HERMAIA A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE ESTHETICS All rights reserved HERMAIA A Study in Comparative Esthetics Colin McAlpin MCMXV LONDON AND TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1 1 . . DEDICATED TO MY WIFE 346893 Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE LOVELY, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS. ST. PAUL. A WORD of thanks is due from the author to his friend, the Rev. William Sonper, M.A., for his kindly interest and encouragement, which have been invaluable in the production of this work. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. EXPRESSION: MAN ....... i II. EXPRESSION: NATURE . . . . . .12 III. THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION: INTRODUCTION . . 21 IV. THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION ..... 24 V. KINGDOMS IN THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION . . 32 VI. PAINTING: INTRODUCTION i . . . . -35 VII. LANDSCAPE-PAINTING ...... 45 VIII. Music IN RELATION TO NATURE . . . .52 IX. PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE .... 59 X. POETRY IN RELATION TO NATURE .... 68 XI. FIGURE-PAINTING ....... 76 XII. FIGURE-PAINTING continued ..... 86 XIII. COMPOSITION-PAINTING ...... 95 XIV. POETRY: INTRODUCTION . . . . . .102 XV. PAINTING AND POETRY . . . . . .105 XVI. PAINTING AND POETRY continued . . . .114 XVII. PAINTING, POETRY, AND Music . . . .124 XVIII. PAINTING, POETRY, AND Music continued . .134 XIX. POETRY AND Music ...... 147 XX. Music AS FORM: INTRODUCTION . . . .160 XXI. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE SELF . . .165 XXII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF SELF-PERSISTENCE . 175 XXIII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE . 184 XXIV. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS . 191 XXV. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF MYSTICISM. . . 209 XXVI. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF RELIGION . . .216 XXVII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE WILL . . . 223 XXVIII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL . . . . . . . .231 XXIX. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORALISM . . . 245 XXX. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF FEELING- VALIDITY . 253 XXXI. Music AS CONTENT: INTRODUCTION . . . 264 XXXII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF VOLITION . . . 266 XXXIII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF VOLITION continued . 276 ix x HERMAIA CHAP. PAGE XXXIV. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY ....... 283 XXXV. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL SENSE . . 294 XXXVI. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF MOTIVE . . . 302 XXXVII. THE DIMENSIONS OF MUSICAL THOUGHT . . . 312 XXXVIII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF MIXED MOTIVES. . 325 XXXIX. Music IN RELATION TO ACTION . . . -333 XL. Music AND INTELLECT . . . . . -339 XLI. HARMONY AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORAL FEELING . 346 XLII. HARMONY AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORAL FEELING continued ........ 354 XLIII. HARMONY AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORAL FEELING continued . . . . . . . .366 XLIV. HARMONY AS THE EXPRESSION OF SUPRA-MORALISM . 375 XLV. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF CONSCIENCE . . 382 XLVI. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF CONSCIENCE continued 396 XLVII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 405 XLVIII. Music AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT continued . . . . . . . .411 XLIX. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . -423 HERMAIA A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE ESTHETICS CHAPTER I EXPRESSION : MAN Noble art is nothing less than the expression of a great soul ; and great souls are not common things. RUSKIN. ART, at root, is the expression of man's feelings. The world of art is but the world of expression. And expression is at once the deepest and divinest necessity of our nature. It is an ele- mentary and fundamental law of our being, without which every soul would remain for ever sequestered and estranged. It is the primary activity of our conscious existence. Be it a gesture or facial expression, these are the natural hieroglyphics by which we make known an inner state of being to conscious- nesses, other than our own. This expressional law alone is the making of society. Even in our ordinary conversation we retail our most insignificant experiences. My soul is not alone, but is one of a kingdom of souls: such is our thought. All books, poems, pictures, or songs, are but eloquent testimonies to the grandeur of this one fundamental principle. We would ever unfold ourselves and bring our innermost recesses of soul- life out into the searching light of revelation. This self-projection is imperative, else would the soul know no growth whatsoever. Solitary seclusion is disease. If we brim not over in social ebullition, our isolation will force us to take up our pen. Tie up a limb effectually enough and mortification will set in. Nature resents extreme individualism and favours socialism. The true self-culture of any individual should aim at making him a higher social unit. Despite our physical isolation, it is still the common element of spirit that unifies the A 2 HERMAIA race, The domestic virtues dominate humanity. The highest form of expression ripens, therefore, into sociability. A man is called upon so to individualise himself that he shall the better serve the body politic. In short, no soul can grow, apart from other souls. When a great man lives in retirement, it is that he may hold a still greater and wider communion with his fellow- creatures. His near friends are not enough for him, he will speak to all mankind and must needs address himself to the still greater unborn ages. Such select souls, however, raise them- selves on the broader shoulders of humanity. Their mental leverage is not that of a small and limited circle of friends, but the minds of many ages. Great men befriend the race, and commune with our general humanity. We need not, then, plead on behalf of this world of Expression, since the first instinctive desire of the sane soul is to unfold itself. If we throw not off symphonies and poems we must perish of inanition. The fever of every man's genius will out, and this is far better than having it suppressed. We should never trust silence unless it be a period of inspiration. Speech regulates the mind. To delay the expression of an opinion renders it the more difficult of ultimate amendment. When a man converses, that is, thinks aloud, he gets away from his mind, and sees his thoughts in a clearer perspective. When you would be clear in your ideas, rehearse them audibly and they will gain in definiteness. Writing, also, makes for a retentive memory. Action again is visible literature. The patriot is he who writes national sonnets with the sword. Any kind of expressiveness is but the exuberance of the soul's vitality, which, if left to fester, to fret and fume within, will canker and speedily grow moribund. True expression is the happy and healthful act of the soul. We should never suppress the idle prattle of infancy, but rather guide the little fount where lie the springs of art. When we say a man expresses himself well, we mean, virtually, that he shows and exhibits much of his real self, whether in speech or song. Much conflict is due to faulty utterance. As rain clears the air, so torrents of eloquence and floods of music purge the spirit. The value, indeed, of all art is that it liberates us. Music, peculiarly, throws open the prison doors of the soul and bids it take wing; granting it at the same time a free passage into EXPRESSION: MAN 3 ethereal immensity. We pant and grow languid beneath the oppressiveness of suppressed expression; and in song and music the very heart flows out more effectually than through the slower channels of the canvas, or of even lettered manuscripts. Without artistic expression the spirit would lose its elasticity and the heart its native buoyancy. All the highest things in life are freest in expression. Joy must speak its mind and love confess its feelings. In expression there is freedom, and in free- dom, health. Indeed all evolution or expansion of the inner self is but the soul's attempt after a higher expression, and where such expression is imperfect, the soul is yet in bondage. Such is man's innate craving for expression that he comes to invest the meanest symbol with the most momentous meaning. But in our higher moments we feel keenly the disparity between the symbol and the sentiment : the spirit seems lost in the letter. Art seeks to surmount the difficulties of its own material medium- ship. It etherialises the material and renders it obedient to the most delicate promptings of the creative mind. Consider, in this connection, the subtle motion of the musical mind. Man is for ever endeavouring to break through the bondage of matter. He feels that his physical organism not only reveals, but conceals the major portion of his deeper being; while, if he daily develop, he will assuredly discover more of his true personality, not only to others, but also to himself. Let but the too-full soul of man o'erflow its corporeal confines, and he will touch, with love- tinctured zeal, humanity at all points. All high and noble ex- pression, whether in art or actuality, is but the escapement of an inner spiritual solicitude. If then art is expression, and expression is the natural out- flow of our spiritual energies, surely the artistic should overflow the boundaries of the imagination and gently touch with its sweet influence our practical life. But we specialise over-much and cram our esthetic business into false limits of our own making. Should not art spread itself out far beyond the canvas or manuscript ? It is but a poor thing if it be pent up in galleries and niggardly dispensed at the occasional concert. The true poem is not to be imprisoned in books. The matter does not end there. It is to remain in the very life-blood of our nature, if it is to exercise any noble function at all. Art, it is true, is not action, for that is utility; neither is it conduct, for that is 4 HERMA1A morality; but it is essentially related to our manner of action and our mode of procedure. Art should engrain our entire being. There should be as much grace displayed in the handling of the meanest material, as in the treatment of poetic subtleties. Like veins in the marble, beauty should trace itself through the most menial task. We are not ashamed of the drama; we pay heed to the true song, and respect good literature; but the audible expression of our nobler sentiments will in no wise be tolerated by our false society. We hurl our charities at one another, and they lose in sweetness, we almost insult when we apologise; well-nigh disdain when we pity, and in granting favours come perilously near patronage. Yet if we desire to properly negotiate an act of kindness, we should approach the matter with picturesque gait ; our words should be poetic, and our diction musical. The truth is, much of our social intercourse is marred and embittered through the very unbeauteous manner in which we relate our- selves to one another. The bane of society is its mutual deception. Bleeding hearts seek vainly for assuagement in ceremonial bows ; moral decrepitude is bedizened with the gilt and gaud of social artifice. And while society should be the universal school for mutual unfoldment it has become the ignoble pillory of labouring spirits. Reciprocity is therefore an unknown quantity, and co-operative commerce a heartless feud to the knife. We act rather than live life. Surely it is not so much the stinted fare, the humble tenement, as the enforced ugliness of life, that is the bitter sting of poverty. Only give us beauty and the humblest life is tolerable. But art in its many varied aspects we treat as adscititious, when in reality it should be a constant factor, a moral benefit and source of inspiration ; for here, if anywhere, is the heart of man truly made known, with all its sublime possibilities. And shall we be ashamed of the great human heart ? But mankind has pulverised the heart of mankind and then has hastily pro- claimed humanity to be but dust. In our inartistic struggle for existence we have grown ashamed of our own divinity. That subtle sensitiveness which leaps to music, as the flowers turn to the sun, is crushed out of being by those coarser influences that obtain in our present inharmonious dealings. Those very psychic sympathies which respond so mysteriously to every EXPRESSION: MAN 5 subtle motion of the sensitive soul are the very means by which we elicit the humanity of others. We know too little of those more delicate graduations of spiritual light and shade; and yet it is exactly through such correspondence of our finer sensibilities that the soul comes into possession of a richer spiritual inheritance. Could we but estheticise our moral relations, then would our tones of speech become music and our language be transformed into poetry. We must endeavour to actualise our estheticism and learn more of the principle of artistic practicality ; we should realise that what oil is to machinery the power of personal expression is to that society in which we live, move, and have our being. But we mistake effusiveness for expressiveness, affectation for affection, gush for geniality ; we confound severity with strength, and cynicism with candour. In short, we are artificial, rather than artistic. A gracious giver glorifies the gift. There is as much art in receiving as in giving. He who can accept gracefully can best bestow favours on others. We can never boast of moral mastery until we are gentle in action and courteous in conduct. Was there ever towering tree that spread not its suppliant arms with consummate grace? What slender reed bowed not with gracious courtesy to the fleet messengers of heaven ? Never broke wave upon shore but took unto itself the glories of a thousand shimmering shells! No stream but traced some line of beauty ! No sullen cloud of night that hid not some fair jewel in its breast! And never yet fell flower of the field or autumn-tinted leaf that was not beautiful in death! All nature is instinct with lovely thought. She does not toss her atoms about in vulgar flippancy Even the common dust of earth is the unsuspected cause of the glories of the sun- set. She is speaking to souls, not senses. And shall we be less than nature ? We do not, in the first instance, do a thing because it is beautiful, but because it is right; nevertheless we should also commend virtue through its noble mien and gracious aspect, reminding others, as well as ourselves, that morality is always beautiful. Manners, again, should be the natural efflorescence of inherent character ; a kind of artistic realism, and no factitious accomplishment. The flower of good breeding, like art itself, is rooted in the feelings. The fleeting facial expression, the kindly utterance of kindly sentiment, the irresistible tones of love-laden 6 HERMAIA speech ; these are the germs of estheticism and the raw material of art. Do we not see then, from all this, how what we call the artistic is but the natural expression of our own common human nature. What perfume is to the flower, so is art to the mind of man. It seems a gratuitous excess of the soul's energies ; a kind of spiritual overplus. It goes far to prove that man is something more than a mere utilitarian. All products of art seem to portend the exercise of higher activities than is demanded of general utility. Art is suggestive of ideal states that await the souls of men. It speaks of a divine impatience of these present and temporal limitations to which the surcharged spirit is subjected. It seems as if the splendid possibilities of the soul were too vast for its present bodily instrument through which it manifests itself; hence, in its passionate desire for escapement from all such cramping conditions, it flies to art as the only adequate means of expansion for this excess of being. The infinite soul of man will never limit its activities to what we are pleased to call the necessary. This latter is but the platform from which art springs to higher purposes. No duty is ever properly done that does not leave a very wide margin for the free exercise of those un- analysable qualities of courtesy and grace. It is true, we should not miss the bloom on the rose or the scent of the lily, were either of these absent; yet it is just such qualities that save all nature from being a purely mechanical contrivance. Let us stand forth, then, with the soul clothed in the vestiture of art ! Let us come out of ourselves and be corrected by the sterner world of fact, bringing with us song and sonnet, for the world has need of every utterable part of our deep humanity. In art we bridge the world's conventions and see the man proper in all his disembodied reality. Let us express ourselves becomingly, and the soul itself will acquire a higher self-knowledge. To expose a lie is to kill it : to express a truth is to love it more dearly. Expression is thus man's highest function. Indeed every soul exists exactly for such supreme purpose. For is not all force, mental or material, but the outward expression of an inner potentiality? And it is sad to contemplate what immeasurable wealth is lost simply through the enforced suppression of what is worthy in every human soul ! We do not invite the expression of what is best in man, but in our general life look rather upon EXPRESSION: MAN 7 the unfoldment of others as inimical to our own. On the contrary, the law of the soul's highest fulfilment is reciprocity. Art itself is but mutual enrichment. What prompts the man of art to express himself is just that others may enjoy what truth is too ample for his solitary soul to contain alone. Man must make more of man ; we must exploit one another's humanity before we can properly enrich ourselves. The soul must reach out before it can draw in wealth to itself. The truth is, we are rich in possibility, but poor in achievement. We suffer from excess of criticism. We are better at casuistry than conduct. The ancient religionists had practically no ethical philosophy, but acted rather on the sure authority of pure feeling. Indeed the danger of modern literature is, that, while labouring critically with a view to truth, it renders itself liable to distort it out of all agreement with reality. All expression, again, burnishes the soul. It clears the avenues that lead from the heart out into the world around, and permits us to see clearly into the region of the actual, without distortion or deception. Art is the soul's leap into joyous light. Expres- sion enforces candour in speech and honesty in dealing. This is one of the grand ethical values of all art. To teach the young to sing is to make difficult the art of deception or the sinister suppression of truth. For is not the song the freeing of inner thought and feeling which permits no rust to settle on the young heart ? Music is pellucid honesty. It evaporates those very ill- humours that harass volition and so readily beset the practical will. It is the healthy discharge of unspiritual temper. All such vitiated and splenetic moods are readily transmuted by the beneficent influence of this art in question. It is the immediate exorcism of those dispiriting vapours which haunt the precincts of the heart. For think how the suppressed fever of enthusiasm generates those rancorous poisons of the unpurged temperament which so easily disfigure and sully the soul's fair face! So Luther, speaking of music, wrote that: " It admonishes man, renders him mild, gentle, modest and reasonable. It is also a disciplinarian. Singing is the best art and a good exercise. He who knows this art is ennobled by it, and has aptitude for all things." Music becomes, then, artistic alchemy; the metabolism of mind and the chemistry of spirit. Choral music inculcates a 8 HERMAIA sense of interdependence, of the fellowship of souls and harmony of hearts. Music, in short, makes for the solidarity of humanity. It is the one artistic expression of collectivity. Teach the young also to draw and they will see all things more correctly, and truth in true perspective. Let them be environed by beautiful objects, for they will take colour from their surroundings. Govern sense and you regulate mind. Besides telling us something, literature, again, has this merit, that it renders vocal our innermost sentiments. Wherein lies the power of national poesy and song, if not in the healthful relief it affords labouring aspirations? Truth is always out- spoken and cannot long remain hidden, while falsity rankles behind silence, or prevaricates, fearful of its own countenance. Thus to build up a perfect medium for expression is the crowning desire of nature. Creation itself is but a persistent effort at perfecting a channel for the outlet of its own inner riches. And in the human soul, which is the final issue of all natural develop- ment, we have the most liberal discharge of divinity. What further expansion awaits the inner personality of man, we cannot, as yet, have knowledge of : it is logical, however, to suppose that in the light of all previous evolution the destiny of humanity is commensurate with the Infinite itself. But while in painting, thought is somewhat turgid and tardy, and in poetry, still heavy of tread; in music, we reach artistic mobility coincident with feeling itself, thereby guarding against the delay of the halting mind, or the stagnancy of the shackled soul. And the heart is in emphatic need of immediate personal expression. We cannot afford to delay the somewhat infrequent periods of inspired exaltation; we must capture such fugitive moments on the very wing. But too seldom are such musical moods upon us, and only too readily do they evade the divided mind of man. Happy is he who carries the true song in his heart; who wakes with music on his lips or sinks to rest with the dying cadence of melody ; for in earnest speech lies the soul's safety, and song is language touched with tonal fervour. Silence, on the other hand, is the mother of sullen discontent. The diseased heart can only murmur, mumble, and mutter; it can never sing outright. Music is the health of the heart. Get that right, and good thoughts, the seeds of strenuous action, will spring up unsolicited, like flowers that leap to life, sun-kissed EXPRESSION: MAN 9 with joy. Every feeling is thought in the making, and every thought a possible action. Emotion is potential activity. In music we speak from our innermost nature. As Cicero has it : " It is nature who forces us to break forth into singing when our heart is moved by great and sudden emotions in the wail of grief, in the exultation of joy, in the sigh of melancholy longing." Music must therefore always carry conviction through the sublime mastery of the affection. It makes oratory strangely unconvincing. If we could but argue musically, truth would fall upon us like the dew of heaven, calmly and without the canker of dissent. All thought, then, and especially feeling, is consummated in expression alone. But, in point of fact, no man can say exactly what he means, however sincere his utterance. This is only possible when dealing with exact thinking, such as the expli- cation of a geometrical truth. For when man treats of art or kindred spiritual influences, he lets in a stream of indefinite feeling which colours all his thought with a quality at once indeterminate. In art the infinite finds a means of escape, while science is only possible in the realm of limitation. Yet even in the most impassioned speech, when thought is artistically impressed, the words of the orator seem almost as so many impediments to his meaning. He must needs fall back upon an unutterable persuasion which radiates from his personality. Even poetic ideas imprison much meaning, and words, from a higher aspect, are as bonds to the fancy and boundaries to the imagination. It is to music alone that we owe the translation of the inarticulate into art, where the stubborn barriers of bare verbality crumble before the flood of melody, and the secret glow which sits upon poetic speech becomes no longer a reflection, but a direct realisation. To use a paradox: music, more than any other art, is the expression of the inexpressible. Indeed by the time our ideas are fixed in language they have lost much of their original value. This is not surprising, since, before even outward expression is effected, we are in our deepest conscious- ness, in a sense, barely known to ourselves. Even the soul itself seems more like a divine intimation, revealed in conjunction with what is not itself. All development of soul, moreover, is but the growth of self- knowledge, and what of our spirits is not yet revealed, remains io HERMAIA an unravelled mystery. The highest poet, therefore, is he, whose sentiments most nearly coincide with his speech. But who, indeed, can hope to reveal the entire truth of art ? Nature is more than painting; mind is more than poetry, and the heart of man transcends music, as reality transcends romance. Yet though we cannot hope to capture the entire heaven of beauty, we can at least light our torch with its celestial fire. Plotinus held that the soul is but partially incarnated. And with this fact in view, it would seem as though music, by means of a kind of vibratory sympathy, roused the sub-soul to an artistic, conscious activity. Be this as it may, however, music bespeaks the mas- tery of the inner man. And it is, moreover, because we do not believe in the wealth of our inner possibilities that the tyranny of sense so mightily prevails. Only let us believe whole-heartedly and power will be added unto us. To think strongly is to create force. We are weak because we do not draw liberally on our moral capital. Our resources are illimitable because the soul is metaphysical. As spirits we escape the law of attrition. But we are more concerned about the surface-play of our nature, the superficial spray that leaps into the light of common observation, than the inexhaustible and unfathomable sea of being whence it springs. And yet it is our basic attitude, our radical relation, and in terms of art, our musical mood, which is of supreme account. Think, for a moment, in this connection, upon that royal sentiment of spiritual man. Wherein, for instance, lies the true potency of love ? Is it not that it burns up all the waste and wreckage of misguided effort, and fires immedi- ately the heaven-born energies of the soul? As immortal beings our potentialities are infinite. Music testifies eloquently to this fact. All that is greatest lies deepest in our nature, and in the sub-poetic art we speak directly from the heart, the depository of all that is richest in man. It is the musician, who retires for a season into the soul's abysmal vaults to return anon with beauty trembling on his lips. What was latent in the soul becomes now patent in music. And wise is the man who turns his eyes in upon the cryptic chambers of the spirit, since the mass of mankind, blinded by the garish glare of gaudy outward- ness, are conscious of naught but Cimmerian darkness within. Thus music throws a searching light on our innermost nature, counteracting, thereby, the absorbing influence of the ephemeral EXPRESSION: MAN n aspect and superficial appearance of life. And this, not by intellectual explication, but by intuitive intimation. Music echoes the divinity of the human soul. It shows what riches lie dormant in our humanity, and makes manifest the splendid possibilities of our sympathetic nature. To hear the highest music is to be made immediately conscious of our nobler self. It pronounces upon whatsoever beauty might be thrown in upon the actual business of life. The joy of song is the joy that truth of its very nature awakens. The interest also that music arouses is the interest that attaches itself to every human heart ; and the love of which it speaks is the love which proclaims the kinship of humanity. What, indeed, quickens our enthusiasm like the reciprocal play of beautiful feelings, and what more esthetically convincing than the tones of musical expression? Poets were not speaking irrelevantly, when they termed music the divine art. To be impervious to music is analogous to the moral situation where one turns a deaf ear to an appeal for pity, or refuses to sympathise with suffering. What love is in the moral realm, music is in the realm of the beautiful. " The chief end of man " says Socrates " is to make music." 12 HERMAIA CHAPTER II EXPRESSION ! NATURE BUT our present subject would be incomplete without a cursory glance at nature in reference to the principle of expression under consideration. We feel constrained, therefore, to supplement the foregoing remarks on expression in relation to human nature by a few observations on expression in its bearing on nature proper. We shall pass then from the subjective consciousness of man to the objective cosmos outside of ourselves: we shall transfer our inquiry from the creature to creation itself. And yet it seems scarcely necessary to remind our reader how replete all nature is with expression. Indeed, without such attributes the physical universe would become analogous to a human countenance devoid of animation. In very truth, it is just the presence of the universal Spirit behind matter that renders it expressive and at once indicative of Mind. The desire of nature, it would seem, was to become articulate, to fully speak the joy of life from the sighing of the forest to the surging of the ocean ; from the chattering sunbeams to the crackling heat of June; from the whispering zephyrs to the human voice disburdening its soul of cankering care in the ebullition of health-giving song. Thus at creation we are poetically told that "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.*' This universe by which we are surrounded exists not only as a material means to moral ends, but is established in beauty, with a view to the higher inspiration of our divine humanity. For, as Pope reminds us, we may " look through nature, up to nature's God." The natural world is not only useful for our own immediate physical requirements, but is likewise wholly beautiful. Creation, moreover, stands not only to be scientific- ally known, but, furthermore, to be sympathetically appreciated. But to science pure and simple, this world is but marvellous mechanism; a thing of force and matter which merely excites our admiration and wonderment; whilst to genuine art she is EXPRESSION: NATURE 13 ever " a thing of beauty " and " a joy for ever," and eternally calls forth our affection. In the one case we are in the presence of law, which excites our interest; in the other we are deeply conscious of a love in which the universe is bathed, whereby we have a quickening of our spiritual instincts. For at root love and beauty seem interchangeable terms; or rather beauty is the outer material manifestation of that love which is the inner moral quality of Being. Primarily, then, we view the world as utility. In the second place, we endeavour to interpret her scattered hieroglyphics, whereby science comes into active operation; finally, the very soul goes out towards her in reciprocal appropriation wherein the artistic powers find their adequate objective. And the esthetic view of nature may be regarded as higher and more spiritual than the scientific, since the affections of the heart are of deeper concern and loftier import than are the apprehensions of the intellect. Indeed, in the last resort, poetry may after all have a deeper truth to tell about the universe than even the exactitude of science arrogates to itself. The man of art must, perforce, read not only intellect, but feeling into the cosmos ; interpreting the comeliness of her visage into a promise of those higher moral realities, which, though latent in the physical, only come to full fruition in human nature. For just as we infer a spiritual solici- tude from the radiant countenance of our own humanity, love- suffused; so too may we justly postulate moral qualities, which interiorily animate all nature by reason of her ineffable loveliness. The smile of welcome, then, which irradiates the face of man is at once an earnest of divine sympathy ; and similarly, the physical creation by which we are environed is shot through and through with the lineaments of unquenchable love. Nevertheless, in either case, we are dealing with indirect evidence, for be it the face of man or that of nature, it is but a material manifestation of a spiritual cause. And this latter can only be immediately known on its own peculiar plane; that is, within the sphere of moral consciousness. For do we not deduce the psychical cause of man's physical expression from the content of our own individual mentality? It is in the interiority of our own inner being that we are made immediately conscious of the mighty heart of the universe. To the man of art, this universe, by reason of its ravishing beauty, means something 14 HERMAIA more than atoms and energy. In short, the inspired poem pre- supposes the moralised intellect of the seer, and the entrancing visions of the painter presuppose the priority of a divinely- endowed artist, whether the matter of aestheticism be imme- ately to hand or not. The aesthetic interpretation of creation, therefore, must ultimately be, not materialistic, but spiritual. Thus the votary of the beautiful can truthfully sing with the poetess that earth is crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God. (E. B. BROWNING.) So, in passing from science to art, we pass from material and unconscious, to conscious and spiritual terminology. For engrossed in the merely material constituents of nature, the purely scientific mind fails to respond to the subtle, immaterial delicacy that reveals itself in her comely visage. To the gross vulgarian, again, she is neither beauty nor meaning, merely bulk and mass. On the other hand the glories of nature appeal finally to our spiritual constitution. As Emerson has it: " nature is loved by what is best in us." For she shines resplen- dent with secret meaning, and the irresistible fascination of her manifold charms but indicates a sympathetic desire on her own part to richly mean, and fervently be, something of worth and merit to strenuous and loving souls. In consequence thereof, not only must we apprehend nature with the intellect, but we must appreciate her also with the heart. For it is evident that she is not merely content with sustaining us as physical entities, without which her own planetary purposes were defeated; but, as we have seen, she is endowed with an over-plus of grace and comeliness by means of which each living soul, as it enters into this present physical environment, is accorded a parental greeting, ardent and sincere. For consider, not only do the rivers of the earth serve to slake the thirst of all animate creation, but over and above this mission of mercy, we have the merry music of the bounding brook as it runs singing to the sea. The herbs and foliage, again, are for the healing and sustenance of the nations; and yet beyond this beneficent pur- pose, the vegetable kingdom must needs break into beauteous bloom and smile on humanity with all the instinct of an infinite delight. The sun, likewise, the primal and perennial source EXPRESSION : NATURE 1 5 of all terrestrial vitality, not only quickens into life, but covers the whole wide world with the rich glories of colour, as if earnestly intent on the higher felicity of man. All nature subserves a twofold purpose ; since it not only stands for physical utility, but is also deeply desirous of ministering to the fuller ecstasy of spirit. In other words, nature is not merely a mathematical contrivance since her every appearance is stamped with the profuse generosity of the Divine Artist. Neither is she simply architectural in her formal and stellar regularity, but is pictorially attractive, and rolls out her vast cosmic scheme like the mighty periods of some universal epic, whose culmination is the music of humanity. The cosmos not only establishes the objective fact of experience, but that of the more subtle and subjective fact of expression. Indeed, you can never take her unawares and trap her into ugliness. " Nature," writes Emer- son, " cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty breaks out everywhere ": hers is the beauty of unpremeditated art. Take her in her most unguarded moments, and she will prove herself perennially picturesque. Children at play; startled birds; or frosted patterns on a pane of glass: all are revelations of an unaffected grace. To instance the phenomena of snow: who would suspect that amongst the myriad flakes that gently fall to earth, there are more than a thousand crystalline forms differing in decorative design, some of which are of exceeding complexity. And all this is over and above the protection afforded vegetation; exemplifying the superaddition of estheti- cism to utility. But nature is even beautiful in what we might term her accidents. For the sudden dislodgment of loose soil has often caused the capricious creation of the cascade and the cataract. And to human eyes, the waterfall, as it gushes through the gorge, thus casually prepared, seems hungry for the leap and shakes its dripping locks as if in very excess of delight. The aspiring mountains, again, which stand like prayers expectant at the gates of heaven, though at one time tossed ruthlessly about by some secret cataclysm of angry and tumultuous nature, could not but lapse back again into the majestic beauty of reposeful strength. Beauty is then everywhere delicately poised on the natural. We see it tremulant, as moonshine on the rippled lake, quivering like the glittering sunlight on a tract of snow. And surely it is 16 HERMAIA the radiation of divine Love, suffusing nature as with a smile. Yet what but the finest sensibility can hope to capture the airy substance of the beautiful ? It is all but lost to the unregenerate intellect, and is a fatuous quality to the servants of sense. The obtuse mind must be startled into observation, and the insensate are aroused by the strange and curious alone. And yet it is this prodigal and gratuitous generosity on the part of nature that is the very undoing of most of us. For were there but one sunset in a decade, all the world would be there to witness the pheno- menon : it would be prostituted to the level of a social function. With frequency, reverence diminishes. Quite irrespective of intrinsic worth, we prize most that which is scarce. It is the primitive instinct of covetous possession in its modern garb. The glories of the skies are not marketable commodities, so we treat them with vulgar indifference. But this very unselfish love of nature, in her common appeal to one and all, reveals in reality the parental regard she bears to all her children. Nature scorns favouritism. The multiplication of wealth, however, is one thing; whilst with the increase of truth and beauty, our vital interest seems to decrease. Yet not that a thing should happen only once, but that it should always happen, is miraculous. For is not every soul incarnate an additional testimony to the miracle of being? Spirit is not a thing of magnitude: it is immeasurable. Man is deeper than he is broad. The persistence of nature is, likewise, a matter of unfathomable moment. Surely, then, there is something, after all, that escapes the mere scientific apprehension of natural objects. It is this higher language of the universe. For so long as there are mountains, nature will continue to aspire; so long as there is rain or dew, she will weep or smile as she wakes at morn ; or be it sunshine, creation will never cease to joy in her own existence. Poets are not the only symbolists: nature also is symbolical. She stands to be interpreted, not only as rationality, but, like the inner nature of art, as a suggestive intimation of truths higher than herself. Indeed, she adumbrates the career of souls and is the material analogy of the spirit. For human nature, like the physical, also passes from chaos to cosmos, on the moral plane; through strenuous soul-struggles, "red in tooth and claw," up to love divine which is the very life-blood of perfect man. Nature, like art, is the material mediation of spirit. But just EXPRESSION : NATURE 1 7 as the central self of man is concealed by bodily configuration, so too is nature the partial concealment, as well as the partial revelation of Divinity. Spirit is only known in spirit, and the Soul of nature beams more bounteous in the moralised conscious- ness of man, in the same way in which music is the esthetic revelation of the human soul since it discards the esthetic matter of other arts. For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. So sings the tuneful Tennyson. Yet speech of any kind, verbal or otherwise, is but the incarnation of ideas: spiritualities made manifest. All pro- gression is the unfoldment of the inner, and nature becomes, at once, the art of the Infinite Mind. Nature is beautiful because she streams unimpeded from the divine Source of all being. For what is creation, but a perpetual emanation from the full heart of God? The sanctified soul of man must also flow out in the adequate expression of beauty. The beauty of nature is thus the physical, touched with Divinity. Matter is effect ; and spirit cause. Man, too, is a divine creation that makes for spiritual comeliness. And humanity would also present itself as one vast moral cosmos, full of beauty, did each human soul permit a full and free operation of the universal Will in and through its own finite nature, analogous to the inviolable obedience of the visible universe to natural law. For in either the physical or the spiritual, the operation of the opposite could only end in ugliness and chaos. Force which cannot be erratic must be rational. Law explains nothing, merely states: it is an abstract term for an inner governing Principle. In man virtue becomes spiritual reason. We are constrained, then, to endow nature with personality: she palpitates with mind. She excites our confidence and elicits our love. We cannot with consistency forbid the mind to invest her with meaning. So we feel we cannot contradict the poetic and spiritual interpretation of the universe. And the sole reason why the artistic carries so much conviction within itself is that it permits of a still deeper truth than the bare scientific and objective scrutiny of the cosmos dare permit. Art insists that this universe is not only rational but also B 1 8 HERMAIA characteristic. Reality is divine fiction, and history is the epic of the universal Mind. The soul, when looking through the prose of science rather than the poetry of estheticism, feels this universe to be more or less a temporary imprisonment. Thus is it tenderly sympathetic towards that which will grant it even partial enfranchisement. What, indeed, is the sublime in art or nature but just that which on several splendid occasions justifies our innate love of liberty? We love nature because she permits us to see beyond her as appearance. She humours our divinity; hints at our spiritual heritage and pays tribute to our transcendent destiny, which overreaches physical nature herself. To the man of art, she is thus but delicate drapery scarcely concealing the mystery of spirit; whilst to the intellect alone she is cruelly impervious. Carlyle, speaking of the poet, says that he communicates a certain character of infinitude to whatsoever he delineates. Indeed all true art is an earnest of our immortal nature. The picture that hems us in, that chokes the imagination and does not permit of an outlet to thought is no picture at all, being deprived of that spacial illimitability which is the peculiar characteristic of all that is truly beautiful. And this because man is a creature who seems to transcend his physical mediation and looks to the higher language of art to sing of his spiritual constitution. He is capable of going out into the illimit abilities of thought and rejoices in the ever-receding horizon, as if he were born for immensities which even nature cannot aspire to : perhaps for the very reason that nature spreads outwardly and spirit delves inwardly. In the highest art, there is no finality proper, only infinitude : for it flings us ultimately on to the eternal background of Being. Even science is coming to recognise the illimitability of nature, and the scientist who has an eye for realms beyond the known, has already flung his imagination athwart the path of a kind of dumb unspeaking poesy. The passion for finality, however, is at once the strength and weakness of science. Even philosophers must have their theories and systems of thought. Nevertheless, the true philosopher sees the utter futility of endeavouring to circumvent truth, since, never so ample the theorising, there is always an immensity without. Dogmas, likewise, are vain attempts at imprisoning the Deity in the painful limitations EXPRESSION : NATURE 19 of verbal terminology. Indeed truth is as yet in its infancy, and can barely be suspected, much less logically determined. The true picture, then, will never hem us in, but will always allow of an escape for the imaginative faculty. This is why the highest art seems always to environ our appreciation. It makes our attempts at critical circumvention ridiculous. Art, then, in- vades the spirit. Charity is poetic and sympathy musical. Yet though we may fail to grasp infinitude we rejoice over the artistic assurance of truth and beauty. Thus sublimity in music reaches the highest attainable altitude, since it gives us that which bare thought alone could never hope to circumvent. It gives us the soul which holds the thought in its keeping, and echoes the spiritual applause for which end even nature herself exists. We trust the composers, therefore, implicitly. They nestle in the heart of truth and dwell in the soul of beauty. We never contradict music; it is magnificent assumption. Indeed all true art is affirmative and constructive, seldom, if ever, negative and destructive. Despite Lucretius, a sceptical poet is an anomaly. The ideal and spiritual philosophy of the man of art is, therefore, commendable because it enlists the heart and its affections as well as the head and its logic; and so does violence to no part of our nature. Indeed all great poets have seen this much : that nature viewed solely as physical extension is but a half-truth. They have pierced the protean mask of comely creation. As the poet Pope has it : All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. Or, again, as Goethe writes : Thus in the whistling loom of Time I ply, Weaving the living robe of Deity. And a seamless robe, moreover, accordant with the scientific law of continuity. Thus if nature be the physical configuration of Divinity, then are the myriad stars as corpuscles in the circulation of the cosmic Life, which breathes in the wind, pulses in the seasons, and throbs in the circling orbs of heaven. And to speak figuratively is a necessity, since language must be analogical with reference to spirit. Or again: if creation, which is eternally vibrant, be viewed as the material mediation of the infinite Mind, then is 20 HERMAIA she perchance the cerebral activity of divine Consciousness. Thus the Soul of nature thinks in physical phenomena, reasons in natural law, aspires in the evolutionary tendency, and writes celestial poesy with hieroglyphics that are the planetary bodies of space. The sentiments of the Eternal are the sentient souls of men. God thinks in nature, but in man, he loves. We are God's highest thoughts: his intuitions, so to speak, being the more subjective generation of creativeness and nearer thereto than is the more logical and inferential estrangement of matter, which is at once the objective and mechanical manifestation of the cosmic Consciousness. And being thus the ultimate abstrac- tions of Divinity, the souls of men are of necessity the last to emerge out of this universal corporeality. Yet be they souls or stars, all things are held together in the eternal Self-consciousness ; all humanity is bound up in the great Unifier of multiple Reality- synthesis of total complexity in whom we live, move, and have our being. Thus, at root, all separate personalities are one, conjoined as are the thoughts of finite minds by the nexus of the central self. In nature God reveals his mind ; in man, his Soul. THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 21 CHAPTER III THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION: INTRODUCTION When the analogy can be proved, the argument founded upon it cannot be resisted. J. S. MILL. " THE man is only half himself, the other half is his expression." So writes Emerson. And, needless to say, we are here concerned solely with this other half of man. And that, moreover, in a very specific sense, since much of his expression is, strictly speaking, not necessarily of the artistic. Yet not only man, but nature also, both animate and inanimate, abounds with expression. And that, too, quite apart from purposes of utility. It is beauty for its own sake. We conclude, therefore, that this same initial and Divine impulse, which cannot but create the beautiful, reappears in man as a spiritual necessity. Indeed he alone, amongst sentient creatures, has built up for himself a self-contained world of beauty. And within this universe of art we shall discover order and arrangement, such as is discoverable in any other department of existence where the principle of development has wrought it up into an independent activity. Thus with man, art becomes expression for its own sake. It is divorced from the realm of what we dubiously call the practical, in the narrow and general acceptation of the term. Being therefore independent of the actual, art must of necessity be the product of creativeness, the express sphere of which is the imagination. This latter mental department becomes, in conse- quence, man's peculiar province whence issue the self-initiated products of art. In art then we are in the freeland and liberty- loving realm of the creative soul. The creative imagination is, moreover, not only mind, but the mind's initial power over itself. Whereas simple mentality is but the consciousness of external stimuli prompting the agent to activity, with man arrives a secondary stage of consciousness wherein he is capable of manipulating his own mind. This arises from a more discreted soul and the exercise of its newly awakened and transcendental 22 HERMAIA powers. Art then, along with kindred and higher functions of mentality, represents the energising self differentiated more perfectly from its own objectivity. Art is therefore not only an autonomous activity of mind, but it largely creates for itself its own field of operation. This principle, moreover, will emerge more prominently as we pass the several arts in review. We can trace, however, the growing ascendency of mental freedom by tersely analysing the ordinary processes of conscious- ness. Memory, for instance, is that retrospective act of mind where the soul contemplates the unalterable past. But in prospective thinking we project our thoughts along the lines of possible eventuality, though even here we are still chained to what already is, by links of probability. Yet in the latter mental act we are a step nearer creativeness, since we ourselves must conjure up pictures of the possible out of the raw material of experience. But when we reach what we generically term the artistic, which connotes pure creativeness, the intellect is at once detached from the catena of actuality. We are here released from reality and are temporarily emancipated from the life of the practical will. Thus the man of art may co-relate the natural in ways that do not obtain in nature, while the scientist must think the universe as it is in itself, else were his no true science at all. In morality, again, we are called upon to individu- ally adapt ourselves to exigent circumstances, exactly as they find us. Art, then, is at once divorced from the sequence of real life. It employs the pioneer faculty of the imagination. In dreams all men seem as creative artists. They are both fact and fiction ; real at the moment, yet at the same time, arbitrary to the dreamer. Poems are therefore as day-dreams, pictures as visions in sleep, and music like some secret intimation from a world interior to our own. But when we say that art or creativeness is mind detached from experience, we do not mean that the man of art is he who creates what previously had no existence in fact for nothing can come out of nothing but imply rather that the artist is lie who freely selects and combines the multiplicity of phenomena that feed his consciousness. No man is wholly irrespective of his own experience. His thoughts are contingent, since he himself is derivative. Art, therefore, does not so much create as recreate what already is. Thus we find imagined forms in THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 23 painting, imagined facts in poetry, and imagined feelings in music, all of which are phenomena eclectically dealt with, though still quotations from the vast volume of reality. Neither is man's artistic world a product of purposeless ingenuity. The artist creates in response to his innate love of beauty. For just as physical nature, over and above law, emerges beautiful, so too was the expressional activity of man born for esthetic ends. Art is therefore a functional activity of man highly differentiated from other fundamental activities, all of which go to make up a single community of interests. Expression obeys a law that is over and above itself. Indeed there is nothing created save for some specific end. Just as man exists for morality, so art exists for ends that are lovely and inspiring; while utility may be said to be one of the main purposes of the physical. Beauty becomes the conscience of art. But in thinking upon this prin- ciple of beauty, we must always remember that there are different kinds as well as different degrees of beauty, just as there are various manifestations of art, though there is in reality but one esthetic principle. Nothing indeed remains simple, but must split up into variously related sections. 