be ignorant; he found his first\ninspiration in Vaihinger\u2019s doctrine of the \u201cas if\u201d; Gaultier, however,\nowes nothing to Vaihinger, and, indeed, began to publish earlier, though\nnot before Vaihinger\u2019s book was written. Gaultier\u2019s philosophic descent\nis mainly from Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.\n\nThere is another deeper and wider sense, a more abstract esoteric sense,\nin which Jules de Gaultier understands Bovarism. It is not only the\nhuman being and human groups who are psychologically Bovaristic, the\nUniverse itself, the Eternal Being (to adopt an accepted fiction),\nmetaphysically partakes of Bovarism. The Universe, it seems to Gaultier,\nnecessarily conceives itself as other than it is. Single, it conceives\nitself multiple, as subject and object. Thus is furnished the\nfundamental convention which we must grant to the Dramatist who presents\nthe cosmic tragi-comedy.[144]\n\nIt may seem to some that the vision of the world which Man pursues on\nhis course across the Universe becomes ever more impalpable and\nvisionary. And so perhaps it may be. But even if that were an\nundesirable result, it would still be useless to fight against God. We\nare, after all, merely moulding the conceptions which a little later\nwill become commonplaced and truisms. For really\u2014while we must hold\nphysics and metaphysics apart, for they cannot be blended\u2014a metaphysics\nwhich is out of harmony with physics is negligible; it is nothing in the\nworld. And it is our physical world that is becoming more impalpable and\nvisionary. It is \u201cmatter,\u201d the very structure of the \u201catom,\u201d that is\nmelting into a dream, and if it may seem that on the spiritual side life\ntends to be moulding itself to the conception of Calderon as a dream, it\nis because the physical atom is pursuing that course. Unless we hold in\nmind the analysis of the world towards which the physicist is bringing\nus, we shall not understand the synthesis of the world towards which the\nphilosopher is bringing us. Gaultier\u2019s philosophy may not be based upon\nphysics, but it seems to be in harmony with physics.\n\nThis is the metaphysical scaffolding\u2014we may if we like choose to\ndispense with it\u2014by aid of which Jules de Gaultier erects his\nspectacular conception of the world. He is by no means concerned to deny\nthe necessity of morality. On the contrary, morality is the necessary\nrestraint on the necessary biological instinct of possession, on the\ndesire, that is, by the acquisition of certain objects, to satisfy\npassions which are most often only the exaggeration of natural needs,\nbut which\u2014through the power of imagination such exaggeration inaugurates\nin the world\u2014lead to the development of civilisation. Limited and\ndefinite so long as confined to their biological ends, needs are\nindefinitely elastic, exhibiting, indeed, an almost hysterical character\nwhich becomes insatiable. They mark a hypertrophy of the possessive\ninstinct which experience shows to be a menace to social life. Thus the\nGreat War of recent times may be regarded as the final tragic result of\nthe excessive development through half a century of an economic fever,\nthe activity of needs beyond their due biological ends producing\nsuddenly the inevitable result.[145] So that the possessive instinct,\nwhile it is the cause of the formation of an economic civilised society,\nwhen pushed too far becomes the cause of the ruin of that society. Man,\nwho begins by acquiring just enough force to compel Nature to supply his\nbare needs, himself becomes, according to the tragic Greek saying, the\ngreatest force of Nature. Yet the fact that a civilisation may persist\nfor centuries shows that men in societies have found methods of\ncombating the exaggerated development of the possessive instinct, of\nretaining it within bounds which have enabled societies to enjoy a\nfairly long life. These methods become embodied in religions and\nmoralities and laws. They react in concert to restrain the greediness\nengendered by the possessive instinct. They make virtues of Temperance\nand Sobriety and Abnegation. They invent Great Images which arouse human\nhopes and human fears. They prescribe imperatives, with sanctions, in\npart imposed by the Great Images and in part by the actual executive\nforce of social law. So societies are enabled to immunise themselves\nagainst the ravaging auto-intoxication of an excessive instinct of\npossession, and the services rendered by religions and moralities cannot\nbe too highly estimated. They are the spontaneous physiological\nprocesses which counteract disease before medical science comes into\nplay.\n\nBut are they of any use in those periods of advanced civilisation which\nthey have themselves contributed to form? When Man has replaced flint\nknives and clubs and slings by the elaborate weapons we know, can he be\ncontent with methods of social preservation which date from the time of\nflint knives and clubs and slings? The efficacy of those restraints\ndepends on a sensibility which could only exist when men scarcely\ndistinguished imaginations from perceptions. Thence arose the credulity\non which religions and moralities flourished. But now the Images have\ngrown pale in human sensibility, just as they have in words, which are\nbut effaced images. We need a deeper reality to take the place of these\nearly beliefs which the growth of intelligence necessarily shows to be\nillusory. We must seek in the human ego an instinct in which is\nmanifested a truly autonomous play of the power of imagination, an\ninstinct which by virtue of its own proper development may restrain the\nexcesses of the possessive instinct and dissipate the perils which\nthreaten civilisation. The \u00e6sthetic instinct alone answers to that\ndouble demand.\n\nAt this point we may pause to refer to the interesting analogy between\nthis argument of Jules de Gaultier and another recently proposed\nsolution of the problems of civilisation presented by Bertrand Russell,\nto which there has already been occasion to refer. The two views were\nclearly suggested by the same events, though apparently in complete\nindependence, and it is interesting to observe the considerable degree\nof harmony which unites two such distinguished thinkers in different\nlands, and with unlike philosophic standpoints as regards ultimate\nrealities.[146] Man\u2019s impulses, as we know, Bertrand Russell holds to be\nof two kinds: those that are possessive and those that are creative; the\ntypical possessive impulse being that of property and the typical\ncreative impulse that of the artist. It is in following the creative\nimpulse, he believes, that man\u2019s path of salvation lies, for the\npossessive impulses necessarily lead to conflict while the creative\nimpulses are essentially harmonious. Bertrand Russell seeks the\nunification of life. But consistency of action should, he holds, spring\nfrom consistency of impulse rather than from the control of impulse by\nwill. Like Gaultier, he believes in what has been called, perhaps not\nhappily, \u201cthe law of irony\u201d; that is to say, that the mark we hit is\nnever the mark we aimed at, so that, in all supreme success in life, as\nGoethe said of Wilhelm Meister, we are like Saul, the son of Kish, who\nwent forth to seek his father\u2019s asses and found a kingdom. \u201cThose who\nbest promote life,\u201d Russell prefers to put it, \u201cdo not have life for\ntheir purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation,\na bringing into our human existence of something eternal.\u201d And, again\nlike Gaultier, he invokes Spinoza and what in his phraseology he called\n\u201cthe intellectual love of God.\u201d \u201cTake no thought, saying, What shall we\neat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?\nWhosoever has known a strong creative impulse has known the value of\nthis precept in its exact and literal sense; it is preoccupation with\npossession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living\nfreely and nobly.\u201d[147]\n\nThis view of the matter seems substantially the same, it may be in an\nunduly simplified form, as the conception which Jules de Gaultier has\nworked out more subtly and complexly, seeking to weave in a large number\nof the essential factors, realising that the harmony of life must yet be\nbased on an underlying conflict.[148] The main difference would seem to\nbe that Bertrand Russell\u2019s creative impulse seems to be fairly identical\nwith the productive impulse of art in the large sense in which I have\nthroughout understood it, while Jules de Gaultier is essentially\nconcerned with the philosophic or religious side of the art impulse;\nthat is to say, the attitude of \u00e6sthetic contemplation which in\nappearance forms the absolute antithesis to the possessive instinct. It\nis probable, however, that there is no real discrepancy here, for as we\nmay regard \u00e6sthetic contemplation as the passive aspect of art, so art\nmay be regarded as the active aspect of \u00e6sthetic contemplation, and\nBertrand Russell, we may certainly believe, would include the one under\nart as Jules de Gaultier would include the other under \u00e6sthetics.\n\nThe \u00e6sthetic instinct, as Jules de Gaultier understands it, answers the\ndouble demand of our needs to-day, not, like religions and moralities,\nby evoking images as menaces or as promises, only effective if they can\nbe realised in the world of sensation, and so merely constituting\nanother attempt to gratify the possessive instinct, by enslaving the\npower of imagination to that alien master. Through the \u00e6sthetic instinct\nMan is enabled to procure joy, not from the things themselves and the\nsensations due to the possession of things, but from the very images of\nthings. Beyond the sense of utility bound up with the possession of\nobjects, he acquires the privilege, bound up with the sole contemplation\nof them, of enjoying the beauty of things. By the \u00e6sthetic instinct the\npower of imagination realises its own proper tendency and attains its\nown proper end.\n\nSuch a process cannot fail to have its reaction on the social\nenvironment. It must counteract the exaggeration of the possessive\ninstinct. To that impulse, when it transgresses the legitimate bounds of\nbiological needs and threatens to grow like a destructive cancer, the\n\u00e6sthetic instinct proposes another end, a more human end, that of\n\u00e6sthetic joy. Therewith the exuberance of insatiable and ruinous\ncupidity is caught in the forms of art, the beauty of the universe is\nmanifested to all eyes, and the happiness which had been sought in the\nparadoxical enterprise of glutting that insatiable desire finds its\nperpetual satisfaction in the absolute and complete realisation of\nbeauty.\n\nAs Jules de Gaultier understands it, we see that the \u00e6sthetic instinct\nis linked on to the possessive instinct. Bertrand Russell would\nsometimes seem to leave the possessive instinct in the void without\nmaking any provision for its satisfaction. In Gaultier\u2019s view, we may\nprobably say it is taken in charge by the \u00e6sthetic instinct as soon as\nit has fulfilled its legitimate biological ends, and its excessive\ndevelopments, what might otherwise be destructive, are sublimated. The\n\u00e6sthetic instinct, Gaultier insists, like the other instincts, even the\npossessive instinct, has imperative claims; it is an appetite of the\n_ego_, developed at the same hearth of intimate activity, drawing its\nstrength from the same superabundance from which they draw strength.\nTherefore, in the measure in which it absorbs force they must lose\nforce, and civilisation gains.\n\nThe development of the \u00e6sthetic sense is, indeed, indispensable if\ncivilisation\u2014which we may, perhaps, from the present point of view,\nregard with Gaultier as the embroidery worked by imagination on the\nstuff of our elementary needs\u2014is to pass safely through its critical\nperiod and attain any degree of persistence. The appearance of the\n\u00e6sthetic sense is then an event of the first order in the rank of\nnatural miracles, strictly comparable to the evolution in the organic\nsphere of the optic nerves, which made it possible to know things\nclearly apart from the sensations of actual contact. There is no mere\nsimile here, Gaultier believes: the faculty of drawing joy from the\nimages of things, apart from the possession of them, is based on\nphysiological conditions which growing knowledge of the nervous system\nmay some day make clearer.[149]\n\nIt is this specific quality, the power of enjoying things without being\nreduced to the need of possessing them, which differentiates the\n\u00e6sthetic instinct from other instincts and confers on it the character\nof morality. Based, like the other instincts on egoism, it, yet, unlike\nthe other instincts, leads to no destructive struggles. Its powers of\ngiving satisfaction are not dissipated by the number of those who secure\nthat satisfaction. \u00c6sthetic contemplation engenders neither hatred nor\nenvy. Unlike the things that appeal to the possessive instinct, it\nbrings men together and increases sympathy. Unlike those moralities\nwhich are compelled to institute prohibitions, the \u00e6sthetic sense, even\nin the egoistic pursuit of its own ends, becomes blended with morality,\nand so serves in the task of maintaining society.\n\nThus it is that, by aiming at a different end, the \u00e6sthetic sense yet\nattains the end aimed at by morality. That is the aspect of the matter\nwhich Gaultier would emphasise. There is implied in it the judgment that\nwhen the \u00e6sthetic sense deviates from its proper ends to burden itself\nwith moral intentions\u2014when, that is, it ceases to be itself\u2014it ceases to\nrealise morality. \u201cArt for art\u2019s sake!\u201d the artists of old cried. We\nlaugh at that cry now. Gaultier, indeed, considers that the idea of pure\nart has in every age been a red rag in the eyes of the human bull. Yet,\nif we had possessed the necessary intelligence, we might have seen that\nit held a great moral truth. \u201cThe poet, retired in his Tower of Ivory,\nisolated, according to his desire, from the world of man, resembles,\nwhether he so wishes or not, another solitary figure, the watcher\nenclosed for months at a time in a lighthouse at the head of a cliff.\nFar from the towns peopled by human crowds, far from the earth, of which\nhe scarcely distinguishes the outlines through the mist, this man in his\nwild solitude, forced to live only with himself, almost forgets the\ncommon language of men, but he knows admirably well how to formulate\nthrough the darkness another language infinitely useful to men and\nvisible afar to seamen in distress.\u201d[150] The artist for art\u2019s sake\u2014and\nthe same is constantly found true of the scientist for science\u2019s\nsake[151]\u2014in turning aside from the common utilitarian aims of men is\nreally engaged in a task none other can perform, of immense utility to\nmen. The Cistercians of old hid their cloisters in forests and\nwildernesses afar from society, mixing not with men nor performing for\nthem so-called useful tasks; yet they spent their days and nights in\nchant and prayer, working for the salvation of the world, and they stand\nas the symbol of all higher types of artists, not the less so because\nthey, too, illustrate that faith transcending sight, without which no\nart is possible.