Part 3 (1/2)

Now, if I a that art is a manifestation--a manifestation, mark, and not an expression--of man's spiritual state, then in the history of art we shall read the spiritual history of the race I am not surprised that those who have devoted their lives to the study of history should take it ill when one who professes only to understand the nature of art hints that by understanding his own business he e of theirs Let ht than I, or, indeed, less inclination to assume the proud title of ”scientific historian”: no one can care less about historical small-talk or be more at a loss to understand what precisely isue of facts, if it be concerned with the movements of ht we e produced, but also their value as works of art If the aesthetic significance or insignificance of works of art does, indeed, bear witness to a spiritual state, then he who can appreciate that significance should be in a position to for the spiritual state of the men who produced those works and of those who appreciated the it is commonly supposed to be, the history of art must be an index to the spiritual history of the race Only, the historian ishes to use art as an index must possess not ist, but also a fine sensibility For it is the aesthetic significance of a work that gives a clue to the state of n a particular work to a particular period avails nothing unacconificance

To understand coe must we know and understand the history of its art? It seems so And yet the idea is intolerable to scientific historians What becoht coain, it is unjust: for assuredly, to understand art we need know nothing whatever about history It may be that from works of art we can draw inferences as to the sort of people who est and most intimate conversations with an artist will not tell us whether his pictures are good or bad We must see them: then we shall know I may be partial or dishonest about the work of nificance is not more obvious to me than that of a work that was finished five thousand years ago To appreciate fully a work of art we require nothing but sensibility To those that can hear Art speaks for itself: facts and dates do not; to lean the uplands and hollows for tags of auxiliary inforestion; and the history of art is no exception to the rule To appreciate awhatever about the artist; I can say whether this picture is better than that without the help of history; but if I a to account for the deterioration of his art, I shall be helped by knowing that he has been seriously ill or that he hasher pot To ment: to account for it was to become an historian

To understand the history of art weof other kinds of history Perhaps, to understand thoroughly any kind of history we must understand every kind of history Perhaps the history of an age or of a life is an indivisible whole Another intolerable idea! What becomes of the specialist? What of those formidable compendiums in which the multitudinous activities of les at the monstrous vision of its own conclusions

But, after all, does itelse I care very little when things were nificance to us To the historian everything is athatabout art, not about history With history I am concerned only in so far as history serves to illustrate my hypothesis: and whether history be true or false matters very little, since my hypothesis is not based on history but on personal experience, not on facts but on feelings Historical fact and falsehood are of no consequence to people who try to deal with realities They need not ask, ”Did this happen?”; they need ask only, ”Do I feel this?” Lucky for us that it is so: for if our judgs had to wait upon historical certitude theyto see how far that of which we are sure agrees with that which we should expect My aesthetic hypothesis--that the essential quality in a work of art is significant form--was based on my aesthetic experience Of my aesthetic experiences I anificant form is the expression of a peculiar emotion felt for reality--I ao on to suggest that this sense of reality leads reater inificance of the universe, that it disposesthem as means, that a sense of reality is, in fact, the essence of spiritual health If this be so, we shall expect to find that ages in which the creation of significant fores in which the sense of reality is dies of spiritual poverty We shall expect to find the curves of art and spiritual fervour ascending and descending together In lance at the history of a cycle of art with the intention of following thehow far that es in the spiritual state of society My view of the rise, decline and fall of art in Christendoance to feel considerable confidence I pretend to a power of distinguishi+ng between significant and insignificant fornificance of forenerally with a lowering of the religious sense I shall expect to find that whenever artists have allowed themselves to be seduced from their proper business, the creation of form, by other and irrelevant interests, society has been spiritually decadent Ages in which the sense of fornificance has been swamped utterly by preoccupation with the obvious, will turn out, I suspect, to have been ages of spiritual fa the fortunes of art across a period of fourteen hundred years, I shall try to keep an eye on that of which art may be a manifestation--man's sense of ultimate reality

To criticise a work of art historically is to play the science-besotted fool No more disastrous theory ever issued from the brain of a charlatan than that of evolution in art Giotto did not creep, a grub, that titian ht flaunt, a butterfly To think of aon to the art of someone else is to misunderstand it To praise or abuse or be interested in a work of art because it leads or does not lead to another work of art is to treat it as though it were not a work of art The connection of one work of art with anotherto do with appreciation

So soon as we begin to consider a work as anything else than an end in itself we leave the world of art Though the develop historically, it cannot affect the value of any particular picture: aesthetically, it is of no consequence whatever Every work of art ed on its own merits

Therefore, be sure that, into read history in the light of aesthetic judgments, independently of any theory, aesthetic or non-aesthetic, I shall be amused to see how far the view of history that rees with accepted historical hypotheses If ments and the dates furnished by historians be correct, it will follow that soood art than others: but, indeed, it is not disputed that the variety in the artistic significance of different ages is immense I shall be curious to see what relation can be established between the art and the age that produced it If my second hypothesis--that art is the expression of an emotion for ultie will be inevitable and intieneral state of mind of the artist and his admirers In fact, anyone who accepts absolutely my second hypothesis with all its possible i to do--will not only see in the history of art the spiritual history of the race, but will be quite unable to think of one without thinking of the other

If I do not go quite so far as that, I stop short only by a little

Certainly it is less absurd to see in art the key to history than to iine that history can help us to an appreciation of art In ages of spiritual fervour I look for great art By ages of spiritual fervour I do not es; I es in which, for one reason or another, men have been unusually excited about their souls and unusually indifferent about their bodies