24 HERMAIA CHAPTER IV THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION Now, where there is expression it is obvious that there must be something expressed. And the man of art, while obedient to the constitutional law of art itself, is free to draw upon entire existence for his subject-material. Broadly speaking, all reality may become the artistic model for expression. And it will be readily seen, further, that since diversity abounds in the world of reality, there will be a corresponding diversity in the world of art. Thus our immediate consideration will be, in what manner and by what method does this universe of art ultimately shape itself. Now since art, however creative, cannot but reflect reality, we shall find reality exercising a reflex influence upon the domain of art .itself. Thus if we set the world of idealism and realism alongside one another, we shall be able to read off the features of reality as reflected in the mirror of man's artistic consciousness. But since man is neither more nor less than his own consciousness, we may say that art is the ideal expression of real experience. Art, then, may be said to be the reflection of total existence. We shall view, therefore, the world of art as one massive, organic unity. And since art is wholly dependent on the real world for its material, we shall find an analogy subsisting between the world of expression and the world of experience. The artistic world, we shall find, strictly parallels objective existence and subjective experience. And just as total reality is divided, so shall we find the universe of art similarly divided. The ideal and the real will become therefore convertible terms. Furthermore, it will be our duty to consider, at length, the correspondence between each art and its complement in reality; to consider moreover the validity of such allotment and discuss, by means of collation, the limits and conditions under which the several arts exist. This analogy subsisting between the real and the ideal will enable us to arrive at a clearer appreciation of the arts themselves. THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 25 And we shall discover, further, familiar natural laws at work also in the ideal world, and find for ourselves universal lines upon which even this freer world of estheticism will be seen to run. For even the imagination must abide by external strictures, other than self-imposed. And the foregoing hypothesis grows out of the constitution of art itself. For it is just these very divisions in the region of reality that have themselves excited into being the various expressional media. Whatever be the exciting phenomenon we shall find that art in some form or other is quick to respond. And while impression comes to us from without, expression, subtly responsive, proceeds from within. Thus idealism and realism are reciprocally related and institute a perfect parallelism. Art is therefore, of necessity, strong in effect, since it issues from the man himself, rather than from the bare thinking apparatus. All that is beautiful in nature and noble in humanity is the animating cause, of which all art is the supreme effect. The spirit of man is like a harp whose tuneful strings are plucked by experience. Now it must be admitted that, although all art is identical at root, the varied physical phenomena and facts of mind cannot be treated indiscriminately by the different arts. Thus, at this point, emerges the law of EXPRESSION, whereby the fact or form to be expressed governs the mode of expression. A thing - or thought, for instance, stands expressed when fully revealed f with all its contents exposed to the percipient mind. But there is something over and above the bare expression of a product of art, and this significant over-plus we shall term SUGGESTION. For just as the charms of nature are something more than the physical facts themselves, just as the glory of the cosmos is something more than the outcome of the operation of mere natural law, so this residual suggestion is something beyond the esthetic fact or feeling artistically expressed. It is as the delicate mist that rises from the solid earth when kissed by the warm sun of the morning. It is the penumbra surrounding the temporal eclipse of the eternal: the halo that hovers about our humanity; or, again, the irradiance that streams from common things when transfigured by the spiritual. In short, it is ex- actly that which escapes the cold statement of science the divinity of the ordinary. In the principle of suggestion, there- fore, we alight upon that which is of the very soul of art itself. 26 HERMAIA For while science endeavours to circumvent the finite by means of the intellect, art strives to realise the infinite by appealing to the heart. Science may hint at nothing beyond itself. It ^ dare not suggest, only state what is, definitely and exactly. On the other hand, every true work of art must refer us to that which is beyond itself. It should never be an end in itself, but rather be a medium through which the soul may pass out into higher reality. We do not so much think of a work of beauty as think through it. It is more than an interesting fact, it is a spiritual intimation. There is, moreover, an element of the inevitable about all high art. A masterpiece seems as though it must have existed through all eternity, secreted somewhere in the infinite Mind, and that it could not but have been, and that, too, not otherwise than it now is. Men, as a rule, think more of the means of expression than of the thing expressed. The vulgar never get beyond the executant. They cannot see through the agent to the act itself. They look only with the corporeal eye. Ideas in themselves have no fascination for them. And while genius sees beyond the medium of art, mere talent stops at colour and sound. It is the average mind that sees sooner the execution of an idea than the idea itself. Mediocrity cannot see the picture properly for the paint, nor hear the music aright on account of the sound never sees the eternal principle, only the temporal manifestation thereof. Yet when craft arrests the mind, art becomes hopelessly impotent. The highest art should appear transitional; not even a thing of sense. It should be rather as an accidental moment, passing on its way through eternity. As Carlyle has it, art is " eternity looking through time." All great works of art refer us to an ultimate possible beauty, which even art itself can only hope but partially to reflect. The ideal is sure to lose in its transmission. Even our highest achievements are but unrealised ideals, and our best attainments but baffled aspirations. We must for ever fall short of the ideal, else were it no ideal at all. The noblest products of inspiration are greater in what they suggest than in what they accomplish. In the words of Emerson: " Our music, our poetry, our language itself, are not satisfactions, but suggestions." But this principle of suggestion is both the efficiency of art, when viewed from beneath, and the deficiency, when viewed from above, the subject or object of expression. Thus a thing THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 27 or thought is merely suggested to us, when the artistic medium stands between us and a higher esthetic presentation. In facial expression, for instance, we have an outer material manifestation of an inner mental state. But while the play of features merely suggests an inner condition of mind, it is to speech and not to physical conformation that we resort for a full and ample expression of this same mental state. The weakness of one art becomes the strength of another ; and what is merely suggestion in any one of the arts becomes the material for expression in the art next in order of rotation. Thus the arts follow one another in logical sequence. In short, we find in painting the potenti- ality of poetry, and in poetry the promise of music. In other words, the suggestion of one art becomes the substance of another. Painting begets poetry, and poetry, music. Each art is, roughly speaking, but a preparation for a subsequent art. First of all architecture rises into being, lending itself readily enough to pictorial and sculptural embellishment. The sacred fane or temple of the Highest, rising in aspiration from the earth and towering to the heavens, nourished, again, the holy psalm and represented, so to speak, the structural body of sacred song. When we would give expression to any beautiful ideas, we must call in the assistance of that peculiar art which operates on the plane common to the ideas in question. In other words, the matter to be expressed and the mode of expression should both be found in the same mental department. If we intend to delineate form we must resort to the formal art of painting; if we would depict fancy we must have recourse to the more imaginative art of poetry ; and should we desire to express only feeling we find music to be the apposite art. This, roughly speaking, is but the natural succession of material, mental, and moral beauty. In short, each art brings along with itself its own peculiar material for consciousness; just as in real life, whatever plane we occupy, our consciousness is furnished with whatsoever material that plane contains. Yet, strictly speaking all the arts contain the same elements. We find music in poetry, poetry in painting, and pictures in music. It is rather the admixture of these elements in varying proportions that constrains the several arts to fall into provinces of their own making. All the arts radiate from a common centre. It is only when 28 HERMAIA / - man's inner artistic consciousness breaks upon the external world of reality that it splits up into specific modes of expression. Thus if man's simple esthetic sense concerns itself mainly about materiality, it will generate painting; if however it specially direct itself towards mentality, it will produce poetry; and if spirituality specifically engage its attention, music is engendered. But this only illustrates differentiation in the world of art, by reason of differentiation in the world of reality. When once, however, such specific divisions have been instituted, let us see in what manner each art in turn may be evoked. All beauteous nature, for instance, may be regarded as one of the grand sources whence all the arts take their inspiration. And when we see nature, our first impulse is to reproduce her, when we become painter. But soon we feel conscious of insufficiency, for thoughts crowd in upon us and would fain overflow in suitable language. And here at this point our poetic nature is engaged, and we are nearer the artistic truth. Still, however, our inner esthetic awakening is not yet fully accomplished until music arises to give voice to our deeper feelings and higher aspirations. We have, at this artistic juncture, the soul's deepest response to the natural. There is the filial expression of joy, when nature comes into the recognition of her own cosmic comeliness, as reflected in the consciousness of man. The medium of expression, then, shifts all along the line of art. Painting pales away into poetry; poetry melts into music. Where the painter fails to interpret the changeful moods of nature, the poet comes to our assistance. And when words fail the poet, the musician steps in, and, discarding semblance and metaphor, copes with the inarticulate and conquers the evasive emotions of man. Thus each art in turn delves deeper into the heart of reality. Still we shall never know how much of the beauty of nature is due to our own esthetic constitution. The glories of inanimate creation are really traceable to the fine endowments of our own hearts. It is we ourselves who are the mystery. It is man's own consciousness that colours the cosmos. For there is more divinity in the human heart than in objective nature. Human nature, indeed, transcends the physical. We at least can appreciate and approximately apprehend the universe, but the natural world, as such, can never know us. Thus the tragedies of Shakespeare transcend his poetical descriptions of natural THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 29 scenery. Charity is higher than the loftiest mountain, and love is deeper that the unfathomable ocean. The warm breath of the south is as nothing to a fleeting sentiment of goodness. Does not the very will of man create, while nature stands already created by the formative principle of the Divine Will ? Further is not the mental more than the material, and the moral, again, more than the mental? And is not man in vital contact with each of these planes? In the depths of his moral nature, he touches Divinity itself, and in his material nature he looks out upon the objective universe. He thus embraces both the outer physical and inner metaphysical, and in his central spiritual consciousness unifies both principles of being. Here then we have the graduated scale of art. From all this we see that painting strengthens our powers of observation, i-while poetry and music promote reflection and meditation. We f see also that the thoughts and feelings, embodied in poetry and music, are not what nature gives us, only what she excites in us. These become the arts of origination and pure creativeness. This is pre-eminently true of music, since even poetry, in her most exalted flights of imagery, resorts to facts in nature. We have thus obtained two fundamental views of art; one where the same external fact calls into being the different arts in rational sequence, the other where the different arts play upon their appropriate departments. As man's higher estheticism evolved, the several arts rose to satisfy, in turn, the gradual unfoldment of his nature. Thus no part of our humanity is left unexpressed, and no part of our esthetic sensibility left to artistic apathy. For as the diviner feelings assert themselves, man cannot rest content with the mere visual aspect of things, which hides the invisible, he must needs probe the heart of all with which he is concerned, thus paving the way for other arts which keep pace with the expansion of his inner nature. Thus the different arts are seen to energise on the different planes of universal being. And the reader will discover later on that the evolution of beauty is but a gradual invasion of the interior region of consciousness. The three main divisions in the art- world are so many strata in the esthetic universe. All art is but the soul of man crying out to the inner Spirit of nature. And humanity is not content with imitating nature ; neither is man entirely satisfied with an art that wordily toys 3 o HERMAIA with her massiveness. Poetry, even, will not suffice to meet the clamant need of art: we need music, a separate esthetic existence, which, with subtle fluctuations, will wrap all creation round with her melodious mantle; an art, moreover, that will echo the super-sensuous Soul of nature, giving us the deep utterances of her perennial silence, ready tongued and articulate. For here, deep answers deep : the heart of nature pulses audibly. We can now feel her pulse, and lay our ear against her throbbing emotions, and learn, in short, the true mystery of nature's hidden song. See too with what sacred hunger the soul seizes upon whatso- ever material will help to express its highest aspirations ! With- out this deep expressional instinct, music might have remained a thing unborn. For to satisfy our still higher cravings, art had to rear a noble structure out of material apparently the most unpromising. When we see the splashes of colour which bespatter the painter's palette we can scarcely realise that such will live in supreme beauty. And what are words but dead things waiting to be galvanised into momentous meaning? Yet, when touched by the magic of inspiration, they leap to life, ordered and organised, and become charged with the power of swaying the destinies of nations. And what again affords so little promise as a few sounds, however ingeniously arranged? Yet here we have a force that has rolled together multitudinous souls, as though they throbbed with one mighty pulsation of the divine eart. As Newman writes: " There are but seven notes in the scale ; make them fourteen, yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings so much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master in it create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventive- ness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game of fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning ? ... Is it possible that that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so; it cannot be. No; they have THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 31 escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home . . . they are the living laws of Divine Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they besides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter, though mortal man has the gift of eliciting them." Yet things, apparently mean in themselves, have ever been the media of sanctity. The humblest human heart may be the home of the Eternal, while a single act of charity becomes the noblest of sacraments. There is nothing common save to the common eye. Where there is spirit, all things are transfigured, and to the free soul everything is bathed in wonder and steeped in sanctity. No man can limit the possible. At this point a note of caution must be sounded. In dealing thus with creative thought we must be careful to view it simply and solely as thought. The physical requisites, for instance, the poet's pen, the painter's brush, the sculptor's spatula, and the musician's instrument, have, properly speaking, nothing whatever to do with artistic thought itself, any more than the spoken or written word is identical with the idea expressed. They are but the mechanical media of artistic expression, and we must not confuse thought with its material means of conveyance. The violin is not the music, any more than the tongue is speech. Neither must we confound the mediumship of light and sound with the esthetic intelligence or artistic influence to be trans- mitted. Hearing, in itself, is no more spiritual than sight. The senses derive their respective values from the esthetic uses to which they are put. Thus, though feeling is neither heard nor seen, yet music, which is sound, appeals immediately to the emotions. So we must estimate art, throughout this inquiry, only in so far as it modifies the mind and influences the heart of man. Indeed we only know a thing properly when we have tracked it down to its ultimate goal in consciousness. 32 HERMAIA CHAPTER V KINGDOMS IN THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION BUT what after all are the main divisions of total existence? Generally speaking, they resolve themselves into matter, mind, and spirit. And in searching for analogous divisions in the world of art, we find it readily splits itself up into painting (which includes all the plastic arts), poetry, and music. Each art, therefore, appropriates some special sphere of beauty, by reason of certain outstanding and inherent characteristics that compel such adjustment. And, in our later chapters, it will be our duty to show to what extent the salient features of the three individual kingdoms find their complementary analogy in the respective kingdoms of the artistic world. And such correspondent parallelism, when once established, will help to justify our allotment of the several arts, and enable us to understand the better their private spheres of artistic activity. But it must be fully understood that we speak analogically throughout, since however rigid be the application of the formula, art is still intellectual freedom. And any seeming departure from the strictness of our parallel must be attributed to the eclectic spirit of art itself. Thus painting is not necessarily artistic materialism, although it is the material manifestation of art; for all art is the expression of ideality and, whatever be the esthetic department, should deal with the highest alone. And on this particular point we cannot insist too strongly. Throughout this inquiry, it must always be borne in mind that to the man of art all is spirit ; all is mind. And this, moreover, accords strictly with our analogy. For though the realm of Reality breaks up into the three modal aspects of matter, mind, and spirit, we are coming to recognise these as one in essence. It may be, moreover, that without this principle of unity and identity, the universe could never maintain its intercommunion, or realise its interdependence, of parts. So all art contains within its central nature moralistic tendencies. It is for ever THE WORLD OF EXPRESSION 33 making for the idealisation of the physical and sublimation of the material. It exists solely by reason of the spiritual that pervades the universe. Or as Hegel has it, " Beauty is merely the spiritual making itself known sensuously." All the arts converge towards the soul, although some approximate to it more closely than others. The true artist, therefore, is he who, through some particular medium, appeals finally to the spirit of man. It is the superficial dilettante alone who breaks up all art into divers sense-disturbances. And it is to such an one that we owe the travesty of art, where our noblest sensibilities are degraded into mere sensations, and where lofty sentiment is debased to the low-lying level of spurious sentimentality. Paint- ing, therefore, is psychological rather than physiological. It does not so much materialise the spiritual, as it spiritualises the material. It teaches us to exalt, rather than despise, the physical. And this because, in art, nature obeys the soul. For consider how the sculptor subdues the stony substance of his craft : see how the musician enslaves the evasive airiness of sound! Thus, while science favours realism, art espouses the spiritual. Both views, however, are correct; the one from the outer, the other from the inner, point of vision. Art is the spirit of which science is the letter. And by due regard to both phases of mind we are, on the one hand, saved from nihilistic idealism, and, on the other, rescued from a barren materialism. Nevertheless, with the essential nature of all art full in view, the several sectional divisions of the artistic world dispose themselves in obedience to the governance of reality. We have, therefore, despite the spirituality of all estheticism, minor kingdoms asserting themselves in the region of subjective idealism coincident with what we find in the realm of objective realism. Yet beauty, when physically expressed, as in painting, may still be instinct with mind, and the atoms themselves trembling with vitality. The very planes of being themselves, be they real or ideal, are very much interwoven, thus enabling us to pass from one art to another without any hiatus. Thus, if painting cannot express vitality taking expression in its strictest sense it can and does emphatically suggest qualities of mind. And while poetry cannot express the spiritual with the ample fervour of music, it can and does forcibly suggest the deeply-seated life of the soul. And while music, again, directly expresses the c 34 HERMAIA hidden depths of spiritual being, it may likewise indirectly suggest, though faintly, the facts of painting and of poetry. Similarly, the various kingdoms of the world of reality are interwoven. For to say exactly when and where matter fails of the principle of life, or vitality is entirely destitute of the spiritual, is a problem that evades the closest scrutiny of the human intellect. It is as difficult to conceive of the transition from life to spirit as of the passage from water to steam. Even matter itself may tingle with vitality. Whatever be the common denominator of the universe, the various kingdoms thereof will remain relatively discrete. In the case of art, therefore, the principle of suggestion institutes a vital connection between the several kingdoms of the esthetic world, and renders their logical sequence an accomplished fact. The world of art is total reality reappearing in the imagination from plastic art, which reflects appearance, to music, which is the ideal reflection of that which underlies appearance. And if we consider how creation was built up from the inanimate to the animate, and how the realm of creativeness has been built up from the arts of plasticity to music, the progress from stones to souls in the real world will not appear greater than the progress made from the pictorial art, through poetry, up to the tuneful art, in the ideal world. All this, however, is the world of art relative to the macrocosm, and our hypothesis will appear more pertinent if we couch it in terms relative to the microcosm : man himself. For just as man craved for the adequate ex- pression of his tripartite nature, so the three divisions of the artistic world rose to satisfy the several esthetic desiderata in natural rotation. And it is the form and features that first attract attention, then the spoken thoughts, and finally the secret motives of the heart. Roughly speaking, painting ex- presses man's body, poetry his mind, while music is expressive of his soul. They are, respectively, the physical, mental, and spiritual arts ; or again : materialism, mentalism, and moralism in the language of beauty. There are, or course, other theoretical divisions of man's tripartite nature, such as body, soul, and mind or spirit; but we adopt the former for philosophical reasons, yet to come. We have anticipated our conclusion, and the validity of our contention must rest upon the subsequent chapters. PAINTING : INTRODUCTION 3 5 CHAPTER VI PAINTING : INTRODUCTION High art consists neither in altering, nor improving nature ... is great in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty forfeit no atom of truth. RUSKIN. IN our last chapter we suggested that each art falls naturally into its own private province or sphere of activity by reason of its inherent disposition; and that painting, for instance, is by its very constitutive nature predestined to express the material aspect of reality. This being the case, we shall lead off our inquiry into each individual art by a fuller treatment of the art in question. Our present duty then is to justify through analogy the hypothesis thus enunciated. But without recapitulating what has already gone before, let us first of all search through the wider domain of man's ideal world and see why, among other arts, painting is peculiarly fitted to esthetically treat of the physical kingdom of the actual. And in so doing we must discover such correlative correspondence between the pictorial art and the universe of matter as shall preclude once and for all any other art from a like esthetic purpose. What then are the inexorable demands which this division of the real world will make upon that art which claims full expression as its appropriate mission: what, in short, are the peculiar outstanding characteristics of the physical which will, in turn, determine the nature of the art by means of which the physical can alone be properly expressed? From the nature of the case, the question that now arises is one of the simplest, for we are here dealing with the tangible and apparent. Are not the essential peculiarities of the non-mental world of objective externality and spatial solidity peculiarities which, practically speaking, are the very first to awaken to activity our latent consciousness? In relation to time, again, we observe that the material universe lays claim to priority, preceding, as we have already seen, the manifestation of the mental and moral realms 36 HERMAIA in the vast cosmic process. These two fundamental aspects of materiality, however, will suffice to guide us in determining which art or arts may be regarded as the esthetic correlation of the physical. Let us now pass the arts in review and see into what form or bare mould the contents of each are thrown. Let us observe under what specific laws of being each of the arts comes to exist ; and what is the peculiar behaviour of the varied modes of estheticism. First of all the plastic arts manifest themselves as simultaneity in space, while, on the other hand, poetry and music, as previously noted, are arts of the interior consciousness and exist as succession in time. Music is both simultaneity and succession, whilst painting and cognate arts are spatial and momentary. Poetry, further, is of spatial objects interiorised, as well as of time; whilst music is of time without space, and more properly spiritual. So whereas painting gives us momen- tary relativity in space, poetry and music give us both the ante- cedent and sequent in time. Architecture, again, encloses a segment of space, and painting, along with sculpture, occupies space; while poetry encloses a section of time, and musical thought is discoverable in time. Rhythm is in time and sym- metry in space. Now from the foregoing it will be noticed that poetry mediates the plastic and musical arts by internalising the spatial extension of the former and revealing itself in the inner time-sequence of the latter. Poetry accomplishes that synthetic unity which is the one function of thought proper. It links itself thereby to the inner flux of music and the outer substantiality of painting. Again : time, according to Bergson, is more fundamental than space, and is of the very essence of reality itself. According to the same author, the principle of flux and change are equally of the very nature of fundamental life and reality. Music, therefore, is the more real and fundamental aspect of the beauti- ful. This same philosopher holds, further, that this life-reality has no particular form, but (like music) contains within itself the promise and possibility of all form, according to the degree of material elasticity. And, analogous to music, we are conscious of this life, apart from intellectual form. For in music we are aware of states of consciousness, not as made up of measurable elements that can be spatially represented, but as immeasurable PAINTING : INTRODUCTION 37 qualities that permeate the creative soul. So in this connection, painting stands out as esthetic life assuming fixity in space, wherein movement is interrupted and detained as extension; poetry, as esthetic life, expressing itself within the conjunct category of both time and space ; in time, because of its move- ment; in space, because it cannot apprehend itself apart from the limitations of spatial concepts; and music, as expressive of the wider, yet identical, beauty-consciousness, energising in duration as the initial impulsion of life itself. So, in Bergsonian parlance, music becomes in art " the notion of a reality which persists inwardly, and is in fact duration itself." Furthermore, be it noted, non-spatial emotion, which is the characteristic of all art, and peculiarly so of music, is of the inner time-reality, and is accordingly fundamental to the formative intellect which, however exalted, must think in terms of the outer space-dimen- sion. In other words, just as feeling and duration are interior to thought and space, so is art the interior of philosophy, and of science in particular. But, to cite Bergson once more, " duration really seems to act after the fashion of a cause," so that, in this present reference, emotion becomes the dynamic power-cause of which thought is the static, spatial, and presentative body thereof. But we have said more than enough in this connection. Suffice it here to say that in music we ' intue ' the life-reality, as understood by this philosopher. Now from the one point of view of matter, as objective extension in space, it must be conceded that here the plastic arts alone fulfil such requirements as are needed for a proper expression of material beauty. Matter, indeed, can only be adequately expressed in terms of matter, or, more strictly speak- ing, in terms of material semblance. But again: painting is the synchronous appreciation of space-occupancy ; it presents us with the impression of the moment; whilst the other arts are compelled to permit of the passage of sequent thoughts and feelings before they stand self -revealed. Such being the case, it is obvious that the one moment which painting perpetuates must necessarily be prior in time to the two or more moments which are the inevitable conditions of both poetry and music. Thus do we see that, relative to the artistic consciousness, the arts of plasticity lay claim to chronological priority. In short, the arts of externality must be antecedent to those of internality, 38 HERMAIA since space is the form of the outer-objective, and time, that of the inner-subjective, sense and the outward antedates the manifestation of that which is inward. Of course the internal is for ever potentially present, but our analogy is to be drawn from the cosmic progression and the laws of thought. First we observe outwardly and then we think inwardly. The time- series is therefore an inevitable condition of any mental life whatsoever. First extension in space and then succession in time. Thus as art evolves there is a tendency to ignore the first dimension of thought or spatial limitation and a consequent tendency to express that freer life of movement which is enjoyed by the interiorised consciousness, conditioned by time. But is not external nature, it may be asked, likewise represen- tative of this time-series : in other words, does not the physical universe also exhibit motion and change ? This too is true ; for not only mind, but matter likewise, is in a state of flux. The motional in the material world, however, in denied to the non- spiritual arts. Not even painting, the noblest of the plastic arts, can properly express movement. And this inability is due to the formal constitution of the art itself which, by our very hypothesis, deprives it of the treatment of animation and vitality proper. And may we not regard movement and change in nature as its own peculiar life; while life in essence can, at best, be "merely suggested by the plastic arts. Yet even in these lower forms of beauty we observe intimations of artistic ascent : we notice, so to speak, the dawn of esthetic life, even in the arts of materiality. Thus in the highest architecture, formal solidity seems on the very verge of movement, and in sculpture, not to say figure-painting, the very lines if essentially artistic appear literally to flow, pulsating, as if in a state of vibration. And all this is but the earnest of a loftier esthetic existence yet to come. It is the promise of the ultimate art of music, which moves along a mysterious line of progress. These preceding remarks, however, must be read in the light of the primary laws of artistic expression and suggestion, in their mutual relativity, already postulated in a previous chapter. But to leave these somewhat formal considerations and to descend to a more general view of our subject, it will still be noticed that the plastic arts may further lay claim to priority in time on other grounds than those of analysed consciousness. PAINTING -.INTRODUCTION 39 For just as in the objective world of fact matter springs first into prominence, paving the way for the more subtle manifestations of the spirit; so does plastic art, taken in its widest sense, initiate the procession of the arts. The earliest dawn of ethnic existence is marked by the discovery of imitative incisions in bone which represent the most primitive relics of any kind of art whatsoever. We find, however, no such silent intimations belonging to the prehistoric period of a, comparatively speaking, mature craft in either the art of poetry or that of music. This, at all events, with but rare exceptions, such as the discovery of a prehistoric flute. And this additional fact, among others, alone warrants our allocation, in order of being, of the arts of visibility. Consider further this primitive aspect of the pictorial. Typi- cal of the childhood of humanity, it is based on imitation; and the child-mind loves to simulate. The first mental act is that of identification, rather than differentiation. We notice this in the sweeping generalisations of infancy. And the plastic arts are founded on the substantial identity of model and medium. And what, indeed, are the games of children but glimmerings of an ideal art-world yet to come ? They are dramatic enact- ments. At best pictures are but pretences. With man imita- tion precedes invention, just as painting became an absolute art long before really mature music settled down as self-existent. Indeed music remained for a long time but ancillary before it grew to be an independent art. Not relying on any outward conformity to a pre-existent type to be found in nature, it had to be delicately nurtured and fostered under the tender tutelage of religion before it could become separate and unallied, and live to itself as an absolute art. Music had literally to create its own body of existence, and find out for itself its own form of being which it could suitably inhabit, before it could properly become an art at all. We shall find then that the creative spirit is greatest in this art. Truth to nature is the painter's dictum, but truth to our common humanity is the musician's ideal. Inventions, or crea- tiveness on the practical plane, are likewise but plagiarisms from the open book of nature. Accordingly painting may be said to be artistic realism, and music, esthetic idealism, since the latter soars far and above what obtains substantially in the region of the real. The former art is then juvenile in the 4 o HERMAIA evolution of the artistic. And yet is not all art, after all, but the candour of youth in each one of us? We counterfeit that we may preach a higher truth. We reach the individual by an impersonal appeal to our general human nature. In art, all men, without fear of malice or dissidence, may become diaphan- ous and truthful. And this, too, since in art we speak with sincerity, and out of loving sympathy, the which cannot in any wise be resented. We regret also when the child superiorly disdains the pretty lurking love of self-deception, since it bespeaks a loving trust in the ideal. Art keeps young the soul, and grants it immunity against the tarnish of time. Furthermore, the faculty of imitation engrafts example. This power is also of great significance. Life is made up of copies. We all have our ideal type secreted somewhere in the mind. We all have our heroes and to imitate them gives us moral assurance. Art, with all its poems and pictures, is nothing more than childish pretence. And the higher the art the more complete the illusion. Indeed all art practises an imposition upon us. To be reminded of the model in any picture is fatal to the artistic principle. It is well suggested, then, that art is to deceive and the craft of art to conceal deception. Still the sincerity of true inspiration makes for reality. Indeed the rise of all art is identical with the growing semblance of the real. Thus with music we feel so intensely the tonal truth thereof, that we must perforce credit it with being the very heart of reality itself. And truth never can grow old. It is the one grand permanence in our lives. For this reason art rejuvenates, since it is the constant accession of feeling that keeps young the world. It is the fiery fervour of youth, the age of inspiration and enthusiasm. For youth is the spring-tide season of ideas; and maturity the later period which sees the adequate expression thereof. Genius is spiritual juvenescence. Poets are souls that have never really lost their childhood. The clear spirit of the divine seer recognises no age for the soul. It unmasks at a glance the veneer of custom and the masquerade of fashion. The poet hath the child's sight in his breast And sees all new. What oftenest he has viewed, He views with the first glory. (E. B. BROWNING.) Conversely; only undue materialism renders senile the spirit PAINTING : INTRODUCTION 41 of man. To dwell in the temporal and neglect the ideal realm is to decay. The artist's mind is free and all natural objects are put to the finest use. They are toys to his creative will. The child-nature, moreover, characterises true greatness. Only coarse natures glorify worldly wisdom. On the other hand, children live in a perpetual state of open-eyed wonderment. All things are new to them. Every day is a fresh creation, and the multiplicity of natural objects by which they are surrounded does not blunt their curiosity, but rather serves to enhance with freshened lustre the world at which they marvel. Every flower is a joyous surprise. The brooklet, with its tiny jostling waves, has a half-remembered secret, private to itself and the infant heart; and the merry twinkle of its sun-kindled surface laughs back again, responsive to its childish glee. The child has a solemn pact with hedgerows in the lane. Some try sting-tree, that shelters its infant fancies, is the imaginative haunt of early joys; and every mossy bank is a purposeful arrangement for its playful schemes. By night, the child is half persuaded that the distant stars have a private eye for its little world of infinite interests. Indeed, even man is essentially an animal that marvels; and he who has never wondered, has never known anything properly. It is the fool who is astonished at nothing. But as Wordsworth deplores : Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy. For the eyes, one time the gates of visionary beauty, grow dim, battered by the coarser rays of hard materiality. Painting is then universal art in its infancy. It deals with the objective and satisfies the early dawn of the artistic mind with palpable picturability. It is, as we have already seen, the first mental act in art. First of all the outer world