\n\nThe artist, as Gaultier would probably put it, has to effect a necessary\nBovarism. If he seeks to mix himself up with the passions of the crowd,\nif his work shows the desire to prove anything, he thereby neglects the\ncreation of beauty. Necessarily so, for he excites a state of\ncombativity, he sets up moral, political, and social values, all having\nrelation to biological needs and the possessive instinct, the most\nviolent of ferments. He is entering on the struggle over Truth\u2014though\nhis opinion is here worth no more than any other man\u2019s\u2014which, on account\nof the presumption of its universality, is brandished about in the most\nferociously opposed camps.\n\nThe mother who seeks to soothe her crying child preaches him no sermon.\nShe holds up some bright object and it fixes his attention. So it is the\nartist acts: he makes us see. He brings the world before us, not on the\nplane of covetousness and fears and commandments, but on the plane of\nrepresentation; the world becomes a spectacle. Instead of imitating\nthose philosophers who with analyses and syntheses worry over the goal\nof life, and the justification of the world, and the meaning of the\nstrange and painful phenomenon called Existence, the artist takes up\nsome fragment of that existence, transfigures it, shows it: There! And\ntherewith the spectator is filled with enthusiastic joy, and the\ntranscendent Adventure of Existence is justified. Every great artist, a\nDante or a Shakespeare, a Dostoievsky or a Proust, thus furnishes the\nmetaphysical justification of existence by the beauty of the vision he\npresents of the cruelty and the horror of existence. All the pain and\nthe madness, even the ugliness and the commonplace of the world, he\nconverts into shining jewels. By revealing the spectacular character of\nreality he restores the serenity of its innocence.[152] We see the face\nof the world as of a lovely woman smiling through her tears.\n\nHow are we to expect this morality\u2014if so we may still term it\u2014to\nprevail? Jules de Gaultier, as we have seen, realising that the old\nmoralities have melted away, seems to think that the morality of art, by\nvirtue of its life, will take the place of that which is dead. But he is\nnot specially concerned to discuss in detail the mechanism of this\nreplacement, though he looks to the social action of artists in\ninitiation and stimulation. That was the view of Guyau, and it fitted in\nwith his sociological conception of art as being one with life; great\npoets, great artists, Guyau believed, will become the leaders of the\ncrowd, the priests of a social religion without dogmas.[153] But\nGaultier\u2019s conception goes beyond this. He cannot feel that the direct\naction of poets and artists is sufficient. They only reveal the more\nconspicuous aspects of the \u00e6sthetic sense. Gaultier considers that the\n\u00e6sthetic sense, in humbler forms, is mixed up with the most primitive\nmanifestations of human life, wherein it plays a part of unsuspected\nimportance.[154] The more thorough investigation of these primitive\nforms, he believes, will make it possible for the lawmaker to aid the\nmechanism of this transformation of morality.\n\nHaving therewith brought us to the threshold of the \u00e6sthetic revolution,\nJules de Gaultier departs. It remains necessary to point out that it is\nonly the threshold. However intimately the elements of the \u00e6sthetic\nsense may be blended with primitive human existence, we know too well\nthat, as the conditions of human existence are modified, art seems to\ncontract and degenerate, so we can hardly expect the \u00e6sthetic sense to\ndevelop in the reverse direction. At present, in the existing state of\ncivilisation, with the decay of the controlling power of the old\nmorality, the \u00e6sthetic sense often seems to be also decreasing, rather\nthan increasing, in the masses of the population.[155] One need not be\ntroubled to find examples. They occur on every hand and whenever we take\nup a newspaper. One notes, for instance, in England, that the most\nwidespread spectacularly attractive things outside cities may be said to\nbe the private parks and the churches. (Cities lie outside the present\nargument, for their inhabitants are carefully watched whenever they\napproach anything that appeals to the possessive instinct.) Formerly the\nparks and churches were freely open all day long for those who desired\nto enjoy the spectacle of their beauty and not to possess it. The owners\nof parks and the guardians of churches have found it increasingly\nnecessary to close them because of the alarmingly destructive or\npredatory impulses of a section of the public. So the many have to\nsuffer for the sins of what may only be the few. It is common to speak\nof this as a recent tendency of our so-called civilisation. But the\nexcesses of the possessive instinct cannot have been entirely latent\neven in remote times, though they seem to have been less in evidence.\nThe Platonic Tim\u00e6us attributed to the spectacle of the sun and the moon\nand the stars the existence of philosophy. He failed to note that the\nsun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago\u2014as even\ntheir infinitely more numerous analogues on the earth beneath are likely\nto disappear\u2014had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human\nhands. But the warps and strains of civilised life, with its excessive\nindustrialism and militarism, seem to disturb the wholesome balance of\neven the humblest elements of the possessive and \u00e6sthetic instincts.\nThis means, in the first and most important place, that the liberty of\nthe whole community in its finest manifestations is abridged by a\nhandful of imbeciles. There are infinite freedoms which it would be a\njoy for them to take, and a help to their work, and a benefit to the\nworld, but they cannot be allowed to take them because there are some\nwho can only take them and perish, damning others with themselves.\nBesides this supreme injury to life, there are perpetual minor injuries\nthat the same incapable section of people are responsible for in every\ndirection, while the actual cost of them in money, to the community they\nexert so pernicious an influence on, is so great and so increasing that\nit constitutes a social and individual burden which from time to time\nleads to outbursts of anxious expostulation never steady enough to be\nembodied in any well-sustained and coherent policy.\n\nIt is not, indeed, to be desired that the eugenic action of society\nshould be directly aimed at any narrowly \u00e6sthetic or moral end. That has\nnever been the ideal of any of those whose conceptions of social life\ndeserve to be taken seriously, least of all Galton, who is commonly\nregarded as the founder of the modern scientific art of eugenics.\n\u201cSociety would be very dull,\u201d he remarked, \u201cif every man resembled\nMarcus Aurelius or Adam Bede.\u201d He even asserted that \u201cwe must leave\nmorality as far as possible out of the discussion,\u201d since moral goodness\nand badness are shifting phases of a civilisation; what is held morally\ngood in one age is held bad in another. That would hold true of any\n\u00e6sthetic revolution. But we cannot afford to do without the sane and\nwholesome persons who are so well balanced that they can adjust\nthemselves to the conditions of every civilisation as it arises and\ncarry it on to its finest issues. We should not, indeed, seek to breed\nthem directly, and we need not, since under natural conditions Nature\nwill see to their breeding. But it is all the more incumbent upon us to\neliminate those ill-balanced and poisonous stocks produced by the\nunnatural conditions which society in the past had established.[156]\nThat we have to do alike in the interests of the offspring of these\ndiseased stocks and in the interests of society. No power in Heaven or\nEarth can ever confer upon us the right to create the unfit in order to\nhang them like millstones around the necks of the fit. The genius of\nGalton enabled him to see this clearly afresh and to indicate the\nreasonable path of human progress. It was a truth that had long been\nforgotten by the strenuous humanitarians who ruled the nineteenth\ncentury, so anxious to perpetuate and multiply all the worst spawn of\ntheir humanity. Yet it was an ancient truth, carried into practice,\nhowever unconsciously and instinctively, by Man throughout his upward\ncourse, probably even from Pal\u00e6olithic times, and when it ceased Man\u2019s\nupward course also ceased. As Carr-Saunders has shown, in a learned and\ncomprehensive work which is of primary importance for the understanding\nof the history of Man, almost every people on the face of the earth has\nadopted one or more practices\u2014notably infanticide, abortion, or severe\nrestriction of sexual intercourse\u2014adapted to maintain due selection of\nthe best stocks and to limit the excess of fertility. They largely\nceased to work because Man had acquired the humanity which was repelled\nby such methods and lost the intelligence to see that they must be\nreplaced by better methods. For the process of human evolution is\nnothing more than a process of sifting, and where that sifting ceases\nevolution ceases, becomes, indeed, devolution.[157]\n\nWhen we survey the history of Man we are constantly reminded of the\nprofound truth which often lay beneath the parables of Jesus, and they\nmight well form the motto for any treatise on eugenics. Jesus was\nconstantly seeking to suggest the necessity of that process of sifting\nin which all human evolution consists; he was ever quick to point out\nhow few could be, as it was then phrased, \u201csaved,\u201d how extremely narrow\nis the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, or, as many might now call it, the\nKingdom of Man. He proclaimed symbolically a doctrine of heredity which\nis only to-day beginning to be directly formulated: \u201cEvery tree that\nbringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.\u201d\nThere was no compunction at all in his promulgation of this radical yet\nnecessary doctrine for the destruction of unfit stocks. Even the best\nstocks Jesus was in favour of destroying ruthlessly as soon as they had\nceased to be the best: \u201cYe are the salt of the earth: but if the salt\nhave lost his savour, ... it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be\ncast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.\u201d Jesus has been\nreproached by Nietzsche for founding a religion for slaves and\nplebeians, and so in the result it may have become. But we see that, in\nthe words of the Teacher as they have been handed down, the religion of\nJesus was the most aristocratic of religions. Its doctrine embodied not\neven the permission to live for those human stocks which fall short of\nits aristocratic ideal. It need not surprise us to find that Jesus had\nalready said two thousand years ago what Galton, in a more modern\nand\u2014some would add\u2014more humane way, was saying yesterday. If there had\nnot been a core of vital truth beneath the surface of the first\nChristian\u2019s teaching, it could hardly have survived so long. We are told\nthat it is now dead, but should it ever be revived we may well believe\nthat this is the aspect by which it will be commended. It is a\nsignificant fact that at the two spiritual sources of our world, Jesus\nand Plato, we find the assertion of the principle of eugenics, in one\nimplicitly, in the other explicitly.\n\nJules de Gaultier was not concerned to put forward an aristocratic\nconception of his \u00e6sthetic doctrine, and, as we have seen, he remained\non the threshold of eugenics. He was content to suggest, though with no\npositive assurance, a more democratic conception. He had, indeed, one\nmay divine, a predilection for that middle class which has furnished so\nvast a number of the supreme figures in art and thought; by producing a\nclass of people dispensed from tasks of utility, he had pointed out, \u201ca\nsociety creates for itself an organ fitted for the higher life and bears\nwitness that it has passed beyond the merely biological stage to reach\nthe human stage.\u201d But the middle class is not indispensable, and if it\nis doomed Gaultier saw ways of replacing it.[158] Especially we may seek\nto ensure that, in every social group, the individual task of\nutilitarian work shall be so limited that the worker is enabled to gain\na leisure sufficiently ample to devote, if he has the aptitude, to works\nof intellect or art. He would agree with Otto Braun, the inspired youth\nwho was slain in the Great War, that if we desire the enablement of the\npeople \u201cthe eight-hours day becomes nothing less than the most\nimperative demand of culture.\u201d It is in this direction, it may well be,\nthat social evolution is moving, however its complete realisation may,\nby temporary causes, from time to time be impeded. The insistent demand\nfor increased wages and diminished hours of work has not been inspired\nby the desire to raise the level of culture in the social environment,\nor to inaugurate any \u00e6sthetic revolution, yet, by \u201cthe law of irony\u201d\nwhich so often controls the realisation of things, that is the result\nwhich may be achieved. The new leisure conferred on the worker may be\ntransformed into spiritual activity, and the liberated utilitarian\nenergy into \u00e6sthetic energy. The road would thus be opened for a new\nhuman adventure, of anxious interest, which the future alone can reveal.\n\nWe cannot be sure that this transformation will take place. We cannot be\nsure, indeed, that it is possible for it to take place unless the\ngeneral quality of the population in whom so fine a process must be\neffected is raised by a more rigid eugenic process than there is yet any\nreal determination among us to exert. Men still bow down before the\nfetish of mere quantity in population, and that worship may be their\nundoing. Giant social organisms, like the giant animal species of early\ntimes, may be destined to disappear suddenly when they have attained\ntheir extreme expansion.\n\nEven if that should be so, even if there should be a solution of\ncontinuity in the course of civilisation, even then, as again Jules de\nGaultier also held, we need not despair, for life is a fountain of\neverlasting exhilaration. No creature on the earth has so tortured\nhimself as Man, and none has raised a more exultant Alleluia. It would\nstill be possible to erect places of refuge, cloisters wherein life\nwould yet be full of joy for men and women determined by their vocation\nto care only for beauty and knowledge, and so to hand on to a future\nrace the living torch of civilisation. When we read Palladius, when we\nread Rabelais, we realise how vast a field lies open for human activity\nbetween the Thebaid on one side and Thelema on the other. Out of such\nashes a new world might well arise. Sunset is the promise of dawn.\n\n\nTHE END\n\nFootnote 113:\n\n  Alfred Niceforo, _Les Indices Num\u00e9riques de la Civilisation et du\n  Progr\u00e8s_. Paris, 1921.\n\nFootnote 114:\n\n  Professor Bury, in his admirable history of the idea of progress (J.\n  B. Bury, _The Idea of Progress_, 1920), never defines the meaning of\n  \u201cprogress.\u201d As regards the meaning of \u201ccivilisation\u201d see essay on\n  \u201cCivilisation,\u201d Havelock Ellis, _The Philosophy of Conflict_ (1919),\n  pp. 14-22.\n\nFootnote 115:\n\n  Quetelet, _Physique Sociale_. (1869.)