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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7253b62 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65714 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65714) diff --git a/old/65714-0.txt b/old/65714-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 97c8e8c..0000000 --- a/old/65714-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12577 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dance of Life, by Havelock Ellis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Dance of Life - -Author: Havelock Ellis - -Release Date: June 27, 2021 [eBook #65714] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David King, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANCE OF LIFE *** - - - - - THE DANCE OF LIFE - - - - - THE DANCE OF LIFE - - BY - HAVELOCK ELLIS - - AUTHOR OF “IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS,” “AFFIRMATIONS,” - “ESSAYS IN WAR-TIME,” ETC. - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HAVELOCK ELLIS - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - SECOND IMPRESSION, JUNE, 1923 - THIRD IMPRESSION, AUGUST, 1923 - FOURTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1923 - FIFTH IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1923 - SIXTH IMPRESSION, NOVEMBER, 1923 - SEVENTH IMPRESSION, DECEMBER, 1923 - EIGHTH IMPRESSION, FEBRUARY, 1924 - NINTH IMPRESSION, JULY, 1924 - TENTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1924 - ELEVENTH IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1924 - TWELFTH IMPRESSION, DECEMBER, 1924 - - - The Riverside Press - CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS - PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. - - - - - PREFACE - - -THIS book was planned many years ago. As to the idea running through it, -I cannot say when that arose. My feeling is, it was born with me. On -reflection, indeed, it seems possible the seeds fell imperceptibly in -youth—from F. A. Lange, maybe, and other sources—to germinate unseen in -a congenial soil. However that may be, the idea underlies much that I -have written. Even the present book began to be written, and to be -published in a preliminary form, more than fifteen years ago. Perhaps I -may be allowed to seek consolation for my slowness, however vainly, in -the saying of Rodin that “slowness is beauty,” and certainly it is the -slowest dances that have been to me most beautiful to see, while, in the -dance of life, the achievement of a civilisation in beauty seems to be -inversely to the rapidity of its pace. - -Moreover, the book remains incomplete, not merely in the sense that I -would desire still to be changing and adding to each chapter, but even -incomplete by the absence of many chapters for which I had gathered -material, and twenty years ago should have been surprised to find -missing. For there are many arts, not among those we conventionally call -“fine,” which seem to me fundamental for living. But now I put forth the -book as it stands, deliberately, without remorse, well content so to do. - -Once that would not have been possible. A book must be completed as it -had been originally planned, finished, rounded, polished. As a man grows -older his ideals change. Thoroughness is often an admirable ideal. But -it is an ideal to be adopted with discrimination, having due reference -to the nature of the work in hand. An artist, it seems to me now, has -not always to finish his work in every detail; by not doing so he may -succeed in making the spectator his co-worker, and put into his hands -the tool to carry on the work which, as it lies before him, beneath its -veil of yet partly unworked material, still stretches into infinity. -Where there is most labour there is not always most life, and by doing -less, provided only he has known how to do well, the artist may achieve -more. - -He will not, I hope, achieve complete consistency. In fact a part of the -method of such a book as this, written over a long period of years, is -to reveal a continual slight inconsistency. That is not an evil, but -rather the avoidance of an evil. We cannot remain consistent with the -world save by growing inconsistent with our own past selves. The man who -consistently—as he fondly supposes “logically”—clings to an unchanging -opinion is suspended from a hook which has ceased to exist. “I thought -it was she, and she thought it was me, and when we come near it weren’t -neither one of us”—that metaphysical statement holds, with a touch of -exaggeration, a truth we must always bear in mind concerning the -relation of subject and object. They can neither of them possess -consistency; they have both changed before they come up with one -another. Not that such inconsistency is a random flux or a shallow -opportunism. We change, and the world changes, in accordance with the -underlying organisation, and inconsistency, so conditioned by truth to -the whole, becomes the higher consistency of life. I am therefore able -to recognise and accept the fact that, again and again in this book, I -have come up against what, superficially regarded, seemed to be the same -fact, and each time have brought back a slightly different report, for -it had changed and I had changed. The world is various, of infinite -iridescent aspect, and until I attain to a correspondingly infinite -variety of statement I remain far from anything that could in any sense -be described as “truth.” We only see a great opal that never looks the -same this time as when we looked last time. “He never painted to-day -quite the same as he had painted yesterday,” Elie Faure says of Renoir, -and it seems to me natural and right that it should have been so. I have -never seen the same world twice. That, indeed, is but to repeat the -Heraclitean saying—an imperfect saying, for it is only the half of the -larger, more modern synthesis I have already quoted—that no man bathes -twice in the same stream. Yet—and this opposing fact is fully as -significant—we really have to accept a continuous stream as constituted -in our minds; it flows in the same direction; it coheres in what is more -or less the same shape. Much the same may be said of the ever-changing -bather whom the stream receives. So that, after all, there is not only -variety, but also unity. The diversity of the Many is balanced by the -stability of the One. That is why life must always be a dance, for that -is what a dance is: perpetual slightly varied movements which are yet -always held true to the shape of the whole. - -We verge on philosophy. The whole of this book is on the threshold of -philosophy. I hasten to add that it remains there. No dogmas are here -set forth to claim any general validity. Not that even the technical -philosopher always cares to make that claim. Mr. F. H. Bradley, one of -the most influential of modern English philosophers, who wrote at the -outset of his career, “On all questions, if you push me far enough, at -present I end in doubts and perplexities,” still says, forty years -later, that if asked to define his principles rigidly, “I become -puzzled.” For even a cheese-mite, one imagines, could only with -difficulty attain an adequate metaphysical conception of a cheese, and -how much more difficult the task is for Man, whose everyday intelligence -seems to move on a plane so much like that of a cheese-mite and yet has -so vastly more complex a web of phenomena to synthetise. - -It is clear how hesitant and tentative must be the attitude of one who, -having found his life-work elsewhere than in the field of technical -philosophy, may incidentally feel the need, even if only playfully, to -speculate concerning his function and place in the universe. Such -speculation is merely the instinctive impulse of the ordinary person to -seek the wider implications bound up with his own little activities. It -is philosophy only in the simple sense in which the Greeks understood -philosophy, merely a philosophy of life, of one’s own life, in the wide -world. The technical philosopher does something quite different when he -passes over the threshold and shuts himself up in his study— - - “Veux-tu découvrir le monde, - Ferme tes yeux, Rosemonde”— - -and emerges with great tomes that are hard to buy, hard to read, and, -let us be sure, hard to write. But of Socrates, as of the English -philosopher Falstaff, we are not told that he wrote anything. - -So that if it may seem to some that this book reveals the expansive -influence of that great classico-mathematical Renaissance in which it is -our high privilege to live, and that they find here “relativity” applied -to life, I am not so sure. It sometimes seems to me that, in the first -place, we, the common herd, mould the great movements of our age, and -only in the second place do they mould us. I think it was so even in the -great earlier classico-mathematical Renaissance. We associate it with -Descartes. But Descartes could have effected nothing if an innumerable -crowd in many fields had not created the atmosphere by which he was -enabled to breathe the breath of life. We may here profitably bear in -mind all that Spengler has shown concerning the unity of spirit -underlying the most diverse elements in an age’s productivity. Roger -Bacon had in him the genius to create such a Renaissance three centuries -earlier; there was no atmosphere for him to live in and he was stifled. -But Malherbe, who worshipped Number and Measure as devoutly as -Descartes, was born half a century before him. That silent, colossal, -ferocious Norman—vividly brought before us by Tallement des Réaux, to -whom, rather than to Saint-Simon, we owe the real picture of -seventeenth-century France—was possessed by the genius of destruction, -for he had the natural instinct of the Viking, and he swept all the -lovely Romantic spirit of old France so completely away that it has -scarcely ever revived since until the days of Verlaine. But he had the -Norman classico-mathematical architectonic spirit—he might have said, -like Descartes, as truly as it ever can be said in literature, _Omnia -apud me mathematica fiunt_—and he introduced into the world a new rule -of Order. Given a Malherbe, a Descartes could hardly fail to follow, a -French Academy must come into existence almost at the same time as the -“Discours de la Méthode,” and Le Nôtre must already be drawing the -geometrical designs of the gardens of Versailles. Descartes, it should -be remembered, could not have worked without support; he was a man of -timid and yielding character, though he had once been a soldier, not of -the heroic temper of Roger Bacon. If Descartes could have been put back -into Roger Bacon’s place, he would have thought many of Bacon’s -thoughts. But we should never have known it. He nervously burnt one of -his works when he heard of Galileo’s condemnation, and it was fortunate -that the Church was slow to recognise how terrible a Bolshevist had -entered the spiritual world with this man, and never realised that his -books must be placed on the Index until he was already dead. - -So it is to-day. We, too, witness a classico-mathematical Renaissance. -It is bringing us a new vision of the universe, but also a new vision of -human life. That is why it is necessary to insist upon life as a dance. -This is not a mere metaphor. The dance is the rule of number and of -rhythm and of measure and of order, of the controlling influence of -form, of the subordination of the parts to the whole. That is what a -dance is. And these same properties also make up the classic spirit, not -only in life, but, still more clearly and definitely, in the universe -itself. We are strictly correct when we regard not only life but the -universe as a dance. For the universe is made up of a certain number of -elements, less than a hundred, and the “periodic law” of these elements -is metrical. They are ranged, that is to say, not haphazard, not in -groups, but by number, and those of like quality appear at fixed and -regular intervals. Thus our world is, even fundamentally, a dance, a -single metrical stanza in a poem which will be for ever hidden from us, -except in so far as the philosophers, who are to-day even here applying -the methods of mathematics, may believe that they have imparted to it -the character of objective knowledge. - -I call this movement of to-day, as that of the seventeenth century, -classico-mathematical. And I regard the dance (without prejudice to a -distinction made later in this volume) as essentially its symbol. This -is not to belittle the Romantic elements of the world, which are equally -of its essence. But the vast exuberant energies and immeasurable -possibilities of the first day may perhaps be best estimated when we -have reached their final outcome on the sixth day of creation. - -However that may be, the analogy of the two historical periods in -question remains, and I believe that we may consider it holds good to -the extent that the strictly mathematical elements of the later period -are not the earliest to appear, but that we are in the presence of a -process that has been in subtle movement in many fields for half a -century. If it is significant that Descartes appeared a few years after -Malherbe, it is equally significant that Einstein was immediately -preceded by the Russian ballet. We gaze in admiration at the artist who -sits at the organ, but we have been blowing the bellows; and the great -performer’s music would have been inaudible had it not been for us. - -This is the spirit in which I have written. We are all engaged—not -merely one or two prominent persons here and there—in creating the -spiritual world. I have never written but with the thought that the -reader, even though he may not know it, is already on my side. Only so -could I write with that sincerity and simplicity without which it would -not seem to me worth while to write at all. That may be seen in the -saying which I set on the forefront of my earliest book, “The New -Spirit”: he who carries farthest his most intimate feelings is simply -the first in file of a great number of other men, and one becomes -typical by being to the utmost degree one’s self. That saying I chose -with much deliberation and complete conviction because it went to the -root of my book. On the surface it obviously referred to the great -figures I was there concerned with, representing what I regarded—by no -means in the poor sense of mere modernity—as the New Spirit in life. -They had all gone to the depths of their own souls and thence brought to -the surface and expressed—audaciously or beautifully, pungently or -poignantly—intimate impulses and emotions which, shocking as they may -have seemed at the time, are now seen to be those of an innumerable -company of their fellow men and women. But it was also a book of -personal affirmations. Beneath the obvious meaning of that motto on the -title-page lay the more private meaning that I was myself setting forth -secret impulses which might some day be found to express the emotions -also of others. In the thirty-five years that have since passed, the -saying has often recurred to my mind, and if I have sought in vain to -make it mine I find no adequate justification for the work of my life. - -And now, as I said at the outset, I am even prepared to think that that -is the function of all books that are real books. There are other -classes of so-called books: there is the class of history books and the -class of forensic books, that is to say, the books of facts and the -books of argument. No one would wish to belittle either kind. But when -we think of a book proper, in the sense that a Bible means a book, we -mean more than this. We mean, that is to say, a revelation of something -that had remained latent, unconscious, perhaps even more or less -intentionally repressed, within the writer’s own soul, which is, -ultimately, the soul of mankind. These books are apt to repel; nothing, -indeed, is so likely to shock us at first as the manifest revelation of -ourselves. Therefore, such books may have to knock again and again at -the closed door of our hearts. “Who is there?” we carelessly cry, and we -cannot open the door; we bid the importunate stranger, whatever he may -be, to go away; until, as in the apologue of the Persian mystic, at last -we seem to hear the voice outside saying: “It is thyself.” - -H. E. - - - - - CONTENTS - - -I. INTRODUCTION 1 - -II. THE ART OF DANCING 36 - -III. THE ART OF THINKING 68 - -IV. THE ART OF WRITING 141 - -V. THE ART OF RELIGION 191 - -VI. THE ART OF MORALS 244 - -VII. CONCLUSION 285 - -INDEX 359 - - - - - CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION - - - I - - -IT has always been difficult for Man to realise that his life is all an -art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so. For -that is always how he has more or less acted it. At the beginning, -indeed, the primitive philosopher whose business it was to account for -the origin of things usually came to the conclusion that the whole -universe was a work of art, created by some Supreme Artist, in the way -of artists, out of material that was practically nothing, even out of -his own excretions, a method which, as children sometimes instinctively -feel, is a kind of creative art. The most familiar to us of these -primitive philosophical statements—and really a statement that is as -typical as any—is that of the Hebrews in the first chapter of their Book -of Genesis. We read there how the whole cosmos was fashioned out of -nothing, in a measurable period of time by the art of one Jehovah, who -proceeded methodically by first forming it in the rough, and gradually -working in the details, the finest and most delicate last, just as a -sculptor might fashion a statue. We may find many statements of the like -kind even as far away as the Pacific.[1] And—also even at the same -distance—the artist and the craftsman, who resembled the divine creator -of the world by making the most beautiful and useful things for Mankind, -himself also partook of the same divine nature. Thus, in Samoa, as also -in Tonga, the carpenter, who built canoes, occupied a high and almost -sacred position, approaching that of the priest. Even among ourselves, -with our Roman traditions, the name Pontiff, or Bridge-Builder, remains -that of an imposing and hieratic personage. - -But that is only the primitive view of the world. When Man developed, -when he became more scientific and more moralistic, however much his -practice remained essentially that of the artist, his conception became -much less so. He was learning to discover the mystery of measurement; he -was approaching the beginnings of geometry and mathematics; he was at -the same time becoming warlike. So he saw things in straight lines, more -rigidly; he formulated laws and commandments. It was, Einstein assures -us, the right way. But it was, at all events in the first place, most -unfavourable to the view of life as an art. It remains so even to-day. - -Yet there are always some who, deliberately or by instinct, have -perceived the immense significance in life of the conception of art. -That is especially so as regards the finest thinkers of the two -countries which, so far as we may divine,—however difficult it may here -be to speak positively and by demonstration,—have had the finest -civilisations, China and Greece. The wisest and most recognisably -greatest practical philosophers of both these lands have believed that -the whole of life, even government, is an art of definitely like kind -with the other arts, such as that of music or the dance. We may, for -instance, recall to memory one of the most typical of Greeks. Of -Protagoras, calumniated by Plato,—though, it is interesting to observe -that Plato’s own transcendental doctrine of Ideas has been regarded as -an effort to escape from the solvent influence of Protagoras’ logic,—it -is possible for the modern historian of philosophy to say that “the -greatness of this man can scarcely be measured.” It was with measurement -that his most famous saying was concerned: “Man is the measure of all -things, of those which exist and of those which have no existence.” It -was by his insistence on Man as the active creator of life and -knowledge, the artist of the world, moulding it to his own measure, that -Protagoras is interesting to us to-day. He recognised that there are no -absolute criteria by which to judge actions. He was the father of -relativism and of phenomenalism, probably the initiator of the modern -doctrine that the definitions of geometry are only approximately true -abstractions from empirical experiences. We need not, and probably -should not, suppose that in undermining dogmatism he was setting up an -individual subjectivism. It was the function of Man in the world, rather -than of the individual, that he had in mind when he enunciated his great -principle, and it was with the reduction of human activity and conduct -to art that he was mainly concerned. His projects for the art of living -began with speech, and he was a pioneer in the arts of language, the -initiator of modern grammar. He wrote treatises on many special arts, as -well as the general treatise “On the Art” among the pseudo-Hippocratic -writings,—if we may with Gomperz attribute it to him,—which embodies the -spirit of modern positive science.[2] - -Hippias, the philosopher of Elis, a contemporary of Protagoras, and like -him commonly classed among the “Sophists,” cultivated the largest ideal -of life as an art which embraced all arts, common to all mankind as a -fellowship of brothers, and at one with natural law which transcends the -convention of human laws. Plato made fun of him, and that was not hard -to do, for a philosopher who conceived the art of living as so large -could not possibly at every point adequately play at it. But at this -distance it is his ideal that mainly concerns us, and he really was -highly accomplished, even a pioneer, in many of the multifarious -activities he undertook. He was a remarkable mathematician; he was an -astronomer and geometer; he was a copious poet in the most diverse -modes, and, moreover, wrote on phonetics, rhythm, music, and mnemonics; -he discussed the theories of sculpture and painting; he was both -mythologist and ethnologist, as well as a student of chronology; he had -mastered many of the artistic crafts. On one occasion, it is said, he -appeared at the Olympic gathering in garments which, from the sandals on -his feet to the girdle round his waist and the rings on his fingers, had -been made by his own hands. Such a being of kaleidoscopic versatility, -Gomperz remarks, we call contemptuously a Jack-of-all-trades. We believe -in subordinating a man to his work. But other ages have judged -differently. The fellow citizens of Hippias thought him worthy to be -their ambassador to the Peloponnesus. In another age of immense human -activity, the Renaissance, the vast-ranging energies of Leo Alberti were -honoured, and in yet a later like age, Diderot—Pantophile as Voltaire -called him—displayed a like fiery energy of wide-ranging interests, -although it was no longer possible to attain the same level of -wide-ranging accomplishment. Of course the work of Hippias was of -unequal value, but some of it was of firm quality and he shrank from no -labour. He seems to have possessed a gracious modesty, quite unlike the -conceited pomposity Plato was pleased to attribute to him. He attached -more importance than was common among the Greeks to devotion to truth, -and he was cosmopolitan in spirit. He was famous for his distinction -between Convention and Nature, and Plato put into his mouth the words: -“All of you who are here present I reckon to be kinsmen and friends and -fellow citizens, and by nature, not by law; for by nature like is akin -to like, whereas law is the tyrant of mankind, and often compels us to -do many things that are against nature.” Hippias was in the line of -those whose supreme ideal is totality of existence. Ulysses, as Benn -remarks, was in Greek myth the representative of the ideal, and its -supreme representative in real life has in modern times been Goethe.[3] - - - II - - -BUT, in actual fact, is life essentially an art? Let us look at the -matter more closely, and see what life is like, as people have lived it. -This is the more necessary to do since, to-day at all events, there are -simple-minded people—well-meaning honest people whom we should not -ignore—who pooh-pooh such an idea. They point to the eccentric -individuals in our Western civilisation who make a little idol they call -“Art,” and fall down and worship it, sing incomprehensible chants in its -honour, and spend most of their time in pouring contempt on the people -who refuse to recognise that this worship of “Art” is the one thing -needed for what they may or may not call the “moral uplift” of the age -they live in. We must avoid the error of the good simple-minded folk in -whose eyes these “Arty” people loom so large. They are not large, they -are merely the morbid symptoms of a social disease; they are the -fantastic reaction of a society which as a whole has ceased to move -along the true course of any real and living art. For that has nothing -to do with the eccentricities of a small religious sect worshipping in a -Little Bethel; it is the large movement of the common life of a -community, indeed simply the outward and visible form of that life. - -Thus the whole conception of art has been so narrowed and so debased -among us that, on the one hand, the use of the word in its large and -natural sense seems either unintelligible or eccentric, while, on the -other hand, even if accepted, it still remains so unfamiliar that its -immense significance for our whole vision of life in the world is -scarcely at first seen. This is not altogether due to our natural -obtusity, or to the absence of a due elimination of subnormal stocks -among us, however much we may be pleased to attribute to that dysgenic -factor. It seems largely inevitable. That is to say that, so far as we -in our modern civilisation are concerned, it is the outcome of the -social process of two thousand years, the result of the breakup of the -classic tradition of thought into various parts which under post-classic -influences have been pursued separately.[4] Religion or the desire for -the salvation of our souls, “Art” or the desire for beautification, -Science or the search for the reasons of things—these conations of the -mind, which are really three aspects of the same profound impulse, have -been allowed to furrow each its own narrow separate channel, in -alienation from the others, and so they have all been impeded in their -greater function of fertilising life. - -It is interesting to observe, I may note in passing, how totally new an -aspect a phenomenon may take on when transformed from some other channel -into that of art. We may take, for instance, that remarkable phenomenon -called Napoleon, as impressive an individualistic manifestation as we -could well find in human history during recent centuries, and consider -two contemporary, almost simultaneous, estimates of it. A distinguished -English writer, Mr. H. G. Wells, in a notable and even famous book, his -“Outline of History,” sets down a judgment of Napoleon throughout a -whole chapter. Now Mr. Wells moves in the ethico-religious channel. He -wakes up every morning, it is said, with a rule for the guidance of -life; some of his critics say that it is every morning a new rule, and -others that the rule is neither ethical nor religious; but we are here -concerned only with the channel and not with the direction of the -stream. In the “Outline” Mr. Wells pronounces his ethico-religious -anathema of Napoleon, “this dark little archaic personage, hard, -compact, capable, unscrupulous, imitative, and neatly vulgar.” The -“archaic”—the old-fashioned, outworn—element attributed to Napoleon, is -accentuated again later, for Mr. Wells has an extremely low opinion -(hardly justifiable, one may remark in passing) of primitive man. -Napoleon was “a reminder of ancient evils, a thing like the bacterium of -some pestilence”; “the figure he makes in history is one of almost -incredible self-conceit, of vanity, greed, and cunning, of callous -contempt and disregard of all who trusted him.” There is no figure, Mr. -Wells asserts, so completely antithetical to the figure of Jesus of -Nazareth. He was “a scoundrel, bright and complete.” - -There is no occasion to question this condemnation when we place -ourselves in the channel along which Mr. Wells moves; it is probably -inevitable; we may even accept it heartily. Yet, however right along -that line, that is not the only line in which we may move. Moreover—and -this is the point which concerns us—it is possible to enter a sphere in -which no such merely negative, condemnatory, and dissatisfying a -conclusion need be reached. For obviously it is dissatisfying. It is not -finally acceptable that so supreme a protagonist of humanity, acclaimed -by millions, of whom many gladly died for him, and still occupying so -large and glorious a place in the human imagination, should be dismissed -in the end as merely an unmitigated scoundrel. For so to condemn him is -to condemn Man who made him what he was. He must have answered some -lyric cry in the human heart. That other sphere in which Napoleon wears -a different aspect is the sphere of art in the larger and fundamental -sense. Élie Faure, a French critic, an excellent historian of art in the -ordinary sense, is able also to grasp art in the larger sense because he -is not only a man of letters but of science, a man with medical training -and experience, who has lived in the open world, not, as the critic of -literature and art so often appears to be, a man living in a damp -cellar. Just after Wells issued his “Outline,” Élie Faure, who probably -knew nothing about it since he reads no English, published a book on -Napoleon which some may consider the most remarkable book on that -subject they have ever come across. For to Faure Napoleon is a great -lyric artist. - -It is hard not to believe that Faure had Wells’s chapter on Napoleon -open before him, he speaks so much to the point. He entitled the first -chapter of his “Napoléon” “Jesus and He,” and at once pierces to what -Wells, too, had perceived to be the core of the matter in hand: “From -the point of view of morality he is not to be defended and is even -incomprehensible. In fact he violates law, he kills, he sows vengeance -and death. But also he dictates law, he tracks and crushes crime, he -establishes order everywhere. He is an assassin. He is also a judge. In -the ranks he would deserve the rope. At the summit he is pure, -distributing recompense and punishment with a firm hand. He is a monster -with two faces, like all of us perhaps, in any case like God, for those -who have praised Napoleon and those who have blamed him have alike not -understood that the Devil is the other face of God.” From the moral -point of view, Faure says (just as Wells had said), Napoleon is -Antichrist. But from this standpoint of art, all grows clear. He is a -poet of action, as Jesus was, and like him he stands apart. These two, -and these two alone among the world’s supremely great men of whom we -have any definite knowledge, “acted out their dream instead of dreaming -their action.” It is possible that Napoleon himself was able to estimate -the moral value of that acted dream. As he once stood before the grave -of Rousseau, he observed: “It would have been better for the repose of -France if that man and I had never existed.” Yet we cannot be sure. “Is -not repose the death of the world?” asks Faure. “Had not Rousseau and -Napoleon precisely the mission of troubling that repose? In another of -the profound and almost impersonal sayings that sometimes fell from his -lips, Napoleon observed with a still deeper intuition of his own -function in the world: “I love power. But it is as an artist that I love -it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out of it sounds -and chords and harmonies. I love it as an artist.” As an artist! These -words were the inspiration of this finely illuminating study of -Napoleon, which, while free from all desire to defend or admire, yet -seems to explain Napoleon, in the larger sense to justify his right to a -place in the human story, so imparting a final satisfaction which Wells, -we feel, could he have escaped from the bonds of the narrow conception -of life that bound him, had in him the spirit and the intelligence also -to bestow upon us. - -But it is time to turn from this aside. It is always possible to dispute -about individuals, even when so happy an illustration chances to come -before us. We are not here concerned with exceptional persons, but with -the interpretation of general and normal human civilisations. - - - III - - -I TAKE, almost at random, the example of a primitive people. There are -many others that would do as well or better. But this happens to come to -hand, and it has the advantage not only of being a primitive people, but -one living on an island, so possessing until lately its own -little-impaired indigenous culture, as far as possible remote in space -from our own; the record also has been made, as carefully and as -impartially as one can well expect, by a missionary’s wife who speaks -from a knowledge covering over twenty years.[5] It is almost needless to -add that she is as little concerned with any theory of the art of life -as the people she is describing. - -The Loyalty Islands lie to the east of New Caledonia, and have belonged -to France for more than half a century. They are thus situated in much -the same latitude as Egypt is in the Northern hemisphere, but with a -climate tempered by the ocean. It is with the Island of Lifu that we are -mainly concerned. There are no streams or mountains in this island, -though a ridge of high rocks with large and beautiful caves contains -stalactites and stalagmites and deep pools of fresh water; these pools, -before the coming of the Christians, were the abode of the spirits of -the departed, and therefore greatly reverenced. A dying man would say to -his friends: “I will meet you all again in the caves where the -stalactites are.” - -The Loyalty Islanders, who are of average European stature, are a -handsome race, except for their thick lips and dilated nostrils, which, -however, are much less pronounced than among African negroes. They have -soft large brown eyes, wavy black hair, white teeth, and rich brown skin -of varying depth. Each tribe has its own well-defined territory and its -own chief. Although possessing high moral qualities, they are a -laughter-loving people, and neither their climate nor their mode of life -demands prolonged hard labour, but they can work as well as the average -Briton, if need be, for several consecutive days, and, when the need is -over, lounge or ramble, sleep or talk. The basis of their culture—and -that is doubtless the significant fact for us—is artistic. Every one -learned music, dancing, and song. Therefore it is natural for them to -regard rhythm and grace in all the actions of life, and almost a matter -of instinct to cultivate beauty in all social relationships. Men and -boys spent much time in tattooing and polishing their brown skins, in -dyeing and dressing their long wavy hair (golden locks, as much admired -as they always have been in Europe, being obtained by the use of lime), -and in anointing their bodies. These occupations were, of course, -confined to the men, for man is naturally the ornamental sex and woman -the useful sex. The women gave no attention to their hair, except to -keep it short. It was the men also who used oils and perfumes, not the -women, who, however, wore bracelets above the elbow and beautiful long -strings of jade beads. No clothing is worn until the age of twenty-five -or thirty, and then all dress alike, except that chiefs fasten the -girdle differently and wear more elaborate ornaments. These people have -sweet and musical voices and they cultivate them. They are good at -learning languages and they are great orators. The Lifuan language is -soft and liquid, one word running into another pleasantly to the ear, -and it is so expressive that one may sometimes understand the meaning by -the sound. In one of these islands, Uvea, so great is the eloquence of -the people that they employ oratory to catch fish, whom indeed they -regard in their legends as half human, and it is believed that a shoal -of fish, when thus politely plied with compliments from a canoe, will -eventually, and quite spontaneously, beach themselves spellbound. - -For a primitive people the art of life is necessarily of large part -concerned with eating. It is recognised that no one can go hungry when -his neighbour has food, so no one was called upon to make any great -demonstration of gratitude on receiving a gift. Help rendered to another -was help to one’s self, if it contributed to the common weal, and what I -do for you to-day you will do for me to-morrow. There was implicit -trust, and goods were left about without fear of theft, which was rare -and punishable by death. It was not theft, however, if, when the owner -was looking, one took an article one wanted. To tell a lie, also, with -intent to deceive, was a serious offence, though to tell a lie when one -was afraid to speak the truth was excusable. The Lifuans are fond of -food, but much etiquette is practised in eating. The food must be -conveyed to the mouth gracefully, daintily, leisurely. Every one helped -himself to the food immediately in front of him, without hurry, without -reaching out for dainty morsels (which were often offered to women), for -every one looked after his neighbour, and every one naturally felt that -he was his brother’s keeper. So it was usual to invite passers-by -cordially to share in the repast. “In the matter of food and eating,” -Mrs. Hadfield adds, “they might put many of our countrymen to shame.” -Not only must one never eat quickly, or notice dainties that are not -near one, but it would be indelicate to eat in the presence of people -who are not themselves eating. One must always share, however small -one’s portion, and one must do so pleasantly; one must accept also what -is offered, but slowly, reluctantly; having accepted it, you may, if you -like, openly pass it on to some one else. In old days the Lifuans were, -occasionally, cannibals, not, it would seem, either from necessity or -any ritual reason, but because, like some peoples elsewhere, they liked -it, having, indeed, at times, a kind of craving for animal food. If a -man had twenty or thirty wives and a large family, it would be quite -correct if, now and then, he cooked one of his own children, although -presumably he might prefer that some one else’s child was chosen. The -child would be cooked whole, wrapped in banana or coconut leaves. The -social inconveniences of this practice have now been recognised. But -they still feel the utmost respect and reverence for the dead and fail -to find anything offensive or repulsive in a corpse. “Why should there -be, seeing it was once our food?” Nor have they any fear of death. To -vermin they seem to have little objection, but otherwise they have a -strong love of cleanliness. The idea of using manure in agricultural -operations seems to them disgusting, and they never do use it. “The sea -was the public playground.” Mothers take their little ones for sea-baths -long before they can walk, and small children learn to swim as they -learn to walk, without teaching. With their reverence for death is -associated a reverence for old age. “Old age is a term of respect, and -every one is pleased to be taken for older than he is since old age is -honoured.” Still, regard for others was general—not confined to the -aged. In the church nowadays the lepers are seated on a separate bench, -and when the bench is occupied by a leper healthy women will sometimes -insist on sitting with him; they could not bear to see the old man -sitting alone as though he had no friends. There was much demonstration -on meeting friends after absence. A Lifuan always said “Olea” (“Thank -you”) for any good news, though not affecting him personally, as though -it were a gift, for he was glad to be able to rejoice with another. -Being divided into small tribes, each with its own autocratic chief, war -was sometimes inevitable. It was attended by much etiquette, which was -always strictly observed. The Lifuans were not acquainted with the -civilised custom of making rules for warfare and breaking them when war -actually broke out. Several days’ notice must be given before -hostilities were commenced. Women and children, in contrast to the -practice of civilised warfare, were never molested. As soon as half a -dozen fighters were put out of action on one side, the chief of that -side would give the command to cease fighting and the war was over. An -indemnity was then paid by the conquerors to the vanquished, and not, as -among civilised peoples, by the vanquished to the conquerors. It was -felt to be the conquered rather than the conqueror who needed -consolation, and it also seemed desirable to show that no feeling of -animosity was left behind. This was not only a delicate mark of -consideration to the vanquished, but also very good policy, as, by -neglecting it, some Europeans may have had cause to learn. This whole -Lifuan art of living has, however, been undermined by the arrival of -Christianity with its usual accompaniments. The Lifuans are substituting -European vices for their own virtues. Their simplicity and confidence -are passing away, though, even yet, Mrs. Hadfield says, they are -conspicuous for their honesty, truthfulness, good-humour, kindness, and -politeness, remaining a manly and intelligent people. - - - IV - - -THE Lifuans furnish an illustration which seems decisive. But they are -savages, and on that account their example may be invalidated. It is -well to take another illustration from a people whose high and -long-continued civilisation is now undisputed. - -The civilisation of China is ancient: that has long been a familiar -fact. But for more than a thousand years it was merely a legend to -Western Europeans; none had ever reached China, or, if they had, they -had never returned to tell the tale; there were too many fierce and -jealous barbarians between the East and the West. It was not until the -end of the thirteenth century, in the pages of Marco Polo, the Venetian -Columbus of the East,—for it was an Italian who discovered the Old World -as well as the New,—that China at last took definite shape alike as a -concrete fact and a marvellous dream. Later, Italian and Portuguese -travellers described it, and it is interesting to note what they had to -say. Thus Perera in the sixteenth century, in a narrative which Willes -translated for Hakluyt’s “Voyages,” presents a detailed picture of -Chinese life with an admiration all the more impressive since we cannot -help feeling how alien that civilisation was to the Catholic traveller -and how many troubles he had himself to encounter. He is astonished, not -only by the splendour of the lives of the Chinese on the material side, -alike in large things and in small, but by their fine manners in all the -ordinary course of life, the courtesy in which they seemed to him to -exceed all other nations, and in the fair dealing which far surpassed -that of all other Gentiles and Moors, while in the exercise of justice -he found them superior even to many Christians, for they do justice to -unknown strangers, which in Christendom is rare; moreover, there were -hospitals in every city and no beggars were ever to be seen. It was a -vision of splendour and delicacy and humanity, which he might have seen, -here and there, in the courts of princes in Europe, but nowhere in the -West on so vast a scale as in China. - -The picture which Marco Polo, the first European to reach China (at all -events in what we may call modern times), presented in the thirteenth -century was yet more impressive, and that need not surprise us, for when -he saw China it was still in its great Augustan age of the Sung Dynasty. -He represents the city of Hang-Chau as the most beautiful and sumptuous -in the world, and we must remember that he himself belonged to Venice, -soon to be known as the most beautiful and sumptuous city of Europe, and -had acquired no small knowledge of the world. As he describes its life, -so exquisite and refined in its civilisation, so humane, so peaceful, so -joyous, so well ordered, so happily shared by the whole population, we -realise that here had been reached the highest point of urban -civilisation to which Man has ever attained. Marco Polo can think of no -word to apply to it—and that again and again—but Paradise. - -The China of to-day seems less strange and astonishing to the Westerner. -It may even seem akin to him—partly through its decline, partly through -his own progress in civilisation—by virtue of its direct and practical -character. That is the conclusion of a sensitive and thoughtful -traveller in India and Japan and China, G. Lowes Dickinson. He is -impressed by the friendliness, the profound humanity, the gaiety, of the -Chinese, by the unequalled self-respect, independence, and courtesy of -the common people. “The fundamental attitude of the Chinese towards life -is, and has always been, that of the most modern West, nearer to us now -than to our mediæval ancestors, infinitely nearer to us than India.”[6] - -So far it may seem scarcely as artists that these travellers regard the -Chinese. They insist on their cheerful, practical, social, -good-mannered, tolerant, peaceable, humane way of regarding life, on the -remarkably educable spirit in which they are willing, and easily able, -to change even ancient and deep-rooted habits when it seems convenient -and beneficial to do so; they are willing to take the world lightly, and -seem devoid of those obstinate conservative instincts by which we are -guided in Europe. The “Resident in Peking” says they are the least -romantic of peoples. He says it with a _nuance_ of dispraise, but Lowes -Dickinson says precisely the same thing about Chinese poetry, and with -no such _nuance_: “It is of all poetry I know the most human and the -least symbolic or romantic. It contemplates life just as it presents -itself, without any veil of ideas, any rhetoric or sentiment; it simply -clears away the obstruction which habit has built up between us and the -beauty of things and leaves that, showing in its own nature.” Every one -who has learnt to enjoy Chinese poetry will appreciate the delicate -precision of this comment. The quality of their poetry seems to fall -into line with the simple, direct, childlike quality which all observers -note in the Chinese themselves. The unsympathetic “Resident in Peking” -describes the well-known etiquette of politeness in China: “A Chinaman -will inquire of what noble country you are. You return the question, and -he will say his lowly province is so-and-so. He will invite you to do -him the honour of directing your jewelled feet to his degraded house. -You reply that you, a discredited worm, will crawl into his magnificent -palace.” Life becomes all play. Ceremony—the Chinese are unequalled for -ceremony, and a Government Department, the Board of Rites and -Ceremonies, exists to administer it—is nothing but more or less -crystallised play. Not only is ceremony here “almost an instinct,” but, -it has been said, “A Chinese thinks in theatrical terms.” We are coming -near to the sphere of art. - -The quality of play in the Chinese character and Chinese civilisation -has impressed alike them who have seen China from afar and by actual -contact. It used to be said that the Chinese had invented gunpowder long -before Europeans and done nothing with it but make fireworks. That -seemed to the whole Western world a terrible blindness to the valuable -uses of gunpowder, and it is only of late years that a European -commentator has ventured to remark that “the proper use of gunpowder is -obviously to make fireworks, which may be very beautiful things, not to -kill men.” Certainly the Chinese, at all events, appreciate to the full -this proper use of gunpowder. “One of the most obvious characteristics -of the Chinese is their love of fireworks,” we are told. The gravest -people and the most intellectual occupy themselves with fireworks, and -if the works of Bergson, in which pyrotechnical allusions are so -frequent, are ever translated into Chinese, one can well believe that -China will produce enthusiastic Bergsonians. All toys are popular; -everybody, it is said, buys toys of one sort or another: paper -windmills, rattles, Chinese lanterns, and of course kites, which have an -almost sacred significance. They delight, also, in more complicated -games of skill, including an elaborate form of chess, far more difficult -than ours.[7] It is unnecessary to add that to philosophy, a higher and -more refined form of play, the Chinese are peculiarly addicted, and -philosophic discussion is naturally woven in with an “art of exquisite -enjoyment”—carried probably to greater perfection than anywhere else in -the world. Bertrand Russell, who makes this remark, in the suggestive -comments on his own visit to China, observes how this simple, -child-like, yet profound attitude towards life results in a liberation -of the impulses to play and enjoyment which “makes Chinese life -unbelievably restful and delightful after the solemn cruelties of the -West.” We are reminded of Gourmont’s remark that “pleasure is a human -creation, a delicate art, to which, as for music or painting, only a few -are apt.” - -The social polity which brings together the people who thus view life is -at once singular and appropriate. I well remember how in youth a new -volume of the Sacred Books of the East Series, a part of the Confucian -Lî-kî, came into my hands and how delighted I was to learn that in China -life was regulated by music and ceremony. That was the beginning of an -interest in China that has not ceased to grow, though now, when it has -become a sort of fashion to exalt the spiritual qualities of the Chinese -above those of other peoples, one may well feel disinclined to admit any -interest in China. But the conception itself, since it seems to have had -its beginning at least a thousand years before Christ, may properly be -considered independently of our Western fashions. It is Propriety—the -whole ceremony of life—in which all harmonious intercourse subsists; it -is “the channel by which we apprehend the ways of Heaven,” in no -supernatural sense, for it is on the earth and not in the skies that the -Confucian Heaven lies concealed. But if human feelings, the -instincts—for in this matter the ancient Chinese were at one with our -modern psychologists,—are the field that has to be cultivated, and it is -ceremony that ploughs it, and the seeds of right action that are to be -planted on it, and discipline that is to weed it, and love that is to -gather in the fruits, it is in music, and the joy and peace that -accompany music, that it all ends. Indeed, it is also in music that it -all begins. For the sphere in which ceremonies act is Man’s external -life; his internal life is the sphere of music. It is music that moulds -the manners and customs that are comprised under ceremony, for Confucius -held that there can be music without sound where “virtue is deep and -silent”; and we are reminded of the “Crescendo of Silences” on the -Chinese pavilion in Villiers de l’Isle Adam’s story, “Le Secret de -l’ancienne Musique.” It is music that regulates the heart and mind and -with that development brings joy, and joy brings repose. And so “Man -became Heaven.” “Let ceremonies and music have their course until the -earth is filled with them!” - -It is sometimes said that among Chinese moralists and philosophers -Lao-tze, the deepest of them all, alone stands aside from the chorus in -praise of music and ceremony. When once Confucius came to consult -Lao-tze concerning the rules of propriety, and reverence for the -teaching of the sages of antiquity, we are told, Lao-tze replied: “The -men of whom you speak, sir, have, if you please, together with their -bones, mouldered.” Confucius went away, puzzled if not dissatisfied He -was willing to work not only from within outwards, but from without -inwards, because he allowed so large a place for social solidity, for -traditionalism, for paternalism, though he recognised that ceremony is -subordinate in the scheme of life, as colour is in a painting, the -picture being the real thing. Lao-tze was an individualist and a mystic. -He was little concerned with moralities in the ordinary sense. He -recognised no action but from within outwards. But though Confucius -could scarcely have altogether grasped his conception, he was quite able -to grasp that of Confucius, and his indifference to tradition, to rule -and propriety was simply an insistence on essential reality, on “music.” -“Ceremonies,” he said, “are the outward expression of inward feeling.” -He was no more opposed to the fundamental Chinese conception than George -Fox was opposed to Christianity in refusing to observe the mere forms -and ceremonies of the Church. A sound Confucianism is the outward -manifestation of Taoism (as Lao-tze himself taught it), just as a sound -socialism is the outward manifestation of a genuine individualism. It -has been well said that Chinese socialistic solidarity rests on an -individualistic basis, it is not a bureaucratic State socialism; it -works from within outward. (One of the first European visitors to China -remarked that there a street was like a home.) This is well shown by so -great and typical a Chinese philosopher as Meh-ti,[8] who lived shortly -after Confucius, in the fifth century B.C. He taught universal love, -with universal equality, and for him to love meant to act. He admitted -an element of self-interest as a motive for such an attitude. He desired -to universalise mutual self-help. Following Confucius, but yet several -centuries before Jesus, he declared that a man should love his -neighbour, his fellow man, as himself. “When he sees his fellow hungry, -he feeds him; when he sees him cold, he clothes him; ill, he nurses him; -dead, he buries him.” This, he said, was by no means opposed to filial -piety; for if one cares for the parents of others, they in turn will -care for his. But, it was brought against him, the power of egoism? The -Master agreed. Yet, he said, Man accepts more difficult things. He can -renounce joy, life itself, for even absurd and ridiculous ends. A single -generation, he added, such is the power of imitation, might suffice to -change a people’s customs. But Meh-ti remained placid. He remarked that -the great ones of the earth were against human solidarity and equality; -he left it at that. He took no refuge in mysticism. Practical social -action was the sole end he had in view, and we have to remember that his -ideals are largely embodied in Chinese institutions.[9] - -We may understand now how it is that in China, and in China alone among -the great surviving civilisations, we find that art animates the whole -of life, even its morality. “This universal presence of art,” remarks an -acute yet discriminating observer, Émile Hovelaque, whom I have already -quoted,[10] “manifested in the smallest utensil, the humblest stalls, -the notices on the shops, the handwriting, the rhythm of movement, -always regular and measured, as though to the tune of unheard music, -announces a civilisation which is complete in itself, elaborated in the -smallest detail, penetrated by one spirit, which no interruption ever -breaks, a harmony which becomes at length a hallucinatory and -overwhelming obsession.” Or, as another writer has summed up the Chinese -attitude: “For them the art of life is one, as this world and the other -are one. Their aim is to make the Kingdom of Heaven here and now.” - -It is obvious that a natural temperament in which the art-impulse is so -all-embracing, and the æsthetic sensibility so acute, might well have -been of a perilous instability. We could scarcely have been surprised -if, like that surpassing episode in Egyptian history of which Akhenaten -was the leader and Tell-el-Amarna the tomb, it had only endured for a -moment. Yet Chinese civilisation, which has throughout shown the -dominating power of this sensitive temperament, has lasted longer than -any other. The reason is that the very excesses of their temperament -forced the Chinese to fortify themselves against its perils. The Great -Wall, built more than two thousand years ago, and still to-day almost -the most impressive work of man on the earth, is typical of this -attitude of the Chinese. They have exercised a stupendous energy in -fortifying themselves against the natural enemies of their own -temperament. When one looks at it from this point of view, it is easy to -see that, alike in its large outlines and its small details, Chinese -life is always the art of balancing an æsthetic temperament and guarding -against its excesses. We see this in the whole of the ancient and still -prevailing system of Confucian morality with its insistence on formal -ceremony, even when, departing from the thought of its most influential -founder,—for ceremonialism in China would have existed even if Confucius -had not lived,—it tended to become merely an external formalism. We see -it in the massive solidarity of Chinese life, the systematic social -organisation by which individual responsibility, even though leaving -individuality itself intact, is merged in the responsibility of the -family and the still larger group. We see it in the whole drift of -Chinese philosophy, which is throughout sedative and contemplative. We -see it in the element of stoicism on the one hand and cruelty on the -other which in so genuinely good-natured a people would otherwise seem -puzzling. The Chinese love of flowers and gardens and landscape scenery -is in the same direction, and indeed one may say much the same of -Chinese painting and Chinese poetry.[11] That is why it is only to-day -that we in the West have reached the point of nervous susceptibility -which enables us in some degree to comprehend the æsthetic supremacy -which the Chinese reached more than a thousand years ago. - -Thus, during its extremely long history—for the other great -civilisations with which it was once contemporary have passed away or -been disintegrated and transformed—Chinese civilisation has borne -witness to the great fact that all human life is art. It may be because -they have realised this so thoroughly that the Chinese have been able to -preserve their civilisation so long, through all the violent shocks to -which it has been subjected. There can be no doubt, however, that, -during the greater part of the last thousand years, there has been, -however slow and gradual, a decline in the vitality of Chinese -civilisation, largely due, it may well be, to the crushing pressure of -an excessive population. For, however remarkable the admiration which -China arouses even to-day, its finest flowering periods in the special -arts lie far in the past, while in the art of living itself the Chinese -have long grown languid. The different reports of ancient and modern -travellers regarding one definite social manifestation, the prevalence -of beggary, cannot fail to tell us something regarding the significant -form of their social life. Modern travellers complain of the plague -constituted by the prevalence of beggars in China; they are even a fixed -and permanent institution on a trades-union basis. But in the sixteenth -century Galeotto Perera noticed with surprise in China the absence of -beggars, as Marco Polo had before him, and Friar Gaspar de Cruz remarked -that the Chinese so abhorred idleness that they gave no alms to the poor -and mocked at the Portuguese for doing so: “Why give alms to a knave? -Let him go and earn it.” Their own priests, he adds, they sometimes -whipped as being knaves. (It should be noted at the same time that it -was considered reasonable only to give half the day to work, the other -half to joy and recreation.) But they built great asylums for the -helpless poor, and found employment for blind women, gorgeously dressed -and painted with ceruse and vermilion, as prostitutes, who were more -esteemed in early China than they have been since. That is a curious -instance of the unflinching practicality still shown by the Chinese in -endless ways. The undoubted lassitude in the later phases of this -long-lived Chinese culture has led to features in the art of life, such -as beggary and dirt among the poor, not manifested in the younger -offshoot of Chinese and Korean culture in Japan, though it is only fair -to point out that impartial English observers, like Parker, consider -this prevalence of vermin and dirt as simply due to the prevalence of -poverty, and not greater than we find among the poor in England and -elsewhere in the West. Marco Polo speaks of three hundred public baths -in one city alone in his time. We note also that in the more specialised -arts the transcendence of China belongs to the past, and even sometimes -a remote past. It is so in the art of philosophy, and the arts of poetry -and painting. It is so also in the art of pottery, in which Chinese -supremacy over the rest of the world has been longest recognised—has not -the word “china” for centuries been our name for the finest pottery?—and -is most beyond measure. Our knowledge of the pottery of various cultures -excels that of any other human products because of all it is the most -perdurable. We can better estimate their relative æsthetic worth now -than in the days when a general reverence for Greek antiquity led to a -popular belief in the beauty of Greek pottery, though scarcely a single -type of its many forms can fairly be so considered or even be compared -to the products of the Minoan predecessors of Greek culture, however -interesting they may still remain for us as the awkward and -inappropriate foundation for exquisite little pictures. The greatest age -of this universal human art was in China and was over many centuries -ago. But with what devotion, with what absolute concentration of the -spirit, the Chinese potters of the great period struggled with the -problem of art is finely illustrated by the well-known story which an -old Chinese historian tells of the sacrifice of the divine T’ung, the -spirit who protects potters. It happened that a complicated problem had -baffled the potters. T’ung laid down his life to serve them and to -achieve the solution of the problem. He plunged into the fire and the -bowl came out perfect. “The vessel’s perfect glaze is the god’s fat and -blood; the body material is the god’s body of flesh; the blue of the -decoration, with the brilliant lustre of gems, is the essence of the -god’s pure spirit.” That story embodies the Chinese symbol of the art of -living, just as we embody our symbol of that art in the Crucifixion of -Jesus. The form is diverse; the essence is the same. - - - - - V - - -IT will be seen that when we analyse the experiences of life and look at -it simply, in the old-fashioned way, liberated from the artificial -complexities of a temporary and now, it may be, departing civilisation, -what we find is easy to sum up. We find, that is to say, that Man has -forced himself to move along this line, and that line, and the other -line. But it is the same water of life that runs in all these channels. -Until we have ascended to a height where this is clear, to see all our -little dogmatisms will but lead us astray. - -We may illuminatingly change the analogy and turn to the field of -chemistry. All these various elements of life are but, as it were, -allotropic forms of the same element. The most fundamental among these -forms is that of art, for life in all its forms, even morality in the -narrowest sense, is, as Duprat has argued, a matter of technique, and -technique at once brings us to the elements of art. If we would -understand what we are dealing with, we may, therefore, best study these -forms under that of art. - -There is, however, a deeper chemical analogy than this to be seen. It -may well be, indeed, that it is more than an analogy. In chemistry we -are dealing, not merely with the elements of life, but with the elements -of the world, even of what we call our universe. It is not unreasonable -to think that the same law holds good for both. We see that the forms of -life may all be found, and then better understood, in one form. Some -day, perhaps, we shall also see that that fact is only a corollary of -the larger fact—or, if any one prefers so to regard it, the smaller -fact—that the chemical elements of our world can be regarded as all only -transmutations of one element. From of old, men instinctively divined -that this might be so, though they were merely concerned to change the -elements into gold, the element which they most highly valued. In our -own times this transmutation is beginning to become, on a minute scale, -a demonstrable fact, though it would seem easier to transmute elements -into lead than into gold. Matter, we are thus coming to see, may not be -a confused variety of separate substances, but simply a different -quantitative arrangement of a single fundamental stuff, which might -possibly be identical with hydrogen or some other already known element. -Similarly we may now believe that the men of old who thought that all -human life was made of one stuff were not altogether wrong, and we may, -with greater assurance than they were able to claim, analyse the modes -of human action into different quantitative or other arrangements of -which the most fundamental may well be identical with art. - -This may perhaps become clearer if we consider more in detail one of the -separate arts, selecting the most widely symbolic of all, the art that -is most clearly made of the stuff of life, and so able to translate most -truly and clearly into beautiful form the various modalities of life. - -Footnote 1: - - See, for instance, Turner’s _Samoa_, chap. 1. Usually, however, in the - Pacific, creation was accomplished, in a more genuinely evolutionary - manner, by a long series of progressive generations. - -Footnote 2: - - Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, vol. I, book III, chap. VI. - -Footnote 3: - - I have here mainly followed Gomperz (_Greek Thinkers_, vol. I, pp. - 430-34); there is not now, however, much controversy over the position - of Hippias, which there is now, indeed, rather a tendency to - exaggerate, considering how small is the basis of knowledge we - possess. Thus Dupréel (_La Légende Socratique_, p. 432), regarding him - as the most misunderstood of the great Sophists, declares that Hippias - is “the thinker who conceived the universality of science, just as - Prodicus caught glimpses of the synthesis of the social sciences. - Hippias is the philosopher of science, the Great Logician, just as - Prodicus is the Great Moralist.” He compares him to Pico della - Mirandola as a Humanist and to Leibnitz in power of wide synthesis. - -Footnote 4: - - Strictly speaking, in the technical sense of that much-abused word, - this is “decadence.” (I refer to the sense in which I defined - “decadence” many years ago in _Affirmations_, pp. 175-87.) So that - while the minor arts have sometimes been classic and sometimes - decadent, the major art of living during the last two thousand years, - although one can think of great men who have maintained the larger - classic ideal, has mainly been decadent. - -Footnote 5: - - Emma Hadfield, _Among the Natives of the Loyalty Group_. 1920. It - would no doubt have been more satisfactory to select a people like the - Fijians rather than the Lifuans, for they represented a more robust - and accomplished form of a rather similar culture, but their culture - has receded into the past,—and the same may be said of the Marquesans - of whom Melville left, in _Typee_, a famous and delightful picture - which other records confirm,—while that of the Lifuans is still - recent. - -Footnote 6: - - G. Lowes Dickinson, _An Essay on the Civilisations of India, China, - and Japan_ (1914), p. 47. No doubt there are shades to be added to - this picture. They may be found in a book, published two years - earlier, _China as it Really Is_, by “a Resident in Peking” who claims - to have been born in China. Chinese culture has receded, in part - swamped by over-population, and concerning a land where to-day, it has - lately been said, “magnificence, crudity, delicacy, fetidity, and - fragrance are blended,” it is easy for Westerners to show violent - difference of opinion. - -Footnote 7: - - See, for instance, the chapter on games in Professor E. H. Parker’s - _China: Past and Present_. Reference may be made to the same author’s - important and impartial larger work, _China: Its History_, with a - discriminating chapter on Chinese personal characteristics. Perhaps, - the most penetrating study of Chinese psychology is, however, Arthur - H. Smith’s _Chinese Characteristics_. - -Footnote 8: - - His ideas have been studied by Madame Alexandra David, _Le Philosophe - Meh-ti et l’Idée de Solidarité_. London, 1907. - -Footnote 9: - - Eugène Simon, _La Cité Chinoise_. - -Footnote 10: - - E. Hovelaque, _La Chine_ (Paris, 1920), p. 47. - -Footnote 11: - - This point has not escaped the more acute students of Chinese - civilisation. Thus Dr. John Steele, in his edition of the _I-Li_, - remarks that “ceremonial was far from being a series of observances, - empty and unprofitable, such as it degenerated into in later time. It - was meant to inculcate that habit of self-control and ordered action - which was the expression of a mind fully instructed in the inner - meaning of things, and sensitive to every impression.” Still more - clearly, Reginald Farrer wrote, in _On the Eaves of the World_, that - “the philosophic calm that the Chinese deliberately cultivate is their - necessary armour to protect the excessive susceptibility to emotion. - The Chinese would be for ever the victims of their nerves had they not - for four thousand years pursued reason and self-control with - self-protective enthusiasm.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - THE ART OF DANCING - - - I - - -DANCING and building are the two primary and essential arts. The art of -dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves -first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the -beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end -they unite. Music, acting, poetry proceed in the one mighty stream; -sculpture, painting, all the arts of design, in the other. There is no -primary art outside these two arts, for their origin is far earlier than -man himself; and dancing came first.[12] - -That is one reason why dancing, however it may at times be scorned by -passing fashions, has a profound and eternal attraction even for those -one might suppose farthest from its influence. The joyous beat of the -feet of children, the cosmic play of philosophers’ thoughts rise and -fall according to the same laws of rhythm. If we are indifferent to the -art of dancing, we have failed to understand, not merely the supreme -manifestation of physical life, but also the supreme symbol of spiritual -life. - -The significance of dancing, in the wide sense, thus lies in the fact -that it is simply an intimate concrete appeal of a general rhythm, that -general rhythm which marks, not life only, but the universe, if one may -still be allowed so to name the sum of the cosmic influences that reach -us. We need not, indeed, go so far as the planets or the stars and -outline their ethereal dances. We have but to stand on the seashore and -watch the waves that beat at our feet, to observe that at nearly regular -intervals this seemingly monotonous rhythm is accentuated for several -beats, so that the waves are really dancing the measure of a tune. It -need surprise us not at all that rhythm, ever tending to be moulded into -a tune, should mark all the physical and spiritual manifestations of -life. Dancing is the primitive expression alike of religion and of -love—of religion from the earliest human times we know of and of love -from a period long anterior to the coming of man. The art of dancing, -moreover, is intimately entwined with all human tradition of war, of -labour, of pleasure, of education, while some of the wisest philosophers -and the most ancient civilisations have regarded the dance as the -pattern in accordance with which the moral life of men must be woven. To -realise, therefore, what dancing means for mankind—the poignancy and the -many-sidedness of its appeal—we must survey the whole sweep of human -life, both at its highest and at its deepest moments. - - - II - - -“WHAT do you dance?” When a man belonging to one branch of the great -Bantu division of mankind met a member of another, said Livingstone, -that was the question he asked. What a man danced, that was his tribe, -his social customs, his religion; for, as an anthropologist has put it, -“a savage does not preach his religion, he dances it.” - -There are peoples in the world who have no secular dances, only -religious dances; and some investigators believe with Gerland that every -dance was of religious origin. That view may seem too extreme, even if -we admit that some even of our modern dances, like the waltz, may have -been originally religious. Even still (as Skene has shown among the -Arabs and Swahili of Africa) so various are dances and their functions -among some peoples that they cover the larger part of life. Yet we have -to remember that for primitive man there is no such thing as religion -apart from life, for religion covers everything. Dancing is a magical -operation for the attainment of real and important ends of every kind. -It was clearly of immense benefit to the individual and to society, by -imparting strength and adding organised harmony. It seemed reasonable to -suppose that it attained other beneficial ends, that were incalculable, -for calling down blessings or warding off misfortunes. We may conclude, -with Wundt, that the dance was, in the beginning, the expression of the -whole man, for the whole man was religious.[13] - -Thus, among primitive peoples, religion being so large a part of life, -the dance inevitably becomes of supreme religious importance. To dance -was at once both to worship and to pray. Just as we still find in our -Prayer Books that there are divine services for all the great -fundamental acts of life,—for birth, for marriage, for death,—as well as -for the cosmic procession of the world as marked by ecclesiastical -festivals, and for the great catastrophes of nature, such as droughts, -so also it has ever been among primitive peoples. For all the solemn -occasions of life, for bridals and for funerals, for seed-time and for -harvest, for war and for peace, for all these things there were fitting -dances. To-day we find religious people who in church pray for rain or -for the restoration of their friends to health. Their forefathers also -desired these things, but, instead of praying for them, they danced for -them the fitting dance which tradition had handed down, and which the -chief or the medicine-man solemnly conducted. The gods themselves -danced, as the stars dance in the sky—so at least the Mexicans, and we -may be sure many other peoples, have held; and to dance is therefore to -imitate the gods, to work with them, perhaps to persuade them to work in -the direction of our own desires. “Work for us!” is the song-refrain, -expressed or implied, of every religious dance. In the worship of solar -deities in various countries, it was customary to dance round the altar, -as the stars dance round the sun. Even in Europe the popular belief that -the sun dances on Easter Sunday has perhaps scarcely yet died out. To -dance is to take part in the cosmic control of the world. Every sacred -Dionysian dance is an imitation of the divine dance. - -All religions, and not merely those of primitive character, have been at -the outset, and sometimes throughout, in some measure saltatory. That -was recognised even in the ancient world by acute observers, like -Lucian, who remarks in his essay on dancing that “you cannot find a -single ancient mystery in which there is no dancing; in fact most people -say of the devotees of the Mysteries that ‘they dance them out.’” This -is so all over the world. It is not more pronounced in early -Christianity, and among the ancient Hebrews who danced before the ark, -than among the Australian aborigines whose great corroborees are -religious dances conducted by the medicine-men with their sacred staves -in their hands. Every American Indian tribe seems to have had its own -religious dances, varied and elaborate, often with a richness of meaning -which the patient study of modern investigators has but slowly revealed. -The Shamans in the remote steppes of Northern Siberia have their -ecstatic religious dances, and in modern Europe the Turkish -dervishes—perhaps of related stock—still dance in their cloisters -similar ecstatic dances, combined with song and prayer, as a regular -part of devotional service. - -These religious dances, it may be observed, are sometimes ecstatic, -sometimes pantomimic. It is natural that this should be so. By each road -it is possible to penetrate towards the divine mystery of the world. The -auto-intoxication of rapturous movement brings the devotees, for a while -at least, into that self-forgetful union with the not-self which the -mystic ever seeks. The ecstatic Hindu dance in honour of the pre-Aryan -hill god, afterwards Siva, became in time a great symbol, “the clearest -image of the _activity_ of God,” it has been called, “which any art or -religion can boast of.”[14] Pantomimic dances, on the other hand, with -their effort to heighten natural expression and to imitate natural -process, bring the dancers into the divine sphere of creation and enable -them to assist vicariously in the energy of the gods. The dance thus -becomes the presentation of a divine drama, the vital reënactment of a -sacred history, in which the worshipper is enabled to play a real -part.[15] In this way ritual arises. - -It is in this sphere—highly primitive as it is—of pantomimic dancing -crystallised in ritual, rather than in the sphere of ecstatic dancing, -that we may to-day in civilisation witness the survivals of the dance in -religion. The divine services of the American Indian, said Lewis Morgan, -took the form of “set dances, each with its own name, songs, steps, and -costume.” At this point the early Christian, worshipping the Divine -Body, was able to join in spiritual communion with the ancient Egyptian -or the later Japanese[16] or the modern American Indian. They are all -alike privileged to enter, each in his own way, a sacred mystery, and to -participate in the sacrifice of a heavenly Mass. - -What by some is considered to be the earliest known Christian ritual—the -“Hymn of Jesus” assigned to the second century—is nothing but a sacred -dance. Eusebius in the third century stated that Philo’s description of -the worship of the Therapeuts agreed at all points with Christian -custom, and that meant the prominence of dancing, to which indeed -Eusebius often refers in connection with Christian worship. It has been -supposed by some that the Christian Church was originally a theatre, the -choir being the raised stage, even the word “choir,” it is argued, -meaning an enclosed space for dancing. It is certain that at the -Eucharist the faithful gesticulated with their hands, danced with their -feet, flung their bodies about. Chrysostom, who referred to this -behaviour round the Holy Table at Antioch, only objected to drunken -excesses in connection with it; the custom itself he evidently regarded -as traditional and right. - -While the central function of Christian worship is a sacred drama, a -divine pantomime, the associations of Christianity and dancing are by no -means confined to the ritual of the Mass and its later more attenuated -transformations. The very idea of dancing had a sacred and mystic -meaning to the early Christians, who had meditated profoundly on the -text, “We have piped unto you and ye have not danced.” Origen prayed -that above all things there may be made operative in us the mystery “of -the stars dancing in Heaven for the salvation of the Universe.” So that -the monks of the Cistercian Order, who in a later age worked for the -world more especially by praying for it (“orare est laborare”), were -engaged in the same task on earth as the stars in Heaven; dancing and -praying are the same thing. St. Basil, who was so enamoured of natural -things, described the angels dancing in Heaven, and later the author of -the “Dieta Salutis” (said to have been St. Bonaventura), which is -supposed to have influenced Dante in assigning so large a place to -dancing in the “Paradiso,” described dancing as the occupation of the -inmates of Heaven, and Christ as the leader of the dance. Even in more -modern times an ancient Cornish carol sang of the life of Jesus as a -dance, and represented him as declaring that he died in order that man -“may come unto the general dance.”[17] - -This attitude could not fail to be reflected in practice. Genuine -dancing, not merely formalised and unrecognisable dancing, such as the -traditionalised Mass, must have been frequently introduced into -Christian worship in early times. Until a few centuries ago it remained -not uncommon, and it even still persists in remote corners of the -Christian world. In English cathedrals dancing went on until the -fourteenth century. At Paris, Limoges, and elsewhere in France, the -priests danced in the choir at Easter up to the seventeenth century, in -Roussillon up to the eighteenth century. Roussillon is a Catalan -province with Spanish traditions, and it is in Spain, where dancing is a -deeper and more passionate impulse than elsewhere in Europe, that -religious dancing took firmest root and flourished longest. In the -cathedrals of Seville, Toledo, Valencia, and Jeres there was formerly -dancing, though it now only survives at a few special festivals in the -first.[18] At Alaro in Mallorca, also at the present day, a dancing -company called Els Cosiers, on the festival of St. Roch, the patron -saint of the place, dance in the church in fanciful costumes with -tambourines, up to the steps of the high altar, immediately after Mass, -and then dance out of the church. In another part of the Christian -world, in the Abyssinian Church—an offshoot of the Eastern -Church—dancing is also said still to form part of the worship. - -Dancing, we may see throughout the world, has been so essential, so -fundamental, a part of all vital and undegenerate religion, that, -whenever a new religion appears, a religion of the spirit and not merely -an anæmic religion of the intellect, we should still have to ask of it -the question of the Bantu: “What do you dance?” - - - III - - -Dancing is not only intimately associated with religion, it has an -equally intimate association with love. Here, indeed, the relationship -is even more primitive, for it is far older than man. Dancing, said -Lucian, is as old as love. Among insects and among birds it may be said -that dancing is often an essential part of love. In courtship the male -dances, sometimes in rivalry with other males, in order to charm the -female; then, after a short or long interval, the female is aroused to -share his ardour and join in the dance; the final climax of the dance is -the union of the lovers. Among the mammals most nearly related to man, -indeed, dancing is but little developed: their energies are more -variously diffused, though a close observer of the apes, Dr. Louis -Robinson, has pointed out that the “spasmodic jerking of the -chimpanzee’s feeble legs,” pounding the partition of his cage, is the -crude motion out of which “the heavenly alchemy of evolution has created -the divine movements of Pavlova”; but it must be remembered that the -anthropoid apes are offshoots only from the stock that produced Man, his -cousins and not his ancestors. It is the more primitive love-dance of -insects and birds that seems to reappear among human savages in various -parts of the world, notably in Africa, and in a conventionalised and -symbolised form it is still danced in civilisation to-day. Indeed, it is -in this aspect that dancing has so often aroused reprobation, from the -days of early Christianity until the present, among those for whom the -dance has merely been, in the words of a seventeenth-century writer, a -series of “immodest and dissolute movements by which the cupidity of the -flesh is aroused.” - -But in nature and among primitive peoples it has its value precisely on -this account. It is a process of courtship and, even more than that, it -is a novitiate for love, and a novitiate which was found to be an -admirable training for love. Among some peoples, indeed, as the Omahas, -the same word meant both to dance and to love. By his beauty, his -energy, his skill, the male must win the female, so impressing the image -of himself on her imagination that finally her desire is aroused to -overcome her reticence. That is the task of the male throughout nature, -and in innumerable species besides Man it has been found that the school -in which the task may best be learnt is the dancing-school. Those who -have not the skill and the strength to learn are left behind, and, as -they are probably the least capable members of the race, it may be in -this way that a kind of sexual selection has been embodied in -unconscious eugenics, and aided the higher development of the race. The -moths and the butterflies, the African ostrich and the Sumatran argus -pheasant, with their fellows innumerable, have been the precursors of -man in the strenuous school of erotic dancing, fitting themselves for -selection by the females of their choice as the most splendid -progenitors of the future race.[19] - -From this point of view, it is clear, the dance performed a double -function. On the one hand, the tendency to dance, arising under the -obscure stress of this impulse, brought out the best possibilities the -individual held the promise of; on the other hand, at the moment of -courtship, the display of the activities thus acquired developed on the -sensory side all the latent possibilities of beauty which at last became -conscious in man. That this came about we cannot easily escape -concluding. How it came about, how it happens that some of the least -intelligent of creatures thus developed a beauty and a grace that are -enchanting even to our human eyes, is a miracle, even if not affected by -the mystery of sex, which we cannot yet comprehend. - -When we survey the human world, the erotic dance of the animal world is -seen not to have lost, but rather to have gained, influence. It is no -longer the males alone who are thus competing for the love of the -females. It comes about by a modification in the earlier method of -selection that often not only the men dance for the women, but the women -for the men, each striving in a storm of rivalry to arouse and attract -the desire of the other. In innumerable parts of the world the season of -love is a time which the nubile of each sex devote to dancing in each -other’s presence, sometimes one sex, sometimes the other, sometimes -both, in the frantic effort to display all the force and energy, the -skill and endurance, the beauty and grace, which at this moment are -yearning within them to be poured into the stream of the race’s life. - -From this point of view we may better understand the immense ardour with -which every part of the wonderful human body has been brought into the -play of the dance. The men and women of races spread all over the world -have shown a marvellous skill and patience in imparting rhythm and -measure to the most unlikely, the most rebellious regions of the body, -all wrought by desire into potent and dazzling images. To the vigorous -races of Northern Europe in their cold damp climate, dancing comes -naturally to be dancing of the legs, so naturally that the English poet, -as a matter of course, assumes that the dance of Salome was a “twinkling -of the feet.”[20] But on the opposite side of the world, in Japan and -notably in Java and Madagascar, dancing may be exclusively dancing of -the arms and hands, in some of the South Sea Islands of the hands and -fingers alone. Dancing may even be carried on in the seated posture, as -occurs at Fiji in a dance connected with the preparation of the sacred -drink, ava. In some districts of Southern Tunisia dancing, again, is -dancing of the hair, and all night long, till they perhaps fall -exhausted, the marriageable girls will move their heads to the rhythm of -a song, maintaining their hair in perpetual balance and sway. Elsewhere, -notably in Africa, but also sometimes in Polynesia, as well as in the -dances that had established themselves in ancient Rome, dancing is -dancing of the body, with vibratory or rotatory movements of breasts or -flanks. The complete dance along these lines is, however, that in which -the play of all the chief muscle-groups of the body is harmoniously -interwoven. When both sexes take part in such an exercise, developed -into an idealised yet passionate pantomime of love, we have the complete -erotic dance. In the beautiful ancient civilisation of the Pacific, it -is probable that this ideal was sometimes reached, and at Tahiti, in -1772, an old voyager crudely and summarily described the native dance as -“an endless variety of posturings and wagglings of the body, hands, -feet, eyes, lips, and tongue, in which they keep splendid time to the -measure.” In Spain the dance of this kind has sometimes attained its -noblest and most harmoniously beautiful expression. From the narratives -of travellers, it would appear that it was especially in the eighteenth -century that among all classes in Spain dancing of this kind was -popular. The Church tacitly encouraged it, an Aragonese Canon told -Baretti in 1770, in spite of its occasional indecorum, as a useful -safety-valve for the emotions. It was not less seductive to the foreign -spectator than to the people themselves. The grave traveller Peyron, -towards the end of the century, growing eloquent over the languorous and -flexible movements of the dance, the bewitching attitude, the voluptuous -curves of the arms, declares that, when one sees a beautiful Spanish -woman dance, one is inclined to fling all philosophy to the winds. And -even that highly respectable Anglican clergyman, the Reverend Joseph -Townsend, was constrained to state that he could “almost persuade -myself” that if the fandango were suddenly played in church the gravest -worshippers would start up to join in that “lascivious pantomime.” There -we have the rock against which the primitive dance of sexual selection -suffers shipwreck as civilisation advances. And that prejudice of -civilisation becomes so ingrained that it is brought to bear even on the -primitive dance. The pygmies of Africa are described by Sir H. H. -Johnston as a very decorous and highly moral people, but their dances, -he adds, are not so. Yet these dances, though to the eyes of Johnston, -blinded by European civilisation, “grossly indecent,” he honestly, and -inconsistently, adds, are “danced reverently.” - - - IV - - -From the vital function of dancing in love, and its sacred function in -religion, to dancing as an art, a profession, an amusement, may seem, at -the first glance, a sudden leap. In reality the transition is gradual, -and it began to be made at a very early period in diverse parts of the -globe. All the matters that enter into courtship tend to fall under the -sway of art; their æsthetic pleasure is a secondary reflection of their -primary vital joy. Dancing could not fail to be first in manifesting -this tendency. But even religious dancing swiftly exhibited the same -transformation; dancing, like priesthood, became a profession, and -dancers, like priests, formed a caste. This, for instance, took place in -old Hawaii. The hula dance was a religious dance; it required a special -education and an arduous training; moreover, it involved the observance -of important taboos and the exercise of sacred rites; by the very fact -of its high specialisation it came to be carried out by paid performers, -a professional caste. In India, again, the Devadasis, or sacred dancing -girls, are at once both religious and professional dancers. They are -married to gods, they are taught dancing by the Brahmins, they figure in -religious ceremonies, and their dances represent the life of the god -they are married to as well as the emotions of love they experience for -him. Yet, at the same time, they also give professional performances in -the houses of rich private persons who pay for them. It thus comes about -that to the foreigner the Devadasis scarcely seem very unlike the -Ramedjenis, the dancers of the street, who are of very different origin, -and mimic in their performances the play of merely human passions. The -Portuguese conquerors of India called both kinds of dancers -indiscriminately Balheideras (or dancers) which we have corrupted in -Bayaderes.[21] - -In our modern world professional dancing as an art has become altogether -divorced from religion, and even, in any biological sense, from love; it -is scarcely even possible, so far as Western civilisation is concerned, -to trace back the tradition to either source. If we survey the -development of dancing as an art in Europe, it seems to me that we have -to recognise two streams of tradition which have sometimes merged, but -yet remain in their ideals and their tendencies essentially distinct. I -would call these traditions the Classical, which is much the more -ancient and fundamental, and may be said to be of Egyptian origin, and -the Romantic, which is of Italian origin, chiefly known to us as the -ballet. The first is, in its pure form, solo dancing—though it may be -danced in couples and many together—and is based on the rhythmic beauty -and expressiveness of the simple human personality when its energy is -concentrated in measured yet passionate movement. The second is -concerted dancing, mimetic and picturesque, wherein the individual is -subordinated to the wider and variegated rhythm of the group. It may be -easy to devise another classification, but this is simple and -instructive enough for our purpose. - -There can scarcely be a doubt that Egypt has been for many thousands of -years, as indeed it still remains, a great dancing centre, the most -influential dancing-school the world has ever seen, radiating its -influence to south and east and north. We may perhaps even agree with -the historian of the dance who terms it “the mother-country of all -civilised dancing.” We are not entirely dependent on the ancient -wall-pictures of Egypt for our knowledge of Egyptian skill in the art. -Sacred mysteries, it is known, were danced in the temples, and queens -and princesses took part in the orchestras that accompanied them. It is -significant that the musical instruments still peculiarly associated -with the dance were originated or developed in Egypt; the guitar is an -Egyptian instrument and its name was a hieroglyph already used when the -Pyramids were being built; the cymbal, the tambourine, triangles, -castanets, in one form or another, were all familiar to the ancient -Egyptians, and with the Egyptian art of dancing they must have spread -all round the shores of the Mediterranean, the great focus of our -civilisation, at a very early date.[22] Even beyond the Mediterranean, -at Cadiz, dancing that was essentially Egyptian in character was -established, and Cadiz became the dancing-school of Spain. The Nile and -Cadiz were thus the two great centres of ancient dancing, and Martial -mentions them both together, for each supplied its dancers to Rome. This -dancing, alike whether Egyptian or Gaditanian, was the expression of the -individual dancer’s body and art; the garments played but a small part -in it, they were frequently transparent, and sometimes discarded -altogether. It was, and it remains, simple, personal, passionate -dancing, classic, therefore, in the same sense as, on the side of -literature, the poetry of Catullus is classic.[23] - -Ancient Greek dancing was essentially classic dancing, as here -understood. On the Greek vases, as reproduced in Emmanuel’s attractive -book on Greek dancing and elsewhere, we find the same play of the arms, -the same sideward turn, the same extreme backward extension of the body, -which had long before been represented in Egyptian monuments. Many -supposedly modern movements in dancing were certainly already common -both to Egyptian and Greek dancing, as well as the clapping of hands to -keep time which is still an accompaniment of Spanish dancing. It seems -clear, however, that, on this general classic and Mediterranean basis, -Greek dancing had a development so refined and so special—though in -technical elaboration of steps, it seems likely, inferior to modern -dancing—that it exercised no influence outside Greece. Dancing became, -indeed, the most characteristic and the most generally cultivated of -Greek arts. Pindar, in a splendid Oxyrhynchine fragment, described -Hellas, in what seemed to him supreme praise, as “the land of lovely -dancing,” and Athenæus pointed out that he calls Apollo the Dancer. It -may well be that the Greek drama arose out of dance and song, and that -the dance throughout was an essential and plastic element in it. Even if -we reject the statement of Aristotle that tragedy arose out of the -Dionysian dithyramb, the alternative suppositions (such as Ridgeway’s -theory of dancing round the tombs of the dead) equally involve the same -elements. It has often been pointed out that poetry in Greece demanded a -practical knowledge of all that could be included under “dancing.” -Æschylus is said to have developed the technique of dancing and -Sophocles danced in his own dramas. In these developments, no doubt, -Greek dancing tended to overpass the fundamental limits of classic -dancing and foreshadowed the ballet.[24] - -The real germ of the ballet, however, is to be found in Rome, where the -pantomime with its concerted and picturesque method of expressive action -was developed, and Italy is the home of Romantic dancing. The same -impulse which produced the pantomime produced, more than a thousand -years later in the same Italian region, the modern ballet. In both -cases, one is inclined to think, we may trace the influence of the same -Etruscan and Tuscan race which so long has had its seat there, a race -with a genius for expressive, dramatic, picturesque art. We see it on -the walls of Etruscan tombs and again in pictures of Botticelli and his -fellow Tuscans. The modern ballet, it is generally believed, had its -origin in the spectacular pageants at the marriage of Galeazzo Visconti, -Duke of Milan, in 1489. The fashion for such performances spread to the -other Italian courts, including Florence, and Catherine de’ Medici, when -she became Queen of France, brought the Italian ballet to Paris. Here it -speedily became fashionable. Kings and queens were its admirers and even -took part in it; great statesmen were its patrons. Before long, and -especially in the great age of Louis XIV, it became an established -institution, still an adjunct of opera but with a vital life and growth -of its own, maintained by distinguished musicians, artists, and dancers. -Romantic dancing, to a much greater extent than what I have called -Classic dancing, which depends so largely on simple personal qualities, -tends to be vitalised by transplantation and the absorption of new -influences, provided that the essential basis of technique and tradition -is preserved in the new development. Lulli in the seventeenth century -brought women into the ballet; Camargo discarded the complicated -costumes and shortened the skirt, so rendering possible not only her own -lively and vigorous method, but all the freedom and airy grace of later -dancing. It was Noverre who by his ideas worked out at Stuttgart, and -soon brought to Paris by Gaetan Vestris, made the ballet a new and -complete art form; this Swiss-French genius not only elaborated plot -revealed by gesture and dance alone, but, just as another and greater -Swiss-French genius about the same time brought sentiment and emotion -into the novel, he brought it into the ballet. In the French ballet of -the eighteenth century a very high degree of perfection seems thus to -have been reached, while in Italy, where the ballet had originated, it -decayed, and Milan, which had been its source, became the nursery of a -tradition of devitalised technique carried to the finest point of -delicate perfection. The influence of the French school was maintained -as a living force into the nineteenth century,—when it was renovated -afresh by the new spirit of the age and Taglioni became the most -ethereal embodiment of the spirit of the Romantic movement in a form -that was genuinely classic,—overspreading the world by the genius of a -few individual dancers. When they had gone, the ballet slowly and -steadily declined. As it declined as an art, so also it declined in -credit and in popularity; it became scarcely respectable even to admire -dancing. Thirty or forty years ago, those of us who still appreciated -dancing as an art—and how few they were!—had to seek for it painfully -and sometimes in strange surroundings. A recent historian of dancing, in -a book published so lately as 1906, declared that “the ballet is now a -thing of the past, and, with the modern change of ideas, a thing that is -never likely to be resuscitated.” That historian never mentioned Russian -ballet, yet his book was scarcely published before the Russian ballet -arrived to scatter ridicule over his rash prophecy by raising the ballet -to a pitch of perfection it can rarely have surpassed, as an expressive, -emotional, even passionate form of living art. - -The Russian ballet was an offshoot from the French ballet and -illustrates once more the vivifying effect of transplantation on the art -of Romantic dancing. The Empress Anna introduced it in 1735 and -appointed a French ballet-master and a Neapolitan composer to carry it -on; it reached a high degree of technical perfection during the -following hundred years, on the traditional lines, and the principal -dancers were all imported from Italy. It was not until recent years that -this firm discipline and these ancient traditions were vitalised into an -art form of exquisite and vivid beauty by the influence of the soil in -which they had slowly taken root. This contact, when at last it was -effected, mainly by the genius of Fokine and the enterprise of -Diaghilev, involved a kind of revolution, for its outcome, while genuine -ballet, has yet all the effect of delicious novelty. The tradition by -itself was in Russia an exotic without real life, and had nothing to -give to the world; on the other hand, a Russian ballet apart from that -tradition, if we can conceive such a thing, would have been formless, -extravagant, bizarre, not subdued to any fine æsthetic ends. What we see -here, in the Russian ballet as we know it to-day, is a splendid and -arduous technical tradition, brought at last—by the combined skill of -designers, composers, and dancers—into real fusion with an environment -from which during more than a century it had been held apart; Russian -genius for music, Russian feeling for rhythm, Russian skill in the use -of bright colour, and, not least, the Russian orgiastic temperament, the -Russian spirit of tender poetic melancholy, and the general Slav passion -for folk-dancing, shown in other branches of the race also, Polish, -Bohemian, Bulgarian, and Servian. At almost the same time what I have -termed Classic dancing was independently revived in America by Isadora -Duncan, bringing back what seemed to be the free naturalism of the Greek -dance, and Ruth St. Denis, seeking to discover and revitalise the -secrets of the old Indian and Egyptian traditions. Whenever now we find -any restored art of theatrical dancing, as in the Swedish ballet, it has -been inspired more or less, by an eclectic blending of these two revived -forms, the Romantic from Russia, the Classic from America. The result -has been that our age sees one of the most splendid movements in the -whole history of the ballet. - - - V - - -Dancing as an art, we may be sure, cannot die out, but will always be -undergoing a rebirth. Not merely as an art, but also as a social custom, -it perpetually emerges afresh from the soul of the people. Less than a -century ago the polka thus arose, extemporised by the Bohemian servant -girl Anna Slezakova out of her own head for the joy of her own heart, -and only rendered a permanent form, apt for world-wide popularity, by -the accident that it was observed and noted down by an artist. Dancing -has for ever been in existence as a spontaneous custom, a social -discipline. Thus it is, finally, that dancing meets us, not only as -love, as religion, as art, but also as morals. - -All human work, under natural conditions, is a kind of dance. In a large -and learned book, supported by an immense amount of evidence, Karl -Bücher has argued that work differs from the dance, not in kind, but -only in degree, since they are both essentially rhythmic. There is a -good reason why work should be rhythmic, for all great combined efforts, -the efforts by which alone great constructions such as those of -megalithic days could be carried out, must be harmonised. It has even -been argued that this necessity is the source of human speech, and we -have the so-called Yo-heave-ho theory of languages. In the memory of -those who have ever lived on a sailing ship—that loveliest of human -creations now disappearing from the world—there will always linger the -echo of the chanties which sailors sang as they hoisted the topsail yard -or wound the capstan or worked the pumps. That is the type of primitive -combined work, and it is indeed difficult to see how such work can be -effectively accomplished without such a device for regulating the -rhythmic energy of the muscles. The dance rhythm of work has thus acted -socialisingly in a parallel line with the dance rhythms of the arts, and -indeed in part as their inspirer. The Greeks, it has been too fancifully -suggested, by insight or by intuition understood this when they fabled -that Orpheus, whom they regarded as the earliest poet, was specially -concerned with moving stones and trees. Bücher has pointed out that even -poetic metre may be conceived as arising out of work; metre is the -rhythmic stamping of feet, as in the technique of verse it is still -metaphorically called; iambics and trochees, spondees and anapæsts and -dactyls, may still be heard among blacksmiths smiting the anvil or -navvies wielding their hammers in the streets. In so far as they arose -out of work, music and singing and dancing are naturally a single art. A -poet must always write to a tune, said Swinburne. Herein the ancient -ballad of Europe is a significant type. It is, as the name indicates, a -dance as much as a song, performed by a singer who sang the story and a -chorus who danced and shouted the apparently meaningless refrain; it is -absolutely the chanty of the sailors and is equally apt for the purposes -of concerted work.[25] Yet our most complicated musical forms are -evolved from similar dances. The symphony is but a development of a -dance suite, in the first place folk-dances, such as Bach and Handel -composed. Indeed a dance still lingers always at the heart of music and -even the heart of the composer. Mozart, who was himself an accomplished -dancer, used often to say, so his wife stated, that it was dancing, not -music, that he really cared for. Wagner believed that Beethoven’s -Seventh Symphony—to some of us the most fascinating of them and the most -purely musical—was an apotheosis of the dance, and, even if that belief -throws no light on the intention of Beethoven, it is at least a -revelation of Wagner’s own feeling for the dance. - -It is, however, the dance itself, apart from the work and apart from the -other arts, which, in the opinion of many to-day, has had a decisive -influence in socialising, that is to say in moralising, the human -species. Work showed the necessity of harmonious rhythmic coöperation, -but the dance developed that rhythmic coöperation and imparted a -beneficent impetus to all human activities. It was Grosse, in his -“Beginnings of Art,” who first clearly set forth the high social -significance of the dance in the creation of human civilisation. The -participants in a dance, as all observers of savages have noted, exhibit -a wonderful unison; they are, as it were, fused into a single being -stirred by a single impulse. Social unification is thus accomplished. -Apart from war, this is the chief factor making for social solidarity in -primitive life; it was indeed the best training for war. It has been a -twofold influence; on the one hand, it aided unity of action and method -in evolution: on the other, it had the invaluable function—for man is -naturally a timid animal—of imparting courage; the universal drum, as -Louis Robinson remarks, has been an immense influence in human affairs. -Even among the Romans, with their highly developed military system, -dancing and war were definitely allied; the Salii constituted a college -of sacred military dancers; the dancing season was March, the war-god’s -month and the beginning of the war season, and all through that month -there were dances in triple measure before the temples and round the -altars, with songs so ancient that not even the priests could understand -them. We may trace a similar influence of dancing in all the coöperative -arts of life. All our most advanced civilisation, Grosse insisted, is -based on dancing. It is the dance that socialised man. - -Thus, in the large sense, dancing has possessed peculiar value as a -method of national education. As civilisation grew self-conscious, this -was realised. “One may judge of a king,” according to ancient Chinese -maxim, “by the state of dancing during his reign.” So also among the -Greeks; it has been said that dancing and music lay at the foundation of -the whole political and military as well as religious organisation of -the Dorian states. - -In the narrow sense, in individual education, the great importance of -dancing came to be realised, even at an early stage of human -development, and still more in the ancient civilisations. “A good -education,” Plato declared in the “Laws,” the final work of his old age, -“consists in knowing how to sing and dance well.” And in our own day one -of the keenest and most enlightened of educationists has lamented the -decay of dancing; the revival of dancing, Stanley Hall declares, is -imperatively needed to give poise to the nerves, schooling to the -emotions, strength to the will, and to harmonise the feelings and the -intellect with the body which supports them. - -It can scarcely be said that these functions of dancing are yet -generally realised and embodied afresh in education. For, if it is true -that dancing engendered morality, it is also true that in the end, by -the irony of fate, morality, grown insolent, sought to crush its own -parent, and for a time succeeded only too well. Four centuries ago -dancing was attacked by that spirit, in England called Puritanism, which -was then spread over the greater part of Europe, just as active in -Bohemia as in England, and which has, indeed, been described as a -general onset of developing Urbanism against the old Ruralism. It made -no distinction between good and bad, nor paused to consider what would -come when dancing went. So it was that, as Remy de Gourmont remarks, the -drinking-shop conquered the dance, and alcohol replaced the violin. - -But when we look at the function of dancing in life from a higher and -wider standpoint, this episode in its history ceases to occupy so large -a place. The conquest over dancing has never proved in the end a matter -for rejoicing, even to morality, while an art which has been so -intimately mixed with all the finest and deepest springs of life has -always asserted itself afresh. For dancing is the loftiest, the most -moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere -translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. It is the only -art, as Rahel Varnhagen said, of which we ourselves are the stuff. Even -if we are not ourselves dancers, but merely the spectators of the dance, -we are still—according to that Lippsian doctrine of _Einfühlung_ or -“empathy” by Groos termed “the play of inner imitation”—which here, at -all events, we may accept as true—feeling ourselves in the dancer who is -manifesting and expressing the latent impulses of our own being. - -It thus comes about that, beyond its manifold practical significance, -dancing has always been felt to possess also a symbolic significance. -Marcus Aurelius was accustomed to regard the art of life as like the -dancer’s art, though that Imperial Stoic could not resist adding that in -some respects it was more like the wrestler’s art. “I doubt not yet to -make a figure in the great Dance of Life that shall amuse the spectators -in the sky,” said, long after, Blake, in the same strenuous spirit. In -our own time, Nietzsche, from first to last, showed himself possessed by -the conception of the art of life as a dance, in which the dancer -achieves the rhythmic freedom and harmony of his soul beneath the shadow -of a hundred Damoclean swords. He said the same thing of his style, for -to him the style and the man were one: “My style,” he wrote to his -intimate friend Rohde, “is a dance.” “Every day I count wasted,” he said -again, “in which there has been no dancing.” The dance lies at the -beginning of art, and we find it also at the end. The first creators of -civilisation were making the dance, and the philosopher of a later age, -hovering over the dark abyss of insanity, with bleeding feet and muscles -strained to the breaking point, still seems to himself to be weaving the -maze of the dance. - -Footnote 12: - - It is even possible that, in earlier than human times, dancing and - architecture may have been the result of the same impulse. The nest of - birds is the chief early form of building, and Edmund Selous has - suggested (_Zoölogist_, December, 1901) that the nest may first have - arisen as an accidental result of the ecstatic sexual dance of birds. - -Footnote 13: - - “Not the epic song, but the dance,” Wundt says (_Völkerpsychologie_, - 3d ed. 1911, Bd. 1, Teil 1, p. 277), “accompanied by a monotonous and - often meaningless song, constitutes everywhere the most primitive, - and, in spite of that primitiveness, the most highly developed art. - Whether as a ritual dance, or as a pure emotional expression of the - joy in rhythmic bodily movement, it rules the life of primitive men to - such a degree that all other forms of art are subordinate to it.” - -Footnote 14: - - See an interesting essay in _The Dance of Siva: Fourteen Indian - Essays_, by Ananda Coomaraswamy. New York, 1918. - -Footnote 15: - - This view was clearly put forward, long ago, by W. W. Newell at the - International Congress of Anthropology at Chicago in 1893. It has - become almost a commonplace since. - -Footnote 16: - - See a charming paper by Marcella Azra Hincks, “The Art of Dancing in - Japan,” _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1906. Pantomimic dancing, which - has played a highly important part in Japan, was introduced into - religion from China, it is said, in the earliest time, and was not - adapted to secular purposes until the sixteenth century. - -Footnote 17: - - I owe some of these facts to an interesting article by G. R. Mead, - “The Sacred Dance of Jesus,” _The Quest_, October, 1910. - -Footnote 18: - - The dance of the Seises in Seville Cathedral is evidently of great - antiquity, though it was so much a matter of course that we do not - hear of it until 1690, when the Archbishop of the day, in opposition - to the Chapter, wished to suppress it. A decree of the King was - finally obtained permitting it, provided it was performed only by men, - so that evidently, before that date, girls as well as boys took part - in it. Rev. John Morris, “Dancing in Churches,” _The Month_, December, - 1892; also a valuable article on the Seises by J. B. Trend, in _Music - and Letters_, January, 1921. - -Footnote 19: - - See, for references, Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of - Sex_, vol. III; _Analysis of the Sexual Impulse_, pp. 29, etc.; and - Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, vol. I, chap. XIII, p. 470. - -Footnote 20: - - At an earlier period, however, the dance of Salome was understood much - more freely and often more accurately. As Enlart has pointed out, on a - capital in the twelfth-century cloister of Moissac, Salome holds a - kind of castanets in her raised hands as she dances; on one of the - western portals of Rouen Cathedral, at the beginning of the sixteenth - century, she is dancing on her hands; while at Hemelverdeghem she is - really executing the _morisco_, the “_danse du ventre_.” - -Footnote 21: - - For an excellent account of dancing in India, now being degraded by - modern civilisation, see Otto Rothfeld, _Women of India_, chap. VII, - “The Dancing Girl,” 1922. - -Footnote 22: - - I may hazard the suggestion that the gypsies may possibly have - acquired their rather unaccountable name of Egyptians, not so much - because they had passed through Egypt, the reason which is generally - suggested,—for they must have passed through many countries,—but - because of their proficiency in dances of the recognised Egyptian - type. - -Footnote 23: - - It is interesting to observe that Egypt still retains, almost - unchanged through fifty centuries, its traditions, technique, and - skill in dancing, while, as in ancient Egyptian dancing, the garment - forms an almost or quite negligible element in the art. Loret remarks - that a charming Egyptian dancer of the Eighteenth Dynasty, whose - picture in her transparent gauze he reproduces, is an exact portrait - of a charming Almeh of to-day whom he has seen dancing in Thebes with - the same figure, the same dressing of the hair, the same jewels. I - hear from a physician, a gynæcologist now practising in Egypt, that a - dancing-girl can lie on her back, and with a full glass of water - standing on one side of her abdomen and an empty glass on the other, - can by the contraction of the muscles on the side supporting the full - glass, project the water from it, so as to fill the empty glass. This, - of course, is not strictly dancing, but it is part of the technique - which underlies classic dancing and it witnesses to the thoroughness - with which the technical side of Egyptian dancing is still cultivated. - -Footnote 24: - - “We must learn to regard the form of the Greek drama as a dance form,” - says G. Warre Cornish in an interesting article on “Greek Drama and - the Dance” (_Fortnightly Review_, February, 1913), “a musical - symphonic dance-vision, through which the history of Greece and the - soul of man are portrayed.” - -Footnote 25: - - It should perhaps be remarked that in recent times it has been denied - that the old ballads were built up on dance songs. Miss Pound, for - instance, in a book on the subject, argues that they were of - aristocratic and not communal origin, which may well be, though the - absence of the dance element does not seem to follow. - - - - - CHAPTER III - THE ART OF THINKING - - - I - - -HERBERT SPENCER pointed out, in his early essay on “The Genesis of -Science,” that science arose out of art, and that even yet the -distinction is “purely conventional,” for “it is impossible to say when -art ends and science begins.” Spencer was here using “art” in the -fundamental sense according to which all practice is of the nature of -art. Yet it is of interest to find a thinker now commonly regarded as so -prosaic asserting a view which to most prosaic people seems fanciful. To -the ordinary solid man, to any would-be apostle of common sense, -science—and by “science” he usually means applied science—seems the -exact opposite of the vagaries and virtuosities that the hard-headed -_homme moyen sensuel_ is accustomed to look upon as “art.” - -Yet the distinction is modern. In classic times there was no such -distinction. The “sciences”—reasonably, as we may now see, and not -fancifully as was afterwards supposed—were “the arts of the mind.” In -the Middle Ages the same liberal studies—grammar, logic, geometry, -music, and the rest—could be spoken of either as “sciences” or as -“arts,” and for Roger Bacon, who in the thirteenth century was so -genuine a man of science, every branch of study or learning was a -“scientia.” I am inclined to think that it was the Mathematical -Renaissance of the seventeenth century which introduced the undue -emphasis on the distinction between “science” and “art.” “All the -sciences are so bound together,” wrote Descartes, the banner-bearer of -that Renaissance, in his “Règles pour la Direction de l’Esprit,” “that -it is much easier to learn them all at once than to learn one alone by -detaching it from the others.” He added that we could not say the same -of the arts. Yet we might perhaps say of arts and sciences that we can -only understand them all together, and we may certainly say, as -Descartes proceeded to say of the sciences alone, that they all emanate -from the same focus, however diversely coloured by the media they pass -through or the objects they encounter. At that moment, however, it was -no doubt practically useful, however theoretically unsound, to -overemphasise the distinction between “science,” with its new -instrumental precision, and “art.”[26] At the same time the tradition of -the old usage was not completely put aside, and a Master of “Arts” -remained a master of such sciences as the directors of education -succeeded in recognising until the middle of the nineteenth century. By -that time the development of the sciences, and especially of the -physical sciences, as “the discovery of truth,” led to a renewed -emphasis on them which resulted in the practical restriction of the term -“art” to what are ordinarily called the fine arts. More formally, -science became the study of what were supposed to be demonstrable and -systematically classifiable truths regarding the facts of the world; art -was separated off as the play of human impulses in making things. Sir -Sidney Colvin, in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” after discussing the -matter (which Mill had already discussed at length in his “Logic” and -decided that the difference is that Science is in the Indicative Mood -and Art in the Imperative Mood), concluded that science is “ordered -knowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them,” or -that “Science consists in knowing, Art consists in doing.” Men of -science, like Sir E. Ray Lankester, accepted this conclusion. That was -as far as it was possible to go in the nineteenth century. - -But the years pass, and the progress of science itself, especially the -sciences of the mind, has upset this distinction. The analysis of -“knowing” showed that it was not such a merely passive and receptive -method of recognising “truth” as scientists had innocently supposed. -This is probably admitted now by the Realists among philosophers as well -as by the Idealists. Dr. Charles Singer, perhaps our most learned -historian of science, now defines science, no longer as a body of -organized knowledge, but as “the process which makes knowledge,” as -“knowledge in the making”; that is to say, “the growing edge between the -unknown and the known.”[27] As soon as we thus regard it, as a _making_ -process, it becomes one with art. Even physical science is perpetually -laying aside the “facts” which it thought it knew, and learning to -replace them by other “facts” which it comes to know as more -satisfactory in presenting an intelligible view of the world. The -analysis of “knowing” shows that this is not only a legitimate but an -inevitable process. Such a process is active and creative. It clearly -partakes at least as much of the nature of “doing” as of “knowing.” It -involves qualities which on another plane, sometimes indeed on the same -plane, are essentially those involved in doing. The craftsman who moulds -conceptions with his mind cannot be put in a fundamentally different -class from the craftsman who moulds conceptions with his hand, any more -than the poet can be put in a totally different class from the painter. -It is no longer possible to deny that science is of the nature of art. - -So it is that in the fundamental sense, and even, it will have to be -added, in a sense that comprehends the extravagancies of wild variations -from the norm, we have to recognise that the true man of science is an -artist. Like the lunatic, the lover, the poet (as a great physician, Sir -William Osler, has said), the student is “of imagination all compact.” -It was by his “wonderful imagination,” it has been well pointed out, -that Newton was constantly discovering new tracks and new processes in -the region of the unknown. The extraordinary various life-work of -Helmholtz, who initiated the valuation of beauty on a physiological -basis, scientifically precise as it was, had, as Einstein has remarked, -an æsthetic colouring. “There is no such thing as an unimaginative -scientific man,” a distinguished professor of mechanics and mathematics -declared some years ago, and if we are careful to remember that not -every man who believes that his life is devoted to science is really a -“scientific man,” that statement is literally true.[28] It is not only -true of the scientific man in the special sense; it is also true of the -philosopher. In every philosopher’s work, a philosophic writer has -remarked, “the construction of a complete system of conceptions is not -carried out simply in the interests of knowledge. Its underlying motive -is æsthetic. It is the work of a creative artist.”[29] The intellectual -lives of a Plato or a Dante, Professor Graham Wallas from a different -standpoint has remarked, “were largely guided and sustained by their -delight in the sheer beauty of the rhythmic relation between law and -instance, species and individual, or cause and effect.”[30] - -That remark, with its reference to the laws and rhythm in the universe, -calls to mind the great initiator, so far as our knowledge extends back, -of scientific research in our European world. Pythagoras is a dim -figure, and there is no need here to insist unduly on his significance. -But there is not the slightest doubt about the nature of that -significance in its bearing on the point before us. Dim and legendary as -he now appears to us, Pythagoras was no doubt a real person, born in the -sixth century before Christ, at Samos, and by his association with that -great shipping centre doubtless enabled to voyage afar and glean the -wisdom of the ancient world. In antiquity he was regarded, Cicero -remarks, as the inventor of philosophy, and still to-day he is estimated -to be one of the most original figures, not only of Greece, but the -world. He is a figure full of interest from many points of view, however -veiled in mist, but he only concerns us here because he represents the -beginning of what we call “science”—that is to say, measurable knowledge -at its growing point—and because he definitely represents it as arising -out of what we all conventionally recognise as “art,” and as, indeed, -associated with the spirit of art, even its most fantastic forms, all -the way. Pythagoras was a passionate lover of music, and it was thus -that he came to make the enormously fruitful discovery that pitch of -sound depends upon the length of the vibrating chord. Therein it became -clear that law and spatial quantity ruled even in fields which had -seemed most independent of quantitative order. The beginning of the -great science of mechanics was firmly set up. The discovery was no -accident. Even his rather hostile contemporary Heraclitus said of -Pythagoras that he had “practised research and inquiry beyond all other -men.” He was certainly a brilliant mathematician; he was, also, not only -an astronomer, but the first, so far as we know, to recognise that the -earth is a sphere,—so setting up the ladder which was to reach at last -to the Copernican conception,—while his followers took the further step -of affirming that the earth was not the centre of our cosmic system, but -concentrically related. So that Pythagoras may not only be called the -Father of Philosophy, but, with better right the Father of Science in -the modern exact sense. Yet he remained fundamentally an artist even in -the conventional sense. His free play of imagination and emotion, his -delight in the ravishing charm of beauty and of harmony, however it may -sometimes have led him astray,—and introduced the reverence for Number -which so long entwined fancy too closely with science,—yet, as Gomperz -puts it, gave soaring wings to the power of his severe reason.[31] - -One other great dim figure of early European antiquity shares with -Pythagoras the philosophic dominance over our world, and that is the -Platonic Socrates, or, as we might perhaps say, the Socratic Plato. And -here, too, we are in the presence of a philosopher, if not a scientist, -who was a supreme artist. Here again, also, we encounter a legendary -figure concealing a more or less real human person. But there is a -difference. While all are agreed that, in Pythagoras we have a great and -brilliant figure dimly seen, there are many who consider that in -Socrates we have a small and dim figure grown great and brilliant in the -Platonic medium through which alone he has been really influential in -our world, for without Plato the name of Socrates would have scarcely -been mentioned. The problem of the Pythagorean legend may be said to be -settled. But the problem of the Socratic legend is still under -discussion. We cannot, moreover, quite put it aside as merely of -academic interest, for its solution, if ever reached, would touch that -great vital problem of art in the actual world with which we are here -throughout concerned. - -If one examines any large standard history of Greece, like Grote’s to -mention one of the oldest and best, one is fairly sure to find a long -chapter on the life of Socrates. Such a chapter is inserted, without -apology, without explanation, without compunction, as a matter of -course, in a so-called “history,” and nearly every one, even to-day, -still seems to take it as a matter of course. Few seem to possess the -critical and analytical mind necessary for the examination of the -documents on which the “history” rests. If they approached this chapter -in a questioning spirit, they might perhaps discover that it was not -until about half a century after the time of the real Socrates that any -“historical” evidence for the existence of our legendary Socrates begins -to appear.[32] Few people seem to realise that even of Plato himself we -know nothing certain that could not be held in a single sentence. The -“biographies” of Plato began to be written four hundred years after his -death. It should be easy to estimate their value. - -There are three elements—one of them immeasurably more important than -the other two—of which the composite portrait of our modern Socrates is -made up: Xenophon, Plato, the dramatists. To the contribution furnished -by the first, not much weight is usually attached. Yet it should really -have been regarded as extremely illuminating. It suggests that the -subject of “Socrates” was a sort of school exercise, useful practice in -rhetoric or in dialectics. The very fact that Xenophon’s Socrates was so -reminiscent of his creator ought to have been instructive.[33] It has, -however, taken scholars some time to recognise this, and Karl Joël, who -spent fifteen of the best years of his life over the Xenophontic -Socrates, to discover that the figure was just as much a fiction as the -Platonic Socrates, has lately confessed that he thinks those years -rather wasted. It might have been clear earlier that what Plato had done -was really just the same thing so far as method was concerned, though a -totally different thing in result because done by the most richly -endowed of poet-philosophers, the most consummate of artists. For that -is probably how we ought to regard Plato, and not, like some, as merely -a great mystificator. It is true that Plato was the master of irony, and -that “irony,” in its fundamental meaning, is, as Gomperz points out, -“pleasure in mystifying.” But while Plato’s irony possesses a -significance which we must always keep before us, it is yet only one of -the elements of his vast and versatile mind. - -It is to the third of these sources that some modern investigators are -now inclined to attach primary significance. It was on the stage—in the -branch of drama that kept more closely in touch with life than that -which had fallen into the hands of the prose dialecticians and -rhetoricians—that we seem to find the shadow of the real Socrates. But -he was not the Socrates of the dramatic dialogues of Plato or even of -Xenophon; he was a minor Sophist, an inferior Diogenes, yet a remarkable -figure, arresting and disturbing, whose idiosyncrasies were quite -perceptible to the crowd. It was an original figure, hardly the -embodiment of a turning-point in philosophy, but fruitful of great -possibilities, so that we could hardly be surprised if the master of -philosophic drama took it over from real life and the stage for his own -purposes. - -To make clear to myself the possible way—I am far from asserting it was -the actual way—in which our legendary Socrates arose, I sometimes think -of Chidley. Chidley was an Australian Sophist and Cynic, in the good -sense of both these words, and without doubt, it seems to me, the most -original and remarkable figure that has ever appeared in Australia, of -which, however, he was not a native, though he spent nearly his whole -life there. He was always poor, and like most philosophers he was born -with a morbid nervous disposition, though he acquired a fine and robust -frame. He was liable not only to the shock of outward circumstances but -of inward impulses; these he had in the past often succumbed to, and -only slowly and painfully gained the complete mastery over as he gained -possession of his own philosophy. For all his falls, which he felt -acutely, as Augustine and Bunyan as well as Rousseau felt such lapses, -there was in him a real nobility, an even ascetic firmness and purity of -character. I never met him, but I knew him more intimately, perhaps, -than those who came in contact with him. For many years I was in touch -with him, and his last letter was written shortly before his death; he -always felt I ought to be persuaded of the truth he had to reveal and -never quite understood my sympathetic attitude of scepticism. He had -devoured all the philosophic literature he could lay hold of, but his -philosophy—in the Greek sense, as a way of life, and not in our modern -sense as a system of notions—was his own: a new vision of Nature’s -simplicity and wholeness, only new because it had struck on a new -sensibility and sometimes in excessive and fantastic ways, but he held -his faith with unbending devotion, and never ceased to believe that all -would accept the vision when once they beheld it. So he went about the -streets in Sydney, clad (as a concession to public feeling) in bathing -drawers, finding anywhere he could the Stoa which might serve for him, -to argue and discuss, among all who were willing, with eager faith, keen -mind, and pungent speech. A few were won, but most were disturbed and -shocked. The police persistently harassed him; they felt bound to -interfere with what seemed such an outrage on the prim decency of the -streets; and as he quietly persisted in following his own course, and it -was hard to bring any serious charge against him, they called in the aid -of the doctors, and henceforth he was in and out of the asylum instead -of the prison. No one need be blamed; it was nobody’s fault; if a man -transgresses the ordinary respectable notions of decency, he must be a -criminal, and if he is not a criminal, he must be a lunatic; the social -organisation takes no account of philosophers; the philosophic -Hipparchia and her husband must not nowadays consummate their marriage -in public, and our modern philosophers meekly agree that philosophy is -to have nothing to do with a life. Every one in the case seems to have -behaved with due conventional propriety, just as every one behaved -around the deathbed of Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilitch. It was Chidley’s deathbed -they were preparing, and he knew it, but he unflinchingly grasped the -cup they held out to him and drank it to the dregs. He felt he could do -no other. There was no fabled hemlock in it, but it was just as deadly -as though it had been accompanied by all the dramatic symbolisation of a -formal condemnation to death, such as had really been recorded (Plato -well knew) in old Athenian annals. There was no Plato in Sydney. But if -there had been, it is hard to conceive any figure more fit for the ends -of his transforming art. Through that inspiring medium the plebeian -Sophist and Cynic, while yet retaining something of the asperity of his -original shape, would have taken on a new glory, his bizarreries would -have been spiritualised and his morbidities become the signs of mystic -possession, his fate would have appeared as consecrated in form as it -genuinely was in substance, he would have been the mouthpiece, not only -of the truths he really uttered, but of a divine eloquence on the verge -of which he had in real life only trembled, and, like Socrates in the -hands of Plato, he would have passed, as all the finest philosophy -passes at last, into music.[34] So in the end Chidley would have entered -modern history, just as Socrates entered ancient history, the Saint and -Martyr of Philosophy.[35] - -If it should so be that, as we learn to see him truly, the figure of the -real Socrates must diminish in magnitude, then—and that is the point -which concerns us here—the glory of the artist who made him what he has -become for us is immensely enhanced. No longer the merely apt and -brilliant disciple of a great master, he becomes himself master and -lord, the radiant creator of the chief figure in European philosophy, -the most marvellous artist the world has ever known. So that when we -look back at the spiritual history of Europe, it may become possible to -say that its two supreme figures, the Martyr of Philosophy and the -Martyr of Religion, were both—however real the two human persons out of -which they were formed—the work of man’s imagination. For there, on the -one hand, we see the most accomplished of European thinkers, and on the -other a little band of barbarians, awkwardly using just the same Greek -language, working with an unconscious skill which even transcends all -that conscious skill could have achieved, yet both bearing immortal -witness to the truth that the human soul only lives truly in art and can -only be ruled through art. So it is that in art lies the solution of the -conflicts of philosophy. There we see Realism, or the discovery of -things, one with Idealism, or the creation of things. Art is the -embodied harmony of their conflict. That could not be more exquisitely -symbolised than by these two supreme figures in the spiritual life of -Europe, the Platonic Socrates and the Gospel Jesus, both alike presented -to us, it is so significant to observe, as masters of irony. - -There has never again been so great an artist in philosophy, so supreme -a dramatist, as Plato. But in later times philosophers themselves have -often been willing to admit that even if they were not, like Plato, -dramatists, there was poetry and art in their vocation. “One does not -see why the sense for Philosophy should be more generally diffused than -that for poetry,” remarked Schelling, evidently regarding them as on the -same plane. F. A. Lange followed with his memorable “History of -Materialism,” in which the conception of philosophy as a poetic art was -clearly set forth. “Philosophy is pure art,” says in our own days a -distinguished thinker who is in especially close touch with the -religious philosophy of the East. “The thinker works with laws of -thought and scientific facts in just the same sense as the musical -composer with tones. He must find accords, he must think out sequences, -he must set the part in a necessary relation to the whole. But for that -he needs art.”[36] Bergson regards philosophy as an art, and Croce, the -more than rival of Bergson in popular esteem, and with interesting -points of contact with the French philosopher, though his standpoint is -so different, has repeatedly pointed out—as regards Nietzsche, for -instance, and even as regards a philosopher to whom he is so closely -related as Hegel—that we may read philosophy for its poetic rather than -its historic truth. Croce’s position in this matter is not, indeed, easy -to state quite simply. He includes æsthetics in philosophy, but he would -not regard philosophy as an art. For him art is the first and lowest -stratum in the mind, not in rank, but in order, and on it the other -strata are laid and combine with it. Or, as he elsewhere says, “art is -the root of our whole theoretic life. Without root there can be neither -flower nor fruit.”[37] But for Croce art is not itself flower or fruit. -The “Concept” and other abstractions have to be brought in before Croce -is satisfied that he has attained reality. It may, perhaps, indeed, be -permitted, even to an admirer of the skill with which Croce spreads out -such wide expanses of thought, to suggest that, in spite of his anxiety -to keep close to the concrete, he is not therein always successful, and -that he tends to move in verbal circles, as may perhaps happen to a -philosopher who would reduce the philosophy of art to the philosophy of -language. But, however that may be, it is a noteworthy fact that the -close relationship of art and philosophy is admitted by the two most -conspicuous philosophers of to-day, raised to popular eminence in spite -of themselves, the Philosopher of Other-worldliness and the Philosopher -of This-worldliness. - -If we turn to England, we find that, in an age and a land wherein it was -not so easy to make the assertion as it has now more generally become, -Sir Leslie Stephen, in harmony, whether or not he knew it, with F. A. -Lange, wrote to Lord Morley (as he later became) in the last century: “I -think that a philosophy is really made more of poetry than of logic; and -the real value of both poetry and philosophy is not the pretended -reasoning, but the exposition in one form or other of a certain view of -life.” It is, we see, just what they have all been saying, and if it is -true of men of science and philosophers, who are the typical -representatives of human thinking, it is even true of every man on earth -who thinks, ever since the day when conscious thinking began. The world -is an unrelated mass of impressions, as it first strikes our infant -senses, falling at random on the sensory mechanism, and all appearing as -it were on the same plane. For an infant the moon is no farther away -than his mother’s breast, even though he possesses an inherited mental -apparatus fitted to coördinate and distinguish the two. It is only when -we begin to think, that we can arrange these unrelated impressions into -intelligible groups, and thinking is thus of the nature of art.[38] - -All such art, moreover, may yet be said to be an invention of fictions. -That great and fundamental truth, which underlies so much modern -philosophy, has been expounded in the clearest and most detailed manner -by Hans Vaihinger in his “Philosophie des Als Ob.” - - - II - - -HANS VAIHINGER is still little known in England;[39] and that is the -more remarkable as he has always been strongly attached to English -thought, of which his famous book reveals an intimate knowledge. In -early life he had mixed much with English people, for whom he has a deep -regard, and learnt to revere, not only Darwin, but Hume and J. S. Mill, -who exerted a decisive influence on his own philosophic development. At -the beginning of his career he projected a history of English -philosophy, but interest in that subject was then so small in Germany -that he had regretfully to abandon his scheme, and was drawn instead, -through no active effort on his part, to make the study of Kant the -by-product of his own more distinctive work, yet it was a fitting study, -for in Kant he saw the germs of the doctrine of the “as if,” that is to -say, the practical significance of fiction in human life, though that is -not the idea traditionally associated with Kant, who, indeed, was not -himself clear about it, while his insight was further darkened by his -reactionary tendencies; yet Vaihinger found that it really played a -large part in Kant’s work and might even be regarded as his special and -personal way of regarding things; he was not so much a metaphysician, -Vaihinger remarks, as a metaphorician. Yet even in his Kantian studies -the English influence was felt, for Vaihinger’s work has here been to -take up the Neo-Kantism of F. A. Lange and to develop it in an empirical -and positivistic direction. - -There was evidently something in Vaihinger’s spirit that allied him to -the English spirit. We may see that in his portrait; it is not the face -of the philosophic dreamer, the scholarly man of the study, but the -eager, forceful head of the practical man of action, the daring -adventurer, the man who seems made to struggle with the concrete things -of the world, the kind of man, that is to say, whom we consider -peculiarly English. That, indeed, is the kind of man he would have been; -that is the kind of life, a social life full of activity and of sport, -that he desired to lead. But it was impossible. An extreme and lifelong -short-sightedness proved a handicap of which he has never ceased to be -conscious. So it came about that his practical energy was, as it were, -sublimated into a philosophy which yet retained the same forceful -dynamic quality. - -For the rest, his origin, training, and vocation seem all to have been -sufficiently German. He came, like many other eminent men, out of a -Swabian parsonage, and was himself intended for theology, only branching -off into philosophy after his university career was well advanced. At -the age of sixteen he was deeply influenced, as so many others have -been, by Herder’s “Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit”; that not only -harmonised with his own tendency at the time towards a mixed theism and -pantheism, but it first planted within him the conception of evolution -in human history, proceeding from an animal origin, which became a -fundamental element of his mental constitution. When a year later he -came across Darwin’s doctrines he felt that he knew them beforehand. -These influences were balanced by that of Plato, through whose “Ideas” -he caught his first glimpse of an “As-If world.” A little later the -strenuous training of one of his teachers in the logical analysis of -Latin syntax, especially in the use of the conjunctions, furnished the -source from which subsequently he drew that now well-known phrase. It -was in these years that he reached the view, which he has since -definitely advocated, that philosophy should not be made a separate -study, but should become a natural part and corollary of every study, -since philosophy cannot be fruitfully regarded as a discipline by -itself. Without psychology, especially, he finds that philosophy is -merely “a methodic abstraction.” A weighty influence of these days was -constituted by the poems and essays of Schiller, a Swabian like himself, -and, indeed, associated with the history of his own family. Schiller was -not only an inspiring influence, but it was in Schiller’s saying, “Error -alone is life, and knowledge is death,” that he found (however -unjustifiably) the first expression of his own “fictionalism,” while -Schiller’s doctrine of the play impulse as the basis of artistic -creation and enjoyment seemed the prophecy of his own later doctrine, -for in play he saw later the “as if” as the kernel of æsthetic practice -and contemplation. - -At the age of eighteen Vaihinger proceeded to the Swabian University of -Tübingen and here was free to let his wide-ranging, eager mind follow -its own impulses. He revealed a taste for the natural sciences and with -this the old Greek nature philosophers, especially Anaximander, for the -sake of their anticipations of modern evolutionary doctrines. Aristotle -also occupied him, later Spinoza, and, above all, Kant, though it was -chiefly the metaphysical antinomies and the practical reason which -fascinated him. As ever, it was what made for practice that seemed -mostly to concern him. Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, the -official German idealists, said nothing to him. He turned from them to -Schopenhauer, and thence he drew the pessimisms, the irrationalism, and -the voluntarism which became permanent features of his system of -thought. The irrationalism, as he himself points out, was completely -opposed to all early influences on him, but it lay in his own personal -circumstances. The contrast between his temperamental impulse to -energetic practical action in every direction, and the reserve, -passivity, and isolation which myopia enforced, seemed to him absolutely -irrational and sharpened his vision for all the irrationality of -existence. So that a philosophy which, like Schopenhauer’s, truthfully -recognised and allowed for the irrational element in existence came like -a revelation. As to Vaihinger’s pessimism, that, as we might expect, is -hardly of what would be generally considered a pessimistic character. It -is merely a recognition of the fact that most people are over-sanguine -and thereby come to grief, whereas a little touch of pessimism would -have preserved them from much misery. Long before the Great War, -Vaihinger felt that many Germans were over-sanguine regarding the -military power of their Empire, and of Germany’s place in the world, and -that such optimism might easily conduce to war and disaster. In 1911 he -even planned to publish anonymously in Switzerland a pamphlet entitled -“Finis Germaniæ,” with the motto “Quos Deus vult perdere, prius -dementat,” and was only prevented by a sudden development of the -eye-trouble. Vaihinger points out that an unjustified optimism had for a -long time past led in the politics of Germany—and also, he might have -said, of the countries later opposed to her—to lack of foresight, -over-haste, and arrogance; he might have added that a very slight touch -of pessimism would also have enabled these countries, on both sides, to -discover the not very remote truth that even the victors in such a -contest would suffer scarcely less than the conquered. In early life -Vaihinger had playfully defined Man as a “species of ape afflicted by -megalomania”; he admits that, whatever truth lies behind the definition, -the statement is somewhat exaggerated. Yet it is certainly strange to -observe, one may comment, how many people seem to feel vain of their own -ungratified optimism when the place where optimism most flourishes is -the lunatic asylum. They never seem to pause to reflect on the goal that -lies ahead of them, though there must be few who on looking back cannot -perceive what terrible accidents they might have foreseen and avoided by -the aid of a little pessimism. When the gods, to ruin a man, first make -him mad, they do it, almost invariably, by making him an optimist. One -might hazard the assertion that the chief philosophic distinction -between classic antiquity and modern civilisation is the prevalence in -the latter of a facile optimism; and the fact that of all ancient -writers the most popular in modern times has been the complacently -optimistic (or really hedonistic) Horace is hardly due to his technical -virtuosity. He who would walk sanely amid the opposing perils in the -path of life always needs a little optimism; he also needs a little -pessimism. - -Reference has been made to Vaihinger’s devouring appetite for knowledge. -This, indeed, was extraordinary, and of almost universal range. There -seem to have been few fields with which he failed to come in touch, -either through books or by personal intercourse with experts. He found -his way into all the natural sciences, he was drawn to Greek archæology -and German philosophy; he began the study of Sanscrit with Roth. Then, -realising that he had completely neglected mathematics, he devoted -himself with ardour to analytic geometry and infinitesimals, a study -which later he found philosophically fruitful. Finally, in 1874, he may -be said to have rounded the circle of his self-development by reading -the just published enlarged and much improved edition of F. A. Lange’s -“History of Materialism.” Here he realised the presence of a spirit of -the noblest order, equipped with the widest culture and the finest -lucidity of vision, the keenest religious radicalism combined with -large-hearted tolerance and lofty moral equilibrium, all manifested in a -completed master-work. Moreover, the standpoint of F. A. Lange was -precisely that which Vaihinger had been independently struggling -towards, for it brought into view that doctrine of the place of fiction -in life which he had already seen ahead. It is not surprising that he -should generously and enthusiastically acclaim Lange as master and -leader, though his subsequent work is his own, and has carried ideas of -which Lange held only the seeds to new and fruitful development.[40] - -It was in 1876-77 that Vaihinger wrote his book, a marvellous -achievement for so youthful a thinker, for he was then only about -twenty-five years of age. A final revision it never underwent, and there -remain various peculiarities about the form into which it is cast. The -serious failure in eyesight seems to have been the main reason for -delaying the publication of a work which the author felt to be too -revolutionary to put forth in an imperfect form. He preferred to leave -it for posthumous publication. - -But the world was not standing still, and during the next thirty years -many things happened. Vaihinger found the new sect of Pragmatists coming -into fashion with ideas resembling his own, though in a cruder shape, -which seemed to render philosophy the “meretrix theologorum.” Many -distinguished thinkers were working towards an attitude more or less -like his own, especially Nietzsche, whom (like many others even to-day) -he had long regarded with prejudice and avoided, but now discovered to -be “a great liberator” with congenial veins of thought. Vaihinger -realised that his conception was being independently put forward from -various sides, often in forms that to him seemed imperfect or vicious. -It was no longer advisable to hold back his book. In 1911, therefore, -“Die Philosophie des Als Ob” appeared. - -The problem which Vaihinger set out to solve was this: How comes it -about that with consciously false ideas we yet reach conclusions that -are in harmony with Nature and appeal to us as Truth? That we do so is -obvious, especially in the “exact” branches of science. In mathematics -it is notorious that we start from absurdities to reach a realm of law, -and our whole conception of the nature of the world is based on a -foundation which we believe to have no existence. For even the most -sober scientific investigator in science, the most thoroughgoing -Positivist, cannot dispense with fiction; he must at least make use of -categories, and they are already fictions, analogical fictions, or -labels, which give us the same pleasure as children receive when they -are told the “name” of a thing. Fiction is, indeed, an indispensable -supplement to logic, or even a part of it; whether we are working -inductively or deductively, both ways hang closely together with -fiction; and axioms, though they seek to be primary verities, are more -akin to fiction. If we had realised the nature of axioms, the doctrine -of Einstein, which sweeps away axioms so familiar to us that they seem -obvious truths, and substitutes others which seem absurd because they -are unfamiliar, might not have been so bewildering. - -Physics, especially mathematical physics, Vaihinger explains in detail, -has been based, and fruitfully based, on fictions. The infinite, -infinitely little or infinitely great, while helpful in lightening our -mental operations, is a fiction. The Greeks disliked and avoided it, and -“the gradual formation of this conception is one of the most charming -and instructive themes in the history of science,” indeed, one of the -most noteworthy spectacles in the history of the human spirit; we see -the working of a logical impulse first feeling in the dark, gradually -constructing ideas fitted to yield precious service, yet full of -hopeless contradictions, without any relation to the real world. That -absolute space is a fiction, Vaihinger points out, is no new idea. -Hobbes had declared it was only a _phantasma_; Leibnitz, who agreed, -added that it was merely “the idolum of a few modern Englishmen,” and -called time, extension, and movement “_choses idéales_.” Berkeley, in -attacking the defective conceptions of the mathematicians, failed to see -that it was by means of, and not in spite of, these logically defective -conceptions that they attained logically valuable results. All the marks -of fiction were set up on the mathematician’s pure space; it was -impossible and unthinkable: yet it proved useful and fruitful. - -The tautological fiction of “Force”—an empty reduplication of the fact -of a succession of relationships—is one that we constantly fall back on -with immense satisfaction and with the feeling of having achieved -something; it has been a highly convenient fiction which has aided -representation and experience. It is one of the most famous, and also, -it must be added, one of the most fatal of fantasies. For when we talk -of, for instance, a “life-force” and its _élan_, or whatever other -dainty term we like to apply to it, we are not only summarily mingling -together many separate phenomena, but we are running the risk that our -conception may be taken for something that really exists. There is -always temptation, when two processes tend to follow each other, to call -the property of the first to be followed by the other its “force,” and -to measure that force by the magnitude of the result. In reality we only -have succession and coexistence, and the “force” is something that we -imagine. - -We must not, therefore, treat our imagination with contempt as was -formerly the fashion, but rather the reverse. The two great periods of -English Philosophy, Vaihinger remarks, ended with Ockham and with Hume, -who each took up, in effect, the fictional point of view, but both too -much on the merely negative side, without realising the positive and -constructive value of fictions. English law has above all realised it, -even, he adds, to the point of absurdity. Nothing is so precious as -fiction, provided only one chooses the right fiction. “Matter” is such a -fiction. There are still people who speak with lofty contempt of -“Materialism”; they mean well, but they are unhappy in their terms of -abuse. When Berkeley demonstrated the impossibility of “matter,” he -thought he could afford to throw away the conception as useless. He was -quite wrong; it is logically contradictory ideas that are the most -valuable. Matter is a fiction, just as the fundamental ideas with which -the sciences generally operate are mostly fictions, and the scientific -materialisation of the world has proved a necessary and useful fiction, -only harmful when we regard it as hypothesis and therefore possibly -true. The representative world is a system of fictions. It is a symbol -by the help of which we orient ourselves. The business of science is to -make the symbol ever more adequate, but it remains a symbol, a means of -action, for action is the last end of thinking. - -The “atom,” to which matter is ultimately reduced, is regarded by -Vaihinger as equally a fiction, though it was at first viewed as an -hypothesis, and it may be added that since he wrote it seems to have -returned to the stage of hypothesis.[41] But when with Boscovich the -“atom” was regarded as simply the bearer of energy, it became “literally -a hypostatised nothing.” We have to realise at the same time that every -“thing” is a “summatory fiction,” for to say, as is often said, that a -“thing” has properties and yet has a real existence apart from its -properties is obviously only a convenient manner of speech, a “verbal -fiction.” The “force of attraction,” as Newton himself pointed out, -belongs to the same class of summatory fictions. - -Vaihinger is throughout careful to distinguish fiction alike from -hypothesis and dogma. He regards the distinction as, methodologically, -highly important, though not always easy to make. The “dogma” is put -forward as an absolute and unquestionable truth; the “hypothesis” is a -possible or probable truth, such as Darwin’s doctrine of descent; the -“fiction” is impossible, but it enables us to reach what for us is -relatively truth, and, above all, while hypothesis simply contributes to -knowledge, fiction thus used becomes a guide to practical action and -indispensable to what we feel to be progress. Thus the mighty and -civilising structure of Roman law was built up by the aid of what the -Romans themselves recognised as fictions, while in the different and -more flexible system of English laws a constant inspiration to action -has been furnished by the supposed privileges gained by Magna Carta, -though we now recognise them as fictitious. Many of our ideas tend to go -through the three stages of Dogma, Hypothesis, and Fiction, sometimes in -that order and sometimes in the reverse order. Hypothesis especially -presents a state of labile stability which is unpleasant to the mind, so -it tends to become either dogma or fiction. The ideas of Christianity, -beginning as dogmas, have passed through all three stages in the minds -of thinkers during recent centuries: the myths of Plato, beginning as -fiction, not only passed through the three stages, but then passed back -again, being now again regarded as fiction. The scientifically valuable -fiction is a child of modern times, but we have already emerged from the -period when the use of fiction was confined to the exact sciences. - -Thus we find fiction fruitfully flourishing in the biological and social -sciences and even in the highest spheres of human spiritual activity. -The Linnæan and similar classificatory systems are fictions, even though -put forward as hypotheses, having their value simply as pictures, as -forms of representation, but leading to contradictions and liable to be -replaced by other systems which present more helpful pictures. There are -still people who disdain Adam Smith’s “economic man,” as though -proceeding from a purely selfish view of life, although Buckle, -forestalling Vaihinger, long ago explained that Smith was deliberately -making use of a “valid artifice,” separating facts that he knew to be in -nature inseparable—he based his moral theory on a totally different kind -of man—because so he could reach results approximately true to the -observed phenomena. Bentham also adopted a fiction for his own system, -though believing it to be an hypothesis, and Mill criticised it as being -“geometrical”; the criticism is correct, comments Vaihinger, but the -method was not thereby invalidated, for in complicated fields no other -method can be fruitfully used. - -The same law holds when we approach our highest and most sacred -conceptions. It was recognised by enlightened philosophers and -theologians before Vaihinger that the difference between body and soul -is not different from that between matter and force,—a provisional and -useful distinction,—that light and darkness, life and death, are -abstractions, necessary, indeed, but in their application to reality -always to be used with precaution. On the threshold of the moral world -we meet the idea of Freedom, “one of the weightiest conceptions man has -ever formed,” once a dogma, in course of time an hypothesis, now in the -eyes of many a fiction; yet we cannot do without it, even although we -may be firmly convinced that our acts are determined by laws that cannot -be broken. Many other great conceptions have tended to follow the same -course. God, the Soul, Immortality, the Moral World-Order. The critical -hearers understand what is meant when these great words are used, and if -the uncritical misunderstand, that, adds Vaihinger, may sometimes be -also useful. For these things are Ideals, and all Ideals are, logically -speaking, fictions. As Science leads to the Imaginary, so Life leads to -the Impossible; without them we cannot reach the heights we are born to -scale. “Taken literally, however, our most valuable conceptions are -worthless.” - -When we review the vast field which Vaihinger summarises, we find that -thinking and existing must ever be on two different planes. The attempt -of Hegel and his followers to transform subjective processes into -objective world-processes, Vaihinger maintains, will not work out. The -Thing-in-Itself, the Absolute, remains a fiction, though the ultimate -and most necessary fiction, for without it representation would be -unintelligible. We can only regard reality as a Heraclitean flux of -happening—though Vaihinger fails to point out that this “reality” also -can only be an image or symbol—and our thinking would itself be fluid if -it were not that by fiction we obtain imaginary standpoints and -boundaries by which to gain control of the flow of reality. It is the -special art and object of thinking to attain existence by quite other -methods than that of existence itself. But the wish by so doing to -understand the world is both unrealisable and foolish, for we are only -trying to comprehend our own fictions. We can never solve the so-called -world-riddle because what seem riddles to us are merely the -contradictions we have ourselves created. Yet, though the way of -thinking cannot be the way of being, since they stand on such different -foundations, thinking always has a kind of parallelism with being, and -though we make our reckoning with a reality that we falsify, yet the -practical result tends to come out right. Just because thinking is -different from reality, its forms must also be different in order to -correspond with reality. Our conceptions, our conventional signs, have a -fictive function to perform; thinking in its lower grades is comparable -to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry. - -Imagination is thus a constitutive part of all thinking. We may make -distinctions between practical scientific thinking and disinterested -æsthetic thinking. Yet all thinking is finally a comparison. Scientific -fictions are parallel with æsthetic fictions. The poet is the type of -all thinkers: there is no sharp boundary between the region of poetry -and the region of science. Both alike are not ends in themselves, but -means to higher ends. - -Vaihinger’s doctrine of the “as if” is not immune from criticism on more -than one side, and it is fairly obvious that, however sound the general -principle, particular “fictions” may alter their status, and have even -done so since the book was written. Moreover, the doctrine is not always -quite congruous with itself. Nor can it be said that Vaihinger ever -really answered the question with which he set out. In philosophy, -however, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the -things that are met with by the way. And Vaihinger’s philosophy is not -only of interest because it presents so clearly and vigorously a -prevailing tendency in modern thought. Rightly understood, it supplies a -fortifying influence to those who may have seen their cherished -spiritual edifice, whatever it may be, fall around them and are tempted -to a mood of disillusionment. We make our own world; when we have made -it awry, we can remake it, approximately truer, though it cannot be -absolutely true, to the facts. It will never be finally made; we are -always stretching forth to larger and better fictions which answer more -truly to our growing knowledge and experience. Even when we walk, it is -only by a series of regulated errors, Vaihinger well points out, a -perpetual succession of falls to one side and the other side. Our whole -progress through life is of the same nature; all thinking is a regulated -error. For we cannot, as Vaihinger insists, choose our errors at random -or in accordance with what happens to please us; such fictions are only -too likely to turn into deadening dogmas: the old _vis dormitiva_ is the -type of them, mere husks that are of no vital use and help us not at -all. There are good fictions and bad fictions just as there are good -poets and bad poets. It is in the choice and regulation of our errors, -in our readiness to accept ever-closer approximations to the -unattainable reality, that we think rightly and live rightly. We triumph -in so far as we succeed in that regulation. “A lost battle,” Foch, -quoting De Maistre, lays down in his “Principes de Guerre,” “is a battle -one thinks one has lost”; the battle is won by the fiction that it is -won. It is so also in the battle of life, in the whole art of living. -Freud regards dreaming as fiction that helps us to sleep; thinking we -may regard as fiction that helps us to live. Man lives by imagination. - - - III - - -YET what we consider our highest activities arise out of what we are -accustomed to regard as the lowest. That is, indeed, merely a necessary -result of evolution; bipeds like ourselves spring out of many-limbed -creatures whom we should now regard as little better than vermin, and -the adult human creature whose eyes, as he sometimes imagines, are fixed -on the stars, was a few years earlier merely a small animal crawling on -all fours. The impulse of the philosopher, of the man of science, of any -ordinary person who sometimes thinks about seemingly abstract or -disinterested questions—we must include the whole range of the play of -thought in response to the stimulus of curiosity—may seem at the first -glance to be a quite secondary and remote product of the great primary -instincts. Yet it is not difficult to bring this secondary impulse into -direct relation with the fundamental primary instincts, even, and -perhaps indeed chiefly, with the instinct of sex. On the mental -side—which is not, of course, its fundamental side—the sexual instinct -is mainly, perhaps solely, a reaction to the stimulus of curiosity. -Beneath that mental surface the really active force is a physiologically -based instinct urgent towards action, but the boy or girl who first -becomes conscious of the mental stimulus is unaware of the instinct it -springs from, and may even disregard as unimportant its specific -physiological manifestations. The child is only conscious of new -curiosities, and these it persistently seeks to satisfy at any available -or likely source of information, aided by the strenuous efforts of its -own restlessly active imagination. It is in exactly the same position as -the metaphysician, or the biologist, or any thinker who is faced by -complex and yet unsolved problems. And the child is at first baffled by -just the same kind of obstacles, due, not like those of the thinker, to -the silence of recalcitrant Nature, but to the silence of parents and -teachers, or to their deliberate efforts to lead him astray. - -Where do babies come from? That is perhaps for many children the -earliest scientific problem that is in this way rendered so difficult of -solution. No satisfying solution comes from the sources of information -to which the child is wont to appeal. He is left to such slight -imperfect observations as he can himself make; on such clues his -searching intellect works and with the aid of imagination weaves a -theory, more or less remote from the truth, which may possibly explain -the phenomena. It is a genuine scientific process—the play of intellect -and imagination around a few fragments of observed fact—and it is -undoubtedly a valuable discipline for the childish mind, though if it is -too prolonged it may impede or distort natural development, and if the -resulting theory is radically false it may lead, as the theories of -scientific adults sometimes lead, if not speedily corrected, to various -unfortunate results. - -A little later, when he has ceased to be a child and puberty is -approaching, another question is apt to arise in the boy’s mind: What is -a woman like? There is also, less often and more carefully concealed, -the corresponding curiosity in the girl’s mind. Earlier this question -had seemed of no interest; it had never even occurred to ask it; there -was little realisation—sometimes none at all—of any sexual difference. -Now it sometimes becomes a question of singular urgency, in the solution -of which it is necessary for the boy to concentrate all the scientific -apparatus at his command. For there may be no ways of solving it -directly, least of all for a well-behaved, self-respecting boy or a shy, -modest girl. The youthful intellect is thus held in full tension, and -its developing energy directed into all sorts of new channels in order -to form an imaginative picture of the unknown reality, fascinating -because incompletely known. All the chief recognised mental processes of -dogma, hypothesis, and fiction, developed in the history of the race, -are to this end instinctively created afresh in the youthful individual -mind, endlessly formed and re-formed and tested in order to fill in the -picture. The young investigator becomes a diligent student of literature -and laboriously examines the relevant passages he finds in the Bible or -other ancient primitive naked books. He examines statues and pictures. -Perhaps he finds some old elementary manual of anatomy, but here the -long list of structures with Latin names proves far more baffling than -helpful to the youthful investigator who can in no possible way fit them -all into the smooth surface shown by the statues. Yet the creative and -critical habit of thought, the scientific mind generated by this search, -is destined to be of immense value, and long outlives the time when the -eagerly sought triangular spot, having fulfilled its intellectual -function, has become a familiar region, viewed with indifference, or at -most a homely tenderness. - -That was but a brief and passing episode, however permanently beneficial -its results might prove. With the achievement of puberty, with the -coming of adolescence, a larger and higher passion fills the youth’s -soul. He forgets the woman’s body, his idealism seems to raise him above -the physical: it is the woman’s personality—most likely some particular -woman’s personality—that he desires to know and to grasp. - -A twofold development tends to take place at this age—in those youths, -that is to say, who possess the latent attitude for psychic -development—and that in two diverse directions, both equally away from -definite physical desire, which at this age is sometimes, though not -always, at its least prominent place in consciousness. On the one hand -there is an attraction for an idealised person—perhaps a rather remote -person, for such most easily lend themselves to idealisation—of the -opposite (or occasionally the same) sex, it may sometimes for a time -even be the heroine of a novel. Such an ideal attraction acts as an -imaginative and emotional ferment. The imagination is stimulated to -construct for the first time, from such material as it has come across, -or can derive from within, the coherent picture of a desirable person. -The emotions are trained and disciplined to play around the figure thus -constructed with a new impersonal and unselfish, even self-sacrificing, -devotion. But this process is not enough to use up all the energies of -the developing mind, and the less so as such impulses are unlikely by -their very nature to receive any considerable degree of gratification, -for they are of a nature to which no adequate response is possible. - -Thus it happens in adolescence that this new stream of psychic energy, -emotional and intellectual, generated from within, concurrently with its -primary personal function of moulding the object of love, streams over -into another larger and more impersonal channel. It is, indeed, lifted -on to a higher plane and transformed, to exercise a fresh function by -initiating new objects of ideal desire. The radiant images of religion -and of art as well as of science—however true it may be that they have -also other adjuvant sources—thus begin to emerge from the depths beneath -consciousness. They tend to absorb and to embody the new energy, while -its primary personal object may sink into the background, or at this age -even fail to be conscious at all. - -This process—the process in which all abstract thinking is born as well -as all artistic creation—must to some slight extent take place in every -person whose mental activity is not entirely confined to the immediate -objects of sense. But in persons of more complex psychic organisation it -is a process of fundamental importance. In those of the highest complex -organisation, indeed, it becomes what we term genius. In the most -magnificent achievements of poetry and philosophy, of art and of -science, it is no longer forbidden to see the ultimate root in this -adolescent development. - -To some a glimpse of this great truth has from time to time appeared. -Ferrero, who occupied himself with psychology before attaining eminence -as a brilliant historian, suggested thirty years ago that the art -impulse and its allied manifestations are transformed sexual instinct; -the sexual impulse is “the raw material, so to speak, from which art -springs”; he connected that transformation with a less development of -the sexual emotions in women; but that was much too hasty an assumption, -for apart from the fact that such transformation could never be -complete, and probably less so in women than in men, we have also to -consider the nature of the two organisms through which the transformed -emotions would operate, probably unlike in the sexes, for the work done -by two machines obviously does not depend entirely upon feeding them -with the same amount of fuel, but also on the construction of the two -engines. Möbius, a brilliant and original, if not erratic, German -psychologist, who was also concerned with the question of difference in -the amount of sexual energy, regarded the art impulse as a kind of -sexual secondary character. That is to say, no doubt,—if we develop the -suggestion,—that just as the external features of the male and his -external activities, in the ascending zoölogical series, have been -developed out of the impulse of repressed organic sexual desire striving -to manifest itself ever more urgently in the struggle to overcome the -coyness of the female, so on the psychic side there has been a parallel -impulse, if of later development, to carry on the same task in forms of -art which have afterwards acquired an independent activity and a yet -further growth dissociated from this primary biological function. We -think of the natural ornaments which adorn male animals from far down in -the scale even up to man, of the additions made thereto by tattooing and -decoration and garments and jewels, of the parades and dances and songs -and musical serenades found among lower animals as well as Man, together -with the love-lyrics of savages, furnishing the beginnings of the most -exquisite arts of civilisation. - -It is to be noted, however, that these suggestions introduce an -assumption of male superiority, or male inferiority—according to our -scheme of values—which unnecessarily prejudices and confuses the issue. -We have to consider the question of the origin of art apart from any -supposed predominance of its manifestations in one sex or the other. In -my own conception—put forward a quarter of a century ago—of what I -called auto-erotic activities, it was on such a basis that I sought to -place it, since I regarded those auto-erotic phenomena as arising from -the impeded spontaneous sexual energy of the organism and extending from -simple physical processes to the highest psychic manifestations; “it is -impossible to say what finest elements in art, in morals, in -civilisation generally, may not really be rooted in an auto-erotic -impulse,” though I was careful to add that the transmutation of sexual -energy into other forms of force must not be regarded as itself -completely accounting for all the finest human aptitudes of sympathy and -art and religion.[42] - -It is along this path, it may perhaps be claimed,—as dimly glimpsed by -Nietzsche, Hinton, and other earlier thinkers,—that the main explanation -of the dynamic process by which the arts, in the widest sense, have come -into being, is now chiefly being explored. One thinks of Freud and -especially of Dr. Otto Rank, perhaps the most brilliant and clairvoyant -of the younger investigators who still stand by the master’s side. In -1905 Rank wrote a little essay on the artist[43] in which this mechanism -is set forth and the artist placed, in what the psycho-analytic author -considers his due place, between the ordinary dreamer at one end and the -neurotic subject at the other, the lower forms of art, such as -myth-making, standing near to dreams, and the higher forms, such as the -drama, philosophy, and the founding of religions, near to -psycho-neurosis, but all possessing a sublimated life-force which has -its root in some modification of sexual energy. - -It may often seem that, in these attempts to explain the artist, the man -of science is passed over or left in the background, and that is true. -But art and science, as we now know, have the same roots. The supreme -men of science are recognisably artists, and the earliest forms of art, -which are very early indeed,—Sir Arthur Evans has suggested that men may -have drawn before they talked,—were doubtless associated with magic, -which was primitive man’s science, or, at all events, his nearest -approximation to science. The connection of the scientific instinct with -the sexual instinct is not, indeed, a merely recent insight. Many years -ago it was clearly stated by a famous Dutch author. “Nature, who must -act wisely at the risk of annihilation,” wrote Multatuli at the -conclusion of his short story, “The Adventures of Little Walter,” “has -herein acted wisely by turning all her powers in one direction. -Moralists and psychologists have long since recognised, without -inquiring into the causes, that curiosity is one of the main elements of -love. Yet they were only thinking of sexual love, and by raising the two -related termini in corresponding wise on to a higher plane I believe -that the noble thirst for knowledge springs from the same soil in which -noble love grows. To press through, to reveal, to possess, to direct, -and to ennoble, that is the task and the longing, alike of the lover and -the natural discoverer. So that every Ross or Franklin is a Werther of -the Pole, and whoever is in love is a Mungo Park of the spirit.” - - - IV - - -AS soon as we begin to think about the world around us in what we vainly -call a disinterested way—for disinterest is, as Leibnitz said, a -chimera, and there remains a superior interest—we become youths and -lovers and artists, and there is at the same time a significant strain -of sexual imagery in our thought.