beats on our senses and is followed by the awakening of the inner mind. The child attends primarily to the visibly external. And simi- larly the painter attends solely to the object, while later on the poet will be seen to think about it. The painter only imagines, while the poet both thinks and imagines. Youth, moreover, is strong in visualisation. Nothing is so real to the young heart as the visionary day-dreams which enthral the soul. He does not see things as they are but as he would like them to be. Let 42 HERMAIA the young, therefore, be surrounded by pictures, for they will sink into the impressionable consciousness, become incorporate with their thinking, and germinate lofty aspiration in years to come: they will become what in psychology are called the kinesthetic equivalents of thought. So Plato was right when he said, " The young citizens must not be allowed to grow up amongst images of evil, lest their souls assimilate the ugliness of their surroundings. Rather they should be like men living in a beautiful and healthy place; for everything that they see and hear, loveliness like a breeze, should pass into their souls and teach them without knowing it the truth of which beauty is a manifestation." Youth insists on objective illustration. But later on we shall find that the more mature mind thinks without the aid of ex- ternals. With mental development comes the consciousness of abstract relations in thought. Poetry secretes the objective in consciousness; hence the advent of the poet. First the inarticulate, then the articulate. First painting, then poetry. But, in a sense, formalism is the concession of the Infinite to finite minds. For to draw a parallelism: the infancy of any religion is marked by an aggregation of external ceremonialism. No prophet has ever yet spoken whose inspirational utterances, however spiritual originally, have not been concreted and materialised by inept neophytes into formulary and ritualism. And this, too, because man by nature is not a mentalist. He flies to symbolism as a corrective to his native lack of introspec- tion. The confused and indefinite state of his inner conscious- ness must be compensated for by an outer definite formalism. His thoughts must be granted solidity before he can properly know them, and his aspirations must be allowed a local habitation and a name. For him, meaning must run into a mould, whereby the former is oftentimes lost in the undue contemplation of the latter. Primitive man for ever sought truth outside of himself. He mistook nature for the " divine Idea " it merely bodied forth. It was the man, endowed with prophetic insight, who alone was continually enforcing the eternal truism, that the " kingdom of Heaven " was like music within the soul and not outside of it. He was for ever inveighing against the spiritual sterility of sacerdotalism. Nevertheless, form has a rightful place in the economy of PAINTING : INTRODUCTION 43 thought; that is, if it grow naturally as does the body round and about the governing principle of the soul's inner vitality. Any other outward development is spurious and harmful, since it usurps the proper domination of the inner essence, degenerating into vain formality, which is at once false and meretricious. Here the essential fact is lost beneath the encumbrance of unessential form. Such development is no true vital growth no natural expansion from within; but rather a factitious agglutination from without. True form shapes itself about the germinal idea, substantiating for us the vague and abstract, and bringing to light the otherwise amorphous essence. Indeed, does not poetry run into rhyme and metre, and music into rhythm and order? And this, too, is but a pale reflection of that vaster universal process, whereby the cosmic not-self gathers itself about the eternal and all-sustaining Self. But slowly as the inner self of man evolves, he lays aside the varied formulae by which he lived and rises to that higher subjective sphere where spirit is immanent, and objective figuration, having accomplished its mission, pales away into desuetude. So, too, do the arts represent the growing superiority of the spiritual. Painting stands first as the priest in art, who observes the external ritual, while the poet stands as prophet, jealous of the inner realities of life. And to the musician, again, belongs that inward sense of the mystic in art. He is perhaps the true and royal-souled seer, since he looks beneath the surface and purveys for us the secrets of intuitive insight. And in the major connection, the above consecution is analogous to the sequence of science, art, and religion, wherein we have respectively the succession of sage, singer, and saint. Relative to the above, Carlyle writes as follows: " Music is well said to be the speech of angels ; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the Infinite; we look for moments, across the cloudy elements, into the Eternal Sea of Light, when song leads and inspires us. Serious nations, all nations that can still listen to the mandate of Nature, have prized song and music as the highest; as a vehicle for worship, for prophecy, and for whatsoever in them was divine. Their singer was a vates, admitted to the council of the universe, friend of the gods, and choicest benefactor to man." But where are now 44 HERMAIA our vocal vates? Trilling, mostly, their specious inanities to a pleasure-seeking public. We have spoken here of form in general, and of that particular form into which painting necessarily is thrown; let us now pass on and briefly discuss the pictorial contents thereof. But in so doing, we shall not be detained by those lower forms of the art in question, such as conventional and decorative design. The applied arts, dependent as they mostly are on mere cunning draughtsmanship, are, comparatively speaking, of so inferior an estheticism as to excuse us from granting them a detailed analysis. We shall press forward and treat of such departments of painting as bear vitally on our argument. And in dealing now with the different divisions of this art, we shall follow them in that order hinted at in a previous chapter first landscape-painting, which may be said to include still-life, and then portraiture, which leads naturally up to composition figure-painting. And what is this but a particular view of the more general evolution in both the real and ideal world? As therefore physical nature was prior to human nature, our first duty will be to see in what way painting shapes itself as the suitable expression of natural scenery. LANDSCAPE-PAINTING 45 CHAPTER VII LANDSCAPE-PAINTING IN this particular section much light will be thrown on our subject if, instead of dealing with the relation of painting to nature, in isolation, we compare it with let us say the relation that music bears to inanimate creation. Now it is generally supposed that music is the art of the audible, and painting that of the visible, in nature. This, however, is a popular miscon- ception, which, at this point, we must endeavour to remove. Nature and art do not represent a strict parallelism, where painting expresses what we see and music that which we hear. Those arts do not exhibit an expressional equi-distance from the natural. Indeed art and nature represent a gradual divergence, a growing separateness of expression and model, all along the line of progressive estheticism. We commence the rise of art with the earlier mimetic arts which copy or reproduce nature; while at the other extremity of the art-world we find the culmina- ting art of music which differs wholly from the natural. The entire world of art, therefore, develops according to the evolu- tionary principle. First we have architecture which is but an elaboration of the natural shelter afforded to the primitive cave- dwellers; whilst higher up the artistic scale we see a gradual splitting in twain of the real and ideal. And what is this but the same law, which governs the duplication of monoron, or the disjunction of planets from primal nebulosity, operating in the world of ideality? First architecture cools into a consolidated crust, rendering itself thereby habitable for other visible arts. But soon the alliance is broken, and painting and sculpture fly off and build for themselves their own specific worlds of beauty. Similarly, poetry, in the beginning of things idealistic, came gradually to settle down into rhythmic law and metrical order, whereby it was rendered more amenable to tonal modulation; in other words, with the versification of speech came musical adaptability. Indeed, even to-day we can detect the incipience 46 HERMAIA of folk-songs in the bare linguistic inflection. But soon this vocal alliance, born of pure poetic fervency, was to be dissevered ; since music, likewise, obedient to an identical tendency, broke away and found its own self-sustained esthetic existence. Of course all this must be read in the light of free imagination which renders it less denned than are the processes which obtain in rigid reality. Yet what is all this but the endeavour of creative man to put the various kingdoms of estheticism on a self-sub- sisting and self-initiated basis, or an attempt after an entirely original, artistic creation ? Rising out of the natural, art becomes, therefore, man's arbitrary extension of nature. Of course, whatever the art and however original the ex- pression, creativeness must ever have the natural as its medium- istic basis, although, as in music, its mode of existence may be ultra-phenomenal or supra-normal. This fact, however, we have already observed. But there is practically nothing in painting that we do not find in nature physical or human. And, of course, we speak here more particularly of the subject-material of this art in question than of its eclectic arrangement. Painting, therefore, so far from being more than nature, is, in many re- spects, yet to be noticed, considerably less than what naturally already is. It would appear, then, that the art of the landscape- painter is the more superfluous, since nature herself already stands forth exposed to view garbed in the glories of inimitable beauty. What we see is already fully expressed. Not so, how- ever, the audible in music, for that had to await the advent of man, who ultimately unravelled for himself the world harmonious. For while presentative beauty is coeval with nature itself, only with the advent of sentient life with its vocal utterances of joy and sorrow were the rudiments of tonal beauty made possible of realisation. So the substance of visible beauty existed before ever man was, whereas audible beauty only really arrived after the coming of humanity into being. There is, then, practically everything in the substance of music that is not explicitly imminent in the material universe. Music is, in short, anything but nature. Painting is thus less than, and music more than, nature; in the sense of being a superaddition thereto. The one is included in, while the other is exclusive of, existing nature. And the pictural exceptions, if any, are so negligible as to amount practically to a confirmation of the fore- LANDSCAPE-PAINTING 47 going truism. In short, painting adds the minimum of beauty to visible nature; whilst music adds the maximum of beauty to audible nature. That is to say, we build, in art, more out of sound than sight. Music is then the art most differenced from nature. Its material is not immediately to hand ; so its crowning merit consists in the fact that it brings with itself what nature alone could not possibly supply. Thus this art becomes the ultimate divergence of the ideal from the real, and is of all the arts most properly self -subsist ent. And the approximate perfection of all being is its high grade of variation from co-existence. In- deed, is not the very soul itself like music, its direct expression what it is, by reason of its being that which the material universe, as such, cannot possibly supply? For if otherwise, it were no soul at all; merely a property of matter. Music is then, in a sense, nature's opposite. It cannot express, only suggest natural phenomena. Still it does not live in opposition thereto, but rather in separateness and distinction therefrom; and, like the harmonious conjunction of spirit and body, stands over and against nature as its ideal complement and logical correlation. For like music, nature has its moods and modulations : diversity within unity, change within a permanent stability; yet never discordant, but ever in accord with the first principles of law and order. Music is then the only purely discreted art, and corre- sponds therefore to the self-secreted soul of man. But while painting remains practically identical with nature, poetry moves away from it, leaves the solid earth rising on the wings of an internalised imagination. Music, however, stands apparently isolated from the grand sequence of the natural and has an air of inscrutable mystery about it, which identifies it rather with the spiritual realm than with that of the purely natural. " We need only shut our eyes," says Mill, " and listen to music, to have a conception of an universe with nothing in it except sounds, and ourselves hearing them." Thus the cardinal virtue of this latter art consists primarily in the fact that it gives us literally what was not an acquisition of greater value than the accession of that which already is. Destroy painting, and we still have the beauty of nature remaining to us, but were we denied the esthetic ministry of music, we should be robbed of an entirely novel form of creativeness. And this is more strictly true of music than of poetry ; for in the living romance of experi- 48 HERMAIA ence we see a sort of dumb unworded poesy, which forms the palpable substance of the verbal art. Music is unique, and represents the one indispensable art. Objective nature and sub- jective music thus constitute themselves the necessary extremi- ties of beauty. Music is the ultimate limit of estheticism, the terminal art, and stands for artistic finality. Goethe, in his examination of the beautiful, holds that " Art is called art, simply because it is not nature." And while this dictum may be but exiguously true of painting, we have come now to see that it is not only theoretically but absolutely and literally true of music. And this is a highly-important artistic truth, since music, as we shall ulfimately prove, is pure moral beauty, and must therefore be something other than nature, which, as such, is essentially non-moral. Music adds something over and above what is already apparent in nature, whilst painting falls short of the grandeur of the cosmos. Indeed all the arts, save music, quote from nature and experience taken in a literal sense for their subject-matter. They merely build up what already exists overtly; painting reproducing objective phenomena, and poetry co-ordinating subjective ideas, though with a subtler freedom, consequent on increased mentality. Yet although this latter art creates for itself higher adjustments of thought proper, it is still confessedly the inevitable mirror of experiential realism. But there is in reality no music, properly speaking, in the whole wide realm of the natural. It seems as though " born of the very sigh that silence heaves." Like soul or spirit, it remained occult, hidden away, as a dumb possibility, until man's creativeness and constructive skill awakened it as from a slumbering silence. So man had literally to create and originate not only a new language, but the very terms of thought, before he could sweetly discourse by means of a complex tonal art. Poetry, on the other hand, found its model in the facts of life previously existent, waiting only translation into verbalism. Painting, poetry, and music represent, respectively, the tran- scription of nature, its translation and its transcendence. The first art is, then, a faithful reproduction of its model in nature; the second, though its medium differs from nature, still repro- duces mentally the facts thereof; while the third and last art employs a medium and relates to a model, both of which are LANDSCAPE-PAINTING 49 supra-natural. Thus painting, relatively speaking, is nature; poetry is one remove therefrom, whilst music is wholly removed from nature. Melody and harmony, for instance, would have remained potentially dormant, unless quickened by man's instinctive passion for expression. For we do not find, in the manifest universe, these musical elements these tonal contents existing overtly at all. The matter of music stands to all art as soul stands to the gradient of nature; it is beauty devoid of objectivity, taken literally. Strange, also, that a dormant property of matter should, in this wise, spring latterly into being, and find such quick, quivering response in the deeper heart of man. For there seems no necessary connection between mind and music, although, of course, what is, must be, in its phenomenal aspect, capable of explanation. It nevertheless hints at an illimitable possibility in what we, as yet, but faintly understand as the natural, when the soul is stirred to its very depths with but the quivering of some sensitive string. Indeed what unsounded profundity does not slumber in our deeper being, that we thus leap with joyous sympathy to the appeal of deftly commingled tones? In music we leave nature entirely behind: viewed of course in the light of esthetic expression. For who would have predicted a symphony of Beethoven's from the songs of birds; or who could have foretold a Wagnerian music-drama from the thundering diapason of heaven ? It is indeed the unex- pected in the world of beauty. Properly speaking, there is no music whatsoever in nature. That is to say, that whereas we have on the one hand beauty of form and colour in abundance, we have no such symmetry in sound, either harmonic or melodic, existing in a natural state. If, for instance, a denizen from another sphere were to visit this planet of ours, to make an inventory of all its " sensible effects," he would look around and grant the profusion of perfect form and captivating colour the purple-tinctured hills and glowing warmth of sunsets ; but of song and symphony, strictly speaking, he would confess a profound ignorance. Indeed, he would rather say that the perennial silence of nature was made doubly conspicuous by a few sporadic attempts at melody and a total absence of harmony. In short, the music of nature, he would conclude, could not be taken seriously. And this would be strictly in accordance with truth, since only through man's D 50 HERMAIA agency can musical beauty really spring into being. It is true we speak of the music of nature, but that is only poetic hyperbole and not the logic of fact. We wax enthusiastic over the carolling of the feathered denizens of the air ; but on such an occasion our emotions are born rather of our poetic than of our musical sense. It is the wooded loneliness, the broken depths of stillness, the jewelled sounds set in the silver silence of the woods, that appeal to us. The moaning dirge of the sea, with its white- maned horses shaking their dripping flanks ; tumbling and tossing sea-nymphs reverberating music to themselves in their fairy grottos ; quivering stars vibrating spheral harmonies throughout the vast deeps of space all this were dead, irretrievably dead, were it not for the living mind of man which endows it with more than poetic beauty. Of music proper, there is none in all the varied voices of creation: it is rather we who, out of the abundance of our esthetic enthusiasm, read music into the vocal activities of the cosmos. Nevertheless, to the mechanical and prosaic mind, the imitation, in music, of sounds in nature, never fails to appeal; just as painting is vulgarly regarded, by some, as a kind of superior photography. In short, imitation is the vulgarian's idea of artistic expression; though they differ as do artifice and artistry. Thus the inartistic appreciate mechanical similarities and are slaves to artificial identity. If they recognise the scene in a landscape-picture that suffices. The ideal aspect makes no appeal. They do not ask for artistic treatment. Their admira- tion is merely an uninspired, associative act of consciousness devoid even of the element of taste. And the amateur critic who lapses into physical terminology in his description of music betrays at once his falsely materialistic view of tonal beauty. Those, again, who persistently strive to picture scenes in music fail to recognise its inner meaning. It is essentially moral experience; not material expression. So if we believe in music at all, let us at least believe in it adequately. It has been suggested, however, that had we the ears to hear the very stars in their courses would be for ever rolling out their " music of the spheres." And this same idea inspired Shake- speare when he wrote : There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest But in his motion like an angel sings, LANDSCAPE-PAINTING 5 1 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims; Such harmony is in immortal souls, But while this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. Or again, as the medieval monk Campanella has written: " If the faculty of hearing were indefinitely increased, we should become acquainted with an entire polyphonic tone-world, since all motion produces waves of sound." Or as the old Celtic tradi- tion poetically puts it:" The noise of the sunfire on the waves at day-break is audible for those who have ears to hear." And we have a scientific intimation of this truth in the microphone, which enables us to hear the walking of a fly or the beating of a pulse, the crawling of a caterpillar or the movement of sap in a blade of grass. All this, however, is dumb and unspeaking hypo- thesis, and is purely problematical, affording us no prototypal creation from which musical man might quote and borrow. He does not compose what he hears, but rather hears what he com- poses. The musician is still left to evolve out of his own inner con- sciousness his own concordant cosmos. Schopenhauer succinctly summarised the entire matter when he wrote: " Music is en- tirely independent of the phenomenal world, ignores it altogether, and could, to a certain extent, exist if there were no world at all." Indeed, the very word " phenomenon " itself bears reference to sight alone. What therefore is left, but soul, for its expression ? since it has neither the purely mental manipulation of poetry nor the anatomical articulation of painting. It is not without reason that we allot to music the expression of the unseen and spiritual universe. Music is the esthetic expression man's other- world consciousness. And although the above may be no new con- tention, it has been dwelt upon and must be carefully noted, since it will bear vitally on our specific consideration of music as spiritual beauty. 52 HERMAIA CHAPTER VIII MUSIC IN RELATION TO NATURE WHAT then is exactly the expressional relation of music to nature ? Some light may be thrown on this point by a passing reference to the speculative theories of the great Hellenic philosopher, Pythagoras. He held that there was an analogy subsisting between the laws which govern music and the laws which control the orbits of the heavenly bodies; and that the planetary revolutions themselves produced a harmony, intelligible to the - initiated alone. Newman also writes of music as " the out- V pourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound." This same founder of Greek philosophy, moreover, recognised in this art the idealisation of those mathematically determinable intervals which were alike the regulative principle of music and the solar system itself. Similarly, Ruskin wrote that, " Music is, in her health, the teacher of perfect order, and is the voice of the obedience of angels, and the companion of the course of the spheres of heaven." Pythagoras further propounded the theory that the tonal art was the beauteous expression of that interior law and order which was at once the one and only condition of a truly harmonious and morally attuned soul. Not unwisely did this same ancient sage attribute to music the power of controlling the refractory and discordant passions, firmly believing that a well-ordered melody was capable of restoring the even balance of a disturbed mind, and of renewing its concordant adjustment to the world without. In this con- nection, it might be noticed that a later Greek musician, Xeno- crates by name, became eminent by curing insanity with the aid of tonal effects. This also naturally calls to mind the magical effect of David's music on the troubled spirit of Saul. And why should not music, since psychical and electrical waves are so intimately related, charge with healthful, radiating energy the MUSIC IN RELATION TO NATURE 53 disturbed equilibrium of a mind diseased. Indeed, even to-day we have not yet heard the last of the therapeutic virtue of music. Spencer suggested that music would, in the near future, play a large part in our hospitals as a kind of mental medicine. Indeed, even now, it is being used with much success as a genuine healing agent. Pythagoras, again, was wont to teach the existence of a strict correspondence between the active principles and emotions of man's spiritual nature and the harmonious law and rhythmic periodicity of universal order, seeing in harmony, as musically interpreted, the golden bridge that conjoined the inner life and outer cosmos. And this reminds us of that which filled the soul of Kant with "ever-growing awe"; "the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." And with this teaching, both Plato and Aristotle, in their political writings, were evidently in complete agreement, since both these master-minds regarded music as morally educative, and held that the relation of the exercise of this art in question to the soul of man was identical with the relation of gymnastics to the regeneration of his body. Indeed, Plato held that mission of music was to nourish the intellect, purify the passions, and impart health to the soul. The ancient Greeks thought the making of good music to be of even more importance than the framing of wise laws. And Fletcher of Saltoun's well-known saying is to the same effect. Truly we have lost much. Though as a nation we build princely picture-galleries and pay exorbitant sums for priceless pictures, as regards music, that is left to the tender mercies of unthinking chance. But it will be readily seen that music, being the law or harmony relative to the living soul, must needs operate within the moral and interior order of things ; whilst the law or harmony relative to the physical and inanimate universe must needs have reference to the merely material plane. This point, however, must be left over for ultimate analysis. And though much more might be said in this interesting connection, space forbids detailed consideration. The above, it will be noticed, is after all but the relation of music to the causative principle in nature, rather than to nature as an immediate and esthetic effect. Nevertheless the foregoing contention argues in favour of the basic character of music. Furthermore the architectonic virtue of sound itself has ever held the speculative attention of ancient thinkers. Hence the 54 HERMAIA oriental mystics believed in the generative and occult potency of speech. They held that words, as such, had a secret virtue; that a name was a constituent part of the thing for which it stood, and that in its pronunciation unseen forces were set in subtle motion. They argued that not only sound and rhythm, but the spoken word through inherent vibration attracted corre- sponding powers in nature which were operative for both good and evil. Names, for instance, carried within themselves their own peculiar influence. And in this connection, it is interesting to remember that the ancient Hebrews never articulated their equivalent for " God." Hence these cabbalistic sages reserved for the initiated alone the recital of historic events, since their very narration might attract identical powers connected there- with. It was for this reason that symbolism was substituted for speech. The later Gnostics, moreover, taught that the Logos or Word went forth and stood as the supposed mediation between Creator and creation. " He spake, and it was done; He com- manded, and it stood fast." So the actual tones of the divine Fiat found an effectual response in the cosmic order and arrange- ment. And here we have the esoteric doctrine of numbers as taught by the early Pythagoreans. They asserted that the world was called forth out of chaos by harmonious sound since it was constructed according to the principles of musical proportion. Nature, they suggested, was built by the rhythmic thrills of etheric estheticism. And we have a faint adumbration of this same theory in a recent experiment in what has been picturesquely termed " voice-figures." Given a tube of particular construction, with a membrane stretched across one end and covered over with the fine seeds of a puff-ball, these same impalpable particles will, when a few clear notes are sung into the tube, so dispose of them- selves as to resemble floral figures of the most ingenious and conventional design. Further experiments will result in the creation of the most complex forms, resembling trees and other natural shapes. And the earlier investigations of Chladni pro- duced similar results. He also obtained beautiful sound-patterns by strewing sand on a vibrating plate. Not inconsequently, then, did these earlier investigators regard number and vibrational ratios of harmony as being the very root and causation of material existence. And here we are reminded of Dryden's verse : MUSIC IN RELATION TO NATURE 55 From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay; And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead. Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. But we have this same truth embedded in myth. For was it not Amphion, the demi-god, who by his playing miraculously erected Cadmea and Thebes, through the spontaneous movement of rocks and stones. And does not Shakespeare also eulogise this same supposed creative power of music over nature when he writes : The rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the Sea-maid's Music. Coleridge has also a similar idea in his " Kubla Khan " : Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there. nd if there be truth in this reputed, formative power of sound, what shall we say of real music of intellectualised and truly emotionalised sound? Let us recall to mind the legend of Orpheus, who with the entrancing strains of his lyre made all creation, animate and inanimate, subservient to his will. And his taming of the wild beasts of the forest and of the furies of Hades is symbolical of the power of music to govern and subdue the baser affections of the soul. The immortal bard expressed in verse this same picturesque truth when he wrote : Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. 56 HERMAIA One more reference, however, to the creative potency of sound. We have it on the authority of responsible occultists that music is attended, on an inner vibrational plane, by gorgeous colouring and geometrical designs of exquisite effectiveness: that the rhythmic vibrations of even single tones are accompanied by unseen forms of singular, symmetrical beauty; and that, under certain experimental conditions, these can be visualised. So Browning, in his " Abt Vogler," writes with the instinctive insight of true genius : But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws: that made them, and, lo, they are! And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Of course we speak here solely of the elemental art-stuff of music before it is built up by the master-mind into some stately sym- phonic structure; and deal simply with its sensuous aspect before musical sense is added to sensible sound. Yet from the foregoing we have another intimation of music as representing the idealisation of that spiritual and psychical force which is the governing and containing cause and constructive principle of the visible universe. And our present point is, that whereas the master- painters, with rare psychical insight into the colorific significance of the human aura, symbolised the inner condition of being by means of radiant emanations and draperies of varied hues, or again, by thought-forms, such as figurative wings, typical of strength and power of flight; it is the master-musician alone who expresses immediately the spiritual nature of man, at once the generator of all such astral radiance and forms of thought. For, be it remembered, all such subtle emanations are neither the cause of feeling nor yet feeling itself, but rather the aural effect thereof. In short, whilst painting is emblematic, music is of the essence of spirituality itseH. And this because in music we think in states and not in symbols. So much, then, for the speculative side of < our thesis under consideration. But it may be that music adumbrates a still higher truth about nature and reality. For physical phenomena are perhaps, after all, but crests on the waves which surge on the vast ocean of Being. And it may be that our discreted senses split up into disconnected phenomena an otherwise continuous universe. The intellect would then be building up its conceptual structure MUSIC IN RELATION TO NATURE 57 with but broken fragments of thought since its material to hand has to pass through the molecular mediation of the brain into a facultative consciousness. Suppose nature, however, be not really some partitioned picture, no poetic process of piecing together sense-divided externality, but more analogous to the motional matter of music, in short, one vast and continuous cosmic stream. For consider, nature is but cause and effect in what we call material substance. And can we not conceive of duration intervening between the most closely connected ante- cedent and sequent phenomena? We are perhaps deceived by the rapidity of change, since the rate of transition is relative to our finite minds. Such intervening time-spaces must be bridged over if we are to escape a breach in continuity; for, however momentary, a break can in no wise be tolerated. The nature of reality is a perpetual progression of a permanent substance, portions of which alone reach our present understanding, like thoughts that spring into the mind from a consciousness deeper than we know. And this same fundamental truth would find expression only in the art that threads its melodic way through a pictorial nature and suffuses the epic of history as with the spirit of a timeless present. Nature, then, in its ultimate and'j" progressive aspect, is as a mighty stream of uninterrupted music welling up with ever-broadening volume from the very heart of God. And speaking of this deeper conviction about the cosmos, Professor James holds that just as trees and islands mingle their roots and bases underground, so there is " a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as , into a mother-sea or reservoir." And the sea, that physical"! symbol of music as of spirit, homogeneous and continuous, changing its mood but not its matter, self-differenced within its own unity; at one time peaceful as infant-slumber, anon tur- bulent in its assault on the louring heavens, and on whose broad, unfathomable immensity rides many a stately craft freighted with pictorial and poetic wealth. Thus, in music, we plunge, as Bergson would say, into the stream of Reality. So from the towering hills of stately verse we come, adown the ever-broadening flood of art, to meet, as Tennyson sings : The tide of music's golden sea, Setting towards eternity. 58 HERMAIA Now from what has gone before, we cannot but admire the wisdom of the Greek philosophers in holding music to be a study of primary importance. It was regarded as one of the main divisions of Mathematics. And any candidate who was not versed in this art in question was refused admittance into the Pythagorean schools. It is difficult to say how much we moderns have lost in our latter-day scheme of culture. But although of absorbing interest, we must not linger any longer on this peculiar aspect of our subject. PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE 59 CHAPTER IX PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE LET us revert now to the relation of painting to Nature (and this, primarily, from a negative aspect), when we shall be led to understand the better the main point at issue. Music, we have already seen, transcends the physical, as regards its mode of expression ; while painting, by reason of its constitutive character, barely coincides with her prototype nature. And it was for this very reason that painting presented itself as the prior art, since it falls, in many respects, short of the glories of the cosmos. Music, on the other hand, can lay claim to be called the ultimate art, since it extends beyond the limits of existent ostensibility. But the substance of painting is form and colour; and these constituents exist already in nature in richer quality and greater fullness than we find in the art of the painter. For think what wealth of beauty abounds within the extremities of visible nature, from the fierce fire of the orient, when the proud Prince of day bursts through the gates of morning and mounts the scaling heights of heaven ; to the soft eventide, when, bleeding at every pore, he sinks wearied in the west ; and is lost again in the black impenetrable night. Think too of the inimitable pencilling of the broad-chested mountains, as they supplicate the skies ; throwing their varied shapes against the blue-tempered canopy of day and rolling themselves away in the fast decaying distance of a perfect perspective. We must remember further that nature dips her brush in living light, and breathes on her scenes a subtle atmos- phere impossible to the craft of man. And the rainbow, too ! that mystic arc of heaven which seems more like the fantastic daub of chaotic colour sitting upon the edge of the palette of the divine Artist. Nature's streams, moreover, are for ever flowing. Her towering trees sway with rhythmic grace and bow obeisance to the errant zephyrs. The golden leaves of autumn fall in the sombre silence of death. The restless clouds, fleet messengers of heaven, chase one another athwart the infinite azure vault, 60 HERMAIA throwing their jostling shadows on the downy carpet of the earth; and her broad-spread, generous seas roll themselves eternally from strand to strand. The sunset, again, for ever changeful in its kaleidoscopic graduation of colour; the subtle movement of the trembling stars; the shimmering sheen upon the laughing lake; the quivering sunbeams with their dancing light; pris- matic play of colour on a field of snow, sun-kissed with joy all such uncaptural beauty is peculiarly the picturesque pre- rogative of nature. And with respect to the changefulness of colour in nature, we seldom realise the disability under which the pictorial art is forced to labour. For whilst the latter is committed to a momentary effect, the former is perpetually changing her lights and shades, her tints and hues, like the play of expression on the features of some mind-informed countenance. Thus change and motion, the vitality of matter and charm of the natural, are alike outside of the pale of pictorial representation. For be it the shape of a cloud or the flight of a bird, they remain for ever but a picturesque posture. Sound, again, from the very nature of the case, is denied the brush of the artist. Yet nature's songsters warble audibly; her leaves rustle, like eolian harps when moved to music by the world's vast breath; whilst the winds with their shrill voices are answered by the sad monody of the sea, that breaks with ceaseless waves upon the shore, like the mighty heart-throbs of some world-wearied soul. But we sense nature otherwise than through the physical media of eye and ear. For who has not experienced that feeling of indescrib- able exhilaration when, at early dawn, the mother-earth is offering up her incense of devotion to the skies ? Or who has not tasted of that vital elixir which the warm south breathes through our ecstatic nature, mad with divine delight, without feeling that we are drinking in at every pore the very cosmic Life itself? In landscape-painting the artist works of necessity within contracted possibilities. To accentuate high-lights he must lower the tone elsewhere. Sunlight and snow, therefore, are difficult of treatment. In his choice of subjects he must be mindful of the limits of the canvas; whilst nature, knowing only the extremities of vision itself, is granted an almost illimit- able extension. Thus much that is beautiful in nature will not compose well, since in the very process of pictorial tran- PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE 61 scription it undergoes a necessary contraction. But while in nature the point of picturesque interest, to which the axis of the eye is directed, is apprehended with entire clearness, round and about this central view other portions of the retinal picture shade off into a graduated indistinctness, until we seem to pass imperceptibly out into the infinite itself. In short, nature seems framed in infinitude. On the other hand, what the untutored eye would fail of itself to discover as picturesque, the initiated taste of the artist will lift out of its natural setting and raise to the dignity of pictural beauty. But the question of the relation of painting to nature will never be seen in its true light, until we consider how it bears on the major relation of art in general to visible creation. Confining our attention solely to the landscape-painter, without due regard to the poet or even to the musician, only serves, as we shall see later on, to promote a limited view of the whole matter. In speaking of the plastic arts as mainly imitative, it must be borne in mind that the term is used in the sense of reproductive repre- sentation, in contradistinction from the more creative arts, that, passing out beyond the bounds of what is practically repetition, give us nature, not as she is already, but transmuted into ideal- ised thought and feeling. Yet, in this connection, it is argued that landscape - painting is not necessarily imitative, since it soars immeasurably above the level of photography. And this, of course, is true. But photography is exactly not nature in proportion as it fails to reach that indescribable, and residual quality which is the pecular property of the natural. We are here, however, not dealing with the relation of a mechanical process of reproduction but of the relation to nature of the human eye itself, which immensely transcends in delicate response the photographic plate however sensitised it may be. Indeed the one is a material, the other a vital, relation. The artist sees nature with the mind as well as with the eye. And, as a matter of fact, so must every true lover of nature, quite irrespective of any mediatorial craft whatsoever. For as Blake phrases it, we must see " not with the eye, but through it." Hence, from Plato downwards, all philosophers have realised that it is not the eye but we who see. The poet, likewise, sees the beauty of the natural with his spiritual sense ; but then he gives us nature, not in terms of the corporeal vision, but in terms of the mental, 62 HERMAIA voicing for the common consciousness that same residual property which would otherwise remain dumb and inarticulate. If, however, landscape-painting be not imitative, in this our wider application of the term, what is there it may be asked in painting that we fail to discover in nature ? If it be said that the artist exhibits an idealised nature, delivering up something over and above the bare points of sensation unified by thought, then it may be said and with similar relevancy that the man who views not nature ideally can never be said to have seen her properly at all. As Kant has it:" Nature was found beautiful when it looked at the same time as if it were Art ; and Art can only be called beautiful, if we are conscious that it is Art, and it yet appears to us as if it were Nature." Painting, however much she may strive to create suggestively that same spirit of idealism, is still inexorably bound by her own conditions of visibility. Her sphere of operation is what we see, not what we literally think or feel. If it be said, again, that the painter expresses pictorially the impression that nature makes upon his mind, it is still expression in terms of visibility, and adds no more to our consciousness than that same impression which nature makes on every esthetically-endowed mind. For is it not still nature that gives the impression ? In very truth, the imagination here plays, practically speaking, but a very minute part in this branch of the pictorial art. There may be slight readjustments of the sensible objects in nature, corrections made, proportion and balance restored ; but such exercise of choice is, to all intents and purposes, lost in the wider scope of the natural. Moreover, that silent intimation of the supersensible in creation if it be not exactly the natural objects themselves, but some subtle spiritual overplus which naturally escapes mere cold observation must fly, for adequate artistic fulfilment, to arts other than painting which of its very nature is chained to objective repre- sentation. In this sense, natural beauty and music are alike, since both represent a kind of superfluity of intellect. But it is recorded that, on viewing Turner's " Ulysses deriding Polyphemus/' some one remarked they had never seen a sunset like that; whereupon the great artist, who was standing by, retorted: " But don't you wish you could? " Yet how comes it about that what this same would-be critic failed to find in nature, he succeeded in finding in the master's picture? Are PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE 63 art and model at variance? It may be gathered from this, however, that the master-mind endeavours to reproduce the effect that nature makes on his highly-organised artistic faculty. So we can say with Watts that " Art is not a presentation of nature: it is a representation of a sensation." But as we have already shown, it is still the effect in terms of the thing itself, whilst the art of poetry will make the effect on the mind an art itself in terms of mind, wherein the effect alone operates, leaving to nature the deliverance of the beauteous cause of inspiration. In short, the effect that natural scenery makes on each one of us is mental, and is best expressed in terms of mind and not in terms of matter. Hence the fatuity of " Futurism." No one, then, will contend that the glory of Turner's sunsets resides in the fact that they are not exactly in visible agreement with the natural ? Rather is it not, that, granted a true intelligent love of nature, an unreserved appreciation of the artist's craft will be in pro- portion to their approximate truth to the beautiful in creation ? As Reynolds justly remarks: "Nature is, and must be, the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellences must originally flow." In any case it is just nature herself who teaches us the exact merit of a picture. Thus if you do not see beauty in creation, you will assuredly fail to find beauty in the art of the landscape-painter. For doubtless there is a reciprocal activity that springs up between the human mind and the divine intelligence that shines through the cosmos; and it is questionable whether we should admire landscape-painting without a previous love of nature. There is, however, every reason to believe that there are colours outside the normal range of vision whose rays have fewer and more frequent rates of etheric vibration than even the prismatic colours of red and violet, respectively. And there is evidence to show that some such are sensed not only by the creative colourist but also by some who are denied the art of the brush. Indeed we moderns are more sensitive to colour than were the ancients. Similarly with sound. But from