\n\nFootnote 116:\n\n  See e.g., Maurice Parmelee\u2019s _Criminology_, the sanest and most\n  comprehensive manual on the subject we have in English.\n\nFootnote 117:\n\n  \u00c9lie Faure, with his usual incisive insight, has set out the real\n  characters of the \u201cGreek Spirit\u201d (\u201cReflexions sur le G\u00e9nie Grec,\u201d\n  _Monde Nouveau_, December, 1922).\n\nFootnote 118:\n\n  This tendency, on which Herbert Spencer long ago insisted, is in its\n  larger aspects quite clear. E. C. Pell (_The Law of Births and\n  Deaths_, 1921) has argued that it holds good of civilised man to-day,\n  and that our decreasing birth rate with civilisation is quite\n  independent of any effort on Man\u2019s part to attain that evolutionary\n  end.\n\nFootnote 119:\n\n  Professor McDougall refers to the high birth-rate of the lower stratum\n  as more \u201cnormal.\u201d If that were so, civilisation would certainly be\n  doomed. All high evolution _normally_ involves a low birth-rate.\n  Strange how difficult it is even for those most concerned with these\n  questions to see the facts simply and clearly!\n\nFootnote 120:\n\n  A. M. Carr-Saunders, _The Population Problem: A Study in Human\n  Evolution_ (1922), pp. 457, 472.\n\nFootnote 121:\n\n  Dupr\u00e9el, _La L\u00e9gende Socratique_ (1922), p. 428. Dupr\u00e9el considers (p.\n  431) that the Protagorean spirit was marked by the idea of explaining\n  the things of thought, and life in general, by the meeting,\n  opposition, and harmony of individual activities, leading up to the\n  sociological notion of _convention_, and behind it, of relativity.\n  Nietzsche was a pioneer in restoring the Sophists to their rightful\n  place in Greek thought. The Greek culture of the Sophists grew out of\n  all the Greek instincts, he says (_The Will to Power_, section 428):\n  \u201cAnd it has ultimately shown itself to be right. Our modern attitude\n  of mind is, to a great extent, Heraclitean, Democritean, and\n  Protagorean. To say that it is Protagorean is even sufficient, because\n  Protagoras was himself a synthesis of Heraclitus and Democritus.\u201d The\n  Sophists, by realizing that many supposed objective ideas were really\n  subjective, have often been viewed with suspicion as content with a\n  mere egotistically individualistic conception of life. The same has\n  happened to Nietzsche. It was probably an error as regards the\n  greatest Sophists, and is certainly an error, though even still\n  commonly committed, as regards Nietzsche; see the convincing\n  discussion of Nietzsche\u2019s moral aim in Salter, _Nietzsche the\n  Thinker_, chap. XXIV.\n\nFootnote 122:\n\n  I may here, perhaps, remark that in the General Preface to my _Studies\n  in the Psychology of Sex_ I suggested that we now have to lay the\n  foundation of a new casuistry, no longer theological and Christian,\n  but naturalistic and scientific.\n\nFootnote 123:\n\n  Oswald Spengler, _Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, vol. I (1918); vol.\n  II (1922).\n\nFootnote 124:\n\n  In an interesting pamphlet, _Pessimismus?_ Spengler has since pointed\n  out that he does not regard his argument as pessimistic. The end of a\n  civilisation is its fulfilment, and there is still much to be achieved\n  (though not, he thinks, along the line of art) before our own\n  civilisation is fulfilled. With Spengler\u2019s conception of that\n  fulfilment we may, however, fail to sympathise.\n\nFootnote 125:\n\n  See, for instance, W. L. Newman, _The Politics of Aristotle_, vol. 1,\n  p. 201, and S. H. Butcher, _Aristotle\u2019s Theory of Poetry and Fine\n  Art_, p. 119.\n\nFootnote 126:\n\n  Beauty is a dangerous conception to deal with, and the remembrance of\n  this great saying may, perhaps, help to save us from the degrading\n  notion that beauty merely inheres in objects, or has anything to do\n  with the prim and smooth conventions which make prettiness. Even in\n  the fine art of painting it is more reasonable to regard prettiness as\n  the negation of beauty. It is possible to find beauty in Degas and\n  C\u00e9zanne, but not in Bouguereau or Cabanel. The path of beauty is not\n  soft and smooth, but full of harshness and asperity. It is a rose that\n  grows only on a bush covered with thorns. As of goodness and of truth,\n  men talk too lightly of Beauty. Only to the bravest and skilfullest is\n  it given to break through the briers of her palace and kiss at last\n  her enchanted lips.\n\nFootnote 127:\n\n  Ruskin was what Spinoza has been called, a God-intoxicated man; he had\n  a gift of divine rhapsody, which reached at times to inspiration. But\n  it is not enough to be God-intoxicated, for into him whose mind is\n  disorderly and ignorant and ill-disciplined the Gods pour their wine\n  in vain. Spinoza\u2019s mind was not of that kind, Ruskin\u2019s too often was,\n  so that Ruskin can never be, like Spinoza, a permanent force in the\n  world of thought. His interest is outside that field, mainly perhaps\n  psychological in the precise notation of a particular kind of \u00e6sthetic\n  sensibility. The admiration of Ruskin cherished by Proust, himself a\n  supreme master in this field, is significant.\n\nFootnote 128:\n\n  Butcher, _Aristotle\u2019s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, chap. V, \u201cArt\n  and Morals.\u201d Aristotle could have accepted the almost Freudian view of\n  Croce that art is the deliverer, the process through which we overcome\n  the stress of inner experiences by objectifying them (_\u00c6sthetics as\n  Science of Expression_, p. 35). But Plato could not accept Croce,\n  still less Freud.\n\nFootnote 129:\n\n  Schopenhauer, _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ (1859), vol. II, p.\n  442. For a careful and detailed study of Schopenhauer\u2019s conception of\n  art, see A. Fauconnet, _L\u2019Esth\u00e9tique de Schopenhauer_ (1913).\n\nFootnote 130:\n\n  I find that I have here negligently ascribed to Bergson a metaphor\n  which belongs to Croce, who at this point says the same thing as\n  Bergson, though he gives it a different name. In _\u00c6sthetics as Science\n  of Expression_ (English translation, p. 66) we read: \u201cThe world of\n  which as a rule we have intuition [Bergson could not have used that\n  word here] is a small thing.... \u2018Here is a man, here is a horse, this\n  is heavy, this is hard, this pleases me,\u2019 etc. It is a medley of light\n  and colour, which could not pictorially attain to any more sincere\n  expression than a haphazard splash of colour, from among which would\n  with difficulty stand out a few special distinctive traits. This and\n  nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary life; this is the\n  basis of our ordinary action. It is the index of a book. The labels\n  tied to things take the place of things themselves.\u201d\n\nFootnote 131:\n\n  H. Bergson, _Le Rire_. For a clear, concise, and sympathetic\n  exposition of Bergson\u2019s standpoint, though without special reference\n  to art, see Karin Stephen, _The Misuse of Mind_.\n\nFootnote 132:\n\n  This may seem to cast a critical reflection on Croce. Let me,\n  therefore, hasten to add that it is merely the personal impression\n  that Croce, for all his virtuous aspirations after the concrete, tends\n  to fall into verbal abstraction. He so often reminds one of that old\n  lady who used to find (for she died during the Great War) such\n  spiritual consolation in \u201cthat blessed word Mesopotamia.\u201d This refers,\n  however, to the earlier more than to the later Croce.\n\nFootnote 133:\n\n  H. Rickert, _System der Philosophie_, vol. I (1921).\n\nFootnote 134:\n\n  Before Baumgarten this distinction seems to have been recognised,\n  though too vaguely and inconsistently, by Hutcheson, who is so often\n  regarded as the real founder of modern \u00e6sthetics. W. R. Scott\n  (_Francis Hutcheson_, p. 216) points out these two principles in\n  Hutcheson\u2019s work, \u201cthe Internal Senses, as derived from Reflection,\n  representing the attitude of the \u2018Spectator\u2019 or observer in a picture\n  gallery while, on the other hand, as deduced from \u03b5\u1f50\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 find a\n  parallel in the artist\u2019s own consciousness of success in his work,\n  thus the former might be called static and the latter dynamic\n  consciousness, or, in the special case of Morality, the first applies\n  primarily to approval of the acts of others, the second to each\n  individual\u2019s approval of his own conduct.\u201d\n\nFootnote 135:\n\n  This would probably be recognised even by those moralists who, like\n  Hutcheson, in their anxiety to make clear an important relationship,\n  have spoken ambiguously. \u201cProbably Hutcheson\u2019s real thought,\u201d remarks\n  F. C. Sharp (_Mind_, 1921, p. 42), \u201cis that the moral emotion, while\n  possessing many important affinities with the \u00e6sthetic, is in the last\n  resort different in content.\u201d\n\nFootnote 136:\n\n  Schopenhauer long ago pointed out that a picture should be looked at\n  as a royal personage is approached, in silence, until the moment it\n  pleases to speak to you, for, if you speak first (and how many critics\n  one knows who \u201cspeak first\u201d!), you expose yourself to hear nothing but\n  the sound of your own voice. In other words, it is a spontaneous and\n  \u201cmystical\u201d experience.\n\nFootnote 137:\n\n  It is through Plotinus, also, that we realise how \u00e6sthetics is on the\n  same plane, if not one, with mysticism. For by his insistence on\n  Contemplation, which is \u00e6sthetics, we learn to understand what is\n  meant when it is said, as it often is, that mysticism is\n  Contemplation. (On this point, and on the early evolutions of\n  Christian Mysticism, see Dom Cuthbert Butler, _Western Mysticism_\n  (1922).)\n\nFootnote 138:\n\n  Really, however, Plotinus was here a Neo-Aristotelian rather than a\n  Neo-Platonist, for Aristotle (_Ethics_, book X, chap. 6) had put the\n  claim of the Contemplative life higher even than Plato and almost\n  forestalled Plotinus. But as Aristotle was himself here a Platonist\n  that does not much matter.\n\nFootnote 139:\n\n  See Inge, _Philosophy of Plotinus_, p. 179. In a fine passage (quoted\n  by Bridges in his _Spirit of Man_) Plotinus represents contemplation\n  as the great function of Nature herself, content, in a sort of\n  self-consciousness, to do nothing more than perfect that fair and\n  bright vision. This \u201cmetaphysical Narcissism,\u201d as Palante might call\n  it, accords with the conception of various later thinkers, like\n  Schopenhauer, and like Gaultier, who however, seldom refers to\n  Plotinus.\n\nFootnote 140:\n\n  R. Schmidt, _Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart in\n  Selbstdarstellungen_ (1921), vol. II.\n\nFootnote 141:\n\n  E. F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, _Das Leben Nietzsches_, vol. II, p. 99.\n\nFootnote 142:\n\n  W. M. Salter in his _Nietzsche the Thinker_\u2014probably the best and most\n  exact study of Nietzsche\u2019s thought we possess\u2014summarises Nietzsche\u2019s\n  \u201c\u00e6sthetic metaphysics,\u201d as he terms it (pp. 46-48), in words which\n  apply almost exactly to Gaultier.\n\nFootnote 143:\n\n  See especially his book _\u00dcber den Nerv\u00f6sen Charakter_ (1912). It has\n  been translated into English.\n\nFootnote 144:\n\n  Jules de Gaultier, _Le Bovarysme_, and various other of his works.\n  Georges Palante has lucidly and concisely expounded the idea of\n  Bovarism in a small volume, _La Philosophie du Bovarysme_ (_Mercure de\n  France_).\n\nFootnote 145:\n\n  Gaultier has luminously discussed the relations of War, Civilisation,\n  and Art in the _Monde Nouveau_, August, 1920, and February, 1921.\n\nFootnote 146:\n\n  These are problems concerning which innocent people might imagine that\n  the wise refrained from speculating, but, as a matter of fact, the\n  various groups of philosophic devotees may be divided into those\n  termed \u201cIdealists\u201d and those termed \u201cRealists,\u201d each assured of the\n  superiority of his own way of viewing thought. Roughly speaking, for\n  the idealist thought means the creation of the world, for the realist\n  its discovery. But here (as in many differences between Tweedledum and\n  Tweedledee for which men have slain one another these thousands of\n  years) there seem to be superiorities on both sides. Each looks at\n  thought in a different aspect. But the idealist could hardly create\n  the world with nothing there to make it from, nor the realist discover\n  it save through creating it afresh. We cannot, so to put it, express\n  in a single formula of three dimensions what only exists as a unity in\n  four dimensions.\n\nFootnote 147:\n\n  Bertrand Russell, _Principles of Social Reconstruction_ (1916), p.\n  235.\n\nFootnote 148:\n\n  I may here be allowed to refer to another discussion of this point,\n  Havelock Ellis, _The Philosophy of Conflict, and Other Essays_, pp.\n  57-68.\n\nFootnote 149:\n\n  I may remark that Plato had long before attributed the same\n  observation to the Pythagorean Tim\u00e6us in the sublime and amusing\n  dialogue that goes under that name: \u201cSight in my opinion is the source\n  of the greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and\n  the sun, and the heavens, none of the words which we have spoken about\n  the universe would ever have been uttered. But now the sight of day\n  and night, and the months and the revolution of the years, have\n  created Number, and have given us a conception of Time, and the powers\n  of inquiring about the Nature of the Universe, and from this source we\n  have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will\n  be given by the gods to mortal man.\u201d\n\nFootnote 150:\n\n  Jules de Gaultier, \u201cLa Guerre et les Destin\u00e9es de l\u2019Art,\u201d _Monde\n  Nouveau_, August, 1920.\n\nFootnote 151:\n\n  Thus Einstein, like every true man of science, holds that cultural\n  developments are not to be measured in terms of utilitarian technical\n  advances, much as he has himself been concerned with such advances,\n  but that, like the devotee of \u201cArt for Art\u2019s sake,\u201d the man of science\n  must proclaim the maxim, \u201cScience for Science\u2019s sake.\u201d\n\nFootnote 152:\n\n  In the foregoing paragraphs I have, in my own way, reproduced the\n  thought, occasionally the words, of Jules de Gaultier, more especially\n  in \u201cLa Moralit\u00e9 Esth\u00e9tique\u201d (_Mercure de France_, 15th December,\n  1921), probably the finest short statement of this distinguished\n  thinker\u2019s reflections on the matter in question.\n\nFootnote 153:\n\n  Guyau, _L\u2019Art au Point de Vue Sociologique_, p. 163.\n\nFootnote 154:\n\n  This diffused \u00e6sthetic sense is correlated with a diffused artistic\n  instinct, based on craftsmanship, which the Greeks were afraid to\n  recognise because they looked down with contempt on the handicrafts as\n  vulgar. William Morris was a pioneer in asserting this association. As\n  a distinguished English writer, Mr. Charles Marriott, the novelist and\n  critic, clearly puts the modern doctrine: \u201cThe first step is to\n  absorb, or re-absorb, the \u2018Artist\u2019 into the craftsman.... Once agree\n  that the same \u00e6sthetic considerations which apply to painting a\n  picture apply, though in a different degree, to painting a door, and\n  you have emancipated labour without any prejudice to the highest\n  meaning of art.... A good surface of paint on a door is as truly an\n  emotional or \u00e6sthetic consideration as \u2018significant form,\u2019 indeed it\n  _is_ \u2018significant form.