[44] Among ourselves this is not always -clear; we have been dulled by the routine of civilisation and the -artificial formalities of what is called education. It is clear in the -mythopœic creation of comparative primitive thought, but in civilisation -it is in the work of men of genius—poets, philosophers, painters, and, -as we have to recognise, men of science—that this trait is most -conspicuously manifested. To realise this it is sufficient to -contemplate the personality and activity of one of the earliest great -modern men of science, of Leonardo da Vinci. Until recent times it would -have seemed rather strange so to describe Leonardo da Vinci. He still -seemed, as he was in his own time, primarily a painter, an artist in the -conventionally narrow sense, and as such one of the greatest, fit to -paint, as Browning put it, one of the four walls of the New Jerusalem. -Yet even his contemporaries who so acclaimed him were a little worried -about Leonardo in this capacity. He accomplished so little, he worked so -slowly, he left so much unfinished, he seemed to them so volatile and -unstable. He was an enigma to which they never secured the key. They -failed to see, though it is clearly to be read even in his face, that no -man ever possessed a more piercing concentration of vision, a more fixed -power of attention, a more unshakable force of will. All that Leonardo -achieved in painting and in sculpture and in architecture, however novel -or grandiose, was, as Solmi, the highly competent Vincian scholar has -remarked, merely a concession to his age, in reality a violence done to -his own nature, and from youth to old age he had directed his whole -strength to one end: the knowledge and the mastery of Nature. In our own -time, a sensitive, alert, widely informed critic of art, Bernhard -Berenson, setting out with the conventional veneration for Leonardo as a -painter, slowly, as the years went by and his judgment grew more mature, -adopted a more critical attitude, bringing down his achievements in art -to moderate dimensions, yet without taking any interest in Leonardo as a -stupendous artist in science. We may well understand that vein of -contempt for the crowd, even as it almost seems the hatred for human -society, the spirit of Timon, which runs across Leonardo’s writings, -blended, no doubt inevitably blended, with his vein of human sweetness. -This stern devotee of knowledge declared, like the author of “The -Imitation of Christ,” that “Love conquers all things.” There is here no -discrepancy. The man who poured a contemptuous flood of irony and -denunciation over the most sacred social institutions and their most -respectable representatives was the same man—the Gospels tell us—who -brooded with the wings of a maternal tenderness over the pathos of human -things. - -When, indeed, our imagination plays with the idea of a future Overman, -it is Leonardo who comes before us as his forerunner. Vasari, who had -never seen Leonardo, but has written so admirable an account of him, can -only describe him as “supernatural” and “divine.” In more recent times -Nietzsche remarked of Leonardo that “there is something super-European -and silent in him, the characteristic of one who has seen too wide a -circle of things good and evil.” There Nietzsche touches, even though -vaguely, more nearly than Vasari could, the distinguishing mark of this -endlessly baffling and enchanting figure. Every man of genius sees the -world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy. -But it is usually a measurable angle. We cannot measure the angle at -which Leonardo stands; he strikes athwart the line of our conventional -human thought in ways that are sometimes a revelation and sometimes an -impenetrable mystery. We are reminded of the saying of Heraclitus: “Men -hold some things wrong and some right; God holds all things fair.” The -dispute as to whether he was above all an artist or a man of science is -a foolish and even unmeaning dispute. In the vast orbit in which -Leonardo moved the distinction had little or no existence. That was -inexplicable to his contemporaries whose opinions Vasari echoes. They -could not understand that he was not of the crowd of makers of pretty -things who filled the workshops of Florence. They saw a man of beautiful -aspect and fine proportions, with a long curled beard and wearing a -rose-coloured tunic, and they called him a craftsman, an artist, and -thought him rather fantastic. But the medium in which this artist worked -was Nature, the medium in which the scientist works; every problem in -painting was to Leonardo a problem in science, every problem in physics -he approached in the spirit of the artist. “Human ingenuity,” he said, -“can never devise anything more simple and more beautiful, or more to -the purpose, than Nature does.” For him, as later for Spinoza, reality -and perfection were the same thing. Both aspects of life he treats as -part of his task—the extension of the field of human knowledge, the -intension of the power of human skill; for art, or, as he called it, -practice, without science, he said, is a boat without a rudder. -Certainly he occupied himself much with painting, the common medium of -self-expression in his day, though he produced so few pictures; he even -wrote a treatise on painting; he possessed, indeed, a wider perception -of its possibilities than any artist who ever lived. “Here is the -creator of modern landscape!” exclaimed Corot before Leonardo’s -pictures, and a remarkable description he has left of the precise -effects of colour and light produced when a woman in white stands on -green grass in bright sunshine shows that Leonardo clearly apprehended -the _plein-airiste’s_ problem. Doubtless it will prove possible to show -that he foresaw still later methods. He rejected these methods because -it seemed to him that the artist could work most freely by moving midway -between light and darkness, and, indeed, he, first of painters, -succeeded in combining them—just as he said also that Pleasure and Pain -should be imaged as twins since they are ever together, yet back to back -because ever contrary—and devised the method of _chiaroscuro_, by which -light reveals the richness of shade and shade heightens the brightness -of light. No invention could be more characteristic of this man whose -grasp of the world ever involved the union of opposites, and the -opposites both apprehended more intensely than falls to the lot of other -men. - -Yet it is noteworthy that Leonardo constantly speaks of the artist’s -function as searching into and imitating Nature, a view which the -orthodox artist anathematises. But Leonardo was not the orthodox artist, -not even, perhaps, as he is traditionally regarded, one of the world’s -supreme painters. For one may sympathise with Mr. Berenson’s engaging -attempt—unconvincing as it has seemed—to “expose” Leonardo. The drawings -Mr. Berenson, like every one else, admires whole-heartedly, but, save -for the unfinished “Adoration,” which he regards as a summit of art, he -finds the paintings mostly meaningless and repellent. He cannot rank -Leonardo as an artist higher than Botticelli, and concludes that he was -not so much a great painter as a great inventor in painting. With that -conclusion it is possible that Leonardo himself would have agreed. -Painting was to him, he said, a subtle invention whereby philosophical -speculation can be applied to all the qualities of forms. He seemed to -himself to be, here and always, a man standing at the mouth of the -gloomy cavern of Nature with arched back, one hand resting on his knee -and the other shading his eyes, as he peers intently into the darkness, -possessed by fear and desire, fear of the threatening gloom of that -cavern, desire to discover what miracle it might hold. We are far here -from the traditional attitude of the painter; we are nearer to the -attitude of that great seeker into the mysteries of Nature, one of the -very few born of women to whom we can ever even passingly compare -Leonardo, who felt in old age that he had only been a child gathering -shells and pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of truth. - -It is almost as plausible to regard Leonardo as primarily an engineer as -primarily a painter. He offered his services as a military engineer and -architect to the Duke of Milan and set forth at length his manifold -claims which include, one may note, the ability to construct what we -should now, without hesitation, describe as “tanks.” At a later period -he actually was appointed architect and engineer-general to Cæsar -Borgia, and in this capacity was engaged on a variety of works. He has, -indeed, been described as the founder of professional engineering. He -was the seer of coming steam engines and of steam navigation and -transportation. He was, again, the inventor of innumerable varieties of -ballistic machines and ordnance, of steam guns and breech-loading arms -with screw breech-lock. His science always tended to become applied -science. Experience shows the road to practice, he said, science is the -guide to art. Thus he saw every problem in the world as in the wide -sense a problem in engineering. All nature was a dynamic process of -forces beautifully effecting work, and it is this as it were distinctive -vision of the world as a whole which seems to give Leonardo that -marvellous flair for detecting vital mechanism in every field. It is -impossible even to indicate summarily the vast extent of the region in -which he was creating a new world, from the statement, which he set down -in large letters, “The sun does not move,” the earth being, he said, a -star, “much like the moon,” down to such ingenious original devices as -the construction of a diving-bell, a swimming-belt, and a parachute of -adequate dimensions, while, as is now well known, Leonardo not only -meditated with concentrated attention on the problem of flight, but -realised scientifically the difficulties to be encountered, and made -ingenious attempts to overcome them in the designing of flying-machines. -It is enough—following expert scientific guidance—to enumerate a few -points: he studied botany in the biological spirit; he was a founder of -geology, discovering the significance of fossils and realising the -importance of river erosion; by his studies in the theories of mechanics -and their utilization in peace and war he made himself the prototype of -the modern man of science. He was in turn biologist in every field of -vital mechanism, and the inaugurator before Vesalius (who, however, knew -nothing of his predecessor’s work) of the minute study of anatomy by -direct investigation (after he had found that Galen could not be relied -on) and _post-mortem_ dissections; he nearly anticipated Harvey’s -conception of the circulation of the blood by studying the nature of the -heart as a pump. He was hydraulician, hydrographer, geometrician, -algebraist, mechanician, optician.[45] These are but a few of the fields -in which Leonardo’s marvellous insight into the nature of the forces -that make the world and his divining art of the methods of employing -them to human use have of late years been revealed. For centuries they -were concealed in notebooks scattered through Europe and with difficulty -decipherable. Yet they are not embodied in vague utterances or casual -intuitions, but display a laborious concentration on the precise details -of the difficulties to be overcome; nor was patient industry in him, as -often happens, the substitute for natural facility, for he was a person -of marvellous natural facility, and, like such persons, most eloquent -and persuasive in speech. At the same time his more general and -reflective conclusions are expressed in a style combining the maximum of -clarity with the maximum of concision,—far, indeed, removed from the -characteristic florid redundancy of Italian prose,—which makes Leonardo, -in addition to all else, a supreme master of language.[46] - -Yet the man to whom we must credit these vast intellectual achievements -was no abstracted philosopher shut up in a laboratory. He was, even to -look upon, one of the most attractive and vivid figures that ever walked -the earth. As has sometimes happened with divine and mysterious persons, -he was the natural child of his mother, Caterina, of whom we are only -told that she was “of good blood,” belonging to Vinci like Ser Piero the -father, and that a few years after Leonardo’s birth she became the -reputable wife of a citizen of his native town. Ser Piero da Vinci was a -notary, of a race of notaries, but the busiest notary in Florence and -evidently a man of robust vigour; he married four times and his youngest -child was fifty years the junior of Leonardo. We hear of the -extraordinary physical strength of Leonardo himself, of his grace and -charm, of his accomplishments in youth, especially in singing and -playing on the flute, though he had but an elementary school education. -Except for what he learnt in the workshop of the many-sided but then -still youthful Verrocchio, he was his own schoolmaster, and was thus -enabled to attain that absolute emancipation from authority and -tradition which made him indifferent even to the Greeks, to whom he was -most akin. He was left-handed; his peculiar method of writing long -raised the suspicion that it was deliberately adopted for concealment, -but it is to-day recognised as simply the ordinary mirror-writing of a -left-handed child without training. This was not the only anomaly in -Leonardo’s strange nature. We now know that he was repeatedly charged as -a youth on suspicion of homosexual offences; the result remains obscure, -but there is some reason to think he knew the inside of a prison. -Throughout life he loved to surround himself with beautiful youths, -though no tradition of license or vice clings to his name. The precise -nature of his sexual temperament remains obscure. It mocks us, but -haunts us from out of his most famous pictures. There is, for instance, -the “John the Baptist” of the Louvre, which we may dismiss with the -distinguished art critic of to-day as an impudent blasphemy or brood -over long, without being clearly able to determine into what obscure -region of the Freudian Unconscious Leonardo had here adventured. Freud -himself has devoted one of his most fascinating essays to a -psychoanalytic interpretation of Leonardo’s enigmatic personality. He -admits it is a speculation; we may take it or leave it. But Freud has -rightly apprehended that in Leonardo sexual passion was largely -sublimated into intellectual passion, in accordance with his own saying, -“Nothing can be loved or hated unless first we have knowledge of it,” -or, as he elsewhere said, “True and great love springs out of great -knowledge, and where you know little you can love but little or not at -all.” So it was that Leonardo became a master of life. Vasari could -report of him—almost in the words it was reported of another supreme but -widely different figure, the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier—that “with the -splendour of his most beautiful countenance he made serene every broken -spirit.” To possess by self-mastery the sources of love and hate is to -transcend good and evil and so to possess the Overman’s power of binding -up the hearts that are broken by good and evil. - -Every person of genius is in some degree at once man, woman, and child. -Leonardo was all three in the extreme degree and yet without any -apparent conflict. The infantile strain is unquestioned, and, apart from -the problem of his sexual temperament, Leonardo was a child even in his -extraordinary delight in devising fantastic toys and contriving -disconcerting tricks. His more than feminine tenderness is equally -clear, alike in his pictures and in his life. Isabella d’Este, in asking -him to paint the boy Jesus in the Temple, justly referred to “the -gentleness and sweetness which mark your art.” His tenderness was shown -not only towards human beings, but to all living things, animals and -even plants, and it would appear that he was a vegetarian. Yet at the -same time he was emphatically masculine, altogether free from weakness -or softness. He delighted in ugliness as well as in beauty; he liked -visiting the hospitals to study the sick in his thirst for knowledge; he -pondered over battles and fighting; he showed no compunction in planning -devilish engines of military destruction. His mind was of a definitely -realistic and positive cast; though there seems no field of thought he -failed to enter, he never touched metaphysics, and though his worship of -Nature has the emotional tone of religion, even of ecstasy, he was -clearly disdainful of the established religions, and perpetually shocked -“the timid friends of God.” By precept and by practice he proclaimed the -lofty solitude of the individual soul, and he felt only contempt for the -herd. We see how this temper became impressed on his face in his own -drawing of himself in old age, with that intent and ruthless gaze -wrapped in intellectual contemplation of the outspread world. - -Leonardo comes before us, indeed, in the end, as a figure for awe rather -than for love. Yet, as the noblest type of the Overman we faintly try to -conceive, Leonardo is the foe, not of man, but of the enemies of man. -The great secrets that with clear vision his stern grip tore from -Nature, the new instruments of power that his energy wrought, they were -all for the use and delight of mankind. So Leonardo is the everlasting -embodiment of that brooding human spirit whose task never dies. Still -to-day it stands at the mouth of the gloomy cavern of Nature, even of -Human Nature, with bent back and shaded eyes, seeking intently to -penetrate the gloom beyond, with the fear of that threatening darkness, -with the desire of what redeeming miracle it yet perchance may hold. - - - V - - -THAT Leonardo da Vinci was not only supremely great in science, but the -incarnation of the spirit of science, the artist and lover of Nature, is -a fact it is well to bear in mind. Many mistakes would be avoided if it -were more clearly present to consciousness. We should no longer find the -artists in design absurdly chafing under what they considered the -bondage of the artists in thought. It would no longer be possible, as it -was some years ago, and may be still, for a narrow-minded pedagogue like -Brunetière, however useful in his own field, to be greeted as a prophet -when he fatuously proclaimed what he termed “the bankruptcy of science.” -Unfortunately so many of the people who masquerade under the name of -“men of science” have no sort of title to that name. They may be doing -good and honest work by accumulating in little cells the facts which -others, more truly inspired by the spirit of science, may one day work -on; they may be doing more or less necessary work by the application to -practical life of the discoveries which genuine men of science have -made. But they themselves have just as much, and no more, claim to use -the name of “science” as the men who make the pots and dishes piled up -in a crockery shop have to use the name of “art.”[47] They have not yet -even learnt that “science” is not the accumulation of knowledge in the -sense of piling up isolated facts, but the active organisation of -knowledge, the application to the world of the cutting edge of a -marvellously delicate instrument, and that this task is impossible -without the widest range of vision and the most restless fertility of -imagination. - -Of such more genuine men of science—to name one whom by virtue of -several common interests I was sometimes privileged to come near—was -Francis Galton. He was not a professional man of science; he was even -willing that his love of science should be accounted simply a hobby. -From the standpoint of the ordinary professional scientific man he was -probably an amateur. He was not even, as some have been, a learned -amateur. I doubt whether he had really mastered the literature of any -subject, though I do not doubt that that mattered little. When he heard -of some famous worker in a field he was exploring, he would look up that -man’s work; so it was with Weismann in the field of heredity. And, as I -would note with a smile in reading his letters, Galton was not able to -spell Weismann’s name correctly.[48] His attitude in science might be -said to be pioneering much like that of the pioneers of museums in the -later seventeenth and earlier eighteenth centuries, men like Tradescant -and Ashmole and Evelyn and Sloane: an insatiable curiosity in things -that were only just beginning, or had not yet begun, to arouse -curiosity. So it was that when I made some personal experiments with the -Mexican cactus, mescal (_Anhalonium Lewinii_), to explore its -vision-producing qualities, then quite unknown in England, Galton was -eagerly interested and wanted to experiment on himself, though -ultimately dissuaded on account of his advanced age. But, on this basis, -Galton’s curiosity was not the mere inquisitiveness of the child, it was -coördinated with an almost uniquely organised brain as keen as it was -well-balanced. So that on the one hand his curiosity was transformed -into methods that were endlessly ingenious and inventive, and on the -other it was guided and held in check by inflexible caution and good -sense. And he knew how to preserve that exquisite balance without any -solemnity or tension or self-assertion, but playfully and graciously, -with the most unfailing modesty. It was this rare combination of -qualities—one may see it all in his “Inquiries into Human Faculty”—which -made him the very type of the man of genius, operating, not by -profession or by deliberate training, but by natural function, throwing -light on the dark places of the world and creating science in -out-of-the-way fields of human experience which before had been left to -caprice or not even perceived at all. Throughout he was an artist and -if, as is reported, he spent the last year of his life chiefly in -writing a novel, that was of a piece with the whole of his marvellous -activity; he had never been doing anything else. Only his romances were -real. - -Galton’s yet more famous cousin, Charles Darwin, presents in equal -purity the lover and the artist in the sphere of Nature and Science. No -doubt there were once many obtuse persons to whom these names seemed -scarcely to fit when applied to Darwin. There have been people to whom -Darwin scarcely seemed a man of genius, merely a dry laborious -pedestrian student of facts. He himself even—as many people find it -difficult to forget—once lamented his indifference to poetry and art. -But Darwin was one of those elect persons in whose subconscious, if not -in their conscious, nature is implanted the realisation that “science -_is_ poetry,” and in a field altogether remote from the poetry and art -of convention he was alike poet and artist. Only a man so endowed could -from a suggestion received on reading Malthus have conceived of natural -selection as a chief moulding creative force of an infinite succession -of living forms; so also of his fantastic theory of pangenesis. Even in -trifling matters of experiment, such as setting a musician to play the -bassoon in his greenhouse, to ascertain whether music affected plants, -he had all the inventive imagination of poet or of artist. He was poet -and artist—though I doubt if this has been pointed out—in his whole -attitude towards Nature. He worked hard, but to him work was a kind of -play, and it may well be that with his fragile health he could not have -carried on his work if it had not been play. Again and again in his -“Life and Letters” we find the description of his observations or -experiments introduced by some such phrase as: “I was infinitely -amused.” And he remarks of a biological problem that it was like a game -of chess. I doubt, indeed, whether any great man of science was more of -an artist than Darwin, more consciously aware that he was playing with -the world, more deliciously thrilled by the fun of life. That man may -well have found “poetry and art” dull who himself had created the theory -of sexual selection which made the whole becoming of life art and the -secret of it poetry.[49] - -It is not alone among biologists, from whose standpoint it may be judged -easier to reach, since they are concerned with living Nature, that we -find the attitude of the lover and the artist. We find it just as well -marked when the man of genius plays in what some might think the arid -field of the physicist. Faraday worked in a laboratory, a simple one, -indeed, but the kind of place which might be supposed fatal to the true -spirit of science, and without his researches in magnetic electricity we -might have missed, with or without a pang, those most practical machines -of our modern life, the dynamo and the telephone. Yet Faraday had no -practical ends in view; it has been possible to say of him that he -investigated Nature as a poet investigates the emotions. That would not -have sufficed to make him the supreme man of science he was. His -biographer, Dr. Bence Jones, who knew him well, concludes that Faraday’s -first great characteristic was his trust in facts, and his second his -imagination. There we are brought to the roots of his nature. Only, it -is important to remember, these two characteristics were not separate -and distinct. In themselves they may be opposing traits; it was because -in Faraday they were held together in vital tension that he became so -potent an instrument of research into Nature’s secrets. Tyndall, who was -his friend and fellow worker, seems to have perceived this. “The force -of his imagination,” wrote Tyndall, “was enormous,”—he “rose from the -smallest beginnings to the greatest ends,” from “bubbles of oxygen and -nitrogen to the atmospheric envelope of the earth itself,”—but “he -bridled it like a mighty rider.” Faraday himself said to the same -effect: “Let the imagination go, guarding it by judgment and principles, -but holding it in and directing it by experiment.” Elsewhere he has -remarked that in youth he was, and he might have added that he still -remained, “a very lively imaginative person and could believe in the -‘Arabian Nights’ as easily as in the ‘Encyclopædia’.” But he soon -acquired almost an instinct for testing facts by experiment, for -distrusting such alleged facts as he had not so tested, and for -accepting all the conclusions that he had thus reached with a complete -indifference to commonly accepted beliefs. (It is true he was a faithful -and devout elder in the Sandemanian Church, and that is not the least -fascinating trait in this fascinating man.) Tyndall has insisted on both -of these aspects of Faraday’s mental activity. He had “wonderful -vivacity,” he was “a man of excitable and fiery nature,” and “underneath -his sweetness was the heat of a volcano.” He himself believed that there -was a Celtic strain in his heredity; there was a tradition that the -family came from Ireland; I cannot find that there are any Faradays, or -people of any name resembling Faraday, now in Ireland, but Tyndall, -being himself an Irishman, liked to believe that the tradition was -sound. It would only account for the emotionally vivacious side of this -nature. There was also the other side, on which Tyndall also insists: -the love of order, the extreme tenacity, the high self-discipline able -to convert the fire within into a clear concentrated glow. In the fusion -of these two qualities “he was a prophet,” says Tyndall, “and often -wrought by an inspiration to be understood by sympathy alone.” His -expansive emotional imagination became the servant of truth, and sprang -into life at its touch. In carrying out physical experiments he would -experience a childlike joy and his eyes sparkled. “Even to his latest -days he would almost dance for joy at being shown a new experiment.” -Silvanus Thompson, in his book on Faraday, insists (as Tyndall had) on -the association with this childlike joy in imaginative extravagance of -the perpetual impulse to test and to prove, “yet never hesitating to -push to their logical conclusions the ideas suggested by experiment, -however widely they might seem to lead from the accepted modes of -thought.” His method was the method of the “Arabian Nights,” transferred -to the region of facts. - -Faraday was not a mathematician. But if we turn to Kepler, who moved in -the sphere of abstract calculation, we find precisely the same -combination of characteristics. It was to Kepler, rather than to -Copernicus, that we owe the establishment of the heliocentric theory of -our universe, and Kepler, more than any man, was the precursor of -Newton. It has been said that if Kepler had never lived it is difficult -to conceive who could have taken his place and achieved his special part -in the scientific creation of our universe. For that pioneering part was -required a singular blend of seemingly opposed qualities. Only a wildly -daring, original, and adventurous spirit could break away from the -age-long traditions and rigid preconceptions which had ruled astronomy -for thousands of years. Only an endlessly patient, careful, laborious, -precise investigator could set up the new revolutionary conceptions -needed to replace these traditions and preconceptions. Kepler supplied -this rare combination of faculties. He possessed the most absurdly -extravagant imagination; he developed a greater regard for accuracy in -calculation than the world had ever known. He was willing to believe -that the earth was a kind of animal, and would not have been surprised -to find that it possessed lungs or gills. At the same time so set was he -on securing the precise truth, so patiently laborious, that some of his -most elaborate calculations were repeated, and without the help of -logarithms, even seventy times. The two essential qualities that make -the supreme artist in science have never been so clearly made manifest -as in Kepler. - -Kepler may well bring us to Einstein, the greatest pioneer in the -comprehension of the universe since his day, and, indeed, one who is -more than a pioneer, since he already seems to have won a place beside -Newton. It is a significant fact that Einstein, though he possesses an -extremely cautious, critical mind, and is regarded as conspicuous for -his common sense, has a profound admiration for Kepler, whom he -frequently quotes. For Einstein also is an imaginative artist.[50] - -Einstein is obviously an artist, even in appearance, as has often been -noted by those who have met him; “he looks far more the musician than -the man of science,” one writes, while those who know him well say that -he is “essentially as much an artist as a discoverer.” As a matter of -fact he is an artist in one of the most commonly recognised arts, being -an accomplished musician, a good violinist, it is said, while -improvisation on the piano, he himself says, is “a necessity of his -life.” His face, we are told, is illumined when he listens to music; he -loves Bach and Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner much less, while -to Chopin, Schumann, and the so-called romantics in music, as we might -anticipate, he is indifferent. His love of music is inborn; it developed -when, as a child, he would think out little songs “in praise of God,” -and sing them by himself; music, Nature, and God began, even at that -early age, to become a kind of unity to him. “Music,” said Leibnitz, “is -the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being -aware that it is counting.” It is the most abstract, the most nearly -mathematical of the arts—we may recall how music and mathematics had -their scientific origin together in the discovery of Pythagoras—and it -is not surprising that it should be Einstein’s favorite art.[51] It is -even more natural that, next to music, he should be attracted to -architecture—the art which Goethe called “frozen music”—for here we are -actually plunged into mechanics, here statics and dynamics are -transformed into visible beauty. To painting he is indifferent, but he -is drawn to literature, although no great reader. In literature, indeed, -it would seem that it is not so much art that he seeks as emotion; in -this field it is no longer the austerely architectonic that draws him; -thus he is not attracted to Ibsen; he is greatly attracted to Cervantes -as well as Keller and Strindberg; he has a profound admiration for -Shakespeare, but is cooler towards Goethe, while it would seem that -there is no writer to whom he is more fervently attached than the most -highly emotional, the most profoundly disintegrated in nervous -organisation of all great writers, Dostoievsky, especially his -masterpiece, “The Brothers Karamazov.” “Dostoievsky gives me more than -any scientist, more than Gauss.” All literary analysis or æsthetic -subtlety, it seems to Einstein, fails to penetrate to the heart of a -work like “The Karamazovs,” it can only be grasped by the feelings. His -face lights up when he speaks of it and he can find no word but “ethical -satisfaction.” For ethics in the ordinary sense, as a system, means -little to Einstein; he would not even include it in the sciences; it is -the ethical joy embodied in art which satisfies him. Moreover, it is -said, the keynote of Einstein’s emotional existence is the cry of -Sophocles’ Antigone: “I am not here to hate with you, but to love with -you.” The best that life has to offer, he feels, is a face glowing with -happiness. He is an advanced democrat and pacifist rather than (as is -sometimes supposed) a socialist; he believes in the internationality of -all intellectual work and sees no reason why this should destroy -national characteristics. - -Einstein is not—and this is the essential point to make clear—merely an -artist in his moments of leisure and play, as a great statesman may play -golf or a great soldier grow orchids. He retains the same attitude in -the whole of his work. He traces science to its roots in emotion, which -is exactly where art also is rooted. Of Max Planck, the physicist, for -whom he has great admiration, Einstein has said: “The emotional -condition which fits him for his task is akin to that of a devotee or a -lover.” We may say the same, it would seem, of Einstein himself. He is -not even to be included, as some might have supposed, in that rigid sect -which asserts that all real science is precise measurement; he -recognises that the biological sciences must be largely independent of -mathematics. If mathematics were the only path of science, he once -remarked, Nature would have been illegible for Goethe, who had a -non-mathematical, even anti-mathematical, mind, and yet possessed a -power of intuition greater than that of many an exact investigator.[52] -All great achievements in science, he holds, start from intuition. This -he constantly repeats, although he adds that the intuition must not -stand alone, for invention also is required. He is disposed to regard -many scientific discoveries commonly regarded the work of pure thought -as really works of art. He would have this view embodied in all -education, making education a free and living process, with no drilling -of the memory and no examinations, mainly a process of appeal to the -senses in order to draw out delicate reactions. With his end, and even -for the sake of acquiring ethical personality, he would have every child -learn a handicraft, joinery, bookbinding, or other, and, like Élie -Faure,[53] he has great faith in the educational value of the cinema. We -see that behind all Einstein’s activity lies the conception that the -physicist’s work is to attain a picture, “a world-picture,” as he calls -it. “I agree with Schopenhauer,” Einstein said at a celebration in -honour of Planck in 1918, “that one of the most powerful motives that -attract people to science and art is the longing to escape from everyday -life with its painful coarseness and desolating bareness, and to break -the fetters of their own ever-changing desires. It impels those of -keener sensibility out of their personal existences into the world of -objective perception and understanding. It is a motive force of like -kind to that which drives the dweller in noisy confused cities to -restful Alpine heights whence he seems to have an outlook on eternity. -Associated with this negative motive is the positive motive which impels -men to seek a simplified synoptic view of the world conformable to their -own nature, overcoming the world by replacing it with this picture. The -painter, the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, all do this, each in -his own way.” Spengler has elaborately argued that there is a perfect -identity of physics, mathematics, religion, and great art.[54] We might -fairly be allowed to point to Einstein as a lofty embodiment of that -identity. - -Here, where we reach the sphere of mathematics, we are among processes -which seem to some the most inhuman of all human activities and the most -remote from poetry. Yet it is here that the artist has the fullest scope -for his imagination. “Mathematics,” says Bertrand Russell in his -“Mysticism and Logic,” “may be defined as the subject in which we never -know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.” -We are in the imaginative sphere of art, and the mathematician is -engaged in a work of creation which resembles music in its orderliness, -and is yet reproducing on another plane the order of the universe, and -so becoming as it were a music of the spheres. It is not surprising that -the greatest mathematicians have again and again appealed to the arts in -order to find some analogy to their own work. They have indeed found it -in the most various arts, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, although -it would certainly seem that it is in music, the most abstract of the -arts, the art of number and of time, that we find the closest analogy. -“The mathematician’s best work is art,” said Mittag-Lefler, “a high and -perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear -and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch each other.” -And Sylvester wrote in his “Theory of Reciprocants”: “Does it not seem -as if Algebra had attained to the dignity of a fine art, in which the -workman has a free hand to develop his conceptions, as in a musical -theme or a subject for painting? It has reached a point in which every -properly developed algebraical composition, like a skilful landscape, is -expected to suggest the notion of an infinite distance lying beyond the -limits of the canvas.” “Mathematics, rightly viewed,” says Bertrand -Russell again, “possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty -cold and austere, like that of sculpture.... The true spirit of delight, -the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the -touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as -surely as in poetry.” - -The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human -thought. But it is the same ladder which we have all of us been always -ascending, alike from the infancy of the individual and the infancy of -the race. Molière’s Jourdain had been speaking prose for more than forty -years without knowing it. Mankind has been thinking poetry throughout -its long career and remained equally ignorant. - -Footnote 26: - - It would not appear that the pioneers of the Mathematical Renaissance - of the twentieth century are inclined to imitate Descartes in this - matter. Einstein would certainly not, and many apostles of physical - science to-day (see, e.g., Professor Smithells, _From a Modern - University: Some Aims and Aspirations of Science_) insist on the - æsthetic, imaginative, and other “art” qualities of science. - -Footnote 27: - - C. Singer. “What is Science?” _British Medical Journal_, 25th June, - 1921. Singer refuses the name of “science” in the strict sense to - fields of completely organised knowledge which have ceased growing, - like human anatomy (though, of course, the anatomist still remains a - man of science by working outwards into adjoining related fields), - preferring to term any such field of completed knowledge a - _discipline_. This seems convenient and I should like to regard it as - sound. It is not, however, compatible with the old doctrine of Mill - and Colvin and Ray Lankester, for it excludes from the field of - science exactly what they regarded as most typically science, and some - one might possibly ask whether in other departments, like Hellenic - sculpture or Sung pottery, a completed art ceases to be art. - -Footnote 28: - - It has often been pointed out that the imaginative application of - science—artistic ideas like that of the steam locomotive, the - flying-machine heavier than air, the telegraph, the telephone, and - many others—were even at the moment of their being achieved, - elaborately shown to be “impossible” by men who had been too hastily - hoisted up to positions of “scientific” eminence. - -Footnote 29: - - J. B. Baillie, _Studies in Human Nature_ (1921), p. 221. This point - has become familiar ever since F. A. Lange published his almost - epoch-marking work, _The History of Materialism_, which has made so - deep an impress on many modern thinkers from Nietzsche to Vaihinger; - it is indeed a book which can never be forgotten (I speak from - experience) by any one who read it in youth. - -Footnote 30: - - G. Wallas, _The Great Society_, p. 107. - -Footnote 31: - - Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, vol. I, chap. III, where will be found an - attractive account of Pythagoras’ career and position. - -Footnote 32: - - Always, it may perhaps be noted in passing, it seems to have been - difficult for the sober and solemn Northerner, especially of England, - to enter into the Greek spirit, all the more since that spirit was - only the spirit of a sprinkling of people amid a hostile mass about as - unlike anything we conventionally call “Greek” as could well be - imagined, so that, as Élie Faure, the historian of art, has lately - remarked, Greek art is a biological “monstrosity.” (Yet, I would ask, - might we not say the same of France or of England?) That is why it is - usually so irritating to read books written about the Greeks by - barbarians; they slur over or ignore what they do not like and, one - suspects, they instinctively misinterpret what they think they do - like. Better even the most imperfect knowledge of a few original - texts, better even only a few days on the Acropolis, than the - second-hand opinions of other people. And if we must have a book about - the Greeks, there is always Athenæus, much nearer to them in time and - in spirit, with all his gossip, than any Northern barbarian, and an - everlasting delight. - -Footnote 33: - - Along another line it should have been clear that the dialogues of the - philosophers were drama and not history. It would appear (Croiset, - _Littérature Grecque_, vol. III, pp. 448 _et seq._) that with - Epicharmus of Cos, who was settled in Megara at the beginning of the - fifth century, philosophic comedy flourished brilliantly at Syracuse, - and indeed fragments of his formal philosophic dialogue survive. Thus - it is suggested that Athenian comedy and sophistic prose dialogues may - be regarded as two branches drawn from the ancient prototype of such - Syracusan comedy, itself ultimately derived from Ionian philosophy. It - is worth noting, I might add, that when we first hear of the Platonic - dialogues they were being grouped in trilogies and tetralogies like - the Greek dramas; that indicates, at all events, what their earliest - editors thought about them. It is also interesting to note that the - writer of, at the present moment, the latest handbook to Plato, - Professor A. E. Taylor (_Plato_, 1922, pp. 32-33), regards the - “Socrates” of Plato as no historical figure, not even a mask of Plato - himself, but simply “the hero of the Platonic drama,” of which we have - to approach in much the same way as the work of “a great dramatist or - novelist.” - -Footnote 34: - - He had often been bidden in dreams to make music, said the Platonic - Socrates in _Phædo_, and he had imagined that that was meant to - encourage him in the pursuit of philosophy, “which is the noblest and - best of music.” - -Footnote 35: - - In discussing Socrates I have made some use of Professor Dupréel’s - remarkable book, _La Légende Socratique_ (1922). Dupréel himself, with - a little touch of irony, recommends a careful perusal of the beautiful - and monumental works erected by Zeller and Grote and Gomperz to the - honour of Socrates. - -Footnote 36: - - Count Hermann Keyserling, _Philosophie als Kunst_ (1920), p. 2. He - associates this with the need for a philosophy to possess a subjective - personal character, without which it can have no value, indeed no - content at all. - -Footnote 37: - - Croce, _Problemi d’ Estetica_, p. 15. I have to admit, for myself, - that, while admiring the calm breadth of Croce’s wide outlook, it is - sometimes my misfortune, in spite of myself, when I go to his works, - to play the part of a Balaam _à rebours_. I go forth to bless: and, - somehow, I curse. - -Footnote 38: - - James Hinton, a pioneer in so many fields, clearly saw that thinking - is really an art fifty years ago. “Thinking is no mere mechanical - process,” he wrote (_Chapters on the Art of Thinking_, pp. 43 _et - seq._), “it is a great Art, the chief of all the Arts.... Those only - can be called thinkers who have a native gift, a special endowment for - the work, and have been trained, besides, by assiduous culture. And - though we continually assume that every one is capable of thinking, do - we not all feel that there is somehow a fallacy in this assumption? Do - we not feel that what people set up as their ‘reasons’ for - disbelieving or believing are often nothing of the sort?... The Art - faculty is Imagination, the power of seeing the unseen, the power also - of putting ourselves out of the centre, of reducing ourselves to our - true proportions, of truly using our own impressions. And is not this - in reality the chief element in the work of the thinker?... Science - _is_ poetry.” - -Footnote 39: - - So far, indeed, as I am aware, I was responsible for the first English - account of his work (outside philosophical journals); it appeared in - the London _Nation and Athenæum_ a few years ago, and is partly - embodied in the present chapter. - -Footnote 40: - - I have based this sketch on an attractive and illuminating account of - his own development written by Professor Vaihinger for Dr. Raymund - Schmidt’s highly valuable series, _Die Deutsche Philosophie der - Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen_ (1921), vol. II. - -Footnote 41: - - “Most workers on the problem of atomic constitution,” remarks Sir - Ernest Rutherford (_Nature_, 5th August, 1922), “take as a working - hypothesis that the atoms of matter are purely electrical structures, - and that ultimately it is hoped to explain all the properties of atoms - as a result of certain combinations of the two fundamental units of - positive and negative electricity, the proton and electron.” - -Footnote 42: - - Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. I. - -Footnote 43: - - Otto Rank, _Der Künstler: Ansätze zu einer Sexual Psychologie_. - -Footnote 44: - - The sexual strain in the symbolism of language is touched on in my - _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. V, and similar traits in - primitive legends have been emphasised—many would say - over-emphasised—by Freud and Jung. - -Footnote 45: - - Einstein, in conversation with Moszkowski, expressed doubt as to the - reality of Leonardo’s previsions of modern science. But it scarcely - appeared that he had investigated the matter, while the definite - testimony of the experts in many fields who have done so cannot be put - aside. - -Footnote 46: - - For the Italian reader of Leonardo the fat little volume of - _Frammenti_, edited by Dr. Solmi and published by Barbèra, is a - precious and inexhaustible pocket companion. For the English reader - Mr. MacCurdy’s larger but much less extensive volume of extracts from - the _Note-Books_, or the still further abridged _Thoughts_, must - suffice. Herbert Horne’s annotated version of Vasari’s _Life_ is - excellent for Leonardo’s personality and career. - -Footnote 47: - - Morley Roberts, who might be regarded as a pupil in the school of - Leonardo and trained like him in the field of art, has in various - places of his suggestive book, _Warfare in the Human Body_, sprinkled - irony over the examples he has come across of ignorant specialists - claiming to be men of “science.” - -Footnote 48: - - Needless to say, I do not mention this to belittle Galton. A careful - attention to words, which in its extreme form becomes pedantry, is by - no means necessarily associated with a careful attention to things. - Until recent times English writers, even the greatest, were always - negligent in spelling; it would be foolish to suppose they were - therefore negligent in thinking. - -Footnote 49: - - Darwin even overestimated the æsthetic element in his theory of sexual - selection, and (I have had occasion elsewhere to point out) - unnecessarily prejudiced that theory by sometimes unwarily assuming a - conscious æsthetic element. - -Footnote 50: - - It is probable that the reason why it is often difficult to trace the - imaginative artist in great men of supposedly abstract science is the - paucity of intimate information about them. Even their scientific - friends have rarely had the patience, or even perhaps the - intelligence, to observe them reverently and to record their - observations. We know almost nothing that is intimately personal about - Newton. As regards Einstein, we are fortunate in possessing the book - of Moszkowski, _Einstein_ (translated into English under the title of - _Einstein the Searcher_), which contains many instructive - conversations and observations by a highly intelligent and - appreciative admirer, who has set them down in a Boswellian spirit - that faintly recalls Eckermann’s book on Goethe (which, indeed, - Moszkowski had in mind), though falling far short of that supreme - achievement. The statements in the text are mainly gleaned from - Moszkowski. - -Footnote 51: - - Spengler holds (_Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, vol. X, p. 329) that - the development of music throughout its various stages in our European - culture really has been closely related with the stages of the - development of mathematics. - -Footnote 52: - - I would here refer to a searching investigation, “Goethe und die - mathematische Physik: Eine Erkenntnistheoretische Studie,” in Ernst - Cassirer’s _Idee und Gestalt_ (1921). It is here shown that in some - respects Goethe pointed the way along which mathematical physics, by - following its own paths, has since travelled, and that even when most - non-mathematical Goethe’s scientific attitude was justifiable. - -Footnote 53: - - See the remarkable essay, “De la Cinéplastique,” in Élie Faure’s - _L’Arbre d’Éden_ (1922). It is, however, a future and regenerated - cinema for which Élie Faure looks, “to become the art of the crowd, - the powerful centre of communion in which new symphonic forms will be - born in the tumult of passions and utilized for fine and elevating - æsthetic ends.” - -Footnote 54: - - O. Spengler, _Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, vol. I, p. 576. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - THE ART OF WRITING - - - I - - -FROM time to time we are solemnly warned that in the hands of modern -writers language has fallen into a morbid state. It has become -degenerate, if not, indeed, the victim of “senile ataxy” or “general -paralysis.” Certainly it is well that our monitors should seek to arouse -in us the wholesome spirit of self-criticism. Whether we write ill or -well, we can never be too seriously concerned with what it is that we -are attempting to do. We may always be grateful to those who stimulate -us to a more wakeful activity in pursuing a task which can never be -carried to perfection. - -Yet these monitors seldom fail at the same time to arouse a deep revolt -in our minds. We are not only impressed by the critic’s own inability to -write any better than those he criticises. We are moved to question the -validity of nearly all the rules he lays down for our guidance. We are -inclined to dispute altogether the soundness of the premises from which -he starts. Of these three terms of our revolt, covering comprehensively -the whole ground, the first may be put aside—since the ancient retort is -always ineffective and it helps the patient not at all to bid the -physician heal himself—and we may take the last first. - -Men are always apt to bow down before the superior might of their -ancestors. It has been so always and everywhere. Even the author of the -once well-known book of Genesis believed that “there were giants in the -earth in those days,” the mighty men which were of old, the men of -renown, and still to-day among ourselves no plaint is more common than -that concerning the physical degeneracy of modern men as compared with -our ancestors of a few centuries ago. Now and then, indeed, there comes -along a man of science, like Professor Parsons, who has measured the -bones from the remains of the ancestors we still see piled up in the -crypt at Hythe, and finds that—however fine the occasional -exceptions—the average height of those men and women was decidedly less -than that of their present-day descendants. Fortunately for the vitality -of tradition, we cherish a wholesome distrust of science. And so it is -with our average literary stature. The academic critic regards himself -as the special depository of the accepted tradition, and far be it from -him to condescend to any mere scientific inquiry into the actual facts. -He half awakens from slumber to murmur the expected denunciation of his -own time, and therewith returns to slumber. He usually seems unaware -that even three centuries ago, in the finest period of English prose, -Swift, certainly himself a supreme master, was already lamenting “the -corruption of our style.” - -If it is asserted that the average writer of to-day has not equalled the -supreme writer of some earlier age,—there are but one or two in any -age,—we can only ejaculate: Strange if he had! Yet that is all that the -academic critic usually seems to mean. If he would take the trouble to -compare the average prose writer of to-day with the average writer of -even so great an age as the Elizabethan, he might easily convince -himself that the former, whatever his imperfections, need not fear the -comparison. Whether or not Progress in general may be described as “the -exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance,” it is certainly so with -the progress of style, and the imperfections of our average everyday -writing are balanced by the quite other imperfections of our -forefathers’ writing. What, for instance, need we envy in the literary -methods of that great and miscellaneous band of writers whom Hakluyt -brought together in those admirable volumes which are truly great and -really fascinating only for reasons that have nothing to do with style? -Raleigh himself here shows no distinction in his narrative of that -discreditable episode,—as he clearly and rightly felt it to be,—the loss -of the _Revenge_ by the wilful Grenville. Most of them are bald, -savourless, monotonous, stating the obvious facts in the obvious way, -but hopelessly failing to make clear, when rarely they attempt it, -anything that is not obvious. They have none of the little unconscious -tricks of manner which worry the critic to-day. But their whole manner -is one commonplace trick from which they never escape. They are only -relieved by its simplicity and by the novelty which comes through age. -We have to remember that all mediocrity is impersonal and that when we -encourage its manifestations on printed pages we merely make mediocrity -more conspicuous. Nor can that be remedied by teaching the mediocre to -cultivate tricks of fashion or of vanity. There is more personality in -Claude Bernard’s “Leçons de Physiologie Expérimentales,” a great critic -of life and letters has pointed out, Remy de Gourmont, than in Musset’s -“Confession d’un Enfant du Siècle.” For personality is not something -that can be sought; it is a radiance that is diffused spontaneously. It -may even be most manifest when most avoided, and no writer—the remark -has doubtless often been made before—can be more personal than Flaubert -who had made almost a gospel of Impersonality. But the absence of -research for personality, however meritorious, will not suffice to bring -personality out of mediocrity. - -Moreover, the obvious fact seems often to be overlooked by the critic -that a vastly larger proportion of the population now write, and see -their writing printed. We live in what we call a democratic age in which -all are compulsorily taught how to make pothooks and hangers on paper. -So that every nincompoop—in the attenuated sense of the term—as soon as -he puts a pen in ink feels that he has become, like M. Jourdain, a -writer of prose. That feeling is justified only in a very limited sense, -and if we wish to compare the condition of things to-day with that in an -age when people wrote at the bidding of some urgent stimulus from -without or from within, we have at the outset to delete certainly over -ninety-five per cent of our modern so-called writers before we institute -any comparison. The writers thus struck out, it may be added, cannot -fail to include many persons of much note in the world. There are all -sorts of people to-day who write from all sorts of motives other than a -genuine aptitude for writing. To suppose that there can be any -comparison at this point of the present with the past and to dodder over -the decay of our language would seem a senile proceeding if we do not -happen to know that it occurs in all ages, and that, even at the time -when our prose speech was as near to perfection as it is ever likely to -be, its critics were bemoaning its corruption, lamenting, for instance, -the indolent new practice of increasing sibilation by changing -“arriveth” into “arrives” and pronouncing “walked” as “walkd,” sometimes -in their criticisms showing no more knowledge of the history and methods -of growth of English than our academic critics show to-day. - -For we know what to-day they tell us; it is not hard to know, their -exhortations, though few, are repeated in so psittaceous a manner. One -thinks, for instance, of that solemn warning against the enormity of the -split infinitive which has done so much to aggravate the Pharisaism of -the bad writers who scrupulously avoid it. This superstition seems to -have had its origin in a false analogy with Latin in which the -infinitive is never split for the good reason that it is impossible to -split. In the greater freedom of English it is possible and has been -done for at least the last five hundred years by the greatest masters of -English; only the good writer never uses this form helplessly and -involuntarily, but with a definite object; and that is the only rule to -observe. An absolute prohibition in this matter is the mark of those who -are too ignorant, or else too unintelligent, to recognise a usage which -is of the essence of English speech.[55] - -One may perhaps refer, again, to those who lay down that every sentence -must end on a significant word, never on a preposition, and who -reprobate what has been technically termed the post-habited prefix. They -are the same worthy and would-be old-fashioned people who think that a -piece of music must always end monotonously on a banging chord. Only -here they have not, any more than in music, even the virtue—if such it -be—of old fashion, for the final so-called preposition is in the genius -of the English language and associated with the Scandinavian—in the -wider ancient sense Danish—strain of English, one of the finest strains -it owns, imparting much of the plastic force which renders it flexible, -the element which helped to save it from the straitlaced tendency of -Anglo-Saxon and the awkward formality of Latin and French influence. The -foolish prejudice we are here concerned with seems to date from a period -when the example of French, in which the final preposition is -impossible, happened to be dominant. Its use in English is associated -with the informal grace and simplicity, the variety of tender cadence, -which our tongue admits. - -In such matters as the “split infinitive” and the “post-habited -preposition,” there should never have been any doubt as to the complete -validity and authority of the questioned usages. But there are other -points at which some even good critics may be tempted to accept the -condemnation of the literary grammarians. It is sufficient to mention -one: the nominative use of the pronoun “me.” Yet, surely, any one who -considers social practice as well as psychological necessity should not -fail to see that we must recognise a double use of “me” in English. The -French, who in such matters seem to have possessed a finer social and -psychological tact, have realised that je cannot be the sole nominative -of the first person and have supplemented it by _moi_ (_mi_ from -_mihi_). The Frenchman, when asked who is there, does not reply “Je!” -But the would-be English purist is supposed to be reduced to replying -“I!” Royal Cleopatra asks the Messenger: “Is she as tall as me?” The -would-be purist no doubt transmutes this as he reads into: “Is she as -tall as I?” We need not envy him. - -Such an example indicates how independent the free and wholesome life of -language is of grammatical rules. This is not to diminish the importance -of the grammarian’s task, but simply to define it, as the formulator, -and not the lawgiver, of usage. His rules are useful, not merely in -order to know how best to keep them, but in order to know how best to -break them. Without them freedom might become licence. Yet even licence, -we have to recognise, is the necessary offscouring of speech in its -supreme manifestations of vitality and force. English speech was never -more syntactically licentious than in the sixteenth century, but it was -never more alive, never more fitly the material for a great artist to -mould. So it is that in the sixteenth century we find Shakespeare. In -post-Dryden days (though Dryden was an excellent writer and engaged on -an admirable task) a supreme artist in English speech became impossible, -and if a Shakespeare had appeared all his strength would have been -wasted in a vain struggle with the grammarians. French speech has run a -similar and almost synchronous course with English. There was a -magnificently natural force and wealth in sixteenth-century French: in -Rabelais it had been even extravagantly exuberant; in Montaigne it is -still flexible and various—_ondoyant et divers_—and still full of -natural delight and freedom. But after Malherbe and his fellows French -speech acquired orderliness, precision, and formality; they were -excellent qualities, no doubt, but had to be paid for by some degree of -thinness and primness, even some stiffening of the joints. Rousseau came -and poured fresh blood from Switzerland into the language and a new -ineffable grace that was all his own; so that if we now hesitate to say, -with Landor, that he excels all the moderns for harmony, it is only -because they have learnt what he taught; and the later Romantics, under -the banner of Hugo, imparted colour and brilliance. Yet all the great -artists who have wrestled with French speech for a century have never -been able to restore the scent and the savour and the substance which -Villon and Montaigne without visible effort could once find within its -borders. In this as in other matters what we call Progress means the -discovery of new desirable qualities, and therewith the loss of other -qualities that were at least equally desirable. - -Then there is yet another warning which, especially in recent times, is -issued at frequent intervals, and that is against the use of verbal -counters, of worn or even worn-out phrases, of what we commonly fall -back on modern French to call _clichés_. We mean thereby the use of old -stereotyped phrases—Goethe called them “stamped” or _gestempelt_—to save -the trouble of making a new living phrase to suit our meaning. The word -_cliché_ is thus typographic, though, it so happens, it is derived from -an old French word of phonetic meaning, _cliqueter_ or _cliquer_ -(related to the German _klatschen_), which we already have in English as -to “click” or to “clack,” in a sense which well supplements its more -modern technical sense for this literary end. Yet the warning against -_clichés_ is vain. The good writer, by the very fact that he is alive -and craves speech that is vivid, as _clichés_ never are, instinctively -avoids their excessive use, while the nervous and bad writer, in his -tremulous anxiety to avoid these tabooed _clichés_, falls into the most -deplorable habits, like the late Mr. Robert Ross, who at one time was so -anxious to avoid _clichés_ that he acquired the habit of using them in -an inverted form and wrote a prose that made one feel like walking on -sharp flints; for, though a macadamized road may not be so good to walk -in as a flowered meadow, it is better than a macadamized road with each -stone turned upside down and the sharp edge uppermost. As a matter of -fact it is impossible to avoid the use of _clichés_ and counters in -speech, and if it were possible the results would be in the highest -degree tedious and painful. The word “_cliché_” itself, we have seen, is -a _cliché_, a worn counter of a word, with its original meaning all -effaced, and even its secondary meaning now only just visible. That, if -those folk who condemn _clichés_ only had the intelligence to perceive -it, is a significant fact. You cannot avoid using _clichés_, not even in -the very act of condemning them. They include, if we only look keenly -enough, nearly the whole of language, almost every separate word. If one -could avoid them one would be unintelligible. Even those common phrases -which it is peculiarly meet to call counters are not to be absolutely -condemned. They have become so common to use because so fit to use, as -Baudelaire understood when he spoke of “the immense depth of thought in -vulgar locutions.”[56] There is only one rule to follow here,—and it is -simply the rule in every part of art,—to know what one is doing, not to -go sheeplike with the flock, ignorantly, unthinkingly, heedlessly, but -to mould speech to expression the most truly one knows how. If, indeed, -we are seeking clarity and the precise expression of thought, there is -nothing we may not do if only we know how to do it—but that “if” might -well be in capitals. One who has spent the best part of his life in -trying to write things that had not been written before, and that were -very difficult to write, may perhaps be allowed to confess the hardness -of this task. - -To write is thus an arduous intellectual task, a process which calls for -the highest tension of the muscles in the escalade of a heaven which the -strongest and bravest and alertest can never hope to take by violence. -He has to be true,—whether it is in the external world he is working or -in his own internal world,—and as truth can only be seen through his own -temperament, he is engaged in moulding the expression of a combination -which has never been seen in the world before. - -It is sometimes said that the great writer seldom quotes, and that in -the main is true, for he finds it difficult to mix an alien music of -thought and speech with his own. Montaigne, it is also said, is an -exception, but that is scarcely true. What Montaigne quoted he often -translated and so moulded to the pattern of his own mind. The same may -be said of Robert Burton. If it had not been so these writers (almost -certainly Burton) could scarcely have attained to the rank of great -authors. The significant fact to note, however, is not that the great -writer rarely quotes, but that he knows how to quote. Schopenhauer was -here a master. He possessed a marvellous flair for fine sayings in -remote books, and these he would now and again let fall like jewels on -his page, with so happy a skill that they seem to be created for the -spot on which they fell. It is the little writer rather than the great -writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is really -never doing anything else.[57] - -It is not in writing only, in all art, in all science, the task before -each is that defined by Bacon: _man added to Nature_. It is so also in -painting, as a great artist of modern time, Cézanne, recognised even in -those same words: “He who wishes to make art,” he once said to Vollard, -“must follow Bacon, who defined the artist as ‘Homo additus Naturæ.’” So -it is that the artist, if he has succeeded in being true to his -function, is necessarily one who makes all things new.[58] That -remarkable artist who wrote the Book of the Revelation has expressed -this in his allegorical, perhaps unconscious, Oriental way, for he -represents the artist as hearing the divine spirit from the throne -within him uttering the command: “Behold, I make all things new. Write!” -The command is similar whatever the art may be, though it is here the -privilege of the writer to find his own art set forth as the inspired -ensample of all art. - -Thus it is that to write is a strenuous intellectual task not to be -achieved without the exercise of the best trained and most deliberate -rational faculties. That is the outcome of the whole argument up to this -point. There is so much bad writing in the world because writing has -been dominated by ignorance and habit and prudery, and not least by the -academic teachers and critics who have known nothing of what they claim -to teach and were often themselves singular examples of how not to -write. There has, on the other hand, been a little good writing here and -there in the world, through the ages, because a few possessed not only -courage and passion and patience, but knowledge and the concentrated -intellectual attention, and the resolution to seek truth, and the -conviction that, as they imagined, the genius they sought consisted in -taking pains. - -Yet, if that were all, many people would become great writers who, as we -well know, will never become writers; if that were all, writing could -scarcely even be regarded as an art. For art, or one side of it, -transcends conscious knowledge; a poet, as Landor remarked, “is not -aware of all that he knows, and seems at last to know as little about it -as a silkworm knows about the fineness of her thread.” Yet the same -great writer has also said of good poetry, and with equal truth, that -“the ignorant and inexpert lose half its pleasures.” We always move on -two feet, as Élie Faure remarks in his “L’Arbre d’Éden,” the two poles -of knowledge and of desire, the one a matter of deliberate acquirement -and the other of profound instinct, and all our movements are a -perpetual leap from one to the other, seeking a centre of gravity we -never attain.[59] So the achievement of style in writing, as in all -human intercourse, is something more than an infinite capacity for -taking pains. It is also defined—and, sometimes I think, supremely well -defined—as “grace seasoned with salt.” Beyond all that can be achieved -by knowledge and effort, there must be the spontaneous grace that -springs up like a fountain from the depth of a beautifully harmonious -nature, and there must be also the quality which the Spaniards call -“sal,” and so rightly admire in the speech of the women of the people of -their own land, the salt quality which gives savour and point and -antiseptic virtue.[60] - -The best literary prose speech is simply the idealisation in the heaven -of art of the finest common speech of earth, simply, yet never reached -for more than a moment in a nation’s long history. In Greece it was -immortally and radiantly achieved by Plato; in England it was attained -for a few years during the last years of the seventeenth and the first -years of the eighteenth centuries, lingering on, indeed, here and there -to the end of that century until crushed between the pedantry of Johnson -and the poetic licence of the Romantics. But for the rest only the most -happily endowed genius can even attain for a rare moment the perfection -of the Pauline ideal of “grace seasoned with salt.” - -It is fortunate, no doubt, that an age of machinery is well content with -machine-made writing. It would be in bad taste—too physiological, too -sentimental, altogether too antiquated—to refer to the symbolical -significance of the highly relevant fact that the heart, while -undoubtedly a machine, is at the same time a sensitively pulsating organ -with fleshy strings stretched from ventricle to valves, a harp on which -the great artist may play until our hearts also throb in unison. Yet -there are some to whom it still seems that, beyond mechanical skill, the -cadences of the artist’s speech are the cadences of his heart, and the -footfalls of his rhythm the footfalls of his spirit, in a great -adventure across the universe. - - - II - - -THUS we do not always realise that learning to write is partly a matter -of individual instinct. This is so even of that writing which, as -children, we learnt in copybooks with engraved maxims at the head of the -page. There are some, indeed, probably the majority, who quickly achieve -the ability to present a passable imitation of the irreproachable model -presented to them. There are some who cannot. I speak as one who knows, -for I recall how my first schoolmaster, a sarcastic little Frenchman, -irritated by my unchastenable hand, would sometimes demand if I wrote -with the kitchen poker, or again assert that I kept a tame spider to run -over the page, while a later teacher, who was an individualist and more -tolerant, yet sometimes felt called upon to murmur, in a tone of dubious -optimism: “You will have a hand of your own, my boy.” It is not lack of -docility that is in question, but an imperative demand of the nervous -system which the efforts of the will may indeed bend but cannot crush. - -Yet the writers who cheerfully lay down the laws of style seldom realise -this complexity and mystery enwrapping even so simple a matter as -handwriting. No one can say how much atavistic recurrence from remote -ancestors, how much family nervous habit, how much wayward yet -deep-rooted personal idiosyncrasy deflect the child’s patient efforts to -imitate the copperplate model which is set before him. The son often -writes like the father, even though he may seldom or never see his -father’s handwriting; brothers may write singularly alike, though taught -by different teachers and even in different continents. It has been -noted of the ancient and distinguished family of the Tyrrells that their -handwriting in the parish books of Stowmarket remained the same -throughout many generations. I have noticed, in a relation of my own, -peculiarities of handwriting identical with those of an ancestor two -centuries ago whose writing he certainly never saw. The resemblance is -often not that of exact formation, but of general air or underlying -structure.[61] One is tempted to think that often, in this as in other -matters, the possibilities are limited, and that when the child is -formed in his mother’s womb Nature cast the same old dice and the same -old combinations inevitably tend to recur. But that notion scarcely fits -all the facts, and our growing knowledge of the infinite subtlety of -heredity, of its presence even in the most seemingly elusive psychic -characters, indicates that the dice may be loaded and fall in accord -with harmonies we fail to perceive. The development of Mendelian -analysis may in time help us to understand them. - -The part in style which belongs to atavism, to heredity, to unconscious -instinct, is probably very large. It eludes us to an even greater extent -than the corresponding part in handwriting because the man of letters -may have none among his ancestors who sought expression in style, so -that only one Milton speaks for a mute inglorious family, and how far he -speaks truly remains a matter of doubt. We only divine the truth when we -know the character and deeds of the family. There could be no more -instructive revelation of family history in style than is furnished by -Carlyle. There had never been any writer in the Carlyle family, and if -there had, Carlyle at the time when his manner of writing was formed, -would scarcely have sought to imitate them. Yet we could not conceive -this stern, laborious, plebeian family of Lowland Scots—with its remote -Teutonic affinities, its coarseness, its narrowness, its assertive -inarticulative force—in any more fitting verbal translation than was -given it by this its last son, the pathetic little figure with the face -of a lost child, who wrote in a padded room and turned the rough -muscular and reproductive activity of his fathers into more than half a -century of eloquent chatter concerning Work and Silence, so writing his -name in letters of gold on the dome of the British Museum.[62] - -When we consider the characteristics, not of the family, but of the -race, it is easier to find examples of the force of ancestry, even -remote ancestry, overcoming environment and dominating style. -Shakespeare and Bacon were both Elizabethans who both lived from youth -upwards in London, and even moved to some extent almost in the same -circles. Yet all the influences of tradition and environment, which -sometimes seem to us so strong, scarcely sufficed to spread even the -faintest veneer of similarity over their style, and we could seldom -mistake a sentence of one for a sentence of the other. We always know -that Shakespeare—with his gay extravagance and redundancy, his essential -idealism—came of a people that had been changed in character from the -surrounding stock by a Celtic infolding of the receding British to -Wales.[63] We never fail to realise that Bacon—with his instinctive -gravity and temperance, the suppressed ardour of his aspiring -intellectual passion, his temperamental naturalism—was rooted deep in -that East Anglian soil which he had never so much as visited. In -Shakespeare’s veins there dances the blood of the men who made the -“Mabinogion”; we recognise Bacon as a man of the same countryside which -produced the forefathers of Emerson. Or we may consider the mingled -Breton and Gascon ancestry of Renan, in whose brain, in the very contour -and melody of his style, the ancient bards of Brittany have joined hands -with the tribe of Montaigne and Brantôme and the rest. Or, to take one -more example, we can scarcely fail to recognise in the style of Sir -Thomas Browne—as later, may be, in that of Hawthorne—the glamour of -which the latent aptitude had been handed on by ancestors who dwelt on -the borders of Wales. - -In these examples hereditary influence can be clearly distinguished from -merely external and traditional influences. Not that we need imply a -disparagement of tradition: it is the foundation of civilised progress. -Speech itself is a tradition, a naturally developed convention, and in -that indeed it has its universal applicability and use. It is the crude -amorphous material of art, of music and poetry. But on its formal side, -whatever its supreme significance as the instrument and medium of -expression, speech is a natural convention, an accumulated tradition. - -Even tradition, however, is often simply the corporeal embodiment, as it -were, of heredity. Behind many a great writer’s personality there stands -tradition, and behind tradition the race. That is well illustrated in -the style of Addison. This style—with a resilient fibre underneath its -delicacy and yet a certain freedom as of conversational familiarity—has -as its most easily marked structural signature a tendency to a usage it -has already been necessary to mention: the tendency to allow the -preposition to lag to the end of the sentence rather than to come tautly -before the pronoun with which in Latin it is combined. In a century in -which the Latin-French elements of English were to become developed, as -in Gibbon and Johnson, to the utmost, the totally different physiognomy -of Addison’s prose remained conspicuous,—though really far from -novel,—and to the sciolists of a bygone age it seemed marked by -carelessness, if not licence, at the best by personal idiosyncrasy. Yet, -as a matter of fact, we know it was nothing of the kind. Addison, as his -name indicates, was of the stock of the Scandinavian English, and the -Cumberland district he belonged to is largely Scandinavian; the -adjoining peninsula of Furness, which swarms with similar patronymics, -is indeed one of the most purely Scandinavian spots in England. Now in -the Scandinavian languages, as we know, and in the English dialects -based upon them, the preposition comes usually at the end of the -sentence, and Scandinavian structural elements form an integral part of -English, even more than Latin-French, for it has been the part of the -latter rather to enrich the vocabulary than to mould the structure of -our tongue. So that, instead of introducing a personal idiosyncrasy or -perpetrating a questionable licence, Addison was continuing his own -ancestral traditions and at the same time asserting an organic -prerogative of English speech. It may be added that Addison reveals his -Scandinavian affinities not merely in the material structure, but in the -spiritual quality, of his work. This delicate sympathetic observation, -the vein of gentle melancholy, the quiet restrained humour, meet us -again in modern Norwegian authors like Jonas Lie. - -When we put aside these ancestral and traditional influences, there is -still much in the writer’s art which, even if personal, we can only term -instinctive. This may be said of that music which at their finest -moments belongs to all the great writers of prose. Every writer has his -own music, though there are few in whom it becomes audible save at rare -and precious intervals. The prose of the writer who can deliberately -make his own personal cadences monotonously audible all the time grows -wearisome; it affects us as a tedious mannerism. This is a kind of -machine-made prose which indeed it requires a clever artisan to produce; -but, as Landor said, “he must be a bad writer to whom there are no -inequalities.” The great writers, though they are always themselves, -attain the perfect music of their style under the stress of a stimulus -adequate to arouse it. Their music is the audible translation of -emotion, and only arises when the waves of emotion are stirred. It is -not properly speaking a voluntary effect. We can but say that the winds -of the spirit are breathed upon the surface of style, and they lift it -into rhythmic movement. And for each writer these waves have their own -special rate of vibration, their peculiar shape and interval. The rich -deep slow tones of Bacon have nothing in common with the haunting, -long-drawn melody, faint and tremulous, of Newman; the high metallic -falsetto ring of De Quincey’s rhetoric is far away from the pensive -low-toned music of Pater. - -Imitation, as psychologists have taught us to realise, is a part of -instinct. When we begin to learn to write, it rarely happens that we are -not imitators, and, for the most part, unconsciously. The verse of every -young poet, however original he may afterwards grow, usually has plainly -written across it the rhythmic signature of some great master whose work -chances to be abroad in the world; once it was usually Tennyson, then -Swinburne, now various later poets; the same thing happens with prose, -but the rhythm of the signature is less easy to hear. - -As a writer slowly finds his own centre of gravity, the influence of the -rhythm of other writers ceases to be perceptible except in so far as it -coincides with his own natural movement and _tempo_. That is a familiar -fact. We less easily realise, perhaps, that not only the tunes but the -notes that they are formed of are, in every great writer, his own. In -other words, he creates even his vocabulary. That is so not only in the -more obvious sense that out of the mass of words that make up a language -every writer uses only a limited number and even among these has his -words of predilection.[64] It is in the meanings he gives to words, to -names, that a writer creates his vocabulary. All language, we know, is -imagery and metaphor; even the simplest names of the elementary things -are metaphors based on resemblances that suggested themselves to the -primitive men who made language. It is not otherwise with the aboriginal -man of genius who uses language to express his new vision of the world. -He sees things charged with energy, or brilliant with colour, or -breathing out perfume, that the writers who came before him had -overlooked, and to designate these things he must use names which convey -the qualities he has perceived. Guided by his own new personal -sensations and perceptions, he creates his metaphorical vocabulary. If -we examine the style of Montaigne, so fresh and personal and inventive, -we see that its originality lies largely in its vocabulary, which is -not, like that of Rabelais, manufactured afresh, but has its novelty in -its metaphorical values, such new values being tried and tempered at -every step, to the measure of the highly individual person behind them, -who thereby exerts his creative force. In later days Huysmans, who -indeed saw the world at a more eccentric angle than Montaigne, yet with -unflinching veracity and absolute devotion, set himself to the task of -creating his own vocabulary, and at first the unfamiliarity of its -beauty estranges us. - -To think of Huysmans is to be led towards an aspect of style not to be -passed over. To say that the artist in words is expressing a new vision -of the world and seeking the designations for things as he sees them, is -a large part of the truth, and, I would say, perhaps the most important -part of it. For most of us, I suppose (as I know it has been for me), -our vision of Nature has been largely, though by no means entirely, -constituted by pictures we have seen, by poems we have read, that left -an abiding memory. That is to say that Nature comes to us through an -atmosphere which is the emanation of supreme artists who once thrilled -us. But we are here concerned with the process of the artist’s work and -not with his æsthetic influence. The artist finds that words have a rich -content of their own, they are alive and they flourish or decay. They -send out connecting threads in every direction, they throb with meaning -that ever changes and reverberates afar. The writer is not always, or -often, merely preparing a _catalogue raisonné_ of things, he is an -artist and his pigments are words. Often he merely takes his suggestions -from the things of the world and makes his own pictures without any real -resemblance to the scene it is supposed to depict. Dujardin tells us -that he once took Huysmans to a Wagner concert; he scarcely listened to -the music, but he was fascinated by the programme the attendant handed -to him; he went home to write a brilliant page on “Tannhäuser.” -Mallarmé, on the other hand, was soaked in music; to him music was the -voice of the world, and it was the aim of poetry to express the world by -itself becoming music; he stood on a height like a pioneer and looked -towards the Promised Land, trying to catch intimations of a new -sensibility and a future art, but a great master of language, like -Huysmans, he never was. Huysmans has written superb pages about Gustave -Moreau and Félicien Rops, thinking, no doubt, that he was revealing -supreme artists (though we need not follow too closely the fashion of -depreciating either of those artists), but he was really only attracted -to their programmes and therein experiencing a stimulus that chanced to -be peculiarly fitted for drawing out his own special art. Baudelaire -would have written less gorgeously, but he would have produced a more -final critical estimate. - -Yet even the greatest writers are affected by the intoxication of mere -words in the artistry of language. Shakespeare is, constantly, and, not -content with “making the green one red,” he must needs at the same time -“the multitudinous seas incarnadine.” It is conspicuous in Keats (as -Leigh Hunt, perhaps his first sensitively acute critic, clearly -explained), and often, as in “The Eve of St. Agnes,” where he seemed to -be concerned with beautiful things, he was really concerned with -beautiful words. In that way he is sometimes rather misleading for the -too youthful reader; “porphyry” seemed to me a marvellous substance when -as a boy of twelve I read of it in Keats, and I imagine that Keats -himself would have been surprised, had he lived long enough to walk to -St. Thomas’s Hospital over the new London Bridge, when told that he was -treading a granite that was porphyritic. I recall how Verlaine would -sometimes repeat in varying tones some rather unfamiliar word, rolling -it round and round in his mouth, sucking it like a sweetmeat, licking -the sound into the shape that pleased him; some people may perhaps have -found a little bizarre the single words (“Green,” for example) which he -sometimes made the title of a song, but if they adopt the preliminary -Verlainian process they may understand how he had fitted such words to -music and meaning. - -The most obviously beautiful things in the world of Nature are birds and -flowers and the stones we call precious. But the attitude of the poet in -the presence of Nature is precisely that of Huysmans in the presence of -art: it is the programme that interests him. Of birds the knowledge of -poets generally is of the most generalised and elementary kind; they are -the laughing-stock of the ornithologist; they are only a stage removed -from the standpoint of the painter who was introducing a tree into his -landscape and when asked what tree, replied, “Oh, just the ordinary -tree.” Even Goethe mistook the finches by the roadside for larks. The -poet, one may be sure, even to-day seldom carries in his pocket the -little “Führer durch unsere Vogelwelt” of Bernhard Hoffmann, and has -probably never so much as heard of it. Of flowers his knowledge seems to -be limited by the quality of the flower’s name. I have long cherished an -exquisite and quite common English wild-flower, but have never come -across a poem about it, for its unattractive name is the stitchwort, and -it is only lately that even in prose it has met (from Mr. Salt) with due -appreciation. As regards precious stones the same may be said, and in -the galleries of the Geological Museum it has hardly seemed to me that, -among the few visitors, there were poets (unless I chanced to bring one -myself) to brood over all that beauty. It is the word and its inner -reverberation with which the poet is really concerned, even sometimes -perhaps deliberately. When Milton misused the word “eglantine” one -realises the unconscious appeal to him of the name and one cannot feel -quite sure that it was altogether unconscious. Coleridge has been -solemnly reproved for speaking of the “loud” bassoon. But it was to the -timbre of the word, not of the instrument, that Coleridge was -responding, and had he been informed that the bassoon is not loud, I -doubt not he would have replied: “Well, if it is not loud it ought to -be.” On the plane on which Coleridge moved “the loud bassoon” was -absolutely right. We see that the artist in speech moves among words -rather than among things. Originally, it is true, words are closely -related to things, but in their far reverberation they have become -enriched by many associations, saturated with many colours; they have -acquired a life of their own, moving on another plane than that of -things, and it is on that plane that the artist in words is, as an -artist, concerned with them. - -It thus comes about that the artist in words, like the artist in -pigments, is perpetually passing between two planes—the plane of new -vision and the plane of new creation. He is sometimes remoulding the -external world and sometimes the internal world; sometimes, by -predilection, lingering more on one plane than on the other plane. The -artist in words is not irresistibly drawn to the exact study of things -or moved by the strong love of Nature. The poets who describe Nature -most minutely and most faithfully are not usually the great poets. That -is intelligible because the poet—even the poet in the wide sense who -also uses prose—is primarily the instrument of human emotion and not of -scientific observation. Yet that poet possesses immense resources of -strength who in early life has stored within him the minute knowledge of -some field of the actual external world.[65] One may doubt, indeed, -whether there has been any supreme poet, from Homer on, who has not had -this inner reservoir of sensitive impressions to draw from. The youthful -Shakespeare who wrote the poems, with their minute descriptions, was not -a great poet, as the youthful Marlowe was, but he was storing up the -material which, when he had developed into a great poet, he could draw -on at need with a careless and assured hand. Without such reservoirs, -the novelists also would never attain to that touch of the poet which, -beyond their story-telling power, can stir our hearts. “À la Recherche -du Temps Perdu” is the name of a great modern book, but every novelist -during part of his time has been a Ulysses on a perilous voyage of -adventure for that far home. One thinks of George Eliot and her early -intimacy with the life of country people, of Hardy who had acquired so -acute a sensitivity to the sounds of Nature, of Conrad who had caught -the flashes of penetrating vision which came to the sailor on deck; and -in so far as they move away into scenes where they cannot draw from -those ancient reservoirs, the adventures of these artists, however -brilliant they may become, lose their power of intimate appeal. The most -extravagant example of this to-day is the Spanish novelist Blasco -Ibañez, who wrote of the Valencian _huerta_ that had saturated his youth -in novels that were penetrating and poignant, and then turned to writing -for the cosmopolitan crowd novels about anything, that were completely -negligible. - -We grow familiar in time with the style of the great writers, and when -we read them we translate them easily and unconsciously, as we translate -a foreign language we are familiar with; we understand the vocabulary -because we have learnt to know the special seal of the creative person -who moulded the vocabulary. But at the outset the great writer may be -almost as unintelligible to us as though he were writing in a language -we had never learnt. In the now remote days when “Leaves of Grass” was a -new book in the world, few who looked into it for the first time, -however honestly, but were repelled and perhaps even violently repelled, -and it is hard to realise now that once those who fell on Swinburne’s -“Poems and Ballads” saw at first only picturesque hieroglyphics to which -they had no key. But even to-day how many there are who find Proust -unreadable and Joyce unintelligible. Until we find the door and the clue -the new writer remains obscure. Therein lies the truth of Landor’s -saying that the poet must himself create the beings who are to enjoy his -Paradise. - -For most of those who deliberately seek to learn to write, words seem -generally to be felt as of less importance than the art of arranging -them. It is thus that the learner in writing tends to become the devoted -student of grammar and syntax whom we came across at the outset. That is -indeed a tendency which always increases. Civilisation develops with a -conscious adhesion to formal order, and the writer—writing by fashion or -by ambition and not by divine right of creative instinct—follows the -course of civilisation. It is an unfortunate tendency, for those whom it -affects conquer by their number. As we know, writing that is real is not -learnt that way. Just as the solar system was not made in accordance -with the astronomer’s laws, so writing is not made by the laws of -grammar. Astronomer and grammarian alike can only come in at the end, to -give a generalised description of what usually happens in the respective -fields it pleases them to explore. When a new comet, cosmic or literary, -enters their sky, it is their descriptions which have to be readjusted, -and not the comet. There seems to be no more pronounced mark of the -decadence of a people and its literature than a servile and rigid -subserviency to rule. It can only make for ossification, for anchylosis, -for petrification, all the milestones on the road of death. In every age -of democratic plebeianism, where each man thinks he is as good a writer -as the others, and takes his laws from the others, having no laws of his -own nature, it is down this steep path that men, in a flock, inevitably -run. - -We may find an illustration of the plebeian anchylosis of advancing -civilisation in the minor matter of spelling. We cannot, it is true, -overlook the fact that writing is read and that its appearance cannot be -quite disregarded. Yet, ultimately, it appeals to the ear, and spelling -can have little to do with style. The laws of spelling, properly -speaking, are few or none, and in the great ages men have understood -this and boldly acted accordingly. They exercised a fine personal -discretion in the matter and permitted without question a wide range of -variation. Shakespeare, as we know, even spelt his own name in several -different ways, all equally correct. When that great old Elizabethan -mariner, Sir Martin Frobisher, entered on one of his rare and hazardous -adventures with the pen, he created spelling absolutely afresh, in the -spirit of simple heroism with which he was always ready to sail out into -strange seas. His epistolary adventures are, certainly, more interesting -than admirable, but we have no reason to suppose that the distinguished -persons to whom these letters were addressed viewed them with any -disdain. More anæmic ages cannot endure creative vitality even in -spelling, and so it comes about that in periods when everything -beautiful and handmade gives place to manufactured articles made -wholesale, uniform, and cheap, the same principles are applied to words, -and spelling becomes a mechanic trade. We must have our spelling -uniform, even if uniformly bad.[66] Just as the man who, having out of -sheer ignorance eaten the wrong end of his asparagus, was thenceforth -compelled to declare that he preferred that end, so it is with our race -in the matter of spelling; our ancestors, by chance or by ignorance, -tended to adopt certain forms of spelling and we, their children, are -forced to declare that we prefer those forms. Thus we have not only lost -all individuality in spelling, but we pride ourselves on our loss and -magnify our anchylosis. In England it has become almost impossible to -flex our stiffened mental joints sufficiently to press out a single -letter, in America it is almost impossible to extend them enough to -admit that letter. It is convenient, we say, to be rigid and formal in -these things, and therewith we are content; it matters little to us that -we have thereby killed the life of our words and only gained the -conveniency of death. It would be likewise convenient, no doubt, if men -and women could be turned into rigid geometrical diagrams,—as indeed our -legislators sometimes seem to think that they already are,—but we should -pay by yielding up all the infinite variations, the beautiful -sinuosities, that had once made up life. - -There can be no doubt that in the much greater matter of style we have -paid heavily for the attainment of our slavish adherence to mechanical -rules, however convenient, however inevitable. The beautiful -incorrection, as we are now compelled to regard it, that so often marked -the great and even the small writers of the seventeenth century, has -been lost, for all can now write what any find it easy to read, what -none have any consuming desire to read. But when Sir Thomas Browne wrote -his “Religio Medici” it was with an art made up of obedience to personal -law and abandonment to free inspiration which still ravishes us. It is -extraordinary how far indifference or incorrection of style may be -carried and yet remain completely adequate even to complex and subtle -ends. Pepys wrote his “Diary,” at the outset of a life full of strenuous -work and not a little pleasure, with a rare devotion indeed, but with a -concision and carelessness, a single eye on the fact itself, and an -extraordinary absence of self-consciousness which rob it of all claim to -possess what we conventionally term style. Yet in this vehicle he has -perfectly conveyed not merely the most vividly realised and delightfully -detailed picture of a past age ever achieved in any language, but he -has, moreover, painted a psychological portrait of himself which for its -serenely impartial justice, its subtle gradations, its bold -juxtapositions of colours, has all the qualities of the finest -Velasquez. There is no style here, we say, merely the diarist, writing -with careless poignant vitality for his own eye, and yet no style that -we could conceive would be better fitted, or so well fitted, for the -miracle that has here been effected. - -The personal freedom of Browne led up to splendour, and that of Pepys to -clarity. But while splendour is not the whole of writing, neither, -although one returns to it again and again, is clarity. Here we come -from another side on to a point we had already reached. Bergson, in -reply to the question: “Comment doivent écrire les Philosophes?” lets -fall some observations, which, as he himself remarks, concern other -writers beside philosophers. A technical word, he remarks, even a word -invented for the occasion or used in a special sense, is always in its -place provided the instructed reader—though the difficulty, as he fails -to point out, is to be sure of possessing this instructed reader—accepts -it so easily as not even to notice it, and he proceeds to say that in -philosophic prose, and in all prose, and indeed in all the arts, “the -perfect expression is that which has come so naturally, or rather so -necessarily, by virtue of so imperious a predestination, that we do not -pause before it, but go straight on to what it seeks to express, as -though it were blended with the idea; it became invisible by force of -being transparent.”[67] That is well said. Bergson also is on the side -of clarity. Yet I do not feel that that is all there is to say. Style is -not a sheet of glass in which the only thing that matters is the absence -of flaws. Bergson’s own style is not so diaphanous that one never pauses -to admire its quality, nor, as a hostile critic (Edouard Dujardin) has -shown, is it always so clear as to be transparent. The dancer in prose -as well as in verse—philosopher or whatever he may be—must reveal all -his limbs through the garment he wears; yet the garment must have its -own proper beauty, and there is a failure of art, a failure of -revelation, if it possesses no beauty. Style indeed is not really a mere -invisible transparent medium, it is not really a garment, but, as -Gourmont said, the very thought itself. It is the miraculous -transubstantiation of a spiritual body, given to us in the only form in -which we may receive and absorb that body, and unless its clarity is -balanced by its beauty it is not adequate to sustain that most high -function. No doubt, if we lean on one side more than the other, it is -clarity rather than beauty which we should choose, for on the other side -we may have, indeed, a Sir Thomas Browne, and there we are conscious not -so much of a transubstantiation as of a garment, with thick embroidery, -indeed, and glistening jewels, but we are not always sure that much is -hidden beneath. A step further and we reach D’Annunzio, a splendid mask -with nothing beneath, just as in the streets of Rome one may sometimes -meet a Franciscan friar with a head superb as a Roman Emperor’s and yet, -one divines, it means nothing. The Italian writer, it is significant to -note, chose so ostentatiously magnificent a name as Gabriele D’Annunzio -to conceal a real name which was nothing. The great angels of -annunciation create the beauty of their own real names. Who now finds -Shakespeare ridiculous? And how lovely a name is Keats! - -As a part of the harmony of art, which is necessarily made out of -conflict, we have to view that perpetual seeming alternation between the -two planes—the plane of vision and the plane of creation, the form -within and the garment that clothes it—which may sometimes distract the -artist himself. The prophet Jeremiah once said (and modern prophets have -doubtless had occasion to recognise the truth of his remark) that he -seemed to the people round him only as “one that hath a pleasant voice -and can play well on an instrument.” But he failed to understand that it -was only through this quality of voice and instrument that his -lamentations had any vital force or even any being, and that if the poem -goes the message goes. Indeed, that is true of all his fellow prophets -of the Old Testament and the New who have fascinated mankind with the -sound of those harps that they had once hung by the waters of Babylon. -The whole Bible, we may be very sure, would have long ago been forgotten -by all but a few intelligent archæologists, if men had not heard in it, -again and again and again, “one that hath a pleasant voice and can play -well on an instrument.” Socrates said that philosophy was simply music. -But the same might be said of religion. The divine dance of satyrs and -nymphs to the sound of pipes—it is the symbol of life which in one form -or another has floated before human eyes from the days of the sculptors -of Greek bas-reliefs to the men of our own day who catch the glimpse of -new harmonies in the pages of “L’Esprit Nouveau.” We cannot but follow -the piper that knows how to play, even to our own destruction. There may -be much that is objectionable about Man. But he has that engaging trait. -And the world will end when he has lost it. - -One asks one’s self how it was that the old way of writing, as a -personal art, gave place to the new way of writing, as a mere impersonal -pseudo-science, rigidly bound by formal and artificial rules. The -answer, no doubt, is to be found in the existence of a great new current -of thought which began mightily to stir in men’s minds towards the end -of the seventeenth century. It will be remembered that it was at that -time, both in England and France, that the new devitalised, though more -flexible, prose appeared, with its precision and accuracy, its conscious -orderliness, its deliberate method. But only a few years before, over -France and England alike, a great intellectual wave had swept, imparting -to the mathematical and geometrical sciences, to astronomy, physics, and -allied studies, an impetus that they had never received before on so -great a scale. Descartes in France and Newton in England stand out as -the typical representatives of the movement. If that movement had to -exert any influence on language—and we know how sensitively language -reacts to thought—it could have been manifested in no other way than by -the change which actually took place. And there was every opportunity -for that influence to be exerted.[68] This sudden expansion of the -mathematical and geometrical sciences was so great and novel that -interest in it was not confined to a small band of men of science: it -excited the man in the street, the woman in the drawing-room; it was -indeed a woman, a bright and gay woman of the world, who translated -Newton’s profound book into French. Thus it was that the new qualities -of style were invented, not merely to express new qualities of thought, -but because new scientific ideals were moving within the minds of men. A -similar reaction of thought on language took place at the beginning of -the nineteenth century, when an attempt was made to vitalise language -once more, and to break the rigid and formal moulds the previous century -had constructed. The attempt was immediately preceded by the awakening -of a new group of sciences, but this time the sciences of life, the -biological studies associated with Cuvier and Lamarck, with John Hunter -and Erasmus Darwin. With the twentieth century we see the temporary -exhaustion of the biological spirit with its historical form in science -and its romantic form in art, and we have a neo-classic spirit which has -involved a renaissance of the mathematical sciences and, even before -that, was beginning to affect speech. - -To admire the old writers, because for them writing was an art to be -exercised freely and not a vain attempt to follow after the ideals of -the abstract sciences, thus by no means implies a contempt for that -decorum and orderliness without which all written speech must be -ineffective and obscure. The great writers in the great ages, standing -above classicism and above romanticism, have always observed this -decorum and orderliness. In their hands such observance was not a -servile and rigid adherence to external rules, but a beautiful -convention, an instinctive fine breeding, such as is naturally observed -in human intercourse when it is not broken down by intimacy or by any -great crisis of life or of death. - -The freedom of art by no means involves the easiness of art. It may -rather, indeed, be said the difficulty increases with freedom, for to -make things in accordance with patterns is ever the easiest task. The -problem is equally arduous for those who, so far as their craft is -conscious, seek an impersonal and for those who seek a personal ideal of -style. Flaubert sought—in vain, it is true—to be the most objective of -artists and to mould speech with heroic energy in shapes of abstract -perfection. Nietzsche, one of the most personal artists in style, sought -likewise, in his own words, to work at a page of prose as a sculptor -works at a statue. Though the result is not perhaps fundamentally -different, whichever ideal it is that, consciously or instinctively, is -followed, the personal road of style is doubtless theoretically—though -not necessarily in practice—the sounder, usually also that which moves -most of us more profoundly. The great prose writers of the Second Empire -in France made an unparalleled effort to carve or paint impersonal -prose, but its final beauty and effectiveness seem scarcely equal to the -splendid energy it embodies. Jules de Goncourt, his brother thought, -literally died from the mental exhaustion of his unceasing struggle to -attain an objective style adequate to express the subtle texture of the -world as he saw it. But, while the Goncourts are great figures in -literary history, they have pioneered no new road, nor are they of the -writers whom men continuously love to read; for it is as a document that -the “Journal” remains of enduring value. - -Yet the great writers of any school bear witness, each in his own way, -that, deeper than these conventions and decorums of style, there is a -law which no writer can escape from, a law which must needs be learnt, -but can never be taught. That is the law of the logic of thought. All -the conventional rules of the construction of speech may be put aside if -a writer is thereby enabled to follow more closely and lucidly the form -and process of his thought. It is the law of that logic that he must for -ever follow and in attaining it alone find rest. He may say of it as -devoutly as Dante: “In la sua voluntade è nostra pace.” All progress in -literary style lies in the heroic resolve to cast aside accretions and -exuberances, all the conventions of a past age that were once beautiful -because alive and are now false because dead. The simple and naked -beauty of Swift’s style, sometimes so keen and poignant, rests -absolutely on this truth to the logic of his thought. The twin qualities -of flexibility and intimacy are of the essence of all progress in the -art of language, and in their progressive achievement lies the -attainment of great literature. If we compare Shakespeare with his -predecessors and contemporaries, we can scarcely say that in imaginative -force he is vastly superior to Marlowe, or in intellectual grip to -Jonson, but he immeasurably surpasses them in flexibility and in -intimacy. He was able with an incomparable art to weave a garment of -speech so flexible in its strength, so intimate in its transparence, -that it lent itself to every shade of emotion and the quickest turns of -thought. When we compare the heavy and formal letters of Bacon, even to -his closest friends, with the “Familiar Letters” of the vivacious -Welshman Howell, we can scarcely believe the two men were -contemporaries, so incomparably more expressive, so flexible and so -intimate, is the style of Howell. All the writers who influence those -who come after them have done so by the same method. They have thrown -aside the awkward and outworn garments of speech, they have woven a -simpler and more familiar speech, able to express subtleties or -audacities that before seemed inexpressible. That was once done in -English verse by Cowper and Wordsworth, in English prose by Addison and -Lamb. That has been done in French to-day by Proust and in English by -Joyce. When a great writer, like Carlyle or Browning, creates a speech -of his own which is too clumsy to be flexible and too heavy to be -intimate, he may arouse the admiration of his fellows, but he leaves no -traces on the speech of the men who come after him. It is not easy to -believe that such will be Joyce’s fate. His “Ulysses”—carrying to a much -further point qualities that began to appear in his earlier work—has -been hailed as epoch-making in English literature, though a -distinguished critic holds that it is this rather by closing than by -opening an epoch. It would still be preparing a new road, and as thus -operative we may accept it without necessarily judging it to be at the -same time a master-work, provided we understand what it is that has been -here attempted. This huge Odyssey is an ordinary day’s history in the -ordinary life of one ordinary man and the persons of his immediate -environment. It is here sought to reproduce as Art the whole of the -man’s physical and psychic activity during that period, omitting -nothing, not even the actions which the most naturalistic of novelists -had hitherto thought too trivial or too indelicate to mention. Not only -the thoughts and impulses that result in action, but also the thoughts -and emotions that drift aimlessly across the field of his consciousness, -are here; and, in the presentation of this combined inner and outer -life, Joyce has sometimes placed both on the same plane, achieving a new -simplicity of style, though we may at first sometimes find it hard to -divine what is outer and what inner. Moreover, he never hesitates, when -he pleases, to change the tone of his style and even to adopt without -notice, in a deliberately ironical and chameleon-like fashion, the -manner of other writers. In these ways Joyce has here achieved that new -intimacy of vision, that new flexibility of expression, which are of the -essence of all great literature at its vitally moving point of advance. -He has succeeded in realising and making manifest in art what others had -passed over or failed to see. If in that difficult and dangerous task he -has failed, as some of us may believe, to reach either complete clarity -or complete beauty, he has at all events made it possible for those who -come after to reach a new height which, without the help of the road he -had constructed, they might have missed, or even failed to conceive, and -that is enough for any writer’s fame. - -When we turn to Proust we are in the presence of a writer about whom, no -doubt, there is no violent dispute. There may be much about his work -that is disturbing to many, but he was not concerned, like Joyce, to -affront so many prejudices, and in France it is not even necessary, for -the road has already been prepared by heroic pioneers of old during a -thousand years. But the writer who brings a new revelation is not -necessarily called upon to invite the execration of the herd. That is a -risk he must be called upon to face, it is not an inevitable fate. When -the mob yell: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” the artist, in whatever -medium, hears a voice from Heaven: “This is my beloved son.” Yet it is -conceivable that the more perfectly a new revelation is achieved the -less antagonism it arouses. Proust has undoubtedly been the master of a -new intimacy of vision, a new flexibility of expression, even though the -style through which the revelation has been made, perhaps necessarily on -account of the complexity involved, has remained a little difficult and -also, it must be said, a little negligent. But it has achieved a -considerable degree of clarity and a high degree of beauty. So there is -less difficulty in recognising a great masterpiece in “À la Recherche du -Temps Perdu” than if it were more conspicuously the work of a daring -pioneer. It is seen as the revelation of a new æsthetic sensibility -embodied in a new and fitting style. Marcel Proust has experienced -clearly what others have felt dimly or not at all. The significance of -his work is thus altogether apart from the power of its dramatic -incidents or its qualities as a novel. To the critic of defective -intelligence, craving for scenes of sensation, it has sometimes seemed -that “À l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleur” is the least important -section of Proust’s work. Yet it is on that quiet and uneventful tract -of his narrative that Proust has most surely set the stamp of his -genius, a genius, I should like to add, which is peculiarly congenial to -the English mind because it was in the English tradition, rather than in -the French tradition, that Proust was moving.[69] - -No doubt it is possible for a writer to go far by the exercise of a -finely attentive docility. By a dutiful study of what other people have -said, by a refined cleverness in catching their tricks, and avoiding -their subtleties, their profundities, their audacities, by, in short, a -patient perseverance in writing out copperplate maxims in elegant -copybooks, he can become at last, like Stevenson, the idol of the crowd. -But the great writer can only learn out of himself. He learns to write -as a child learns to walk. For the laws of the logic of thought are not -other than those of physical movement. There is stumbling, awkwardness, -hesitation, experiment—before at last the learner attains the perfect -command of that divine rhythm and perilous poise in which he asserts his -supreme human privilege. But the process of his learning rests -ultimately on his own structure and function and not on others’ example. -“Style must be founded upon models”; it is the rule set up by the pedant -who knows nothing of what style means. For the style that is founded on -a model is the negation of style. - -The ardour and heroism of great achievement in style never grow less as -the ages pass, but rather tend to grow more. That is so, not merely -because the hardest tasks are left for the last, but because of the ever -increasing impediments placed in the path of style by the piling up of -mechanical rules and rigid conventions. It is doubtful whether on the -whole the forces of life really gain on the surrounding inertia of -death. The greatest writers must spend the blood and sweat of their -souls, amid the execration and disdain of their contemporaries, in -breaking the old moulds of style and pouring their fresh life into new -moulds. From Dante to Carducci, from Rabelais to Proust, from Chaucer to -Whitman, the giants of letters have been engaged in this life-giving -task, and behind them the forces of death swiftly gather again. Here -there is always room for the hero. No man, indeed, can write anything -that matters who is not a hero at heart, even though to the people who -pass him in the street or know him in the house he may seem as gentle as -any dove. If all progress lies in an ever greater flexibility and -intimacy of speech, a finer adaptation to the heights and depths of the -mobile human soul, the task can never be finally completed. Every writer -is called afresh to reveal new strata of life. By digging in his own -soul he becomes the discoverer of the soul of his family, of his nation, -of the race, of the heart of humanity. For the great writer finds style -as the mystic find God, in his own soul. It is the final utterance of a -sigh, which none could utter before him, and which all can who follow. - -In the end, it will be seen we return at last to the point from which we -start. We have completed the cycle of an art’s evolution,—and it might, -indeed, be any other art as much as writing,—reaching in the final sweep -of ever wider flights the fact from which we started, but seeing it -anew, with a fresh universal significance. Writing is an arduous -spiritual and intellectual task, only to be achieved by patient and -deliberate labour and much daring. Yet therewith we are only at the -beginning. Writing is also the expression of individual personality, -which springs up spontaneously, or is slowly drawn up from within, out -of a well of inner emotions which none may command. But even with these -two opposite factors we have not attained the complete synthesis. For -style in the full sense is more than the deliberate and designed -creation, more even than the unconscious and involuntary creation, of -the individual man who therein expresses himself. The self that he thus -expresses is a bundle of inherited tendencies that came the man himself -can never entirely know whence. It is by the instinctive stress of a -highly sensitive, or slightly abnormal constitution, that he is impelled -to instil these tendencies into the alien magic of words. The stylum -wherewith he strives to write himself on the yet blank pages of the -world may have the obstinate vigour of the metal rod or the wild and -quavering waywardness of an insect’s wing, but behind it lie forces that -extend into infinity. It moves us because it is itself moved by pulses -which in varying measure we also have inherited, and because its primary -source is in the heart of a cosmos from which we ourselves spring. - -Footnote 55: - - It may be as well to point that it is the amateur literary grammarian - and not the expert who is at fault in these matters. The attitude of - the expert (as in C. T. Onions, _Advanced English Syntax_) is entirely - reasonable. - -Footnote 56: - - It is interesting to note that another aristocratic master of speech - had also made just the same observation. Landor puts into the mouth of - Horne Tooke the words: “No expression can become a vulgarism which has - not a broad foundation. The language of the vulgar hath its source in - physics: in known, comprehended, and operative things.” At the same - time Landor was as stern a judge as Baudelaire of the random use of - _clichés_. - -Footnote 57: - - Speaking as a writer who has been much quoted,—it ought to be a - satisfaction, but I have had my doubts,—I may say that I have observed - that those who quote belong mostly to two classes, one consisting of - good, or at all events indifferent, writers, and the other of bad - writers. Those of the first class quote with fair precision and due - acknowledgement, those of the second with no precision, and only the - vaguest intimation, or none at all, that they are quoting. This would - seem to indicate that the good writer is more honest than the bad - writer, but that conclusion may be unjust to the bad writer. The fact - is that, having little thought or knowledge of his own, he is not - fully conscious of what he is doing. He is like a greedy child who, - seeing food in front of him, snatches it at random, without being able - to recognise whether or not it is his own. There is, however, a third - class of those who cannot resist the temptation of deliberately - putting forth the painfully achieved thought or knowledge of others as - their own, sometimes, perhaps, seeking to gloss over the lapse with: - “As every one knows—” - -Footnote 58: - - Croce, who is no doubt the most instructive literary critic of our - time, has, in his own way, insisted on this essential fact. As he - would put it, there are no objective standards of judgment; we cannot - approach a work of art with our laws and categories. We have to - comprehend the artist’s own values, and only then are we fit to - pronounce any judgment on his work. The task of the literary critic is - thus immensely more difficult than it is vulgarly supposed to be. The - same holds good, I would add, of criticism in the fields of art, not - excluding the art of love and the arts of living in general. - -Footnote 59: - - “This search is the art of all great thinkers, of all great artists, - indeed of all those who, even without attaining expression, desire to - live deeply. If the dance brings us so near to God, it is, I believe, - because it symbolizes for us the movement of this gesture.” (Élie - Faure, _L’Arbre d’Éden_, p. 318.) - -Footnote 60: - - This is that “divine malice” which Nietzsche, in _Ecce Homo_, speaking - of Heine (“one day Heine and I will be regarded as by far the greatest - artists of the German language,” he says rather egotistically, but - perhaps truly) considered essential to perfection. “I estimate the - value of men and of races,” he added, “by their need to identify their - God with a satyr,” a hard saying, no doubt, to the modern man, but it - has its meaning. - -Footnote 61: - - Since this was written I have found that Laycock, whose subtle - observation pioneered so many later ideas, long ago noted (“Some - Organic Laws of Memory,” _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1875) - reversion to ancestral modes of handwriting. - -Footnote 62: - - This was written fifteen years ago, and as Carlyle has of late been - unduly depreciated I would add that, while strictly to the present - point, it is not put forward as an estimate of Carlyle’s genius. That - I seem to have attempted twenty-five years earlier in a private letter - (to my friend the late Reverend Angus Mackay) I may here perhaps be - allowed to quote. It was in 1883, soon after the publication of - Carlyle’s _Reminiscences_: “This is not Carlylese, but it is finer. - The popular judgment is hopelessly wrong. We can never understand - Carlyle till we get rid of the ‘great prophet’ notion. Carlyle is not - (as we were once taught) a ‘great moral teacher,’ but, in the high - sense, a great _comedian_. His books are wonderful comedies. He is the - Scotch Aristophanes, as Rabelais is the French and Heine the German - Aristophanes—of course, with the intense northern imagination, more - clumsy, more imperfect, more profound than the Greek. But, at a long - distance, there is a close resemblance to Aristophanes with the same - mixture of audacity in method and conservatism in spirit. Carlyle’s - account of Lamb seems in the true sense Aristophanic. His humour is, - too, as broad as he dares (some curious resemblances there, too). In - his lyrical outbursts, again, he follows Aristophanes, and again at a - distance. Of course he cannot be compared as an artist. He has not, - like Rabelais, created a world to play with, but, like Aristophanes - generally, he sports with the things that are.” That youthful estimate - was alien to popular opinion then because Carlyle was idolised; it is - now, no doubt, equally alien for an opposite reason. It is only on - extremes that the indolent popular mind can rest. - -Footnote 63: - - J. Beddoe, _The Races of Britain_, p. 254. - -Footnote 64: - - I once studied, as an example, colour-words in various writers, - finding that every poet has his own colour formula. Variations in - length of sentence and peculiarities of usage in metre have often been - studied. Reference is made to some of these studies by A. Niceforo, - “Metodo Statistico e Documenti Litterari,” _Revista d’Italia_, August, - 1917. - -Footnote 65: - - “The Muses are the daughters of Memory,” Paul Morand tells us that - Proust would say; “there is no art without recollection,” and - certainly it is supremely true of Proust’s art. It is that element of - art which imparts at once both atmosphere and poignant intimacy, - external farness with internal nearness. The lyrics of Thomas Hardy - owe their intimacy of appeal to the dominance in them of recollection - (in _Late Lyrics and Earlier_ one might say it is never absent), and - that is why they can scarcely be fully appreciated save by those who - are no longer very young. - -Footnote 66: - - The Oxford University Press publishes a little volume of _Rules for - Compositors and Readers_ in which this uniform is set forth. It is a - useful and interesting manual, but one wonders how many unnecessary - and even undesirable usages—including that morbid desire to cling to - the _ize_ termination (charming as an eccentricity but hideous as a - rule) when _ise_ would suffice—are hereby fostered. Even when we leave - out of consideration the great historical tradition of variety in this - matter, it is doubtful, when we consider them comprehensively, whether - the advantages of encouraging every one to spell like his fellows - overbalances the advantages of encouraging every one to spell unlike - his fellows. When I was a teacher in the Australian bush I derived far - less enjoyment from the more or less “correctly” spelt exercises of my - pupils than from the occasional notes I received from their parents - who, never having been taught to spell, were able to spell in the - grand manner. We are wilfully throwing away an endless source of - delight. - -Footnote 67: - - _Le Monde Nouveau_, 15th December, 1922. - -Footnote 68: - - Ferris Greenslet (in his study of _Joseph Glanvill_, p. 183), - referring to the Cartesian influence on English prose style, quotes - from Sprat’s _History of the Royal Society_ that the Society “exacted - from its members a close, naked, natural way of speaking, positive - expressions, a native easiness, bringing all things as near the - mathematic plainness as they can.” The Society passed a resolution to - reject “all amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style.” - -Footnote 69: - - If it is asked why I take examples of a quality in art that is - universal from literary personalities that to many are questionable, - even morbid or perverse, rather than from some more normal and - unquestioned figure, Thomas Hardy, for example, I would reply that I - have always regarded it as more helpful and instructive to take - examples that are still questionable rather than to fall back on the - unquestionable that all will accept tamely without thought. Forty - years ago, when Hardy’s genius was scarcely at all recognised, it - seemed worth while to me to set forth the quality of his genius. - To-day, when that quality is unquestioned, and Hardy receives general - love and reverence, it would seem idle and unprofitable to do so. - - - - - CHAPTER V - THE ART OF RELIGION - - - I - - -RELIGION is a large word, of good import and of evil import, and with -the general discussion of religion we are not in this place concerned. -Its quintessential core—which is the art of finding our emotional -relationship to the world conceived as a whole—is all that here matters, -and it is best termed “Mysticism.” No doubt it needs some courage to use -that word. It is the common label of abuse applied to every -pseudo-spiritual thing that is held up for contempt. Yet it would be -foolish to allow ourselves to be deflected from the right use of a word -by the accident of its abuse. “Mysticism,” however often misused, will -here be used, because it is the correct term for the relationship of the -Self to the Not-Self, of the individual to a Whole, when, going beyond -his own personal ends, he discovers his adjustment to larger ends, in -harmony or devotion or love. - -It has become a commonplace among the unthinking, or those who think -badly, to assume an opposition of hostility between mysticism and -science.[70] If “science” is, as we have some reason to believe, an art, -if “mysticism” also is an art, the opposition can scarcely be radical -since they must both spring from the same root in natural human -activity. - - - II - - -IF, indeed, by “science” we mean the organisation of an intellectual -relationship to the world we live in adequate to give us some degree of -power over that world, and if by “mysticism” we mean the joyful -organisation of an emotional relationship to the world conceived as a -whole,[71] the opposition which we usually assume to exist between them -is of comparatively modern origin. - -Among savage peoples such an opposition can scarcely be said to have any -existence. The very fact that science, in the strict sense, seems often -to begin with the stars might itself have suggested that the basis of -science is mystical contemplation. Not only is there usually no -opposition between the “scientific” and the “mystical” attitude among -peoples we may fairly call primitive, but the two attitudes may be -combined in the same person. The “medicine-man” is not more an embryonic -man of science than he is an embryonic mystic; he is both equally. He -cultivates not only magic but holiness, he achieves the conquest of his -own soul, he enters into harmony with the universe; and in doing this, -and partly, indeed, through doing this, his knowledge is increased, his -sensations and power of observation are rendered acute, and he is -enabled so to gain organised knowledge of natural processes that he can -to some extent foresee or even control those processes. He is the -ancestor alike of the hermit following after sanctity and of the -inventor crystallising discoveries into profitable patents. Such is the -medicine-man wherever we may find him in his typical shape—which he -cannot always adequately achieve—all over the world, around Torres -Straits just as much as around Behring’s Straits. Yet we have failed to -grasp the significance of this fact. - -It is the business of the _Shaman_, as on the mystical side we may -conveniently term the medicine-man, to place himself under the -conditions—and even in primitive life those conditions are varied and -subtle—which bring his will into harmony with the essence of the world, -so that he grows one with that essence, that its will becomes his will, -and, reversely, that, in a sense, his will becomes its. Herewith, in -this unity with the spirit of the world, the possibility of magic and -the power to control the operation of Nature are introduced into human -thought, with its core of reality and its endless trail of absurdity, -persisting even into advanced civilisation. - -But this harmony with the essence of the universe, this control of -Nature through oneness with Nature, is not only at the heart of -religion; it is also at the heart of science. It is only by the -possession of an acquired or inborn temperament attuned to the -temperament of Nature that a Faraday or an Edison, that any scientific -discoverer or inventor, can achieve his results. And the primitive -medicine-man, who on the religious side has attained harmony of the self -with the Not-Self, and by obeying learnt to command, cannot fail on the -scientific side also, under the special conditions of his isolated life, -to acquire an insight into natural methods, a practical power over human -activities and over the treatment of disease, such as on the imaginative -and emotional side he already possesses. If we are able to see this -essential and double attitude of the _Shaman_—medicine-man—if we are -able to eliminate all the extraneous absurdities and the extravagancies -which conceal the real nature of his function in the primitive world, -the problem of science and mysticism, and their relationship to each -other, ceases to have difficulties for us. - -It is as well to point out, before passing on, that the investigators of -primitive thought are not altogether in agreement with one another on -this question of the relation of science to magic, and have complicated -the question by drawing a distinction between magic (understood as man’s -claim to control Nature) and religion (understood as man’s submission to -Nature). The difficulties seem due to an attempt to introduce clear-cut -definitions at a stage of thought where none such existed. That -medicine-men and priests cultivated science, while wrapping it up in -occult and magical forms, seems indicated by the earliest historical -traditions of the Near East. Herbert Spencer long ago brought together -much of the evidence on this point. McDougall to-day in his “Social -Psychology” (Chapter XIII) accepts magic as the origin of science, and -Frazer in the early edition of his “Golden Bough” regarded magic as “the -savage equivalent of our natural science.” Marett[72] “profoundly -doubts” this, and declares that if we can use the word “science” at all -in such a context, magic is occult science and the very antithesis of -natural science. While all that Marett states is admirably true on the -basis of his own definitions, he scarcely seems to realise the virtue of -the word “equivalent,” while at the same time, it may be, his definition -of magic is too narrow. Silberer, from the psycho-analytic standpoint, -accepting the development of exact science from one branch of magic, -points out that science is, on the one hand, the recognition of -concealed natural laws and, on the other, the dynamisation of psychic -power,[73] and thus falls into two great classes, according as its -operation is external or internal. This seems a true and subtle -distinction which Marett has overlooked. In the latest edition of his -work,[74] Frazer has not insisted on the relation or analogy of science -to magic, but has been content to point out that Man has passed through -the three stages of magic, religion, and science. “In magic Man depends -on his own strength to meet the difficulties and dangers that beset him -on every side. He believes in a certain established order of Nature on -which he can surely count, and which he can manipulate for his own -ends.” Then he finds he has overestimated his own powers and he humbly -takes the road of religion, leaving the universe to the more or less -capricious will of a higher power. But he finds this view inadequate and -he proceeds to revert in a measure to the older standpoint of magic by -postulating explicitly what in magic had only been implicitly assumed, -“to wit, an inflexible regularity in the order of natural events which, -if carefully observed, enables us to foresee their course with -certainty, and to act accordingly.” So that science, in Frazer’s view, -is not so much directly derived from magic as itself in its original -shape one with magic, and Man has proceeded, not in a straight line, but -in a spiral. - -The profound significance of this early personage is, however, surely -clear. If science and mysticism are alike based on fundamental natural -instincts, appearing spontaneously all over the world; if, moreover, -they naturally tend to be embodied in the same individual, in such a way -that each impulse would seem to be dependent on the other for its full -development; then there can be no ground for accepting any disharmony -between them. The course of human evolution involves a division of -labour, a specialisation of science and of mysticism along special lines -and in separate individuals.[75] But a fundamental antagonism of the -two, it becomes evident, is not to be thought of; it is unthinkable, -even absurd. If at some period in the course of civilisation we -seriously find that our science and our religion are antagonistic, then -there must be something wrong either with our science or with our -religion. Perhaps not seldom there may be something wrong with both. For -if the natural impulses which normally work best together are separated -and specialised in different persons, we may expect to find a -concomitant state of atrophy and hypertrophy, both alike morbid. The -scientific person will become atrophied on the mystical side, the -mystical person will become atrophied on the scientific side. Each will -become morbidly hypertrophied on his own side. But the assumption that, -because there is a lack of harmony between opposing pathological states, -there must also be a similar lack of harmony in the normal state, is -unreasonable. We must severely put out of count alike the hypertrophied -scientific people with atrophied religious instincts, and the -hypertrophied religious people with atrophied scientific instincts. -Neither group can help us here; they only introduce confusion. We have -to examine the matter critically, to go back to the beginning, to take -so wide a survey of the phenomena that their seemingly conflicting -elements fall into harmony. - -The fact, in the first place, that the person with an overdeveloped -religious sense combined with an underdeveloped scientific sense -necessarily conflicts with a person in whom the reverse state of affairs -exists, cannot be doubted, nor is the reason of it obscure. It is -difficult to conceive a Darwin and a St. Theresa entering with full and -genuine sympathy into each other’s point of view. And that is so by no -means because the two attitudes, stripped of all but their essentials, -are irreconcilable. If we strip St. Theresa of her atrophied -pseudo-science, which in her case was mostly theological “science,” -there was nothing in her attitude which would not have seemed to -harmonise and to exalt that absolute adoration and service to natural -truth which inspired Darwin. If we strip Darwin of that atrophied sense -of poetry and the arts which he deplored, and that anæmic secular -conception of the universe as a whole which he seems to have accepted -without deploring, there was nothing in his attitude which would not -have served to fertilise and enrich the spiritual exaltation of Theresa -and even to have removed far from her that temptation to _acedia_ or -slothfulness which all the mystics who are mystics only have recognised -as their besetting sin, minimised as it was, in Theresa, by her -practical activities. Yet, being as they were persons of supreme genius -developed on opposite sides of their common human nature, an impassable -gulf lies between them. It lies equally between much more ordinary -people who yet show the same common character of being undergrown on one -side, overgrown on the other. - -This difficulty is not diminished when the person who is thus -hypertrophied on one side and atrophied on the other suddenly wakes up -to his one-sided state and hastily attempts to remedy it. The very fact -that such a one-sided development has come about indicates that there -has probably been a congenital basis for it, an innate disharmony which -must require infinite patience and special personal experience to -overcome. But the heroic and ostentatious manner in which these -ill-balanced people hastily attempt the athletic feat of restoring their -spiritual balance has frequently aroused the interest, and too often the -amusement, of the spectator. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most -quintessentially scientific persons the world has seen, a searcher who -made the most stupendous effort to picture the universe intelligently on -its purely intelligible side, seems to have realised in old age, when he -was, indeed, approaching senility, that the vast hypertrophy of his -faculties on that side had not been compensated by any development on -the religious side. He forthwith set himself to the interpretation of -the Book of Daniel and puzzled over the prophecies of the Book of -Revelation, with the same scientifically serious air as though he were -analysing the spectrum. In reality he had not reached the sphere of -religion at all; he had merely exchanged good science for bad science. -Such senile efforts to penetrate, ere yet life is quite over, the -mystery of religion recall, and, indeed, have a real analogy to, that -final effort of the emotionally starved to grasp at love which has been -called “old maid’s insanity”; and just as in this aberration the woman -who has all her life put love into the subconscious background of her -mind is overcome by an eruption of the suppressed emotions and driven to -create baseless legends of which she is herself the heroine, so the -scientific man who has put religion into the subconscious and scarcely -known that there is such a thing may become in the end the victim of an -imaginary religion. In our own time we may have witnessed attempts of -the scientific mind to become religious, which, without amounting to -mental aberration, are yet highly instructive. It would be a -double-edged compliment, in this connection, to compare Sir Oliver Lodge -to Sir Isaac Newton. But after devoting himself for many years to purely -physical research, Lodge also, as he has confessed, found that he had -overlooked the religious side of life, and therefore set himself with -characteristic energy to the task—the stages of which are described in a -long series of books—of developing this atrophied side of his nature. -Unlike Newton, who was worried about the future, Lodge became worried -about the past. Just as Newton found what he was contented to regard as -religious peace in speculating on the meaning of the Books of Daniel and -Revelation, so Lodge found a similar satisfaction in speculations -concerning the origin of the soul and in hunting out tags from the poets -to support his speculations. So fascinating was this occupation that it -seemed to him to constitute a great “message” to the world. “My message -is that there is some great truth in the idea of preëxistence, not an -obvious truth, nor one easy to formulate—a truth difficult to -express—not to be identified with the guesses of reincarnation and -transmigration, which may be fanciful. We may not have been individuals -before, but we are chips or fragments of a great mass of mind, of -spirit, and of life—drops, as it were, taken out of a germinal reservoir -of life, and incubated until incarnate in a material body.”[76] The -genuine mystic would smile if asked to accept as a divine message these -phraseological gropings in the darkness, with their culmination in the -gospel of “incubated drops.” They certainly represent an attempt to get -at a real fact. But the mystic is not troubled by speculations about the -origin of the individual, or theories of preëxistence, fantastic myths -which belong to the earlier Plato’s stage of thought. It is abundantly -evident that when the hypertrophied man of science seeks to cultivate -his atrophied religious instincts it is with the utmost difficulty that -he escapes from science. His conversion to religion merely means, for -the most part, that he has exchanged sound science for pseudo-science. - -Similarly, when the man with hypertrophied religious instincts seeks to -cultivate his atrophied scientific instincts, the results are scarcely -satisfactory. Here, indeed, we are concerned with a phenomenon that is -rarer than the reverse process. The reason may not be far to seek. The -instinct of religion develops earlier in the history of a race than the -instinct of science. The man who has found the massive satisfaction of -his religious cravings is seldom at any stage conscious of scientific -cravings; he is apt to feel that he already possesses the supreme -knowledge. The religious doubters who vaguely feel that their faith is -at variance with science are merely the creatures of creeds, the product -of Churches; they are not the genuine mystics. The genuine mystics who -have exercised their scientific instincts have generally found scope for -such exercise within an enlarged theological scheme which they regarded -as part of their religion. So it was that St. Augustine found scope for -his full and vivid, if capricious, intellectual impulses; so also -Aquinas, in whom there was doubtless less of the mystic and more of the -scientist, found scope for the rational and orderly development of a -keen intelligence which has made him an authority and even a pioneer for -many who are absolutely indifferent to his theology. - -Again we see that to understand the real relations of science and -mysticism, we must return to ages when, on neither side, had any -accumulated mass of dead traditions effected an artificial divorce -between two great natural instincts. It has already been pointed out -that if we go outside civilisation the divorce is not found; the savage -mystic is also the savage man of science, the priest and the doctor are -one.[77] It is so also for the most part in barbarism, among the ancient -Hebrews for instance, and not only among their priests, but even among -their prophets. It appears that the most usual Hebrew word for what we -term the “prophet” signified “one who bursts forth,” presumably into the -utterance of spiritual verities, and the less usual words signify -“seer.” That is to say, the prophet was primarily a man of religion, -secondarily a man of science. And that predictive element in the -prophet’s function, which to persons lacking in religious instinct seems -the whole of his function, has no relationship at all to religion; it is -a function of science. It is an insight into cause and effect, a -conception of sequences based on extended observation and enabling the -“prophet” to assert that certain lines of action will probably lead to -the degeneration of a stock, or to the decay of a nation. It is a sort -of applied history. “Prophecy” has no more to do with religion than have -the forecasts of the Meteorological Bureau, which also are a kind of -applied science in earlier stages associated with religion. - -If, keeping within the sphere of civilisation, we go back as far as we -can, the conclusion we reach is not greatly different. The earliest of -the great mystics in historical times is Lao-tze. He lived six hundred -years earlier than Jesus, a hundred years earlier than Sakya-Muni, and -he was more quintessentially a mystic than either. He was, moreover, -incomparably nearer than either to the point of view of science. Even -his occupation in life was, in relation to his age and land, of a -scientific character; he was, if we may trust uncertain tradition, -keeper of the archives. In the substance of his work this harmony of -religion and science is throughout traceable, the very word “Tao,” which -to Lao-tze is the symbol of all that to which religion may mystically -unite us, is susceptible of being translated “Reason,” although that -word remains inadequate to its full meaning. There are no theological or -metaphysical speculations here concerning God (the very word only occurs -once and may be a later interpolation), the soul, or immortality. The -delicate and profound art of Lao-tze largely lies in the skill with -which he expresses spiritual verities in the form of natural truths. His -affirmations not only go to the core of religion, but they express the -essential methods of science. This man has the mystic’s heart, but he -has also the physicist’s touch and the biologist’s eye. He moves in a -sphere in which religion and science are one. - -If we pass to more modern times and the little European corner of the -world, around the Mediterranean shores, which is the cradle of our -latter-day civilisation, again and again we find traces of this -fundamental unity of mysticism and science. It may well be that we never -again find it in quite so pure a form as in Lao-tze, quite so free from -all admixture alike of bad religion and bad science. The exuberant -unbalanced activity of our race, the restless acquisitiveness—already -manifested in the sphere of ideas and traditions before it led to the -production of millionaires—soon became an ever-growing impediment to -such unity of spiritual impulses. Among the supple and yet ferocious -Greeks, indeed, versatility and recklessness seem at a first glance -always to have stood in the way of approach to the essential terms of -this problem. It was only when the Greeks began to absorb Oriental -influences, we are inclined to say, that they became genuine mystics, -and as they approached mysticism they left science behind. - -Yet there was a vein of mysticism in the Greeks from the first, not -alone due to seeds from the East flung to germinate fruitfully in Greek -soil, though perhaps to that Ionian element of the Near East which was -an essential part of the Greek spirit. All that Karl Joël of Basel has -sought to work out concerning the evolution of the Greek philosophic -spirit has a bearing on this point. We are wrong, he believes, to look -on the early Greek philosophers of Nature as mainly physicists, treating -the religious and poetic mystic elements in them as mere archaisms, -concessions, or contradictions. Hellas needed, and possessed, an early -Romantic spirit, if we understand the Romantic spirit, not merely -through its reactionary offshoots, but as a deep mystico-lyrical -expression; it was comparable in early Greece to the Romantic spirit of -the great creative men of the early Renaissance or the early nineteenth -century, and the Apollinian classic spirit was developed out of an -ordered discipline and formulation of the Dionysian spirit more -mystically near to Nature.[78] If we bear this in mind we are helped to -understand much in the religious life of Greece which seems not to -harmonise with what we conventionally call “classic.” - -In the dim figure of Pythagoras we perhaps see not only a great leader -of physical science, but also a great initiator in spiritual mystery. It -is, at any rate, fairly clear that he established religious brotherhoods -of carefully selected candidates, women as well as men being eligible, -and living on so lofty and aristocratic a level that the populace of -Magna Grecia, who could not understand them, decided out of resentment -to burn them alive, and the whole order was annihilated about B.C. 500. -But exactly how far these early Pythagoreans, whose community has been -compared to the mediæval orders of chivalry, were mystics, we may -imagine as we list, in the light of the Pythagorean echoes we find here -and there in Plato. On the whole we scarcely go to the Greeks for a -clear exposition of what we now term “mysticism.” We see more of it in -Lucretius than we can divine in his master Epicurus. And we see it still -more clearly in the Stoics. We can, indeed, nowhere find a more pure and -concise statement than in Marcus Aurelius of the mystical core of -religion as the union in love and harmony and devotion of the self with -the Not-Self. - -If Lucretius may be accounted the first of moderns in the identification -of mysticism and science, he has been followed by many, even though, one -sometimes thinks, with an ever-increasing difficulty, a drooping of the -wings of mystical aspiration, a limping of the feet of scientific -progress. Leonardo and Giordano Bruno and Spinoza and Goethe, each with -a little imperfection on one side or the other, if not on both sides, -have moved in a sphere in which the impulses of religion are felt to -spring from the same centre as the impulses of science. Einstein, whose -attitude in many ways is so interesting, closely associates the longing -for pure knowledge with religious feeling, and he has remarked that “in -every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence.” -He is inclined to attach significance to the fact that so many great men -of science—Newton, Descartes, Gauss, Helmholtz—have been in one way or -another religious. If we cannot altogether include such men as -Swedenborg and Faraday in the same group, it is because we cannot feel -that in them the two impulses, however highly developed, really spring -from the same centre or really make a true harmony. We suspect that -these men and their like kept their mysticism in a science-proof -compartment of their minds, and their science in a mysticism-proof -compartment; we tremble for the explosive result, should the wall of -partition ever be broken down. - -The difficulty, we see again, has been that, on each hand, there has -been a growth of non-essential traditions around the pure and vital -impulse, and the obvious disharmony of these two sets of accretions -conceals the underlying harmony of the impulses themselves. The -possibility of reaching the natural harmony is thus not necessarily by -virtue of any rare degree of intellectual attainment, nor by any rare -gift of inborn spiritual temperament,—though either of these may in some -cases be operative,—but rather by the happy chance that the burden of -tradition on each side has fallen and that the mystical impulse is free -to play without a dead metaphysical theology, the scientific impulse -without a dead metaphysical formalism. It is a happy chance that may -befall the simple more easily than the wise and learned. - - - III - - -THE foregoing considerations have perhaps cleared the way to a -realisation that when we look broadly at the matter, when we clear away -all the accumulated superstitions, the unreasoned prepossessions, on -either side, and so reach firm ground, not only is there no opposition -between science and mysticism, but in their essence, and at the outset, -they are closely related. The seeming divorce between them is due to a -false and unbalanced development on either side, if not on both sides. - -Yet all such considerations cannot suffice to make present to us this -unity of apparent opposites. There is, indeed, it has often seemed to -me, a certain futility in all discussion of the relative claims of -science and religion. This is a matter which, in the last resort, lies -beyond the sphere of argument. It depends not only on a man’s entire -psychic equipment, brought with him at birth and never to be -fundamentally changed, but it is the outcome of his own intimate -experience during life. It cannot be profitably discussed because it is -experiential. - -It seems to me, therefore, that, having gone so far, and stated what I -consider to be the relations of mysticism and science as revealed in -human history, I am bound to go further and to state my personal grounds -for believing that the harmonious satisfaction alike of the religious -impulse and the scientific impulse may be attained to-day by an -ordinarily balanced person in whom both impulses crave for satisfaction. -There is, indeed, a serious difficulty. To set forth a personal -religious experience for the first time requires considerable -resolution, and not least to one who is inclined to suspect that the -experiences usually so set forth can be of no profound or significant -nature; that if the underlying motives of a man’s life can be brought to -the surface and put into words their vital motive power is gone. Even -the fact that more than forty years have passed since the experience -took place scarcely suffices to make the confession of it easy. But I -recall to mind that the first original book I ever planned (and in fact -began to write) was a book, impersonal though suggested by personal -experience, on the foundations of religion.[79] I put it aside, saying -to myself I would complete it in old age, because it seemed to me that -the problem of religion will always be fresh, while there were other -problems more pressingly in need of speedy investigation. Now, it may -be, I begin to feel the time has come to carry that early project a -stage further. - -Like many of the generation to which I belonged, I was brought up far -from the Sunday-school atmosphere of conventional religiosity. I -received little religious instruction outside the home, but there I was -made to feel, from my earliest years, that religion is a very vital and -personal matter with which the world and the fashion of it had nothing -to do. To that teaching, while still scarcely more than a child, I -responded in a wholehearted way. Necessarily the exercise of this early -impulse followed the paths prescribed for it by my environment. I -accepted the creed set before me; I privately studied the New Testament -for my own satisfaction; I honestly endeavoured, strictly in private, to -mould my actions and impulses on what seemed to be Christian lines. -There was no obtrusive outward evidence of this; outside the home, -moreover, I moved in a world which might be indifferent but was not -actively hostile to my inner aspirations, and, if the need for any -external affirmation had become inevitable, I should, I am certain, have -invoked other than religious grounds for my protest. Religion, as I -instinctively felt then and as I consciously believe now, is a private -matter, as love is. This was my mental state at the age of twelve. - -Then came the period of emotional and intellectual expansion, when the -scientific and critical instincts began to germinate. These were -completely spontaneous and not stimulated by any influences of the -environment. To inquire, to question, to investigate the qualities of -the things around us and to search out their causes, is as native an -impulse as the religious impulse would be found to be if only we would -refrain from exciting it artificially. In the first place, this -scientific impulse was not greatly concerned with the traditional body -of beliefs which were then inextricably entwined in my mind with the -exercise of the religious instinct. In so far, indeed, as it touched -them it took up their defence. Thus I read Renan’s “Life of Jesus,” and -the facile sentiment of this book, the attitude of artistic -reconstruction, aroused a criticism which led me to overlook any -underlying sounder qualities. Yet all the time the inquiring and -critical impulse was a slowly permeating and invading influence, and its -application to religion was from time to time stimulated by books, -although such application was in no slightest degree favoured by the -social environment. When, too, at the age of fifteen, I came to read -Swinburne’s “Songs before Sunrise,”—although the book made no very -personal appeal to me,—I realised that it was possible to present in an -attractively modern emotional light religious beliefs which were -incompatible with Christianity, and even actively hostile to its creed. -The process of disintegration took place in slow stages that were not -perceived until the process was complete. Then at last I realised that I -no longer possessed any religious faith. All the Christian dogmas I had -been brought up to accept unquestioned had slipped away, and they had -dragged with them what I had experienced of religion, for I could not -then so far analyse all that is roughly lumped together as “religion” as -to disentangle the essential from the accidental. Such analysis, to be -effectively convincing, demanded personal experiences I was not -possessed of. - -I was now seventeen years of age. The loss of religious faith had -produced no change in conduct, save that religious observances, which -had never been ostentatiously performed, were dropped, so far as they -might be without hurting the feelings of others. The revolution was so -gradual and so natural that even inwardly the shock was not great, while -various activities, the growth of mental aptitudes, sufficiently served -to occupy the mind. It was only during periods of depression that the -absence of faith as a satisfaction of the religious impulse became at -all acutely felt. Possibly it might have been felt less acutely if I -could have realised that there was even a real benefit in the cutting -down and clearing away of traditional and non-vital beliefs. Not only -was it a wholesome and strenuous effort to obey at all costs the call of -what was felt as “truth,” and therefore having in it a spirit of -religion even though directed against religion, but it was evidently -favourable to the training of intelligence. The man who has never -wrestled with his early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and -that yet is not truly his own,—for no faith is our own that we have not -arduously won,—has missed not only a moral but an intellectual -discipline. The absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and -render all his work in the world ineffective. He has missed a training -in criticism, in analysis, in open-mindedness, in the resolutely -impersonal treatment of personal problems, which no other training can -compensate. He is, for the most part, condemned to live in a mental -jungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths -that enclose him and his eyes too weak to find the light. - -While, however, I had adopted, without knowing it, the best course to -steel the power of thinking and to render possible a patient, humble, -self-forgetful attitude towards Nature, there were times when I became -painfully, almost despairingly, conscious of the unsatisfied cravings of -the religious impulse. These moods were emphasised even by the books I -read which argued that religion, in the only sense in which I understood -religion, was unnecessary, and that science, whether or not formulated -into a creed, furnished all that we need to ask in this direction. I -well remember the painful feelings with which I read at this time D. F. -Strauss’s “The Old Faith and the New.” It is a scientific creed set down -in old age, with much comfortable complacency, by a man who found -considerable satisfaction in the evening of life in the enjoyment of -Haydn’s quartets and Munich brown beer. They are both excellent things, -as I am now willing to grant, but they are a sorry source of inspiration -when one is seventeen and consumed by a thirst for impossibly remote -ideals. Moreover, the philosophic horizon of this man was as limited and -as prosaic as the æsthetic atmosphere in which he lived. I had to -acknowledge to myself that the scientific principles of the universe as -Strauss laid them down presented, so far as I knew, the utmost scope in -which the human spirit could move. But what a poor scope! I knew nothing -of the way that Nietzsche, about that time, had demolished Strauss. But -I had the feeling that the universe was represented as a sort of factory -filled by an inextricable web of wheels and looms and flying shuttles, -in a deafening din. That, it seemed, was the world as the most competent -scientific authorities declared it to be made. It was a world I was -prepared to accept, and yet a world in which, I felt, I could only -wander restlessly, an ignorant and homeless child. Sometimes, no doubt, -there were other visions of the universe a little less disheartening, -such as that presented by Herbert Spencer’s “First Principles.” But the -dominant feeling always was that while the scientific outlook, by which -I mainly meant the outlook of Darwin and Huxley, commended itself to me -as presenting a sound view of the world, on the emotional side I was a -stranger to that world, if, indeed, I would not, with Omar, “shatter it -to bits.” - -At the same time, it must be noted, there was no fault to find with the -general trend of my life and activities. I was fully occupied, with -daily duties as well as with the actively interested contemplation of an -ever-enlarging intellectual horizon. This was very notably the case at -the age of nineteen, three years after all vestiges of religious faith -had disappeared from the psychic surface. - -I was still interested in religious and philosophic questions, and it so -chanced that at this time I read the “Life in Nature” of James Hinton, -who had already attracted my attention as a genuine man of science with -yet an original and personal grasp of religion. I had read the book six -months before and it had not greatly impressed me. Now, I no longer know -why, I read it again, and the effect was very different. Evidently by -this time my mind had reached a stage of saturated solution which needed -but the shock of the right contact to recrystallise in forms that were a -revelation to me. Here evidently the right contact was applied. Hinton -in this book showed himself a scientific biologist who carried the -mechanistic explanation of life even further than was then usual.[80] -But he was a man of highly passionate type of intellect, and what might -otherwise be formal and abstract was for him soaked in emotion. Thus, -while he saw the world as an orderly mechanism, he was not content, like -Strauss, to stop there and see in it nothing else. As he viewed it, the -mechanism was not the mechanism of a factory, it was vital, with all the -glow and warmth and beauty of life; it was, therefore, something which -not only the intellect might accept, but the heart might cling to. The -bearing of this conception on my state of mind is obvious. It acted with -the swiftness of an electric contact; the dull aching tension was -removed; the two opposing psychic tendencies were fused in delicious -harmony, and my whole attitude towards the universe was changed. It was -no longer an attitude of hostility and dread, but of confidence and -love. My self was one with the Not-Self, my will one with the universal -will. I seemed to walk in light; my feet scarcely touched the ground; I -had entered a new world. - -The effect of that swift revolution was permanent. At first there was a -moment or two of wavering, and then the primary exaltation subsided into -an attitude of calm serenity towards all those questions that had once -seemed so torturing. In regard to all these matters I had become -permanently satisfied and at rest, yet absolutely unfettered and free. I -was not troubled about the origin of the “soul” or about its destiny; I -was entirely prepared to accept any analysis of the “soul” which might -commend itself as reasonable. Neither was I troubled about the existence -of any superior being or beings, and I was ready to see that all the -words and forms by which men try to picture spiritual realities are mere -metaphors and images of an inward experience. There was not a single -clause in my religious creed because I held no creed. I had found that -dogmas were—not, as I had once imagined, true, not, as I had afterwards -supposed, false,—but the mere empty shadows of intimate personal -experience. I had become indifferent to shadows, for I held the -substance. I had sacrificed what I held dearest at the call of what -seemed to be Truth, and now I was repaid a thousand-fold. Henceforth I -could face life with confidence and joy, for my heart was at one with -the world and whatever might prove to be in harmony with the world could -not be out of harmony with me.[81] - -Thus, it might seem to many, nothing whatever had happened; I had not -gained one single definite belief that could be expressed in a -scientific formula or hardened into a religious creed. That, indeed, is -the essence of such a process. A “conversion” is not, as is often -assumed, a turning towards a belief. More strictly, it is a turning -round, a revolution; it has no primary reference to any external object. -As the greater mystics have often understood, “the Kingdom of Heaven is -within.” To put the matter a little more precisely, the change is -fundamentally a readjustment of psychic elements to each other, enabling -the whole machine to work harmoniously. There is no necessary -introduction of new ideas; there is much more likely to be a casting out -of dead ideas which have clogged the vital process. The psychic -organism—which in conventional religion is called the “soul”—had not -been in harmony with itself; now it is revolving truly on its own axis, -and in doing so it simultaneously finds its true orbit in the cosmic -system. In becoming one with itself, it becomes one with the -universe.[82] - -The process, it will be seen, is thus really rather analogous to that -which on the physical plane takes place in a person whose jaw or arm is -dislocated, whether by some inordinate effort or some sudden shock with -the external world. The miserable man with a dislocated jaw is out of -harmony with himself and with the universe. All his efforts cannot -reduce the dislocation, nor can his friends help him; he may even come -to think there is no cure. But a surgeon comes along, and with a slight -pressure of his two thumbs, applied at the right spot, downwards and -backwards, the jaw springs into place, the man is restored to -harmony—and the universe is transformed. If he is ignorant enough, he -will be ready to fall on his knees before his deliverer as a divine -being. We are concerned with what is called a “spiritual” process,—for -it is an accepted and necessary convention to distinguish between the -“spiritual” and the “physical,”—but this crude and imperfect analogy may -help some minds to understand what is meant. - -Thus may be explained what may seem to some the curious fact that I -never for a moment thought of accepting as a gospel the book which had -brought me a stimulus of such inestimable value. The person in whom -“conversion” takes place is too often told that the process is connected -in some magical manner with a supernatural influence of some kind, a -book, a creed, a church, or what not. I had read this book before and it -had left me unmoved; I knew that the book was merely the surgeon’s -touch, that the change had its source in me and not in the book. I never -looked into the book again; I cannot tell where or how my copy of it -disappeared; for all that I know, having accomplished its mission, it -was drawn up again to Heaven in a sheet. As regards James Hinton, I was -interested in him before the date of the episode here narrated; I am -interested in him still.[83] - -It may further be noted that this process of “conversion” cannot be -regarded as the outcome of despair or as a protective regression towards -childhood. The unfortunate individual, we sometimes imagine, who is -bereft of religious faith sinks deeper and deeper into despondency, -until finally he unconsciously seeks the relief of his woes by plunging -into an abyss of emotions, thereby committing intellectual suicide. On -the contrary, the period in which this event occurred was not a period -of dejection either mental or physical. I was fully occupied; I lived a -healthy, open-air life, in a fine climate, amid beautiful scenery; I was -revelling in new studies and the growing consciousness of new powers. -Instead of being the ultimate stage in a process of descent, or a return -to childhood, such psychic revolution may much more fittingly be -regarded as the climax of an ascensional movement. It is the final -casting off of childish things, the initiation into complete manhood. - -There is nothing ascetic in such a process. One is sometimes tempted to -think that to approve mysticism is to preach asceticism. Certainly many -mystics have been ascetic. But that has been the accident of their -philosophy, and not the essence of their religion. Asceticism has, -indeed, nothing to do with normal religion. It is, at the best, the -outcome of a set of philosophical dogmas concerning the relationship of -the body to the soul and the existence of a transcendental spiritual -world. That is philosophy, of a sort, not religion. Plotinus, who has -been so immensely influential in our Western world because he was the -main channel by which Greek spiritual tendencies reached us, to become -later embodied in Christianity, is usually regarded as a typical mystic, -though he was primarily a philosopher, and he was inclined to be -ascetic. Therein we may not consider him typically Greek, but the early -philosophical doctrine of Plato concerning the transcendental world of -“Ideas” easily lent itself to developments favourable to an ascetic -life. Plotinus, indeed, was not disposed to any extreme ascetic -position. The purification of the soul meant for him “to detach it from -the body, and to elevate it to a spiritual world.” But he would not have -sympathised with the harsh dualism of flesh and spirit which often -flourished among Christian ascetics. He lived celibate, but he was -willing to regard sex desire as beautiful, though a delusion.[84] When -we put aside the philosophic doctrines with which it may be associated, -it is seen that asceticism is merely an adjuvant discipline to what we -must regard as pathological forms of mysticism. - -People who come in contact with the phenomenon of “conversion” are -obsessed by the notion that it must have something to do with morality. -They seem to fancy that it is something that happens to a person leading -a bad life whereby he suddenly leads a good life. That is a delusion. -Whatever virtue morality may possess, it is outside the mystic’s sphere. -No doubt a person who has been initiated into this mystery is likely to -be moral because he is henceforth in harmony with himself, and such a -man is usually, by a natural impulse, in harmony also with others. Like -Leonardo, who through the glow of his adoration of Nature was as truly a -mystic as St. Francis, even by contact with him “every broken heart is -made serene.” But a religious man is not necessarily a moral man. That -is to say that we must by no means expect to find that the religious -man, even when he is in harmony with his fellows, is necessarily in -harmony with the moral laws of his age. We fall into sad confusion if we -take for granted that a mystic is what we conventionally term a “moral” -man. Jesus, as we know, was almost as immoral from the standpoint of the -society in which he moved as he would be in our society. That, no doubt, -is an extreme example, yet the same holds good, in a minor degree, of -many other mystics, even in very recent times. The satyrs and the fauns -were minor divinities in antiquity, and in later times we have been apt -to misunderstand their holy functions and abuse their sacred names. - -Not only is there no necessary moral change in such a process, still -less is there any necessary intellectual change. Religion need not -involve intellectual suicide. On the intellectual side there may be no -obvious change whatever. No new creed or dogma had been adopted.[85] It -might rather be said that, on the contrary, some prepossessions, -hitherto unconscious, had been realised and cast out. The operations of -reason, so far from being fettered, can be effected with greater freedom -and on a larger scale. Under favourable conditions the religious -process, indeed, throughout directly contributes to strengthen the -scientific attitude. The mere fact that one has been impelled by the -sincerity of one’s religious faith to question, to analyse, and finally -to destroy one’s religious creed, is itself an incomparable training for -the intelligence. In this task reason is submitted to the hardest tests; -it has every temptation to allow itself to be lulled into sleepy repose -or cajoled into specious reconciliations. If it is true to itself here -it is steeled for every other task in the world, for no other task can -ever demand so complete a self-sacrifice at the call of Truth. Indeed, -the final restoration of the religious impulse on a higher plane may -itself be said to reënforce the scientific impulse, for it removes that -sense of psychic disharmony which is a subconscious fetter on the -rational activity. The new inward harmony, proceeding from a psychic -centre that is at one alike with itself and with the Not-Self, imparts -confidence to every operation of the intellect. All the metaphysical -images of faith in the unseen—too familiar in the mystical experiences -of men of all religions to need specification—are now on the side of -science. For he who is thus held in his path can pursue that path with -serenity and trust, however daring its course may sometimes seem. - -It appears to me, therefore, on the basis of personal experience, that -the process thus outlined is a natural process. The harmony of the -religious impulse and of the scientific impulse is not merely a -conclusion to be deduced from the history of the past. It is a living -fact to-day. However obscured it may sometimes be, the process lies in -human nature and is still open to all to experience. - - - IV - - -IF the development of the religious instinct and the development of the -scientific instinct are alike natural, and if the possibility of the -harmony of the two instincts is a verifiable fact of experience, how is -it, one may ask, that there has ever been any dispute on the matter? Why -has not this natural experience been the experience of all? - -Various considerations may help to make clear to us how it has happened -that a process which might reasonably be supposed to be intimate and -sacred should have become so obscured and so deformed that it has been -fiercely bandied about by opposing factions. At the outset, as we have -seen, among comparatively primitive peoples, it really is a simple and -natural process carried out harmoniously with no sense of conflict. A -man, it would seem, was not then overburdened by the still unwritten -traditions of the race. He was comparatively free to exercise his own -impulses unfettered by the chains forged out of the dead impulses of -those who had gone before him. - -It is the same still among uncultivated persons of our own race in -civilisation. I well remember how once, during a long ride through the -Australian bush with a settler, a quiet, uncommunicative man with whom I -had long been acquainted, he suddenly told me how at times he would -ascend to the top of a hill and become lost to himself and to everything -as he stood in contemplation of the scene around him. Those moments of -ecstasy, of self-forgetful union with the divine beauty of Nature, were -entirely compatible with the rational outlook of a simple, hard-working -man who never went to church, for there was no church of any kind to go -to, but at such moments had in his own humble way, like Moses, met God -in a mountain. There can be no doubt that such an experience is not -uncommon among simple folk unencumbered by tradition, even when of -civilised race. - -The burden of traditions, of conventions, of castes has too often proved -fatal alike to the manifestation of the religious impulse and the -scientific impulse. It is unnecessary to point out how easily this -happens in the case of the religious impulse. It is only too familiar a -fact how, when the impulse of religion first germinates in the young -soul, the ghouls of the Churches rush out of their caverns, seize on the -unhappy victim of the divine effluence and proceed to assure him that -his rapture is, not a natural manifestation, as free as the sunlight and -as gracious as the unfolding of a rose, but the manifest sign that he -has been branded by a supernatural force and fettered for ever to a dead -theological creed. Too often he is thus caught by the bait of his own -rapture; the hook is firmly fixed in his jaw and he is drawn whither his -blind guides will; his wings droop and fall away; so far as the finer -issues of life are concerned, he is done for and damned.[86] - -But the process is not so very different on the scientific side, though -here it is more subtly concealed. The youth in whom the natural impulse -of science arises is sternly told that the spontaneous movement of his -intelligence towards Nature and truth is nothing, for the one thing -needful is that he shall be put to discipline, and trained in the -scientific traditions of the ages. The desirability of such training for -the effective questioning of Nature is so clear that both teacher and -pupil are apt to overlook the fact that it involves much that is not -science at all: all sorts of dead traditions, unrealised fragments of -ancient metaphysical systems, prepossessions and limitations, conscious -or unconscious, the obedience to arbitrary authorities. It is never made -clear to him that science also is an art. So that the actual outcome may -be that the finally accomplished man of science has as little of the -scientific impulse as the fully fledged religious man need have of the -religious impulse; he becomes the victim of another kind of -ecclesiastical sectarianism. - -There is one special piece of ancient metaphysics which until recently -scientific and religious sects have alike combined to support: the -fiction of “matter,” which we passingly came upon when considering the -art of thinking. It is a fiction that has much to answer for in -distorting the scientific spirit and in creating an artificial -opposition between science and religion. All sorts of antique -metaphysical peculiarities, inherited from the decadence of Greek -philosophy, were attributed to “matter” and they were mostly of a bad -character; all the good qualities were attributed to “spirit”; “matter” -played the Devil’s part to this more divine “spirit.” Thus it was that -“materialistic” came to be a term signifying all that is most heavy, -opaque, depressing, soul-destroying, and diabolical in the universe. The -party of traditionalised religion fostered this fiction and the party of -traditionalised science frequently adopted it, cheerily proposing to -find infinite potentialities in this despised metaphysical substance. So -that “matter” which was on one side trodden underfoot was on the other -side brandished overhead as a glorious banner. - -Yet “matter,” as psychologically minded philosophers at last began to -point out, is merely a substance we have ourselves invented to account -for our sensations. We see, we touch, we hear, we smell, and by a -brilliant synthetic effort of imagination we put together all those -sensations and picture to ourselves “matter” as being the source of -them. Science itself is now purging “matter” of its complicated -metaphysical properties. That “matter,” the nature of which Dr. Johnson, -as Boswell tells us, thought he had settled by “striking his foot with -mighty force against a large stone,” is coming to be regarded as merely -an electrical emanation. We now accept even that transmutation of the -elements of which the alchemists dreamed. It is true that we still think -of “matter” as having weight. But so cautious a physicist as Sir Joseph -Thomson long ago pointed out that weight is only an “apparently” -invariable property of matter. So that “matter” becomes almost as -“ethereal” as “spirit,” and, indeed, scarcely distinguishable from -“spirit.” The spontaneous affirmation of the mystic that he lives in the -spiritual world here and now will then be, in other words, merely the -same affirmation which the man of science has more laboriously reached. -The man, therefore, who is terrified by “materialism” has reached the -final outpost of absurdity. He is a simple-minded person who places his -own hand before his eyes and cries out in horror: The Universe has -disappeared! - -We have not only to realise how our own prepossessions and the -metaphysical figments of our own creation have obscured the simple -realities of religion and science alike; we have also to see that our -timid dread lest religion should kill our science, or science kill our -religion, is equally fatal here. He who would gain his life must be -willing to lose it, and it is by being honest to one’s self and to the -facts by applying courageously the measuring rod of Truth, that in the -end salvation is found. Here, it is true, there are those who smilingly -assure us that by adopting such a method we shall merely put ourselves -in the wrong and endure much unnecessary suffering. There is no such -thing as “Truth,” they declare, regarded as an objective impersonal -reality; we do not “discover” truth, we invent it. Therefore your -business is to invent a truth which shall harmoniously satisfy the needs -of your nature and aid your efficiency in practical life. That we are -justified in being dishonest towards truth has even been argued from the -doctrine of relativity by some who failed to realise that that doctrine -is here hardly relative. Certainly the philosophers of recent times, -from Nietzsche to Croce, have loved to analyse the idea of “truth” and -to show that it by no means signifies what we used to suppose it -signified. But to show that truth is fluid, or even the creation of the -individual mind, is by no means to show that we can at will play fast -and loose with it to suit our own momentary convenience. If we do we -merely find ourselves, at the end, in a pool where we must tramp round -and round in intellectual slush out of which there is no issue. One may -well doubt whether any Pragmatist has ever really invented his truth -that way. Practically, just as the best result is attained by the man -who acts as though free-will were a reality and who exerts it, so in -this matter, also, practically, in the end the best result is attained -by assuming that truth is an objective reality which we must patiently -seek, and in accordance with which we must discipline our own wayward -impulses. There is no transcendent objective truth, each one of us is an -artist creating his own truth from the phenomena presented to him, but -if in that creation he allows any alien emotional or practical -considerations to influence him he is a bad artist and his work is -wrought for destruction. From the pragmatic point of view, it may thus -be said that if the use of the measuring-rod of truth as an objective -standard produces the best practical results, that use is pragmatically -justified. But if so, we are exactly in the same position as we were -before the pragmatist arrived; we can get on as well without him, if not -better, for we run the risk that he may confuse the issues for us. It is -really on the theoretic rather than the practical side that he is -helpful. - -It is not only the Pragmatist whose well-meant efforts to find an easy -reconciliation of belief and practice, and indirectly the concord of -religion and science, come to grief because he has not realised that the -walls of the spiritual world can only be scaled with much expenditure of -treasure, not without blood and sweat, that we cannot glide luxuriously -to Heaven in his motor-car. We are also met by the old-fashioned -Intuitionist.