the point of view of sense in art we must always remember that the tones and harmonies in music have been built up as apart from nature, whereas colour- schemes in painting have been built up rather is accordance with nature. So it would be true to say that whereas colour is discerned, harmony is invented. In the one case, colour 64 HERMAIA antedates the colourist ; in the other, the harmonist is prior to his music. But we might go further and ask ourselves whether there is not an entire inner and spiritual cosmos, of which natural scenery is but a relatively coarse adumbration. And if so, then would it be the peculiar privilege of the landscape-painter to reveal this interior realm of archetypal beauty. For it is difficult to suppose that a world, however spiritual, is entirely voided of what we understand by form and substance. If the spiritual world be an immanent world, impinging on this, the world present to our senses, surely the principle of immanence could have little value for us apart from efficient relativity and intensive continuity. We do not leap from matter to spirit at a bound. Even science teaches us that matter is a relative term and capable of a gradu- ated substantiality. Further, if man has a spiritual body why not an environment correspondent with such a body ? As Milton asks : What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ? In the words of Albert Durer, " Art lies hid in nature," and we might add it is the function of the artist to disclose the secret. It does seem, moreover, that on some supreme occasions painting gives us an intimation of a beyond, and seems to shadow forth the spiritual ideal according to which are fashioned the things that do appear. Thus Henry James, in reference to landscape- painting, writes that " I seem to be in communication with sources to which I owe the apprehension of far more and far other combinations than observation and experience, in their ordinary sense, have given me pattern of." And we have only to appreciate, say, the tender subtleties of the later works of a Corot to realise the truth of all this. But our present contention is that, admitting such an ideal world, it would still be found by the artist existing as a relatively objective actuality. And as we shall see later on, the artistic principle really identifies itself with the play of personality. For, dealing with the ideal, art seeks to pourtray that which " ought to be." And with the rise of art this self-same principle will assert itself more fully. Thus landscape-painting deals, with but restricted variation, with what already is, nature, being entirely non-moral, requiring but little, PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE 65 if any, serious amendment. But as we pass from matter-domin- ated to mind-dominated beauty, personal disclosure becomes paramount. So music comes to be a very real revelation of that which we morally ought to be, but are at present potentially only. And as Schiller tells us: "That which we feel here as beauty we shall one day know as truth." If, then, the painter affords us practically nothing which we do not find in the natural world, existing already in superior inspira- tion and consummate beauty, what exactly is the private mission and peculiar vocation of the landscape-painter ? In other words, what is the positive relation that painting bears to nature ? And we shall understand this better if we keep well before our minds the fact that this branch of painting is not a servile copy, in the sense of being literally exact, but a transcription on to canvas of the effect it makes on the artist's private and personal conscious- ness. The painter's art is here not a strict and slavish imitation, but rather a sympathetic appreciation, a faithful, intelligent, and loving reflection of the natural. The painter does not give us the analytical deliverance of detail, the which is a purely critical and scientific concern, but seeks to hold up to us the massed effect of a synthetic unity. He gives us not the accessories, but the essentials. To see, therefore, a meritorious landscape paint- ing is akin to the delight we experience when we chance to see the sweet face of nature mirrored in the calm waters of some placid lake. Further, no two people see alike; hence the divergence in method and difference in style of landscape-painters. Only compare the work of David Cox, that " sweetest singer of all landscape-painters," with the work of De Wint, the great colourist, and we shall soon come to realise how varied is the artistic outlook on the world around when seen in the light of a temperamental predilection. But this is more a question of the mode of artistic treatment than of the subject-matter of land- scape-painting. There is, then, a sense in which this latter art brings with itself that which distinguishes it from its model in nature. Thus the same landscape painted by different artists will have as many varied results. And this because unless the artist betrays personal experience and private feeling his work can never be properly artistic. Indeed most great artists have a bias. They give us each an original emphasis. They make visible objects 66 HERMAIA the means of self -revelation. They accentuate here, and suppress there, refashioning the deliveries of sense-intuition according to their own disposition of mind. So the painter gives us, not what he sees, but what he thinks he sees. And he sees and paints, moreover, what he is. So Thackeray wrote: " We make from within us the world we see." Pictures are then more than pigment. They are revelations, not reproductions. Indeed, every great picture has a private point of view, wherein the man of art stands self-confessed. He utters in visible language his appreciation of nature. And without the canvas our own un- aided impressions would remain for ever unrecorded. But all this is merely saying that it is art. For are not subjective impressionism and personal idealism primary essentials of all creative beauty ? For it is exactly the indwelling of personality that differentiates a work of beauty from bald imitation and lifts it above scientific statement. Our present contention, however, is that in the light of comparative estheticism all this is only relatively true. For in relation to the other arts there is infin- itely more of nature than of self-utterance the stamp and mark of art itself. And since the ascent of art is coincident with the interpenetration of personality, the ultimate art must be one of pure self-utterance. And music is not merely the soul of nature but of the nature of soul. Thus in painting we may be true to nature, but in music man is true to himself. Here, then, the man of art begins to move in the dawning liberty of individualistic selectiveness ; for it is only the scientist who must of necessity conform his thinking to what nature absolutely is and alone can possibly be. In science there is no such freedom of private construction to be put upon nature. Each artist brings within himself his own peculiar view of the cosmos. He represents the nascent creativeness of art in general. His personality is herein brought minutely into play. He stands related to nature in the same way that the musical executant stands to the created cosmos of the composer. For though no two performers interpret the same composition alike, it is still the same music that we hear. So the landscape-painter may be said to exaggerate or eliminate certain aspects of nature that a private truth, dear to himself, may be reinforced with bolder manifestation. Thus he is somewhat untruthful to nature, that he may teach a truth of which he is more individually convinced. PAINTING IN RELATION TO NATURE 67 Indeed much of the pictorial effect, in this connection, is but an aggravation of personal predilection and is worked up rather for effect than for the establishment of truth. We say, sometimes, that we do not see nature as pictorially expressed because the artist so often gives us disproportionate values. Nevertheless, we are permitted to see, as it were, through his own eyes what has specially played on his imagination. It has been well said that art is nature seen through a temperament, and we might add that music exactly is that temperament in terms of art. But be it the fidelity to nature of a Constable or the selective discrimination of a Claude Lorraine, their art is no improvement on the art of the Creator, but rather an intelligent guide to the higher apprecia- tion of natural scenery. Landscape-painting is ancillary rather than absolute ; and should point us to nature rather than divert our allegiance therefrom. Indeed, we ought to derive our inspiration from nature direct, utilising this branch of art as a reliable commentary on what is expressly admirable in creation. For no artist can take away all there is of beauty in the world around, though he can and does enforce a partial excellence, which is his own private view thereof. Emerson does a kind of rough justice to the subject when he writes: " Away with your nonsense of oil and easels, of marble and chisels: except to open your eyes to the masterpieces of eternal art, they are hypocritical rubbish." Though the painter is he who sees more in the visible effect of nature, he can never give us all that is to be found therein. Still we cannot always have nature with us; and the landscape-painter brings under direct observation scenes that are distant, and of which we might otherwise have no possible conception. Indeed all pictures have this magical power of annulling time and of cancelling space. Painting, therefore, stands for a higher kind of utility : defying all human limitations, it grants us access to the remote in time and the inaccessible in space. With its visions of the past and glimpses of the distant, it is both the materialisation of memory and projection of mind. And where, again, a ruthless vandalism and the blight of commerce would destroy, the painter can record in perpetuity many a sylvan scene and hoary pile of historic interest. But since painting is limited to appearance, the mental effect that nature has on our mind must be expressed by a purely mental art. 68 HERMAIA CHAPTER X POETRY IN RELATION TO NATURE POETRY now steps in and proceeds with the evolutionary gradient of expression, which finds its ultimate consummation in music. Here, at this point, we notice the arrival of the mental co-efficient in the realm of estheticism. Indeed, a still more subtle apprecia- tion of the cosmic comeliness is inevitably conjoined with the poetic and musical mind. In other words, the painter does not necessarily possess the deepest love of nature. He misses much of its music and meaning. He is too apt to regard the universe solely in relation to the powers of his craft. What will not make a picture is in danger of being, by the painter, totally disregarded. He seeks what is paintable and loses oftentimes the higher spiritual effect in the necessary studied scrutiny of the physical basis of beauty. On the other hand, the poet, for instance, bound by no exacting strictures of craft, stands related to nature by means of a deeper spiritual amplitude, which permits him to regard her as self-sufficient, and view her illimitable grandeur irrespective of technical possibilities. The highest effect that nature herself produces in the deeper soul is not to be expressed in the duplication of the natural, but rather through such poetic sentiments that stand in a more direct relationship to the soul itself. And herein we pass to the higher relations subsisting between nature and the more spiritual and transcendental of the arts. For these very feelings which are evoked by our innate love of beauty and which prompt the painter to exercise his craft, are not esthetically promoted by a mere readministration of the world around. And this truth will appear clearer if we consider this wider relationship under notice. The fact is, those feelings that nature awakens in us are not in themselves ostensible phenomena, so that we stand in need of an art, other than one of appearance, which will exist in com- plemental relativity to nature herself. The painter, it will be POETRY IN RELATION TO NATURE 69 noticed, looks at nature; whilst the poet looks through nature. The natural in painting is appearance : but in poetry, is meaning. Through poetry the natural becomes illumined; while through painting it becomes merely presented to us afresh. The painter gives us the visible effects of nature, whereby we in no way usurp the primal esthetic function of nature herself: the poet, on the other hand, gives us what she mentally suggests, thereby inter- preting for us the inner meaning of nature and supplementing her with what we could in no other way be supplied. Indeed, judged as appearance, no human art can possibly hope to vie with the incomparable glories jof the universe. Creation comes direct from the formative mind of the Creator. Every dawn is a fresh creation, every break of day a new revelation; whilst each moment, in a world of change, depends upon the perpetual activity of divine creativeness. What, therefore, the soul of man most needs is not a reflected, but an expounded, cosmos. And the painter does not interpret nature for us, since to interpret is to move in thought away from the object interpreted. Neither can the painter bring his mind to bear on physical nature like the poet, who translates natural scenery into the very language of mind itself. Indeed, it is really more the poet's mind than nature which is, in this case, ideally revealed ; whilst in painting it is, conversely, more what nature herself is, than what the painter has to tell us. Hence the virtue of the poet's relation to nature, since he gives us something over and above that which is already existing in beauteous pre-eminence. In poetry we seem to get one step nearer the truth about cosmic beauty. For since nature is the outcome of Mind, it follows that the mental art will speak to us in terms at once esthetically adequate. But for this very reason the poet is powerless to reproduce objective nature in our imagination with such surpris- ing fidelity and exactitude as does the painter, since the former operates on the mental and the latter on the material plane, the plane at once kindred to the material universe itself, as such. But this poetic disability, as we have already seen, is of little account ; since the poet merely leaves nature to her own admir- able self-expression, passing out into a higher calling, where she voices for us that latent idealism which lies embosomed in a world of mute materiality. Poetry then is no repetition of nature; with the poet, art in this connection is otherwise. yo HERMAIA Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. So sings Wordsworth, the poet-priest of nature. And does not Shakespeare again remind us that : this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. Poetry, therefore, mentalises matter. Here art is seen to move away from the natural one step nearer the human soul. Indeed, so little is the need felt by this art in question of merely reiterating natural objects, however skilfully manipulated, that the poet rather turns all nature to higher account, by making materiality an additional means for the richer and more idealistic expression of the mental. Thus the poet delineates the shape- less soul through the indirect agency of natural imagery. And this since he cannot, like the musician, paint the soul in hues of her own native colouring. If music gives us the nature of spirit, ideally realised, poetry gives us the spirit of nature in terms of art. * Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude. So sings the poet, illustrating a phase of human nature by means of the physical. Or again, when Shelley compares the dead leaves of autumn with " pestilence-stricken multitudes," he seeks to endow nature with our own humanity. Thus we see that the poet's is a mental, not a material, nature. Accordant with the seeming interaction of planes, what was an end to the painter becomes now a means to the poet. And sequentially, we shall soon find that what is terminal in poetry becomes medial in music. The poet plucks the lily of disinterested purity and gathers the rose of full-blooded charity. Or again, to him the moon is " pale from weariness," and the sun " flatters the mountain-tops with sovereign eye." But the poet must not delay us here since more on this point is to be said in the following chapter. One word more, however, relative to nature and music. Now painting, we have seen, gives us, to no small extent, nature POETRY IN RELATION TO NATURE 71 herself; whilst poetry gives us the thoughts which nature suggests. And here creeps in that law of Suggestion in art, to which we have already adverted in our second chapter. Thus where painting fails to record the higher impressions which natural scenery makes upon the sensitive mind, poetry achieves an artistic conquest. And where the latter art fails in its turn to express those ultimate feelings which beautiful things and thoughts germinate in the soul, music, obedient to the artistic progression, steps forward and lays hold of those very motions of the human spirit and gives expression to what previously was but poetic suggestion. In the words of Kant: "Amid the universal silence of nature, and the repose of the senses, the hidden faculty of the immortal spirit speaks a language which has no name, and throws out vague ideas which may be felt rather than described." Here then we obtain a glimpse of music's relation to nature. It accomplishes the direct expression of that ultimate effect which the beauty of nature produces in the very depths of man's spiritual being. Musical art is the soul's ideal response to the natural. And the virtue of this final esthetic relation lies in the fact that nature or Divine art requires no immediate expres- sion, but what she quickens in us does require verbal or vocal articulation, seeing that, unlike the world about us, her deepest impressions would otherwise remain locked up and imprisoned in the soul To adequately express the subtle influence of nature we need not the overt and visible, but rather the occult and invisible arts, since nature is already herself the consummation of osten- sible expression. And in this connection music particularly becomes, artistically speaking, an imperative necessity. Of course, it need hardly be added that this latter art is pre-eminently effectual as touching our divine-human nature. It seems to refer to ourselves rather than to our physical environment. But it must be remembered that the impressiveness of nature is greatly due to our own spiritual endowment. If we read spirit into nature it is because we ourselves are spirit. We must have divinity within before we can find divinity without. Man is more than nature. Love is stronger than law: affection is mightier than gravitation. And we shall never know what the world beautiful owes to our humanity. Take away the possi- bility of human feeling, and nature would appear to us merely 72 HERMAIA as dead and uninspired structure. In other words, if music did not esthetically refer to our own humanity, it could not ade- quately express the profounder sentiments excited by natural beauty. Nature-music as such is consequently not self-evident, since here personality intermingles with the universe. Thus it comes about that music gives us not so much nature herself as our own human response thereto. It reflects rather what is behind and within, and therefore expresses the highest beauty we find in the universe. Even more than in the case of poetry, music reads essential humanity into the cosmos. It expresses that part of us which we bring as sympathetic appreciation to nature and pictures alike. It reflects the humanistic moods of nature her summer smiles, her spring-tide laughter, or her imprisoned merriment, when winter seals icily her ruby lips of joy. Music, in short, bespeaks man's implication in the vast cosmic scheme : it reconciles through its own peculiar idealism the seemingly opposite principles of man and nature by humanising the natural and naturalising the human. And do we not feel this deeper cosmic kinship musically re- vealed when giving audience to let us say the bucolic tender- ness of a " Pastoral Symphony " or the elemental turbulence of a " Walkiiren-ritt "? Such tonal naturalism suggests that the divine Principle which is behind every human soul subtends also the entire universe of natural phenomena. Music seems to echo that supersensible overplus which broods over all creation, flooding the soul, as it does, with an indescribable sense of that Infinitude which nature herself suggests. Indeed, music, like the limitless extension of the outer universe, circumvents our very consciousness. It speaks to us of infinite extension and breathes illimitability itself. And while the intellect can comprehend to a certain extent the objective in nature, the esthetic influence she exerts, when the soul is in active correspondence therewith, is an influence which saturates and streams through our very being, analogous to the art of music alone. As Tyndall wrote when dilating on the grandeur of the Alps: "I had never before witnessed a scene which affected me like this. An influence seemed to proceed from it direct to the soul; the delight and exultation experienced were not those of Reason or of Knowledge, but of Being; I was a part of it and it of me." And to such spiritual ecstasy musical experience alone affords an adequate POETRY IN RELATION TO NATURE 73 expression. So whilst painting virtually identifies itself with nature, in highest music we " look through nature, up to nature's God." In the best of painting we are at one with nature, but in the best of music we are at one with God. Music is the expression of A motion, and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. (WORDSWORTH.) Yet this musical pre-eminence brings along with itself an atten- dant impotence similar to the poetic inability to which we have previously alluded. For since music has, so to speak, escaped nature, materially regarded, this same art is powerless to express nature as objective configuration. It has been said, and with perfect truth, that " Music is the best painter of the soul's state and feeling and the worst of realistic objects." But at this juncture, Kant's reflections on the philosophy of esthetics should be of service to us. He draws a distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. He pronounces an object to be beautiful when the elements, combined in the imagination, harmonise with the requirements of understanding; while an object he styles sublime when it is too great for the imagination to apprehend as a unity. For here the soul baffled and perplexed is pushed back in upon itself and takes refuge in the assurances of our higher and ideal nature. The sense of the sublime pre- supposes a faculty in man which neither sensuous knowledge nor physical constraint can ever overpower. It points to an un- conquerable reason and assumes feelings identical in all human beings. This same metaphysician distinguishes between the mathematical and dynamical sublime. Hamilton also, with true philosophic lucidity, divides man's esthetic emotions into those which accompany the picturesque where we do not seek for artistic harmony, but rather linger over detail ; the beautiful where we reach the conception of the unity of an object; and the sublime where the mind fails to comprehend but is content to repose on the " supersensible substratum " behind the veil of nature. And these esthetic categories just mentioned seem not unnaturally to correspond to our three main divisions of the world of art. Yet let it be fully understood that each art passes through the same grades of esthetic values as does the whole 74 HERMAIA wide realm of art itself. Accordingly we find the pictorially sublime, as well as the musically pretty. Still painting can best express the picturesque and beautiful since it holds up that which is at once, both as to detailed analysis and synthetic unity, comprehensible to the intelligence. The fact of its picturability suffices to prove the kinship of painting with the understanding, since to properly comprehend is to adequately image forth in the inner mind. On the other hand, the higher reason deals in unpictured thinking, and treats of those forms of thought which the soul instinctively abstracts from the world of material extension. Hence music is the appropriate art for directly expressing what is properly the sublime, since it has been seen to entirely transcend the understanding, finding lodgment alone in those unanalysable feelings of divine assurance which claim an universal assent. It is man's higher nature which permits of that strange delight when he stands face to face with the grandeur of nature which his intellect cannot comprehend. He feels his divine destiny despite his mental ineptitude. Sub- limity refers more to our moral sentiments and our ideal nature, hence its relation to music, which is moral beauty. It is just because this latter art does not resort to knowledge, as such, because it can neither cognise, as in painting, nor comprehend, as in poetry, that it is so eminently competent to esthetically grapple with that which subtends and overreaches phenomenal nature, and is so much at home with the expression of that which transcends the human faculties of the fundamental soul. Music is the beauteous consciousness of our higher reason, for it is itself the expression of essential harmony or fitness of things, resident in the heart of nature ; indeed we might term it the idealisation of pure reason. Musical thought completely environs the soul. No other art gives us such a sense of the infinite. It seems to include us in its artistic existence; for do we not lose ourselves in its mystical communion? while, on the other hand, in the comprehension of an object, we seem rather to circumvent our thought in the limiting process of knowledge itself. Hence in music we apprehend rather than comprehend. So here, in this culminant art, we reach Infinitude, the home and resting place of the emotions, the which like a golden thread weave man and nature into a glorious Unity. It may, therefore, be appropriately termed the esthetic reflection of cosmic Consciousness. Indeed, POETRY IN RELATION TO NATURE 75 what art, other than music, can so adequately express that mystic emotion which animates the soul when man holds " converse with nature's charms, and views her stores unroll'd? " For, to continue Byron's verse: Then stirs the feelings infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt, And purifies from self; it is a tone, The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony. Music is the direct expression of that which Clifford has aptly termed "Cosmic emotion"; it is the artistic articulation of man's affectional, sympathetic nature; it is the song-offering of the heart, baptised with cosmic beauty. " Beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and internal beauty." Thus writes Emerson. And music, it might be added, appears to corroborate the dictum. 76 HERMAIA CHAPTER XI FIGURE-PAINTING HAVING treated of painting in its relation to physical nature, we must now pass on to our second consideration, wherein this same art is to be viewed in a more vital relation to human nature. And just as animate creation is seen to be the additional endow- ment of freedom and originality, over and above the inanimate, so too will this department of the pictorial art exhibit like features of liberty of imagination and creativeness in design which do not obtain so markedly in the art of landscape-painting. In composi- tion-pictures we have, for instance, the painter at his maximum pitch of idealism, and the objectified imagination at its highest altitude of selective invention. It is true the landscape-painter may also exercise select iveness, but within such narrow limits that the creative principle can hardly be said to operate at all. In portraiture, also, we are engaged with but an imitative trans- ference on to canvas. In landscape-painting much of the artist's apparent selectiveness is necessitated by reason of the limitations of the canvas, and the inevitable disabilities of the painter's craft. The portrait-painter may likewise exhibit selection by posing his model and choosing the most characteristic moment for treat- ment. But all this is no variation from the visible model. We must further distinguish between selectiveness and creativeness. We must also differentiate between the portrait-painter who paints a particular man, and the idealist who paints his concep- tion of a man. The one transfers to canvas a necessarily defec- tive, while the other aspires to the expression of a perfect type of humanity. The relation of portraiture to composition- painting may, in a sense, be compared with the relation that still life bears to landscape-painting. There is in much modern portraiture a tendency to resent the limits of legitimate art, and so that classical naturalness, which owns a wholesome allegiance to physical reality, is at times replaced by a vague and abortive untruth. Still, truth in art in no way militates against the legiti- FIGURE-PAINTING 77 macy of various methods and diverse styles for the attainment of the same artistic end. In composition-painting then we have art, relatively speaking, differentiated from visible appearance. Here, as nowhere else in the pictorial art, the painter may be said to literally give us what does not exactly obtain in reality. Or, properly speaking, he reconstructs, recombines, indeed recreates in his fertile imagination what was once reality or what appeals to us as an ideal though real possibility. And here, perhaps, we have the birth of what is properly creative idealism. It represents the first movement towards artistic differentiation from nature and realism ; a faint departure from imitation, an incipient tendency towards vital creativeness. It becomes the solid ground whence poetry takes to wing, leaving the hard rock of realistic imitation for the finer aerial regions of idealism proper. At this point the painter, by reason of the law of suggestion, becomes poetical and approximates the art which appropriates to itself the higher creativeness of an inner picturability. For though the painter's imagination may enjoy here the full exercise of his highest function, it falls short of that liberty of mind wherewith the poet's imagination is rendered free. The painter's imagination relates figures, whilst that of the poet relates ideas. The one must think in solids, bulk, and mass, whilst the other thinks more peculiarly in subjective concepts and spiritual ideas. Now the specific point which, in this section, will entirely engross our attention is that of painting as the EXPRESSION OF LIFE in essence and vitality proper. And we must necessarily be brief in our remarks, and deal but exiguously with our subject, since, seeing that the arts themselves ever tend to overlap, much that bears on our present contention will, of necessity, find expression in the coming division of our subject, which treats of poetry exclusively. But as regards the esthetic relation of painting to life or mind it will be well to recall the artistic hypo- thesis already enunciated in one of the introductory chapters where, to this art in question, was allotted the inalienable expres- sion of bodily and material conformation. There we propounded the obvious truism that the painter is bound by the essential nature of his art to regard the purely objective aspect of things; whilst the poet, on the other hand, is capable of seizing hold of subjective thought itself. It will be likewise necessary in this 7 8 HERMAIA connection to recall to our reader's mind both the nature of expression and that of what we have already termed sugges- tion in art. And with these previously discussed points well in view there will be less liability to misunderstand our logical position. It will be seen that the present discussion on the painter's artistic relation to humanity ranges from portraiture to the loftiest conception of didactic symbolism. For not only can the painter suggest simply life, but also the more humanistic qualities as manifested in composition-pictures of a specifically spiritual interest; qualities, moreover, which, as we show later on, are ultimately expressionally revealed by the moral potency of music. To facilitate our task then we shall speak of painting in relation to human nature in general, leaving all particular views of the subject to take care of themselves. A few prefatory remarks, however, on the nature of artistic idealism, relative to man as corporeality, will be needful. And the following quotations will suffice to show that we are not unmindful of the higher possibilities of the pictorial art itself. Proclus, for instance, says that: " He who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are full of disproportion and fall very short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presented to his sight; but contemplated only that image which he had con- ceived in his mind from Homer's description." And Cicero, again, speaking of the same Phidias: " Neither did this artist when he carved the image of Jupiter or Minerva set before him any one human pattern, which he was to copy ; but having a more perfect idea of beauty fixed in his mind, this he steadily contem- plated, and to the imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed." Plato also says that: " If you take a man as he is made by nature and compare him with another who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear the less beautiful, because art is more accurate than nature/' But to come down to later times. Reynolds pertinently points out that " beauty does not consist in taking what lies immediately before you." " All the objects," he says, " which are exhibited to our view by nature, upon close examination will be found to have their blemishes and defects." The artist, therefore, he continues, FIGURE-PAINTING 79 " corrects nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect." Still it has been held by some esthetic writers that physical beauty depends in reality on some slight deviation from absolute perfection. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, teaches that the master-artist paints not so much the object contemplated, as what Plato calls the eternal Idea which is striving to manifest itself in and through the world of phenomena. He will not allow that the sculptor or painter arrives at his ideal of beauty empiri- cally, by collecting individual, beautiful parts and welding them together into an artistic unity. He writes that: " The man of genius produces the works of plastic and pictorial art by means of a prophetic anticipation of the beautiful; yet requiring experience as a pattern or model, for thus alone can that which is dimly known a priori be called into clear consciousness, and an intelligent representation of it become possible." Nevertheless, it is a fact that the Greeks themselves resorted to measurement to aid them in the more accurate delineation of the human form. A word at this juncture is necessary respecting this platonic view of art as it bears on the subject of landscape-painting. For what has already been said about this particular branch of painting seems to remove it somewhat outside of the foregoing theories respecting the beautiful. And the following remarks may help to elucidate the point at issue. If, for instance, we postulate mind or spiritual consciousness as the governing principle in both man's body and nature, which latter may be regarded as the divine garment of the World-Soul, then mani- festly we have in the one case a character or spirit at once im- perfect and still in the making, and in the other a Spirit behind the universe at once perfect and omnipotent. Now since the bodily configuration of humanity is slowly conforming to the inner spiritual and governing principle which is the man himself, mankind is obviously, with the evolution of the perfectibility of character, working out for itself a more excellent type of bodily beauty. Indeed, making due allowance for heredity, the form and features are an index of character, since mind is for ever leaving its impress on the physical. For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is form and doth the body make. The latter, however, being what it is, may not be entirely amen- 8o HERMAIA able to the spiritual. Perhaps man's spiritual body may more readily reflect his inner condition of being. So Spenser, the poet, says: " The Redeemed are all beautiful." And this since they are ultimately released from the domination and less responsive element of matter. We hold, therefore, that the idealistic figure-painter aspires to a vision of the psychic body of man. And surely imaginary figure-painting exhibits at its best this essential psychic pliability, since all true art aims at being ultimately ultra-physical. Let us not forget, however, that the psychical is not really the spiritual ; nor the cosmical, the moral. The astral, in short, is still the natural, however rarefied and ethereal it may be : the apparitional, however immaterial, is still appearance. In other words, to be psychically endowed is not necessarily to be spiritually-minded. It ever remains a question of the will that stands behind and within these same subtile, psychic phenomena. But further : it is also a question of the degree of taste and stage of appreciation of the percipient. For what is beautiful to one person does not appeal to another. Moreover, what we are in ourselves does, to a certain extent, affect our judgment. And it is music which more especially expresses that deeper part of self that underlies, not only our beauty- judgment, but also the character which makes for physical comeliness or the reverse. For it will be seen later on to be exactly the expression of will, whose every exercise leaves a sure impress on the body. So, although goodness is always beautiful, beauty is not to be iden- tified with goodness. Our present contention, therefore, is that, with the cosmic growth of freedom and spontaneity, there is an increasing liability to deviate from the spiritual desire and ideal design of the Deity. So with the emergence of life and spontaneous movement, the Will Divine seems with an ever-increasing ratio to withhold its inexorable governance in the supremer interests of self-direction and of ultimate personal responsibility. Hence man's fatal capacity to depart from the inner law of rectitude, and the possible concomitant deterioration of his physical being. Consequently man has not the grace of a bird in flight, nor yet the beauteous motion of the bounding deer. And many a self-unconscious child puts to shame the graceless movements of its elders. On the other hand, the cosmos is already perfectly amenable to the FIGURE-PAINTING 81 guiding influence of the Deity, and so conforms for ever to the Will of the Spirit resident within the veil. Law-abiding nature is pre-eminently beautiful, because the Heart of the universe is perfectly good. All true idealism sets before us that which ought to be; and is eminently appreciable, because it strives to enlist our moral interest in, and spiritual sympathy with, the beautifully possible. But, as we have already asserted, the form, face, and features of man are not at present what they should be, since the will of man is not in entire accord with the Will Divine. And this because the maturable character has power to make or mar the soul's corporeal mould. It is the painter who captures our admiration by presenting to the mind various types of conceptual, bodily beauty. Indeed, all art must be regarded as occupying this platonic plane of idealistic imagination. So the present discus- sion serves to raise the principle of estheticism on to this higher platform of ideal Platonism, where the several artistic relativi- ties will remain identical. But more than this. Should the functional activities of the soul energise on planes other than the terrestrial, it may be that, since consciousness with all its mental furniture perpetuates itself along with the imperishable ego, the same respective relativities of the esthetic powers will continue undisturbed. It may be that, in spheres other than our own, there are psychic forms and spiritual feelings. For certainly both thought and emotion are part of our spiritual constitution, bound indissol- ubly together by the central will. And feeling will doubtless then be still interior to either form or fact. Indeed, the higher the soul's vision, the more inspired its thinking, the deeper and diviner will be the emotion. It may be that mind projected into the spiritual world becomes a kind of inner cosmos; in which case, artistic thought of any kind will, as the natural flowering of consciousness, pass from soul to soul apart from material mediation. Then, perchance, will the painter's brush, the poet's pen, and musician's instrument be flung aside as but imperfect media for the transmission of man's higher inspirations, and song and symphony, poem and picture, be apprehended immediately by others, even as they are known in the inner consciousness of the man of art. For if development involves the growing supremacy of soul, may not perhaps our present internality, 82 HERMAIA over which we as wills preside, become at one time the externality of our future existence? At present, the outer material, being the least plastic of existents, is but sluggishly obedient to the inner moral. Indeed, as we move away from the will, our material to hand becomes less amenable. Mind is more pliable than matter, as music is more malleable than painting, since our private consciousness is spiritual detachment and self-determina- tion ; whilst any given portion of the physical, fatally enmeshed in co-existence, is determined by impersonal law. But just as the evolution of totality is the history of freedom, so may the history of the unit be the evolution of individual liberty. Thus on a plane of higher unfoldment, thought is perhaps visible, and feeling a cognisable, environment; since all development seems to be but the externalisation of the internal. So what we are subjectively now, we shall be objectively in the spiritual world to come. But for the present painting must rest enamoured of the ideal body, whilst poetry will continue to reveal those ideal types of mind which, as we have seen, are moulding eternally, through the ruling potency of the mental, those very comely shapes the artist delights to capture and perpetuate on canvas. And music, again, in view of this more idealistic conception of art, will still persist as a holier state, a diviner condition of the human soul, since in its highest inspiration it reflects the ideal Will and expresses the archetypal Heart of the universe. And since the ideal forms of the painter and choicest visions of the poet are as inspired intimations from an inner sphere of realities of which this world is but a semblance and a shadow, what shall we say of this invisible art of music ? Perhaps the mystic mazes and supernal states of being, through which music seems to conduct us, speak a language of spiritual suggestion which only more interior conditions of existence will unravel and ex- pound. It may be truly called the speech of angels, with whom the very outpourings of a purged and unrestricted love will of themselves wring out a finer music of the soul. For what are the words we speak in comparison with the feelings we entertain towards one another ; and such like feelings are only adequately expressed by music the language of the soul. Music is, there- fore, already idealising that dominating principle of being which will ultimately govern our spiritual state and ethereal environ- FIGURE-PAINTING 83 ment. If, then, everything has its correspondence in the spiritual world, and art is spiritualised experience in the imagina- tion, we have now media of beauty to meet all phases of ideal existence. But before pursuing our present argument, it is necessary to add yet one other view of the fundamental basis of all art before the ground is clear for the. current consideration. Now all true esthetic philosophy has looked upon art as existing in opposition to the realm of practicality or in contradistinction from the region of actuality. It defines what we call the artistic as realism raised out of common consuetude into the rarer realms of idealism. It is Kant who, among other esthetic writers, teaches us that the genius of all true art succeeds in freeing the object it seeks to express from the hampering and distracting circumstances of real life ; lifts it completely out of conventional circumstance into the transcendental sphere where reign the truly typical and universal. By means, therefore, of this magical exorcism of art, " everything," he says, " short of what is nau- seous, may be made beautiful by artistic rendering." Schopen- hauer also writes clearly on this same subject. " Art," he holds, " plucks the object of its contemplation out of the stream of the world's course and has it isolated before it." He regards all artistic products as peculiarly out of all vital relation to the practical will. And this same argument throws light on the relative values of the artistic expression of physical and human nature the which we have already submitted to a full discussion. The former, we argued, does not stand in so great a need of artistic treatment as does the latter. The obvious reason being that we can the more readily contemplate the physical universe as existing entirely apart from its relation to both the practical and useful. Indeed, this seems to be an indispensable condition of the ample appreciation and full enjoyment of natural scenery. Under the stars all men are idealists. The same idealistic sense, moreover, accompanies our outlook on distant towns and vil- lages. We seem to stand apart and, as dissociated souls, view such busy haunts of men as though they occupied a plane alien to our own. But when we come to objects near to hand, or approach our fellow-mortals by whom we are surrounded, this same imaginative outlook and ideal purview becomes at once impaired by reason of associative propinquity and those operative 84 HERMAIA wishes, laws, and customs which bind us so closely in living and indisseverable relationship. In other words, it is this very proximity that destroys for us the beautiful and ideal which hems us in on every side. In our practical life we are too near to one another to get a just and true, and therefore artistic, perspective of men and things. We lose sight of the ideal in one another. We are as so many jostling bodies in an all too-crowded space : we come to vulgarise our own humanity : we are common to one another. Because we happen to know the worldly setting of a soul, we vainly imagine we have exhausted its private possibilities and divine destiny. So we glide easily into rapturous ecstasy over the mystic remoteness of the stars, whilst the close companion- ship of friends is in danger of losing its spiritual significance. Hence there is a romance about the distant: a commonness about the near. Custom so stales the finer influences of life. Love and friendship are so quick to lose their sanctity. And yet we complain of the actual, and pine for the ideal, when all the while it is before our very eyes. In very truth, incarnate idealism we have always with us had we only the eyes to see it. For there is no picture like life; no poetry like the vicissitude of fortune ; no music like the voice of one beloved. It is we who are unideal. Perchance the best has already crossed our path, but we were wholly unprepared, and knew it not. So though art may express a higher truth, it is still truth imagined rather than truth realised. And, however beautiful the art, it is greater to live beautifully than to merely sing about it. Man's ideal is God's reality. But if, after all, painting be the lifting up of the visible out of common circumstance, and poetry the emancipation