\u2019\u201d (_Nation and Athen\u00e6um_, 1st July, 1922.)\n  Professor Santayana has spoken in the same sense: \u201cIn a thoroughly\n  humanised society everything\u2014clothes, speech, manners, government\u2014is a\n  work of art.\u201d (_The Dial_, June, 1922, p. 563.) It is, indeed, the\n  general tendency to-day and is traceable in Croce\u2019s later writings.\n\nFootnote 155:\n\n  Thus it has often been pointed out that the Papuans are artists in\n  design of the first rank, with a finer taste in some matters than the\n  most highly civilised races of Europe. Professor R. Semon, who has\n  some remarks to this effect (_Correspondenzblatt_ of the German\n  Anthropological Society, March, 1902), adds that their unfailing\n  artistic sense is spread throughout the whole population and shown in\n  every object of daily use.\n\nFootnote 156:\n\n  The presence of a small minority of abnormal or perverse persons\u2014there\n  will be such, we may be sure, in every possible society\u2014affords no\n  excuse for restricting the liberty of the many to the standard of the\n  few. The general prevalence of an \u00e6sthetic morality in classic times\n  failed to prevent occasional outbursts of morbid sexual impulse in the\n  presence of objects of art, even in temples. We find records of\n  Pygmalionism and allied perversities in Lucian, Athen\u00e6us, Pliny,\n  Valerius Maximus. Yet supposing that the Greeks had listened to the\n  proposals of some strayed Puritan visitor, from Britain or New\n  England, to abolish nude statues, or suppose that Plato, who wished to\n  do away with imaginative literature as liable to demoralise, had\n  possessed the influence he desired, how infinite the loss to all\n  mankind! In modern Europe we not only propose such legal abolition; we\n  actually, however in vain, carry it out. We seek to reduce all human\n  existence to absurdity. It is, at the best, unnecessary, for we may be\n  sure that, in spite of our efforts, a certain amount of absurdity will\n  always remain.\n\nFootnote 157:\n\n  A. M. Carr-Saunders, _The Population Problem: A Study in Human\n  Evolution_ (Oxford Press, 1922).\n\nFootnote 158:\n\n  J. de Gaultier, \u201cArt et Civilisation,\u201d _Monde Nouveau_, February,\n  1921.\n\n\n\n\n                                 INDEX\n\n Abortion, once practised, 354.\n\n Absolute, the, a fiction, 101.\n\n Abyssian Church, dancing in worship of, 45.\n\n Acting, music, and poetry, proceed in one stream, 36.\n\n Adam, Villiers de l\u2019Isle, his story _Le Secret de l\u2019ancienne Musique_,\n    25.\n\n Addison, Joseph, his style, 161-63, 184.\n\n Adler, Dr. Alfred, of Vienna, 336, 337.\n\n Adolescence, idealisation in, 107, 108.\n\n \u00c6schylus, developed technique of dancing, 56.\n\n\n \u00c6sthetic contemplation, 314, 315, 325, 326;\n   recognised by the Greeks, 330, 331;\n   two kinds of, that of spectator and that of participator, 331, 332;\n   the Shaftesbury attitude toward, 332, 333;\n   the Swift attitude toward, 333;\n   involves life as a spectacle, 333, 334;\n   and the systems of Gaultier and Russell, 343;\n   engenders neither hatred nor envy, 346.\n\n\n \u00c6sthetic instinct, to replace moralities, religions, and laws, 340,\n    341, 343-45;\n   differentiated from other instincts, 346;\n   has the character of morality, 346.\n\n \u00c6sthetic intuitionism, 260, 276, 279, 314.\n\n \u00c6sthetic sense, development of, indispensable for civilisation, 345;\n   realises morality when unburdened with moral intentions, 346;\n   mixed with primitive manifestations of life, 350;\n   correlated with diffused artistic instinct, 350 _n._;\n   seems to be decreasing, 350-52.\n\n \u00c6sthetics, and ethics, among the Greeks, 247;\n   with us, 348;\n   in the Greek sense, 263;\n   the founders of, 271, 329;\n   and art, the unlikeness of, 325-28;\n   on same plane with mysticism, 330 _n._\n\n Africa, love-dance in, 46, 49, 50.\n\n Akhenaten, 28.\n\n Alaro, in Mallorca, dancing in church at, 44, 45.\n\n Alberti, Leo, vast-ranging ideas of, 5.\n\n Alcohol, consumption of, as test of civilisation, 295, 296.\n\n Anatomy, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, 120.\n\n Anaximander, 89.\n\n Ancestry, the force of, in handwriting, 157, 158;\n   in style, 158-61, 190.\n\n Anna, Empress, 59.\n\n Antisthenes, 249 _n._\n\n \u201cAppearance,\u201d 219 _n._\n\n Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 202.\n\n Arabs, dancing among, 38.\n\n Arbuckle, one of the founders of \u00e6sthetics, 271;\n   insisted on imagination as formative of character, 272.\n\n Architecture. _See_ Building.\n\n Aristophanes, 311.\n\n Aristotle, 89;\n   on tragedy, 56;\n   on the Mysteries, 242;\n   on the moral quality of an act, 248;\n   his use of the term \u201cmoral sense,\u201d 273;\n   on Art and Nature in the making of the State, 313;\n   his use of the term \u201cartists,\u201d 313;\n   his view of poetry, 318;\n   and the contemplative life, 330 _n._\n\n Art, life as, more difficult to realise than to act, 1, 2;\n   universe conceived as work of, by the primitive philosopher, 1;\n   life as, views of finest thinkers of China and Greece on, 2-6,\n      247-52;\n   whole conception of, has been narrowed and debased, 6, 7;\n   in its proper sense, 7, 8;\n   as the desire for beautification, 8;\n   of living, has been decadent during the last two thousand years, 8\n      _n._;\n   Napoleon in the sphere of, 10;\n   of living, the Lifuan, 13-18;\n   of living, the Chinese, 27;\n   Chinese civilisation shows that human life is, 30;\n   of living, T\u2019ung\u2019s story the embodiment of the Chinese symbol of, 33;\n   life identical with, 33-35;\n   of dancing, 36, 51-67, _see_ Dancing;\n   of life, a dance, 66, 67;\n   science and, no distinction between, in classic times, 68;\n   science and, distinction between, in modern times, 68-70;\n   science is of the nature of, 71;\n   represented by Pythagoras as source of science, 74;\n   Greek, 76 _n._;\n   of thinking, 68-140, _see_ Thinking;\n   the solution of the conflicts of philosophy in, 82, 83;\n   philosophy and, close relationship of, 83-85;\n   impulse of, transformed sexual instinct, 108-12;\n   and mathematics, 138-40;\n   of writing, 141-190, _see_ Writing;\n   Man added to Nature, is the task in, 153;\n   the freedom and the easiness of, do not necessarily go together, 182;\n   of religion, 191-243, _see_ Religion;\n   of morals, 244-84, _see_ Morals;\n   the critic of, a critic of life, 269;\n   civilisation is an, 301, 310;\n   consideration of the question of the definition of, 310-12;\n   Nature and, 312, 313;\n   the sum of the active energies of mankind, 313;\n   and \u00e6sthetics, the unlikeness of, 314, 315, 325-28;\n   a genus, of which morals is a species, 316;\n   each, has its own morality, 318;\n   to assert that it gives pleasure a feeble conclusion, 319;\n   on the uselessness of, according to Schopenhauer and others, 319-21;\n   meaninglessness of the statement that it is useless, 322;\n   sociological function of, 323, 324;\n   philosophers have failed to see that it has a morality of its own,\n      324, 325;\n   for art\u2019s sake, 346, 347.\n\n Artist, partakes of divine nature of creator of the world, 2;\n   Napoleon as an, 10-12;\n   the true scientist as, 72, 73, 112;\n   the philosopher as, 72, 73, 85;\n   explanation of, 108-12;\n   Bacon\u2019s definition of, Man added to Nature, 153;\n   makes all things new, 153;\n   in words, passes between the plane of new vision and the plane of new\n      creation, 170, 178;\n   life always a discipline for, 277;\n   lays up his treasure in Heaven, 307;\n   Man as, 310;\n   is a maker, 312;\n   Aristotle\u2019s use of the term, 313;\n   reveals Nature, 320;\n   has to effect a necessary Bovarism, 348, 349.\n\n Artistic creation, the process of its birth, 108, 109.\n\n Arts, sometimes classic and sometimes decadent, 8 _n._;\n   and sciences, 68-70;\n   Master of, 69.\n\n \u201cArty\u201d people, 6, 7.\n\n \u201cAs if,\u201d germs of doctrine of, in Kant, 87;\n   world of, and Plato\u2019s \u201cIdeas,\u201d 88;\n   source of the phrase, 88, 89;\n   seen in play, 89;\n   the doctrine of, not immune from criticism, 102;\n   fortifying influence of the doctrine, 102, 103.\n   _See_ Fiction, Vaihinger.\n\n Asceticism, has nothing to do with normal religion, 222, 223;\n   among the Greeks, traced, 249 _n._;\n   and Christianity, 249 _n._\n\n Asclepios, the cult of, 197 _n._\n\n Atavism, in handwriting, 157, 158;\n   in style, 158-61, 190.\n\n Athen\u00e6us, 55, 353 _n._;\n   his book about the Greeks, 76 _n._\n\n Atom, a fiction or an hypothesis, 97, 338;\n   the structure of, 97 _n._\n\n Attraction, force of, a fiction, 98.\n\n Aurelius, Marcus, regarded art of life as like the dancer\u2019s art, 66;\n   his statement of the mystical core of religion, 207;\n   adopted \u00e6sthetic criterion of moral action, 279.\n\n Australians, religious dances among, 40.\n\n Auto-erotic activities, 110, 111.\n\n Axioms, akin to fiction, 94, 95.\n\n\n Babies, 105.\n\n Bach, Sebastian, 62, 311.\n\n Bacon, Francis, his definition of the artist, Man added to Nature, 153;\n   his style compared with that of Shakespeare, 160;\n   the music of his style, 163;\n   heavy and formal letters of, 184;\n   his axiom, the right question is half the knowledge, 325.\n\n Bacon, Roger, on the sciences, 68.\n\n Balguy, Rev. John, 274.\n\n Ballad, a dance as well as song, 62.\n\n Ballet, the, chief form of Romantic dancing, 53;\n   the germ of, to be found in ancient Rome, 56;\n   origin of the modern, 56;\n   the Italian and the French, 56-58;\n   decline of, 58;\n   the Russian, 58-60;\n   the Swedish, 60.\n\n Bantu, the question of the, 38, 45.\n\n Baptism, 242.\n\n \u201cBarbarians,\u201d the classic use of the term, 285.\n\n Barebones, Praise-God, 272.\n\n Baretti, G. M., 50.\n\n Bastien-Lepage, Jules, 311.\n\n Baudelaire, Charles, on vulgar locutions, 151.\n\n Baumgarten, A. G., the commonly accepted founder of \u00e6sthetics, 326.\n\n Bayaderes, 52.\n\n Bayle, G. L., 261.\n\n \u201cBeautiful,\u201d the, among Greeks and Romans, 247, 252.\n\n Beauty, developed by dancing, 47;\n   as an element of literary style, 176-78;\n   and the good, among the Greeks, 247;\n   Plotinus\u2019s doctrine of, 250, 251;\n   of virtue, 270 _n._;\n   \u00e6sthetic contemplation creates, 315, 327, 328;\n   and prettiness, 315 _n._;\n   revelation of, sometimes comes as by a process of \u201cconversion,\u201d 328,\n      329.\n\n Bee, the, an artist, 312.\n\n Beethoven, 311;\n   his Seventh Symphony, 62, 63.\n\n Beggary in China, 31.\n\n Benn, A. W., his _The Greek Philosophers_, 6, 252, 277 _n._\n\n Bentham, Jeremy, adopted a fiction for his system, 99.\n\n Berenson, Bernhard, critic of art, 114;\n   his attitude toward Leonardo da Vinci, 114, 117.\n\n Bergson, Henri Louis, pyrotechnical allusions frequent in, 23;\n   regards philosophy as an art, 83, 84;\n   on clarity in style, 176, 177;\n   his idea of intuition, 232 _n._;\n   on reality, 320.\n\n Berkeley, George, 95.\n\n Bernard, Claude, personality in his _Le\u00e7ons de Physiologie\n    Exp\u00e9rimentales_, 144.\n\n\n Bible, the, the source of its long life, 179.\n   _See_ Old Testament, Revelation.\n\n Birds, dancing of, 36 _n._, 45;\n   the attitude of the poet toward, 168.\n\n Birth-rate, as test of civilisation, 294, 296, 299 _n._\n\n \u201cBitter,\u201d a moral quality, 264.\n\n Blackguard, the, 244, 245.\n\n Blake, William, on the Dance of Life, 66;\n   on the golden rule of life, 281.\n\n Blasco Iba\u00f1ez, 171.\n\n Blood, Harvey\u2019s conception of circulation of, nearly anticipated by\n    Leonardo da Vinci, 120.\n\n Boisguillebert, Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de, his \u201cbarometer of\n    prosperity,\u201d 287.\n\n Botany, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, 119.\n\n Botticelli, Sandro, 56.\n\n Bouguereau, G. A., 315 _n._\n\n Bovarism, explanation of, 335;\n   applied to the Universe, 337;\n   a necessary, effected by the artist, 348, 349.\n\n Brant\u00f4me, Pierre de B., his style, 161.\n\n Braun, Otto, 357.\n\n Breton, Jules, 311.\n\n Bridges, Robert, 272.\n\n Browne, Sir Thomas, his style, 161, 175, 176, 178.\n\n Browning, Robert, 113;\n   too clumsy to influence others, 184.\n\n Bruneti\u00e8re, Ferdinand, a narrow-minded pedagogue, 125.\n\n Bruno, Giordano, 207.\n\n Bruno, Leonardo, 207.\n\n Bryce, James, on democracies, 300.\n\n B\u00fccher, Karl, on work and dance, 61, 62.\n\n Buckle, H. T., 99.\n\n Buddhist monks, 224 _n._\n\n\n Building, and dancing, the two primary arts, 36;\n   birds\u2019 nests, the chief early form of, 36 _n._\n\n Bunyan, John, 79.\n\n Burton, Robert, as regards his quotations, 152.\n\n Bury, J. B., 287 _n._\n\n\n Cabanel, 315 _n._\n\n Cadiz, the dancing-school of Spain, 54.\n\n Camargo, innovations of, in the ballet, 57.\n\n Carlyle, Thomas, revelation of family history in his style, 158, 159;\n   compared to Aristophanes, 159 _n._;\n   too clumsy to ninfluence others, 184.\n\n Carpenter, the, sacred position of, in some countries, 2.\n\n Carr-Saunders, A. M., on the social ladder and the successful climbers,\n    299, 300;\n   on selecting the best stock of humanity, 354.\n\n Cassirer, Ernest, on Goethe, 137 _n._\n\n Castanets, 54.\n\n Casuistry, 304 _n._, 305.\n\n Categories, are fictions, 94.\n\n Cathedrals, dancing in, 44, 45.\n\n Ceremony, Chinese, 22, 29;\n   and music, Chinese life regulated by, 24-26.\n\n C\u00e9zanne, artist, 153, 315 _n._\n\n Chanties, of sailors, 61, 62.\n\n Cheetham, Samuel, on the Pagan Mysteries, 241 _n._\n\n Chemistry, analogy of, to life, 33-35.\n\n Chess, the Chinese game of, 23.\n\n _Chiaroscuro_, method of, devised by Leonardo da Vinci, 117.\n\n Chidley, Australian philosopher, 79-82.\n\n China, finest thinkers of, perceived significance in life of conception\n    of art, 3;\n   art animates the whole of life in, 27, 28;\n   beggary in, 31.\n\n Chinese, the, the accounts of, 18-21;\n   their poetry, 21, 22, 29, 32;\n   their etiquette of politeness, 22;\n   the quality of play in their character, 22-24;\n   their life regulated by music and ceremony, 24-26, 29;\n   their civilisation shows that life is art, 27, 28, 30;\n   the \u00e6sthetic supremacy of, 28-30;\n   endurance of their civilisation, 28, 30;\n   their philosophic calm, 29 _n._;\n   decline in civilisation of, in last thousand years, 30;\n   their pottery, 32, 33;\n   embodiment of their symbol of the art of living, 33.\n\n Chinese life, the art of balancing \u00e6sthetic temperament and guarding\n    against its excesses, 29.\n\n _Choir_, the word, 42.\n\n Christian Church, supposed to have been originally a theatre, 42.\n\n Christian ritual, the earliest known, a sacred dance, 42.\n\n Christian worship, dancing in, 42-45;\n   central function of, a sacred drama, 43.\n\n Christianity, Lifuan art of living undermined by arrival of, 18;\n   dancing in, 40-45;\n   the ideas of, as dogmas, hypotheses, and fictions, 99;\n   and the Pagan Mysteries, 242;\n   and asceticism, 249 _n._;\n   the Hebrew mode of feeling grafted into, 276.\n\n Chrysostom, on dancing at the Eucharist, 43.\n\n Church, and religion, not the same, 228 _n._\n\n Church Congress, at Sheffield in 1922, ideas of conversion expressed\n    at, 220 _n._\n\n Churches, 351.