[87] It is no accident that the Intuitionist so often walks -hand in hand with the Pragmatist; they are engaged in the same tasks. -There is, we have seen, the impulse of science which must work through -intelligence; there is, also, the impulse of religion in the -satisfaction of which intelligence can only take a very humble place at -the antechamber of the sanctuary. To admit, therefore, that reason -cannot extend into the religious sphere is absolutely sound so long as -we realise that reason has a coordinate right to lay down the rules in -its own sphere of intelligence. But in men of a certain mental type the -two tendencies are alike so deeply implanted that they cannot escape -them: they are not only impelled to go beyond intelligence, but they are -also impelled to carry intelligence with them outside its sphere. The -sphere of intelligence is limited, they say, and rightly; the soul has -other impulses besides that of intelligence and life needs more than -knowledge for its complete satisfaction. But in the hands of these -people the faculty of “intuition,” which is to supplant that of -intelligence, itself results in a product which by them is called -“knowledge,” and so spuriously bears the hall-mark which belongs to the -product of intelligence. - -But the result is disastrous. Not only is an illegitimate confusion -introduced, but, by attributing to the impulse of religion a character -which it is neither entitled to nor in need of, we merely discredit it -in the eyes of intelligence. The philosopher of intuition, even in -denying intelligence, is apt to remain so predominantly intelligent -that, even in entering what is for him the sphere of religion, he still -moves in an atmosphere of rarefied intelligence. He is farther from the -Kingdom of Heaven than the simple man who is quite incapable of -understanding the philosopher’s theory, but yet may be able to follow -his own religious impulse without foisting into it an intellectual -content. For even the simple man may be one with the great mystics who -all declare that the unspeakable quality they have acquired, as Eckhart -puts it, “hath no image.” It is not in the sphere of intellection, it -brings no knowledge; it is the outcome of the natural instinct of the -individual soul. - -No doubt there really are people in whom the instincts of religion and -of science alike are developed in so rudimentary a degree, if developed -at all, that they never become conscious. The religious instinct is not -an essential instinct. Even the instinct of sex, which is much more -fundamental than either of these, is not absolutely essential. A very -little bundle of instincts and impulses is indispensable to a man on his -way down the path of life to a peaceful and humble grave. A man’s -equipment of tendencies, on the lowest plane, needs to be more complex -and diverse than an oyster’s, yet not so very much more. The equipment -of the higher animals, moreover, is needed less for the good of the -individual than for the good of the race. We cannot, therefore, be -surprised if the persons in whom the superfluous instincts are -rudimentary fail to understand them, confusing them and overlaying them -with each other and with much that is outside both. The wonder would be -if it were otherwise. - -When all deduction has been made of the mental and emotional confusions -which have obscured men’s vision, we cannot fail to conclude, it seems -to me, that Science and Mysticism are nearer to each other than some -would have us believe. At the beginning of human cultures, far from -being opposed, they may even be said to be identical. From time to time, -in later ages, brilliant examples have appeared of men who have -possessed both instincts in a high degree and have even fused the two -together, while among the humble in spirit and the lowly in intellect it -is probable that in all ages innumerable men have by instinct harmonised -their religion with their intelligence. But as the accumulated -experiences of civilisation have been preserved and handed on from -generation to generation, this free and vital play of the instincts has -been largely paralysed. On each side fossilised traditions have -accumulated so thickly, the garments of dead metaphysics have been -wrapped so closely around every manifestation alike of the religious -instinct and the scientific instinct—for even what we call “common -sense” is really a hardened mass of dead metaphysics—that not many -persons can succeed in revealing one of these instincts in its naked -beauty, and very few can succeed in so revealing both instincts. Hence a -perpetual antagonism. It may be, however, we are beginning to realise -that there are no metaphysical formulas to suit all men, but that every -man must be the artist of his own philosophy. As we realise that, it -becomes easier than it was before to liberate ourselves from a dead -metaphysics, and so to give free play alike to the religious instinct -and the scientific instinct. A man must not swallow more beliefs than he -can digest; no man can absorb all the traditions of the past; what he -fills himself with will only be a poison to work to his own -auto-intoxication. - -Along all these lines we see more clearly than before the real harmony -between Mysticism and Science. We see, also, that all arguments are -meaningless until we gain personal experience. One must win one’s own -place in the spiritual world painfully and alone. There is no other way -of salvation. The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a -wilderness. - - - V - - -IT may seem that we have been harping overmuch on a single string of -what is really a very rich instrument, when the whole exalted art of -religion is brought down to the argument of its relationship to science. -The core of religion is mysticism, it is admitted. And yet where are all -the great mystics? Why nothing of the Neo-Platonists in whom the whole -movement of modern mysticism began, of their glorious pupils in the -Moslem world, of Ramon Lull and Francis of Assisi and François Xavier -and John of the Cross and George Fox and the “De Imitatione Christi” and -“Towards Democracy”? There is no end to that list of glorious names, and -they are all passed by. - -To write of the mystics, whether Pagan or Christian or Islamic, is a -most delightful task. It has been done, and often very well done. The -mystics are not only themselves an incarnation of beauty, but they -reflect beauty on all who with understanding approach them. - -Moreover, in the phenomena of religious mysticism we have a key—if we -only knew it—to many of the most precious human things which on the -surface may seem to have nothing in them of religion. For this is an art -which instinctively reveals to us the secrets of other arts. It presents -to us in the most naked and essential way the inward experience which -has inspired men to find modes of expression which are transmutations of -the art of religion and yet have on the surface nothing to indicate that -this is so. It has often been seen in poetry and in music and in -painting. One might say that it is scarcely possible to understand -completely the poetry of Shelley or the music of César Franck or the -pictures of Van Gogh unless there is somewhere within an intimation of -the secret of mysticism. This is so not because of any imperfection in -the achieved work of such men in poetry and in music and in -painting,—for work that fails to contain its own justification is always -bad work,—but because we shall not be in possession of the clue to -explain the existence of that work. We may even go beyond the sphere of -the recognised arts altogether, and say that the whole love of Nature -and landscape, which in modern times has been so greatly developed, -largely through Rousseau, the chief creator of our modern spiritual -world, is not intelligible if we are altogether ignorant of what -religion means. - -But we are not so much concerned here with the rich and variegated -garments the impulse of religion puts on, or with its possible -transmutations, as with the simple and naked shape of those impulses -when bared of all garments. It was peculiarly important to present the -impulse of mysticism naked because, of all the fundamental human -impulses, that is the one most often so richly wrapped round with -gorgeous and fantastic garments that, alike to the eye of the ordinary -man and the acute philosopher, there has seemed to be no living thing -inside at all. It was necessary to strip off all these garments, to -appeal to simple personal direct experience for the actual core of fact, -and to show that that core, so far from being soluble by analysis into -what science counts as nothing, is itself, like every other natural -organic function, a fact of science. - -It is enough here, where we are concerned only with the primary stuff of -art, the bare simple technique of the human dance, to have brought into -as clear a light as may be the altogether natural mechanism which lies -behind all the most magnificent fantasies of the mystic impulse, and -would still subsist and operate even though they were all cast into the -flames. That is why it has seemed necessary to dwell all the time on the -deep-lying harmony of the mystic’s attitude with the scientific man’s -attitude. It is a harmony which rests on the faith that they are -eternally separate, however close, however intimately coöperative. When -the mystic professes that, as such, he has knowledge of the same order -as the man of science, or when the scientist claims that, as such, he -has emotion which is like that of the man of religion, each of them -deceives himself. He has introduced a confusion where no confusion need -be; perhaps, indeed, he has even committed that sin against the Holy -Ghost of his own spiritual integrity for which there is no forgiveness. -The function of intellectual thought—which is that of the art of -science—may, certainly, be invaluable for religion; it makes possible -the purgation of all that pseudo-science, all that philosophy, good or -bad, which has poisoned and encrusted the simple spontaneous impulse of -mysticism in the open air of Nature and in the face of the sun. The man -of science may be a mystic, but cannot be a true mystic unless he is so -relentless a man of science that he can tolerate no alien science in his -mysticism. The mystic may be a man of science, but he will not be a good -man of science unless he understands that science must be kept for ever -bright and pure from all admixture of mystical emotion; the fountain of -his emotion must never rust the keenness of his analytic scalpel. It is -useless to pretend that any such rustiness can ever convert the scalpel -into a mystical implement, though it can be an admirable aid in cutting -towards the mystical core of things, and perhaps if there were more -relentless scientific men there would be more men of pure mystic vision. -Science by itself, good or bad, can never be religion, any more than -religion by itself can ever be science, or even philosophy. - -It is by looking back into the past that we see the facts in an -essential simplicity less easy to reach in more sophisticated ages. We -need not again go so far back as the medicine-men of Africa and Siberia. -Mysticism in pagan antiquity, however less intimate to us and less -seductive than that of later times, is perhaps better fitted to reveal -to us its true nature. The Greeks believed in the spiritual value of -“conversion” as devoutly as our Christian sects and they went beyond -most such sects in their elaborately systematic methods for obtaining -it, no doubt for the most part as superficially as has been common among -Christians. It is supposed that almost the whole population of Athens -must have experienced the Eleusinian initiation. These methods, as we -know, were embodied in the Mysteries associated with Dionysus and -Demeter and Orpheus and the rest, the most famous and typical being -those of Attic Eleusis.[88] We too often see those ancient Greek -Mysteries through a concealing mist, partly because it was rightly felt -that matters of spiritual experience were not things to talk about, so -that precise information is lacking, partly because the early -Christians, having their own very similar Mysteries to uphold, were -careful to speak evil of Pagan Mysteries, and partly because the Pagan -Mysteries no doubt really tended to degenerate with the general decay of -classic culture. But in their large simple essential outlines they seem -to be fairly clear. For just as there was nothing “orgiastic” in our -sense in the Greek “orgies,” which were simply ritual acts, so there was -nothing, in our sense, “mysterious” in the Mysteries. We are not to -suppose, as is sometimes supposed, that their essence was a secret -doctrine, or even that the exhibition of a secret rite was the sole -object, although it came in as part of the method. A mystery meant a -spiritual process of initiation, which was, indeed, necessarily a secret -to those who had not yet experienced it, but had nothing in itself -“mysterious” beyond what inheres to-day to the process in any Christian -“revival,” which is the nearest analogue to the Greek Mystery. It is -only “mysterious” in the sense that it cannot be expressed, any more -than the sexual embrace can be expressed, in words, but can only be -known by experience. A preliminary process of purification, the -influence of suggestion, a certain religious faith, a solemn and -dramatic ritual carried out under the most impressive circumstances, -having a real analogy to the Catholic’s Mass, which also is a function, -at once dramatic and sacred, which culminates in a spiritual communion -with the Divine—all this may contribute to the end which was, as it -always must be in religion, simply a change of inner attitude, a sudden -exalting realisation of a new relationship to eternal things. The -philosophers understood this; Aristotle was careful to point out, in an -extant fragment, that what was gained in the Mysteries was not -instruction but impressions and emotions, and Plato had not hesitated to -regard the illumination which came to the initiate in philosophy as of -the nature of that acquired in the Mysteries. So it was natural that -when Christianity took the place of Paganism the same process went on -with only a change in external circumstances. Baptism in the early -Church—before it sank to the mere magical sort of rite it later -became—was of the nature of initiation into a Mystery, preceded by -careful preparation, and the baptised initiate was sometimes crowned -with a garland as the initiated were at Eleusis. - -When we go out of Athens along the beautiful road that leads to the -wretched village of Eleusis and linger among the vast and complicated -ruins of the chief shrine of mysticism in our Western world, rich in -associations that seem to stretch back to the Neolithic Age and suggest -a time when the mystery of the blossoming of the soul was one with the -mystery of the upspringing of the corn, it may be that our thoughts by -no unnatural transition pass from the myth of Demeter and Kore to the -remembrance of what we may have heard or know of the manifestations of -the spirit among barbarian northerners of other faiths or of no faith in -far Britain and America and even of their meetings of so-called -“revival.” For it is always the same thing that Man is doing, however -various and fantastic the disguises he adopts. And sometimes the -revelation of the new life, springing up from within, comes amid the -crowd in the feverish atmosphere of artificial shrines, maybe soon to -shrivel up, and sometimes the blossoming forth takes place, perhaps more -favourably, in the open air and under the light of the sun and amid the -flowers, as it were to a happy faun among the hills. But when all -disguises have been stripped away, it is always and everywhere the same -simple process, a spiritual function which is almost a physiological -function, an art which Nature makes. That is all. - -Footnote 70: - - It is scarcely necessary to remark that if we choose to give to - “mysticism” a definition incompatible with “science,” the opposition - cannot be removed. This is, for example, done by Croce, who yet - recognises as highly important a process of “conversion” which is - nothing else but mysticism as here understood. (See, e.g., Piccoli, - _Benedetto Croce_, p. 184.) Only he has left himself no name to apply - to it. - -Footnote 71: - - “The endeavour of the human mind to enjoy the blessedness of actual - communion with the highest,” which is Pringle Pattison’s widely - accepted definition of mysticism, I prefer not to use because it is - ambiguous. The “endeavour,” while it indicates that we are concerned - with an art, also suggests its strained pathological forms, while - “actual communion” lends itself to ontological interpretations. - -Footnote 72: - - _The Threshold of Religion_ (1914), p. 48. - -Footnote 73: - - _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_ (1911), p. 272. - -Footnote 74: - - _Golden Bough_, “Balder the Beautiful,” vol. II, pp. 304-05. - -Footnote 75: - - Farnell even asserts (in his _Greek Hero Cults_) that “it is - impossible to quote a single example of any one of the higher - world-religions working in harmony with the development of physical - science.” He finds a “special and unique” exception in the cult of - Asclepios at Cos and Epidauros and Pergamon, where, after the fourth - century B.C., were physicians, practising a rational medical science, - who were also official priests of the Asclepios temples. - -Footnote 76: - - Sir Oliver Lodge, _Reason and Belief_, p. 19. - -Footnote 77: - - It is scarcely necessary to point out that a differentiation of - function has to be made sooner or later, and sometimes it is made - soon. This was so among the Todas of India. “Certain Todas,” says Dr. - Rivers (_The Todas_, 1906, p. 249), “have the power of divination, - others are sorcerers, and others again have the power of curing - diseases by means of spells and rites, while all three functions are - quite separate from those of the priest or sharman. The Todas have - advanced some way towards civilisation of function in this respect, - and have as separate members of the community their prophets, their - magicians, and their medicine-men in addition to their priests.” - -Footnote 78: - - Joël, _Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Romantik_ - (1903); _Nietzsche und die Romantik_ (1905). But I am here quoting - from Professor Joël’s account of his own philosophical development in - _Die Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart_, vol. I (1921). - -Footnote 79: - - In connection with this scheme, it may be interesting to note, I - prepared, in 1879, a _questionnaire_ on “conversion,” on the lines of - the investigations which some years later began to be so fruitfully - carried out by the psychologists of religion in America. - -Footnote 80: - - It must be remembered that for science the mechanistic assumption - always remains; it is, as Vaihinger would say, a necessary fiction. To - abandon it is to abandon science. Driesch, the most prominent vitalist - of our time, has realised this, and in his account of his own mental - development (_Die Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart_, vol. I, 1921) - he shows how, beginning as a pupil of Haeckel and working at zoölogy - for many years, after adopting the theory of vitalism he abandoned all - zoölogical work and became a professor of philosophy. When the - religious spectator, or the æsthetic spectator (as is well illustrated - in the French review _L’Esprit Nouveau_), sees the “machinery” as - something else than machinery he is legitimately going outside the - sphere of science, but he is not thereby destroying the basic - assumption of science. - -Footnote 81: - - Long ago Edith Simcox (in a passage of her _Natural Law_ which chanced - to strike my attention very soon after the episode above narrated) - well described “conversion” as a “spiritual revolution,” not based on - any single rational consideration, but due to the “cumulative evidence - of cognate impressions” resulting, at a particular moment, not in a - change of belief, but in a total rearrangement and recolouring of - beliefs and impressions, with the supreme result that the order of the - universe is apprehended no longer as hostile, but as friendly. This is - the fundamental fact of “conversion,” which is the gate of mysticism. - -Footnote 82: - - How we are to analyse the conception of “universe”—apart from its - personal emotional tone, which is what mainly concerns us—is, of - course, a matter that must be left altogether open and free. Sir James - Frazer at the end of his _Golden Bough_ (“Balder the Beautiful,” vol. - II, p. 306) finds that the “universe” is an “ever-shifting - phantasmagoria of thought,” or, he adds, suddenly shifting to a less - idealistic and more realistic standpoint, “shadows on the screen.” - That is a literary artist’s metaphysical way of describing the matter - and could not occur to any one who was not familiar with the magic - lantern which has now developed into the cinema, beloved of - philosophers for its symbolic significance. Mr. Bertrand Russell, a - more abstract artist, who would reject any such “imaginative - admixture” as he would find in Frazer’s view, once severely refused to - recognise any such thing as a “universe,” but has since less austerely - admitted that there is, after all, a “set of appearances,” which may - fairly be labelled “reality,” so long as we do not assume “a - mysterious Thing-in-Itself behind the appearances.” (_Nation_, 6th - January, 1923.) But there are always some people who think that an - “appearance” must be an appearance of _Something_, and that when a - “shadow” is cast on the screen of our sensory apparatus it must be - cast by _Something_. So every one defines the “universe” in his own - way, and no two people—not even the same person long—can define it in - the same way. We have to recognise that even the humblest of us is - entitled to his own “universe.” - -Footnote 83: - - The simple and essential outlines of “conversion” have been obscured - because chiefly studied in the Churches among people whose - prepossessions and superstitions have rendered it a highly complex - process, and mixed up with questions of right and wrong living which, - important as they are, properly form no part of religion. The man who - waits to lead a decent life until he has “saved his soul” is not - likely to possess a soul that is worth saving. How much ignorance - prevails in regard to “conversion,” even among the leaders of - religious opinion, and what violent contrasts of opinion—in which - sometimes both the opposing parties are mistaken—was well illustrated - by a discussion on the subject at the Church Congress at Sheffield in - 1922. A distinguished Churchman well defined “conversion” as a - unification of character, involving the whole man,—will, intellect, - and emotion,—by which a “new self” was achieved; but he also thought - that this great revolutionary process consisted usually in giving up - some “definite bad habit,” very much doubted whether sudden conversion - was a normal phenomenon at all, and made no attempt to distinguish - between that kind of “conversion” which is merely the result of - suggestion and auto-suggestion, after a kind of hysterical attack - produced by feverish emotional appeals, and that which is spontaneous - and of lifelong effect. Another speaker went to the opposite extreme - by asserting that “conversion” is an absolutely necessary process, and - an Archbishop finally swept away “conversion” altogether by declaring - that the whole of the religious life (and the whole of the irreligious - life?) is a process of conversion. (_The Times_, 12th October, 1922.) - It may be a satisfaction to some to realise that this is a matter on - which it is vain to go to the Churches for light. - -Footnote 84: - - Dean Inge (_Philosophy of Plotinus_, vol. II, p. 165) has some remarks - on Plotinus in relation to asceticism. - -Footnote 85: - - Jules de Gaultier (_La Philosophie officielle et la Philosophie_, p. - 150) refers to those Buddhist monks the symbol of whose faith was - contained in one syllable: _Om_. But those monks, he adds, belonged to - “the only philosophic race that ever existed” and by the aid of their - pure faith, placed on a foundation which no argumentation can upset, - all the religious philosophies of the Judeo-Helleno-Christian - tradition are but as fairy-tales told to children. - -Footnote 86: - - We must always remember that “Church” and “religion,” though often - confused, are far from being interchangeable terms. “Religion” is a - natural impulse, “Church” is a social institution. The confusion is - unfortunate. Thus Freud (_Group Psychology_, p. 51) speaks of the - probability of religion disappearing and Socialism taking its place. - He means not “religion,” but a “Church.” We cannot speak of a natural - impulse disappearing, an institution easily may. - -Footnote 87: - - It must be remembered that “intuition” is a word with all sorts of - philosophical meanings, in addition to its psychological meanings - (which were studied some years ago by Dearborn in the _Psychological - Review_). For the ancient philosophic writers, from the Neo-Platonists - on, it was usually a sort of special organ for coming in contact with - supernatural realities; for Bergson it is at once a method superior to - the intellect for obtaining knowledge and a method of æsthetic - contemplation; for Croce it is solely æsthetic, and art is at once - “intuition” and “expression” (by which he means the formation of - internal images). For Croce, when the mind “intuits” by “expressing,” - the result is art. There is no “religion” for Croce except philosophy. - -Footnote 88: - - The modern literature of the Mysteries, especially of Eleusis, is very - extensive and elaborate in many languages. I will only mention here a - small and not very recent book, Cheetham’s Hulsean Lectures on _The - Mysteries Pagan and Christian_ (1897) as for ordinary readers - sufficiently indicating the general significance of the Mysteries. - There is, yet briefer, a more modern discussion of the matter in the - Chapter on “Religion” by Dr. W. R. Inge in R. W. Livingstone’s useful - collection of essays, _The Legacy of Greece_ (1921). - - - - - CHAPTER VI - THE ART OF MORALS - - - I - - -NO man has ever counted the books that have been written about morals. -No subject seems so fascinating to the human mind. It may well be, -indeed, that nothing imports us so much as to know how to live. Yet it -can scarcely be that on any subject are the books that have been written -more unprofitable, one might even say unnecessary. - -For when we look at the matter objectively it is, after all, fairly -simple. If we turn our attention to any collective community, at any -time and place, in its moral aspect, we may regard it as an army on the -march along a road of life more or less encompassed by danger. That, -indeed, is scarcely a metaphor; that is what life, viewed in its moral -aspect, may really be considered. When thus considered, we see that it -consists of an extremely small advance guard in front, formed of persons -with a limited freedom of moral action and able to act as patrols in -various directions, of a larger body in the rear, in ancient military -language called the blackguard and not without its uses, and in the main -of a great compact majority with which we must always be chiefly -concerned since they really are the army; they are the community. What -we call “morals” is simply blind obedience to words of command—whether -or not issued by leaders the army believes it has itself chosen—of which -the significance is hidden, and beyond this the duty of keeping in step -with the others, or of trying to keep in step, or of pretending to do -so.[89] It is an automatic, almost unconscious process and only becomes -acutely conscious when the individual is hopelessly out of step; then he -may be relegated to the rear blackguard. But that happens seldom. So -there is little need to be concerned about it. Even if it happened very -often, nothing overwhelming would have taken place; it would merely be -that what we called the blackguard had now become the main army, though -with a different discipline. We are, indeed, simply concerned with a -discipline or routine which in this field is properly described as -_custom_, and the word _morals_ essentially means _custom_. That is what -morals must always be for the mass, and, indeed, to some extent for all, -a discipline, and, as we have already seen, a discipline cannot properly -be regarded as a science or an art. The innumerable books on morals, -since they have usually confused and befogged this simple and central -fact, cannot fail to be rather unprofitable. That, it would seem, is -what the writers thought—at all events about those the others had -written—or else they would not have considered it necessary for -themselves to add to the number. It was not only an unprofitable task, -it was also—except in so far as an objectively scientific attitude has -been assumed—aimless. For, although the morals of a community at one -time and place is never the same as that of another or even the same -community at another time and place, it is a complex web of conditions -that produces the difference, and it must have been evident that to -attempt to affect it was idle.[90] There is no occasion for any one who -is told that he has written a “moral” book to be unduly elated, or when -he is told that his book is “immoral” to be unduly cast down. The -significance of these adjectives is strictly limited. Neither the one -book nor the other can have more than the faintest effect on the march -of the great compact majority of the social army. - -Yet, while all this is so, there is still some interest in the question -of morals. For, after all, there is the small body of individuals ahead, -alertly eager to find the road, with a sensitive flair for all the -possibilities the future may hold. When the compact majority, blind and -automatic and unconscious, follows after, to tramp along the road these -pioneers have discovered, it may seem but a dull road. But before they -reached it that road was interesting, even passionately interesting. - -The reason is that, for those who, in any age, are thus situated, life -is not merely a discipline. It is, or it may become, really an art. - - - II - - -THAT living is or may be an art, and the moralist the critic of that -art, is a very ancient belief. It was especially widespread among the -Greeks. To the Greeks, indeed, this belief was so ingrained and -instinctive that it became an implicitly assumed attitude rather than a -definitely expressed faith. It was natural to them to speak of a -virtuous person as we should speak of a beautiful person. The “good” was -the “beautiful”; the sphere of ethics for the Greeks was not -distinguished from the sphere of æsthetics. In Sophocles, above all -poets, we gather the idea of a natural agreement between duty and -inclination which is at once both beauty and moral order. But it is the -beautiful that seems to be most fundamental in τὸ καλὸν, which was the -noble, the honourable, but fundamentally the beautiful. “Beauty is the -first of all things,” said Isocrates, the famous orator; “nothing that -is devoid of beauty is prized.... The admiration for virtue comes to -this, that of all manifestation of life, virtue is the most beautiful.” -The supremely beautiful was, for the finer sort of Greeks, instinctively -if not always consciously, the supremely divine, and the Argive Hera, it -has been said, “has more divinity in her countenance than any Madonna of -them all.” That is how it came to pass that we have no word in our -speech to apply to the Greek conception; æsthetics for us is apart from -all the serious business of life, and the attempt to introduce it there -seems merely comic. But the Greeks spoke of life itself as a craft or a -fine art. Protagoras, who appears to-day as a pioneer of modern science, -was yet mainly concerned to regard living as an art, or as the sum of -many crafts, and the Platonic Socrates, his opponent, still always -assumed that the moralist’s position is that of a critic of a craft. So -influential a moralist as Aristotle remarks in a matter-of-fact way, in -his “Poetics,” that if we wish to ascertain whether an act is, or is -not, morally right we must consider not merely the intrinsic quality of -the act, but the person who does it, the person to whom it is done, the -time, the means, the motive. Such an attitude towards life puts out of -court any appeal to rigid moral laws; it meant that an act must befit -its particular relationships at a particular moment, and that its moral -value could, therefore, only be judged by the standard of the -spectator’s instinctive feeling for proportion and harmony. That is the -attitude we adopt towards a work of art. - -It may well appear strange to those who cherish the modern idea of -“æstheticism” that the most complete statement of the Greek attitude has -come down to us in the writings of a philosopher, an Alexandrian Greek -who lived and taught in Rome in the third century of our Christian Era, -when the Greek world had vanished, a religious mystic, moreover, whose -life and teaching were penetrated by an austere ascetic severity which -some would count mediæval rather than Greek.[91] It is in Plotinus, a -thinker whose inspiring influence still lives to-day, that we probably -find the Greek attitude, in its loftiest aspect, best mirrored, and it -was probably through channels that came from Plotinus—though their -source was usually unrecognised—that the Greek moral spirit has chiefly -reached modern times. Many great thinkers and moralists of the -eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has been claimed, were -ultimately indebted to Plotinus, who represented the only genuinely -creative effort of the Greek spirit in the third century.[92] - -Plotinus seems to have had little interest in art, as commonly -understood, and he was an impatient, rapid, and disorderly writer, not -even troubling to spell correctly. All his art was in the spiritual -sphere. It is impossible to separate æsthetics, as he understood it, -from ethics and religion. In the beautiful discourse on Beauty, which -forms one of the chapters of his first “Ennead,” it is mainly with -spiritual beauty that he is concerned. But he insists that it _is_ -beauty, beauty of the same quality as that of the physical world, which -inheres in goodness, “nor may those tell of the splendour of Virtue who -have never known the face of Justice and of Wisdom beautiful beyond the -beauty of Evening and of Dawn.” It is a beauty, he further -states,—though here he seems to be passing out of the purely æsthetic -sphere,—that arouses emotions of love. “This is the spirit that Beauty -must ever induce, wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love, -and a trembling that is also delight. For the unseen all this may be -felt as for the seen, and this souls feel for it, every soul in some -degree, but those the more deeply who are the more truly apt to this -higher love—just as all take delight in the beauty of the body, but all -are not strung as sharply, and those only that feel the keener wound are -known as Lovers.” Goodness and Truth were on the same plane for Plotinus -as Beauty. It may even be said that Beauty was the most fundamental of -all, to be identified ultimately as the Absolute, as Reality itself. So -it was natural that in the sphere of morals he should speak -indifferently either of “extirpating evil and implanting goodness” or of -“introducing order and beauty to replace goodness”—in either case “we -talk of real things.” “Virtue is a natural concordance among the -phenomena of the soul, vice a discord.” But Plotinus definitely rejects -the notion that beauty is only symmetry, and so he avoids the narrow -conception of some more modern æsthetic moralists, notably Hutcheson. -How, then, he asks, could the sun be beautiful, or gold, or light, or -night, or the stars? “Beauty is something more than symmetry, and -symmetry owes its beauty to a remoter principle”—its affinity, in the -opinion of Plotinus, with the “Ideal Form,” immediately recognised and -confirmed by the soul. - -It may seem to some that Plotinus reduces to absurdity the conception of -morality as æsthetics, and it may well be that the Greeks of the great -period were wiser when they left the nature of morals less explicit. Yet -Plotinus had in him the root of the matter. He had risen to the -conception that the moral life of the soul is a dance; “Consider the -performers in a choral dance: they sing together, though each one has -his own particular part, and sometimes one voice is heard while the -others are silent; and each brings to the chorus something of his own; -it is not enough that all lift their voices together; each must sing, -choicely, his own part in the music set for him. So it is with the -Soul.”[93] The Hellenic extension of the æsthetic emotion, as Benn -pointed out, involved no weakening of the moral fibre. That is so, we -see, and even emphatically so, when it becomes definitely explicit as in -Plotinus, and revolutionarily hostile to all those ideals of the moral -life which most people have been accustomed to consider modern. - -As usually among the Greeks, it is only implicitly, also, that we detect -this attitude among the Romans, the pupils of the Greeks. For the most -part, the Romans, whose impulses of art were very limited, whose -practical mind craved precision and definition, proved rebellious to the -idea that living is an art; yet it may well be that they still retained -that idea at the core of their morality. It is interesting to note that -St. Augustine, who stood on the threshold between the old Roman and new -Christian worlds was able to write: “The art of living well and rightly -is the definition that the ancients give of ‘virtue.’” For the Latins -believed that _ars_ was derived from the Greek word for virtue, -ἀρετή.[94] Yet there really remained a difference between the Greek and -the Roman views of morals. The Greek view, it is universally admitted, -was æsthetic, in the most definite sense; the Roman was not, and when -Cicero wishes to translate a Greek reference to a “beautiful” action it -becomes an “honourable” action. The Greek was concerned with what he -himself felt about his actions; the Roman was concerned with what they -would look like to other people, and the credit, or discredit, that -would be reflected back on himself. - -The Hebrews never even dreamed of such an art. Their attitude is -sufficiently embodied in the story of Moses and that visit to Sinai -which resulted in the production of the table of Ten Commandments which -we may still see inscribed in old churches. For even our modern feeling -about morals is largely Jewish, in some measure Roman, and scarcely -Greek at all. We still accept, in theory at all events, the Mosaic -conception of morality as a code of rigid and inflexible rules, -arbitrarily ordained, and to be blindly obeyed. - -The conception of morality as an art, which Christendom once disdained, -seems now again to be finding favour in men’s eyes. The path has been -made smooth for it by great thinkers of various complexion, who, -differing in many fundamental points, all alike assert the relativity of -truth and the inaptitude of rigid maxims to serve as guiding forces in -life. They also assert, for a large part, implicitly or explicitly, the -authority of art. - -The nineteenth century was usually inspired by the maxims of Kant, and -lifted its hat reverently when it heard Kant declaiming his famous -sayings concerning the supremacy of an inflexible moral law. Kant had, -indeed, felt the stream of influence which flowed from Shaftesbury, and -he sought to mix up æsthetics with his system. But he had nothing of the -genuine artist’s spirit. The art of morals was to him a set of maxims, -cold, rigid, precise. A sympathetic biographer has said of him that the -maxims were the man. They are sometimes fine maxims. But as guides, as -motives to practical action in the world? The maxims of the -valetudinarian professor at Königsberg scarcely seem that to us to-day. -Still less can we harmonise maxims with art. Nor do we any longer -suppose that we are impertinent in referring to the philosopher’s -personality. In the investigation of the solar spectrum personality may -count for little; in the investigation of moral laws it counts for much. -For personality is the very stuff of morals. The moral maxims of an -elderly professor in a provincial university town have their interest. -But so have those of a Casanova. And the moral maxims of a Goethe may -possibly have more interest than either. There is the rigid categorical -imperative of Kant; and there is also that other dictum, less rigid but -more reminiscent of Greece, which some well-inspired person has put into -the mouth of Walt Whitman: “Whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect -person, that is finally right.” - - - III - - -FUNDAMENTALLY considered, there are two roads by which we may travel -towards the moral ends of life: the road of Tradition, which is -ultimately that of Instinct, pursued by the many, and the road of what -seems to be Reason—sought out by the few. And in the end these two roads -are but the same road, for reason also is an instinct. It is true that -the ingenuity of analytic investigators like Henry Sidgwick has -succeeded in enumerating various “methods of ethics.” But, roughly -speaking, there can only be these two main roads of life, and only one -has proved supremely important. It has been by following the path of -tradition moulded by instinct that man reached the threshold of -civilisation: whatever may have been the benefits he derived from the -guidance of reason he never consciously allowed reason to control his -moral life. Tables of commandments have ever been “given by God”; they -represented, that is to say, obscure impulses of the organism striving -to respond to practical needs. No one dreamed of commending them by -declaring that they were reasonable. - -It is clear how Instinct and Tradition, thus working together, act -vitally and beneficently in moulding the moral life of primitive -peoples. The “divine command” was always a command conditioned by the -special circumstance under which the tribe lived. That is so even when -the moral law is to our civilised eyes “unnatural.” The infanticide of -Polynesian islanders, where the means of subsistence and the -possibilities of expansion were limited, was obviously a necessary -measure, beneficent and humane in its effects. The killing of the aged -among the migrant Eskimos was equally a necessary and kindly measure, -recognised as such by the victims themselves, when it was essential that -every member of the community should be able to help himself. Primitive -rules of moral action, greatly as they differ among themselves, are all -more or less advantageous and helpful on the road of primitive life. It -is true that they allow very little, if any, scope for divergent -individual moral action, but that, too, was advantageous. - -But that, also, is the rock on which an instinctive traditional morality -must strike as civilisation is approached. The tribe has no longer the -same unity. Social differentiation has tended to make the family a unit, -and psychic differentiation to make even the separate individuals units. -The community of interests of the whole tribe has been broken up, and -therewith traditional morality has lost alike its value and its power. - -The development of abstract intelligence, which coincides with -civilisation, works in the same direction. Reason is, indeed, on one -side an integrating force, for it shows that the assumption of -traditional morality—the identity of the individual’s interests with the -interests of the community—is soundly based. But it is also a -disintegrating force. For if it reveals a general unity in the ends of -living, it devises infinitely various and perplexingly distracting -excuses for living. Before the active invasion of reason living had been -an art, or at all events a discipline, highly conventionalised and even -ritualistic, but the motive forces of living lay in life itself and had -all the binding sanction of instincts; the penalty of every failure in -living, it was felt, would be swiftly and automatically experienced. To -apply reason here was to introduce a powerful solvent into morals. -Objectively it made morality clearer but subjectively it destroyed the -existing motives for morality; it deprived man, to use the fashionable -phraseology of the present day, of a vital illusion. - -Thus we have morality in the fundamental sense, the actual practices of -the main army of the population, while in front a variegated procession -of prancing philosophers gaily flaunt their moral theories before the -world. Kant, whose personal moral problems were concerned with eating -sweetmeats,[95] and other philosophers of varyingly inferior calibre, -were regarded as the lawgivers of morality, though they carried little -enough weight with the world at large. - -Thus it comes about that abstract moral speculations, culminating in -rigid maxims, are necessarily sterile and vain. They move in the sphere -of reason, and that is the sphere of comprehension, but not of vital -action. In this way there arises a moral dualism in civilised man. -Objectively he has become like the gods and able to distinguish the ends -of life; he has eaten of the fruit of the tree and has knowledge of good -and evil. Subjectively he is still not far removed from the savage, -oftenest stirred to action by a confused web of emotional motives, among -which the interwoven strands of civilised reason are as likely to -produce discord or paralysis as to furnish efficient guides, a state of -mind first, and perhaps best, set forth in its extreme form by -Shakespeare in Hamlet. On the one hand he cannot return to the primitive -state in which all the motives for living flowed harmoniously in the -same channel; he cannot divest himself of his illuminating reason; he -cannot recede from his hardly acquired personal individuality. On the -other hand he can never expect, he can never even reasonably hope, that -reason will ever hold in leash the emotions. It is clear that along -neither path separately can the civilised man pursue his way in -harmonious balance with himself. We begin to realise that what we need -is not a code of beautifully cut-and-dried maxims—whether emanating from -sacred mountains or from philosophers’ studies—but a happy combination -of two different ways of living. We need, that is, a traditional and -instinctive way of living, based on real motor instincts, which will -blend with reason and the manifold needs of personality, instead of -being destroyed by their solvent actions, as rigid rules inevitably are. -Our only valid rule is a creative impulse that is one with the -illuminative power of intelligence. - - - IV - - -AT the beginning of the eighteenth century, the seed-time of our modern -ideas, as it has so often seemed to be, the English people, having in -art at length brought their language to a fine degree of clarity and -precision, and having just passed through a highly stimulating period of -dominant Puritanism in life, became much interested in philosophy, -psychology, and ethics. Their interest was, indeed, often superficial -and amateurish, though they were soon to produce some of the most -notable figures in the whole history of thought. The third Earl of -Shaftesbury, one of the earliest of the group, himself illustrated this -unsystematic method of thinking. He was an amateur, an aristocratic -amateur, careless of consistency, and not by any means concerned to -erect a philosophic system. Not that he was a worse thinker on that -account. The world’s greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; for -high thinking is the outcome of fine and independent living, and for -that a professorial chair offers no special opportunities. Shaftesbury -was, moreover, a man of fragile physical constitution, as Kant was; but, -unlike Kant, he was not a childish hypochondriac in seclusion, but a man -in the world, heroically seeking to live a complete and harmonious life. -By temperament he was a Stoic, and he wrote a characteristic book of -“Exercises,” as he proposed to call what his modern editor calls the -“Philosophical Regimen,” in which he consciously seeks to discipline -himself in fine thinking and right living, plainly acknowledging that he -is the disciple of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. But Shaftesbury was -also a man of genius, and as such it was his good fortune to throw -afresh into the stream of thought a fruitful conception, in part -absorbed, indeed, from Greece, and long implicit in men’s minds, but -never before made clearly recognisable as a moral theory and an ethical -temper, susceptible of being labelled by the philosophic historian, as -it since has been under the name, passable no doubt as any other, of -“Æsthetic Intuitionism.” - -Greek morality, it has been well said, is not a conflict of light and -darkness, of good and evil, the clear choice between the broad road that -leads to destruction and the narrow path of salvation: it is “an -artistic balance of light and shade.” Gizycki, remarking that -Shaftesbury has more affinity to the Greeks than perhaps any other -modern moralist, says that “the key lay not only in his head, but in his -heart, for like can only be recognised by like.”[96] We have to remember -at the same time that Shaftesbury was really something of a classical -scholar, even from childhood. Born in 1671, the grandson of the foremost -English statesman of his time, the first Earl, Anthony Cooper, he had -the advantage of the wise oversight of his grandfather, who placed with -him as a companion in childhood a lady who knew both Greek and Latin so -well that she could converse fluently in both languages. So it was that -by the age of eleven he was familiar with the two classic tongues and -literatures. That doubtless was also a key to his intimate feeling for -the classic spirit, though it would not have sufficed without a native -affinity. He became the pupil of Locke, and at fifteen he went to Italy, -to spend a considerable time there. He knew France also, and the French -tongue, so well that he was often taken for a native. He lived for some -time in Holland, and there formed a friendship with Bayle, which began -before the latter was aware of his friend’s rank and lasted till Bayle’s -death. In Holland he may have been slightly influenced by Grotius.[97] -Shaftesbury was not of robust constitution; he suffered from asthma, and -his health was further affected by his zeal in public affairs as well as -his enthusiasm in study, for his morality was not that of a recluse, but -of a man who played an active part in life, not only in social -benevolence, like his descendant the enlightened philanthropic Earl of -the nineteenth century, but in the establishment of civil freedom and -toleration. Locke wrote of his pupil (who was not, however, in agreement -with his tutor’s philosophic standpoint,[98] though he always treated -him with consideration) that “the sword was too sharp for the scabbard.” - -“He seems,” wrote of Shaftesbury his unfriendly contemporary Mandeville, -“to require and expect goodness in his species as we do a sweet taste in -grapes and China oranges, of which, if any of them are sour, we boldly -pronounce that they are not come to that perfection their nature is -capable of.” In a certain sense this was correct. Shaftesbury, it has -been said, was the father of that new ethics which recognises that -Nature is not a mere impulse of self-preservation, as Hobbes thought, -but also a racial impulse, having regard to others; there are social -inclinations in the individual, he realised, that go beyond individual -ends. (Referring to the famous dictum of Hobbes, _Homo homini lupus_, he -observes: “To say in disparagement of Man ‘that he is to Man a wolf’ -appears somewhat absurd when one considers that wolves are to wolves -very kind and loving creatures.”) Therewith “goodness” was seen, -virtually for the first time in the modern period, to be as “natural” as -the sweetness of ripe fruit. - -There was another reason, a fundamental physiological and psychological -reason, why “goodness” of actions and the “sweetness” of fruits are -equally natural, a reason that would, no doubt, have been found strange -both by Mandeville and Shaftesbury. Morality, Shaftesbury describes as -“the taste of beauty and the relish of what is decent,” and the “sense -of beauty” is ultimately the same as the “moral sense.” “My first -endeavour,” wrote Shaftesbury, “must be to distinguish the true taste of -fruits, refine my palate, and establish a just relish in the kind.” He -thought, evidently, that he was merely using a metaphor. But he was -speaking essentially in the direct, straightforward way of natural and -primitive Man. At the foundation, “sweetness” and “goodness” are the -same thing. That can still be detected in the very structure of -language, not only of primitive languages, but those of the most -civilised peoples. That morality is, in the strict sense, a matter of -taste, of æsthetics, of what the Greeks called αἴσθησις, is conclusively -shown by the fact that in the most widely separated tongues—possibly -wherever the matter has been carefully investigated—moral goodness is, -at the outset, expressed in terms of _taste_. What is _good_ is what is -_sweet_, and sometimes, also, _salt_.[99] Primitive peoples have highly -developed the sensory side of their mental life, and their vocabularies -bear witness to the intimate connection of sensations of taste and touch -with emotional tone. There is, indeed, no occasion to go beyond our own -European traditions to see that the expression of moral qualities is -based on fundamental sensory qualities of taste. In Latin _suavis_ is -_sweet_, but even in Latin it became a moral quality, and its English -derivatives have been entirely deflected from physical to moral -qualities, while _bitter_ is at once a physical quality and a poignantly -moral quality. In Sanskrit and Persian and Arabic _salt_ is not only a -physical taste but the name for lustre and grace and beauty.[100] It -seems well in passing to point out that the deeper we penetrate the more -fundamentally we find the æsthetic conception of morals grounded in -Nature. But not every one cares to penetrate any deeper and there is no -need to insist. - -Shaftesbury held that human actions should have a beauty of symmetry and -proportion and harmony, which appeal to us, not because they accord with -any rule or maxim (although they may conceivably be susceptible of -measurement), but because they satisfy our instinctive feelings, evoking -an approval which is strictly an æsthetic judgment of moral action. This -instinctive judgment was not, as Shaftesbury understood it, a guide to -action. He held, rightly enough, that the impulse to action is -fundamental and primary, that fine action is the outcome of finely -tempered natures. It is a feeling for the just time and measure of human -passion, and maxims are useless to him whose nature is ill-balanced. -“Virtue is no other than the love of order and beauty in society.” -Æsthetic appreciation of the act, and even an ecstatic pleasure in it, -are part of our æsthetic delight in Nature generally, which includes -Man. Nature, it is clear, plays a large part in this conception of the -moral life. To lack balance on any plane of moral conduct is to be -unnatural; “Nature is not mocked,” said Shaftesbury. She is a miracle, -for miracles are not things that are performed, but things that are -perceived, and to fail here is to fail in perception of the divinity of -Nature, to do violence to her, and to court moral destruction. A return -to Nature is not a return to ignorance or savagery, but to the first -instinctive feeling for the beauty of well-proportioned affections. “The -most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth,” he -asserts, and he recurs again and again to “the beauty of honesty.” -“_Dulce et decorum est_ was his sole reason,” he says of the classical -pagan, adding: “And this is still a good reason.” In learning how to -act, he thought, we are “learning to become artists.” It seems natural -to him to refer to the magistrate as an artist; “the magistrate, if he -be an artist,” he incidentally says. We must not make morality depend on -authority. The true artist, in any art, will never act below his -character. “Let who will make it for you as you fancy,” the artist -declares; “I know it to be wrong. Whatever I have made hitherto has been -true work. And neither for your sake or anybody’s else shall I put my -hand to any other.” “This is virtue!” exclaims Shaftesbury. “This -disposition transferred to the whole of life perfects a character. For -there is a workmanship and a truth in actions.” - -Shaftesbury, it may be repeated, was an amateur, not only in philosophy, -but even in the arts. He regarded literature as one of the schoolmasters -for fine living, yet he has not been generally regarded as a fine artist -in writing, though, directly or indirectly, he helped to inspire not -only Pope, but Thomson and Cowper and Wordsworth. He was inevitably -interested in painting, but his tastes were merely those of the ordinary -connoisseur of his time. This gives a certain superficiality to his -general æsthetic vision, though it was far from true, as the theologians -supposed, that he was lacking in seriousness. His chief immediate -followers, like Hutcheson, came out of Calvinistic Puritanism. He was -himself an austere Stoic who adapted himself to the tone of the -well-bred world he lived in. But if an amateur, he was an amateur of -genius. He threw a vast and fruitful conception—caught from the -“Poetics” of Aristotle, “the Great Master of Arts,” and developed with -fine insight—into our modern world. Most of the great European thinkers -of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were in some measure -inspired, influenced, or anticipated by Shaftesbury. Even Kant, though -he was unsympathetic and niggardly of appreciation, helped to develop -the conception Shaftesbury first formulated. To-day we see it on every -hand. It is slowly and subtly moulding the whole of our modern morality. - -“The greatest Greek of modern times”—so he appears to those who study -his work to-day. It is through Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury alone that -Greek morals, in their finest essence, have been a vivifying influence -in our modern world. Georg von Gizycki, who has perhaps most clearly -apprehended Shaftesbury’s place in morals, indicates that place with -precision and justice when he states that “he furnished the _elements_ -of a moral philosophy which fits into the frame of a truly scientific -conception of the world.”[101] That was a service to the modern world so -great and so daring that it could scarcely meet with approval from his -fellow countrymen. The more keenly philosophical Scotch, indeed, -recognised him, first of all Hume, and he was accepted and embodied as a -kind of founder by the so-called Scottish School, though so toned down -and adulterated and adapted to popular tastes and needs, that in the end -he was thereby discredited. But the English never even adulterated him; -they clung to the antiquated and eschatological Paley, bringing forth -edition after edition of his works whereon to discipline their youthful -minds. That led naturally on to the English Utilitarians in morality, -who would disdain to look at anything that could be called Greek. Sir -Leslie Stephen, who was the vigorous and capable interpreter to the -general public of Utilitarianism, could see nothing good whatever in -Shaftesbury; he viewed him with contemptuous pity and could only murmur: -“Poor Shaftesbury!” - -Meanwhile Shaftesbury’s fame had from the first been pursuing a very -different course in France and Germany, for it is the people outside a -man’s own country who anticipate the verdict of posterity. Leibnitz, -whose vast genius was on some sides akin (Shaftesbury has, indeed, been -termed “the Leibnitz of morals”), admired the English thinker, and the -universal Voltaire recognised him. Montesquieu placed him on a -four-square summit with Plato and Montaigne and Malebranche. The -enthusiastic Diderot, seeing in Shaftesbury the exponent of the -naturalistic ethics of his own temperament, translated a large part of -his chief book in 1745. Herder, who inspired so many of the chief -thinkers of the nineteenth century and even of to-day, was himself -largely inspired by Shaftesbury, whom he once called “the virtuoso of -humanity,” regarding his writings as, even in form, well-nigh worthy of -Greek antiquity, and long proposed to make a comparative study of the -ethical conceptions of Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Shaftesbury, but -unfortunately never carried out that happy idea. Rousseau, not only by -contact of ideas, but the spontaneous effort of his own nature towards -autonomous harmony, was in touch with Shaftesbury, and so helped to -bring his ideals into the general stream of modern life. Shaftesbury, -directly or indirectly, inspired the early influential French Socialists -and Communists. On the other hand he has equally inspired the moralists -of individualism. Even the Spanish-American Rodó, one of the most -delicately aristocratic of modern moralists in recent time, puts forth -conceptions, which, consciously or unconsciously, are precisely those of -Shaftesbury. Rodó believes that all moral evil is a dissonance in the -æsthetic of conduct and that the moral task in character is that of the -sculptor in marble: “Virtue is a kind of art, a divine art.” Even Croce, -who began by making a deep division between art and life, holds that -there can be no great critic of art who is not also a great critic of -life, for æsthetic criticism is really itself a criticism of life, and -his whole philosophy may be regarded as representing a stage of -transition between the old traditional view of the world and that -conception towards which in the modern world our gaze is turned.[102] - -As Shaftesbury had stated the matter, however, it was left on the whole -vague and large. He made no very clear distinction between the creative -artistic impulse in life and critical æsthetic appreciation. In the -sphere of morals we must often be content to wait until our activity is -completed to appreciate its beauty or its ugliness.[103] On the -background of general æsthetic judgment we have to concentrate on the -forces of creative artistic activity, whose work it is painfully to -mould the clay of moral action, and forge its iron, long before the -æsthetic criterion can be applied to the final product. The artist’s -work in life is full of struggle and toil; it is only the spectator of -morals who can assume the calm æsthetic attitude. Shaftesbury, indeed, -evidently recognised this, but it was not enough to say, as he said, -that we may prepare ourselves for moral action by study in literature. -One may be willing to regard living as an art, and yet be of opinion -that it is as unsatisfactory to learn the art of living in literature as -to learn, let us say, the art of music in architecture. - -Yet we must not allow these considerations to lead us away from the -great fact that Shaftesbury clearly realised—what modern psychology -emphasises—that desires can only be countered by desires, that reason -cannot affect appetite. “That which is of original and pure nature,” he -declared, “nothing besides contrary habit and custom (a second nature) -is able to displace. There is no speculative opinion, persuasion, or -belief, which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy -it.” Where he went beyond some modern psychologists is in his Hellenic -perception that in this sphere of instinct we are amid the play of art -to which æsthetic criteria alone can be applied. - -It was necessary to concentrate and apply these large general ideas. To -some extent this was done by Shaftesbury’s immediate successors and -followers, such as Hutcheson and Arbuckle, who taught that man is, -ethically, an artist whose work is his own life. They concentrated -attention on the really creative aspects of the artist in life, æsthetic -appreciation of the finished product being regarded as secondary. For -all art is, primarily, not a contemplation, but a doing, a creative -action, and morality is so preëminently. - -Shaftesbury, with his followers Arbuckle and Hutcheson, may be regarded -as the founders of æsthetics; it was Hutcheson, though he happened to be -the least genuinely æsthetic in temperament of the three, who wrote the -first modern treatise on æsthetics. Together, also, they may be said to -have been the revivalists of Hellenism, that is to say, of the Hellenic -spirit, or rather of the classic spirit, for it often came through Roman -channels. Shaftesbury was, as Eucken has well said, the Greek spirit -among English thinkers. He represented an inevitable reaction against -Puritanism, a reaction which is still going on—indeed, here and there -only just beginning. As Puritanism had achieved so notable a victory in -England, it was natural that in England the first great champion of -Hellenism should appear. It is to Oliver Cromwell and Praise-God -Barebones that we owe Shaftesbury. - -After Shaftesbury it is Arbuckle who first deserves attention, though he -wrote so little that he never attained the prominence he deserved.[104] -He was a Dublin physician of Scottish ancestry, the friend of Swift, by -whom he was highly esteemed, and he was a cripple from boyhood. He was a -man of genuine artistic temperament, though the art he was attracted to -was not, as with Shaftesbury, the sculptor’s or the painter’s, but the -poet’s. It was not so much intuition on which he insisted, but -imagination as formative of a character; moral approval seemed to him -thoroughly æsthetic, part of an imaginative act which framed the ideal -of a beautiful personality, externalising itself in action. When Robert -Bridges, the poet of our own time, suggests (in his “Necessity of -Poetry”) that “morals is that part of Poetry which deals with conduct,” -he is speaking in the spirit of Arbuckle. An earlier and greater poet -was still nearer to Arbuckle. “A man to be greatly good,” said Shelley -in his “Defence of Poetry,” “must imagine intensely and -comprehensively.... The great instrument of moral good is the -imagination.” If, indeed, with Adam Smith and Schopenhauer, we choose to -base morals on sympathy we really are thereby making the poet’s -imagination the great moral instrument. Morals was for Arbuckle a -disinterested æsthetic harmony, and he had caught much of the genuine -Greek spirit. - -Hutcheson was in this respect less successful. Though he had occupied -himself with æsthetics he had little true æsthetic feeling; and though -he accomplished much for the revival of Greek studies his own sympathies -were really with the Roman Stoics, with Cicero, with Marcus Aurelius, -and in this way he was led towards Christianity, to which Shaftesbury -was really alien. He democratised if not vulgarised, and diluted if not -debased, Shaftesbury’s loftier conception. In his too widely sympathetic -and receptive mind the Shaftesburian ideal was not only Romanised, not -only Christianised; it was plunged into a miscellaneously eclectic mass -that often became inconsistent and incoherent. In the long run, in spite -of his great immediate success, he injured in these ways the cause he -advocated. He overemphasised the passively æsthetic side of morals; he -dwelt on the term “moral sense,” by Shaftesbury only occasionally used, -as it had long previously been by Aristotle (and then only in the sense -of “natural temper” by analogy with the physical senses), and this term -was long a stumbling-block in the eyes of innocent philosophic critics, -too easily befooled by words, who failed to see that, as Libby has -pointed out, the underlying idea simply is, as held by Shaftesbury, that -æsthetic notions of proportion and symmetry depend upon the native -structure of the mind and only so constitute a “moral sense.”[105] What -Hutcheson, as distinct from Shaftesbury, meant by a “moral sense”—really -a conative instinct—is sufficiently indicated by the fact that he was -inclined to consider the conjugal and parental affections as a “sense” -because natural. He desired to shut out reason, and cognitive elements, -and that again brought him to the conception of morality as instinctive. -Hutcheson’s conception of “sense” was defective as being too liable to -be regarded as passive rather than as conative, though conation was -implied. The fact that the “moral sense” was really instinct, and had -nothing whatever to do with “innate ideas,” as many have ignorantly -supposed, was clearly seen by Hutcheson’s opponents. The chief objection -brought forward by the Reverend John Balguy in 1728, in the first part -of his “Foundation of Moral Goodness,” was precisely that Hutcheson -based morality on instinct and so had allowed “some degree of morality -to animals.”[106] It was Hutcheson’s fine and impressive personality, -his high character, his eloquence, his influential position, which -enabled him to keep alive the conception of morals he preached, and even -to give it an effective force, throughout the European world, it might -not otherwise easily have exerted. Philosophy was to Hutcheson the art -of living—as it was to the old Greek philosophers—rather than a question -of metaphysics, and he was careless of consistency in thinking, an -open-minded eclectic who insisted that life itself is the great matter. -That, no doubt, was the reason why he had so immense an influence. It -was mainly through Hutcheson that the more aristocratic spirit of -Shaftesbury was poured into the circulatory channels of the world’s -life. Hume and Adam Smith and Reid were either the pupils of Hutcheson -or directly influenced by him. He was a great personality rather than a -great thinker, and it was as such that he exerted so much force in -philosophy.[107] - -With Schiller, whose attitude was not, however, based directly on -Shaftesbury, the æsthetic conception of morals, which in its definitely -conscious form had up till then been especially English, may be said to -have entered the main stream of culture. Schiller regarded the identity -of Duty and Inclination as the ideal goal of human development, and -looked on the Genius of Beauty as the chief guide of life. Wilhelm von -Humboldt, one of the greatest spirits of that age, was moved by the same -ideas, throughout his life, much as in many respects he changed, and -even shortly before his death wrote in deprecation of the notion that -conformity to duty is the final aim of morality. Goethe, who was the -intimate friend of both Schiller and Humboldt, largely shared the same -attitude, and through him it has had a subtle and boundless influence. -Kant, who, it has been said, mistook Duty for a Prussian drill-sergeant, -still ruled the academic moral world. But a new vivifying and moulding -force had entered the larger moral world, and to-day we may detect its -presence on every side. - - - V - - -It has often been brought against the conception of morality as an art -that it lacks seriousness. It seems to many people to involve an easy, -self-indulgent, dilettante way of looking at life. Certainly it is not -the way of the Old Testament. Except in imaginative literature—it was, -indeed, an enormous and fateful exception—the Hebrews were no “æsthetic -intuitionists.” They hated art, for the rest, and in face of the -problems of living they were not in the habit of considering the lilies -how they grow. It was not the beauty of holiness, but the stern rod of a -jealous Jehovah, which they craved for their encouragement along the -path of Duty. And it is the Hebrew mode of feeling which has been, more -or less violently and imperfectly, grafted into our Christianity.[108] - -It is a complete mistake, however, to suppose that those for whom life -is an art have entered on an easy path, with nothing but enjoyment and -self-indulgence before them. The reverse is nearer to the truth. It is -probably the hedonist who had better choose rules if he only cares to -make life pleasant.[109] For the artist life is always a discipline, and -no discipline can be without pain. That is so even of dancing, which of -all the arts is most associated in the popular mind with pleasure. To -learn to dance is the most austere of disciplines, and even for those -who have attained to the summit of its art often remains a discipline -not to be exercised without heroism. The dancer seems a thing of joy, -but we are told that this famous dancer’s slippers are filled with blood -when the dance is over, and that one falls down pulseless and deathlike -on leaving the stage, and the other must spend the day in darkness and -silence. “It is no small advantage,” said Nietzsche, “to have a hundred -Damoclean swords suspended above one’s head; that is how one learns to -dance, that is how one attains ‘freedom of movement.’”[110] - -For as pain is entwined in an essential element in the perfect -achievement of that which seems naturally the most pleasurable of the -arts, so it is with the whole art of living, of which dancing is the -supreme symbol. There is no separating Pain and Pleasure without making -the first meaningless for all vital ends and the second turn to ashes. -To exalt pleasure is to exalt pain; and we cannot understand the meaning -of pain unless we understand the place of pleasure in the art of life. -In England, James Hinton sought to make that clear, equally against -those who failed to see that pain is as necessary morally as it -undoubtedly is biologically, and against those who would puritanically -refuse to accept the morality of pleasure.[111] It is no doubt important -to resist pain, but it is also important that it should be there to -resist. Even when we look at the matter no longer subjectively but -objectively, we must accept pain in any sound æsthetic or metaphysical -picture of the world.[112] - -We must not be surprised, therefore, that this way of looking at life as -an art has spontaneously commended itself to men of the gravest and -deepest character, in all other respects widely unlike. Shaftesbury was -temperamentally a Stoic whose fragile constitution involved a perpetual -endeavour to mould life to the form of his ideal. And if we go back to -Marcus Aurelius we find an austere and heroic man whose whole life, as -we trace it in his “Meditations,” was a splendid struggle, a man -who—even, it seems, unconsciously—had adopted the æsthetic criterion of -moral goodness and the artistic conception of moral action. Dancing and -wrestling express to his eyes the activity of the man who is striving to -live, and the goodness of moral actions instinctively appears to him as -the beauty of natural objects; it is to Marcus Aurelius that we owe that -immortal utterance of æsthetic intuitionism: “As though the emerald -should say: ‘Whatever happens I must be emerald.’” There could be no man -more unlike the Roman Emperor, or in any more remote field of action, -than the French saint and philanthropist Vincent de Paul. At once a -genuine Christian mystic and a very wise and marvellously effective man -of action, Vincent de Paul adopts precisely the same simile of the moral -attitude that had long before been put forth by Plotinus and in the next -century was again to be taken up by Shaftesbury: “My daughters,” he -wrote to the Sisters of Charity, “we are each like a block of stone -which is to be transferred into a statue. What must the sculptor do to -carry out his design? First of all he must take the hammer and chip off -all that he does not need. For this purpose he strikes the stone so -violently that if you were watching him you would say he intended to -break it to pieces. Then, when he has got rid of the rougher parts, he -takes a smaller hammer, and afterwards a chisel, to begin the face with -all the features. When that has taken form, he uses other and finer -tools to bring it to that perfection he has intended for his statue.” If -we desire to find a spiritual artist as unlike as possible to Vincent de -Paul we may take Nietzsche. Alien as any man could ever be to a cheap or -superficial vision of the moral life, and far too intellectually keen to -confuse moral problems with purely æsthetic problems, Nietzsche, when -faced by the problem of living, sets himself—almost as instinctively as -Marcus Aurelius or Vincent de Paul—at the standpoint of art. “Alles -Leben ist Streit um Geschmack und Schmecken.” It is a crucial passage in -“Zarathustra”: “All life is a dispute about taste and tasting! Taste: -that is weight and at the same time scales and weigher; and woe to all -living things that would live without dispute about weight and scales -and weigher!” For this gospel of taste is no easy gospel. A man must -make himself a work of art, Nietzsche again and again declares, moulded -into beauty by suffering, for such art is the highest morality, the -morality of the Creator. - -There is a certain indefiniteness about the conception of morality as an -artistic impulse, to be judged by an æsthetic criterion, which is -profoundly repugnant to at least two classes of minds fully entitled to -make their antipathy felt. In the first place, it makes no appeal to the -abstract reasoner, indifferent to the manifoldly concrete problems of -living. For the man whose brain is hypertrophied and his practical life -shrivelled to an insignificant routine—the man of whom Kant is the -supreme type—it is always a temptation to rationalise morality. Such a -pure intellectualist, overlooking the fact that human beings are not -mathematical figures, may even desire to transform ethics into a species -of geometry. That we may see in Spinoza, a nobler and more inspiring -figure, no doubt, but of the same temperament as Kant. The impulses and -desires of ordinary men and women are manifold, inconstant, often -conflicting, and sometimes overwhelming. “Morality is a fact of -sensibility,” remarks Jules de Gaultier; “it has no need to have -recourse to reason for its affirmations.” But to men of the -intellectualist type this consideration is almost negligible; all the -passions and affections of humanity seem to them meek as sheep which -they may shepherd, and pen within the flimsiest hurdles. William Blake, -who could cut down to that central core of the world where all things -are fused together, knew better when he said that the only golden rule -of life is “the great and golden rule of art.” James Hinton was for ever -expatiating on the close resemblance between the methods of art, as -shown especially in painting, and the methods of moral action. Thoreau, -who also belonged to this tribe, declared, in the same spirit as Blake, -that there is no golden rule in morals, for rules are only current -silver; “it is golden not to have any rule at all.” - -There is another quite different type of person who shares this -antipathy to the indefiniteness of æsthetic morality: the ambitious -moral reformer. The man of this class is usually by no means devoid of -strong passions; but for the most part he possesses no great -intellectual calibre and so is unable to estimate the force and -complexity of human impulses. The moral reformer, eager to introduce the -millennium here and now by the aid of the newest mechanical devices, is -righteously indignant with anything so vague as an æsthetic morality. He -must have definite rules and regulations, clear-cut laws and by-laws, -with an arbitrary list of penalties attached, to be duly inflicted in -this world or the next. The popular conception of Moses, descending from -the sacred mount with a brand-new table of commandments, which he -declares have been delivered to him by God, though he is ready to smash -them to pieces on the slightest provocation, furnishes a delightful -image of the typical moral reformer of every age. It is, however, only -in savage and barbarous stages of society, or among the uncultivated -classes of civilisation, that the men of this type can find their -faithful followers. - -Yet there is more to be said. That very indefiniteness of the criterion -of moral action, falsely supposed to be a disadvantage, is really the -prime condition for effective moral action. The academic philosophers of -ethics, had they possessed virility enough to enter the field of real -life, would have realised—as we cannot expect the moral reformers -blinded by the smoke of their own fanaticism to realise—that the slavery -to rigid formulas which they preached was the death of all high moral -responsibility. Life must always be a great adventure, with risks on -every hand; a clear-sighted eye, a many-sided sympathy, a fine daring, -an endless patience, are for ever necessary to all good living. With -such qualities alone may the artist in life reach success; without them -even the most devoted slave to formulas can only meet disaster. No -reasonable moral being may draw breath in the world without an open-eyed -freedom of choice, and if the moral world is to be governed by laws, -better to people it with automatic machines than with living men and -women. - -In our human world the precision of mechanism is for ever impossible. -The indefiniteness of morality is a part of its necessary imperfection. -There is not only room in morality for the high aspiration, the -courageous decision, the tonic thrill of the muscles of the soul, but we -have to admit also sacrifice and pain. The lesser good, our own or that -of others, is merged in a larger good, and that cannot be without some -rending of the heart. So all moral action, however in the end it may be -justified by its harmony and balance, is in the making cruel and in a -sense even immoral. Therein lies the final justification of the æsthetic -conception of morality. It opens a wider perspective and reveals loftier -standpoints; it shows how the seeming loss is part of an ultimate gain, -so restoring that harmony and beauty which the unintelligent partisans -of a hard and barren duty so often destroy for ever. “Art,” as Paulhan -declares, “is often more moral than morality itself.” Or, as Jules de -Gaultier holds, “Art is in a certain sense the only morality which life -admits.” In so far as we can infuse it with the spirit and method of -art, we have transformed morality into something beyond morality; it has -become the complete embodiment of the Dance of Life. - -Footnote 89: - - What we call crime is, at the beginning, usually an effort to get, or - to pretend to get, into step, but, being a violent or miscalculated - effort, it is liable to fail, and the criminal falls to the rear of - the social army. “I believe that most murders are really committed by - Mrs. Grundy,” a woman writes to me, and, with the due qualification, - the saying is worthy of meditation. That is why justice is impotent to - prevent or even to punish murder, for Mrs. Grundy is within all of us, - being a part of the social discipline, and cannot be hanged. - -Footnote 90: - - Herbert Spencer, writing to a correspondent, once well expressed the - harmlessness—if we choose so to regard it—of moral teaching: “After - nearly two thousand years’ preaching of the religion of amity, the - religion of enmity remains predominant, and Europe is peopled by two - hundred million pagans, masquerading as Christians, who revile those - who wish them to act on the principles they profess.” - -Footnote 91: - - But later asceticism was strictly the outcome of a Greek tendency, to - be traced in Plato, developed through Antisthenes, through Zeno, - through Epictetus, who all desired to liberate the soul from the bonds - of matter. The Neo-Platonists carried this tendency further, for in - their time, the prevailing anarchy and confusion rendered the world - and society less than ever a fitting haven for the soul. It was not - Christianity that made the world ascetic (and there were elements of - hedonism in the teaching of Jesus), but the world that made - Christianity ascetic, and it was easy for a Christian to become a - Neo-Platonist, for they were both being moulded by the same forces. - -Footnote 92: - - Maurice Croiset devotes a few luminous critical pages to Plotinus in - the Croisets’ _Histoire de la Littérature Grecque_, vol. V, pp. - 820-31. As an extended account of Plotinus, from a more - enthusiastically sympathetic standpoint, there are Dr. Inge’s - well-known Gifford Lectures, _The Philosophy of Plotinus_ (1918); I - may also mention a careful scholastic study, _L’Esthétique de Plotin_ - (1913), by Cochez, of Louvain, who regards Plotinus as the climax of - the objective æsthetics of antiquity and the beginning of the road to - modern subjective æsthetics. - -Footnote 93: - - _Ennead_, bk. III, chap. VI. I have mostly followed the translation of - Stephen McKenna. - -Footnote 94: - - St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, bk. IV, chap. XXI. - -Footnote 95: - - Kant was habitually cold and calm. But he was very fond of dried - fruits and used to have them specially imported for him by his friend - Motherby. “At one time he was eagerly expecting a vessel with French - fruits which he had ordered, and he had already invited some friends - to a dinner at which they were to be served. The vessel was, however, - delayed a number of days by a storm. When it arrived, Kant was - informed that the provisions had become short on account of the delay, - and that the crew had eaten his fruit. Kant was so angry that he - declared they ought rather to have starved than to have touched it. - Surprised at this irritation, Motherby said, ‘Professor, you cannot be - in earnest.’ Kant answered, ‘I am really in earnest,’ and went away. - Afterwards he was sorry.” (Quoted by Stuckenberg, _The Life of Kant_, - p. 138.) But still it was quite in accordance with Kantian morality - that the sailors should have starved. - -Footnote 96: - - Georg von Gizycki, _Die Ethik David Hume’s_, p. 11. - -Footnote 97: - - F. C. Sharp, _Mind_ (1912), p. 388. - -Footnote 98: - - Shaftesbury held that Locke swept away too much and failed to allow - for inborn instincts (or “senses,” as he sometimes called them) - developing naturally. We now see that he was right. - -Footnote 99: - - There is no need to refer to the value of salt, and therefore the - appreciation of the flavour of salt, to primitive people. Still - to-day, in Spain, _sal_ (salt) is popularly used for a more or less - intellectual and moral quality which is highly admired. - -Footnote 100: - - Dr. C. S. Myers has touched on this point in _Reports of the Cambridge - Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. II, part II, chap. - IV; also “The Taste-Names of Primitive Peoples,” _British Journal of - Psychology_, June, 1904. - -Footnote 101: - - Dr. Georg von Gizycki, _Die Philosophie Shaftesbury’s_ (1876); and the - same author’s _Die Ethik David Hume’s_ (1878). - -Footnote 102: - - It should be added that Croce is himself moving in this direction, and - in, for instance, _Il Carattere di Totalità della Espressione - Artistica_ (1917), he recognises the universality of art. - -Footnote 103: - - Stanley Hall remarks in criticising Kant’s moral æsthetics: “The - beauty of virtue is only seen in contemplating it and the act of doing - it has no beauty to the doer at the moment.” (G. Stanley Hall, “Why - Kant is Passing,” _American Journal of Psychology_, July, 1912.) - -Footnote 104: - - See article on Arbuckle by W. R. Scott in _Mind_, April, 1899. - -Footnote 105: - - See a helpful paper by M. F. Libby, “Influence of the Idea of Æsthetic - Proportion on the Ethics of Shaftesbury,” _American Journal of - Psychology_, May-October, 1901. - -Footnote 106: - - We find fallacious criticism of the “moral sense” down to almost - recent times, in, for instance, McDougall’s _Social Psychology_, even - though McDougall, by his insistence on the instinctive basis of - morality, was himself carrying on the tradition of Shaftesbury and - Hutcheson. But McDougall also dragged in “some prescribed code of - conduct,” though he neglected to mention who is to “prescribe” it. - -Footnote 107: - - See W. R. Scott, _Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position - in the History of Philosophy_. (1900.) - -Footnote 108: - - It is noteworthy, however, that the æsthetic view of morals has had - advocates, not only among the more latitudinarian Protestants, but in - Catholicism. A few years ago the Reverend Dr. Kolbe published a book - on _The Art of Life_, designed to show that just as the sculptor works - with hammer and chisel to shape a block of marble into a form of - beauty, so Man, by the power of grace, the illumination of faith, and - the instrument of prayer, works to transform his soul. But this simile - of the sculptor, which has appealed so strongly alike to Christian and - anti-Christian moralists, proceeds, whether or not they knew it, from - Plotinus, who, in his famous chapter on Beauty, bids us note the - sculptor. “He cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line - lighter, this other purer, until a living face has grown upon his - work. So do you also cut away all that is excessive, straighten all - that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, make all one - glow of beauty, and never cease chiselling your statue until the - godlike splendour shines on you from it, and the perfect goodness - stands, surely, in the stainless shrine.” - -Footnote 109: - - “They who pitched the goal of their aspiration so high knew that the - paths leading up to it were rough and steep and long,” remarks A. W. - Benn (_The Greek Philosophers_, 1914, p. 57); “they said ‘the - beautiful is hard’—hard to judge, hard to win, hard to keep.” - -Footnote 110: - - _Der Wille zur Macht_, p. 358. - -Footnote 111: - - Mrs. Havelock Ellis, _James Hinton_, 1918. - -Footnote 112: - - This has been well seen by Jules de Gaultier: “The joys and the - sorrows which fill life are, the one and the other,” he says (_La - Dépendance de la Morale et l’Indépendance des Mœurs_, p. 340), - “elements of spectacular interest, and without the mixture of both - that interest would be abolished. To make of the representative worth - of phenomena their justification in view of a spectacular end alone, - avoids the objection by which the moral thesis is faced, the fact of - pain. Pain becomes, on the contrary, the correlative of pleasure, an - indispensable means for its realization. Such a thesis is in agreement - with the nature of things, instead of being wounded by their - existence.” - - - - - CHAPTER VII - CONCLUSION - - - I - - -LIFE, we have seen, may be regarded as an art. But we cannot help -seeking to measure, quantitatively if not qualitatively, our mode of -life. We do so, for the most part, instinctively rather than -scientifically. It gratifies us to imagine that, as a race, we have -reached a point on the road of progress beyond that vouchsafed to our -benighted predecessors, and that, as individuals or as nations, it is -given to us, fortunately,—or, rather, through our superior merits,—to -enjoy a finer degree of civilisation than the individuals and the -nations around us. This feeling has been common to most or all branches -of the human race. In the classic world of antiquity they called -outsiders, indiscriminately, “barbarians”—a denomination which took on -an increasingly depreciative sense; and even the lowest savages -sometimes call their own tribe by a word which means “men,” thereby -implying that all other peoples are not worthy of the name. - -But in recent centuries there has been an attempt to be more precise, to -give definite values to the feeling within us. All sorts of dogmatic -standards have been set up by which to measure the degree of a people’s -civilisation. The development of demography and social statistics in -civilised countries during the past century should, it has seemed, -render such comparison easy. Yet the more carefully we look into the -nature of these standards the more dubious they become. On the one hand, -civilisation is so complex that no one test furnishes an adequate -standard. On the other hand, the methods of statistics are so variable -and uncertain, so apt to be influenced by circumstance, that it is never -possible to be sure that one is operating with figures of equal weight. - -Recently this has been well and elaborately shown by Professor Niceforo, -the Italian sociologist and statistician.[113] It is to be remembered -that Niceforo has himself been a daring pioneer in the measurement of -life. He has applied the statistical method not only to the natural and -social sciences, but even to art, especially literature. When, -therefore, he discusses the whole question of the validity of the -measurement of civilisation, his conclusions deserve respect. They are -the more worthy of consideration since his originality in the -statistical field is balanced by his learning, and it is not easy to -recall any scientific attempts in this field which he has failed to -mention somewhere in his book, if only in a footnote. - -The difficulties begin at the outset, and might well serve to bar even -the entrance to discussion. We want to measure the height to which we -have been able to build our “civilisation” towards the skies; we want to -measure the progress we have made in our great dance of life towards the -unknown future goal, and we have no idea what either “civilisation” or -“progress” means.[114] This difficulty is so crucial, for it involves -the very essence of the matter, that it is better to place it aside and -simply go ahead, without deciding, for the present, precisely what the -ultimate significance of the measurements we can make may prove to be. -Quite sufficient other difficulties await us. - -There is, first of all, the bewildering number of social phenomena we -can now attempt to measure. Two centuries ago there were no comparable -sets of figures whereby to measure one community against another -community, though at the end of the eighteenth century Boisguillebert -was already speaking of the possibility of constructing a “barometer of -prosperity.” Even the most elementary measurable fact of all, the -numbering of peoples, was carried out so casually and imperfectly and -indirectly, if at all, that its growth and extent could hardly be -compared with profit in any two nations. As the life of a community -increases in stability and orderliness and organisation, registration -incidentally grows elaborate, and thereby the possibility of the -by-product of statistics. This aspect of social life began to become -pronounced during the nineteenth century, and it was in the middle of -that century that Quetelet appeared, by no means as the first to use -social statistics, but the first great pioneer in the manipulation of -such figures in a scientific manner, with a large and philosophical -outlook on their real significance.[115] Since then the possible number -of such means of numerical comparison has much increased. The difficulty -now is to know which are the most truly indicative of real superiority. - -But before we consider that, again even at the outset, there is another -difficulty. Our apparently comparable figures are often not really -comparable. Each country or province or town puts forth its own sets of -statistics and each set may be quite comparable within itself. But when -we begin critically to compare one set with another set, all sorts of -fallacies appear. We have to allow, not only for varying accuracy and -completeness, but for difference of method in collecting and registering -the facts, and for all sorts of qualifying circumstances which may exist -at one place or time, and not at other places or times with which we are -seeking comparison. - -The word “civilisation” is of recent formation. It came from France, but -even in France in a Dictionary of 1727 it cannot be found, though the -verb _civiliser_ existed as far back as 1694, meaning to polish manners, -to render sociable, to become urbane, one might say, as a result of -becoming urban, of living as a citizen in cities. We have to recognise, -of course, that the idea of civilisation is relative; that any community -and any age has its own civilisation, and its own ideals of -civilisation. But, that assumed, we may provisionally assert—and we -shall be in general accordance with Niceforo—that, in its most -comprehensive sense, the art of civilisation includes the three groups -of _material_ facts, _intellectual_ facts, and _moral_ (with -_political_) facts, so covering all the essential facts in our life. - -Material facts, which we are apt to consider the most easily measurable, -include quantity and distribution of population, production of wealth, -the consumption of food and luxuries, the standard of life. Intellectual -facts include both the diffusion and degree of instruction and creative -activity in genius. Moral facts include the prevalence of honesty, -justice, pity, and self-sacrifice, the position of women and the care of -children. They are the most important of all for the quality of a -civilisation. Voltaire pointed out that “pity and justice are the -foundations of society,” and, long previously, Pericles in Thucydides -described the degradation of the Peloponnesians among whom every one -thinks only of his own advantage, and every one believes that his own -negligence of other things will pass unperceived. Plato in his -“Republic” made justice the foundation of harmony in the outer life and -the inner life, while in modern times various philosophers, like -Shadworth Hodgson, have emphasised that doctrine of Plato’s. The whole -art of government comes under this head and the whole treatment of human -personality. - -The comparative prevalence of criminality has long been the test most -complacently adopted by those who seek to measure civilisation on its -moral and most fundamental aspect. Crime is merely a name for the most -obvious, extreme, and directly dangerous forms of what we call -immorality—that is to say, departure from the norm in manners and -customs. Therefore the highest civilisation is that with the least -crime. But is it so? The more carefully we look into the matter, the -more difficult it becomes to apply this test. We find that even at the -outset. Every civilised community has its own way of dealing with -criminal statistics and the discrepancies thus introduced are so great -that this fact alone makes comparisons almost impossible. It is scarcely -necessary to point out that varying skill and thoroughness in the -detection of crime, and varying severity in the attitude towards it, -necessarily count for much. Of not less significance is the legislative -activity of the community; the greater the number of laws, the greater -the number of offences against them. If, for instance, Prohibition is -introduced into a country, the amount of delinquency in that country is -enormously increased, but it would be rash to assert that the country -has thereby been sensibly lowered in the scale of civilisation. To avoid -this difficulty, it has been proposed to take into consideration only -what are called “natural crimes”; that is, those everywhere regarded as -punishable. But, even then, there is a still more disconcerting -consideration. For, after all, the criminality of a country is a -by-product of its energy in business and in the whole conduct of -affairs. It is a poisonous excretion, but excretion is the measure of -vital metabolism. There are, moreover, the so-called evolutive social -crimes, which spring from motives not lower but higher than those ruling -the society in which they arise.[116] Therefore, we cannot be sure that -we ought not to regard the most criminal country as that which in some -aspects possesses the highest civilisation. - -Let us turn to the intellectual aspect of civilisation. Here we have at -least two highly important and quite fairly measurable facts to -consider: the production of creative genius and the degree and diffusion -of general instruction. If we consider the matter abstractly, it is -highly probable that we shall declare that no civilisation can be worth -while unless it is rich in creative genius and unless the population -generally exhibits a sufficiently cultured level of education out of -which such genius may arise freely and into which the seeds it produces -may fruitfully fall. Yet, what do we find? Alike, whether we go back to -the earliest civilisations we have definite information about or turn to -the latest stages of civilisation we know to-day, we fail to see any -correspondence between these two essential conditions of civilisation. -Among peoples in a low state of culture, among savages generally, such -instruction and education as exists really is generally diffused; every -member of the community is initiated into the tribal traditions; yet, no -observers of such peoples seem to note the emergence of individuals of -strikingly productive genius. That, so far as we know, began to appear, -and, indeed, in marvellous variety and excellence, in Greece, and the -civilisation of Greece (as later the more powerful but coarser -civilisation of Rome) was built up on a broad basis of slavery, which -nowadays—except, of course, when disguised as industry—we no longer -regard as compatible with high civilisation. - -Ancient Greece, indeed, may suggest to us to ask whether the genius of a -country be not directly opposed to the temper of the population of that -country, and its “leaders” really be its outcasts. (Some believe that -many, if not all, countries of to-day might serve to suggest the same -question.) If we want to imagine the real spirit of Greece, we may have -to think of a figure with a touch of Ulysses, indeed, but with more of -Thersites.[117] The Greeks who interest us to-day were exceptional -people, usually imprisoned, exiled, or slain by the more truly -representative Greeks of their time. When Plato and the others set forth -so persistently an ideal of wise moderation they were really putting -up—and in vain—a supplication for mercy to a people who, as they had -good ground for realising, knew nothing of wisdom, and scoffed at -moderation, and were mainly inspired by ferocity and intrigue. - -To turn to a more recent example, consider the splendid efflorescence of -genius in Russia during the central years of the last century, still a -vivifying influence on the literature and music of the world; yet the -population of Russia had only just been delivered, nominally at least, -from serfdom, and still remained at the intellectual and economic level -of serfs. To-day, education has become diffused in the Western world. -Yet no one would dream of asserting that genius is more prevalent. -Consider the United States, for instance, during the past half-century. -It would surely be hard to find any country, except Germany, where -education is more highly esteemed or better understood, and where -instruction is more widely diffused. Yet, so far as the production of -high original genius is concerned, an old Italian city, like Florence, -with a few thousand inhabitants, had far more to show than all the -United States put together. So that we are at a loss how to apply the -intellectual test to the measurement of civilisation. It would almost -seem that the two essential elements of this test are mutually -incompatible. - -Let us fall back on the simple solid fundamental test furnished by the -material aspect of civilisation. Here we are among elementary facts and -the first that began to be measured. Yet our difficulties, instead of -diminishing, rather increase. It is here, too, that we chiefly meet with -what Niceforo has called “the paradoxical symptoms of superiority in -progress,” though I should prefer to call them ambivalent; that is to -say, that, while from one point of view they indicate superiority, from -another, even though some may call it a lower point of view, they appear -to indicate inferiority. This is well illustrated by the test of growth -of population, or the height of the birth-rate, better by the birth-rate -considered in relation to the death-rate, for they cannot be -intelligibly considered apart. The law of Nature is reproduction, and if -an intellectual rabbit were able to study human civilisation he would -undoubtedly regard rapidity of multiplication, in which he has himself -attained so high a degree of proficiency, as evidence of progress in -civilisation. In fact, as we know, there are even human beings who take -the same view, whence we have what has been termed “Rabbitism” in men. -Yet, if anything is clear in this obscure field, it is that the whole -tendency of evolution is towards a diminishing birth-rate.[118] The most -civilised countries everywhere, and the most civilised people in them, -are those with the lowest birth-rate. Therefore, we have here to measure -the height of civilisation by a test which, if carried to an extreme, -would mean the disappearance of civilisation. Another such ambivalent -test is the consumption of luxuries of which alcohol and tobacco are the -types. There is held to be no surer test of civilisation than the -increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol -and tobacco are recognisably poisons, so that their consumption has only -to be carried far enough to destroy civilisation altogether. Again, take -the prevalence of suicide. That, without doubt, is a test of height in -civilisation; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and -intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it -snaps. We should be justified in regarding as very questionable a high -civilisation which failed to show a high suicide-rate. Yet suicide is -the sign of failure, misery, and despair. How can we regard the -prevalence of failure, misery, and despair as the mark of high -civilisation? - -Thus, whichever of the three groups of facts we attempt to measure, it -appears on examination almost hopelessly complex. We have to try to make -our methods correspondingly complex. Niceforo had invoked co-variation, -or simultaneous and sympathetic changes in various factors of -civilisation; he explains the index number, and he appeals to -mathematics for aid out of the difficulties. He also attempts to -combine, with the help of diagrams, a single picture out of these -awkward and contradictory tests. The example he gives is that of France -during the fifty years preceding the war. It is an interesting example -because there is reason to consider France as, in some respects, the -most highly civilised of countries. What are the chief significant -measurable marks of this superiority? Niceforo selects about a dozen, -and, avoiding the difficult attempt to compare France with other -countries, he confines himself to the more easily practicable task of -ascertaining whether, or in what respects, the general art of -civilisation in France, the movement of the collective life, has been -upward or downward. When the different categories are translated, -according to recognised methods, into index numbers, taking the original -figures from the official “Résumé” of French statistics, it is found -that each line of movement follows throughout the same direction, though -often in zigzag fashion, and never turns back on itself. In this way it -appears that the consumption of coal has been more than doubled, the -consumption of luxuries (sugar, coffee, alcohol) nearly doubled, the -consumption of food per head (as tested by cheese and potatoes) also -increasing. Suicide has increased fifty per cent; wealth has increased -slightly and irregularly; the upward movement of population has been -extremely slight and partly due to immigration; the death-rate has -fallen, though not so much as the birth-rate; the number of persons -convicted of offence by the courts has fallen; the proportion of -illiterate persons has diminished; divorces have greatly increased, and -also the number of syndicalist workers, but these two movements are of -comparative recent growth. - -This example well shows what it is possible to do by the most easily -available and generally accepted tests by which to measure the progress -of a community in the art of civilisation. Every one of the tests -applied to France reveals an upward tendency of civilisation, though -some of them, such as the fall in the death-rate, are not strongly -pronounced and much smaller than may be found in many other countries. -Yet, at the same time, while we have to admit that each of these lines -of movement indicates an upward tendency of civilisation, it by no means -follows that we can view them all with complete satisfaction. It may -even be said that some of them have only to be carried further in order -to indicate dissolution and decay. The consumption of luxuries, for -instance, as already noted, is the consumption of poisons. The increase -of wealth means little unless we take into account its distribution. The -increase of syndicalism, while it is a sign of increased independence, -intelligence, and social aspiration among the workers, is also a sign -that the social system is becoming regarded as unsound. So that, while -all these tests may be said to indicate a rising civilisation, they yet -do not invalidate the wise conclusion of Niceforo that a civilisation is -never an exclusive mass of benefits, but a mass of values, positive and -negative, and it may even be said that most often the conquest of a -benefit in one domain of a civilisation brings into another domain of -that civilisation inevitable evils. Long ago, Montesquieu had spoken of -the evils of civilisation and left the question of the value of -civilisation open, while Rousseau, more passionately, had decided -against civilisation. - -We see the whole question from another point, yet not incongruously, -when we turn to Professor William McDougall’s Lowell Lectures, “Is -America Safe for Democracy?” since republished under the more general -title “National Welfare and National Decay,” for the author recognises -that the questions he deals with go to the root of all high -civilisation. As he truly observes, civilisation grows constantly more -complex and also less subject to the automatically balancing influence -of national selection, more dependent for its stability on our -constantly regulative and foreseeing control. Yet, while the -intellectual task placed upon us is ever growing heavier, our brains are -not growing correspondingly heavier to bear it. There is, as Remy de -Gourmont often pointed out, no good reason to suppose that we are in any -way innately superior to our savage ancestors, who had at least as good -physical constitutions and at least as large brains. The result is that -the small minority among us which alone can attempt to cope with our -complexly developing civilisation comes to the top by means of what -Arsène Dumont called social capillarity, and McDougall the social -ladder. The small upper stratum is of high quality, the large lower -stratum of poor quality, and with a tendency to feeble-mindedness. It is -to this large lower stratum that, with our democratic tendencies, we -assign the political and other guidance of the community, and it is this -lower stratum which has the higher birth-rate, since with all high -civilisation the normal birth-rate is low.[119] McDougall is not -concerned with the precise measurement of civilisation, and may not be -familiar with the attempts that have been made in that direction. It is -his object to point out the necessity in high civilisation for a -deliberate and purposive art of eugenics, if we would prevent the -eventual shipwreck of civilisation. But we see how his conclusions -emphasise those difficulties in the measurement of civilisation which -Niceforo has so clearly set forth. - -McDougall is repeating what many, especially among eugenists, have -previously said. While not disputing the element of truth in the facts -and arguments brought forward from this side, it may be pointed out that -they are often overstated. This has been well argued by Carr-Saunders in -his valuable and almost monumental work, “The Population Problem,” and -his opinion is the more worthy of attention as he is himself a worker in -the cause of eugenics. He points out that the social ladder is, after -all, hard to climb, and that it only removes a few individuals from the -lower social stratum, while among those who thus climb, even though they -do not sink back, regression to the mean is ever in operation so that -they do not greatly enrich in the end the class they have climbed up to. -Moreover, as Carr-Saunders pertinently asks, are we so sure that the -qualities that mark successful climbers—self-assertion, acquisition, -emulation—are highly desirable? “It may even be,” he adds, “that we -might view a diminution in the average strength of some of the qualities -which mark the successful at least with equanimity.” Taken altogether, -it would seem that the differences between social classes may mainly be -explained by environmental influences. There is, however, ground to -recognise a slight intellectual superiority in the upper social class, -apart from environment, and so great is the significance for -civilisation of quality that even when the difference seems slight it -must not be regarded as negligible.[120] - -More than half a century ago, indeed, George Sand pointed out that we -must distinguish between the civilisation of _quantity_ and the -civilisation of _quality_. As the great Morgagni had said much earlier, -it is not enough to count, we must evaluate; “observations are not to be -numbered, they are to be weighed.” It is not the biggest things that are -the most civilised things. The largest structures of Hindu or Egyptian -art are outweighed by the temples on the Acropolis of Athens, and -similarly, as Bryce, who had studied the matter so thoroughly, was wont -to insist, it is the smallest democracies which to-day stand highest in -the scale. We have seen that there is much in civilisation which we may -profitably measure, yet, when we seek to scale the last heights of -civilisation, the ladder of our “metrology” comes to grief. “The methods -of the mind are too weak,” as Comte said, “and the Universe is too -complex.” Life, even the life of the civilised community, is an art, and -the too much is as fatal as the too little. We may say of civilisation, -as Renan said of truth, that it lies in a _nuance_. Gumplowicz believed -that civilisation is the beginning of disease; Arsène Dumont thought -that it inevitably held within itself a toxic principle, a principle by -which it is itself in time poisoned. The more rapidly a civilisation -progresses, the sooner it dies for another to arise in its place. That -may not seem to every one a cheerful prospect. Yet, if our civilisation -has failed to enable us to look further than our own egoistic ends, what -has our civilisation been worth? - - - II - - -THE attempt to apply measurement to civilisation is, therefore, a -failure. That is, indeed, only another way of saying that civilisation, -the whole manifold web of life, is an art. We may dissect out a vast -number of separate threads and measure them. It is quite worth while to -do so. But the results of such anatomical investigation admit of the -most diverse interpretation, and, at the best, can furnish no adequate -criterion of the worth of a complex living civilisation. - -Yet, although there is no precise measurement of the total value of any -large form of life, we can still make an estimate of its value. We can -approach it, that is to say, as a work of art. We can even reach a -certain approximation to agreement in the formation of such estimates. - -When Protagoras said that “Man is the measure of all things,” he uttered -a dictum which has been variously interpreted, but from the standpoint -we have now reached, from which Man is seen to be preëminently an -artist, it is a monition to us that we cannot to the measurement of life -apply our instruments of precision, and cut life down to their graduated -marks. They have, indeed, their immensely valuable uses, but it is -strictly as instruments and not as ends of living or criteria of the -worth of life. It is in the failure to grasp this that the human tragedy -has often consisted, and for over two thousand years the dictum of -Protagoras has been held up for the pacification of that tragedy, for -the most part, in vain. Protagoras was one of those “Sophists” who have -been presented to our contempt in absurd traditional shapes ever since -Plato caricatured them—though it may well be that some, as, it has been -suggested, Gorgias, may have given colour to the caricature—and it is -only to-day that it is possible to declare that we must place the names -of Protagoras, of Prodicus, of Hippias, even of Gorgias, beside those of -Herodotus, Pindar, and Pericles.[121] - -It is in the sphere of morals that the conflict has often been most -poignant. I have already tried to indicate how revolutionary is the -change which the thoughts of many have had to undergo. This struggle of -a living and flexible and growing morality against a morality that is -rigid and inflexible and dead has at some periods of human history been -almost dramatically presented. It was so in the seventeenth century -around the new moral discoveries of the Jesuits; and the Jesuits were -rewarded by becoming almost until to-day a by-word for all that is -morally poisonous and crooked and false—for all that is “Jesuitical.” -There was once a great quarrel between the Jesuits and the Jansenists—a -quarrel which is scarcely dead yet, for all Christendom took sides in -it—and the Jansenists had the supreme good fortune to entrap on their -side a great man of genius whose onslaught on the Jesuits, “Les -Provinciales,” is even still supposed by many people to have settled the -question. They are allowed so to suppose because no one now reads “Les -Provinciales.” But Remy de Gourmont, who was not only a student of -unread books but a powerfully live thinker, read “Les Provinciales,” and -found, as he set forth in “Le Chemin de Velours,” that it was the -Jesuits who were more nearly in the right, more truly on the road of -advance, than Pascal. As Gourmont showed by citation, there were Jesuit -doctrines put forth by Pascal with rhetorical irony as though the mere -statement sufficed to condemn them, which need only to be liberated from -their irony, and we might nowadays add to them. Thus spake Zarathustra. -Pascal was a geometrician who (though he, indeed, once wrote in his -“Pensées”: “There is no general rule”) desired to deal with the -variable, obscure, and unstable complexities of human action as though -they were problems in mathematics. But the Jesuits, while it is true -that they still accepted the existence of absolute rules, realised that -rules must be made adjustable to the varying needs of life. They thus -became the pioneers of many conceptions which are accepted in modern -practice.[122] Their doctrine of invincible ignorance was a discovery of -that kind, forecasting some of the opinions now held regarding -responsibility. But in that age, as Gourmont pointed out, “to proclaim -that there might be a sin or an offence without guilty parties was an -act of intellectual audacity, as well as scientific probity.” Nowadays -the Jesuits (together, it is interesting to note, with their baroque -architecture) are coming into credit, and casuistry again seems -reputable. To establish that there can be no single inflexible moral -code for all individuals has been, and indeed remains, a difficult and -delicate task, yet the more profoundly one considers it, the more -clearly it becomes visible that what once seemed a dead and rigid code -of morality must more and more become a living act of casuistry. The -Jesuits, because they had a glimmer of this truth, represented, as -Gourmont concluded, the honest and most acceptable part of Christianity, -responding to the necessities of life, and were rendering a service to -civilisation which we should never forget. - -There are some who may not very cordially go to the Jesuits as an -example of the effort to liberate men from the burden of a subservience -to rigid little rules, towards the unification of life as an active -process, however influential they may be admitted to be among the -pioneers of that movement. Yet we may turn in what direction we will, we -shall perpetually find the same movement under other disguises. There -is, for instance, Mr. Bertrand Russell, who is, for many, the most -interesting and stimulating thinker to be found in England to-day. He -might scarcely desire to be associated with the Jesuits. Yet he also -seeks to unify life and even in an essentially religious spirit. His way -of putting this, in his “Principles of Social Reconstruction,” is to -state that man’s impulses may be divided into those that are creative -and those that are possessive, that is to say, concerned with -acquisition. The impulses of the second class are a source of inner and -outer disharmony and they involve conflict; “it is preoccupation with -possessions more than anything else that prevents men from living freely -and nobly”; it is the creative impulse in which real life consists, and -“the typical creative impulse is that of the artist.” Now this -conception (which was that Plato assigned to the “guardians” in his -communistic State) may be a little too narrowly religious for those -whose position in life renders a certain “preoccupation with -possessions” inevitable; it is useless to expect us all to become, at -present, fakirs and Franciscans, “counting nothing one’s own, save only -one’s harp.” But in regarding the creative impulses as the essential -part of life, and as typically manifested in the form of art, Bertrand -Russell is clearly in the great line of movement with which we have been -throughout concerned. We must only at the same time—as we shall see -later—remember that the distinction between the “creative” and the -“possessive” impulses, although convenient, is superficial. In creation -we have not really put aside the possessive instinct, we may even have -intensified it. For it has been reasonably argued that it is precisely -the deep urgency of the impulse to possess which stirs the creative -artist. He creates because that is the best way, or the only way, of -gratifying his passionate desire to possess. Two men desire to possess a -woman, and one seizes her, the other writes a “Vita Nuova” about her; -they have both gratified the instinct of possession, and the second, it -may be, most satisfyingly and most lastingly. So that—apart from the -impossibility, and even the undesirability, of dispensing with the -possessive instinct—it may be well to recognise that the real question -is one of values in possession. We must needs lay up treasure; but the -fine artist in living, so far as may be, lays up his treasure in Heaven. - -In recent time some alert thinkers have been moved to attempt to measure -the art of civilisation by less impossibly exact methods than of old, by -the standard of art, and even of fine art. In a remarkable book on “The -Revelations of Civilisation”—published about three years before the -outbreak of that Great War which some have supposed to date a -revolutionary point in civilisation—Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, who has -expert knowledge of the Egyptian civilisation which was second to none -in its importance for mankind, has set forth a statement of the cycles -to which all civilisations are subject. Civilisation, he points out, is -essentially an intermittent phenomenon. We have to compare the various -periods of civilisation and observe what they have in common in order to -find the general type. “It should be examined like any other action of -Nature; its recurrences should be studied, and all the principles which -underlie its variations should be defined.” Sculpture, he believes, may -be taken as a criterion, not because it is the most important, but -because it is the most convenient and easily available, test. We may say -with the old Etruscans that every race has its Great Year—it sprouts, -flourishes, decays, and dies. The simile, Petrie adds, is the more -precise because there are always irregular fluctuations of the seasonal -weather. There have been eight periods of civilisation, he reckons, in -calculable human history. We are now near the end of the eighth, which -reached its climax about the year 1800; since then there have been -merely archaistic revivals, the value of which may be variously -interpreted. He scarcely thinks we can expect another period of -civilisation to arise for several centuries at least. The average length -of a period of civilisation is 1330 years. Ours Petrie dates from about -A.D. 450. It has always needed a fresh race to produce a new period of -civilisation. In Europe, between A.D. 300 and 600, some fifteen new -races broke in from north and east for slow mixture. “If,” he concluded, -“the source of every civilisation has lain in race mixture, it may be -that eugenics will, in some future civilisation, carefully segregate -fine races, and prohibit continual mixture, until they have a distinct -type, which will start a new civilisation when transplanted. The future -progress of Man may depend as much on isolation to establish a type as -on fusion of types when established.” - -At the time when Flinders Petrie was publishing his suggestive book, Dr. -Oswald Spengler, apparently in complete ignorance of it, was engaged in -a far more elaborate work, not actually published till after the War, in -which an analogous conception of the growth and decay of civilisations -was put forward in a more philosophic way, perhaps more debatable on -account of the complex detail in which the conception was worked -out.[123] Petrie had considered the matter in a summary empiric manner -with close reference to the actual forces viewed broadly. Spengler’s -manner is narrower, more subjective, and more metaphysical. He -distinguishes—though he also recognises eight periods—between “culture” -and “civilisation.” It is the first that is really vital and profitable; -a “civilisation” is the decaying later stage of a “culture,” its -inevitable fate. Herein it reaches its climax. “Civilisations are the -most externalised and artistic conditions of which the higher embodiment -of Man is capable. They are a spiritual senility, an end which with -inner necessity is reached again and again.”[124] The transition from -“culture” to “civilisation” in ancient times took place, Spengler holds, -in the fourth century, and in the modern West in the nineteenth. But, -like Petrie, though more implicitly, he recognises the prominent place -of the art activities in the whole process, and he explicitly emphasises -the interesting way in which those activities which are generally -regarded as of the nature of art are interwoven with others not so -generally regarded. - - - III - - -HOWEVER we look at it, we see that Man, whether he works individually or -collectively, may conveniently be regarded, in the comprehensive sense, -as an artist, a bad artist, maybe, for the most part, but still an -artist. His civilisation—if that is the term we choose to apply to the -total sum of his group activities—is always an art, or a complex of -arts. It is an art that is to be measured, or left immeasurable. That -question, we have seen, we may best leave open. Another question that -might be put is easy to deal with more summarily: What is Art? - -We may deal with it summarily because it is an ultimate question and -there can be no final answer to ultimate questions. As soon as we begin -to ask such questions, as soon as we begin to look at any phenomenon as -an end in itself, we are on the perilous slope of metaphysics, where no -agreement can, or should be, possible. The question of measurement was -plausible, and needed careful consideration. What is Art? is a question -which, if we are wise, we shall deal with as Pilate dealt with that like -question: What is Truth? - -How futile the question is, we may realise when we examine the book -which Tolstoy in old age wrote to answer it. Here is a man who was -himself, in his own field, one of the world’s supreme artists. He could -not fail to say one or two true things, as when he points out that “all -human existence is full of art, from cradle songs and dances to the -offices of religion and public ceremonial—it is all equally art. Art, in -the large sense, impregnates our whole life.” But on the main point all -that Tolstoy can do is to bring together a large miscellaneous -collection of definitions—without seeing that as individual opinions -they all have their rightness—and then to add one of his own, not much -worse, nor much better, than any of the others. Thereto he appends some -of his own opinions on artists, whence it appears that Hugo, Dickens, -George Eliot, Dostoievsky, Maupassant, Millet, Bastien-Lepage, and Jules -Breton—and not always they—are the artists whom he considers great; it -is not a list to treat with contempt, but he goes on to pour contempt on -those who venerate Sophocles and Aristophanes and Dante and Shakespeare -and Milton and Michelangelo and Bach and Beethoven and Manet. “My own -artistic works,” he adds, “I rank among bad art, excepting a few short -stories.” It seems a reduction of the whole question, What is Art? to -absurdity, if one may be permitted to say so at a time when Tolstoy -would appear to be the pioneer of some of our most approved modern -critics. - -Thus we see the reason why all the people who come forward to define -art—each with his own little measuring-rod quite different from -everybody else’s—inevitably make themselves ridiculous. It is true they -are all of them right. That is just why they are ridiculous: each has -mistaken the one drop of water he has measured for the whole ocean. Art -cannot be defined because it is infinite. It is no accident that poetry, -which has so often seemed the typical art, means a _making_. The artist -is a maker. Art is merely a name we are pleased to give to what can only -be the whole stream of action which—in order to impart to it selection -and an unconscious or even conscious aim—is poured through the nervous -circuit of a human animal or some other animal having a more or less -similar nervous organisation. For a cat is an artist as well as a man, -and some would say more than a man, while a bee is not only an obvious -artist, but perhaps even the typical natural and unconscious artist. -There is no defining art; there is only the attempt to distinguish -between good art and bad art. - -Thus it is that I find no escape from the Aristotelian position of -Shakespeare that - - “Nature is made better by no mean - But Nature makes that mean.... - This is an art - Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but - The art itself is Nature.” - -And that this conception is Aristotelian, even the essential Greek -conception, is no testimony to Shakespeare’s scholarship. It is merely -the proof that here we are in the presence of one of these great -ultimate facts of the world which cannot but be sensitively perceived by -the finest spirits, however far apart in time and space. Aristotle, -altogether in the same spirit as Shakespeare, insisted that the works of -man’s making, a State, for example, are natural, though Art partly -completes what Nature is herself sometimes unable to bring to -perfection, and even then that man is only exercising methods which, -after all, are those of Nature. Nature needs Man’s art in order to -achieve many natural things, and Man, in fulfilling that need, is only -following the guidance of Nature in seeming to make things which are all -the time growing by themselves.[125] Art is thus scarcely more than the -natural midwife of Nature. - -There is, however, one distinguishing mark of Art which at this stage, -as we conclude our survey, must be clearly indicated. It has been -subsumed, as the acute reader will not have failed to note, throughout. -But it has, for the most part, been deliberately left implicit. It has -constantly been assumed, that is to say, that Art is the sum of all the -active energies of Mankind. We must in this matter of necessity follow -Aristotle, who in his “Politics” spoke, as a matter of course, of all -those who practice “medicine, gymnastics, and the arts in general” as -“artists.” Art is the moulding force of every culture that Man during -his long course has at any time or place produced. It is the reality of -what we imperfectly term “morality.” It is all human creation. - -Yet creation, in the active visible constructive sense, is not the whole -of Man. It is not even the whole of what Man has been accustomed to call -God. When, by what is now termed a process of Narcissism, Man created -God in his own image, as we may instructively observe in the first -chapter of the Hebrew Book of Genesis, he assigned to him six parts of -active creational work, one part of passive contemplation of that work. -That one seventh part—and an immensely important part—has not come under -our consideration. In other words, we have been looking at Man the -artist, not at Man the æsthetician. - -There was more than one reason why these two aspects of human faculty -were held clearly apart throughout our discussion. Not only is it even -less possible to agree about æsthetics, where the variety of individual -judgment is rightly larger, than about art (ancient and familiar is the -saying, _De gustibus_—), but to confuse art and æsthetics leads us into -lamentable confusion. We may note this in the pioneers of the modern -revival of what Sidgwick called “æsthetic Intuitionism” in the -eighteenth century, and especially in Hutcheson, though Hutcheson’s work -is independent of consistency, which he can scarcely even be said to -have sought. They never sufficiently emphasised the distinction between -art and æsthetics, between, that is to say, what we may possibly, if we -like, call the dynamic and the static aspects of human action. Herein is -the whole difference between work, for art is essentially work, and the -spectacular contemplation of work, which æsthetics essentially is. The -two things are ultimately one, but alike in the special arts and in that -art of life commonly spoken of as morals, where we are not usually -concerned with ultimates, the two must be clearly held apart. From the -point of view of art we are concerned with the internal impulse to guide -the activities in the lines of good work. It is only when we look at the -work of art from the outside, whether in the more specialised arts or in -the art of life, that we are concerned with æsthetic contemplation, that -activity of vision which creates beauty, however we may please to define -beauty, and even though we see it so widely as to be able to say with -Remy de Gourmont: “Wherever life is, there is beauty,”[126] provided, -one may add, that there is the æsthetic contemplation in which it must -be mirrored. - -It is in relation with art, not with æsthetics, it may be noted in -passing, that we are concerned with morals. That was once a question of -seemingly such immense import that men were willing to spiritually slay -each other over it. But it is not a question at all from the standpoint -which has here from the outset been taken. Morals, for us to-day, is a -species of which art is the genus. It is an art, and like all arts it -necessarily has its own laws. We are concerned with the art of morals: -we cannot speak of art _and_ morals. To take “art” and “morals” and -“religion,” and stir them up, however vigorously, into an indigestible -plum-pudding, as Ruskin used to do, is no longer possible.[127] This is -a question which—like so many other furiously debated questions—only -came into existence because the disputants on both sides were ignorant -of the matter they were disputing about. It is no longer to be taken -seriously, though it has its interest because the dispute has so often -recurred, not only in recent days, but equally among the Greeks of -Plato’s days. The Greeks had a kind of æsthetic morality. It was -instinctive with them, and that is why it is so significant for us. But -they seldom seem to have succeeded in thinking æsthetic problems clearly -out. The attitude of their philosophers towards many of the special -arts, even the arts in which they were themselves supreme, to us seem -unreasonable. While they magnified the art, they often belittled the -artist, and felt an aristocratic horror for anything that assimilated a -man to a craftsman; for craftsman meant for them vulgarian. Plato -himself was all for goody-goody literature and in our days would be an -enthusiastic patron of Sunday-school stories. He would forbid any -novelist to represent a good man as ever miserable or a wicked man as -ever happy. The whole tendency of the discussion in the third book of -the “Republic” is towards the conclusion that literature must be -occupied exclusively with the representation of the virtuous man, -provided, of course, that he was not a slave or a craftsman, for to such -no virtue worthy of imitation should ever be attributed. Towards the end -of his long life, Plato remained of the same opinion; in the second book -of “The Laws” it is with the maxims of virtue that he will have the poet -solely concerned. The reason for this ultra-puritanical attitude, which -was by no means in practice that of the Greeks themselves, seems not -hard to divine. The very fact that their morality was temperamentally -æsthetic instinctively impelled them, when they were thinking -philosophically, to moralise art generally; they had not yet reached the -standpoint which would enable them to see that art might be consonant -with morality without being artificially pressed into a narrow moral -mould. Aristotle was conspicuously among those, if not the first, who -took a broader and saner view. In opposition to the common Greek view -that the object of art is to teach morals, Aristotle clearly expressed -the totally different view that poetry in the wide sense—the special art -which he and the Greeks generally were alone much concerned to -discuss—is an emotional delight, having pleasure as its direct end, and -only indirectly a moral end by virtue of its cathartic effects. Therein -he reached an æsthetic standpoint, yet it was so novel that he could not -securely retain it and was constantly falling back towards the old moral -conception of art.[128] - -We may call it a step in advance. Yet it was not a complete statement of -the matter. Indeed, it established the unreal conflict between two -opposing conceptions, each unsound because incomplete, which loose -thinkers have carried on ever since. To assert that poetry exists for -morals is merely to assert that one art exists for the sake of another -art, which at the best is rather a futile statement, while, so far as it -is really accepted, it cannot fail to crush the art thus subordinated. -If we have the insight to see that an art has its own part of life, we -shall also see that it has its own intrinsic morality, which cannot be -the morality of morals or of any other art than itself. We may here -profitably bear in mind that antinomy between morals and morality on -which Jules de Gaultier has often insisted. The Puritan’s strait-jacket -shows the vigour of his external morals; it also bears witness to the -lack of internal morality which necessitates that control. Again, on the -other hand, it is argued that art gives pleasure. Very true. Even the -art of morals gives pleasure. But to assert that therein lies its sole -end and aim is an altogether feeble and inadequate conclusion, unless we -go further and proceed to inquire what “pleasure” means. If we fail to -take that further step, it remains a conclusion which may be said to -merge into the conclusion that art is aimless; that, rather, its aim is -to be aimless, and so to lift us out of the struggle and turmoil of -life. That was the elaborately developed argument of Schopenhauer: -art—whether in music, in philosophy, in painting, in poetry—is useless; -“to be useless is the mark of genius, its patent of nobility. All other -works of men are there for the preservation or alleviation of our -existence; but this alone not; it alone is there for its own sake; and -is in this sense to be regarded as the flower, or the pure essence, of -existence. That is why in its enjoyment our heart rises, for we are -thereby lifted above the heavy earthen atmosphere of necessity.”[129] -Life is a struggle of the will; but in art the will has become -objective, fit for pure contemplation, and genius consists in an eminent -aptitude for contemplation. The ordinary man, said Schopenhauer, plods -through the dark world with his lantern turned on the things he wants; -the man of genius sees the world by the light of the sun. In modern -times Bergson adopted that view of Schopenhauer’s, with a terminology of -his own, and all he said under this head may be regarded as a charming -fantasia on the Schopenhauerian theme: “Genius is the most complete -objectivity.” Most of us, it seems to Bergson, never see reality at all; -we only see the labels we have fixed on things to mark for us their -usefulness.[130] A veil is interposed between us and the reality of -things. The artist, the man of genius, raises this veil and reveals -Nature to us. He is naturally endowed with a detachment from life, and -so possesses as it were a virginal freshness in seeing, hearing, or -thinking. That is “intuition,” an instinct that has become -disinterested. “Art has no other object but to remove the practically -useful symbols, the conventional and socially accepted generalities, so -as to bring us face to face with reality itself.”[131] Art would thus be -fulfilling its function the more completely the further it removed us -from ordinary life, or, more strictly, from any personal interest in -life. That was also Remy de Gourmont’s opinion, though I do not know how -far he directly derived it from Schopenhauer. “If we give to art a moral -aim,” he wrote, “it ceases to exist, for it ceases to be useless. Art is -incompatible with a moral or religious aim. It is unintelligible to the -crowd because the crowd is not disinterested and knows only the -principle of utility.” But the difficulty of making definite affirmation -in this field, the perpetual need to allow for _nuances_ which often on -the surface involve contradictions, is seen when we find that so great -an artist as Einstein—for so we may here fairly call him—and one so -little of a formal æsthetician, agrees with Schopenhauer. “I agree with -Schopenhauer,” he said to Moszkowski, “that one of the most powerful -motives that attract people to science and art is the longing to escape -from everyday life, with its painful coarseness and unconsoling -barrenness, and to break the fetters of their own ever-changing desires. -Man seeks to form a simplified synoptical view of the world conformable -to his own nature, to overcome the world by replacing it with his -picture. The painter, the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, each -does this in his own way. He transfers the centre of his emotional life -to this picture, to find a surer haven of peace than the sphere of his -turbulent personal experience offers.” That is a sound statement of the -facts, yet it is absurd to call such an achievement “useless.” - -Perhaps, however, what philosophers have really meant when they have -said that art (it is the so-called fine arts only that they have in -mind) is useless, is that _an art must not be consciously pursued for -any primary useful end outside itself_. That is true. It is even true of -morals, that is to say the art of living. To live in the conscious -primary pursuit of a “useful” end—such as one of the fine arts—outside -living itself is to live badly; to declare, like André Gide, that -“outside the doctrine of ‘Art for Art’ I know not where to find any -reason for living,” may well be the legitimate expression of a personal -feeling, but, unless understood in the sense here taken, it is not a -philosophical statement which can be brought under the species of -eternity, being, indeed, one of those confusions of substances which -are, metaphysically, damnable. So, again, in the art of science: the -most useful applications of science have sprung from discoveries that -were completely useless for purposes outside pure science, so far as the -aim of the discoverer went, or even so far as he ever knew. If he had -been bent on “useful” ends, he would probably have made no discovery at -all. But the bare statement that “art is useless” is so vague as to be -really meaningless, if not inaccurate and misleading. - -Therefore, Nietzsche was perhaps making a profound statement when he -declared that art is the great stimulus to life; it produces joy as an -aid to life; it possesses a usefulness, that is to say, which transcends -its direct aim. The artist is one who sees life as beauty, and art is -thus fulfilling its function the more completely, the more deeply it -enables us to penetrate into life. It seems, however, that Nietzsche -insufficiently guarded his statement. Art for art’s sake, said -Nietzsche, is “a dangerous principle,” like truth for truth’s sake and -goodness for goodness’ sake. Art, knowledge, and morality are simply -means, he declared, and valuable for their “life-promoting tendency.” -(There is here a pioneering suggestion of the American doctrine of -Pragmatism, according to which how a thing “works” is the test of its -validity, but Nietzsche can by no means be counted a Pragmatist.) To -look thus at the matter was certainly, with Schopenhauer and with -Gourmont, to put aside the superficial moral function of art, and to -recognise in it a larger sociological function. It was on the -sociological function of art that Guyau, who was so penetrating and -sympathetic a thinker, insisted in his book, posthumously published in -1889, “L’Art au Point de Vue Sociologique.” He argued that art, while -remaining independent, is at the foundation one with morals and with -religion. He believed in a profound unity of all these terms: life, -morality, society, religion, art. “Art, in a word, is life.” So that, as -he pointed out, there is no conflict between the theory of art for art, -properly interpreted, and the theory that assigns to art a moral and -social function. It is clear that Guyau was on the right road, although -his statement was confusingly awkward in form. He deformed his -statement, moreover, through his perpetual tendency to insist on the -spontaneously socialising organisation of human groups—a tendency which -has endeared him to all who adopt an anarchist conception of -society—and, forgetting that he had placed morals only at the depth of -art and not on the surface, he commits himself to the supremely false -dictum: “Art is, above everything, a phenomenon of sociability,” and the -like statements, far too closely resembling the doctrinary -pronouncements of Tolstoy. For sociability is an indirect end of art: it -cannot be its direct aim. We are here not far from the ambiguous -doctrine that art is “expression,” for “expression” may be too easily -confused with “communication.”[132] - -All these eminent philosophers—though they meant something which so far -as it went was true—have failed to produce a satisfying statement -because they have none of them understood how to ask the question which -they were trying to answer. They failed to understand that morals is -just as much an art as any other vital psychic function of man; they -failed to see that, though art must be free from the dominance of -morals, it by no means followed that it has no morality of its own, if -morality involves the organised integrity which all vital phenomena must -possess; they failed to realise that, since the arts are simply the sum -of the active functions which spring out of the single human organism, -we are not called upon to worry over any imaginary conflicts between -functions which are necessarily harmonious because they are all one at -the root. We cannot too often repeat the pregnant maxim of Bacon that -the right question is the half of knowledge. Here we might almost say -that it is the whole of knowledge. It seems, therefore, unnecessary to -pursue the subject further. He who cannot himself pursue it further had -best leave it alone. - -But when we enter the æsthetic sphere we are no longer artists. That, -indeed, is inevitable if we regard the arts as the sum of all the active -functions of the organism. Rickert, with his methodical vision of the -world,—for he insists that we must have some sort of system,—has -presented what he regards as a reasonable scheme in a tabular form at -the end of the first volume of his “System.”[133] He divides Reality -into two great divisions: the monistic and asocial Contemplative and the -pluralistic and social Active. To the first belong the spheres of Logic, -Æsthetics, and Mysticism, with their values, truth, beauty, impersonal -holiness; to the second, Ethics, Erotics, the Philosophy of Religion, -with their values, morality, happiness, personal holiness. This view of -the matter is the more significant as Rickert stands aside from the -tradition represented by Nietzsche and returns to the Kantian current, -enriched, indeed, and perhaps not quite consistently, by Goethe. It -seems probable that all Rickert’s active attitudes towards reality may -fairly be called Art, and all the contemplative attitudes, Æsthetics. - -There is in fact nothing novel in the distinction which underlies this -classification, and it has been recognised ever since the days of -Baumgarten, the commonly accepted founder of modern æsthetics, not to go -further back.[134] Art is the active practical exercise of a single -discipline: æsthetics is the philosophic appreciation of any or all the -arts. Art is concerned with the more or less unconscious creation of -beauty: æsthetics is concerned with its discovery and contemplation. -Æsthetics is the metaphysical side of all productive living. - - - IV - - -THIS complete unlikeness on the surface between art and æsthetics—for -ultimately and fundamentally they are at one—has to be emphasised, for -the failure to distinguish them has led to confusion and verbosity. The -practice of morals, we must ever remember, is not a matter of æsthetics; -it is a matter of art. It has not, nor has any other art, an immediate -and obvious relationship to the creation of beauty.[135] What the artist -in life, as in any other art, is directly concerned to express is not -primarily beauty; it is much more likely to seem to him to be truth (it -is interesting to note that Einstein, so much an artist in thought, -insists that he is simply concerned with truth), and what he produces -may seem at first to all the world, and even possibly to himself, to be -ugly. It is so in the sphere of morals. For morals is still concerned -with the possessive instinct, not with the creation of beauty, with the -needs and the satisfaction of the needs, with the industrial and -economic activities, with the military activities to which they fatally -tend. But the æsthetic attitude, as Gaultier expresses it, is the -radiant smile on the human face which in its primitive phases was -anatomically built up to subserve crude vital needs; as he elsewhere -more abstractly expresses it, “Beauty is an attitude of sensibility.” It -is the task of æsthetics, often a slow and painful task, to see -art—including the art of Nature, some would insist—as beauty. That, it -has to be added, is no mean task. It is, on the contrary, essential. It -is essential to sweep away in art all that is ultimately found to be -fundamentally ugly, whether by being, at the one end, distastefully -pretty, or, at the other, hopelessly crude. For ugliness produces nausea -of the stomach and sets the teeth on edge. It does so literally, not -metaphorically. Ugliness, since it interferes with digestion, since it -disturbs the nervous system, impairs the forces of life. For when we are -talking æsthetics (as the word itself indicates) we are ultimately -talking physiologically. Even our metaphysics—if it is to have any -meaning for us—must have a physical side. Unless we hold that fact in -mind, we shall talk astray and are likely to say little that is to the -point. - -Art has to be seen as beauty and it is the function of æsthetics so to -see it. How slowly and painfully the function works every one must know -by observing the æsthetic judgments of other people, if not by recalling -his own experiences. I know in my own experience how hardly and -subconsciously this process works. In the matter of pictures, for -instance, I have found throughout life, from Rubens in adolescence to -Cézanne in recent years, that a revelation of the beauty of a painter’s -work which, on the surface, is alien or repulsive to one’s sensibility, -came only after years of contemplation, and then most often by a sudden -revelation, in a flash, by a direct intuition of the beauty of some -particular picture which henceforth became the clue to all the painter’s -work. It is a process comparable to that which is in religion termed -“conversion,” and, indeed, of like nature.[136] So also it is in -literature. And in life? We are accustomed to suppose that a moral -action is much easier to judge than a picture of Cézanne. We do not -dream of bringing the same patient and attentive, as it were æsthetic, -spirit to life as we bring to painting. Perhaps we are right, -considering what poor bungling artists most of us are in living. For -“art is easy, life is difficult,” as Liszt used to say. The reason, of -course, is that the art of living differs from the external arts in that -we cannot exclude the introduction of alien elements into its texture. -Our art of living, when we achieve it, is of so high and fine a quality -precisely because it so largely lies in harmoniously weaving into the -texture elements that we have not ourselves chosen, or that, having -chosen, we cannot throw aside. Yet it is the attitude of the spectators -that helps to perpetuate that bungling. - -It is Plotinus whom we may fairly regard as the founder of Æsthetics in -the philosophic sense, and it was as formulated by Plotinus, though this -we sometimes fail to recognise, that the Greek attitude in these -matters, however sometimes modified, has come down to us.[137] We may be -forgiven for not always recognising it, because it is rather strange -that it should be so. It is strange, that is to say, that the æsthetic -attitude, which we regard as so emphatically Greek, should have been -left for formulation until the Greek world had passed away, that it -should not have been Plato, but an Alexandrian, living in Rome seven -centuries after him, who set forth what seems to us a distinctively -Platonic view of life.[138] The Greeks, indeed, seem to have recognised, -apart from the lower merely “ethical” virtues of habit and custom, the -higher “intellectual” virtues which were deliberately planned, and so of -the nature of art. But Plotinus definitely recognised the æsthetic -contemplation of Beauty, together with the One and the Good, as three -aspects of the Absolute.[139] He thus at once placed æsthetics on the -highest possible pedestal, beside religion and morals; he placed it -above art, or as comprehending art, for he insisted that Contemplation -is an active quality, so that all human creative energy may be regarded -as the by-play of contemplation. That was to carry rather far the -function of æsthetic contemplation. But it served to stamp for ever, on -the minds of all sensitive to that stamp who came after, the definite -realisation of the sublimest, the most nearly divine, of human -aptitudes. Every great spirit has furnished the measure of his greatness -by the more or less completeness in which at the ultimate outpost of his -vision over the world he has attained to that active contemplation of -life as a spectacle which Shakespeare finally embodied in the figure of -Prospero. - -It may be interesting to note in passing that, psychologically -considered, all æsthetic enjoyment among the ordinary population, -neither artists in the narrow sense nor philosophers, still necessarily -partakes to some degree of genuine æsthetic contemplation, and that such -contemplation seems to fall roughly into two classes, to one or other of -which every one who experiences æsthetic enjoyment belongs. These have, -I believe, been defined by Müller-Freienfels as that of the “Zuschauer,” -who feels that he is looking on, and that of the “Mitspieler,” who feels -that he is joining in; on the one side, we may say, he who knows he is -looking on, the _spectator_, and on the other he who imaginatively joins -in, the _participator_. The people of the first group are those, it may -be, in whom the sensory nervous apparatus is highly developed and they -are able to adopt the most typical and complete æsthetic attitude; the -people of the other group would seem to be most developed on the motor -nervous side and they are those who themselves desire to be artists. -Groos, who has developed the æsthetic side of “miterleben,” is of this -temperament, and he had at first supposed that every one was like him in -this respect.[140] Plotinus, who held that contemplation embraced -activity, must surely have been of this temperament. Coleridge was -emphatically of the other temperament, _spectator haud particeps_, as he -himself said. But, at all events in northern countries, that is probably -not the more common temperament. The æsthetic attitude of the crowds who -go to watch football matches is probably much more that of the -imaginative participator than of the pure spectator. - -There is no occasion here to trace the history of æsthetic -contemplation. Yet it may be worth while to note that it was clearly -present to the mind of the fine thinker and great moralist who brought -the old Greek idea back into the modern world. In the “Philosophical -Regimen” (as it has been named) brought to light a few years ago, in -which Shaftesbury set down his self-communings, we find him writing in -one place: “In the morning am I to see anew? Am I to be present yet -longer and content? I am not weary, nor ever can be, of such a -spectacle, such a theatre, such a presence, nor at acting whatever part -such a master assigns me. Be it ever so long, I stay and am willing to -see on whilst my sight continues sound; whilst I can be a spectator, -such as I ought to be; whilst I can see reverently, justly, with -understanding and applause. And when I see no more, I retire, not -disdainfully, but in reverence to the spectacle and master, giving -thanks.... Away, man! rise, wipe thy mouth, throw up thy napkin and have -done. A bellyful (they say) is as good as a feast.” - -That may seem but a simple and homely way of stating the matter, though -a few years later, in 1727, a yet greater spirit than Shaftesbury, -Swift, combining the conception of life as æsthetic contemplation with -that of life as art, wrote in a letter, “Life is a tragedy, wherein we -sit as spectators awhile, and then act our own part in it.” If we desire -a more systematically philosophical statement we may turn to the -distinguished thinker of to-day who in many volumes has most powerfully -presented the same essential conception, with all its implications, of -life as a spectacle. “Tirez le rideau; la farce est jouée.” That -Shakespearian utterance, which used to be attributed to Rabelais on his -death-bed, and Swift’s comment on life, and Shaftesbury’s intimate -meditation, would seem to be—on the philosophic and apart from the moral -side of life—entirely in the spirit that Jules de Gaultier has so -elaborately developed. The world is a spectacle, and all the men and -women the actors on its stage. Enjoy the spectacle while you will, -whether comedy or tragedy, enter into the spirit of its manifold -richness and beauty, yet take it not too seriously, even when you leave -it and the curtains are drawn that conceal it for ever from your eyes, -grown weary at last. - -Such a conception, indeed, was already to be seen in a deliberately -philosophical form in Schopenhauer (who, no doubt, influenced Gaultier) -and, later, Nietzsche, especially the early Nietzsche, although he never -entirely abandoned it; his break with Wagner, however, whom he had -regarded as the typical artist, led him to become suddenly rather -critical of art and artists, as we see in “Human-all-too-Human,” which -immediately followed “Wagner in Bayreuth,” and he became inclined to -look on the artist, in the narrow sense, as only “a splendid relic of -the past,” not, indeed, altogether losing his earlier conception, but -disposed to believe that “the scientific man is the finest development -of the artistic man.” In his essay on Wagner he had presented art as the -essentially metaphysical activity of Man, here following Schopenhauer. -“Every genius,” well said Schopenhauer, “is a great child; he gazes out -at the world as something strange, a spectacle, and therefore with -purely objective interest.” That is to say that the highest attitude -attainable by man towards life is that of æsthetic contemplation. But it -took on a different character in Nietzsche. In 1878 Nietzsche wrote of -his early essay on Wagner: “At that time I believed that the world was -created from the æsthetic standpoint, as a play, and that as a moral -phenomenon it was a deception: on that account I came to the conclusion -that the world was only to be justified as an æsthetic phenomenon.”[141] -At the end of his active career Nietzsche was once more reproducing this -proposition in many ways. Jules de Gaultier has much interested himself -in Nietzsche, but he had already reached, no doubt through Schopenhauer, -a rather similar conception before he came in contact with Nietzsche’s -work, and in the present day he is certainly the thinker who has most -systematically and philosophically elaborated the conception.[142] - -Gaultier is most generally known by that perhaps not quite happily -chosen term of “Bovarism,” embodied in the title of his earliest book -and abstracted from Flaubert’s heroine, which stands for one of his most -characteristic conceptions, and, indeed, in a large sense, for the -central idea of his philosophy. In its primary psychological sense -Bovarism is the tendency—the unconscious tendency of Emma Bovary and, -more or less, all of us—to conceive of ourselves as other than we are. -Our picture of the world, for good or for evil, is an idealised picture, -a fiction, a waking dream, an _als ob_, as Vaihinger would say. But when -we idealise the world we begin by first idealising ourselves. We imagine -ourselves other than we are, and in so imagining, as Gaultier clearly -realises, we tend to mould ourselves, so that reality becomes a -prolongation of fiction. As Meister Eckhart long since finely said: “A -man is what he loves.” A similar thought was in Plato’s mind. In modern -times a variation of this same idea has been worked out, not as by -Gaultier from the philosophic side, but from the medical and more -especially the psycho-analytic side, by Dr. Alfred Adler of Vienna.[143] -Adler has suggestively shown how often a man’s or a woman’s character is -constituted by a process of fiction,—that is by making an ideal of what -it is, or what it ought to be,—and then so far as possible moulding it -into the shape of that fiction, a process which is often interwoven with -morbid elements, especially with an original basis of organic defect, -the reaction being an effort, sometimes successful, to overcome that -defect, and even to transform it into a conspicuous quality, as when -Demosthenes, who was a stutterer, made himself a great orator. Even -thinkers may not wholly escape this tendency, and I think it would be -easily possible to show that, for instance, Nietzsche was moved by what -Adler calls the “masculine protest”; one remembers how shrinkingly -delicate Nietzsche was towards women and how emphatically he declared -they should never be approached without a whip. Adler owed nothing to -Gaultier, of whom he seems to be ignorant; he found his first -inspiration in Vaihinger’s doctrine of the “as if”; Gaultier, however, -owes nothing to Vaihinger, and, indeed, began to publish earlier, though -not before Vaihinger’s book was written. Gaultier’s philosophic descent -is mainly from Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. - -There is another deeper and wider sense, a more abstract esoteric sense, -in which Jules de Gaultier understands Bovarism. It is not only the -human being and human groups who are psychologically Bovaristic, the -Universe itself, the Eternal Being (to adopt an accepted fiction), -metaphysically partakes of Bovarism. The Universe, it seems to Gaultier, -necessarily conceives itself as other than it is. Single, it conceives -itself multiple, as subject and object. Thus is furnished the -fundamental convention which we must grant to the Dramatist who presents -the cosmic tragi-comedy.[144] - -It may seem to some that the vision of the world which Man pursues on -his course across the Universe becomes ever more impalpable and -visionary. And so perhaps it may be. But even if that were an -undesirable result, it would still be useless to fight against God. We -are, after all, merely moulding the conceptions which a little later -will become commonplaced and truisms. For really—while we must hold -physics and metaphysics apart, for they cannot be blended—a metaphysics -which is out of harmony with physics is negligible; it is nothing in the -world. And it is our physical world that is becoming more impalpable and -visionary. It is “matter,” the very structure of the “atom,” that is -melting into a dream, and if it may seem that on the spiritual side life -tends to be moulding itself to the conception of Calderon as a dream, it -is because the physical atom is pursuing that course. Unless we hold in -mind the analysis of the world towards which the physicist is bringing -us, we shall not understand the synthesis of the world towards which the -philosopher is bringing us. Gaultier’s philosophy may not be based upon -physics, but it seems to be in harmony with physics. - -This is the metaphysical scaffolding—we may if we like choose to -dispense with it—by aid of which Jules de Gaultier erects his -spectacular conception of the world. He is by no means concerned to deny -the necessity of morality. On the contrary, morality is the necessary -restraint on the necessary biological instinct of possession, on the -desire, that is, by the acquisition of certain objects, to satisfy -passions which are most often only the exaggeration of natural needs, -but which—through the power of imagination such exaggeration inaugurates -in the world—lead to the development of civilisation. Limited and -definite so long as confined to their biological ends, needs are -indefinitely elastic, exhibiting, indeed, an almost hysterical character -which becomes insatiable. They mark a hypertrophy of the possessive -instinct which experience shows to be a menace to social life. Thus the -Great War of recent times may be regarded as the final tragic result of -the excessive development through half a century of an economic fever, -the activity of needs beyond their due biological ends producing -suddenly the inevitable result.[145] So that the possessive instinct, -while it is the cause of the formation of an economic civilised society, -when pushed too far becomes the cause of the ruin of that society. Man, -who begins by acquiring just enough force to compel Nature to supply his -bare needs, himself becomes, according to the tragic Greek saying, the -greatest force of Nature. Yet the fact that a civilisation may persist -for centuries shows that men in societies have found methods of -combating the exaggerated development of the possessive instinct, of -retaining it within bounds which have enabled societies to enjoy a -fairly long life. These methods become embodied in religions and -moralities and laws. They react in concert to restrain the greediness -engendered by the possessive instinct. They make virtues of Temperance -and Sobriety and Abnegation. They invent Great Images which arouse human -hopes and human fears. They prescribe imperatives, with sanctions, in -part imposed by the Great Images and in part by the actual executive -force of social law. So societies are enabled to immunise themselves -against the ravaging auto-intoxication of an excessive instinct of -possession, and the services rendered by religions and moralities cannot -be too highly estimated. They are the spontaneous physiological -processes which counteract disease before medical science comes into -play. - -But are they of any use in those periods of advanced civilisation which -they have themselves contributed to form? When Man has replaced flint -knives and clubs and slings by the elaborate weapons we know, can he be -content with methods of social preservation which date from the time of -flint knives and clubs and slings? The efficacy of those restraints -depends on a sensibility which could only exist when men scarcely -distinguished imaginations from perceptions. Thence arose the credulity -on which religions and moralities flourished. But now the Images have -grown pale in human sensibility, just as they have in words, which are -but effaced images. We need a deeper reality to take the place of these -early beliefs which the growth of intelligence necessarily shows to be -illusory. We must seek in the human ego an instinct in which is -manifested a truly autonomous play of the power of imagination, an -instinct which by virtue of its own proper development may restrain the -excesses of the possessive instinct and dissipate the perils which -threaten civilisation. The æsthetic instinct alone answers to that -double demand. - -At this point we may pause to refer to the interesting analogy between -this argument of Jules de Gaultier and another recently proposed -solution of the problems of civilisation presented by Bertrand Russell, -to which there has already been occasion to refer. The two views were -clearly suggested by the same events, though apparently in complete -independence, and it is interesting to observe the considerable degree -of harmony which unites two such distinguished thinkers in different -lands, and with unlike philosophic standpoints as regards ultimate -realities.[146] Man’s impulses, as we know, Bertrand Russell holds to be -of two kinds: those that are possessive and those that are creative; the -typical possessive impulse being that of property and the typical -creative impulse that of the artist. It is in following the creative -impulse, he believes, that man’s path of salvation lies, for the -possessive impulses necessarily lead to conflict while the creative -impulses are essentially harmonious. Bertrand Russell seeks the -unification of life. But consistency of action should, he holds, spring -from consistency of impulse rather than from the control of impulse by -will. Like Gaultier, he believes in what has been called, perhaps not -happily, “the law of irony”; that is to say, that the mark we hit is -never the mark we aimed at, so that, in all supreme success in life, as -Goethe said of Wilhelm Meister, we are like Saul, the son of Kish, who -went forth to seek his father’s asses and found a kingdom. “Those who -best promote life,” Russell prefers to put it, “do not have life for -their purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation, -a bringing into our human existence of something eternal.” And, again -like Gaultier, he invokes Spinoza and what in his phraseology he called -“the intellectual love of God.” “Take no thought, saying, What shall we -eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? -Whosoever has known a strong creative impulse has known the value of -this precept in its exact and literal sense; it is preoccupation with -possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living -freely and nobly.”[147] - -This view of the matter seems substantially the same, it may be in an -unduly simplified form, as the conception which Jules de Gaultier has -worked out more subtly and complexly, seeking to weave in a large number -of the essential factors, realising that the harmony of life must yet be -based on an underlying conflict.[148] The main difference would seem to -be that Bertrand Russell’s creative impulse seems to be fairly identical -with the productive impulse of art in the large sense in which I have -throughout understood it, while Jules de Gaultier is essentially -concerned with the philosophic or religious side of the art impulse; -that is to say, the attitude of æsthetic contemplation which in -appearance forms the absolute antithesis to the possessive instinct. It -is probable, however, that there is no real discrepancy here, for as we -may regard æsthetic contemplation as the passive aspect of art, so art -may be regarded as the active aspect of æsthetic contemplation, and -Bertrand Russell, we may certainly believe, would include the one under -art as Jules de Gaultier would include the other under æsthetics. - -The æsthetic instinct, as Jules de Gaultier understands it, answers the -double demand of our needs to-day, not, like religions and moralities, -by evoking images as menaces or as promises, only effective if they can -be realised in the world of sensation, and so merely constituting -another attempt to gratify the possessive instinct, by enslaving the -power of imagination to that alien master. Through the æsthetic instinct -Man is enabled to procure joy, not from the things themselves and the -sensations due to the possession of things, but from the very images of -things. Beyond the sense of utility bound up with the possession of -objects, he acquires the privilege, bound up with the sole contemplation -of them, of enjoying the beauty of things. By the æsthetic instinct the -power of imagination realises its own proper tendency and attains its -own proper end. - -Such a process cannot fail to have its reaction on the social -environment. It must counteract the exaggeration of the possessive -instinct. To that impulse, when it transgresses the legitimate bounds of -biological needs and threatens to grow like a destructive cancer, the -æsthetic instinct proposes another end, a more human end, that of -æsthetic joy. Therewith the exuberance of insatiable and ruinous -cupidity is caught in the forms of art, the beauty of the universe is -manifested to all eyes, and the happiness which had been sought in the -paradoxical enterprise of glutting that insatiable desire finds its -perpetual satisfaction in the absolute and complete realisation of -beauty. - -As Jules de Gaultier understands it, we see that the æsthetic instinct -is linked on to the possessive instinct. Bertrand Russell would -sometimes seem to leave the possessive instinct in the void without -making any provision for its satisfaction. In Gaultier’s view, we may -probably say it is taken in charge by the æsthetic instinct as soon as -it has fulfilled its legitimate biological ends, and its excessive -developments, what might otherwise be destructive, are sublimated. The -æsthetic instinct, Gaultier insists, like the other instincts, even the -possessive instinct, has imperative claims; it is an appetite of the -_ego_, developed at the same hearth of intimate activity, drawing its -strength from the same superabundance from which they draw strength. -Therefore, in the measure in which it absorbs force they must lose -force, and civilisation gains. - -The development of the æsthetic sense is, indeed, indispensable if -civilisation—which we may, perhaps, from the present point of view, -regard with Gaultier as the embroidery worked by imagination on the -stuff of our elementary needs—is to pass safely through its critical -period and attain any degree of persistence. The appearance of the -æsthetic sense is then an event of the first order in the rank of -natural miracles, strictly comparable to the evolution in the organic -sphere of the optic nerves, which made it possible to know things -clearly apart from the sensations of actual contact. There is no mere -simile here, Gaultier believes: the faculty of drawing joy from the -images of things, apart from the possession of them, is based on -physiological conditions which growing knowledge of the nervous system -may some day make clearer.[149] - -It is this specific quality, the power of enjoying things without being -reduced to the need of possessing them, which differentiates the -æsthetic instinct from other instincts and confers on it the character -of morality. Based, like the other instincts on egoism, it, yet, unlike -the other instincts, leads to no destructive struggles. Its powers of -giving satisfaction are not dissipated by the number of those who secure -that satisfaction. Æsthetic contemplation engenders neither hatred nor -envy. Unlike the things that appeal to the possessive instinct, it -brings men together and increases sympathy. Unlike those moralities -which are compelled to institute prohibitions, the æsthetic sense, even -in the egoistic pursuit of its own ends, becomes blended with morality, -and so serves in the task of maintaining society. - -Thus it is that, by aiming at a different end, the æsthetic sense yet -attains the end aimed at by morality. That is the aspect of the matter -which Gaultier would emphasise. There is implied in it the judgment that -when the æsthetic sense deviates from its proper ends to burden itself -with moral intentions—when, that is, it ceases to be itself—it ceases to -realise morality. “Art for art’s sake!” the artists of old cried. We -laugh at that cry now. Gaultier, indeed, considers that the idea of pure -art has in every age been a red rag in the eyes of the human bull. Yet, -if we had possessed the necessary intelligence, we might have seen that -it held a great moral truth. “The poet, retired in his Tower of Ivory, -isolated, according to his desire, from the world of man, resembles, -whether he so wishes or not, another solitary figure, the watcher -enclosed for months at a time in a lighthouse at the head of a cliff. -Far from the towns peopled by human crowds, far from the earth, of which -he scarcely distinguishes the outlines through the mist, this man in his -wild solitude, forced to live only with himself, almost forgets the -common language of men, but he knows admirably well how to formulate -through the darkness another language infinitely useful to men and -visible afar to seamen in distress.”[150] The artist for art’s sake—and -the same is constantly found true of the scientist for science’s -sake[151]—in turning aside from the common utilitarian aims of men is -really engaged in a task none other can perform, of immense utility to -men. The Cistercians of old hid their cloisters in forests and -wildernesses afar from society, mixing not with men nor performing for -them so-called useful tasks; yet they spent their days and nights in -chant and prayer, working for the salvation of the world, and they stand -as the symbol of all higher types of artists, not the less so because -they, too, illustrate that faith transcending sight, without which no -art is possible. - -The artist, as Gaultier would probably put it, has to effect a necessary -Bovarism. If he seeks to mix himself up with the passions of the crowd, -if his work shows the desire to prove anything, he thereby neglects the -creation of beauty. Necessarily so, for he excites a state of -combativity, he sets up moral, political, and social values, all having -relation to biological needs and the possessive instinct, the most -violent of ferments. He is entering on the struggle over Truth—though -his opinion is here worth no more than any other man’s—which, on account -of the presumption of its universality, is brandished about in the most -ferociously opposed camps. - -The mother who seeks to soothe her crying child preaches him no sermon. -She holds up some bright object and it fixes his attention. So it is the -artist acts: he makes us see. He brings the world before us, not on the -plane of covetousness and fears and commandments, but on the plane of -representation; the world becomes a spectacle. Instead of imitating -those philosophers who with analyses and syntheses worry over the goal -of life, and the justification of the world, and the meaning of the -strange and painful phenomenon called Existence, the artist takes up -some fragment of that existence, transfigures it, shows it: There! And -therewith the spectator is filled with enthusiastic joy, and the -transcendent Adventure of Existence is justified. Every great artist, a -Dante or a Shakespeare, a Dostoievsky or a Proust, thus furnishes the -metaphysical justification of existence by the beauty of the vision he -presents of the cruelty and the horror of existence. All the pain and -the madness, even the ugliness and the commonplace of the world, he -converts into shining jewels. By revealing the spectacular character of -reality he restores the serenity of its innocence.[152] We see the face -of the world as of a lovely woman smiling through her tears. - -How are we to expect this morality—if so we may still term it—to -prevail? Jules de Gaultier, as we have seen, realising that the old -moralities have melted away, seems to think that the morality of art, by -virtue of its life, will take the place of that which is dead. But he is -not specially concerned to discuss in detail the mechanism of this -replacement, though he looks to the social action of artists in -initiation and stimulation. That was the view of Guyau, and it fitted in -with his sociological conception of art as being one with life; great -poets, great artists, Guyau believed, will become the leaders of the -crowd, the priests of a social religion without dogmas.