of life from the meshes of every-day conditions, music achieves com- pletest conquest, in that it releases the soul finally and abso- lutely from the practical plane of real experience. For here the soul stands fully divorced from its circumstantial environment, and entirely detached from its historical setting. Genius, again, has been described as human consciousness wholly dissociated from any practical end whatsoever thought for its own sake; so that music becomes, once more, the characteristic expression of man's divine afflatus. Herein the artistic struggle between idealism and realism results in the absolute enfranchisement of music. So a work of art seems to have an isolated and inde- FIGURE-PAINTING 85 pendent existence: to have issued forth from the eternal of its own account. It is of the nature of spontaneous life itself. And whilst " a thing of beauty " may reveal personality by reason of the creative principle of genius, it also tends to conceal person- ality by reason of the ease of consummate craft. In other words, although the true artist must perforce endow his works with life that is his very own ; being life, his work must live as unto itself alone. Hence the relation of painter to picture, of poet to poem, is that of parent to progeny. Similarly with nature: for the great Source from whence it sprang is both a revealing and a concealing Deity. Still the ideal is, after all, the only real. Indeed, it is just idealism, properly understood, that is for ever beckoning us onward and upward, and tempting the soul, through the splen- dours of its visions and loftiness of its inspirations, to overcome all obstacles and overrule the dispositions of the recalcitrant will. What, in short, is human development, or, as a matter of fact, any development whatsoever, but the gradual absorption of what is pre-existent in the ideal world and conscious appropria- tion of the eternally real? For man must think before he can act ; and so all conduct is the result of some kind of inner ideality. Art, therefore, broadly speaking, has an indirect bearing on our intensely practical life. For it is not enough to dream of heaven ; we must bring heaven down to earth, and actualise our dreams of holiness in the conduct of the present. Art should make us see the beauty and worth of what we have, of that which already is, rather than make us crave for that which is not and, per- chance, can never be. And it is love alone, the spirit of all true art, which sees the ideal in each one of us ; and the light of love which illumines the interior virtue of lives other than our own. Hence music makes us feel for the time being that very spiritual attitude which every sane soul strives to realise in normal life. 86 HERMAIA CHAPTER XII FIGURE-PAINTING i continued WE are to speak, then, briefly, of painting as the direct expression of the material body in its highest aspect and as the indirect suggestion of the informing mind and spiritual life within the same. But despite repetition, it cannot be too imperatively insisted upon that, though painting be material beauty, it is obedient to the idealistic genius of art in its most essential sense. Thus, though it expresses the body of man rather than human nature in essence, it likewise raises it aloft, cuts it adrift from its mundane moorings, and enables us to view it as unrelated to the practical will and related wholly and solely to the ideal. With painting, this fleshly tabernacle is no dank prison-house wherein is immured the spirit of man, but rather the casket of burnished gold containing the priceless jewel of the soul. Similarly, the spiritual sentience which governs the subject-matter of music is disentangled from the meshes of our volitional and ordinary life and placed in the new and higher condition of relativity to the ideal life of the soul. Thus whatever the art or grade of estheti- cism, it is for ever the heart's desiderated reality. As Cousin wisely remarks :" The ideal without the real lacks life; but the real without the ideal lacks pure beauty." " Beauty," he writes, " is an absolute idea." But we must now turn from these somewhat discursive prelimi- naries and attack at once our main argument. And this, be it noted, will run on lines mainly negative. For we have all along elected to be comparative in our treatment, since to know ade- quately the virtue and capacity of any one art is to know it in proper relation to other arts. Thus it will, in this present case, be not so much what painting achieves as what it fails to accom- plish in the light of other artistic possibilities. And in our hypothetical scheme of art, we regarded the arts of plasticity as in the higher pictorial phase abutting on and leading sequen- tially up to the poetical art the which again was a kind of FIGURE-PAINTING 87 esthetic preparation for the culminant mode of musical beauty. We shall, therefore, learn more respecting painting through its relation to that which is beyond it rather than by seeking to refer backwards; since it practically, along with kindred forms of plastic beauty, summarises the initial step in the grand upward trend of idealistic creativeness. So to take at first simply a single figure-subject, we discover that painting, in respect of later poetic possibilities, does not- properly express, but merely suggests life. That is to say, painting does not and cannot occupy the expressional plane where life in essence amply manifests itself. Life with the painter is latent, not patent. In other words, he gives us the inorganic embodiment of life as it is affected by this indwelling principle of vitality. And this, moreover, with limitations, as we shall presently see. In short, the pictorial art functions expressionally on the material plane, and suggestively only on that of the vital. Unlike the poet, who enters below the mere visual surface, the painter must deal solely with the material manifestation of beauty. For take away the physical effects of life deprive painting of the inorganic component of vitality, and the canvas will at once become a blank. And this is obvious, since the body is but the medium of life : not life itself. If we would realise the exact meaning of the direct expression of life, we must compare the poet's with the painter's treatment thereof. Now in passing from pictorial to poetic vitality, we pass, in reality, from the purely cosmic plane to that of consciousness proper. As an artistic activity, poetry is, therefore, one plane removed from that of painting. And this has already been pointed out. Thus, obedient to the ubiquitous law of continuity, the suggestion of life in painting becomes an expressional possibility in poetry. What is surmise in the one, is distinctive art in the other. It is we who conjecture life in painting; just as, given the vitality of poetry, we deduce soul or spirit. Painting is, then, rather the expression* of the expression of life ; while poetry is the expression of life itself. For whilst life is here immediately pourtrayed, in painting this same vital principle is merely materially mediated. The latter art infolds rather than unfolds life. It suggests, but does not express, the mental man. The difference, therefore, between painting and poetry is the difference between sight and insight. In the 88 HERMAIA former, we see mind through matter; in the latter, we see mind with the mind itself. Thus mentality in poetry energises under its own peculiar and native conditions. In short, the painter treats of the organism; whereas the poet grapples with the life behind the organism. But perhaps it is truer to say that music expresses the principle of life since it is emotive, and emotion is the vital cause of all beauty; so painting becomes the physical organisation which is at once the resultant effect of which the vital principle is the formative cause. And since life precedes organisation, and not conversely as materialism would have it, the order is reversed in the ideal world of man, and music is the latest to emerge. Indeed, we cannot know entirely the nature of life until it has been given time to express itself through the growing complexity of bodily mediumship. Needless to say, poetry represents the intimate union of both life and body. Now that which the corporeal eye brings along with itself, and without which the achievements of the painter cannot be fully appreciated, is taken hold of by the poet immediately, and there and then adequately dealt with. What depends on the intellect of the observer himself is at once amplified by the more intellec- tual art of poetry. In other words, what we read into a picture and fill in for ourselves becomes the immediate matter for poetic embellishment. The classic outlines of a Flaxman, therefore, seem to enclose, rather than expose, the element of life. Thus while a masterful composition-yicture may suggest voluminous thought, if submitted to Homeric treatment it would yield up to our inner consciousness the heart of the matter, fully expounded and expressed. But all this follows naturally from the peculiar nature of poetry itself. And it will be interesting to casually notice wherein the especial mental superiority of this art in question consists. Now if we trace the gradual tendency of artistic evolution, among other factors which make for esthetic development we note a growth in pliancy, an increase in mobility, and an inevitable movement towards things invisible. Pursuing the direction in which the progression of the arts leads us, we notice the evanes- cence of matter, which involves also novel, though less definite, modes of beauty; until, at last, we entirely quit the material, for the mental, manifestation of art. And although the mental is not as palpably apparent as the material, it is, nevertheless, FIGURE-PAINTING 89 more properly the real life of man. We notice, further, in the transition from one art to another, a loss of quantity and bulk, but which is, at the same time, compensated for by a commen- surate gain in quality and augmented complexity. Thus in poetry we are granted multitudinous relations which, by reason of their very mental delicacy and intricate subtlety, are inevitably impossible to the art of painting ; so that in passing from the pic- torial art to that of the poetic, we really pass from an inorganic, to an organic expression of beauty. For what indeed are the peculiar properties of the purely organic creation but physical movement, mental elasticity, and such-like salient characteristics? And herein the pliability of poetry is distinguished from the immobility of painting. For the latter cannot express motion, only suggest it; neither does it properly esthetically expound thought, but, again, really only suggest it. For to truly express the conscious mind, one idea must qualify another : one thought must be a logical and sequen- tial outcome of another, and painting cannot possibly express the movement of ideas, linked and jointed, in the same vital fashion as in mental articulation. Thus the casually connected movements in thinking render poetry the truly mental and intellectual art. You can reason here as in no other art. Again, one feeling or sentiment may, as in music, modify another in rapid succession by passing out in thought into a subsequent moment in time. Not so, however, is it with painting, since there is here neither the qualification nor yet the erasure of present impressions. But it must not be forgotten that despite the truth of all this there still remains to painting a fund of thought and feeling which stands out gloriously in the very potency of artistic sugges- tion itself. Still these few isolated facts prove peculiarly for poetry its fluxional identification with life. For the nature of life consists primarily in its qualitative relation of moments its motional possibilities with the internal play of motives at back of all. Life is motion and the conscious mind can only be properly expressed by that art which can directly command the flow of essential thought. This element of change and motion, moreover, bears vitally on this present question of painting as an immediate expression of life. Not only is this latter art denied the direct expression of life on its own 90 HERMAIA peculiar plane, the which is esthetically inhabited by poetry, but it is furthermore limited in its indirect suggestion of life. For what is more indicative of the temporary exercise of mental and spiritual energies than expression in the human countenance, with all its attendant anfl ever-changeful play of features ? Yet this same expression of facial movement, the which constitutes the very life and soul of the physical counterpart of character proper, remains eternally uncaptured by the painter. It is true he gives us the fleeting expression, but not the progressive change from one expression to another. The painter fails to deliver up for us those very occasions which most prominently denote the presence of the informing principle of human nature within. He fails to delineate the material mediation of that formative life which moves and moulds in delicate graduation of varying senti- ment the most plastic part of our physical being : with him, the formal expression of the features is for ever fixed. Thus painting cannot rise to those supreme occasions when the facial lineaments throb and palpitate with the immediate immanency of the spirit. It is as if we were bidden turn away from the merely bodily expression and see the deeper reality within, and so enlist the expressional services of the poet. As Reynolds, speaking of the natural deficiencies of the art of the painter, wisely remarks : " He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind with great veneration for the character of the hero or saint he represents; he has but one sentence to utter, one moment to exhibit. The painter has no other means of giving an idea of the dignity of the mind but by that external appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, though not always, impress on the countenance." Not life, but the material manifestation thereof, is the peculiar portion of the painter. In short, you cannot paint grief, only sadness of visage; you cannot depict joy, only the beaming countenance. Thus, whilst painting gives us love in the human face, and this too more vividly beautiful than falls to the lot of any other form of art, it is music alone which gives us love in the heart. For here we carry moral qualities to their native home. The former is the expression of, the latter the expression of the cause of, expression. And it was this lack of vitality proper that elicited Carlyle's memorable truism: "In the commonest human face there lies more than Raphael will take away with FIGURE-PAINTING 91 him." Indeed it is just the essential expression of the life the soul that permeates the whole frame of man which we find want- ing in this particular art. For here there are no real audible heart-throbs, as in music; no true circulation of the life-blood which ebbs and flows with the periods of thought and emotion, as in poetry; no explicit revelation of man's truer essence which, in his higher moments, suffuses the inorganic temple of the spirit and transfigures the temporal envelope of the soul. In short, painting is the physical, rather than the spiritual, manifestation of beauty; and like every other art has a limited range of subject- material. The enlargement of these points, however, will be held over until we specifically treat of poetry in our following chapter. Nevertheless, sufficient has been said to institute a more correct conception of the pictorial treatment of consciousness. But further reference to this attribute of motion, in its relation to painting, is, at this juncture, necessary. And in pursuing this point, we must discriminate between movement suggested and movement expressed, for in reality no picture that purports to delineate humanity can ever be said to properly achieve its desired end that does not at least carry with itself the suggestion of animation of vital activity. And from this suggestional, rather than expressional, point of view, a picture, if it be not some unconvincing travesty of art, at once wooden and inert, must stand for ever on the verge of anticipation and expectancy. It is, therefore, with the true painter, not so much the moment given, as that it trembles impatient on the marge of another moment in time. Thus his work can never be called properly artistic unless we feel that the subject expressed is about to move away from itself. In good drawing, for instance, the lines do not appear eternally fixed, but seem rather to flow. The eye is being perpetually led over its streaming lineaments, and finds ultimate repose solely in an entirely satisfactory and composite unity. It is analogous to the easy fluency of good and genuine poetry. In short, we seem to hang, poised and balanced, between the past and future of the moment given. And without this element of vitality, the pictorial product, though correct as to detail but lacking a masterful grip of the subject, must ever fail in its higher synthesis of beauty, and remain lastingly stiff and ineffective. This much, however, respecting the positive; now a few words anent the negative point of view. 92 HERMAIA And in this connection, let us take merely the pictural repro- duction of a single human countenance. For here we find that as consciousness becomes more strenuously operative; as the mental energies become more vigorously enkindled and the spiritual activities more seriously implicated, the more do we feel the inadequacy of painting and the stronger need of poetry. And this is more peculiarly the case when we are called upon to translate into art the increasingly dramatic co-operation of several human agents whose vital interests become mutually involved, as in composition-pictures. Violent action or pronounced emo- tion become, therefore, in graduated proportion to their extent and degree, inartistic in painting. And the reason for all this is not far to seek. In painting, mind is implicit, but in poetry- explicit ; just as soul is implicit in poetry, but explicit in music. But in painting, terror hangs wearily on the distorted counte- nance; pain is eternally present on the distracted features; whilst tensest life stands paralysed on the brink of a sequent moment never to be fully realised in time. And this muscular tension, this physical paralysis and spiritual stagnation, must of necessity greatly limit the choice of subject-painting. Indeed, the tense and transient modes of the conscious soul require more delicate consideration than to be housed in a perpetual present, and mummified in an inexorable moment. Thus esthetic evidences of extreme vitality should be quite otherwise dealt with than by the art of solidity, with its rigid realism and drastic discipline of a stern exposure. Let, however, these same con- scious realities be but submitted to the more subtle, magical touch of poetry and then although we lose tremendously in visible definiteness the muscles will at once relax and the joints will articulate, obedient to the promptings of the inner mind. The painter may make us realise a section of time round and about the moment presented ; still, as we advance in the esthetic deliverance of active life, we are gradually led to appreciate the limits of painting in its direct relation to human consciousness. Thus the latter art is at its best in the delineation of unruffled inaction and physical passivity. Hence the passive virtues are most competently mediated through the arts of materiality. Repose in painting, patience in marble, stand completely glorious in all the stability of immutable truth itself. Hence the best composition-pictures are such as require neither prior, nor FIGURE-PAINTING 93 sequent, moments to explain their meaning, but stand broad- based upon an all-containing present and a self-sufficient now. Very beautiful, too, are the classic masterpieces which are mostly the expressional treatment of silent serenity, of patient submission, and peaceful resignation. And in viewing such- like exhibitions of calm, passionless passivity, we are forcibly reminded of the pregnant words of Keats, who decribes beauty as: "Might, half slumbering on its own right arm;" which, by the way, seems more appropriate to painting than to poetry. For identical reasons, the turbulence of nature, when in angered mood her storms and raging torrents are not so adaptable to pictorial representation as the peaceful meadows decked with summer adornments or the quiet skies of eventide which never fail to court the gentler moods of thought. In the one case, for instance, we see the tempest-torn waves locked in lasting petrifaction, doomed never again to break in cadence beautiful upon the shore ; whilst in the other we see these same forces of nature, restful and tranquil, balanced in a perfect equipoise of power. With the former, the mind, as with a discord unresolved, is dissatisfied with the perpetually pending sequence which is the very beauty of matter, motional; whilst with the latter the mind demands no further sequel, but is content to rest, lapped in a logical quiescence. But relative to the mental aspect of the above contention, we cannot do better than quote from Lessing's quite masterly exposition of the comparative capacities of painting and poetry. In his " Laokoon " he writes as follows: " There are passions, and degrees of passion, which are expressed by the ugliest possible contortions of countenance, and throw the whole body into such a forced position that all the beautiful lines which cover its surface in a quiet attitude are lost. From all such emotions the ancient masters either abstained entirely, or reduced them to that lower degree in which they are capable of a certain measure of beauty. Rage and despair disgraced none of their produc- tions; I dare maintain that they never painted a Fury." The cultured Greeks, he wisely points out, were reticent in depicting violent emotion and perturbed passion, since such inward conditions of mind, when thrown into the stony mould of an immobile countenance, were only fraught with repulsive results. The Laocoon, by the way, is a later production of Greco-Roman 94 HERMAIA art, and represents the decadence of Hellenic sculpture, which, under the influence of masterful Rome, substituted physical contortion for the placid dignity of the spiritual. And with all this even Reynolds is in strict agreement. He argues that: " If you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty in its most perfect state, you cannot express the passions, which produce (all of them) distortion and deformity, more or less, in the most beautiful faces." Thus from the point of view of ugliness alone the gaping mouth and distorted visage as well as from our own vital standpoint, we have the same conclusion pressed hard upon us. But to come down to later times. Compare the majestic dignity of a Raphael with the more turgid treatment of the Venetian school of painting and none can fail to realise what kind of subject-material most redounds to the glory of the painter's craft. For similar reasons, we must deplore some of the agonising productions of the more modern French school, which justify themselves on the spurious score of courageous originality and brave invention. In summarising this present section, we conclude that it is perilous for the plastic arts to suggest severe and strenuous strain. Painting, be it remem- bered, has not the same intimate hold over life and mind as the subtile art of poetry. In the latter, the figures are galvanised into conscious activity : they live, move, and have their being in strict accordance with real life. " Art has its boundaries," writes Reynolds, " though imagination has none." COMPOSITION-PAINTING 95 CHAPTER XIII COMPOSITION-PAINTING BUT before passing on we must not fail to call the reader's attention to the subject of composition-painting, since here, as nowhere else in the pictorial realm, we enlist more extensively the mental faculties and bring into intenser requisition the energies of the soul. It must, however, be but a passing reference, since the following chapter will treat of it in detail. Suffice it to say that man is here not dealt with simply as a pictorial unit, at once isolated, unrelated, and at one with himself; it becomes now a question of different spiritual entities variously related to one another; wherein, not only is the imagination brought more prominently into play, but the element of mind, of life, and of spirit looms more vividly on the esthetic horizon. And since mind or consciousness is not the direct property of painting, we shall find the ultimate limitation of this art begins to make itself felt. For in a picture that purports to express the interactivity of souls, we neither sense the play of moral forces, as in the audible vision of music, nor hear the current of their thoughts, as in the inner voice of poesy. Here, indeed, the principle of suggestion too often preponderates over expressional achieve- ment. And this is what one would expect, since the arts tend to overlap at their respective extremities. Thus as painting leads on to poetry, our love of mental beauty tends to overflow the confines of the canvas; just as the soul over-reaches poetic senti- ment, only to fully find itself again in the moralism of music. And a more salutary recognition of the terminal capacities of each art would save us from much of the abuse attributable to the free selection of the artistic principle itself. We must bear in mind that speaking from the standpoint of consciousness in painting we concentrate and limit, whilst in poetry we expound mentally and gain thereby vitally in the process. In the one case we are given less, in the other we are granted more, than the bare subject itself. The former expresses 96 HERMAIA materially, whilst the latter expounds mentally, the subject- material under consideration. In painting, inner vitality stag- nates and distinctive qualities of mind are overlain by corporeal encumbrance and remain lastingly inoperative. As illustrative of our contention, the reader need only compare the respective treatments of, let us say, " Endymion," meted out by Watts the painter and by Keats the poet, to see which art delivers up the more truly expanded inwardness and which the contracted outwardness of the theme under consideration. Or again to refer to a more purely mental aspect of the subject what would become of the deranged consciousness of a King Lear, or the delicate graduations of character of a Hamlet, if subjected to the art of the painter ? Should we not feel here the utter futility of regarding painting as an adequate expression of life and mind? Indeed, as we rise to life proper, the mere suggestion thereof will not suffice ; we need an art specifically ordained to express directly the intricate and subtle consciousness of man. But this pic- torial powerlessness becomes more aggravated when we are called upon to treat of the abstract and essential. What, for instance, in the pictorial realm, can properly compete with a Miltonic treatment of chaos, or, better still, the dramatist's expression of mental confusion? But we must leave the con- sideration of this point with the reader, as space forbids a more detailed analysis of this vital aspect of the subject. Suffice it to say that the study of comparative estheticism will throw much needed light thereon. Nevertheless, our conclusions must not vitiate the purely suggestional aspect of the argument. For consider how often the painter will suggest a whole world of dumb, unworded poesy by the peculiar potency of craft and colour. And how often momentous meaning is pictorialised by the mere posing of the model, which, rather than by direct exposition, suggests more vividly a wealth of idealism to the contemplative spectator. To give a solitary instance, in Watt's " For he had great posses- sions," the face is wisely hidden from view, and this visible deprivation only serves the more to enrich the field of suggested* thought and to add mightily to the inspiration of the picture. Nevertheless, it still holds true, that mental qualities, or modes of consciousness, are not expressible, but only suggestible, in painting. Thus in this same humanistic and idealistic painter's COMPOSITION-PAINTING 97 " Hope," we are not made expressionally acquainted with the specific spiritual sentiment which gives the picture its title; but we rather admire the calm composure, the effect of this same mental property which is the cause. Indeed, were we ignorant of the title of the picture, many would be the explana- tory versions educed from many intelligent observers. And this mental inability in painting is analogous to the material ineptitude in music. Hence the utter futility of realism in this latter art. Painting expresses the mental in the same vague way that music expresses the material. We gather, then, from the above that poetry gives us the cause, of which painting is the visible effect ; in the same way in which music voices the feelings and sentiments which effectuate poetry. The world of expression has its inexorable divisions, the same as the world of reality. And from the foregoing we conclude that the painter is committed to the expression of the material con- ditions of beauty. Lacking the activity, deprived of the elasti- city and flexibility of poetic thought, when the painter would soar into higher regions of ideality he is still compelled to be mundane in his manifestation, and must still speak the language of terrene terminology. And all this is resultant on the more mechanical nature of his craft. But to revert once more to our hypothetical analogy, let us remind our reader of a previous pronouncement. In an earlier chapter we pointed out that as man's mind developed he first of all viewed the lifeless mass of coherent beauty, and then he penetrated the mysteries of life and mind, and finally delved into the mysterious realities of his own spiritual and moral being. And in such order each realm of experience demanded a special esthetic mode of expression. Hence the sequential phases of art under present review. And to pursue the parallel, a yawning abyss separates the organic and inorganic kingdoms, for we can bridge neither matter and life, nor brain and conscious- ness ; so too painting can never cross over and successfully invade the territory of poetry. In a similar sense, also, poetry cannot, by any pressure of sentiment, become ultimately music, for these two arts remain differentiated as do the purely mental and moral spheres of real experience, of which they are respec- tively the expression. Should, therefore, the exponent of pictorial beauty attempt to express purely poetic ideas, he will 98 HERMAIA be for ever haunted by the evasive fancies of the poet, the which are really only to be captured verbally. In fact, poetic ideas are only properly expressed by words. The painter may have poetical ideas, but his craft compels him to be materialistic and concrete, in accordance with the law of conformity to type. And we feel this strongly at times in the matter of symbolism, which seems more like a vain attempt to usurp the rights of the poet than a successful, artistic achievement. At all times, art should strive after the highest, and that higher vitality and spiritual animation which symbolic painting purports to present, is irretrievably lost in the super-incumbent workmanship. True, the poet may be pertinently quoted so as to expound the esoteric meaning of the picture, and doubtless with effect, moreover: but here, be it noted, we alight on another analogy subsisting between the world of reality and that of ideality. For just as some living form may stoop from its higher plane of being and endow dead atoms with the properties of vitality; so too may the poet stoop down from his more vital and rarefied state of existence and vitalise the inner meaning of the pictorial product. It seems, then, to hint at the Law of Biogenesis which obtains in the world of nature. And further, just as the poet elucidates the painter's subject-matter to hand, in other words mentalises the material; so too does the musician spiritualise the dormant moralism of poetry, when the two are conjoined in harmonious alliance. Here music descends from its free and ethereal attitude, dips down and touches poetry to finer issues. It raises the poetic temperature to the white heat of impassioned spirituality, like as when poetry undertakes to expound the stable glories of pictorial beauty. And this again is analogous to the spiritualisation of our mental activities, for in music we are artistically born from on high. Each art has its own private mode of procedure. And the behaviour of esthetic thinking, discoverable in each, must needs govern both the nature of and material for expression. But one more analogical reference must suffice in concluding our present analysis of painting as the manifestation of material beauty. Hitherto we have spoken only in a general way of the native constitution of this art, in its expressional relationship to Reality; now, however, a word respecting its method of growth, in this same connection. COMPOSITION-PAINTING 99 If, for instance, we take note of the peculiar growth of pic- torial ideas as they find expression on canvas, we shall again notice analogous properties subsisting between painting and the salient features apparent in the inorganic kingdom in nature. For it can be readily seen that, in the matter of development, both the subject-material of this art and the physicality of the inorganic kingdom partake of the nature of molecular arrange- ment. In short, the process of painting is that of accretion and physical construction rather than the gradual mental and moral evolvement peculiar to other arts. The painter works round a central point of interest and builds up his artistic achievement after the manner of crystallisation. The picture comes into being through the process of increment, or that concrescence peculiar to the formation of the bodily organism, which externalises the animating principle within. It is of atomic construction. The picture, then, increases from without, and, like the crystal, expands by the addition of external substance, representative of a kind of life, in terms of matter. It is an aggregative procedure, and more after the manner of mechanical augmentation, where each figure might be conceivably complete in itself. Its growth may be said to be exogenous. But the above is also roughly true of all plastic beauty ; and especially so of architecture, since it is the most material and mechanical of the arts. Hence, with its cohesive mass and definite geometrical form, it stands for the exact esthetic equivalent of the phenomenon of crystallisation. Music, on the other hand, is emphatically endogenous. And herein the pictorial art differs wholly from that continuity or linear processus peculiar to poetry and music. For since the latter arts are the direct expression of mental and moral vitality, the pliant and subtle growth of poetic inspiration and the mys- tical expansion of the orchestral score resemble rather the vital growth from within than the mere addition of pictorial particles from without. Life is a process of birth, development, and death ; like a musical composition it creeps mysteriously into being, passes through various stages of development, and finally, with dying cadence, falls back again into the unseen world of cause whence it came. It is the difference between the rectilineal growth of soul or mind and the spatial extension of body. Whilst the painter, therefore, may be said to merely add to the surface of the canvas, after the manner of non-living bodies, both the ioo HERMAIA poet and composer absorb their experiential environment, after the manner of living bodies, restoring the transmuted content to its own peculiar plane of esthetic existence. Conversely, the spiritual nature of man is not the result of a chemical combina- tion from without, but like music a transcendental creation from within. Nevertheless, though plastic beauty partakes of the nature of divisibility, it must, if it be artistic at all, partake also of the principle of unification. For all true art is spiritual, and unity is the spiritual principle which manifests itself in and through material multiplicity. And it need hardly be said that though a picture be the consociation of objects, it is only a picture when expressive of vital relativity is, in other words, organic. For we are dealing here, for the moment, be it remem- bered, with the expressional manner rather than with the matter suggested. But from another point of view, the plastic arts represent more closely the inertia of matter; whilst the progression of poetry and movement of music are more nearly representative of mental activity and spiritual power. Indeed, the more material an art, the more unwieldy it becomes. The inorganic is less pliant than the organic. So we rise naturally out of the geometrical angularity of architecture, which is typical of the mineral world of Reality, up to the throbbing pulse of rhythmic poesy, typical of the formless mind, and the heart -beats in music which typify the sensitised life of the shape-less soul. Finally, the plastic arts are subject to the play of forces by which they are surrounded, in a similar sense in which the world of materiality is subject to the action of corrosion and decay. Thus beautiful buildings crumble imperceptibly away; and sculpture and painting likewise suffer eventually the ruthless ravages of time. These being all arts of externality, they rely, therefore, more on outer craft than on inner creativeness, and so resemble the objective world of matter they purport to represent in their common subjection to this law of attrition. Nevertheless, we must not fail to notice that, with regard to pictures, the pigments employed have varying degrees of dura- bility. In the case of poetry and composition, however, craft and creativeness are, practically speaking, one and the same artistic activity, and so these arts escape this principle of de- struction. The latter arts are at once committed to the manu- COMPOS ITION-PAINTING; : : \ ;' . isii script, which, being of no artistic value in itself, can be indefinitely multiplied and ubiquitously circulated, and so saved from the possibility of destruction, injury, or esthetic depreciation. True, we may by various methods duplicate the picture; but in the very process, despite the undeniable excellence of modern photochromy, much of the personal art is necessarily lost, and this since craft and creativeness are here inexorably bound up together. So to destroy a picture is to extirpate the work of art itself, whereas, in the case of both -music and poetry, to destroy the original manuscript is not necessarily to destroy the works themselves. Indeed the latter could be committed to memory and written afresh even by those who have no creative gift whatsoever, a process which, obviously, would be of no avail in the case of the products of plastic beauty. In short, as we descend in the scale of beauty, the arts become less preservable : on the other hand, poetry and music, representing interior estheticism, stand peculiarly for the permanent mind and soul, amidst a world of besetting impermanence. And this because we find decay only where there is a congregation of primary particles offering scope for hostilities among themselves ; whereas unity and integrity are predicates possible to the spiritual and metaphysical alone. So we may well believe that, after the dissolution of matter and the evanishment of all that is of the earth earthy, the music of goodness and the poetry of truth will endure with a beauty that is eternal. But here our present discussion comes to an end; for rather than labour the various points under notice, they must be now carried over to the next chapter, where they will be seen in new connections in our specific treatment of the penultimate art of Poetry. . HERMAIA CHAPTER XIV POETRY I INTRODUCTION The true poet is all-knowing; he is an actual world in miniature. NOVALIS. IN passing now from painting to poetry, we pass in reality from visible things to invisible thoughts ; from image to imagery and from symbol to sentiment; from similitude to simile and from figures to figures of speech. Or again: if painting be esthetic perception, then poetry becomes literally esthetic apperception. And in this translation of the beautiful, we are enabled to lay hold of, as material for art, that immeasurable wealth of suggestion which arises from the artistic apprehension of apparent experience external to ourselves. Indeed the poet can add his own personal consciousness, or may be his private experience, to the artistic material of the painter. What, therefore, was merely suggestion in painting, becomes now the actual matter of artistic expression. But, in a few prefatory remarks, it will be necessary to point out what exactly is involved in this change of artistic front. Now the first artistic acquisition to be noticed is both the extension and deepening of the capacity of the imagination. And since the latter faculty is nothing more or less than the private province of art itself, it follows that poetry brings along with itself a general expansion of the kingdom of the beautiful. In the latter art, then, the imagination is more heavily taxed, more widely drawn upon, since poetry may be said to be solely and purely imaginative. Poetry, in reality, exists in the mind alone, and not out of it as in the plastic arts. But this characteristic, as we shall see later on, brings also its losses as well as its gains. It is generally thought, however, that the painter must be possessed of an imagination of a superlative order. And true it is the painter may be able to focus his attention on an object in the mind better than the poet, yet as regards the concomitants POETRY: INTRODUCTION 103 of imaginative thought, the poet outstrips the painter. The one visualises, the other verbalises. And in the act of visualisation proper we suppress thought, so as to leave the mind free to concentrate itself on concrete images. Again, many excellent artists are unable to paint away from their models; whilst, on the other hand, many poetic minds are endowed with a native wealth of internal picturability, but are denied the expressional mediumship of craft. Although untutored, they may excel the painter's imagination in even constructive ideality and beauty of conception, but nevertheless be powerless to translate the same into esthetic visibility. The painter, then, must attend to the object he treats of alone, whilst the poet may move round and about it, think more freely thereon; in short, evade the painter's enforced captivity to his model. And from this, we conclude that, whilst the painter sets before us objects, the poet can deal with the higher relations subsisting between the same. The former exhibits, the latter expounds. The one presents an object, the other sings about it. Thus the function of poetry is not merely to record the bare pictorial fact, but, through the medium of appropriate language, to raise it to the level of impassioned spirituality. So the poet deals with what psycho- logists would term the fringe of the painter's consciousness. Poetry, therefore, brings into requisition man's marginal mind that which has been but indistinctly hovering around the objects in painting like the corona during a solar eclipse. This, more- over, compels the poet to cultivate more especially the inner consciousness. And since he cannot objectify and stand apart from his creations, in the same way as the painter who externalises his thinking and can therefore view it from without ; the poet is for ever strengthening his inner faculty of creativeness. This, furthermore, tends to the enrichment of the poetic fancy. We have only to compare a Dante with a Dore, both highly inventive minds, to fully realise the operation of this principle. Now in painting, as already stated, we have the presentation of objects, whilst in poetry we acquire the power of binding them together by means of language. Thus the inarticulate bond that conjoins figures in painting becomes in poetry a matter for ample expression. Beauty, again, resides in the relation of parts to one another, and of parts to their totality. In the pictorial and poetic arts, therefore, we enjoy, respectively, the io 4 HERMAIA beauteous relativity of things and thoughts. In painting, how- ever, the relation existing between objects is not so vital as that which exists between ideas in poetry. And the reason for this lies in the essential nature of language itself. So here we must pause to consider what the acquisition of this entirely novel medium of artistic expression really means. PAINTING AND POETRY 105 CHAPTER XV PAINTING AND POETRY THE poet, we observe, clothes his ideas in verbal form. Thus in poetry, music, or rhetoric, we transfer the substance of art to that mental plane which is at once less definite to the ordinary consciousness, but more real to the inner subjective mind. Further, in changing our esthetic content from things to thoughts we endow art with a significant increase in plasticity, with a greater mobility of mind and elasticity of imagination: in exchanging material objects for spiritual images we gain immensely in force and freedom. In very truth, as art advances we approximate the more essential and spiritual reality. The raw material of poetry, then, is to be found in words. And words may be described as imprisoned picturability. For, in a solitary syllable, we have the concentration of potential pictures. Thus language is capable of wrapping up in a single sentence collective impressions. In accordance, therefore, with our law of evolu- tionary art as already enunciated the poet submits the medium for expression to a process of condensation. That is to say, through the employment of symbols he escapes the trammels of the purely objective. He assumes much that the painter, by reason of his craft, cannot avoid, and so leaves himself free to inhabit a more subtle and interior plane of suggestion. Poetry, therefore, contracts as regards the external world, but expands as regards the internal. It, in short, eliminates the obvious in favour of the less apparent. And for this very reason the objective details enfolded in thought-forms are ill-defined when compared with pictorial presentation. Thus poetry is less easily appreciated than painting, since the former demands more of the reader; just as the philosopher, who relates abstractions, is more remote from the general mind accustomed to the inter- play of concrete conceptions. To sum up, painting unfolds the outer material aspect of beauty, whilst poetry unfolds the inner mental aspect thereof. The former loses in inwardness; the io6 HERMAIA latter in outwardness. It becomes true, therefore, that a picture can, in a single impression, summarise an entire poem, though it is rather the summarisation of external particulars than the exposure of generic ideas. So from a negative point of view, painting may be said to be the imprisonment of consciousness. A picture, for instance, does not always fully explain itself, unless some textual matter be appended. It tells us what happens, but does not definitely acquaint us with the reason for such happening. Similarly, music gives us the impulse which prompts our active powers, but can only suggest the outer mode of action : hence the validity of allying poetic with musical thought. We must bear in mind, therefore, throughout this present chapter, what we might rightly term the explosive potency of words. As already intimated, drop but a single significant syllable into the fertile brain and you will generate a veritable storage of imagery. This is true in many ways. You have only to mention the name of some great personality, and, as if by magic, the mind becomes at once heavily weighted with thought. A single abstract term, again, is oftentimes sufficient to fire the imagination with images of beauty: a solitary syllable is com- petent to condense a rich