\n\n Cicero, 73, 252.\n\n Cinema, educational value of, 138.\n\n Cistercian monks, 43.\n\n Cistercians, the, 347.\n\n Civilisation, develops with conscious adhesion to formal order, 172;\n   standards for measurement of, 285;\n   Niceforo\u2019s measurement of, 286;\n   on meaning of, 287;\n   the word, 288;\n   the art of, includes three kinds of facts, 289;\n   criminality as a measure of, 290, 291;\n   creative genius and general instruction in connection with, 291-93;\n   birth-rate as test of, 294;\n   consumption of luxuries as test of, 294, 295;\n   suicide rate as test of, 295;\n   tests of, applied to France by Niceforo, 295-97;\n   not an exclusive mass of benefits, but a mass of values, 297;\n   becoming more complex, 298;\n   small minority at the top of, 298;\n   guidance of, assigned to lower stratum, 298, 299;\n   art of eugenics necessary to save, 299, 300;\n   of quantity and of quality, 300;\n   not to be precisely measured, 301;\n   the more rapidly it progresses, the sooner it dies, 301;\n   an art, 301, 310;\n   an estimate of its value possible, 302;\n   meaning of Protagoras\u2019s dictum with relation to, 302;\n   measured by standard of fine art (sculpture), 307, 308;\n   eight periods of, 307, 308;\n   a fresh race needed to produce new period of, 308;\n   and culture, 309;\n   \u00e6sthetic sense indispensable for, 345;\n   possible break-up of, 358.\n\n Clarity, as an element of style, 176-78.\n\n _Clich\u00e9s_, 149-51.\n\n Cloisters, for artists, 358.\n\n Cochez, of Louvain, on Plotinus, 249 _n._\n\n Coleridge, S. T., his \u201cloud bassoon,\u201d 169;\n   of the spectator type of the contemplative temperament, 332.\n\n Colour-words, 164 _n._\n\n Colvin, Sir Sidney, on science and art, 70.\n\n Commandments, tables of, 253, 255.\n\n Communists, French, inspired by Shaftesbury, 269.\n\n Community, the, 244.\n\n Comte, J. A., 301.\n\n Confucian morality, the, 29.\n\n Confucianism, outward manifestation of Taoism, 26.\n\n Confucius, consults Lao-tze, 25, 26.\n\n Conrad, Joseph, his knowledge of the sea, 171.\n\n Contemplation. _See_ \u00c6sthetic contemplation.\n\n Convention, and Nature, Hippias makes distinction between, 5.\n\n Conventions. _See_ Traditions.\n\n Conversion, a _questionnaire_ on, 210 _n._;\n   the process of, 218;\n   the fundamental fact of, 218, 218 _n._;\n   essential outlines of, have been obscured, 220 _n._;\n   Churchmen\u2019s ideas of, 220 _n._;\n   not the outcome of despair or a retrogression, 221, 222;\n   nothing ascetic about it, 222;\n   among the Greeks, 240;\n   revelation of beauty sometimes comes by a process of, 328, 329.\n\n Cooper, Anthony, 261.\n\n Cornish, G. Warre, his article on \u201cGreek Drama and the Dance,\u201d 56.\n\n Cosmos. _See_ Universe.\n\n Courtship, dancing a process of, 46.\n\n Cowper, William, 184;\n   influence of Shaftesbury on, 266.\n\n Craftsman, the, partakes of divine nature of creator of the world, 2.\n\n Creation, not the whole of Man, 314.\n\n Creative impulses. _See_ Impulses.\n\n Crime, an effort to get into step, 245 _n._;\n   defined, 290;\n   natural, 290;\n   evolutive social, 291.\n\n Criminality, as a measure of civilisation, 290, 291.\n\n Critics, of language, 141-51;\n   difficulty of their task, 153 _n._\n\n Croce, Benedetto, his idea of art, 84;\n   tends to move in verbal circles, 84;\n   on judging a work of art, 153 _n._;\n   on mysticism and science, 191 _n._;\n   tends to fall into verbal abstraction, 324 _n._;\n   his idea of intuition, 232 _n._, 320 _n._;\n   on the critic of art as a critic of life, 269;\n   on art the deliverer, 318 _n._;\n   union of \u00e6sthetic sense with artistic instinct, 350 _n._\n\n Croiset, Maurice, on Plotinus, 249 _n._\n\n Cromwell, Oliver, 272.\n\n Cruz, Friar Gaspar de, on the Chinese, 31.\n\n Culture, and civilisation, 309.\n\n Curiosity, the sexual instinct a reaction, to the stimulus of, 104,\n    112.\n\n Custom, 245.\n\n Cuvier, Georges, 181.\n\n Cymbal, the, 53.\n\n\n\n Dance, love, among insects, birds, and mammals, 45, 46;\n   among savages, 46;\n   has gained influence in the human world, 48;\n   various forms of, 48, 49;\n   the complete, 49, 50;\n   the seductiveness of, 50;\n   prejudice against, 50, 51;\n   choral, Plotinus compares the moral life of the soul to, 251, 252.\n\n Dance of Life, the, 66, 67.\n\n\n Dancing, and building, the two primary acts, 36;\n   possibly accounts for origin of birds\u2019 nests, 36 _n._;\n   supreme manifestation of physical life and supreme symbol of\n      spiritual life, 36;\n   the significance of, 37;\n   the primitive expression of religion and of love, 37, 38, 45;\n   entwined with human tradition of war, labour, pleasure, and\n      education, 37;\n   the expression of the whole man, 38, 39;\n   rules the life of primitive men, 39 _n._;\n   religious importance of, among primitive men, 39, 40;\n   connected with all religions, 40;\n   ecstatic and pantomimic, 41, 42;\n   survivals of, in religion, 42;\n   in Christian worship, 42-45;\n   in cathedrals, 44, 45;\n   among birds and insects, 45;\n   among mammals, 45, 46;\n   a process of courtship and novitiate for love, 46, 47;\n   double function of, 47;\n   different forms of, 48-51;\n   becomes an art, 51;\n   professional, 52;\n   Classic and Romantic, 52-60;\n   the ballet, 53, 56-60;\n   solo, 53;\n   Egyptian and Gaditanian, 53, 54;\n   Greek, 55, 56, 60;\n   as morals, 60, 61, 63;\n   all human work a kind of, 61, 62;\n   and music, 61-63;\n   social significance of, 60, 61, 63, 64;\n   and war, allied, 63, 64;\n   importance of, in education, 64, 65;\n   Puritan attack on, 65;\n   is life itself, 65;\n   always felt to possess symbolic significance, 66;\n   the learning of, a severe discipline, 277.\n\n Dancing-school, the function of, process of courtship, 47.\n\n D\u2019Annunzio, Gabriele, 178.\n\n _Danse du ventre_, the, 49 _n._\n\n Dante, 311, 349;\n   dancing in his \u201cParadiso,\u201d 43;\n   intellectual life of, largely guided by delight in beauty of rhythmic\n      relation between law and instance, 73.\n\n Darwin, Charles, 88;\n   poet and artist, 128, 129;\n   and St. Theresa, 198.\n\n Darwin, Erasmus, 181.\n\n David, Alexandra, his book, _Le Philosophe Meh-ti et l\u2019Id\u00e9e de\n    Solidarit\u00e9_, 26 _n._\n\n Decadence, of art of living, 8 _n._;\n   rigid subservience to rule a mark of, 173.\n\n Degas, 315 _n._\n\n Democracies, the smallest, are highest, 300.\n\n Demography, 285.\n\n Demosthenes, 336.\n\n De Quincey, Thomas, the music of his style, 164.\n\n Descartes, Ren\u00e9, on arts and sciences, 69;\n   represents in France new impetus to sciences, 180;\n   religious, though man of science, 208.\n\n Design, the arts of, 36.\n\n Devadasis, the, sacred dancing girls, 51, 52.\n\n Diaghilev, 59.\n\n Dickens, Charles, 311.\n\n Dickinson, G. Lowes, his account of the Chinese, 20, 21;\n   his account of Chinese poetry, 21, 22.\n\n Diderot, Denis, wide-ranging interests of, 5;\n   translated Shaftesbury, 268.\n\n \u201cDieta Salutis,\u201d the, 43.\n\n Discipline, definition of a, 71 _n._\n\n \u201cDivine command,\u201d the, 255.\n\n \u201cDivine malice,\u201d of Nietzsche, 155 _n._\n\n Diving-bell, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119.\n\n Divorces, as test of civilisation, 296.\n\n Doctor, and priest, originally one, 197 _n._, 203.\n\n Dogma, hypothesis, and fiction, 98, 99.\n\n Dogmas, shadows of personal experience, 217.\n\n Dostoievsky, F. M., 311, 349;\n   his masterpiece, \u201c_The Brothers Karamazov_,\u201d 135, 136.\n\n Drama, Greek, origin of, 55, 56;\n   the real Socrates possibly to be seen in, 78.\n\n Driesch, Hans, on his own mental development, 216 _n._\n\n Drum, the influence of the, 63.\n\n Dryden, John, 148.\n\n Dujardin, Edouard, his story of Huysmans, 166;\n   on Bergson\u2019s style, 177.\n\n Dumont, Ars\u00e8ne, on civilisation, 298, 301.\n\n Duncan, Isadora, 60.\n\n Duprat, G. L., on morality, 34.\n\n Dupr\u00e9el, Professor, on Hippias, 6 _n._;\n   his _La L\u00e9gende Socratique_, 82 _n._;\n   on the Protagorean spirit, 302 _n._\n\n Duty, 275, 276.\n\n\n Easter, dancing of priests at, 44.\n\n Eckhart, Meister, 234, 336.\n\n Education, importance of dancing in, 64, 65;\n   Einstein\u2019s views on, 137;\n   and genius, as tests of civilisation, 291-93.\n\n Egypt, ancient, dancing in, 42;\n   Classical dancing originated in, 52;\n   the most influential dancing-school of all time, 53;\n   musical instruments associated with dancing, originated or developed\n      in, 53;\n   modern, dancing in, 54 _n._;\n   importance of its civilisation, 307.\n\n Eight-hours day, the, 357.\n\n Einstein, Albert, 2, 69 _n._, 72;\n   substitutes new axioms for old, 95;\n   casts doubts on Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s previsions of modern science, 120\n      _n._;\n   seems to have won a place beside Newton, 133;\n   an imaginative artist, 134;\n   his fondness for music, 134, 135;\n   his other artistic likings and dislikings, 135, 136;\n   an artist also in his work, 136;\n   his views on science, 137;\n   his views on education, 137, 138;\n   on the motives that attract people to science and art, 138, 321;\n   feels harmony of religion and science, 207;\n   concerned with truth, 327;\n   and \u201cscience for science\u2019s sake,\u201d 347 _n._\n\n Eleusinian Mysteries, the, 240-43.\n\n Eliot, George, her knowledge of the life of country people, 171;\n   Tolstoy\u2019s opinion of, 311.\n\n Ellis, Havelock, childhood of, 210, 211;\n   his period of emotional and intellectual expansion, 211;\n   loses faith, 212;\n   influence of Hinton\u2019s \u201c_Life in Nature_\u201d on, 215-18.\n\n Els Cosiers, dancing company, 45.\n\n Emerson, R. W., his style and that of Bacon, 161.\n\n Emmanuel, his book on Greek dancing, 55.\n\n Empathy, 66.\n\n Engineering, professional, Leonardo da Vinci called the founder of,\n    118, 119.\n\n English laws, 98.\n\n English prose style, Cartesian influence on, 180 _n._\n\n English speech, licentiousness of, in the sixteenth century, 148;\n   the best literary prose, 155, 156.\n\n Enjoyment, without possession, 343-46.\n\n Epictetus, 249 _n._\n\n Epicurus, 207.\n\n Erosian, river, importance of, realised by Leonardo da Vinci, 120.\n\n Eskimos, 255.\n\n Este, Isabella d\u2019, 123.\n\n Ethics, and \u00e6sthetics, among the Greeks, 247.\n\n\n Etruscans, the, 56, 308.\n\n Eucharist, dancing at the, 43.\n\n Eucken, Rudolf, on Shaftesbury, 271.\n\n Eugenics, art of, necessary for preservation of civilisation, 299;\n   Galton the founder of the modern scientific art of, 353;\n   assertion of principle of, by Jesus, 355, 356;\n   question of raising quality of population by process of, 358.\n\n Eusebius, on the worship of the Therapeuts, 42.\n\n Evans, Sir Arthur, 112.\n\n Evolution, theory of, 88, 104;\n   a process of sifting, 355;\n   and devolution, 355;\n   social, 357, 358.\n\n Existence, totality of, Hippias\u2019s supreme ideal, 6.\n\n Existing, and thinking, on two different planes, 101.\n\n \u201cExpression,\u201d 324.\n\n\n Facts, in the art of civilisation, material, intellectual, and moral\n    (with political), 289.\n\n Fandango, the, 50.\n\n Faraday, Michael, characteristics of, trust in facts and imagination,\n    130-32;\n   his science and his mysticism, 208.\n\n Farnell, L. R., on religion and science, 197 _n._\n\n Farrer, Reginald, on the philosophic calm of the Chinese, 29 _n._\n\n Faure, Elie, his conception of Napoleon, 10;\n   on Greek art, 76 _n._;\n   has faith in educational value of cinema, 137;\n   on knowledge and desire, 154;\n   on the Greek spirit, 292 _n._\n\n Ferrero, Guglielmo, on the art impulse and the sexual instinct, 109.\n\n\n Fiction, germs of doctrine of, in Kant, 87;\n   first expression of doctrine of, found in Schiller, 89;\n   doctrine of, in F. A. Lange\u2019s _History of Materialism_, 93;\n   Vaihinger\u2019s doctrine of, 94-103;\n   hypothesis, and dogma, 98, 99;\n   of Bovarism, 335, 336;\n   character constituted by process of, 336.\n\n Fictions, the variety of, 94-100;\n   the value of, 96, 97;\n   summatory, 98;\n   scientific and \u00e6sthetic, 102;\n   may always be changed, 103;\n   good and bad, 103.\n\n Fiji, dancing at, 49.\n\n Fijians, the, 13 _n._\n\n Fine arts, the, 70;\n   civilisation measured by standard of, 307;\n   not to be pursued for useful end outside themselves, 322.\n\n Fireworks, 22, 23.\n\n Flaubert, Gustave, is personal, 144;\n   sought to be most objective of artists, 182.\n\n Flowers, the attitude of the poet toward, 168, 169.\n\n Flying-machines, 72 _n._;\n   designed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119.\n\n Foch, Ferdinand, quoted, 103.\n\n Fokine, 59.\n\n Folk-dances, 62.\n\n Force, a fiction, 96.\n\n Fossils, significance of, discovered by Leonardo da Vinci, 120.\n\n Fox, George, 237.\n\n France, tests of civilization applied to, by Niceforo, 295-97.\n\n Francis of Assisi, 237.\n\n Franck, C\u00e9sar, mysticism in music of, 237.\n\n Frazer, J. G., on magic and science, 195, 196.\n\n Freedom, a fiction, 100.\n\n French ballet, the, 57, 58.\n\n French speech, its course, 148, 149.\n\n Freud, Sigmund, 111, 318 _n._;\n   regards dreaming as fiction, 103;\n   on the probability of the disappearance of religion, 228 _n._\n\n Frobisher, Sir Martin, his spelling, 173, 174.\n\n\n Galen, 120.\n\n Galton, Francis, a man of science and an artist, 126-28;\n   founder of the modern scientific art of eugenics, 353;\n   and Jesus\u2019s assertion of the principle of eugenics, 356.\n\n Games, the liking of the Chinese for, 23.\n\n Gaultier, Jules de, 330 _n._;\n   on Buddhist monks, 224 _n._;\n   on pain and pleasure in life, 278 _n._;\n   on morality and reason, 281;\n   on morality and art, 284;\n   on the antinomy between morals and morality, 319;\n   on beauty, 327;\n   on life as a spectacle, 333;\n   the Bovarism of, 335-37;\n   his philosophic descent, 337;\n   applies Bovarism to the Universe, 337;\n   his philosophy seems to be in harmony with physics, 338;\n   the place of morality, religion, and law in his system, 338-40;\n   place of the \u00e6sthetic instinct in his system, 341, 343-45;\n   system of, compared with Russell\u2019s, 342, 343;\n   importance of development of \u00e6sthetic sense to, 345;\n   and the idea of pure art, 346, 347;\n   considers \u00e6sthetic sense mixed in manifestations of life, 349, 350;\n   had predilection for middle class, 356, 357;\n   sees no cause for despair in break-up of civilisation, 358.\n\n Gauss, C. F., religious, though man of science, 208.\n\n\n Genesis, Book of, the fashioning of the cosmos in, 1, 314.\n\n Genius, the birth of, 109;\n   and education, as tests, of civilisation, 291-93;\n   of country, and temper of the population, 292, 293.\n\n Geology, founded by Leonardo da Vinci, 120.\n\n Geometry, Protagoras\u2019s studies in, 3;\n   a science or art, 68.\n\n Gibbon, Edward, 162.\n\n Gide, Andr\u00e9, 322.\n\n Gizycki, Georg von, on Shaftesbury, 260, 267.\n\n God, a fiction, 100, 337.\n\n Goethe, J. W., 342;\n   representative of ideal of totality of existence, 6;\n   called architecture \u201cfrozen music,\u201d 135;\n   his power of intuition, 137;\n   his studies in mathematical physics, 137 _n._;\n   use of word \u201cstamped\u201d of certain phrases, 149;\n   mistook birds, 168;\n   felt harmony of religion and science, 207;\n   and Schiller and Humboldt, 275.\n\n Gomperz, Theodor, his _Greek Thinkers_, 4, 5, 6 _n._; 75, 78.\n\n Goncourt, Jules de, his style, 182, 183.\n\n Goncourts, the, 183.\n\n Good, the, and beauty, among the Greeks, 247.