[153] But -Gaultier’s conception goes beyond this. He cannot feel that the direct -action of poets and artists is sufficient. They only reveal the more -conspicuous aspects of the æsthetic sense. Gaultier considers that the -æsthetic sense, in humbler forms, is mixed up with the most primitive -manifestations of human life, wherein it plays a part of unsuspected -importance.[154] The more thorough investigation of these primitive -forms, he believes, will make it possible for the lawmaker to aid the -mechanism of this transformation of morality. - -Having therewith brought us to the threshold of the æsthetic revolution, -Jules de Gaultier departs. It remains necessary to point out that it is -only the threshold. However intimately the elements of the æsthetic -sense may be blended with primitive human existence, we know too well -that, as the conditions of human existence are modified, art seems to -contract and degenerate, so we can hardly expect the æsthetic sense to -develop in the reverse direction. At present, in the existing state of -civilisation, with the decay of the controlling power of the old -morality, the æsthetic sense often seems to be also decreasing, rather -than increasing, in the masses of the population.[155] One need not be -troubled to find examples. They occur on every hand and whenever we take -up a newspaper. One notes, for instance, in England, that the most -widespread spectacularly attractive things outside cities may be said to -be the private parks and the churches. (Cities lie outside the present -argument, for their inhabitants are carefully watched whenever they -approach anything that appeals to the possessive instinct.) Formerly the -parks and churches were freely open all day long for those who desired -to enjoy the spectacle of their beauty and not to possess it. The owners -of parks and the guardians of churches have found it increasingly -necessary to close them because of the alarmingly destructive or -predatory impulses of a section of the public. So the many have to -suffer for the sins of what may only be the few. It is common to speak -of this as a recent tendency of our so-called civilisation. But the -excesses of the possessive instinct cannot have been entirely latent -even in remote times, though they seem to have been less in evidence. -The Platonic Timæus attributed to the spectacle of the sun and the moon -and the stars the existence of philosophy. He failed to note that the -sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago—as even -their infinitely more numerous analogues on the earth beneath are likely -to disappear—had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human -hands. But the warps and strains of civilised life, with its excessive -industrialism and militarism, seem to disturb the wholesome balance of -even the humblest elements of the possessive and æsthetic instincts. -This means, in the first and most important place, that the liberty of -the whole community in its finest manifestations is abridged by a -handful of imbeciles. There are infinite freedoms which it would be a -joy for them to take, and a help to their work, and a benefit to the -world, but they cannot be allowed to take them because there are some -who can only take them and perish, damning others with themselves. -Besides this supreme injury to life, there are perpetual minor injuries -that the same incapable section of people are responsible for in every -direction, while the actual cost of them in money, to the community they -exert so pernicious an influence on, is so great and so increasing that -it constitutes a social and individual burden which from time to time -leads to outbursts of anxious expostulation never steady enough to be -embodied in any well-sustained and coherent policy. - -It is not, indeed, to be desired that the eugenic action of society -should be directly aimed at any narrowly æsthetic or moral end. That has -never been the ideal of any of those whose conceptions of social life -deserve to be taken seriously, least of all Galton, who is commonly -regarded as the founder of the modern scientific art of eugenics. -“Society would be very dull,” he remarked, “if every man resembled -Marcus Aurelius or Adam Bede.” He even asserted that “we must leave -morality as far as possible out of the discussion,” since moral goodness -and badness are shifting phases of a civilisation; what is held morally -good in one age is held bad in another. That would hold true of any -æsthetic revolution. But we cannot afford to do without the sane and -wholesome persons who are so well balanced that they can adjust -themselves to the conditions of every civilisation as it arises and -carry it on to its finest issues. We should not, indeed, seek to breed -them directly, and we need not, since under natural conditions Nature -will see to their breeding. But it is all the more incumbent upon us to -eliminate those ill-balanced and poisonous stocks produced by the -unnatural conditions which society in the past had established.[156] -That we have to do alike in the interests of the offspring of these -diseased stocks and in the interests of society. No power in Heaven or -Earth can ever confer upon us the right to create the unfit in order to -hang them like millstones around the necks of the fit. The genius of -Galton enabled him to see this clearly afresh and to indicate the -reasonable path of human progress. It was a truth that had long been -forgotten by the strenuous humanitarians who ruled the nineteenth -century, so anxious to perpetuate and multiply all the worst spawn of -their humanity. Yet it was an ancient truth, carried into practice, -however unconsciously and instinctively, by Man throughout his upward -course, probably even from Palæolithic times, and when it ceased Man’s -upward course also ceased. As Carr-Saunders has shown, in a learned and -comprehensive work which is of primary importance for the understanding -of the history of Man, almost every people on the face of the earth has -adopted one or more practices—notably infanticide, abortion, or severe -restriction of sexual intercourse—adapted to maintain due selection of -the best stocks and to limit the excess of fertility. They largely -ceased to work because Man had acquired the humanity which was repelled -by such methods and lost the intelligence to see that they must be -replaced by better methods. For the process of human evolution is -nothing more than a process of sifting, and where that sifting ceases -evolution ceases, becomes, indeed, devolution.[157] - -When we survey the history of Man we are constantly reminded of the -profound truth which often lay beneath the parables of Jesus, and they -might well form the motto for any treatise on eugenics. Jesus was -constantly seeking to suggest the necessity of that process of sifting -in which all human evolution consists; he was ever quick to point out -how few could be, as it was then phrased, “saved,” how extremely narrow -is the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, or, as many might now call it, the -Kingdom of Man. He proclaimed symbolically a doctrine of heredity which -is only to-day beginning to be directly formulated: “Every tree that -bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” -There was no compunction at all in his promulgation of this radical yet -necessary doctrine for the destruction of unfit stocks. Even the best -stocks Jesus was in favour of destroying ruthlessly as soon as they had -ceased to be the best: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt -have lost his savour, ... it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be -cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Jesus has been -reproached by Nietzsche for founding a religion for slaves and -plebeians, and so in the result it may have become. But we see that, in -the words of the Teacher as they have been handed down, the religion of -Jesus was the most aristocratic of religions. Its doctrine embodied not -even the permission to live for those human stocks which fall short of -its aristocratic ideal. It need not surprise us to find that Jesus had -already said two thousand years ago what Galton, in a more modern -and—some would add—more humane way, was saying yesterday. If there had -not been a core of vital truth beneath the surface of the first -Christian’s teaching, it could hardly have survived so long. We are told -that it is now dead, but should it ever be revived we may well believe -that this is the aspect by which it will be commended. It is a -significant fact that at the two spiritual sources of our world, Jesus -and Plato, we find the assertion of the principle of eugenics, in one -implicitly, in the other explicitly. - -Jules de Gaultier was not concerned to put forward an aristocratic -conception of his æsthetic doctrine, and, as we have seen, he remained -on the threshold of eugenics. He was content to suggest, though with no -positive assurance, a more democratic conception. He had, indeed, one -may divine, a predilection for that middle class which has furnished so -vast a number of the supreme figures in art and thought; by producing a -class of people dispensed from tasks of utility, he had pointed out, “a -society creates for itself an organ fitted for the higher life and bears -witness that it has passed beyond the merely biological stage to reach -the human stage.” But the middle class is not indispensable, and if it -is doomed Gaultier saw ways of replacing it.[158] Especially we may seek -to ensure that, in every social group, the individual task of -utilitarian work shall be so limited that the worker is enabled to gain -a leisure sufficiently ample to devote, if he has the aptitude, to works -of intellect or art. He would agree with Otto Braun, the inspired youth -who was slain in the Great War, that if we desire the enablement of the -people “the eight-hours day becomes nothing less than the most -imperative demand of culture.” It is in this direction, it may well be, -that social evolution is moving, however its complete realisation may, -by temporary causes, from time to time be impeded. The insistent demand -for increased wages and diminished hours of work has not been inspired -by the desire to raise the level of culture in the social environment, -or to inaugurate any æsthetic revolution, yet, by “the law of irony” -which so often controls the realisation of things, that is the result -which may be achieved. The new leisure conferred on the worker may be -transformed into spiritual activity, and the liberated utilitarian -energy into æsthetic energy. The road would thus be opened for a new -human adventure, of anxious interest, which the future alone can reveal. - -We cannot be sure that this transformation will take place. We cannot be -sure, indeed, that it is possible for it to take place unless the -general quality of the population in whom so fine a process must be -effected is raised by a more rigid eugenic process than there is yet any -real determination among us to exert. Men still bow down before the -fetish of mere quantity in population, and that worship may be their -undoing. Giant social organisms, like the giant animal species of early -times, may be destined to disappear suddenly when they have attained -their extreme expansion. - -Even if that should be so, even if there should be a solution of -continuity in the course of civilisation, even then, as again Jules de -Gaultier also held, we need not despair, for life is a fountain of -everlasting exhilaration. No creature on the earth has so tortured -himself as Man, and none has raised a more exultant Alleluia. It would -still be possible to erect places of refuge, cloisters wherein life -would yet be full of joy for men and women determined by their vocation -to care only for beauty and knowledge, and so to hand on to a future -race the living torch of civilisation. When we read Palladius, when we -read Rabelais, we realise how vast a field lies open for human activity -between the Thebaid on one side and Thelema on the other. Out of such -ashes a new world might well arise. Sunset is the promise of dawn. - - -THE END - -Footnote 113: - - Alfred Niceforo, _Les Indices Numériques de la Civilisation et du - Progrès_. Paris, 1921. - -Footnote 114: - - Professor Bury, in his admirable history of the idea of progress (J. - B. Bury, _The Idea of Progress_, 1920), never defines the meaning of - “progress.” As regards the meaning of “civilisation” see essay on - “Civilisation,” Havelock Ellis, _The Philosophy of Conflict_ (1919), - pp. 14-22. - -Footnote 115: - - Quetelet, _Physique Sociale_. (1869.) - -Footnote 116: - - See e.g., Maurice Parmelee’s _Criminology_, the sanest and most - comprehensive manual on the subject we have in English. - -Footnote 117: - - Élie Faure, with his usual incisive insight, has set out the real - characters of the “Greek Spirit” (“Reflexions sur le Génie Grec,” - _Monde Nouveau_, December, 1922). - -Footnote 118: - - This tendency, on which Herbert Spencer long ago insisted, is in its - larger aspects quite clear. E. C. Pell (_The Law of Births and - Deaths_, 1921) has argued that it holds good of civilised man to-day, - and that our decreasing birth rate with civilisation is quite - independent of any effort on Man’s part to attain that evolutionary - end. - -Footnote 119: - - Professor McDougall refers to the high birth-rate of the lower stratum - as more “normal.” If that were so, civilisation would certainly be - doomed. All high evolution _normally_ involves a low birth-rate. - Strange how difficult it is even for those most concerned with these - questions to see the facts simply and clearly! - -Footnote 120: - - A. M. Carr-Saunders, _The Population Problem: A Study in Human - Evolution_ (1922), pp. 457, 472. - -Footnote 121: - - Dupréel, _La Légende Socratique_ (1922), p. 428. Dupréel considers (p. - 431) that the Protagorean spirit was marked by the idea of explaining - the things of thought, and life in general, by the meeting, - opposition, and harmony of individual activities, leading up to the - sociological notion of _convention_, and behind it, of relativity. - Nietzsche was a pioneer in restoring the Sophists to their rightful - place in Greek thought. The Greek culture of the Sophists grew out of - all the Greek instincts, he says (_The Will to Power_, section 428): - “And it has ultimately shown itself to be right. Our modern attitude - of mind is, to a great extent, Heraclitean, Democritean, and - Protagorean. To say that it is Protagorean is even sufficient, because - Protagoras was himself a synthesis of Heraclitus and Democritus.” The - Sophists, by realizing that many supposed objective ideas were really - subjective, have often been viewed with suspicion as content with a - mere egotistically individualistic conception of life. The same has - happened to Nietzsche. It was probably an error as regards the - greatest Sophists, and is certainly an error, though even still - commonly committed, as regards Nietzsche; see the convincing - discussion of Nietzsche’s moral aim in Salter, _Nietzsche the - Thinker_, chap. XXIV. - -Footnote 122: - - I may here, perhaps, remark that in the General Preface to my _Studies - in the Psychology of Sex_ I suggested that we now have to lay the - foundation of a new casuistry, no longer theological and Christian, - but naturalistic and scientific. - -Footnote 123: - - Oswald Spengler, _Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, vol. I (1918); vol. - II (1922). - -Footnote 124: - - In an interesting pamphlet, _Pessimismus?_ Spengler has since pointed - out that he does not regard his argument as pessimistic. The end of a - civilisation is its fulfilment, and there is still much to be achieved - (though not, he thinks, along the line of art) before our own - civilisation is fulfilled. With Spengler’s conception of that - fulfilment we may, however, fail to sympathise. - -Footnote 125: - - See, for instance, W. L. Newman, _The Politics of Aristotle_, vol. 1, - p. 201, and S. H. Butcher, _Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine - Art_, p. 119. - -Footnote 126: - - Beauty is a dangerous conception to deal with, and the remembrance of - this great saying may, perhaps, help to save us from the degrading - notion that beauty merely inheres in objects, or has anything to do - with the prim and smooth conventions which make prettiness. Even in - the fine art of painting it is more reasonable to regard prettiness as - the negation of beauty. It is possible to find beauty in Degas and - Cézanne, but not in Bouguereau or Cabanel. The path of beauty is not - soft and smooth, but full of harshness and asperity. It is a rose that - grows only on a bush covered with thorns. As of goodness and of truth, - men talk too lightly of Beauty. Only to the bravest and skilfullest is - it given to break through the briers of her palace and kiss at last - her enchanted lips. - -Footnote 127: - - Ruskin was what Spinoza has been called, a God-intoxicated man; he had - a gift of divine rhapsody, which reached at times to inspiration. But - it is not enough to be God-intoxicated, for into him whose mind is - disorderly and ignorant and ill-disciplined the Gods pour their wine - in vain. Spinoza’s mind was not of that kind, Ruskin’s too often was, - so that Ruskin can never be, like Spinoza, a permanent force in the - world of thought. His interest is outside that field, mainly perhaps - psychological in the precise notation of a particular kind of æsthetic - sensibility. The admiration of Ruskin cherished by Proust, himself a - supreme master in this field, is significant. - -Footnote 128: - - Butcher, _Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, chap. V, “Art - and Morals.” Aristotle could have accepted the almost Freudian view of - Croce that art is the deliverer, the process through which we overcome - the stress of inner experiences by objectifying them (_Æsthetics as - Science of Expression_, p. 35). But Plato could not accept Croce, - still less Freud. - -Footnote 129: - - Schopenhauer, _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_ (1859), vol. II, p. - 442. For a careful and detailed study of Schopenhauer’s conception of - art, see A. Fauconnet, _L’Esthétique de Schopenhauer_ (1913). - -Footnote 130: - - I find that I have here negligently ascribed to Bergson a metaphor - which belongs to Croce, who at this point says the same thing as - Bergson, though he gives it a different name. In _Æsthetics as Science - of Expression_ (English translation, p. 66) we read: “The world of - which as a rule we have intuition [Bergson could not have used that - word here] is a small thing.... ‘Here is a man, here is a horse, this - is heavy, this is hard, this pleases me,’ etc. It is a medley of light - and colour, which could not pictorially attain to any more sincere - expression than a haphazard splash of colour, from among which would - with difficulty stand out a few special distinctive traits. This and - nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary life; this is the - basis of our ordinary action. It is the index of a book. The labels - tied to things take the place of things themselves.” - -Footnote 131: - - H. Bergson, _Le Rire_. For a clear, concise, and sympathetic - exposition of Bergson’s standpoint, though without special reference - to art, see Karin Stephen, _The Misuse of Mind_. - -Footnote 132: - - This may seem to cast a critical reflection on Croce. Let me, - therefore, hasten to add that it is merely the personal impression - that Croce, for all his virtuous aspirations after the concrete, tends - to fall into verbal abstraction. He so often reminds one of that old - lady who used to find (for she died during the Great War) such - spiritual consolation in “that blessed word Mesopotamia.” This refers, - however, to the earlier more than to the later Croce. - -Footnote 133: - - H. Rickert, _System der Philosophie_, vol. I (1921). - -Footnote 134: - - Before Baumgarten this distinction seems to have been recognised, - though too vaguely and inconsistently, by Hutcheson, who is so often - regarded as the real founder of modern æsthetics. W. R. Scott - (_Francis Hutcheson_, p. 216) points out these two principles in - Hutcheson’s work, “the Internal Senses, as derived from Reflection, - representing the attitude of the ‘Spectator’ or observer in a picture - gallery while, on the other hand, as deduced from εὐέργεια find a - parallel in the artist’s own consciousness of success in his work, - thus the former might be called static and the latter dynamic - consciousness, or, in the special case of Morality, the first applies - primarily to approval of the acts of others, the second to each - individual’s approval of his own conduct.” - -Footnote 135: - - This would probably be recognised even by those moralists who, like - Hutcheson, in their anxiety to make clear an important relationship, - have spoken ambiguously. “Probably Hutcheson’s real thought,” remarks - F. C. Sharp (_Mind_, 1921, p. 42), “is that the moral emotion, while - possessing many important affinities with the æsthetic, is in the last - resort different in content.” - -Footnote 136: - - Schopenhauer long ago pointed out that a picture should be looked at - as a royal personage is approached, in silence, until the moment it - pleases to speak to you, for, if you speak first (and how many critics - one knows who “speak first”!), you expose yourself to hear nothing but - the sound of your own voice. In other words, it is a spontaneous and - “mystical” experience. - -Footnote 137: - - It is through Plotinus, also, that we realise how æsthetics is on the - same plane, if not one, with mysticism. For by his insistence on - Contemplation, which is æsthetics, we learn to understand what is - meant when it is said, as it often is, that mysticism is - Contemplation. (On this point, and on the early evolutions of - Christian Mysticism, see Dom Cuthbert Butler, _Western Mysticism_ - (1922).) - -Footnote 138: - - Really, however, Plotinus was here a Neo-Aristotelian rather than a - Neo-Platonist, for Aristotle (_Ethics_, book X, chap. 6) had put the - claim of the Contemplative life higher even than Plato and almost - forestalled Plotinus. But as Aristotle was himself here a Platonist - that does not much matter. - -Footnote 139: - - See Inge, _Philosophy of Plotinus_, p. 179. In a fine passage (quoted - by Bridges in his _Spirit of Man_) Plotinus represents contemplation - as the great function of Nature herself, content, in a sort of - self-consciousness, to do nothing more than perfect that fair and - bright vision. This “metaphysical Narcissism,” as Palante might call - it, accords with the conception of various later thinkers, like - Schopenhauer, and like Gaultier, who however, seldom refers to - Plotinus. - -Footnote 140: - - R. Schmidt, _Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart in - Selbstdarstellungen_ (1921), vol. II. - -Footnote 141: - - E. Förster-Nietzsche, _Das Leben Nietzsches_, vol. II, p. 99. - -Footnote 142: - - W. M. Salter in his _Nietzsche the Thinker_—probably the best and most - exact study of Nietzsche’s thought we possess—summarises Nietzsche’s - “æsthetic metaphysics,” as he terms it (pp. 46-48), in words which - apply almost exactly to Gaultier. - -Footnote 143: - - See especially his book _Über den Nervösen Charakter_ (1912). It has - been translated into English. - -Footnote 144: - - Jules de Gaultier, _Le Bovarysme_, and various other of his works. - Georges Palante has lucidly and concisely expounded the idea of - Bovarism in a small volume, _La Philosophie du Bovarysme_ (_Mercure de - France_). - -Footnote 145: - - Gaultier has luminously discussed the relations of War, Civilisation, - and Art in the _Monde Nouveau_, August, 1920, and February, 1921. - -Footnote 146: - - These are problems concerning which innocent people might imagine that - the wise refrained from speculating, but, as a matter of fact, the - various groups of philosophic devotees may be divided into those - termed “Idealists” and those termed “Realists,” each assured of the - superiority of his own way of viewing thought. Roughly speaking, for - the idealist thought means the creation of the world, for the realist - its discovery. But here (as in many differences between Tweedledum and - Tweedledee for which men have slain one another these thousands of - years) there seem to be superiorities on both sides. Each looks at - thought in a different aspect. But the idealist could hardly create - the world with nothing there to make it from, nor the realist discover - it save through creating it afresh. We cannot, so to put it, express - in a single formula of three dimensions what only exists as a unity in - four dimensions. - -Footnote 147: - - Bertrand Russell, _Principles of Social Reconstruction_ (1916), p. - 235. - -Footnote 148: - - I may here be allowed to refer to another discussion of this point, - Havelock Ellis, _The Philosophy of Conflict, and Other Essays_, pp. - 57-68. - -Footnote 149: - - I may remark that Plato had long before attributed the same - observation to the Pythagorean Timæus in the sublime and amusing - dialogue that goes under that name: “Sight in my opinion is the source - of the greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and - the sun, and the heavens, none of the words which we have spoken about - the universe would ever have been uttered. But now the sight of day - and night, and the months and the revolution of the years, have - created Number, and have given us a conception of Time, and the powers - of inquiring about the Nature of the Universe, and from this source we - have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will - be given by the gods to mortal man.” - -Footnote 150: - - Jules de Gaultier, “La Guerre et les Destinées de l’Art,” _Monde - Nouveau_, August, 1920. - -Footnote 151: - - Thus Einstein, like every true man of science, holds that cultural - developments are not to be measured in terms of utilitarian technical - advances, much as he has himself been concerned with such advances, - but that, like the devotee of “Art for Art’s sake,” the man of science - must proclaim the maxim, “Science for Science’s sake.” - -Footnote 152: - - In the foregoing paragraphs I have, in my own way, reproduced the - thought, occasionally the words, of Jules de Gaultier, more especially - in “La Moralité Esthétique” (_Mercure de France_, 15th December, - 1921), probably the finest short statement of this distinguished - thinker’s reflections on the matter in question. - -Footnote 153: - - Guyau, _L’Art au Point de Vue Sociologique_, p. 163. - -Footnote 154: - - This diffused æsthetic sense is correlated with a diffused artistic - instinct, based on craftsmanship, which the Greeks were afraid to - recognise because they looked down with contempt on the handicrafts as - vulgar. William Morris was a pioneer in asserting this association. As - a distinguished English writer, Mr. Charles Marriott, the novelist and - critic, clearly puts the modern doctrine: “The first step is to - absorb, or re-absorb, the ‘Artist’ into the craftsman.... Once agree - that the same æsthetic considerations which apply to painting a - picture apply, though in a different degree, to painting a door, and - you have emancipated labour without any prejudice to the highest - meaning of art.... A good surface of paint on a door is as truly an - emotional or æsthetic consideration as ‘significant form,’ indeed it - _is_ ‘significant form.’” (_Nation and Athenæum_, 1st July, 1922.) - Professor Santayana has spoken in the same sense: “In a thoroughly - humanised society everything—clothes, speech, manners, government—is a - work of art.” (_The Dial_, June, 1922, p. 563.) It is, indeed, the - general tendency to-day and is traceable in Croce’s later writings. - -Footnote 155: - - Thus it has often been pointed out that the Papuans are artists in - design of the first rank, with a finer taste in some matters than the - most highly civilised races of Europe. Professor R. Semon, who has - some remarks to this effect (_Correspondenzblatt_ of the German - Anthropological Society, March, 1902), adds that their unfailing - artistic sense is spread throughout the whole population and shown in - every object of daily use. - -Footnote 156: - - The presence of a small minority of abnormal or perverse persons—there - will be such, we may be sure, in every possible society—affords no - excuse for restricting the liberty of the many to the standard of the - few. The general prevalence of an æsthetic morality in classic times - failed to prevent occasional outbursts of morbid sexual impulse in the - presence of objects of art, even in temples. We find records of - Pygmalionism and allied perversities in Lucian, Athenæus, Pliny, - Valerius Maximus. Yet supposing that the Greeks had listened to the - proposals of some strayed Puritan visitor, from Britain or New - England, to abolish nude statues, or suppose that Plato, who wished to - do away with imaginative literature as liable to demoralise, had - possessed the influence he desired, how infinite the loss to all - mankind! In modern Europe we not only propose such legal abolition; we - actually, however in vain, carry it out. We seek to reduce all human - existence to absurdity. It is, at the best, unnecessary, for we may be - sure that, in spite of our efforts, a certain amount of absurdity will - always remain. - -Footnote 157: - - A. M. Carr-Saunders, _The Population Problem: A Study in Human - Evolution_ (Oxford Press, 1922). - -Footnote 158: - - J. de Gaultier, “Art et Civilisation,” _Monde Nouveau_, February, - 1921. - - - - - INDEX - - Abortion, once practised, 354. - - Absolute, the, a fiction, 101. - - Abyssian Church, dancing in worship of, 45. - - Acting, music, and poetry, proceed in one stream, 36. - - Adam, Villiers de l’Isle, his story _Le Secret de l’ancienne Musique_, - 25. - - Addison, Joseph, his style, 161-63, 184. - - Adler, Dr. Alfred, of Vienna, 336, 337. - - Adolescence, idealisation in, 107, 108. - - Æschylus, developed technique of dancing, 56. - - - Æsthetic contemplation, 314, 315, 325, 326; - recognised by the Greeks, 330, 331; - two kinds of, that of spectator and that of participator, 331, 332; - the Shaftesbury attitude toward, 332, 333; - the Swift attitude toward, 333; - involves life as a spectacle, 333, 334; - and the systems of Gaultier and Russell, 343; - engenders neither hatred nor envy, 346. - - - Æsthetic instinct, to replace moralities, religions, and laws, 340, - 341, 343-45; - differentiated from other instincts, 346; - has the character of morality, 346. - - Æsthetic intuitionism, 260, 276, 279, 314. - - Æsthetic sense, development of, indispensable for civilisation, 345; - realises morality when unburdened with moral intentions, 346; - mixed with primitive manifestations of life, 350; - correlated with diffused artistic instinct, 350 _n._; - seems to be decreasing, 350-52. - - Æsthetics, and ethics, among the Greeks, 247; - with us, 348; - in the Greek sense, 263; - the founders of, 271, 329; - and art, the unlikeness of, 325-28; - on same plane with mysticism, 330 _n._ - - Africa, love-dance in, 46, 49, 50. - - Akhenaten, 28. - - Alaro, in Mallorca, dancing in church at, 44, 45. - - Alberti, Leo, vast-ranging ideas of, 5. - - Alcohol, consumption of, as test of civilisation, 295, 296. - - Anatomy, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, 120. - - Anaximander, 89. - - Ancestry, the force of, in handwriting, 157, 158; - in style, 158-61, 190. - - Anna, Empress, 59. - - Antisthenes, 249 _n._ - - “Appearance,” 219 _n._ - - Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 202. - - Arabs, dancing among, 38. - - Arbuckle, one of the founders of æsthetics, 271; - insisted on imagination as formative of character, 272. - - Architecture. _See_ Building. - - Aristophanes, 311. - - Aristotle, 89; - on tragedy, 56; - on the Mysteries, 242; - on the moral quality of an act, 248; - his use of the term “moral sense,” 273; - on Art and Nature in the making of the State, 313; - his use of the term “artists,” 313; - his view of poetry, 318; - and the contemplative life, 330 _n._ - - Art, life as, more difficult to realise than to act, 1, 2; - universe conceived as work of, by the primitive philosopher, 1; - life as, views of finest thinkers of China and Greece on, 2-6, - 247-52; - whole conception of, has been narrowed and debased, 6, 7; - in its proper sense, 7, 8; - as the desire for beautification, 8; - of living, has been decadent during the last two thousand years, 8 - _n._; - Napoleon in the sphere of, 10; - of living, the Lifuan, 13-18; - of living, the Chinese, 27; - Chinese civilisation shows that human life is, 30; - of living, T’ung’s story the embodiment of the Chinese symbol of, 33; - life identical with, 33-35; - of dancing, 36, 51-67, _see_ Dancing; - of life, a dance, 66, 67; - science and, no distinction between, in classic times, 68; - science and, distinction between, in modern times, 68-70; - science is of the nature of, 71; - represented by Pythagoras as source of science, 74; - Greek, 76 _n._; - of thinking, 68-140, _see_ Thinking; - the solution of the conflicts of philosophy in, 82, 83; - philosophy and, close relationship of, 83-85; - impulse of, transformed sexual instinct, 108-12; - and mathematics, 138-40; - of writing, 141-190, _see_ Writing; - Man added to Nature, is the task in, 153; - the freedom and the easiness of, do not necessarily go together, 182; - of religion, 191-243, _see_ Religion; - of morals, 244-84, _see_ Morals; - the critic of, a critic of life, 269; - civilisation is an, 301, 310; - consideration of the question of the definition of, 310-12; - Nature and, 312, 313; - the sum of the active energies of mankind, 313; - and æsthetics, the unlikeness of, 314, 315, 325-28; - a genus, of which morals is a species, 316; - each, has its own morality, 318; - to assert that it gives pleasure a feeble conclusion, 319; - on the uselessness of, according to Schopenhauer and others, 319-21; - meaninglessness of the statement that it is useless, 322; - sociological function of, 323, 324; - philosophers have failed to see that it has a morality of its own, - 324, 325; - for art’s sake, 346, 347. - - Artist, partakes of divine nature of creator of the world, 2; - Napoleon as an, 10-12; - the true scientist as, 72, 73, 112; - the philosopher as, 72, 73, 85; - explanation of, 108-12; - Bacon’s definition of, Man added to Nature, 153; - makes all things new, 153; - in words, passes between the plane of new vision and the plane of new - creation, 170, 178; - life always a discipline for, 277; - lays up his treasure in Heaven, 307; - Man as, 310; - is a maker, 312; - Aristotle’s use of the term, 313; - reveals Nature, 320; - has to effect a necessary Bovarism, 348, 349. - - Artistic creation, the process of its birth, 108, 109. - - Arts, sometimes classic and sometimes decadent, 8 _n._; - and sciences, 68-70; - Master of, 69. - - “Arty” people, 6, 7. - - “As if,” germs of doctrine of, in Kant, 87; - world of, and Plato’s “Ideas,” 88; - source of the phrase, 88, 89; - seen in play, 89; - the doctrine of, not immune from criticism, 102; - fortifying influence of the doctrine, 102, 103. - _See_ Fiction, Vaihinger. - - Asceticism, has nothing to do with normal religion, 222, 223; - among the Greeks, traced, 249 _n._; - and Christianity, 249 _n._ - - Asclepios, the cult of, 197 _n._ - - Atavism, in handwriting, 157, 158; - in style, 158-61, 190. - - Athenæus, 55, 353 _n._; - his book about the Greeks, 76 _n._ - - Atom, a fiction or an hypothesis, 97, 338; - the structure of, 97 _n._ - - Attraction, force of, a fiction, 98. - - Aurelius, Marcus, regarded art of life as like the dancer’s art, 66; - his statement of the mystical core of religion, 207; - adopted æsthetic criterion of moral action, 279. - - Australians, religious dances among, 40. - - Auto-erotic activities, 110, 111. - - Axioms, akin to fiction, 94, 95. - - - Babies, 105. - - Bach, Sebastian, 62, 311. - - Bacon, Francis, his definition of the artist, Man added to Nature, 153; - his style compared with that of Shakespeare, 160; - the music of his style, 163; - heavy and formal letters of, 184; - his axiom, the right question is half the knowledge, 325. - - Bacon, Roger, on the sciences, 68. - - Balguy, Rev. John, 274. - - Ballad, a dance as well as song, 62. - - Ballet, the, chief form of Romantic dancing, 53; - the germ of, to be found in ancient Rome, 56; - origin of the modern, 56; - the Italian and the French, 56-58; - decline of, 58; - the Russian, 58-60; - the Swedish, 60. - - Bantu, the question of the, 38, 45. - - Baptism, 242. - - “Barbarians,” the classic use of the term, 285. - - Barebones, Praise-God, 272. - - Baretti, G. M., 50. - - Bastien-Lepage, Jules, 311. - - Baudelaire, Charles, on vulgar locutions, 151. - - Baumgarten, A. G., the commonly accepted founder of æsthetics, 326. - - Bayaderes, 52. - - Bayle, G. L., 261. - - “Beautiful,” the, among Greeks and Romans, 247, 252. - - Beauty, developed by dancing, 47; - as an element of literary style, 176-78; - and the good, among the Greeks, 247; - Plotinus’s doctrine of, 250, 251; - of virtue, 270 _n._; - æsthetic contemplation creates, 315, 327, 328; - and prettiness, 315 _n._; - revelation of, sometimes comes as by a process of “conversion,” 328, - 329. - - Bee, the, an artist, 312. - - Beethoven, 311; - his Seventh Symphony, 62, 63. - - Beggary in China, 31. - - Benn, A. W., his _The Greek Philosophers_, 6, 252, 277 _n._ - - Bentham, Jeremy, adopted a fiction for his system, 99. - - Berenson, Bernhard, critic of art, 114; - his attitude toward Leonardo da Vinci, 114, 117. - - Bergson, Henri Louis, pyrotechnical allusions frequent in, 23; - regards philosophy as an art, 83, 84; - on clarity in style, 176, 177; - his idea of intuition, 232 _n._; - on reality, 320. - - Berkeley, George, 95. - - Bernard, Claude, personality in his _Leçons de Physiologie - Expérimentales_, 144. - - - Bible, the, the source of its long life, 179. - _See_ Old Testament, Revelation. - - Birds, dancing of, 36 _n._, 45; - the attitude of the poet toward, 168. - - Birth-rate, as test of civilisation, 294, 296, 299 _n._ - - “Bitter,” a moral quality, 264. - - Blackguard, the, 244, 245. - - Blake, William, on the Dance of Life, 66; - on the golden rule of life, 281. - - Blasco Ibañez, 171. - - Blood, Harvey’s conception of circulation of, nearly anticipated by - Leonardo da Vinci, 120. - - Boisguillebert, Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de, his “barometer of - prosperity,” 287. - - Botany, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, 119. - - Botticelli, Sandro, 56. - - Bouguereau, G. A., 315 _n._ - - Bovarism, explanation of, 335; - applied to the Universe, 337; - a necessary, effected by the artist, 348, 349. - - Brantôme, Pierre de B., his style, 161. - - Braun, Otto, 357. - - Breton, Jules, 311. - - Bridges, Robert, 272. - - Browne, Sir Thomas, his style, 161, 175, 176, 178. - - Browning, Robert, 113; - too clumsy to influence others, 184. - - Brunetière, Ferdinand, a narrow-minded pedagogue, 125. - - Bruno, Giordano, 207. - - Bruno, Leonardo, 207. - - Bryce, James, on democracies, 300. - - Bücher, Karl, on work and dance, 61, 62. - - Buckle, H. T., 99. - - Buddhist monks, 224 _n._ - - - Building, and dancing, the two primary arts, 36; - birds’ nests, the chief early form of, 36 _n._ - - Bunyan, John, 79. - - Burton, Robert, as regards his quotations, 152. - - Bury, J. B., 287 _n._ - - - Cabanel, 315 _n._ - - Cadiz, the dancing-school of Spain, 54. - - Camargo, innovations of, in the ballet, 57. - - Carlyle, Thomas, revelation of family history in his style, 158, 159; - compared to Aristophanes, 159 _n._; - too clumsy to ninfluence others, 184. - - Carpenter, the, sacred position of, in some countries, 2. - - Carr-Saunders, A. M., on the social ladder and the successful climbers, - 299, 300; - on selecting the best stock of humanity, 354. - - Cassirer, Ernest, on Goethe, 137 _n._ - - Castanets, 54. - - Casuistry, 304 _n._, 305. - - Categories, are fictions, 94. - - Cathedrals, dancing in, 44, 45. - - Ceremony, Chinese, 22, 29; - and music, Chinese life regulated by, 24-26. - - Cézanne, artist, 153, 315 _n._ - - Chanties, of sailors, 61, 62. - - Cheetham, Samuel, on the Pagan Mysteries, 241 _n._ - - Chemistry, analogy of, to life, 33-35. - - Chess, the Chinese game of, 23. - - _Chiaroscuro_, method of, devised by Leonardo da Vinci, 117. - - Chidley, Australian philosopher, 79-82. - - China, finest thinkers of, perceived significance in life of conception - of art, 3; - art animates the whole of life in, 27, 28; - beggary in, 31. - - Chinese, the, the accounts of, 18-21; - their poetry, 21, 22, 29, 32; - their etiquette of politeness, 22; - the quality of play in their character, 22-24; - their life regulated by music and ceremony, 24-26, 29; - their civilisation shows that life is art, 27, 28, 30; - the æsthetic supremacy of, 28-30; - endurance of their civilisation, 28, 30; - their philosophic calm, 29 _n._; - decline in civilisation of, in last thousand years, 30; - their pottery, 32, 33; - embodiment of their symbol of the art of living, 33. - - Chinese life, the art of balancing æsthetic temperament and guarding - against its excesses, 29. - - _Choir_, the word, 42. - - Christian Church, supposed to have been originally a theatre, 42. - - Christian ritual, the earliest known, a sacred dance, 42. - - Christian worship, dancing in, 42-45; - central function of, a sacred drama, 43. - - Christianity, Lifuan art of living undermined by arrival of, 18; - dancing in, 40-45; - the ideas of, as dogmas, hypotheses, and fictions, 99; - and the Pagan Mysteries, 242; - and asceticism, 249 _n._; - the Hebrew mode of feeling grafted into, 276. - - Chrysostom, on dancing at the Eucharist, 43. - - Church, and religion, not the same, 228 _n._ - - Church Congress, at Sheffield in 1922, ideas of conversion expressed - at, 220 _n._ - - Churches, 351. - - Cicero, 73, 252. - - Cinema, educational value of, 138. - - Cistercian monks, 43. - - Cistercians, the, 347. - - Civilisation, develops with conscious adhesion to formal order, 172; - standards for measurement of, 285; - Niceforo’s measurement of, 286; - on meaning of, 287; - the word, 288; - the art of, includes three kinds of facts, 289; - criminality as a measure of, 290, 291; - creative genius and general instruction in connection with, 291-93; - birth-rate as test of, 294; - consumption of luxuries as test of, 294, 295; - suicide rate as test of, 295; - tests of, applied to France by Niceforo, 295-97; - not an exclusive mass of benefits, but a mass of values, 297; - becoming more complex, 298; - small minority at the top of, 298; - guidance of, assigned to lower stratum, 298, 299; - art of eugenics necessary to save, 299, 300; - of quantity and of quality, 300; - not to be precisely measured, 301; - the more rapidly it progresses, the sooner it dies, 301; - an art, 301, 310; - an estimate of its value possible, 302; - meaning of Protagoras’s dictum with relation to, 302; - measured by standard of fine art (sculpture), 307, 308; - eight periods of, 307, 308; - a fresh race needed to produce new period of, 308; - and culture, 309; - æsthetic sense indispensable for, 345; - possible break-up of, 358. - - Clarity, as an element of style, 176-78. - - _Clichés_, 149-51. - - Cloisters, for artists, 358. - - Cochez, of Louvain, on Plotinus, 249 _n._ - - Coleridge, S. T., his “loud bassoon,” 169; - of the spectator type of the contemplative temperament, 332. - - Colour-words, 164 _n._ - - Colvin, Sir Sidney, on science and art, 70. - - Commandments, tables of, 253, 255. - - Communists, French, inspired by Shaftesbury, 269. - - Community, the, 244. - - Comte, J. A., 301. - - Confucian morality, the, 29. - - Confucianism, outward manifestation of Taoism, 26. - - Confucius, consults Lao-tze, 25, 26. - - Conrad, Joseph, his knowledge of the sea, 171. - - Contemplation. _See_ Æsthetic contemplation. - - Convention, and Nature, Hippias makes distinction between, 5. - - Conventions. _See_ Traditions. - - Conversion, a _questionnaire_ on, 210 _n._; - the process of, 218; - the fundamental fact of, 218, 218 _n._; - essential outlines of, have been obscured, 220 _n._; - Churchmen’s ideas of, 220 _n._; - not the outcome of despair or a retrogression, 221, 222; - nothing ascetic about it, 222; - among the Greeks, 240; - revelation of beauty sometimes comes by a process of, 328, 329. - - Cooper, Anthony, 261. - - Cornish, G. Warre, his article on “Greek Drama and the Dance,” 56. - - Cosmos. _See_ Universe. - - Courtship, dancing a process of, 46. - - Cowper, William, 184; - influence of Shaftesbury on, 266. - - Craftsman, the, partakes of divine nature of creator of the world, 2. - - Creation, not the whole of Man, 314. - - Creative impulses. _See_ Impulses. - - Crime, an effort to get into step, 245 _n._; - defined, 290; - natural, 290; - evolutive social, 291. - - Criminality, as a measure of civilisation, 290, 291. - - Critics, of language, 141-51; - difficulty of their task, 153 _n._ - - Croce, Benedetto, his idea of art, 84; - tends to move in verbal circles, 84; - on judging a work of art, 153 _n._; - on mysticism and science, 191 _n._; - tends to fall into verbal abstraction, 324 _n._; - his idea of intuition, 232 _n._, 320 _n._; - on the critic of art as a critic of life, 269; - on art the deliverer, 318 _n._; - union of æsthetic sense with artistic instinct, 350 _n._ - - Croiset, Maurice, on Plotinus, 249 _n._ - - Cromwell, Oliver, 272. - - Cruz, Friar Gaspar de, on the Chinese, 31. - - Culture, and civilisation, 309. - - Curiosity, the sexual instinct a reaction, to the stimulus of, 104, - 112. - - Custom, 245. - - Cuvier, Georges, 181. - - Cymbal, the, 53. - - - - Dance, love, among insects, birds, and mammals, 45, 46; - among savages, 46; - has gained influence in the human world, 48; - various forms of, 48, 49; - the complete, 49, 50; - the seductiveness of, 50; - prejudice against, 50, 51; - choral, Plotinus compares the moral life of the soul to, 251, 252. - - Dance of Life, the, 66, 67. - - - Dancing, and building, the two primary acts, 36; - possibly accounts for origin of birds’ nests, 36 _n._; - supreme manifestation of physical life and supreme symbol of - spiritual life, 36; - the significance of, 37; - the primitive expression of religion and of love, 37, 38, 45; - entwined with human tradition of war, labour, pleasure, and - education, 37; - the expression of the whole man, 38, 39; - rules the life of primitive men, 39 _n._; - religious importance of, among primitive men, 39, 40; - connected with all religions, 40; - ecstatic and pantomimic, 41, 42; - survivals of, in religion, 42; - in Christian worship, 42-45; - in cathedrals, 44, 45; - among birds and insects, 45; - among mammals, 45, 46; - a process of courtship and novitiate for love, 46, 47; - double function of, 47; - different forms of, 48-51; - becomes an art, 51; - professional, 52; - Classic and Romantic, 52-60; - the ballet, 53, 56-60; - solo, 53; - Egyptian and Gaditanian, 53, 54; - Greek, 55, 56, 60; - as morals, 60, 61, 63; - all human work a kind of, 61, 62; - and music, 61-63; - social significance of, 60, 61, 63, 64; - and war, allied, 63, 64; - importance of, in education, 64, 65; - Puritan attack on, 65; - is life itself, 65; - always felt to possess symbolic significance, 66; - the learning of, a severe discipline, 277. - - Dancing-school, the function of, process of courtship, 47. - - D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 178. - - _Danse du ventre_, the, 49 _n._ - - Dante, 311, 349; - dancing in his “Paradiso,” 43; - intellectual life of, largely guided by delight in beauty of rhythmic - relation between law and instance, 73. - - Darwin, Charles, 88; - poet and artist, 128, 129; - and St. Theresa, 198. - - Darwin, Erasmus, 181. - - David, Alexandra, his book, _Le Philosophe Meh-ti et l’Idée de - Solidarité_, 26 _n._ - - Decadence, of art of living, 8 _n._; - rigid subservience to rule a mark of, 173. - - Degas, 315 _n._ - - Democracies, the smallest, are highest, 300. - - Demography, 285. - - Demosthenes, 336. - - De Quincey, Thomas, the music of his style, 164. - - Descartes, René, on arts and sciences, 69; - represents in France new impetus to sciences, 180; - religious, though man of science, 208. - - Design, the arts of, 36. - - Devadasis, the, sacred dancing girls, 51, 52. - - Diaghilev, 59. - - Dickens, Charles, 311. - - Dickinson, G. Lowes, his account of the Chinese, 20, 21; - his account of Chinese poetry, 21, 22. - - Diderot, Denis, wide-ranging interests of, 5; - translated Shaftesbury, 268. - - “Dieta Salutis,” the, 43. - - Discipline, definition of a, 71 _n._ - - “Divine command,” the, 255. - - “Divine malice,” of Nietzsche, 155 _n._ - - Diving-bell, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119. - - Divorces, as test of civilisation, 296. - - Doctor, and priest, originally one, 197 _n._, 203. - - Dogma, hypothesis, and fiction, 98, 99. - - Dogmas, shadows of personal experience, 217. - - Dostoievsky, F. M., 311, 349; - his masterpiece, “_The Brothers Karamazov_,” 135, 136. - - Drama, Greek, origin of, 55, 56; - the real Socrates possibly to be seen in, 78. - - Driesch, Hans, on his own mental development, 216 _n._ - - Drum, the influence of the, 63. - - Dryden, John, 148. - - Dujardin, Edouard, his story of Huysmans, 166; - on Bergson’s style, 177. - - Dumont, Arsène, on civilisation, 298, 301. - - Duncan, Isadora, 60. - - Duprat, G. L., on morality, 34. - - Dupréel, Professor, on Hippias, 6 _n._; - his _La Légende Socratique_, 82 _n._; - on the Protagorean spirit, 302 _n._ - - Duty, 275, 276. - - - Easter, dancing of priests at, 44. - - Eckhart, Meister, 234, 336. - - Education, importance of dancing in, 64, 65; - Einstein’s views on, 137; - and genius, as tests of civilisation, 291-93. - - Egypt, ancient, dancing in, 42; - Classical dancing originated in, 52; - the most influential dancing-school of all time, 53; - musical instruments associated with dancing, originated or developed - in, 53; - modern, dancing in, 54 _n._; - importance of its civilisation, 307. - - Eight-hours day, the, 357. - - Einstein, Albert, 2, 69 _n._, 72; - substitutes new axioms for old, 95; - casts doubts on Leonardo da Vinci’s previsions of modern science, 120 - _n._; - seems to have won a place beside Newton, 133; - an imaginative artist, 134; - his fondness for music, 134, 135; - his other artistic likings and dislikings, 135, 136; - an artist also in his work, 136; - his views on science, 137; - his views on education, 137, 138; - on the motives that attract people to science and art, 138, 321; - feels harmony of religion and science, 207; - concerned with truth, 327; - and “science for science’s sake,” 347 _n._ - - Eleusinian Mysteries, the, 240-43. - - Eliot, George, her knowledge of the life of country people, 171; - Tolstoy’s opinion of, 311. - - Ellis, Havelock, childhood of, 210, 211; - his period of emotional and intellectual expansion, 211; - loses faith, 212; - influence of Hinton’s “_Life in Nature_” on, 215-18. - - Els Cosiers, dancing company, 45. - - Emerson, R. W., his style and that of Bacon, 161. - - Emmanuel, his book on Greek dancing, 55. - - Empathy, 66. - - Engineering, professional, Leonardo da Vinci called the founder of, - 118, 119. - - English laws, 98. - - English prose style, Cartesian influence on, 180 _n._ - - English speech, licentiousness of, in the sixteenth century, 148; - the best literary prose, 155, 156. - - Enjoyment, without possession, 343-46. - - Epictetus, 249 _n._ - - Epicurus, 207. - - Erosian, river, importance of, realised by Leonardo da Vinci, 120. - - Eskimos, 255. - - Este, Isabella d’, 123. - - Ethics, and æsthetics, among the Greeks, 247. - - - Etruscans, the, 56, 308. - - Eucharist, dancing at the, 43. - - Eucken, Rudolf, on Shaftesbury, 271. - - Eugenics, art of, necessary for preservation of civilisation, 299; - Galton the founder of the modern scientific art of, 353; - assertion of principle of, by Jesus, 355, 356; - question of raising quality of population by process of, 358. - - Eusebius, on the worship of the Therapeuts, 42. - - Evans, Sir Arthur, 112. - - Evolution, theory of, 88, 104; - a process of sifting, 355; - and devolution, 355; - social, 357, 358. - - Existence, totality of, Hippias’s supreme ideal, 6. - - Existing, and thinking, on two different planes, 101. - - “Expression,” 324. - - - Facts, in the art of civilisation, material, intellectual, and moral - (with political), 289. - - Fandango, the, 50. - - Faraday, Michael, characteristics of, trust in facts and imagination, - 130-32; - his science and his mysticism, 208. - - Farnell, L. R., on religion and science, 197 _n._ - - Farrer, Reginald, on the philosophic calm of the Chinese, 29 _n._ - - Faure, Elie, his conception of Napoleon, 10; - on Greek art, 76 _n._; - has faith in educational value of cinema, 137; - on knowledge and desire, 154; - on the Greek spirit, 292 _n._ - - Ferrero, Guglielmo, on the art impulse and the sexual instinct, 109. - - - Fiction, germs of doctrine of, in Kant, 87; - first expression of doctrine of, found in Schiller, 89; - doctrine of, in F. A. Lange’s _History of Materialism_, 93; - Vaihinger’s doctrine of, 94-103; - hypothesis, and dogma, 98, 99; - of Bovarism, 335, 336; - character constituted by process of, 336. - - Fictions, the variety of, 94-100; - the value of, 96, 97; - summatory, 98; - scientific and æsthetic, 102; - may always be changed, 103; - good and bad, 103. - - Fiji, dancing at, 49. - - Fijians, the, 13 _n._ - - Fine arts, the, 70; - civilisation measured by standard of, 307; - not to be pursued for useful end outside themselves, 322. - - Fireworks, 22, 23. - - Flaubert, Gustave, is personal, 144; - sought to be most objective of artists, 182. - - Flowers, the attitude of the poet toward, 168, 169. - - Flying-machines, 72 _n._; - designed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119. - - Foch, Ferdinand, quoted, 103. - - Fokine, 59. - - Folk-dances, 62. - - Force, a fiction, 96. - - Fossils, significance of, discovered by Leonardo da Vinci, 120. - - Fox, George, 237. - - France, tests of civilization applied to, by Niceforo, 295-97. - - Francis of Assisi, 237. - - Franck, César, mysticism in music of, 237. - - Frazer, J. G., on magic and science, 195, 196. - - Freedom, a fiction, 100. - - French ballet, the, 57, 58. - - French speech, its course, 148, 149. - - Freud, Sigmund, 111, 318 _n._; - regards dreaming as fiction, 103; - on the probability of the disappearance of religion, 228 _n._ - - Frobisher, Sir Martin, his spelling, 173, 174. - - - Galen, 120. - - Galton, Francis, a man of science and an artist, 126-28; - founder of the modern scientific art of eugenics, 353; - and Jesus’s assertion of the principle of eugenics, 356. - - Games, the liking of the Chinese for, 23. - - Gaultier, Jules de, 330 _n._; - on Buddhist monks, 224 _n._; - on pain and pleasure in life, 278 _n._; - on morality and reason, 281; - on morality and art, 284; - on the antinomy between morals and morality, 319; - on beauty, 327; - on life as a spectacle, 333; - the Bovarism of, 335-37; - his philosophic descent, 337; - applies Bovarism to the Universe, 337; - his philosophy seems to be in harmony with physics, 338; - the place of morality, religion, and law in his system, 338-40; - place of the æsthetic instinct in his system, 341, 343-45; - system of, compared with Russell’s, 342, 343; - importance of development of æsthetic sense to, 345; - and the idea of pure art, 346, 347; - considers æsthetic sense mixed in manifestations of life, 349, 350; - had predilection for middle class, 356, 357; - sees no cause for despair in break-up of civilisation, 358. - - Gauss, C. F., religious, though man of science, 208. - - - Genesis, Book of, the fashioning of the cosmos in, 1, 314. - - Genius, the birth of, 109; - and education, as tests, of civilisation, 291-93; - of country, and temper of the population, 292, 293. - - Geology, founded by Leonardo da Vinci, 120. - - Geometry, Protagoras’s studies in, 3; - a science or art, 68. - - Gibbon, Edward, 162. - - Gide, André, 322. - - Gizycki, Georg von, on Shaftesbury, 260, 267. - - God, a fiction, 100, 337. - - Goethe, J. W., 342; - representative of ideal of totality of existence, 6; - called architecture “frozen music,” 135; - his power of intuition, 137; - his studies in mathematical physics, 137 _n._; - use of word “stamped” of certain phrases, 149; - mistook birds, 168; - felt harmony of religion and science, 207; - and Schiller and Humboldt, 275. - - Gomperz, Theodor, his _Greek Thinkers_, 4, 5, 6 _n._; 75, 78. - - Goncourt, Jules de, his style, 182, 183. - - Goncourts, the, 183. - - Good, the, and beauty, among the Greeks, 247. - - Goodness, and sweetness, in Shaftesbury’s philosophy, 262; - and sweetness, originally the same, 263; - moral, originally expressed in terms of taste, 263. - - Gorgias, 302. - - Gourmont, Remy de, 65; - his remark about pleasure, 24; - on personality, 144; - on style, 177; - on civilisation, 298; - on the Jesuits, 304, 305; - on beauty, 315; - on art and morality, 321; - on sociological function of art, 323. - - Government, as art, 3. - - Grace, an element of style in writing, 155, 156. - - Grammar, Protagoras the initiator of modern, 4; - a science or art, 68; - writing not made by the laws of, 172, 173. - - Grammarian, the, the formulator, not the lawgiver, of usage, 148. - - Great Wall of China, the, 28. - - Great War, the, 339. - - Greece, ancient, genius built upon basis of slavery in, 292; - the spirit of, 292. - - Greek art, 76 _n._ - - Greek dancing, 55, 56, 60. - - Greek drama, 55, 56, 78. - - Greek morality, an artistic balance of light and shade, 260. - - Greek speech, the best literary prose, 155. - - Greek spirit, the, 76 _n._ - - Greeks, attitude of thinkers of, on life as art, 3, 247-53; - the pottery of, 32; - importance of dancing and music in organisation of some states of, - 64; - books on, written by barbarians, 76 _n._; - mysticism of, 205-07, 240-43; - spheres of ethics and æsthetics not distinguished among, 247; - had a kind of æsthetic morality, 316-18; - recognised destruction of ethical and intellectual virtues, 330; - a small minority of abnormal persons among, 353 _n._ - - Greenslet, Ferris, on the Cartesian influence on English prose style, - 180 _n._ - - Groos, Karl, his “the play of inner imitation,” 66; - has developed æsthetic side of _miterleben_, 332. - - Grosse, on the social significance of dancing, 63, 64. - - Grote, George, his chapter on Socrates, 76. - - Grotius, Hugo, 261. - - Guitar, the, an Egyptian instrument, 53. - - Gumplowicz, Ludwig, on civilisation, 301. - - Gunpowder, use made of, by Chinese, 22, 23. - - Guyau, insisted on sociological function of art, 323, 324; - believes that poets and artists will be priests of social religion - without dogmas, 349, 350. - - Gypsies, possible origin of the name “Egyptians” as applied to them, 54 - _n._ - - - Hadfield, Emma, her account of the life of the natives of the Loyalty - Islands, 13-18. - - Hakluyt, Richard, 143; - his picture of Chinese life, 19. - - Hall, Stanley, on importance of dancing, 64, 65; - on the beauty of virtue, 270 _n._ - - Handel, G. F., 62. - - - Handwriting, partly a matter of individual instinct, 156, 157; - the complexity and mystery enwrapping, 157; - resemblances in, among members of the same family, 157, 158; - atavism in, 157, 158. - - Hang-Chau, 20. - - Hardy, Thomas, his lyrics, 170 _n._; - his sensitivity to the sounds of Nature, 171; - his genius unquestioned, 187 _n._ - - Hawaii, dancing in, 51. - - Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his style, 161. - - Hebrews, their conception of the fashioning of the universe, 1; - ancient, their priests and their prophets, 203; - never conceived of the art of morals, 253; - were no æsthetic intuitionists, 276. - - Hegel, G. W. F., 90; - poetic quality of his philosophy, 84; - his attempt to transform subjective processes into objective - world-processes, 101. - - Heine, Heinrich, 155 _n._ - - Hellenism, the revivalists of, 271. - - Helmholtz, H. L. F., science and art in, 72. - - Hemelverdeghem, Salome on Cathedral at, 49 _n._ - - Heraclitus, 74. - - Herder, J. G. von, his _Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit_, 88; - inspired by Shaftesbury, 268. - - Heredity, in handwriting, 157, 158; - in style, 158-61, 190; - tradition the corporeal embodiment of, 161. - - Hincks, Marcella Azra, on the art of dancing in Japan, 42 _n._ - - Hindu dance, 41. - - Hinton, James, on thinking as an art, 86 _n._; - on the arts, 111; - the universe according to, 215, 216; - Ellis’s copy of his book, 220; - on pleasure and pain in the art of life, 278; - on methods of arts and moral action, 281, 282. - - Hippias, 302; - significance of his ideas, in conception of life as an art, 4-6; - his ideal, 4, 6; - the Great Logician, 6 _n._ - - Hobbes, Thomas, on space, 95; - his dictum _Homo homini lupus_, 262. - - Hodgson, Shadworth, 289. - - Hoffman, Bernhard, his _Guide to the Bird-World_, 168. - - Horace, the popularity of, in modern times, 92. - - Hovelaque, Émile, on the Chinese, 27, 28. - - Howell, James, his “Familiar Letters,” 184. - - Hugo, Victor, 149, 311. - - Hula dance, the, 51. - - Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 275. - - Hume, David, took up fictional point of view, 96; - recognised Shaftesbury, 267; - influenced by Hutcheson, 275. - - Hunt, Leigh, sensitively acute critic of Keats, 167. - - Hunter, John, 181. - - Hutcheson, Francis, æsthetic moralist, 251; - came out of Calvinistic Puritanism, 266; - one of the founders of æsthetics, 271, 326 _n._; - wrote the first modern treatise on æsthetics, 271; - represented reaction against Puritanism, 271; - Shaftesbury’s ideas as developed by, 273; - his use of the term “moral sense,” 273, 274; - his impressive personality, 274; - philosophy was art of living to, 274, 275; - inconsistent, 314; - on distinction between art and æsthetics, 326 _n._; - his idea of the æsthetic and the moral emotion, 327 _n._ - - Huysmans, J. K., his vocabulary, 165; - at Wagner concert, 166; - fascinated by concert programmes, 166, 167. - - “Hymn of Jesus,” the, 42. - - Hypothesis, dogma, and fiction, 98, 99. - - - _I_ and _me_, 147. - - Idealisation, in adolescence, 107, 108. - - Idealism, 83. - - Idealists, 70, 341 _n._ - - Ideals, are fictions, 100. - - Imagination, a constitutive part of thinking, 102; - man lives by, 102; - guarded by judgment and principles, 130-32; - part performed by, in morals, 272; - and the æsthetic instinct, 344. - - Imbeciles, 352-55. - - Imitation, in the productions of young writers, 164. - - _Immoral_, significance of the word, 246. - - Immortality, a fiction, 100. - - - Impulses, creative and possessive, 306, 307, 341-43. - - Inclination, 275. - - India, dancing in, 51, 52; - the Todas of, 203 _n._ - - Indians, American, religious dances among, 40, 42. - - Infanticide, 255, 354. - - Infinite, the, a fiction, 95. - - Infinitive, the split, 145-47. - - Inge, Dean, on Plotinus, 223 _n._, 249 _n._; - on Pagan Mysteries, 241 _n._ - - Innate ideas, 274. - - Insects, dancing among, 45. - - Instinct, the part it plays in style, 163; - imitation a part of, 164; - and tradition, mould morals, 254-59; - the possessive, 338-40, 344, 345, 351, _see_ Possessive instinct; - the æsthetic, 341, 343-46, 350, _see_ Æsthetic instinct. - - Instincts, 234, 235. - - Intelligence, the sphere of, 233, 234. - - Intuition, the starting point of science, 137; - meaning of, 232 _n._; - of the man of genius, 320. - - Intuitionism, æsthetic, 260, 276, 279, 314. - - Intuitionists, the, 232-34. - - Invention, necessary in science, 137. - - Invincible ignorance, doctrine of, 304. - - Irony, Socratic, 78, 83. - - Irrationalism, of Vaihinger, 90. - - Isocrates, on beauty and virtue, 247. - - Italy, Romantic dancing originated in, 53, 56; - the ballet in, 56-58. - - - Jansenists, the, 303. - - Japan, dancing in, 42, 49. - - Java, dancing in, 49. - - Jehovah, in the Book of Genesis, 1. - - Jeremiah, the prophet, his voice and instrument, 178, 179. - - Jeres, cathedral of, dancing in, 44. - - Jesuits, the, 303-05. - - Jesus, and Napoleon, 10, 11; - and the Platonic Socrates, 82, 83; - asserts principle of eugenics, 353, 356; - and Plato, 356. - - Joël, Karl, on the Xenophontic Socrates, 78; - on the evolution of the Greek philosophic spirit, 206. - - John of the Cross, 237. - - Johnson, Samuel, the pedantry of, 156; - Latin-French element in, 162; - his idea of “matter,” 230. - - Johnston, Sir H. H., on the dancing of the Pygmies, 51. - - Jones, Dr. Bence, biographer of Faraday, 130. - - Jonson, Ben, 184. - - Joyce, James, 172, 184; - his _Ulysses_, 185, 186. - - - Kant, Immanuel, 89; - germs of the doctrine of the “as if” in, 87; - his idea of the art of morals, 253, 254; - influenced by Shaftesbury, 253, 254, 266; - anecdote about, 257 _n._, 276; - rationalises morality, 281. - - Keats, John, concerned with beautiful words in “The Eve of St. Agnes,” - 167. - - Kepler, Johann, his imagination and his accuracy in calculation, 132, - 133. - - Keyserling, Count Hermann, his _Philosophie als Kunst_, 83 _n._ - - “Knowing,” analysis of, 70, 71. - - Kolbe, Rev. Dr., illustrates æsthetic view of morals, 276 _n._ - - - Lamb, Charles, 184. - - Landor, W. S., 149; - on vulgarisms in language, 151 _n._; - on the poet and poetry, 154, 172; - on style, 163. - - Lange, F. A., his _The History of Materialism_, 73 _n._, 83; - sets forth conception of philosophy as poetic art, 83; - the Neo-Kantism of, 87; - his influence on Vaihinger, 92, 93. - - Language, critics of present-day, 141-51; - of our forefathers and of to-day, 143; - things we are told to avoid in, 145-51; - is imagery and metaphor, 165; - reaction of thought on, 179-81; - progress in, due to flexibility and intimacy, 183. - - Languages, the Yo-heave-ho theory of, 61. - - Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 70. - - Lao-tze, and Confucius, 25, 26; - the earliest of the great mystics, 204; - harmony of religion and science in his work, 204, 205. - - Law, a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, 339, 340; - to be replaced by æsthetic instinct, 340, 341. - - Laycock, on handwriting, 158 _n._ - - Leibnitz, Baron S. W. von, 6 _n._; - on space, 95; - on music, 135; - admired Shaftesbury, 268. - - “L’Esprit Nouveau,” 179. - - Libby, M. F., on Shaftesbury, 273. - - Lie, Jonas, 163. - - Life, more difficult to realise it as an art than to act it so, 1, 2; - as art, view of highest thinkers of China and Greece on, 2-6, 247-52; - ideal of totality of, 6; - art of, has been decadent during last two thousand years, 8 _n._; - of the Loyalty Islanders, 13-18; - the Lifuan art of, 13-18; - the Chinese art of, 27, 28; - Chinese civilization proves that it is art, 30; - embodiment of the Chinese symbol of the art of, 33; - identical with art, 33-35; - the art of, a dance, 66, 67; - mechanistic explanation of, 216; - viewed in its moral aspect, 244; - the moralist the critic of the art of, 247; - as art, attitude of Romans toward, 252; - as art, attitude of Hebrews toward, 253; - the art of, both pain and pleasure in, 277, 278; - as art, a conception approved by men of high character, 278, 279; - not to be precisely measured by statistics, 302; - as a spectacle, 333, 334. - - Lifu. _See_ Loyalty Islands. - - - Lifuans, the, the art of living of, 13-18. - - Limoges, 44. - - Linnæan system, the, a fiction, 99. - - Liszt, Franz, 329. - - Livingstone, David, 38. - - Locke, John, and Shaftesbury, 261, 262. - - Locomotive, the, 72 _n._ - - Lodge, Sir Oliver, his attempt to study religion, 201. - - Logic, a science or art, 68; - and fiction, 94; - of thought, inescapable, 183. - - Loret, on dancing, 54 _n._ - - Love, dancing the primitive expression of, 37, 45; - curiosity one of the main elements of, 112. - - Love-dance, 45-51. - _See_ Dance, Dancing. - - - Loyalty Islands, the, customs of the natives of, 13-18. - - Lucian, 353 _n._; - on dancing, 40, 45. - - Lucretius, 207. - - Lull, Ramon, 237. - - Lulli, J. B., brought women into the ballet, 57. - - Luxuries, consumption of, as test of civilisation, 294-97. - - - Machinery of life, 216. - - Madagascar, dancing in, 49. - - Magic, relation of, to science and religion, 193-96. - - Magna Carta, 98. - - Malherbe, François de, 148. - - Mallarmé, Stéphane, music the voice of the world to, 166. - - Mallorca, dancing in church in, 44, 45. - - Mammals, dancing among, 45, 46. - - Man, has found it more difficult to conceive life as an art than to act - it so, 1; - his conception less that of an artist, as time went on, 2; - in Protagoras’s philosophy, 3, 4, 302; - ceremony and music, his external and internal life, 25; - added to Nature, 153; - has passed through stages of magic, religion, and science, 196; - an artist of his own life, 271; - is an artist, 310; - as artist and as æsthetician, 314; - becomes the greatest force in Nature, 339; - practices adopted by, to maintain selection of best stock, 354. - - Mandeville, Sir John, on Shaftesbury, 262. - - Manet, 311. - - Marco Polo, his picture of Chinese life, 19, 20; - noticed absence of beggars in China, 31; - on public baths in China, 32. - - Marett, on magic and science, 195. - - Marlowe, Christopher, 170, 184. - - Marquesans, the, 13 _n._ - - Marriott, Charles, on the union of æsthetic sense with artistic - instinct, 350 _n._ - - Martial, 54. - - Mass, dancing in ritual of, 43-45; - analogy of Pagan Mysteries to, 242. - - Master of Arts, 69. - - Materialism, 97, 230. - - Materialistic, the term, 229. - - Mathematical Renaissance, the, 69. - - Mathematics, false ideas in, 94, 95; - and art, 138-40. - - Matter, a fiction, 97, 229, 338; - and spirit, 229, 230. - - Maupassant, Guy de, 311. - - McDougall, William, accepts magic as origin of science, 195; - his criticism of the “moral sense,” 274 _n._; - his study of civilisation, 298; - on birth-rate, 298 _n._ - - _Me_ and _I_, 147. - - Mead, G. R., his article _The Sacred Dance of Jesus_, 44. - - Measurement, Protagoras’s saying concerning, 3, 302. - - Mechanics, beginning of science of, 74; - theories of, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, 120. - - Medici, Catherine de’, brought Italian ballet to Paris, 57. - - Medicine, and religion, 197 _n._, 203. - - Medicine-man, the, 192-95. - - Meh-ti, Chinese philosopher, 26, 27. - - Men, of to-day and of former days, their comparative height, 142. - - “Men of science,” 125, 126. - _See_ Scientist. - - Meteorological Bureau, the, 203. - - Metre, poetic, arising out of work, 62. - - Michelangelo, 311. - - Milan, the ballet in, 58. - - Mill, J. S., on science and art, 70; - criticism of Bentham, 99. - - Millet, J. F., 311. - - Milton, John, his misuse of the word “eglantine,” 169; - Tolstoy’s opinion of, 311. - - Mirandola, Pico della, 6 _n._ - - Mittag-Lefler, Gustav, on mathematics, 139. - - Möbius, Paul Julius, German psychologist, 109. - - Moissac, Salome capital in, 49 _n._ - - Montaigne, M. E. de, his style flexible and various, 148; - his quotations moulded to the pattern of his own mind, 152; - his style and that of Renan, 161; - the originality of his style found in vocabulary, 165. - - Montesquieu, Baron de, his admiration for Shaftesbury, 268; - on the evils of civilisation, 297. - - _Moral_, significance of the term, 246. - - Moral maxims, 254, 258. - - Moral reformer, the, 282. - - “Moral sense,” the term as used by Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, 273, 274; - in McDougall’s _Social Psychology_, 274 _n._ - - Moral teaching, 246 _n._ - - Moral World-Order, the, a fiction, 100. - - Morand, Paul, 170 _n._ - - Moreau, Gustave, 167. - - Morgagni, G. B., 300. - - Morris, William, 350 _n._ - - Moses, 253, 282. - - Moszkowski, Alexander, his book on Einstein, 134 _n._ - - Moralist, the critic of the art of life, 247. - - Morality, Greek, an artistic balance of light and shade, 260; - a matter of taste, 263; - the æsthetic quality of, evidenced by language, 263, 264; - Shaftesbury’s views on, 264-66; - the influence of Shaftesbury on our modern, 266, 267; - imagination in, 272; - instinctive, according to Hutcheson, 274; - conception of, as an art, does not lack seriousness, 276; - the æsthetic view of, advocated by Catholics, 276 _n._; - the æsthetic view of, repugnant to two classes of minds, 280-82; - indefiniteness of criterion of, an advantage, 282, 283; - justification of æsthetic conception of, 283, 284; - flexible and inflexible, illustrated by Jesuits and Pascal, 303-05; - art the reality of, 314; - æsthetic, of the Greeks, 316-18; - the antinomy between morals and, 319; - a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, 338-40; - to be replaced by æsthetic instinct, 340, 341; - æsthetic instinct has the character of, 346. - - - Morals, dancing as, 61, 63, 66; - books on, 244; - defined, 245; - means _custom_, 245; - Plotinus’s conception of, 250-52; - as art, views of the Greeks and the Romans on, differ, 252; - Hebrews never conceived of the art of, 253; - as art, modern conception of, 253; - the modern feeling about, is Jewish and Roman, 253; - Kant’s idea of the art of, 253, 254; - formed by instinct, tradition and reason, 254-59; - Greek, have come to modern world through Shaftesbury, 267; - the æsthetic attitude possible for spectator of, 270; - art and æsthetics to be kept apart in, 314, 315, 325-28; - a species of the genus art, 316; - the antinomy between morality and, 319; - philosophers have failed to see that it is an art, 324. - - _Morisco_, the, 49 _n._ - - Mozart, Wolfgang, his interest in dancing, 62. - - Müller-Freienfels, Richard, two kinds of æsthetic contemplation defined - by, 331. - - Multatuli, quoted on the source of curiosity, 112. - - Music, and ceremony, 24-26; - and acting, and poetry, 36; - and singing, and dancing, their relation, 62; - a science or art, 68; - discovery of Pythagoras in, 74; - philosophy the noblest and best, 81 _n._; - the most abstract, the most nearly mathematical of the arts, 135; - of style, 163, 164; - of philosophy and religion, 179. - - Musical forms, evolved from similar dances, 62. - - Musical instruments, 53, 54. - - Musset, Alfred de, his _Confession d’un Enfant du Siècle_, 144. - - Mysteries, the Eleusinian, 240-43. - - Mystic, the genuine, 202; - Lao-tze, the earliest great, 204. - - Mystics, the great, 236, 237. - - - Mysticism, the right use and the abuse of the word, 191; - and science, supposed difference between, 191-203; - what is meant by, 192; - and science, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, 203-08; - of the Greeks, 205-07, 240-43; - and science, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of - Havelock Ellis, 209-18; - and science, how they came to be considered out of harmony, 226-35; - and science, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, 235, - 236; - the key to much that is precious in art and Nature in, 237, 238; - is not science, 238-40; - æsthetics on same plane as, 330 _n._ - _See_ Religion. - - - Napoleon, described as unmitigated scoundrel by H. G. Wells, 8-10; - described as lyric artist by Élie Faure, 10. - - Nature, and convention, Hippias made distinction between, 5; - comes through an atmosphere which is the emanation of supreme - artists, 166; - the attitude of the poet in the face of, 168, 169; - the object of Leonardo da Vinci’s searchings, 114, 117, 125; - Man added to, 153; - communion with, 227; - in Shaftesbury’s system, 265; - and art, 312, 313. - - Neo-Platonists, the, 237; - asceticism in, 249 _n._ - - Nests, birds’, and dancing, 36 _n._ - - Newell, W. W., 41 _n._ - - Newman, Cardinal J. H., the music of his style, 164. - - Newton, Sir Isaac, his wonderful imagination, 72; - his force of attraction a summatory fiction, 98; - represents in England new impetus to sciences, 180; - his attempt to study religion, 199-201; - religious, though a man of science, 208. - - Niceforo, Alfred, his measurement of civilisation, 286, 293, 297; - tests of civilisation applied to France by, 295-97. - - Nietzsche, Friedrich, 111; - conceived the art of life as a dance, 66, 67; - poetic quality of his philosophy, 84; - Vaihinger’s opinion of, 94; - on Leonardo da Vinci, 115; - the “divine malice” of, 155 _n._; - laboured at his prose, 182; - demolished D. F. Strauss’s ideas, 215; - on learning to dance, 277; - his gospel of taste, 280; - on the Sophists, 302 _n._; - on art as the great stimulus of life, 322, 323; - on the world as a spectacle, 334, 335; - moved by the “masculine protest,” 336; - Jesus reproached by, 355. - - Novelists, their reservoirs of knowledge, 171. - - Noverre, and the ballet, 57. - - - Ockham, William of, 96. - - - Old Testament, the, and the conception of morality as an art, 276. - _See_ Bible, Genesis. - - Omahas, the, 46. - - Onions, C. T., 146 _n._ - - Optimism, and pessimism, 90-92. - - Origen, on the dancing of the stars, 43. - - Orpheus, fable of, 61. - - Osler, Sir William, 72. - - - Pacific, the, creation as conceived in, 2; - dancing in, 49. - _See_ Lifuans. - - Pain, and pleasure, united, 278. - - Painting, Chinese, 29, 32; - and sculpture, and the arts of design, 36; - of Leonardo da Vinci, 113, 114, 117, 118. - - Palante, Georges, 337 _n._ - - Paley, William, 267. - - Palladius, 358. - - Pantomime, and pantomimic dancing, 41, 42, 49, 56. - - Papuans, the, are artistic, 351 _n._ - - Parachute, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119. - - Paris, dancing in choir in, 44; - the ballet at, 57. - - Parker, Professor E. H., his book _China: Past and Present_, 23 _n._; - his view of Chinese vermin and dirt, 31, 32. - - Parks, 351. - - Parmelee, Maurice, his _Criminology_, 291 _n._ - - Parsons, Professor, 142. - - Pascal, Blaise, and the Jesuits, 303, 304. - - Pater, W. H., the music of his style, 164. - - Pattison, Pringle, his definition of mysticism, 192 _n._ - - Paul, Vincent de, his moral attitude, 279, 280. - - Paulhan, on morality, 284. - - Pell, E. C., on decreasing birth-rate, 294 _n._ - - Pepys, Samuel, the accomplishment of his “Diary,” 176. - - Perera, Galeotto, his picture of Chinese life, 19; - noticed absence of beggars in China, 31. - - Pericles, 289. - - Personality, 144. - - Pessimism, and optimism, 90-92. - - Petrie, Dr. W. M. Flinders, his attempt to measure civilisation by - standard of sculpture, 307, 308. - - Peyron, traveller, 50. - - Phenomenalism, Protagoras the father of, 3. - - Philosopher, the primitive, usually concluded that the universe was a - work of art, 1; - a creative artist, 72, 73, 85; - curiosity the stimulus of, 104, 105. - - Philosophy, of the Chinese, 32; - solution of the conflicts of, in art, 82, 83; - and art, close relationship of, 83-85; - and poetry, 83, 85; - is music, 179. - - Physics, and fiction, 95. - - Pictures, revelation of beauty in, 328, 329; - should be looked at in silence, 329 _n._ - - Pindar, calls Hellas “the land of lovely dancing,” 55. - - Planck, Max, physicist, 136. - - Plato, Protagoras calumniated by, 3; - made fun of Hippias, 4; - his description of a good education, 64; - a creative artist, 73; - his picture of Socrates, 75, 78; - the biographies of, 76, 77; - his irony, 78, 83; - a marvellous artist, 82; - a supreme artist in philosophy, 83; - a supreme dramatist, 83; - his “Ideas” and the “As-If world,” 88; - the myths, as fictions, hypotheses, and dogmas, 99; - represents the acme of literary prose speech, 155; - and Plotinus, 222; - on the Mysteries, 242; - asceticism, traced in, 249 _n._; - on justice, 289; - his ideal of wise moderation addressed to an immoderate people, 292; - Sophists caricatured by, 302; - his “guardians,” 306; - the ultrapuritanical attitude of, 317, 318 _n._; - and Bovarism, 336; - on the value of sight, 345 _n._; - wished to do away with imaginative literature, 353 _n._; - and Jesus, 356. - - Pleasure, a human creation, 24; - and pain, united, 278. - - Pliny, 353 _n._ - - Plotinus, 222; - Greek moral spirit reflected in, 249; - his doctrine of Beauty, 250, 251; - his idea that the moral life of the soul is a dance, 251, 252; - his simile of the sculptor, 276 _n._; - founder of æsthetics in the philosophic sense, 329; - recognised three aspects of the Absolute, 330; - insisted on contemplation, 330 _n._, 331; - of the participating contemplative temperament, 332. - - Poet, the type of all thinkers, 102; - Landor on, 154; - his attitude in the presence of Nature, 168, 169; - the great, does not describe Nature minutely, but uses his knowledge - of, 170, 171. - - Poetry, Chinese, 21, 22, 29, 32; - and music, and acting, 36; - and dancing, 56; - and philosophy, 83, 85; - and science, no sharp boundary between, 102, 128, 129; - Landor on, 154; - a _making_, 312; - Aristotle’s view of, 318; - does not exist for morals, 318. - - Polka, origin of the, 60. - - Polynesia, dancing in, 49. - - Polynesian islanders, 255. - - Pontiff, the Bridge-Builder, 2. - - Pope, Alexander, influence of Shaftesbury on, 266. - - Porphyry, 167. - - Possessive impulses, 306, 307, 341-43. - - - Possessive instinct, restraints placed upon, 338-40; - in Gaultier and Russell, 344; - excesses of, 351. - - Pottery, of the Chinese, 32, 33; - of the Greeks and the Minoan predecessors of the Greeks, 32. - - Pound, Miss, on the origin of the ballad, 62 _n._ - - Pragmatism, 323. - - Pragmatists, the, 93, 231, 232. - - Precious stones, attitude of the poet toward, 169. - - Preposition, the post-habited, 146, 147, 162. - - Prettiness, and beauty, 315 _n._ - - Priest, cultivated science in form of magic, 195; - and doctor, originally one, 197 _n._, 203. - - Prodicus, 302; - the Great Moralist, 6 _n._ - - Progress, 143, 149; - on meaning of, 287. - - Prophecy, 204. - - _Prophet_, meaning of the word, 203, 204. - - Propriety, 24-26. - - Protagoras, significance of his ideas, in conception of life as an art, - 3, 4; - his interest for us to-day, 3; - his dictum “Man is the measure of all things,” 3, 302; - concerned to regard living as an art, 248. - - Proust, Marcel, 172, 184; - his art, 170 _n._, 186, 187; - his _A la Recherche du Temps Perdu_, 171, 187; - admiration of, for Ruskin, 316 _n._ - - Puberty, questions arising at time of, 105-07. - - Puritanism, reaction against, represented by Hutcheson, 271. - - Pygmalionism, 353 _n._ - - Pygmies, the dancing of the, 51. - - Pythagoras, represents the beginning of science, 73, 74; - fundamentally an artist, 74, 75; - founded religious brotherhoods, 206, 207. - - - Quatelet, on social questions, 288. - - Quoting, by writers, 152. - - - Rabbitism, 294. - - Rabelais, François, 148, 165, 358. - - Race mixture, 308. - - Raleigh, Sir Walter, his literary style, 143. - - Ramedjenis, the, street dancers, 52. - - Rank, Dr. Otto, his essay on the artist, 111. - - Realism, 83. - - Realists, 70, 341 _n._ - - Reality, a flux of happening, 101. - - Reason, helps to mould morals, 255-59. - - Reid, Thomas, influenced by Hutcheson, 275. - - Relativism, Protagoras the father of, 3. - - - Religion, as the desire for the salvation of the soul, 8; - origin of dance in, 38; - connection of dance with, among primitive men, 39; - in music, 179; - and science, supposed difference between, 191-203; - its quintessential core, 191; - control of Nature through oneness with Nature, at the heart of, 194; - relation of, to science and magic, 194-96; - the man of, studying science, 202; - and science, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, 203-08; - and science, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of - Havelock Ellis, 209-18; - asceticism has nothing to do with normal, 222; - and science, how they came to be considered out of harmony, 226-35; - the burden of the traditions of, 227; - and church, not the same, 228 _n._; - the instinct of, 234; - and science, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, 235, - 236; - is not science, 238-40; - an act, 243; - a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, 339, 340; - to be replaced by æsthetic instinct, 340, 341. - _See_ Mysticism. - - Religions, in every case originally saltatory, 40. - - Religious dances, ecstatic and pantomimic, 41; - survivals of, 42; - in Christianity, 42-45. - - Renan, J. E., his style, 161; - his _Life of Jesus_, 212; - on truth, 301. - - “Resident in Peking, A,” author of _China as it Really Is_, 21, 22. - - - Revelation, Book of, 153. - - Revival, the, 241, 243. - - Rhythm, marks all the physical and spiritual manifestations of life, - 37; - in work, 61. - - Rickert, H., his twofold division of Reality, 325, 326. - - Ridgeway, William, his theory of origin of tragedy, 56. - - Roberts, Morley, ironical over certain “men of science,” 126 _n._ - - Robinson, Dr. Louis, on apes and dancing, 46; - on the influence of the drum, 63. - - Rodó, his conceptions those of Shaftesbury, 269. - - Roman law, 98. - - Romans, the ancient, dancing and war allied among, 63, 64; - did not believe that living is an art, 252. - - Romantic spirit, the, 206. - - Romantics, the, 149, 156. - - Rome, ancient, dancing in, 49; - genius built upon basis of slavery in, 292. - - Rops, Félicien, 167. - - Ross, Robert, 150. - - Rouen Cathedral, Salome on portal of, 49 _n._ - - Rousseau, J. J., Napoleon before grave of, 11; - felt his lapses, 79; - grace of, 149; - love of Nature developed through, 238; - and Shaftesbury, 268, 269; - decided against civilisation, 298. - - Roussillon, 44. - - Rule, rigid subserviency to, mark of decadence, 173; - much lost by rigid adherence to, in style, 175. - - _Rules for Compositors and Readers_, on spelling, Oxford University - Press, 174 _n._ - - Ruskin, John, 316; - a God-intoxicated man, 316 _n._ - - Russell, Bertrand, on the Chinese, 23; - on mathematics, 139, 140; - on the creative and the possessive impulses, 305-07, 341, 342; - system of, compared with Gaultier’s, 342, 343. - - Russia, the genius of, compared with the temper of the population, 293. - - Russian ballet, the, 58-60. - - Rutherford, Sir Ernest, on the atomic constitution, 97 _n._ - - - St. Augustine, 79, 202; - on the art of living well, 252. - - St. Basil, on the dancing of the angels, 43. - - St. Bonaventura, said to have been author of “Diet a Salutis,” 43. - - St. Denis, Ruth, 60. - - St. Theresa, and Darwin, 198, 199. - - Salome, the dance of, 49. - - _Salt_, intellectual and moral suggestion of the word, 263, 263 _n._, - 264. - - Salt, Mr., 169. - - Salter, W. M., his _Nietzsche the Thinker_, 335 _n._ - - Samoa, sacred position of carpenter in, 2. - - Sand, George, on civilisation, 300. - - Santayana, Professor George, on union of æsthetic sense with artistic - instinct, 350 _n._ - - Schelling, F. W. J. von, 90; - on philosophy and poetry, 83. - - Schiller, Friedrich von, influence on Vaihinger, 89; - and the æsthetic conception of morals, 275. - - Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 90. - - Schmidt, Dr. Raymund, 93 _n._ - - Schopenhauer, Arthur, 330 _n._; - his influence on Vaihinger, 90; - as regards his quotations, 152; - morals based on sympathy, according to, 272; - on the uselessness of art, 319; - on the man of genius, 320; - on sociological function of art, 323; - on the proper way of looking at pictures, 329 _n._; - on the world as a spectacle, 334. - - Science, spirit of modern, in Protagoras, 4; - as the search for the reason of things, 8; - and poetry, no sharp boundary between, 102, 128, 129; - impulse to, and the sexual instinct, 112; - intuition and invention needed by, 137; - and mysticism, supposed difference between, 191-203; - what is meant by, 192; - and art, no distinction between, in classic times, 68; - and art, distinction between, in modern times, 68-70; - definitions of, 70, 71; - is of the nature of art, 71; - the imaginative application of, 72; - Pythagoras represents the beginning of, 74; - control of Nature through oneness with Nature, at the heart of, 194; - relation of, to magic and religion, 194-96; - and pseudo-science, 199-202; - and mysticism, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, 203-08; - and mysticism, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of - Havelock Ellis, 209-18; - and mysticism, how they came to be considered out of harmony, 226-35; - traditions of, 228; - the instinct of, 234; - and mysticism, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, 235, - 236; - is not religion, 238-40; - not pursued for useful ends, 322; - for science’s sake, 347. - - Sciences, and arts, 68-70; - biological and social, fiction in, 99; - mathematical impetus given to, toward end of seventeenth century, - 180; - biological, awakening of, 181; - mathematical, renaissance of, 181. - - - Scientist, the true, an artist, 72, 73, 112, 126; - curiosity the stimulus of, 104, 105; - the false, 125, 126; - who turns to religion, 199-201. - - Scott, W. R., on art and æsthetics, 326 _n._ - - Scottish School, the, 267. - - Sculpture, painting, and the arts of design, 36; - civilisation measured by standard of, 308. - - Seises, the, the dance of, 44 _n._ - - Selous, Edmund, 36 _n._ - - Semon, Professor, R., 351 _n._ - - “Sense,” Hutcheson’s conception of, 274. - - Seville, cathedral of, dancing in, 44. - - Sex, instinct of, a reaction to the stimulus of curiosity, 104; - early questions concerning, 105-07; - source of art impulse, 108-12; - and the scientific interest, 112; - not absolutely essential, 234. - - Sexual imagery, strain of, in thought, 113. - - “Shadow,” 219 _n._ - - Shaftesbury, Earl of, influence on Kant, 254; - illustrated unsystematic method of thinking, 259; - his book, 260; - his theory of Æsthetic Intuitionism, 260; - his affinity to the Greeks, 260; - his early life, 261; - his idea of goodness, 262; - his principles expounded, 264-66; - his influence on later writers and thinkers, 266; - his influence on our modern morality, 266, 267; - the greatest Greek of modern times, 267, 271; - his service to the modern world, 267; - measure of his recognition in Scotland and England, 267; - recognition of, abroad, 268, 269; - made no clear distinction between creative artistic impulse and - critical æsthetic appreciation, 270; - realised that reason cannot affect appetite, 270; - one of the founders of æsthetics, 271; - his use of the term “moral sense,” 273, 274; - temperamentally a Stoic, 279; - of the æsthetic contemplative temperament, 332, 333. - - Shakespeare, William, 148; - his style compared with that of Bacon, 160; - affected by the intoxication of words, 167; - stored up material to be used freely later, 170, 171; - the spelling of his name by himself, 173; - surpasses contemporaries in flexibility and intimacy, 184; - Tolstoy’s opinion of, 311; - on Nature and art, 312, 313; - his figure of Prospero, 331. - - Shamans, the, religious dances among, 40, 41; - their wills brought into harmony with the essence of the world, 193; - double attitude of, 194. - - Sharp, F. C., on Hutcheson, 327 _n._ - - Shelley, P. B., mysticism in poetry of, 237; - on imagination and morality, 238. - - Sidgwick, Henry, 255, 314. - - Singer, Dr. Charles, his definition of science, 70, 71. - - Singing, relation to music and dancing, 62. - - Silberer, Herbert, on magic and science, 195. - - Simcox, Edith, her description of conversion, 218 _n._ - - Skene, on dances among African tribes, 38. - - Slezakova, Anna, the polka extemporised by, 60. - - Smith, Adam, his “economic man,” 99; - morals based on sympathy, according to, 272; - influenced by Hutcheson, 275. - - Smith, Arthur H., his book _Chinese Characteristics_, 23 _n._ - - Social capillarity, 298. - - Social ladder, 298, 299. - - Social statistics, 286-88. - - Socialists, French, inspired by Shaftesbury, 269. - - Socrates, the Platonic, 75, 78; - Grote’s chapter on, 76; - the real and the legendary, 76, 79, 82; - three elements in our composite portrait of, 77-79; - the Platonic, and the Gospel Jesus, 82, 83; - on philosophy and music, 179; - his view of the moralist, 248. - - Solidarity, socialistic, among the Chinese, 26, 27. - - Solmi, Vincian scholar, 114. - - Sophists, the, 4, 302, 302 _n._ - - Sophocles, danced in his own dramas, 56; - beauty and moral order in, 247; - Tolstoy’s opinion of, 311. - - Soul, a fiction, 100; - in harmony with itself, 219; - the moral life of, as a dance, 251, 252. - - South Sea Islands, dancing in, 49. - - Space, absolute, a fiction, 95. - - Spain, dancing in, 44, 50, 54. - - Speech, the best literary prose, 155; - in Greece, 155; - in England, 155, 156; - the artist’s, 156; - a tradition, 161. - - Spelling, and thinking, 127 _n._; - has little to do with style, 173; - now uniform and uniformly bad, 174, 175. - - Spencer, Herbert, on science and art, 68; - on use of science in form of magic, 195; - the universe according to, 215; - on the harmlessness of moral teaching, 246 _n._; - on diminishing birth-rate, 294 _n._ - - Spengler, Dr. Oswald, on the development of music, 135 _n._; - argues on the identity of physics, mathematics, religion, and great - art, 138; - his theory of culture and civilisation, 309, 310. - - Spinoza, Baruch, 89; - has moved in sphere where impulses of religion and science spring - from same source, 207; - transforms ethics into geometry, 281; - has been called a God-intoxicated man, 316 _n._; - his “intellectual love of God,” 342. - - Spirit, and matter, 229, 230. - - Statistics, uncertainty of, 286; - for measurement of civilisation, 286-88; - applied to France to test civilisation, 295-97. - - Steele, Dr. John, on the Chinese ceremonial, 29 _n._ - - Stephen, Sir Leslie, on poetry and philosophy, 85; - could see no good in Shaftesbury, 268. - - Stevenson, R. L., 188. - - Stocks, eradication of unfit, by Man, 354; - recommended by Jesus, 355, 356. - - Stoics, the, 207. - - Strauss, D. F., his _The Old Faith and the New_, 214. - - - Style, literary, of to-day and of our fore-fathers’ time, 143; - the achievement of, 155; - grace seasoned with salt, 155; - atavism in, in members of the same family, 158, 190; - atavism in, in the race, 160, 190; - much that is instinctive in, 163; - the music of, 163, 164; - vocabulary in, 164, 165; - the effect of mere words on, 165-67; - familiarity with author’s, necessary to understanding, 171, 172; - spelling has little to do with, 173; - much lost by slavish adherence to rules in, 175; - must have clarity and beauty, 176-78; - English prose, Cartesian influence on, 180 _n._; - personal and impersonal, 182, 183; - progress in, lies in casting aside accretions and exuberances, 183; - founded on a model, the negation of style, 188; - the task of breaking the old moulds of, 188, 189; - summary of elements of, 190. - _See_ Writing. - - Suicide, rate of, as test of civilisation, 295, 296. - - Swahili, dancing among, 38. - - Swedenborg, Emanuel, his science and his mysticism, 208. - - Swedish ballet, the, 60. - - _Sweet_ (_suavis_), referring to moral qualities, 264. - - Sweetness, and goodness, in Shaftesbury’s philosophy, 262; - originally the same, 263. - - Swift, Jonathan, laments “the corruption of our style,” 142; - beauty of his style, rests on truth to logic of his thought, 183; - utterance of, combining two conceptions of life, 333. - - Swimming-belt, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 119. - - Swinburne, C. A., on writing poetry to a tune, 62; - his _Poems and Ballads_, 172; - his _Songs before Sunrise_, 212. - - Sylvester, J. J., on mathematics, 139. - - Symphony, the development of a dance suite, 62. - - Syndicalism, as test of civilisation, 296, 297. - - - Taglioni, Maria, 58. - - Tahiti, dancing at, 50. - - Tambourine, the, 53. - - _Tao_, the word, 204. - - Taste, the gospel of, 280. - - Telegraph, the, 72 _n._ - - Telephone, the, 72 _n._ - - Tell-el-Amarna, 28. - - Theology, 227. - - Therapeuts, the worship of, 42. - - Thing-in-Itself, the, a fiction, 101. - - Things, are fictions, 98. - - - Thinking, of the nature of art, 85, 86; - and existing, on two different planes, 101; - the special art and object of, 101; - is a comparison, 102; - is a regulated error, 103; - abstract, the process of its birth, 108, 109. - - Thompson, Silvanus, on Faraday, 132. - - Thomson, James, influence of Shaftesbury on, 266. - - Thomson, Sir Joseph, on matter and weight, 230. - - Thoreau, H. D., on morals, 282. - - Thought, logic of, inescapable, 183. - - Tobacco, consumption of, as test of civilisation, 295. - - Todas, the, of India, 203 _n._ - - Toledo, cathedral of, dancing in, 44. - - Tolstoy, Count Leo, his opinions on art, 311. - - Tonga, sacred position of carpenter in, 2. - - Tooke, Horne, 151 _n._ - - Townsend, Rev. Joseph, on the fandango, 50. - - Tradition, the corporeal embodiment of heredity, 161; - and instinct, mould morals, 254-59. - - - Traditions, religious, 227; - scientific, 228. - - Triangles, 53. - - Truth, the measuring-rod of, 230-32. - - Tunisia, Southern, dancing in, 49. - - T’ung, the story of, 33. - - Turkish dervishes, dances of, 41. - - Tuscans, the, 56. - _See_ Etruscans. - - Tyndall, John, on Faraday, 130-32. - - Tyrrells, the, the handwriting of, 157. - - - Ugliness, 328. - - Ulysses, representative of ideal of totality of existence, 6. - - United States, the genius of, compared with the temper of the - population, 293. - - - Universe, conceived as work of art by primitive philosopher, 1; - according to D. F. Strauss, 214; - according to Spencer, 215; - according to Hinton, 216; - according to Sir James Frazer, 219 _n._; - according to Bertrand Russell, 219 _n._; - conception of, a personal matter, 219 _n._; - the so-called materialistic, 229, 230; - Bovarism of, 337. - - Utilitarians, the, 267, 268. - - Uvea, 15. - _See_ Loyalty Islands. - - - - Vaihinger, Hans, his _Philosophie des Als Ob_, 86; - English influence upon, 86, 87; - allied to English spirit, 87, 88; - his origin, 88; - his training, and vocation, 88-93; - influence of Schiller on, 89; - philosophers who influenced, 89, 90; - his pessimisms, irrationalism, and voluntarism, 90; - his view of military power of Germany, 90, 91; - his devouring appetite for knowledge, 92; - reads F. A. Lange’s _History of Materialism_, 92, 93; - writes his book at about twenty-five years of age, 93; - his book published, 94; - the problem he set out to prove, 94; - his doctrine of fiction, 94-102; - his doctrine not immune from criticism, 102; - the fortifying influence of his philosophy, 102, 103; - influenced Adler, 337. - - Valencia, cathedral of, dancing in, 44. - - Valerius, Maximus, 353 _n._ - - Van Gogh, mysticism in pictures of, 237. - - Varnhagen, Rahel, 66. - - Verbal counters, 149, 150. - - Verlaine, Paul, the significance of words to, 168. - - Vesalius, 120. - - Vasari, Giorgio, his account of Leonardo da Vinci, 115, 123. - - Vestris, Gaetan, and the ballet, 57. - - Vinci, Leonardo da, man of science, 113, 125; - as a painter, 113, 114, 117, 118; - his one aim, the knowledge and mastery of Nature, 114, 117, 125; - an Overman, 115; - science and art joined in, 115-17; - as the founder of professional engineering, 118, 119; - the extent of his studies and inventions, 119, 120; - a supreme master of language, 121; - his appearance, 121; - his parentage, 121; - his youthful accomplishments, 122; - his sexual temperament, 122, 123; - the man, woman, and child in, 123, 124; - a figure for awe rather than love, 124. - - Vinci, Ser Piero da, father of Leonardo da Vinci, 121. - - Virtue, and beauty, among the Greeks, 247; - the art of living well, 252; - in Shaftesbury’s system, 265, 266; - beauty of, 270 _n._ - - Virtues, ethical and intellectual, 330. - - Visconti, Galeazzo, spectacular pageants at marriage of, 57. - - Vocabulary, each writer creates his own, 164, 165. - - Voltaire, F. M. A. de, recognised Shaftesbury, 268; - on the foundations of society, 289. - - - Wagner, Richard, on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, 62, 63. - - Wallas, Professor Graham, on Plato and Dante, 73. - - War, and dancing, allied, 63, 64. - - Wealth, as test of civilisation, 296, 297. - - Weight, its nature, 230. - - Weismann, and the study of heredity, 127. - - Wells, H. G., his description of Napoleon, 8-10, 12. - - Whitman, Walt, his _Leaves of Grass_, 172; - words attributed to him on what is right, 254. - - Woman, the question, what she is like, 106. - - Words, have a rich content of their own, 166; - the intoxication of, 167-69; - their arrangement chiefly studied by young writer, 172. - - Wordsworth, William, 184; - influence of Shaftesbury on, 266. - - Work, a kind of dance, 61, 62. - - World, becoming impalpable and visionary, 337, 338. - _See_ Universe. - - Writers, the great, have observed decorum instinctively, 181, 182; - the great, learn out of themselves, 188, 189; - the great, are heroes at heart, 189. - - - Writing, personality in, 144, 190; - a common accomplishment to-day, 144, 145; - an arduous intellectual task, 151, 153, 190; - good and bad, 154; - the achievement of style in, 155; - machine-made, 156; - not made by the laws of grammar, 172, 173; - how the old method gave place to the new, 179-81; - summary of elements of, 190. - _See_ Handwriting, Style. - - Wundt, Wilhelm, on the dance, 38, 39 _n._ - - - Xavier, Francis, 123, 237. - - Xenophon, his portrait of Socrates, 77. - - - Zeno, 249 _n._ - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - Text that was in bold face is enclosed by equals signs (=bold=). - ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are - referenced. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANCE OF LIFE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Dance of Life</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Havelock Ellis</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 27, 2021 [eBook #65714]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANCE OF LIFE ***</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_on'>on</span> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_i'>i</span> - <h1 class='c001'>THE DANCE OF LIFE</h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_iii'>iii</span><span class='xxlarge'><b>THE DANCE OF LIFE</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'><b>BY</b></span></div> - <div><span class='xxlarge'><b>HAVELOCK ELLIS</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'><b>AUTHOR OF “IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS,” “AFFIRMATIONS,”</b></span></div> - <div><span class='large'><b>“ESSAYS IN WAR-TIME,” ETC.</b></span></div> - <div class='c000'>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</div> - <div>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</div> - <div>The Riverside Press Cambridge</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c003'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_iv'>iv</span>COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HAVELOCK ELLIS</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line c004'>SECOND IMPRESSION, JUNE, 1923</div> - <div class='line'>THIRD IMPRESSION, AUGUST, 1923</div> - <div class='line'>FOURTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1923</div> - <div class='line'>FIFTH IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1923</div> - <div class='line'>SIXTH IMPRESSION, NOVEMBER, 1923</div> - <div class='line'>SEVENTH IMPRESSION, DECEMBER, 1923</div> - <div class='line'>EIGHTH IMPRESSION, FEBRUARY, 1924</div> - <div class='line'>NINTH IMPRESSION, JULY, 1924</div> - <div class='line'>TENTH IMPRESSION, SEPTEMBER, 1924</div> - <div class='line'>ELEVENTH IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1924</div> - <div class='line'>TWELFTH IMPRESSION, DECEMBER, 1924</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line c004'>The Riverside Press</div> - <div class='line'>CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS</div> - <div class='line'>PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span> - <h2 class='c005'>PREFACE</h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>This</span> book was planned many years ago. As to the -idea running through it, I cannot say when that arose. -My feeling is, it was born with me. On reflection, indeed, -it seems possible the seeds fell imperceptibly in -youth—from <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange, maybe, and other sources—to -germinate unseen in a congenial soil. However -that may be, the idea underlies much that I have written. -Even the present book began to be written, and to -be published in a preliminary form, more than fifteen -years ago. Perhaps I may be allowed to seek consolation -for my slowness, however vainly, in the saying of -Rodin that “slowness is beauty,” and certainly it is -the slowest dances that have been to me most beautiful -to see, while, in the dance of life, the achievement of -a civilisation in beauty seems to be inversely to the -rapidity of its pace.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Moreover, the book remains incomplete, not merely -in the sense that I would desire still to be changing and -adding to each chapter, but even incomplete by the absence -of many chapters for which I had gathered material, -and twenty years ago should have been surprised -to find missing. For there are many arts, not among -those we conventionally call “fine,” which seem to me -fundamental for living. But now I put forth the book -<span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>as it stands, deliberately, without remorse, well content -so to do.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Once that would not have been possible. A book -must be completed as it had been originally planned, -finished, rounded, polished. As a man grows older his -ideals change. Thoroughness is often an admirable -ideal. But it is an ideal to be adopted with discrimination, -having due reference to the nature of the work in -hand. An artist, it seems to me now, has not always to -finish his work in every detail; by not doing so he may -succeed in making the spectator his co-worker, and put -into his hands the tool to carry on the work which, as it -lies before him, beneath its veil of yet partly unworked -material, still stretches into infinity. Where there is -most labour there is not always most life, and by doing -less, provided only he has known how to do well, the -artist may achieve more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>He will not, I hope, achieve complete consistency. -In fact a part of the method of such a book as this, -written over a long period of years, is to reveal a continual -slight inconsistency. That is not an evil, but -rather the avoidance of an evil. We cannot remain consistent -with the world save by growing inconsistent -with our own past selves. The man who consistently—as -he fondly supposes “logically”—clings to an unchanging -opinion is suspended from a hook which has -ceased to exist. “I thought it was she, and she thought -it was me, and when we come near it weren’t neither -one of us”—that metaphysical statement holds, with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>a touch of exaggeration, a truth we must always bear in -mind concerning the relation of subject and object. -They can neither of them possess consistency; they -have both changed before they come up with one another. -Not that such inconsistency is a random flux or -a shallow opportunism. We change, and the world -changes, in accordance with the underlying organisation, -and inconsistency, so conditioned by truth to the -whole, becomes the higher consistency of life. I am -therefore able to recognise and accept the fact that, -again and again in this book, I have come up against -what, superficially regarded, seemed to be the same -fact, and each time have brought back a slightly different -report, for it had changed and I had changed. The -world is various, of infinite iridescent aspect, and until -I attain to a correspondingly infinite variety of statement -I remain far from anything that could in any -sense be described as “truth.” We only see a great -opal that never looks the same this time as when we -looked last time. “He never painted to-day quite the -same as he had painted yesterday,” Elie Faure says -of Renoir, and it seems to me natural and right that it -should have been so. I have never seen the same world -twice. That, indeed, is but to repeat the Heraclitean -saying—an imperfect saying, for it is only the half of -the larger, more modern synthesis I have already -quoted—that no man bathes twice in the same -stream. Yet—and this opposing fact is fully as significant—we -really have to accept a continuous stream -<span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>as constituted in our minds; it flows in the same direction; -it coheres in what is more or less the same shape. -Much the same may be said of the ever-changing -bather whom the stream receives. So that, after all, -there is not only variety, but also unity. The diversity -of the Many is balanced by the stability of the One. -That is why life must always be a dance, for that is -what a dance is: perpetual slightly varied movements -which are yet always held true to the shape of the -whole.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We verge on philosophy. The whole of this book is -on the threshold of philosophy. I hasten to add that it -remains there. No dogmas are here set forth to claim -any general validity. Not that even the technical philosopher -always cares to make that claim. Mr. <abbr class='spell'>F. H.</abbr> -Bradley, one of the most influential of modern English -philosophers, who wrote at the outset of his career, -“On all questions, if you push me far enough, at present -I end in doubts and perplexities,” still says, forty -years later, that if asked to define his principles rigidly, -“I become puzzled.” For even a cheese-mite, one imagines, -could only with difficulty attain an adequate -metaphysical conception of a cheese, and how much -more difficult the task is for Man, whose everyday intelligence -seems to move on a plane so much like that -of a cheese-mite and yet has so vastly more complex a -web of phenomena to synthetise.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is clear how hesitant and tentative must be the -attitude of one who, having found his life-work elsewhere -<span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>than in the field of technical philosophy, may incidentally -feel the need, even if only playfully, to speculate -concerning his function and place in the universe. -Such speculation is merely the instinctive impulse of -the ordinary person to seek the wider implications -bound up with his own little activities. It is philosophy -only in the simple sense in which the Greeks understood -philosophy, merely a philosophy of life, of one’s own -life, in the wide world. The technical philosopher does -something quite different when he passes over the -threshold and shuts himself up in his study—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c008'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Veux-tu découvrir le monde,</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ferme tes yeux, Rosemonde”—</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>and emerges with great tomes that are hard to buy, hard -to read, and, let us be sure, hard to write. But of Socrates, -as of the English philosopher Falstaff, we are not -told that he wrote anything.</p> - -<p class='c007'>So that if it may seem to some that this book reveals -the expansive influence of that great classico-mathematical -Renaissance in which it is our high privilege to -live, and that they find here “relativity” applied to -life, I am not so sure. It sometimes seems to me that, -in the first place, we, the common herd, mould the -great movements of our age, and only in the second -place do they mould us. I think it was so even in the -great earlier classico-mathematical Renaissance. We -associate it with Descartes. But Descartes could have -effected nothing if an innumerable crowd in many fields -had not created the atmosphere by which he was enabled -<span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>to breathe the breath of life. We may here profitably -bear in mind all that Spengler has shown concerning -the unity of spirit underlying the most diverse elements -in an age’s productivity. Roger Bacon had in -him the genius to create such a Renaissance three centuries -earlier; there was no atmosphere for him to live -in and he was stifled. But Malherbe, who worshipped -Number and Measure as devoutly as Descartes, was -born half a century before him. That silent, colossal, -ferocious Norman—vividly brought before us by -Tallement des Réaux, to whom, rather than to Saint-Simon, -we owe the real picture of seventeenth-century -France—was possessed by the genius of destruction, -for he had the natural instinct of the Viking, and he -swept all the lovely Romantic spirit of old France so -completely away that it has scarcely ever revived since -until the days of Verlaine. But he had the Norman -classico-mathematical architectonic spirit—he might -have said, like Descartes, as truly as it ever can be said -in literature, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Omnia apud me mathematica fiunt</i></span>—and -he introduced into the world a new rule of Order. -Given a Malherbe, a Descartes could hardly fail to -follow, a French Academy must come into existence -almost at the same time as the “Discours de la Méthode,” -and Le Nôtre must already be drawing the geometrical -designs of the gardens of Versailles. Descartes, -it should be remembered, could not have worked without -support; he was a man of timid and yielding character, -though he had once been a soldier, not of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>heroic temper of Roger Bacon. If Descartes could have -been put back into Roger Bacon’s place, he would have -thought many of Bacon’s thoughts. But we should -never have known it. He nervously burnt one of his -works when he heard of Galileo’s condemnation, and it -was fortunate that the Church was slow to recognise -how terrible a Bolshevist had entered the spiritual -world with this man, and never realised that his books -must be placed on the Index until he was already -dead.</p> - -<p class='c007'>So it is to-day. We, too, witness a classico-mathematical -Renaissance. It is bringing us a new vision of the -universe, but also a new vision of human life. That is -why it is necessary to insist upon life as a dance. This -is not a mere metaphor. The dance is the rule of number -and of rhythm and of measure and of order, of the -controlling influence of form, of the subordination of -the parts to the whole. That is what a dance is. And -these same properties also make up the classic spirit, -not only in life, but, still more clearly and definitely, in -the universe itself. We are strictly correct when we regard -not only life but the universe as a dance. For the -universe is made up of a certain number of elements, -less than a hundred, and the “periodic law” of these -elements is metrical. They are ranged, that is to say, -not haphazard, not in groups, but by number, and -those of like quality appear at fixed and regular intervals. -Thus our world is, even fundamentally, a dance, -a single metrical stanza in a poem which will be for ever -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>hidden from us, except in so far as the philosophers, -who are to-day even here applying the methods of -mathematics, may believe that they have imparted to -it the character of objective knowledge.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I call this movement of to-day, as that of the seventeenth -century, classico-mathematical. And I regard -the dance (without prejudice to a distinction made -later in this volume) as essentially its symbol. This is -not to belittle the Romantic elements of the world, -which are equally of its essence. But the vast exuberant -energies and immeasurable possibilities of the first -day may perhaps be best estimated when we have -reached their final outcome on the sixth day of creation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>However that may be, the analogy of the two historical -periods in question remains, and I believe that -we may consider it holds good to the extent that the -strictly mathematical elements of the later period are -not the earliest to appear, but that we are in the presence -of a process that has been in subtle movement in -many fields for half a century. If it is significant that -Descartes appeared a few years after Malherbe, it is -equally significant that Einstein was immediately preceded -by the Russian ballet. We gaze in admiration -at the artist who sits at the organ, but we have been -blowing the bellows; and the great performer’s music -would have been inaudible had it not been for us.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This is the spirit in which I have written. We are -all engaged—not merely one or two prominent persons -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>here and there—in creating the spiritual world. -I have never written but with the thought that the -reader, even though he may not know it, is already on -my side. Only so could I write with that sincerity -and simplicity without which it would not seem to me -worth while to write at all. That may be seen in the -saying which I set on the forefront of my earliest book, -“The New Spirit”: he who carries farthest his most intimate -feelings is simply the first in file of a great number -of other men, and one becomes typical by being to -the utmost degree one’s self. That saying I chose with -much deliberation and complete conviction because it -went to the root of my book. On the surface it obviously -referred to the great figures I was there concerned -with, representing what I regarded—by no means in -the poor sense of mere modernity—as the New Spirit -in life. They had all gone to the depths of their own -souls and thence brought to the surface and expressed—audaciously -or beautifully, pungently or poignantly—intimate -impulses and emotions which, shocking as -they may have seemed at the time, are now seen to be -those of an innumerable company of their fellow men -and women. But it was also a book of personal affirmations. -Beneath the obvious meaning of that motto on -the title-page lay the more private meaning that I was -myself setting forth secret impulses which might some -day be found to express the emotions also of others. In -the thirty-five years that have since passed, the saying -has often recurred to my mind, and if I have sought in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>vain to make it mine I find no adequate justification -for the work of my life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And now, as I said at the outset, I am even prepared -to think that that is the function of all books that are -real books. There are other classes of so-called books: -there is the class of history books and the class of forensic -books, that is to say, the books of facts and the -books of argument. No one would wish to belittle -either kind. But when we think of a book proper, in -the sense that a Bible means a book, we mean more -than this. We mean, that is to say, a revelation of -something that had remained latent, unconscious, perhaps -even more or less intentionally repressed, within -the writer’s own soul, which is, ultimately, the soul of -mankind. These books are apt to repel; nothing, indeed, -is so likely to shock us at first as the manifest revelation -of ourselves. Therefore, such books may have -to knock again and again at the closed door of our -hearts. “Who is there?” we carelessly cry, and we -cannot open the door; we bid the importunate stranger, -whatever he may be, to go away; until, as in the apologue -of the Persian mystic, at last we seem to hear the -voice outside saying: “It is thyself.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>H. E.</p> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'><a href='#chap1'>I. <span class='sc'>Introduction</span></a> 1</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#chap2'>II. <span class='sc'>The Art of Dancing</span></a> 36</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#chap3'>III. <span class='sc'>The Art of Thinking</span></a> 68</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#chap4'>IV. <span class='sc'>The Art of Writing</span></a> 141</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#chap5'>V. <span class='sc'>The Art of Religion</span></a> 191</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#chap6'>VI. <span class='sc'>The Art of Morals</span></a> 244</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#chap7'>VII. <span class='sc'>Conclusion</span></a> 285</p> - -<p class='c007'><a href='#index'><span class='sc'>Index</span></a> 359</p> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> - <h2 id='chap1' class='c005'>CHAPTER I <br /> INTRODUCTION</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='one'>I</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>It</span> has always been difficult for Man to realise that his -life is all an art. It has been more difficult to conceive -it so than to act it so. For that is always how he has -more or less acted it. At the beginning, indeed, the -primitive philosopher whose business it was to account -for the origin of things usually came to the conclusion -that the whole universe was a work of art, created by -some Supreme Artist, in the way of artists, out of material -that was practically nothing, even out of his own -excretions, a method which, as children sometimes instinctively -feel, is a kind of creative art. The most -familiar to us of these primitive philosophical statements—and -really a statement that is as typical as -any—is that of the Hebrews in the first chapter of -their Book of Genesis. We read there how the whole -cosmos was fashioned out of nothing, in a measurable -period of time by the art of one Jehovah, who proceeded -methodically by first forming it in the rough, -and gradually working in the details, the finest and -most delicate last, just as a sculptor might fashion a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>statue. We may find many statements of the like kind -even as far away as the Pacific.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c011'><sup>[1]</sup></a> And—also even at -the same distance—the artist and the craftsman, who -resembled the divine creator of the world by making -the most beautiful and useful things for Mankind, -himself also partook of the same divine nature. Thus, -in Samoa, as also in Tonga, the carpenter, who built -canoes, occupied a high and almost sacred position, approaching -that of the priest. Even among ourselves, -with our Roman traditions, the name Pontiff, or Bridge-Builder, -remains that of an imposing and hieratic personage.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But that is only the primitive view of the world. -When Man developed, when he became more scientific -and more moralistic, however much his practice remained -essentially that of the artist, his conception became -much less so. He was learning to discover the -mystery of measurement; he was approaching the beginnings -of geometry and mathematics; he was at the -same time becoming warlike. So he saw things in -straight lines, more rigidly; he formulated laws and -commandments. It was, Einstein assures us, the right -way. But it was, at all events in the first place, most -unfavourable to the view of life as an art. It remains -so even to-day.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet there are always some who, deliberately or by -instinct, have perceived the immense significance in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>life of the conception of art. That is especially so as regards -the finest thinkers of the two countries which, -so far as we may divine,—however difficult it may here -be to speak positively and by demonstration,—have -had the finest civilisations, China and Greece. The -wisest and most recognisably greatest practical philosophers -of both these lands have believed that the -whole of life, even government, is an art of definitely -like kind with the other arts, such as that of music or -the dance. We may, for instance, recall to memory one -of the most typical of Greeks. Of Protagoras, calumniated -by Plato,—though, it is interesting to observe -that Plato’s own transcendental doctrine of Ideas has -been regarded as an effort to escape from the solvent -influence of Protagoras’ logic,—it is possible for the -modern historian of philosophy to say that “the greatness -of this man can scarcely be measured.” It was -with measurement that his most famous saying was -concerned: “Man is the measure of all things, of those -which exist and of those which have no existence.” It -was by his insistence on Man as the active creator of -life and knowledge, the artist of the world, moulding it -to his own measure, that Protagoras is interesting to -us to-day. He recognised that there are no absolute -criteria by which to judge actions. He was the father -of relativism and of phenomenalism, probably the initiator -of the modern doctrine that the definitions of -geometry are only approximately true abstractions -from empirical experiences. We need not, and probably -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>should not, suppose that in undermining dogmatism -he was setting up an individual subjectivism. It -was the function of Man in the world, rather than of -the individual, that he had in mind when he enunciated -his great principle, and it was with the reduction -of human activity and conduct to art that he was -mainly concerned. His projects for the art of living began -with speech, and he was a pioneer in the arts of -language, the initiator of modern grammar. He wrote -treatises on many special arts, as well as the general -treatise “On the Art” among the pseudo-Hippocratic -writings,—if we may with Gomperz attribute it to -him,—which embodies the spirit of modern positive -science.<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c011'><sup>[2]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Hippias, the philosopher of Elis, a contemporary of -Protagoras, and like him commonly classed among the -“Sophists,” cultivated the largest ideal of life as an art -which embraced all arts, common to all mankind as a -fellowship of brothers, and at one with natural law -which transcends the convention of human laws. -Plato made fun of him, and that was not hard to do, for -a philosopher who conceived the art of living as so -large could not possibly at every point adequately play -at it. But at this distance it is his ideal that mainly -concerns us, and he really was highly accomplished, -even a pioneer, in many of the multifarious activities -he undertook. He was a remarkable mathematician; -he was an astronomer and geometer; he was a copious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>poet in the most diverse modes, and, moreover, wrote -on phonetics, rhythm, music, and mnemonics; he discussed -the theories of sculpture and painting; he was -both mythologist and ethnologist, as well as a student -of chronology; he had mastered many of the artistic -crafts. On one occasion, it is said, he appeared at -the Olympic gathering in garments which, from the -sandals on his feet to the girdle round his waist and the -rings on his fingers, had been made by his own hands. -Such a being of kaleidoscopic versatility, Gomperz remarks, -we call contemptuously a Jack-of-all-trades. -We believe in subordinating a man to his work. But -other ages have judged differently. The fellow citizens -of Hippias thought him worthy to be their ambassador -to the Peloponnesus. In another age of immense human -activity, the Renaissance, the vast-ranging energies of -Leo Alberti were honoured, and in yet a later like age, -Diderot—Pantophile as Voltaire called him—displayed -a like fiery energy of wide-ranging interests, although -it was no longer possible to attain the same level of -wide-ranging accomplishment. Of course the work of -Hippias was of unequal value, but some of it was of -firm quality and he shrank from no labour. He seems -to have possessed a gracious modesty, quite unlike the -conceited pomposity Plato was pleased to attribute to -him. He attached more importance than was common -among the Greeks to devotion to truth, and he was -cosmopolitan in spirit. He was famous for his distinction -between Convention and Nature, and Plato put -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>into his mouth the words: “All of you who are here -present I reckon to be kinsmen and friends and fellow -citizens, and by nature, not by law; for by nature -like is akin to like, whereas law is the tyrant of mankind, -and often compels us to do many things that are -against nature.” Hippias was in the line of those whose -supreme ideal is totality of existence. Ulysses, as -Benn remarks, was in Greek myth the representative -of the ideal, and its supreme representative in real -life has in modern times been Goethe.<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c011'><sup>[3]</sup></a></p> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='two'>II</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>But</span>, in actual fact, is life essentially an art? Let us -look at the matter more closely, and see what life is -like, as people have lived it. This is the more necessary -to do since, to-day at all events, there are simple-minded -people—well-meaning honest people whom -we should not ignore—who pooh-pooh such an idea. -They point to the eccentric individuals in our Western -civilisation who make a little idol they call “Art,” and -fall down and worship it, sing incomprehensible chants -in its honour, and spend most of their time in pouring -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>contempt on the people who refuse to recognise that -this worship of “Art” is the one thing needed for what -they may or may not call the “moral uplift” of the age -they live in. We must avoid the error of the good -simple-minded folk in whose eyes these “Arty” people -loom so large. They are not large, they are merely the -morbid symptoms of a social disease; they are the -fantastic reaction of a society which as a whole has -ceased to move along the true course of any real and -living art. For that has nothing to do with the eccentricities -of a small religious sect worshipping in a -Little Bethel; it is the large movement of the common -life of a community, indeed simply the outward and -visible form of that life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the whole conception of art has been so narrowed -and so debased among us that, on the one hand, -the use of the word in its large and natural sense seems -either unintelligible or eccentric, while, on the other -hand, even if accepted, it still remains so unfamiliar -that its immense significance for our whole vision of -life in the world is scarcely at first seen. This is not -altogether due to our natural obtusity, or to the -absence of a due elimination of subnormal stocks -among us, however much we may be pleased to attribute -to that dysgenic factor. It seems largely inevitable. -That is to say that, so far as we in our modern civilisation -are concerned, it is the outcome of the social -process of two thousand years, the result of the breakup -of the classic tradition of thought into various parts -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>which under post-classic influences have been pursued -separately.<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c011'><sup>[4]</sup></a> Religion or the desire for the salvation of -our souls, “Art” or the desire for beautification, -Science or the search for the reasons of things—these -conations of the mind, which are really three -aspects of the same profound impulse, have been -allowed to furrow each its own narrow separate -channel, in alienation from the others, and so they -have all been impeded in their greater function of -fertilising life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is interesting to observe, I may note in passing, -how totally new an aspect a phenomenon may take on -when transformed from some other channel into that -of art. We may take, for instance, that remarkable -phenomenon called Napoleon, as impressive an individualistic -manifestation as we could well find in -human history during recent centuries, and consider -two contemporary, almost simultaneous, estimates of -it. A distinguished English writer, Mr. <abbr class='spell'>H. G.</abbr> Wells, in -a notable and even famous book, his “Outline of -History,” sets down a judgment of Napoleon throughout -a whole chapter. Now Mr. Wells moves in the -ethico-religious channel. He wakes up every morning, -it is said, with a rule for the guidance of life; some of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>critics say that it is every morning a new rule, and -others that the rule is neither ethical nor religious; but -we are here concerned only with the channel and not -with the direction of the stream. In the “Outline” -Mr. Wells pronounces his ethico-religious anathema of -Napoleon, “this dark little archaic personage, hard, -compact, capable, unscrupulous, imitative, and neatly -vulgar.” The “archaic”—the old-fashioned, outworn—element -attributed to Napoleon, is accentuated -again later, for Mr. Wells has an extremely low -opinion (hardly justifiable, one may remark in passing) -of primitive man. Napoleon was “a reminder of -ancient evils, a thing like the bacterium of some -pestilence”; “the figure he makes in history is one of -almost incredible self-conceit, of vanity, greed, and -cunning, of callous contempt and disregard of all -who trusted him.” There is no figure, Mr. Wells -asserts, so completely antithetical to the figure of -Jesus of Nazareth. He was “a scoundrel, bright and -complete.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is no occasion to question this condemnation -when we place ourselves in the channel along which -Mr. Wells moves; it is probably inevitable; we may -even accept it heartily. Yet, however right along that -line, that is not the only line in which we may move. -Moreover—and this is the point which concerns us—it -is possible to enter a sphere in which no such merely -negative, condemnatory, and dissatisfying a conclusion -need be reached. For obviously it is dissatisfying. It is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>not finally acceptable that so supreme a protagonist -of humanity, acclaimed by millions, of whom many -gladly died for him, and still occupying so large and -glorious a place in the human imagination, should be -dismissed in the end as merely an unmitigated scoundrel. -For so to condemn him is to condemn Man who -made him what he was. He must have answered some -lyric cry in the human heart. That other sphere in -which Napoleon wears a different aspect is the sphere -of art in the larger and fundamental sense. Élie -Faure, a French critic, an excellent historian of art in -the ordinary sense, is able also to grasp art in the -larger sense because he is not only a man of letters but -of science, a man with medical training and experience, -who has lived in the open world, not, as the critic of -literature and art so often appears to be, a man living -in a damp cellar. Just after Wells issued his “Outline,” -Élie Faure, who probably knew nothing about it -since he reads no English, published a book on Napoleon -which some may consider the most remarkable -book on that subject they have ever come across. For -to Faure Napoleon is a great lyric artist.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is hard not to believe that Faure had Wells’s -chapter on Napoleon open before him, he speaks so -much to the point. He entitled the first chapter of his -“Napoléon” “Jesus and He,” and at once pierces to -what Wells, too, had perceived to be the core of the -matter in hand: “From the point of view of morality -he is not to be defended and is even incomprehensible. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>In fact he violates law, he kills, he sows vengeance and -death. But also he dictates law, he tracks and crushes -crime, he establishes order everywhere. He is an -assassin. He is also a judge. In the ranks he would -deserve the rope. At the summit he is pure, distributing -recompense and punishment with a firm hand. He -is a monster with two faces, like all of us perhaps, in -any case like God, for those who have praised Napoleon -and those who have blamed him have alike not -understood that the Devil is the other face of God.” -From the moral point of view, Faure says (just as -Wells had said), Napoleon is Antichrist. But from -this standpoint of art, all grows clear. He is a poet of -action, as Jesus was, and like him he stands apart. -These two, and these two alone among the world’s -supremely great men of whom we have any definite -knowledge, “acted out their dream instead of dreaming -their action.” It is possible that Napoleon himself -was able to estimate the moral value of that acted -dream. As he once stood before the grave of Rousseau, -he observed: “It would have been better for the repose -of France if that man and I had never existed.” Yet -we cannot be sure. “Is not repose the death of the -world?” asks Faure. “Had not Rousseau and Napoleon -precisely the mission of troubling that repose? -In another of the profound and almost impersonal -sayings that sometimes fell from his lips, Napoleon observed -with a still deeper intuition of his own function -in the world: “I love power. But it is as an artist that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to -draw out of it sounds and chords and harmonies. I -love it as an artist.” As an artist! These words were -the inspiration of this finely illuminating study of -Napoleon, which, while free from all desire to defend or -admire, yet seems to explain Napoleon, in the larger -sense to justify his right to a place in the human story, -so imparting a final satisfaction which Wells, we -feel, could he have escaped from the bonds of the -narrow conception of life that bound him, had in -him the spirit and the intelligence also to bestow -upon us.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But it is time to turn from this aside. It is always -possible to dispute about individuals, even when so -happy an illustration chances to come before us. We -are not here concerned with exceptional persons, but -with the interpretation of general and normal human -civilisations.</p> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='three'>III</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>I take</span>, almost at random, the example of a primitive -people. There are many others that would do as well -or better. But this happens to come to hand, and it -has the advantage not only of being a primitive people, -but one living on an island, so possessing until lately -its own little-impaired indigenous culture, as far as -possible remote in space from our own; the record also -has been made, as carefully and as impartially as one -can well expect, by a missionary’s wife who speaks from -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>a knowledge covering over twenty years.<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c011'><sup>[5]</sup></a> It is almost -needless to add that she is as little concerned with any -theory of the art of life as the people she is describing.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Loyalty Islands lie to the east of New Caledonia, -and have belonged to France for more than half -a century. They are thus situated in much the same -latitude as Egypt is in the Northern hemisphere, but -with a climate tempered by the ocean. It is with the -Island of Lifu that we are mainly concerned. There -are no streams or mountains in this island, though a -ridge of high rocks with large and beautiful caves contains -stalactites and stalagmites and deep pools of -fresh water; these pools, before the coming of the -Christians, were the abode of the spirits of the departed, -and therefore greatly reverenced. A dying man -would say to his friends: “I will meet you all again in -the caves where the stalactites are.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Loyalty Islanders, who are of average European -stature, are a handsome race, except for their thick lips -and dilated nostrils, which, however, are much less -pronounced than among African negroes. They have -soft large brown eyes, wavy black hair, white teeth, -and rich brown skin of varying depth. Each tribe has -its own well-defined territory and its own chief. Although -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>possessing high moral qualities, they are a -laughter-loving people, and neither their climate nor -their mode of life demands prolonged hard labour, but -they can work as well as the average Briton, if need be, -for several consecutive days, and, when the need is -over, lounge or ramble, sleep or talk. The basis of their -culture—and that is doubtless the significant fact for -us—is artistic. Every one learned music, dancing, -and song. Therefore it is natural for them to regard -rhythm and grace in all the actions of life, and almost -a matter of instinct to cultivate beauty in all social -relationships. Men and boys spent much time in -tattooing and polishing their brown skins, in dyeing -and dressing their long wavy hair (golden locks, as -much admired as they always have been in Europe, -being obtained by the use of lime), and in anointing -their bodies. These occupations were, of course, confined -to the men, for man is naturally the ornamental -sex and woman the useful sex. The women gave no -attention to their hair, except to keep it short. It was -the men also who used oils and perfumes, not the -women, who, however, wore bracelets above the elbow -and beautiful long strings of jade beads. No clothing -is worn until the age of twenty-five or thirty, and then -all dress alike, except that chiefs fasten the girdle differently -and wear more elaborate ornaments. These -people have sweet and musical voices and they cultivate -them. They are good at learning languages and -they are great orators. The Lifuan language is soft and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>liquid, one word running into another pleasantly to -the ear, and it is so expressive that one may sometimes -understand the meaning by the sound. In one of these -islands, Uvea, so great is the eloquence of the people -that they employ oratory to catch fish, whom indeed -they regard in their legends as half human, and it is -believed that a shoal of fish, when thus politely plied -with compliments from a canoe, will eventually, and -quite spontaneously, beach themselves spellbound.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For a primitive people the art of life is necessarily of -large part concerned with eating. It is recognised that -no one can go hungry when his neighbour has food, so -no one was called upon to make any great demonstration -of gratitude on receiving a gift. Help rendered to -another was help to one’s self, if it contributed to the -common weal, and what I do for you to-day you will do -for me to-morrow. There was implicit trust, and goods -were left about without fear of theft, which was rare -and punishable by death. It was not theft, however, if, -when the owner was looking, one took an article one -wanted. To tell a lie, also, with intent to deceive, was -a serious offence, though to tell a lie when one was -afraid to speak the truth was excusable. The Lifuans -are fond of food, but much etiquette is practised in -eating. The food must be conveyed to the mouth -gracefully, daintily, leisurely. Every one helped himself -to the food immediately in front of him, without -hurry, without reaching out for dainty morsels (which -were often offered to women), for every one looked -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>after his neighbour, and every one naturally felt that -he was his brother’s keeper. So it was usual to invite -passers-by cordially to share in the repast. “In the -matter of food and eating,” Mrs. Hadfield adds, “they -might put many of our countrymen to shame.” Not -only must one never eat quickly, or notice dainties -that are not near one, but it would be indelicate to eat -in the presence of people who are not themselves eating. -One must always share, however small one’s portion, -and one must do so pleasantly; one must accept -also what is offered, but slowly, reluctantly; having -accepted it, you may, if you like, openly pass it on to -some one else. In old days the Lifuans were, occasionally, -cannibals, not, it would seem, either from necessity -or any ritual reason, but because, like some peoples -elsewhere, they liked it, having, indeed, at times, a -kind of craving for animal food. If a man had twenty -or thirty wives and a large family, it would be quite -correct if, now and then, he cooked one of his own children, -although presumably he might prefer that some -one else’s child was chosen. The child would be cooked -whole, wrapped in banana or coconut leaves. The -social inconveniences of this practice have now been -recognised. But they still feel the utmost respect and -reverence for the dead and fail to find anything offensive -or repulsive in a corpse. “Why should there be, -seeing it was once our food?” Nor have they any fear -of death. To vermin they seem to have little objection, -but otherwise they have a strong love of cleanliness. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>The idea of using manure in agricultural operations -seems to them disgusting, and they never do use -it. “The sea was the public playground.” Mothers -take their little ones for sea-baths long before they -can walk, and small children learn to swim as they -learn to walk, without teaching. With their reverence -for death is associated a reverence for old age. “Old -age is a term of respect, and every one is pleased to be -taken for older than he is since old age is honoured.” -Still, regard for others was general—not confined to -the aged. In the church nowadays the lepers are seated -on a separate bench, and when the bench is occupied -by a leper healthy women will sometimes insist on -sitting with him; they could not bear to see the old -man sitting alone as though he had no friends. There -was much demonstration on meeting friends after -absence. A Lifuan always said “Olea” (“Thank -you”) for any good news, though not affecting him -personally, as though it were a gift, for he was glad to -be able to rejoice with another. Being divided into -small tribes, each with its own autocratic chief, war -was sometimes inevitable. It was attended by much -etiquette, which was always strictly observed. The -Lifuans were not acquainted with the civilised custom -of making rules for warfare and breaking them when -war actually broke out. Several days’ notice must be -given before hostilities were commenced. Women and -children, in contrast to the practice of civilised warfare, -were never molested. As soon as half a dozen fighters -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>were put out of action on one side, the chief of that -side would give the command to cease fighting and the -war was over. An indemnity was then paid by the -conquerors to the vanquished, and not, as among -civilised peoples, by the vanquished to the conquerors. -It was felt to be the conquered rather than the conqueror -who needed consolation, and it also seemed -desirable to show that no feeling of animosity was left -behind. This was not only a delicate mark of consideration -to the vanquished, but also very good policy, as, -by neglecting it, some Europeans may have had cause -to learn. This whole Lifuan art of living has, however, -been undermined by the arrival of Christianity with -its usual accompaniments. The Lifuans are substituting -European vices for their own virtues. Their simplicity -and confidence are passing away, though, even -yet, Mrs. Hadfield says, they are conspicuous for their -honesty, truthfulness, good-humour, kindness, and politeness, -remaining a manly and intelligent people.</p> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='four'>IV</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>The</span> Lifuans furnish an illustration which seems decisive. -But they are savages, and on that account their -example may be invalidated. It is well to take another -illustration from a people whose high and long-continued -civilisation is now undisputed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The civilisation of China is ancient: that has long -been a familiar fact. But for more than a thousand -years it was merely a legend to Western Europeans; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>none had ever reached China, or, if they had, they had -never returned to tell the tale; there were too many -fierce and jealous barbarians between the East and the -West. It was not until the end of the thirteenth century, -in the pages of Marco Polo, the Venetian Columbus -of the East,—for it was an Italian who discovered -the Old World as well as the New,—that -China at last took definite shape alike as a concrete -fact and a marvellous dream. Later, Italian and -Portuguese travellers described it, and it is interesting -to note what they had to say. Thus Perera in the sixteenth -century, in a narrative which Willes translated -for Hakluyt’s “Voyages,” presents a detailed picture -of Chinese life with an admiration all the more impressive -since we cannot help feeling how alien that -civilisation was to the Catholic traveller and how -many troubles he had himself to encounter. He is -astonished, not only by the splendour of the lives of -the Chinese on the material side, alike in large things -and in small, but by their fine manners in all the ordinary -course of life, the courtesy in which they seemed -to him to exceed all other nations, and in the fair dealing -which far surpassed that of all other Gentiles and -Moors, while in the exercise of justice he found them -superior even to many Christians, for they do justice -to unknown strangers, which in Christendom is rare; -moreover, there were hospitals in every city and no -beggars were ever to be seen. It was a vision of splendour -and delicacy and humanity, which he might have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>seen, here and there, in the courts of princes in Europe, -but nowhere in the West on so vast a scale as in China.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The picture which Marco Polo, the first European to -reach China (at all events in what we may call modern -times), presented in the thirteenth century was yet -more impressive, and that need not surprise us, for -when he saw China it was still in its great Augustan -age of the Sung Dynasty. He represents the city of -Hang-Chau as the most beautiful and sumptuous in -the world, and we must remember that he himself -belonged to Venice, soon to be known as the most -beautiful and sumptuous city of Europe, and had -acquired no small knowledge of the world. As he -describes its life, so exquisite and refined in its civilisation, -so humane, so peaceful, so joyous, so well ordered, -so happily shared by the whole population, we realise -that here had been reached the highest point of urban -civilisation to which Man has ever attained. Marco -Polo can think of no word to apply to it—and that -again and again—but Paradise.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The China of to-day seems less strange and astonishing -to the Westerner. It may even seem akin to -him—partly through its decline, partly through his -own progress in civilisation—by virtue of its direct -and practical character. That is the conclusion of a -sensitive and thoughtful traveller in India and Japan -and China, G. Lowes Dickinson. He is impressed by -the friendliness, the profound humanity, the gaiety, -of the Chinese, by the unequalled self-respect, independence, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>and courtesy of the common people. -“The fundamental attitude of the Chinese towards -life is, and has always been, that of the most modern -West, nearer to us now than to our mediæval ancestors, -infinitely nearer to us than India.”<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c011'><sup>[6]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>So far it may seem scarcely as artists that these -travellers regard the Chinese. They insist on their -cheerful, practical, social, good-mannered, tolerant, -peaceable, humane way of regarding life, on the remarkably -educable spirit in which they are willing, and -easily able, to change even ancient and deep-rooted -habits when it seems convenient and beneficial to do -so; they are willing to take the world lightly, and seem -devoid of those obstinate conservative instincts by -which we are guided in Europe. The “Resident in -Peking” says they are the least romantic of peoples. -He says it with a <i>nuance</i> of dispraise, but Lowes Dickinson -says precisely the same thing about Chinese -poetry, and with no such <i>nuance</i>: “It is of all poetry I -know the most human and the least symbolic or romantic. -It contemplates life just as it presents itself, -without any veil of ideas, any rhetoric or sentiment; it -simply clears away the obstruction which habit has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>built up between us and the beauty of things and -leaves that, showing in its own nature.” Every one -who has learnt to enjoy Chinese poetry will appreciate -the delicate precision of this comment. The quality of -their poetry seems to fall into line with the simple, -direct, childlike quality which all observers note in the -Chinese themselves. The unsympathetic “Resident -in Peking” describes the well-known etiquette of -politeness in China: “A Chinaman will inquire of what -noble country you are. You return the question, and -he will say his lowly province is so-and-so. He will -invite you to do him the honour of directing your -jewelled feet to his degraded house. You reply that -you, a discredited worm, will crawl into his magnificent -palace.” Life becomes all play. Ceremony—the -Chinese are unequalled for ceremony, and a Government -Department, the Board of Rites and Ceremonies, -exists to administer it—is nothing but more or less -crystallised play. Not only is ceremony here “almost -an instinct,” but, it has been said, “A Chinese thinks -in theatrical terms.” We are coming near to the -sphere of art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The quality of play in the Chinese character and -Chinese civilisation has impressed alike them who have -seen China from afar and by actual contact. It used to -be said that the Chinese had invented gunpowder long -before Europeans and done nothing with it but make -fireworks. That seemed to the whole Western world a -terrible blindness to the valuable uses of gunpowder, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>and it is only of late years that a European commentator -has ventured to remark that “the proper use -of gunpowder is obviously to make fireworks, which -may be very beautiful things, not to kill men.” Certainly -the Chinese, at all events, appreciate to the full -this proper use of gunpowder. “One of the most -obvious characteristics of the Chinese is their love of -fireworks,” we are told. The gravest people and the -most intellectual occupy themselves with fireworks, -and if the works of Bergson, in which pyrotechnical -allusions are so frequent, are ever translated into -Chinese, one can well believe that China will produce -enthusiastic Bergsonians. All toys are popular; everybody, -it is said, buys toys of one sort or another: paper -windmills, rattles, Chinese lanterns, and of course -kites, which have an almost sacred significance. They -delight, also, in more complicated games of skill, including -an elaborate form of chess, far more difficult -than ours.<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c011'><sup>[7]</sup></a> It is unnecessary to add that to philosophy, -a higher and more refined form of play, the Chinese -are peculiarly addicted, and philosophic discussion is -naturally woven in with an “art of exquisite enjoyment”—carried -probably to greater perfection than -anywhere else in the world. Bertrand Russell, who -makes this remark, in the suggestive comments on his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>own visit to China, observes how this simple, child-like, -yet profound attitude towards life results in a -liberation of the impulses to play and enjoyment -which “makes Chinese life unbelievably restful and -delightful after the solemn cruelties of the West.” -We are reminded of Gourmont’s remark that “pleasure -is a human creation, a delicate art, to which, as for -music or painting, only a few are apt.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The social polity which brings together the people -who thus view life is at once singular and appropriate. -I well remember how in youth a new volume of the -Sacred Books of the East Series, a part of the Confucian -Lî-kî, came into my hands and how delighted I -was to learn that in China life was regulated by music -and ceremony. That was the beginning of an interest -in China that has not ceased to grow, though now, -when it has become a sort of fashion to exalt the -spiritual qualities of the Chinese above those of other -peoples, one may well feel disinclined to admit any -interest in China. But the conception itself, since it -seems to have had its beginning at least a thousand -years before Christ, may properly be considered independently -of our Western fashions. It is Propriety—the -whole ceremony of life—in which all harmonious -intercourse subsists; it is “the channel by which we -apprehend the ways of Heaven,” in no supernatural -sense, for it is on the earth and not in the skies that the -Confucian Heaven lies concealed. But if human feelings, -the instincts—for in this matter the ancient -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>Chinese were at one with our modern psychologists,—are -the field that has to be cultivated, and it is ceremony -that ploughs it, and the seeds of right action -that are to be planted on it, and discipline that is to -weed it, and love that is to gather in the fruits, it is in -music, and the joy and peace that accompany music, -that it all ends. Indeed, it is also in music that it all -begins. For the sphere in which ceremonies act is -Man’s external life; his internal life is the sphere of -music. It is music that moulds the manners and customs -that are comprised under ceremony, for Confucius -held that there can be music without sound -where “virtue is deep and silent”; and we are reminded -of the “Crescendo of Silences” on the Chinese pavilion -in Villiers de l’Isle Adam’s story, “Le Secret de -l’ancienne Musique.” It is music that regulates the -heart and mind and with that development brings -joy, and joy brings repose. And so “Man became -Heaven.” “Let ceremonies and music have their -course until the earth is filled with them!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is sometimes said that among Chinese moralists -and philosophers Lao-tze, the deepest of them all, -alone stands aside from the chorus in praise of music -and ceremony. When once Confucius came to consult -Lao-tze concerning the rules of propriety, and reverence -for the teaching of the sages of antiquity, we are -told, Lao-tze replied: “The men of whom you speak, -sir, have, if you please, together with their bones, -mouldered.” Confucius went away, puzzled if not dissatisfied -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>He was willing to work not only from within -outwards, but from without inwards, because he allowed -so large a place for social solidity, for traditionalism, -for paternalism, though he recognised that -ceremony is subordinate in the scheme of life, as colour -is in a painting, the picture being the real thing. Lao-tze -was an individualist and a mystic. He was little -concerned with moralities in the ordinary sense. He -recognised no action but from within outwards. But -though Confucius could scarcely have altogether -grasped his conception, he was quite able to grasp that -of Confucius, and his indifference to tradition, to rule -and propriety was simply an insistence on essential -reality, on “music.” “Ceremonies,” he said, “are the -outward expression of inward feeling.” He was no -more opposed to the fundamental Chinese conception -than George Fox was opposed to Christianity in refusing -to observe the mere forms and ceremonies of the -Church. A sound Confucianism is the outward manifestation -of Taoism (as Lao-tze himself taught it), just -as a sound socialism is the outward manifestation of a -genuine individualism. It has been well said that -Chinese socialistic solidarity rests on an individualistic -basis, it is not a bureaucratic State socialism; it works -from within outward. (One of the first European -visitors to China remarked that there a street was like -a home.) This is well shown by so great and typical a -Chinese philosopher as Meh-ti,<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c011'><sup>[8]</sup></a> who lived shortly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>after Confucius, in the fifth century <abbr class='spell'><span class='fss'>B.C.</span></abbr> He taught -universal love, with universal equality, and for him to -love meant to act. He admitted an element of self-interest -as a motive for such an attitude. He desired to -universalise mutual self-help. Following Confucius, -but yet several centuries before Jesus, he declared that -a man should love his neighbour, his fellow man, as -himself. “When he sees his fellow hungry, he feeds -him; when he sees him cold, he clothes him; ill, he -nurses him; dead, he buries him.” This, he said, was -by no means opposed to filial piety; for if one cares for -the parents of others, they in turn will care for his. -But, it was brought against him, the power of egoism? -The Master agreed. Yet, he said, Man accepts more -difficult things. He can renounce joy, life itself, for -even absurd and ridiculous ends. A single generation, -he added, such is the power of imitation, might suffice -to change a people’s customs. But Meh-ti remained -placid. He remarked that the great ones of the earth -were against human solidarity and equality; he left it -at that. He took no refuge in mysticism. Practical -social action was the sole end he had in view, and we -have to remember that his ideals are largely embodied -in Chinese institutions.<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c011'><sup>[9]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>We may understand now how it is that in China, -and in China alone among the great surviving civilisations, -we find that art animates the whole of life, even -its morality. “This universal presence of art,” remarks -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>an acute yet discriminating observer, Émile Hovelaque, -whom I have already quoted,<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c011'><sup>[10]</sup></a> “manifested in the -smallest utensil, the humblest stalls, the notices on the -shops, the handwriting, the rhythm of movement, -always regular and measured, as though to the tune of -unheard music, announces a civilisation which is complete -in itself, elaborated in the smallest detail, penetrated -by one spirit, which no interruption ever breaks, -a harmony which becomes at length a hallucinatory -and overwhelming obsession.” Or, as another writer -has summed up the Chinese attitude: “For them the -art of life is one, as this world and the other are one. -Their aim is to make the Kingdom of Heaven here and -now.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is obvious that a natural temperament in which -the art-impulse is so all-embracing, and the æsthetic -sensibility so acute, might well have been of a perilous -instability. We could scarcely have been surprised if, -like that surpassing episode in Egyptian history of -which Akhenaten was the leader and Tell-el-Amarna -the tomb, it had only endured for a moment. Yet -Chinese civilisation, which has throughout shown the -dominating power of this sensitive temperament, has -lasted longer than any other. The reason is that the -very excesses of their temperament forced the Chinese -to fortify themselves against its perils. The Great -Wall, built more than two thousand years ago, and -still to-day almost the most impressive work of man on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>the earth, is typical of this attitude of the Chinese. -They have exercised a stupendous energy in fortifying -themselves against the natural enemies of their own -temperament. When one looks at it from this point of -view, it is easy to see that, alike in its large outlines and -its small details, Chinese life is always the art of -balancing an æsthetic temperament and guarding -against its excesses. We see this in the whole of the -ancient and still prevailing system of Confucian -morality with its insistence on formal ceremony, even -when, departing from the thought of its most influential -founder,—for ceremonialism in China would have -existed even if Confucius had not lived,—it tended to -become merely an external formalism. We see it in the -massive solidarity of Chinese life, the systematic social -organisation by which individual responsibility, even -though leaving individuality itself intact, is merged in -the responsibility of the family and the still larger -group. We see it in the whole drift of Chinese philosophy, -which is throughout sedative and contemplative. -We see it in the element of stoicism on the one hand -and cruelty on the other which in so genuinely good-natured -a people would otherwise seem puzzling. The -Chinese love of flowers and gardens and landscape -scenery is in the same direction, and indeed one may -say much the same of Chinese painting and Chinese -poetry.<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c011'><sup>[11]</sup></a> That is why it is only to-day that we in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>West have reached the point of nervous susceptibility -which enables us in some degree to comprehend the -æsthetic supremacy which the Chinese reached more -than a thousand years ago.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, during its extremely long history—for the -other great civilisations with which it was once contemporary -have passed away or been disintegrated and -transformed—Chinese civilisation has borne witness -to the great fact that all human life is art. It may be -because they have realised this so thoroughly that the -Chinese have been able to preserve their civilisation so -long, through all the violent shocks to which it has -been subjected. There can be no doubt, however, that, -during the greater part of the last thousand years, -there has been, however slow and gradual, a decline in -the vitality of Chinese civilisation, largely due, it may -well be, to the crushing pressure of an excessive population. -For, however remarkable the admiration which -China arouses even to-day, its finest flowering periods -in the special arts lie far in the past, while in the art of -living itself the Chinese have long grown languid. The -different reports of ancient and modern travellers -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>regarding one definite social manifestation, the prevalence -of beggary, cannot fail to tell us something regarding -the significant form of their social life. Modern -travellers complain of the plague constituted by the -prevalence of beggars in China; they are even a fixed -and permanent institution on a trades-union basis. -But in the sixteenth century Galeotto Perera noticed -with surprise in China the absence of beggars, as -Marco Polo had before him, and Friar Gaspar de -Cruz remarked that the Chinese so abhorred idleness -that they gave no alms to the poor and mocked at the -Portuguese for doing so: “Why give alms to a knave? -Let him go and earn it.” Their own priests, he adds, -they sometimes whipped as being knaves. (It should -be noted at the same time that it was considered reasonable -only to give half the day to work, the other half -to joy and recreation.) But they built great asylums -for the helpless poor, and found employment for blind -women, gorgeously dressed and painted with ceruse -and vermilion, as prostitutes, who were more esteemed -in early China than they have been since. That is a -curious instance of the unflinching practicality still -shown by the Chinese in endless ways. The undoubted -lassitude in the later phases of this long-lived Chinese -culture has led to features in the art of life, such as -beggary and dirt among the poor, not manifested in -the younger offshoot of Chinese and Korean culture in -Japan, though it is only fair to point out that impartial -English observers, like Parker, consider this prevalence -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>of vermin and dirt as simply due to the prevalence of -poverty, and not greater than we find among the poor -in England and elsewhere in the West. Marco Polo -speaks of three hundred public baths in one city alone -in his time. We note also that in the more specialised -arts the transcendence of China belongs to the past, -and even sometimes a remote past. It is so in the art of -philosophy, and the arts of poetry and painting. It is -so also in the art of pottery, in which Chinese supremacy -over the rest of the world has been longest -recognised—has not the word “china” for centuries -been our name for the finest pottery?—and is most -beyond measure. Our knowledge of the pottery of -various cultures excels that of any other human products -because of all it is the most perdurable. We can -better estimate their relative æsthetic worth now than -in the days when a general reverence for Greek antiquity -led to a popular belief in the beauty of Greek -pottery, though scarcely a single type of its many -forms can fairly be so considered or even be compared -to the products of the Minoan predecessors of Greek -culture, however interesting they may still remain for -us as the awkward and inappropriate foundation for -exquisite little pictures. The greatest age of this universal -human art was in China and was over many -centuries ago. But with what devotion, with what -absolute concentration of the spirit, the Chinese -potters of the great period struggled with the problem -of art is finely illustrated by the well-known story -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>which an old Chinese historian tells of the sacrifice of -the divine T’ung, the spirit who protects potters. It -happened that a complicated problem had baffled the -potters. T’ung laid down his life to serve them and to -achieve the solution of the problem. He plunged into -the fire and the bowl came out perfect. “The vessel’s -perfect glaze is the god’s fat and blood; the body -material is the god’s body of flesh; the blue of the -decoration, with the brilliant lustre of gems, is the -essence of the god’s pure spirit.” That story embodies -the Chinese symbol of the art of living, just as we -embody our symbol of that art in the Crucifixion of -Jesus. The form is diverse; the essence is the same.</p> -<h3 class='c001'><abbr title='five'>V</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>It</span> will be seen that when we analyse the experiences of -life and look at it simply, in the old-fashioned way, -liberated from the artificial complexities of a temporary -and now, it may be, departing civilisation, what -we find is easy to sum up. We find, that is to say, that -Man has forced himself to move along this line, and -that line, and the other line. But it is the same water -of life that runs in all these channels. Until we have -ascended to a height where this is clear, to see all our -little dogmatisms will but lead us astray.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may illuminatingly change the analogy and turn -to the field of chemistry. All these various elements of -life are but, as it were, allotropic forms of the same -element. The most fundamental among these forms is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>that of art, for life in all its forms, even morality in the -narrowest sense, is, as Duprat has argued, a matter of -technique, and technique at once brings us to the -elements of art. If we would understand what we are -dealing with, we may, therefore, best study these -forms under that of art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is, however, a deeper chemical analogy than -this to be seen. It may well be, indeed, that it is more -than an analogy. In chemistry we are dealing, not -merely with the elements of life, but with the elements -of the world, even of what we call our universe. It is -not unreasonable to think that the same law holds -good for both. We see that the forms of life may all be -found, and then better understood, in one form. Some -day, perhaps, we shall also see that that fact is only a -corollary of the larger fact—or, if any one prefers so -to regard it, the smaller fact—that the chemical -elements of our world can be regarded as all only -transmutations of one element. From of old, men -instinctively divined that this might be so, though -they were merely concerned to change the elements -into gold, the element which they most highly valued. -In our own times this transmutation is beginning -to become, on a minute scale, a demonstrable fact, -though it would seem easier to transmute elements -into lead than into gold. Matter, we are thus coming -to see, may not be a confused variety of separate substances, -but simply a different quantitative arrangement -of a single fundamental stuff, which might possibly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>be identical with hydrogen or some other already -known element. Similarly we may now believe that -the men of old who thought that all human life was -made of one stuff were not altogether wrong, and we -may, with greater assurance than they were able to -claim, analyse the modes of human action into different -quantitative or other arrangements of which the -most fundamental may well be identical with art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This may perhaps become clearer if we consider -more in detail one of the separate arts, selecting the -most widely symbolic of all, the art that is most clearly -made of the stuff of life, and so able to translate most -truly and clearly into beautiful form the various -modalities of life.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span> - <h2 id='chap2' class='c005'>CHAPTER II <br /> THE ART OF DANCING</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='one'>I</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Dancing</span> and building are the two primary and essential -arts. The art of dancing stands at the source of all -the arts that express themselves first in the human -person. The art of building, or architecture, is the -beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; -and in the end they unite. Music, acting, poetry proceed -in the one mighty stream; sculpture, painting, all -the arts of design, in the other. There is no primary -art outside these two arts, for their origin is far earlier -than man himself; and dancing came first.<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c011'><sup>[12]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>That is one reason why dancing, however it may at -times be scorned by passing fashions, has a profound -and eternal attraction even for those one might suppose -farthest from its influence. The joyous beat of -the feet of children, the cosmic play of philosophers’ -thoughts rise and fall according to the same laws of -rhythm. If we are indifferent to the art of dancing, we -have failed to understand, not merely the supreme -manifestation of physical life, but also the supreme -symbol of spiritual life.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>The significance of dancing, in the wide sense, thus -lies in the fact that it is simply an intimate concrete -appeal of a general rhythm, that general rhythm -which marks, not life only, but the universe, if one may -still be allowed so to name the sum of the cosmic influences -that reach us. We need not, indeed, go so far as -the planets or the stars and outline their ethereal -dances. We have but to stand on the seashore and -watch the waves that beat at our feet, to observe that -at nearly regular intervals this seemingly monotonous -rhythm is accentuated for several beats, so that the -waves are really dancing the measure of a tune. It -need surprise us not at all that rhythm, ever tending to -be moulded into a tune, should mark all the physical -and spiritual manifestations of life. Dancing is the -primitive expression alike of religion and of love—of -religion from the earliest human times we know of and -of love from a period long anterior to the coming of -man. The art of dancing, moreover, is intimately -entwined with all human tradition of war, of labour, of -pleasure, of education, while some of the wisest philosophers -and the most ancient civilisations have regarded -the dance as the pattern in accordance with -which the moral life of men must be woven. To realise, -therefore, what dancing means for mankind—the -poignancy and the many-sidedness of its appeal—we -must survey the whole sweep of human life, both at its -highest and at its deepest moments.</p> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span> - <h3 class='c010'><abbr title='two'>II</abbr></h3> -</div> -<p class='c006'>“<span class='sc'>What</span> do you dance?” When a man belonging to one -branch of the great Bantu division of mankind met a -member of another, said Livingstone, that was the -question he asked. What a man danced, that was his -tribe, his social customs, his religion; for, as an anthropologist -has put it, “a savage does not preach his -religion, he dances it.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There are peoples in the world who have no secular -dances, only religious dances; and some investigators -believe with Gerland that every dance was of religious -origin. That view may seem too extreme, even if we -admit that some even of our modern dances, like the -waltz, may have been originally religious. Even still -(as Skene has shown among the Arabs and Swahili of -Africa) so various are dances and their functions among -some peoples that they cover the larger part of life. -Yet we have to remember that for primitive man -there is no such thing as religion apart from life, for -religion covers everything. Dancing is a magical operation -for the attainment of real and important ends -of every kind. It was clearly of immense benefit to -the individual and to society, by imparting strength -and adding organised harmony. It seemed reasonable -to suppose that it attained other beneficial ends, -that were incalculable, for calling down blessings -or warding off misfortunes. We may conclude, with -Wundt, that the dance was, in the beginning, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>expression of the whole man, for the whole man was -religious.<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c011'><sup>[13]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, among primitive peoples, religion being so -large a part of life, the dance inevitably becomes of -supreme religious importance. To dance was at once -both to worship and to pray. Just as we still find in -our Prayer Books that there are divine services for all -the great fundamental acts of life,—for birth, for marriage, -for death,—as well as for the cosmic procession -of the world as marked by ecclesiastical festivals, and -for the great catastrophes of nature, such as droughts, -so also it has ever been among primitive peoples. For -all the solemn occasions of life, for bridals and for -funerals, for seed-time and for harvest, for war and -for peace, for all these things there were fitting dances. -To-day we find religious people who in church pray for -rain or for the restoration of their friends to health. -Their forefathers also desired these things, but, instead -of praying for them, they danced for them the fitting -dance which tradition had handed down, and which -the chief or the medicine-man solemnly conducted. -The gods themselves danced, as the stars dance in the -sky—so at least the Mexicans, and we may be sure -many other peoples, have held; and to dance is therefore -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>to imitate the gods, to work with them, perhaps -to persuade them to work in the direction of our own -desires. “Work for us!” is the song-refrain, expressed -or implied, of every religious dance. In the worship of -solar deities in various countries, it was customary to -dance round the altar, as the stars dance round the -sun. Even in Europe the popular belief that the sun -dances on Easter Sunday has perhaps scarcely yet died -out. To dance is to take part in the cosmic control of -the world. Every sacred Dionysian dance is an imitation -of the divine dance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All religions, and not merely those of primitive -character, have been at the outset, and sometimes -throughout, in some measure saltatory. That was -recognised even in the ancient world by acute observers, -like Lucian, who remarks in his essay on dancing -that “you cannot find a single ancient mystery in -which there is no dancing; in fact most people say of -the devotees of the Mysteries that ‘they dance them -out.’” This is so all over the world. It is not more -pronounced in early Christianity, and among the -ancient Hebrews who danced before the ark, than -among the Australian aborigines whose great corroborees -are religious dances conducted by the medicine-men -with their sacred staves in their hands. Every -American Indian tribe seems to have had its own -religious dances, varied and elaborate, often with a -richness of meaning which the patient study of modern -investigators has but slowly revealed. The Shamans -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>in the remote steppes of Northern Siberia have their -ecstatic religious dances, and in modern Europe the -Turkish dervishes—perhaps of related stock—still -dance in their cloisters similar ecstatic dances, combined -with song and prayer, as a regular part of devotional -service.</p> - -<p class='c007'>These religious dances, it may be observed, are -sometimes ecstatic, sometimes pantomimic. It is -natural that this should be so. By each road it is -possible to penetrate towards the divine mystery of -the world. The auto-intoxication of rapturous movement -brings the devotees, for a while at least, into that -self-forgetful union with the not-self which the mystic -ever seeks. The ecstatic Hindu dance in honour of the -pre-Aryan hill god, afterwards Siva, became in time a -great symbol, “the clearest image of the <i>activity</i> of -God,” it has been called, “which any art or religion -can boast of.”<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c011'><sup>[14]</sup></a> Pantomimic dances, on the other -hand, with their effort to heighten natural expression -and to imitate natural process, bring the dancers into -the divine sphere of creation and enable them to assist -vicariously in the energy of the gods. The dance thus -becomes the presentation of a divine drama, the vital -reënactment of a sacred history, in which the worshipper -is enabled to play a real part.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c011'><sup>[15]</sup></a> In this way -ritual arises.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>It is in this sphere—highly primitive as it is—of -pantomimic dancing crystallised in ritual, rather than -in the sphere of ecstatic dancing, that we may to-day -in civilisation witness the survivals of the dance in -religion. The divine services of the American Indian, -said Lewis Morgan, took the form of “set dances, each -with its own name, songs, steps, and costume.” At this -point the early Christian, worshipping the Divine -Body, was able to join in spiritual communion with the -ancient Egyptian or the later Japanese<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c011'><sup>[16]</sup></a> or the modern -American Indian. They are all alike privileged to -enter, each in his own way, a sacred mystery, and to -participate in the sacrifice of a heavenly Mass.</p> - -<p class='c007'>What by some is considered to be the earliest known -Christian ritual—the “Hymn of Jesus” assigned to -the second century—is nothing but a sacred dance. -Eusebius in the third century stated that Philo’s description -of the worship of the Therapeuts agreed at -all points with Christian custom, and that meant the -prominence of dancing, to which indeed Eusebius often -refers in connection with Christian worship. It has -been supposed by some that the Christian Church was -originally a theatre, the choir being the raised stage, -even the word “choir,” it is argued, meaning an enclosed -space for dancing. It is certain that at the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>Eucharist the faithful gesticulated with their hands, -danced with their feet, flung their bodies about. -Chrysostom, who referred to this behaviour round -the Holy Table at Antioch, only objected to drunken -excesses in connection with it; the custom itself he -evidently regarded as traditional and right.