fund of deep experience; and this is all the more true when the expression is clothed with poetry. When we think, we release, therefore, with lightning celerity, the pictorial contents of language. The philosopher, also, is he who sees such contents clearly; and the poet he who views the component ideas inhering in words with an inner eye to beauty. The latter, indeed, must have an intuitive sense of the psycho- logical genius of the very words he uses. The poet of a truth, is to be estimated by the qualifying clauses he uses. Regard the choice of adjectives, from this point of view, as exemplified in the poetry of a Keats. For him, the nightingale does not merely sing, but sings of summer " in full-throated ease/' Fitness in figures of speech means, then, that the inness of each vocable when unravelled in the imagination will produce conjointly a congruous and coherent picture. Poetry, therefore, appeals specially to those alone who have keenness of mental vision. So, from a positive point of view, words may be termed the economy of beauty: they save much paint to the poet; whilst, from a negative point of view, they might be regarded as the only too often tombs of thought. Indeed, much misunderstanding is PAINTING AND POETRY 107 due to the fact that words may convey a meaning other than intended. And this, since they find lodgment in a consciousness stocked differently from our own. Only let us define our terms and we should find much agreement hidden beneath deceptive terminology. Beware, therefore, of the tyranny of names. Still, from this, their utilitarian aspect, the appropriation of speech in place of semblance enables us to avoid the unessential details of painting to disregard all material minutiae; and in the judicious employment of vocables we escape that tedious circumlocution which tends so readily to destroy the essential unity of poetry. In short, we can, in a single syllable, ofttimes gather up the very quintessence of meaning. Words, then, constitute the raw material of the poetic art. And given these, it is to their judicious juxtaposition that poetry owes its very existence. Now at this artistic juncture emerge two significant contents of the art in question. These are metaphor and metre, which, roughly speaking, might be termed the very poles of poetic constitution itself the outer physical aspect and the inner vital throb thereof. And in metaphor, on the one hand, poetry carries bodily over the picturesque element in art, though losing much of the vividness of painting : whilst, in metre, on the other hand, it merely touches on the germinal inception of music at the earliest dawn of its existence. That is to say, where poetry approximates the specialism of other arts, it must confess to an inferiority of expression. Thus in rime or rhythm, or in the mere music of words, we have but the faintest intimation of the tonal art yet to come. For though sound and pulsation are primary ingredients of music proper, they represent but the barest incipiency thereof. Nevertheless, rhythm or metre is to be found more actively operative in music; just as picturability is more vividly felicitous in painting. So when the critic speaks of the music of poetry, he refers simply to metre and the genius of sound in words, which, relative to the tonal art, are as a kind of inchoate musicality. But the relation of poetry to music does not at present concern us. It is the relation of poetry to painting with which this section specifically treats. Now since it is painting which more immediately deals with the objective, it will be poetry only in so far as it relates to externality that will here receive our attention poetry, therefore, in but a io8 HERMAIA restricted aspect. And it is just in metaphor, simile, or analogy that this art exercises such supreme control in its esthetic use of natural phenomena. Indeed, it is this parabolic power which is the distinguishing feature of poetry: it is this faculty which distinguishes it from all the other fine arts. Now at root, all speech may be said to be based on analogy. We say an idea "strikes us," or we speak of "killing time/' both of which expressions implicate a picturable circumstance, whose physical asperities are softened by being mentalised. Language, then, becomes pictographic ; we have recourse to physical phenomena to elucidate or express the phenomena of mind. So whilst the artist paints things in terms of themselves, the poet is capable of painting things in terms of other things. It is a kind of second dimension of the artistic consciousness. Even the simplest poetic statement illustrates this principle. Thus Hamlet is made to speak of " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," giving us thereby a picture of fortune as an armed foe, horrent with engines of mischief. It is the substitution of words for concrete objects, therefore, that enables us to enjoy the artistic accession of metaphor. And it is through analogy that this higher, poetic mode of utter- ance enjoys such exquisite freedom. Here, in poetry, artistic relations become infinite and arbitrary; whilst those in painting are limited more or less to visible reality. These self-same relations are again capable of being held together in a still higher state of relativity and with ever-increasing complexity of utter- ance. The charm dissolves apace; And as the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness, so their rising senses Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason. (SHAKESPEARE.) Poetry then marks an entirely original relation of art to man and nature. We reach a distinctive and novel stage in the progressive material of art. We are here one remove from painting, since we are not compelled to deliver up things in them- selves, but rather the ideas thereof. Indeed, simile is no mere copy, but a kind of thought by proxy. Mental pictures or sets of ideas are here substituted for reality. Be it therefore simile, analogy, or metaphor, the peculiar privilege of poetry is the PAINTING AND POETRY 109 power of substituting imponderable thought for ponderable reality. Poetry refers to the physical to express spiritual truth. And by means of simile the poet can draw together, in closest kinship, the apparently most estranged phenomena. And whence that delight of heart and brain derived from poetic imagery, if it be not some secret love of harmonious creation? We instinctively feel all nature to be mutually related by reason of a common parentage of Spirit. So when the poet sets dew upon the eyelids and calls it weeping, or likens laughter to the rippling of a sun-kissed lake, we rejoice over the mutuality and unity of all things. Indeed, man may claim kinship with the stars. He feels the community of the cosmos as he contemplates the galaxy of heaven. And in the mind of the poet all nature becomes volatile, so that even the very mountains must melt with the magic of his art. After all, is not the universe itself a parable ? Does not evolution bespeak the soul's continuity and eternal progressiveness, and the conservation of energy the immortality of spirit? Hence we feel nature is best expressed in terms higher than itself. Thus poetry becomes the quint- essence of truth. Indeed, art in general is the highest form of truth because nature herself is ideal, spiritual, and symbolic. By means of poetry, therefore, art bridges the apparent gulf which separates the shadow of matter from the substance of spirit. It gives us the key to the arcana of nature. Hence the value and validity of the metaphorical. In short, the truth about the universe is always poetic. Thus if painting is relative to the glories of visible reality, poetry reconciles the visible and invisible; whilst music, with its super-sensible terminology, voices the perennial Unity in whose harmonial essence all things exist. Now from the foregoing it is obvious that poetry presents us with the mental rather than the material aspect of beauty. We have substituted thoughts for things. The percept of painting has now become the concept of poetry. The pictorial matter has now passed bodily over into the realm of poetic ideas. Let it not be forgotten, however, that ideation is still an ingredient in painting; though it exist implicitly rather than explicitly though it operate as suggestion rather than expression. For as we have already seen, each antecedent art involves the material of a subsequent art the which, again, makes more an i io HERMAIA inference of this prior mode of beauty, so as to be free to prose- cute still further reaches of estheticism. Thus the imprisoned mentality of painting is made fully manifest in poetry. Or again: the materiality of painting is subordinated in poetry in the interests of the mental. So each art becomes, in turn, the disenthralment of the soul of the preceding art. In short, painting expresses matter, but suggests mind; whilst poetry suggests matter and expresses mind. Roughly speaking, poetry may therefore be regarded as painting promoted to the inner mental plane. It is consciousness functioning ideally in its own peculiar province. But to speak in Cartesian terms, painting and poetry are respectively the " substantia extensa " and the " substantia cogitans " of art. And along with this said pro- motion, comes a collateral increase of power and imagination. The poet, in contradistinction from the painter, can colour with roses the cheeks of health, or invoke the northern snows to blanch the brow of death. He paints inwardly through the medium of language, and depicts beauty by means of ideas. He dips his brush in thought. All the world beautiful sits on his palette and ministers to his canvas. He is not enslaved by his model, for the poet can describe an object by quite other objects of his free selection. He may call a smile sunny or describe grief as black as night, travelling far afield to beautify his thought. And this choice is not governed by semblance merely, but by some secret affinity resident in the heart of things. This too were impossible, were it not that, in poetry, the imagina- tion becomes unshackled from mere visual representation. At one touch of poesy the forms flee the canvas and, thus liberated, are capable of infinite arrangement and re-adjustment. Hence it is the poet alone who can endow with vitality the pictorial semblance of the living. For when he arrives the figures live, move, and have their being. The advance of art, then, is but the increase of life. Painting, therefore, can in no wise compare with the mental vivacity displayed in poetry. We see now that visibility is at once the strength and weakness of painting. It enables the art to express itself more definitely than poetry, yet in its committal to canvas it loses in imaginative facility. Poetry, on the other hand, operating as it does in the inner dimension of thought, is capable of that subtle variety we associate with vitality. Music, in turn, becomes the mirror of deepest PAINTING AND POETRY in life. It is therefore the most indefinite of the arts. Its effect is indescribable. It seems all but born into this tangible world of ours and not wholly incarnated until its union with poetry be accomplished. Now if poetry advanced not a stage beyond painting it could never substitute description for delineation. To speak in terms of logic, painting gives us the premise, whilst poetry gives us the inference. The former is the combination, and the latter the permutation, of artistic thought. Still if poetry gains in freedom, it loses in exactitude. Thus portraiture proper is impossible in poetry since this art is denied pictorial fidelity. The expression also of visible creation is alone possible to that art which lays claim to anything like accurate representation. So the meanest poetry is that which merely catalogues nature. It is landscape- painting without its charm of synchronal visualisation. And this because the transitional moments of poetry are destructive of the unity and simultaneity of material beauty. Poetry, indeed, was born for a higher purpose. It must deliver itself of the inner meaning of nature, and not fail in the endeavour to reproduce her. Painting transcribes, but poetry translates. The poet alone can read off for us the mind of the universe. And for the very same reason that poetry is capable of giving us mentality is it powerless to give us adequately the mould of life. Here the painter excels beyond the most ravishing dreams of the poet. When the latter attempts to draw for us form or feature, he ceases to conquer and becomes only chimerical. It is only some tenuous ghost that gathers round the bones of death. Figuration in poetry becomes at once amorphous and indistinct. In music, again, configuration reaches its vanishing point. Here we have little if any material aspect of esthetic truth. Lessing in his " Laokoon " labours this point. He writes : " The poet since he can only exhibit in succession its component parts entirely abstains from the description of material beauty as beauty." Poetry then is weak in the portrayal of physical beauty. Being a continuous sequence, we lose the totality in the mere procession of parts and description of details. The likeness which the poet gives us is, therefore, that of the mental, and not that of the material, man. Painting limns the individual, but poetry, by means of language, delineates the hidden humanity. And the mind is more indefinite than the visage, and the feelings,. ii2 HERMAIA again, which music embodies, are still more intangible. So, with the progression of the arts, we notice a loss of outline and distinctness in drawing, but find a concomitant accumulation of intensity and fervour. It is as we have already seen the gradual self-assertion of the soul. We realise now that, in poetry, we are deeper than appearance. We get beneath pictorial presentation. Here facts are transformed into fancy. We paint internally on the canvas of the imagination. We are behind the phenomenal universe and no longer employed on the surface. Poetry does not, therefore, reflect the cosmos in her natural arrangement, but readjusts her parts with a view to ulterior beauty of thought rather than the apparent beauty of objects. She expounds rather than expresses. And, by delving beneath the visible, the poet strikes at the heart of things and arrives at the ideas secreted within. With the inner vision awakened, he contemplates the glories of the hyperphysical world. He gives us qualities and essences in place of colour and form. His is the beauty of the supernatural cosmos and the glory of spiritual types that eternally persist. So in poetry we enjoy the true supremacy of mind. We dwell, for the time being, in the real kingdom of ideas. Poetry is spiritual sanity, and poetic thoughts are flashing jewels in reason's royal crown. Each art, then, becomes in turn more inward than the one previous. And this is true in the realm of reality. For as man's mind develops, body becomes more amenable to mind. The seat of authority is transferred from the physical to the mental. Under the stress of untutored passion, the savage has but little control over physical expression. Thus on the ideal plane music comes to represent that higher authority of soul where emotional stress is ennobled and interiorised by being divorced from corporeal contortion. So art, by a process of dematerialisation, acquires greater creative power, and with music attains complete spiritual freedom. But to return. Now while painting is limited to a section of space and a momentary duration in time, poetry is co-extensive with mind itself. This latter art, therefore, being thought, and not thought rendered visible, is released from the process of external coagulation. The art of the painter, on the other hand, compels us to project our ideas, whilst that of the poet permits them to remain in their native territory. Thought in poetry, PAINTING AND POETRY 113 not being expelled from the mental sphere, acquires thereby a facility that is alien to painting. Poetry is practically dimension- less. Here past, present, and future may occupy the same canvas; essence may co-exist with matter, and spirit may be described in terms of substance. And the poetic element creeps in with the delicate adjustment of thought. And with such a wealth of subject -material, artistic selection becomes at once a question of infinite subtlety. In point of fact, the poet can qualify thought by drawing on the entire cosmos. His art is illimitability itself. He can roll up the thunder, place it in the heart of a man, and call it rage; or clench the hurtling fork of heaven and make it flash from human eyes. With poetry the world becomes at once volatilised; and without this process of etherealisation, the poet could neither substantiate qualities nor subtilise the concrete. Yet along with this increase of artistic refinement comes an added sense of responsibility; for beauty is valuable alone in so far as it accentuates the true, and recommends it to the soul. ii 4 HERMAIA CHAPTER XVI PAINTING AND POETRY! continued BUT let us pass on and consider the relation of poetry and painting in their respective treatment of things specifically mental. Now from the foregoing it will be readily seen that, in the realm of mind, poetry is paramount. For while painting is mind in terms of matter, the poet, by means of symbolism or personification, can give us matter in terms of mind. The one art materialises the principle of vitality, whilst the other is capable of vitalising the material. In other words the painter clothes ideas with form, the poet invests form with ideas, whilst the musician, discarding both, gives us pure, spiritual beauty. In painting, then, mind must incarnate itself, whilst in poetry it can remain discarnate. And, for this latter reason, the poet permits us to view all mental qualities in their natural mode of existence. There is, again, no incongruity possible in the art of the poet, when he sets the tangible and intangible in close juxtaposition. For in poetry, the animate and inanimate become convertible terms, and subsist conformably together. Poetry may either materialise the mental or mentalise the material. Here physical and human nature may be inter- woven with delicate intricacy, quite irrespective of the scale of being each may occupy in its original state of reality. But in painting, the treatment of the abstract results too often in a confusion of planes. The wealth of mental suggestion is too heavily weighted with its material mode of expression. Painting cannot really express essential ideas, it can only portray their temporal manifestation. We do not, for instance, see love only feel it; and here, even the musician gains an ascendancy over the poet, since he, in turn, is excused the inward configura- tion of thought. For though poetry may sing about love, music alone calls forth the soul of love. But it may be argued that, by means of symbols, emblems, or allegorical attributes, the painter, too, is capable of expressing the most psychical moods of mind. PAINTING AND POETRY 115 When, however, he does so, it is by concreting the abstract by materialising the spiritual. And though in these higher flights of pictural beauty wherein we approximate poetry and the arts tend to overlap, it is only too often but a futile attempt to flee the canvas. On the other hand, the most ideal flights of painting become the average wont of poetry. For what really happens in their respective treatment of let us say the abstract conception of justice? According to the poet Samuel Daniel : Clear-eyed Astrea Comes with her balance and her sword, to show That first her judgment weighs before it strikes. And here, not only have we the personification of a mental quality pictured for us with suitable emblems, but we are also fully informed as to its behaviour in the region of moral activity. Indeed, if anywhere, poetry lays the note of accent on the more moral aspect in all such cases of symbolism. At all events, here the physical and psychical co-exist in mutual congruity. But be it the imagination of a Watts or a Blake, the limitations and disabilities of the pictorial art, in this connection, become at times oppressive and prohibitive in so far as the very genius of the subject is concerned. For here we have, as it were, two terms of an equation, something likened to something else. On the one side the figural personification; on the other the moral attribute itself. But in painting, the emphasis, unlike the sister art, is inevitably laid on the side of material embodiment. Here quality and quantity cannot live on equal terms. We have in reality the manifestation of only one side of this said equation that of physical configuration. Thus, as we have already seen, painting is superior in physicality, but inferior in mentality. In painting we have a perfect synthesis of material minutiae and objective details which, in poetry, being progressive and fluxional, become ill-defined and illusive. And this because, in the language of philosophy, Painting is immediate and presentative, whilst Poetry is mediate and representative. In respect of allegorical beauty, then, the constitutional impotence of the former art is obvious. Poetry alone can be properly figurative. To take a simple illustration. If the poet likens time to a river, the simile, when submitted to pictorial treatment, remains lastingly simply a landscape. ii6 HERMAIA Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear. (BURNS.) Conversely, if Heights which appear as lovers who have parted In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ; (BYRON.) or are but dimly seen through the poetic mists of grief, it is only because poetry wisely lays the emphasis on the more important element of soul. In abstract beauty, then, pictures are not self-explanatory like the pictorial treatment of fact. They stand related to their subject very much in the same way as tone-pictures stand related to the matters of fact they seek to esthetically elucidate. For though music may suggest, it cannot express the concrete. Still, in either case we may obtain works of intrinsic merit without fulfilling the expressional demands of the subject. For in both instances we fall short of essential expression which should amplify, rather than contract, the subject we treat of. Personification in painting, then, becomes perhaps too personal; we are in danger of losing the idea in its formal vesture. Here substantiality preponderates only too mightily over the gossamery nature of figurative fancy. While the poet dis- embodies the genius of the subject, the painter has to recall it back to its tenement of clay. Allegorical imagery in poetry is a bird that takes to wing, whilst in painting it falls dead at our feet. It can only live properly, therefore, in the more rarefied art of poesy. Indeed it seems subjected to too close a scrutiny in the picturesque art. And this becomes obvious when we consider that the poet has an entirely free hand in the matter of essences and qualities. So we conclude that metaphysical beauty is of too delicate a structure for visualisation. Neverthe- less, emblematical and moralistic pictures have so often been the pursuit of great artists and the pleasure of an intelligent public that a few more remarks in this connection remain to be added. It becomes really a question of the relation between craft and creativeness. And in painting, by reason of its very constitu- tion, craft is the dominating consideration. Here execution preponderates over invention. Whatever the idea, a picture if badly executed cannot be good art. On the other hand, pictures PAINTING AND POETRY 117 can be artistic, apart from mental meaning. The outer, bodily expression is, therefore, of more importance than the inner moral idea. So, in painting, we are prone to overlook conceptual inefficiency, on account of the beauty of execution. Thus two painters may paint exactly the same pictorial idea and both remain masters in their art. But a composer, as well as a poet, is great in so far as he is an original source of new ideas. Indeed, in music, craft and creativeness become two distinct functions. The composer and the executant occupy discreted spheres of artistic activity. And this since the spiritual, which music idealises, is only known through mediation. The one creates, the other recreates ; the one invents, the other interprets. And only in so far as the performer succeeds in his interpretation does he himself become the creator of original beauty. Thus the relation of the painter to nature is that of the executant, to the created cosmos of the composer. We see here, moreover, the principle of esthetic evolution at work. For in painting, craft overrules creativeness; in poetry, invention is of more account than execution; whilst in music, we find both of these principles in art enjoying a separate existence. It thus leaves music free to prosecute the mission of unshackled idealism. So Lessing writes: " In the artist's case the execution appears to be more difficult than the invention ; in the poet's this is reversed, and execution seems easier to him than invention." Craft, then, overpowers creativeness in painting, whereas in poetry mere mechanical workmanship tends to disappear. And so true is this that the adage, " Art for art's sake," implies a superior disregard for the style of subject expressed. Indeed, many an artist is scornful of the composition-picture that " tells a story." Yet the two elements of execution and invention are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Rather, in paintings of this character, we have an additional attraction over and above skill in execution. For there is here the possibility of not only exciting our admiration, but of enlisting also our moral and spiritual sympathies without the picture being aggressively didactic. But it is held by some that art has nothing to do with morality whatsoever: that for beauty, which has an ethical content, it were better to substitute expression, which is supposed to have none. That is to say, there is nothing that is not a fit subject for pictorial presentation, since art, as such, is irrespective n8 HERMAIA of the interests of morality. While, however, it may be true to say that a painter may address himself to the canvas, entirely devoid of any ethical intent, it is scarcely true to say that the finished product will be entirely non-moral in its effect. So Goethe held that " a good work may and will have moral results, but to require of the artist a moral aim is to spoil his work." The fact is, beauty, unlike exact thinking, excites our feelings; we cannot, therefore, ignore the marginal residuum left in the mind of every intelligent observer. Indeed the very essence of all true art is that the artist projects his personality into his work, and so cannot but impart to others something of his own moral nature. The only valid reason why the converse gains support is the fact that, unlike other forms of art, here the manner is of relatively greater importance than the matter. For in painting it is not so much the subject itself as the way in which it is treated. So that ugliness may be indeed often is glorified by technical dexterity. But even here the mode of treatment cannot but betray the moral disposition of the painter. In short, art is influence, and influence of any kind cannot but be for better or for worse. Indeed, ascent in the world of beauty is simply the growth of spiritual influence. Nevertheless, how- ever beautiful the idea, if it receive not masterly treatment it will fail to convince. Technical weakness dispels the illusion of art. Still, the idea, as such, need not militate against craft; rather the excellence of the craft will tend to enhance the value of the idea. And it is just here that painting comes up so nearly against the sister art of poetry. For in the more imaginative class of composition-pictures we have the pure precipitate of poetic beauty. We reach the pictorial extremity. It is the ultimate of painting. Highest pictures suggest a kind of thought- projection. And in the subtle treatment of abstract subjects we are more inventive and less reproductive. It is the growth of imagination and the rise of originality. Still we must not confuse imagination with originality. They are by no means synonymous. Poetry is much more original than painting, whilst music is the most original of all the arts. It is a newly created cosmos. The greatest pictures are, therefore, primarily great, not because of their originality, but because of their beauty of execution. The painter may imagine the most patent and obvious thing in the universe and still produce a masterpiece. PAINTING AND POETRY 119 In analysing, then, the inherent constitution of poetry, we feel it to be the art supremely suited to express the real mental life of man. For is not the true humanity to be found on the ideal plane alone? And here on this advantageous platform poetry immediately manifests itself. The poet does not compel idealism to inhabit the realm of realism, to which it is alien; but permits it to occupy that inner sphere of thought most in consonance with its constitutional character. And since ideality resides in the mind, poetry is more ideal and partakes, therefore, more of the inherent nature of art, which is itself idealistic. Indeed, the poet sees more with the mind and thinks more in the inner consciousness the seat of ideation, proper. And what is the ideal but the higher truth about a thing? We are minds rather than appearances. Poetry is thus the voice of internalised experience. It is the art of our general conscious- ness. We are here apprised of ideas in their natural state. They do not overflow in pictorial rigidity nor run away into musical fluidity. Poetry is, then, life in art. For, since life is not a visible quantity but an invisible quality, we need an invisible art for its adequate expression. Poets are normal seers. Poetry is then supremely organic. For whether he be purely poet, dramatist, or novelist, regard for a moment the vivacious operations of this particular prophet of the imagination. What rapidity of movement, what subtlety of thinking are possible to the artistic organism he seeks to control. Here we find a lively articulation of parts, an intricate interaction of members, all contributing harmoniously to the subtle unity of esthetic vitality. And it is only the poet who can conjure up for us such a world of singularly real activity. A few words from his lips transport us to distant scenery. A single utterance from his poetic tongue will cast a gloom over the once placid countenance, and but a word suffices and the object of our thinking is no more. He guides us through changeful situations; his characters, no longer dumb and motionless as are the painter's figures, live, move, and have their being as seen through a vista of reality. Limbs are no longer rigid, minds are unsealed and mouths unstopped, souls utter themselves, and all is progression along the lines of actual experience progression, moreover, which moves with the rapidity of mental perception itself. Here then we have art in its richest diversity and pulsating with 120 HERMAIA richest life. It is painting coming to life ; more wonderful than when, through music's potent agency, the seeming statue of Hermione moved from off its pedestal of stone. So the beings which people the poet's fancy blend as embodied sentiments, the one with another, in conflict or in harmony, and mingle in a close relationship as currents in one vast sea of thought. And is not this indeed organic ? And therefore, in the light of comparative estheticism, must not painting be regarded as relatively inorganic? Since, then, painting is virtually beauty at rest, it is deprived of such salient features as so emphatically characterise the manifestation of real vitality. For even potential living matter must be complex and unstable before life itself can operate. And to this lack of movement, poetic progression stands in palpable opposition. For if at times painting suggests motion, it must still of necessity drag laboriously behind poetry, which is movement itself. The mind, again, is incessantly passing from state to state, hence poetry, wherein mental modes merge the one in the other and thoughts are delicately interwoven, is better adapted than painting to fully interpret man's mentality. Indeed, it is practically impossible to portray pictorially the lights and shades which fall across the soul. We must interiorise, and not exteriorise, if we would succeed in expressing adequately the intangible modulations that commingle in the mind. Bodily expression is too remote from the central spirit of man to accurately respond to every subtle movement of deepest being. In other words, matter is less responsive than is mind. So the more material an art, the less pliant it becomes. Thus the sense of movement is greatest in music, because the soul is capable of nay, is itself the seat of self-initiated activity. For every facial expression we have numerous thoughts; and for many thoughts we have a fund of feeling. Is not character, moreover, the real life of man ? that which exactly links him to the eternal ; whilst visible experience merely relates him to the temporal. The outer life-history of every man exists simply as a means of contributing to the construction of character. But in painting we obtain only the visible man and his material conditions, whilst in poetry we get the invisible individuality and the inner experience thereof. In other words, poetry takes us beneath the artistic surface and gives us PAINTING AND POETRY 121 the inner consciousness. It is, as we have already seen, mind in terms, not of matter, but of mind. We are here made artistically aware of the underlying principle of life. If, moreover, painting is dumb, poetry acquaints us with its inar- ticulate meaning. The former exhibits the perpetual present the act accomplished; whilst the latter reproduces the entire history and expounds for us its inner action. The painter sees the moment in the eternal, whilst the poet visions the eternal in the moment. Or again, if poetry can give us the progressive doing of the deed, leading up to it through graduated thought and the logical sequence of events, music delivers up the motive which prompts or the distinctive spirit in which it is done. For here we exist more deeply and pass underneath all thinking, moving mysteriously along the lines of spiritual impulse. It is more volitional agency than the circumstantial aspect of an act. And if, for instance, painting expresses the psychological moment, music expresses the psychology of the moment. In short, in the former, soul is lost in matter, whilst in the latter matter is implicated in spirit. There is no life, then, without movement, and no character- drawing possible without two or more related states of con- sciousness. And if such successive states are to be adequately translated into art, we must appeal to poetry, which is lineal exten- sion in time, and not to painting, which is momentary expansion in space. We must proceed by stages of thought, and not remain motionless in our artistic thinking. And this holds good, more especially, if our subject-matter be the intensely tragic, since the stagnancy of pictorial beauty is inimical to tense reality. Here, therefore, the art of the dramatist reigns supreme. Again, character is composite. The mental attributes exist as if in chemical combination. The active powers of the soul are not so many isolated possibilities, but rather a community of spiritual forces, energising under conditions of reciprocal rela- tivity. Man is a bundle of characteristics. He is not properly known on some solitary occasion since he is in a perpetual state of self-development. In this connection, therefore, painting is obviously inefficient. At best it gives us but the physical counter- part of man's mentality within the limits of a given moment. Here there is neither material, nor mental, movement. Thus the interplay of moral faculties is outside the pale of pictorial 122 HERMAIA possibility. Painting cannot even indirectly portray that subtle admixture of passions which so pre-eminently represents the man himself. The painter is inexorably committed to a single mood of mind: he cannot mix the colours of humanity. But the attribute of change is not peculiar to mind alone, for we find it also in nature, existing there as one of the many glories of inani- mate creation. It would seem therefore as if poetry would be required for the expression of the more vital aspect of physical nature. But we are here concerned more with the mysterious modes of mind. Since, therefore, the real man is only properly known in progression, that art which seeks to express the true life of man must likewise be progressive. So the pictorial ideas which are localised in space cannot express the characteristics of mind like poetic ideas that are located in self -consciousness. And this fact is self-evident, since the limitations of painting are those of the canvas, whilst the limits of poetry are those of the mind. The former can only exist as spatial co-existence. In painting, therefore, thought resolves itself into space-pictures, whilst in poetry thought appears as a time-series. It is obvious, then, that each art is governed by the conditions under which it operates. Here, therefore, a word of caution might be appropriately appended. For if, at times, poetry has unwisely endeavoured to depict what painting alone can adequately define, painting has likewise, in certain schools of impressionism, ruthlessly invaded the private domain of poetry. Furthermore, there has been, in these latter days, an attempted incursion on the part of the Futurists into the rightful realm of the musician. And it is but a passionate desire to escape the limits of the canvas and become unfettered from the inevitable objectification of the pictorial. Futurism, in short, is but the endeavour to become purely musical by delivering itself of sensational effect alone, apart from fidelity to fact. And in this it is bound to fail since, as an art, it cannot but be primarily based on things themselves. In a word, you cannot afford to affect art without incurring insincerity and ineptitude. The truth is, we are here witnessing in the painter a futile attempt to become purely poetical without the use of words, or an unconscious effort to wax musical without the help of tones. And such a tendency, if carried to its logical con- clusion, can only end at best in a kind of confused mass of inert PAINTING AND POETRY 123 estheticism. Indeed it is not strictly mystical; it is mystifying. It strives to express what alone it should suggest. In short, to be simply great we must be greatly simple. Nevertheless, the movement from the crude realism to an impressionistic method of treatment is laudable enough if we remember that painting, though no slavish adherence to the visual aspect of things, should ever be true to the visible reality it seeks to express. True it is that the mere servile and photographic assortment of undigested phenomena is but an abortion of art, yet much of our present-day manneristic mode of treatment, results in but the soulless scaffolding of the stilted stylist. But a similar movement is apparent in much of our modern music an attempt to escape the thraldom of the subjective. In this case, however, the position is reversed. For whilst the painter has vainly inclined towards the musical, the composer has striven to ex- press the subject-matter of painting and grievously miscalculated the possibilities of his art. The simple truth is, painting cannot but remain objective, and music subjective; whilst poetry will continue to represent the balance between these two mental dispositions without specialising in either. 124 HERMAIA CHAPTER XVII PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC WE must ow proceed to consider the above three arts taken in conjunction. We shall then be paving the way for the final treatment of the relation of poetry to music. A few prefatory remarks, however, will be necessary; and we shall to a certain extent recapitulate in order that we may the better elucidate our meaning. Now painting we saw represented the registration and eternalising of the supreme moment in time, whilst music, as we shall presently see, is the expression of that which in its - nature transcends time. The former is, roughly speaking, petrified poetry ; the latter, the vital flow of our affectional -f~ and emotive nature. Painting, along with sculpture and archi- tecture, is, therefore, stationary, differing in this respect from the other arts of poetry and music, which are progressive and sequential. " Poetry," Simonides said, " is a speaking picture, and painting is mute poetry." In the latter art we are capable of a continuous exposition along the lines of logical development. In music, however, thoughts adhere still more compactly, though they never save as contrapuntal harmony synchronise as in the plastic arts. Poetic ideas being rationally related are linked like phenomena, but musical thinking is effected by means of mellifluous transition rather than by verbal catenation. The truth is, thought in music unfolds itself and passes from state to state like the indivisible flow of the emotional life it seeks to body forth; whereas poetry progresses with the unravelment of tangible ideas. Music represents, then, the homogeneity of spirit, whilst the remaining fine arts appertain to the differentia- tion of materiality. Painting is the thing : music the secret nature thereof. Thus the artistic principle of contrast in music is realised through changes in state, rather than through variety of objects. In music we do not see formal relativity, we experi- ence relations in feeling. It is art in the Soul, rather than out PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 125 of it. It is a temperamental tendency. We are here continually qualifying the central self. In this art, perspective becomes a question, not of distance, but of degree. It is a mood, rather than as in poetry a mode of thought. Poetry, also, is a change from quantitative to qualitative perspective. All the terms of expression, then, in music resolve themselves into spiiitual terms. Height and depth, harmony and discord, have a moral flavour and are actualities in music. We have now approached the vast supersensible unity. Truth is one with itself. Present knowledge is the underlying verity broken up into fragments. And through music we creep into the very secrecy of man's spiritual nature. It is the art of the unseen. Music, then, is artistic being rather than esthetic thinking; and more the experience, than the manifestation, of soul-life. We have seen now that in painting we do not really think, for here thought is paralysed and stricken dumb; we get no farther than the enunciation of our text. Ideas are frozen to the spot; emotions are congealed and remain lastingly stagnant. Nevertheless how we yearn for the capture of the psychological moment that we may meditate thereon, when we remember the incessant flux in poetry and music which, like actual experience, is continually becoming. In music, again, we do not reason about a thing, nor yet remark on it intelligently; we only feel it to be what it is in its divine essence. It becomes consequently the pure being of art, or the logic of essential identity. We are here in the presence of a kind of spiritual resonance, where we seem to coincide with profound reality. Thus in bringing music under our notice we approach the beauty of spiritual life. And this is essential if we would regard rightly the relation of the arts to the entire man. For there are still other elements in character which must be dealt with before we can hope to exhaust artistic- ally the hidden source of our common humanity. Such indis- pensable faculties as will, conscience, and motive must also be regarded in the light of esthetic treatment. And here poetry will be seen to move away from painting and approximate the secret potency of music. In other words, it will be readily seen that our business to hand is the artistic reproduction of human nature in its entirety. So, for the moment, we are more par- ticularly concerned about the artistic creation of man as a moral agent. We have travelled therefore still further from the outer 126 HERMAIA expression, to the inner experience, of mind. We now engage the contents of a still more interior order of existence. It is man, as experient, then, that is for the present to be our peculiar consideration. And here the poet rises superior to the painter. For, from all that has been already said, the constituents of character cannot be manipulated on the canvas, since it permits the development of neither thought nor action. The insufficiency of music is also apparent, since it gives us no circumstantial data to go upon. Poetry is then the only art that could conceivably carry conviction and meet the clamant claims of casuistry. Here in this department of moral man we find him standing not only over against his external environment, but with his spiritual endowment standing likewise behind a continuous thought- series. Indeed, man is the occupant of two discreted planes of reality. And here we are called upon to deal, not only with the outer plane of circumstance, as in painting, but also with the inner plane of spiritual condition, as in music. We must resort, therefore, to an art which will simultaneously occupy two planes of thinking. And such an art must be able to take into account not only the creature, but the creature as morally related to circumstance. For without such esthetic conditions, dramatic poetry would be an impossibility. Painting, then, we find to be the artistic appreciation of the not-self; whilst music we shall find to be the artistic disclosure of the self; and poetry, dual in its constitution, now appears as the subjective and objective principles of mind, in idealistic consilience. For this reason, poetry is capable of expressing consciousness, since it not only opposes nature but also conjoins the self and not-self within the circumference of its own artistic mode of existence. Poetry becomes, thereby, the artistic norm. Standing midway between painting and music, it can give us both picture and passion, and, above all, thinks verbally. It is the art of our general experience. So the development of the arts is but the psychological process which passes from the objective in painting, through the subjective-objective in poetry, up to the subjective in music. And, in a sense, the relation of painting to poetry is that of poetry to music. Yet all art is at root subjectivity, and the higher the operation of this mental principle, the higher will be the art concerned. In the words of Cousin: " Though the arts are in some respects isolated, yet PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 127 there is one which seems to profit by the resources of all, and that is Poetry. With words, poetry can paint and sculpture; she can build edifices like an architect; she unites, to some extent, melody and music. She is, so to say, the centre in which all the arts unite." Here, then, we have the very art we are in search of. For poetry alone avails us in the eventuality of full human activity. It is what we might term the artistic activism of Eucken, whilst music we might call the artistic vitalism of Bergson. Man, therefore, has not failed to find an art responsive to his several principles of being. For painting and music are respectively the artistic recognition of his material and immaterial being; while his consciousness proper, due on this present plane to the marriage of spirit and matter, finds its artistic ministration in poetry. Be it noted, then, that in this latter art we are committed ta the confluence of two principles of thought, whereas in the case of other arts, our thinking remains, for all practical purposes, unitary and singular. In short, poetry renders soul and body artistically compossible. By internalising the sense-media of other arts it can weld together the subject-matter of all estheti- cism. It enjoys the entire