\n\n Goodness, and sweetness, in Shaftesbury\u2019s philosophy, 262;\n   and sweetness, originally the same, 263;\n   moral, originally expressed in terms of taste, 263.\n\n Gorgias, 302.\n\n Gourmont, Remy de, 65;\n   his remark about pleasure, 24;\n   on personality, 144;\n   on style, 177;\n   on civilisation, 298;\n   on the Jesuits, 304, 305;\n   on beauty, 315;\n   on art and morality, 321;\n   on sociological function of art, 323.\n\n Government, as art, 3.\n\n Grace, an element of style in writing, 155, 156.\n\n Grammar, Protagoras the initiator of modern, 4;\n   a science or art, 68;\n   writing not made by the laws of, 172, 173.\n\n Grammarian, the, the formulator, not the lawgiver, of usage, 148.\n\n Great Wall of China, the, 28.\n\n Great War, the, 339.\n\n Greece, ancient, genius built upon basis of slavery in, 292;\n   the spirit of, 292.\n\n Greek art, 76 _n._\n\n Greek dancing, 55, 56, 60.\n\n Greek drama, 55, 56, 78.\n\n Greek morality, an artistic balance of light and shade, 260.\n\n Greek speech, the best literary prose, 155.\n\n Greek spirit, the, 76 _n._\n\n Greeks, attitude of thinkers of, on life as art, 3, 247-53;\n   the pottery of, 32;\n   importance of dancing and music in organisation of some states of,\n      64;\n   books on, written by barbarians, 76 _n._;\n   mysticism of, 205-07, 240-43;\n   spheres of ethics and \u00e6sthetics not distinguished among, 247;\n   had a kind of \u00e6sthetic morality, 316-18;\n   recognised destruction of ethical and intellectual virtues, 330;\n   a small minority of abnormal persons among, 353 _n._\n\n Greenslet, Ferris, on the Cartesian influence on English prose style,\n    180 _n._\n\n Groos, Karl, his \u201cthe play of inner imitation,\u201d 66;\n   has developed \u00e6sthetic side of _miterleben_, 332.\n\n Grosse, on the social significance of dancing, 63, 64.\n\n Grote, George, his chapter on Socrates, 76.\n\n Grotius, Hugo, 261.\n\n Guitar, the, an Egyptian instrument, 53.\n\n Gumplowicz, Ludwig, on civilisation, 301.\n\n Gunpowder, use made of, by Chinese, 22, 23.\n\n Guyau, insisted on sociological function of art, 323, 324;\n   believes that poets and artists will be priests of social religion\n      without dogmas, 349, 350.\n\n Gypsies, possible origin of the name \u201cEgyptians\u201d as applied to them, 54\n    _n._\n\n\n Hadfield, Emma, her account of the life of the natives of the Loyalty\n    Islands, 13-18.\n\n Hakluyt, Richard, 143;\n   his picture of Chinese life, 19.\n\n Hall, Stanley, on importance of dancing, 64, 65;\n   on the beauty of virtue, 270 _n._\n\n Handel, G. F., 62.\n\n\n Handwriting, partly a matter of individual instinct, 156, 157;\n   the complexity and mystery enwrapping, 157;\n   resemblances in, among members of the same family, 157, 158;\n   atavism in, 157, 158.\n\n Hang-Chau, 20.\n\n Hardy, Thomas, his lyrics, 170 _n._;\n   his sensitivity to the sounds of Nature, 171;\n   his genius unquestioned, 187 _n._\n\n Hawaii, dancing in, 51.\n\n Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his style, 161.\n\n Hebrews, their conception of the fashioning of the universe, 1;\n   ancient, their priests and their prophets, 203;\n   never conceived of the art of morals, 253;\n   were no \u00e6sthetic intuitionists, 276.\n\n Hegel, G. W. F., 90;\n   poetic quality of his philosophy, 84;\n   his attempt to transform subjective processes into objective\n      world-processes, 101.\n\n Heine, Heinrich, 155 _n._\n\n Hellenism, the revivalists of, 271.\n\n Helmholtz, H. L. F., science and art in, 72.\n\n Hemelverdeghem, Salome on Cathedral at, 49 _n._\n\n Heraclitus, 74.\n\n Herder, J. G. von, his _Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit_, 88;\n   inspired by Shaftesbury, 268.\n\n Heredity, in handwriting, 157, 158;\n   in style, 158-61, 190;\n   tradition the corporeal embodiment of, 161.\n\n Hincks, Marcella Azra, on the art of dancing in Japan, 42 _n._\n\n Hindu dance, 41.\n\n Hinton, James, on thinking as an art, 86 _n._;\n   on the arts, 111;\n   the universe according to, 215, 216;\n   Ellis\u2019s copy of his book, 220;\n   on pleasure and pain in the art of life, 278;\n   on methods of arts and moral action, 281, 282.\n\n Hippias, 302;\n   significance of his ideas, in conception of life as an art, 4-6;\n   his ideal, 4, 6;\n   the Great Logician, 6 _n._\n\n Hobbes, Thomas, on space, 95;\n   his dictum _Homo homini lupus_, 262.\n\n Hodgson, Shadworth, 289.\n\n Hoffman, Bernhard, his _Guide to the Bird-World_, 168.\n\n Horace, the popularity of, in modern times, 92.\n\n Hovelaque, \u00c9mile, on the Chinese, 27, 28.\n\n Howell, James, his \u201cFamiliar Letters,\u201d 184.\n\n Hugo, Victor, 149, 311.\n\n Hula dance, the, 51.\n\n Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 275.\n\n Hume, David, took up fictional point of view, 96;\n   recognised Shaftesbury, 267;\n   influenced by Hutcheson, 275.\n\n Hunt, Leigh, sensitively acute critic of Keats, 167.\n\n Hunter, John, 181.\n\n Hutcheson, Francis, \u00e6sthetic moralist, 251;\n   came out of Calvinistic Puritanism, 266;\n   one of the founders of \u00e6sthetics, 271, 326 _n._;\n   wrote the first modern treatise on \u00e6sthetics, 271;\n   represented reaction against Puritanism, 271;\n   Shaftesbury\u2019s ideas as developed by, 273;\n   his use of the term \u201cmoral sense,\u201d 273, 274;\n   his impressive personality, 274;\n   philosophy was art of living to, 274, 275;\n   inconsistent, 314;\n   on distinction between art and \u00e6sthetics, 326 _n._;\n   his idea of the \u00e6sthetic and the moral emotion, 327 _n._\n\n Huysmans, J. K., his vocabulary, 165;\n   at Wagner concert, 166;\n   fascinated by concert programmes, 166, 167.\n\n \u201cHymn of Jesus,\u201d the, 42.\n\n Hypothesis, dogma, and fiction, 98, 99.\n\n\n _I_ and _me_, 147.\n\n Idealisation, in adolescence, 107, 108.\n\n Idealism, 83.\n\n Idealists, 70, 341 _n._\n\n Ideals, are fictions, 100.\n\n Imagination, a constitutive part of thinking, 102;\n   man lives by, 102;\n   guarded by judgment and principles, 130-32;\n   part performed by, in morals, 272;\n   and the \u00e6sthetic instinct, 344.\n\n Imbeciles, 352-55.\n\n Imitation, in the productions of young writers, 164.\n\n _Immoral_, significance of the word, 246.\n\n Immortality, a fiction, 100.\n\n\n Impulses, creative and possessive, 306, 307, 341-43.\n\n Inclination, 275.\n\n India, dancing in, 51, 52;\n   the Todas of, 203 _n._\n\n Indians, American, religious dances among, 40, 42.\n\n Infanticide, 255, 354.\n\n Infinite, the, a fiction, 95.\n\n Infinitive, the split, 145-47.\n\n Inge, Dean, on Plotinus, 223 _n._, 249 _n._;\n   on Pagan Mysteries, 241 _n._\n\n Innate ideas, 274.\n\n Insects, dancing among, 45.\n\n Instinct, the part it plays in style, 163;\n   imitation a part of, 164;\n   and tradition, mould morals, 254-59;\n   the possessive, 338-40, 344, 345, 351, _see_ Possessive instinct;\n   the \u00e6sthetic, 341, 343-46, 350, _see_ \u00c6sthetic instinct.\n\n Instincts, 234, 235.\n\n Intelligence, the sphere of, 233, 234.\n\n Intuition, the starting point of science, 137;\n   meaning of, 232 _n._;\n   of the man of genius, 320.\n\n Intuitionism, \u00e6sthetic, 260, 276, 279, 314.\n\n Intuitionists, the, 232-34.\n\n Invention, necessary in science, 137.\n\n Invincible ignorance, doctrine of, 304.\n\n Irony, Socratic, 78, 83.\n\n Irrationalism, of Vaihinger, 90.\n\n Isocrates, on beauty and virtue, 247.\n\n Italy, Romantic dancing originated in, 53, 56;\n   the ballet in, 56-58.\n\n\n Jansenists, the, 303.\n\n Japan, dancing in, 42, 49.\n\n Java, dancing in, 49.\n\n Jehovah, in the Book of Genesis, 1.\n\n Jeremiah, the prophet, his voice and instrument, 178, 179.\n\n Jeres, cathedral of, dancing in, 44.\n\n Jesuits, the, 303-05.\n\n Jesus, and Napoleon, 10, 11;\n   and the Platonic Socrates, 82, 83;\n   asserts principle of eugenics, 353, 356;\n   and Plato, 356.\n\n Jo\u00ebl, Karl, on the Xenophontic Socrates, 78;\n   on the evolution of the Greek philosophic spirit, 206.\n\n John of the Cross, 237.\n\n Johnson, Samuel, the pedantry of, 156;\n   Latin-French element in, 162;\n   his idea of \u201cmatter,\u201d 230.\n\n Johnston, Sir H. H., on the dancing of the Pygmies, 51.\n\n Jones, Dr. Bence, biographer of Faraday, 130.\n\n Jonson, Ben, 184.\n\n Joyce, James, 172, 184;\n   his _Ulysses_, 185, 186.\n\n\n Kant, Immanuel, 89;\n   germs of the doctrine of the \u201cas if\u201d in, 87;\n   his idea of the art of morals, 253, 254;\n   influenced by Shaftesbury, 253, 254, 266;\n   anecdote about, 257 _n._, 276;\n   rationalises morality, 281.\n\n Keats, John, concerned with beautiful words in \u201cThe Eve of St. Agnes,\u201d\n    167.\n\n Kepler, Johann, his imagination and his accuracy in calculation, 132,\n    133.\n\n Keyserling, Count Hermann, his _Philosophie als Kunst_, 83 _n._\n\n \u201cKnowing,\u201d analysis of, 70, 71.\n\n Kolbe, Rev. Dr., illustrates \u00e6sthetic view of morals, 276 _n._\n\n\n Lamb, Charles, 184.\n\n Landor, W. S., 149;\n   on vulgarisms in language, 151 _n._;\n   on the poet and poetry, 154, 172;\n   on style, 163.\n\n Lange, F. A., his _The History of Materialism_, 73 _n._, 83;\n   sets forth conception of philosophy as poetic art, 83;\n   the Neo-Kantism of, 87;\n   his influence on Vaihinger, 92, 93.\n\n Language, critics of present-day, 141-51;\n   of our forefathers and of to-day, 143;\n   things we are told to avoid in, 145-51;\n   is imagery and metaphor, 165;\n   reaction of thought on, 179-81;\n   progress in, due to flexibility and intimacy, 183.\n\n Languages, the Yo-heave-ho theory of, 61.\n\n Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 70.\n\n Lao-tze, and Confucius, 25, 26;\n   the earliest of the great mystics, 204;\n   harmony of religion and science in his work, 204, 205.\n\n Law, a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, 339, 340;\n   to be replaced by \u00e6sthetic instinct, 340, 341.\n\n Laycock, on handwriting, 158 _n._\n\n Leibnitz, Baron S. W. von, 6 _n._;\n   on space, 95;\n   on music, 135;\n   admired Shaftesbury, 268.\n\n \u201cL\u2019Esprit Nouveau,\u201d 179.\n\n Libby, M. F., on Shaftesbury, 273.\n\n Lie, Jonas, 163.\n\n Life, more difficult to realise it as an art than to act it so, 1, 2;\n   as art, view of highest thinkers of China and Greece on, 2-6, 247-52;\n   ideal of totality of, 6;\n   art of, has been decadent during last two thousand years, 8 _n._;\n   of the Loyalty Islanders, 13-18;\n   the Lifuan art of, 13-18;\n   the Chinese art of, 27, 28;\n   Chinese civilization proves that it is art, 30;\n   embodiment of the Chinese symbol of the art of, 33;\n   identical with art, 33-35;\n   the art of, a dance, 66, 67;\n   mechanistic explanation of, 216;\n   viewed in its moral aspect, 244;\n   the moralist the critic of the art of, 247;\n   as art, attitude of Romans toward, 252;\n   as art, attitude of Hebrews toward, 253;\n   the art of, both pain and pleasure in, 277, 278;\n   as art, a conception approved by men of high character, 278, 279;\n   not to be precisely measured by statistics, 302;\n   as a spectacle, 333, 334.\n\n Lifu. _See_ Loyalty Islands.\n\n\n Lifuans, the, the art of living of, 13-18.\n\n Limoges, 44.\n\n Linn\u00e6an system, the, a fiction, 99.\n\n Liszt, Franz, 329.\n\n Livingstone, David, 38.\n\n Locke, John, and Shaftesbury, 261, 262.\n\n Locomotive, the, 72 _n._\n\n Lodge, Sir Oliver, his attempt to study religion, 201.\n\n Logic, a science or art, 68;\n   and fiction, 94;\n   of thought, inescapable, 183.\n\n Loret, on dancing, 54 _n._\n\n Love, dancing the primitive expression of, 37, 45;\n   curiosity one of the main elements of, 112.\n\n Love-dance, 45-51.\n   _See_ Dance, Dancing.\n\n\n Loyalty Islands, the, customs of the natives of, 13-18.\n\n Lucian, 353 _n._;\n   on dancing, 40, 45.\n\n Lucretius, 207.\n\n Lull, Ramon, 237.\n\n Lulli, J. B., brought women into the ballet, 57.\n\n Luxuries, consumption of, as test of civilisation, 294-97.\n\n\n Machinery of life, 216.\n\n Madagascar, dancing in, 49.\n\n Magic, relation of, to science and religion, 193-96.\n\n Magna Carta, 98.\n\n Malherbe, Fran\u00e7ois de, 148.\n\n Mallarm\u00e9, St\u00e9phane, music the voice of the world to, 166.\n\n Mallorca, dancing in church in, 44, 45.\n\n Mammals, dancing among, 45, 46.\n\n Man, has found it more difficult to conceive life as an art than to act\n    it so, 1;\n   his conception less that of an artist, as time went on, 2;\n   in Protagoras\u2019s philosophy, 3, 4, 302;\n   ceremony and music, his external and internal life, 25;\n   added to Nature, 153;\n   has passed through stages of magic, religion, and science, 196;\n   an artist of his own life, 271;\n   is an artist, 310;\n   as artist and as \u00e6sthetician, 314;\n   becomes the greatest force in Nature, 339;\n   practices adopted by, to maintain selection of best stock, 354.\n\n Mandeville, Sir John, on Shaftesbury, 262.\n\n Manet, 311.\n\n Marco Polo, his picture of Chinese life, 19, 20;\n   noticed absence of beggars in China, 31;\n   on public baths in China, 32.\n\n Marett, on magic and science, 195.\n\n Marlowe, Christopher, 170, 184.\n\n Marquesans, the, 13 _n._\n\n Marriott, Charles, on the union of \u00e6sthetic sense with artistic\n    instinct, 350 _n._\n\n Martial, 54.\n\n Mass, dancing in ritual of, 43-45;\n   analogy of Pagan Mysteries to, 242.\n\n Master of Arts, 69.\n\n Materialism, 97, 230.\n\n Materialistic, the term, 229.\n\n Mathematical Renaissance, the, 69.\n\n Mathematics, false ideas in, 94, 95;\n and art, 138-40.\n\n Matter, a fiction, 97, 229, 338;\n   and spirit, 229, 230.\n\n Maupassant, Guy de, 311.\n\n McDougall, William, accepts magic as origin of science, 195;\n   his criticism of the \u201cmoral sense,\u201d 274 _n._;\n   his study of civilisation, 298;\n   on birth-rate, 298 _n._\n\n _Me_ and _I_, 147.\n\n Mead, G. R., his article _The Sacred Dance of Jesus_, 44.\n\n Measurement, Protagoras\u2019s saying concerning, 3, 302.\n\n Mechanics, beginning of science of, 74;\n   theories of, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, 120.\n\n Medici, Catherine de\u2019, brought Italian ballet to Paris, 57.\n\n Medicine, and religion, 197 _n._, 203.\n\n Medicine-man, the, 192-95.\n\n Meh-ti, Chinese philosopher, 26, 27.\n\n Men, of to-day and of former days, their comparative height, 142.\n\n \u201cMen of science,\u201d 125, 126.\n   _See_ Scientist.\n\n Meteorological Bureau, the, 203.\n\n Metre, poetic, arising out of work, 62.\n\n Michelangelo, 311.\n\n Milan, the ballet in, 58.\n\n Mill, J. S., on science and art, 70;\n   criticism of Bentham, 99.\n\n Millet, J. F., 311.\n\n Milton, John, his misuse of the word \u201ceglantine,\u201d 169;\n   Tolstoy\u2019s opinion of, 311.\n\n Mirandola, Pico della, 6 _n._\n\n Mittag-Lefler, Gustav, on mathematics, 139.\n\n M\u00f6bius, Paul Julius, German psychologist, 109.\n\n Moissac, Salome capital in, 49 _n._\n\n Montaigne, M. E. de, his style flexible and various, 148;\n   his quotations moulded to the pattern of his own mind, 152;\n   his style and that of Renan, 161;\n   the originality of his style found in vocabulary, 165.\n\n Montesquieu, Baron de, his admiration for Shaftesbury, 268;\n   on the evils of civilisation, 297.\n\n _Moral_, significance of the term, 246.\n\n Moral maxims, 254, 258.\n\n Moral reformer, the, 282.\n\n \u201cMoral sense,\u201d the term as used by Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, 273, 274;\n   in McDougall\u2019s _Social Psychology_, 274 _n._\n\n Moral teaching, 246 _n._\n\n Moral World-Order, the, a fiction, 100.