</p> - -<p class='c007'>While the central function of Christian worship is a -sacred drama, a divine pantomime, the associations of -Christianity and dancing are by no means confined to -the ritual of the Mass and its later more attenuated -transformations. The very idea of dancing had a sacred -and mystic meaning to the early Christians, who -had meditated profoundly on the text, “We have piped -unto you and ye have not danced.” Origen prayed -that above all things there may be made operative in us -the mystery “of the stars dancing in Heaven for the -salvation of the Universe.” So that the monks of -the Cistercian Order, who in a later age worked for the -world more especially by praying for it (<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“orare est laborare”</span>), -were engaged in the same task on earth as -the stars in Heaven; dancing and praying are the same -thing. <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Basil, who was so enamoured of natural -things, described the angels dancing in Heaven, and -later the author of the “Dieta Salutis” (said to have -been <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Bonaventura), which is supposed to have influenced -Dante in assigning so large a place to dancing -in the “Paradiso,” described dancing as the occupation -of the inmates of Heaven, and Christ as the leader of -the dance. Even in more modern times an ancient -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>Cornish carol sang of the life of Jesus as a dance, and -represented him as declaring that he died in order -that man “may come unto the general dance.”<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c011'><sup>[17]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>This attitude could not fail to be reflected in practice. -Genuine dancing, not merely formalised and unrecognisable -dancing, such as the traditionalised Mass, -must have been frequently introduced into Christian -worship in early times. Until a few centuries ago it remained -not uncommon, and it even still persists in remote -corners of the Christian world. In English cathedrals -dancing went on until the fourteenth century. At -Paris, Limoges, and elsewhere in France, the priests -danced in the choir at Easter up to the seventeenth -century, in Roussillon up to the eighteenth century. -Roussillon is a Catalan province with Spanish traditions, -and it is in Spain, where dancing is a deeper and -more passionate impulse than elsewhere in Europe, -that religious dancing took firmest root and flourished -longest. In the cathedrals of Seville, Toledo, Valencia, -and Jeres there was formerly dancing, though it now -only survives at a few special festivals in the first.<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c011'><sup>[18]</sup></a> At -Alaro in Mallorca, also at the present day, a dancing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>company called Els Cosiers, on the festival of <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Roch, -the patron saint of the place, dance in the church in -fanciful costumes with tambourines, up to the steps of -the high altar, immediately after Mass, and then dance -out of the church. In another part of the Christian -world, in the Abyssinian Church—an offshoot of the -Eastern Church—dancing is also said still to form -part of the worship.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Dancing, we may see throughout the world, has been -so essential, so fundamental, a part of all vital and undegenerate -religion, that, whenever a new religion appears, -a religion of the spirit and not merely an anæmic -religion of the intellect, we should still have to ask of it -the question of the Bantu: “What do you dance?”</p> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='three'>III</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'>Dancing is not only intimately associated with religion, -it has an equally intimate association with love. -Here, indeed, the relationship is even more primitive, -for it is far older than man. Dancing, said Lucian, is as -old as love. Among insects and among birds it may be -said that dancing is often an essential part of love. In -courtship the male dances, sometimes in rivalry with -other males, in order to charm the female; then, after a -short or long interval, the female is aroused to share his -ardour and join in the dance; the final climax of the -dance is the union of the lovers. Among the mammals -most nearly related to man, indeed, dancing is but little -developed: their energies are more variously diffused, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>though a close observer of the apes, Dr. Louis Robinson, -has pointed out that the “spasmodic jerking of -the chimpanzee’s feeble legs,” pounding the partition -of his cage, is the crude motion out of which “the heavenly -alchemy of evolution has created the divine -movements of Pavlova”; but it must be remembered -that the anthropoid apes are offshoots only from the -stock that produced Man, his cousins and not his ancestors. -It is the more primitive love-dance of insects -and birds that seems to reappear among human savages -in various parts of the world, notably in Africa, -and in a conventionalised and symbolised form it is -still danced in civilisation to-day. Indeed, it is in this -aspect that dancing has so often aroused reprobation, -from the days of early Christianity until the present, -among those for whom the dance has merely been, in -the words of a seventeenth-century writer, a series of -“immodest and dissolute movements by which the -cupidity of the flesh is aroused.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But in nature and among primitive peoples it has its -value precisely on this account. It is a process of courtship -and, even more than that, it is a novitiate for love, -and a novitiate which was found to be an admirable -training for love. Among some peoples, indeed, as the -Omahas, the same word meant both to dance and to -love. By his beauty, his energy, his skill, the male -must win the female, so impressing the image of himself -on her imagination that finally her desire is aroused -to overcome her reticence. That is the task of the male -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>throughout nature, and in innumerable species besides -Man it has been found that the school in which the -task may best be learnt is the dancing-school. Those -who have not the skill and the strength to learn are left -behind, and, as they are probably the least capable -members of the race, it may be in this way that a kind -of sexual selection has been embodied in unconscious -eugenics, and aided the higher development of the race. -The moths and the butterflies, the African ostrich and -the Sumatran argus pheasant, with their fellows innumerable, -have been the precursors of man in the -strenuous school of erotic dancing, fitting themselves -for selection by the females of their choice as the most -splendid progenitors of the future race.<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c011'><sup>[19]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>From this point of view, it is clear, the dance performed -a double function. On the one hand, the tendency -to dance, arising under the obscure stress of this -impulse, brought out the best possibilities the individual -held the promise of; on the other hand, at the moment -of courtship, the display of the activities thus acquired -developed on the sensory side all the latent possibilities -of beauty which at last became conscious in -man. That this came about we cannot easily escape -concluding. How it came about, how it happens that -some of the least intelligent of creatures thus developed -a beauty and a grace that are enchanting even to our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>human eyes, is a miracle, even if not affected by the -mystery of sex, which we cannot yet comprehend.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When we survey the human world, the erotic dance -of the animal world is seen not to have lost, but rather -to have gained, influence. It is no longer the males -alone who are thus competing for the love of the females. -It comes about by a modification in the earlier -method of selection that often not only the men dance -for the women, but the women for the men, each striving -in a storm of rivalry to arouse and attract the desire -of the other. In innumerable parts of the world the -season of love is a time which the nubile of each sex -devote to dancing in each other’s presence, sometimes -one sex, sometimes the other, sometimes both, in the -frantic effort to display all the force and energy, the -skill and endurance, the beauty and grace, which at -this moment are yearning within them to be poured -into the stream of the race’s life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From this point of view we may better understand -the immense ardour with which every part of the wonderful -human body has been brought into the play of -the dance. The men and women of races spread all -over the world have shown a marvellous skill and patience -in imparting rhythm and measure to the most -unlikely, the most rebellious regions of the body, all -wrought by desire into potent and dazzling images. To -the vigorous races of Northern Europe in their cold -damp climate, dancing comes naturally to be dancing -of the legs, so naturally that the English poet, as a matter -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>of course, assumes that the dance of Salome was a -“twinkling of the feet.”<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c011'><sup>[20]</sup></a> But on the opposite side of -the world, in Japan and notably in Java and Madagascar, -dancing may be exclusively dancing of the arms -and hands, in some of the South Sea Islands of the -hands and fingers alone. Dancing may even be carried -on in the seated posture, as occurs at Fiji in a dance -connected with the preparation of the sacred drink, -ava. In some districts of Southern Tunisia dancing, -again, is dancing of the hair, and all night long, till they -perhaps fall exhausted, the marriageable girls will move -their heads to the rhythm of a song, maintaining their -hair in perpetual balance and sway. Elsewhere, notably -in Africa, but also sometimes in Polynesia, as well -as in the dances that had established themselves in ancient -Rome, dancing is dancing of the body, with vibratory -or rotatory movements of breasts or flanks. -The complete dance along these lines is, however, that -in which the play of all the chief muscle-groups of the -body is harmoniously interwoven. When both sexes -take part in such an exercise, developed into an idealised -yet passionate pantomime of love, we have the -complete erotic dance. In the beautiful ancient civilisation -of the Pacific, it is probable that this ideal was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>sometimes reached, and at Tahiti, in 1772, an old voyager -crudely and summarily described the native dance -as “an endless variety of posturings and wagglings of -the body, hands, feet, eyes, lips, and tongue, in which -they keep splendid time to the measure.” In Spain the -dance of this kind has sometimes attained its noblest -and most harmoniously beautiful expression. From -the narratives of travellers, it would appear that it was -especially in the eighteenth century that among all -classes in Spain dancing of this kind was popular. The -Church tacitly encouraged it, an Aragonese Canon told -Baretti in 1770, in spite of its occasional indecorum, as -a useful safety-valve for the emotions. It was not less -seductive to the foreign spectator than to the people -themselves. The grave traveller Peyron, towards the -end of the century, growing eloquent over the languorous -and flexible movements of the dance, the bewitching -attitude, the voluptuous curves of the arms, declares -that, when one sees a beautiful Spanish woman dance, -one is inclined to fling all philosophy to the winds. And -even that highly respectable Anglican clergyman, the -Reverend Joseph Townsend, was constrained to state -that he could “almost persuade myself” that if the -fandango were suddenly played in church the gravest -worshippers would start up to join in that “lascivious -pantomime.” There we have the rock against which -the primitive dance of sexual selection suffers shipwreck -as civilisation advances. And that prejudice of -civilisation becomes so ingrained that it is brought to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>bear even on the primitive dance. The pygmies of Africa -are described by Sir <abbr class='spell'>H. H.</abbr> Johnston as a very decorous -and highly moral people, but their dances, he -adds, are not so. Yet these dances, though to the eyes -of Johnston, blinded by European civilisation, “grossly -indecent,” he honestly, and inconsistently, adds, are -“danced reverently.”</p> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='four'>IV</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'>From the vital function of dancing in love, and its sacred -function in religion, to dancing as an art, a profession, -an amusement, may seem, at the first glance, a -sudden leap. In reality the transition is gradual, and -it began to be made at a very early period in diverse -parts of the globe. All the matters that enter into -courtship tend to fall under the sway of art; their æsthetic -pleasure is a secondary reflection of their primary -vital joy. Dancing could not fail to be first in -manifesting this tendency. But even religious dancing -swiftly exhibited the same transformation; dancing, -like priesthood, became a profession, and dancers, like -priests, formed a caste. This, for instance, took place -in old Hawaii. The hula dance was a religious dance; -it required a special education and an arduous training; -moreover, it involved the observance of important -taboos and the exercise of sacred rites; by the very fact -of its high specialisation it came to be carried out by -paid performers, a professional caste. In India, again, -the Devadasis, or sacred dancing girls, are at once both -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>religious and professional dancers. They are married to -gods, they are taught dancing by the Brahmins, they -figure in religious ceremonies, and their dances represent -the life of the god they are married to as well as -the emotions of love they experience for him. Yet, at -the same time, they also give professional performances -in the houses of rich private persons who pay for them. -It thus comes about that to the foreigner the Devadasis -scarcely seem very unlike the Ramedjenis, the dancers -of the street, who are of very different origin, and -mimic in their performances the play of merely human -passions. The Portuguese conquerors of India called -both kinds of dancers indiscriminately Balheideras (or -dancers) which we have corrupted in Bayaderes.<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c011'><sup>[21]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>In our modern world professional dancing as an art -has become altogether divorced from religion, and -even, in any biological sense, from love; it is scarcely -even possible, so far as Western civilisation is concerned, -to trace back the tradition to either source. If -we survey the development of dancing as an art in Europe, -it seems to me that we have to recognise two -streams of tradition which have sometimes merged, -but yet remain in their ideals and their tendencies essentially -distinct. I would call these traditions the -Classical, which is much the more ancient and fundamental, -and may be said to be of Egyptian origin, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>the Romantic, which is of Italian origin, chiefly known -to us as the ballet. The first is, in its pure form, solo -dancing—though it may be danced in couples and -many together—and is based on the rhythmic beauty -and expressiveness of the simple human personality -when its energy is concentrated in measured yet passionate -movement. The second is concerted dancing, -mimetic and picturesque, wherein the individual is subordinated -to the wider and variegated rhythm of the -group. It may be easy to devise another classification, -but this is simple and instructive enough for our purpose.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There can scarcely be a doubt that Egypt has been -for many thousands of years, as indeed it still remains, -a great dancing centre, the most influential dancing-school -the world has ever seen, radiating its influence -to south and east and north. We may perhaps even -agree with the historian of the dance who terms it -“the mother-country of all civilised dancing.” We are -not entirely dependent on the ancient wall-pictures of -Egypt for our knowledge of Egyptian skill in the art. -Sacred mysteries, it is known, were danced in the -temples, and queens and princesses took part in the -orchestras that accompanied them. It is significant -that the musical instruments still peculiarly associated -with the dance were originated or developed in Egypt; -the guitar is an Egyptian instrument and its name was -a hieroglyph already used when the Pyramids were -being built; the cymbal, the tambourine, triangles, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>castanets, in one form or another, were all familiar to -the ancient Egyptians, and with the Egyptian art of -dancing they must have spread all round the shores of -the Mediterranean, the great focus of our civilisation, -at a very early date.<a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c011'><sup>[22]</sup></a> Even beyond the Mediterranean, -at Cadiz, dancing that was essentially Egyptian -in character was established, and Cadiz became the -dancing-school of Spain. The Nile and Cadiz were -thus the two great centres of ancient dancing, and Martial -mentions them both together, for each supplied -its dancers to Rome. This dancing, alike whether -Egyptian or Gaditanian, was the expression of the -individual dancer’s body and art; the garments played -but a small part in it, they were frequently transparent, -and sometimes discarded altogether. It was, -and it remains, simple, personal, passionate dancing, -classic, therefore, in the same sense as, on the side of -literature, the poetry of Catullus is classic.<a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c011'><sup>[23]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>Ancient Greek dancing was essentially classic dancing, -as here understood. On the Greek vases, as reproduced -in Emmanuel’s attractive book on Greek -dancing and elsewhere, we find the same play of the -arms, the same sideward turn, the same extreme backward -extension of the body, which had long before -been represented in Egyptian monuments. Many -supposedly modern movements in dancing were certainly -already common both to Egyptian and Greek -dancing, as well as the clapping of hands to keep time -which is still an accompaniment of Spanish dancing. -It seems clear, however, that, on this general classic -and Mediterranean basis, Greek dancing had a development -so refined and so special—though in -technical elaboration of steps, it seems likely, inferior -to modern dancing—that it exercised no influence -outside Greece. Dancing became, indeed, the most -characteristic and the most generally cultivated of -Greek arts. Pindar, in a splendid Oxyrhynchine fragment, -described Hellas, in what seemed to him supreme -praise, as “the land of lovely dancing,” and -Athenæus pointed out that he calls Apollo the Dancer. -It may well be that the Greek drama arose out of -dance and song, and that the dance throughout was an -essential and plastic element in it. Even if we reject -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>the statement of Aristotle that tragedy arose out of -the Dionysian dithyramb, the alternative suppositions -(such as Ridgeway’s theory of dancing round the tombs -of the dead) equally involve the same elements. It has -often been pointed out that poetry in Greece demanded -a practical knowledge of all that could be included -under “dancing.” Æschylus is said to have developed -the technique of dancing and Sophocles danced in his -own dramas. In these developments, no doubt, Greek -dancing tended to overpass the fundamental limits of -classic dancing and foreshadowed the ballet.<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c011'><sup>[24]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>The real germ of the ballet, however, is to be found -in Rome, where the pantomime with its concerted and -picturesque method of expressive action was developed, -and Italy is the home of Romantic dancing. The -same impulse which produced the pantomime produced, -more than a thousand years later in the same -Italian region, the modern ballet. In both cases, one is -inclined to think, we may trace the influence of the -same Etruscan and Tuscan race which so long has had -its seat there, a race with a genius for expressive, dramatic, -picturesque art. We see it on the walls of Etruscan -tombs and again in pictures of Botticelli and his -fellow Tuscans. The modern ballet, it is generally believed, -had its origin in the spectacular pageants at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>the marriage of Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, in -1489. The fashion for such performances spread to the -other Italian courts, including Florence, and Catherine -de’ Medici, when she became Queen of France, brought -the Italian ballet to Paris. Here it speedily became -fashionable. Kings and queens were its admirers and -even took part in it; great statesmen were its patrons. -Before long, and especially in the great age of Louis -<abbr title='the fourteenth'>XIV</abbr>, it became an established institution, still an adjunct -of opera but with a vital life and growth of its -own, maintained by distinguished musicians, artists, -and dancers. Romantic dancing, to a much greater extent -than what I have called Classic dancing, which depends -so largely on simple personal qualities, tends to -be vitalised by transplantation and the absorption -of new influences, provided that the essential basis of -technique and tradition is preserved in the new development. -Lulli in the seventeenth century brought -women into the ballet; Camargo discarded the complicated -costumes and shortened the skirt, so rendering -possible not only her own lively and vigorous method, -but all the freedom and airy grace of later dancing. It -was Noverre who by his ideas worked out at Stuttgart, -and soon brought to Paris by Gaetan Vestris, made the -ballet a new and complete art form; this Swiss-French -genius not only elaborated plot revealed by gesture and -dance alone, but, just as another and greater Swiss-French -genius about the same time brought sentiment -and emotion into the novel, he brought it into the ballet. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>In the French ballet of the eighteenth century a -very high degree of perfection seems thus to have been -reached, while in Italy, where the ballet had originated, -it decayed, and Milan, which had been its source, became -the nursery of a tradition of devitalised technique -carried to the finest point of delicate perfection. -The influence of the French school was maintained as a -living force into the nineteenth century,—when it -was renovated afresh by the new spirit of the age and -Taglioni became the most ethereal embodiment of the -spirit of the Romantic movement in a form that was -genuinely classic,—overspreading the world by the -genius of a few individual dancers. When they had -gone, the ballet slowly and steadily declined. As it declined -as an art, so also it declined in credit and in popularity; -it became scarcely respectable even to admire -dancing. Thirty or forty years ago, those of us who -still appreciated dancing as an art—and how few they -were!—had to seek for it painfully and sometimes in -strange surroundings. A recent historian of dancing, in -a book published so lately as 1906, declared that “the -ballet is now a thing of the past, and, with the modern -change of ideas, a thing that is never likely to be resuscitated.” -That historian never mentioned Russian -ballet, yet his book was scarcely published before the -Russian ballet arrived to scatter ridicule over his rash -prophecy by raising the ballet to a pitch of perfection it -can rarely have surpassed, as an expressive, emotional, -even passionate form of living art.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>The Russian ballet was an offshoot from the French -ballet and illustrates once more the vivifying effect of -transplantation on the art of Romantic dancing. The -Empress Anna introduced it in 1735 and appointed a -French ballet-master and a Neapolitan composer to -carry it on; it reached a high degree of technical perfection -during the following hundred years, on the -traditional lines, and the principal dancers were all imported -from Italy. It was not until recent years that -this firm discipline and these ancient traditions were -vitalised into an art form of exquisite and vivid beauty -by the influence of the soil in which they had slowly -taken root. This contact, when at last it was effected, -mainly by the genius of Fokine and the enterprise of -Diaghilev, involved a kind of revolution, for its outcome, -while genuine ballet, has yet all the effect of delicious -novelty. The tradition by itself was in Russia -an exotic without real life, and had nothing to give -to the world; on the other hand, a Russian ballet -apart from that tradition, if we can conceive such a -thing, would have been formless, extravagant, bizarre, -not subdued to any fine æsthetic ends. What we see -here, in the Russian ballet as we know it to-day, is a -splendid and arduous technical tradition, brought at -last—by the combined skill of designers, composers, -and dancers—into real fusion with an environment -from which during more than a century it had been -held apart; Russian genius for music, Russian feeling -for rhythm, Russian skill in the use of bright colour, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>and, not least, the Russian orgiastic temperament, the -Russian spirit of tender poetic melancholy, and the -general Slav passion for folk-dancing, shown in other -branches of the race also, Polish, Bohemian, Bulgarian, -and Servian. At almost the same time what I have -termed Classic dancing was independently revived in -America by Isadora Duncan, bringing back what seemed -to be the free naturalism of the Greek dance, and Ruth -<abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Denis, seeking to discover and revitalise the secrets -of the old Indian and Egyptian traditions. Whenever -now we find any restored art of theatrical dancing, as -in the Swedish ballet, it has been inspired more or less, -by an eclectic blending of these two revived forms, the -Romantic from Russia, the Classic from America. The -result has been that our age sees one of the most splendid -movements in the whole history of the ballet.</p> -<h3 class='c010'><abbr title='five'>V</abbr></h3> -<p class='c006'>Dancing as an art, we may be sure, cannot die out, but -will always be undergoing a rebirth. Not merely as an -art, but also as a social custom, it perpetually emerges -afresh from the soul of the people. Less than a century -ago the polka thus arose, extemporised by the Bohemian -servant girl Anna Slezakova out of her own head -for the joy of her own heart, and only rendered a permanent -form, apt for world-wide popularity, by the accident -that it was observed and noted down by an artist. -Dancing has for ever been in existence as a spontaneous -custom, a social discipline. Thus it is, finally, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>dancing meets us, not only as love, as religion, as art, -but also as morals.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All human work, under natural conditions, is a kind -of dance. In a large and learned book, supported by an -immense amount of evidence, Karl Bücher has argued -that work differs from the dance, not in kind, but only -in degree, since they are both essentially rhythmic. -There is a good reason why work should be rhythmic, -for all great combined efforts, the efforts by which -alone great constructions such as those of megalithic -days could be carried out, must be harmonised. It has -even been argued that this necessity is the source of -human speech, and we have the so-called Yo-heave-ho -theory of languages. In the memory of those who have -ever lived on a sailing ship—that loveliest of human -creations now disappearing from the world—there -will always linger the echo of the chanties which sailors -sang as they hoisted the topsail yard or wound the -capstan or worked the pumps. That is the type of -primitive combined work, and it is indeed difficult to -see how such work can be effectively accomplished -without such a device for regulating the rhythmic -energy of the muscles. The dance rhythm of work has -thus acted socialisingly in a parallel line with the dance -rhythms of the arts, and indeed in part as their inspirer. -The Greeks, it has been too fancifully suggested, -by insight or by intuition understood this when -they fabled that Orpheus, whom they regarded as the -earliest poet, was specially concerned with moving -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>stones and trees. Bücher has pointed out that even -poetic metre may be conceived as arising out of work; -metre is the rhythmic stamping of feet, as in the technique -of verse it is still metaphorically called; iambics -and trochees, spondees and anapæsts and dactyls, may -still be heard among blacksmiths smiting the anvil or -navvies wielding their hammers in the streets. In so -far as they arose out of work, music and singing and -dancing are naturally a single art. A poet must always -write to a tune, said Swinburne. Herein the -ancient ballad of Europe is a significant type. It is, as -the name indicates, a dance as much as a song, performed -by a singer who sang the story and a chorus -who danced and shouted the apparently meaningless -refrain; it is absolutely the chanty of the sailors and is -equally apt for the purposes of concerted work.<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c011'><sup>[25]</sup></a> Yet -our most complicated musical forms are evolved from -similar dances. The symphony is but a development -of a dance suite, in the first place folk-dances, such -as Bach and Handel composed. Indeed a dance still -lingers always at the heart of music and even the heart -of the composer. Mozart, who was himself an accomplished -dancer, used often to say, so his wife stated, -that it was dancing, not music, that he really cared -for. Wagner believed that Beethoven’s Seventh -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Symphony—to some of us the most fascinating of -them and the most purely musical—was an apotheosis -of the dance, and, even if that belief throws no light on -the intention of Beethoven, it is at least a revelation -of Wagner’s own feeling for the dance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is, however, the dance itself, apart from the work -and apart from the other arts, which, in the opinion -of many to-day, has had a decisive influence in socialising, -that is to say in moralising, the human species. -Work showed the necessity of harmonious rhythmic -coöperation, but the dance developed that rhythmic -coöperation and imparted a beneficent impetus to all -human activities. It was Grosse, in his “Beginnings of -Art,” who first clearly set forth the high social significance -of the dance in the creation of human civilisation. -The participants in a dance, as all observers of savages -have noted, exhibit a wonderful unison; they are, as -it were, fused into a single being stirred by a single impulse. -Social unification is thus accomplished. Apart -from war, this is the chief factor making for social -solidarity in primitive life; it was indeed the best -training for war. It has been a twofold influence; on -the one hand, it aided unity of action and method in -evolution: on the other, it had the invaluable function—for -man is naturally a timid animal—of imparting -courage; the universal drum, as Louis Robinson -remarks, has been an immense influence in human affairs. -Even among the Romans, with their highly developed -military system, dancing and war were definitely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>allied; the Salii constituted a college of sacred -military dancers; the dancing season was March, the -war-god’s month and the beginning of the war season, -and all through that month there were dances in -triple measure before the temples and round the altars, -with songs so ancient that not even the priests could -understand them. We may trace a similar influence -of dancing in all the coöperative arts of life. All our -most advanced civilisation, Grosse insisted, is based -on dancing. It is the dance that socialised man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, in the large sense, dancing has possessed peculiar -value as a method of national education. As civilisation -grew self-conscious, this was realised. “One -may judge of a king,” according to ancient Chinese -maxim, “by the state of dancing during his reign.” -So also among the Greeks; it has been said that dancing -and music lay at the foundation of the whole -political and military as well as religious organisation -of the Dorian states.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the narrow sense, in individual education, the -great importance of dancing came to be realised, even -at an early stage of human development, and still -more in the ancient civilisations. “A good education,” -Plato declared in the “Laws,” the final work of his -old age, “consists in knowing how to sing and dance -well.” And in our own day one of the keenest and -most enlightened of educationists has lamented the -decay of dancing; the revival of dancing, Stanley Hall -declares, is imperatively needed to give poise to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>nerves, schooling to the emotions, strength to the will, -and to harmonise the feelings and the intellect with the -body which supports them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It can scarcely be said that these functions of dancing -are yet generally realised and embodied afresh in -education. For, if it is true that dancing engendered -morality, it is also true that in the end, by the irony of -fate, morality, grown insolent, sought to crush its own -parent, and for a time succeeded only too well. Four -centuries ago dancing was attacked by that spirit, in -England called Puritanism, which was then spread -over the greater part of Europe, just as active in -Bohemia as in England, and which has, indeed, been -described as a general onset of developing Urbanism -against the old Ruralism. It made no distinction between -good and bad, nor paused to consider what -would come when dancing went. So it was that, as -Remy de Gourmont remarks, the drinking-shop conquered -the dance, and alcohol replaced the violin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But when we look at the function of dancing in life -from a higher and wider standpoint, this episode in its -history ceases to occupy so large a place. The conquest -over dancing has never proved in the end a matter -for rejoicing, even to morality, while an art which -has been so intimately mixed with all the finest and -deepest springs of life has always asserted itself afresh. -For dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most -beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation -or abstraction from life; it is life itself. It is the only -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>art, as Rahel Varnhagen said, of which we ourselves -are the stuff. Even if we are not ourselves dancers, -but merely the spectators of the dance, we are still—according -to that Lippsian doctrine of <i>Einfühlung</i> or -“empathy” by Groos termed “the play of inner -imitation”—which here, at all events, we may accept -as true—feeling ourselves in the dancer who is manifesting -and expressing the latent impulses of our own -being.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It thus comes about that, beyond its manifold -practical significance, dancing has always been felt to -possess also a symbolic significance. Marcus Aurelius -was accustomed to regard the art of life as like the -dancer’s art, though that Imperial Stoic could not resist -adding that in some respects it was more like the -wrestler’s art. “I doubt not yet to make a figure in the -great Dance of Life that shall amuse the spectators in -the sky,” said, long after, Blake, in the same strenuous -spirit. In our own time, Nietzsche, from first to last, -showed himself possessed by the conception of the art -of life as a dance, in which the dancer achieves the -rhythmic freedom and harmony of his soul beneath -the shadow of a hundred Damoclean swords. He said -the same thing of his style, for to him the style and the -man were one: “My style,” he wrote to his intimate -friend Rohde, “is a dance.” “Every day I count -wasted,” he said again, “in which there has been no -dancing.” The dance lies at the beginning of art, and -we find it also at the end. The first creators of civilisation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>were making the dance, and the philosopher -of a later age, hovering over the dark abyss of insanity, -with bleeding feet and muscles strained to the breaking -point, still seems to himself to be weaving the maze of -the dance.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span> - <h2 id='chap3' class='c005'>CHAPTER III <br /> THE ART OF THINKING</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'>I</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Herbert Spencer</span> pointed out, in his early essay on -“The Genesis of Science,” that science arose out of -art, and that even yet the distinction is “purely conventional,” -for “it is impossible to say when art ends -and science begins.” Spencer was here using “art” in -the fundamental sense according to which all practice -is of the nature of art. Yet it is of interest to find a -thinker now commonly regarded as so prosaic asserting -a view which to most prosaic people seems fanciful. -To the ordinary solid man, to any would-be apostle of -common sense, science—and by “science” he usually -means applied science—seems the exact opposite of -the vagaries and virtuosities that the hard-headed -<i>homme moyen sensuel</i> is accustomed to look upon as -“art.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet the distinction is modern. In classic times there -was no such distinction. The “sciences”—reasonably, -as we may now see, and not fancifully as was -afterwards supposed—were “the arts of the mind.” -In the Middle Ages the same liberal studies—grammar, -logic, geometry, music, and the rest—could be -spoken of either as “sciences” or as “arts,” and for -Roger Bacon, who in the thirteenth century was so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>genuine a man of science, every branch of study or -learning was a “scientia.” I am inclined to think that -it was the Mathematical Renaissance of the seventeenth -century which introduced the undue emphasis -on the distinction between “science” and “art.” -“All the sciences are so bound together,” wrote -Descartes, the banner-bearer of that Renaissance, in -his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Règles pour la Direction de l’Esprit,”</span> “that it is -much easier to learn them all at once than to learn one -alone by detaching it from the others.” He added that -we could not say the same of the arts. Yet we might -perhaps say of arts and sciences that we can only understand -them all together, and we may certainly say, as -Descartes proceeded to say of the sciences alone, that -they all emanate from the same focus, however diversely -coloured by the media they pass through or the -objects they encounter. At that moment, however, -it was no doubt practically useful, however theoretically -unsound, to overemphasise the distinction between -“science,” with its new instrumental precision, -and “art.”<a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c011'><sup>[26]</sup></a> At the same time the tradition of the -old usage was not completely put aside, and a Master -of “Arts” remained a master of such sciences as the -directors of education succeeded in recognising until -the middle of the nineteenth century. By that time -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>the development of the sciences, and especially of the -physical sciences, as “the discovery of truth,” led to a -renewed emphasis on them which resulted in the -practical restriction of the term “art” to what are -ordinarily called the fine arts. More formally, science -became the study of what were supposed to be demonstrable -and systematically classifiable truths regarding -the facts of the world; art was separated off -as the play of human impulses in making things. Sir -Sidney Colvin, in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” -after discussing the matter (which Mill had already -discussed at length in his “Logic” and decided that -the difference is that Science is in the Indicative Mood -and Art in the Imperative Mood), concluded that -science is “ordered knowledge of natural phenomena -and of the relations between them,” or that “Science -consists in knowing, Art consists in doing.” Men of -science, like Sir <abbr class='spell'>E.</abbr> Ray Lankester, accepted this conclusion. -That was as far as it was possible to go in the -nineteenth century.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the years pass, and the progress of science itself, -especially the sciences of the mind, has upset this distinction. -The analysis of “knowing” showed that it -was not such a merely passive and receptive method of -recognising “truth” as scientists had innocently supposed. -This is probably admitted now by the Realists -among philosophers as well as by the Idealists. Dr. -Charles Singer, perhaps our most learned historian of -science, now defines science, no longer as a body of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>organized knowledge, but as “the process which makes -knowledge,” as “knowledge in the making”; that is -to say, “the growing edge between the unknown and -the known.”<a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c011'><sup>[27]</sup></a> As soon as we thus regard it, as a <i>making</i> -process, it becomes one with art. Even physical -science is perpetually laying aside the “facts” which -it thought it knew, and learning to replace them by -other “facts” which it comes to know as more satisfactory -in presenting an intelligible view of the world. -The analysis of “knowing” shows that this is not only -a legitimate but an inevitable process. Such a process -is active and creative. It clearly partakes at least as -much of the nature of “doing” as of “knowing.” It -involves qualities which on another plane, sometimes -indeed on the same plane, are essentially those involved -in doing. The craftsman who moulds conceptions with -his mind cannot be put in a fundamentally different -class from the craftsman who moulds conceptions with -his hand, any more than the poet can be put in a totally -different class from the painter. It is no longer possible -to deny that science is of the nature of art.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>So it is that in the fundamental sense, and even, it will -have to be added, in a sense that comprehends the extravagancies -of wild variations from the norm, we have -to recognise that the true man of science is an artist. -Like the lunatic, the lover, the poet (as a great physician, -Sir William Osler, has said), the student is “of -imagination all compact.” It was by his “wonderful -imagination,” it has been well pointed out, that Newton -was constantly discovering new tracks and new -processes in the region of the unknown. The extraordinary -various life-work of Helmholtz, who initiated -the valuation of beauty on a physiological basis, -scientifically precise as it was, had, as Einstein has -remarked, an æsthetic colouring. “There is no such -thing as an unimaginative scientific man,” a distinguished -professor of mechanics and mathematics declared -some years ago, and if we are careful to remember -that not every man who believes that his life -is devoted to science is really a “scientific man,” that -statement is literally true.<a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c011'><sup>[28]</sup></a> It is not only true of the -scientific man in the special sense; it is also true of the -philosopher. In every philosopher’s work, a philosophic -writer has remarked, “the construction of a -complete system of conceptions is not carried out -simply in the interests of knowledge. Its underlying -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>motive is æsthetic. It is the work of a creative artist.”<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c011'><sup>[29]</sup></a> -The intellectual lives of a Plato or a Dante, -Professor Graham Wallas from a different standpoint -has remarked, “were largely guided and sustained by -their delight in the sheer beauty of the rhythmic relation -between law and instance, species and individual, -or cause and effect.”<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c011'><sup>[30]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>That remark, with its reference to the laws and -rhythm in the universe, calls to mind the great initiator, -so far as our knowledge extends back, of scientific -research in our European world. Pythagoras is a -dim figure, and there is no need here to insist unduly -on his significance. But there is not the slightest doubt -about the nature of that significance in its bearing on -the point before us. Dim and legendary as he now -appears to us, Pythagoras was no doubt a real person, -born in the sixth century before Christ, at Samos, and -by his association with that great shipping centre -doubtless enabled to voyage afar and glean the wisdom -of the ancient world. In antiquity he was regarded, -Cicero remarks, as the inventor of philosophy, and -still to-day he is estimated to be one of the most -original figures, not only of Greece, but the world. -He is a figure full of interest from many points of view, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>however veiled in mist, but he only concerns us here -because he represents the beginning of what we call -“science”—that is to say, measurable knowledge at -its growing point—and because he definitely represents -it as arising out of what we all conventionally recognise -as “art,” and as, indeed, associated with the spirit of -art, even its most fantastic forms, all the way. Pythagoras -was a passionate lover of music, and it was thus -that he came to make the enormously fruitful discovery -that pitch of sound depends upon the length of -the vibrating chord. Therein it became clear that law -and spatial quantity ruled even in fields which had -seemed most independent of quantitative order. The -beginning of the great science of mechanics was firmly -set up. The discovery was no accident. Even his -rather hostile contemporary Heraclitus said of Pythagoras -that he had “practised research and inquiry beyond -all other men.” He was certainly a brilliant -mathematician; he was, also, not only an astronomer, -but the first, so far as we know, to recognise that the -earth is a sphere,—so setting up the ladder which was -to reach at last to the Copernican conception,—while -his followers took the further step of affirming -that the earth was not the centre of our cosmic system, -but concentrically related. So that Pythagoras may -not only be called the Father of Philosophy, but, with -better right the Father of Science in the modern exact -sense. Yet he remained fundamentally an artist -even in the conventional sense. His free play of imagination -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>and emotion, his delight in the ravishing -charm of beauty and of harmony, however it may -sometimes have led him astray,—and introduced -the reverence for Number which so long entwined -fancy too closely with science,—yet, as Gomperz -puts it, gave soaring wings to the power of his severe -reason.<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c011'><sup>[31]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>One other great dim figure of early European antiquity -shares with Pythagoras the philosophic dominance -over our world, and that is the Platonic Socrates, -or, as we might perhaps say, the Socratic Plato. And -here, too, we are in the presence of a philosopher, if -not a scientist, who was a supreme artist. Here again, -also, we encounter a legendary figure concealing a more -or less real human person. But there is a difference. -While all are agreed that, in Pythagoras we have a -great and brilliant figure dimly seen, there are many -who consider that in Socrates we have a small and dim -figure grown great and brilliant in the Platonic medium -through which alone he has been really influential in -our world, for without Plato the name of Socrates -would have scarcely been mentioned. The problem -of the Pythagorean legend may be said to be settled. -But the problem of the Socratic legend is still under -discussion. We cannot, moreover, quite put it aside -as merely of academic interest, for its solution, if ever -reached, would touch that great vital problem of art -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>in the actual world with which we are here throughout -concerned.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If one examines any large standard history of Greece, -like Grote’s to mention one of the oldest and best, -one is fairly sure to find a long chapter on the life of -Socrates. Such a chapter is inserted, without apology, -without explanation, without compunction, as a matter -of course, in a so-called “history,” and nearly every -one, even to-day, still seems to take it as a matter of -course. Few seem to possess the critical and analytical -mind necessary for the examination of the documents -on which the “history” rests. If they approached this -chapter in a questioning spirit, they might perhaps -discover that it was not until about half a century after -the time of the real Socrates that any “historical” -evidence for the existence of our legendary Socrates -begins to appear.<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c011'><sup>[32]</sup></a> Few people seem to realise that -even of Plato himself we know nothing certain that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>could not be held in a single sentence. The “biographies” -of Plato began to be written four hundred years -after his death. It should be easy to estimate their -value.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There are three elements—one of them immeasurably -more important than the other two—of which -the composite portrait of our modern Socrates is made -up: Xenophon, Plato, the dramatists. To the contribution -furnished by the first, not much weight is -usually attached. Yet it should really have been -regarded as extremely illuminating. It suggests -that the subject of “Socrates” was a sort of school -exercise, useful practice in rhetoric or in dialectics. -The very fact that Xenophon’s Socrates was so reminiscent -of his creator ought to have been instructive.<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c011'><sup>[33]</sup></a> -It has, however, taken scholars some time to -recognise this, and Karl Joël, who spent fifteen of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>best years of his life over the Xenophontic Socrates, -to discover that the figure was just as much a fiction -as the Platonic Socrates, has lately confessed that he -thinks those years rather wasted. It might have been -clear earlier that what Plato had done was really just the -same thing so far as method was concerned, though -a totally different thing in result because done by the -most richly endowed of poet-philosophers, the most -consummate of artists. For that is probably how we -ought to regard Plato, and not, like some, as merely a -great mystificator. It is true that Plato was the master -of irony, and that “irony,” in its fundamental meaning, -is, as Gomperz points out, “pleasure in mystifying.” -But while Plato’s irony possesses a significance -which we must always keep before us, it is yet only one -of the elements of his vast and versatile mind.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is to the third of these sources that some modern -investigators are now inclined to attach primary significance. -It was on the stage—in the branch of drama -that kept more closely in touch with life than that -which had fallen into the hands of the prose dialecticians -and rhetoricians—that we seem to find the -shadow of the real Socrates. But he was not the Socrates -of the dramatic dialogues of Plato or even of Xenophon; -he was a minor Sophist, an inferior Diogenes, yet -a remarkable figure, arresting and disturbing, whose -idiosyncrasies were quite perceptible to the crowd. It -was an original figure, hardly the embodiment of a -turning-point in philosophy, but fruitful of great possibilities, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>so that we could hardly be surprised if the master -of philosophic drama took it over from real life and -the stage for his own purposes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To make clear to myself the possible way—I am far -from asserting it was the actual way—in which our -legendary Socrates arose, I sometimes think of Chidley. -Chidley was an Australian Sophist and Cynic, in -the good sense of both these words, and without doubt, -it seems to me, the most original and remarkable figure -that has ever appeared in Australia, of which, however, -he was not a native, though he spent nearly his whole -life there. He was always poor, and like most philosophers -he was born with a morbid nervous disposition, -though he acquired a fine and robust frame. He was -liable not only to the shock of outward circumstances -but of inward impulses; these he had in the past often -succumbed to, and only slowly and painfully gained -the complete mastery over as he gained possession of -his own philosophy. For all his falls, which he felt -acutely, as Augustine and Bunyan as well as Rousseau -felt such lapses, there was in him a real nobility, an -even ascetic firmness and purity of character. I never -met him, but I knew him more intimately, perhaps, -than those who came in contact with him. For many -years I was in touch with him, and his last letter was -written shortly before his death; he always felt I ought -to be persuaded of the truth he had to reveal and never -quite understood my sympathetic attitude of scepticism. -He had devoured all the philosophic literature -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>he could lay hold of, but his philosophy—in the Greek -sense, as a way of life, and not in our modern sense as a -system of notions—was his own: a new vision of Nature’s -simplicity and wholeness, only new because it -had struck on a new sensibility and sometimes in excessive -and fantastic ways, but he held his faith with -unbending devotion, and never ceased to believe that -all would accept the vision when once they beheld it. -So he went about the streets in Sydney, clad (as a concession -to public feeling) in bathing drawers, finding -anywhere he could the Stoa which might serve for him, -to argue and discuss, among all who were willing, with -eager faith, keen mind, and pungent speech. A few -were won, but most were disturbed and shocked. The -police persistently harassed him; they felt bound to interfere -with what seemed such an outrage on the prim -decency of the streets; and as he quietly persisted in -following his own course, and it was hard to bring any -serious charge against him, they called in the aid of the -doctors, and henceforth he was in and out of the asylum -instead of the prison. No one need be blamed; it -was nobody’s fault; if a man transgresses the ordinary -respectable notions of decency, he must be a criminal, -and if he is not a criminal, he must be a lunatic; the -social organisation takes no account of philosophers; -the philosophic Hipparchia and her husband must not -nowadays consummate their marriage in public, and our -modern philosophers meekly agree that philosophy is -to have nothing to do with a life. Every one in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>case seems to have behaved with due conventional -propriety, just as every one behaved around the deathbed -of Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilitch. It was Chidley’s deathbed -they were preparing, and he knew it, but he unflinchingly -grasped the cup they held out to him and -drank it to the dregs. He felt he could do no other. -There was no fabled hemlock in it, but it was just as -deadly as though it had been accompanied by all the -dramatic symbolisation of a formal condemnation to -death, such as had really been recorded (Plato well -knew) in old Athenian annals. There was no Plato in -Sydney. But if there had been, it is hard to conceive -any figure more fit for the ends of his transforming art. -Through that inspiring medium the plebeian Sophist -and Cynic, while yet retaining something of the asperity -of his original shape, would have taken on a new -glory, his bizarreries would have been spiritualised and -his morbidities become the signs of mystic possession, -his fate would have appeared as consecrated in form as -it genuinely was in substance, he would have been the -mouthpiece, not only of the truths he really uttered, -but of a divine eloquence on the verge of which he had -in real life only trembled, and, like Socrates in the -hands of Plato, he would have passed, as all the finest -philosophy passes at last, into music.<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c011'><sup>[34]</sup></a> So in the end -Chidley would have entered modern history, just as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>Socrates entered ancient history, the Saint and Martyr -of Philosophy.<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c011'><sup>[35]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>If it should so be that, as we learn to see him truly, -the figure of the real Socrates must diminish in magnitude, -then—and that is the point which concerns us -here—the glory of the artist who made him what he -has become for us is immensely enhanced. No longer -the merely apt and brilliant disciple of a great master, -he becomes himself master and lord, the radiant creator -of the chief figure in European philosophy, the -most marvellous artist the world has ever known. So -that when we look back at the spiritual history of -Europe, it may become possible to say that its two -supreme figures, the Martyr of Philosophy and the -Martyr of Religion, were both—however real the -two human persons out of which they were formed—the -work of man’s imagination. For there, on the one -hand, we see the most accomplished of European -thinkers, and on the other a little band of barbarians, -awkwardly using just the same Greek language, working -with an unconscious skill which even transcends all -that conscious skill could have achieved, yet both bearing -immortal witness to the truth that the human soul -only lives truly in art and can only be ruled through -art. So it is that in art lies the solution of the conflicts -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>of philosophy. There we see Realism, or the discovery -of things, one with Idealism, or the creation of things. -Art is the embodied harmony of their conflict. That -could not be more exquisitely symbolised than by -these two supreme figures in the spiritual life of -Europe, the Platonic Socrates and the Gospel Jesus, -both alike presented to us, it is so significant to observe, -as masters of irony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There has never again been so great an artist in -philosophy, so supreme a dramatist, as Plato. But in -later times philosophers themselves have often been -willing to admit that even if they were not, like Plato, -dramatists, there was poetry and art in their vocation. -“One does not see why the sense for Philosophy -should be more generally diffused than that for -poetry,” remarked Schelling, evidently regarding them -as on the same plane. <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange followed with his -memorable “History of Materialism,” in which the -conception of philosophy as a poetic art was clearly set -forth. “Philosophy is pure art,” says in our own days -a distinguished thinker who is in especially close touch -with the religious philosophy of the East. “The -thinker works with laws of thought and scientific facts -in just the same sense as the musical composer with -tones. He must find accords, he must think out sequences, -he must set the part in a necessary relation to -the whole. But for that he needs art.”<a id='r36' /><a href='#f36' class='c011'><sup>[36]</sup></a> Bergson regards -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>philosophy as an art, and Croce, the more than rival -of Bergson in popular esteem, and with interesting -points of contact with the French philosopher, though -his standpoint is so different, has repeatedly pointed -out—as regards Nietzsche, for instance, and even as -regards a philosopher to whom he is so closely related -as Hegel—that we may read philosophy for its poetic -rather than its historic truth. Croce’s position in this -matter is not, indeed, easy to state quite simply. He -includes æsthetics in philosophy, but he would not -regard philosophy as an art. For him art is the first -and lowest stratum in the mind, not in rank, but in -order, and on it the other strata are laid and combine -with it. Or, as he elsewhere says, “art is the root of our -whole theoretic life. Without root there can be neither -flower nor fruit.”<a id='r37' /><a href='#f37' class='c011'><sup>[37]</sup></a> But for Croce art is not itself -flower or fruit. The “Concept” and other abstractions -have to be brought in before Croce is satisfied -that he has attained reality. It may, perhaps, indeed, -be permitted, even to an admirer of the skill with which -Croce spreads out such wide expanses of thought, to -suggest that, in spite of his anxiety to keep close to the -concrete, he is not therein always successful, and that -he tends to move in verbal circles, as may perhaps happen -to a philosopher who would reduce the philosophy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>of art to the philosophy of language. But, however -that may be, it is a noteworthy fact that the close -relationship of art and philosophy is admitted by the -two most conspicuous philosophers of to-day, raised to -popular eminence in spite of themselves, the Philosopher -of Other-worldliness and the Philosopher of -This-worldliness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If we turn to England, we find that, in an age and a -land wherein it was not so easy to make the assertion -as it has now more generally become, Sir Leslie -Stephen, in harmony, whether or not he knew it, with -<abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange, wrote to Lord Morley (as he later became) -in the last century: “I think that a philosophy -is really made more of poetry than of logic; and the -real value of both poetry and philosophy is not the -pretended reasoning, but the exposition in one form or -other of a certain view of life.” It is, we see, just what -they have all been saying, and if it is true of men of -science and philosophers, who are the typical representatives -of human thinking, it is even true of every man -on earth who thinks, ever since the day when conscious -thinking began. The world is an unrelated mass of -impressions, as it first strikes our infant senses, falling -at random on the sensory mechanism, and all appearing -as it were on the same plane. For an infant the -moon is no farther away than his mother’s breast, even -though he possesses an inherited mental apparatus -fitted to coördinate and distinguish the two. It is only -when we begin to think, that we can arrange these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>unrelated impressions into intelligible groups, and -thinking is thus of the nature of art.<a id='r38' /><a href='#f38' class='c011'><sup>[38]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>All such art, moreover, may yet be said to be an -invention of fictions. That great and fundamental -truth, which underlies so much modern philosophy, -has been expounded in the clearest and most detailed -manner by Hans Vaihinger in his “Philosophie des -Als Ob.”</p> -<h3 class='c010'>II</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Hans Vaihinger</span> is still little known in England;<a id='r39' /><a href='#f39' class='c011'><sup>[39]</sup></a> and -that is the more remarkable as he has always been -strongly attached to English thought, of which his -famous book reveals an intimate knowledge. In early -life he had mixed much with English people, for whom -he has a deep regard, and learnt to revere, not only -Darwin, but Hume and <abbr class='spell'>J. S.</abbr> Mill, who exerted a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>decisive influence on his own philosophic development. -At the beginning of his career he projected a history of -English philosophy, but interest in that subject was -then so small in Germany that he had regretfully to -abandon his scheme, and was drawn instead, through -no active effort on his part, to make the study of Kant -the by-product of his own more distinctive work, yet it -was a fitting study, for in Kant he saw the germs of the -doctrine of the “as if,” that is to say, the practical -significance of fiction in human life, though that is -not the idea traditionally associated with Kant, who, -indeed, was not himself clear about it, while his insight -was further darkened by his reactionary tendencies; -yet Vaihinger found that it really played a large part -in Kant’s work and might even be regarded as his -special and personal way of regarding things; he was -not so much a metaphysician, Vaihinger remarks, as a -metaphorician. Yet even in his Kantian studies the -English influence was felt, for Vaihinger’s work has -here been to take up the Neo-Kantism of <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange -and to develop it in an empirical and positivistic -direction.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was evidently something in Vaihinger’s spirit -that allied him to the English spirit. We may see that -in his portrait; it is not the face of the philosophic -dreamer, the scholarly man of the study, but the eager, -forceful head of the practical man of action, the daring -adventurer, the man who seems made to struggle with -the concrete things of the world, the kind of man, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>is to say, whom we consider peculiarly English. That, -indeed, is the kind of man he would have been; that is -the kind of life, a social life full of activity and of sport, -that he desired to lead. But it was impossible. An -extreme and lifelong short-sightedness proved a handicap -of which he has never ceased to be conscious. So -it came about that his practical energy was, as it were, -sublimated into a philosophy which yet retained the -same forceful dynamic quality.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For the rest, his origin, training, and vocation seem -all to have been sufficiently German. He came, like -many other eminent men, out of a Swabian parsonage, -and was himself intended for theology, only branching -off into philosophy after his university career was well -advanced. At the age of sixteen he was deeply influenced, -as so many others have been, by Herder’s -<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit”</span>; that not only -harmonised with his own tendency at the time towards -a mixed theism and pantheism, but it first planted -within him the conception of evolution in human history, -proceeding from an animal origin, which became -a fundamental element of his mental constitution. -When a year later he came across Darwin’s doctrines -he felt that he knew them beforehand. These influences -were balanced by that of Plato, through whose -“Ideas” he caught his first glimpse of an “As-If -world.” A little later the strenuous training of one of -his teachers in the logical analysis of Latin syntax, -especially in the use of the conjunctions, furnished the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>source from which subsequently he drew that now -well-known phrase. It was in these years that he -reached the view, which he has since definitely advocated, -that philosophy should not be made a separate -study, but should become a natural part and corollary -of every study, since philosophy cannot be -fruitfully regarded as a discipline by itself. Without -psychology, especially, he finds that philosophy is -merely “a methodic abstraction.” A weighty influence -of these days was constituted by the poems and essays -of Schiller, a Swabian like himself, and, indeed, associated -with the history of his own family. Schiller -was not only an inspiring influence, but it was in -Schiller’s saying, “Error alone is life, and knowledge is -death,” that he found (however unjustifiably) the -first expression of his own “fictionalism,” while -Schiller’s doctrine of the play impulse as the basis of -artistic creation and enjoyment seemed the prophecy -of his own later doctrine, for in play he saw later the -“as if” as the kernel of æsthetic practice and contemplation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At the age of eighteen Vaihinger proceeded to the -Swabian University of Tübingen and here was free to -let his wide-ranging, eager mind follow its own impulses. -He revealed a taste for the natural sciences and -with this the old Greek nature philosophers, especially -Anaximander, for the sake of their anticipations of -modern evolutionary doctrines. Aristotle also occupied -him, later Spinoza, and, above all, Kant, though -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>it was chiefly the metaphysical antinomies and the -practical reason which fascinated him. As ever, it was -what made for practice that seemed mostly to concern -him. Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, the official -German idealists, said nothing to him. He turned -from them to Schopenhauer, and thence he drew the -pessimisms, the irrationalism, and the voluntarism -which became permanent features of his system of -thought. The irrationalism, as he himself points out, -was completely opposed to all early influences on him, -but it lay in his own personal circumstances. The contrast -between his temperamental impulse to energetic -practical action in every direction, and the reserve, -passivity, and isolation which myopia enforced, seemed -to him absolutely irrational and sharpened his vision -for all the irrationality of existence. So that a philosophy -which, like Schopenhauer’s, truthfully recognised -and allowed for the irrational element in existence -came like a revelation. As to Vaihinger’s pessimism, -that, as we might expect, is hardly of what would -be generally considered a pessimistic character. It is -merely a recognition of the fact that most people are -over-sanguine and thereby come to grief, whereas a -little touch of pessimism would have preserved them -from much misery. Long before the Great War, -Vaihinger felt that many Germans were over-sanguine -regarding the military power of their Empire, and of -Germany’s place in the world, and that such optimism -might easily conduce to war and disaster. In 1911 he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>even planned to publish anonymously in Switzerland -a pamphlet entitled “Finis Germaniæ,” with the motto -<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat,”</span> and was -only prevented by a sudden development of the eye-trouble. -Vaihinger points out that an unjustified -optimism had for a long time past led in the politics -of Germany—and also, he might have said, of the -countries later opposed to her—to lack of foresight, -over-haste, and arrogance; he might have added that a -very slight touch of pessimism would also have enabled -these countries, on both sides, to discover the not very -remote truth that even the victors in such a contest -would suffer scarcely less than the conquered. In early -life Vaihinger had playfully defined Man as a “species -of ape afflicted by megalomania”; he admits that, -whatever truth lies behind the definition, the statement -is somewhat exaggerated. Yet it is certainly -strange to observe, one may comment, how many -people seem to feel vain of their own ungratified -optimism when the place where optimism most flourishes -is the lunatic asylum. They never seem to pause -to reflect on the goal that lies ahead of them, though -there must be few who on looking back cannot perceive -what terrible accidents they might have foreseen and -avoided by the aid of a little pessimism. When the -gods, to ruin a man, first make him mad, they do it, -almost invariably, by making him an optimist. One -might hazard the assertion that the chief philosophic -distinction between classic antiquity and modern -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>civilisation is the prevalence in the latter of a facile -optimism; and the fact that of all ancient writers the -most popular in modern times has been the complacently -optimistic (or really hedonistic) Horace is -hardly due to his technical virtuosity. He who would -walk sanely amid the opposing perils in the path of -life always needs a little optimism; he also needs a -little pessimism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Reference has been made to Vaihinger’s devouring -appetite for knowledge. This, indeed, was extraordinary, -and of almost universal range. There seem to -have been few fields with which he failed to come in -touch, either through books or by personal intercourse -with experts. He found his way into all the natural -sciences, he was drawn to Greek archæology and German -philosophy; he began the study of Sanscrit with -Roth. Then, realising that he had completely neglected -mathematics, he devoted himself with ardour to -analytic geometry and infinitesimals, a study which -later he found philosophically fruitful. Finally, in -1874, he may be said to have rounded the circle of his -self-development by reading the just published enlarged -and much improved edition of <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange’s -“History of Materialism.” Here he realised the presence -of a spirit of the noblest order, equipped with the -widest culture and the finest lucidity of vision, the -keenest religious radicalism combined with large-hearted -tolerance and lofty moral equilibrium, all -manifested in a completed master-work. Moreover, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>the standpoint of <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange was precisely that -which Vaihinger had been independently struggling -towards, for it brought into view that doctrine of the -place of fiction in life which he had already seen ahead. -It is not surprising that he should generously and -enthusiastically acclaim Lange as master and leader, -though his subsequent work is his own, and has carried -ideas of which Lange held only the seeds to new and -fruitful development.<a id='r40' /><a href='#f40' class='c011'><sup>[40]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>It was in 1876-77 that Vaihinger wrote his book, a -marvellous achievement for so youthful a thinker, for -he was then only about twenty-five years of age. A -final revision it never underwent, and there remain -various peculiarities about the form into which it is -cast. The serious failure in eyesight seems to have -been the main reason for delaying the publication of a -work which the author felt to be too revolutionary to -put forth in an imperfect form. He preferred to leave -it for posthumous publication.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the world was not standing still, and during the -next thirty years many things happened. Vaihinger -found the new sect of Pragmatists coming into fashion -with ideas resembling his own, though in a cruder -shape, which seemed to render philosophy the “meretrix -theologorum.” Many distinguished thinkers were -working towards an attitude more or less like his own, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>especially Nietzsche, whom (like many others even -to-day) he had long regarded with prejudice and -avoided, but now discovered to be “a great liberator” -with congenial veins of thought. Vaihinger realised -that his conception was being independently put forward -from various sides, often in forms that to him -seemed imperfect or vicious. It was no longer advisable -to hold back his book. In 1911, therefore, -<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Die Philosophie des Als Ob”</span> appeared.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The problem which Vaihinger set out to solve was -this: How comes it about that with consciously false -ideas we yet reach conclusions that are in harmony -with Nature and appeal to us as Truth? That we do -so is obvious, especially in the “exact” branches of -science. In mathematics it is notorious that we start -from absurdities to reach a realm of law, and our -whole conception of the nature of the world is based on -a foundation which we believe to have no existence. -For even the most sober scientific investigator in -science, the most thoroughgoing Positivist, cannot -dispense with fiction; he must at least make use of -categories, and they are already fictions, analogical -fictions, or labels, which give us the same pleasure as -children receive when they are told the “name” of a -thing. Fiction is, indeed, an indispensable supplement -to logic, or even a part of it; whether we are working -inductively or deductively, both ways hang closely -together with fiction; and axioms, though they seek to -be primary verities, are more akin to fiction. If we had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>realised the nature of axioms, the doctrine of Einstein, -which sweeps away axioms so familiar to us that they -seem obvious truths, and substitutes others which -seem absurd because they are unfamiliar, might not -have been so bewildering.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Physics, especially mathematical physics, Vaihinger -explains in detail, has been based, and fruitfully based, -on fictions. The infinite, infinitely little or infinitely -great, while helpful in lightening our mental operations, -is a fiction. The Greeks disliked and avoided it, -and “the gradual formation of this conception is one -of the most charming and instructive themes in the -history of science,” indeed, one of the most noteworthy -spectacles in the history of the human spirit; we see the -working of a logical impulse first feeling in the dark, -gradually constructing ideas fitted to yield precious -service, yet full of hopeless contradictions, without -any relation to the real world. That absolute space is a -fiction, Vaihinger points out, is no new idea. Hobbes -had declared it was only a <i>phantasma</i>; Leibnitz, who -agreed, added that it was merely “the idolum of a few -modern Englishmen,” and called time, extension, and -movement <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“<i>choses idéales</i>.”</span> Berkeley, in attacking the -defective conceptions of the mathematicians, failed to -see that it was by means of, and not in spite of, these -logically defective conceptions that they attained logically -valuable results. All the marks of fiction were set -up on the mathematician’s pure space; it was impossible -and unthinkable: yet it proved useful and fruitful.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>The tautological fiction of “Force”—an empty -reduplication of the fact of a succession of relationships—is -one that we constantly fall back on with -immense satisfaction and with the feeling of having -achieved something; it has been a highly convenient -fiction which has aided representation and experience. -It is one of the most famous, and also, it must be added, -one of the most fatal of fantasies. For when we talk -of, for instance, a “life-force” and its <i>élan</i>, or whatever -other dainty term we like to apply to it, we are not only -summarily mingling together many separate phenomena, -but we are running the risk that our conception -may be taken for something that really exists. There -is always temptation, when two processes tend to -follow each other, to call the property of the first to be -followed by the other its “force,” and to measure that -force by the magnitude of the result. In reality we -only have succession and coexistence, and the “force” -is something that we imagine.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We must not, therefore, treat our imagination with -contempt as was formerly the fashion, but rather the -reverse. The two great periods of English Philosophy, -Vaihinger remarks, ended with Ockham and with -Hume, who each took up, in effect, the fictional point -of view, but both too much on the merely negative -side, without realising the positive and constructive -value of fictions. English law has above all realised it, -even, he adds, to the point of absurdity. Nothing is so -precious as fiction, provided only one chooses the right -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>fiction. “Matter” is such a fiction. There are still -people who speak with lofty contempt of “Materialism”; -they mean well, but they are unhappy in their -terms of abuse. When Berkeley demonstrated the -impossibility of “matter,” he thought he could afford -to throw away the conception as useless. He was quite -wrong; it is logically contradictory ideas that are the -most valuable. Matter is a fiction, just as the fundamental -ideas with which the sciences generally operate -are mostly fictions, and the scientific materialisation -of the world has proved a necessary and useful fiction, -only harmful when we regard it as hypothesis and -therefore possibly true. The representative world is a -system of fictions. It is a symbol by the help of which -we orient ourselves. The business of science is to make -the symbol ever more adequate, but it remains a -symbol, a means of action, for action is the last end of -thinking.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The “atom,” to which matter is ultimately reduced, -is regarded by Vaihinger as equally a fiction, though it -was at first viewed as an hypothesis, and it may be -added that since he wrote it seems to have returned to -the stage of hypothesis.<a id='r41' /><a href='#f41' class='c011'><sup>[41]</sup></a> But when with Boscovich the -“atom” was regarded as simply the bearer of energy, -it became “literally a hypostatised nothing.” We have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>to realise at the same time that every “thing” is a -“summatory fiction,” for to say, as is often said, that -a “thing” has properties and yet has a real existence -apart from its properties is obviously only a convenient -manner of speech, a “verbal fiction.” The “force of -attraction,” as Newton himself pointed out, belongs to -the same class of summatory fictions.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Vaihinger is throughout careful to distinguish fiction -alike from hypothesis and dogma. He regards the -distinction as, methodologically, highly important, -though not always easy to make. The “dogma” is put -forward as an absolute and unquestionable truth; the -“hypothesis” is a possible or probable truth, such as -Darwin’s doctrine of descent; the “fiction” is impossible, -but it enables us to reach what for us is relatively -truth, and, above all, while hypothesis simply contributes -to knowledge, fiction thus used becomes a -guide to practical action and indispensable to what we -feel to be progress. Thus the mighty and civilising -structure of Roman law was built up by the aid of -what the Romans themselves recognised as fictions, -while in the different and more flexible system of English -laws a constant inspiration to action has been -furnished by the supposed privileges gained by Magna -Carta, though we now recognise them as fictitious. -Many of our ideas tend to go through the three stages -of Dogma, Hypothesis, and Fiction, sometimes in that -order and sometimes in the reverse order. Hypothesis -especially presents a state of labile stability which is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>unpleasant to the mind, so it tends to become either -dogma or fiction. The ideas of Christianity, beginning -as dogmas, have passed through all three stages in the -minds of thinkers during recent centuries: the myths of -Plato, beginning as fiction, not only passed through the -three stages, but then passed back again, being now -again regarded as fiction. The scientifically valuable -fiction is a child of modern times, but we have already -emerged from the period when the use of fiction was -confined to the exact sciences.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus we find fiction fruitfully flourishing in the -biological and social sciences and even in the highest -spheres of human spiritual activity. The Linnæan and -similar classificatory systems are fictions, even though -put forward as hypotheses, having their value simply -as pictures, as forms of representation, but leading -to contradictions and liable to be replaced by other -systems which present more helpful pictures. There -are still people who disdain Adam Smith’s “economic -man,” as though proceeding from a purely selfish view -of life, although Buckle, forestalling Vaihinger, long -ago explained that Smith was deliberately making use -of a “valid artifice,” separating facts that he knew to -be in nature inseparable—he based his moral theory -on a totally different kind of man—because so he -could reach results approximately true to the observed -phenomena. Bentham also adopted a fiction for his -own system, though believing it to be an hypothesis, -and Mill criticised it as being “geometrical”; the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>criticism is correct, comments Vaihinger, but the -method was not thereby invalidated, for in complicated -fields no other method can be fruitfully used.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The same law holds when we approach our highest -and most sacred conceptions. It was recognised by -enlightened philosophers and theologians before Vaihinger -that the difference between body and soul is not -different from that between matter and force,—a provisional -and useful distinction,—that light and darkness, -life and death, are abstractions, necessary, indeed, -but in their application to reality always to be used -with precaution. On the threshold of the moral world -we meet the idea of Freedom, “one of the weightiest -conceptions man has ever formed,” once a dogma, in -course of time an hypothesis, now in the eyes of many -a fiction; yet we cannot do without it, even although -we may be firmly convinced that our acts are determined -by laws that cannot be broken. Many other -great conceptions have tended to follow the same -course. God, the Soul, Immortality, the Moral World-Order. -The critical hearers understand what is meant -when these great words are used, and if the uncritical -misunderstand, that, adds Vaihinger, may sometimes -be also useful. For these things are Ideals, and all -Ideals are, logically speaking, fictions. As Science -leads to the Imaginary, so Life leads to the Impossible; -without them we cannot reach the heights we are born -to scale. “Taken literally, however, our most valuable -conceptions are worthless.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>When we review the vast field which Vaihinger summarises, -we find that thinking and existing must ever -be on two different planes. The attempt of Hegel and -his followers to transform subjective processes into -objective world-processes, Vaihinger maintains, will -not work out. The Thing-in-Itself, the Absolute, remains -a fiction, though the ultimate and most necessary -fiction, for without it representation would be -unintelligible. We can only regard reality as a Heraclitean -flux of happening—though Vaihinger fails to -point out that this “reality” also can only be an -image or symbol—and our thinking would itself be -fluid if it were not that by fiction we obtain imaginary -standpoints and boundaries by which to gain control -of the flow of reality. It is the special art and object of -thinking to attain existence by quite other methods -than that of existence itself. But the wish by so doing -to understand the world is both unrealisable and foolish, -for we are only trying to comprehend our own -fictions. We can never solve the so-called world-riddle -because what seem riddles to us are merely the -contradictions we have ourselves created. Yet, though -the way of thinking cannot be the way of being, since -they stand on such different foundations, thinking -always has a kind of parallelism with being, and -though we make our reckoning with a reality that we -falsify, yet the practical result tends to come out right. -Just because thinking is different from reality, its -forms must also be different in order to correspond -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>with reality. Our conceptions, our conventional signs, -have a fictive function to perform; thinking in its -lower grades is comparable to paper money, and in its -higher forms it is a kind of poetry.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Imagination is thus a constitutive part of all thinking. -We may make distinctions between practical -scientific thinking and disinterested æsthetic thinking. -Yet all thinking is finally a comparison. Scientific -fictions are parallel with æsthetic fictions. The poet is -the type of all thinkers: there is no sharp boundary -between the region of poetry and the region of science. -Both alike are not ends in themselves, but means to -higher ends.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Vaihinger’s doctrine of the “as if” is not immune -from criticism on more than one side, and it is fairly obvious -that, however sound the general principle, particular -“fictions” may alter their status, and have -even done so since the book was written. Moreover, the -doctrine is not always quite congruous with itself. Nor -can it be said that Vaihinger ever really answered the -question with which he set out. In philosophy, however, -it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, -it is the things that are met with by the way. And Vaihinger’s -philosophy is not only of interest because it -presents so clearly and vigorously a prevailing tendency -in modern thought. Rightly understood, it supplies -a fortifying influence to those who may have seen -their cherished spiritual edifice, whatever it may be, -fall around them and are tempted to a mood of disillusionment. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>We make our own world; when we have -made it awry, we can remake it, approximately truer, -though it cannot be absolutely true, to the facts. It -will never be finally made; we are always stretching -forth to larger and better fictions which answer more -truly to our growing knowledge and experience. Even -when we walk, it is only by a series of regulated errors, -Vaihinger well points out, a perpetual succession of -falls to one side and the other side. Our whole progress -through life is of the same nature; all thinking is a regulated -error. For we cannot, as Vaihinger insists, choose -our errors at random or in accordance with what happens -to please us; such fictions are only too likely to -turn into deadening dogmas: the old <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>vis dormitiva</i></span> is the -type of them, mere husks that are of no vital use and -help us not at all. There are good fictions and bad fictions -just as there are good poets and bad poets. It is in -the choice and regulation of our errors, in our readiness -to accept ever-closer approximations to the unattainable -reality, that we think rightly and live rightly. We -triumph in so far as we succeed in that regulation. “A -lost battle,” Foch, quoting De Maistre, lays down in -his “Principes de Guerre,” “is a battle one thinks one -has lost”; the battle is won by the fiction that it is won. -It is so also in the battle of life, in the whole art of -living. Freud regards dreaming as fiction that helps us -to sleep; thinking we may regard as fiction that helps -us to live. Man lives by imagination.</p> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span> - <h3 class='c010'>III</h3> -</div> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Yet</span> what we consider our highest activities arise out -of what we are accustomed to regard as the lowest. -That is, indeed, merely a necessary result of evolution; -bipeds like ourselves spring out of many-limbed creatures -whom we should now regard as little better than -vermin, and the adult human creature whose eyes, as -he sometimes imagines, are fixed on the stars, was a -few years earlier merely a small animal crawling on all -fours. The impulse of the philosopher, of the man of -science, of any ordinary person who sometimes thinks -about seemingly abstract or disinterested questions—we -must include the whole range of the play of thought -in response to the stimulus of curiosity—may seem at -the first glance to be a quite secondary and remote product -of the great primary instincts. Yet it is not difficult -to bring this secondary impulse into direct relation -with the fundamental primary instincts, even, and perhaps -indeed chiefly, with the instinct of sex. On the -mental side—which is not, of course, its fundamental -side—the sexual instinct is mainly, perhaps solely, a -reaction to the stimulus of curiosity. Beneath that -mental surface the really active force is a physiologically -based instinct urgent towards action, but the boy -or girl who first becomes conscious of the mental stimulus -is unaware of the instinct it springs from, and may -even disregard as unimportant its specific physiological -manifestations. The child is only conscious of new -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>curiosities, and these it persistently seeks to satisfy at -any available or likely source of information, aided by -the strenuous efforts of its own restlessly active imagination. -It is in exactly the same position as the metaphysician, -or the biologist, or any thinker who is faced -by complex and yet unsolved problems. And the child -is at first baffled by just the same kind of obstacles, -due, not like those of the thinker, to the silence of recalcitrant -Nature, but to the silence of parents and -teachers, or to their deliberate efforts to lead him -astray.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Where do babies come from? That is perhaps for -many children the earliest scientific problem that is in -this way rendered so difficult of solution. No satisfying -solution comes from the sources of information to -which the child is wont to appeal. He is left to such -slight imperfect observations as he can himself make; -on such clues his searching intellect works and with the -aid of imagination weaves a theory, more or less remote -from the truth, which may possibly explain the phenomena. -It is a genuine scientific process—the play of -intellect and imagination around a few fragments of -observed fact—and it is undoubtedly a valuable discipline -for the childish mind, though if it is too prolonged -it may impede or distort natural development, -and if the resulting theory is radically false it may lead, -as the theories of scientific adults sometimes lead, if -not speedily corrected, to various unfortunate results.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A little later, when he has ceased to be a child and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>puberty is approaching, another question is apt to -arise in the boy’s mind: What is a woman like? There -is also, less often and more carefully concealed, the corresponding -curiosity in the girl’s mind. Earlier this -question had seemed of no interest; it had never even -occurred to ask it; there was little realisation—sometimes -none at all—of any sexual difference. Now it -sometimes becomes a question of singular urgency, in -the solution of which it is necessary for the boy to concentrate -all the scientific apparatus at his command. -For there may be no ways of solving it directly, least of -all for a well-behaved, self-respecting boy or a shy, -modest girl. The youthful intellect is thus held in full -tension, and its developing energy directed into all -sorts of new channels in order to form an imaginative -picture of the unknown reality, fascinating because incompletely -known. All the chief recognised mental -processes of dogma, hypothesis, and fiction, developed -in the history of the race, are to this end instinctively -created afresh in the youthful individual mind, endlessly -formed and re-formed and tested in order to fill -in the picture. The young investigator becomes a diligent -student of literature and laboriously examines the -relevant passages he finds in the Bible or other ancient -primitive naked books. He examines statues and pictures. -Perhaps he finds some old elementary manual -of anatomy, but here the long list of structures with -Latin names proves far more baffling than helpful to -the youthful investigator who can in no possible way -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>fit them all into the smooth surface shown by the statues. -Yet the creative and critical habit of thought, the -scientific mind generated by this search, is destined to -be of immense value, and long outlives the time when -the eagerly sought triangular spot, having fulfilled its -intellectual function, has become a familiar region, -viewed with indifference, or at most a homely tenderness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>That was but a brief and passing episode, however -permanently beneficial its results might prove. With -the achievement of puberty, with the coming of adolescence, -a larger and higher passion fills the youth’s soul. -He forgets the woman’s body, his idealism seems to -raise him above the physical: it is the woman’s personality—most -likely some particular woman’s personality—that -he desires to know and to grasp.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A twofold development tends to take place at this -age—in those youths, that is to say, who possess the -latent attitude for psychic development—and that in -two diverse directions, both equally away from definite -physical desire, which at this age is sometimes, though -not always, at its least prominent place in consciousness. -On the one hand there is an attraction for an -idealised person—perhaps a rather remote person, for -such most easily lend themselves to idealisation—of -the opposite (or occasionally the same) sex, it may -sometimes for a time even be the heroine of a novel. -Such an ideal attraction acts as an imaginative and -emotional ferment. The imagination is stimulated to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>construct for the first time, from such material as it -has come across, or can derive from within, the coherent -picture of a desirable person. The emotions are trained -and disciplined to play around the figure thus constructed -with a new impersonal and unselfish, even self-sacrificing, -devotion. But this process is not enough to -use up all the energies of the developing mind, and the -less so as such impulses are unlikely by their very nature -to receive any considerable degree of gratification, -for they are of a nature to which no adequate response -is possible.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus it happens in adolescence that this new stream -of psychic energy, emotional and intellectual, generated -from within, concurrently with its primary personal -function of moulding the object of love, streams over -into another larger and more impersonal channel. It is, -indeed, lifted on to a higher plane and transformed, to -exercise a fresh function by initiating new objects of -ideal desire. The radiant images of religion and of art -as well as of science—however true it may be that -they have also other adjuvant sources—thus begin to -emerge from the depths beneath consciousness. They -tend to absorb and to embody the new energy, while its -primary personal object may sink into the background, -or at this age even fail to be conscious at all.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This process—the process in which all abstract -thinking is born as well as all artistic creation—must -to some slight extent take place in every person whose -mental activity is not entirely confined to the immediate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>objects of sense. But in persons of more complex -psychic organisation it is a process of fundamental importance. -In those of the highest complex organisation, -indeed, it becomes what we term genius. In the most -magnificent achievements of poetry and philosophy, of -art and of science, it is no longer forbidden to see the -ultimate root in this adolescent development.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To some a glimpse of this great truth has from time -to time appeared. Ferrero, who occupied himself with -psychology before attaining eminence as a brilliant -historian, suggested thirty years ago that the art impulse -and its allied manifestations are transformed sexual -instinct; the sexual impulse is “the raw material, so -to speak, from which art springs”; he connected that -transformation with a less development of the sexual -emotions in women; but that was much too hasty an assumption, -for apart from the fact that such transformation -could never be complete, and probably less so in -women than in men, we have also to consider the nature -of the two organisms through which the transformed -emotions would operate, probably unlike in the sexes, -for the work done by two machines obviously does -not depend entirely upon feeding them with the same -amount of fuel, but also on the construction of the two -engines. Möbius, a brilliant and original, if not erratic, -German psychologist, who was also concerned with the -question of difference in the amount of sexual energy, -regarded the art impulse as a kind of sexual secondary -character. That is to say, no doubt,—if we develop -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>the suggestion,—that just as the external features of -the male and his external activities, in the ascending -zoölogical series, have been developed out of the impulse -of repressed organic sexual desire striving to manifest -itself ever more urgently in the struggle to overcome -the coyness of the female, so on the psychic side -there has been a parallel impulse, if of later development, -to carry on the same task in forms of art which -have afterwards acquired an independent activity and -a yet further growth dissociated from this primary biological -function. We think of the natural ornaments -which adorn male animals from far down in the scale -even up to man, of the additions made thereto by tattooing -and decoration and garments and jewels, of the -parades and dances and songs and musical serenades -found among lower animals as well as Man, together -with the love-lyrics of savages, furnishing the beginnings -of the most exquisite arts of civilisation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is to be noted, however, that these suggestions introduce -an assumption of male superiority, or male inferiority—according -to our scheme of values—which -unnecessarily prejudices and confuses the issue. We -have to consider the question of the origin of art apart -from any supposed predominance of its manifestations -in one sex or the other. In my own conception—put -forward a quarter of a century ago—of what I called -auto-erotic activities, it was on such a basis that I -sought to place it, since I regarded those auto-erotic -phenomena as arising from the impeded spontaneous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>sexual energy of the organism and extending from simple -physical processes to the highest psychic manifestations; -“it is impossible to say what finest elements in -art, in morals, in civilisation generally, may not really -be rooted in an auto-erotic impulse,” though I was careful -to add that the transmutation of sexual energy into -other forms of force must not be regarded as itself completely -accounting for all the finest human aptitudes of -sympathy and art and religion.<a id='r42' /><a href='#f42' class='c011'><sup>[42]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>It is along this path, it may perhaps be claimed,—as -dimly glimpsed by Nietzsche, Hinton, and other -earlier thinkers,—that the main explanation of the -dynamic process by which the arts, in the widest sense, -have come into being, is now chiefly being explored. -One thinks of Freud and especially of Dr. Otto Rank, -perhaps the most brilliant and clairvoyant of the -younger investigators who still stand by the master’s -side. In 1905 Rank wrote a little essay on the artist<a id='r43' /><a href='#f43' class='c011'><sup>[43]</sup></a> -in which this mechanism is set forth and the artist -placed, in what the psycho-analytic author considers -his due place, between the ordinary dreamer at one end -and the neurotic subject at the other, the lower forms -of art, such as myth-making, standing near to dreams, -and the higher forms, such as the drama, philosophy, -and the founding of religions, near to psycho-neurosis, -but all possessing a sublimated life-force which has its -root in some modification of sexual energy.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>It may often seem that, in these attempts to explain -the artist, the man of science is passed over or left in -the background, and that is true. But art and science, -as we now know, have the same roots. The supreme -men of science are recognisably artists, and the earliest -forms of art, which are very early indeed,—Sir Arthur -Evans has suggested that men may have drawn -before they talked,—were doubtless associated with -magic, which was primitive man’s science, or, at all -events, his nearest approximation to science. The -connection of the scientific instinct with the sexual -instinct is not, indeed, a merely recent insight. Many -years ago it was clearly stated by a famous Dutch -author. “Nature, who must act wisely at the risk of -annihilation,” wrote Multatuli at the conclusion of his -short story, “The Adventures of Little Walter,” “has -herein acted wisely by turning all her powers in one -direction. Moralists and psychologists have long since -recognised, without inquiring into the causes, that -curiosity is one of the main elements of love. Yet they -were only thinking of sexual love, and by raising the -two related termini in corresponding wise on to a -higher plane I believe that the noble thirst for knowledge -springs from the same soil in which noble love -grows. To press through, to reveal, to possess, to direct, -and to ennoble, that is the task and the longing, -alike of the lover and the natural discoverer. So that -every Ross or Franklin is a Werther of the Pole, and -whoever is in love is a Mungo Park of the spirit.”</p> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span> - <h3 class='c010'>IV</h3> -</div> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>As</span> soon as we begin to think about the world around us -in what we vainly call a disinterested way—for disinterest -is, as Leibnitz said, a chimera, and there remains -a superior interest—we become youths and lovers and -artists, and there is at the same time a significant -strain of sexual imagery in our thought.<a id='r44' /><a href='#f44' class='c011'><sup>[44]</sup></a> Among ourselves -this is not always clear; we have been dulled by -the routine of civilisation and the artificial formalities -of what is called education. It is clear in the mythopœic -creation of comparative primitive thought, but in -civilisation it is in the work of men of genius—poets, -philosophers, painters, and, as we have to recognise, -men of science—that this trait is most conspicuously -manifested. To realise this it is sufficient to contemplate -the personality and activity of one of the earliest -great modern men of science, of Leonardo da Vinci. -Until recent times it would have seemed rather strange -so to describe Leonardo da Vinci. He still seemed, as he -was in his own time, primarily a painter, an artist in -the conventionally narrow sense, and as such one of the -greatest, fit to paint, as Browning put it, one of the -four walls of the New Jerusalem. Yet even his contemporaries -who so acclaimed him were a little worried -about Leonardo in this capacity. He accomplished so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>little, he worked so slowly, he left so much unfinished, -he seemed to them so volatile and unstable. He was an -enigma to which they never secured the key. They -failed to see, though it is clearly to be read even in his -face, that no man ever possessed a more piercing concentration -of vision, a more fixed power of attention, -a more unshakable force of will. All that Leonardo -achieved in painting and in sculpture and in architecture, -however novel or grandiose, was, as Solmi, the -highly competent Vincian scholar has remarked, merely -a concession to his age, in reality a violence done to his -own nature, and from youth to old age he had directed -his whole strength to one end: the knowledge and the -mastery of Nature. In our own time, a sensitive, alert, -widely informed critic of art, Bernhard Berenson, setting -out with the conventional veneration for Leonardo -as a painter, slowly, as the years went by and his judgment -grew more mature, adopted a more critical attitude, -bringing down his achievements in art to -moderate dimensions, yet without taking any interest -in Leonardo as a stupendous artist in science. We may -well understand that vein of contempt for the crowd, -even as it almost seems the hatred for human society, -the spirit of Timon, which runs across Leonardo’s -writings, blended, no doubt inevitably blended, with -his vein of human sweetness. This stern devotee of -knowledge declared, like the author of “The Imitation -of Christ,” that “Love conquers all things.” There is -here no discrepancy. The man who poured a contemptuous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>flood of irony and denunciation over the most -sacred social institutions and their most respectable -representatives was the same man—the Gospels tell -us—who brooded with the wings of a maternal tenderness -over the pathos of human things.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When, indeed, our imagination plays with the idea -of a future Overman, it is Leonardo who comes before -us as his forerunner. Vasari, who had never seen -Leonardo, but has written so admirable an account of -him, can only describe him as “supernatural” and -“divine.” In more recent times Nietzsche remarked -of Leonardo that “there is something super-European -and silent in him, the characteristic of one who has -seen too wide a circle of things good and evil.” There -Nietzsche touches, even though vaguely, more nearly -than Vasari could, the distinguishing mark of this endlessly -baffling and enchanting figure. Every man of -genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, -and there is his tragedy. But it is usually a measurable -angle. We cannot measure the angle at which -Leonardo stands; he strikes athwart the line of our -conventional human thought in ways that are sometimes -a revelation and sometimes an impenetrable -mystery. We are reminded of the saying of Heraclitus: -“Men hold some things wrong and some right; God -holds all things fair.” The dispute as to whether he was -above all an artist or a man of science is a foolish and -even unmeaning dispute. In the vast orbit in which -Leonardo moved the distinction had little or no existence. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>That was inexplicable to his contemporaries -whose opinions Vasari echoes. They could not understand -that he was not of the crowd of makers of pretty -things who filled the workshops of Florence. They saw -a man of beautiful aspect and fine proportions, with a -long curled beard and wearing a rose-coloured tunic, -and they called him a craftsman, an artist, and thought -him rather fantastic. But the medium in which this -artist worked was Nature, the medium in which the -scientist works; every problem in painting was to -Leonardo a problem in science, every problem in -physics he approached in the spirit of the artist. -“Human ingenuity,” he said, “can never devise anything -more simple and more beautiful, or more to the -purpose, than Nature does.” For him, as later for -Spinoza, reality and perfection were the same thing. -Both aspects of life he treats as part of his task—the -extension of the field of human knowledge, the intension -of the power of human skill; for art, or, as he called -it, practice, without science, he said, is a boat without -a rudder. Certainly he occupied himself much with -painting, the common medium of self-expression in his -day, though he produced so few pictures; he even -wrote a treatise on painting; he possessed, indeed, a -wider perception of its possibilities than any artist who -ever lived. “Here is the creator of modern landscape!” -exclaimed Corot before Leonardo’s pictures, and a remarkable -description he has left of the precise effects -of colour and light produced when a woman in white -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>stands on green grass in bright sunshine shows that -Leonardo clearly apprehended the <i>plein-airiste’s</i> problem. -Doubtless it will prove possible to show that he -foresaw still later methods. He rejected these methods -because it seemed to him that the artist could work -most freely by moving midway between light and -darkness, and, indeed, he, first of painters, succeeded -in combining them—just as he said also that Pleasure -and Pain should be imaged as twins since they are -ever together, yet back to back because ever contrary—and -devised the method of <i>chiaroscuro</i>, by which -light reveals the richness of shade and shade heightens -the brightness of light. No invention could be more -characteristic of this man whose grasp of the world -ever involved the union of opposites, and the opposites -both apprehended more intensely than falls to the lot -of other men.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet it is noteworthy that Leonardo constantly -speaks of the artist’s function as searching into and imitating -Nature, a view which the orthodox artist anathematises. -But Leonardo was not the orthodox artist, -not even, perhaps, as he is traditionally regarded, -one of the world’s supreme painters. For one may -sympathise with Mr. Berenson’s engaging attempt—unconvincing -as it has seemed—to “expose” Leonardo. -The drawings Mr. Berenson, like every one else, -admires whole-heartedly, but, save for the unfinished -“Adoration,” which he regards as a summit of art, he -finds the paintings mostly meaningless and repellent. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>He cannot rank Leonardo as an artist higher than -Botticelli, and concludes that he was not so much a -great painter as a great inventor in painting. With -that conclusion it is possible that Leonardo himself -would have agreed. Painting was to him, he said, a -subtle invention whereby philosophical speculation can -be applied to all the qualities of forms. He seemed to -himself to be, here and always, a man standing at the -mouth of the gloomy cavern of Nature with arched -back, one hand resting on his knee and the other shading -his eyes, as he peers intently into the darkness, -possessed by fear and desire, fear of the threatening -gloom of that cavern, desire to discover what miracle -it might hold. We are far here from the traditional -attitude of the painter; we are nearer to the attitude of -that great seeker into the mysteries of Nature, one of -the very few born of women to whom we can ever even -passingly compare Leonardo, who felt in old age that -he had only been a child gathering shells and pebbles -on the shore of the great ocean of truth.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is almost as plausible to regard Leonardo as primarily -an engineer as primarily a painter. He offered -his services as a military engineer and architect to the -Duke of Milan and set forth at length his manifold -claims which include, one may note, the ability to -construct what we should now, without hesitation, -describe as “tanks.” At a later period he actually was -appointed architect and engineer-general to Cæsar -Borgia, and in this capacity was engaged on a variety -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>of works. He has, indeed, been described as the -founder of professional engineering. He was the seer -of coming steam engines and of steam navigation and -transportation. He was, again, the inventor of innumerable -varieties of ballistic machines and ordnance, -of steam guns and breech-loading arms with screw -breech-lock. His science always tended to become applied -science. Experience shows the road to practice, -he said, science is the guide to art. Thus he saw every -problem in the world as in the wide sense a problem -in engineering. All nature was a dynamic process of -forces beautifully effecting work, and it is this as it -were distinctive vision of the world as a whole which -seems to give Leonardo that marvellous flair for detecting -vital mechanism in every field. It is impossible -even to indicate summarily the vast extent of the region -in which he was creating a new world, from the -statement, which he set down in large letters, “The -sun does not move,” the earth being, he said, a star, -“much like the moon,” down to such ingenious original -devices as the construction of a diving-bell, a swimming-belt, -and a parachute of adequate dimensions, -while, as is now well known, Leonardo not only meditated -with concentrated attention on the problem of -flight, but realised scientifically the difficulties to be -encountered, and made ingenious attempts to overcome -them in the designing of flying-machines. It is -enough—following expert scientific guidance—to -enumerate a few points: he studied botany in the biological -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>spirit; he was a founder of geology, discovering -the significance of fossils and realising the importance -of river erosion; by his studies in the theories of -mechanics and their utilization in peace and war he -made himself the prototype of the modern man of -science. He was in turn biologist in every field of vital -mechanism, and the inaugurator before Vesalius -(who, however, knew nothing of his predecessor’s -work) of the minute study of anatomy by direct investigation -(after he had found that Galen could not -be relied on) and <i>post-mortem</i> dissections; he nearly -anticipated Harvey’s conception of the circulation of -the blood by studying the nature of the heart as a -pump. He was hydraulician, hydrographer, geometrician, -algebraist, mechanician, optician.<a id='r45' /><a href='#f45' class='c011'><sup>[45]</sup></a> These are -but a few of the fields in which Leonardo’s marvellous -insight into the nature of the forces that make the -world and his divining art of the methods of employing -them to human use have of late years been revealed. -For centuries they were concealed in notebooks -scattered through Europe and with difficulty -decipherable. Yet they are not embodied in vague -utterances or casual intuitions, but display a laborious -concentration on the precise details of the difficulties -to be overcome; nor was patient industry in him, as -often happens, the substitute for natural facility, for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>he was a person of marvellous natural facility, and, -like such persons, most eloquent and persuasive in -speech. At the same time his more general and reflective -conclusions are expressed in a style combining -the maximum of clarity with the maximum of concision,—far, -indeed, removed from the characteristic -florid redundancy of Italian prose,—which makes -Leonardo, in addition to all else, a supreme master of -language.<a id='r46' /><a href='#f46' class='c011'><sup>[46]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet the man to whom we must credit these vast -intellectual achievements was no abstracted philosopher -shut up in a laboratory. He was, even to look -upon, one of the most attractive and vivid figures that -ever walked the earth. As has sometimes happened -with divine and mysterious persons, he was the natural -child of his mother, Caterina, of whom we are only told -that she was “of good blood,” belonging to Vinci like -Ser Piero the father, and that a few years after Leonardo’s -birth she became the reputable wife of a citizen -of his native town. Ser Piero da Vinci was a notary, -of a race of notaries, but the busiest notary in Florence -and evidently a man of robust vigour; he married four -times and his youngest child was fifty years the junior -of Leonardo. We hear of the extraordinary physical -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>strength of Leonardo himself, of his grace and charm, -of his accomplishments in youth, especially in singing -and playing on the flute, though he had but an elementary -school education. Except for what he learnt -in the workshop of the many-sided but then still -youthful Verrocchio, he was his own schoolmaster, and -was thus enabled to attain that absolute emancipation -from authority and tradition which made him -indifferent even to the Greeks, to whom he was most -akin. He was left-handed; his peculiar method of writing -long raised the suspicion that it was deliberately -adopted for concealment, but it is to-day recognised -as simply the ordinary mirror-writing of a left-handed -child without training. This was not the only anomaly -in Leonardo’s strange nature. We now know that he -was repeatedly charged as a youth on suspicion of -homosexual offences; the result remains obscure, but -there is some reason to think he knew the inside of a -prison. Throughout life he loved to surround himself -with beautiful youths, though no tradition of license -or vice clings to his name. The precise nature of his -sexual temperament remains obscure. It mocks us, -but haunts us from out of his most famous pictures. -There is, for instance, the “John the Baptist” of the -Louvre, which we may dismiss with the distinguished -art critic of to-day as an impudent blasphemy or brood -over long, without being clearly able to determine -into what obscure region of the Freudian Unconscious -Leonardo had here adventured. Freud himself has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>devoted one of his most fascinating essays to a psychoanalytic -interpretation of Leonardo’s enigmatic personality. -He admits it is a speculation; we may take -it or leave it. But Freud has rightly apprehended that -in Leonardo sexual passion was largely sublimated -into intellectual passion, in accordance with his own -saying, “Nothing can be loved or hated unless first -we have knowledge of it,” or, as he elsewhere said, -“True and great love springs out of great knowledge, -and where you know little you can love but little or -not at all.” So it was that Leonardo became a master -of life. Vasari could report of him—almost in the -words it was reported of another supreme but widely -different figure, the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier—that -“with the splendour of his most beautiful countenance -he made serene every broken spirit.” To -possess by self-mastery the sources of love and hate is -to transcend good and evil and so to possess the Overman’s -power of binding up the hearts that are broken -by good and evil.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Every person of genius is in some degree at once -man, woman, and child. Leonardo was all three in the -extreme degree and yet without any apparent conflict. -The infantile strain is unquestioned, and, apart -from the problem of his sexual temperament, Leonardo -was a child even in his extraordinary delight in devising -fantastic toys and contriving disconcerting tricks. -His more than feminine tenderness is equally clear, -alike in his pictures and in his life. Isabella d’Este, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>asking him to paint the boy Jesus in the Temple, -justly referred to “the gentleness and sweetness which -mark your art.” His tenderness was shown not only -towards human beings, but to all living things, animals -and even plants, and it would appear that he was a -vegetarian. Yet at the same time he was emphatically -masculine, altogether free from weakness or softness. -He delighted in ugliness as well as in beauty; he liked -visiting the hospitals to study the sick in his thirst for -knowledge; he pondered over battles and fighting; he -showed no compunction in planning devilish engines -of military destruction. His mind was of a definitely -realistic and positive cast; though there seems no -field of thought he failed to enter, he never touched -metaphysics, and though his worship of Nature has -the emotional tone of religion, even of ecstasy, he was -clearly disdainful of the established religions, and perpetually -shocked “the timid friends of God.” By precept -and by practice he proclaimed the lofty solitude -of the individual soul, and he felt only contempt for the -herd. We see how this temper became impressed on -his face in his own drawing of himself in old age, with -that intent and ruthless gaze wrapped in intellectual -contemplation of the outspread world.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Leonardo comes before us, indeed, in the end, as a -figure for awe rather than for love. Yet, as the noblest -type of the Overman we faintly try to conceive, Leonardo -is the foe, not of man, but of the enemies of man. -The great secrets that with clear vision his stern grip -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>tore from Nature, the new instruments of power that -his energy wrought, they were all for the use and delight -of mankind. So Leonardo is the everlasting embodiment -of that brooding human spirit whose task never -dies. Still to-day it stands at the mouth of the gloomy -cavern of Nature, even of Human Nature, with bent -back and shaded eyes, seeking intently to penetrate -the gloom beyond, with the fear of that threatening -darkness, with the desire of what redeeming miracle it -yet perchance may hold.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>V</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>That</span> Leonardo da Vinci was not only supremely great -in science, but the incarnation of the spirit of science, -the artist and lover of Nature, is a fact it is well to -bear in mind. Many mistakes would be avoided if it -were more clearly present to consciousness. We should -no longer find the artists in design absurdly chafing -under what they considered the bondage of the artists -in thought. It would no longer be possible, as it was -some years ago, and may be still, for a narrow-minded -pedagogue like Brunetière, however useful in his own -field, to be greeted as a prophet when he fatuously -proclaimed what he termed “the bankruptcy of science.” -Unfortunately so many of the people who -masquerade under the name of “men of science” have -no sort of title to that name. They may be doing good -and honest work by accumulating in little cells the facts -which others, more truly inspired by the spirit of science, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>may one day work on; they may be doing more -or less necessary work by the application to practical -life of the discoveries which genuine men of science -have made. But they themselves have just as much, -and no more, claim to use the name of “science” as -the men who make the pots and dishes piled up in a -crockery shop have to use the name of “art.”<a id='r47' /><a href='#f47' class='c011'><sup>[47]</sup></a> They -have not yet even learnt that “science” is not the accumulation -of knowledge in the sense of piling up isolated -facts, but the active organisation of knowledge, -the application to the world of the cutting edge of a -marvellously delicate instrument, and that this task is -impossible without the widest range of vision and the -most restless fertility of imagination.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of such more genuine men of science—to name one -whom by virtue of several common interests I was -sometimes privileged to come near—was Francis -Galton. He was not a professional man of science; he -was even willing that his love of science should be accounted -simply a hobby. From the standpoint of the -ordinary professional scientific man he was probably -an amateur. He was not even, as some have been, a -learned amateur. I doubt whether he had really -mastered the literature of any subject, though I do not -doubt that that mattered little. When he heard of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>some famous worker in a field he was exploring, he -would look up that man’s work; so it was with Weismann -in the field of heredity. And, as I would note -with a smile in reading his letters, Galton was not able -to spell Weismann’s name correctly.<a id='r48' /><a href='#f48' class='c011'><sup>[48]</sup></a> His attitude in -science might be said to be pioneering much like that -of the pioneers of museums in the later seventeenth -and earlier eighteenth centuries, men like Tradescant -and Ashmole and Evelyn and Sloane: an insatiable curiosity -in things that were only just beginning, or had -not yet begun, to arouse curiosity. So it was that when -I made some personal experiments with the Mexican -cactus, mescal (<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Anhalonium Lewinii</i></span>), to explore its -vision-producing qualities, then quite unknown in -England, Galton was eagerly interested and wanted to -experiment on himself, though ultimately dissuaded -on account of his advanced age. But, on this basis, -Galton’s curiosity was not the mere inquisitiveness of -the child, it was coördinated with an almost uniquely -organised brain as keen as it was well-balanced. So -that on the one hand his curiosity was transformed -into methods that were endlessly ingenious and inventive, -and on the other it was guided and held in -check by inflexible caution and good sense. And he -knew how to preserve that exquisite balance without -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>any solemnity or tension or self-assertion, but playfully -and graciously, with the most unfailing modesty. -It was this rare combination of qualities—one may -see it all in his “Inquiries into Human Faculty”—which -made him the very type of the man of genius, -operating, not by profession or by deliberate training, -but by natural function, throwing light on the dark -places of the world and creating science in out-of-the-way -fields of human experience which before had been -left to caprice or not even perceived at all. Throughout -he was an artist and if, as is reported, he spent the -last year of his life chiefly in writing a novel, that was -of a piece with the whole of his marvellous activity; -he had never been doing anything else. Only his -romances were real.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Galton’s yet more famous cousin, Charles Darwin, -presents in equal purity the lover and the artist in the -sphere of Nature and Science. No doubt there were -once many obtuse persons to whom these names -seemed scarcely to fit when applied to Darwin. There -have been people to whom Darwin scarcely seemed a -man of genius, merely a dry laborious pedestrian -student of facts. He himself even—as many people -find it difficult to forget—once lamented his indifference -to poetry and art. But Darwin was one of those -elect persons in whose subconscious, if not in their -conscious, nature is implanted the realisation that -“science <i>is</i> poetry,” and in a field altogether remote -from the poetry and art of convention he was alike -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>poet and artist. Only a man so endowed could from a -suggestion received on reading Malthus have conceived -of natural selection as a chief moulding creative -force of an infinite succession of living forms; so also of -his fantastic theory of pangenesis. Even in trifling matters -of experiment, such as setting a musician to play -the bassoon in his greenhouse, to ascertain whether -music affected plants, he had all the inventive imagination -of poet or of artist. He was poet and artist—though -I doubt if this has been pointed out—in his -whole attitude towards Nature. He worked hard, but -to him work was a kind of play, and it may well be -that with his fragile health he could not have carried -on his work if it had not been play. Again and again -in his “Life and Letters” we find the description of -his observations or experiments introduced by some -such phrase as: “I was infinitely amused.” And he remarks -of a biological problem that it was like a game -of chess. I doubt, indeed, whether any great man of -science was more of an artist than Darwin, more consciously -aware that he was playing with the world, -more deliciously thrilled by the fun of life. That man -may well have found “poetry and art” dull who himself -had created the theory of sexual selection which made -the whole becoming of life art and the secret of it -poetry.<a id='r49' /><a href='#f49' class='c011'><sup>[49]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>It is not alone among biologists, from whose standpoint -it may be judged easier to reach, since they are -concerned with living Nature, that we find the attitude -of the lover and the artist. We find it just as well -marked when the man of genius plays in what some -might think the arid field of the physicist. Faraday -worked in a laboratory, a simple one, indeed, but the -kind of place which might be supposed fatal to the -true spirit of science, and without his researches in -magnetic electricity we might have missed, with or -without a pang, those most practical machines of our -modern life, the dynamo and the telephone. Yet Faraday -had no practical ends in view; it has been possible -to say of him that he investigated Nature as a poet -investigates the emotions. That would not have sufficed -to make him the supreme man of science he was. -His biographer, Dr. Bence Jones, who knew him well, -concludes that Faraday’s first great characteristic was -his trust in facts, and his second his imagination. -There we are brought to the roots of his nature. Only, -it is important to remember, these two characteristics -were not separate and distinct. In themselves they -may be opposing traits; it was because in Faraday -they were held together in vital tension that he became -so potent an instrument of research into Nature’s -secrets. Tyndall, who was his friend and fellow worker, -seems to have perceived this. “The force of his imagination,” -wrote Tyndall, “was enormous,”—he “rose -from the smallest beginnings to the greatest ends,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>from “bubbles of oxygen and nitrogen to the atmospheric -envelope of the earth itself,”—but “he bridled -it like a mighty rider.” Faraday himself said to the -same effect: “Let the imagination go, guarding it by -judgment and principles, but holding it in and directing -it by experiment.” Elsewhere he has remarked -that in youth he was, and he might have added that -he still remained, “a very lively imaginative person -and could believe in the ‘Arabian Nights’ as easily as -in the ‘Encyclopædia’.” But he soon acquired almost -an instinct for testing facts by experiment, for distrusting -such alleged facts as he had not so tested, and -for accepting all the conclusions that he had thus -reached with a complete indifference to commonly -accepted beliefs. (It is true he was a faithful and devout -elder in the Sandemanian Church, and that is -not the least fascinating trait in this fascinating man.) -Tyndall has insisted on both of these aspects of Faraday’s -mental activity. He had “wonderful vivacity,” -he was “a man of excitable and fiery nature,” and -“underneath his sweetness was the heat of a volcano.” -He himself believed that there was a Celtic strain in his -heredity; there was a tradition that the family came -from Ireland; I cannot find that there are any Faradays, -or people of any name resembling Faraday, now -in Ireland, but Tyndall, being himself an Irishman, -liked to believe that the tradition was sound. It would -only account for the emotionally vivacious side of this -nature. There was also the other side, on which Tyndall -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>also insists: the love of order, the extreme tenacity, -the high self-discipline able to convert the fire within -into a clear concentrated glow. In the fusion of these -two qualities “he was a prophet,” says Tyndall, “and -often wrought by an inspiration to be understood by -sympathy alone.” His expansive emotional imagination -became the servant of truth, and sprang into life -at its touch. In carrying out physical experiments he -would experience a childlike joy and his eyes sparkled. -“Even to his latest days he would almost dance for -joy at being shown a new experiment.” Silvanus -Thompson, in his book on Faraday, insists (as Tyndall -had) on the association with this childlike joy in imaginative -extravagance of the perpetual impulse to test -and to prove, “yet never hesitating to push to their -logical conclusions the ideas suggested by experiment, -however widely they might seem to lead from the -accepted modes of thought.” His method was the -method of the “Arabian Nights,” transferred to the -region of facts.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Faraday was not a mathematician. But if we turn -to Kepler, who moved in the sphere of abstract calculation, -we find precisely the same combination of characteristics. -It was to Kepler, rather than to Copernicus, -that we owe the establishment of the heliocentric theory -of our universe, and Kepler, more than any man, -was the precursor of Newton. It has been said that if -Kepler had never lived it is difficult to conceive who -could have taken his place and achieved his special -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>part in the scientific creation of our universe. For that -pioneering part was required a singular blend of seemingly -opposed qualities. Only a wildly daring, original, -and adventurous spirit could break away from the age-long -traditions and rigid preconceptions which had -ruled astronomy for thousands of years. Only an endlessly -patient, careful, laborious, precise investigator -could set up the new revolutionary conceptions needed -to replace these traditions and preconceptions. Kepler -supplied this rare combination of faculties. He possessed -the most absurdly extravagant imagination; he -developed a greater regard for accuracy in calculation -than the world had ever known. He was willing to -believe that the earth was a kind of animal, and would -not have been surprised to find that it possessed lungs -or gills. At the same time so set was he on securing the -precise truth, so patiently laborious, that some of his -most elaborate calculations were repeated, and without -the help of logarithms, even seventy times. The two -essential qualities that make the supreme artist in science -have never been so clearly made manifest as in -Kepler.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Kepler may well bring us to Einstein, the greatest -pioneer in the comprehension of the universe since his -day, and, indeed, one who is more than a pioneer, since -he already seems to have won a place beside Newton. -It is a significant fact that Einstein, though he possesses -an extremely cautious, critical mind, and is regarded -as conspicuous for his common sense, has a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>profound admiration for Kepler, whom he frequently -quotes. For Einstein also is an imaginative artist.<a id='r50' /><a href='#f50' class='c011'><sup>[50]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Einstein is obviously an artist, even in appearance, -as has often been noted by those who have met him; -“he looks far more the musician than the man of science,” -one writes, while those who know him well say -that he is “essentially as much an artist as a discoverer.” -As a matter of fact he is an artist in one of the -most commonly recognised arts, being an accomplished -musician, a good violinist, it is said, while improvisation -on the piano, he himself says, is “a necessity of his -life.” His face, we are told, is illumined when he listens -to music; he loves Bach and Haydn and Mozart, -Beethoven and Wagner much less, while to Chopin, -Schumann, and the so-called romantics in music, as -we might anticipate, he is indifferent. His love of -music is inborn; it developed when, as a child, he would -think out little songs “in praise of God,” and sing -them by himself; music, Nature, and God began, even -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>at that early age, to become a kind of unity to him. -“Music,” said Leibnitz, “is the pleasure the human -soul experiences from counting without being aware -that it is counting.” It is the most abstract, the most -nearly mathematical of the arts—we may recall how -music and mathematics had their scientific origin together -in the discovery of Pythagoras—and it is not -surprising that it should be Einstein’s favorite art.<a id='r51' /><a href='#f51' class='c011'><sup>[51]</sup></a> It -is even more natural that, next to music, he should -be attracted to architecture—the art which Goethe -called “frozen music”—for here we are actually -plunged into mechanics, here statics and dynamics are -transformed into visible beauty. To painting he is -indifferent, but he is drawn to literature, although no -great reader. In literature, indeed, it would seem that -it is not so much art that he seeks as emotion; in this -field it is no longer the austerely architectonic that -draws him; thus he is not attracted to Ibsen; he is -greatly attracted to Cervantes as well as Keller and -Strindberg; he has a profound admiration for Shakespeare, -but is cooler towards Goethe, while it would -seem that there is no writer to whom he is more fervently -attached than the most highly emotional, the -most profoundly disintegrated in nervous organisation -of all great writers, Dostoievsky, especially his masterpiece, -“The Brothers Karamazov.” “Dostoievsky -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss.” -All literary analysis or æsthetic subtlety, it seems to -Einstein, fails to penetrate to the heart of a work like -“The Karamazovs,” it can only be grasped by the -feelings. His face lights up when he speaks of it and he -can find no word but “ethical satisfaction.” For ethics -in the ordinary sense, as a system, means little to -Einstein; he would not even include it in the sciences; -it is the ethical joy embodied in art which satisfies him. -Moreover, it is said, the keynote of Einstein’s emotional -existence is the cry of Sophocles’ Antigone: “I -am not here to hate with you, but to love with you.” -The best that life has to offer, he feels, is a face glowing -with happiness. He is an advanced democrat and pacifist -rather than (as is sometimes supposed) a socialist; -he believes in the internationality of all intellectual -work and sees no reason why this should destroy national -characteristics.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Einstein is not—and this is the essential point to -make clear—merely an artist in his moments of leisure -and play, as a great statesman may play golf or a -great soldier grow orchids. He retains the same attitude -in the whole of his work. He traces science to its -roots in emotion, which is exactly where art also is -rooted. Of Max Planck, the physicist, for whom he has -great admiration, Einstein has said: “The emotional -condition which fits him for his task is akin to that of a -devotee or a lover.” We may say the same, it would -seem, of Einstein himself. He is not even to be included, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>as some might have supposed, in that rigid sect -which asserts that all real science is precise measurement; -he recognises that the biological sciences must be -largely independent of mathematics. If mathematics -were the only path of science, he once remarked, Nature -would have been illegible for Goethe, who had a -non-mathematical, even anti-mathematical, mind, and -yet possessed a power of intuition greater than that of -many an exact investigator.<a id='r52' /><a href='#f52' class='c011'><sup>[52]</sup></a> All great achievements -in science, he holds, start from intuition. This he constantly -repeats, although he adds that the intuition -must not stand alone, for invention also is required. -He is disposed to regard many scientific discoveries -commonly regarded the work of pure thought as really -works of art. He would have this view embodied in all -education, making education a free and living process, -with no drilling of the memory and no examinations, -mainly a process of appeal to the senses in order to -draw out delicate reactions. With his end, and even -for the sake of acquiring ethical personality, he would -have every child learn a handicraft, joinery, bookbinding, -or other, and, like Élie Faure,<a id='r53' /><a href='#f53' class='c011'><sup>[53]</sup></a> he has great faith in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>the educational value of the cinema. We see that behind -all Einstein’s activity lies the conception that -the physicist’s work is to attain a picture, “a world-picture,” -as he calls it. “I agree with Schopenhauer,” -Einstein said at a celebration in honour of Planck in -1918, “that one of the most powerful motives that attract -people to science and art is the longing to escape -from everyday life with its painful coarseness and desolating -bareness, and to break the fetters of their own -ever-changing desires. It impels those of keener sensibility -out of their personal existences into the world of -objective perception and understanding. It is a motive -force of like kind to that which drives the dweller in -noisy confused cities to restful Alpine heights whence -he seems to have an outlook on eternity. Associated -with this negative motive is the positive motive which -impels men to seek a simplified synoptic view of the -world conformable to their own nature, overcoming -the world by replacing it with this picture. The painter, -the poet, the philosopher, the scientist, all do this, each -in his own way.” Spengler has elaborately argued that -there is a perfect identity of physics, mathematics, religion, -and great art.<a id='r54' /><a href='#f54' class='c011'><sup>[54]</sup></a> We might fairly be allowed to -point to Einstein as a lofty embodiment of that identity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here, where we reach the sphere of mathematics, we -are among processes which seem to some the most -inhuman of all human activities and the most remote -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>from poetry. Yet it is here that the artist has the fullest -scope for his imagination. “Mathematics,” says -Bertrand Russell in his “Mysticism and Logic,” “may -be defined as the subject in which we never know what -we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying -is true.” We are in the imaginative sphere of art, and -the mathematician is engaged in a work of creation -which resembles music in its orderliness, and is yet reproducing -on another plane the order of the universe, -and so becoming as it were a music of the spheres. It -is not surprising that the greatest mathematicians -have again and again appealed to the arts in order to -find some analogy to their own work. They have indeed -found it in the most various arts, in poetry, in painting, -in sculpture, although it would certainly seem that it is -in music, the most abstract of the arts, the art of number -and of time, that we find the closest analogy. “The -mathematician’s best work is art,” said Mittag-Lefler, -“a high and perfect art, as daring as the most secret -dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical -genius and artistic genius touch each other.” And -Sylvester wrote in his “Theory of Reciprocants”: -“Does it not seem as if Algebra had attained to the -dignity of a fine art, in which the workman has a free -hand to develop his conceptions, as in a musical theme -or a subject for painting? It has reached a point in -which every properly developed algebraical composition, -like a skilful landscape, is expected to suggest the -notion of an infinite distance lying beyond the limits -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>of the canvas.” “Mathematics, rightly viewed,” says -Bertrand Russell again, “possesses not only truth, but -supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that -of sculpture.... The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, -the sense of being more than man, which is the -touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in -mathematics as surely as in poetry.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The mathematician has reached the highest rung on -the ladder of human thought. But it is the same ladder -which we have all of us been always ascending, alike -from the infancy of the individual and the infancy of -the race. Molière’s Jourdain had been speaking prose -for more than forty years without knowing it. Mankind -has been thinking poetry throughout its long -career and remained equally ignorant.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span> - <h2 id='chap4' class='c005'>CHAPTER IV <br /> THE ART OF WRITING</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'>I</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>From</span> time to time we are solemnly warned that in the -hands of modern writers language has fallen into a -morbid state. It has become degenerate, if not, indeed, -the victim of “senile ataxy” or “general paralysis.” -Certainly it is well that our monitors should seek to -arouse in us the wholesome spirit of self-criticism. -Whether we write ill or well, we can never be too seriously -concerned with what it is that we are attempting -to do. We may always be grateful to those who stimulate -us to a more wakeful activity in pursuing a task -which can never be carried to perfection.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet these monitors seldom fail at the same time to -arouse a deep revolt in our minds. We are not only -impressed by the critic’s own inability to write any -better than those he criticises. We are moved to question -the validity of nearly all the rules he lays down for -our guidance. We are inclined to dispute altogether -the soundness of the premises from which he starts. -Of these three terms of our revolt, covering comprehensively -the whole ground, the first may be put aside—since -the ancient retort is always ineffective and it -helps the patient not at all to bid the physician heal -himself—and we may take the last first.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>Men are always apt to bow down before the superior -might of their ancestors. It has been so always and -everywhere. Even the author of the once well-known -book of Genesis believed that “there were giants in -the earth in those days,” the mighty men which were -of old, the men of renown, and still to-day among ourselves -no plaint is more common than that concerning -the physical degeneracy of modern men as compared -with our ancestors of a few centuries ago. Now and -then, indeed, there comes along a man of science, like -Professor Parsons, who has measured the bones from -the remains of the ancestors we still see piled up in the -crypt at Hythe, and finds that—however fine the -occasional exceptions—the average height of those -men and women was decidedly less than that of their -present-day descendants. Fortunately for the vitality -of tradition, we cherish a wholesome distrust of science. -And so it is with our average literary stature. The -academic critic regards himself as the special depository -of the accepted tradition, and far be it from him to -condescend to any mere scientific inquiry into the -actual facts. He half awakens from slumber to murmur -the expected denunciation of his own time, and -therewith returns to slumber. He usually seems unaware -that even three centuries ago, in the finest period -of English prose, Swift, certainly himself a supreme -master, was already lamenting “the corruption of our -style.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>If it is asserted that the average writer of to-day has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>not equalled the supreme writer of some earlier age,—there -are but one or two in any age,—we can only -ejaculate: Strange if he had! Yet that is all that the -academic critic usually seems to mean. If he would -take the trouble to compare the average prose writer -of to-day with the average writer of even so great an -age as the Elizabethan, he might easily convince himself -that the former, whatever his imperfections, need -not fear the comparison. Whether or not Progress in -general may be described as “the exchange of one -nuisance for another nuisance,” it is certainly so with -the progress of style, and the imperfections of our -average everyday writing are balanced by the quite -other imperfections of our forefathers’ writing. What, -for instance, need we envy in the literary methods of -that great and miscellaneous band of writers whom -Hakluyt brought together in those admirable volumes -which are truly great and really fascinating only for -reasons that have nothing to do with style? Raleigh -himself here shows no distinction in his narrative of -that discreditable episode,—as he clearly and rightly -felt it to be,—the loss of the <i>Revenge</i> by the wilful -Grenville. Most of them are bald, savourless, monotonous, -stating the obvious facts in the obvious way, -but hopelessly failing to make clear, when rarely they -attempt it, anything that is not obvious. They have -none of the little unconscious tricks of manner which -worry the critic to-day. But their whole manner is one -commonplace trick from which they never escape. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>They are only relieved by its simplicity and by the -novelty which comes through age. We have to remember -that all mediocrity is impersonal and that -when we encourage its manifestations on printed -pages we merely make mediocrity more conspicuous. -Nor can that be remedied by teaching the mediocre to -cultivate tricks of fashion or of vanity. There is more -personality in Claude Bernard’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Leçons de Physiologie -Expérimentales,”</span> a great critic of life and letters -has pointed out, Remy de Gourmont, than in Musset’s -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Confession d’un Enfant du Siècle.”</span> For personality -is not something that can be sought; it is a radiance -that is diffused spontaneously. It may even be most -manifest when most avoided, and no writer—the -remark has doubtless often been made before—can -be more personal than Flaubert who had made almost -a gospel of Impersonality. But the absence of research -for personality, however meritorious, will not -suffice to bring personality out of mediocrity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Moreover, the obvious fact seems often to be overlooked -by the critic that a vastly larger proportion of -the population now write, and see their writing printed. -We live in what we call a democratic age in which all -are compulsorily taught how to make pothooks and -hangers on paper. So that every nincompoop—in -the attenuated sense of the term—as soon as he puts -a pen in ink feels that he has become, like M. Jourdain, -a writer of prose. That feeling is justified only in a -very limited sense, and if we wish to compare the condition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>of things to-day with that in an age when people -wrote at the bidding of some urgent stimulus from -without or from within, we have at the outset to delete -certainly over ninety-five per cent of our modern -so-called writers before we institute any comparison. -The writers thus struck out, it may be added, cannot -fail to include many persons of much note in the -world. There are all sorts of people to-day who write -from all sorts of motives other than a genuine aptitude -for writing. To suppose that there can be any comparison -at this point of the present with the past and -to dodder over the decay of our language would seem a -senile proceeding if we do not happen to know that it -occurs in all ages, and that, even at the time when our -prose speech was as near to perfection as it is ever -likely to be, its critics were bemoaning its corruption, -lamenting, for instance, the indolent new practice of -increasing sibilation by changing “arriveth” into -“arrives” and pronouncing “walked” as “walkd,” -sometimes in their criticisms showing no more knowledge -of the history and methods of growth of English -than our academic critics show to-day.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For we know what to-day they tell us; it is not hard -to know, their exhortations, though few, are repeated -in so psittaceous a manner. One thinks, for instance, -of that solemn warning against the enormity of the -split infinitive which has done so much to aggravate -the Pharisaism of the bad writers who scrupulously -avoid it. This superstition seems to have had its -<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>origin in a false analogy with Latin in which the -infinitive is never split for the good reason that it is -impossible to split. In the greater freedom of English -it is possible and has been done for at least the last five -hundred years by the greatest masters of English; -only the good writer never uses this form helplessly -and involuntarily, but with a definite object; and that -is the only rule to observe. An absolute prohibition -in this matter is the mark of those who are too ignorant, -or else too unintelligent, to recognise a usage -which is of the essence of English speech.<a id='r55' /><a href='#f55' class='c011'><sup>[55]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>One may perhaps refer, again, to those who lay -down that every sentence must end on a significant -word, never on a preposition, and who reprobate -what has been technically termed the post-habited -prefix. They are the same worthy and would-be old-fashioned -people who think that a piece of music must -always end monotonously on a banging chord. Only -here they have not, any more than in music, even the -virtue—if such it be—of old fashion, for the final so-called -preposition is in the genius of the English language -and associated with the Scandinavian—in the -wider ancient sense Danish—strain of English, one -of the finest strains it owns, imparting much of the -plastic force which renders it flexible, the element -which helped to save it from the straitlaced tendency -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>of Anglo-Saxon and the awkward formality of Latin -and French influence. The foolish prejudice we are -here concerned with seems to date from a period when -the example of French, in which the final preposition -is impossible, happened to be dominant. Its use in -English is associated with the informal grace and -simplicity, the variety of tender cadence, which our -tongue admits.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In such matters as the “split infinitive” and the -“post-habited preposition,” there should never have -been any doubt as to the complete validity and authority -of the questioned usages. But there are other -points at which some even good critics may be tempted -to accept the condemnation of the literary grammarians. -It is sufficient to mention one: the nominative use -of the pronoun “me.” Yet, surely, any one who considers -social practice as well as psychological necessity -should not fail to see that we must recognise a double -use of “me” in English. The French, who in such -matters seem to have possessed a finer social and -psychological tact, have realised that je cannot be the -sole nominative of the first person and have supplemented -it by <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>moi</i></span> (<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>mi</i></span> from <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>mihi</i></span>). The Frenchman, -when asked who is there, does not reply <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Je!”</span> But -the would-be English purist is supposed to be reduced -to replying “I!” Royal Cleopatra asks the Messenger: -“Is she as tall as me?” The would-be purist no doubt -transmutes this as he reads into: “Is she as tall as I?” -We need not envy him.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>Such an example indicates how independent the -free and wholesome life of language is of grammatical -rules. This is not to diminish the importance of the -grammarian’s task, but simply to define it, as the -formulator, and not the lawgiver, of usage. His rules -are useful, not merely in order to know how best to -keep them, but in order to know how best to break -them. Without them freedom might become licence. -Yet even licence, we have to recognise, is the necessary -offscouring of speech in its supreme manifestations of -vitality and force. English speech was never more -syntactically licentious than in the sixteenth century, -but it was never more alive, never more fitly the material -for a great artist to mould. So it is that in the sixteenth -century we find Shakespeare. In post-Dryden -days (though Dryden was an excellent writer and -engaged on an admirable task) a supreme artist in -English speech became impossible, and if a Shakespeare -had appeared all his strength would have been -wasted in a vain struggle with the grammarians. -French speech has run a similar and almost synchronous -course with English. There was a magnificently -natural force and wealth in sixteenth-century French: -in Rabelais it had been even extravagantly exuberant; -in Montaigne it is still flexible and various—<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>ondoyant -et divers</i></span>—and still full of natural delight and freedom. -But after Malherbe and his fellows French speech -acquired orderliness, precision, and formality; they -were excellent qualities, no doubt, but had to be paid -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>for by some degree of thinness and primness, even some -stiffening of the joints. Rousseau came and poured -fresh blood from Switzerland into the language and a -new ineffable grace that was all his own; so that if we -now hesitate to say, with Landor, that he excels all the -moderns for harmony, it is only because they have -learnt what he taught; and the later Romantics, under -the banner of Hugo, imparted colour and brilliance. -Yet all the great artists who have wrestled with -French speech for a century have never been able to -restore the scent and the savour and the substance -which Villon and Montaigne without visible effort -could once find within its borders. In this as in other -matters what we call Progress means the discovery of -new desirable qualities, and therewith the loss of other -qualities that were at least equally desirable.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then there is yet another warning which, especially -in recent times, is issued at frequent intervals, and that -is against the use of verbal counters, of worn or even -worn-out phrases, of what we commonly fall back on -modern French to call <i>clichés</i>. We mean thereby the -use of old stereotyped phrases—Goethe called them -“stamped” or <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>gestempelt</i></span>—to save the trouble of -making a new living phrase to suit our meaning. The -word <i>cliché</i> is thus typographic, though, it so happens, -it is derived from an old French word of phonetic -meaning, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>cliqueter</i></span> or <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>cliquer</i></span> (related to the German -<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>klatschen</i></span>), which we already have in English as to -“click” or to “clack,” in a sense which well supplements -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>its more modern technical sense for this literary -end. Yet the warning against <i>clichés</i> is vain. The good -writer, by the very fact that he is alive and craves -speech that is vivid, as <i>clichés</i> never are, instinctively -avoids their excessive use, while the nervous and bad -writer, in his tremulous anxiety to avoid these tabooed -<i>clichés</i>, falls into the most deplorable habits, like the -late Mr. Robert Ross, who at one time was so anxious -to avoid <i>clichés</i> that he acquired the habit of using -them in an inverted form and wrote a prose that made -one feel like walking on sharp flints; for, though a -macadamized road may not be so good to walk in as -a flowered meadow, it is better than a macadamized -road with each stone turned upside down and the sharp -edge uppermost. As a matter of fact it is impossible to -avoid the use of <i>clichés</i> and counters in speech, and if it -were possible the results would be in the highest degree -tedious and painful. The word “<i>cliché</i>” itself, we have -seen, is a <i>cliché</i>, a worn counter of a word, with its -original meaning all effaced, and even its secondary -meaning now only just visible. That, if those folk who -condemn <i>clichés</i> only had the intelligence to perceive -it, is a significant fact. You cannot avoid using <i>clichés</i>, -not even in the very act of condemning them. They -include, if we only look keenly enough, nearly the -whole of language, almost every separate word. If one -could avoid them one would be unintelligible. Even -those common phrases which it is peculiarly meet to -call counters are not to be absolutely condemned. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>They have become so common to use because so fit to -use, as Baudelaire understood when he spoke of “the -immense depth of thought in vulgar locutions.”<a id='r56' /><a href='#f56' class='c011'><sup>[56]</sup></a> -There is only one rule to follow here,—and it is simply -the rule in every part of art,—to know what one is -doing, not to go sheeplike with the flock, ignorantly, -unthinkingly, heedlessly, but to mould speech to -expression the most truly one knows how. If, indeed, -we are seeking clarity and the precise expression of -thought, there is nothing we may not do if only -we know how to do it—but that “if” might well -be in capitals. One who has spent the best part of -his life in trying to write things that had not been -written before, and that were very difficult to write, -may perhaps be allowed to confess the hardness of -this task.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To write is thus an arduous intellectual task, a -process which calls for the highest tension of the -muscles in the escalade of a heaven which the strongest -and bravest and alertest can never hope to take by -violence. He has to be true,—whether it is in the -external world he is working or in his own internal -world,—and as truth can only be seen through his -own temperament, he is engaged in moulding the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>expression of a combination which has never been seen -in the world before.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is sometimes said that the great writer seldom -quotes, and that in the main is true, for he finds it -difficult to mix an alien music of thought and speech -with his own. Montaigne, it is also said, is an exception, -but that is scarcely true. What Montaigne quoted -he often translated and so moulded to the pattern of -his own mind. The same may be said of Robert -Burton. If it had not been so these writers (almost -certainly Burton) could scarcely have attained to the -rank of great authors. The significant fact to note, -however, is not that the great writer rarely quotes, -but that he knows how to quote. Schopenhauer was -here a master. He possessed a marvellous flair for fine -sayings in remote books, and these he would now and -again let fall like jewels on his page, with so happy a -skill that they seem to be created for the spot on -which they fell. It is the little writer rather than the -great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason -is that he is really never doing anything else.<a id='r57' /><a href='#f57' class='c011'><sup>[57]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>It is not in writing only, in all art, in all science, the -task before each is that defined by Bacon: <i>man added -to Nature</i>. It is so also in painting, as a great artist of -modern time, Cézanne, recognised even in those same -words: “He who wishes to make art,” he once said to -Vollard, “must follow Bacon, who defined the artist as -‘Homo additus Naturæ.’” So it is that the artist, if he -has succeeded in being true to his function, is necessarily -one who makes all things new.<a id='r58' /><a href='#f58' class='c011'><sup>[58]</sup></a> That remarkable -artist who wrote the Book of the Revelation has expressed -this in his allegorical, perhaps unconscious, -Oriental way, for he represents the artist as hearing -the divine spirit from the throne within him uttering -the command: “Behold, I make all things new. -Write!” The command is similar whatever the art -may be, though it is here the privilege of the writer -to find his own art set forth as the inspired ensample -of all art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus it is that to write is a strenuous intellectual -task not to be achieved without the exercise of the best -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>trained and most deliberate rational faculties. That is -the outcome of the whole argument up to this point. -There is so much bad writing in the world because -writing has been dominated by ignorance and habit -and prudery, and not least by the academic teachers -and critics who have known nothing of what they -claim to teach and were often themselves singular -examples of how not to write. There has, on the other -hand, been a little good writing here and there in the -world, through the ages, because a few possessed not -only courage and passion and patience, but knowledge -and the concentrated intellectual attention, and the -resolution to seek truth, and the conviction that, as -they imagined, the genius they sought consisted in -taking pains.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet, if that were all, many people would become -great writers who, as we well know, will never become -writers; if that were all, writing could scarcely even be -regarded as an art. For art, or one side of it, transcends -conscious knowledge; a poet, as Landor remarked, “is -not aware of all that he knows, and seems at last to -know as little about it as a silkworm knows about the -fineness of her thread.” Yet the same great writer has -also said of good poetry, and with equal truth, that -“the ignorant and inexpert lose half its pleasures.” -We always move on two feet, as Élie Faure remarks in -his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Arbre d’Éden,”</span> the two poles of knowledge and -of desire, the one a matter of deliberate acquirement -and the other of profound instinct, and all our movements -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>are a perpetual leap from one to the other, seeking -a centre of gravity we never attain.<a id='r59' /><a href='#f59' class='c011'><sup>[59]</sup></a> So the achievement -of style in writing, as in all human intercourse, is -something more than an infinite capacity for taking -pains. It is also defined—and, sometimes I think, -supremely well defined—as “grace seasoned with -salt.” Beyond all that can be achieved by knowledge -and effort, there must be the spontaneous grace that -springs up like a fountain from the depth of a beautifully -harmonious nature, and there must be also the -quality which the Spaniards call “sal,” and so rightly -admire in the speech of the women of the people of -their own land, the salt quality which gives savour and -point and antiseptic virtue.<a id='r60' /><a href='#f60' class='c011'><sup>[60]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>The best literary prose speech is simply the idealisation -in the heaven of art of the finest common speech -of earth, simply, yet never reached for more than a -moment in a nation’s long history. In Greece it was -immortally and radiantly achieved by Plato; in England -it was attained for a few years during the last -years of the seventeenth and the first years of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>eighteenth centuries, lingering on, indeed, here and -there to the end of that century until crushed between -the pedantry of Johnson and the poetic licence of the -Romantics. But for the rest only the most happily -endowed genius can even attain for a rare moment the -perfection of the Pauline ideal of “grace seasoned with -salt.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is fortunate, no doubt, that an age of machinery -is well content with machine-made writing. It would -be in bad taste—too physiological, too sentimental, -altogether too antiquated—to refer to the symbolical -significance of the highly relevant fact that the heart, -while undoubtedly a machine, is at the same time a sensitively -pulsating organ with fleshy strings stretched -from ventricle to valves, a harp on which the great -artist may play until our hearts also throb in unison. -Yet there are some to whom it still seems that, beyond -mechanical skill, the cadences of the artist’s speech are -the cadences of his heart, and the footfalls of his -rhythm the footfalls of his spirit, in a great adventure -across the universe.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>II</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Thus</span> we do not always realise that learning to write is -partly a matter of individual instinct. This is so even -of that writing which, as children, we learnt in copybooks -with engraved maxims at the head of the page. -There are some, indeed, probably the majority, who -quickly achieve the ability to present a passable imitation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>of the irreproachable model presented to them. -There are some who cannot. I speak as one who knows, -for I recall how my first schoolmaster, a sarcastic little -Frenchman, irritated by my unchastenable hand, -would sometimes demand if I wrote with the kitchen -poker, or again assert that I kept a tame spider to run -over the page, while a later teacher, who was an -individualist and more tolerant, yet sometimes felt -called upon to murmur, in a tone of dubious optimism: -“You will have a hand of your own, my boy.” It is not -lack of docility that is in question, but an imperative -demand of the nervous system which the efforts of the -will may indeed bend but cannot crush.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet the writers who cheerfully lay down the laws of -style seldom realise this complexity and mystery enwrapping -even so simple a matter as handwriting. No -one can say how much atavistic recurrence from -remote ancestors, how much family nervous habit, -how much wayward yet deep-rooted personal idiosyncrasy -deflect the child’s patient efforts to imitate the -copperplate model which is set before him. The son -often writes like the father, even though he may seldom -or never see his father’s handwriting; brothers may -write singularly alike, though taught by different -teachers and even in different continents. It has been -noted of the ancient and distinguished family of the -Tyrrells that their handwriting in the parish books of -Stowmarket remained the same throughout many -generations. I have noticed, in a relation of my own, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>peculiarities of handwriting identical with those of an -ancestor two centuries ago whose writing he certainly -never saw. The resemblance is often not that of -exact formation, but of general air or underlying -structure.<a id='r61' /><a href='#f61' class='c011'><sup>[61]</sup></a> One is tempted to think that often, in this -as in other matters, the possibilities are limited, and -that when the child is formed in his mother’s womb -Nature cast the same old dice and the same old combinations -inevitably tend to recur. But that notion -scarcely fits all the facts, and our growing knowledge -of the infinite subtlety of heredity, of its presence -even in the most seemingly elusive psychic characters, -indicates that the dice may be loaded and fall in accord -with harmonies we fail to perceive. The development -of Mendelian analysis may in time help us to understand -them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The part in style which belongs to atavism, to -heredity, to unconscious instinct, is probably very -large. It eludes us to an even greater extent than the -corresponding part in handwriting because the man of -letters may have none among his ancestors who sought -expression in style, so that only one Milton speaks for -a mute inglorious family, and how far he speaks truly -remains a matter of doubt. We only divine the truth -when we know the character and deeds of the family. -There could be no more instructive revelation of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>family history in style than is furnished by Carlyle. -There had never been any writer in the Carlyle family, -and if there had, Carlyle at the time when his manner -of writing was formed, would scarcely have sought to -imitate them. Yet we could not conceive this stern, -laborious, plebeian family of Lowland Scots—with -its remote Teutonic affinities, its coarseness, its narrowness, -its assertive inarticulative force—in any -more fitting verbal translation than was given it by -this its last son, the pathetic little figure with the face -of a lost child, who wrote in a padded room and turned -the rough muscular and reproductive activity of his -fathers into more than half a century of eloquent -chatter concerning Work and Silence, so writing his -name in letters of gold on the dome of the British -Museum.<a id='r62' /><a href='#f62' class='c011'><sup>[62]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>When we consider the characteristics, not of the -family, but of the race, it is easier to find examples of -the force of ancestry, even remote ancestry, overcoming -environment and dominating style. Shakespeare -and Bacon were both Elizabethans who both lived -from youth upwards in London, and even moved to -some extent almost in the same circles. Yet all the -influences of tradition and environment, which sometimes -seem to us so strong, scarcely sufficed to spread -even the faintest veneer of similarity over their style, -and we could seldom mistake a sentence of one for a -sentence of the other. We always know that Shakespeare—with -his gay extravagance and redundancy, -his essential idealism—came of a people that had -been changed in character from the surrounding stock -by a Celtic infolding of the receding British to Wales.<a id='r63' /><a href='#f63' class='c011'><sup>[63]</sup></a> -We never fail to realise that Bacon—with his instinctive -gravity and temperance, the suppressed -ardour of his aspiring intellectual passion, his temperamental -naturalism—was rooted deep in that East -Anglian soil which he had never so much as visited. -In Shakespeare’s veins there dances the blood of the -men who made the “Mabinogion”; we recognise -Bacon as a man of the same countryside which produced -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>the forefathers of Emerson. Or we may consider -the mingled Breton and Gascon ancestry of Renan, in -whose brain, in the very contour and melody of his -style, the ancient bards of Brittany have joined hands -with the tribe of Montaigne and Brantôme and the -rest. Or, to take one more example, we can scarcely -fail to recognise in the style of Sir Thomas Browne—as -later, may be, in that of Hawthorne—the glamour -of which the latent aptitude had been handed on by -ancestors who dwelt on the borders of Wales.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In these examples hereditary influence can be clearly -distinguished from merely external and traditional -influences. Not that we need imply a disparagement -of tradition: it is the foundation of civilised progress. -Speech itself is a tradition, a naturally developed convention, -and in that indeed it has its universal applicability -and use. It is the crude amorphous material -of art, of music and poetry. But on its formal side, -whatever its supreme significance as the instrument -and medium of expression, speech is a natural convention, -an accumulated tradition.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Even tradition, however, is often simply the corporeal -embodiment, as it were, of heredity. Behind -many a great writer’s personality there stands tradition, -and behind tradition the race. That is well -illustrated in the style of Addison. This style—with -a resilient fibre underneath its delicacy and yet a -certain freedom as of conversational familiarity—has -as its most easily marked structural signature a tendency -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>to a usage it has already been necessary to mention: -the tendency to allow the preposition to lag to the -end of the sentence rather than to come tautly before -the pronoun with which in Latin it is combined. In a -century in which the Latin-French elements of English -were to become developed, as in Gibbon and Johnson, -to the utmost, the totally different physiognomy of -Addison’s prose remained conspicuous,—though really -far from novel,—and to the sciolists of a bygone -age it seemed marked by carelessness, if not licence, at -the best by personal idiosyncrasy. Yet, as a matter of -fact, we know it was nothing of the kind. Addison, as -his name indicates, was of the stock of the Scandinavian -English, and the Cumberland district he belonged -to is largely Scandinavian; the adjoining peninsula of -Furness, which swarms with similar patronymics, is -indeed one of the most purely Scandinavian spots in -England. Now in the Scandinavian languages, as we -know, and in the English dialects based upon them, -the preposition comes usually at the end of the sentence, -and Scandinavian structural elements form an -integral part of English, even more than Latin-French, -for it has been the part of the latter rather to -enrich the vocabulary than to mould the structure of -our tongue. So that, instead of introducing a personal -idiosyncrasy or perpetrating a questionable licence, -Addison was continuing his own ancestral traditions -and at the same time asserting an organic prerogative -of English speech. It may be added that Addison -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>reveals his Scandinavian affinities not merely in the -material structure, but in the spiritual quality, of his -work. This delicate sympathetic observation, the vein -of gentle melancholy, the quiet restrained humour, meet -us again in modern Norwegian authors like Jonas Lie.