range of the world beautiful. Poetry becomes, then, artistic dualism; whilst, if we recognise all arts- as spiritual, painting becomes material, and music spiritual, monism. For instance, the binding principle that unifies the picture seems to be more the outcome of harmoniously related details, whereas the minutiae of music seem rather to be the out- come of itself as unity. The former is unity in multiplicity, the latter diversity in unity. And to think only of our own con- sciousness, wherein a whole world of thoughts and feelings cohere in a single self, will help us to comprehend the latter. But in exemplification of the poetic principle and its artistic adaptation, it is necessary to notice once more the nature of simile or analogy, which is at once the peculiar characteristic of poetry. Here we have a phenomenon of one plane likened to a phenomenon of another, which mental operation, moreover, endows the former phenomenon with a hitherto undiscovered meaning and unde- tected beauty. And what is this but the conjunction of a fact in matter and a quality in spirit, bound by a secret affinity discernible by the poet alone; a conjunction, moreover, that has for its product the very essence of esthetic delight. And this. 128 HERMAIA indissoluble alliance of spirit and matter, with the resultant of conscious beauty, is entirely necessary for an artistic exposition of full human activity. So the poet can internally sense physical objects and likewise apprehend spiritual ideas. He can realise for us either mental pictures or essential qualities. Painting can of course suggest mind and music may vaguely hint at matter, but in either case we are far from obtaining an ample artistic expression in these several realms of thought. We have, then, in poetry the possibility of welding together the subjective and objective planes, by their being placed on the inner platform of imagination. And it is only through such poetic facilities that we can bring about the employment of ethical concepts and reproduce in art the drama of the soul. If, then, man's mentality is the result of the coalescence of soul and body, if consciousness be the union of the noumenal and phenomenal, the art of poetry it appropriates, involves the coalition of material quantities and mental qualities. Further, if poetry is to be directly expressive of human conduct, it must refer, not only to the plane of circumstance, but must have access also to just that inner plane of being where human agency converts circumstance into conduct. For does not the morality of an act reside in the personal will which lies at the back of that act. And all these functional requisites we have found to be operative in poetry. In this art, mind may impinge on mind; will may clash with will; since we are here entirely beneath the physical plane of painting. We can now ignore the dimension of outer space, since spirit can relate itself to spirit, regardless of bodily extension. The conjunction also of spirit and substance observable in poetry is only possible in the imagination the plane peculiar to art in essence. And by reason of this interaction of planes, we are capable of a greater numerical variety than in any other art. For although human character at root may vary but little, when projected into the arena of temporal manifestation, an infinite variety of treatment becomes possible to the creative genius. We differ, not so much in fundamental feeling, as in the experiential environment through which our feelings operate. The poet therefore achieves his masterpieces through the countless critical situations which condition the soul of man. Thus if music delivers up the passions and emotions of humanity, poetry gives us their infinite play PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 129 amidst varying surroundings. The poet, then, adjusts the two planes of character and circumstance; with him the inner and outer worlds intermingle as in reality. And it is for this reason that poetry has ever been regarded as the one classic medium for the expression of man, since it is alone capable of touching life at all its points. Here fact, form, and feeling may be conjoined in an interiorised world of time and space. It gives us man with all his parts duly related and favours no particular aspect of his humanity. Still poetry being thus rounded off as a sort of microcosmic art-world is, in consequence, not so convincing in those peculiar provinces where other arts enjoy an express monopoly. As the direct expression of will and spiritual activity, poetry, for instance, is inferior to music; and as the direct expression of formative beauty, it is inferior to the plastic arts. Though in dramatic poetry we have the clash of antagonistic wills brought into esthetic evidence, it is only as indirect suggestion, since the turbulence and ferment of the spirit is only directly known in musical expression. Indeed, pure Volitional activity may be truly said to be the peculiar property of the tonal art. And though descriptive poesy may cull the choicest visions from fair nature, it can never achieve the trenchant realism of painting. But all this will emerge with greater clearness as we proceed with our argument. It is suf- ficient to notice that poetry has likewise its inevitable limitations. But to return. Now as we rose out of painting, which is consciousness in terms of its material mould, we found ourselves with poetry, which represents consciousness intellectually realised. The former gave us persons, but not personalities. At its best it only suggests consciousness and cannot disclose for us the spiritual principle of self -consciousness. Painting is entirely impersonal and can never be properly personal. This, at least, as regards its subject -material. Of course the painter can and must, if he be a true artist, give us his personal point of view, but he must ever work within the limits of the objective presentment of truth. He is predestined to speak in the third person, whilst poetry is capable of using the first personal pronoun. This too is an artistic acquisition of momentous value, since it raises us at once out of the plane of seeming into that of being. So the poet Browning can sing : 130 HERMAIA I profess To know just one fact my self -consciousness 'Twixt ignorance and ignorance enisled. And as consciousness thus increases, beauty becomes more searching in its power. For with the super-addition of self- consciousness in art, we are in the presence of a higher grade of estheticism: with this accession of the private self-hood, we near the realm of moralism with all its attendant richness of thought and reality of feeling. Personality is then the artistic property of poetry. And relative to poetry, painting is obvi- ously more objectively impersonal. And whilst poetry can either isolate or combine the personal self with the impersonal not-self, music, as we shall see later on, is the expression of a still deeper principle of being. For here, in music, though it can express both womanly tenderness and manly strength, " there is neither male nor female." We therefore touch in this particular art the fundamental depths of our common humanity, in a way that no other art can aspire to. Indeed, though poetry is indisputably the subjective side of painting, it becomes, in logical rotation, the objective side of music. In this connection, therefore, music appears to be the ideal expression of man as individual. It tends to depersonalise man, as revealed in poetry. So it is the deeper self of which music speaks the sub-soul wherein we touch divinity and about whose mysterious foundation play the spiritual forces of an unseen environment. It is to the sub-conscious spirit of man that it appeals that part of us which claims kinship with the infinite Subself of the universe. For just as music underlies all other forms of art, so does the occult underlie the overt. And perhaps music, failing to point us to phenomenal beauty, has done more than any other art to awaken within ourselves the psychical potencies of the slumbering spirit. For we are but partially conscious of our true selves. There is a marginal mystery, a private fund of being in each one of us which finds as yet but partial personal expression. And this inner-truth about our- selves is ever striving to emerge into the common light of day. Indeed, the measure of our spirituality may be the extent to which each individual soul is incarnated. If so, to be wholly incarnated is to be perfectly divine. So we may be said to be only properly born when we die to our outer surface-self. Rather PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 131 than to the factual experience of which poetry so eloquently speaks, music is, then, relative to that sphere of spiritual reality whose secret powers have been instrumental in evolving our elemental sense of religion and morality. For just as the eye presupposes light for its development, and with which it holds such friendly converse, so too do our psychical endowment^ postulate a spiritual universe and personal communion therewith. Music itself, moreover, is but young in its established career, so that with the fuller unfoldment of our inner nature there may be untold possibilities for the future of this art. So music might be called, as indeed it has been called by T. J. Hudson, the American, the expression of the subconscious in man. But this latter term is often used to denote the uncon- scious power in each one of us which is concerned more with the physiological processes of the bodily organism. And it is per- fectly true that music has power to stir the pulse, to increase the circulation of the blood, and in general to raise the tone of the vital functions of the body. But this can only be properly said of the art in its vestigial beginnings, or of contemporary music of a very low order. For as it evolved, music passed from mere sensorial excitation to spiritual exercise, just as we rise from the sub- to the super- conscious in man. Nevertheless, speaking roughly, we can regard music as peculiarly expressive of the subliminal in man, using the term in the sense in which Sir Oliver Lodge suggests as connoting sublimity. For no art means so much and yet seems to have so little connection with terres- trial experience. And to say there is no plane interior to man's supraliminal consciousness is to indulge a dogmatism out of all keeping with the accredited facts of psychical research. For, as Myers writes, there is a "more comprehensive consciousness, a profounder faculty which for the most part remains potential, so far as regards the life on earth." And surely this is none other than the seat of spiritual life, the home of moral aspiration, and the region of religion. Here, if anywhere, we find the true and only super-man we know of. Like music, moreover, this submerged self is not beholden to the natural either for its cause or conservation. It is an interior awareness that escapes our ordinary mentality. And if this be true of man as apart from his appearing, why not a subliminal and subtensive Self tran- scending the visible Universe ? Music, then, is the artistic deliver- 132 HERMAIA ance of our spiritual constitution ; or again the ideal reflection of the' supernatural Power, within and without the soul. Here we lose ourselves in the dawning of our true self, and eternity alone will suffice co reveal ourselves unto ourselves. Further, to know the true self within is to know proportionately the Divinity from whence we spring. But the etymological signification of the very word personality will help us to further elucidate our meaning. Persona, for instance, means a sounding through, and refers to the mask which the actors wore in the old Greek plays. Thus personality represents man's outer relational manifestation, whilst the individuality which stands behind the mask represents rather (despite the misuse of the term) the interior consciousness of himself, as a spiritual entity. Thus while in poetry we still have man as related to external circumstance, in music we have the true man himself made manifest as in no other art. For have we not seen that the essential nature of poetry is such that it opposes the self to its surroundings; every utterance, however simple, entailing the dualistic principle. The personality as revealed in poetry is, therefore, not so basal as the individuated self as revealed in music. Indeed, man is greater than his thoughts, and words are powerless to reveal him fully in his higher moments. And, according to Myers, " Our subliminal mentation is less closely bound to the faculty of speech than our supraliminal." So in matters appertaining to the spirit, verbal language seems intermedial and substitutionary in comparison with musical expression. Poetry consists in a series of mental phenomena, whilst music persists like our spiritual being. Music, therefore, is esthetic unity. It touches the bed-rock of our being, wherein lies the kinship of humanity. It attacks that part of us which is behind the phenomenal self. In other words, in our individuality or state of undividedness we tend to unity, whilst in oiir personality we tend to separateness. Thus music stands for the ideal of man's supra-personality. And here we transcend the limits of poetic personalism and reach out to a higher oneness with consciousnesses other than our own. Here we are at home with the larger self. Here we tap the real life of man. In music we flow out liberally to other selves, and engage that part of human nature which is deeper than the possible self-consciousness of the poet. It is a kind of telepathy which PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 133 flies to and from the submerged soul. It is soul impinging on soul, as apart from phenomenal mediation. It bespeaks that higher empirical psychism where we glean intimations of a real spiritual impact, consistent with ourselves as immaterial entities. It suggests, moreover, the possible mode of divine impressment, when we are conscious of ourselves as moral beings. Music, therefore, is the expression of our spiritual consciousness. It breaks up at once that social segregation which is the cause of moral discord. It reveals ideally the underlying oneness of all spirits. It does not speak so much of the personal sense of self which limits and estranges, but rather of the higher impersonal sense of divinity within that common intuition wherein we are identified with the primal, cosmic Self. It does not, like painting, divide us as to our separate personalities, but unites us as to our common humanity. It speaks of a self within the self. On the other hand, poetry, being in active relation to the phenomenal universe, tends to break up, limit, and condition our consciousness. But music has about it the illimitability of spirit. It is esthetic generalisation: it is ideal universality wherein all souls may meet. But it is sufficient, however, to point out, for the moment, that music underlies The word which is the symbol of myself. (TENNYSON.) I 3 4 HERMAIA CHAPTER XVIII PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC: continued Now, if we pause here for a moment, it will be to notice once more characteristics which emerge from the application of the principle of evolution to the entire world of art. And first of all let us point out that as the world of estheticism unfolds itself it lays greater stress on our common humanity. In short, the pro- gressive rise of art is the gradual dawning of the humanistic element. Thus poetry, approximating as it does the purely personal, is inferior to painting in the realm of physical nature, but superior thereto in the region of human nature. Or again, music is supreme in its treatment of the spiritual, but is impotent in the presence of substantiality. That is to say, whereas painting points us to the outer world, music points us to the inner; since the riches of its kingdom are within the soul. In other words, we see in the upward trend of estheticism a transi- tion from quantitative to qualitative beauty ; painting antedating music even as the physical was prior to the psychical in the vast cosmic process. Man is, then, greater than nature. So Socrates said: " The fields and trees will not teach me anything, but men in the city do." And even Wordsworth, keen lover of nature as he was, held that man, in his divine essence, was " A thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells." The soul's tragedy is, therefore, of profounder moment and of deeper interest than is the glory of the purely physical. It is the difference between mind and matter, soul and substance. So Shakespeare, the prophet of humanity, is of more artistic account than Wordsworth, the hierophant of nature. For in the one case we have a revelation of the mysterious mind of man, whilst in the other we have an exposition of physical nature which stands already revealed. In the former, moreover, nature falls into its place: it becomes ancillary, and subserves the spiritual in man. We do not, in consequence, feel so much the need of an exposi- PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 135 tion of the cosmos, since, strictly speaking, neither poetry nor painting enhances the beauty thereof. Nature is more glorious than all our galleries, and is itself an inarticulate poem, at once eloquent with the inexpressible. On the other hand, the expression of private personality seems like a spiritual necessity. We do not always know our true self; it requires such projection as we find in dramatic poetry. And with this clearer vision of one's self, the soul glories in something like a real revelation from within, in contradistinction to artistic repetition from without. For man is infinitely more than appearance. But the truth is, we so seldom get away from ourselves and see ourselves in a proper perspective. Man is so partial towards himself. In distress, so self-pitiful; in defection, so self-excusatory. In other words we are so accustomed to our own private conscious- ness. So could we but view the self as a purely detached not- self judge ourselves impersonally, introspection would then take upon itself the beauteous proportions of an infinite art. It would appear, then, that the more occult the material for expressional treatment, the more insistent the demand for artistic interpretation. Indeed, much of our social asperity, much of our mutual misunderstanding, would vanish into thin air did we get nearer one another as souls travelling through eternity. Physical beauty does not, then, clamour so importunately for expression, since it is already visible ; but mental beauty, operat- ing as it does behind the world of fact and form, requires to be dragged from out its inner, secret abode, before it can shine resplendent in all the fascination of artistic exposure. Thus, as the human principle invades art, we have an increase in quality; as the moral interests are enlisted art acquires the added element of sublimity. Or again, as we leave the physical and approach the psychical, idealism ascends the scale of values. For do not the fruits of the spirit outweigh in qualitative magnitude the summary of all earth's glories ? In short, the higher and deeper the subject-material, the more clamant the call for artistic treatment. So we must never forget that the inner moral cosmos contains a supreme element of beauty. For to disregard this is to be blind to the higher endowments that attach themselves to the art of the dramatist. There is something more than mere beauty in the drama, there is the superadded element of psychological interest of the most fervent order. The truth is, 136 HERMAIA living in a present world of exaggerated externality, obsessed by the ^inessentials of mere aggregated appearance, we are in danger of ignoring the value of moral beauty and spiritual comeliness, just because these are not immediately apparent, but hidden away beneath a world of superficial fashion. Roughly speaking, beauty, when it appertains to appearance, becomes rather the pleasantly picturesque ; when it relates to the mental it attains the altitude of the beautiful ; and when it relates itself to the spiritual it develops into the profoundly sublime. Add, therefore, the content of character to formal estheticism, and beauty is thereby immeasurably enhanced. Disregard, more- over, for all such graduated modes of beauty, leads so often to the misappropriate application of such terms. Thus the designa- tion pretty, which connotes the most characterless aspect of the beautiful, is perhaps the most abused word in the vocabulary of art. A face may be pretty, but not a character. So with the soul's self-sacrifice and all the nobler issues of the human heart, the imaginative faculty rises to its highest altitude, beyond which art can have nothing nobler to exhibit. Thus the arts, which have free access into the inner sanctuary of the spirit, have a dignity over and above the arts that are based on materialistic beauty. Let us not be misunderstood, however ; we are dealing here solely with art as distinct from nature. We can never take away all that we find in the universe around us, just as our own humanity has never yet been fully expounded. For there is something more in the physical world than that which merely meets the eye. Indeed no artist has properly seen nature who has not tacitly assumed the supersensible substrate of Soul. Similarly there is more in the depths of our moral nature than either the verbal or tonal arts can disengage, and that again is the eternal Presence, which is unnamable in art. In the nature of things, the Infinite must at best exist in the imagination only as divine suggestion. Now, from the foregoing, we cannot but conclude that in THE DRAMA we obtain perhaps the most complete form of all art. It gives us a more rounded off expression of reality than is to be found in any of the other arts, taken in their singularity. It is the verisimilitude of real life. It seems as though, in this artistic department, we summarised all the possibilities of expression, For whilst with the unravelment of the plot factual experience PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 137 is in strong evidence, with the histrionic artist we have given us the apparent expression of form and feeling. But a closer examination will reveal the destitution of such expression when compared with the ideal representation of other arts which deal exclusively with such several modes of beauty. The actor, for instance, becomes his own living model. He is himself the artistic exposition, which, viewed as formal beauty, falls short of bodily beauty in painting. Yet the art of the actor differentiates itself from that of the painter or sculptor, in as much as he can endow his portrayal with life and movement, since he and his art are one. But this identity of medium and model compels him to operate within the limits of personal adaptation. He is given neither clear canvas nor virgin marble, but must begin solely with the endowments of his own person. And in respect of feeling, let us bear in mind that his is no essential expression thereof, since it is still merely bodily personation reproducing the external manifestation, rather than the internal realisa- tion, of soul. For is not the seat of our feelings within? The emotions, therefore, are not properly known in visualisation. But the heart of man is here hidden away and very much over- laid by manners and mummery. The actor, moreover, is still imitative, and, like the painter, shows us only man as appearance. And this, too, without the painter's capacity for idealisation. He merely copies the visible fruits of our inward being, and cannot, therefore, directly express the inner feelings like music which satisfies sympathetically our most sacred instincts. And the reason for all this is that, to be really expressional with respect to man's spiritual nature, one must operate immediately and not mediately; and here musical modality alone meets the demand. But, however trenchant the actor, his physical being is still the exponent. The musical executant, on the other hand, is he who reflects for us, through his interpretation of the composer's creations, the inner drama of the soul released from its physiological accompaniments. So what the performer is to musical composition, the actor is to the works of the dramatist. Now we have seen that verbal ideas are not essential to music proper. They may be derivative, but are not necessarily causative. And it may be, moreover, that this very absence of tangible thought makes so pronounced the inanity of mediocre music, and also of its many vapid votaries. Indeed, 138 HERMAIA bad music is perhaps the worst form of all art : it is aggressive. When, also, music stoops to flippancy, such a lapse is aggravated the more by reason of the high function that alone justifies its existence. Music, then, cannot directly express either physical existence or human experience, from the point of view of fact, since in such a case the mind must be definitely directed towards empirical circumstance and specific personality. Music can become, however, pre-eminently dramatic without being drama- turgic. In short, music is conditional rather than circumstantial. And by dropping temporal characterisation it becomes, again, essential drama. For only by discarding fact and form are we enabled to identify ourselves artistically with the spiritual man, irrespective of the mediation of thing and thought. By ignoring, therefore, the manifold in manifestation we can the better urge forward the consideration of common spirit. In all other art, however, we embrace facts and involve persons, whereas in music we are committed implicitly to the eternal principle of being. Here we ignore the accidents, and regard only the essentials, of life. So if music cannot, like poetry, paint for us any particular historic personage, it can and does conjure up the essential man himself. Music, then, appears in no temporal guise such as dramatic poetry assumes, nor yet clothes itself in the apparel which paint- ing wears; it appeals solely to the higher vitality in man. Of course the true drama gives us only eternal types, yet of its very nature it is still chained to the temporal, whilst music can of itself have no historical reference whatsoever. Speaking dramatically, therefore, music will give us the very life and soul of the situation, disclaiming at the same time any interest in the situation as fact. The truth is, poetry and painting still leave the soul related in time. Even in poetry the inner sentience is enclosed rather than esthetically disclosed. It refers to, rather than embodies, spiritual consciousness. The higher the reaches of art, then, the more do we forego fact and form, and fasten on fundamental feeling. Quality is identical in different people and feeling is similar in varied circumstances. History is more a change of scene than a change of character. It is the kaleide- scopic temporalities that are continually shifting whilst the soul stands observant on the threshold of eternity. The same loyalty is found in hostile races, and the same fidelity animates the PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 139 devotees of opposing creeds. There are martyrs to be found in conflicting causes. It is the spirit that saves the spirit of devotion and self -dedication that alone availeth in the councils of heaven. Indeed, it may be said with much truth that creeds, opinions, and verbal systems may be left pretty much to them- selves. For if only the heart be right, error will shed itself like the sapless leaves of autumn. Love, again, is the same irrespec- tive of persons, and mankind is united through identity of sentiment which, in the higher tribunal, overrules colour, clime, and creed. There are different religions, but one God : there are many forms of worship, but one Spirit. It is the same cosmic Self which animates the infinite varieties of form, just as it is the same beneficent sun which whitens the harvest and bathes the orient in gold. To sum up: man is the noblest model for art, and the highest subject for artistic treatment is his soul. And this despite the fact that the belittlement of our glorious humanity is still in vogue with a certain type of withering philosophy. The when and where, then, of our human nature matters but little; man only is important as a moral entity. And in what does the substance of character consist, if not in the feelings we entertain towards one another? Deplete now the drama of all its characters, in so far as they exist as me're historical expressions, denude the stage of all local colouring, and we are left with the bare residuum of moral forces, which become the raw material for musical treatment. And these same subtle and eternal forces which surreptitiously govern humanity are dominated ideally in music. Neither can these invisible powers be captured in word or form, for they flow too readily through such material moulds. Thus, so far as the imagination is concerned, they find their rightful place in the tonal art alone. And this indicates somewhat the magnificent mission of music when adequately realised. For here we have the disembodied feelings of humanity in full and free activity before they are incarnated in the varied types that crowd the pages of olramatic poetry. So the drama proper is mostly the personalisation of music, and music, the spiritualisation of the drama. And apart from the emotions, characters would only be so many geometrical figures endowed solely with the pleasing fitness of symmetrical proportions. Indeed without feeling, the 140 HERMAIA drama could not exist. Emotion is, then, the esthetic end which the drama has in view. Plots may differ; the feelings, never. Man's inner self, with its will and conscience, is an unknown and unfathomable quantity, because of immortal essence. Spinoza's attempt at reducing human nature to a kind of problem in mathematics could only end, therefore, in futile speculation. It is, then, this deep unfathomable sea of human emotion that buoys up the strange variety of temporal characterisation. It is this touch of common humanity that makes all history con- temporaneous. Go deep enough, then, and we reach what is peculiar to mankind. For the highest things are native to us all. Hence music is universal in its artistic appeal. It alone takes upon itself the task of fully expressing our specific humanity that which is, at once, man's richest possession. But the mediocre mind confounds the circumstance with the creature. He cannot dissociate man from his surroundings. He cannot eliminate the unessential and so discover for himself the spiritual values of experience, despite the truth that the circumstantial setting of any one soul is the least significant fact about it. Our life-conditions may alter, but our spiritual constitution, never. And while all men partake of this common heart of humanity, it is the principle of self-identity which segregates the soul on the spiritual plane. The progress of history, therefore, has no abiding interest from the mere panoramic view of life. It is the heart alone that makes it a matter of supreme concern. The clash of wills, the undercurrents of feeling these are the real elements which make history pulsate with momentous meaning. So the fiery zeal of the reformer outshines the tinselled glory of all regal pomp. Music is, then, the artistic revelation of man's spiritual essence, disrobed at once of all temporal trappings and circumstantial habiliment. It gives us the true man. It mirrors the inner drama of the soul. It discovers ourselves unto ourselves. For, after all, does not the real tragedy reside in the heart ? Man is not judged so much by a single act or solitary word, but more by the perpetual flow of his emotive life. We are best known in the undercurrent of our deepest being. So music does not so much interpret, as identify itself with, our humanity. It does not, like dramatic poetry, mix the elements of our nature with a PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 141 view to special character-study; it concerns itself solely with what is distinctly human. It is founded on the commonwealth of souls. It is the art of universality. But in the dramatic department of poetry it will be well to notice that under this broad heading must be included much prose, the sole merit of which rests mainly on the imaginative and creative, rather than on the logical and critical faculties. And also whatsoever can lay claim to the distinguishing features of fiction and romance. The novel is still the drama which has for its stage the illimitability of invention. The dramatic art, then, gives us will and emotion, though still enclosed in form and fact, and not yet musically released. Hence the fundamental depths in man require a more spiritual treatment before we can attain to artistic adequacy, since we are here still chained to the visible and formal, though activity has been added over and above the plastic arts. For just as in painting mind was im- prisoned in matter, so here, in the impulsive art of the dramatist, soul is locked up in the visible. And this fact will gain in pertinence as we continue our criticism. In short, the drama is still the art of appearance. So if Shakespere held the mirror up to nature, Beethoven held it up to super-nature. If music, however, were not a factor in the intellectual universe, we should perhaps deem the drama the summit of all artistic achievement. But we have yet this other art which throws the sou} into even higher states of being; an art, moreover, which mere surmise would have hardly dared to anticipate. To music, then, we must at this juncture, give more special attention. We see now that the advent of the supremely spiritual man involves the introduction of an entirely novel plane of thought. And this new element for artistic treatment, we found, met with its expression in poetry. But this, on further examination, we discovered to be, not a direct, but an indirect expression. Poetry, we saw, gave us inner, visioned solids, as well as apprehended for us abstract ideas. But just as painting was compelled to refer us to outward bodily form for the bare intimation of any inner quality whatsoever, so poetry points to interiorised sub- stance for the suggestion of spiritual states. However mystical the poetic effusion, it still speaks in terms of the natural. The alphabet it uses is always the phenomena of nature. It is mental naturalism, whilst music is spiritual supernaturalism. Unlike 142 HERMAIA the latter art, fact and cognition form the staple of poetry. The poet, however, can call into thought occupants of an inner plane by quotation from an outer plane. Thus he can be abstract by being referential in expression. Yet poetry does not thereby realise the inwardness of its subject like musical essence. The poet, for instance, in translating into art the " quality of mercy " must refer us to a physical phenomenon such as " the gentle rain from heaven." And here the " quality of mercy " to be expressed is atomised by reference to the more knowable plane of materiality. Or if we should chance to liken charity let us say to the perfume of flowers which suffuses all society, this aromatic property still remains molecular and material. In short, however ethereal or delicate our poetic distinctions, this art still remains attenuated atomism. In its highest flights, poetry must still speak in terms of the phenomenal universe. Simile is still spirit in materialistic terminology. And while painting solidifies ideas and poetry ideates the spiritual, soul in music remains for ever as such. But in further explication of our hypothesis, let us take a well-known passage from the poet Burns and apply our art- theory thereto in a more concrete and detailed manner. Speak- ing of the evanescence of pleasure he writes : Pleasures are like poppies spread You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow-fall in the river A moment white, then melts for ever. Now in this passage we have as in all poetry the marriage of the outer physical cosmos and the inner spiritual conscious- ness. The poppies and the snow are representative of the physical properties of painting whilst the element of pathos implicated in the transitoriness of pleasure forms the hidden matter of music. Thus both arts are, if not explicitly, then implicitly inferred in the poet's mind. To quote Wordsworth: Poetry is the image of Man and Nature. Poetry then touches both painting and music on either side of its constitutive character. It conjoins both the eye and ear in the inner conscious mind : it equilibrates the inner and outer modes of beauty. It, however, but dimly visualises the objects in nature on the one hand, and but vaguely awakens in the soul PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 143 that soft sadness which attaches itself to the ephemeral vanity of human delights. Yet if poetry were not somewhat incom- petent in the extremities of estheticism, it could not in any way weld them together by the bonds of analogy into an indissoluble and well-balanced unity. We thus see that the power of poetry resides in the harmony of mind and matter, soul and sense: and that its value is to be found in that it holds an even balance between fact and feeling, fundamental factors of our normal experience. If we now read the following quotation in the light of our analogy, if will be seen that R. W. Trine is giving us a trite exposition of the respective relations subsisting between music, painting, and poetry when he writes that: " There is the soul-life, direct from God. This it is that relates us to the Infinite. There is also the physical life. This it is that relates us to the universe about us. The thought -life connects the one with the other: it is this life that plays between the two." Still all poetry is not based on analogy. We find the most trenchant dramatic poetry to be merely a kind of psychological photography, where the most powerful dramatic situation rests solely on the faithful reproduction of reality, quite irrespective of the idealistic delicacy of poetic fancy. Regard, for instance, the consummate fitness of King Lear's impatient rebuke of the faithful Kent : Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters. Genius, in this case, bases itself more on a kind of musical sym- pathy that subjectifies, than on pictorial imagery which objecti- fies. For music, by the way, is potential, not patent imagery. In the former, therefore, we obtain a coalition, and in the latter, a separation of subject and object. Such situations, however, are still the expression of the soul in fact rather than the soul in essence. And music is powerful just because it gives us the soul in itself before it becomes partially lost and dissipated in concrete conditions. The poet, then, can only suggest soul through tangible thought, or by clothing spiritual qualities in the concrete ; just as painting can only suggest mind through formal expression. Thus music by expressing the shapeless soul suggests spiritual sentience without reversion to an outer plane of thought. Like spirit, it remains eternally self -identical. It is affinity, not 144 HERMAIA analogy. It is the last word in art. It is the ultimate end of all speech, beyond which, however a man strive, he cannot express himself. Now since we know of no other ulterior utterance, Music, as distinct from other arts, cannot refer again to any higher artistic mode of expression. It can, however, refer back again to all previous artistic output, by reason of its rich suggestiveness ; though only of course in an arbitrary and indefinite fashion. It can faintly reflect back again, in its magic mirror, the substance of other arts. We have at least a mild adumbration of this in what is called "associated sensation" in scientific language; where, for instance, the tone of a trumpet will conjure up the subjective sensation of red. Thus in this mental phenomenon of colour-audition, we seem to complete the circle of art, at least on the sensuous side. On the other hand, the converse, where colour evokes the sensation of sound, though very much rarer, is likewise true. So St. Martin could speak of both "flowers that sounded," and of "notes that shone;" all of which reminds us of the common origin of the senses. And such sense-amalgam finds scientific illustration in the optophone which renders light audible and sound visible. Be that as it may, however, we seem here, in music, to revert back again to the realm of formal and colorific estheticism. So at root the raw material of the pictorial and musical arts appears to join hands. Thus music becomes a fruitful source of sublime thinking. It effectually tills the soil wherein true idealism grows. It throws us back upon pictorial and poetic possibilities, like the glow of sunset on the horizon of the imagination. Nevertheless, the ideas which attend on music, having this hazy glamour thrown about them, are thereby touched with an indescribable sense of mysticism which is of the very soul of art itself. We can fully understand, therefore, how that music cannot define qualities so well as can the more particularising art of poetry. Still it is through this very loss of particularity that we gain a more pronounced profundity. At root, man is a mood or tendency which breaks apparently into distinctive qualities as it emerges out into conditional circumstances. Hence the arbitrary terms we apply to the various branches of character refer rather to the conditions under which the soul manifests itself than to separate functions of the soul. It is, in short, PAINTING, POETRY, AND MUSIC 145 love alone, or the negation thereof, which, in varying degrees, repeats itself in all the many phases of our present phenomenal existence. And the expression of love is the main business of music. In music, therefore, phenomenal relativity is not given us in fact; we have only the eternal principle of moral being. It speaks of man in his most radical relation to other souls ; of the pure white light of charity before it breaks upon the world of hard reality. Hence music exists as the underlying principle of artistic unity. And, analogous to nature, it is capable of infinite variety within the unit of its own substance. So if poetry be the communion of mind with mind, music is the communion of soul with soul; since in the latter art we obtain the real basal attitude of man. Here, therefore, we have the art of pure relativ- ity, wherein we seem to sense beauty spiritually. So in music, as in our moral estate, we differ in degree ; whereas in poetry, as in our environmental experience, we vary rather in kind. That is to say, dramatic types of character, as artistic creations, differ mostly in their circumstantial setting; whereas musical types of mind vary more with the composer's depth or shallowness of treatment. Absolute Music is, then, the only art which is entirely spiritu- alised. Here, at least, we are wholly emancipated from the material and made esthetically aware of ourselves as spirit. It is the artistic awakening of the higher self. It is intuitional beauty. It is, as we have already seen, metaphysical, rather than physical, beauty. It is strong in human, but weak in physical, nature. On the other hand, painting is stronger on the physical plane since it exists as the differentiation of con- sociated objectivity. To sum up; painting is beauty in terms of physical phenomenalism, since it is based on the association of objects; whereas poetry is beauty in terms of mental pheno- menalism, because it is based on the association of ideas. And whilst poetry represents beauty in terms of mental phenomena, music, subtending these same phenomena, accentuates again the principle of self-consciousness and so represents the subjective principle which binds all the arts into a generic unity. For is not feeling the binding quality that unifies all beauty ? and music is expressly the art of feeling. In fine, painting, poetry, and music are respectively the initial, medial, and terminal arts. K 146 HERMAIA But these three modes of estheticism suggest further philosophical considerations. For if we regard music as the affirmative aspect of art and painting the negative aspect thereof, we must then view poetry as the mutual limitation of both esthetic principles in its synthesis of these dual modes of beauty. Or again, if music be the art of the infinite, and painting be that of the finite, then poetry represents the relation between the two. And all this would assuredly commend itself to students of Fichte's philosophy. Or again, perhaps the arts, thus presented, fall happily in with the ideal "potencies" of Schelling; or correspond, once more, to the " categories " of Cousin. But we must leave these speculations with the philosophical specialist and hasten on to our last section, wherein it is our business to specifically consider the relation that poetry bears to the sister art of music. POETRY AND MUSIC 147 CHAPTER XIX POETRY AND MUSIC BEFORE we leave this present consideration of poetry and deal exclusively with music, it will be necessary to say a few words about these same arts taken in conjunction. And the reason for this is obvious; for that which precedes something else in uni- versal development must inevitably have a very immediate and vital connection therewith. And since we have already assumed that poetry leads directly up to music in the ascending scale of progressive estheticism, we shall expect to find a more than intimate relationship existing between these special modes of beauty. Such a consideration will, therefore, help us the better to usher in music for critical consideration on its own behalf. This contention, moreover, is fully born out by the irrefutable facts of history; for long before music existed as a self-existent art, glorying in its own isolation, it floated down the ages, bound up with the destiny of poetry for an indefinite period of time. Indeed, Lessing held that music and poetry when united formed really one art, and that, too, highest poetry. Even now the Germans call their composers tone-poets. The Greeks, again, placed music and poetry in the same category. Once, however, having severed itself from this sweet bondage, music was for ever free to prosecute its own mission and carry on the world of expression to its ultimate consummation. The exact relation that poetry bears to music is then our immediate consideration. And in viewing the matter thus, poetry may be regarded as fostering music before she broke away to beat her wings in a more rarefied atmosphere of beauty. Or to speak the language of reality, we are here witnessing the pending emancipation of spirit as it strives to fulfil its own destiny. We have then, at this present juncture, under observation poetry striving to extend her borders and music yearning for liberty a point of view immediately prior to the severance of their amicable alliance. It would not be inappropriate then to regard this 148 HERMAIA section as, roughly speaking, the relation that speech bears to song. To begin with, all audible utterance was born of mere bald ejaculation. Ultimately, however, speech, receiving its stimulus from without, had reference rather to objective nature whose sounds it sought to imitate; whilst music dawned with those subjective feelings which sought to relieve their intensity by vocal expression. The former was, therefore, nearer akin to the utility of mental intercourse, while the latter was relative to the more vital concern of the creature. Thus Herbert Spencer tells us that " it may be shown that music is but an idealisation of the natural language of emotion." Of course we need hardly add that it never attained to the dignity of true art until it assumed coherent form and distinct meaning. Poetry, also, never realised itself as such until mere speech became fired with enthusiasm. And what is true of these two arts taken separately is also true when regarded sequentially. For the very enthusiasm which converted prose into poetry broke also the bonds of the verbal art and waxed musical. So Wagner, it may be noted, felt that intense