\n\n Morand, Paul, 170 _n._\n\n Moreau, Gustave, 167.\n\n Morgagni, G. B., 300.\n\n Morris, William, 350 _n._\n\n Moses, 253, 282.\n\n Moszkowski, Alexander, his book on Einstein, 134 _n._\n\n Moralist, the critic of the art of life, 247.\n\n Morality, Greek, an artistic balance of light and shade, 260;\n   a matter of taste, 263;\n   the \u00e6sthetic quality of, evidenced by language, 263, 264;\n   Shaftesbury\u2019s views on, 264-66;\n   the influence of Shaftesbury on our modern, 266, 267;\n   imagination in, 272;\n   instinctive, according to Hutcheson, 274;\n   conception of, as an art, does not lack seriousness, 276;\n   the \u00e6sthetic view of, advocated by Catholics, 276 _n._;\n   the \u00e6sthetic view of, repugnant to two classes of minds, 280-82;\n   indefiniteness of criterion of, an advantage, 282, 283;\n   justification of \u00e6sthetic conception of, 283, 284;\n   flexible and inflexible, illustrated by Jesuits and Pascal, 303-05;\n   art the reality of, 314;\n   \u00e6sthetic, of the Greeks, 316-18;\n   the antinomy between morals and, 319;\n   a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, 338-40;\n   to be replaced by \u00e6sthetic instinct, 340, 341;\n   \u00e6sthetic instinct has the character of, 346.\n\n\n Morals, dancing as, 61, 63, 66;\n   books on, 244;\n   defined, 245;\n   means _custom_, 245;\n   Plotinus\u2019s conception of, 250-52;\n   as art, views of the Greeks and the Romans on, differ, 252;\n   Hebrews never conceived of the art of, 253;\n   as art, modern conception of, 253;\n   the modern feeling about, is Jewish and Roman, 253;\n   Kant\u2019s idea of the art of, 253, 254;\n   formed by instinct, tradition and reason, 254-59;\n   Greek, have come to modern world through Shaftesbury, 267;\n   the \u00e6sthetic attitude possible for spectator of, 270;\n   art and \u00e6sthetics to be kept apart in, 314, 315, 325-28;\n   a species of the genus art, 316;\n   the antinomy between morality and, 319;\n   philosophers have failed to see that it is an art, 324.\n\n _Morisco_, the, 49 _n._\n\n Mozart, Wolfgang, his interest in dancing, 62.\n\n M\u00fcller-Freienfels, Richard, two kinds of \u00e6sthetic contemplation defined\n    by, 331.\n\n Multatuli, quoted on the source of curiosity, 112.\n\n Music, and ceremony, 24-26;\n   and acting, and poetry, 36;\n   and singing, and dancing, their relation, 62;\n   a science or art, 68;\n   discovery of Pythagoras in, 74;\n   philosophy the noblest and best, 81 _n._;\n   the most abstract, the most nearly mathematical of the arts, 135;\n   of style, 163, 164;\n   of philosophy and religion, 179.\n\n Musical forms, evolved from similar dances, 62.\n\n Musical instruments, 53, 54.\n\n Musset, Alfred de, his _Confession d\u2019un Enfant du Si\u00e8cle_, 144.\n\n Mysteries, the Eleusinian, 240-43.\n\n Mystic, the genuine, 202;\n   Lao-tze, the earliest great, 204.\n\n Mystics, the great, 236, 237.\n\n\n Mysticism, the right use and the abuse of the word, 191;\n   and science, supposed difference between, 191-203;\n   what is meant by, 192;\n   and science, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, 203-08;\n   of the Greeks, 205-07, 240-43;\n   and science, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of\n      Havelock Ellis, 209-18;\n   and science, how they came to be considered out of harmony, 226-35;\n   and science, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, 235,\n      236;\n   the key to much that is precious in art and Nature in, 237, 238;\n   is not science, 238-40;\n   \u00e6sthetics on same plane as, 330 _n._\n   _See_ Religion.\n\n\n Napoleon, described as unmitigated scoundrel by H. G. Wells, 8-10;\n   described as lyric artist by \u00c9lie Faure, 10.\n\n Nature, and convention, Hippias made distinction between, 5;\n   comes through an atmosphere which is the emanation of supreme\n      artists, 166;\n   the attitude of the poet in the face of, 168, 169;\n   the object of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s searchings, 114, 117, 125;\n   Man added to, 153;\n   communion with, 227;\n   in Shaftesbury\u2019s system, 265;\n   and art, 312, 313.\n\n Neo-Platonists, the, 237;\n   asceticism in, 249 _n._\n\n Nests, birds\u2019, and dancing, 36 _n._\n\n Newell, W. W., 41 _n._\n\n Newman, Cardinal J. H., the music of his style, 164.\n\n Newton, Sir Isaac, his wonderful imagination, 72;\n   his force of attraction a summatory fiction, 98;\n   represents in England new impetus to sciences, 180;\n   his attempt to study religion, 199-201;\n   religious, though a man of science, 208.\n\n Niceforo, Alfred, his measurement of civilisation, 286, 293, 297;\n   tests of civilisation applied to France by, 295-97.\n\n Nietzsche, Friedrich, 111;\n   conceived the art of life as a dance, 66, 67;\n   poetic quality of his philosophy, 84;\n   Vaihinger\u2019s opinion of, 94;\n   on Leonardo da Vinci, 115;\n   the \u201cdivine malice\u201d of, 155 _n._;\n   laboured at his prose, 182;\n   demolished D. F. Strauss\u2019s ideas, 215;\n   on learning to dance, 277;\n   his gospel of taste, 280;\n   on the Sophists, 302 _n._;\n   on art as the great stimulus of life, 322, 323;\n   on the world as a spectacle, 334, 335;\n   moved by the \u201cmasculine protest,\u201d 336;\n   Jesus reproached by, 355.\n\n Novelists, their reservoirs of knowledge, 171.\n\n Noverre, and the ballet, 57.\n\n\n Ockham, William of, 96.\n\n\n Old Testament, the, and the conception of morality as an art, 276.\n   _See_ Bible, Genesis.\n\n Omahas, the, 46.\n\n Onions, C. T., 146 _n._\n\n Optimism, and pessimism, 90-92.\n\n Origen, on the dancing of the stars, 43.\n\n Orpheus, fable of, 61.\n\n Osler, Sir William, 72.\n\n\n Pacific, the, creation as conceived in, 2;\n   dancing in, 49.\n   _See_ Lifuans.\n\n Pain, and pleasure, united, 278.\n\n Painting, Chinese, 29, 32;\n   and sculpture, and the arts of design, 36;\n   of Leonardo da Vinci, 113, 114, 117, 118.\n\n Palante, Georges, 337 _n._\n\n Paley, William, 267.\n\n Palladius, 358.\n\n Pantomime, and pantomimic dancing, 41, 42, 49, 56.\n\n Papuans, the, are artistic, 351 _n._\n\n Parachute, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119.\n\n Paris, dancing in choir in, 44;\n   the ballet at, 57.\n\n Parker, Professor E. H., his book _China: Past and Present_, 23 _n._;\n   his view of Chinese vermin and dirt, 31, 32.\n\n Parks, 351.\n\n Parmelee, Maurice, his _Criminology_, 291 _n._\n\n Parsons, Professor, 142.\n\n Pascal, Blaise, and the Jesuits, 303, 304.\n\n Pater, W. H., the music of his style, 164.\n\n Pattison, Pringle, his definition of mysticism, 192 _n._\n\n Paul, Vincent de, his moral attitude, 279, 280.\n\n Paulhan, on morality, 284.\n\n Pell, E. C., on decreasing birth-rate, 294 _n._\n\n Pepys, Samuel, the accomplishment of his \u201cDiary,\u201d 176.\n\n Perera, Galeotto, his picture of Chinese life, 19;\n   noticed absence of beggars in China, 31.\n\n Pericles, 289.\n\n Personality, 144.\n\n Pessimism, and optimism, 90-92.\n\n Petrie, Dr. W. M. Flinders, his attempt to measure civilisation by\n    standard of sculpture, 307, 308.\n\n Peyron, traveller, 50.\n\n Phenomenalism, Protagoras the father of, 3.\n\n Philosopher, the primitive, usually concluded that the universe was a\n    work of art, 1;\n   a creative artist, 72, 73, 85;\n   curiosity the stimulus of, 104, 105.\n\n Philosophy, of the Chinese, 32;\n   solution of the conflicts of, in art, 82, 83;\n   and art, close relationship of, 83-85;\n   and poetry, 83, 85;\n   is music, 179.\n\n Physics, and fiction, 95.\n\n Pictures, revelation of beauty in, 328, 329;\n   should be looked at in silence, 329 _n._\n\n Pindar, calls Hellas \u201cthe land of lovely dancing,\u201d 55.\n\n Planck, Max, physicist, 136.\n\n Plato, Protagoras calumniated by, 3;\n   made fun of Hippias, 4;\n   his description of a good education, 64;\n   a creative artist, 73;\n   his picture of Socrates, 75, 78;\n   the biographies of, 76, 77;\n   his irony, 78, 83;\n   a marvellous artist, 82;\n   a supreme artist in philosophy, 83;\n   a supreme dramatist, 83;\n   his \u201cIdeas\u201d and the \u201cAs-If world,\u201d 88;\n   the myths, as fictions, hypotheses, and dogmas, 99;\n   represents the acme of literary prose speech, 155;\n   and Plotinus, 222;\n   on the Mysteries, 242;\n   asceticism, traced in, 249 _n._;\n   on justice, 289;\n   his ideal of wise moderation addressed to an immoderate people, 292;\n   Sophists caricatured by, 302;\n   his \u201cguardians,\u201d 306;\n   the ultrapuritanical attitude of, 317, 318 _n._;\n   and Bovarism, 336;\n   on the value of sight, 345 _n._;\n   wished to do away with imaginative literature, 353 _n._;\n   and Jesus, 356.\n\n Pleasure, a human creation, 24;\n   and pain, united, 278.\n\n Pliny, 353 _n._\n\n Plotinus, 222;\n   Greek moral spirit reflected in, 249;\n   his doctrine of Beauty, 250, 251;\n   his idea that the moral life of the soul is a dance, 251, 252;\n   his simile of the sculptor, 276 _n._;\n   founder of \u00e6sthetics in the philosophic sense, 329;\n   recognised three aspects of the Absolute, 330;\n   insisted on contemplation, 330 _n._, 331;\n   of the participating contemplative temperament, 332.\n\n Poet, the type of all thinkers, 102;\n   Landor on, 154;\n   his attitude in the presence of Nature, 168, 169;\n   the great, does not describe Nature minutely, but uses his knowledge\n      of, 170, 171.\n\n Poetry, Chinese, 21, 22, 29, 32;\n   and music, and acting, 36;\n   and dancing, 56;\n   and philosophy, 83, 85;\n   and science, no sharp boundary between, 102, 128, 129;\n   Landor on, 154;\n   a _making_, 312;\n   Aristotle\u2019s view of, 318;\n   does not exist for morals, 318.\n\n Polka, origin of the, 60.\n\n Polynesia, dancing in, 49.\n\n Polynesian islanders, 255.\n\n Pontiff, the Bridge-Builder, 2.\n\n Pope, Alexander, influence of Shaftesbury on, 266.\n\n Porphyry, 167.\n\n Possessive impulses, 306, 307, 341-43.\n\n\n Possessive instinct, restraints placed upon, 338-40;\n   in Gaultier and Russell, 344;\n   excesses of, 351.\n\n Pottery, of the Chinese, 32, 33;\n   of the Greeks and the Minoan predecessors of the Greeks, 32.\n\n Pound, Miss, on the origin of the ballad, 62 _n._\n\n Pragmatism, 323.\n\n Pragmatists, the, 93, 231, 232.\n\n Precious stones, attitude of the poet toward, 169.\n\n Preposition, the post-habited, 146, 147, 162.\n\n Prettiness, and beauty, 315 _n._\n\n Priest, cultivated science in form of magic, 195;\n   and doctor, originally one, 197 _n._, 203.\n\n Prodicus, 302;\n   the Great Moralist, 6 _n._\n\n Progress, 143, 149;\n   on meaning of, 287.\n\n Prophecy, 204.\n\n _Prophet_, meaning of the word, 203, 204.\n\n Propriety, 24-26.\n\n Protagoras, significance of his ideas, in conception of life as an art,\n    3, 4;\n   his interest for us to-day, 3;\n   his dictum \u201cMan is the measure of all things,\u201d 3, 302;\n   concerned to regard living as an art, 248.\n\n Proust, Marcel, 172, 184;\n   his art, 170 _n._, 186, 187;\n   his _A la Recherche du Temps Perdu_, 171, 187;\n   admiration of, for Ruskin, 316 _n._\n\n Puberty, questions arising at time of, 105-07.\n\n Puritanism, reaction against, represented by Hutcheson, 271.\n\n Pygmalionism, 353 _n._\n\n Pygmies, the dancing of the, 51.\n\n Pythagoras, represents the beginning of science, 73, 74;\n   fundamentally an artist, 74, 75;\n   founded religious brotherhoods, 206, 207.\n\n\n Quatelet, on social questions, 288.\n\n Quoting, by writers, 152.\n\n\n Rabbitism, 294.\n\n Rabelais, Fran\u00e7ois, 148, 165, 358.\n\n Race mixture, 308.\n\n Raleigh, Sir Walter, his literary style, 143.\n\n Ramedjenis, the, street dancers, 52.\n\n Rank, Dr. Otto, his essay on the artist, 111.\n\n Realism, 83.\n\n Realists, 70, 341 _n._\n\n Reality, a flux of happening, 101.\n\n Reason, helps to mould morals, 255-59.\n\n Reid, Thomas, influenced by Hutcheson, 275.\n\n Relativism, Protagoras the father of, 3.\n\n\n Religion, as the desire for the salvation of the soul, 8;\n   origin of dance in, 38;\n   connection of dance with, among primitive men, 39;\n   in music, 179;\n   and science, supposed difference between, 191-203;\n   its quintessential core, 191;\n   control of Nature through oneness with Nature, at the heart of, 194;\n   relation of, to science and magic, 194-96;\n   the man of, studying science, 202;\n   and science, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, 203-08;\n   and science, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of\n      Havelock Ellis, 209-18;\n   asceticism has nothing to do with normal, 222;\n   and science, how they came to be considered out of harmony, 226-35;\n   the burden of the traditions of, 227;\n   and church, not the same, 228 _n._;\n   the instinct of, 234;\n   and science, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, 235,\n      236;\n   is not science, 238-40;\n   an act, 243;\n   a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, 339, 340;\n   to be replaced by \u00e6sthetic instinct, 340, 341.\n   _See_ Mysticism.\n\n Religions, in every case originally saltatory, 40.\n\n Religious dances, ecstatic and pantomimic, 41;\n   survivals of, 42;\n   in Christianity, 42-45.\n\n Renan, J. E., his style, 161;\n   his _Life of Jesus_, 212;\n   on truth, 301.\n\n \u201cResident in Peking, A,\u201d author of _China as it Really Is_, 21, 22.\n\n\n Revelation, Book of, 153.\n\n Revival, the, 241, 243.\n\n Rhythm, marks all the physical and spiritual manifestations of life,\n    37;\n   in work, 61.\n\n Rickert, H., his twofold division of Reality, 325, 326.\n\n Ridgeway, William, his theory of origin of tragedy, 56.\n\n Roberts, Morley, ironical over certain \u201cmen of science,\u201d 126 _n._\n\n Robinson, Dr. Louis, on apes and dancing, 46;\n   on the influence of the drum, 63.\n\n Rod\u00f3, his conceptions those of Shaftesbury, 269.\n\n Roman law, 98.\n\n Romans, the ancient, dancing and war allied among, 63, 64;\n   did not believe that living is an art, 252.\n\n Romantic spirit, the, 206.\n\n Romantics, the, 149, 156.\n\n Rome, ancient, dancing in, 49;\n   genius built upon basis of slavery in, 292.\n\n Rops, F\u00e9licien, 167.\n\n Ross, Robert, 150.\n\n Rouen Cathedral, Salome on portal of, 49 _n._\n\n Rousseau, J. J., Napoleon before grave of, 11;\n   felt his lapses, 79;\n   grace of, 149;\n   love of Nature developed through, 238;\n   and Shaftesbury, 268, 269;\n   decided against civilisation, 298.\n\n Roussillon, 44.\n\n Rule, rigid subserviency to, mark of decadence, 173;\n   much lost by rigid adherence to, in style, 175.\n\n _Rules for Compositors and Readers_, on spelling, Oxford University\n    Press, 174 _n._\n\n Ruskin, John, 316;\n   a God-intoxicated man, 316 _n._\n\n Russell, Bertrand, on the Chinese, 23;\n   on mathematics, 139, 140;\n   on the creative and the possessive impulses, 305-07, 341, 342;\n   system of, compared with Gaultier\u2019s, 342, 343.\n\n Russia, the genius of, compared with the temper of the population, 293.\n\n Russian ballet, the, 58-60.\n\n Rutherford, Sir Ernest, on the atomic constitution, 97 _n._\n\n\n St. Augustine, 79, 202;\n   on the art of living well, 252.\n\n St. Basil, on the dancing of the angels, 43.\n\n St. Bonaventura, said to have been author of \u201cDiet a Salutis,\u201d 43.\n\n St. Denis, Ruth, 60.\n\n St. Theresa, and Darwin, 198, 199.\n\n Salome, the dance of, 49.\n\n _Salt_, intellectual and moral suggestion of the word, 263, 263 _n._,\n    264.\n\n Salt, Mr., 169.\n\n Salter, W. M., his _Nietzsche the Thinker_, 335 _n._\n\n Samoa, sacred position of carpenter in, 2.