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When we put aside these ancestral and traditional -influences, there is still much in the writer’s art which, -even if personal, we can only term instinctive. This -may be said of that music which at their finest moments -belongs to all the great writers of prose. Every -writer has his own music, though there are few in -whom it becomes audible save at rare and precious -intervals. The prose of the writer who can deliberately -make his own personal cadences monotonously audible -all the time grows wearisome; it affects us as a tedious -mannerism. This is a kind of machine-made prose -which indeed it requires a clever artisan to produce; -but, as Landor said, “he must be a bad writer to whom -there are no inequalities.” The great writers, though -they are always themselves, attain the perfect music -of their style under the stress of a stimulus adequate -to arouse it. Their music is the audible translation of -emotion, and only arises when the waves of emotion -are stirred. It is not properly speaking a voluntary -effect. We can but say that the winds of the spirit are -breathed upon the surface of style, and they lift it into -rhythmic movement. And for each writer these waves -have their own special rate of vibration, their peculiar -shape and interval. The rich deep slow tones of Bacon -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>have nothing in common with the haunting, long-drawn -melody, faint and tremulous, of Newman; the -high metallic falsetto ring of De Quincey’s rhetoric is -far away from the pensive low-toned music of Pater.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Imitation, as psychologists have taught us to realise, -is a part of instinct. When we begin to learn to write, -it rarely happens that we are not imitators, and, for -the most part, unconsciously. The verse of every -young poet, however original he may afterwards grow, -usually has plainly written across it the rhythmic -signature of some great master whose work chances to -be abroad in the world; once it was usually Tennyson, -then Swinburne, now various later poets; the same -thing happens with prose, but the rhythm of the -signature is less easy to hear.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As a writer slowly finds his own centre of gravity, -the influence of the rhythm of other writers ceases to be -perceptible except in so far as it coincides with his own -natural movement and <i>tempo</i>. That is a familiar fact. -We less easily realise, perhaps, that not only the tunes -but the notes that they are formed of are, in every -great writer, his own. In other words, he creates even -his vocabulary. That is so not only in the more obvious -sense that out of the mass of words that make up a -language every writer uses only a limited number and -even among these has his words of predilection.<a id='r64' /><a href='#f64' class='c011'><sup>[64]</sup></a> It is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>in the meanings he gives to words, to names, that a -writer creates his vocabulary. All language, we know, -is imagery and metaphor; even the simplest names -of the elementary things are metaphors based on resemblances -that suggested themselves to the primitive -men who made language. It is not otherwise with the -aboriginal man of genius who uses language to express -his new vision of the world. He sees things charged -with energy, or brilliant with colour, or breathing out -perfume, that the writers who came before him had -overlooked, and to designate these things he must use -names which convey the qualities he has perceived. -Guided by his own new personal sensations and perceptions, -he creates his metaphorical vocabulary. If -we examine the style of Montaigne, so fresh and -personal and inventive, we see that its originality lies -largely in its vocabulary, which is not, like that of -Rabelais, manufactured afresh, but has its novelty in -its metaphorical values, such new values being tried -and tempered at every step, to the measure of the -highly individual person behind them, who thereby -exerts his creative force. In later days Huysmans, who -indeed saw the world at a more eccentric angle than -Montaigne, yet with unflinching veracity and absolute -devotion, set himself to the task of creating his own -vocabulary, and at first the unfamiliarity of its beauty -estranges us.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To think of Huysmans is to be led towards an aspect -of style not to be passed over. To say that the artist -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>in words is expressing a new vision of the world and -seeking the designations for things as he sees them, is a -large part of the truth, and, I would say, perhaps the -most important part of it. For most of us, I suppose -(as I know it has been for me), our vision of Nature has -been largely, though by no means entirely, constituted -by pictures we have seen, by poems we have read, that -left an abiding memory. That is to say that Nature -comes to us through an atmosphere which is the -emanation of supreme artists who once thrilled us. -But we are here concerned with the process of the -artist’s work and not with his æsthetic influence. The -artist finds that words have a rich content of their -own, they are alive and they flourish or decay. They -send out connecting threads in every direction, they -throb with meaning that ever changes and reverberates -afar. The writer is not always, or often, merely -preparing a <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>catalogue raisonné</i></span> of things, he is an artist -and his pigments are words. Often he merely takes his -suggestions from the things of the world and makes his -own pictures without any real resemblance to the -scene it is supposed to depict. Dujardin tells us that he -once took Huysmans to a Wagner concert; he scarcely -listened to the music, but he was fascinated by the -programme the attendant handed to him; he went -home to write a brilliant page on “Tannhäuser.” -Mallarmé, on the other hand, was soaked in music; to -him music was the voice of the world, and it was the -aim of poetry to express the world by itself becoming -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>music; he stood on a height like a pioneer and looked -towards the Promised Land, trying to catch intimations -of a new sensibility and a future art, but a great -master of language, like Huysmans, he never was. -Huysmans has written superb pages about Gustave -Moreau and Félicien Rops, thinking, no doubt, that -he was revealing supreme artists (though we need not -follow too closely the fashion of depreciating either of -those artists), but he was really only attracted to their -programmes and therein experiencing a stimulus that -chanced to be peculiarly fitted for drawing out his -own special art. Baudelaire would have written less -gorgeously, but he would have produced a more final -critical estimate.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet even the greatest writers are affected by the -intoxication of mere words in the artistry of language. -Shakespeare is, constantly, and, not content with -“making the green one red,” he must needs at the same -time “the multitudinous seas incarnadine.” It is conspicuous -in Keats (as Leigh Hunt, perhaps his first -sensitively acute critic, clearly explained), and often, -as in “The Eve of <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Agnes,” where he seemed to be -concerned with beautiful things, he was really concerned -with beautiful words. In that way he is sometimes -rather misleading for the too youthful reader; -“porphyry” seemed to me a marvellous substance -when as a boy of twelve I read of it in Keats, and I -imagine that Keats himself would have been surprised, -had he lived long enough to walk to <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Thomas’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>Hospital over the new London Bridge, when told that -he was treading a granite that was porphyritic. I -recall how Verlaine would sometimes repeat in varying -tones some rather unfamiliar word, rolling it round and -round in his mouth, sucking it like a sweetmeat, licking -the sound into the shape that pleased him; some -people may perhaps have found a little bizarre the -single words (“Green,” for example) which he sometimes -made the title of a song, but if they adopt the -preliminary Verlainian process they may understand -how he had fitted such words to music and meaning.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The most obviously beautiful things in the world of -Nature are birds and flowers and the stones we call -precious. But the attitude of the poet in the presence -of Nature is precisely that of Huysmans in the presence -of art: it is the programme that interests him. Of birds -the knowledge of poets generally is of the most generalised -and elementary kind; they are the laughing-stock -of the ornithologist; they are only a stage removed -from the standpoint of the painter who was -introducing a tree into his landscape and when asked -what tree, replied, “Oh, just the ordinary tree.” Even -Goethe mistook the finches by the roadside for larks. -The poet, one may be sure, even to-day seldom carries -in his pocket the little <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Führer durch unsere Vogelwelt”</span> -of Bernhard Hoffmann, and has probably never -so much as heard of it. Of flowers his knowledge seems -to be limited by the quality of the flower’s name. I -have long cherished an exquisite and quite common -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>English wild-flower, but have never come across a -poem about it, for its unattractive name is the stitchwort, -and it is only lately that even in prose it has met -(from Mr. Salt) with due appreciation. As regards -precious stones the same may be said, and in the -galleries of the Geological Museum it has hardly -seemed to me that, among the few visitors, there were -poets (unless I chanced to bring one myself) to brood -over all that beauty. It is the word and its inner -reverberation with which the poet is really concerned, -even sometimes perhaps deliberately. When Milton -misused the word “eglantine” one realises the unconscious -appeal to him of the name and one cannot feel -quite sure that it was altogether unconscious. Coleridge -has been solemnly reproved for speaking of the -“loud” bassoon. But it was to the timbre of the word, -not of the instrument, that Coleridge was responding, -and had he been informed that the bassoon is not loud, -I doubt not he would have replied: “Well, if it is not -loud it ought to be.” On the plane on which Coleridge -moved “the loud bassoon” was absolutely right. We -see that the artist in speech moves among words rather -than among things. Originally, it is true, words are -closely related to things, but in their far reverberation -they have become enriched by many associations, -saturated with many colours; they have acquired a life -of their own, moving on another plane than that of -things, and it is on that plane that the artist in words -is, as an artist, concerned with them.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>It thus comes about that the artist in words, like the -artist in pigments, is perpetually passing between two -planes—the plane of new vision and the plane of new -creation. He is sometimes remoulding the external -world and sometimes the internal world; sometimes, by -predilection, lingering more on one plane than on the -other plane. The artist in words is not irresistibly -drawn to the exact study of things or moved by the -strong love of Nature. The poets who describe Nature -most minutely and most faithfully are not usually the -great poets. That is intelligible because the poet—even -the poet in the wide sense who also uses prose—is -primarily the instrument of human emotion and not -of scientific observation. Yet that poet possesses immense -resources of strength who in early life has -stored within him the minute knowledge of some field -of the actual external world.<a id='r65' /><a href='#f65' class='c011'><sup>[65]</sup></a> One may doubt, indeed, -whether there has been any supreme poet, from Homer -on, who has not had this inner reservoir of sensitive -impressions to draw from. The youthful Shakespeare -who wrote the poems, with their minute descriptions, -was not a great poet, as the youthful Marlowe was, -but he was storing up the material which, when he had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>developed into a great poet, he could draw on at need -with a careless and assured hand. Without such reservoirs, -the novelists also would never attain to that -touch of the poet which, beyond their story-telling -power, can stir our hearts. “À la Recherche du Temps -Perdu” is the name of a great modern book, but every -novelist during part of his time has been a Ulysses on a -perilous voyage of adventure for that far home. One -thinks of George Eliot and her early intimacy with the -life of country people, of Hardy who had acquired so -acute a sensitivity to the sounds of Nature, of Conrad -who had caught the flashes of penetrating vision which -came to the sailor on deck; and in so far as they move -away into scenes where they cannot draw from those -ancient reservoirs, the adventures of these artists, -however brilliant they may become, lose their power of -intimate appeal. The most extravagant example of -this to-day is the Spanish novelist Blasco Ibañez, who -wrote of the Valencian <span lang="es" xml:lang="es"><i>huerta</i></span> that had saturated his -youth in novels that were penetrating and poignant, -and then turned to writing for the cosmopolitan crowd -novels about anything, that were completely negligible.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We grow familiar in time with the style of the great -writers, and when we read them we translate them -easily and unconsciously, as we translate a foreign -language we are familiar with; we understand the -vocabulary because we have learnt to know the special -seal of the creative person who moulded the vocabulary. -But at the outset the great writer may be almost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>as unintelligible to us as though he were writing in a -language we had never learnt. In the now remote -days when “Leaves of Grass” was a new book in the -world, few who looked into it for the first time, however -honestly, but were repelled and perhaps even -violently repelled, and it is hard to realise now that -once those who fell on Swinburne’s “Poems and -Ballads” saw at first only picturesque hieroglyphics to -which they had no key. But even to-day how many -there are who find Proust unreadable and Joyce unintelligible. -Until we find the door and the clue the -new writer remains obscure. Therein lies the truth of -Landor’s saying that the poet must himself create the -beings who are to enjoy his Paradise.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For most of those who deliberately seek to learn to -write, words seem generally to be felt as of less importance -than the art of arranging them. It is thus that -the learner in writing tends to become the devoted student -of grammar and syntax whom we came across at -the outset. That is indeed a tendency which always -increases. Civilisation develops with a conscious adhesion -to formal order, and the writer—writing by -fashion or by ambition and not by divine right of -creative instinct—follows the course of civilisation. -It is an unfortunate tendency, for those whom it affects -conquer by their number. As we know, writing -that is real is not learnt that way. Just as the solar -system was not made in accordance with the astronomer’s -laws, so writing is not made by the laws of grammar. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Astronomer and grammarian alike can only come -in at the end, to give a generalised description of what -usually happens in the respective fields it pleases them -to explore. When a new comet, cosmic or literary, -enters their sky, it is their descriptions which have to -be readjusted, and not the comet. There seems to be -no more pronounced mark of the decadence of a people -and its literature than a servile and rigid subserviency -to rule. It can only make for ossification, for anchylosis, -for petrification, all the milestones on the road of -death. In every age of democratic plebeianism, where -each man thinks he is as good a writer as the others, -and takes his laws from the others, having no laws of -his own nature, it is down this steep path that men, in -a flock, inevitably run.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may find an illustration of the plebeian anchylosis -of advancing civilisation in the minor matter of -spelling. We cannot, it is true, overlook the fact that -writing is read and that its appearance cannot be quite -disregarded. Yet, ultimately, it appeals to the ear, -and spelling can have little to do with style. The laws -of spelling, properly speaking, are few or none, and in -the great ages men have understood this and boldly -acted accordingly. They exercised a fine personal discretion -in the matter and permitted without question -a wide range of variation. Shakespeare, as we -know, even spelt his own name in several different -ways, all equally correct. When that great old Elizabethan -mariner, Sir Martin Frobisher, entered on one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>of his rare and hazardous adventures with the pen, he -created spelling absolutely afresh, in the spirit of -simple heroism with which he was always ready to sail -out into strange seas. His epistolary adventures are, -certainly, more interesting than admirable, but we -have no reason to suppose that the distinguished -persons to whom these letters were addressed viewed -them with any disdain. More anæmic ages cannot -endure creative vitality even in spelling, and so it -comes about that in periods when everything beautiful -and handmade gives place to manufactured articles -made wholesale, uniform, and cheap, the same principles -are applied to words, and spelling becomes a -mechanic trade. We must have our spelling uniform, -even if uniformly bad.<a id='r66' /><a href='#f66' class='c011'><sup>[66]</sup></a> Just as the man who, having -out of sheer ignorance eaten the wrong end of his -asparagus, was thenceforth compelled to declare that -he preferred that end, so it is with our race in the matter -of spelling; our ancestors, by chance or by ignorance, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>tended to adopt certain forms of spelling and -we, their children, are forced to declare that we prefer -those forms. Thus we have not only lost all individuality -in spelling, but we pride ourselves on our loss -and magnify our anchylosis. In England it has become -almost impossible to flex our stiffened mental -joints sufficiently to press out a single letter, in -America it is almost impossible to extend them enough -to admit that letter. It is convenient, we say, to be -rigid and formal in these things, and therewith we are -content; it matters little to us that we have thereby -killed the life of our words and only gained the conveniency -of death. It would be likewise convenient, -no doubt, if men and women could be turned into -rigid geometrical diagrams,—as indeed our legislators -sometimes seem to think that they already are,—but -we should pay by yielding up all the infinite variations, -the beautiful sinuosities, that had once made up life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There can be no doubt that in the much greater -matter of style we have paid heavily for the attainment -of our slavish adherence to mechanical rules, however -convenient, however inevitable. The beautiful incorrection, -as we are now compelled to regard it, that so -often marked the great and even the small writers of -the seventeenth century, has been lost, for all can now -write what any find it easy to read, what none have any -consuming desire to read. But when Sir Thomas -Browne wrote his “Religio Medici” it was with an art -made up of obedience to personal law and abandonment -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>to free inspiration which still ravishes us. It is -extraordinary how far indifference or incorrection of -style may be carried and yet remain completely adequate -even to complex and subtle ends. Pepys wrote -his “Diary,” at the outset of a life full of strenuous -work and not a little pleasure, with a rare devotion indeed, -but with a concision and carelessness, a single -eye on the fact itself, and an extraordinary absence of -self-consciousness which rob it of all claim to possess -what we conventionally term style. Yet in this vehicle -he has perfectly conveyed not merely the most vividly -realised and delightfully detailed picture of a past age -ever achieved in any language, but he has, moreover, -painted a psychological portrait of himself which for -its serenely impartial justice, its subtle gradations, its -bold juxtapositions of colours, has all the qualities of -the finest Velasquez. There is no style here, we say, -merely the diarist, writing with careless poignant -vitality for his own eye, and yet no style that we could -conceive would be better fitted, or so well fitted, for -the miracle that has here been effected.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The personal freedom of Browne led up to splendour, -and that of Pepys to clarity. But while splendour is -not the whole of writing, neither, although one returns -to it again and again, is clarity. Here we come from -another side on to a point we had already reached. -Bergson, in reply to the question: “Comment doivent -écrire les Philosophes?” lets fall some observations, -which, as he himself remarks, concern other -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>writers beside philosophers. A technical word, he remarks, -even a word invented for the occasion or used -in a special sense, is always in its place provided the -instructed reader—though the difficulty, as he fails to -point out, is to be sure of possessing this instructed -reader—accepts it so easily as not even to notice it, -and he proceeds to say that in philosophic prose, and -in all prose, and indeed in all the arts, “the perfect expression -is that which has come so naturally, or rather -so necessarily, by virtue of so imperious a predestination, -that we do not pause before it, but go straight on -to what it seeks to express, as though it were blended -with the idea; it became invisible by force of being -transparent.”<a id='r67' /><a href='#f67' class='c011'><sup>[67]</sup></a> That is well said. Bergson also is on -the side of clarity. Yet I do not feel that that is all -there is to say. Style is not a sheet of glass in which the -only thing that matters is the absence of flaws. Bergson’s -own style is not so diaphanous that one never -pauses to admire its quality, nor, as a hostile critic -(Edouard Dujardin) has shown, is it always so clear -as to be transparent. The dancer in prose as well as in -verse—philosopher or whatever he may be—must -reveal all his limbs through the garment he wears; yet -the garment must have its own proper beauty, and -there is a failure of art, a failure of revelation, if it possesses -no beauty. Style indeed is not really a mere -invisible transparent medium, it is not really a garment, -but, as Gourmont said, the very thought itself. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>It is the miraculous transubstantiation of a spiritual -body, given to us in the only form in which we may -receive and absorb that body, and unless its clarity is -balanced by its beauty it is not adequate to sustain -that most high function. No doubt, if we lean on one -side more than the other, it is clarity rather than beauty -which we should choose, for on the other side we may -have, indeed, a Sir Thomas Browne, and there we are -conscious not so much of a transubstantiation as of a -garment, with thick embroidery, indeed, and glistening -jewels, but we are not always sure that much is -hidden beneath. A step further and we reach D’Annunzio, -a splendid mask with nothing beneath, just -as in the streets of Rome one may sometimes meet -a Franciscan friar with a head superb as a Roman -Emperor’s and yet, one divines, it means nothing. -The Italian writer, it is significant to note, chose so -ostentatiously magnificent a name as Gabriele D’Annunzio -to conceal a real name which was nothing. -The great angels of annunciation create the beauty of -their own real names. Who now finds Shakespeare -ridiculous? And how lovely a name is Keats!</p> - -<p class='c007'>As a part of the harmony of art, which is necessarily -made out of conflict, we have to view that perpetual -seeming alternation between the two planes—the plane -of vision and the plane of creation, the form within -and the garment that clothes it—which may sometimes -distract the artist himself. The prophet Jeremiah -once said (and modern prophets have doubtless had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>occasion to recognise the truth of his remark) that he -seemed to the people round him only as “one that hath -a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument.” -But he failed to understand that it was only through -this quality of voice and instrument that his lamentations -had any vital force or even any being, and that -if the poem goes the message goes. Indeed, that is -true of all his fellow prophets of the Old Testament -and the New who have fascinated mankind with the -sound of those harps that they had once hung by the -waters of Babylon. The whole Bible, we may be very -sure, would have long ago been forgotten by all but -a few intelligent archæologists, if men had not heard -in it, again and again and again, “one that hath a -pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument.” -Socrates said that philosophy was simply music. But -the same might be said of religion. The divine dance -of satyrs and nymphs to the sound of pipes—it is -the symbol of life which in one form or another has -floated before human eyes from the days of the sculptors -of Greek bas-reliefs to the men of our own day -who catch the glimpse of new harmonies in the pages -of “L’Esprit Nouveau.” We cannot but follow the -piper that knows how to play, even to our own destruction. -There may be much that is objectionable -about Man. But he has that engaging trait. And the -world will end when he has lost it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One asks one’s self how it was that the old way of -writing, as a personal art, gave place to the new way of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>writing, as a mere impersonal pseudo-science, rigidly -bound by formal and artificial rules. The answer, no -doubt, is to be found in the existence of a great new -current of thought which began mightily to stir in -men’s minds towards the end of the seventeenth -century. It will be remembered that it was at that -time, both in England and France, that the new devitalised, -though more flexible, prose appeared, with -its precision and accuracy, its conscious orderliness, its -deliberate method. But only a few years before, over -France and England alike, a great intellectual wave -had swept, imparting to the mathematical and geometrical -sciences, to astronomy, physics, and allied -studies, an impetus that they had never received before -on so great a scale. Descartes in France and Newton -in England stand out as the typical representatives -of the movement. If that movement had to exert any -influence on language—and we know how sensitively -language reacts to thought—it could have been manifested -in no other way than by the change which actually -took place. And there was every opportunity for -that influence to be exerted.<a id='r68' /><a href='#f68' class='c011'><sup>[68]</sup></a> This sudden expansion -of the mathematical and geometrical sciences was so -great and novel that interest in it was not confined to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>a small band of men of science: it excited the man in -the street, the woman in the drawing-room; it was indeed -a woman, a bright and gay woman of the world, -who translated Newton’s profound book into French. -Thus it was that the new qualities of style were invented, -not merely to express new qualities of thought, -but because new scientific ideals were moving within -the minds of men. A similar reaction of thought on -language took place at the beginning of the nineteenth -century, when an attempt was made to vitalise -language once more, and to break the rigid and formal -moulds the previous century had constructed. The -attempt was immediately preceded by the awakening -of a new group of sciences, but this time the sciences of -life, the biological studies associated with Cuvier and -Lamarck, with John Hunter and Erasmus Darwin. -With the twentieth century we see the temporary -exhaustion of the biological spirit with its historical -form in science and its romantic form in art, and we -have a neo-classic spirit which has involved a renaissance -of the mathematical sciences and, even before -that, was beginning to affect speech.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To admire the old writers, because for them writing -was an art to be exercised freely and not a vain attempt -to follow after the ideals of the abstract sciences, thus -by no means implies a contempt for that decorum and -orderliness without which all written speech must be -ineffective and obscure. The great writers in the great -ages, standing above classicism and above romanticism, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>have always observed this decorum and orderliness. -In their hands such observance was not a servile -and rigid adherence to external rules, but a beautiful -convention, an instinctive fine breeding, such as is -naturally observed in human intercourse when it is -not broken down by intimacy or by any great crisis of -life or of death.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The freedom of art by no means involves the easiness -of art. It may rather, indeed, be said the difficulty increases -with freedom, for to make things in accordance -with patterns is ever the easiest task. The problem is -equally arduous for those who, so far as their craft is -conscious, seek an impersonal and for those who seek a -personal ideal of style. Flaubert sought—in vain, it is -true—to be the most objective of artists and to mould -speech with heroic energy in shapes of abstract perfection. -Nietzsche, one of the most personal artists in -style, sought likewise, in his own words, to work at a -page of prose as a sculptor works at a statue. Though -the result is not perhaps fundamentally different, -whichever ideal it is that, consciously or instinctively, is -followed, the personal road of style is doubtless theoretically—though -not necessarily in practice—the -sounder, usually also that which moves most of us -more profoundly. The great prose writers of the Second -Empire in France made an unparalleled effort to carve -or paint impersonal prose, but its final beauty and effectiveness -seem scarcely equal to the splendid energy -it embodies. Jules de Goncourt, his brother thought, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>literally died from the mental exhaustion of his unceasing -struggle to attain an objective style adequate -to express the subtle texture of the world as he saw it. -But, while the Goncourts are great figures in literary -history, they have pioneered no new road, nor are they -of the writers whom men continuously love to read; -for it is as a document that the “Journal” remains of -enduring value.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet the great writers of any school bear witness, -each in his own way, that, deeper than these conventions -and decorums of style, there is a law which no -writer can escape from, a law which must needs be -learnt, but can never be taught. That is the law of the -logic of thought. All the conventional rules of the -construction of speech may be put aside if a writer is -thereby enabled to follow more closely and lucidly the -form and process of his thought. It is the law of that -logic that he must for ever follow and in attaining it -alone find rest. He may say of it as devoutly as Dante: -<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“In la sua voluntade è nostra pace.”</span> All progress in -literary style lies in the heroic resolve to cast aside -accretions and exuberances, all the conventions of a -past age that were once beautiful because alive and are -now false because dead. The simple and naked beauty -of Swift’s style, sometimes so keen and poignant, rests -absolutely on this truth to the logic of his thought. -The twin qualities of flexibility and intimacy are of -the essence of all progress in the art of language, and -in their progressive achievement lies the attainment of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>great literature. If we compare Shakespeare with his -predecessors and contemporaries, we can scarcely say -that in imaginative force he is vastly superior to Marlowe, -or in intellectual grip to Jonson, but he immeasurably -surpasses them in flexibility and in intimacy. -He was able with an incomparable art to -weave a garment of speech so flexible in its strength, -so intimate in its transparence, that it lent itself to -every shade of emotion and the quickest turns of -thought. When we compare the heavy and formal -letters of Bacon, even to his closest friends, with -the “Familiar Letters” of the vivacious Welshman -Howell, we can scarcely believe the two men were -contemporaries, so incomparably more expressive, -so flexible and so intimate, is the style of Howell. -All the writers who influence those who come after -them have done so by the same method. They have -thrown aside the awkward and outworn garments of -speech, they have woven a simpler and more familiar -speech, able to express subtleties or audacities that -before seemed inexpressible. That was once done in -English verse by Cowper and Wordsworth, in English -prose by Addison and Lamb. That has been done in -French to-day by Proust and in English by Joyce. -When a great writer, like Carlyle or Browning, creates -a speech of his own which is too clumsy to be flexible -and too heavy to be intimate, he may arouse the admiration -of his fellows, but he leaves no traces on the -speech of the men who come after him. It is not easy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>to believe that such will be Joyce’s fate. His “Ulysses”—carrying -to a much further point qualities that began -to appear in his earlier work—has been hailed -as epoch-making in English literature, though a distinguished -critic holds that it is this rather by closing -than by opening an epoch. It would still be preparing -a new road, and as thus operative we may accept it -without necessarily judging it to be at the same time a -master-work, provided we understand what it is that -has been here attempted. This huge Odyssey is an -ordinary day’s history in the ordinary life of one -ordinary man and the persons of his immediate environment. -It is here sought to reproduce as Art the -whole of the man’s physical and psychic activity during -that period, omitting nothing, not even the actions -which the most naturalistic of novelists had hitherto -thought too trivial or too indelicate to mention. Not -only the thoughts and impulses that result in action, -but also the thoughts and emotions that drift aimlessly -across the field of his consciousness, are here; and, in -the presentation of this combined inner and outer life, -Joyce has sometimes placed both on the same plane, -achieving a new simplicity of style, though we may at -first sometimes find it hard to divine what is outer and -what inner. Moreover, he never hesitates, when he -pleases, to change the tone of his style and even to -adopt without notice, in a deliberately ironical and -chameleon-like fashion, the manner of other writers. -In these ways Joyce has here achieved that new -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>intimacy of vision, that new flexibility of expression, -which are of the essence of all great literature at its -vitally moving point of advance. He has succeeded in -realising and making manifest in art what others had -passed over or failed to see. If in that difficult and -dangerous task he has failed, as some of us may believe, -to reach either complete clarity or complete beauty, -he has at all events made it possible for those who -come after to reach a new height which, without the -help of the road he had constructed, they might have -missed, or even failed to conceive, and that is enough -for any writer’s fame.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When we turn to Proust we are in the presence of a -writer about whom, no doubt, there is no violent dispute. -There may be much about his work that is -disturbing to many, but he was not concerned, like -Joyce, to affront so many prejudices, and in France it -is not even necessary, for the road has already been -prepared by heroic pioneers of old during a thousand -years. But the writer who brings a new revelation is -not necessarily called upon to invite the execration of -the herd. That is a risk he must be called upon to face, -it is not an inevitable fate. When the mob yell: -“Crucify him! Crucify him!” the artist, in whatever -medium, hears a voice from Heaven: “This is my beloved -son.” Yet it is conceivable that the more perfectly -a new revelation is achieved the less antagonism -it arouses. Proust has undoubtedly been the master -of a new intimacy of vision, a new flexibility of expression, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>even though the style through which the -revelation has been made, perhaps necessarily on -account of the complexity involved, has remained a -little difficult and also, it must be said, a little negligent. -But it has achieved a considerable degree of -clarity and a high degree of beauty. So there is less -difficulty in recognising a great masterpiece in “À la -Recherche du Temps Perdu” than if it were more conspicuously -the work of a daring pioneer. It is seen as -the revelation of a new æsthetic sensibility embodied -in a new and fitting style. Marcel Proust has experienced -clearly what others have felt dimly or not -at all. The significance of his work is thus altogether -apart from the power of its dramatic incidents or its -qualities as a novel. To the critic of defective intelligence, -craving for scenes of sensation, it has sometimes -seemed that “À l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleur” -is the least important section of Proust’s work. Yet it -is on that quiet and uneventful tract of his narrative -that Proust has most surely set the stamp of his genius, -a genius, I should like to add, which is peculiarly -congenial to the English mind because it was in the -English tradition, rather than in the French tradition, -that Proust was moving.<a id='r69' /><a href='#f69' class='c011'><sup>[69]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>No doubt it is possible for a writer to go far by the -exercise of a finely attentive docility. By a dutiful -study of what other people have said, by a refined -cleverness in catching their tricks, and avoiding their -subtleties, their profundities, their audacities, by, in -short, a patient perseverance in writing out copperplate -maxims in elegant copybooks, he can become at -last, like Stevenson, the idol of the crowd. But the -great writer can only learn out of himself. He learns -to write as a child learns to walk. For the laws of the -logic of thought are not other than those of physical -movement. There is stumbling, awkwardness, hesitation, -experiment—before at last the learner attains -the perfect command of that divine rhythm and perilous -poise in which he asserts his supreme human privilege. -But the process of his learning rests ultimately -on his own structure and function and not on others’ -example. “Style must be founded upon models”; it is -the rule set up by the pedant who knows nothing of -what style means. For the style that is founded on a -model is the negation of style.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The ardour and heroism of great achievement in -style never grow less as the ages pass, but rather tend -to grow more. That is so, not merely because the -hardest tasks are left for the last, but because of the -ever increasing impediments placed in the path of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>style by the piling up of mechanical rules and rigid -conventions. It is doubtful whether on the whole the -forces of life really gain on the surrounding inertia of -death. The greatest writers must spend the blood and -sweat of their souls, amid the execration and disdain -of their contemporaries, in breaking the old moulds of -style and pouring their fresh life into new moulds. -From Dante to Carducci, from Rabelais to Proust, -from Chaucer to Whitman, the giants of letters have -been engaged in this life-giving task, and behind them -the forces of death swiftly gather again. Here there -is always room for the hero. No man, indeed, can -write anything that matters who is not a hero at heart, -even though to the people who pass him in the street -or know him in the house he may seem as gentle as any -dove. If all progress lies in an ever greater flexibility and -intimacy of speech, a finer adaptation to the heights -and depths of the mobile human soul, the task can -never be finally completed. Every writer is called -afresh to reveal new strata of life. By digging in his -own soul he becomes the discoverer of the soul of his -family, of his nation, of the race, of the heart of humanity. -For the great writer finds style as the mystic find -God, in his own soul. It is the final utterance of a sigh, -which none could utter before him, and which all can -who follow.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the end, it will be seen we return at last to the -point from which we start. We have completed the -cycle of an art’s evolution,—and it might, indeed, be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>any other art as much as writing,—reaching in the -final sweep of ever wider flights the fact from which -we started, but seeing it anew, with a fresh universal -significance. Writing is an arduous spiritual and intellectual -task, only to be achieved by patient and deliberate -labour and much daring. Yet therewith we -are only at the beginning. Writing is also the expression -of individual personality, which springs up spontaneously, -or is slowly drawn up from within, out of -a well of inner emotions which none may command. -But even with these two opposite factors we have not -attained the complete synthesis. For style in the full -sense is more than the deliberate and designed creation, -more even than the unconscious and involuntary creation, -of the individual man who therein expresses himself. -The self that he thus expresses is a bundle of inherited -tendencies that came the man himself can -never entirely know whence. It is by the instinctive -stress of a highly sensitive, or slightly abnormal constitution, -that he is impelled to instil these tendencies -into the alien magic of words. The stylum wherewith -he strives to write himself on the yet blank pages of -the world may have the obstinate vigour of the metal -rod or the wild and quavering waywardness of an insect’s -wing, but behind it lie forces that extend into -infinity. It moves us because it is itself moved by -pulses which in varying measure we also have inherited, -and because its primary source is in the heart -of a cosmos from which we ourselves spring.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span> - <h2 id='chap5' class='c005'>CHAPTER V <br /> THE ART OF RELIGION</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'>I</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Religion</span> is a large word, of good import and of evil -import, and with the general discussion of religion we -are not in this place concerned. Its quintessential -core—which is the art of finding our emotional relationship -to the world conceived as a whole—is all -that here matters, and it is best termed “Mysticism.” -No doubt it needs some courage to use that word. It -is the common label of abuse applied to every pseudo-spiritual -thing that is held up for contempt. Yet it -would be foolish to allow ourselves to be deflected from -the right use of a word by the accident of its abuse. -“Mysticism,” however often misused, will here be -used, because it is the correct term for the relationship -of the Self to the Not-Self, of the individual to a Whole, -when, going beyond his own personal ends, he discovers -his adjustment to larger ends, in harmony or -devotion or love.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It has become a commonplace among the unthinking, -or those who think badly, to assume an opposition -of hostility between mysticism and science.<a id='r70' /><a href='#f70' class='c011'><sup>[70]</sup></a> If -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“science” is, as we have some reason to believe, an -art, if “mysticism” also is an art, the opposition can -scarcely be radical since they must both spring from -the same root in natural human activity.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>II</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>If</span>, indeed, by “science” we mean the organisation of -an intellectual relationship to the world we live in adequate -to give us some degree of power over that -world, and if by “mysticism” we mean the joyful -organisation of an emotional relationship to the world -conceived as a whole,<a id='r71' /><a href='#f71' class='c011'><sup>[71]</sup></a> the opposition which we usually -assume to exist between them is of comparatively -modern origin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among savage peoples such an opposition can -scarcely be said to have any existence. The very fact -that science, in the strict sense, seems often to begin with -the stars might itself have suggested that the basis -of science is mystical contemplation. Not only is there -usually no opposition between the “scientific” and the -“mystical” attitude among peoples we may fairly call -primitive, but the two attitudes may be combined in -the same person. The “medicine-man” is not more an -embryonic man of science than he is an embryonic -mystic; he is both equally. He cultivates not only -<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>magic but holiness, he achieves the conquest of his own -soul, he enters into harmony with the universe; and in -doing this, and partly, indeed, through doing this, his -knowledge is increased, his sensations and power of -observation are rendered acute, and he is enabled so -to gain organised knowledge of natural processes that -he can to some extent foresee or even control those -processes. He is the ancestor alike of the hermit following -after sanctity and of the inventor crystallising -discoveries into profitable patents. Such is the medicine-man -wherever we may find him in his typical -shape—which he cannot always adequately achieve—all -over the world, around Torres Straits just as -much as around Behring’s Straits. Yet we have failed -to grasp the significance of this fact.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is the business of the <i>Shaman</i>, as on the mystical -side we may conveniently term the medicine-man, -to place himself under the conditions—and even in -primitive life those conditions are varied and subtle—which -bring his will into harmony with the essence of -the world, so that he grows one with that essence, -that its will becomes his will, and, reversely, that, in a -sense, his will becomes its. Herewith, in this unity -with the spirit of the world, the possibility of magic -and the power to control the operation of Nature are -introduced into human thought, with its core of -reality and its endless trail of absurdity, persisting -even into advanced civilisation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But this harmony with the essence of the universe, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>this control of Nature through oneness with Nature, -is not only at the heart of religion; it is also at the heart -of science. It is only by the possession of an acquired -or inborn temperament attuned to the temperament -of Nature that a Faraday or an Edison, that any scientific -discoverer or inventor, can achieve his results. -And the primitive medicine-man, who on the religious -side has attained harmony of the self with the Not-Self, -and by obeying learnt to command, cannot fail -on the scientific side also, under the special conditions -of his isolated life, to acquire an insight into natural -methods, a practical power over human activities and -over the treatment of disease, such as on the imaginative -and emotional side he already possesses. If we are -able to see this essential and double attitude of the -<i>Shaman</i>—medicine-man—if we are able to eliminate -all the extraneous absurdities and the extravagancies -which conceal the real nature of his function -in the primitive world, the problem of science and -mysticism, and their relationship to each other, ceases -to have difficulties for us.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is as well to point out, before passing on, that the -investigators of primitive thought are not altogether -in agreement with one another on this question of the -relation of science to magic, and have complicated the -question by drawing a distinction between magic -(understood as man’s claim to control Nature) and religion -(understood as man’s submission to Nature). -The difficulties seem due to an attempt to introduce -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>clear-cut definitions at a stage of thought where none -such existed. That medicine-men and priests cultivated -science, while wrapping it up in occult and -magical forms, seems indicated by the earliest historical -traditions of the Near East. Herbert Spencer long -ago brought together much of the evidence on this -point. McDougall to-day in his “Social Psychology” -(Chapter <abbr title='thirteen'>XIII</abbr>) accepts magic as the origin of science, -and Frazer in the early edition of his “Golden Bough” -regarded magic as “the savage equivalent of our -natural science.” Marett<a id='r72' /><a href='#f72' class='c011'><sup>[72]</sup></a> “profoundly doubts” this, -and declares that if we can use the word “science” -at all in such a context, magic is occult science and the -very antithesis of natural science. While all that -Marett states is admirably true on the basis of his own -definitions, he scarcely seems to realise the virtue of -the word “equivalent,” while at the same time, it may -be, his definition of magic is too narrow. Silberer, -from the psycho-analytic standpoint, accepting the -development of exact science from one branch of magic, -points out that science is, on the one hand, the recognition -of concealed natural laws and, on the other, -the dynamisation of psychic power,<a id='r73' /><a href='#f73' class='c011'><sup>[73]</sup></a> and thus falls -into two great classes, according as its operation is -external or internal. This seems a true and subtle distinction -which Marett has overlooked. In the latest -edition of his work,<a id='r74' /><a href='#f74' class='c011'><sup>[74]</sup></a> Frazer has not insisted on the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>relation or analogy of science to magic, but has been -content to point out that Man has passed through the -three stages of magic, religion, and science. “In magic -Man depends on his own strength to meet the difficulties -and dangers that beset him on every side. He -believes in a certain established order of Nature on -which he can surely count, and which he can manipulate -for his own ends.” Then he finds he has overestimated -his own powers and he humbly takes the -road of religion, leaving the universe to the more or less -capricious will of a higher power. But he finds this -view inadequate and he proceeds to revert in a measure -to the older standpoint of magic by postulating -explicitly what in magic had only been implicitly assumed, -“to wit, an inflexible regularity in the order of -natural events which, if carefully observed, enables us -to foresee their course with certainty, and to act accordingly.” -So that science, in Frazer’s view, is not so -much directly derived from magic as itself in its -original shape one with magic, and Man has proceeded, -not in a straight line, but in a spiral.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The profound significance of this early personage is, -however, surely clear. If science and mysticism are -alike based on fundamental natural instincts, appearing -spontaneously all over the world; if, moreover, -they naturally tend to be embodied in the same individual, -in such a way that each impulse would seem to -be dependent on the other for its full development; -then there can be no ground for accepting any disharmony -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>between them. The course of human evolution -involves a division of labour, a specialisation of -science and of mysticism along special lines and in -separate individuals.<a id='r75' /><a href='#f75' class='c011'><sup>[75]</sup></a> But a fundamental antagonism -of the two, it becomes evident, is not to be thought of; -it is unthinkable, even absurd. If at some period in -the course of civilisation we seriously find that our -science and our religion are antagonistic, then there -must be something wrong either with our science or -with our religion. Perhaps not seldom there may be -something wrong with both. For if the natural impulses -which normally work best together are separated -and specialised in different persons, we may expect to -find a concomitant state of atrophy and hypertrophy, -both alike morbid. The scientific person will become -atrophied on the mystical side, the mystical person will -become atrophied on the scientific side. Each will become -morbidly hypertrophied on his own side. But -the assumption that, because there is a lack of harmony -between opposing pathological states, there must also -be a similar lack of harmony in the normal state, is unreasonable. -We must severely put out of count alike -the hypertrophied scientific people with atrophied -religious instincts, and the hypertrophied religious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>people with atrophied scientific instincts. Neither -group can help us here; they only introduce confusion. -We have to examine the matter critically, to go back -to the beginning, to take so wide a survey of the phenomena -that their seemingly conflicting elements fall -into harmony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The fact, in the first place, that the person with an -overdeveloped religious sense combined with an underdeveloped -scientific sense necessarily conflicts with a -person in whom the reverse state of affairs exists, cannot -be doubted, nor is the reason of it obscure. It is -difficult to conceive a Darwin and a <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Theresa entering -with full and genuine sympathy into each other’s -point of view. And that is so by no means because the -two attitudes, stripped of all but their essentials, are -irreconcilable. If we strip <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Theresa of her atrophied -pseudo-science, which in her case was mostly theological -“science,” there was nothing in her attitude -which would not have seemed to harmonise and to -exalt that absolute adoration and service to natural -truth which inspired Darwin. If we strip Darwin of -that atrophied sense of poetry and the arts which he -deplored, and that anæmic secular conception of the -universe as a whole which he seems to have accepted -without deploring, there was nothing in his attitude -which would not have served to fertilise and enrich -the spiritual exaltation of Theresa and even to have -removed far from her that temptation to <i>acedia</i> or -slothfulness which all the mystics who are mystics -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>only have recognised as their besetting sin, minimised -as it was, in Theresa, by her practical activities. Yet, -being as they were persons of supreme genius developed -on opposite sides of their common human -nature, an impassable gulf lies between them. It lies -equally between much more ordinary people who yet -show the same common character of being undergrown -on one side, overgrown on the other.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This difficulty is not diminished when the person -who is thus hypertrophied on one side and atrophied -on the other suddenly wakes up to his one-sided state -and hastily attempts to remedy it. The very fact that -such a one-sided development has come about indicates -that there has probably been a congenital -basis for it, an innate disharmony which must require -infinite patience and special personal experience to -overcome. But the heroic and ostentatious manner -in which these ill-balanced people hastily attempt the -athletic feat of restoring their spiritual balance has -frequently aroused the interest, and too often the -amusement, of the spectator. Sir Isaac Newton, one -of the most quintessentially scientific persons the -world has seen, a searcher who made the most stupendous -effort to picture the universe intelligently on its -purely intelligible side, seems to have realised in old -age, when he was, indeed, approaching senility, that -the vast hypertrophy of his faculties on that side had -not been compensated by any development on the -religious side. He forthwith set himself to the interpretation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>of the Book of Daniel and puzzled over the -prophecies of the Book of Revelation, with the same -scientifically serious air as though he were analysing -the spectrum. In reality he had not reached the -sphere of religion at all; he had merely exchanged good -science for bad science. Such senile efforts to penetrate, -ere yet life is quite over, the mystery of religion -recall, and, indeed, have a real analogy to, that final -effort of the emotionally starved to grasp at love which -has been called “old maid’s insanity”; and just as in -this aberration the woman who has all her life put love -into the subconscious background of her mind is overcome -by an eruption of the suppressed emotions and -driven to create baseless legends of which she is herself -the heroine, so the scientific man who has put religion -into the subconscious and scarcely known that -there is such a thing may become in the end the victim -of an imaginary religion. In our own time we may have -witnessed attempts of the scientific mind to become -religious, which, without amounting to mental aberration, -are yet highly instructive. It would be a double-edged -compliment, in this connection, to compare Sir -Oliver Lodge to Sir Isaac Newton. But after devoting -himself for many years to purely physical research, -Lodge also, as he has confessed, found that he had -overlooked the religious side of life, and therefore set -himself with characteristic energy to the task—the -stages of which are described in a long series of books—of -developing this atrophied side of his nature. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>Unlike Newton, who was worried about the future, -Lodge became worried about the past. Just as Newton -found what he was contented to regard as religious -peace in speculating on the meaning of the Books of -Daniel and Revelation, so Lodge found a similar satisfaction -in speculations concerning the origin of the -soul and in hunting out tags from the poets to support -his speculations. So fascinating was this occupation -that it seemed to him to constitute a great “message” -to the world. “My message is that there is some great -truth in the idea of preëxistence, not an obvious truth, -nor one easy to formulate—a truth difficult to express—not -to be identified with the guesses of reincarnation -and transmigration, which may be fanciful. -We may not have been individuals before, but we are -chips or fragments of a great mass of mind, of spirit, -and of life—drops, as it were, taken out of a germinal -reservoir of life, and incubated until incarnate in a -material body.”<a id='r76' /><a href='#f76' class='c011'><sup>[76]</sup></a> The genuine mystic would smile if -asked to accept as a divine message these phraseological -gropings in the darkness, with their culmination in -the gospel of “incubated drops.” They certainly represent -an attempt to get at a real fact. But the mystic -is not troubled by speculations about the origin of the -individual, or theories of preëxistence, fantastic myths -which belong to the earlier Plato’s stage of thought. It -is abundantly evident that when the hypertrophied -man of science seeks to cultivate his atrophied religious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>instincts it is with the utmost difficulty that he escapes -from science. His conversion to religion merely -means, for the most part, that he has exchanged -sound science for pseudo-science.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Similarly, when the man with hypertrophied religious -instincts seeks to cultivate his atrophied scientific -instincts, the results are scarcely satisfactory. Here, -indeed, we are concerned with a phenomenon that is -rarer than the reverse process. The reason may not be -far to seek. The instinct of religion develops earlier in -the history of a race than the instinct of science. The -man who has found the massive satisfaction of his -religious cravings is seldom at any stage conscious of -scientific cravings; he is apt to feel that he already possesses -the supreme knowledge. The religious doubters -who vaguely feel that their faith is at variance with -science are merely the creatures of creeds, the product -of Churches; they are not the genuine mystics. The -genuine mystics who have exercised their scientific -instincts have generally found scope for such exercise -within an enlarged theological scheme which they regarded -as part of their religion. So it was that <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Augustine found -scope for his full and vivid, if capricious, -intellectual impulses; so also Aquinas, in whom there -was doubtless less of the mystic and more of the scientist, -found scope for the rational and orderly development -of a keen intelligence which has made him an authority -and even a pioneer for many who are absolutely -indifferent to his theology.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>Again we see that to understand the real relations of -science and mysticism, we must return to ages when, -on neither side, had any accumulated mass of dead -traditions effected an artificial divorce between two -great natural instincts. It has already been pointed -out that if we go outside civilisation the divorce is not -found; the savage mystic is also the savage man of -science, the priest and the doctor are one.<a id='r77' /><a href='#f77' class='c011'><sup>[77]</sup></a> It is so also -for the most part in barbarism, among the ancient Hebrews -for instance, and not only among their priests, -but even among their prophets. It appears that the -most usual Hebrew word for what we term the “prophet” -signified “one who bursts forth,” presumably -into the utterance of spiritual verities, and the less usual -words signify “seer.” That is to say, the prophet -was primarily a man of religion, secondarily a man of -science. And that predictive element in the prophet’s -function, which to persons lacking in religious instinct -seems the whole of his function, has no relationship at -all to religion; it is a function of science. It is an insight -into cause and effect, a conception of sequences -based on extended observation and enabling the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>“prophet” to assert that certain lines of action will -probably lead to the degeneration of a stock, or to -the decay of a nation. It is a sort of applied history. -“Prophecy” has no more to do with religion than have -the forecasts of the Meteorological Bureau, which also -are a kind of applied science in earlier stages associated -with religion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If, keeping within the sphere of civilisation, we go -back as far as we can, the conclusion we reach is not -greatly different. The earliest of the great mystics in -historical times is Lao-tze. He lived six hundred years -earlier than Jesus, a hundred years earlier than Sakya-Muni, -and he was more quintessentially a mystic than -either. He was, moreover, incomparably nearer than -either to the point of view of science. Even his occupation -in life was, in relation to his age and land, of a -scientific character; he was, if we may trust uncertain -tradition, keeper of the archives. In the substance of -his work this harmony of religion and science is -throughout traceable, the very word “Tao,” which to -Lao-tze is the symbol of all that to which religion may -mystically unite us, is susceptible of being translated -“Reason,” although that word remains inadequate to -its full meaning. There are no theological or metaphysical -speculations here concerning God (the very word -only occurs once and may be a later interpolation), the -soul, or immortality. The delicate and profound art of -Lao-tze largely lies in the skill with which he expresses -spiritual verities in the form of natural truths. His -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>affirmations not only go to the core of religion, but -they express the essential methods of science. This man -has the mystic’s heart, but he has also the physicist’s -touch and the biologist’s eye. He moves in a sphere -in which religion and science are one.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If we pass to more modern times and the little European -corner of the world, around the Mediterranean -shores, which is the cradle of our latter-day civilisation, -again and again we find traces of this fundamental -unity of mysticism and science. It may well be that -we never again find it in quite so pure a form as in -Lao-tze, quite so free from all admixture alike of bad religion -and bad science. The exuberant unbalanced activity -of our race, the restless acquisitiveness—already -manifested in the sphere of ideas and traditions before -it led to the production of millionaires—soon became -an ever-growing impediment to such unity of spiritual -impulses. Among the supple and yet ferocious Greeks, -indeed, versatility and recklessness seem at a first -glance always to have stood in the way of approach to -the essential terms of this problem. It was only when -the Greeks began to absorb Oriental influences, we are -inclined to say, that they became genuine mystics, and -as they approached mysticism they left science behind.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet there was a vein of mysticism in the Greeks from -the first, not alone due to seeds from the East flung to -germinate fruitfully in Greek soil, though perhaps to -that Ionian element of the Near East which was an essential -part of the Greek spirit. All that Karl Joël of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>Basel has sought to work out concerning the evolution -of the Greek philosophic spirit has a bearing on this -point. We are wrong, he believes, to look on the early -Greek philosophers of Nature as mainly physicists, -treating the religious and poetic mystic elements in -them as mere archaisms, concessions, or contradictions. -Hellas needed, and possessed, an early Romantic -spirit, if we understand the Romantic spirit, not -merely through its reactionary offshoots, but as a deep -mystico-lyrical expression; it was comparable in early -Greece to the Romantic spirit of the great creative -men of the early Renaissance or the early nineteenth -century, and the Apollinian classic spirit was developed -out of an ordered discipline and formulation of -the Dionysian spirit more mystically near to Nature.<a id='r78' /><a href='#f78' class='c011'><sup>[78]</sup></a> -If we bear this in mind we are helped to understand -much in the religious life of Greece which seems not to -harmonise with what we conventionally call “classic.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the dim figure of Pythagoras we perhaps see not -only a great leader of physical science, but also a great -initiator in spiritual mystery. It is, at any rate, fairly -clear that he established religious brotherhoods of carefully -selected candidates, women as well as men being -eligible, and living on so lofty and aristocratic a level -that the populace of Magna Grecia, who could not -understand them, decided out of resentment to burn -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>them alive, and the whole order was annihilated about -<abbr class='spell'><span class='fss'>B.C.</span></abbr> 500. But exactly how far these early Pythagoreans, -whose community has been compared to the mediæval -orders of chivalry, were mystics, we may imagine -as we list, in the light of the Pythagorean echoes we -find here and there in Plato. On the whole we scarcely -go to the Greeks for a clear exposition of what we now -term “mysticism.” We see more of it in Lucretius than -we can divine in his master Epicurus. And we see it -still more clearly in the Stoics. We can, indeed, nowhere -find a more pure and concise statement than in -Marcus Aurelius of the mystical core of religion as the -union in love and harmony and devotion of the self with -the Not-Self.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If Lucretius may be accounted the first of moderns -in the identification of mysticism and science, he has -been followed by many, even though, one sometimes -thinks, with an ever-increasing difficulty, a drooping of -the wings of mystical aspiration, a limping of the feet -of scientific progress. Leonardo and Giordano Bruno -and Spinoza and Goethe, each with a little imperfection -on one side or the other, if not on both sides, have -moved in a sphere in which the impulses of religion are -felt to spring from the same centre as the impulses of -science. Einstein, whose attitude in many ways is so interesting, -closely associates the longing for pure knowledge -with religious feeling, and he has remarked that -“in every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious -reverence.” He is inclined to attach significance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>to the fact that so many great men of science—Newton, -Descartes, Gauss, Helmholtz—have been in one -way or another religious. If we cannot altogether include -such men as Swedenborg and Faraday in the -same group, it is because we cannot feel that in them -the two impulses, however highly developed, really -spring from the same centre or really make a true harmony. -We suspect that these men and their like kept -their mysticism in a science-proof compartment of their -minds, and their science in a mysticism-proof compartment; -we tremble for the explosive result, should the -wall of partition ever be broken down.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The difficulty, we see again, has been that, on each -hand, there has been a growth of non-essential traditions -around the pure and vital impulse, and the obvious -disharmony of these two sets of accretions conceals -the underlying harmony of the impulses themselves. -The possibility of reaching the natural harmony is thus -not necessarily by virtue of any rare degree of intellectual -attainment, nor by any rare gift of inborn spiritual -temperament,—though either of these may in some -cases be operative,—but rather by the happy chance -that the burden of tradition on each side has fallen and -that the mystical impulse is free to play without a dead -metaphysical theology, the scientific impulse without a -dead metaphysical formalism. It is a happy chance -that may befall the simple more easily than the wise -and learned.</p> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span> - <h3 class='c010'>III</h3> -</div> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>The</span> foregoing considerations have perhaps cleared the -way to a realisation that when we look broadly at the -matter, when we clear away all the accumulated superstitions, -the unreasoned prepossessions, on either side, -and so reach firm ground, not only is there no opposition -between science and mysticism, but in their essence, -and at the outset, they are closely related. The -seeming divorce between them is due to a false and unbalanced -development on either side, if not on both -sides.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet all such considerations cannot suffice to make -present to us this unity of apparent opposites. There -is, indeed, it has often seemed to me, a certain futility -in all discussion of the relative claims of science and -religion. This is a matter which, in the last resort, lies -beyond the sphere of argument. It depends not only on -a man’s entire psychic equipment, brought with him at -birth and never to be fundamentally changed, but it -is the outcome of his own intimate experience during -life. It cannot be profitably discussed because it is experiential.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It seems to me, therefore, that, having gone so far, -and stated what I consider to be the relations of mysticism -and science as revealed in human history, I am -bound to go further and to state my personal grounds -for believing that the harmonious satisfaction alike of -the religious impulse and the scientific impulse may be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>attained to-day by an ordinarily balanced person in -whom both impulses crave for satisfaction. There is, -indeed, a serious difficulty. To set forth a personal religious -experience for the first time requires considerable -resolution, and not least to one who is inclined to -suspect that the experiences usually so set forth can be -of no profound or significant nature; that if the underlying -motives of a man’s life can be brought to the surface -and put into words their vital motive power is -gone. Even the fact that more than forty years have -passed since the experience took place scarcely suffices -to make the confession of it easy. But I recall to mind -that the first original book I ever planned (and in fact -began to write) was a book, impersonal though suggested -by personal experience, on the foundations of religion.<a id='r79' /><a href='#f79' class='c011'><sup>[79]</sup></a> -I put it aside, saying to myself I would complete -it in old age, because it seemed to me that the -problem of religion will always be fresh, while there -were other problems more pressingly in need of speedy -investigation. Now, it may be, I begin to feel the time -has come to carry that early project a stage further.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Like many of the generation to which I belonged, I -was brought up far from the Sunday-school atmosphere -of conventional religiosity. I received little religious -instruction outside the home, but there I was made to -feel, from my earliest years, that religion is a very vital -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>and personal matter with which the world and the fashion -of it had nothing to do. To that teaching, while still -scarcely more than a child, I responded in a wholehearted -way. Necessarily the exercise of this early impulse -followed the paths prescribed for it by my environment. -I accepted the creed set before me; I privately -studied the New Testament for my own satisfaction; -I honestly endeavoured, strictly in private, to -mould my actions and impulses on what seemed to be -Christian lines. There was no obtrusive outward evidence -of this; outside the home, moreover, I moved in a -world which might be indifferent but was not actively -hostile to my inner aspirations, and, if the need for any -external affirmation had become inevitable, I should, I -am certain, have invoked other than religious grounds -for my protest. Religion, as I instinctively felt then -and as I consciously believe now, is a private matter, as -love is. This was my mental state at the age of twelve.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then came the period of emotional and intellectual -expansion, when the scientific and critical instincts began -to germinate. These were completely spontaneous -and not stimulated by any influences of the environment. -To inquire, to question, to investigate the qualities -of the things around us and to search out their -causes, is as native an impulse as the religious impulse -would be found to be if only we would refrain from exciting -it artificially. In the first place, this scientific -impulse was not greatly concerned with the traditional -body of beliefs which were then inextricably entwined -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>in my mind with the exercise of the religious instinct. -In so far, indeed, as it touched them it took up their defence. -Thus I read Renan’s “Life of Jesus,” and the -facile sentiment of this book, the attitude of artistic reconstruction, -aroused a criticism which led me to overlook -any underlying sounder qualities. Yet all the time -the inquiring and critical impulse was a slowly permeating -and invading influence, and its application to -religion was from time to time stimulated by books, -although such application was in no slightest degree -favoured by the social environment. When, too, at the -age of fifteen, I came to read Swinburne’s “Songs before -Sunrise,”—although the book made no very personal -appeal to me,—I realised that it was possible to -present in an attractively modern emotional light religious -beliefs which were incompatible with Christianity, -and even actively hostile to its creed. The process of -disintegration took place in slow stages that were not -perceived until the process was complete. Then at last I -realised that I no longer possessed any religious faith. -All the Christian dogmas I had been brought up to accept -unquestioned had slipped away, and they had -dragged with them what I had experienced of religion, -for I could not then so far analyse all that is roughly -lumped together as “religion” as to disentangle the -essential from the accidental. Such analysis, to be -effectively convincing, demanded personal experiences -I was not possessed of.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was now seventeen years of age. The loss of religious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>faith had produced no change in conduct, save -that religious observances, which had never been ostentatiously -performed, were dropped, so far as they -might be without hurting the feelings of others. The -revolution was so gradual and so natural that even inwardly -the shock was not great, while various activities, -the growth of mental aptitudes, sufficiently served to -occupy the mind. It was only during periods of depression -that the absence of faith as a satisfaction of the religious -impulse became at all acutely felt. Possibly it -might have been felt less acutely if I could have realised -that there was even a real benefit in the cutting -down and clearing away of traditional and non-vital -beliefs. Not only was it a wholesome and strenuous effort -to obey at all costs the call of what was felt as -“truth,” and therefore having in it a spirit of religion -even though directed against religion, but it was evidently -favourable to the training of intelligence. The -man who has never wrestled with his early faith, the -faith that he was brought up with and that yet is not -truly his own,—for no faith is our own that we have -not arduously won,—has missed not only a moral but -an intellectual discipline. The absence of that discipline -may mark a man for life and render all his work in -the world ineffective. He has missed a training in criticism, -in analysis, in open-mindedness, in the resolutely -impersonal treatment of personal problems, which no -other training can compensate. He is, for the most -part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths -that enclose him and his eyes too weak to find the -light.</p> - -<p class='c007'>While, however, I had adopted, without knowing it, -the best course to steel the power of thinking and to -render possible a patient, humble, self-forgetful attitude -towards Nature, there were times when I became -painfully, almost despairingly, conscious of the unsatisfied -cravings of the religious impulse. These moods -were emphasised even by the books I read which argued -that religion, in the only sense in which I understood -religion, was unnecessary, and that science, -whether or not formulated into a creed, furnished all -that we need to ask in this direction. I well remember -the painful feelings with which I read at this time <abbr class='spell'>D. F.</abbr> -Strauss’s “The Old Faith and the New.” It is a scientific -creed set down in old age, with much comfortable -complacency, by a man who found considerable satisfaction -in the evening of life in the enjoyment of -Haydn’s quartets and Munich brown beer. They are -both excellent things, as I am now willing to grant, but -they are a sorry source of inspiration when one is seventeen -and consumed by a thirst for impossibly remote -ideals. Moreover, the philosophic horizon of this man -was as limited and as prosaic as the æsthetic atmosphere -in which he lived. I had to acknowledge to myself -that the scientific principles of the universe as -Strauss laid them down presented, so far as I knew, the -utmost scope in which the human spirit could move. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>But what a poor scope! I knew nothing of the way -that Nietzsche, about that time, had demolished Strauss. -But I had the feeling that the universe was represented -as a sort of factory filled by an inextricable web of -wheels and looms and flying shuttles, in a deafening -din. That, it seemed, was the world as the most competent -scientific authorities declared it to be made. It -was a world I was prepared to accept, and yet a world -in which, I felt, I could only wander restlessly, an ignorant -and homeless child. Sometimes, no doubt, there -were other visions of the universe a little less disheartening, -such as that presented by Herbert Spencer’s -“First Principles.” But the dominant feeling always -was that while the scientific outlook, by which I mainly -meant the outlook of Darwin and Huxley, commended -itself to me as presenting a sound view of the world, on -the emotional side I was a stranger to that world, if, -indeed, I would not, with Omar, “shatter it to bits.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At the same time, it must be noted, there was no -fault to find with the general trend of my life and activities. -I was fully occupied, with daily duties as well as -with the actively interested contemplation of an ever-enlarging -intellectual horizon. This was very notably -the case at the age of nineteen, three years after all -vestiges of religious faith had disappeared from the -psychic surface.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was still interested in religious and philosophic -questions, and it so chanced that at this time I read -the “Life in Nature” of James Hinton, who had already -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>attracted my attention as a genuine man of science -with yet an original and personal grasp of religion. -I had read the book six months before and it had not -greatly impressed me. Now, I no longer know why, I -read it again, and the effect was very different. Evidently -by this time my mind had reached a stage of -saturated solution which needed but the shock of the -right contact to recrystallise in forms that were a revelation -to me. Here evidently the right contact was applied. -Hinton in this book showed himself a scientific -biologist who carried the mechanistic explanation of -life even further than was then usual.<a id='r80' /><a href='#f80' class='c011'><sup>[80]</sup></a> But he was a -man of highly passionate type of intellect, and what -might otherwise be formal and abstract was for him -soaked in emotion. Thus, while he saw the world as an -orderly mechanism, he was not content, like Strauss, to -stop there and see in it nothing else. As he viewed it, -the mechanism was not the mechanism of a factory, it -was vital, with all the glow and warmth and beauty of -life; it was, therefore, something which not only the intellect -might accept, but the heart might cling to. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>bearing of this conception on my state of mind is obvious. -It acted with the swiftness of an electric contact; -the dull aching tension was removed; the two opposing -psychic tendencies were fused in delicious harmony, -and my whole attitude towards the universe was -changed. It was no longer an attitude of hostility and -dread, but of confidence and love. My self was one -with the Not-Self, my will one with the universal will. -I seemed to walk in light; my feet scarcely touched -the ground; I had entered a new world.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The effect of that swift revolution was permanent. -At first there was a moment or two of wavering, and -then the primary exaltation subsided into an attitude -of calm serenity towards all those questions that had -once seemed so torturing. In regard to all these matters -I had become permanently satisfied and at rest, -yet absolutely unfettered and free. I was not troubled -about the origin of the “soul” or about its destiny; I -was entirely prepared to accept any analysis of the -“soul” which might commend itself as reasonable. -Neither was I troubled about the existence of any superior -being or beings, and I was ready to see that all -the words and forms by which men try to picture spiritual -realities are mere metaphors and images of an -inward experience. There was not a single clause in -my religious creed because I held no creed. I had found -that dogmas were—not, as I had once imagined, true, -not, as I had afterwards supposed, false,—but the mere -empty shadows of intimate personal experience. I had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>become indifferent to shadows, for I held the substance. -I had sacrificed what I held dearest at the call of what -seemed to be Truth, and now I was repaid a thousand-fold. -Henceforth I could face life with confidence and -joy, for my heart was at one with the world and whatever -might prove to be in harmony with the world -could not be out of harmony with me.<a id='r81' /><a href='#f81' class='c011'><sup>[81]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, it might seem to many, nothing whatever had -happened; I had not gained one single definite belief -that could be expressed in a scientific formula or hardened -into a religious creed. That, indeed, is the essence -of such a process. A “conversion” is not, as is often assumed, -a turning towards a belief. More strictly, it is -a turning round, a revolution; it has no primary reference -to any external object. As the greater mystics -have often understood, “the Kingdom of Heaven is -within.” To put the matter a little more precisely, the -change is fundamentally a readjustment of psychic elements -to each other, enabling the whole machine to -work harmoniously. There is no necessary introduction -of new ideas; there is much more likely to be a -casting out of dead ideas which have clogged the vital -process. The psychic organism—which in conventional -<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>religion is called the “soul”—had not been in -harmony with itself; now it is revolving truly on its -own axis, and in doing so it simultaneously finds its -true orbit in the cosmic system. In becoming one with -itself, it becomes one with the universe.<a id='r82' /><a href='#f82' class='c011'><sup>[82]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>The process, it will be seen, is thus really rather analogous -to that which on the physical plane takes place -in a person whose jaw or arm is dislocated, whether by -some inordinate effort or some sudden shock with the -external world. The miserable man with a dislocated -jaw is out of harmony with himself and with the universe. -All his efforts cannot reduce the dislocation, nor -can his friends help him; he may even come to think -there is no cure. But a surgeon comes along, and with a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>slight pressure of his two thumbs, applied at the right -spot, downwards and backwards, the jaw springs into -place, the man is restored to harmony—and the universe -is transformed. If he is ignorant enough, he will -be ready to fall on his knees before his deliverer as a divine -being. We are concerned with what is called a -“spiritual” process,—for it is an accepted and necessary -convention to distinguish between the “spiritual” -and the “physical,”—but this crude and imperfect -analogy may help some minds to understand what is -meant.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus may be explained what may seem to some the -curious fact that I never for a moment thought of -accepting as a gospel the book which had brought me -a stimulus of such inestimable value. The person in -whom “conversion” takes place is too often told that -the process is connected in some magical manner with a -supernatural influence of some kind, a book, a creed, a -church, or what not. I had read this book before and it -had left me unmoved; I knew that the book was merely -the surgeon’s touch, that the change had its source in -me and not in the book. I never looked into the book -again; I cannot tell where or how my copy of it disappeared; -for all that I know, having accomplished its -mission, it was drawn up again to Heaven in a sheet. -As regards James Hinton, I was interested in him before -the date of the episode here narrated; I am interested -in him still.<a id='r83' /><a href='#f83' class='c011'><sup>[83]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>It may further be noted that this process of “conversion” -cannot be regarded as the outcome of despair -or as a protective regression towards childhood. The -unfortunate individual, we sometimes imagine, who is -bereft of religious faith sinks deeper and deeper into -despondency, until finally he unconsciously seeks the -relief of his woes by plunging into an abyss of emotions, -thereby committing intellectual suicide. On the -contrary, the period in which this event occurred was -not a period of dejection either mental or physical. I -was fully occupied; I lived a healthy, open-air life, in a -fine climate, amid beautiful scenery; I was revelling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>in new studies and the growing consciousness of new -powers. Instead of being the ultimate stage in a process -of descent, or a return to childhood, such psychic -revolution may much more fittingly be regarded as the -climax of an ascensional movement. It is the final -casting off of childish things, the initiation into complete -manhood.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is nothing ascetic in such a process. One is -sometimes tempted to think that to approve mysticism -is to preach asceticism. Certainly many mystics -have been ascetic. But that has been the accident of -their philosophy, and not the essence of their religion. -Asceticism has, indeed, nothing to do with normal -religion. It is, at the best, the outcome of a set of -philosophical dogmas concerning the relationship of -the body to the soul and the existence of a transcendental -spiritual world. That is philosophy, of a sort, not -religion. Plotinus, who has been so immensely influential -in our Western world because he was the main -channel by which Greek spiritual tendencies reached -us, to become later embodied in Christianity, is usually -regarded as a typical mystic, though he was primarily -a philosopher, and he was inclined to be ascetic. -Therein we may not consider him typically Greek, -but the early philosophical doctrine of Plato concerning -the transcendental world of “Ideas” easily lent -itself to developments favourable to an ascetic life. -Plotinus, indeed, was not disposed to any extreme -ascetic position. The purification of the soul meant -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>for him “to detach it from the body, and to elevate it -to a spiritual world.” But he would not have sympathised -with the harsh dualism of flesh and spirit -which often flourished among Christian ascetics. He -lived celibate, but he was willing to regard sex desire as -beautiful, though a delusion.<a id='r84' /><a href='#f84' class='c011'><sup>[84]</sup></a> When we put aside the -philosophic doctrines with which it may be associated, -it is seen that asceticism is merely an adjuvant discipline -to what we must regard as pathological forms -of mysticism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>People who come in contact with the phenomenon -of “conversion” are obsessed by the notion that it -must have something to do with morality. They seem -to fancy that it is something that happens to a person -leading a bad life whereby he suddenly leads a good -life. That is a delusion. Whatever virtue morality -may possess, it is outside the mystic’s sphere. No -doubt a person who has been initiated into this mystery -is likely to be moral because he is henceforth in -harmony with himself, and such a man is usually, by -a natural impulse, in harmony also with others. Like -Leonardo, who through the glow of his adoration of -Nature was as truly a mystic as <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Francis, even by -contact with him “every broken heart is made serene.” -But a religious man is not necessarily a moral man. -That is to say that we must by no means expect to -find that the religious man, even when he is in harmony -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>with his fellows, is necessarily in harmony with the -moral laws of his age. We fall into sad confusion if we -take for granted that a mystic is what we conventionally -term a “moral” man. Jesus, as we know, was -almost as immoral from the standpoint of the society -in which he moved as he would be in our society. That, -no doubt, is an extreme example, yet the same holds -good, in a minor degree, of many other mystics, even -in very recent times. The satyrs and the fauns were -minor divinities in antiquity, and in later times we -have been apt to misunderstand their holy functions -and abuse their sacred names.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Not only is there no necessary moral change in such -a process, still less is there any necessary intellectual -change. Religion need not involve intellectual suicide. -On the intellectual side there may be no obvious -change whatever. No new creed or dogma had been -adopted.<a id='r85' /><a href='#f85' class='c011'><sup>[85]</sup></a> It might rather be said that, on the contrary, -some prepossessions, hitherto unconscious, had -been realised and cast out. The operations of reason, -so far from being fettered, can be effected with greater -freedom and on a larger scale. Under favourable -conditions the religious process, indeed, throughout -directly contributes to strengthen the scientific attitude. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>The mere fact that one has been impelled by the -sincerity of one’s religious faith to question, to analyse, -and finally to destroy one’s religious creed, is itself an -incomparable training for the intelligence. In this -task reason is submitted to the hardest tests; it has -every temptation to allow itself to be lulled into sleepy -repose or cajoled into specious reconciliations. If it is -true to itself here it is steeled for every other task in -the world, for no other task can ever demand so complete -a self-sacrifice at the call of Truth. Indeed, the -final restoration of the religious impulse on a higher -plane may itself be said to reënforce the scientific impulse, -for it removes that sense of psychic disharmony -which is a subconscious fetter on the rational activity. -The new inward harmony, proceeding from a psychic -centre that is at one alike with itself and with the -Not-Self, imparts confidence to every operation of the -intellect. All the metaphysical images of faith in the -unseen—too familiar in the mystical experiences of -men of all religions to need specification—are now on -the side of science. For he who is thus held in his path -can pursue that path with serenity and trust, however -daring its course may sometimes seem.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It appears to me, therefore, on the basis of personal -experience, that the process thus outlined is a natural -process. The harmony of the religious impulse and of -the scientific impulse is not merely a conclusion to be -deduced from the history of the past. It is a living -fact to-day. However obscured it may sometimes be, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>the process lies in human nature and is still open to all -to experience.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>IV</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>If</span> the development of the religious instinct and the -development of the scientific instinct are alike natural, -and if the possibility of the harmony of the two instincts -is a verifiable fact of experience, how is it, one -may ask, that there has ever been any dispute on the -matter? Why has not this natural experience been the -experience of all?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Various considerations may help to make clear to -us how it has happened that a process which might -reasonably be supposed to be intimate and sacred -should have become so obscured and so deformed -that it has been fiercely bandied about by opposing -factions. At the outset, as we have seen, among comparatively -primitive peoples, it really is a simple -and natural process carried out harmoniously with -no sense of conflict. A man, it would seem, was not -then overburdened by the still unwritten traditions -of the race. He was comparatively free to exercise -his own impulses unfettered by the chains forged -out of the dead impulses of those who had gone -before him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is the same still among uncultivated persons of -our own race in civilisation. I well remember how once, -during a long ride through the Australian bush with a -settler, a quiet, uncommunicative man with whom I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>had long been acquainted, he suddenly told me how at -times he would ascend to the top of a hill and become -lost to himself and to everything as he stood in contemplation -of the scene around him. Those moments -of ecstasy, of self-forgetful union with the divine -beauty of Nature, were entirely compatible with the -rational outlook of a simple, hard-working man who -never went to church, for there was no church of any -kind to go to, but at such moments had in his own -humble way, like Moses, met God in a mountain. -There can be no doubt that such an experience is not -uncommon among simple folk unencumbered by tradition, -even when of civilised race.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The burden of traditions, of conventions, of castes -has too often proved fatal alike to the manifestation of -the religious impulse and the scientific impulse. It is -unnecessary to point out how easily this happens in -the case of the religious impulse. It is only too familiar -a fact how, when the impulse of religion first germinates -in the young soul, the ghouls of the Churches rush -out of their caverns, seize on the unhappy victim of the -divine effluence and proceed to assure him that his -rapture is, not a natural manifestation, as free as the -sunlight and as gracious as the unfolding of a rose, but -the manifest sign that he has been branded by a supernatural -force and fettered for ever to a dead theological -creed. Too often he is thus caught by the bait of his -own rapture; the hook is firmly fixed in his jaw and he -is drawn whither his blind guides will; his wings droop -<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>and fall away; so far as the finer issues of life are concerned, -he is done for and damned.<a id='r86' /><a href='#f86' class='c011'><sup>[86]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>But the process is not so very different on the scientific -side, though here it is more subtly concealed. -The youth in whom the natural impulse of science -arises is sternly told that the spontaneous movement -of his intelligence towards Nature and truth is nothing, -for the one thing needful is that he shall be put to -discipline, and trained in the scientific traditions of -the ages. The desirability of such training for the -effective questioning of Nature is so clear that both -teacher and pupil are apt to overlook the fact that -it involves much that is not science at all: all sorts -of dead traditions, unrealised fragments of ancient -metaphysical systems, prepossessions and limitations, -conscious or unconscious, the obedience to arbitrary -authorities. It is never made clear to him that science -also is an art. So that the actual outcome may be that -the finally accomplished man of science has as little of -the scientific impulse as the fully fledged religious man -need have of the religious impulse; he becomes the -victim of another kind of ecclesiastical sectarianism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is one special piece of ancient metaphysics -which until recently scientific and religious sects have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>alike combined to support: the fiction of “matter,” -which we passingly came upon when considering the -art of thinking. It is a fiction that has much to answer -for in distorting the scientific spirit and in creating an -artificial opposition between science and religion. All -sorts of antique metaphysical peculiarities, inherited -from the decadence of Greek philosophy, were attributed -to “matter” and they were mostly of a bad character; -all the good qualities were attributed to “spirit”; -“matter” played the Devil’s part to this more divine -“spirit.” Thus it was that “materialistic” came to be -a term signifying all that is most heavy, opaque, depressing, -soul-destroying, and diabolical in the universe. -The party of traditionalised religion fostered -this fiction and the party of traditionalised science -frequently adopted it, cheerily proposing to find infinite -potentialities in this despised metaphysical substance. -So that “matter” which was on one side -trodden underfoot was on the other side brandished -overhead as a glorious banner.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet “matter,” as psychologically minded philosophers -at last began to point out, is merely a substance -we have ourselves invented to account for our sensations. -We see, we touch, we hear, we smell, and by a -brilliant synthetic effort of imagination we put together -all those sensations and picture to ourselves -“matter” as being the source of them. Science itself -is now purging “matter” of its complicated metaphysical -properties. That “matter,” the nature of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>which Dr. Johnson, as Boswell tells us, thought he had -settled by “striking his foot with mighty force against -a large stone,” is coming to be regarded as merely an -electrical emanation. We now accept even that transmutation -of the elements of which the alchemists -dreamed. It is true that we still think of “matter” as -having weight. But so cautious a physicist as Sir -Joseph Thomson long ago pointed out that weight is -only an “apparently” invariable property of matter. -So that “matter” becomes almost as “ethereal” as -“spirit,” and, indeed, scarcely distinguishable from -“spirit.” The spontaneous affirmation of the mystic -that he lives in the spiritual world here and now will -then be, in other words, merely the same affirmation -which the man of science has more laboriously reached. -The man, therefore, who is terrified by “materialism” -has reached the final outpost of absurdity. He is a -simple-minded person who places his own hand before -his eyes and cries out in horror: The Universe has -disappeared!</p> - -<p class='c007'>We have not only to realise how our own prepossessions -and the metaphysical figments of our own creation -have obscured the simple realities of religion and -science alike; we have also to see that our timid dread -lest religion should kill our science, or science kill our -religion, is equally fatal here. He who would gain his -life must be willing to lose it, and it is by being honest -to one’s self and to the facts by applying courageously -the measuring rod of Truth, that in the end salvation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>is found. Here, it is true, there are those who smilingly -assure us that by adopting such a method we shall -merely put ourselves in the wrong and endure much -unnecessary suffering. There is no such thing as -“Truth,” they declare, regarded as an objective impersonal -reality; we do not “discover” truth, we invent -it. Therefore your business is to invent a truth which -shall harmoniously satisfy the needs of your nature -and aid your efficiency in practical life. That we are -justified in being dishonest towards truth has even -been argued from the doctrine of relativity by some -who failed to realise that that doctrine is here hardly -relative. Certainly the philosophers of recent times, -from Nietzsche to Croce, have loved to analyse the -idea of “truth” and to show that it by no means signifies -what we used to suppose it signified. But to show -that truth is fluid, or even the creation of the individual -mind, is by no means to show that we can at will play -fast and loose with it to suit our own momentary convenience. -If we do we merely find ourselves, at the -end, in a pool where we must tramp round and round -in intellectual slush out of which there is no issue. -One may well doubt whether any Pragmatist has ever -really invented his truth that way. Practically, just as -the best result is attained by the man who acts as -though free-will were a reality and who exerts it, so in -this matter, also, practically, in the end the best result -is attained by assuming that truth is an objective reality -which we must patiently seek, and in accordance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>with which we must discipline our own wayward impulses. -There is no transcendent objective truth, each -one of us is an artist creating his own truth from the -phenomena presented to him, but if in that creation he -allows any alien emotional or practical considerations -to influence him he is a bad artist and his work is -wrought for destruction. From the pragmatic point of -view, it may thus be said that if the use of the measuring-rod -of truth as an objective standard produces the -best practical results, that use is pragmatically justified. -But if so, we are exactly in the same position as -we were before the pragmatist arrived; we can get on -as well without him, if not better, for we run the risk -that he may confuse the issues for us. It is really on -the theoretic rather than the practical side that he is -helpful.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is not only the Pragmatist whose well-meant -efforts to find an easy reconciliation of belief and -practice, and indirectly the concord of religion and -science, come to grief because he has not realised that -the walls of the spiritual world can only be scaled with -much expenditure of treasure, not without blood and -sweat, that we cannot glide luxuriously to Heaven in -his motor-car. We are also met by the old-fashioned -Intuitionist.<a id='r87' /><a href='#f87' class='c011'><sup>[87]</sup></a> It is no accident that the Intuitionist so -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>often walks hand in hand with the Pragmatist; they -are engaged in the same tasks. There is, we have seen, -the impulse of science which must work through intelligence; -there is, also, the impulse of religion in the -satisfaction of which intelligence can only take a very -humble place at the antechamber of the sanctuary. -To admit, therefore, that reason cannot extend into the -religious sphere is absolutely sound so long as we realise -that reason has a coordinate right to lay down the -rules in its own sphere of intelligence. But in men of a -certain mental type the two tendencies are alike so -deeply implanted that they cannot escape them: they -are not only impelled to go beyond intelligence, but -they are also impelled to carry intelligence with them -outside its sphere. The sphere of intelligence is limited, -they say, and rightly; the soul has other impulses -besides that of intelligence and life needs more than -knowledge for its complete satisfaction. But in the -hands of these people the faculty of “intuition,” -which is to supplant that of intelligence, itself results -in a product which by them is called “knowledge,” and -so spuriously bears the hall-mark which belongs to the -product of intelligence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the result is disastrous. Not only is an illegitimate -confusion introduced, but, by attributing to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>impulse of religion a character which it is neither entitled -to nor in need of, we merely discredit it in the -eyes of intelligence. The philosopher of intuition, even -in denying intelligence, is apt to remain so predominantly -intelligent that, even in entering what is for him -the sphere of religion, he still moves in an atmosphere -of rarefied intelligence. He is farther from the Kingdom -of Heaven than the simple man who is quite -incapable of understanding the philosopher’s theory, -but yet may be able to follow his own religious impulse -without foisting into it an intellectual content. -For even the simple man may be one with the great -mystics who all declare that the unspeakable quality -they have acquired, as Eckhart puts it, “hath no -image.” It is not in the sphere of intellection, it brings -no knowledge; it is the outcome of the natural instinct -of the individual soul.</p> - -<p class='c007'>No doubt there really are people in whom the instincts -of religion and of science alike are developed in -so rudimentary a degree, if developed at all, that they -never become conscious. The religious instinct is not -an essential instinct. Even the instinct of sex, which is -much more fundamental than either of these, is not -absolutely essential. A very little bundle of instincts -and impulses is indispensable to a man on his way -down the path of life to a peaceful and humble grave. -A man’s equipment of tendencies, on the lowest plane, -needs to be more complex and diverse than an oyster’s, -yet not so very much more. The equipment of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>higher animals, moreover, is needed less for the good -of the individual than for the good of the race. We -cannot, therefore, be surprised if the persons in whom -the superfluous instincts are rudimentary fail to understand -them, confusing them and overlaying them with -each other and with much that is outside both. The -wonder would be if it were otherwise.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When all deduction has been made of the mental -and emotional confusions which have obscured men’s -vision, we cannot fail to conclude, it seems to me, that -Science and Mysticism are nearer to each other than -some would have us believe. At the beginning of -human cultures, far from being opposed, they may -even be said to be identical. From time to time, in -later ages, brilliant examples have appeared of men -who have possessed both instincts in a high degree and -have even fused the two together, while among the -humble in spirit and the lowly in intellect it is probable -that in all ages innumerable men have by instinct -harmonised their religion with their intelligence. But -as the accumulated experiences of civilisation have -been preserved and handed on from generation to -generation, this free and vital play of the instincts has -been largely paralysed. On each side fossilised traditions -have accumulated so thickly, the garments of -dead metaphysics have been wrapped so closely around -every manifestation alike of the religious instinct and -the scientific instinct—for even what we call “common -sense” is really a hardened mass of dead metaphysics—that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>not many persons can succeed in revealing -one of these instincts in its naked beauty, and -very few can succeed in so revealing both instincts. -Hence a perpetual antagonism. It may be, however, -we are beginning to realise that there are no metaphysical -formulas to suit all men, but that every man -must be the artist of his own philosophy. As we -realise that, it becomes easier than it was before to -liberate ourselves from a dead metaphysics, and so to -give free play alike to the religious instinct and the -scientific instinct. A man must not swallow more -beliefs than he can digest; no man can absorb all the -traditions of the past; what he fills himself with will -only be a poison to work to his own auto-intoxication.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Along all these lines we see more clearly than before -the real harmony between Mysticism and Science. -We see, also, that all arguments are meaningless until -we gain personal experience. One must win one’s own -place in the spiritual world painfully and alone. There -is no other way of salvation. The Promised Land always -lies on the other side of a wilderness.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>V</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>It</span> may seem that we have been harping overmuch on a -single string of what is really a very rich instrument, -when the whole exalted art of religion is brought down -to the argument of its relationship to science. The -core of religion is mysticism, it is admitted. And yet -where are all the great mystics? Why nothing of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>Neo-Platonists in whom the whole movement of modern -mysticism began, of their glorious pupils in the -Moslem world, of Ramon Lull and Francis of Assisi -and François Xavier and John of the Cross and George -Fox and the “De Imitatione Christi” and “Towards -Democracy”? There is no end to that list of glorious -names, and they are all passed by.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To write of the mystics, whether Pagan or Christian -or Islamic, is a most delightful task. It has been done, -and often very well done. The mystics are not only -themselves an incarnation of beauty, but they reflect -beauty on all who with understanding approach them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Moreover, in the phenomena of religious mysticism -we have a key—if we only knew it—to many of the -most precious human things which on the surface may -seem to have nothing in them of religion. For this is an -art which instinctively reveals to us the secrets of -other arts. It presents to us in the most naked and -essential way the inward experience which has inspired -men to find modes of expression which are transmutations -of the art of religion and yet have on the surface -nothing to indicate that this is so. It has often been -seen in poetry and in music and in painting. One -might say that it is scarcely possible to understand -completely the poetry of Shelley or the music of César -Franck or the pictures of Van Gogh unless there is -somewhere within an intimation of the secret of -mysticism. This is so not because of any imperfection -in the achieved work of such men in poetry and in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>music and in painting,—for work that fails to contain -its own justification is always bad work,—but because -we shall not be in possession of the clue to explain -the existence of that work. We may even go beyond -the sphere of the recognised arts altogether, and say -that the whole love of Nature and landscape, which in -modern times has been so greatly developed, largely -through Rousseau, the chief creator of our modern -spiritual world, is not intelligible if we are altogether -ignorant of what religion means.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But we are not so much concerned here with the -rich and variegated garments the impulse of religion -puts on, or with its possible transmutations, as with -the simple and naked shape of those impulses when -bared of all garments. It was peculiarly important to -present the impulse of mysticism naked because, of all -the fundamental human impulses, that is the one most -often so richly wrapped round with gorgeous and -fantastic garments that, alike to the eye of the ordinary -man and the acute philosopher, there has seemed to be -no living thing inside at all. It was necessary to strip -off all these garments, to appeal to simple personal -direct experience for the actual core of fact, and to -show that that core, so far from being soluble by -analysis into what science counts as nothing, is itself, -like every other natural organic function, a fact of -science.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is enough here, where we are concerned only with -the primary stuff of art, the bare simple technique of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>the human dance, to have brought into as clear a light -as may be the altogether natural mechanism which -lies behind all the most magnificent fantasies of the -mystic impulse, and would still subsist and operate -even though they were all cast into the flames. That is -why it has seemed necessary to dwell all the time on -the deep-lying harmony of the mystic’s attitude with -the scientific man’s attitude. It is a harmony which -rests on the faith that they are eternally separate, -however close, however intimately coöperative. When -the mystic professes that, as such, he has knowledge of -the same order as the man of science, or when the -scientist claims that, as such, he has emotion which is -like that of the man of religion, each of them deceives -himself. He has introduced a confusion where no confusion -need be; perhaps, indeed, he has even committed -that sin against the Holy Ghost of his own -spiritual integrity for which there is no forgiveness. -The function of intellectual thought—which is that -of the art of science—may, certainly, be invaluable -for religion; it makes possible the purgation of all that -pseudo-science, all that philosophy, good or bad, -which has poisoned and encrusted the simple spontaneous -impulse of mysticism in the open air of Nature and -in the face of the sun. The man of science may be a -mystic, but cannot be a true mystic unless he is so -relentless a man of science that he can tolerate no -alien science in his mysticism. The mystic may be a -man of science, but he will not be a good man of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>science unless he understands that science must be -kept for ever bright and pure from all admixture of -mystical emotion; the fountain of his emotion must -never rust the keenness of his analytic scalpel. It is -useless to pretend that any such rustiness can ever convert -the scalpel into a mystical implement, though it -can be an admirable aid in cutting towards the mystical -core of things, and perhaps if there were more -relentless scientific men there would be more men of -pure mystic vision. Science by itself, good or bad, can -never be religion, any more than religion by itself can -ever be science, or even philosophy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is by looking back into the past that we see the -facts in an essential simplicity less easy to reach in -more sophisticated ages. We need not again go so far -back as the medicine-men of Africa and Siberia. -Mysticism in pagan antiquity, however less intimate -to us and less seductive than that of later times, is -perhaps better fitted to reveal to us its true nature. -The Greeks believed in the spiritual value of “conversion” -as devoutly as our Christian sects and they -went beyond most such sects in their elaborately -systematic methods for obtaining it, no doubt for the -most part as superficially as has been common among -Christians. It is supposed that almost the whole population -of Athens must have experienced the Eleusinian -initiation. These methods, as we know, were embodied -in the Mysteries associated with Dionysus and Demeter -and Orpheus and the rest, the most famous and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>typical being those of Attic Eleusis.<a id='r88' /><a href='#f88' class='c011'><sup>[88]</sup></a> We too often see -those ancient Greek Mysteries through a concealing -mist, partly because it was rightly felt that matters of -spiritual experience were not things to talk about, so -that precise information is lacking, partly because the -early Christians, having their own very similar Mysteries -to uphold, were careful to speak evil of Pagan -Mysteries, and partly because the Pagan Mysteries no -doubt really tended to degenerate with the general -decay of classic culture. But in their large simple -essential outlines they seem to be fairly clear. For just -as there was nothing “orgiastic” in our sense in the -Greek “orgies,” which were simply ritual acts, so -there was nothing, in our sense, “mysterious” in the -Mysteries. We are not to suppose, as is sometimes -supposed, that their essence was a secret doctrine, or -even that the exhibition of a secret rite was the sole -object, although it came in as part of the method. A -mystery meant a spiritual process of initiation, which -was, indeed, necessarily a secret to those who had not -yet experienced it, but had nothing in itself “mysterious” -beyond what inheres to-day to the process in any -Christian “revival,” which is the nearest analogue to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>the Greek Mystery. It is only “mysterious” in the -sense that it cannot be expressed, any more than the -sexual embrace can be expressed, in words, but can -only be known by experience. A preliminary process -of purification, the influence of suggestion, a certain -religious faith, a solemn and dramatic ritual carried -out under the most impressive circumstances, having -a real analogy to the Catholic’s Mass, which also is a -function, at once dramatic and sacred, which culminates -in a spiritual communion with the Divine—all -this may contribute to the end which was, as it -always must be in religion, simply a change of inner -attitude, a sudden exalting realisation of a new relationship -to eternal things. The philosophers understood -this; Aristotle was careful to point out, in an -extant fragment, that what was gained in the Mysteries -was not instruction but impressions and emotions, -and Plato had not hesitated to regard the illumination -which came to the initiate in philosophy as of the -nature of that acquired in the Mysteries. So it was -natural that when Christianity took the place of -Paganism the same process went on with only a change -in external circumstances. Baptism in the early -Church—before it sank to the mere magical sort of -rite it later became—was of the nature of initiation -into a Mystery, preceded by careful preparation, and -the baptised initiate was sometimes crowned with a -garland as the initiated were at Eleusis.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When we go out of Athens along the beautiful road -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>that leads to the wretched village of Eleusis and linger -among the vast and complicated ruins of the chief -shrine of mysticism in our Western world, rich in associations -that seem to stretch back to the Neolithic Age -and suggest a time when the mystery of the blossoming -of the soul was one with the mystery of the upspringing -of the corn, it may be that our thoughts by no unnatural -transition pass from the myth of Demeter and -Kore to the remembrance of what we may have heard -or know of the manifestations of the spirit among -barbarian northerners of other faiths or of no faith in -far Britain and America and even of their meetings of -so-called “revival.” For it is always the same thing -that Man is doing, however various and fantastic the -disguises he adopts. And sometimes the revelation of -the new life, springing up from within, comes amid the -crowd in the feverish atmosphere of artificial shrines, -maybe soon to shrivel up, and sometimes the blossoming -forth takes place, perhaps more favourably, in the -open air and under the light of the sun and amid the -flowers, as it were to a happy faun among the hills. -But when all disguises have been stripped away, it is -always and everywhere the same simple process, a -spiritual function which is almost a physiological function, -an art which Nature makes. That is all.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span> - <h2 id='chap6' class='c005'>CHAPTER VI <br /> THE ART OF MORALS</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'>I</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>No</span> man has ever counted the books that have been -written about morals. No subject seems so fascinating -to the human mind. It may well be, indeed, that -nothing imports us so much as to know how to live. -Yet it can scarcely be that on any subject are the books -that have been written more unprofitable, one might -even say unnecessary.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For when we look at the matter objectively it is, -after all, fairly simple. If we turn our attention to any -collective community, at any time and place, in its -moral aspect, we may regard it as an army on the -march along a road of life more or less encompassed by -danger. That, indeed, is scarcely a metaphor; that is -what life, viewed in its moral aspect, may really be -considered. When thus considered, we see that it consists -of an extremely small advance guard in front, -formed of persons with a limited freedom of moral -action and able to act as patrols in various directions, -of a larger body in the rear, in ancient military language -called the blackguard and not without its uses, -and in the main of a great compact majority with -which we must always be chiefly concerned since they -really are the army; they are the community. What -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>we call “morals” is simply blind obedience to words -of command—whether or not issued by leaders the -army believes it has itself chosen—of which the significance -is hidden, and beyond this the duty of keeping -in step with the others, or of trying to keep in step, -or of pretending to do so.<a id='r89' /><a href='#f89' class='c011'><sup>[89]</sup></a> It is an automatic, almost -unconscious process and only becomes acutely conscious -when the individual is hopelessly out of step; -then he may be relegated to the rear blackguard. But -that happens seldom. So there is little need to be concerned -about it. Even if it happened very often, nothing -overwhelming would have taken place; it would -merely be that what we called the blackguard had now -become the main army, though with a different discipline. -We are, indeed, simply concerned with a discipline -or routine which in this field is properly described -as <i>custom</i>, and the word <i>morals</i> essentially -means <i>custom</i>. That is what morals must always be -for the mass, and, indeed, to some extent for all, a -discipline, and, as we have already seen, a discipline -cannot properly be regarded as a science or an art. -The innumerable books on morals, since they have -usually confused and befogged this simple and central -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>fact, cannot fail to be rather unprofitable. That, it -would seem, is what the writers thought—at all -events about those the others had written—or else -they would not have considered it necessary for themselves -to add to the number. It was not only an unprofitable -task, it was also—except in so far as an -objectively scientific attitude has been assumed—aimless. -For, although the morals of a community at -one time and place is never the same as that of another -or even the same community at another time -and place, it is a complex web of conditions that produces -the difference, and it must have been evident -that to attempt to affect it was idle.<a id='r90' /><a href='#f90' class='c011'><sup>[90]</sup></a> There is no occasion -for any one who is told that he has written a -“moral” book to be unduly elated, or when he is told -that his book is “immoral” to be unduly cast down. -The significance of these adjectives is strictly limited. -Neither the one book nor the other can have more than -the faintest effect on the march of the great compact -majority of the social army.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet, while all this is so, there is still some interest in -the question of morals. For, after all, there is the small -body of individuals ahead, alertly eager to find the -road, with a sensitive flair for all the possibilities the -future may hold. When the compact majority, blind -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>and automatic and unconscious, follows after, to -tramp along the road these pioneers have discovered, it -may seem but a dull road. But before they reached it -that road was interesting, even passionately interesting.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The reason is that, for those who, in any age, are -thus situated, life is not merely a discipline. It is, or it -may become, really an art.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>II</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>That</span> living is or may be an art, and the moralist the -critic of that art, is a very ancient belief. It was -especially widespread among the Greeks. To the -Greeks, indeed, this belief was so ingrained and instinctive -that it became an implicitly assumed attitude -rather than a definitely expressed faith. It was natural -to them to speak of a virtuous person as we should -speak of a beautiful person. The “good” was the -“beautiful”; the sphere of ethics for the Greeks was -not distinguished from the sphere of æsthetics. In -Sophocles, above all poets, we gather the idea of a -natural agreement between duty and inclination -which is at once both beauty and moral order. But it is -the beautiful that seems to be most fundamental in -<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">τὸ καλὸν</span>, which was the noble, the honourable, but -fundamentally the beautiful. “Beauty is the first of -all things,” said Isocrates, the famous orator; “nothing -that is devoid of beauty is prized.... The admiration -for virtue comes to this, that of all manifestation of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>life, virtue is the most beautiful.” The supremely -beautiful was, for the finer sort of Greeks, instinctively -if not always consciously, the supremely divine, and -the Argive Hera, it has been said, “has more divinity -in her countenance than any Madonna of them all.” -That is how it came to pass that we have no word in -our speech to apply to the Greek conception; æsthetics -for us is apart from all the serious business of life, and -the attempt to introduce it there seems merely comic. -But the Greeks spoke of life itself as a craft or a fine -art. Protagoras, who appears to-day as a pioneer of -modern science, was yet mainly concerned to regard -living as an art, or as the sum of many crafts, and the -Platonic Socrates, his opponent, still always assumed -that the moralist’s position is that of a critic of a craft. -So influential a moralist as Aristotle remarks in a -matter-of-fact way, in his “Poetics,” that if we wish to -ascertain whether an act is, or is not, morally right we -must consider not merely the intrinsic quality of the -act, but the person who does it, the person to whom it -is done, the time, the means, the motive. Such an attitude -towards life puts out of court any appeal to rigid -moral laws; it meant that an act must befit its particular -relationships at a particular moment, and that its -moral value could, therefore, only be judged by the -standard of the spectator’s instinctive feeling for proportion -and harmony. That is the attitude we adopt -towards a work of art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may well appear strange to those who cherish the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>modern idea of “æstheticism” that the most complete -statement of the Greek attitude has come down to us -in the writings of a philosopher, an Alexandrian Greek -who lived and taught in Rome in the third century of -our Christian Era, when the Greek world had vanished, -a religious mystic, moreover, whose life and -teaching were penetrated by an austere ascetic severity -which some would count mediæval rather than Greek.<a id='r91' /><a href='#f91' class='c011'><sup>[91]</sup></a> -It is in Plotinus, a thinker whose inspiring influence -still lives to-day, that we probably find the Greek attitude, -in its loftiest aspect, best mirrored, and it was -probably through channels that came from Plotinus—though -their source was usually unrecognised—that -the Greek moral spirit has chiefly reached modern -times. Many great thinkers and moralists of the -eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has been -claimed, were ultimately indebted to Plotinus, who -represented the only genuinely creative effort of the -Greek spirit in the third century.<a id='r92' /><a href='#f92' class='c011'><sup>[92]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>Plotinus seems to have had little interest in art, as -commonly understood, and he was an impatient, rapid, -and disorderly writer, not even troubling to spell correctly. -All his art was in the spiritual sphere. It is -impossible to separate æsthetics, as he understood it, -from ethics and religion. In the beautiful discourse on -Beauty, which forms one of the chapters of his first -“Ennead,” it is mainly with spiritual beauty that he is -concerned. But he insists that it <i>is</i> beauty, beauty of -the same quality as that of the physical world, which -inheres in goodness, “nor may those tell of the splendour -of Virtue who have never known the face of -Justice and of Wisdom beautiful beyond the beauty of -Evening and of Dawn.” It is a beauty, he further -states,—though here he seems to be passing out of the -purely æsthetic sphere,—that arouses emotions of -love. “This is the spirit that Beauty must ever induce, -wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love, -and a trembling that is also delight. For the unseen all -this may be felt as for the seen, and this souls feel for it, -every soul in some degree, but those the more deeply -who are the more truly apt to this higher love—just -as all take delight in the beauty of the body, but all -are not strung as sharply, and those only that feel the -keener wound are known as Lovers.” Goodness and -Truth were on the same plane for Plotinus as Beauty. -It may even be said that Beauty was the most fundamental -<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>of all, to be identified ultimately as the Absolute, -as Reality itself. So it was natural that in the -sphere of morals he should speak indifferently either of -“extirpating evil and implanting goodness” or of -“introducing order and beauty to replace goodness”—in -either case “we talk of real things.” “Virtue is a -natural concordance among the phenomena of the -soul, vice a discord.” But Plotinus definitely rejects -the notion that beauty is only symmetry, and so he -avoids the narrow conception of some more modern -æsthetic moralists, notably Hutcheson. How, then, he -asks, could the sun be beautiful, or gold, or light, or -night, or the stars? “Beauty is something more than -symmetry, and symmetry owes its beauty to a remoter -principle”—its affinity, in the opinion of Plotinus, -with the “Ideal Form,” immediately recognised and -confirmed by the soul.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may seem to some that Plotinus reduces to absurdity -the conception of morality as æsthetics, and it -may well be that the Greeks of the great period were -wiser when they left the nature of morals less explicit. -Yet Plotinus had in him the root of the matter. He had -risen to the conception that the moral life of the soul -is a dance; “Consider the performers in a choral dance: -they sing together, though each one has his own particular -part, and sometimes one voice is heard while the -others are silent; and each brings to the chorus something -of his own; it is not enough that all lift their -voices together; each must sing, choicely, his own part -<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>in the music set for him. So it is with the Soul.”<a id='r93' /><a href='#f93' class='c011'><sup>[93]</sup></a> The -Hellenic extension of the æsthetic emotion, as Benn -pointed out, involved no weakening of the moral fibre. -That is so, we see, and even emphatically so, when it -becomes definitely explicit as in Plotinus, and revolutionarily -hostile to all those ideals of the moral life -which most people have been accustomed to consider -modern.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As usually among the Greeks, it is only implicitly, -also, that we detect this attitude among the Romans, -the pupils of the Greeks. For the most part, the -Romans, whose impulses of art were very limited, -whose practical mind craved precision and definition, -proved rebellious to the idea that living is an art; yet it -may well be that they still retained that idea at the -core of their morality. It is interesting to note that <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> -Augustine, who stood on the threshold between the -old Roman and new Christian worlds was able to -write: “The art of living well and rightly is the definition -that the ancients give of ‘virtue.’” For the -Latins believed that <i>ars</i> was derived from the Greek -word for virtue, <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἀρετή</span>.<a id='r94' /><a href='#f94' class='c011'><sup>[94]</sup></a> Yet there really remained -a difference between the Greek and the Roman views -of morals. The Greek view, it is universally admitted, -was æsthetic, in the most definite sense; the Roman -was not, and when Cicero wishes to translate a Greek -reference to a “beautiful” action it becomes an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>“honourable” action. The Greek was concerned -with what he himself felt about his actions; the Roman -was concerned with what they would look like to other -people, and the credit, or discredit, that would be reflected -back on himself.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Hebrews never even dreamed of such an art. -Their attitude is sufficiently embodied in the story of -Moses and that visit to Sinai which resulted in the -production of the table of Ten Commandments which -we may still see inscribed in old churches. For even -our modern feeling about morals is largely Jewish, in -some measure Roman, and scarcely Greek at all. We -still accept, in theory at all events, the Mosaic conception -of morality as a code of rigid and inflexible rules, -arbitrarily ordained, and to be blindly obeyed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The conception of morality as an art, which Christendom -once disdained, seems now again to be finding -favour in men’s eyes. The path has been made smooth -for it by great thinkers of various complexion, who, -differing in many fundamental points, all alike assert -the relativity of truth and the inaptitude of rigid -maxims to serve as guiding forces in life. They also -assert, for a large part, implicitly or explicitly, the -authority of art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The nineteenth century was usually inspired by the -maxims of Kant, and lifted its hat reverently when it -heard Kant declaiming his famous sayings concerning -the supremacy of an inflexible moral law. Kant had, -indeed, felt the stream of influence which flowed from -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>Shaftesbury, and he sought to mix up æsthetics with -his system. But he had nothing of the genuine artist’s -spirit. The art of morals was to him a set of maxims, -cold, rigid, precise. A sympathetic biographer has said -of him that the maxims were the man. They are sometimes -fine maxims. But as guides, as motives to -practical action in the world? The maxims of the -valetudinarian professor at Königsberg scarcely seem -that to us to-day. Still less can we harmonise maxims -with art. Nor do we any longer suppose that we are -impertinent in referring to the philosopher’s personality. -In the investigation of the solar spectrum personality -may count for little; in the investigation of -moral laws it counts for much. For personality is the -very stuff of morals. The moral maxims of an elderly -professor in a provincial university town have their -interest. But so have those of a Casanova. And the -moral maxims of a Goethe may possibly have more -interest than either. There is the rigid categorical -imperative of Kant; and there is also that other -dictum, less rigid but more reminiscent of Greece, -which some well-inspired person has put into the -mouth of Walt Whitman: “Whatever tastes sweet to -the most perfect person, that is finally right.”</p> -<h3 class='c010'>III</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Fundamentally</span> considered, there are two roads by -which we may travel towards the moral ends of life: -the road of Tradition, which is ultimately that of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>Instinct, pursued by the many, and the road of what -seems to be Reason—sought out by the few. And in -the end these two roads are but the same road, for -reason also is an instinct. It is true that the ingenuity -of analytic investigators like Henry Sidgwick has succeeded -in enumerating various “methods of ethics.” -But, roughly speaking, there can only be these two -main roads of life, and only one has proved supremely -important. It has been by following the path of tradition -moulded by instinct that man reached the -threshold of civilisation: whatever may have been the -benefits he derived from the guidance of reason he -never consciously allowed reason to control his moral -life. Tables of commandments have ever been “given -by God”; they represented, that is to say, obscure -impulses of the organism striving to respond to practical -needs. No one dreamed of commending them by -declaring that they were reasonable.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is clear how Instinct and Tradition, thus working -together, act vitally and beneficently in moulding the -moral life of primitive peoples. The “divine command” -was always a command conditioned by the -special circumstance under which the tribe lived. That -is so even when the moral law is to our civilised eyes -“unnatural.” The infanticide of Polynesian islanders, -where the means of subsistence and the possibilities of -expansion were limited, was obviously a necessary -measure, beneficent and humane in its effects. The -killing of the aged among the migrant Eskimos was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>equally a necessary and kindly measure, recognised as -such by the victims themselves, when it was essential -that every member of the community should be able to -help himself. Primitive rules of moral action, greatly -as they differ among themselves, are all more or less -advantageous and helpful on the road of primitive life. -It is true that they allow very little, if any, scope for -divergent individual moral action, but that, too, was -advantageous.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But that, also, is the rock on which an instinctive -traditional morality must strike as civilisation is approached. -The tribe has no longer the same unity. -Social differentiation has tended to make the family a -unit, and psychic differentiation to make even the -separate individuals units. The community of interests -of the whole tribe has been broken up, and therewith -traditional morality has lost alike its value and its -power.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The development of abstract intelligence, which -coincides with civilisation, works in the same direction. -Reason is, indeed, on one side an integrating force, for -it shows that the assumption of traditional morality—the -identity of the individual’s interests with the -interests of the community—is soundly based. But -it is also a disintegrating force. For if it reveals a -general unity in the ends of living, it devises infinitely -various and perplexingly distracting excuses for living. -Before the active invasion of reason living had been an -art, or at all events a discipline, highly conventionalised -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>and even ritualistic, but the motive forces of living -lay in life itself and had all the binding sanction -of instincts; the penalty of every failure in living, -it was felt, would be swiftly and automatically experienced. -To apply reason here was to introduce a -powerful solvent into morals. Objectively it made -morality clearer but subjectively it destroyed the existing -motives for morality; it deprived man, to use the -fashionable phraseology of the present day, of a vital -illusion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus we have morality in the fundamental sense, the -actual practices of the main army of the population, -while in front a variegated procession of prancing -philosophers gaily flaunt their moral theories before -the world. Kant, whose personal moral problems -were concerned with eating sweetmeats,<a id='r95' /><a href='#f95' class='c011'><sup>[95]</sup></a> and other -philosophers of varyingly inferior calibre, were regarded -as the lawgivers of morality, though they carried -little enough weight with the world at large.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>Thus it comes about that abstract moral speculations, -culminating in rigid maxims, are necessarily -sterile and vain. They move in the sphere of reason, -and that is the sphere of comprehension, but not of -vital action. In this way there arises a moral dualism -in civilised man. Objectively he has become like the -gods and able to distinguish the ends of life; he has -eaten of the fruit of the tree and has knowledge of good -and evil. Subjectively he is still not far removed from -the savage, oftenest stirred to action by a confused -web of emotional motives, among which the interwoven -strands of civilised reason are as likely to produce -discord or paralysis as to furnish efficient guides, a -state of mind first, and perhaps best, set forth in its -extreme form by Shakespeare in Hamlet. On the one -hand he cannot return to the primitive state in which -all the motives for living flowed harmoniously in the -same channel; he cannot divest himself of his illuminating -reason; he cannot recede from his hardly acquired -personal individuality. On the other hand he can -never expect, he can never even reasonably hope, that -reason will ever hold in leash the emotions. It is clear -that along neither path separately can the civilised -man pursue his way in harmonious balance with himself. -We begin to realise that what we need is not a -code of beautifully cut-and-dried maxims—whether -emanating from sacred mountains or from philosophers’ -studies—but a happy combination of two different -ways of living. We need, that is, a traditional -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>and instinctive way of living, based on real motor instincts, -which will blend with reason and the manifold -needs of personality, instead of being destroyed by -their solvent actions, as rigid rules inevitably are. Our -only valid rule is a creative impulse that is one with -the illuminative power of intelligence.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>IV</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>At</span> the beginning of the eighteenth century, the seed-time -of our modern ideas, as it has so often seemed to -be, the English people, having in art at length brought -their language to a fine degree of clarity and precision, -and having just passed through a highly stimulating -period of dominant Puritanism in life, became much -interested in philosophy, psychology, and ethics. -Their interest was, indeed, often superficial and -amateurish, though they were soon to produce some of -the most notable figures in the whole history of -thought. The third Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the -earliest of the group, himself illustrated this unsystematic -method of thinking. He was an amateur, an -aristocratic amateur, careless of consistency, and not -by any means concerned to erect a philosophic system. -Not that he was a worse thinker on that account. -The world’s greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; -for high thinking is the outcome of fine and -independent living, and for that a professorial chair -offers no special opportunities. Shaftesbury was, -moreover, a man of fragile physical constitution, as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Kant was; but, unlike Kant, he was not a childish -hypochondriac in seclusion, but a man in the world, -heroically seeking to live a complete and harmonious -life. By temperament he was a Stoic, and he wrote a -characteristic book of “Exercises,” as he proposed to -call what his modern editor calls the “Philosophical -Regimen,” in which he consciously seeks to discipline -himself in fine thinking and right living, plainly -acknowledging that he is the disciple of Epictetus and -Marcus Aurelius. But Shaftesbury was also a man of -genius, and as such it was his good fortune to throw -afresh into the stream of thought a fruitful conception, -in part absorbed, indeed, from Greece, and long implicit -in men’s minds, but never before made clearly -recognisable as a moral theory and an ethical temper, -susceptible of being labelled by the philosophic historian, -as it since has been under the name, passable no -doubt as any other, of “Æsthetic Intuitionism.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Greek morality, it has been well said, is not a conflict -of light and darkness, of good and evil, the clear -choice between the broad road that leads to destruction -and the narrow path of salvation: it is “an artistic -balance of light and shade.” Gizycki, remarking that -Shaftesbury has more affinity to the Greeks than perhaps -any other modern moralist, says that “the key lay -not only in his head, but in his heart, for like can only -be recognised by like.”<a id='r96' /><a href='#f96' class='c011'><sup>[96]</sup></a> We have to remember at the -same time that Shaftesbury was really something of a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>classical scholar, even from childhood. Born in 1671, -the grandson of the foremost English statesman of his -time, the first Earl, Anthony Cooper, he had the advantage -of the wise oversight of his grandfather, who -placed with him as a companion in childhood a lady -who knew both Greek and Latin so well that she could -converse fluently in both languages. So it was that by -the age of eleven he was familiar with the two classic -tongues and literatures. That doubtless was also a key -to his intimate feeling for the classic spirit, though it -would not have sufficed without a native affinity. He -became the pupil of Locke, and at fifteen he went to -Italy, to spend a considerable time there. He knew -France also, and the French tongue, so well that he -was often taken for a native. He lived for some time in -Holland, and there formed a friendship with Bayle, -which began before the latter was aware of his friend’s -rank and lasted till Bayle’s death. In Holland he may -have been slightly influenced by Grotius.<a id='r97' /><a href='#f97' class='c011'><sup>[97]</sup></a> Shaftesbury -was not of robust constitution; he suffered from asthma, -and his health was further affected by his zeal in -public affairs as well as his enthusiasm in study, for his -morality was not that of a recluse, but of a man who -played an active part in life, not only in social benevolence, -like his descendant the enlightened philanthropic -Earl of the nineteenth century, but in the establishment -of civil freedom and toleration. Locke wrote of -his pupil (who was not, however, in agreement with his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>tutor’s philosophic standpoint,<a id='r98' /><a href='#f98' class='c011'><sup>[98]</sup></a> though he always -treated him with consideration) that “the sword was -too sharp for the scabbard.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“He seems,” wrote of Shaftesbury his unfriendly -contemporary Mandeville, “to require and expect -goodness in his species as we do a sweet taste in grapes -and China oranges, of which, if any of them are sour, -we boldly pronounce that they are not come to that -perfection their nature is capable of.” In a certain -sense this was correct. Shaftesbury, it has been said, -was the father of that new ethics which recognises -that Nature is not a mere impulse of self-preservation, -as Hobbes thought, but also a racial impulse, having -regard to others; there are social inclinations in the -individual, he realised, that go beyond individual ends. -(Referring to the famous dictum of Hobbes, <i>Homo -homini lupus</i>, he observes: “To say in disparagement -of Man ‘that he is to Man a wolf’ appears somewhat -absurd when one considers that wolves are to wolves -very kind and loving creatures.”) Therewith “goodness” -was seen, virtually for the first time in the -modern period, to be as “natural” as the sweetness of -ripe fruit.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was another reason, a fundamental physiological -and psychological reason, why “goodness” of -actions and the “sweetness” of fruits are equally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>natural, a reason that would, no doubt, have been -found strange both by Mandeville and Shaftesbury. -Morality, Shaftesbury describes as “the taste of -beauty and the relish of what is decent,” and the -“sense of beauty” is ultimately the same as the -“moral sense.” “My first endeavour,” wrote Shaftesbury, -“must be to distinguish the true taste of fruits, -refine my palate, and establish a just relish in the -kind.” He thought, evidently, that he was merely -using a metaphor. But he was speaking essentially in -the direct, straightforward way of natural and primitive -Man. At the foundation, “sweetness” and “goodness” -are the same thing. That can still be detected in -the very structure of language, not only of primitive -languages, but those of the most civilised peoples. -That morality is, in the strict sense, a matter of taste, -of æsthetics, of what the Greeks called <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">αἴσθησις</span>, is -conclusively shown by the fact that in the most widely -separated tongues—possibly wherever the matter has -been carefully investigated—moral goodness is, at -the outset, expressed in terms of <i>taste</i>. What is <i>good</i> is -what is <i>sweet</i>, and sometimes, also, <i>salt</i>.<a id='r99' /><a href='#f99' class='c011'><sup>[99]</sup></a> Primitive -peoples have highly developed the sensory side of their -mental life, and their vocabularies bear witness to the -intimate connection of sensations of taste and touch -with emotional tone. There is, indeed, no occasion to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>go beyond our own European traditions to see that the -expression of moral qualities is based on fundamental -sensory qualities of taste. In Latin <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>suavis</i></span> is <i>sweet</i>, but -even in Latin it became a moral quality, and its -English derivatives have been entirely deflected from -physical to moral qualities, while <i>bitter</i> is at once a -physical quality and a poignantly moral quality. In -Sanskrit and Persian and Arabic <i>salt</i> is not only a -physical taste but the name for lustre and grace and -beauty.<a id='r100' /><a href='#f100' class='c011'><sup>[100]</sup></a> It seems well in passing to point out that the -deeper we penetrate the more fundamentally we find -the æsthetic conception of morals grounded in Nature. -But not every one cares to penetrate any deeper and -there is no need to insist.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Shaftesbury held that human actions should have -a beauty of symmetry and proportion and harmony, -which appeal to us, not because they accord with any -rule or maxim (although they may conceivably be -susceptible of measurement), but because they satisfy -our instinctive feelings, evoking an approval which is -strictly an æsthetic judgment of moral action. This -instinctive judgment was not, as Shaftesbury understood -it, a guide to action. He held, rightly enough, -that the impulse to action is fundamental and primary, -that fine action is the outcome of finely tempered -natures. It is a feeling for the just time and measure of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>human passion, and maxims are useless to him whose -nature is ill-balanced. “Virtue is no other than the -love of order and beauty in society.” Æsthetic appreciation -of the act, and even an ecstatic pleasure in it, -are part of our æsthetic delight in Nature generally, -which includes Man. Nature, it is clear, plays a large -part in this conception of the moral life. To lack -balance on any plane of moral conduct is to be unnatural; -“Nature is not mocked,” said Shaftesbury. -She is a miracle, for miracles are not things that are -performed, but things that are perceived, and to fail -here is to fail in perception of the divinity of Nature, to -do violence to her, and to court moral destruction. A -return to Nature is not a return to ignorance or savagery, -but to the first instinctive feeling for the beauty -of well-proportioned affections. “The most natural -beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth,” he -asserts, and he recurs again and again to “the beauty -of honesty.” “<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Dulce et decorum est</i></span> was his sole reason,” -he says of the classical pagan, adding: “And this is still -a good reason.” In learning how to act, he thought, -we are “learning to become artists.” It seems natural -to him to refer to the magistrate as an artist; “the -magistrate, if he be an artist,” he incidentally says. -We must not make morality depend on authority. -The true artist, in any art, will never act below his -character. “Let who will make it for you as you -fancy,” the artist declares; “I know it to be wrong. -Whatever I have made hitherto has been true work. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>And neither for your sake or anybody’s else shall I -put my hand to any other.” “This is virtue!” exclaims -Shaftesbury. “This disposition transferred to -the whole of life perfects a character. For there is a -workmanship and a truth in actions.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Shaftesbury, it may be repeated, was an amateur, -not only in philosophy, but even in the arts. He regarded -literature as one of the schoolmasters for fine -living, yet he has not been generally regarded as a fine -artist in writing, though, directly or indirectly, he -helped to inspire not only Pope, but Thomson and -Cowper and Wordsworth. He was inevitably interested -in painting, but his tastes were merely those of -the ordinary connoisseur of his time. This gives a -certain superficiality to his general æsthetic vision, -though it was far from true, as the theologians supposed, -that he was lacking in seriousness. His chief -immediate followers, like Hutcheson, came out of -Calvinistic Puritanism. He was himself an austere -Stoic who adapted himself to the tone of the well-bred -world he lived in. But if an amateur, he was an -amateur of genius. He threw a vast and fruitful conception—caught -from the “Poetics” of Aristotle, -“the Great Master of Arts,” and developed with fine -insight—into our modern world. Most of the great -European thinkers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth -centuries were in some measure inspired, influenced, -or anticipated by Shaftesbury. Even Kant, -though he was unsympathetic and niggardly of appreciation, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>helped to develop the conception Shaftesbury -first formulated. To-day we see it on every hand. It is -slowly and subtly moulding the whole of our modern -morality.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“The greatest Greek of modern times”—so he appears -to those who study his work to-day. It is through -Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury alone that Greek morals, -in their finest essence, have been a vivifying -influence in our modern world. Georg von Gizycki, -who has perhaps most clearly apprehended Shaftesbury’s -place in morals, indicates that place with precision -and justice when he states that “he furnished the -<i>elements</i> of a moral philosophy which fits into the frame -of a truly scientific conception of the world.”<a id='r101' /><a href='#f101' class='c011'><sup>[101]</sup></a> That -was a service to the modern world so great and so daring -that it could scarcely meet with approval from his -fellow countrymen. The more keenly philosophical -Scotch, indeed, recognised him, first of all Hume, and -he was accepted and embodied as a kind of founder by -the so-called Scottish School, though so toned down -and adulterated and adapted to popular tastes and -needs, that in the end he was thereby discredited. But -the English never even adulterated him; they clung -to the antiquated and eschatological Paley, bringing -forth edition after edition of his works whereon to -discipline their youthful minds. That led naturally on -to the English Utilitarians in morality, who would disdain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>to look at anything that could be called Greek. -Sir Leslie Stephen, who was the vigorous and capable -interpreter to the general public of Utilitarianism, -could see nothing good whatever in Shaftesbury; he -viewed him with contemptuous pity and could only -murmur: “Poor Shaftesbury!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Meanwhile Shaftesbury’s fame had from the first -been pursuing a very different course in France and -Germany, for it is the people outside a man’s own -country who anticipate the verdict of posterity. Leibnitz, -whose vast genius was on some sides akin (Shaftesbury -has, indeed, been termed “the Leibnitz of morals”), -admired the English thinker, and the universal -Voltaire recognised him. Montesquieu placed him on -a four-square summit with Plato and Montaigne and -Malebranche. The enthusiastic Diderot, seeing in -Shaftesbury the exponent of the naturalistic ethics of -his own temperament, translated a large part of his -chief book in 1745. Herder, who inspired so many of -the chief thinkers of the nineteenth century and even of -to-day, was himself largely inspired by Shaftesbury, -whom he once called “the virtuoso of humanity,” -regarding his writings as, even in form, well-nigh -worthy of Greek antiquity, and long proposed to make -a comparative study of the ethical conceptions of -Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Shaftesbury, but unfortunately -never carried out that happy idea. Rousseau, not only -by contact of ideas, but the spontaneous effort of his -own nature towards autonomous harmony, was in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>touch with Shaftesbury, and so helped to bring his -ideals into the general stream of modern life. Shaftesbury, -directly or indirectly, inspired the early influential -French Socialists and Communists. On the -other hand he has equally inspired the moralists of -individualism. Even the Spanish-American Rodó, -one of the most delicately aristocratic of modern -moralists in recent time, puts forth conceptions, which, -consciously or unconsciously, are precisely those of -Shaftesbury. Rodó believes that all moral evil is a -dissonance in the æsthetic of conduct and that the -moral task in character is that of the sculptor in -marble: “Virtue is a kind of art, a divine art.” Even -Croce, who began by making a deep division between -art and life, holds that there can be no great critic of -art who is not also a great critic of life, for æsthetic -criticism is really itself a criticism of life, and his whole -philosophy may be regarded as representing a stage of -transition between the old traditional view of the -world and that conception towards which in the modern -world our gaze is turned.<a id='r102' /><a href='#f102' class='c011'><sup>[102]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>As Shaftesbury had stated the matter, however, it -was left on the whole vague and large. He made no -very clear distinction between the creative artistic -impulse in life and critical æsthetic appreciation. In -the sphere of morals we must often be content to wait -<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>until our activity is completed to appreciate its beauty -or its ugliness.<a id='r103' /><a href='#f103' class='c011'><sup>[103]</sup></a> On the background of general æsthetic -judgment we have to concentrate on the forces of -creative artistic activity, whose work it is painfully to -mould the clay of moral action, and forge its iron, long -before the æsthetic criterion can be applied to the final -product. The artist’s work in life is full of struggle and -toil; it is only the spectator of morals who can assume -the calm æsthetic attitude. Shaftesbury, indeed, evidently -recognised this, but it was not enough to say, as -he said, that we may prepare ourselves for moral -action by study in literature. One may be willing -to regard living as an art, and yet be of opinion -that it is as unsatisfactory to learn the art of living -in literature as to learn, let us say, the art of music in -architecture.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet we must not allow these considerations to lead -us away from the great fact that Shaftesbury clearly -realised—what modern psychology emphasises—that -desires can only be countered by desires, that -reason cannot affect appetite. “That which is of -original and pure nature,” he declared, “nothing -besides contrary habit and custom (a second nature) is -able to displace. There is no speculative opinion, -persuasion, or belief, which is capable immediately or -directly to exclude or destroy it.” Where he went -<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>beyond some modern psychologists is in his Hellenic -perception that in this sphere of instinct we are amid -the play of art to which æsthetic criteria alone can be -applied.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was necessary to concentrate and apply these -large general ideas. To some extent this was done by -Shaftesbury’s immediate successors and followers, such -as Hutcheson and Arbuckle, who taught that man is, -ethically, an artist whose work is his own life. They -concentrated attention on the really creative aspects of -the artist in life, æsthetic appreciation of the finished -product being regarded as secondary. For all art is, -primarily, not a contemplation, but a doing, a creative -action, and morality is so preëminently.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Shaftesbury, with his followers Arbuckle and Hutcheson, -may be regarded as the founders of æsthetics; it -was Hutcheson, though he happened to be the least -genuinely æsthetic in temperament of the three, who -wrote the first modern treatise on æsthetics. Together, -also, they may be said to have been the revivalists -of Hellenism, that is to say, of the Hellenic -spirit, or rather of the classic spirit, for it often came -through Roman channels. Shaftesbury was, as Eucken -has well said, the Greek spirit among English thinkers. -He represented an inevitable reaction against Puritanism, -a reaction which is still going on—indeed, here -and there only just beginning. As Puritanism had -achieved so notable a victory in England, it was -natural that in England the first great champion of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>Hellenism should appear. It is to Oliver Cromwell and -Praise-God Barebones that we owe Shaftesbury.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After Shaftesbury it is Arbuckle who first deserves -attention, though he wrote so little that he never -attained the prominence he deserved.<a id='r104' /><a href='#f104' class='c011'><sup>[104]</sup></a> He was a -Dublin physician of Scottish ancestry, the friend of -Swift, by whom he was highly esteemed, and he was -a cripple from boyhood. He was a man of genuine -artistic temperament, though the art he was attracted -to was not, as with Shaftesbury, the sculptor’s or the -painter’s, but the poet’s. It was not so much intuition -on which he insisted, but imagination as formative of a -character; moral approval seemed to him thoroughly -æsthetic, part of an imaginative act which framed the -ideal of a beautiful personality, externalising itself in -action. When Robert Bridges, the poet of our own -time, suggests (in his “Necessity of Poetry”) that -“morals is that part of Poetry which deals with conduct,” -he is speaking in the spirit of Arbuckle. An -earlier and greater poet was still nearer to Arbuckle. -“A man to be greatly good,” said Shelley in his “Defence -of Poetry,” “must imagine intensely and comprehensively.... -The great instrument of moral good -is the imagination.” If, indeed, with Adam Smith and -Schopenhauer, we choose to base morals on sympathy -we really are thereby making the poet’s imagination -the great moral instrument. Morals was for Arbuckle -a disinterested æsthetic harmony, and he had caught -much of the genuine Greek spirit.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>Hutcheson was in this respect less successful. -Though he had occupied himself with æsthetics he had -little true æsthetic feeling; and though he accomplished -much for the revival of Greek studies his own sympathies -were really with the Roman Stoics, with -Cicero, with Marcus Aurelius, and in this way he was -led towards Christianity, to which Shaftesbury was -really alien. He democratised if not vulgarised, and -diluted if not debased, Shaftesbury’s loftier conception. -In his too widely sympathetic and receptive -mind the Shaftesburian ideal was not only Romanised, -not only Christianised; it was plunged into a miscellaneously -eclectic mass that often became inconsistent -and incoherent. In the long run, in spite of his -great immediate success, he injured in these ways the -cause he advocated. He overemphasised the passively -æsthetic side of morals; he dwelt on the term “moral -sense,” by Shaftesbury only occasionally used, as it -had long previously been by Aristotle (and then only -in the sense of “natural temper” by analogy with the -physical senses), and this term was long a stumbling-block -in the eyes of innocent philosophic critics, too -easily befooled by words, who failed to see that, as -Libby has pointed out, the underlying idea simply -is, as held by Shaftesbury, that æsthetic notions of -proportion and symmetry depend upon the native -structure of the mind and only so constitute a “moral -sense.”<a id='r105' /><a href='#f105' class='c011'><sup>[105]</sup></a> What Hutcheson, as distinct from Shaftesbury, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>meant by a “moral sense”—really a conative -instinct—is sufficiently indicated by the fact that he -was inclined to consider the conjugal and parental -affections as a “sense” because natural. He desired -to shut out reason, and cognitive elements, and that -again brought him to the conception of morality as -instinctive. Hutcheson’s conception of “sense” was -defective as being too liable to be regarded as passive -rather than as conative, though conation was implied. -The fact that the “moral sense” was really instinct, -and had nothing whatever to do with “innate ideas,” -as many have ignorantly supposed, was clearly seen by -Hutcheson’s opponents. The chief objection brought -forward by the Reverend John Balguy in 1728, in the -first part of his “Foundation of Moral Goodness,” -was precisely that Hutcheson based morality on instinct -and so had allowed “some degree of morality to -animals.”<a id='r106' /><a href='#f106' class='c011'><sup>[106]</sup></a> It was Hutcheson’s fine and impressive -personality, his high character, his eloquence, his -influential position, which enabled him to keep alive -the conception of morals he preached, and even to give -it an effective force, throughout the European world, -it might not otherwise easily have exerted. Philosophy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>was to Hutcheson the art of living—as it was to the -old Greek philosophers—rather than a question of -metaphysics, and he was careless of consistency in -thinking, an open-minded eclectic who insisted that -life itself is the great matter. That, no doubt, was the -reason why he had so immense an influence. It was -mainly through Hutcheson that the more aristocratic -spirit of Shaftesbury was poured into the circulatory -channels of the world’s life. Hume and Adam Smith -and Reid were either the pupils of Hutcheson or -directly influenced by him. He was a great personality -rather than a great thinker, and it was as such that he -exerted so much force in philosophy.<a id='r107' /><a href='#f107' class='c011'><sup>[107]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>With Schiller, whose attitude was not, however, -based directly on Shaftesbury, the æsthetic conception -of morals, which in its definitely conscious form had up -till then been especially English, may be said to have -entered the main stream of culture. Schiller regarded -the identity of Duty and Inclination as the ideal goal -of human development, and looked on the Genius of -Beauty as the chief guide of life. Wilhelm von Humboldt, -one of the greatest spirits of that age, was moved -by the same ideas, throughout his life, much as in -many respects he changed, and even shortly before his -death wrote in deprecation of the notion that conformity -to duty is the final aim of morality. Goethe, -who was the intimate friend of both Schiller and Humboldt, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>largely shared the same attitude, and through -him it has had a subtle and boundless influence. Kant, -who, it has been said, mistook Duty for a Prussian -drill-sergeant, still ruled the academic moral world. -But a new vivifying and moulding force had entered -the larger moral world, and to-day we may detect its -presence on every side.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>V</h3> -<p class='c006'>It has often been brought against the conception of -morality as an art that it lacks seriousness. It seems to -many people to involve an easy, self-indulgent, dilettante -way of looking at life. Certainly it is not the way -of the Old Testament. Except in imaginative literature—it -was, indeed, an enormous and fateful exception—the -Hebrews were no “æsthetic intuitionists.” -They hated art, for the rest, and in face of the problems -of living they were not in the habit of considering -the lilies how they grow. It was not the beauty of -holiness, but the stern rod of a jealous Jehovah, which -they craved for their encouragement along the path of -Duty. And it is the Hebrew mode of feeling which has -been, more or less violently and imperfectly, grafted -into our Christianity.<a id='r108' /><a href='#f108' class='c011'><sup>[108]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>It is a complete mistake, however, to suppose that -those for whom life is an art have entered on an easy -path, with nothing but enjoyment and self-indulgence -before them. The reverse is nearer to the truth. It is -probably the hedonist who had better choose rules if he -only cares to make life pleasant.<a id='r109' /><a href='#f109' class='c011'><sup>[109]</sup></a> For the artist life is -always a discipline, and no discipline can be without -pain. That is so even of dancing, which of all the arts -is most associated in the popular mind with pleasure. -To learn to dance is the most austere of disciplines, and -even for those who have attained to the summit of its -art often remains a discipline not to be exercised without -heroism. The dancer seems a thing of joy, but we -are told that this famous dancer’s slippers are filled -with blood when the dance is over, and that one falls -down pulseless and deathlike on leaving the stage, and -the other must spend the day in darkness and silence. -“It is no small advantage,” said Nietzsche, “to have a -hundred Damoclean swords suspended above one’s -head; that is how one learns to dance, that is how one -attains ‘freedom of movement.’”<a id='r110' /><a href='#f110' class='c011'><sup>[110]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>For as pain is entwined in an essential element in -the perfect achievement of that which seems naturally -the most pleasurable of the arts, so it is with the whole -art of living, of which dancing is the supreme symbol. -There is no separating Pain and Pleasure without making -the first meaningless for all vital ends and the -second turn to ashes. To exalt pleasure is to exalt -pain; and we cannot understand the meaning of pain -unless we understand the place of pleasure in the art of -life. In England, James Hinton sought to make that -clear, equally against those who failed to see that pain -is as necessary morally as it undoubtedly is biologically, -and against those who would puritanically refuse to -accept the morality of pleasure.<a id='r111' /><a href='#f111' class='c011'><sup>[111]</sup></a> It is no doubt important -to resist pain, but it is also important that it -should be there to resist. Even when we look at the -matter no longer subjectively but objectively, we -must accept pain in any sound æsthetic or metaphysical -picture of the world.<a id='r112' /><a href='#f112' class='c011'><sup>[112]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>We must not be surprised, therefore, that this way -of looking at life as an art has spontaneously commended -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>itself to men of the gravest and deepest character, -in all other respects widely unlike. Shaftesbury -was temperamentally a Stoic whose fragile constitution -involved a perpetual endeavour to mould life to -the form of his ideal. And if we go back to Marcus -Aurelius we find an austere and heroic man whose -whole life, as we trace it in his “Meditations,” was a -splendid struggle, a man who—even, it seems, unconsciously—had -adopted the æsthetic criterion of -moral goodness and the artistic conception of moral -action. Dancing and wrestling express to his eyes the -activity of the man who is striving to live, and the -goodness of moral actions instinctively appears to him -as the beauty of natural objects; it is to Marcus -Aurelius that we owe that immortal utterance of -æsthetic intuitionism: “As though the emerald should -say: ‘Whatever happens I must be emerald.’” There -could be no man more unlike the Roman Emperor, or -in any more remote field of action, than the French -saint and philanthropist Vincent de Paul. At once a -genuine Christian mystic and a very wise and marvellously -effective man of action, Vincent de Paul adopts -precisely the same simile of the moral attitude that -had long before been put forth by Plotinus and in the -next century was again to be taken up by Shaftesbury: -“My daughters,” he wrote to the Sisters of Charity, -“we are each like a block of stone which is to be transferred -into a statue. What must the sculptor do to -carry out his design? First of all he must take the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>hammer and chip off all that he does not need. For -this purpose he strikes the stone so violently that if -you were watching him you would say he intended to -break it to pieces. Then, when he has got rid of the -rougher parts, he takes a smaller hammer, and afterwards -a chisel, to begin the face with all the features. -When that has taken form, he uses other and finer -tools to bring it to that perfection he has intended for -his statue.” If we desire to find a spiritual artist as -unlike as possible to Vincent de Paul we may take -Nietzsche. Alien as any man could ever be to a cheap -or superficial vision of the moral life, and far too -intellectually keen to confuse moral problems with -purely æsthetic problems, Nietzsche, when faced by -the problem of living, sets himself—almost as instinctively -as Marcus Aurelius or Vincent de Paul—at -the standpoint of art. <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Alles Leben ist Streit um -Geschmack und Schmecken.”</span> It is a crucial passage -in “Zarathustra”: “All life is a dispute about taste -and tasting! Taste: that is weight and at the same -time scales and weigher; and woe to all living things -that would live without dispute about weight and -scales and weigher!” For this gospel of taste is no easy -gospel. A man must make himself a work of art, -Nietzsche again and again declares, moulded into -beauty by suffering, for such art is the highest morality, -the morality of the Creator.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is a certain indefiniteness about the conception -of morality as an artistic impulse, to be judged by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>an æsthetic criterion, which is profoundly repugnant -to at least two classes of minds fully entitled to make -their antipathy felt. In the first place, it makes no -appeal to the abstract reasoner, indifferent to the -manifoldly concrete problems of living. For the man -whose brain is hypertrophied and his practical life -shrivelled to an insignificant routine—the man of -whom Kant is the supreme type—it is always a -temptation to rationalise morality. Such a pure intellectualist, -overlooking the fact that human beings -are not mathematical figures, may even desire to -transform ethics into a species of geometry. That we -may see in Spinoza, a nobler and more inspiring -figure, no doubt, but of the same temperament as -Kant. The impulses and desires of ordinary men and -women are manifold, inconstant, often conflicting, and -sometimes overwhelming. “Morality is a fact of -sensibility,” remarks Jules de Gaultier; “it has no -need to have recourse to reason for its affirmations.” -But to men of the intellectualist type this consideration -is almost negligible; all the passions and affections -of humanity seem to them meek as sheep which they -may shepherd, and pen within the flimsiest hurdles. -William Blake, who could cut down to that central -core of the world where all things are fused together, -knew better when he said that the only golden rule of -life is “the great and golden rule of art.” James -Hinton was for ever expatiating on the close resemblance -between the methods of art, as shown especially -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>in painting, and the methods of moral action. -Thoreau, who also belonged to this tribe, declared, in -the same spirit as Blake, that there is no golden rule in -morals, for rules are only current silver; “it is golden -not to have any rule at all.