Such ages, as often as not, have been superstitious and cruel

Preoccupation with the soul may lead to superstition, indifference about the body to cruelty I never said that ages of great art were sympathetic to the middle-classes Art and a quiet life are incompatible I think; some stress and ture of reat artists may arise and flourish? Of course: but when the production of good art is at all widespread and continuous, near at hand I shall expect to find a restless generation

Also, having marked a period of spiritual stir, I shall look, not far off, for its nificant forenuine; a swirl of e fine[8] How far in any particular age the production of art is stieneral exaltation by works of art, is a question hardly to be decided Wisest, perhaps, is he who says that the two seem to have been interdependent Just how dependent I believe them to have been, will appear when, in my next chapter, I attempt to sketch the rise, decline, and fall of the Christian slope

III

ART AND ETHICS

Between ly barrier I cannot dabble and paddle in the pools and shallows of the past until I have answered a question so absurd that the nicest people never tire of asking it: ”What is the ht who insist that the creation of art rounds: all human activities e to call upon the artist to show that what he is about is either good in itself or a ood because it exalts to a state of ecstasy better far than anything a benuuess at; so shut up” Philosophically he is quite right; only, philosophy is not so simple as that Let us try to answer philosophically

The ood in itself or a , ill ask what he ood,”

not because it is in the least doubtful, but to make him think In fact, Mr GE Moore has shown pretty conclusively in his _Principia Ethica_ that by ”good” everyone h we cannot define it ”Good” can no more be defined than ”Red”: no quality can be defined Nevertheless we know perfectly e ood” or ”red” This is so obviously true that its stateed, the orthodox philosophers

Orthodox philosophers are by no ood,” only they are sure that we cannot ood” ood as an end: two very different propositions

That ”good” ood was the opinion of the Hedonists, and is still the opinion of any Utilitarians who ered on into the twentieth century They enjoy the honour of being the only ethical fallacies worth the powder and shot of a writer on art I can iic than that by which Mr GE Moore disposes of both But it is none of my business to do clumsily what Mr Moore has done exquisitely I have noto reproduce his dialectic to incur the merited ridicule of those familiar with the _Principia Ethica_ or to spoil the pleasure of those ill be wise enough to run out this very minute and order a masterpiece hich they happen to be unacquainted For my immediate purpose it is necessary only to borrow one shaft from that well-stocked arood, I will put this question: Does he, like John Stuart Mill, and everyone else I ever heard of, speak of ”higher and lower” or ”better and worse” or ”superior and inferior” pleasures? And, if so, does he not perceive that he has given away his case? For, when he says that one pleasure is ”higher” or ”better” than another, he does not reater in _quantity_ but superior in _quality_

On page 7 of _Utilitarianism_, JS Mill says:--

”If one of the two (pleasures) is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater an it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoy quantity as to render it, in comparison, of sood, the only possible criterion of pleasures is quantity of pleasure ”Higher” or ”better” can onlymore pleasure To speak of ”better pleasures” in any other sense is to ood as an end depend upon soood as an end Mill is as one who, having set up sweetness as the sole good quality in jam, prefers Tiptree to Crosse and Blackwell, not because it is sweeter, but because it possesses a better kind of sweetness To do so is to discard sweetness as an ulti else in its place So, when Mill, like everyone else, speaks of ”better” or ”higher” or ”superior” pleasures, he discards pleasure as an ultimate criterion, and thereby adood He feels that some pleasures are better than others, and deterree in which they possess that quality which all recognise but none can define--goodness By higher and lower, superior and inferior pleasures we ood pleasures There are, therefore, two different qualities, Pleasantness and Goodness Pleasure, aood By ”good” we cannot oodness,” so distinct froood without ood,” then, we do not ood

Mr Moore goes on to inquire what things are good in themselves, as ends that is to say He coree, but for which few could have found convincing and logical arguood as ends[9] People who have very little taste for logic will find a simple and satisfactory proof of this conclusion afforded by what is called ”the ood as an end will retain some, at any rate, of its value in complete isolation: it will retain all its value as an end That which is good as a means only will lose all its value in isolation That which is good as an end will remain valuable even when deprived of all its consequences and left with nothing but bare existence Therefore, we can discover whether honestly we feel soood as an end, if only we can conceive it in complete isolation, and be sure that so isolated it reood as an end or as ain an uninhabited and uninhabitable planet Does it seem to lose its value? That is a little too easy The physical universe appears to ood, for towards nature they feel violently that eood”; but if the physical universe were not related to mind, if it were never to provoke an emotional reaction, if no mind were ever to be affected by it, and if it had no ood? There are two stars: one is, and ever will be, void of life, on the other exists a frag protoplasm which will never develop, will never become conscious Can we say honestly that we feel one to be better than the other? Is life itself good as an end? A clear judgment iswithout feeling so for it; one's very conceptions provoke states of mind and thus acquire value as means Let us ask ourselves, bluntly, can that which has nowhich has athat affects a mind may become valuable as a means, since the state of mind produced may be valuable in itself

Isolate that mind Isolate the state of mind of a man in love or rapt in contemplation; it does not seem to lose all its value I do not say that its value is not decreased; obviously, it loses its value as a ood states of mind in others But a certain value does subsist--an intrinsic value Populate the lone star with one human mind and every part of that star becomes potentially valuable as a ood as an end--a good state of mind The state of mind of a person in love or rapt in contemplation suffices in itself We do not stay to inquire ”What useful purpose does this serve, whom does it benefit, and how?” We say directly and with conviction--”This is good”