\n\n Sand, George, on civilisation, 300.\n\n Santayana, Professor George, on union of \u00e6sthetic sense with artistic\n    instinct, 350 _n._\n\n Schelling, F. W. J. von, 90;\n   on philosophy and poetry, 83.\n\n Schiller, Friedrich von, influence on Vaihinger, 89;\n   and the \u00e6sthetic conception of morals, 275.\n\n Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 90.\n\n Schmidt, Dr. Raymund, 93 _n._\n\n Schopenhauer, Arthur, 330 _n._;\n   his influence on Vaihinger, 90;\n   as regards his quotations, 152;\n   morals based on sympathy, according to, 272;\n   on the uselessness of art, 319;\n   on the man of genius, 320;\n   on sociological function of art, 323;\n   on the proper way of looking at pictures, 329 _n._;\n   on the world as a spectacle, 334.\n\n Science, spirit of modern, in Protagoras, 4;\n   as the search for the reason of things, 8;\n   and poetry, no sharp boundary between, 102, 128, 129;\n   impulse to, and the sexual instinct, 112;\n   intuition and invention needed by, 137;\n   and mysticism, supposed difference between, 191-203;\n   what is meant by, 192;\n   and art, no distinction between, in classic times, 68;\n   and art, distinction between, in modern times, 68-70;\n   definitions of, 70, 71;\n   is of the nature of art, 71;\n   the imaginative application of, 72;\n   Pythagoras represents the beginning of, 74;\n   control of Nature through oneness with Nature, at the heart of, 194;\n   relation of, to magic and religion, 194-96;\n   and pseudo-science, 199-202;\n   and mysticism, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, 203-08;\n   and mysticism, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of\n      Havelock Ellis, 209-18;\n   and mysticism, how they came to be considered out of harmony, 226-35;\n   traditions of, 228;\n   the instinct of, 234;\n   and mysticism, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, 235,\n      236;\n   is not religion, 238-40;\n   not pursued for useful ends, 322;\n   for science\u2019s sake, 347.\n\n Sciences, and arts, 68-70;\n   biological and social, fiction in, 99;\n   mathematical impetus given to, toward end of seventeenth century,\n      180;\n   biological, awakening of, 181;\n   mathematical, renaissance of, 181.\n\n\n Scientist, the true, an artist, 72, 73, 112, 126;\n   curiosity the stimulus of, 104, 105;\n   the false, 125, 126;\n   who turns to religion, 199-201.\n\n Scott, W. R., on art and \u00e6sthetics, 326 _n._\n\n Scottish School, the, 267.\n\n Sculpture, painting, and the arts of design, 36;\n   civilisation measured by standard of, 308.\n\n Seises, the, the dance of, 44 _n._\n\n Selous, Edmund, 36 _n._\n\n Semon, Professor, R., 351 _n._\n\n \u201cSense,\u201d Hutcheson\u2019s conception of, 274.\n\n Seville, cathedral of, dancing in, 44.\n\n Sex, instinct of, a reaction to the stimulus of curiosity, 104;\n   early questions concerning, 105-07;\n   source of art impulse, 108-12;\n   and the scientific interest, 112;\n   not absolutely essential, 234.\n\n Sexual imagery, strain of, in thought, 113.\n\n \u201cShadow,\u201d 219 _n._\n\n Shaftesbury, Earl of, influence on Kant, 254;\n   illustrated unsystematic method of thinking, 259;\n   his book, 260;\n   his theory of \u00c6sthetic Intuitionism, 260;\n   his affinity to the Greeks, 260;\n   his early life, 261;\n   his idea of goodness, 262;\n   his principles expounded, 264-66;\n   his influence on later writers and thinkers, 266;\n   his influence on our modern morality, 266, 267;\n   the greatest Greek of modern times, 267, 271;\n   his service to the modern world, 267;\n   measure of his recognition in Scotland and England, 267;\n   recognition of, abroad, 268, 269;\n   made no clear distinction between creative artistic impulse and\n      critical \u00e6sthetic appreciation, 270;\n   realised that reason cannot affect appetite, 270;\n   one of the founders of \u00e6sthetics, 271;\n   his use of the term \u201cmoral sense,\u201d 273, 274;\n   temperamentally a Stoic, 279;\n   of the \u00e6sthetic contemplative temperament, 332, 333.\n\n Shakespeare, William, 148;\n   his style compared with that of Bacon, 160;\n   affected by the intoxication of words, 167;\n   stored up material to be used freely later, 170, 171;\n   the spelling of his name by himself, 173;\n   surpasses contemporaries in flexibility and intimacy, 184;\n   Tolstoy\u2019s opinion of, 311;\n   on Nature and art, 312, 313;\n   his figure of Prospero, 331.\n\n Shamans, the, religious dances among, 40, 41;\n   their wills brought into harmony with the essence of the world, 193;\n   double attitude of, 194.\n\n Sharp, F. C., on Hutcheson, 327 _n._\n\n Shelley, P. B., mysticism in poetry of, 237;\n   on imagination and morality, 238.\n\n Sidgwick, Henry, 255, 314.\n\n Singer, Dr. Charles, his definition of science, 70, 71.\n\n Singing, relation to music and dancing, 62.\n\n Silberer, Herbert, on magic and science, 195.\n\n Simcox, Edith, her description of conversion, 218 _n._\n\n Skene, on dances among African tribes, 38.\n\n Slezakova, Anna, the polka extemporised by, 60.\n\n Smith, Adam, his \u201ceconomic man,\u201d 99;\n   morals based on sympathy, according to, 272;\n   influenced by Hutcheson, 275.\n\n Smith, Arthur H., his book _Chinese Characteristics_, 23 _n._\n\n Social capillarity, 298.\n\n Social ladder, 298, 299.\n\n Social statistics, 286-88.\n\n Socialists, French, inspired by Shaftesbury, 269.\n\n Socrates, the Platonic, 75, 78;\n   Grote\u2019s chapter on, 76;\n   the real and the legendary, 76, 79, 82;\n   three elements in our composite portrait of, 77-79;\n   the Platonic, and the Gospel Jesus, 82, 83;\n   on philosophy and music, 179;\n   his view of the moralist, 248.\n\n Solidarity, socialistic, among the Chinese, 26, 27.\n\n Solmi, Vincian scholar, 114.\n\n Sophists, the, 4, 302, 302 _n._\n\n Sophocles, danced in his own dramas, 56;\n   beauty and moral order in, 247;\n   Tolstoy\u2019s opinion of, 311.\n\n Soul, a fiction, 100;\n   in harmony with itself, 219;\n   the moral life of, as a dance, 251, 252.\n\n South Sea Islands, dancing in, 49.\n\n Space, absolute, a fiction, 95.\n\n Spain, dancing in, 44, 50, 54.\n\n Speech, the best literary prose, 155;\n   in Greece, 155;\n   in England, 155, 156;\n   the artist\u2019s, 156;\n   a tradition, 161.\n\n Spelling, and thinking, 127 _n._;\n   has little to do with style, 173;\n   now uniform and uniformly bad, 174, 175.\n\n Spencer, Herbert, on science and art, 68;\n   on use of science in form of magic, 195;\n   the universe according to, 215;\n   on the harmlessness of moral teaching, 246 _n._;\n   on diminishing birth-rate, 294 _n._\n\n Spengler, Dr. Oswald, on the development of music, 135 _n._;\n   argues on the identity of physics, mathematics, religion, and great\n      art, 138;\n   his theory of culture and civilisation, 309, 310.\n\n Spinoza, Baruch, 89;\n   has moved in sphere where impulses of religion and science spring\n      from same source, 207;\n   transforms ethics into geometry, 281;\n   has been called a God-intoxicated man, 316 _n._;\n   his \u201cintellectual love of God,\u201d 342.\n\n Spirit, and matter, 229, 230.\n\n Statistics, uncertainty of, 286;\n   for measurement of civilisation, 286-88;\n   applied to France to test civilisation, 295-97.\n\n Steele, Dr. John, on the Chinese ceremonial, 29 _n._\n\n Stephen, Sir Leslie, on poetry and philosophy, 85;\n   could see no good in Shaftesbury, 268.\n\n Stevenson, R. L., 188.\n\n Stocks, eradication of unfit, by Man, 354;\n   recommended by Jesus, 355, 356.\n\n Stoics, the, 207.\n\n Strauss, D. F., his _The Old Faith and the New_, 214.\n\n\n Style, literary, of to-day and of our fore-fathers\u2019 time, 143;\n   the achievement of, 155;\n   grace seasoned with salt, 155;\n   atavism in, in members of the same family, 158, 190;\n   atavism in, in the race, 160, 190;\n   much that is instinctive in, 163;\n   the music of, 163, 164;\n   vocabulary in, 164, 165;\n   the effect of mere words on, 165-67;\n   familiarity with author\u2019s, necessary to understanding, 171, 172;\n   spelling has little to do with, 173;\n   much lost by slavish adherence to rules in, 175;\n   must have clarity and beauty, 176-78;\n   English prose, Cartesian influence on, 180 _n._;\n   personal and impersonal, 182, 183;\n   progress in, lies in casting aside accretions and exuberances, 183;\n   founded on a model, the negation of style, 188;\n   the task of breaking the old moulds of, 188, 189;\n   summary of elements of, 190.\n   _See_ Writing.\n\n Suicide, rate of, as test of civilisation, 295, 296.\n\n Swahili, dancing among, 38.\n\n Swedenborg, Emanuel, his science and his mysticism, 208.\n\n Swedish ballet, the, 60.\n\n _Sweet_ (_suavis_), referring to moral qualities, 264.\n\n Sweetness, and goodness, in Shaftesbury\u2019s philosophy, 262;\n   originally the same, 263.\n\n Swift, Jonathan, laments \u201cthe corruption of our style,\u201d 142;\n   beauty of his style, rests on truth to logic of his thought, 183;\n   utterance of, combining two conceptions of life, 333.\n\n Swimming-belt, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119.\n\n Swinburne, C. A., on writing poetry to a tune, 62;\n   his _Poems and Ballads_, 172;\n   his _Songs before Sunrise_, 212.\n\n Sylvester, J. J., on mathematics, 139.\n\n Symphony, the development of a dance suite, 62.\n\n Syndicalism, as test of civilisation, 296, 297.\n\n\n Taglioni, Maria, 58.\n\n Tahiti, dancing at, 50.\n\n Tambourine, the, 53.\n\n _Tao_, the word, 204.\n\n Taste, the gospel of, 280.\n\n Telegraph, the, 72 _n._\n\n Telephone, the, 72 _n._\n\n Tell-el-Amarna, 28.\n\n Theology, 227.\n\n Therapeuts, the worship of, 42.\n\n Thing-in-Itself, the, a fiction, 101.\n\n Things, are fictions, 98.\n\n\n Thinking, of the nature of art, 85, 86;\n   and existing, on two different planes, 101;\n   the special art and object of, 101;\n   is a comparison, 102;\n   is a regulated error, 103;\n   abstract, the process of its birth, 108, 109.\n\n Thompson, Silvanus, on Faraday, 132.\n\n Thomson, James, influence of Shaftesbury on, 266.\n\n Thomson, Sir Joseph, on matter and weight, 230.\n\n Thoreau, H. D., on morals, 282.\n\n Thought, logic of, inescapable, 183.\n\n Tobacco, consumption of, as test of civilisation, 295.\n\n Todas, the, of India, 203 _n._\n\n Toledo, cathedral of, dancing in, 44.\n\n Tolstoy, Count Leo, his opinions on art, 311.\n\n Tonga, sacred position of carpenter in, 2.\n\n Tooke, Horne, 151 _n._\n\n Townsend, Rev. Joseph, on the fandango, 50.\n\n Tradition, the corporeal embodiment of heredity, 161;\n   and instinct, mould morals, 254-59.\n\n\n Traditions, religious, 227;\n   scientific, 228.\n\n Triangles, 53.\n\n Truth, the measuring-rod of, 230-32.\n\n Tunisia, Southern, dancing in, 49.\n\n T\u2019ung, the story of, 33.\n\n Turkish dervishes, dances of, 41.\n\n Tuscans, the, 56.\n   _See_ Etruscans.\n\n Tyndall, John, on Faraday, 130-32.\n\n Tyrrells, the, the handwriting of, 157.\n\n\n Ugliness, 328.\n\n Ulysses, representative of ideal of totality of existence, 6.\n\n United States, the genius of, compared with the temper of the\n    population, 293.\n\n\n Universe, conceived as work of art by primitive philosopher, 1;\n   according to D. F. Strauss, 214;\n   according to Spencer, 215;\n   according to Hinton, 216;\n   according to Sir James Frazer, 219 _n._;\n   according to Bertrand Russell, 219 _n._;\n   conception of, a personal matter, 219 _n._;\n   the so-called materialistic, 229, 230;\n   Bovarism of, 337.\n\n Utilitarians, the, 267, 268.\n\n Uvea, 15.\n   _See_ Loyalty Islands.\n\n\n\n Vaihinger, Hans, his _Philosophie des Als Ob_, 86;\n   English influence upon, 86, 87;\n   allied to English spirit, 87, 88;\n   his origin, 88;\n   his training, and vocation, 88-93;\n   influence of Schiller on, 89;\n   philosophers who influenced, 89, 90;\n   his pessimisms, irrationalism, and voluntarism, 90;\n   his view of military power of Germany, 90, 91;\n   his devouring appetite for knowledge, 92;\n   reads F. A. Lange\u2019s _History of Materialism_, 92, 93;\n   writes his book at about twenty-five years of age, 93;\n   his book published, 94;\n   the problem he set out to prove, 94;\n   his doctrine of fiction, 94-102;\n   his doctrine not immune from criticism, 102;\n   the fortifying influence of his philosophy, 102, 103;\n   influenced Adler, 337.\n\n Valencia, cathedral of, dancing in, 44.\n\n Valerius, Maximus, 353 _n._\n\n Van Gogh, mysticism in pictures of, 237.\n\n Varnhagen, Rahel, 66.\n\n Verbal counters, 149, 150.\n\n Verlaine, Paul, the significance of words to, 168.\n\n Vesalius, 120.\n\n Vasari, Giorgio, his account of Leonardo da Vinci, 115, 123.\n\n Vestris, Gaetan, and the ballet, 57.\n\n Vinci, Leonardo da, man of science, 113, 125;\n   as a painter, 113, 114, 117, 118;\n   his one aim, the knowledge and mastery of Nature, 114, 117, 125;\n   an Overman, 115;\n   science and art joined in, 115-17;\n   as the founder of professional engineering, 118, 119;\n   the extent of his studies and inventions, 119, 120;\n   a supreme master of language, 121;\n   his appearance, 121;\n   his parentage, 121;\n   his youthful accomplishments, 122;\n   his sexual temperament, 122, 123;\n   the man, woman, and child in, 123, 124;\n   a figure for awe rather than love, 124.\n\n Vinci, Ser Piero da, father of Leonardo da Vinci, 121.\n\n Virtue, and beauty, among the Greeks, 247;\n   the art of living well, 252;\n   in Shaftesbury\u2019s system, 265, 266;\n   beauty of, 270 _n._\n\n Virtues, ethical and intellectual, 330.\n\n Visconti, Galeazzo, spectacular pageants at marriage of, 57.\n\n Vocabulary, each writer creates his own, 164, 165.\n\n Voltaire, F. M. A. de, recognised Shaftesbury, 268;\n   on the foundations of society, 289.\n\n\n Wagner, Richard, on Beethoven\u2019s Seventh Symphony, 62, 63.\n\n Wallas, Professor Graham, on Plato and Dante, 73.\n\n War, and dancing, allied, 63, 64.\n\n Wealth, as test of civilisation, 296, 297.\n\n Weight, its nature, 230.\n\n Weismann, and the study of heredity, 127.\n\n Wells, H. G., his description of Napoleon, 8-10, 12.\n\n Whitman, Walt, his _Leaves of Grass_, 172;\n   words attributed to him on what is right, 254.\n\n Woman, the question, what she is like, 106.\n\n Words, have a rich content of their own, 166;\n   the intoxication of, 167-69;\n   their arrangement chiefly studied by young writer, 172.\n\n Wordsworth, William, 184;\n   influence of Shaftesbury on, 266.\n\n Work, a kind of dance, 61, 62.\n\n World, becoming impalpable and visionary, 337, 338.\n   _See_ Universe.\n\n Writers, the great, have observed decorum instinctively, 181, 182;\n   the great, learn out of themselves, 188, 189;\n   the great, are heroes at heart, 189.\n\n\n Writing, personality in, 144, 190;\n   a common accomplishment to-day, 144, 145;\n   an arduous intellectual task, 151, 153, 190;\n   good and bad, 154;\n   the achievement of style in, 155;\n   machine-made, 156;\n   not made by the laws of grammar, 172, 173;\n   how the old method gave place to the new, 179-81;\n   summary of elements of, 190.\n   _See_ Handwriting, Style.\n\n Wundt, Wilhelm, on the dance, 38, 39 _n._\n\n\n Xavier, Francis, 123, 237.\n\n Xenophon, his portrait of Socrates, 77.\n\n\n Zeno, 249 _n._\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n      Text that was in bold face is enclosed by equals signs (=bold=).\n    \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are\n      referenced.","title":"The Dance of Life","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":109266}