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is another quite different type of person who -shares this antipathy to the indefiniteness of æsthetic -morality: the ambitious moral reformer. The man of -this class is usually by no means devoid of strong -passions; but for the most part he possesses no great -intellectual calibre and so is unable to estimate the -force and complexity of human impulses. The moral -reformer, eager to introduce the millennium here and -now by the aid of the newest mechanical devices, is -righteously indignant with anything so vague as an -æsthetic morality. He must have definite rules and -regulations, clear-cut laws and by-laws, with an arbitrary -list of penalties attached, to be duly inflicted in -this world or the next. The popular conception of -Moses, descending from the sacred mount with a -brand-new table of commandments, which he declares -have been delivered to him by God, though he is -ready to smash them to pieces on the slightest provocation, -furnishes a delightful image of the typical moral -reformer of every age. It is, however, only in savage -and barbarous stages of society, or among the uncultivated -classes of civilisation, that the men of this -type can find their faithful followers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet there is more to be said. That very indefiniteness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>of the criterion of moral action, falsely supposed -to be a disadvantage, is really the prime condition for -effective moral action. The academic philosophers of -ethics, had they possessed virility enough to enter the -field of real life, would have realised—as we cannot -expect the moral reformers blinded by the smoke of -their own fanaticism to realise—that the slavery to -rigid formulas which they preached was the death of -all high moral responsibility. Life must always be a -great adventure, with risks on every hand; a clear-sighted -eye, a many-sided sympathy, a fine daring, an -endless patience, are for ever necessary to all good -living. With such qualities alone may the artist in life -reach success; without them even the most devoted -slave to formulas can only meet disaster. No reasonable -moral being may draw breath in the world without -an open-eyed freedom of choice, and if the moral -world is to be governed by laws, better to people it -with automatic machines than with living men and -women.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In our human world the precision of mechanism is -for ever impossible. The indefiniteness of morality is a -part of its necessary imperfection. There is not only -room in morality for the high aspiration, the courageous -decision, the tonic thrill of the muscles of the -soul, but we have to admit also sacrifice and pain. -The lesser good, our own or that of others, is merged in -a larger good, and that cannot be without some rending -of the heart. So all moral action, however in the end it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>may be justified by its harmony and balance, is in the -making cruel and in a sense even immoral. Therein -lies the final justification of the æsthetic conception of -morality. It opens a wider perspective and reveals -loftier standpoints; it shows how the seeming loss is -part of an ultimate gain, so restoring that harmony -and beauty which the unintelligent partisans of a hard -and barren duty so often destroy for ever. “Art,” as -Paulhan declares, “is often more moral than morality -itself.” Or, as Jules de Gaultier holds, “Art is in a -certain sense the only morality which life admits.” -In so far as we can infuse it with the spirit and method -of art, we have transformed morality into something -beyond morality; it has become the complete embodiment -of the Dance of Life.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span> - <h2 id='chap7' class='c005'>CHAPTER VII <br /> CONCLUSION</h2> -</div> -<h3 class='c010'>I</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Life</span>, we have seen, may be regarded as an art. But -we cannot help seeking to measure, quantitatively if -not qualitatively, our mode of life. We do so, for the -most part, instinctively rather than scientifically. It -gratifies us to imagine that, as a race, we have reached -a point on the road of progress beyond that vouchsafed -to our benighted predecessors, and that, as individuals -or as nations, it is given to us, fortunately,—or, -rather, through our superior merits,—to enjoy a -finer degree of civilisation than the individuals and the -nations around us. This feeling has been common to -most or all branches of the human race. In the classic -world of antiquity they called outsiders, indiscriminately, -“barbarians”—a denomination which took -on an increasingly depreciative sense; and even the -lowest savages sometimes call their own tribe by a -word which means “men,” thereby implying that all -other peoples are not worthy of the name.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But in recent centuries there has been an attempt to -be more precise, to give definite values to the feeling -within us. All sorts of dogmatic standards have been -set up by which to measure the degree of a people’s -civilisation. The development of demography and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>social statistics in civilised countries during the past -century should, it has seemed, render such comparison -easy. Yet the more carefully we look into the nature of -these standards the more dubious they become. On -the one hand, civilisation is so complex that no one -test furnishes an adequate standard. On the other -hand, the methods of statistics are so variable and -uncertain, so apt to be influenced by circumstance, -that it is never possible to be sure that one is operating -with figures of equal weight.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Recently this has been well and elaborately shown -by Professor Niceforo, the Italian sociologist and -statistician.<a id='r113' /><a href='#f113' class='c011'><sup>[113]</sup></a> It is to be remembered that Niceforo has -himself been a daring pioneer in the measurement of -life. He has applied the statistical method not only to -the natural and social sciences, but even to art, especially -literature. When, therefore, he discusses the -whole question of the validity of the measurement of -civilisation, his conclusions deserve respect. They are -the more worthy of consideration since his originality -in the statistical field is balanced by his learning, and -it is not easy to recall any scientific attempts in this -field which he has failed to mention somewhere in his -book, if only in a footnote.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The difficulties begin at the outset, and might well -serve to bar even the entrance to discussion. We want -to measure the height to which we have been able to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>build our “civilisation” towards the skies; we want -to measure the progress we have made in our great -dance of life towards the unknown future goal, and we -have no idea what either “civilisation” or “progress” -means.<a id='r114' /><a href='#f114' class='c011'><sup>[114]</sup></a> This difficulty is so crucial, for it involves the -very essence of the matter, that it is better to place it -aside and simply go ahead, without deciding, for the -present, precisely what the ultimate significance of -the measurements we can make may prove to be. -Quite sufficient other difficulties await us.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is, first of all, the bewildering number of social -phenomena we can now attempt to measure. Two centuries -ago there were no comparable sets of figures -whereby to measure one community against another -community, though at the end of the eighteenth century -Boisguillebert was already speaking of the possibility -of constructing a “barometer of prosperity.” -Even the most elementary measurable fact of all, the -numbering of peoples, was carried out so casually and -imperfectly and indirectly, if at all, that its growth and -extent could hardly be compared with profit in any -two nations. As the life of a community increases in -stability and orderliness and organisation, registration -incidentally grows elaborate, and thereby the possibility -of the by-product of statistics. This aspect of social -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>life began to become pronounced during the nineteenth -century, and it was in the middle of that century that -Quetelet appeared, by no means as the first to use social -statistics, but the first great pioneer in the manipulation -of such figures in a scientific manner, with a large -and philosophical outlook on their real significance.<a id='r115' /><a href='#f115' class='c011'><sup>[115]</sup></a> -Since then the possible number of such means of numerical -comparison has much increased. The difficulty -now is to know which are the most truly indicative -of real superiority.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But before we consider that, again even at the outset, -there is another difficulty. Our apparently comparable -figures are often not really comparable. Each -country or province or town puts forth its own sets of -statistics and each set may be quite comparable within -itself. But when we begin critically to compare one set -with another set, all sorts of fallacies appear. We have -to allow, not only for varying accuracy and completeness, -but for difference of method in collecting and registering -the facts, and for all sorts of qualifying circumstances -which may exist at one place or time, and -not at other places or times with which we are seeking -comparison.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The word “civilisation” is of recent formation. It -came from France, but even in France in a Dictionary -of 1727 it cannot be found, though the verb <i>civiliser</i> -existed as far back as 1694, meaning to polish manners, -to render sociable, to become urbane, one might -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>say, as a result of becoming urban, of living as a citizen -in cities. We have to recognise, of course, that the idea -of civilisation is relative; that any community and any -age has its own civilisation, and its own ideals of civilisation. -But, that assumed, we may provisionally assert—and -we shall be in general accordance with Niceforo—that, -in its most comprehensive sense, the art of -civilisation includes the three groups of <i>material</i> facts, -<i>intellectual</i> facts, and <i>moral</i> (with <i>political</i>) facts, so -covering all the essential facts in our life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Material facts, which we are apt to consider the most -easily measurable, include quantity and distribution of -population, production of wealth, the consumption of -food and luxuries, the standard of life. Intellectual facts -include both the diffusion and degree of instruction -and creative activity in genius. Moral facts include the -prevalence of honesty, justice, pity, and self-sacrifice, -the position of women and the care of children. They -are the most important of all for the quality of a civilisation. -Voltaire pointed out that “pity and justice are -the foundations of society,” and, long previously, Pericles -in Thucydides described the degradation of the Peloponnesians -among whom every one thinks only of his -own advantage, and every one believes that his own -negligence of other things will pass unperceived. Plato -in his “Republic” made justice the foundation of harmony -in the outer life and the inner life, while in modern -times various philosophers, like Shadworth Hodgson, -have emphasised that doctrine of Plato’s. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>whole art of government comes under this head and the -whole treatment of human personality.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The comparative prevalence of criminality has long -been the test most complacently adopted by those who -seek to measure civilisation on its moral and most fundamental -aspect. Crime is merely a name for the most -obvious, extreme, and directly dangerous forms of what -we call immorality—that is to say, departure from -the norm in manners and customs. Therefore the highest -civilisation is that with the least crime. But is it so? -The more carefully we look into the matter, the more -difficult it becomes to apply this test. We find that -even at the outset. Every civilised community has its -own way of dealing with criminal statistics and the discrepancies -thus introduced are so great that this fact -alone makes comparisons almost impossible. It is -scarcely necessary to point out that varying skill and -thoroughness in the detection of crime, and varying severity -in the attitude towards it, necessarily count for -much. Of not less significance is the legislative activity -of the community; the greater the number of laws, the -greater the number of offences against them. If, for instance, -Prohibition is introduced into a country, the -amount of delinquency in that country is enormously -increased, but it would be rash to assert that the country -has thereby been sensibly lowered in the scale of -civilisation. To avoid this difficulty, it has been proposed -to take into consideration only what are called -“natural crimes”; that is, those everywhere regarded -<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>as punishable. But, even then, there is a still more disconcerting -consideration. For, after all, the criminality -of a country is a by-product of its energy in business -and in the whole conduct of affairs. It is a poisonous -excretion, but excretion is the measure of vital -metabolism. There are, moreover, the so-called evolutive -social crimes, which spring from motives not lower -but higher than those ruling the society in which they -arise.<a id='r116' /><a href='#f116' class='c011'><sup>[116]</sup></a> Therefore, we cannot be sure that we ought not -to regard the most criminal country as that which in -some aspects possesses the highest civilisation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Let us turn to the intellectual aspect of civilisation. -Here we have at least two highly important and quite -fairly measurable facts to consider: the production of -creative genius and the degree and diffusion of general -instruction. If we consider the matter abstractly, it is -highly probable that we shall declare that no civilisation -can be worth while unless it is rich in creative genius -and unless the population generally exhibits a sufficiently -cultured level of education out of which such -genius may arise freely and into which the seeds it produces -may fruitfully fall. Yet, what do we find? Alike, -whether we go back to the earliest civilisations we have -definite information about or turn to the latest stages -of civilisation we know to-day, we fail to see any correspondence -between these two essential conditions of -civilisation. Among peoples in a low state of culture, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>among savages generally, such instruction and education -as exists really is generally diffused; every member -of the community is initiated into the tribal traditions; -yet, no observers of such peoples seem to note the -emergence of individuals of strikingly productive genius. -That, so far as we know, began to appear, and, indeed, -in marvellous variety and excellence, in Greece, -and the civilisation of Greece (as later the more powerful -but coarser civilisation of Rome) was built up on a -broad basis of slavery, which nowadays—except, of -course, when disguised as industry—we no longer regard -as compatible with high civilisation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Ancient Greece, indeed, may suggest to us to ask -whether the genius of a country be not directly opposed -to the temper of the population of that country, -and its “leaders” really be its outcasts. (Some believe -that many, if not all, countries of to-day might serve to -suggest the same question.) If we want to imagine the -real spirit of Greece, we may have to think of a figure -with a touch of Ulysses, indeed, but with more of Thersites.<a id='r117' /><a href='#f117' class='c011'><sup>[117]</sup></a> -The Greeks who interest us to-day were exceptional -people, usually imprisoned, exiled, or slain by -the more truly representative Greeks of their time. -When Plato and the others set forth so persistently an -ideal of wise moderation they were really putting up—and -in vain—a supplication for mercy to a people -who, as they had good ground for realising, knew nothing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>of wisdom, and scoffed at moderation, and were -mainly inspired by ferocity and intrigue.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To turn to a more recent example, consider the -splendid efflorescence of genius in Russia during the -central years of the last century, still a vivifying influence -on the literature and music of the world; yet the -population of Russia had only just been delivered, nominally -at least, from serfdom, and still remained at the -intellectual and economic level of serfs. To-day, education -has become diffused in the Western world. Yet no -one would dream of asserting that genius is more prevalent. -Consider the United States, for instance, during -the past half-century. It would surely be hard to -find any country, except Germany, where education is -more highly esteemed or better understood, and where -instruction is more widely diffused. Yet, so far as the -production of high original genius is concerned, an old -Italian city, like Florence, with a few thousand inhabitants, -had far more to show than all the United States -put together. So that we are at a loss how to apply the -intellectual test to the measurement of civilisation. It -would almost seem that the two essential elements of -this test are mutually incompatible.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Let us fall back on the simple solid fundamental test -furnished by the material aspect of civilisation. Here -we are among elementary facts and the first that began -to be measured. Yet our difficulties, instead of diminishing, -rather increase. It is here, too, that we chiefly -meet with what Niceforo has called “the paradoxical -<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>symptoms of superiority in progress,” though I should -prefer to call them ambivalent; that is to say, that, -while from one point of view they indicate superiority, -from another, even though some may call it a lower -point of view, they appear to indicate inferiority. This -is well illustrated by the test of growth of population, -or the height of the birth-rate, better by the birth-rate -considered in relation to the death-rate, for they cannot -be intelligibly considered apart. The law of Nature -is reproduction, and if an intellectual rabbit were able -to study human civilisation he would undoubtedly -regard rapidity of multiplication, in which he has -himself attained so high a degree of proficiency, as -evidence of progress in civilisation. In fact, as we -know, there are even human beings who take the -same view, whence we have what has been termed -“Rabbitism” in men. Yet, if anything is clear in this -obscure field, it is that the whole tendency of evolution -is towards a diminishing birth-rate.<a id='r118' /><a href='#f118' class='c011'><sup>[118]</sup></a> The most -civilised countries everywhere, and the most civilised -people in them, are those with the lowest birth-rate. -Therefore, we have here to measure the height of civilisation -by a test which, if carried to an extreme, would -mean the disappearance of civilisation. Another such -ambivalent test is the consumption of luxuries of which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>alcohol and tobacco are the types. There is held to be -no surer test of civilisation than the increase per head -of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol -and tobacco are recognisably poisons, so that their -consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy -civilisation altogether. Again, take the prevalence -of suicide. That, without doubt, is a test of height -in civilisation; it means that the population is winding -up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost -point of tension and that sometimes it snaps. We -should be justified in regarding as very questionable -a high civilisation which failed to show a high suicide-rate. -Yet suicide is the sign of failure, misery, -and despair. How can we regard the prevalence -of failure, misery, and despair as the mark of high -civilisation?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, whichever of the three groups of facts we attempt -to measure, it appears on examination almost -hopelessly complex. We have to try to make our methods -correspondingly complex. Niceforo had invoked -co-variation, or simultaneous and sympathetic changes -in various factors of civilisation; he explains the index -number, and he appeals to mathematics for aid out of -the difficulties. He also attempts to combine, with the -help of diagrams, a single picture out of these awkward -and contradictory tests. The example he gives is that -of France during the fifty years preceding the war. It is -an interesting example because there is reason to consider -France as, in some respects, the most highly civilised -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>of countries. What are the chief significant measurable -marks of this superiority? Niceforo selects -about a dozen, and, avoiding the difficult attempt to -compare France with other countries, he confines himself -to the more easily practicable task of ascertaining -whether, or in what respects, the general art of civilisation -in France, the movement of the collective life, has -been upward or downward. When the different categories -are translated, according to recognised methods, -into index numbers, taking the original figures from -the official <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Résumé”</span> of French statistics, it is found -that each line of movement follows throughout the -same direction, though often in zigzag fashion, and -never turns back on itself. In this way it appears that -the consumption of coal has been more than doubled, -the consumption of luxuries (sugar, coffee, alcohol) -nearly doubled, the consumption of food per head (as -tested by cheese and potatoes) also increasing. Suicide -has increased fifty per cent; wealth has increased -slightly and irregularly; the upward movement of population -has been extremely slight and partly due to -immigration; the death-rate has fallen, though not so -much as the birth-rate; the number of persons convicted -of offence by the courts has fallen; the proportion -of illiterate persons has diminished; divorces have -greatly increased, and also the number of syndicalist -workers, but these two movements are of comparative -recent growth.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This example well shows what it is possible to do by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>the most easily available and generally accepted tests -by which to measure the progress of a community in -the art of civilisation. Every one of the tests applied -to France reveals an upward tendency of civilisation, -though some of them, such as the fall in the death-rate, -are not strongly pronounced and much smaller than -may be found in many other countries. Yet, at the -same time, while we have to admit that each of these -lines of movement indicates an upward tendency of civilisation, -it by no means follows that we can view them -all with complete satisfaction. It may even be said -that some of them have only to be carried further in order -to indicate dissolution and decay. The consumption -of luxuries, for instance, as already noted, is the -consumption of poisons. The increase of wealth means -little unless we take into account its distribution. The -increase of syndicalism, while it is a sign of increased -independence, intelligence, and social aspiration among -the workers, is also a sign that the social system is becoming -regarded as unsound. So that, while all these -tests may be said to indicate a rising civilisation, they -yet do not invalidate the wise conclusion of Niceforo -that a civilisation is never an exclusive mass of benefits, -but a mass of values, positive and negative, and it -may even be said that most often the conquest of a -benefit in one domain of a civilisation brings into another -domain of that civilisation inevitable evils. Long -ago, Montesquieu had spoken of the evils of civilisation -and left the question of the value of civilisation open, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>while Rousseau, more passionately, had decided -against civilisation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We see the whole question from another point, yet -not incongruously, when we turn to Professor William -McDougall’s Lowell Lectures, “Is America Safe for -Democracy?” since republished under the more general -title “National Welfare and National Decay,” for -the author recognises that the questions he deals with -go to the root of all high civilisation. As he truly observes, -civilisation grows constantly more complex and -also less subject to the automatically balancing influence -of national selection, more dependent for its -stability on our constantly regulative and foreseeing -control. Yet, while the intellectual task placed upon -us is ever growing heavier, our brains are not growing -correspondingly heavier to bear it. There is, as Remy -de Gourmont often pointed out, no good reason to suppose -that we are in any way innately superior to our -savage ancestors, who had at least as good physical -constitutions and at least as large brains. The result is -that the small minority among us which alone can attempt -to cope with our complexly developing civilisation -comes to the top by means of what Arsène Dumont -called social capillarity, and McDougall the social -ladder. The small upper stratum is of high quality, -the large lower stratum of poor quality, and with -a tendency to feeble-mindedness. It is to this large -lower stratum that, with our democratic tendencies, -we assign the political and other guidance of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>community, and it is this lower stratum which has the -higher birth-rate, since with all high civilisation the normal -birth-rate is low.<a id='r119' /><a href='#f119' class='c011'><sup>[119]</sup></a> McDougall is not concerned with -the precise measurement of civilisation, and may not -be familiar with the attempts that have been made in -that direction. It is his object to point out the necessity -in high civilisation for a deliberate and purposive -art of eugenics, if we would prevent the eventual shipwreck -of civilisation. But we see how his conclusions -emphasise those difficulties in the measurement of civilisation -which Niceforo has so clearly set forth.</p> - -<p class='c007'>McDougall is repeating what many, especially -among eugenists, have previously said. While not disputing -the element of truth in the facts and arguments -brought forward from this side, it may be pointed -out that they are often overstated. This has been well -argued by Carr-Saunders in his valuable and almost -monumental work, “The Population Problem,” and his -opinion is the more worthy of attention as he is himself -a worker in the cause of eugenics. He points out that -the social ladder is, after all, hard to climb, and that it -only removes a few individuals from the lower social -stratum, while among those who thus climb, even -though they do not sink back, regression to the mean is -ever in operation so that they do not greatly enrich in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>the end the class they have climbed up to. Moreover, -as Carr-Saunders pertinently asks, are we so sure that -the qualities that mark successful climbers—self-assertion, -acquisition, emulation—are highly desirable? -“It may even be,” he adds, “that we might view a -diminution in the average strength of some of the qualities -which mark the successful at least with equanimity.” -Taken altogether, it would seem that the differences -between social classes may mainly be explained -by environmental influences. There is, however, -ground to recognise a slight intellectual superiority in -the upper social class, apart from environment, and so -great is the significance for civilisation of quality that -even when the difference seems slight it must not be -regarded as negligible.<a id='r120' /><a href='#f120' class='c011'><sup>[120]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>More than half a century ago, indeed, George Sand -pointed out that we must distinguish between the civilisation -of <i>quantity</i> and the civilisation of <i>quality</i>. As -the great Morgagni had said much earlier, it is not -enough to count, we must evaluate; “observations are -not to be numbered, they are to be weighed.” It is not -the biggest things that are the most civilised things. -The largest structures of Hindu or Egyptian art are -outweighed by the temples on the Acropolis of Athens, -and similarly, as Bryce, who had studied the matter so -thoroughly, was wont to insist, it is the smallest democracies -which to-day stand highest in the scale. We have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>seen that there is much in civilisation which we may -profitably measure, yet, when we seek to scale the last -heights of civilisation, the ladder of our “metrology” -comes to grief. “The methods of the mind are too -weak,” as Comte said, “and the Universe is too complex.” -Life, even the life of the civilised community, is -an art, and the too much is as fatal as the too little. -We may say of civilisation, as Renan said of truth, that -it lies in a <i>nuance</i>. Gumplowicz believed that civilisation -is the beginning of disease; Arsène Dumont -thought that it inevitably held within itself a toxic -principle, a principle by which it is itself in time -poisoned. The more rapidly a civilisation progresses, -the sooner it dies for another to arise in its place. That -may not seem to every one a cheerful prospect. Yet, -if our civilisation has failed to enable us to look further -than our own egoistic ends, what has our civilisation -been worth?</p> -<h3 class='c010'>II</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>The</span> attempt to apply measurement to civilisation is, -therefore, a failure. That is, indeed, only another way -of saying that civilisation, the whole manifold web of -life, is an art. We may dissect out a vast number of -separate threads and measure them. It is quite worth -while to do so. But the results of such anatomical investigation -admit of the most diverse interpretation, -and, at the best, can furnish no adequate criterion of -the worth of a complex living civilisation.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>Yet, although there is no precise measurement of the -total value of any large form of life, we can still make -an estimate of its value. We can approach it, that is to -say, as a work of art. We can even reach a certain -approximation to agreement in the formation of such -estimates.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When Protagoras said that “Man is the measure -of all things,” he uttered a dictum which has been -variously interpreted, but from the standpoint we have -now reached, from which Man is seen to be preëminently -an artist, it is a monition to us that we cannot to -the measurement of life apply our instruments of precision, -and cut life down to their graduated marks. They -have, indeed, their immensely valuable uses, but it is -strictly as instruments and not as ends of living or criteria -of the worth of life. It is in the failure to grasp -this that the human tragedy has often consisted, and for -over two thousand years the dictum of Protagoras has -been held up for the pacification of that tragedy, for -the most part, in vain. Protagoras was one of those -“Sophists” who have been presented to our contempt -in absurd traditional shapes ever since Plato caricatured -them—though it may well be that some, as, it -has been suggested, Gorgias, may have given colour to -the caricature—and it is only to-day that it is possible -to declare that we must place the names of Protagoras, -of Prodicus, of Hippias, even of Gorgias, beside -those of Herodotus, Pindar, and Pericles.<a id='r121' /><a href='#f121' class='c011'><sup>[121]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>It is in the sphere of morals that the conflict has often -been most poignant. I have already tried to indicate -how revolutionary is the change which the thoughts of -many have had to undergo. This struggle of a living -and flexible and growing morality against a morality -that is rigid and inflexible and dead has at some periods -of human history been almost dramatically presented. -It was so in the seventeenth century around the new -moral discoveries of the Jesuits; and the Jesuits were -rewarded by becoming almost until to-day a by-word -for all that is morally poisonous and crooked and false—for -all that is “Jesuitical.” There was once a great -quarrel between the Jesuits and the Jansenists—a -quarrel which is scarcely dead yet, for all Christendom -took sides in it—and the Jansenists had the supreme -good fortune to entrap on their side a great man of genius -whose onslaught on the Jesuits, “Les Provinciales,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>is even still supposed by many people to have settled -the question. They are allowed so to suppose because -no one now reads “Les Provinciales.” But Remy de -Gourmont, who was not only a student of unread -books but a powerfully live thinker, read “Les Provinciales,” -and found, as he set forth in “Le Chemin de -Velours,” that it was the Jesuits who were more nearly -in the right, more truly on the road of advance, than -Pascal. As Gourmont showed by citation, there were -Jesuit doctrines put forth by Pascal with rhetorical -irony as though the mere statement sufficed to condemn -them, which need only to be liberated from their -irony, and we might nowadays add to them. Thus -spake Zarathustra. Pascal was a geometrician who -(though he, indeed, once wrote in his “Pensées”: -“There is no general rule”) desired to deal with the -variable, obscure, and unstable complexities of human -action as though they were problems in mathematics. -But the Jesuits, while it is true that they still accepted -the existence of absolute rules, realised that rules -must be made adjustable to the varying needs of life. -They thus became the pioneers of many conceptions -which are accepted in modern practice.<a id='r122' /><a href='#f122' class='c011'><sup>[122]</sup></a> Their doctrine -of invincible ignorance was a discovery of that -kind, forecasting some of the opinions now held regarding -responsibility. But in that age, as Gourmont -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>pointed out, “to proclaim that there might be a sin or -an offence without guilty parties was an act of intellectual -audacity, as well as scientific probity.” Nowadays -the Jesuits (together, it is interesting to note, with -their baroque architecture) are coming into credit, and -casuistry again seems reputable. To establish that -there can be no single inflexible moral code for all individuals -has been, and indeed remains, a difficult and -delicate task, yet the more profoundly one considers -it, the more clearly it becomes visible that what once -seemed a dead and rigid code of morality must more -and more become a living act of casuistry. The Jesuits, -because they had a glimmer of this truth, represented, -as Gourmont concluded, the honest and most -acceptable part of Christianity, responding to the necessities -of life, and were rendering a service to civilisation -which we should never forget.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There are some who may not very cordially go to the -Jesuits as an example of the effort to liberate men from -the burden of a subservience to rigid little rules, towards -the unification of life as an active process, however influential -they may be admitted to be among the pioneers -of that movement. Yet we may turn in what -direction we will, we shall perpetually find the same -movement under other disguises. There is, for instance, -Mr. Bertrand Russell, who is, for many, the -most interesting and stimulating thinker to be found in -England to-day. He might scarcely desire to be associated -with the Jesuits. Yet he also seeks to unify life and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>even in an essentially religious spirit. His way of putting -this, in his “Principles of Social Reconstruction,” -is to state that man’s impulses may be divided into -those that are creative and those that are possessive, -that is to say, concerned with acquisition. The impulses -of the second class are a source of inner and -outer disharmony and they involve conflict; “it is preoccupation -with possessions more than anything else -that prevents men from living freely and nobly”; it is -the creative impulse in which real life consists, and -“the typical creative impulse is that of the artist.” -Now this conception (which was that Plato assigned to -the “guardians” in his communistic State) may be a -little too narrowly religious for those whose position in -life renders a certain “preoccupation with possessions” -inevitable; it is useless to expect us all to become, at -present, fakirs and Franciscans, “counting nothing -one’s own, save only one’s harp.” But in regarding the -creative impulses as the essential part of life, and as -typically manifested in the form of art, Bertrand Russell -is clearly in the great line of movement with which -we have been throughout concerned. We must only at -the same time—as we shall see later—remember -that the distinction between the “creative” and the -“possessive” impulses, although convenient, is superficial. -In creation we have not really put aside the possessive -instinct, we may even have intensified it. For -it has been reasonably argued that it is precisely the -deep urgency of the impulse to possess which stirs the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>creative artist. He creates because that is the best -way, or the only way, of gratifying his passionate desire -to possess. Two men desire to possess a woman, -and one seizes her, the other writes a “Vita Nuova” -about her; they have both gratified the instinct of possession, -and the second, it may be, most satisfyingly -and most lastingly. So that—apart from the impossibility, -and even the undesirability, of dispensing with -the possessive instinct—it may be well to recognise -that the real question is one of values in possession. -We must needs lay up treasure; but the fine artist in -living, so far as may be, lays up his treasure in Heaven.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In recent time some alert thinkers have been moved -to attempt to measure the art of civilisation by less impossibly -exact methods than of old, by the standard -of art, and even of fine art. In a remarkable book on -“The Revelations of Civilisation”—published about -three years before the outbreak of that Great War -which some have supposed to date a revolutionary -point in civilisation—Dr. <abbr class='spell'>W. M.</abbr> Flinders Petrie, who -has expert knowledge of the Egyptian civilisation -which was second to none in its importance for mankind, -has set forth a statement of the cycles to which -all civilisations are subject. Civilisation, he points out, -is essentially an intermittent phenomenon. We have to -compare the various periods of civilisation and observe -what they have in common in order to find the general -type. “It should be examined like any other action of -Nature; its recurrences should be studied, and all the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>principles which underlie its variations should be defined.” -Sculpture, he believes, may be taken as a criterion, -not because it is the most important, but because -it is the most convenient and easily available, test. We -may say with the old Etruscans that every race has its -Great Year—it sprouts, flourishes, decays, and dies. -The simile, Petrie adds, is the more precise because -there are always irregular fluctuations of the seasonal -weather. There have been eight periods of civilisation, -he reckons, in calculable human history. We are now -near the end of the eighth, which reached its climax -about the year 1800; since then there have been merely -archaistic revivals, the value of which may be variously -interpreted. He scarcely thinks we can expect another -period of civilisation to arise for several centuries at -least. The average length of a period of civilisation is -1330 years. Ours Petrie dates from about <abbr class='spell'><span class='fss'>A.D.</span></abbr> 450. It -has always needed a fresh race to produce a new period -of civilisation. In Europe, between <abbr class='spell'><span class='fss'>A.D.</span></abbr> 300 and 600, -some fifteen new races broke in from north and east -for slow mixture. “If,” he concluded, “the source of -every civilisation has lain in race mixture, it may be -that eugenics will, in some future civilisation, carefully -segregate fine races, and prohibit continual mixture, -until they have a distinct type, which will start a new -civilisation when transplanted. The future progress of -Man may depend as much on isolation to establish a -type as on fusion of types when established.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At the time when Flinders Petrie was publishing his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>suggestive book, Dr. Oswald Spengler, apparently in -complete ignorance of it, was engaged in a far more elaborate -work, not actually published till after the War, -in which an analogous conception of the growth and -decay of civilisations was put forward in a more philosophic -way, perhaps more debatable on account of the -complex detail in which the conception was worked -out.<a id='r123' /><a href='#f123' class='c011'><sup>[123]</sup></a> Petrie had considered the matter in a summary -empiric manner with close reference to the actual -forces viewed broadly. Spengler’s manner is narrower, -more subjective, and more metaphysical. He distinguishes—though -he also recognises eight periods—between -“culture” and “civilisation.” It is the first that -is really vital and profitable; a “civilisation” is the decaying -later stage of a “culture,” its inevitable fate. -Herein it reaches its climax. “Civilisations are the -most externalised and artistic conditions of which the -higher embodiment of Man is capable. They are a -spiritual senility, an end which with inner necessity is -reached again and again.”<a id='r124' /><a href='#f124' class='c011'><sup>[124]</sup></a> The transition from “culture” -to “civilisation” in ancient times took place, -Spengler holds, in the fourth century, and in the modern -West in the nineteenth. But, like Petrie, though -<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>more implicitly, he recognises the prominent place of the -art activities in the whole process, and he explicitly emphasises -the interesting way in which those activities -which are generally regarded as of the nature of art are -interwoven with others not so generally regarded.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>III</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>However</span> we look at it, we see that Man, whether he -works individually or collectively, may conveniently -be regarded, in the comprehensive sense, as an artist, a -bad artist, maybe, for the most part, but still an artist. -His civilisation—if that is the term we choose to apply -to the total sum of his group activities—is always -an art, or a complex of arts. It is an art that is to -be measured, or left immeasurable. That question, we -have seen, we may best leave open. Another question -that might be put is easy to deal with more summarily: -What is Art?</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may deal with it summarily because it is an ultimate -question and there can be no final answer to -ultimate questions. As soon as we begin to ask such -questions, as soon as we begin to look at any phenomenon -as an end in itself, we are on the perilous slope -of metaphysics, where no agreement can, or should be, -possible. The question of measurement was plausible, -and needed careful consideration. What is Art? is a -question which, if we are wise, we shall deal with as -Pilate dealt with that like question: What is Truth?</p> - -<p class='c007'>How futile the question is, we may realise when we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>examine the book which Tolstoy in old age wrote to answer -it. Here is a man who was himself, in his own -field, one of the world’s supreme artists. He could not -fail to say one or two true things, as when he points out -that “all human existence is full of art, from cradle -songs and dances to the offices of religion and public -ceremonial—it is all equally art. Art, in the large -sense, impregnates our whole life.” But on the main -point all that Tolstoy can do is to bring together a -large miscellaneous collection of definitions—without -seeing that as individual opinions they all have their -rightness—and then to add one of his own, not much -worse, nor much better, than any of the others. -Thereto he appends some of his own opinions on artists, -whence it appears that Hugo, Dickens, George Eliot, -Dostoievsky, Maupassant, Millet, Bastien-Lepage, -and Jules Breton—and not always they—are the artists -whom he considers great; it is not a list to treat -with contempt, but he goes on to pour contempt on -those who venerate Sophocles and Aristophanes and -Dante and Shakespeare and Milton and Michelangelo -and Bach and Beethoven and Manet. “My own artistic -works,” he adds, “I rank among bad art, excepting -a few short stories.” It seems a reduction of the whole -question, What is Art? to absurdity, if one may be permitted -to say so at a time when Tolstoy would appear -to be the pioneer of some of our most approved modern -critics.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus we see the reason why all the people who come -<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>forward to define art—each with his own little -measuring-rod quite different from everybody else’s—inevitably -make themselves ridiculous. It is true -they are all of them right. That is just why they are -ridiculous: each has mistaken the one drop of water he -has measured for the whole ocean. Art cannot be -defined because it is infinite. It is no accident that -poetry, which has so often seemed the typical art, -means a <i>making</i>. The artist is a maker. Art is merely -a name we are pleased to give to what can only be the -whole stream of action which—in order to impart to -it selection and an unconscious or even conscious aim—is -poured through the nervous circuit of a human -animal or some other animal having a more or less -similar nervous organisation. For a cat is an artist as -well as a man, and some would say more than a man, -while a bee is not only an obvious artist, but perhaps -even the typical natural and unconscious artist. -There is no defining art; there is only the attempt to -distinguish between good art and bad art.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus it is that I find no escape from the Aristotelian -position of Shakespeare that</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c008'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Nature is made better by no mean</div> - <div class='line'>But Nature makes that mean....</div> - <div class='line in16'>This is an art</div> - <div class='line'>Which does mend Nature, change it rather, but</div> - <div class='line'>The art itself is Nature.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>And that this conception is Aristotelian, even the -essential Greek conception, is no testimony to Shakespeare’s -scholarship. It is merely the proof that here -<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>we are in the presence of one of these great ultimate -facts of the world which cannot but be sensitively perceived -by the finest spirits, however far apart in time -and space. Aristotle, altogether in the same spirit as -Shakespeare, insisted that the works of man’s making, -a State, for example, are natural, though Art partly -completes what Nature is herself sometimes unable to -bring to perfection, and even then that man is only -exercising methods which, after all, are those of Nature. -Nature needs Man’s art in order to achieve many -natural things, and Man, in fulfilling that need, is -only following the guidance of Nature in seeming to -make things which are all the time growing by themselves.<a id='r125' /><a href='#f125' class='c011'><sup>[125]</sup></a> -Art is thus scarcely more than the natural -midwife of Nature.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is, however, one distinguishing mark of Art -which at this stage, as we conclude our survey, must be -clearly indicated. It has been subsumed, as the acute -reader will not have failed to note, throughout. But it -has, for the most part, been deliberately left implicit. -It has constantly been assumed, that is to say, that -Art is the sum of all the active energies of Mankind. -We must in this matter of necessity follow Aristotle, -who in his “Politics” spoke, as a matter of course, of -all those who practice “medicine, gymnastics, and the -arts in general” as “artists.” Art is the moulding -force of every culture that Man during his long course -<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>has at any time or place produced. It is the reality of -what we imperfectly term “morality.” It is all human -creation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet creation, in the active visible constructive sense, -is not the whole of Man. It is not even the whole of -what Man has been accustomed to call God. When, -by what is now termed a process of Narcissism, Man -created God in his own image, as we may instructively -observe in the first chapter of the Hebrew Book of -Genesis, he assigned to him six parts of active creational -work, one part of passive contemplation of that -work. That one seventh part—and an immensely -important part—has not come under our consideration. -In other words, we have been looking at Man -the artist, not at Man the æsthetician.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was more than one reason why these two -aspects of human faculty were held clearly apart -throughout our discussion. Not only is it even less possible -to agree about æsthetics, where the variety of individual -judgment is rightly larger, than about art (ancient -and familiar is the saying, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>De gustibus</i></span>—), but to -confuse art and æsthetics leads us into lamentable confusion. -We may note this in the pioneers of the modern -revival of what Sidgwick called “æsthetic Intuitionism” -in the eighteenth century, and especially in -Hutcheson, though Hutcheson’s work is independent -of consistency, which he can scarcely even be said to -have sought. They never sufficiently emphasised the -distinction between art and æsthetics, between, that is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>to say, what we may possibly, if we like, call the dynamic -and the static aspects of human action. Herein -is the whole difference between work, for art is essentially -work, and the spectacular contemplation of work, -which æsthetics essentially is. The two things are ultimately -one, but alike in the special arts and in that -art of life commonly spoken of as morals, where we are -not usually concerned with ultimates, the two must be -clearly held apart. From the point of view of art we -are concerned with the internal impulse to guide the activities -in the lines of good work. It is only when we -look at the work of art from the outside, whether in the -more specialised arts or in the art of life, that we are -concerned with æsthetic contemplation, that activity -of vision which creates beauty, however we may please -to define beauty, and even though we see it so widely -as to be able to say with Remy de Gourmont: “Wherever -life is, there is beauty,”<a id='r126' /><a href='#f126' class='c011'><sup>[126]</sup></a> provided, one may add, -that there is the æsthetic contemplation in which it -must be mirrored.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is in relation with art, not with æsthetics, it may -<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>be noted in passing, that we are concerned with morals. -That was once a question of seemingly such immense -import that men were willing to spiritually slay -each other over it. But it is not a question at all from -the standpoint which has here from the outset been -taken. Morals, for us to-day, is a species of which art -is the genus. It is an art, and like all arts it necessarily -has its own laws. We are concerned with the art of morals: -we cannot speak of art <i>and</i> morals. To take “art” -and “morals” and “religion,” and stir them up, however -vigorously, into an indigestible plum-pudding, as -Ruskin used to do, is no longer possible.<a id='r127' /><a href='#f127' class='c011'><sup>[127]</sup></a> This is a question -which—like so many other furiously debated -questions—only came into existence because the disputants -on both sides were ignorant of the matter they -were disputing about. It is no longer to be taken seriously, -though it has its interest because the dispute has -so often recurred, not only in recent days, but equally -among the Greeks of Plato’s days. The Greeks had a -kind of æsthetic morality. It was instinctive with them, -and that is why it is so significant for us. But they -seldom seem to have succeeded in thinking æsthetic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>problems clearly out. The attitude of their philosophers -towards many of the special arts, even the arts in -which they were themselves supreme, to us seem unreasonable. -While they magnified the art, they often -belittled the artist, and felt an aristocratic horror for -anything that assimilated a man to a craftsman; for -craftsman meant for them vulgarian. Plato himself -was all for goody-goody literature and in our days -would be an enthusiastic patron of Sunday-school stories. -He would forbid any novelist to represent a good -man as ever miserable or a wicked man as ever happy. -The whole tendency of the discussion in the third book -of the “Republic” is towards the conclusion that literature -must be occupied exclusively with the representation -of the virtuous man, provided, of course, that he -was not a slave or a craftsman, for to such no virtue -worthy of imitation should ever be attributed. Towards -the end of his long life, Plato remained of the -same opinion; in the second book of “The Laws” it is -with the maxims of virtue that he will have the poet -solely concerned. The reason for this ultra-puritanical -attitude, which was by no means in practice that of the -Greeks themselves, seems not hard to divine. The very -fact that their morality was temperamentally æsthetic -instinctively impelled them, when they were thinking -philosophically, to moralise art generally; they had not -yet reached the standpoint which would enable them -to see that art might be consonant with morality without -being artificially pressed into a narrow moral mould. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>Aristotle was conspicuously among those, if not the -first, who took a broader and saner view. In opposition -to the common Greek view that the object of art -is to teach morals, Aristotle clearly expressed the totally -different view that poetry in the wide sense—the -special art which he and the Greeks generally were -alone much concerned to discuss—is an emotional delight, -having pleasure as its direct end, and only indirectly -a moral end by virtue of its cathartic effects. -Therein he reached an æsthetic standpoint, yet it was so -novel that he could not securely retain it and was constantly -falling back towards the old moral conception -of art.<a id='r128' /><a href='#f128' class='c011'><sup>[128]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>We may call it a step in advance. Yet it was not a -complete statement of the matter. Indeed, it established -the unreal conflict between two opposing conceptions, -each unsound because incomplete, which loose -thinkers have carried on ever since. To assert that poetry -exists for morals is merely to assert that one art exists -for the sake of another art, which at the best is -rather a futile statement, while, so far as it is really accepted, -it cannot fail to crush the art thus subordinated. -If we have the insight to see that an art has its -own part of life, we shall also see that it has its own intrinsic -morality, which cannot be the morality of morals -<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>or of any other art than itself. We may here profitably -bear in mind that antinomy between morals and morality -on which Jules de Gaultier has often insisted. The -Puritan’s strait-jacket shows the vigour of his external -morals; it also bears witness to the lack of internal -morality which necessitates that control. Again, on -the other hand, it is argued that art gives pleasure. -Very true. Even the art of morals gives pleasure. But -to assert that therein lies its sole end and aim is an -altogether feeble and inadequate conclusion, unless -we go further and proceed to inquire what “pleasure” -means. If we fail to take that further step, it remains -a conclusion which may be said to merge into the conclusion -that art is aimless; that, rather, its aim is to be -aimless, and so to lift us out of the struggle and turmoil -of life. That was the elaborately developed argument -of Schopenhauer: art—whether in music, in -philosophy, in painting, in poetry—is useless; “to be -useless is the mark of genius, its patent of nobility. All -other works of men are there for the preservation or alleviation -of our existence; but this alone not; it alone is -there for its own sake; and is in this sense to be regarded -as the flower, or the pure essence, of existence. -That is why in its enjoyment our heart rises, for we are -thereby lifted above the heavy earthen atmosphere of -necessity.”<a id='r129' /><a href='#f129' class='c011'><sup>[129]</sup></a> Life is a struggle of the will; but in art -the will has become objective, fit for pure contemplation, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>and genius consists in an eminent aptitude for -contemplation. The ordinary man, said Schopenhauer, -plods through the dark world with his lantern turned on -the things he wants; the man of genius sees the world -by the light of the sun. In modern times Bergson -adopted that view of Schopenhauer’s, with a terminology -of his own, and all he said under this head may be -regarded as a charming fantasia on the Schopenhauerian -theme: “Genius is the most complete objectivity.” -Most of us, it seems to Bergson, never see reality at all; -we only see the labels we have fixed on things to mark -for us their usefulness.<a id='r130' /><a href='#f130' class='c011'><sup>[130]</sup></a> A veil is interposed between us -and the reality of things. The artist, the man of genius, -raises this veil and reveals Nature to us. He is naturally -endowed with a detachment from life, and so possesses -as it were a virginal freshness in seeing, hearing, or -thinking. That is “intuition,” an instinct that has become -disinterested. “Art has no other object but to remove -the practically useful symbols, the conventional -and socially accepted generalities, so as to bring us face -to face with reality itself.”<a id='r131' /><a href='#f131' class='c011'><sup>[131]</sup></a> Art would thus be fulfilling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>its function the more completely the further it removed -us from ordinary life, or, more strictly, from -any personal interest in life. That was also Remy de -Gourmont’s opinion, though I do not know how far he -directly derived it from Schopenhauer. “If we give to -art a moral aim,” he wrote, “it ceases to exist, for it -ceases to be useless. Art is incompatible with a moral -or religious aim. It is unintelligible to the crowd because -the crowd is not disinterested and knows only the -principle of utility.” But the difficulty of making definite -affirmation in this field, the perpetual need to -allow for <i>nuances</i> which often on the surface involve -contradictions, is seen when we find that so great an -artist as Einstein—for so we may here fairly call him—and -one so little of a formal æsthetician, agrees with -Schopenhauer. “I agree with Schopenhauer,” he said -to Moszkowski, “that one of the most powerful motives -that attract people to science and art is the longing -to escape from everyday life, with its painful coarseness -and unconsoling barrenness, and to break the -fetters of their own ever-changing desires. Man seeks -to form a simplified synoptical view of the world conformable -to his own nature, to overcome the world by -replacing it with his picture. The painter, the poet, -the philosopher, the scientist, each does this in his own -way. He transfers the centre of his emotional life to -this picture, to find a surer haven of peace than the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>sphere of his turbulent personal experience offers.” -That is a sound statement of the facts, yet it is absurd -to call such an achievement “useless.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Perhaps, however, what philosophers have really -meant when they have said that art (it is the so-called -fine arts only that they have in mind) is useless, is that -<i>an art must not be consciously pursued for any primary -useful end outside itself</i>. That is true. It is even true of -morals, that is to say the art of living. To live in the -conscious primary pursuit of a “useful” end—such as -one of the fine arts—outside living itself is to live -badly; to declare, like André Gide, that “outside the -doctrine of ‘Art for Art’ I know not where to find any -reason for living,” may well be the legitimate expression -of a personal feeling, but, unless understood in the -sense here taken, it is not a philosophical statement -which can be brought under the species of eternity, being, -indeed, one of those confusions of substances which -are, metaphysically, damnable. So, again, in the art -of science: the most useful applications of science have -sprung from discoveries that were completely useless -for purposes outside pure science, so far as the aim of -the discoverer went, or even so far as he ever knew. If -he had been bent on “useful” ends, he would probably -have made no discovery at all. But the bare statement -that “art is useless” is so vague as to be really meaningless, -if not inaccurate and misleading.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Therefore, Nietzsche was perhaps making a profound -statement when he declared that art is the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>great stimulus to life; it produces joy as an aid to life; -it possesses a usefulness, that is to say, which transcends -its direct aim. The artist is one who sees life as -beauty, and art is thus fulfilling its function the more -completely, the more deeply it enables us to penetrate -into life. It seems, however, that Nietzsche insufficiently -guarded his statement. Art for art’s sake, said -Nietzsche, is “a dangerous principle,” like truth for -truth’s sake and goodness for goodness’ sake. Art, -knowledge, and morality are simply means, he declared, -and valuable for their “life-promoting tendency.” -(There is here a pioneering suggestion of the -American doctrine of Pragmatism, according to which -how a thing “works” is the test of its validity, but -Nietzsche can by no means be counted a Pragmatist.) -To look thus at the matter was certainly, with Schopenhauer -and with Gourmont, to put aside the superficial -moral function of art, and to recognise in it a -larger sociological function. It was on the sociological -function of art that Guyau, who was so penetrating and -sympathetic a thinker, insisted in his book, posthumously -published in 1889, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Art au Point de Vue Sociologique.”</span> -He argued that art, while remaining independent, -is at the foundation one with morals and with -religion. He believed in a profound unity of all these -terms: life, morality, society, religion, art. “Art, in a -word, is life.” So that, as he pointed out, there is no -conflict between the theory of art for art, properly interpreted, -and the theory that assigns to art a moral and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>social function. It is clear that Guyau was on the right -road, although his statement was confusingly awkward -in form. He deformed his statement, moreover, through -his perpetual tendency to insist on the spontaneously -socialising organisation of human groups—a tendency -which has endeared him to all who adopt an anarchist -conception of society—and, forgetting that he -had placed morals only at the depth of art and not on -the surface, he commits himself to the supremely false -dictum: “Art is, above everything, a phenomenon of -sociability,” and the like statements, far too closely resembling -the doctrinary pronouncements of Tolstoy. -For sociability is an indirect end of art: it cannot be its -direct aim. We are here not far from the ambiguous -doctrine that art is “expression,” for “expression” may -be too easily confused with “communication.”<a id='r132' /><a href='#f132' class='c011'><sup>[132]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>All these eminent philosophers—though they meant -something which so far as it went was true—have -failed to produce a satisfying statement because they -have none of them understood how to ask the question -which they were trying to answer. They failed to understand -that morals is just as much an art as any other -vital psychic function of man; they failed to see that, -though art must be free from the dominance of morals, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>it by no means followed that it has no morality of its -own, if morality involves the organised integrity which -all vital phenomena must possess; they failed to realise -that, since the arts are simply the sum of the active -functions which spring out of the single human organism, -we are not called upon to worry over any imaginary -conflicts between functions which are necessarily -harmonious because they are all one at the root. We -cannot too often repeat the pregnant maxim of Bacon -that the right question is the half of knowledge. Here -we might almost say that it is the whole of knowledge. -It seems, therefore, unnecessary to pursue the subject -further. He who cannot himself pursue it further had -best leave it alone.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But when we enter the æsthetic sphere we are no -longer artists. That, indeed, is inevitable if we regard -the arts as the sum of all the active functions of the -organism. Rickert, with his methodical vision of the -world,—for he insists that we must have some sort of -system,—has presented what he regards as a reasonable -scheme in a tabular form at the end of the first -volume of his “System.”<a id='r133' /><a href='#f133' class='c011'><sup>[133]</sup></a> He divides Reality into two -great divisions: the monistic and asocial Contemplative -and the pluralistic and social Active. To the first -belong the spheres of Logic, Æsthetics, and Mysticism, -with their values, truth, beauty, impersonal holiness; -to the second, Ethics, Erotics, the Philosophy of Religion, -with their values, morality, happiness, personal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>holiness. This view of the matter is the more significant -as Rickert stands aside from the tradition represented -by Nietzsche and returns to the Kantian current, -enriched, indeed, and perhaps not quite consistently, -by Goethe. It seems probable that all Rickert’s active -attitudes towards reality may fairly be called Art, and -all the contemplative attitudes, Æsthetics.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is in fact nothing novel in the distinction -which underlies this classification, and it has been -recognised ever since the days of Baumgarten, the -commonly accepted founder of modern æsthetics, not -to go further back.<a id='r134' /><a href='#f134' class='c011'><sup>[134]</sup></a> Art is the active practical exercise -of a single discipline: æsthetics is the philosophic appreciation -of any or all the arts. Art is concerned with -the more or less unconscious creation of beauty: -æsthetics is concerned with its discovery and contemplation. -Æsthetics is the metaphysical side of all -productive living.</p> -<h3 class='c010'>IV</h3> -<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>This</span> complete unlikeness on the surface between art -and æsthetics—for ultimately and fundamentally they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>are at one—has to be emphasised, for the failure to -distinguish them has led to confusion and verbosity. -The practice of morals, we must ever remember, is not -a matter of æsthetics; it is a matter of art. It has not, -nor has any other art, an immediate and obvious relationship -to the creation of beauty.<a id='r135' /><a href='#f135' class='c011'><sup>[135]</sup></a> What the artist -in life, as in any other art, is directly concerned to -express is not primarily beauty; it is much more likely -to seem to him to be truth (it is interesting to note that -Einstein, so much an artist in thought, insists that he -is simply concerned with truth), and what he produces -may seem at first to all the world, and even possibly to -himself, to be ugly. It is so in the sphere of morals. -For morals is still concerned with the possessive instinct, -not with the creation of beauty, with the needs -and the satisfaction of the needs, with the industrial -and economic activities, with the military activities to -which they fatally tend. But the æsthetic attitude, as -Gaultier expresses it, is the radiant smile on the human -face which in its primitive phases was anatomically -built up to subserve crude vital needs; as he elsewhere -more abstractly expresses it, “Beauty is an attitude of -sensibility.” It is the task of æsthetics, often a slow -and painful task, to see art—including the art of -Nature, some would insist—as beauty. That, it has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>to be added, is no mean task. It is, on the contrary, -essential. It is essential to sweep away in art all that -is ultimately found to be fundamentally ugly, whether -by being, at the one end, distastefully pretty, or, at -the other, hopelessly crude. For ugliness produces -nausea of the stomach and sets the teeth on edge. It -does so literally, not metaphorically. Ugliness, since it -interferes with digestion, since it disturbs the nervous -system, impairs the forces of life. For when we are -talking æsthetics (as the word itself indicates) we are -ultimately talking physiologically. Even our metaphysics—if -it is to have any meaning for us—must -have a physical side. Unless we hold that fact in -mind, we shall talk astray and are likely to say little -that is to the point.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Art has to be seen as beauty and it is the function of -æsthetics so to see it. How slowly and painfully the -function works every one must know by observing the -æsthetic judgments of other people, if not by recalling -his own experiences. I know in my own experience -how hardly and subconsciously this process works. In -the matter of pictures, for instance, I have found -throughout life, from Rubens in adolescence to Cézanne -in recent years, that a revelation of the beauty -of a painter’s work which, on the surface, is alien or -repulsive to one’s sensibility, came only after years of -contemplation, and then most often by a sudden revelation, -in a flash, by a direct intuition of the beauty -of some particular picture which henceforth became -<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>the clue to all the painter’s work. It is a process comparable -to that which is in religion termed “conversion,” -and, indeed, of like nature.<a id='r136' /><a href='#f136' class='c011'><sup>[136]</sup></a> So also it is in -literature. And in life? We are accustomed to suppose -that a moral action is much easier to judge than a -picture of Cézanne. We do not dream of bringing the -same patient and attentive, as it were æsthetic, spirit -to life as we bring to painting. Perhaps we are right, -considering what poor bungling artists most of us are -in living. For “art is easy, life is difficult,” as Liszt -used to say. The reason, of course, is that the art of -living differs from the external arts in that we cannot -exclude the introduction of alien elements into its -texture. Our art of living, when we achieve it, is of so -high and fine a quality precisely because it so largely -lies in harmoniously weaving into the texture elements -that we have not ourselves chosen, or that, having -chosen, we cannot throw aside. Yet it is the attitude -of the spectators that helps to perpetuate that bungling.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is Plotinus whom we may fairly regard as the -founder of Æsthetics in the philosophic sense, and it -was as formulated by Plotinus, though this we sometimes -fail to recognise, that the Greek attitude in these -matters, however sometimes modified, has come down -<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>to us.<a id='r137' /><a href='#f137' class='c011'><sup>[137]</sup></a> We may be forgiven for not always recognising -it, because it is rather strange that it should be so. It -is strange, that is to say, that the æsthetic attitude, -which we regard as so emphatically Greek, should -have been left for formulation until the Greek world -had passed away, that it should not have been Plato, -but an Alexandrian, living in Rome seven centuries -after him, who set forth what seems to us a distinctively -Platonic view of life.<a id='r138' /><a href='#f138' class='c011'><sup>[138]</sup></a> The Greeks, indeed, seem -to have recognised, apart from the lower merely -“ethical” virtues of habit and custom, the higher -“intellectual” virtues which were deliberately planned, -and so of the nature of art. But Plotinus definitely -recognised the æsthetic contemplation of Beauty, together -with the One and the Good, as three aspects -of the Absolute.<a id='r139' /><a href='#f139' class='c011'><sup>[139]</sup></a> He thus at once placed æsthetics -on the highest possible pedestal, beside religion and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>morals; he placed it above art, or as comprehending -art, for he insisted that Contemplation is an active -quality, so that all human creative energy may be -regarded as the by-play of contemplation. That was -to carry rather far the function of æsthetic contemplation. -But it served to stamp for ever, on the minds of -all sensitive to that stamp who came after, the definite -realisation of the sublimest, the most nearly divine, of -human aptitudes. Every great spirit has furnished the -measure of his greatness by the more or less completeness -in which at the ultimate outpost of his vision over -the world he has attained to that active contemplation -of life as a spectacle which Shakespeare finally embodied -in the figure of Prospero.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may be interesting to note in passing that, psychologically -considered, all æsthetic enjoyment among -the ordinary population, neither artists in the narrow -sense nor philosophers, still necessarily partakes to -some degree of genuine æsthetic contemplation, and -that such contemplation seems to fall roughly into two -classes, to one or other of which every one who experiences -æsthetic enjoyment belongs. These have, I -believe, been defined by Müller-Freienfels as that of -the <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Zuschauer,”</span> who feels that he is looking on, and -that of the <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Mitspieler,”</span> who feels that he is joining -in; on the one side, we may say, he who knows he is -looking on, the <i>spectator</i>, and on the other he who -imaginatively joins in, the <i>participator</i>. The people of -the first group are those, it may be, in whom the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>sensory nervous apparatus is highly developed and -they are able to adopt the most typical and complete -æsthetic attitude; the people of the other group would -seem to be most developed on the motor nervous side -and they are those who themselves desire to be artists. -Groos, who has developed the æsthetic side of <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“miterleben,”</span> -is of this temperament, and he had at first supposed -that every one was like him in this respect.<a id='r140' /><a href='#f140' class='c011'><sup>[140]</sup></a> -Plotinus, who held that contemplation embraced activity, -must surely have been of this temperament. -Coleridge was emphatically of the other temperament, -<i>spectator haud particeps</i>, as he himself said. But, at all -events in northern countries, that is probably not the -more common temperament. The æsthetic attitude of -the crowds who go to watch football matches is probably -much more that of the imaginative participator -than of the pure spectator.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is no occasion here to trace the history of -æsthetic contemplation. Yet it may be worth while to -note that it was clearly present to the mind of the fine -thinker and great moralist who brought the old Greek -idea back into the modern world. In the “Philosophical -Regimen” (as it has been named) brought to light -a few years ago, in which Shaftesbury set down his -self-communings, we find him writing in one place: -“In the morning am I to see anew? Am I to be present -yet longer and content? I am not weary, nor ever can -<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>be, of such a spectacle, such a theatre, such a presence, -nor at acting whatever part such a master assigns me. -Be it ever so long, I stay and am willing to see on -whilst my sight continues sound; whilst I can be a -spectator, such as I ought to be; whilst I can see -reverently, justly, with understanding and applause. -And when I see no more, I retire, not disdainfully, but -in reverence to the spectacle and master, giving -thanks.... Away, man! rise, wipe thy mouth, throw -up thy napkin and have done. A bellyful (they say) is -as good as a feast.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>That may seem but a simple and homely way of -stating the matter, though a few years later, in 1727, a -yet greater spirit than Shaftesbury, Swift, combining -the conception of life as æsthetic contemplation with -that of life as art, wrote in a letter, “Life is a tragedy, -wherein we sit as spectators awhile, and then act our -own part in it.” If we desire a more systematically -philosophical statement we may turn to the distinguished -thinker of to-day who in many volumes has -most powerfully presented the same essential conception, -with all its implications, of life as a spectacle. -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Tirez le rideau; la farce est jouée.”</span> That Shakespearian -utterance, which used to be attributed to -Rabelais on his death-bed, and Swift’s comment on -life, and Shaftesbury’s intimate meditation, would -seem to be—on the philosophic and apart from the -moral side of life—entirely in the spirit that Jules de -Gaultier has so elaborately developed. The world is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>a spectacle, and all the men and women the actors on -its stage. Enjoy the spectacle while you will, whether -comedy or tragedy, enter into the spirit of its manifold -richness and beauty, yet take it not too seriously, even -when you leave it and the curtains are drawn that -conceal it for ever from your eyes, grown weary at last.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such a conception, indeed, was already to be seen in -a deliberately philosophical form in Schopenhauer -(who, no doubt, influenced Gaultier) and, later, -Nietzsche, especially the early Nietzsche, although he -never entirely abandoned it; his break with Wagner, -however, whom he had regarded as the typical artist, -led him to become suddenly rather critical of art and -artists, as we see in “Human-all-too-Human,” which -immediately followed “Wagner in Bayreuth,” and he -became inclined to look on the artist, in the narrow -sense, as only “a splendid relic of the past,” not, -indeed, altogether losing his earlier conception, but -disposed to believe that “the scientific man is the -finest development of the artistic man.” In his essay -on Wagner he had presented art as the essentially -metaphysical activity of Man, here following Schopenhauer. -“Every genius,” well said Schopenhauer, “is -a great child; he gazes out at the world as something -strange, a spectacle, and therefore with purely objective -interest.” That is to say that the highest attitude -attainable by man towards life is that of æsthetic -contemplation. But it took on a different character in -Nietzsche. In 1878 Nietzsche wrote of his early essay -<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>on Wagner: “At that time I believed that the world -was created from the æsthetic standpoint, as a play, -and that as a moral phenomenon it was a deception: -on that account I came to the conclusion that the -world was only to be justified as an æsthetic phenomenon.”<a id='r141' /><a href='#f141' class='c011'><sup>[141]</sup></a> -At the end of his active career Nietzsche was -once more reproducing this proposition in many ways. -Jules de Gaultier has much interested himself in -Nietzsche, but he had already reached, no doubt -through Schopenhauer, a rather similar conception -before he came in contact with Nietzsche’s work, and -in the present day he is certainly the thinker who has -most systematically and philosophically elaborated the -conception.<a id='r142' /><a href='#f142' class='c011'><sup>[142]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Gaultier is most generally known by that perhaps -not quite happily chosen term of “Bovarism,” embodied -in the title of his earliest book and abstracted -from Flaubert’s heroine, which stands for one of his -most characteristic conceptions, and, indeed, in a large -sense, for the central idea of his philosophy. In its -primary psychological sense Bovarism is the tendency—the -unconscious tendency of Emma Bovary and, -more or less, all of us—to conceive of ourselves as -other than we are. Our picture of the world, for good -or for evil, is an idealised picture, a fiction, a waking -<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>dream, an <i>als ob</i>, as Vaihinger would say. But when -we idealise the world we begin by first idealising ourselves. -We imagine ourselves other than we are, and -in so imagining, as Gaultier clearly realises, we tend to -mould ourselves, so that reality becomes a prolongation -of fiction. As Meister Eckhart long since finely -said: “A man is what he loves.” A similar thought was -in Plato’s mind. In modern times a variation of this -same idea has been worked out, not as by Gaultier -from the philosophic side, but from the medical and -more especially the psycho-analytic side, by Dr. Alfred -Adler of Vienna.<a id='r143' /><a href='#f143' class='c011'><sup>[143]</sup></a> Adler has suggestively shown -how often a man’s or a woman’s character is constituted -by a process of fiction,—that is by making an -ideal of what it is, or what it ought to be,—and then -so far as possible moulding it into the shape of that -fiction, a process which is often interwoven with -morbid elements, especially with an original basis of -organic defect, the reaction being an effort, sometimes -successful, to overcome that defect, and even to transform -it into a conspicuous quality, as when Demosthenes, -who was a stutterer, made himself a great -orator. Even thinkers may not wholly escape this -tendency, and I think it would be easily possible to -show that, for instance, Nietzsche was moved by what -Adler calls the “masculine protest”; one remembers -how shrinkingly delicate Nietzsche was towards women -<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>and how emphatically he declared they should never -be approached without a whip. Adler owed nothing to -Gaultier, of whom he seems to be ignorant; he found -his first inspiration in Vaihinger’s doctrine of the “as -if”; Gaultier, however, owes nothing to Vaihinger, -and, indeed, began to publish earlier, though not -before Vaihinger’s book was written. Gaultier’s philosophic -descent is mainly from Spinoza, Berkeley, -Hume, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is another deeper and wider sense, a more -abstract esoteric sense, in which Jules de Gaultier -understands Bovarism. It is not only the human being -and human groups who are psychologically Bovaristic, -the Universe itself, the Eternal Being (to adopt an -accepted fiction), metaphysically partakes of Bovarism. -The Universe, it seems to Gaultier, necessarily -conceives itself as other than it is. Single, it conceives -itself multiple, as subject and object. Thus is furnished -the fundamental convention which we must -grant to the Dramatist who presents the cosmic tragi-comedy.<a id='r144' /><a href='#f144' class='c011'><sup>[144]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>It may seem to some that the vision of the world -which Man pursues on his course across the Universe -becomes ever more impalpable and visionary. And so -perhaps it may be. But even if that were an undesirable -result, it would still be useless to fight against -God. We are, after all, merely moulding the conceptions -<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>which a little later will become commonplaced -and truisms. For really—while we must hold physics -and metaphysics apart, for they cannot be blended—a -metaphysics which is out of harmony with physics -is negligible; it is nothing in the world. And it is our -physical world that is becoming more impalpable and -visionary. It is “matter,” the very structure of the -“atom,” that is melting into a dream, and if it may -seem that on the spiritual side life tends to be moulding -itself to the conception of Calderon as a dream, it -is because the physical atom is pursuing that course. -Unless we hold in mind the analysis of the world -towards which the physicist is bringing us, we shall not -understand the synthesis of the world towards which -the philosopher is bringing us. Gaultier’s philosophy -may not be based upon physics, but it seems to be in -harmony with physics.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This is the metaphysical scaffolding—we may if we -like choose to dispense with it—by aid of which Jules -de Gaultier erects his spectacular conception of the -world. He is by no means concerned to deny the -necessity of morality. On the contrary, morality is the -necessary restraint on the necessary biological instinct -of possession, on the desire, that is, by the acquisition -of certain objects, to satisfy passions which are most -often only the exaggeration of natural needs, but which—through -the power of imagination such exaggeration -inaugurates in the world—lead to the development -of civilisation. Limited and definite so long as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>confined to their biological ends, needs are indefinitely -elastic, exhibiting, indeed, an almost hysterical character -which becomes insatiable. They mark a hypertrophy -of the possessive instinct which experience -shows to be a menace to social life. Thus the Great -War of recent times may be regarded as the final tragic -result of the excessive development through half a -century of an economic fever, the activity of needs -beyond their due biological ends producing suddenly -the inevitable result.<a id='r145' /><a href='#f145' class='c011'><sup>[145]</sup></a> So that the possessive instinct, -while it is the cause of the formation of an economic -civilised society, when pushed too far becomes the -cause of the ruin of that society. Man, who begins by -acquiring just enough force to compel Nature to supply -his bare needs, himself becomes, according to the -tragic Greek saying, the greatest force of Nature. Yet -the fact that a civilisation may persist for centuries -shows that men in societies have found methods of -combating the exaggerated development of the possessive -instinct, of retaining it within bounds which -have enabled societies to enjoy a fairly long life. -These methods become embodied in religions and -moralities and laws. They react in concert to restrain -the greediness engendered by the possessive instinct. -They make virtues of Temperance and Sobriety and -Abnegation. They invent Great Images which arouse -human hopes and human fears. They prescribe imperatives, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>with sanctions, in part imposed by the -Great Images and in part by the actual executive force -of social law. So societies are enabled to immunise -themselves against the ravaging auto-intoxication of -an excessive instinct of possession, and the services -rendered by religions and moralities cannot be too -highly estimated. They are the spontaneous physiological -processes which counteract disease before -medical science comes into play.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But are they of any use in those periods of advanced -civilisation which they have themselves contributed to -form? When Man has replaced flint knives and clubs -and slings by the elaborate weapons we know, can he -be content with methods of social preservation which -date from the time of flint knives and clubs and slings? -The efficacy of those restraints depends on a sensibility -which could only exist when men scarcely distinguished -imaginations from perceptions. Thence arose the credulity -on which religions and moralities flourished. -But now the Images have grown pale in human -sensibility, just as they have in words, which are but -effaced images. We need a deeper reality to take the -place of these early beliefs which the growth of intelligence -necessarily shows to be illusory. We must seek -in the human ego an instinct in which is manifested a -truly autonomous play of the power of imagination, an -instinct which by virtue of its own proper development -may restrain the excesses of the possessive instinct -and dissipate the perils which threaten civilisation. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>The æsthetic instinct alone answers to that double -demand.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At this point we may pause to refer to the interesting -analogy between this argument of Jules de Gaultier -and another recently proposed solution of the problems -of civilisation presented by Bertrand Russell, to -which there has already been occasion to refer. The -two views were clearly suggested by the same events, -though apparently in complete independence, and it -is interesting to observe the considerable degree of -harmony which unites two such distinguished thinkers -in different lands, and with unlike philosophic standpoints -as regards ultimate realities.<a id='r146' /><a href='#f146' class='c011'><sup>[146]</sup></a> Man’s impulses, -as we know, Bertrand Russell holds to be of two kinds: -those that are possessive and those that are creative; -the typical possessive impulse being that of property -and the typical creative impulse that of the artist. It -is in following the creative impulse, he believes, that -man’s path of salvation lies, for the possessive impulses -necessarily lead to conflict while the creative -<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>impulses are essentially harmonious. Bertrand Russell -seeks the unification of life. But consistency of action -should, he holds, spring from consistency of impulse -rather than from the control of impulse by will. Like -Gaultier, he believes in what has been called, perhaps -not happily, “the law of irony”; that is to say, that -the mark we hit is never the mark we aimed at, so -that, in all supreme success in life, as Goethe said of -Wilhelm Meister, we are like Saul, the son of Kish, -who went forth to seek his father’s asses and found a -kingdom. “Those who best promote life,” Russell -prefers to put it, “do not have life for their purpose. -They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation, -a bringing into our human existence of something -eternal.” And, again like Gaultier, he invokes Spinoza -and what in his phraseology he called “the intellectual -love of God.” “Take no thought, saying, What shall -we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall -we be clothed? Whosoever has known a strong creative -impulse has known the value of this precept in its -exact and literal sense; it is preoccupation with possession, -more than anything else, that prevents men from -living freely and nobly.”<a id='r147' /><a href='#f147' class='c011'><sup>[147]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>This view of the matter seems substantially the -same, it may be in an unduly simplified form, as the -conception which Jules de Gaultier has worked out -more subtly and complexly, seeking to weave in a -large number of the essential factors, realising that the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>harmony of life must yet be based on an underlying -conflict.<a id='r148' /><a href='#f148' class='c011'><sup>[148]</sup></a> The main difference would seem to be that -Bertrand Russell’s creative impulse seems to be fairly -identical with the productive impulse of art in the -large sense in which I have throughout understood it, -while Jules de Gaultier is essentially concerned with -the philosophic or religious side of the art impulse; that -is to say, the attitude of æsthetic contemplation which -in appearance forms the absolute antithesis to the -possessive instinct. It is probable, however, that there -is no real discrepancy here, for as we may regard -æsthetic contemplation as the passive aspect of art, -so art may be regarded as the active aspect of æsthetic -contemplation, and Bertrand Russell, we may -certainly believe, would include the one under art -as Jules de Gaultier would include the other under -æsthetics.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The æsthetic instinct, as Jules de Gaultier understands -it, answers the double demand of our needs -to-day, not, like religions and moralities, by evoking -images as menaces or as promises, only effective if they -can be realised in the world of sensation, and so merely -constituting another attempt to gratify the possessive -instinct, by enslaving the power of imagination to that -alien master. Through the æsthetic instinct Man is -enabled to procure joy, not from the things themselves -and the sensations due to the possession of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>things, but from the very images of things. Beyond -the sense of utility bound up with the possession of -objects, he acquires the privilege, bound up with the -sole contemplation of them, of enjoying the beauty of -things. By the æsthetic instinct the power of imagination -realises its own proper tendency and attains its -own proper end.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such a process cannot fail to have its reaction on the -social environment. It must counteract the exaggeration -of the possessive instinct. To that impulse, when it -transgresses the legitimate bounds of biological needs -and threatens to grow like a destructive cancer, the -æsthetic instinct proposes another end, a more human -end, that of æsthetic joy. Therewith the exuberance of -insatiable and ruinous cupidity is caught in the forms -of art, the beauty of the universe is manifested to all -eyes, and the happiness which had been sought in the -paradoxical enterprise of glutting that insatiable desire -finds its perpetual satisfaction in the absolute and -complete realisation of beauty.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As Jules de Gaultier understands it, we see that the -æsthetic instinct is linked on to the possessive instinct. -Bertrand Russell would sometimes seem to leave the -possessive instinct in the void without making any -provision for its satisfaction. In Gaultier’s view, we -may probably say it is taken in charge by the æsthetic -instinct as soon as it has fulfilled its legitimate biological -ends, and its excessive developments, what might -otherwise be destructive, are sublimated. The æsthetic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>instinct, Gaultier insists, like the other instincts, -even the possessive instinct, has imperative claims; it -is an appetite of the <i>ego</i>, developed at the same hearth -of intimate activity, drawing its strength from the -same superabundance from which they draw strength. -Therefore, in the measure in which it absorbs force -they must lose force, and civilisation gains.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The development of the æsthetic sense is, indeed, -indispensable if civilisation—which we may, perhaps, -from the present point of view, regard with Gaultier as -the embroidery worked by imagination on the stuff of -our elementary needs—is to pass safely through its -critical period and attain any degree of persistence. -The appearance of the æsthetic sense is then an event -of the first order in the rank of natural miracles, -strictly comparable to the evolution in the organic -sphere of the optic nerves, which made it possible to -know things clearly apart from the sensations of actual -contact. There is no mere simile here, Gaultier believes: -the faculty of drawing joy from the images of -things, apart from the possession of them, is based on -physiological conditions which growing knowledge of -the nervous system may some day make clearer.<a id='r149' /><a href='#f149' class='c011'><sup>[149]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>It is this specific quality, the power of enjoying -things without being reduced to the need of possessing -them, which differentiates the æsthetic instinct from -other instincts and confers on it the character of -morality. Based, like the other instincts on egoism, it, -yet, unlike the other instincts, leads to no destructive -struggles. Its powers of giving satisfaction are not -dissipated by the number of those who secure that -satisfaction. Æsthetic contemplation engenders neither -hatred nor envy. Unlike the things that appeal -to the possessive instinct, it brings men together and -increases sympathy. Unlike those moralities which are -compelled to institute prohibitions, the æsthetic sense, -even in the egoistic pursuit of its own ends, becomes -blended with morality, and so serves in the task of -maintaining society.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus it is that, by aiming at a different end, the -æsthetic sense yet attains the end aimed at by morality. -That is the aspect of the matter which Gaultier would -emphasise. There is implied in it the judgment that -when the æsthetic sense deviates from its proper ends -to burden itself with moral intentions—when, that -is, it ceases to be itself—it ceases to realise morality. -“Art for art’s sake!” the artists of old cried. We laugh -at that cry now. Gaultier, indeed, considers that the -idea of pure art has in every age been a red rag in the -eyes of the human bull. Yet, if we had possessed the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>necessary intelligence, we might have seen that it held -a great moral truth. “The poet, retired in his Tower -of Ivory, isolated, according to his desire, from the -world of man, resembles, whether he so wishes or -not, another solitary figure, the watcher enclosed for -months at a time in a lighthouse at the head of a cliff. -Far from the towns peopled by human crowds, far -from the earth, of which he scarcely distinguishes the -outlines through the mist, this man in his wild solitude, -forced to live only with himself, almost forgets the -common language of men, but he knows admirably -well how to formulate through the darkness another -language infinitely useful to men and visible afar to -seamen in distress.”<a id='r150' /><a href='#f150' class='c011'><sup>[150]</sup></a> The artist for art’s sake—and -the same is constantly found true of the scientist for -science’s sake<a id='r151' /><a href='#f151' class='c011'><sup>[151]</sup></a>—in turning aside from the common -utilitarian aims of men is really engaged in a task none -other can perform, of immense utility to men. The -Cistercians of old hid their cloisters in forests and -wildernesses afar from society, mixing not with men -nor performing for them so-called useful tasks; yet -they spent their days and nights in chant and prayer, -working for the salvation of the world, and they stand -as the symbol of all higher types of artists, not the less -<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>so because they, too, illustrate that faith transcending -sight, without which no art is possible.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The artist, as Gaultier would probably put it, has to -effect a necessary Bovarism. If he seeks to mix himself -up with the passions of the crowd, if his work shows -the desire to prove anything, he thereby neglects the -creation of beauty. Necessarily so, for he excites a -state of combativity, he sets up moral, political, and -social values, all having relation to biological needs -and the possessive instinct, the most violent of ferments. -He is entering on the struggle over Truth—though -his opinion is here worth no more than any -other man’s—which, on account of the presumption -of its universality, is brandished about in the most -ferociously opposed camps.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The mother who seeks to soothe her crying child -preaches him no sermon. She holds up some bright -object and it fixes his attention. So it is the artist acts: -he makes us see. He brings the world before us, not on -the plane of covetousness and fears and commandments, -but on the plane of representation; the world -becomes a spectacle. Instead of imitating those philosophers -who with analyses and syntheses worry -over the goal of life, and the justification of the world, -and the meaning of the strange and painful phenomenon -called Existence, the artist takes up some fragment -of that existence, transfigures it, shows it: -There! And therewith the spectator is filled with enthusiastic -joy, and the transcendent Adventure of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>Existence is justified. Every great artist, a Dante or a -Shakespeare, a Dostoievsky or a Proust, thus furnishes -the metaphysical justification of existence by the -beauty of the vision he presents of the cruelty and the -horror of existence. All the pain and the madness, even -the ugliness and the commonplace of the world, he converts -into shining jewels. By revealing the spectacular -character of reality he restores the serenity of its -innocence.<a id='r152' /><a href='#f152' class='c011'><sup>[152]</sup></a> We see the face of the world as of a lovely -woman smiling through her tears.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How are we to expect this morality—if so we -may still term it—to prevail? Jules de Gaultier, as -we have seen, realising that the old moralities have -melted away, seems to think that the morality of art, -by virtue of its life, will take the place of that which is -dead. But he is not specially concerned to discuss in -detail the mechanism of this replacement, though he -looks to the social action of artists in initiation and -stimulation. That was the view of Guyau, and it fitted -in with his sociological conception of art as being one -with life; great poets, great artists, Guyau believed, -will become the leaders of the crowd, the priests of a -social religion without dogmas.<a id='r153' /><a href='#f153' class='c011'><sup>[153]</sup></a> But Gaultier’s conception -goes beyond this. He cannot feel that the -direct action of poets and artists is sufficient. They -<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>only reveal the more conspicuous aspects of the -æsthetic sense. Gaultier considers that the æsthetic -sense, in humbler forms, is mixed up with the most -primitive manifestations of human life, wherein it -plays a part of unsuspected importance.<a id='r154' /><a href='#f154' class='c011'><sup>[154]</sup></a> The more -thorough investigation of these primitive forms, he -believes, will make it possible for the lawmaker to aid -the mechanism of this transformation of morality.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Having therewith brought us to the threshold of the -æsthetic revolution, Jules de Gaultier departs. It -remains necessary to point out that it is only the -threshold. However intimately the elements of the -æsthetic sense may be blended with primitive human -existence, we know too well that, as the conditions of -human existence are modified, art seems to contract -and degenerate, so we can hardly expect the æsthetic -sense to develop in the reverse direction. At present, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>in the existing state of civilisation, with the decay of -the controlling power of the old morality, the æsthetic -sense often seems to be also decreasing, rather than -increasing, in the masses of the population.<a id='r155' /><a href='#f155' class='c011'><sup>[155]</sup></a> One need -not be troubled to find examples. They occur on -every hand and whenever we take up a newspaper. -One notes, for instance, in England, that the most -widespread spectacularly attractive things outside -cities may be said to be the private parks and the -churches. (Cities lie outside the present argument, -for their inhabitants are carefully watched whenever -they approach anything that appeals to the possessive -instinct.) Formerly the parks and churches were -freely open all day long for those who desired to enjoy -the spectacle of their beauty and not to possess it. -The owners of parks and the guardians of churches -have found it increasingly necessary to close them -because of the alarmingly destructive or predatory -impulses of a section of the public. So the many have -to suffer for the sins of what may only be the few. It is -common to speak of this as a recent tendency of our -so-called civilisation. But the excesses of the possessive -instinct cannot have been entirely latent even in -remote times, though they seem to have been less in -evidence. The Platonic Timæus attributed to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>spectacle of the sun and the moon and the stars the -existence of philosophy. He failed to note that the sun -and the moon and the stars would have disappeared -long ago—as even their infinitely more numerous -analogues on the earth beneath are likely to disappear—had -they happened to be within the reach of predatory -human hands. But the warps and strains of -civilised life, with its excessive industrialism and -militarism, seem to disturb the wholesome balance of -even the humblest elements of the possessive and -æsthetic instincts. This means, in the first and most -important place, that the liberty of the whole community -in its finest manifestations is abridged by a -handful of imbeciles. There are infinite freedoms -which it would be a joy for them to take, and a help to -their work, and a benefit to the world, but they cannot -be allowed to take them because there are some who -can only take them and perish, damning others with -themselves. Besides this supreme injury to life, there -are perpetual minor injuries that the same incapable -section of people are responsible for in every direction, -while the actual cost of them in money, to the community -they exert so pernicious an influence on, is so -great and so increasing that it constitutes a social -and individual burden which from time to time leads -to outbursts of anxious expostulation never steady -enough to be embodied in any well-sustained and -coherent policy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is not, indeed, to be desired that the eugenic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>action of society should be directly aimed at any narrowly -æsthetic or moral end. That has never been the -ideal of any of those whose conceptions of social life -deserve to be taken seriously, least of all Galton, who -is commonly regarded as the founder of the modern -scientific art of eugenics. “Society would be very dull,” -he remarked, “if every man resembled Marcus Aurelius -or Adam Bede.” He even asserted that “we must -leave morality as far as possible out of the discussion,” -since moral goodness and badness are shifting phases -of a civilisation; what is held morally good in one age -is held bad in another. That would hold true of any -æsthetic revolution. But we cannot afford to do without -the sane and wholesome persons who are so well -balanced that they can adjust themselves to the conditions -of every civilisation as it arises and carry it on to -its finest issues. We should not, indeed, seek to breed -them directly, and we need not, since under natural -conditions Nature will see to their breeding. But it is -all the more incumbent upon us to eliminate those -ill-balanced and poisonous stocks produced by the -unnatural conditions which society in the past had -established.<a id='r156' /><a href='#f156' class='c011'><sup>[156]</sup></a> That we have to do alike in the interests -<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>of the offspring of these diseased stocks and in the -interests of society. No power in Heaven or Earth can -ever confer upon us the right to create the unfit in -order to hang them like millstones around the necks of -the fit. The genius of Galton enabled him to see this -clearly afresh and to indicate the reasonable path of -human progress. It was a truth that had long been -forgotten by the strenuous humanitarians who ruled -the nineteenth century, so anxious to perpetuate and -multiply all the worst spawn of their humanity. Yet it -was an ancient truth, carried into practice, however -unconsciously and instinctively, by Man throughout -his upward course, probably even from Palæolithic -times, and when it ceased Man’s upward course also -ceased. As Carr-Saunders has shown, in a learned and -comprehensive work which is of primary importance -for the understanding of the history of Man, almost -every people on the face of the earth has adopted one -or more practices—notably infanticide, abortion, or -severe restriction of sexual intercourse—adapted to -maintain due selection of the best stocks and to limit -the excess of fertility. They largely ceased to work -because Man had acquired the humanity which was -repelled by such methods and lost the intelligence to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>see that they must be replaced by better methods. -For the process of human evolution is nothing more -than a process of sifting, and where that sifting ceases -evolution ceases, becomes, indeed, devolution.<a id='r157' /><a href='#f157' class='c011'><sup>[157]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>When we survey the history of Man we are constantly -reminded of the profound truth which often -lay beneath the parables of Jesus, and they might well -form the motto for any treatise on eugenics. Jesus -was constantly seeking to suggest the necessity of that -process of sifting in which all human evolution consists; -he was ever quick to point out how few could be, -as it was then phrased, “saved,” how extremely narrow -is the path to the Kingdom of Heaven, or, as -many might now call it, the Kingdom of Man. He -proclaimed symbolically a doctrine of heredity which -is only to-day beginning to be directly formulated: -“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn -down and cast into the fire.” There was no compunction -at all in his promulgation of this radical yet -necessary doctrine for the destruction of unfit stocks. -Even the best stocks Jesus was in favour of destroying -ruthlessly as soon as they had ceased to be the best: -“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost -his savour, ... it is thenceforth good for nothing, but -to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” -Jesus has been reproached by Nietzsche for founding a -religion for slaves and plebeians, and so in the result it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>may have become. But we see that, in the words of -the Teacher as they have been handed down, the religion -of Jesus was the most aristocratic of religions. Its -doctrine embodied not even the permission to live for -those human stocks which fall short of its aristocratic -ideal. It need not surprise us to find that Jesus had -already said two thousand years ago what Galton, in a -more modern and—some would add—more humane -way, was saying yesterday. If there had not been a -core of vital truth beneath the surface of the first -Christian’s teaching, it could hardly have survived so -long. We are told that it is now dead, but should it -ever be revived we may well believe that this is the -aspect by which it will be commended. It is a significant -fact that at the two spiritual sources of our -world, Jesus and Plato, we find the assertion of the -principle of eugenics, in one implicitly, in the other -explicitly.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Jules de Gaultier was not concerned to put forward -an aristocratic conception of his æsthetic doctrine, -and, as we have seen, he remained on the threshold of -eugenics. He was content to suggest, though with no -positive assurance, a more democratic conception. -He had, indeed, one may divine, a predilection for that -middle class which has furnished so vast a number of -the supreme figures in art and thought; by producing a -class of people dispensed from tasks of utility, he had -pointed out, “a society creates for itself an organ -fitted for the higher life and bears witness that it has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>passed beyond the merely biological stage to reach the -human stage.” But the middle class is not indispensable, -and if it is doomed Gaultier saw ways of replacing -it.<a id='r158' /><a href='#f158' class='c011'><sup>[158]</sup></a> Especially we may seek to ensure that, in -every social group, the individual task of utilitarian -work shall be so limited that the worker is enabled to -gain a leisure sufficiently ample to devote, if he has the -aptitude, to works of intellect or art. He would agree -with Otto Braun, the inspired youth who was slain in -the Great War, that if we desire the enablement of the -people “the eight-hours day becomes nothing less than -the most imperative demand of culture.” It is in this -direction, it may well be, that social evolution is moving, -however its complete realisation may, by temporary -causes, from time to time be impeded. The -insistent demand for increased wages and diminished -hours of work has not been inspired by the desire to -raise the level of culture in the social environment, or -to inaugurate any æsthetic revolution, yet, by “the -law of irony” which so often controls the realisation of -things, that is the result which may be achieved. The -new leisure conferred on the worker may be transformed -into spiritual activity, and the liberated utilitarian -energy into æsthetic energy. The road would -thus be opened for a new human adventure, of anxious -interest, which the future alone can reveal.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We cannot be sure that this transformation will take -<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>place. We cannot be sure, indeed, that it is possible -for it to take place unless the general quality of the -population in whom so fine a process must be effected -is raised by a more rigid eugenic process than there is -yet any real determination among us to exert. Men -still bow down before the fetish of mere quantity in -population, and that worship may be their undoing. -Giant social organisms, like the giant animal species of -early times, may be destined to disappear suddenly -when they have attained their extreme expansion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Even if that should be so, even if there should be a -solution of continuity in the course of civilisation, even -then, as again Jules de Gaultier also held, we need not -despair, for life is a fountain of everlasting exhilaration. -No creature on the earth has so tortured himself -as Man, and none has raised a more exultant Alleluia. -It would still be possible to erect places of refuge, -cloisters wherein life would yet be full of joy for men -and women determined by their vocation to care only -for beauty and knowledge, and so to hand on to a -future race the living torch of civilisation. When we -read Palladius, when we read Rabelais, we realise how -vast a field lies open for human activity between the -Thebaid on one side and Thelema on the other. Out -of such ashes a new world might well arise. Sunset is -the promise of dawn.</p> -<p class='c006'>THE END</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span> - <h2 id='index' class='c005'>INDEX</h2> -</div> -<ul class='index c004'> - <li class='c012'>Abortion, once practised, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Absolute, the, a fiction, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Abyssian Church, dancing in worship of, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Acting, music, and poetry, proceed in one stream, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Adam, Villiers de l’Isle, his story <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le Secret de l’ancienne Musique</i></span>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Addison, Joseph, his style, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>-63, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Adler, Dr. Alfred, of Vienna, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Adolescence, idealisation in, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Æschylus, developed technique of dancing, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-aesthetic-contemplation'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Æsthetic contemplation, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>; - <ul> - <li>recognised by the Greeks, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>;</li> - <li>two kinds of, that of spectator and that of participator, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>;</li> - <li>the Shaftesbury attitude toward, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>;</li> - <li>the Swift attitude toward, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>;</li> - <li>involves life as a spectacle, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>;</li> - <li>and the systems of Gaultier and Russell, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>;</li> - <li>engenders neither hatred nor envy, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-aesthetic-instinct'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Æsthetic instinct, to replace moralities, religions, and laws, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>-45; - <ul> - <li>differentiated from other instincts, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>;</li> - <li>has the character of morality, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Æsthetic intuitionism, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Æsthetic sense, development of, indispensable for civilisation, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>; - <ul> - <li>realises morality when unburdened with moral intentions, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>;</li> - <li>mixed with primitive manifestations of life, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a>;</li> - <li>correlated with diffused artistic instinct, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>seems to be decreasing, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a>-52.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Æsthetics, and ethics, among the Greeks, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>; - <ul> - <li>with us, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>;</li> - <li>in the Greek sense, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>;</li> - <li>the founders of, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>;</li> - <li>and art, the unlikeness of, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>-28;</li> - <li>on same plane with mysticism, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Africa, love-dance in, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Akhenaten, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Alaro, in Mallorca, dancing in church at, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Alberti, Leo, vast-ranging ideas of, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Alcohol, consumption of, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Anatomy, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Anaximander, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ancestry, the force of, in handwriting, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>; - <ul> - <li>in style, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>-61, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Anna, Empress, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Antisthenes, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>“Appearance,” <a href='#Page_219'>219</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Aquinas, Saint Thomas, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Arabs, dancing among, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Arbuckle, one of the founders of æsthetics, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>; - <ul> - <li>insisted on imagination as formative of character, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Architecture. <i>See</i> <a href='#index-building'>Building</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Aristophanes, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Aristotle, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>; - <ul> - <li>on tragedy, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>;</li> - <li>on the Mysteries, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>;</li> - <li>on the moral quality of an act, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>;</li> - <li>his use of the term “moral sense,” <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>;</li> - <li>on Art and Nature in the making of the State, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li> - <li>his use of the term “artists,” <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li> - <li>his view of poetry, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>;</li> - <li>and the contemplative life, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Art, life as, more difficult to realise than to act, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>; - <ul> - <li>universe conceived as work of, by the primitive philosopher, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>;</li> - <li>life as, views of finest thinkers of China and Greece on, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>-6, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>-52;</li> - <li>whole conception of, has been narrowed and debased, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>;</li> - <li>in its proper sense, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>;</li> - <li>as the desire for beautification, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>;</li> - <li>of living, has been decadent during the last two thousand years, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>Napoleon in the sphere of, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>;</li> - <li>of living, the Lifuan, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-18;</li> - <li>of living, the Chinese, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>;</li> - <li>Chinese civilisation shows that human life is, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;</li> - <li>of living, T’ung’s story the embodiment of the Chinese symbol of, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>;</li> - <li>life identical with, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>-35;</li> - <li>of dancing, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>-67, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-dancing'>Dancing</a>;</li> - <li>of life, a dance, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>;</li> - <li>science and, no distinction between, in classic times, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li> - <li>science and, distinction between, in modern times, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>-70;</li> - <li>science is of the nature of, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>;</li> - <li>represented by Pythagoras as source of science, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>;</li> - <li>Greek, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>of thinking, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>-140, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-thinking'>Thinking</a>;</li> - <li>the solution of the conflicts of philosophy in, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>philosophy and, close relationship of, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>-85;</li> - <li>impulse of, transformed sexual instinct, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>-12;</li> - <li>and mathematics, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>-40;</li> - <li>of writing, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>-190, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-writing'>Writing</a>;</li> - <li>Man added to Nature, is the task in, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</li> - <li>the freedom and the easiness of, do not necessarily go together, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>;</li> - <li>of religion, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>-243, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-religion'>Religion</a>;</li> - <li>of morals, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>-84, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-morals'>Morals</a>;</li> - <li>the critic of, a critic of life, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>;</li> - <li>civilisation is an, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>;</li> - <li>consideration of the question of the definition of, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>-12;</li> - <li>Nature and, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li> - <li>the sum of the active energies of mankind, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li> - <li>and æsthetics, the unlikeness of, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>-28;</li> - <li>a genus, of which morals is a species, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>;</li> - <li>each, has its own morality, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>;</li> - <li>to assert that it gives pleasure a feeble conclusion, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>;</li> - <li>on the uselessness of, according to Schopenhauer and others, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>-21;</li> - <li>meaninglessness of the statement that it is useless, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>;</li> - <li>sociological function of, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>;</li> - <li>philosophers have failed to see that it has a morality of its own, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>;</li> - <li>for art’s sake, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Artist, partakes of divine nature of creator of the world, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>; - <ul> - <li>Napoleon as an, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>-12;</li> - <li>the true scientist as, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</li> - <li>the philosopher as, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>;</li> - <li>explanation of, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>-12;</li> - <li>Bacon’s definition of, Man added to Nature, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</li> - <li>makes all things new, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</li> - <li>in words, passes between the plane of new vision and the plane of new creation, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>;</li> - <li>life always a discipline for, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>;</li> - <li>lays up his treasure in Heaven, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>;</li> - <li>Man as, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>;</li> - <li>is a maker, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>;</li> - <li>Aristotle’s use of the term, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li> - <li>reveals Nature, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>;</li> - <li>has to effect a necessary Bovarism, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Artistic creation, the process of its birth, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Arts, sometimes classic and sometimes decadent, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>and sciences, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>-70;</li> - <li>Master of, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>“Arty” people, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“As if,” germs of doctrine of, in Kant, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>; - <ul> - <li>world of, and Plato’s “Ideas,” <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</li> - <li>source of the phrase, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>;</li> - <li>seen in play, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>;</li> - <li>the doctrine of, not immune from criticism, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</li> - <li>fortifying influence of the doctrine, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.</li> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-fiction'>Fiction</a>, <a href='#index-vaihinger'>Vaihinger</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Asceticism, has nothing to do with normal religion, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>; - <ul> - <li>among the Greeks, traced, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>and Christianity, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Asclepios, the cult of, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Atavism, in handwriting, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>; - <ul> - <li>in style, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>-61, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Athenæus, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>his book about the Greeks, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Atom, a fiction or an hypothesis, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>; - <ul> - <li>the structure of, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Attraction, force of, a fiction, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Aurelius, Marcus, regarded art of life as like the dancer’s art, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>; - <ul> - <li>his statement of the mystical core of religion, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>;</li> - <li>adopted æsthetic criterion of moral action, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Australians, religious dances among, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Auto-erotic activities, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Axioms, akin to fiction, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Babies, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bach, Sebastian, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bacon, Francis, his definition of the artist, Man added to Nature, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>; - <ul> - <li>his style compared with that of Shakespeare, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>;</li> - <li>the music of his style, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>;</li> - <li>heavy and formal letters of, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>;</li> - <li>his axiom, the right question is half the knowledge, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Bacon, Roger, on the sciences, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Balguy, Rev. John, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ballad, a dance as well as song, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ballet, the, chief form of Romantic dancing, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>; - <ul> - <li>the germ of, to be found in ancient Rome, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>;</li> - <li>origin of the modern, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>;</li> - <li>the Italian and the French, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>-58;</li> - <li>decline of, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>;</li> - <li>the Russian, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>-60;</li> - <li>the Swedish, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Bantu, the question of the, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Baptism, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Barbarians,” the classic use of the term, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Barebones, Praise-God, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Baretti, <abbr class='spell'>G. M.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bastien-Lepage, Jules, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Baudelaire, Charles, on vulgar locutions, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Baumgarten, <abbr class='spell'>A. G.</abbr>, the commonly accepted founder of æsthetics, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bayaderes, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bayle, <abbr class='spell'>G. L.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Beautiful,” the, among Greeks and Romans, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Beauty, developed by dancing, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>; - <ul> - <li>as an element of literary style, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>-78;</li> - <li>and the good, among the Greeks, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</li> - <li>Plotinus’s doctrine of, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>;</li> - <li>of virtue, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>æsthetic contemplation creates, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>;</li> - <li>and prettiness, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>revelation of, sometimes comes as by a process of “conversion,” <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Bee, the, an artist, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Beethoven, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>; - <ul> - <li>his Seventh Symphony, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Beggary in China, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Benn, <abbr class='spell'>A. W.</abbr>, his <i>The Greek Philosophers</i>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Bentham, Jeremy, adopted a fiction for his system, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Berenson, Bernhard, critic of art, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>; - <ul> - <li>his attitude toward Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Bergson, Henri Louis, pyrotechnical allusions frequent in, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>; - <ul> - <li>regards philosophy as an art, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>;</li> - <li>on clarity in style, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>;</li> - <li>his idea of intuition, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on reality, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Berkeley, George, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bernard, Claude, personality in his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Leçons de Physiologie Expérimentales</i></span>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-bible'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Bible, the, the source of its long life, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-old-testament'>Old Testament</a>, <a href='#index-revelation'>Revelation</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Birds, dancing of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>; - <ul> - <li>the attitude of the poet toward, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Birth-rate, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>“Bitter,” a moral quality, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Blackguard, the, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Blake, William, on the Dance of Life, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the golden rule of life, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Blasco Ibañez, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Blood, Harvey’s conception of circulation of, nearly anticipated by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Boisguillebert, Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de, his “barometer of prosperity,” <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Botany, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Botticelli, Sandro, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bouguereau, <abbr class='spell'>G. A.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Bovarism, explanation of, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>; - <ul> - <li>applied to the Universe, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>;</li> - <li>a necessary, effected by the artist, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Brantôme, Pierre de <abbr class='spell'>B.</abbr>, his style, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Braun, Otto, <a href='#Page_357'>357</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Breton, Jules, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bridges, Robert, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Browne, Sir Thomas, his style, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Browning, Robert, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>; - <ul> - <li>too clumsy to influence others, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Brunetière, Ferdinand, a narrow-minded pedagogue, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bruno, Giordano, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bruno, Leonardo, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bryce, James, on democracies, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bücher, Karl, on work and dance, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Buckle, <abbr class='spell'>H. T.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Buddhist monks, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-building'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Building, and dancing, the two primary arts, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>; - <ul> - <li>birds’ nests, the chief early form of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Bunyan, John, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Burton, Robert, as regards his quotations, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Bury, <abbr class='spell'>J. B.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c004'>Cabanel, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Cadiz, the dancing-school of Spain, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Camargo, innovations of, in the ballet, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Carlyle, Thomas, revelation of family history in his style, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>; - <ul> - <li>compared to Aristophanes, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>too clumsy to ninfluence others, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Carpenter, the, sacred position of, in some countries, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Carr-Saunders, <abbr class='spell'>A. M.</abbr>, on the social ladder and the successful climbers, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>; - <ul> - <li>on selecting the best stock of humanity, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Cassirer, Ernest, on Goethe, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Castanets, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Casuistry, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Categories, are fictions, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cathedrals, dancing in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ceremony, Chinese, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>; - <ul> - <li>and music, Chinese life regulated by, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>-26.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Cézanne, artist, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Chanties, of sailors, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cheetham, Samuel, on the Pagan Mysteries, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Chemistry, analogy of, to life, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>-35.</li> - <li class='c012'>Chess, the Chinese game of, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Chiaroscuro</i>, method of, devised by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Chidley, Australian philosopher, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>-82.</li> - <li class='c012'>China, finest thinkers of, perceived significance in life of conception of art, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>; - <ul> - <li>art animates the whole of life in, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>;</li> - <li>beggary in, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Chinese, the, the accounts of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>-21; - <ul> - <li>their poetry, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>;</li> - <li>their etiquette of politeness, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>;</li> - <li>the quality of play in their character, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>-24;</li> - <li>their life regulated by music and ceremony, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>-26, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>;</li> - <li>their civilisation shows that life is art, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;</li> - <li>the æsthetic supremacy of, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>-30;</li> - <li>endurance of their civilisation, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;</li> - <li>their philosophic calm, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>decline in civilisation of, in last thousand years, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;</li> - <li>their pottery, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>;</li> - <li>embodiment of their symbol of the art of living, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Chinese life, the art of balancing æsthetic temperament and guarding against its excesses, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Choir</i>, the word, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Christian Church, supposed to have been originally a theatre, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Christian ritual, the earliest known, a sacred dance, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Christian worship, dancing in, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>-45; - <ul> - <li>central function of, a sacred drama, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Christianity, Lifuan art of living undermined by arrival of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>; - <ul> - <li>dancing in, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>-45;</li> - <li>the ideas of, as dogmas, hypotheses, and fictions, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li> - <li>and the Pagan Mysteries, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>;</li> - <li>and asceticism, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>the Hebrew mode of feeling grafted into, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Chrysostom, on dancing at the Eucharist, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Church, and religion, not the same, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Church Congress, at Sheffield in 1922, ideas of conversion expressed at, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Churches, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cicero, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cinema, educational value of, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cistercian monks, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cistercians, the, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Civilisation, develops with conscious adhesion to formal order, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>; - <ul> - <li>standards for measurement of, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>;</li> - <li>Niceforo’s measurement of, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>;</li> - <li>on meaning of, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>;</li> - <li>the word, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>;</li> - <li>the art of, includes three kinds of facts, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>;</li> - <li>criminality as a measure of, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>;</li> - <li>creative genius and general instruction in connection with, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>-93;</li> - <li>birth-rate as test of, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>;</li> - <li>consumption of luxuries as test of, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>;</li> - <li>suicide rate as test of, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>;</li> - <li>tests of, applied to France by Niceforo, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>-97;</li> - <li>not an exclusive mass of benefits, but a mass of values, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>;</li> - <li>becoming more complex, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>;</li> - <li>small minority at the top of, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>;</li> - <li>guidance of, assigned to lower stratum, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>;</li> - <li>art of eugenics necessary to save, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>;</li> - <li>of quantity and of quality, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>;</li> - <li>not to be precisely measured, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>;</li> - <li>the more rapidly it progresses, the sooner it dies, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>;</li> - <li>an art, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>;</li> - <li>an estimate of its value possible, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> - <li>meaning of Protagoras’s dictum with relation to, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> - <li>measured by standard of fine art (sculpture), <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>;</li> - <li>eight periods of, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>;</li> - <li>a fresh race needed to produce new period of, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>;</li> - <li>and culture, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>;</li> - <li>æsthetic sense indispensable for, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>;</li> - <li>possible break-up of, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Clarity, as an element of style, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>-78.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Clichés</i>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>-51.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cloisters, for artists, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cochez, of Louvain, on Plotinus, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Coleridge, <abbr class='spell'>S. T.</abbr>, his “loud bassoon,” <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>; - <ul> - <li>of the spectator type of the contemplative temperament, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Colour-words, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Colvin, Sir Sidney, on science and art, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Commandments, tables of, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Communists, French, inspired by Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Community, the, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Comte, <abbr class='spell'>J. A.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Confucian morality, the, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Confucianism, outward manifestation of Taoism, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Confucius, consults Lao-tze, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Conrad, Joseph, his knowledge of the sea, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Contemplation. <i>See</i> <a href='#index-aesthetic-contemplation'>Æsthetic contemplation</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Convention, and Nature, Hippias makes distinction between, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Conventions. <i>See</i> <a href='#index-traditions'>Traditions</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Conversion, a <i>questionnaire</i> on, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>the process of, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>;</li> - <li>the fundamental fact of, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>essential outlines of, have been obscured, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>Churchmen’s ideas of, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>not the outcome of despair or a retrogression, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>;</li> - <li>nothing ascetic about it, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>;</li> - <li>among the Greeks, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>;</li> - <li>revelation of beauty sometimes comes by a process of, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Cooper, Anthony, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cornish, <abbr class='spell'>G.</abbr> Warre, his article on “Greek Drama and the Dance,” <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cosmos. <i>See</i> <a href='#index-universe'>Universe</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Courtship, dancing a process of, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cowper, William, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; - <ul> - <li>influence of Shaftesbury on, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Craftsman, the, partakes of divine nature of creator of the world, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Creation, not the whole of Man, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Creative impulses. <i>See</i> <a href='#index-impulses'>Impulses</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Crime, an effort to get into step, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>defined, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>;</li> - <li>natural, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>;</li> - <li>evolutive social, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Criminality, as a measure of civilisation, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Critics, of language, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>-51; - <ul> - <li>difficulty of their task, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Croce, Benedetto, his idea of art, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>; - <ul> - <li>tends to move in verbal circles, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>;</li> - <li>on judging a work of art, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on mysticism and science, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>tends to fall into verbal abstraction, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>his idea of intuition, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on the critic of art as a critic of life, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>;</li> - <li>on art the deliverer, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>union of æsthetic sense with artistic instinct, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Croiset, Maurice, on Plotinus, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Cromwell, Oliver, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cruz, Friar Gaspar de, on the Chinese, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Culture, and civilisation, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Curiosity, the sexual instinct a reaction, to the stimulus of, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Custom, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cuvier, Georges, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Cymbal, the, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'><a id='index-dance'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Dance, love, among insects, birds, and mammals, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>; - <ul> - <li>among savages, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>;</li> - <li>has gained influence in the human world, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>;</li> - <li>various forms of, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>;</li> - <li>the complete, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>;</li> - <li>the seductiveness of, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>;</li> - <li>prejudice against, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>;</li> - <li>choral, Plotinus compares the moral life of the soul to, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Dance of Life, the, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-dancing'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Dancing, and building, the two primary acts, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>; - <ul> - <li>possibly accounts for origin of birds’ nests, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>supreme manifestation of physical life and supreme symbol of spiritual life, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>;</li> - <li>the significance of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>;</li> - <li>the primitive expression of religion and of love, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>;</li> - <li>entwined with human tradition of war, labour, pleasure, and education, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>;</li> - <li>the expression of the whole man, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>;</li> - <li>rules the life of primitive men, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>religious importance of, among primitive men, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>;</li> - <li>connected with all religions, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>;</li> - <li>ecstatic and pantomimic, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>;</li> - <li>survivals of, in religion, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>;</li> - <li>in Christian worship, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>-45;</li> - <li>in cathedrals, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>;</li> - <li>among birds and insects, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>;</li> - <li>among mammals, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>;</li> - <li>a process of courtship and novitiate for love, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>;</li> - <li>double function of, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>;</li> - <li>different forms of, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>-51;</li> - <li>becomes an art, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>;</li> - <li>professional, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;</li> - <li>Classic and Romantic, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>-60;</li> - <li>the ballet, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>-60;</li> - <li>solo, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>;</li> - <li>Egyptian and Gaditanian, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>;</li> - <li>Greek, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>;</li> - <li>as morals, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>;</li> - <li>all human work a kind of, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>;</li> - <li>and music, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>-63;</li> - <li>social significance of, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>;</li> - <li>and war, allied, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>;</li> - <li>importance of, in education, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>;</li> - <li>Puritan attack on, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>;</li> - <li>is life itself, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>;</li> - <li>always felt to possess symbolic significance, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>;</li> - <li>the learning of, a severe discipline, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Dancing-school, the function of, process of courtship, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>D’Annunzio, Gabriele, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Danse du ventre</i>, the, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Dante, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>; - <ul> - <li>dancing in his “Paradiso,” <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>;</li> - <li>intellectual life of, largely guided by delight in beauty of rhythmic relation between law and instance, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Darwin, Charles, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>; - <ul> - <li>poet and artist, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>;</li> - <li>and <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Theresa, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Darwin, Erasmus, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>David, Alexandra, his book, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le Philosophe Meh-ti et l’Idée de Solidarité</i></span>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Decadence, of art of living, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>rigid subservience to rule a mark of, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Degas, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Democracies, the smallest, are highest, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Demography, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Demosthenes, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>De Quincey, Thomas, the music of his style, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Descartes, René, on arts and sciences, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>; - <ul> - <li>represents in France new impetus to sciences, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>;</li> - <li>religious, though man of science, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Design, the arts of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Devadasis, the, sacred dancing girls, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Diaghilev, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dickens, Charles, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dickinson, <abbr class='spell'>G.</abbr> Lowes, his account of the Chinese, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>; - <ul> - <li>his account of Chinese poetry, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Diderot, Denis, wide-ranging interests of, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>; - <ul> - <li>translated Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>“Dieta Salutis,” the, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Discipline, definition of a, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>“Divine command,” the, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Divine malice,” of Nietzsche, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Diving-bell, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Divorces, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Doctor, and priest, originally one, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dogma, hypothesis, and fiction, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dogmas, shadows of personal experience, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dostoievsky, <abbr class='spell'>F. M.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>; - <ul> - <li>his masterpiece, “<i>The Brothers Karamazov</i>,” <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Drama, Greek, origin of, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>; - <ul> - <li>the real Socrates possibly to be seen in, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Driesch, Hans, on his own mental development, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Drum, the influence of the, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dryden, John, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dujardin, Edouard, his story of Huysmans, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>; - <ul> - <li>on Bergson’s style, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Dumont, Arsène, on civilisation, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Duncan, Isadora, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Duprat, <abbr class='spell'>G. L.</abbr>, on morality, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Dupréel, Professor, on Hippias, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Légende Socratique</i></span>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on the Protagorean spirit, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Duty, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Easter, dancing of priests at, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Eckhart, Meister, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Education, importance of dancing in, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>; - <ul> - <li>Einstein’s views on, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li> - <li>and genius, as tests of civilisation, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>-93.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Egypt, ancient, dancing in, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>; - <ul> - <li>Classical dancing originated in, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;</li> - <li>the most influential dancing-school of all time, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>;</li> - <li>musical instruments associated with dancing, originated or developed in, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>;</li> - <li>modern, dancing in, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>importance of its civilisation, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Eight-hours day, the, <a href='#Page_357'>357</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Einstein, Albert, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>; - <ul> - <li>substitutes new axioms for old, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>;</li> - <li>casts doubts on Leonardo da Vinci’s previsions of modern science, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>seems to have won a place beside Newton, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>;</li> - <li>an imaginative artist, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>;</li> - <li>his fondness for music, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li> - <li>his other artistic likings and dislikings, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>;</li> - <li>an artist also in his work, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>;</li> - <li>his views on science, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li> - <li>his views on education, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>;</li> - <li>on the motives that attract people to science and art, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>;</li> - <li>feels harmony of religion and science, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>;</li> - <li>concerned with truth, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>;</li> - <li>and “science for science’s sake,” <a href='#Page_347'>347</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Eleusinian Mysteries, the, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>-43.</li> - <li class='c012'>Eliot, George, her knowledge of the life of country people, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>; - <ul> - <li>Tolstoy’s opinion of, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Ellis, Havelock, childhood of, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>; - <ul> - <li>his period of emotional and intellectual expansion, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>;</li> - <li>loses faith, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>;</li> - <li>influence of Hinton’s “<i>Life in Nature</i>” on, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>-18.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Els Cosiers, dancing company, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Emerson, <abbr class='spell'>R. W.</abbr>, his style and that of Bacon, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Emmanuel, his book on Greek dancing, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Empathy, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Engineering, professional, Leonardo da Vinci called the founder of, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>English laws, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>English prose style, Cartesian influence on, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>English speech, licentiousness of, in the sixteenth century, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>; - <ul> - <li>the best literary prose, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Enjoyment, without possession, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>-46.</li> - <li class='c012'>Epictetus, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Epicurus, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Erosian, river, importance of, realised by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Eskimos, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Este, Isabella d’, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ethics, and æsthetics, among the Greeks, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-etruscans'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Etruscans, the, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Eucharist, dancing at the, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Eucken, Rudolf, on Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Eugenics, art of, necessary for preservation of civilisation, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>; - <ul> - <li>Galton the founder of the modern scientific art of, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;</li> - <li>assertion of principle of, by Jesus, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>;</li> - <li>question of raising quality of population by process of, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Eusebius, on the worship of the Therapeuts, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Evans, Sir Arthur, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Evolution, theory of, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>; - <ul> - <li>a process of sifting, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>;</li> - <li>and devolution, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>;</li> - <li>social, <a href='#Page_357'>357</a>, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Existence, totality of, Hippias’s supreme ideal, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Existing, and thinking, on two different planes, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Expression,” <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Facts, in the art of civilisation, material, intellectual, and moral (with political), <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Fandango, the, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Faraday, Michael, characteristics of, trust in facts and imagination, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>-32; - <ul> - <li>his science and his mysticism, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Farnell, <abbr class='spell'>L. R.</abbr>, on religion and science, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Farrer, Reginald, on the philosophic calm of the Chinese, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Faure, Elie, his conception of Napoleon, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>; - <ul> - <li>on Greek art, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>has faith in educational value of cinema, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li> - <li>on knowledge and desire, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</li> - <li>on the Greek spirit, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Ferrero, Guglielmo, on the art impulse and the sexual instinct, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-fiction'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Fiction, germs of doctrine of, in Kant, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>; - <ul> - <li>first expression of doctrine of, found in Schiller, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>;</li> - <li>doctrine of, in <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange’s <i>History of Materialism</i>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>;</li> - <li>Vaihinger’s doctrine of, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>-103;</li> - <li>hypothesis, and dogma, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li> - <li>of Bovarism, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>;</li> - <li>character constituted by process of, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Fictions, the variety of, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>-100; - <ul> - <li>the value of, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>;</li> - <li>summatory, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>;</li> - <li>scientific and æsthetic, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</li> - <li>may always be changed, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>;</li> - <li>good and bad, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Fiji, dancing at, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Fijians, the, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Fine arts, the, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>; - <ul> - <li>civilisation measured by standard of, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>;</li> - <li>not to be pursued for useful end outside themselves, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Fireworks, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Flaubert, Gustave, is personal, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>; - <ul> - <li>sought to be most objective of artists, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Flowers, the attitude of the poet toward, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Flying-machines, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>designed by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Foch, Ferdinand, quoted, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Fokine, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Folk-dances, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Force, a fiction, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Fossils, significance of, discovered by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Fox, George, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>France, tests of civilization applied to, by Niceforo, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>-97.</li> - <li class='c012'>Francis of Assisi, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Franck, César, mysticism in music of, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Frazer, <abbr class='spell'>J. G.</abbr>, on magic and science, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Freedom, a fiction, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>French ballet, the, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>French speech, its course, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Freud, Sigmund, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>regards dreaming as fiction, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>;</li> - <li>on the probability of the disappearance of religion, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Frobisher, Sir Martin, his spelling, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Galen, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Galton, Francis, a man of science and an artist, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>-28; - <ul> - <li>founder of the modern scientific art of eugenics, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;</li> - <li>and Jesus’s assertion of the principle of eugenics, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Games, the liking of the Chinese for, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Gaultier, Jules de, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>on Buddhist monks, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on pain and pleasure in life, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on morality and reason, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>;</li> - <li>on morality and art, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>;</li> - <li>on the antinomy between morals and morality, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>;</li> - <li>on beauty, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>;</li> - <li>on life as a spectacle, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>;</li> - <li>the Bovarism of, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>-37;</li> - <li>his philosophic descent, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>;</li> - <li>applies Bovarism to the Universe, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>;</li> - <li>his philosophy seems to be in harmony with physics, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>;</li> - <li>the place of morality, religion, and law in his system, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>-40;</li> - <li>place of the æsthetic instinct in his system, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>-45;</li> - <li>system of, compared with Russell’s, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>;</li> - <li>importance of development of æsthetic sense to, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>;</li> - <li>and the idea of pure art, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>;</li> - <li>considers æsthetic sense mixed in manifestations of life, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a>;</li> - <li>had predilection for middle class, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>, <a href='#Page_357'>357</a>;</li> - <li>sees no cause for despair in break-up of civilisation, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Gauss, <abbr class='spell'>C. F.</abbr>, religious, though man of science, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-genesis'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Genesis, Book of, the fashioning of the cosmos in, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Genius, the birth of, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>; - <ul> - <li>and education, as tests, of civilisation, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>-93;</li> - <li>of country, and temper of the population, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Geology, founded by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Geometry, Protagoras’s studies in, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>; - <ul> - <li>a science or art, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Gibbon, Edward, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Gide, André, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Gizycki, Georg von, on Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>God, a fiction, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Goethe, <abbr class='spell'>J. W.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>; - <ul> - <li>representative of ideal of totality of existence, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>;</li> - <li>called architecture “frozen music,” <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li> - <li>his power of intuition, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li> - <li>his studies in mathematical physics, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>use of word “stamped” of certain phrases, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>;</li> - <li>mistook birds, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>;</li> - <li>felt harmony of religion and science, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>;</li> - <li>and Schiller and Humboldt, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Gomperz, Theodor, his <i>Greek Thinkers</i>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a> <i>n.</i>; <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Goncourt, Jules de, his style, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Goncourts, the, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Good, the, and beauty, among the Greeks, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Goodness, and sweetness, in Shaftesbury’s philosophy, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>; - <ul> - <li>and sweetness, originally the same, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>;</li> - <li>moral, originally expressed in terms of taste, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Gorgias, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Gourmont, Remy de, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>; - <ul> - <li>his remark about pleasure, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>;</li> - <li>on personality, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>;</li> - <li>on style, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>;</li> - <li>on civilisation, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>;</li> - <li>on the Jesuits, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>;</li> - <li>on beauty, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>;</li> - <li>on art and morality, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>;</li> - <li>on sociological function of art, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Government, as art, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Grace, an element of style in writing, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Grammar, Protagoras the initiator of modern, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>; - <ul> - <li>a science or art, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li> - <li>writing not made by the laws of, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Grammarian, the, the formulator, not the lawgiver, of usage, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Great Wall of China, the, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Great War, the, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Greece, ancient, genius built upon basis of slavery in, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>; - <ul> - <li>the spirit of, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Greek art, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Greek dancing, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Greek drama, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Greek morality, an artistic balance of light and shade, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Greek speech, the best literary prose, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Greek spirit, the, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Greeks, attitude of thinkers of, on life as art, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>-53; - <ul> - <li>the pottery of, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>;</li> - <li>importance of dancing and music in organisation of some states of, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>;</li> - <li>books on, written by barbarians, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>mysticism of, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>-07, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>-43;</li> - <li>spheres of ethics and æsthetics not distinguished among, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</li> - <li>had a kind of æsthetic morality, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>-18;</li> - <li>recognised destruction of ethical and intellectual virtues, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</li> - <li>a small minority of abnormal persons among, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Greenslet, Ferris, on the Cartesian influence on English prose style, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Groos, Karl, his “the play of inner imitation,” <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>; - <ul> - <li>has developed æsthetic side of <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>miterleben</i></span>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Grosse, on the social significance of dancing, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Grote, George, his chapter on Socrates, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Grotius, Hugo, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Guitar, the, an Egyptian instrument, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Gumplowicz, Ludwig, on civilisation, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Gunpowder, use made of, by Chinese, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Guyau, insisted on sociological function of art, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>; - <ul> - <li>believes that poets and artists will be priests of social religion without dogmas, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Gypsies, possible origin of the name “Egyptians” as applied to them, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c004'>Hadfield, Emma, her account of the life of the natives of the Loyalty Islands, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-18.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hakluyt, Richard, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>; - <ul> - <li>his picture of Chinese life, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hall, Stanley, on importance of dancing, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the beauty of virtue, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Handel, <abbr class='spell'>G. F.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-handwriting'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Handwriting, partly a matter of individual instinct, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>; - <ul> - <li>the complexity and mystery enwrapping, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>;</li> - <li>resemblances in, among members of the same family, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>;</li> - <li>atavism in, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hang-Chau, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hardy, Thomas, his lyrics, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>his sensitivity to the sounds of Nature, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>;</li> - <li>his genius unquestioned, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hawaii, dancing in, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his style, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hebrews, their conception of the fashioning of the universe, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>; - <ul> - <li>ancient, their priests and their prophets, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>;</li> - <li>never conceived of the art of morals, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</li> - <li>were no æsthetic intuitionists, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hegel, <abbr class='spell'>G. W. F.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>; - <ul> - <li>poetic quality of his philosophy, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>;</li> - <li>his attempt to transform subjective processes into objective world-processes, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Heine, Heinrich, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Hellenism, the revivalists of, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Helmholtz, <abbr class='spell'>H. L. F.</abbr>, science and art in, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hemelverdeghem, Salome on Cathedral at, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Heraclitus, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Herder, <abbr class='spell'>J. G.</abbr> von, his <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit</i></span>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>; - <ul> - <li>inspired by Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Heredity, in handwriting, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>; - <ul> - <li>in style, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>-61, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>;</li> - <li>tradition the corporeal embodiment of, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hincks, Marcella Azra, on the art of dancing in Japan, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Hindu dance, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hinton, James, on thinking as an art, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>on the arts, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>;</li> - <li>the universe according to, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>;</li> - <li>Ellis’s copy of his book, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>;</li> - <li>on pleasure and pain in the art of life, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>;</li> - <li>on methods of arts and moral action, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hippias, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>; - <ul> - <li>significance of his ideas, in conception of life as an art, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>-6;</li> - <li>his ideal, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>;</li> - <li>the Great Logician, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hobbes, Thomas, on space, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>; - <ul> - <li>his dictum <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Homo homini lupus</i></span>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hodgson, Shadworth, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hoffman, Bernhard, his <i>Guide to the Bird-World</i>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Horace, the popularity of, in modern times, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hovelaque, Émile, on the Chinese, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Howell, James, his “Familiar Letters,” <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hugo, Victor, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hula dance, the, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Humboldt, Wilhelm von, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hume, David, took up fictional point of view, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>; - <ul> - <li>recognised Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li> - <li>influenced by Hutcheson, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Hunt, Leigh, sensitively acute critic of Keats, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hunter, John, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hutcheson, Francis, æsthetic moralist, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>; - <ul> - <li>came out of Calvinistic Puritanism, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>;</li> - <li>one of the founders of æsthetics, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>wrote the first modern treatise on æsthetics, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>;</li> - <li>represented reaction against Puritanism, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>;</li> - <li>Shaftesbury’s ideas as developed by, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>;</li> - <li>his use of the term “moral sense,” <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li> - <li>his impressive personality, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li> - <li>philosophy was art of living to, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>;</li> - <li>inconsistent, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>;</li> - <li>on distinction between art and æsthetics, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>his idea of the æsthetic and the moral emotion, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Huysmans, <abbr class='spell'>J. K.</abbr>, his vocabulary, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>; - <ul> - <li>at Wagner concert, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;</li> - <li>fascinated by concert programmes, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>“Hymn of Jesus,” the, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Hypothesis, dogma, and fiction, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'><i>I</i> and <i>me</i>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Idealisation, in adolescence, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Idealism, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Idealists, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Ideals, are fictions, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Imagination, a constitutive part of thinking, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>; - <ul> - <li>man lives by, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</li> - <li>guarded by judgment and principles, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>-32;</li> - <li>part performed by, in morals, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>;</li> - <li>and the æsthetic instinct, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Imbeciles, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a>-55.</li> - <li class='c012'>Imitation, in the productions of young writers, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Immoral</i>, significance of the word, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Immortality, a fiction, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-impulses'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Impulses, creative and possessive, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>-43.</li> - <li class='c012'>Inclination, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>India, dancing in, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>; - <ul> - <li>the Todas of, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Indians, American, religious dances among, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Infanticide, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Infinite, the, a fiction, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Infinitive, the split, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>-47.</li> - <li class='c012'>Inge, Dean, on Plotinus, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>on Pagan Mysteries, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Innate ideas, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Insects, dancing among, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Instinct, the part it plays in style, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>; - <ul> - <li>imitation a part of, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>;</li> - <li>and tradition, mould morals, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>-59;</li> - <li>the possessive, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>-40, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a>, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-possessive-instinct'>Possessive instinct</a>;</li> - <li>the æsthetic, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>-46, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a>, <i>see</i> <a href='#index-aesthetic-instinct'>Æsthetic instinct</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Instincts, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Intelligence, the sphere of, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Intuition, the starting point of science, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>; - <ul> - <li>meaning of, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>of the man of genius, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Intuitionism, æsthetic, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Intuitionists, the, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>-34.</li> - <li class='c012'>Invention, necessary in science, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Invincible ignorance, doctrine of, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Irony, Socratic, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Irrationalism, of Vaihinger, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Isocrates, on beauty and virtue, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Italy, Romantic dancing originated in, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>; - <ul> - <li>the ballet in, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>-58.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c004'>Jansenists, the, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Japan, dancing in, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Java, dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jehovah, in the Book of Genesis, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jeremiah, the prophet, his voice and instrument, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jeres, cathedral of, dancing in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jesuits, the, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>-05.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jesus, and Napoleon, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>; - <ul> - <li>and the Platonic Socrates, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>asserts principle of eugenics, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>;</li> - <li>and Plato, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Joël, Karl, on the Xenophontic Socrates, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the evolution of the Greek philosophic spirit, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>John of the Cross, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Johnson, Samuel, the pedantry of, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>; - <ul> - <li>Latin-French element in, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>;</li> - <li>his idea of “matter,” <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Johnston, Sir <abbr class='spell'>H. H.</abbr>, on the dancing of the Pygmies, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jones, Dr. Bence, biographer of Faraday, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Jonson, Ben, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Joyce, James, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; - <ul> - <li>his <i>Ulysses</i>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c004'>Kant, Immanuel, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>; - <ul> - <li>germs of the doctrine of the “as if” in, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>;</li> - <li>his idea of the art of morals, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>;</li> - <li>influenced by Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>;</li> - <li>anecdote about, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>;</li> - <li>rationalises morality, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Keats, John, concerned with beautiful words in “The Eve of <abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Agnes,” <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Kepler, Johann, his imagination and his accuracy in calculation, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Keyserling, Count Hermann, his <i>Philosophie als Kunst</i>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>“Knowing,” analysis of, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Kolbe, <abbr title='reverend'>Rev.</abbr> Dr., illustrates æsthetic view of morals, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c004'>Lamb, Charles, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Landor, <abbr class='spell'>W. S.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>; - <ul> - <li>on vulgarisms in language, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on the poet and poetry, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>;</li> - <li>on style, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Lange, <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr>, his <i>The History of Materialism</i>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>; - <ul> - <li>sets forth conception of philosophy as poetic art, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>the Neo-Kantism of, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>;</li> - <li>his influence on Vaihinger, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Language, critics of present-day, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>-51; - <ul> - <li>of our forefathers and of to-day, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;</li> - <li>things we are told to avoid in, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>-51;</li> - <li>is imagery and metaphor, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>;</li> - <li>reaction of thought on, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>-81;</li> - <li>progress in, due to flexibility and intimacy, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Languages, the Yo-heave-ho theory of, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Lankester, Sir <abbr class='spell'>E.</abbr> Ray, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Lao-tze, and Confucius, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>; - <ul> - <li>the earliest of the great mystics, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>;</li> - <li>harmony of religion and science in his work, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Law, a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>; - <ul> - <li>to be replaced by æsthetic instinct, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Laycock, on handwriting, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Leibnitz, Baron <abbr class='spell'>S. W.</abbr> von, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>on space, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>;</li> - <li>on music, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li> - <li>admired Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>“L’Esprit Nouveau,” <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Libby, <abbr class='spell'>M. F.</abbr>, on Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Lie, Jonas, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Life, more difficult to realise it as an art than to act it so, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>; - <ul> - <li>as art, view of highest thinkers of China and Greece on, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>-6, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>-52;</li> - <li>ideal of totality of, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>;</li> - <li>art of, has been decadent during last two thousand years, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>of the Loyalty Islanders, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-18;</li> - <li>the Lifuan art of, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-18;</li> - <li>the Chinese art of, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>;</li> - <li>Chinese civilization proves that it is art, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;</li> - <li>embodiment of the Chinese symbol of the art of, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>;</li> - <li>identical with art, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>-35;</li> - <li>the art of, a dance, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>;</li> - <li>mechanistic explanation of, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>;</li> - <li>viewed in its moral aspect, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>;</li> - <li>the moralist the critic of the art of, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</li> - <li>as art, attitude of Romans toward, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>;</li> - <li>as art, attitude of Hebrews toward, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</li> - <li>the art of, both pain and pleasure in, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>;</li> - <li>as art, a conception approved by men of high character, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>;</li> - <li>not to be precisely measured by statistics, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> - <li>as a spectacle, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Lifu. <i>See</i> <a href='#index-loyalty-islands'>Loyalty Islands</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-lifuans'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Lifuans, the, the art of living of, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-18.</li> - <li class='c012'>Limoges, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Linnæan system, the, a fiction, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Liszt, Franz, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Livingstone, David, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Locke, John, and Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Locomotive, the, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Lodge, Sir Oliver, his attempt to study religion, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Logic, a science or art, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>; - <ul> - <li>and fiction, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</li> - <li>of thought, inescapable, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Loret, on dancing, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Love, dancing the primitive expression of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>; - <ul> - <li>curiosity one of the main elements of, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Love-dance, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>-51. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-dance'>Dance</a>, <a href='#index-dancing'>Dancing</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-loyalty-islands'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Loyalty Islands, the, customs of the natives of, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-18.</li> - <li class='c012'>Lucian, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>on dancing, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Lucretius, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Lull, Ramon, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Lulli, <abbr class='spell'>J. B.</abbr>, brought women into the ballet, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Luxuries, consumption of, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>-97.</li> - <li class='c004'>Machinery of life, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Madagascar, dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Magic, relation of, to science and religion, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>-96.</li> - <li class='c012'>Magna Carta, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Malherbe, François de, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mallarmé, Stéphane, music the voice of the world to, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mallorca, dancing in church in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mammals, dancing among, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Man, has found it more difficult to conceive life as an art than to act it so, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>; - <ul> - <li>his conception less that of an artist, as time went on, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>;</li> - <li>in Protagoras’s philosophy, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> - <li>ceremony and music, his external and internal life, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>;</li> - <li>added to Nature, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</li> - <li>has passed through stages of magic, religion, and science, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>;</li> - <li>an artist of his own life, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>;</li> - <li>is an artist, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>;</li> - <li>as artist and as æsthetician, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>;</li> - <li>becomes the greatest force in Nature, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>;</li> - <li>practices adopted by, to maintain selection of best stock, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Mandeville, Sir John, on Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Manet, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Marco Polo, his picture of Chinese life, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>; - <ul> - <li>noticed absence of beggars in China, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>;</li> - <li>on public baths in China, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Marett, on magic and science, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Marlowe, Christopher, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Marquesans, the, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Marriott, Charles, on the union of æsthetic sense with artistic instinct, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Martial, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mass, dancing in ritual of, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>-45; - <ul> - <li>analogy of Pagan Mysteries to, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Master of Arts, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Materialism, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Materialistic, the term, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mathematical Renaissance, the, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mathematics, false ideas in, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>;</li> - <li class='c012'>and art, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>-40.</li> - <li class='c012'>Matter, a fiction, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>; - <ul> - <li>and spirit, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Maupassant, Guy de, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>McDougall, William, accepts magic as origin of science, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>; - <ul> - <li>his criticism of the “moral sense,” <a href='#Page_274'>274</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>his study of civilisation, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>;</li> - <li>on birth-rate, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><i>Me</i> and <i>I</i>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mead, <abbr class='spell'>G. R.</abbr>, his article <i>The Sacred Dance of Jesus</i>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Measurement, Protagoras’s saying concerning, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mechanics, beginning of science of, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>; - <ul> - <li>theories of, studied by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Medici, Catherine de’, brought Italian ballet to Paris, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Medicine, and religion, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Medicine-man, the, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>-95.</li> - <li class='c012'>Meh-ti, Chinese philosopher, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Men, of to-day and of former days, their comparative height, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Men of science,” <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-scientist'>Scientist</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Meteorological Bureau, the, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Metre, poetic, arising out of work, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Michelangelo, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Milan, the ballet in, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mill, <abbr class='spell'>J. S.</abbr>, on science and art, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>; - <ul> - <li>criticism of Bentham, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Millet, <abbr class='spell'>J. F.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Milton, John, his misuse of the word “eglantine,” <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>; - <ul> - <li>Tolstoy’s opinion of, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Mirandola, Pico della, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Mittag-Lefler, Gustav, on mathematics, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Möbius, Paul Julius, German psychologist, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Moissac, Salome capital in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Montaigne, <abbr class='spell'>M. E.</abbr> de, his style flexible and various, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>; - <ul> - <li>his quotations moulded to the pattern of his own mind, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>;</li> - <li>his style and that of Renan, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>;</li> - <li>the originality of his style found in vocabulary, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Montesquieu, Baron de, his admiration for Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the evils of civilisation, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><i>Moral</i>, significance of the term, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Moral maxims, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Moral reformer, the, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Moral sense,” the term as used by Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>; - <ul> - <li>in McDougall’s <i>Social Psychology</i>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Moral teaching, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Moral World-Order, the, a fiction, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Morand, Paul, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Moreau, Gustave, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Morgagni, <abbr class='spell'>G. B.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Morris, William, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Moses, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Moszkowski, Alexander, his book on Einstein, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Moralist, the critic of the art of life, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Morality, Greek, an artistic balance of light and shade, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>; - <ul> - <li>a matter of taste, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>;</li> - <li>the æsthetic quality of, evidenced by language, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>;</li> - <li>Shaftesbury’s views on, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>-66;</li> - <li>the influence of Shaftesbury on our modern, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li> - <li>imagination in, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>;</li> - <li>instinctive, according to Hutcheson, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li> - <li>conception of, as an art, does not lack seriousness, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>;</li> - <li>the æsthetic view of, advocated by Catholics, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>the æsthetic view of, repugnant to two classes of minds, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>-82;</li> - <li>indefiniteness of criterion of, an advantage, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>;</li> - <li>justification of æsthetic conception of, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>;</li> - <li>flexible and inflexible, illustrated by Jesuits and Pascal, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>-05;</li> - <li>art the reality of, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>;</li> - <li>æsthetic, of the Greeks, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>-18;</li> - <li>the antinomy between morals and, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>;</li> - <li>a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>-40;</li> - <li>to be replaced by æsthetic instinct, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>;</li> - <li>æsthetic instinct has the character of, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-morals'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Morals, dancing as, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>; - <ul> - <li>books on, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>;</li> - <li>defined, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>;</li> - <li>means <i>custom</i>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>;</li> - <li>Plotinus’s conception of, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>-52;</li> - <li>as art, views of the Greeks and the Romans on, differ, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>;</li> - <li>Hebrews never conceived of the art of, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</li> - <li>as art, modern conception of, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</li> - <li>the modern feeling about, is Jewish and Roman, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</li> - <li>Kant’s idea of the art of, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>;</li> - <li>formed by instinct, tradition and reason, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>-59;</li> - <li>Greek, have come to modern world through Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li> - <li>the æsthetic attitude possible for spectator of, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>;</li> - <li>art and æsthetics to be kept apart in, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>-28;</li> - <li>a species of the genus art, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>;</li> - <li>the antinomy between morality and, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>;</li> - <li>philosophers have failed to see that it is an art, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><i>Morisco</i>, the, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Mozart, Wolfgang, his interest in dancing, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Müller-Freienfels, Richard, two kinds of æsthetic contemplation defined by, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Multatuli, quoted on the source of curiosity, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Music, and ceremony, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>-26; - <ul> - <li>and acting, and poetry, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>;</li> - <li>and singing, and dancing, their relation, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>;</li> - <li>a science or art, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li> - <li>discovery of Pythagoras in, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>;</li> - <li>philosophy the noblest and best, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>the most abstract, the most nearly mathematical of the arts, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li> - <li>of style, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>;</li> - <li>of philosophy and religion, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Musical forms, evolved from similar dances, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Musical instruments, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Musset, Alfred de, his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Confession d’un Enfant du Siècle</i></span>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mysteries, the Eleusinian, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>-43.</li> - <li class='c012'>Mystic, the genuine, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>; - <ul> - <li>Lao-tze, the earliest great, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Mystics, the great, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-mysticism'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Mysticism, the right use and the abuse of the word, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>; - <ul> - <li>and science, supposed difference between, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>-203;</li> - <li>what is meant by, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>;</li> - <li>and science, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>-08;</li> - <li>of the Greeks, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>-07, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>-43;</li> - <li>and science, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of Havelock Ellis, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>-18;</li> - <li>and science, how they came to be considered out of harmony, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>-35;</li> - <li>and science, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>;</li> - <li>the key to much that is precious in art and Nature in, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>;</li> - <li>is not science, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>-40;</li> - <li>æsthetics on same plane as, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-religion'>Religion</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c004'>Napoleon, described as unmitigated scoundrel by <abbr class='spell'>H. G.</abbr> Wells, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>-10; - <ul> - <li>described as lyric artist by Élie Faure, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Nature, and convention, Hippias made distinction between, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>; - <ul> - <li>comes through an atmosphere which is the emanation of supreme artists, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;</li> - <li>the attitude of the poet in the face of, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>;</li> - <li>the object of Leonardo da Vinci’s searchings, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>;</li> - <li>Man added to, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</li> - <li>communion with, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>;</li> - <li>in Shaftesbury’s system, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>;</li> - <li>and art, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Neo-Platonists, the, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>; - <ul> - <li>asceticism in, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Nests, birds’, and dancing, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Newell, <abbr class='spell'>W. W.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Newman, Cardinal <abbr class='spell'>J. H.</abbr>, the music of his style, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Newton, Sir Isaac, his wonderful imagination, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>; - <ul> - <li>his force of attraction a summatory fiction, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>;</li> - <li>represents in England new impetus to sciences, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>;</li> - <li>his attempt to study religion, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>-201;</li> - <li>religious, though a man of science, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Niceforo, Alfred, his measurement of civilisation, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>; - <ul> - <li>tests of civilisation applied to France by, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>-97.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Nietzsche, Friedrich, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>; - <ul> - <li>conceived the art of life as a dance, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>;</li> - <li>poetic quality of his philosophy, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>;</li> - <li>Vaihinger’s opinion of, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</li> - <li>on Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>;</li> - <li>the “divine malice” of, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>laboured at his prose, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>;</li> - <li>demolished <abbr class='spell'>D. F.</abbr> Strauss’s ideas, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>;</li> - <li>on learning to dance, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>;</li> - <li>his gospel of taste, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>;</li> - <li>on the Sophists, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on art as the great stimulus of life, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>;</li> - <li>on the world as a spectacle, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>;</li> - <li>moved by the “masculine protest,” <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>;</li> - <li>Jesus reproached by, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Novelists, their reservoirs of knowledge, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Noverre, and the ballet, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Ockham, William of, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-old-testament'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Old Testament, the, and the conception of morality as an art, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-bible'>Bible</a>, <a href='#index-genesis'>Genesis</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Omahas, the, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Onions, <abbr class='spell'>C. T.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Optimism, and pessimism, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>-92.</li> - <li class='c012'>Origen, on the dancing of the stars, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Orpheus, fable of, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Osler, Sir William, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Pacific, the, creation as conceived in, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>; - <ul> - <li>dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-lifuans'>Lifuans</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pain, and pleasure, united, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Painting, Chinese, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>; - <ul> - <li>and sculpture, and the arts of design, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>;</li> - <li>of Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Palante, Georges, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Paley, William, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Palladius, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pantomime, and pantomimic dancing, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Papuans, the, are artistic, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Parachute, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Paris, dancing in choir in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>; - <ul> - <li>the ballet at, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Parker, Professor <abbr class='spell'>E. H.</abbr>, his book <i>China: Past and Present</i>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>his view of Chinese vermin and dirt, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Parks, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Parmelee, Maurice, his <i>Criminology</i>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Parsons, Professor, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pascal, Blaise, and the Jesuits, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pater, <abbr class='spell'>W. H.</abbr>, the music of his style, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pattison, Pringle, his definition of mysticism, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Paul, Vincent de, his moral attitude, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Paulhan, on morality, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pell, <abbr class='spell'>E. C.</abbr>, on decreasing birth-rate, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Pepys, Samuel, the accomplishment of his “Diary,” <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Perera, Galeotto, his picture of Chinese life, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>; - <ul> - <li>noticed absence of beggars in China, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pericles, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Personality, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pessimism, and optimism, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>-92.</li> - <li class='c012'>Petrie, Dr. <abbr class='spell'>W. M.</abbr> Flinders, his attempt to measure civilisation by standard of sculpture, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Peyron, traveller, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Phenomenalism, Protagoras the father of, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Philosopher, the primitive, usually concluded that the universe was a work of art, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>; - <ul> - <li>a creative artist, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>;</li> - <li>curiosity the stimulus of, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Philosophy, of the Chinese, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>; - <ul> - <li>solution of the conflicts of, in art, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>and art, close relationship of, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>-85;</li> - <li>and poetry, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>;</li> - <li>is music, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Physics, and fiction, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pictures, revelation of beauty in, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>; - <ul> - <li>should be looked at in silence, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pindar, calls Hellas “the land of lovely dancing,” <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Planck, Max, physicist, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Plato, Protagoras calumniated by, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>; - <ul> - <li>made fun of Hippias, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>;</li> - <li>his description of a good education, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>;</li> - <li>a creative artist, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>;</li> - <li>his picture of Socrates, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>;</li> - <li>the biographies of, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>;</li> - <li>his irony, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>a marvellous artist, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>;</li> - <li>a supreme artist in philosophy, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>a supreme dramatist, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>his “Ideas” and the “As-If world,” <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</li> - <li>the myths, as fictions, hypotheses, and dogmas, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li> - <li>represents the acme of literary prose speech, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</li> - <li>and Plotinus, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>;</li> - <li>on the Mysteries, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>;</li> - <li>asceticism, traced in, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on justice, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>;</li> - <li>his ideal of wise moderation addressed to an immoderate people, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>;</li> - <li>Sophists caricatured by, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> - <li>his “guardians,” <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>;</li> - <li>the ultrapuritanical attitude of, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>and Bovarism, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>;</li> - <li>on the value of sight, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>wished to do away with imaginative literature, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>and Jesus, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pleasure, a human creation, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>; - <ul> - <li>and pain, united, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pliny, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Plotinus, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>; - <ul> - <li>Greek moral spirit reflected in, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>;</li> - <li>his doctrine of Beauty, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>;</li> - <li>his idea that the moral life of the soul is a dance, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>;</li> - <li>his simile of the sculptor, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>founder of æsthetics in the philosophic sense, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>;</li> - <li>recognised three aspects of the Absolute, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</li> - <li>insisted on contemplation, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>;</li> - <li>of the participating contemplative temperament, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Poet, the type of all thinkers, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>; - <ul> - <li>Landor on, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</li> - <li>his attitude in the presence of Nature, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>;</li> - <li>the great, does not describe Nature minutely, but uses his knowledge of, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Poetry, Chinese, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>; - <ul> - <li>and music, and acting, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>;</li> - <li>and dancing, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>;</li> - <li>and philosophy, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>;</li> - <li>and science, no sharp boundary between, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>;</li> - <li>Landor on, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</li> - <li>a <i>making</i>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>;</li> - <li>Aristotle’s view of, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>;</li> - <li>does not exist for morals, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Polka, origin of the, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Polynesia, dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Polynesian islanders, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pontiff, the Bridge-Builder, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pope, Alexander, influence of Shaftesbury on, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Porphyry, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Possessive impulses, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>-43.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-possessive-instinct'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Possessive instinct, restraints placed upon, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>-40; - <ul> - <li>in Gaultier and Russell, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>;</li> - <li>excesses of, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pottery, of the Chinese, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>; - <ul> - <li>of the Greeks and the Minoan predecessors of the Greeks, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Pound, Miss, on the origin of the ballad, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Pragmatism, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pragmatists, the, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Precious stones, attitude of the poet toward, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Preposition, the post-habited, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Prettiness, and beauty, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Priest, cultivated science in form of magic, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>; - <ul> - <li>and doctor, originally one, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Prodicus, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>; - <ul> - <li>the Great Moralist, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Progress, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>; - <ul> - <li>on meaning of, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Prophecy, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Prophet</i>, meaning of the word, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Propriety, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>-26.</li> - <li class='c012'>Protagoras, significance of his ideas, in conception of life as an art, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>; - <ul> - <li>his interest for us to-day, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>;</li> - <li>his dictum “Man is the measure of all things,” <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> - <li>concerned to regard living as an art, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Proust, Marcel, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; - <ul> - <li>his art, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>;</li> - <li>his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>A la Recherche du Temps Perdu</i></span>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>;</li> - <li>admiration of, for Ruskin, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Puberty, questions arising at time of, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>-07.</li> - <li class='c012'>Puritanism, reaction against, represented by Hutcheson, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pygmalionism, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Pygmies, the dancing of the, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Pythagoras, represents the beginning of science, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>; - <ul> - <li>fundamentally an artist, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>;</li> - <li>founded religious brotherhoods, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c004'>Quatelet, on social questions, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Quoting, by writers, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Rabbitism, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rabelais, François, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Race mixture, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Raleigh, Sir Walter, his literary style, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ramedjenis, the, street dancers, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rank, Dr. Otto, his essay on the artist, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Realism, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Realists, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Reality, a flux of happening, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Reason, helps to mould morals, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>-59.</li> - <li class='c012'>Reid, Thomas, influenced by Hutcheson, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Relativism, Protagoras the father of, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-religion'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Religion, as the desire for the salvation of the soul, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>; - <ul> - <li>origin of dance in, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>;</li> - <li>connection of dance with, among primitive men, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>;</li> - <li>in music, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>;</li> - <li>and science, supposed difference between, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>-203;</li> - <li>its quintessential core, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>;</li> - <li>control of Nature through oneness with Nature, at the heart of, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>;</li> - <li>relation of, to science and magic, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>-96;</li> - <li>the man of, studying science, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>;</li> - <li>and science, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>-08;</li> - <li>and science, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of Havelock Ellis, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>-18;</li> - <li>asceticism has nothing to do with normal, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>;</li> - <li>and science, how they came to be considered out of harmony, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>-35;</li> - <li>the burden of the traditions of, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>;</li> - <li>and church, not the same, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>the instinct of, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>;</li> - <li>and science, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>;</li> - <li>is not science, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>-40;</li> - <li>an act, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>;</li> - <li>a restraint placed upon the possessive instinct, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>;</li> - <li>to be replaced by æsthetic instinct, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.</li> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-mysticism'>Mysticism</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Religions, in every case originally saltatory, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Religious dances, ecstatic and pantomimic, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>; - <ul> - <li>survivals of, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>;</li> - <li>in Christianity, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>-45.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Renan, <abbr class='spell'>J. E.</abbr>, his style, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>; - <ul> - <li>his <i>Life of Jesus</i>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>;</li> - <li>on truth, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>“Resident in Peking, A,” author of <i>China as it Really Is</i>, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-revelation'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Revelation, Book of, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Revival, the, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rhythm, marks all the physical and spiritual manifestations of life, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>; - <ul> - <li>in work, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Rickert, <abbr class='spell'>H.</abbr>, his twofold division of Reality, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ridgeway, William, his theory of origin of tragedy, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Roberts, Morley, ironical over certain “men of science,” <a href='#Page_126'>126</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Robinson, Dr. Louis, on apes and dancing, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the influence of the drum, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Rodó, his conceptions those of Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Roman law, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Romans, the ancient, dancing and war allied among, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>; - <ul> - <li>did not believe that living is an art, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Romantic spirit, the, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Romantics, the, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rome, ancient, dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>; - <ul> - <li>genius built upon basis of slavery in, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Rops, Félicien, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ross, Robert, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rouen Cathedral, Salome on portal of, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Rousseau, <abbr class='spell'>J. J.</abbr>, Napoleon before grave of, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>; - <ul> - <li>felt his lapses, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>;</li> - <li>grace of, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>;</li> - <li>love of Nature developed through, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>;</li> - <li>and Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>;</li> - <li>decided against civilisation, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Roussillon, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rule, rigid subserviency to, mark of decadence, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>; - <ul> - <li>much lost by rigid adherence to, in style, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><i>Rules for Compositors and Readers</i>, on spelling, Oxford University Press, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Ruskin, John, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>; - <ul> - <li>a God-intoxicated man, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Russell, Bertrand, on the Chinese, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>; - <ul> - <li>on mathematics, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>;</li> - <li>on the creative and the possessive impulses, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>-07, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>;</li> - <li>system of, compared with Gaultier’s, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Russia, the genius of, compared with the temper of the population, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Russian ballet, the, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>-60.</li> - <li class='c012'>Rutherford, Sir Ernest, on the atomic constitution, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c004'><abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Augustine, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the art of living well, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Basil, on the dancing of the angels, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Bonaventura, said to have been author of “Diet a Salutis,” <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Denis, Ruth, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Theresa, and Darwin, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Salome, the dance of, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Salt</i>, intellectual and moral suggestion of the word, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Salt, Mr., <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Salter, <abbr class='spell'>W. M.</abbr>, his <i>Nietzsche the Thinker</i>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Samoa, sacred position of carpenter in, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Sand, George, on civilisation, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Santayana, Professor George, on union of æsthetic sense with artistic instinct, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Schelling, <abbr class='spell'>F. W. J.</abbr> von, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>; - <ul> - <li>on philosophy and poetry, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Schiller, Friedrich von, influence on Vaihinger, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>; - <ul> - <li>and the æsthetic conception of morals, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Schleiermacher, Friedrich, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Schmidt, Dr. Raymund, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Schopenhauer, Arthur, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>his influence on Vaihinger, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>;</li> - <li>as regards his quotations, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>;</li> - <li>morals based on sympathy, according to, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>;</li> - <li>on the uselessness of art, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>;</li> - <li>on the man of genius, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>;</li> - <li>on sociological function of art, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>;</li> - <li>on the proper way of looking at pictures, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on the world as a spectacle, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Science, spirit of modern, in Protagoras, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>; - <ul> - <li>as the search for the reason of things, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>;</li> - <li>and poetry, no sharp boundary between, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>;</li> - <li>impulse to, and the sexual instinct, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</li> - <li>intuition and invention needed by, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</li> - <li>and mysticism, supposed difference between, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>-203;</li> - <li>what is meant by, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>;</li> - <li>and art, no distinction between, in classic times, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</li> - <li>and art, distinction between, in modern times, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>-70;</li> - <li>definitions of, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>;</li> - <li>is of the nature of art, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>;</li> - <li>the imaginative application of, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>;</li> - <li>Pythagoras represents the beginning of, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>;</li> - <li>control of Nature through oneness with Nature, at the heart of, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>;</li> - <li>relation of, to magic and religion, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>-96;</li> - <li>and pseudo-science, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>-202;</li> - <li>and mysticism, the harmony of, as revealed in human history, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>-08;</li> - <li>and mysticism, the harmony of, as supported by personal experience of Havelock Ellis, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>-18;</li> - <li>and mysticism, how they came to be considered out of harmony, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>-35;</li> - <li>traditions of, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>;</li> - <li>the instinct of, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>;</li> - <li>and mysticism, harmony of, summary of considerations confirming, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>;</li> - <li>is not religion, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>-40;</li> - <li>not pursued for useful ends, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>;</li> - <li>for science’s sake, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Sciences, and arts, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>-70; - <ul> - <li>biological and social, fiction in, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li> - <li>mathematical impetus given to, toward end of seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>;</li> - <li>biological, awakening of, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>;</li> - <li>mathematical, renaissance of, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-scientist'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Scientist, the true, an artist, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>; - <ul> - <li>curiosity the stimulus of, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>;</li> - <li>the false, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>;</li> - <li>who turns to religion, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>-201.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Scott, <abbr class='spell'>W. R.</abbr>, on art and æsthetics, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Scottish School, the, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Sculpture, painting, and the arts of design, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>; - <ul> - <li>civilisation measured by standard of, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Seises, the, the dance of, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Selous, Edmund, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Semon, Professor, <abbr class='spell'>R.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>“Sense,” Hutcheson’s conception of, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Seville, cathedral of, dancing in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Sex, instinct of, a reaction to the stimulus of curiosity, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>; - <ul> - <li>early questions concerning, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>-07;</li> - <li>source of art impulse, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>-12;</li> - <li>and the scientific interest, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</li> - <li>not absolutely essential, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Sexual imagery, strain of, in thought, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>“Shadow,” <a href='#Page_219'>219</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Shaftesbury, Earl of, influence on Kant, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>; - <ul> - <li>illustrated unsystematic method of thinking, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>;</li> - <li>his book, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>;</li> - <li>his theory of Æsthetic Intuitionism, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>;</li> - <li>his affinity to the Greeks, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>;</li> - <li>his early life, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>;</li> - <li>his idea of goodness, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>;</li> - <li>his principles expounded, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>-66;</li> - <li>his influence on later writers and thinkers, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>;</li> - <li>his influence on our modern morality, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li> - <li>the greatest Greek of modern times, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>;</li> - <li>his service to the modern world, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li> - <li>measure of his recognition in Scotland and England, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>;</li> - <li>recognition of, abroad, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>;</li> - <li>made no clear distinction between creative artistic impulse and critical æsthetic appreciation, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>;</li> - <li>realised that reason cannot affect appetite, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>;</li> - <li>one of the founders of æsthetics, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>;</li> - <li>his use of the term “moral sense,” <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li> - <li>temperamentally a Stoic, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>;</li> - <li>of the æsthetic contemplative temperament, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Shakespeare, William, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>; - <ul> - <li>his style compared with that of Bacon, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>;</li> - <li>affected by the intoxication of words, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>;</li> - <li>stored up material to be used freely later, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>;</li> - <li>the spelling of his name by himself, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</li> - <li>surpasses contemporaries in flexibility and intimacy, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>;</li> - <li>Tolstoy’s opinion of, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>;</li> - <li>on Nature and art, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li> - <li>his figure of Prospero, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Shamans, the, religious dances among, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>; - <ul> - <li>their wills brought into harmony with the essence of the world, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>;</li> - <li>double attitude of, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Sharp, <abbr class='spell'>F. C.</abbr>, on Hutcheson, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Shelley, <abbr class='spell'>P. B.</abbr>, mysticism in poetry of, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>; - <ul> - <li>on imagination and morality, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Sidgwick, Henry, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Singer, Dr. Charles, his definition of science, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Singing, relation to music and dancing, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Silberer, Herbert, on magic and science, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Simcox, Edith, her description of conversion, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Skene, on dances among African tribes, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Slezakova, Anna, the polka extemporised by, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Smith, Adam, his “economic man,” <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>; - <ul> - <li>morals based on sympathy, according to, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>;</li> - <li>influenced by Hutcheson, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Smith, Arthur H., his book <i>Chinese Characteristics</i>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Social capillarity, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Social ladder, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Social statistics, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>-88.</li> - <li class='c012'>Socialists, French, inspired by Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Socrates, the Platonic, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>; - <ul> - <li>Grote’s chapter on, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>;</li> - <li>the real and the legendary, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>;</li> - <li>three elements in our composite portrait of, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>-79;</li> - <li>the Platonic, and the Gospel Jesus, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>;</li> - <li>on philosophy and music, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>;</li> - <li>his view of the moralist, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Solidarity, socialistic, among the Chinese, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Solmi, Vincian scholar, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Sophists, the, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Sophocles, danced in his own dramas, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>; - <ul> - <li>beauty and moral order in, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</li> - <li>Tolstoy’s opinion of, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Soul, a fiction, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>; - <ul> - <li>in harmony with itself, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>;</li> - <li>the moral life of, as a dance, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>South Sea Islands, dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Space, absolute, a fiction, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Spain, dancing in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Speech, the best literary prose, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>; - <ul> - <li>in Greece, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</li> - <li>in England, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</li> - <li>the artist’s, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</li> - <li>a tradition, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Spelling, and thinking, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>has little to do with style, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</li> - <li>now uniform and uniformly bad, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Spencer, Herbert, on science and art, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>; - <ul> - <li>on use of science in form of magic, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>;</li> - <li>the universe according to, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>;</li> - <li>on the harmlessness of moral teaching, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>on diminishing birth-rate, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Spengler, Dr. Oswald, on the development of music, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a> <i>n.</i>; - <ul> - <li>argues on the identity of physics, mathematics, religion, and great art, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>;</li> - <li>his theory of culture and civilisation, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Spinoza, Baruch, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>; - <ul> - <li>has moved in sphere where impulses of religion and science spring from same source, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>;</li> - <li>transforms ethics into geometry, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>;</li> - <li>has been called a God-intoxicated man, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>his “intellectual love of God,” <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Spirit, and matter, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Statistics, uncertainty of, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>; - <ul> - <li>for measurement of civilisation, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>-88;</li> - <li>applied to France to test civilisation, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>-97.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Steele, Dr. John, on the Chinese ceremonial, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Stephen, Sir Leslie, on poetry and philosophy, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>; - <ul> - <li>could see no good in Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Stevenson, <abbr class='spell'>R. L.</abbr>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Stocks, eradication of unfit, by Man, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>; - <ul> - <li>recommended by Jesus, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Stoics, the, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Strauss, <abbr class='spell'>D. F.</abbr>, his <i>The Old Faith and the New</i>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-style'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Style, literary, of to-day and of our fore-fathers’ time, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>; - <ul> - <li>the achievement of, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</li> - <li>grace seasoned with salt, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</li> - <li>atavism in, in members of the same family, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>;</li> - <li>atavism in, in the race, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>;</li> - <li>much that is instinctive in, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>;</li> - <li>the music of, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>;</li> - <li>vocabulary in, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>;</li> - <li>the effect of mere words on, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-67;</li> - <li>familiarity with author’s, necessary to understanding, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>;</li> - <li>spelling has little to do with, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</li> - <li>much lost by slavish adherence to rules in, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>;</li> - <li>must have clarity and beauty, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>-78;</li> - <li>English prose, Cartesian influence on, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>personal and impersonal, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>;</li> - <li>progress in, lies in casting aside accretions and exuberances, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>;</li> - <li>founded on a model, the negation of style, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>;</li> - <li>the task of breaking the old moulds of, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>;</li> - <li>summary of elements of, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.</li> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-writing'>Writing</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Suicide, rate of, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Swahili, dancing among, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Swedenborg, Emanuel, his science and his mysticism, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Swedish ballet, the, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Sweet</i> (<i>suavis</i>), referring to moral qualities, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Sweetness, and goodness, in Shaftesbury’s philosophy, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>; - <ul> - <li>originally the same, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Swift, Jonathan, laments “the corruption of our style,” <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>; - <ul> - <li>beauty of his style, rests on truth to logic of his thought, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>;</li> - <li>utterance of, combining two conceptions of life, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Swimming-belt, constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Swinburne, <abbr class='spell'>C. A.</abbr>, on writing poetry to a tune, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>; - <ul> - <li>his <i>Poems and Ballads</i>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>;</li> - <li>his <i>Songs before Sunrise</i>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Sylvester, <abbr class='spell'>J. J.</abbr>, on mathematics, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Symphony, the development of a dance suite, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Syndicalism, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Taglioni, Maria, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tahiti, dancing at, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tambourine, the, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><i>Tao</i>, the word, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Taste, the gospel of, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Telegraph, the, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Telephone, the, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Tell-el-Amarna, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Theology, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Therapeuts, the worship of, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Thing-in-Itself, the, a fiction, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Things, are fictions, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-thinking'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Thinking, of the nature of art, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>; - <ul> - <li>and existing, on two different planes, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>;</li> - <li>the special art and object of, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>;</li> - <li>is a comparison, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</li> - <li>is a regulated error, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>;</li> - <li>abstract, the process of its birth, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Thompson, Silvanus, on Faraday, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Thomson, James, influence of Shaftesbury on, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Thomson, Sir Joseph, on matter and weight, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Thoreau, <abbr class='spell'>H. D.</abbr>, on morals, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Thought, logic of, inescapable, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tobacco, consumption of, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Todas, the, of India, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Toledo, cathedral of, dancing in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tolstoy, Count Leo, his opinions on art, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tonga, sacred position of carpenter in, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tooke, Horne, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Townsend, <abbr title='reverend'>Rev.</abbr> Joseph, on the fandango, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tradition, the corporeal embodiment of heredity, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>; - <ul> - <li>and instinct, mould morals, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>-59.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-traditions'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Traditions, religious, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>; - <ul> - <li>scientific, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Triangles, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Truth, the measuring-rod of, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>-32.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tunisia, Southern, dancing in, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>T’ung, the story of, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Turkish dervishes, dances of, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tuscans, the, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-etruscans'>Etruscans</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Tyndall, John, on Faraday, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>-32.</li> - <li class='c012'>Tyrrells, the, the handwriting of, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Ugliness, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Ulysses, representative of ideal of totality of existence, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>United States, the genius of, compared with the temper of the population, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-universe'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Universe, conceived as work of art by primitive philosopher, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>; - <ul> - <li>according to <abbr class='spell'>D. F.</abbr> Strauss, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>;</li> - <li>according to Spencer, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>;</li> - <li>according to Hinton, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>;</li> - <li>according to Sir James Frazer, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>according to Bertrand Russell, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>conception of, a personal matter, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a> <i>n.</i>;</li> - <li>the so-called materialistic, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>;</li> - <li>Bovarism of, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Utilitarians, the, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Uvea, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-loyalty-islands'>Loyalty Islands</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c004'><a id='index-vaihinger'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Vaihinger, Hans, his <i>Philosophie des Als Ob</i>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>; - <ul> - <li>English influence upon, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>;</li> - <li>allied to English spirit, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</li> - <li>his origin, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</li> - <li>his training, and vocation, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>-93;</li> - <li>influence of Schiller on, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>;</li> - <li>philosophers who influenced, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>;</li> - <li>his pessimisms, irrationalism, and voluntarism, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>;</li> - <li>his view of military power of Germany, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>;</li> - <li>his devouring appetite for knowledge, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li> - <li>reads <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange’s <i>History of Materialism</i>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>;</li> - <li>writes his book at about twenty-five years of age, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>;</li> - <li>his book published, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</li> - <li>the problem he set out to prove, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</li> - <li>his doctrine of fiction, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>-102;</li> - <li>his doctrine not immune from criticism, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</li> - <li>the fortifying influence of his philosophy, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>;</li> - <li>influenced Adler, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Valencia, cathedral of, dancing in, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Valerius, Maximus, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c012'>Van Gogh, mysticism in pictures of, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Varnhagen, Rahel, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Verbal counters, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Verlaine, Paul, the significance of words to, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Vesalius, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Vasari, Giorgio, his account of Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Vestris, Gaetan, and the ballet, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Vinci, Leonardo da, man of science, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>; - <ul> - <li>as a painter, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>;</li> - <li>his one aim, the knowledge and mastery of Nature, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>;</li> - <li>an Overman, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>;</li> - <li>science and art joined in, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>-17;</li> - <li>as the founder of professional engineering, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>;</li> - <li>the extent of his studies and inventions, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>;</li> - <li>a supreme master of language, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>;</li> - <li>his appearance, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>;</li> - <li>his parentage, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>;</li> - <li>his youthful accomplishments, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>;</li> - <li>his sexual temperament, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>;</li> - <li>the man, woman, and child in, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>;</li> - <li>a figure for awe rather than love, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Vinci, Ser Piero da, father of Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Virtue, and beauty, among the Greeks, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>; - <ul> - <li>the art of living well, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>;</li> - <li>in Shaftesbury’s system, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>;</li> - <li>beauty of, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a> <i>n.</i></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Virtues, ethical and intellectual, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Visconti, Galeazzo, spectacular pageants at marriage of, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Vocabulary, each writer creates his own, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Voltaire, <abbr class='spell'>F. M. A.</abbr> de, recognised Shaftesbury, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>; - <ul> - <li>on the foundations of society, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c004'>Wagner, Richard, on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Wallas, Professor Graham, on Plato and Dante, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>War, and dancing, allied, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Wealth, as test of civilisation, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Weight, its nature, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Weismann, and the study of heredity, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Wells, <abbr class='spell'>H. G.</abbr>, his description of Napoleon, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>-10, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Whitman, Walt, his <i>Leaves of Grass</i>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>; - <ul> - <li>words attributed to him on what is right, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Woman, the question, what she is like, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Words, have a rich content of their own, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>; - <ul> - <li>the intoxication of, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>-69;</li> - <li>their arrangement chiefly studied by young writer, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Wordsworth, William, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>; - <ul> - <li>influence of Shaftesbury on, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Work, a kind of dance, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>World, becoming impalpable and visionary, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>. - <ul> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-universe'>Universe</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Writers, the great, have observed decorum instinctively, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>; - <ul> - <li>the great, learn out of themselves, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>;</li> - <li>the great, are heroes at heart, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'><a id='index-writing'></a></li> - <li class='c012'>Writing, personality in, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>; - <ul> - <li>a common accomplishment to-day, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>;</li> - <li>an arduous intellectual task, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>;</li> - <li>good and bad, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</li> - <li>the achievement of style in, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</li> - <li>machine-made, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</li> - <li>not made by the laws of grammar, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</li> - <li>how the old method gave place to the new, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>-81;</li> - <li>summary of elements of, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.</li> - <li><i>See</i> <a href='#index-handwriting'>Handwriting</a>, <a href='#index-style'>Style</a>.</li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c012'>Wundt, Wilhelm, on the dance, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a> <i>n.</i></li> - <li class='c004'>Xavier, Francis, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</li> - <li class='c012'>Xenophon, his portrait of Socrates, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>.</li> - <li class='c004'>Zeno, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a> <i>n.</i></li> -</ul> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>Footnotes</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='footnote' id='f1'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>See, for instance, Turner’s <i>Samoa</i>, <abbr title='chapter'>chap.</abbr> 1. Usually, however, in the -Pacific, creation was accomplished, in a more genuinely evolutionary -manner, by a long series of progressive generations.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f2'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span>Gomperz, <i>Greek Thinkers</i>, vol. <span class='fss'>I</span>, book <span class='fss'>III</span>, <abbr title='chapter'>chap.</abbr> <span class='fss'>VI</span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f3'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span>I have here mainly followed Gomperz (<i>Greek Thinkers</i>, vol. <span class='fss'>I</span>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 430-34); -there is not now, however, much controversy over the position of -Hippias, which there is now, indeed, rather a tendency to exaggerate, -considering how small is the basis of knowledge we possess. Thus Dupréel -(<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Légende Socratique</i></span>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 432), regarding him as the most misunderstood -of the great Sophists, declares that Hippias is “the thinker who conceived -the universality of science, just as Prodicus caught glimpses of the -synthesis of the social sciences. Hippias is the philosopher of science, the -Great Logician, just as Prodicus is the Great Moralist.” He compares -him to Pico della Mirandola as a Humanist and to Leibnitz in power of -wide synthesis.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f4'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span>Strictly speaking, in the technical sense of that much-abused word, -this is “decadence.” (I refer to the sense in which I defined “decadence” -many years ago in <i>Affirmations</i>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 175-87.) So that while the minor -arts have sometimes been classic and sometimes decadent, the major art -of living during the last two thousand years, although one can think of -great men who have maintained the larger classic ideal, has mainly been -decadent.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f5'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>Emma Hadfield, <i>Among the Natives of the Loyalty Group</i>. 1920. It -would no doubt have been more satisfactory to select a people like the -Fijians rather than the Lifuans, for they represented a more robust and -accomplished form of a rather similar culture, but their culture has receded -into the past,—and the same may be said of the Marquesans of -whom Melville left, in <i>Typee</i>, a famous and delightful picture which -other records confirm,—while that of the Lifuans is still recent.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f6'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>G.</abbr> Lowes Dickinson, <i>An Essay on the Civilisations of India, China, -and Japan</i> (1914), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 47. No doubt there are shades to be added to this -picture. They may be found in a book, published two years earlier, <i>China -as it Really Is</i>, by “a Resident in Peking” who claims to have been born -in China. Chinese culture has receded, in part swamped by over-population, -and concerning a land where to-day, it has lately been said, “magnificence, -crudity, delicacy, fetidity, and fragrance are blended,” it is easy -for Westerners to show violent difference of opinion.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f7'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span>See, for instance, the chapter on games in Professor <abbr class='spell'>E. H.</abbr> Parker’s -<i>China: Past and Present</i>. Reference may be made to the same author’s -important and impartial larger work, <i>China: Its History</i>, with a discriminating -chapter on Chinese personal characteristics. Perhaps, the -most penetrating study of Chinese psychology is, however, Arthur <abbr class='spell'>H.</abbr> -Smith’s <i>Chinese Characteristics</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f8'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span>His ideas have been studied by Madame Alexandra David, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le Philosophe -Meh-ti et l’Idée de Solidarité</i></span>. London, 1907.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f9'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span>Eugène Simon, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Cité Chinoise</i></span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f10'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>E.</abbr> Hovelaque, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Chine</i></span> (Paris, 1920), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 47.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f11'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>This point has not escaped the more acute students of Chinese -civilisation. Thus Dr. John Steele, in his edition of the <i>I-Li</i>, remarks -that “ceremonial was far from being a series of observances, empty and -unprofitable, such as it degenerated into in later time. It was meant to -inculcate that habit of self-control and ordered action which was the expression -of a mind fully instructed in the inner meaning of things, and -sensitive to every impression.” Still more clearly, Reginald Farrer -wrote, in <i>On the Eaves of the World</i>, that “the philosophic calm that the -Chinese deliberately cultivate is their necessary armour to protect the -excessive susceptibility to emotion. The Chinese would be for ever the -victims of their nerves had they not for four thousand years pursued -reason and self-control with self-protective enthusiasm.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f12'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>It is even possible that, in earlier than human times, dancing and -architecture may have been the result of the same impulse. The nest of -birds is the chief early form of building, and Edmund Selous has suggested -(<i>Zoölogist</i>, December, 1901) that the nest may first have arisen as -an accidental result of the ecstatic sexual dance of birds.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f13'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span>“Not the epic song, but the dance,” Wundt says (<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Völkerpsychologie</i></span>, -<abbr title='third edition'>3d ed.</abbr> 1911, <abbr title='band'>Bd.</abbr> 1, Teil 1, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 277), “accompanied by a monotonous -and often meaningless song, constitutes everywhere the most primitive, -and, in spite of that primitiveness, the most highly developed art. -Whether as a ritual dance, or as a pure emotional expression of the joy -in rhythmic bodily movement, it rules the life of primitive men to such -a degree that all other forms of art are subordinate to it.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f14'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span>See an interesting essay in <i>The Dance of Siva: Fourteen Indian -Essays</i>, by Ananda Coomaraswamy. New York, 1918.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f15'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>This view was clearly put forward, long ago, by <abbr class='spell'>W. W.</abbr> Newell at the -International Congress of Anthropology at Chicago in 1893. It has become -almost a commonplace since.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f16'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span>See a charming paper by Marcella Azra Hincks, “The Art of Dancing -in Japan,” <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, July, 1906. Pantomimic dancing, which -has played a highly important part in Japan, was introduced into religion -from China, it is said, in the earliest time, and was not adapted to -secular purposes until the sixteenth century.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f17'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span>I owe some of these facts to an interesting article by <abbr class='spell'>G. R.</abbr> Mead, -“The Sacred Dance of Jesus,” <i>The Quest</i>, October, 1910.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f18'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>The dance of the Seises in Seville Cathedral is evidently of great -antiquity, though it was so much a matter of course that we do not hear -of it until 1690, when the Archbishop of the day, in opposition to the -Chapter, wished to suppress it. A decree of the King was finally obtained -permitting it, provided it was performed only by men, so that evidently, -before that date, girls as well as boys took part in it. Rev. John Morris, -“Dancing in Churches,” <i>The Month</i>, December, 1892; also a valuable -article on the Seises by <abbr class='spell'>J. B.</abbr> Trend, in <i>Music and Letters</i>, January, 1921.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f19'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span>See, for references, Havelock Ellis, <i>Studies in the Psychology of Sex</i>, -<abbr title='volume three'>vol. <span class='fss'>III</span></abbr>; <i>Analysis of the Sexual Impulse</i>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 29, etc.; and Westermarck, -<i>History of Human Marriage</i>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr>, <abbr title='chapter thirdteen'>chap. <span class='fss'>XIII</span></abbr>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 470.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f20'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span>At an earlier period, however, the dance of Salome was understood -much more freely and often more accurately. As Enlart has pointed out, -on a capital in the twelfth-century cloister of Moissac, Salome holds a -kind of castanets in her raised hands as she dances; on one of the western -portals of Rouen Cathedral, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, -she is dancing on her hands; while at Hemelverdeghem she is really -executing the <i>morisco</i>, the “<i>danse du ventre</i>.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f21'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>For an excellent account of dancing in India, now being degraded -by modern civilisation, see Otto Rothfeld, <i>Women of India</i>, <abbr title='chapter seven'>chap. <span class='fss'>VII</span></abbr>, -“The Dancing Girl,” 1922.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f22'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. </span>I may hazard the suggestion that the gypsies may possibly have -acquired their rather unaccountable name of Egyptians, not so much -because they had passed through Egypt, the reason which is generally -suggested,—for they must have passed through many countries,—but -because of their proficiency in dances of the recognised Egyptian -type.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f23'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. </span>It is interesting to observe that Egypt still retains, almost unchanged -through fifty centuries, its traditions, technique, and skill in dancing, -while, as in ancient Egyptian dancing, the garment forms an almost or -quite negligible element in the art. Loret remarks that a charming -Egyptian dancer of the Eighteenth Dynasty, whose picture in her transparent -gauze he reproduces, is an exact portrait of a charming Almeh of -to-day whom he has seen dancing in Thebes with the same figure, the -same dressing of the hair, the same jewels. I hear from a physician, a -gynæcologist now practising in Egypt, that a dancing-girl can lie on her -back, and with a full glass of water standing on one side of her abdomen -and an empty glass on the other, can by the contraction of the muscles -on the side supporting the full glass, project the water from it, so as to -fill the empty glass. This, of course, is not strictly dancing, but it is part -of the technique which underlies classic dancing and it witnesses to the -thoroughness with which the technical side of Egyptian dancing is still -cultivated.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f24'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. </span>“We must learn to regard the form of the Greek drama as a dance -form,” says <abbr class='spell'>G.</abbr> Warre Cornish in an interesting article on “Greek Drama -and the Dance” (<i>Fortnightly Review</i>, February, 1913), “a musical -symphonic dance-vision, through which the history of Greece and the -soul of man are portrayed.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f25'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. </span>It should perhaps be remarked that in recent times it has been denied -that the old ballads were built up on dance songs. Miss Pound, for instance, -in a book on the subject, argues that they were of aristocratic -and not communal origin, which may well be, though the absence of the -dance element does not seem to follow.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f26'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. </span>It would not appear that the pioneers of the Mathematical Renaissance -of the twentieth century are inclined to imitate Descartes in this -matter. Einstein would certainly not, and many apostles of physical -science to-day (see, <abbr class='spell'>e.g.</abbr>, Professor Smithells, <i>From a Modern University: -Some Aims and Aspirations of Science</i>) insist on the æsthetic, imaginative, -and other “art” qualities of science.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f27'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>C.</abbr> Singer. “What is Science?” <i>British Medical Journal</i>, <abbr title='twenty-fifth'>25th</abbr> June, -1921. Singer refuses the name of “science” in the strict sense to fields of -completely organised knowledge which have ceased growing, like human -anatomy (though, of course, the anatomist still remains a man of science -by working outwards into adjoining related fields), preferring to term any -such field of completed knowledge a <i>discipline</i>. This seems convenient -and I should like to regard it as sound. It is not, however, compatible -with the old doctrine of Mill and Colvin and Ray Lankester, for it excludes -from the field of science exactly what they regarded as most -typically science, and some one might possibly ask whether in other -departments, like Hellenic sculpture or Sung pottery, a completed art -ceases to be art.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f28'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. </span>It has often been pointed out that the imaginative application of -science—artistic ideas like that of the steam locomotive, the flying-machine -heavier than air, the telegraph, the telephone, and many others—were -even at the moment of their being achieved, elaborately shown -to be “impossible” by men who had been too hastily hoisted up to positions -of “scientific” eminence.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f29'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>J. B.</abbr> Baillie, <i>Studies in Human Nature</i> (1921), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 221. This point -has become familiar ever since <abbr class='spell'>F. A.</abbr> Lange published his almost epoch-marking -work, <i>The History of Materialism</i>, which has made so deep an -impress on many modern thinkers from Nietzsche to Vaihinger; it is indeed -a book which can never be forgotten (I speak from experience) by -any one who read it in youth.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f30'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>G.</abbr> Wallas, <i>The Great Society</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 107.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f31'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. </span>Gomperz, <i>Greek Thinkers</i>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr>, <abbr title='chapter three'>chap. <span class='fss'>III</span></abbr>, where will be found an -attractive account of Pythagoras’ career and position.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f32'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. </span>Always, it may perhaps be noted in passing, it seems to have been -difficult for the sober and solemn Northerner, especially of England, to -enter into the Greek spirit, all the more since that spirit was only the -spirit of a sprinkling of people amid a hostile mass about as unlike anything -we conventionally call “Greek” as could well be imagined, so that, -as Élie Faure, the historian of art, has lately remarked, Greek art is a -biological “monstrosity.” (Yet, I would ask, might we not say the same -of France or of England?) That is why it is usually so irritating to read -books written about the Greeks by barbarians; they slur over or ignore -what they do not like and, one suspects, they instinctively misinterpret -what they think they do like. Better even the most imperfect knowledge -of a few original texts, better even only a few days on the Acropolis, than -the second-hand opinions of other people. And if we must have a book -about the Greeks, there is always Athenæus, much nearer to them in -time and in spirit, with all his gossip, than any Northern barbarian, and -an everlasting delight.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f33'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. </span>Along another line it should have been clear that the dialogues of the -philosophers were drama and not history. It would appear (Croiset, -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Littérature Grecque</i></span>, <abbr title='volume 3'>vol. <span class='fss'>III</span></abbr>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 448 <i>et seq.</i>) that with Epicharmus of Cos, -who was settled in Megara at the beginning of the fifth century, philosophic -comedy flourished brilliantly at Syracuse, and indeed fragments -of his formal philosophic dialogue survive. Thus it is suggested that -Athenian comedy and sophistic prose dialogues may be regarded as two -branches drawn from the ancient prototype of such Syracusan comedy, -itself ultimately derived from Ionian philosophy. It is worth noting, I -might add, that when we first hear of the Platonic dialogues they were -being grouped in trilogies and tetralogies like the Greek dramas; that -indicates, at all events, what their earliest editors thought about them. -It is also interesting to note that the writer of, at the present moment, -the latest handbook to Plato, Professor <abbr class='spell'>A. E.</abbr> Taylor (<i>Plato</i>, 1922, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 32-33), -regards the “Socrates” of Plato as no historical figure, not even -a mask of Plato himself, but simply “the hero of the Platonic drama,” of -which we have to approach in much the same way as the work of “a -great dramatist or novelist.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f34'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. </span>He had often been bidden in dreams to make music, said the Platonic -Socrates in <i>Phædo</i>, and he had imagined that that was meant to encourage -him in the pursuit of philosophy, “which is the noblest and best -of music.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f35'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. </span>In discussing Socrates I have made some use of Professor Dupréel’s -remarkable book, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Légende Socratique</i></span> (1922). Dupréel himself, with -a little touch of irony, recommends a careful perusal of the beautiful and -monumental works erected by Zeller and Grote and Gomperz to the -honour of Socrates.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f36'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. </span>Count Hermann Keyserling, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Philosophie als Kunst</i></span> (1920), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 2. He -associates this with the need for a philosophy to possess a subjective -personal character, without which it can have no value, indeed no content -at all.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f37'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. </span>Croce, <i>Problemi d’ Estetica</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 15. I have to admit, for myself, that, -while admiring the calm breadth of Croce’s wide outlook, it is sometimes -my misfortune, in spite of myself, when I go to his works, to play the -part of a Balaam <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>à rebours</i></span>. I go forth to bless: and, somehow, I curse.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f38'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. </span>James Hinton, a pioneer in so many fields, clearly saw that thinking -is really an art fifty years ago. “Thinking is no mere mechanical process,” -he wrote (<i>Chapters on the Art of Thinking</i>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 43 <i>et seq.</i>), “it is a -great Art, the chief of all the Arts.... Those only can be called thinkers -who have a native gift, a special endowment for the work, and have been -trained, besides, by assiduous culture. And though we continually assume -that every one is capable of thinking, do we not all feel that there -is somehow a fallacy in this assumption? Do we not feel that what people -set up as their ‘reasons’ for disbelieving or believing are often nothing of -the sort?... The Art faculty is Imagination, the power of seeing the -unseen, the power also of putting ourselves out of the centre, of reducing -ourselves to our true proportions, of truly using our own impressions. -And is not this in reality the chief element in the work of the thinker?... -Science <i>is</i> poetry.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f39'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. </span>So far, indeed, as I am aware, I was responsible for the first English -account of his work (outside philosophical journals); it appeared in the -London <i>Nation and Athenæum</i> a few years ago, and is partly embodied -in the present chapter.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f40'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. </span>I have based this sketch on an attractive and illuminating account -of his own development written by Professor Vaihinger for Dr. Raymund -Schmidt’s highly valuable series, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart -in Selbstdarstellungen</i></span> (1921), <abbr title='volume 2'>vol. II.</abbr></p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f41'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. </span>“Most workers on the problem of atomic constitution,” remarks -Sir Ernest Rutherford (<i>Nature</i>, <abbr title='fifth'>5th</abbr> August, 1922), “take as a working -hypothesis that the atoms of matter are purely electrical structures, and -that ultimately it is hoped to explain all the properties of atoms as a -result of certain combinations of the two fundamental units of positive -and negative electricity, the proton and electron.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f42'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. </span>Havelock Ellis, <i>Studies in the Psychology of Sex</i>, <abbr title='volume 1'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f43'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. </span>Otto Rank, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Der Künstler: Ansätze zu einer Sexual Psychologie</i></span>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f44'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. </span>The sexual strain in the symbolism of language is touched on in my -<i>Studies in the Psychology of Sex</i>, <abbr title='volume 5'>vol. <span class='fss'>V</span></abbr>, and similar traits in primitive -legends have been emphasised—many would say over-emphasised—by -Freud and Jung.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f45'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. </span>Einstein, in conversation with Moszkowski, expressed doubt as to -the reality of Leonardo’s previsions of modern science. But it scarcely -appeared that he had investigated the matter, while the definite testimony -of the experts in many fields who have done so cannot be put aside.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f46'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. </span>For the Italian reader of Leonardo the fat little volume of <i>Frammenti</i>, -edited by Dr. Solmi and published by Barbèra, is a precious and inexhaustible -pocket companion. For the English reader Mr. MacCurdy’s -larger but much less extensive volume of extracts from the <i>Note-Books</i>, -or the still further abridged <i>Thoughts</i>, must suffice. Herbert Horne’s -annotated version of Vasari’s <i>Life</i> is excellent for Leonardo’s personality -and career.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f47'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. </span>Morley Roberts, who might be regarded as a pupil in the school of -Leonardo and trained like him in the field of art, has in various places of -his suggestive book, <i>Warfare in the Human Body</i>, sprinkled irony over -the examples he has come across of ignorant specialists claiming to be -men of “science.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f48'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. </span>Needless to say, I do not mention this to belittle Galton. A careful -attention to words, which in its extreme form becomes pedantry, is by -no means necessarily associated with a careful attention to things. Until -recent times English writers, even the greatest, were always negligent in -spelling; it would be foolish to suppose they were therefore negligent -in thinking.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f49'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. </span>Darwin even overestimated the æsthetic element in his theory of -sexual selection, and (I have had occasion elsewhere to point out) unnecessarily -prejudiced that theory by sometimes unwarily assuming a -conscious æsthetic element.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f50'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. </span>It is probable that the reason why it is often difficult to trace the -imaginative artist in great men of supposedly abstract science is the -paucity of intimate information about them. Even their scientific -friends have rarely had the patience, or even perhaps the intelligence, to -observe them reverently and to record their observations. We know -almost nothing that is intimately personal about Newton. As regards -Einstein, we are fortunate in possessing the book of Moszkowski, <i>Einstein</i> -(translated into English under the title of <i>Einstein the Searcher</i>), -which contains many instructive conversations and observations by -a highly intelligent and appreciative admirer, who has set them down -in a Boswellian spirit that faintly recalls Eckermann’s book on Goethe -(which, indeed, Moszkowski had in mind), though falling far short of -that supreme achievement. The statements in the text are mainly -gleaned from Moszkowski.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f51'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. </span>Spengler holds (<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Der Untergang des Abendlandes</i></span>, <abbr title='volume ten'>vol. <span class='fss'>X</span></abbr>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 329) that -the development of music throughout its various stages in our European -culture really has been closely related with the stages of the development -of mathematics.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f52'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. </span>I would here refer to a searching investigation, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Goethe und die -mathematische Physik: Eine Erkenntnistheoretische Studie,”</span> in Ernst -Cassirer’s <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Idee und Gestalt</i></span> (1921). It is here shown that in some respects -Goethe pointed the way along which mathematical physics, by following -its own paths, has since travelled, and that even when most non-mathematical -Goethe’s scientific attitude was justifiable.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f53'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. </span>See the remarkable essay, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“De la Cinéplastique,”</span> in Élie Faure’s -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>L’Arbre d’Éden</i></span> (1922). It is, however, a future and regenerated cinema -for which Élie Faure looks, “to become the art of the crowd, the powerful -centre of communion in which new symphonic forms will be born in the -tumult of passions and utilized for fine and elevating æsthetic ends.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f54'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>O.</abbr> Spengler, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Der Untergang des Abendlandes</i></span>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 576.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f55'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. </span>It may be as well to point that it is the amateur literary grammarian -and not the expert who is at fault in these matters. The attitude of the -expert (as in <abbr class='spell'>C. T.</abbr> Onions, <i>Advanced English Syntax</i>) is entirely reasonable.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f56'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. </span>It is interesting to note that another aristocratic master of speech -had also made just the same observation. Landor puts into the mouth of -Horne Tooke the words: “No expression can become a vulgarism which -has not a broad foundation. The language of the vulgar hath its source -in physics: in known, comprehended, and operative things.” At the -same time Landor was as stern a judge as Baudelaire of the random use -of <i>clichés</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f57'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. </span>Speaking as a writer who has been much quoted,—it ought to be a -satisfaction, but I have had my doubts,—I may say that I have observed -that those who quote belong mostly to two classes, one consisting -of good, or at all events indifferent, writers, and the other of bad -writers. Those of the first class quote with fair precision and due acknowledgement, -those of the second with no precision, and only the -vaguest intimation, or none at all, that they are quoting. This would -seem to indicate that the good writer is more honest than the bad writer, -but that conclusion may be unjust to the bad writer. The fact is that, -having little thought or knowledge of his own, he is not fully conscious -of what he is doing. He is like a greedy child who, seeing food in front of -him, snatches it at random, without being able to recognise whether or -not it is his own. There is, however, a third class of those who cannot resist -the temptation of deliberately putting forth the painfully achieved -thought or knowledge of others as their own, sometimes, perhaps, seeking -to gloss over the lapse with: “As every one knows—”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f58'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. </span>Croce, who is no doubt the most instructive literary critic of our -time, has, in his own way, insisted on this essential fact. As he would -put it, there are no objective standards of judgment; we cannot approach -a work of art with our laws and categories. We have to comprehend -the artist’s own values, and only then are we fit to pronounce -any judgment on his work. The task of the literary critic is thus immensely -more difficult than it is vulgarly supposed to be. The same -holds good, I would add, of criticism in the fields of art, not excluding -the art of love and the arts of living in general.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f59'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. </span>“This search is the art of all great thinkers, of all great artists, indeed -of all those who, even without attaining expression, desire to live deeply. -If the dance brings us so near to God, it is, I believe, because it symbolizes -for us the movement of this gesture.” (Élie Faure, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>L’Arbre d’Éden</i></span>, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 318.)</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f60'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. </span>This is that “divine malice” which Nietzsche, in <i>Ecce Homo</i>, speaking -of Heine (“one day Heine and I will be regarded as by far the greatest -artists of the German language,” he says rather egotistically, but perhaps -truly) considered essential to perfection. “I estimate the value of -men and of races,” he added, “by their need to identify their God with a -satyr,” a hard saying, no doubt, to the modern man, but it has its meaning.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f61'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. </span>Since this was written I have found that Laycock, whose subtle observation -pioneered so many later ideas, long ago noted (“Some Organic -Laws of Memory,” <i>Journal of Mental Science</i>, July, 1875) reversion to -ancestral modes of handwriting.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f62'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. </span>This was written fifteen years ago, and as Carlyle has of late been -unduly depreciated I would add that, while strictly to the present point, -it is not put forward as an estimate of Carlyle’s genius. That I seem to -have attempted twenty-five years earlier in a private letter (to my friend -the late Reverend Angus Mackay) I may here perhaps be allowed to -quote. It was in 1883, soon after the publication of Carlyle’s <i>Reminiscences</i>: -“This is not Carlylese, but it is finer. The popular judgment is -hopelessly wrong. We can never understand Carlyle till we get rid of the -‘great prophet’ notion. Carlyle is not (as we were once taught) a ‘great -moral teacher,’ but, in the high sense, a great <i>comedian</i>. His books are -wonderful comedies. He is the Scotch Aristophanes, as Rabelais is the -French and Heine the German Aristophanes—of course, with the intense -northern imagination, more clumsy, more imperfect, more profound -than the Greek. But, at a long distance, there is a close resemblance -to Aristophanes with the same mixture of audacity in method -and conservatism in spirit. Carlyle’s account of Lamb seems in the true -sense Aristophanic. His humour is, too, as broad as he dares (some -curious resemblances there, too). In his lyrical outbursts, again, he -follows Aristophanes, and again at a distance. Of course he cannot be -compared as an artist. He has not, like Rabelais, created a world to -play with, but, like Aristophanes generally, he sports with the things -that are.” That youthful estimate was alien to popular opinion then because -Carlyle was idolised; it is now, no doubt, equally alien for an opposite -reason. It is only on extremes that the indolent popular mind can -rest.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f63'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>J.</abbr> Beddoe, <i>The Races of Britain</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 254.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f64'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. </span>I once studied, as an example, colour-words in various writers, finding -that every poet has his own colour formula. Variations in length of -sentence and peculiarities of usage in metre have often been studied. -Reference is made to some of these studies by <abbr class='spell'>A.</abbr> Niceforo, <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Metodo -Statistico e Documenti Litterari,” <i>Revista d’Italia</i></span>, August, 1917.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f65'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. </span>“The Muses are the daughters of Memory,” Paul Morand tells us -that Proust would say; “there is no art without recollection,” and certainly -it is supremely true of Proust’s art. It is that element of art which -imparts at once both atmosphere and poignant intimacy, external farness -with internal nearness. The lyrics of Thomas Hardy owe their -intimacy of appeal to the dominance in them of recollection (in <i>Late -Lyrics and Earlier</i> one might say it is never absent), and that is why -they can scarcely be fully appreciated save by those who are no longer -very young.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f66'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. </span>The Oxford University Press publishes a little volume of <i>Rules for -Compositors and Readers</i> in which this uniform is set forth. It is a useful -and interesting manual, but one wonders how many unnecessary and -even undesirable usages—including that morbid desire to cling to the -<i>ize</i> termination (charming as an eccentricity but hideous as a rule) when -<i>ise</i> would suffice—are hereby fostered. Even when we leave out of consideration -the great historical tradition of variety in this matter, it is -doubtful, when we consider them comprehensively, whether the advantages -of encouraging every one to spell like his fellows overbalances the -advantages of encouraging every one to spell unlike his fellows. When I -was a teacher in the Australian bush I derived far less enjoyment from -the more or less “correctly” spelt exercises of my pupils than from the -occasional notes I received from their parents who, never having been -taught to spell, were able to spell in the grand manner. We are wilfully -throwing away an endless source of delight.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f67'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. </span><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le Monde Nouveau</i></span>, <abbr title='fifteenth'>15th</abbr> December, 1922.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f68'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. </span>Ferris Greenslet (in his study of <i>Joseph Glanvill</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 183), referring to -the Cartesian influence on English prose style, quotes from Sprat’s -<i>History of the Royal Society</i> that the Society “exacted from its members -a close, naked, natural way of speaking, positive expressions, a native -easiness, bringing all things as near the mathematic plainness as they -can.” The Society passed a resolution to reject “all amplifications, digressions, -and swellings of style.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f69'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. </span>If it is asked why I take examples of a quality in art that is universal -from literary personalities that to many are questionable, even morbid -or perverse, rather than from some more normal and unquestioned -figure, Thomas Hardy, for example, I would reply that I have always regarded -it as more helpful and instructive to take examples that are still -questionable rather than to fall back on the unquestionable that all will -accept tamely without thought. Forty years ago, when Hardy’s genius -was scarcely at all recognised, it seemed worth while to me to set forth -the quality of his genius. To-day, when that quality is unquestioned, -and Hardy receives general love and reverence, it would seem idle and -unprofitable to do so.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f70'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. </span>It is scarcely necessary to remark that if we choose to give to -“mysticism” a definition incompatible with “science,” the opposition -cannot be removed. This is, for example, done by Croce, who yet recognises -as highly important a process of “conversion” which is nothing -else but mysticism as here understood. (See, <abbr class='spell'>e.g.</abbr>, Piccoli, <i>Benedetto -Croce</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 184.) Only he has left himself no name to apply to it.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f71'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. </span>“The endeavour of the human mind to enjoy the blessedness of -actual communion with the highest,” which is Pringle Pattison’s widely -accepted definition of mysticism, I prefer not to use because it is ambiguous. -The “endeavour,” while it indicates that we are concerned with -an art, also suggests its strained pathological forms, while “actual communion” -lends itself to ontological interpretations.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f72'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. </span><i>The Threshold of Religion</i> (1914), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 48.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f73'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. </span><span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse</i></span> (1911), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 272.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f74'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. </span><i>Golden Bough</i>, “Balder the Beautiful,” <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 304-05.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f75'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. </span>Farnell even asserts (in his <i>Greek Hero Cults</i>) that “it is impossible -to quote a single example of any one of the higher world-religions working -in harmony with the development of physical science.” He finds a -“special and unique” exception in the cult of Asclepios at Cos and -Epidauros and Pergamon, where, after the fourth century <abbr class='spell'><span class='fss'>B.C.</span></abbr>, were -physicians, practising a rational medical science, who were also official -priests of the Asclepios temples.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f76'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. </span>Sir Oliver Lodge, <i>Reason and Belief</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 19.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f77'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. </span>It is scarcely necessary to point out that a differentiation of function -has to be made sooner or later, and sometimes it is made soon. This was -so among the Todas of India. “Certain Todas,” says Dr. Rivers -(<i>The Todas</i>, 1906, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 249), “have the power of divination, others are -sorcerers, and others again have the power of curing diseases by means -of spells and rites, while all three functions are quite separate from those -of the priest or sharman. The Todas have advanced some way towards -civilisation of function in this respect, and have as separate members of -the community their prophets, their magicians, and their medicine-men -in addition to their priests.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f78'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. </span>Joël, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Romantik</i></span> -(1903); <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Nietzsche und die Romantik</i></span> (1905). But I am here quoting from -Professor Joël’s account of his own philosophical development in <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die -Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart</i></span>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr> (1921).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f79'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. </span>In connection with this scheme, it may be interesting to note, I prepared, -in 1879, a <i>questionnaire</i> on “conversion,” on the lines of the investigations -which some years later began to be so fruitfully carried out by -the psychologists of religion in America.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f80'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. </span>It must be remembered that for science the mechanistic assumption -always remains; it is, as Vaihinger would say, a necessary fiction. To -abandon it is to abandon science. Driesch, the most prominent vitalist -of our time, has realised this, and in his account of his own mental development -(<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart</i></span>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr>, 1921) he shows -how, beginning as a pupil of Haeckel and working at zoölogy for many -years, after adopting the theory of vitalism he abandoned all zoölogical -work and became a professor of philosophy. When the religious spectator, -or the æsthetic spectator (as is well illustrated in the French review -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>L’Esprit Nouveau</i></span>), sees the “machinery” as something else than -machinery he is legitimately going outside the sphere of science, but he -is not thereby destroying the basic assumption of science.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f81'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. </span>Long ago Edith Simcox (in a passage of her <i>Natural Law</i> which -chanced to strike my attention very soon after the episode above narrated) -well described “conversion” as a “spiritual revolution,” not -based on any single rational consideration, but due to the “cumulative -evidence of cognate impressions” resulting, at a particular moment, not -in a change of belief, but in a total rearrangement and recolouring of -beliefs and impressions, with the supreme result that the order of the -universe is apprehended no longer as hostile, but as friendly. This is the -fundamental fact of “conversion,” which is the gate of mysticism.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f82'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. </span>How we are to analyse the conception of “universe”—apart from -its personal emotional tone, which is what mainly concerns us—is, of -course, a matter that must be left altogether open and free. Sir James -Frazer at the end of his <i>Golden Bough</i> (“Balder the Beautiful,” <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 306) finds that the “universe” is an “ever-shifting phantasmagoria of -thought,” or, he adds, suddenly shifting to a less idealistic and more -realistic standpoint, “shadows on the screen.” That is a literary artist’s -metaphysical way of describing the matter and could not occur to any -one who was not familiar with the magic lantern which has now developed -into the cinema, beloved of philosophers for its symbolic significance. -Mr. Bertrand Russell, a more abstract artist, who would reject -any such “imaginative admixture” as he would find in Frazer’s view, -once severely refused to recognise any such thing as a “universe,” but -has since less austerely admitted that there is, after all, a “set of appearances,” -which may fairly be labelled “reality,” so long as we do not -assume “a mysterious Thing-in-Itself behind the appearances.” (<i>Nation</i>, -<abbr title='sixth'>6th</abbr> January, 1923.) But there are always some people who think -that an “appearance” must be an appearance of <i>Something</i>, and that -when a “shadow” is cast on the screen of our sensory apparatus it must -be cast by <i>Something</i>. So every one defines the “universe” in his own -way, and no two people—not even the same person long—can define -it in the same way. We have to recognise that even the humblest of us -is entitled to his own “universe.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f83'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. </span>The simple and essential outlines of “conversion” have been obscured -because chiefly studied in the Churches among people whose prepossessions -and superstitions have rendered it a highly complex process, -and mixed up with questions of right and wrong living which, important -as they are, properly form no part of religion. The man who waits to lead -a decent life until he has “saved his soul” is not likely to possess a soul -that is worth saving. How much ignorance prevails in regard to “conversion,” -even among the leaders of religious opinion, and what violent -contrasts of opinion—in which sometimes both the opposing parties are -mistaken—was well illustrated by a discussion on the subject at the -Church Congress at Sheffield in 1922. A distinguished Churchman well -defined “conversion” as a unification of character, involving the whole -man,—will, intellect, and emotion,—by which a “new self” was -achieved; but he also thought that this great revolutionary process consisted -usually in giving up some “definite bad habit,” very much doubted -whether sudden conversion was a normal phenomenon at all, and made -no attempt to distinguish between that kind of “conversion” which is -merely the result of suggestion and auto-suggestion, after a kind of hysterical -attack produced by feverish emotional appeals, and that which -is spontaneous and of lifelong effect. Another speaker went to the opposite -extreme by asserting that “conversion” is an absolutely necessary -process, and an Archbishop finally swept away “conversion” altogether -by declaring that the whole of the religious life (and the whole of the -irreligious life?) is a process of conversion. (<i>The Times</i>, <abbr title='twelfth'>12th</abbr> October, -1922.) It may be a satisfaction to some to realise that this is a matter -on which it is vain to go to the Churches for light.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f84'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. </span>Dean Inge (<i>Philosophy of Plotinus</i>, <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 165) has some remarks -on Plotinus in relation to asceticism.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f85'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. </span>Jules de Gaultier (<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Philosophie officielle et la Philosophie</i></span>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 150) -refers to those Buddhist monks the symbol of whose faith was contained -in one syllable: <i>Om</i>. But those monks, he adds, belonged to “the only -philosophic race that ever existed” and by the aid of their pure faith, -placed on a foundation which no argumentation can upset, all the religious -philosophies of the Judeo-Helleno-Christian tradition are but -as fairy-tales told to children.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f86'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. </span>We must always remember that “Church” and “religion,” though -often confused, are far from being interchangeable terms. “Religion” is -a natural impulse, “Church” is a social institution. The confusion is unfortunate. -Thus Freud (<i>Group Psychology</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 51) speaks of the probability -of religion disappearing and Socialism taking its place. He means -not “religion,” but a “Church.” We cannot speak of a natural impulse -disappearing, an institution easily may.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f87'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. </span>It must be remembered that “intuition” is a word with all sorts of -philosophical meanings, in addition to its psychological meanings -(which were studied some years ago by Dearborn in the <i>Psychological -Review</i>). For the ancient philosophic writers, from the Neo-Platonists -on, it was usually a sort of special organ for coming in contact with -supernatural realities; for Bergson it is at once a method superior to the -intellect for obtaining knowledge and a method of æsthetic contemplation; -for Croce it is solely æsthetic, and art is at once “intuition” and -“expression” (by which he means the formation of internal images). -For Croce, when the mind “intuits” by “expressing,” the result is -art. There is no “religion” for Croce except philosophy.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f88'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. </span>The modern literature of the Mysteries, especially of Eleusis, is very -extensive and elaborate in many languages. I will only mention here a -small and not very recent book, Cheetham’s Hulsean Lectures on <i>The -Mysteries Pagan and Christian</i> (1897) as for ordinary readers sufficiently -indicating the general significance of the Mysteries. There is, yet -briefer, a more modern discussion of the matter in the Chapter on “Religion” -by Dr. <abbr class='spell'>W. R.</abbr> Inge in <abbr class='spell'>R. W.</abbr> Livingstone’s useful collection of -essays, <i>The Legacy of Greece</i> (1921).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f89'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. </span>What we call crime is, at the beginning, usually an effort to get, or -to pretend to get, into step, but, being a violent or miscalculated effort, -it is liable to fail, and the criminal falls to the rear of the social army. -“I believe that most murders are really committed by Mrs. Grundy,” a -woman writes to me, and, with the due qualification, the saying is worthy -of meditation. That is why justice is impotent to prevent or even to -punish murder, for Mrs. Grundy is within all of us, being a part of the -social discipline, and cannot be hanged.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f90'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. </span>Herbert Spencer, writing to a correspondent, once well expressed -the harmlessness—if we choose so to regard it—of moral teaching: -“After nearly two thousand years’ preaching of the religion of amity, -the religion of enmity remains predominant, and Europe is peopled by -two hundred million pagans, masquerading as Christians, who revile -those who wish them to act on the principles they profess.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f91'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. </span>But later asceticism was strictly the outcome of a Greek tendency, -to be traced in Plato, developed through Antisthenes, through Zeno, -through Epictetus, who all desired to liberate the soul from the bonds of -matter. The Neo-Platonists carried this tendency further, for in their -time, the prevailing anarchy and confusion rendered the world and -society less than ever a fitting haven for the soul. It was not Christianity -that made the world ascetic (and there were elements of hedonism in -the teaching of Jesus), but the world that made Christianity ascetic, -and it was easy for a Christian to become a Neo-Platonist, for they -were both being moulded by the same forces.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f92'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. </span>Maurice Croiset devotes a few luminous critical pages to Plotinus -in the Croisets’ <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Histoire de la Littérature Grecque</i></span>, <abbr title='volume five'>vol. <span class='fss'>V</span></abbr>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 820-31. As -an extended account of Plotinus, from a more enthusiastically sympathetic -standpoint, there are Dr. Inge’s well-known Gifford Lectures, <i>The -Philosophy of Plotinus</i> (1918); I may also mention a careful scholastic -study, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>L’Esthétique de Plotin</i></span> (1913), by Cochez, of Louvain, who regards -Plotinus as the climax of the objective æsthetics of antiquity and -the beginning of the road to modern subjective æsthetics.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f93'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r93'>93</a>. </span><i>Ennead</i>, <abbr title='book three'>bk. <span class='fss'>III</span></abbr>, <abbr title='chapter six'>chap. <span class='fss'>VI</span></abbr>. I have mostly followed the translation of -Stephen McKenna.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f94'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r94'>94</a>. </span><abbr title='saint'>St.</abbr> Augustine, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>De Civitate Dei</i></span>, <abbr title='book four'>bk. <span class='fss'>IV</span></abbr>, <abbr title='chapter twenty-one'>chap. <span class='fss'>XXI</span></abbr>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f95'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r95'>95</a>. </span>Kant was habitually cold and calm. But he was very fond of dried -fruits and used to have them specially imported for him by his friend -Motherby. “At one time he was eagerly expecting a vessel with French -fruits which he had ordered, and he had already invited some friends to -a dinner at which they were to be served. The vessel was, however, delayed -a number of days by a storm. When it arrived, Kant was informed -that the provisions had become short on account of the delay, -and that the crew had eaten his fruit. Kant was so angry that he declared -they ought rather to have starved than to have touched it. Surprised -at this irritation, Motherby said, ‘Professor, you cannot be in -earnest.’ Kant answered, ‘I am really in earnest,’ and went away. -Afterwards he was sorry.” (Quoted by Stuckenberg, <i>The Life of Kant</i>, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 138.) But still it was quite in accordance with Kantian morality -that the sailors should have starved.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f96'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r96'>96</a>. </span>Georg von Gizycki, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die Ethik David Hume’s</i></span>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 11.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f97'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r97'>97</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>F. C.</abbr> Sharp, <i>Mind</i> (1912), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 388.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f98'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r98'>98</a>. </span>Shaftesbury held that Locke swept away too much and failed to -allow for inborn instincts (or “senses,” as he sometimes called them) -developing naturally. We now see that he was right.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f99'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r99'>99</a>. </span>There is no need to refer to the value of salt, and therefore the appreciation -of the flavour of salt, to primitive people. Still to-day, in -Spain, <i>sal</i> (salt) is popularly used for a more or less intellectual and -moral quality which is highly admired.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f100'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r100'>100</a>. </span>Dr. <abbr class='spell'>C. S.</abbr> Myers has touched on this point in <i>Reports of the Cambridge -Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits</i>, <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, part <abbr title='two'><span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, <abbr title='chapter four'>chap. -<span class='fss'>IV</span></abbr>; also “The Taste-Names of Primitive Peoples,” <i>British Journal of -Psychology</i>, June, 1904.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f101'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r101'>101</a>. </span>Dr. Georg von Gizycki, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die Philosophie Shaftesbury’s</i></span> (1876); and -the same author’s <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die Ethik David Hume’s</i></span> (1878).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f102'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r102'>102</a>. </span>It should be added that Croce is himself moving in this direction, -and in, for instance, <span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>Il Carattere di Totalità della Espressione Artistica</i></span> -(1917), he recognises the universality of art.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f103'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r103'>103</a>. </span>Stanley Hall remarks in criticising Kant’s moral æsthetics: “The -beauty of virtue is only seen in contemplating it and the act of doing -it has no beauty to the doer at the moment.” (<abbr class='spell'>G.</abbr> Stanley Hall, “Why -Kant is Passing,” <i>American Journal of Psychology</i>, July, 1912.)</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f104'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r104'>104</a>. </span>See article on Arbuckle by <abbr class='spell'>W. R.</abbr> Scott in <i>Mind</i>, April, 1899.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f105'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r105'>105</a>. </span>See a helpful paper by <abbr class='spell'>M. F.</abbr> Libby, “Influence of the Idea of Æsthetic -Proportion on the Ethics of Shaftesbury,” <i>American Journal of Psychology</i>, -May-October, 1901.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f106'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r106'>106</a>. </span>We find fallacious criticism of the “moral sense” down to almost -recent times, in, for instance, McDougall’s <i>Social Psychology</i>, even -though McDougall, by his insistence on the instinctive basis of morality, -was himself carrying on the tradition of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. -But McDougall also dragged in “some prescribed code of conduct,” -though he neglected to mention who is to “prescribe” it.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f107'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r107'>107</a>. </span>See <abbr class='spell'>W. R.</abbr> Scott, <i>Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position -in the History of Philosophy</i>. (1900.)</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f108'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r108'>108</a>. </span>It is noteworthy, however, that the æsthetic view of morals has had -advocates, not only among the more latitudinarian Protestants, but in -Catholicism. A few years ago the Reverend Dr. Kolbe published a book -on <i>The Art of Life</i>, designed to show that just as the sculptor works with -hammer and chisel to shape a block of marble into a form of beauty, so -Man, by the power of grace, the illumination of faith, and the instrument -of prayer, works to transform his soul. But this simile of the -sculptor, which has appealed so strongly alike to Christian and anti-Christian -moralists, proceeds, whether or not they knew it, from Plotinus, -who, in his famous chapter on Beauty, bids us note the sculptor. -“He cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line lighter, this -other purer, until a living face has grown upon his work. So do you also -cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light -to all that is overcast, make all one glow of beauty, and never cease -chiselling your statue until the godlike splendour shines on you from it, -and the perfect goodness stands, surely, in the stainless shrine.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f109'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r109'>109</a>. </span>“They who pitched the goal of their aspiration so high knew that -the paths leading up to it were rough and steep and long,” remarks -<abbr class='spell'>A. W.</abbr> Benn (<i>The Greek Philosophers</i>, 1914, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 57); “they said ‘the beautiful -is hard’—hard to judge, hard to win, hard to keep.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f110'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r110'>110</a>. </span><span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Der Wille zur Macht</i></span>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 358.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f111'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r111'>111</a>. </span>Mrs. Havelock Ellis, <i>James Hinton</i>, 1918.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f112'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r112'>112</a>. </span>This has been well seen by Jules de Gaultier: “The joys and the -sorrows which fill life are, the one and the other,” he says (<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Dépendance -de la Morale et l’Indépendance des Mœurs</i></span>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 340), “elements of -spectacular interest, and without the mixture of both that interest would -be abolished. To make of the representative worth of phenomena their -justification in view of a spectacular end alone, avoids the objection by -which the moral thesis is faced, the fact of pain. Pain becomes, on the -contrary, the correlative of pleasure, an indispensable means for its realization. -Such a thesis is in agreement with the nature of things, instead -of being wounded by their existence.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f113'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r113'>113</a>. </span>Alfred Niceforo, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Les Indices Numériques de la Civilisation et du -Progrès</i></span>. Paris, 1921.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f114'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r114'>114</a>. </span>Professor Bury, in his admirable history of the idea of progress -(<abbr class='spell'>J. B.</abbr> Bury, <i>The Idea of Progress</i>, 1920), never defines the meaning -of “progress.” As regards the meaning of “civilisation” see essay on -“Civilisation,” Havelock Ellis, <i>The Philosophy of Conflict</i> (1919), <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> -14-22.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f115'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r115'>115</a>. </span>Quetelet, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Physique Sociale</i></span>. (1869.)</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f116'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r116'>116</a>. </span>See <abbr class='spell'>e.g.</abbr>, Maurice Parmelee’s <i>Criminology</i>, the sanest and most comprehensive -manual on the subject we have in English.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f117'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r117'>117</a>. </span>Élie Faure, with his usual incisive insight, has set out the real characters -of the “Greek Spirit” (<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Reflexions sur le Génie Grec,”</span> <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Monde -Nouveau</i></span>, December, 1922).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f118'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r118'>118</a>. </span>This tendency, on which Herbert Spencer long ago insisted, is in its -larger aspects quite clear. <abbr class='spell'>E. C.</abbr> Pell (<i>The Law of Births and Deaths</i>, -1921) has argued that it holds good of civilised man to-day, and that our -decreasing birth rate with civilisation is quite independent of any effort -on Man’s part to attain that evolutionary end.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f119'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r119'>119</a>. </span>Professor McDougall refers to the high birth-rate of the lower stratum -as more “normal.” If that were so, civilisation would certainly be -doomed. All high evolution <i>normally</i> involves a low birth-rate. Strange -how difficult it is even for those most concerned with these questions to -see the facts simply and clearly!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f120'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r120'>120</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>A. M.</abbr> Carr-Saunders, <i>The Population Problem: A Study in Human -Evolution</i> (1922), <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 457, 472.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f121'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r121'>121</a>. </span>Dupréel, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Légende Socratique</i></span> (1922), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 428. Dupréel considers -(<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 431) that the Protagorean spirit was marked by the idea of explaining -the things of thought, and life in general, by the meeting, opposition, and -harmony of individual activities, leading up to the sociological notion of -<i>convention</i>, and behind it, of relativity. Nietzsche was a pioneer in restoring -the Sophists to their rightful place in Greek thought. The Greek -culture of the Sophists grew out of all the Greek instincts, he says (<i>The -Will to Power</i>, section 428): “And it has ultimately shown itself to be -right. Our modern attitude of mind is, to a great extent, Heraclitean, -Democritean, and Protagorean. To say that it is Protagorean is even -sufficient, because Protagoras was himself a synthesis of Heraclitus and -Democritus.” The Sophists, by realizing that many supposed objective -ideas were really subjective, have often been viewed with suspicion as -content with a mere egotistically individualistic conception of life. The -same has happened to Nietzsche. It was probably an error as regards the -greatest Sophists, and is certainly an error, though even still commonly -committed, as regards Nietzsche; see the convincing discussion of Nietzsche’s -moral aim in Salter, <i>Nietzsche the Thinker</i>, <abbr title='chapter twenty-four'>chap. <span class='fss'>XXIV</span></abbr>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f122'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r122'>122</a>. </span>I may here, perhaps, remark that in the General Preface to my -<i>Studies in the Psychology of Sex</i> I suggested that we now have to lay the -foundation of a new casuistry, no longer theological and Christian, but -naturalistic and scientific.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f123'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r123'>123</a>. </span>Oswald Spengler, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Der Untergang des Abendlandes</i></span>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr> (1918); <abbr title='volume two'>vol. -<span class='fss'>II</span></abbr> (1922).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f124'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r124'>124</a>. </span>In an interesting pamphlet, <i>Pessimismus?</i> Spengler has since pointed -out that he does not regard his argument as pessimistic. The end of a -civilisation is its fulfilment, and there is still much to be achieved (though -not, he thinks, along the line of art) before our own civilisation is fulfilled. -With Spengler’s conception of that fulfilment we may, however, fail to -sympathise.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f125'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r125'>125</a>. </span>See, for instance, <abbr class='spell'>W. L.</abbr> Newman, <i>The Politics of Aristotle</i>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. 1</abbr>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> -201, and <abbr class='spell'>S. H.</abbr> Butcher, <i>Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 119.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f126'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r126'>126</a>. </span>Beauty is a dangerous conception to deal with, and the remembrance -of this great saying may, perhaps, help to save us from the degrading notion -that beauty merely inheres in objects, or has anything to do with the -prim and smooth conventions which make prettiness. Even in the fine -art of painting it is more reasonable to regard prettiness as the negation -of beauty. It is possible to find beauty in Degas and Cézanne, but not in -Bouguereau or Cabanel. The path of beauty is not soft and smooth, -but full of harshness and asperity. It is a rose that grows only on a bush -covered with thorns. As of goodness and of truth, men talk too lightly -of Beauty. Only to the bravest and skilfullest is it given to break through -the briers of her palace and kiss at last her enchanted lips.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f127'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r127'>127</a>. </span>Ruskin was what Spinoza has been called, a God-intoxicated man; -he had a gift of divine rhapsody, which reached at times to inspiration. -But it is not enough to be God-intoxicated, for into him whose mind is -disorderly and ignorant and ill-disciplined the Gods pour their wine in -vain. Spinoza’s mind was not of that kind, Ruskin’s too often was, so -that Ruskin can never be, like Spinoza, a permanent force in the world of -thought. His interest is outside that field, mainly perhaps psychological -in the precise notation of a particular kind of æsthetic sensibility. The -admiration of Ruskin cherished by Proust, himself a supreme master in -this field, is significant.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f128'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r128'>128</a>. </span>Butcher, <i>Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art</i>, <abbr title='chapter five'>chap. <span class='fss'>V</span></abbr>, “Art -and Morals.” Aristotle could have accepted the almost Freudian view of -Croce that art is the deliverer, the process through which we overcome -the stress of inner experiences by objectifying them (<i>Æsthetics as Science -of Expression</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 35). But Plato could not accept Croce, still less Freud.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f129'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r129'>129</a>. </span>Schopenhauer, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung</i></span> (1859), <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, -<abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 442. For a careful and detailed study of Schopenhauer’s conception -of art, see <abbr class='spell'>A.</abbr> Fauconnet, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>L’Esthétique de Schopenhauer</i></span> (1913).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f130'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r130'>130</a>. </span>I find that I have here negligently ascribed to Bergson a metaphor -which belongs to Croce, who at this point says the same thing as Bergson, -though he gives it a different name. In <i>Æsthetics as Science of Expression</i> -(English translation, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 66) we read: “The world of which as a rule we -have intuition [Bergson could not have used that word here] is a small -thing.... ‘Here is a man, here is a horse, this is heavy, this is hard, this -pleases me,’ etc. It is a medley of light and colour, which could not -pictorially attain to any more sincere expression than a haphazard splash -of colour, from among which would with difficulty stand out a few special -distinctive traits. This and nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary -life; this is the basis of our ordinary action. It is the index of a -book. The labels tied to things take the place of things themselves.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f131'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r131'>131</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>H.</abbr> Bergson, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le Rire</i></span>. For a clear, concise, and sympathetic exposition -of Bergson’s standpoint, though without special reference to art, -see Karin Stephen, <i>The Misuse of Mind</i>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f132'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r132'>132</a>. </span>This may seem to cast a critical reflection on Croce. Let me, therefore, -hasten to add that it is merely the personal impression that Croce, -for all his virtuous aspirations after the concrete, tends to fall into verbal -abstraction. He so often reminds one of that old lady who used to find -(for she died during the Great War) such spiritual consolation in “that -blessed word Mesopotamia.” This refers, however, to the earlier more -than to the later Croce.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f133'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r133'>133</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>H.</abbr> Rickert, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>System der Philosophie</i></span>, <abbr title='volume one'>vol. <span class='fss'>I</span></abbr> (1921).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f134'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r134'>134</a>. </span>Before Baumgarten this distinction seems to have been recognised, -though too vaguely and inconsistently, by Hutcheson, who is so often -regarded as the real founder of modern æsthetics. <abbr class='spell'>W. R.</abbr> Scott (<i>Francis -Hutcheson</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 216) points out these two principles in Hutcheson’s work, -“the Internal Senses, as derived from Reflection, representing the attitude -of the ‘Spectator’ or observer in a picture gallery while, on the other -hand, as deduced from <span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">εὐέργεια</span> find a parallel in the artist’s own -consciousness of success in his work, thus the former might be called -static and the latter dynamic consciousness, or, in the special case of -Morality, the first applies primarily to approval of the acts of others, the -second to each individual’s approval of his own conduct.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f135'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r135'>135</a>. </span>This would probably be recognised even by those moralists who, -like Hutcheson, in their anxiety to make clear an important relationship, -have spoken ambiguously. “Probably Hutcheson’s real thought,” -remarks <abbr class='spell'>F. C.</abbr> Sharp (<i>Mind</i>, 1921, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 42), “is that the moral emotion, -while possessing many important affinities with the æsthetic, is in the -last resort different in content.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f136'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r136'>136</a>. </span>Schopenhauer long ago pointed out that a picture should be looked -at as a royal personage is approached, in silence, until the moment it -pleases to speak to you, for, if you speak first (and how many critics one -knows who “speak first”!), you expose yourself to hear nothing but the -sound of your own voice. In other words, it is a spontaneous and -“mystical” experience.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f137'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r137'>137</a>. </span>It is through Plotinus, also, that we realise how æsthetics is on the -same plane, if not one, with mysticism. For by his insistence on Contemplation, -which is æsthetics, we learn to understand what is meant -when it is said, as it often is, that mysticism is Contemplation. (On -this point, and on the early evolutions of Christian Mysticism, see Dom -Cuthbert Butler, <i>Western Mysticism</i> (1922).)</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f138'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r138'>138</a>. </span>Really, however, Plotinus was here a Neo-Aristotelian rather than a -Neo-Platonist, for Aristotle (<i>Ethics</i>, book <abbr title='ten'><span class='fss'>X</span></abbr>, <abbr title='chapter six'>chap. 6</abbr>) had put the claim -of the Contemplative life higher even than Plato and almost forestalled -Plotinus. But as Aristotle was himself here a Platonist that does not -much matter.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f139'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r139'>139</a>. </span>See Inge, <i>Philosophy of Plotinus</i>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 179. In a fine passage (quoted by -Bridges in his <i>Spirit of Man</i>) Plotinus represents contemplation as the -great function of Nature herself, content, in a sort of self-consciousness, -to do nothing more than perfect that fair and bright vision. This “metaphysical -Narcissism,” as Palante might call it, accords with the conception -of various later thinkers, like Schopenhauer, and like Gaultier, who -however, seldom refers to Plotinus.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f140'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r140'>140</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>R.</abbr> Schmidt, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen</i></span> -(1921), <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f141'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r141'>141</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>E.</abbr> Förster-Nietzsche, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Das Leben Nietzsches</i></span>, <abbr title='volume two'>vol. <span class='fss'>II</span></abbr>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 99.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f142'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r142'>142</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>W. M.</abbr> Salter in his <i>Nietzsche the Thinker</i>—probably the best and -most exact study of Nietzsche’s thought we possess—summarises -Nietzsche’s “æsthetic metaphysics,” as he terms it (<abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 46-48), in words -which apply almost exactly to Gaultier.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f143'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r143'>143</a>. </span>See especially his book <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Über den Nervösen Charakter</i></span> (1912). It has -been translated into English.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f144'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r144'>144</a>. </span>Jules de Gaultier, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le Bovarysme</i></span>, and various other of his works. -Georges Palante has lucidly and concisely expounded the idea of Bovarism -in a small volume, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>La Philosophie du Bovarysme</i></span> (<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Mercure de France</i></span>).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f145'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r145'>145</a>. </span>Gaultier has luminously discussed the relations of War, Civilisation, -and Art in the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Monde Nouveau</i></span>, August, 1920, and February, 1921.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f146'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r146'>146</a>. </span>These are problems concerning which innocent people might imagine -that the wise refrained from speculating, but, as a matter of fact, the -various groups of philosophic devotees may be divided into those termed -“Idealists” and those termed “Realists,” each assured of the superiority -of his own way of viewing thought. Roughly speaking, for the idealist -thought means the creation of the world, for the realist its discovery. -But here (as in many differences between Tweedledum and Tweedledee -for which men have slain one another these thousands of years) there -seem to be superiorities on both sides. Each looks at thought in a different -aspect. But the idealist could hardly create the world with nothing -there to make it from, nor the realist discover it save through creating it -afresh. We cannot, so to put it, express in a single formula of three dimensions -what only exists as a unity in four dimensions.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f147'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r147'>147</a>. </span>Bertrand Russell, <i>Principles of Social Reconstruction</i> (1916), <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 235.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f148'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r148'>148</a>. </span>I may here be allowed to refer to another discussion of this point, -Havelock Ellis, <i>The Philosophy of Conflict, and Other Essays</i>, <abbr title='pages'>pp.</abbr> 57-68.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f149'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r149'>149</a>. </span>I may remark that Plato had long before attributed the same observation -to the Pythagorean Timæus in the sublime and amusing dialogue -that goes under that name: “Sight in my opinion is the source of the -greatest benefit to us, for had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and -the heavens, none of the words which we have spoken about the universe -would ever have been uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and -the months and the revolution of the years, have created Number, and -have given us a conception of Time, and the powers of inquiring about -the Nature of the Universe, and from this source we have derived philosophy, -than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods -to mortal man.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f150'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r150'>150</a>. </span>Jules de Gaultier, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“La Guerre et les Destinées de l’Art,”</span> <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Monde -Nouveau</i></span>, August, 1920.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f151'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r151'>151</a>. </span>Thus Einstein, like every true man of science, holds that cultural -developments are not to be measured in terms of utilitarian technical -advances, much as he has himself been concerned with such advances, -but that, like the devotee of “Art for Art’s sake,” the man of science -must proclaim the maxim, “Science for Science’s sake.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f152'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r152'>152</a>. </span>In the foregoing paragraphs I have, in my own way, reproduced the -thought, occasionally the words, of Jules de Gaultier, more especially in -<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“La Moralité Esthétique”</span> (<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Mercure de France</i></span>, <abbr title='fifteenth'>15th</abbr> December, 1921), -probably the finest short statement of this distinguished thinker’s reflections -on the matter in question.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f153'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r153'>153</a>. </span>Guyau, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>L’Art au Point de Vue Sociologique</i></span>, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 163.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f154'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r154'>154</a>. </span>This diffused æsthetic sense is correlated with a diffused artistic -instinct, based on craftsmanship, which the Greeks were afraid to recognise -because they looked down with contempt on the handicrafts as -vulgar. William Morris was a pioneer in asserting this association. As -a distinguished English writer, Mr. Charles Marriott, the novelist and -critic, clearly puts the modern doctrine: “The first step is to absorb, or -re-absorb, the ‘Artist’ into the craftsman.... Once agree that the same -æsthetic considerations which apply to painting a picture apply, though -in a different degree, to painting a door, and you have emancipated -labour without any prejudice to the highest meaning of art.... A good -surface of paint on a door is as truly an emotional or æsthetic consideration -as ‘significant form,’ indeed it <i>is</i> ‘significant form.’” (<i>Nation and -Athenæum</i>, <abbr title='first'>1st</abbr> July, 1922.) Professor Santayana has spoken in the same -sense: “In a thoroughly humanised society everything—clothes, -speech, manners, government—is a work of art.” (<i>The Dial</i>, June, -1922, <abbr title='page'>p.</abbr> 563.) It is, indeed, the general tendency to-day and is traceable -in Croce’s later writings.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f155'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r155'>155</a>. </span>Thus it has often been pointed out that the Papuans are artists in -design of the first rank, with a finer taste in some matters than the most -highly civilised races of Europe. Professor R. Semon, who has some remarks -to this effect (<span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Correspondenzblatt</i></span> of the German Anthropological -Society, March, 1902), adds that their unfailing artistic sense is spread -throughout the whole population and shown in every object of daily use.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f156'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r156'>156</a>. </span>The presence of a small minority of abnormal or perverse persons—there -will be such, we may be sure, in every possible society—affords no -excuse for restricting the liberty of the many to the standard of the few. -The general prevalence of an æsthetic morality in classic times failed to -prevent occasional outbursts of morbid sexual impulse in the presence of -objects of art, even in temples. We find records of Pygmalionism and -allied perversities in Lucian, Athenæus, Pliny, Valerius Maximus. Yet -supposing that the Greeks had listened to the proposals of some strayed -Puritan visitor, from Britain or New England, to abolish nude statues, -or suppose that Plato, who wished to do away with imaginative literature -as liable to demoralise, had possessed the influence he desired, how infinite -the loss to all mankind! In modern Europe we not only propose -such legal abolition; we actually, however in vain, carry it out. We seek -to reduce all human existence to absurdity. It is, at the best, unnecessary, -for we may be sure that, in spite of our efforts, a certain amount -of absurdity will always remain.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f157'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r157'>157</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>A. M.</abbr> Carr-Saunders, <i>The Population Problem: A Study in Human -Evolution</i> (Oxford Press, 1922).</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f158'> -<p class='c007'><span class='label'><a href='#r158'>158</a>. </span><abbr class='spell'>J.</abbr> de Gaultier, “Art et Civilisation,” <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Monde Nouveau</i></span>, February, -1921.</p> -</div> -<div> - - <ul class='ul_1 c002'> - <li>Transcriber’s Notes: - <ul class='ul_2'> - <li>Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of - reference. - </li> - </ul> - </li> - </ul> - -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANCE OF LIFE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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