poetry strove to press forward into the realms of music. To quote his own language: " Music is the inarticu- late speech of the heart, which cannot be compressed into words because it is infinite." Thus as speech rises and becomes poetical it does but approximate the musical. It is, after all, but the law of continuity which obtains in both the real and ideal world. For, as already intimated, music is as the overplus of poetry, just as poetry was seen to be the residuum of painting. In other words, the atmosphere of painting is the poetry thereof, and the atmosphere of poetry is the all-suffusing spirit of its music. Consequently, the more truly artistic element of painting is its poetic feeling, and the genius of poetry is its music. And this we shall more readily understand if we realise that where paint- ing ends, poetry begins ; and where poetry ceases to be effectual, music starts its esthetic career. And as we pass from poetry to music we do but pass from the letter to the spirit of beauty. Thus poetry and music would appear to be more closely allied than are any of the other arts. Carlyle has some significant words in this connection. He writes: " Poetry, therefore, we will call musical Thought. The Poet is he who thinks in that manner. At bottom, it turns still on power of intellect; it is a man's POETRY AND MUSIC 149 sincerity and depth of vision that makes him a Poet. See deep enough, and you see musically ; the heart of Nature being every- where music, if you can only reach it." First of all, then, appeared prose in the order of esthetic being, at once cold and cumbersome, dead and ineffectual as a medium for the soul's unfoldment. Then came poetry, proper, with its more sensitive responsiveness, with its melody and metre transcend- ing all our common speech. So Emerson writes: " Let Poetry- then pass, if it will, into music and rhyme. That is the form which itself puts on." Then followed music, which, with unloosened tongue, seized upon the modulation of the human voice until it perforce became vocal and sang itself into being. But more than this. The ancient bard (poet and musician in one) who would fain urge on the flagging powers of the spirit resorted to the throbbing fervour of the harp. Thus with the dawn of instrumental music also nurtured by poetry the tonal art was all but ready to break away and live to itself a pure and absolute existence. At root of all this, then, we feel that there is but one step from true speech to sincere music. Indeed, all earnest and heart-felt utterances are accountable for music. The eloquent prose writer would fain break into verse, whilst the poet in turn all but quickens the pulsing heart-strings of the tuneful lyre. And what is this but evolution where the depth of nature is slowly but surely unfolding itself. And the last word of nature is always of deepest significance. So we can truly say with Carlyle that " All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song ; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls ! The primal element of us ; of us, and of all things. The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies: it was the feeling they had of the inner structure of Nature ; that the soul of all her voices and utterances was perfect music." A word, then, as regards poetic speech as it trembles on the marge of music's own domain. To begin with, in the realm of verbal or vocal utterance, we have regarded poetry as standing midway between speech and music. We have viewed it as a kind of musicalised prose; or as speech, metrically rendered. Indeed rhythm and rime seem to constitute a sort of common structural basis for these two arts under notice. This much poetry seems to borrow from music. When, however, we leave poetry entirely and come to music as a self-instituted art, we 150 HERMAIA have a deeper and very real meaning added thereto a meaning known only in the depths of the soul. In other words, we here speak a language which words of themselves fail to record. But a further quotation from Carlyle will the better summarise our present contention. " For my own part, I find considerable meaning in the old vulgar distinction of Poetry being metrical, having music in it, being a song. Truly, if pressed to give a definition, one might say this as soon as anything else: If your delineation be authentically musical, musical not in word only, but in heart and substance, in all the thoughts and utterances of it, in the whole conception of it, then it will be poetical; if not, not." Or again, and even more to the point, " Nay, all speech, even the commonest speech, has something of song in it: not a parish in the world but has its parish-accent; the rhythm or tune to which the people there sing what they have to say ! Accent is a kind of chanting ; all men have accent of their own though they only notice that of others. Observe too how all passionate language does of itself become musical with a finer music than the mere accent; the speech of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song." So it is not so much in the mere pulse or rhythm, nor yet in the jingle of soulless vocables, but rather in the very life-blood and heart-beats of eloquence itself that we discern the birth of music out of poetry. Indeed, it is more in the warmth of enthusiasm, in the glow of sympathy and spiritual intimacy that poetry more nearly approximates the inner genius of music. Music in the making is therefore to be found specifically in the soulful attitude of the poet; in the inner sentiment or keynote of his art. There never vet was true-born poet who did not strike the attitude of the composer. We feel then intuitively that music is at root of our highest speech. For in the exalted utterances of some great speaker, we realise that it is but striving to emerge as an artistic reality. Indeed, we can most assuredly trace its vital connection with inspired oratory. It seems to spring, modified by the tempering power of art, from the gifted soul exercised with matters of moral moment. Just, therefore, as worlds but newly-born flew from off the central source of life and light, so too did the tonal art liberate itself from the finer frenzy of the impassioned orator. So we love the true song, as we love a sincere soul. There is POETRY AND MUSIC 151 not, therefore, so great a difference between earnest language and genuine music. For when a man speaks sincerely we have music in the making. Of a truth, we can well nigh perceive the point of transition where beautiful language all but melts into music. And this more notably on occasions of high moral intensity. For then it is we detect the germ of the true song. But Emerson puts it in this fashion: " The sweetest music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice, when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness, truth, and courage." The mysterious influence of music is then discoverable in even the deliverances of a great and good speaker. For what is the inflexion of the human voice but the rise and fall of melody; what the accent and emphasis but a foreshadowing of the time- beats in music ; and what the emotional intensity but the happy promise of tonal expression? We have here, then, esthetic elements poetically existing prior to their crystallisation into concrete musical beauty. Music is thus that subtle radiance which is born of the abun- dance of moral force, and brought, intensified and magnified, under the pale of what we term art. Hence the gifted speaker, when endued with prophetic fire, abuts, unconsciously albeit, on the neighbouring art of tonal beauty. To his willing audience, moreover, he made music enough as he sought to press home the message of his over-burdened soul. And on such occasions we feel a definite meaning in music which claims immediate kinship with highest poetic diction. In other words, do we not find in the mellifluous gradation of tone, in the mollifying persuasiveness of tongue, and in the earnestness of heart, an harmonious blend of innate qualities which are at once the inspiration of all true music ? So the spiritual passion which flies, as with pentecostal power, from prophet to people, is captured by music, and thereby saved for higher modes of beauty. Yes! we say again of this preacher, that the spirit of his words is harmony, and the modu- lation of his voice is melody. To speak, therefore, the language of hyperbole, we might define music as profound earnestness and intense sincerity. Such ethical qualities, moreover, are at root of all true art and wholesome conduct ; for be it parenthetically observed art approximates morality more closely than does any other mental activity. In short, when a man waxes truthful, eloquent, and enthusiastic, he glides imperceptibly into a kind of 152 HERMAIA melody. Not merely a sense of time and tune, then, but a deeply- seated nature is the musician's portion. His is a temperament as well as a talent. Indeed, the composer never lived who was not both enthusiastic and sincere. We see now that song is but the revelation of the moral attitude of a man. And this because the inner spiritual state colours the very tones of the voice. Or as the ancient Theophrastus has it : " Singing arises from three different conditions of the soul: from grief, joy, and enthusiasm; each of these conditions seems to affect the tone of the human voice." And we might also add, even facial expression itself affects the tone-colour of the voice. A smile, for instance, will brighten, and a frown will darken, the timbre of a singer's quality of tone; so unified and interrelated are the activities of man. The play of features is likewise indicative of an interior state of being. But see what a world of difference there is when we compare the identity of relation between the human countenance and portraiture and the vast dissimilarity between mere vocal modulation and music proper. Nevertheless, all true art is a kind of spiritual speech. And true human speech is the mother of music. Indeed, the subtle fluence of music saturates all earnest speaking. For what are words of love, what the tones of pity and the accents of charity but the raw material of music proper? So in the speaking voice, when high moments engross the soul, we have music emerging from speech. Beautiful language, therefore, is a kind of half-music. In short, speech is our highest gift, and music is our highest speech. Should we not then cherish our singers ? Are they not powerful preachers of moral beauty ? Yet the high and ancient dignity of their mission is sadly disregarded in these days of mercenary motives. For instead of being true to the creative prophets by whom they live instead of scorning the sentimental lie, too often is the noble office of bard and master-singer degraded by the bathetic balderdash of the modern ballad-monger. But we now alight on another aspect of our subject. In verbal language we have meaning given us, whilst in the spirit in which it is said we discern the motive at back of utterance. And it is this latter which constitutes the natural germ of music. Roughly speaking, then, meaning is the matter for poetic treat- ment, whilst the tone of voice in which it is conveyed is the material for the musical art. The latter is, moreover, of more POETRY AND MUSIC 153 moral import since it is exactly our fundamental and emotive attitude that is of such spiritual significance. And in music we simply, but directly, express the moral sympathies of a man. For, be it remembered, language is not confined to words alone. Thus music reveals man's heart-relation to truth and reality, which relation is, moreover, beyond all others the most real and momentous. Music sets less value on what is said than on the spiritual temper in which it is delivered, It refers rather to the impulse and motive at back of speech. It lays the accent on the dynamic why, rather than on the mechanical what : hence music's moral potency. It is an appeal to our common humanity, rather than to our intellect. And this because music is moral beauty and sweet, spiritual sentience. It treats of subjective feeling rather than of objective fact. We see then what esthetic meaning lies in the mere modulation of the human voice. We realise what melodious music lies hidden away in words of tender significance; or what harsh discords, unresolved, lie at the root of querulous utterance. So music gives us the propulsive cause which moves a man to speak; worked up of course into an artistic conformation. The tones of a man's voice are then indicative of his state of soul. And under stress of animated speech we perchance send forth subtle influences for good or evil. How much more in song, therefore, which is inspired speech, do we realise occult potencies of an emphatic, ethical persuasion. Thus the compulsion of music works through subtle suggestion. Its speech pleads on its own behalf. It beseeches us in dulcet tones to live as well as to think beautifully. Its argument is an appeal from intrinsic and moral value. Here circuitous argu- mentation is of no avail, for music rests its claim to power on the authority of the inner consciousness alone. It is of the logic of heaven. It is thought without speech : language without words. But above all things it is earnest speech : speech prolonged into the realms of artistic fervour. And is not the purest form of language that which approaches most nearly the nature of song ? The best poetry literally sings itself into being. How readily, too, does the earnest speaker enlist our active sympathy. We feel no amount of intellectuality can atone for the absence of earnestness. Sincerity of purpose covers a multitude of verbal defects. Somehow we feel instinctively that truth proceeds primarily from the heart. So the best way of stating a moral 154 HERMAIA truth is the artistic, not the philosophic, way. It is the dynamic delivery, not the mechanical method, that best suits ethical enthusiasm. Even style is not altogether a question for the critical faculty, for surely the best way of saying great things is the way of the heart. On supreme occasions the intrusion of the pedantic purist were an insult. We worthily refrain from criticising a kindly act, even though it be done in the most blundering fashion. Indeed, the affections of any man will find him out, whether in labour or literature. We prate overmuch about style, but, however academic that may be, it in no way compensates for lack of sincerity. The best style in exalted utterance is born of enthusiasm. So earnestness is the essential mood of all high art. Even truth itself is only seen through the temper of sincerity. Consequently, the higher the truth, the more do we rely on character for its discovery. Similarly, the loftier the art, the deeper its seriousness of purpose. Insincere music, therefore, is a contradiction in terms. Now as we have already seen, art is nearer morality than any other mental activity. And, in consequence, music, being as it is the terminus of the esthetic scale, exactly is artistic moralism. Music, in short, reveals the hidden man of the heart. Roughly speaking, therefore, it is the manner of saying a thing that is of import in art, whilst in science it is the matter that matters. Thus in music, mode of utterance becomes the matter of art. In other words, art does not purport to reveal truth so much as to mirror the beauty thereof. Of course in science or philosophy, a great truth is best said in the best of ways. To be well spoken is to be well understood. And clear writing is the result of having mastered one's subject. Manner, moreover, should grow naturally out of meaning. Yet when a man grows enthusiastic, excited if you will, is it not because he, himself, as a moral agent, becomes vitally involved? A bald statement of exactitude never quickens the pulse. Thus as man himself enters, the matter becomes at once moralised, and we grow poetical or musical, as the case may be. In other words, we cease to be the philosopher and become the artist. Thus two persons may give utterance to the same sentiment, but the one may mean it more than the other. It is indeed the spirit in which we express ourselves that constitutes the moral and therefore the artistic aspect of speech. And music lays stress POETRY AND MUSIC 155 solely on this spiritual attitude: whilst poetry espouses more the matter thereof. And if we say a man does not feel what he says, our condemnation is severer than if we say he is not logical. And this because in the one case we impugn his moral, and in the other his merely mental, nature. So whilst poetry appertains more to mental modes of consciousness, music appertains more to spiritual state of being. The latter art, therefore, belongs more to the inner sphere of spiritual influence and so, perchance, may exercise itself, albeit subtly enough, in either malevolence or benevolence of heart. In the rise of art, then, speaking generally, we decline more and more from the scientific point of view. We leave the ob- jective intellect and near the subjective spirit of truth. Poetry is inspired thought. It is impassioned intellect. It is the music of human speech. It is emotionalised reason. Or as Words- worth puts it: " Reason in her most exalted mood." So it comes about that mannerism in science is vicious, but in art, real and vital. In the esthetic domain we demand a personal, private point of view. That is why art, although it is constantly saying the same thing, never wearies us with its much repetition. It is the man himself who endows art with the enduring freshness of the eternal. Love, though coeval with humanity itself, is gifted with the miracle of perpetual youth. It is born of the imperishable in man. And art is love. So there is no real art but touches the foundations of reality : no true beauty but feeds on the permanencies of life. In the region of esthetics we seek, therefore, man himself. And every living soul is an original creation. Thus it is the stamp of originality the creative element which distinguishes art from science. In art we rejoice that a new thing has been born into the world, whilst if we merely state correctly what already is, we satisfy the rigid demands of science. But further. The more inspired the poetic utterance, the more do we enlist man's moral relations. It is his real human nature, whether in joy or grief, love or hate, which most clamours for immediate expression. He would in art emerge as a real person : he would unfold himself as a living, throbbing entity. He must be truly and radically personal. It is nothing less than his soul which must ideally manifest itself before man can be esthetically satisfied. And so the cold, grey statement of a passionless logic 156 HERMAIA cannot suffice. Even poetry itself, in this connection, is some- what restricted. Man must break through all signs and symbols before he can hope to artistically commune directly with the soul. Thus on supreme occasions of moral crisis he must perforce become simply and solely musical. And poetry, itself, seems to realise its incompetency before the deeper experiences of life. For she must needs fall to broken sentences, jagged utterances, or monosyllabic ejaculation, and all such tearful silences which music alone, without profanity, might break. Thus does poetry seek to meet the great occasions of the soul. Here, however, verbalism, be it ever so exalted, fails where music steps in ade- quately to achieve. And it is therefore in its moments of intense exaltation that poetry most nearly approximates music. Indeed, deeply significant effects in poetry are most musical in their estheticism. For instance, the fearful knocking at the gate in Macbeth, or " the rest is silence " of the introspective Dane, are equivalent to an excitation of the musical consciousness. But the particular psychology herein involved would be veri- similar, rather than verbal, were it submitted to a purely tonal treatment. So then in music we arrive at the original element in man that which makes him truly another centre of consciousness. For it is neither his environment, nor yet his verbal utterances, but the primary passions of his soul with which music has to deal. All else were too impersonal, too disinterested to be of musical account. And since moralism is only possible where there is a personalised consciousness, so too only pure moral beauty can exist where we have a deeply personal art like music. Thus alongside the tonal art, much of our poetry so far as our spiritual interests are concerned seems only too circumlocutory. The true melody, on the other hand, sums up succinctly, in a single phrase, man's exact moral attitude. We speak of the inspiration of genius, and in music we find the inspirational genius of all art. For it is not so much what a prophet of the beautiful literally says, as the musical motive that moves him to utterance. And the true seer is he who sees the essential alone. So it is the musician who assumes the true attitude towards knowledge. For if our feelings be tempered aright, facts will readily fall into line with truth: if we are but true emotively, highest realities cannot fail to appeal to us. And POETRY AND MUSIC 157 this, since we ourselves are deepest truth. So if music cannot give the bald and bare facts of truth, it can and does give us the spirit thereof. None of us can know the entire truth, but most of us can be truthful. And to live in the spirit of truthfulness is the occasion for enlightenment. In the moral realm, once more, it is the motive alone that matters. So it is the spirit of truth, not the letter thereof, that will guide us. Neither do we make truth, as pragmatism would have us believe; we come up to it even as science gradually increases its knowledge of a reality which already exists to be known. Indeed the very consciousness of error itself is based on the assumption of a possible ultimate truth. And, moreover, it is not merely know- ledge that the world wants, but a passionate desire to become what we already know to be good and true: the highest truth is gained through love. But from the purely poetical and intellectual point of view, musicians might be deemed obscurantists, since they deal with the most abstruse mode of artistic thought. But consider: is it not a fact that the higher our thinking, the more it merges into mere feeling the more it melts into a kind of music of the mind? Ideas carried upward tend to terminate in mystic abstractions. Yet even here thought has a tangible existence. Indeed, no real art can exist without an element of mysticism. It is but an earnest of its spiritual character. The indefinite in art but typifies its infinite nature. And herein it claims kinship with religion. For genuine beauty betokens the permanent beyond the ephemeral, and is therefore not so much the negation of materialism as the apodeictic affirmation of idealism. Still composers are apparently not logicians. But there is surely a truer logic than arid argumentation seems to insinuate, and to this higher dialect composers are faithful. Theirs is the harmony of truth which enlarges, and not the logic that limits. For music is truthfulness, rather than truth: sympathy rather than syllo- gism: intuition rather than intellect. It is the substance, rather than the shadow or symbol, of the beautiful. In short, it is the spirit, not the letter of truth. To quote yet again from Carlyle : " Musical: how much lies in that! A musical thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it, namely the melody that lies hidden in it; the inward harmony of coherence which 158 HERMAIA is its soul, whereby it exists, and has a right to be, here in this world. All inmost things, we may say, are melodious ; naturally utter themselves in Song. The meaning of Song goes deep." In conclusion, then, we find that in music man speaks from that vast, submerged self of his; speaks from out the depths of his personality. And herein we have the voicing of man's illusive individuality, that which gives distinctive quality to his every thought and action. In other words, music is the expression of that subtle personal influence, that spiritual irradiation and mag- netic charm which is more than ideas and greater than language. It alone, among all other arts, can tell of that potent dynamic of the soul; it alone can conquer such outlying provinces of consciousness which, but for music, would be entirely evasive and uncapturable. And have not the great spirits of the earth wielded their beneficent power, not so much in what they have said, as by being morally forceful ? Music is, then, pure esthetic self-giving. It is essentially qualitative consciousness. It is the creation of a moral atmosphere, such as we sense intuitively when in the presence of some dominating personality. And what makes it exactly excellent and effectual is just its depth of purpose and earnestness of spirit; the soul's first attitude in all its naked glory. For music voices the slumbering silences of the spirit. We have no need to interpret its meaning since it speaks from the universal truth of our very being. It is as the presence of a friend beloved. It is the esthetic secret of man's inner spiritual life: the eternal in man which transcends the trend of thought and all epochal reasoning. In music man gives himself. We have now come to the end of our chapter ; but before plunging into our pending treatment of music proper, we cannot close this section more appropriately than by quoting the following lines of Matthew Arnold, wherein he succinctly summarises the relation that poetry bears to music, of speech to song: Miserere, Domine! The words are utter' d, and they flee. Deep is their penitential moan, Mighty their pathos, but 'tis gone. They have declared the spirit's sore, Sore load, and words can do no more. Beethoven takes them then these two POETRY AND MUSIC 159 Poor, bounded words and makes them new; Infinite makes them, makes them young; Transplants them to another tongue, Where they can now, without constraint, Pour all the soul of their complaint, And roll adown a channel large The wealth divine they have m charge. Page after page of music turn, And still they live and still they burn, Perennial, passion-fraught, and free: "* Miserere, Domine! 160 HERMAIA CHAPTER XX MUSIC AS FORM: INTRODUCTION Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form. PLATO. THE prevailing question what is music and what does it all mean? is one which most thoughtful minds are now asking themselves; and we shall endeavour in part to answer it. Prim- arily, we are here introduced to an entirely novel mode of artistic thought ; a form of artistic speech whose physical medium of ex- pression seems in no way to reflect its inherent power. It is in one sense a foreign language, yet universal. Now most of the infor- mation respecting the internal essence of music is derived from general literature. Yet even here, little that is at all tangible is to be gleaned by the casual reader. To some otherwise great minds music is as sound without sense, " signifying nothing: " a strange tongue, having no coherent message of beauty. " But Music " Richter complained " tells us nothing." Yet why complain because music fails to inform. Let any man look into his own heart and try to adequately define what is best and deepest in him- self. Indeed the merit of music is that it refuses to be cramped by definite terminology or imprisoned in picturesque forms. It deals with the intuitions of consciousness, rather than with conclusions of the intellect. Dr. Johnson, again, regarded it merely as " a method of employing the mind, without the labour of thinking at all, and with some applause from a man's self." But then, according to his own confession, his only knowledge of music was the limited capacity to distinguish " a drum from a trumpet; a bagpipe from a guitar." Others, again, regard it as perhaps the most pleasant form of noise. Ruskin, for instance, though otherwise a prophet of the beautiful, was incapable of properly understanding it. He deemed it of inferior standing, since some animals would, as he said, enjoy music pricking up MUSIC AS FORM: INTRODUCTION 161 their attentive ears when attracted by well-ordered sounds. This, however, was due to a confusion in ideas between sound and music. Though all music is sound, all sound is not music. Indeed, to the unmusical, music is simply and solely sound; just as to the inartistic, painting is simply an array of colour. It is only to the artist in either art that their true nature appears. The characteristics of our mind alchemise the impressions that are poured into it. Yet apart from the knowing subject, music, like any other art, contains a supremely essential value, and this we have to critically consider. Ruskin's position in the matter is an argument which would go far to prove that a dog had an incipient taste for literature, since, somewhere in his blurred canine consciousness, he understood to no small extent the com- mands of his master. As well, also, might we ascribe to the bull, by reason of his proverbial antipathy to a red rag, the selective discrimination of the colourist. Or again: might we not, for similar reasons, ascribe to the garrulous parrot the promise of oratorical powers on the strength of his marvellous mimetic capacity ? Let us remember that, after all, things are for us only as they appear in consciousness; and that in the deliverance of mind rests the ultimate value of all art, irrespective of its phy- sical origin. It is true that painting and music appeal respec- tively to the eye and ear, but they cannot be judged solely from the point of view of the senses, since these are merely the media and not the ultimate ends of these arts. We can only appraise such modes of beauty in as far as they are translated into terms of consciousness. Let us not confound the means employed with the ends attained. We must look at a picture not only with the eye but with the mind, and music should be heard not only through the ear, but in the heart. Indeed, until the inner spiritual senses are awakened, art is but a poor and profitless business. We cannot even pretend to discuss art until it has reached the soul. In short, sense merely mediates beauty, even as nature, physical or human, mediates the mind of the Deity. Painting is more than colour; music more than sound; and poetry more than words. Little indeed that is adequate is said about music by reason of its extreme reaches of beauty. Its deep illimitable speech and its comparative modernity are characteristics which tend to evade criticism. We seem here to transcend analysis and to L 1 62 HERMAIA leave the measured tread of a heavier logic halting behind. We can more satisfactorily cope with painting, because what it exhibits we see every day of our lives. Actuality is here com- parable with representation: thoughts are things, and we are charmed at the recognition of similitude. Emerson tells us, in an essay on art, that having heard so much about Italian painting he expected, on viewing the masterpieces, to be startled into sensational wonderment. To his grateful surprise, however, he found that the forms and faces which graced the canvases of the great masters were to be seen already round and about him in the streets of Rome. Now with music we are somewhat differently placed. When we speak of beauty, the mind instinc- tively peoples itself with the sensuous forms of ostensible reality. We immediately think in terms of that which appears. We are such incurable objectivists such inveterate sensationalists. We have such difficulty in realising the subjective side of things. We think of the visible as alone real, of the invisible as unreal. And yet " the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." So we seldom conceive of beauty as resident in the hidden recesses of consciousness. It seems that the numerical superiority of visual impressions tends to outweigh all other considerations. Hidden comeliness, moral splendour, or the " beauty of holiness " are thus slow to capture the esthetic attention. It is easier to think of a beautiful face, in terms of art, than of a beautiful disposition. Yet beauty of soul is more than the charm of form and comeliness of feature: inner experience is of more account than outer expression. For this reason the esthetic of music is more difficult of treatment than are other modes of art. We are to remember that deepest beauty lies beneath appearance, and that beauteous being is the consummation of all knowledge and endeavour. In short, heart-beauty is the loveliest thing in life. We can understand now how a whole crowd of clamorous critics can cluster round a pictorial masterpiece; how a whole army of esthetic exegetes can sit in judgment on some poetic or dramatic achievement, when we bear in mind that these arts represent a replica of reality. For as Browning well puts it " Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told." But with the con- stitutional nature of music it is altogether different. Here it is not a question of " lo, here!" and " lo, there!" MUSIC AS FORM: INTRODUCTION 163 for when music lifts her soulful voice we look in vain for the head that is bowed in devotion, the form that is bent in grief, and the hands outstretched in charity. And this because in other arts we appeal from the known, whilst in music we appeal from the unknown; yet not the really unknowable, but rather the unnamable in art. For some things are indeed unspeakable, and of such are the profound sentiments that music utters. Still all art is a revelation of the spiritual side of things, and most thinkers have at times craved to know what exactly is the archetypal ideal that music purports to manifest. Myers, for instance, says that " Music marches, and will march for ever, through an ideal and unimaginable world. Her melody may be a mighty symbolism, but it is a symbolism to which man has lost the key." The present treatise, however, will be an attempt to reverse this verdict. In a word, the secret of music is the secret of all art, though not until man discovered his own soul was music truly born. But the difficulty which confronts us is that which appertains to the imponderable and invisible. For while the poet has an untold wealth of facts and fancies to recount, while the painter has innumerable forms and faces to review, the hierophant of the heart has but a few spiritual tendencies which differ only in degree. And in the judgment of the heart criticism seems to fail us ; in the scrutiny of the soul the analy- tical faculty waxes faint-hearted, as when on some solitary occasion the spirit of a man is suddenly confronted with its own invisible self. And in music are we not alone in the silent depths of our own inner being ? We are not surprised, therefore, to find faintness of method in the analysis of music. The critical inter- ests of this art are too often in the hands of inefficient experts. Still all art, which is truth in terms of beauty, is difficult of explanatory analysis, since feelings are more confused than thoughts. Indeed the more exact the subject of inquiry, the easier the task of criticism. And since the evolution of art in general has been from definite objectivity to indefinite subjectiv- ity, music, being the latest artistic arrival, is of necessity the most difficult to define. For the same reason, definition is more at home in science than in art. Nevertheless, all true seers, whether in poetry or prose, have ever recognised music as springing from that divine touch of nature " which makes the whole world kin; " and without which man were " fit for treasons, stratagems, 164 HERMAIA and spoils." So Luther writes: " There is no doubt that the seed of many virtues is in such hearts as are devoted to music ; those who are not touched by music, I hold to be stocks and stones." But poets notably have availed themselves of manifold metaphorical references to this art when endeavouring to voice the deeper tones of inarticulate feeling, or when essaying to give expression to sentiments that lie too deep for words, but not for music. Its spirituality, also, has not been without its recog- nition, for the harmonious strains of music have so often served as symbolising spiritual refection. We plead then for an ideal stand-point of view. We cannot know anything properly until we acknowledge its highest possibilities. It is the positive, rather than the negative point of view that proves most illumina- tive: not what a thing is not, but what it is, is the question. To adequately realise what humanity is, is to recognise what it potentially is capable of becoming. To define a man in terms of dust is unscientific. So no art is to be judged, save by its highest achievements. But these initial remarks must suffice as preamble ; let us plunge at once into the main current of our argument. MUSIC EXPRESSION OF SELF 165 CHAPTER XXI MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE SELF WE are now committed to the consideration of music, pure and simple. And in this special section we shall treat of the art simply in its formal aspect. Having done so, we shall further build it up in accordance with our analogy and the demands of our original thesis. Now it will be remembered that in our treatment of music and poetry conjointly we dealt with the re- lation of these two arts to personality proper, and in so doing led our readers to suppose that music was to be viewed as the artistic reflection of man's spiritual nature or interior in- dividuality. And to justify our assumption this section will form the first stage in our argument. We have adopted this plan of attacking first principles since, in the very nature of the case, man's moral agency involves the setting of his inner being over and against his outer circumstance. Thus, to reach the bed- rock of man's moral constitution, and see how music meets the esthetic demands made upon it, will be our task. But it may appear at first sight that a possible lack of technical knowledge must seriously hamper the reader as he endeavours to follow the course of our argument. This, however, need not be the case, since we shall be simple in the statement of our study. And should we appear at times somewhat unduly recondite, let the indulgent reader remind himself that it is due entirely to the fundamental position we intend to assume. To facilitate matters we have thought fit to divide our materials into such sections as will be seen to grow naturally out of one another. Now to begin with, personal identity is fundamental to mind, indeed without it consciousness were impossible. For it is self- evident that given no self to think, thought were impossible. We not only know, but we know that we know. That is to say, we as selves are not only behind all modes of consciousness, but are in ourselves what we term self-conscious. So at this junc- ture a few philosophical statements will be necessary in sup- port of our position. Primarily, personality may be described 1 66 HERMAIA as the crown-jewel of creation, or as the corner, or coping, stone of the cosmic process. In other words, self or soul is the final word in evolution. And the art which aspires to esthetic- ally express this supreme aspect of existence must first of all show itself to be art in its ultimate mode of manifestation. And music alone meets the requirements of the case. It is the youngest daughter of beauty. It is the last of the arts to appear and to come fully into its own inheritance. Hence it is the latest to be entirely understood by, and the last to receive the serious attention of, modern esthetes. Indeed it is not so many years ago that the very term art itself did not necessarily imply music. Even now we sometimes speak of art and music as though there were some subtle distinction to be maintained. Indeed, music may be truthfully termed a peculiarly modern art. It is, comparatively speaking, of but recent growth, and only properly found itself late in the historical evolution of the beautiful. Thus, among the ancient Greeks, where have we a record of the creative musician equal in worth and merit to such Titans as Phidias the sculptor and Homer the poet? So then music is the latest and the noblest product of the artistic cosmos. For as Berkeley puts it: " Time's noblest offspring is the last." And what is last to appear in order of time is first in the light of the eternal. It seems, therefore, as though the spiritual were persistently pushing its way through the physical in its endeavour to shape for itself a tabernacle worthy of habitation. But we are inclined to think of that which is late in appearing as merely derived from its antecedents, whereas it would probably be truer to say that it was only waiting for appropriate conditions through which it could adequately express itself. Thus material science looks upon consciousness as having cerebration for its sole cause. We are, however, in danger of confusing the principle of mediation with that of material manifestation. For what appears on this present physical plane may well have been already latent in the inner sphere of the spiritual. Thus the self even of the infant must have been prior to the first stimulus from without, else were there no self to receive the impression. As Lotze has it : " A mere sensation without a subject is nowhere to be met with as a fact." In other words, life precedes organisa- tion, and thus is the primacy of mind assured. So, though nature antedates man, man is not wholly of nature. We need MUSIC EXPRESSION OF SELF 167 not, then, believe that such tremendous realities as moral freedom and God-consciousness are merely by-products of the cosmic progression. Indeed, to regard such as simply laboriously- achieved delusions is to make evolution ridiculous. Similarly, should we doubt the high calling already attributed to music we are dangerously near the guilt of artistic scepticism. From the foregoing we may rightly conclude that soul or spirit was implicit in the vast All, even as music was latent, and not patent, as was the material of other arts, in the constitution of the universe. And just as the advent of the spiritual in man seemed as a supreme addition to external reality, even as the phenomenon of life itself, so too did the arrival of music appear as a very real addition to the universe of art. But to draw once more upon analogy : we find musical harmony, though utterly unrecognised as such by the human ear, implicit in the harmonic constituents of a single tone. And such harmonious possibilities remained perennially potential until, in the fullness of time, they were in- tuitively evoked by the musical mind of man. Thus, in a sense, the Soul of the universe might be viewed as the vast ground- note or fundamental generator wherein all things were involved and out of which they were ultimately unravelled by a process of evolution. Man, therefore, would be a kind of partial upper- tone of which God was the root. But we must now return to the primary consideration of our inquiry, and deal with the fundamental fact of the ego or self- consciousness. And first of all we shall treat of it as a meta- physical necessity, and see how music corresponds artistically thereto, before plunging into the various implications arising from it. And again we must be pardoned the perpetration of a few philosophical truisms, since it is exactly round this crucial question thinkers have split themselves up into objectivists and subjectivists. Nevertheless the bare enunciation of apparent axiomatic truths will, in this connection, be instructive, since it will be seen that music itself, in the light of our analogy, bears vitally on this supreme philosophical consideration. Now in the first place it must be conceded that there are thinkers of no inconsiderable acumen who deliberately deny the reality of the ego. Hume, for instance, writes : " There are some philosophers who imagine that we are every moment conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence, and its continuance in 168 HERMAIA existence." And later on he continues: " Setting aside some metaphysicians, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different per- ceptions which succeed one another with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." Thus from such a purely sensational view of consciousness, the self or ego is but a delusive fiction of philosophy : and along with the annulment of this principle of individuation must surely vanish such spiritual realities as soul, will, and conscience. A little philosophical con- sideration will, however, serve to show the untenableness of such a doctrine. Primarily, the soul or self of its very nature can never be regarded as a product of sensation. For given any conscious affection, a self must be previously postulated to be conscious of such affection. Neither is it an attribute or function of the brain, since the unity and indivisibility of the conscious self cannot be the outcome of unconscious divisible and multiple molecularity. It is more analogous to the kernel in protoplasmic cell-life; and represents the spiritual speck or noumenal nucleus in the plastic mind. Self-consciousness is thus a kind of spiritual nucleation. And good music to anticipate strengthens what Eucken calls " the spiritual core " of man's being. So Berkeley writes: "How often must I repeat that I know and am con- scious of my own being, and that I myself am not my own ideas, but somewhat else, a thinking active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas? " In other words, thoughts cannot think themselves, feelings cannot feel them- selves; it is we who think; we who feel. Or again: "Any comparison of two ideas," writes Lotze, " which ends by our finding their contents like or unlike, presupposes the absolutely indivisible unity of that which compares them." The ego is, therefore, not " a fiction coined from nonentity," but a tremend- ous reality. " I think, therefore I am," wrote Descartes, and to hear let us say the opening bar of Beethoven's Pathetic Sonata is to be artistically aware of the depths of personal consciousness. Grave. MUSIC EXPRESSION OF SELF 169 Here, however, it will be well to remind our readers that we are dealing with mere musical mentation in its ideal relation to reality. Thus it will be wise to discover in what other respects the raw matter of music is in artistic agreement with the pure being of the ego. Now whence this ego ? what is its genesis or derivation ? And though we cannot speak positively of its origin, we can negatively assert that it is in no wise derived from objec- tive nature. Sensational psychology, however, holds that what is in mind was first in sense. Thus Locke, the empiricist, true to his psychological phenomenalism, writes that : " There appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have conveyed any in." But how the consciousness of self is got out of mere sensation is not logically explained. For no amount of external excitation will produce a self, since the self is already present to receive the sense-stimuli. We must, then, postulate an inner principle of self-being before the physical excitations or rather their psychical concomitants, which are sequential and transitory, can be compared, controlled, and made to cohere in any self-conscious personality. Indeed, the self must be that which entirely escapes sequential phenomenalism. Hence it is no unnecessary intruder into the sensational consciousness of the associationist. So man can no more be the sum-total of personal, than God of universal, phenomena. The essential self, there- fore, whilst being in the world, is certainly not of it. So Pro- fessor Green, writing of personality, says: " The ' mystery ' that belongs to it arises from its being the only thing, or form of the only thing, that is real (so to speak) in its own right; the only thing of which the reality is not relative and derived." Man, therefore, as spirit, escapes the catena of the phenomenal uni- verse. And here again our philosophical position equates with music as a mode of estheticism. For just as the self is undis- coverable throughout the whole wide range of the natural, so too is the matter of music entirely independent of the known world of immediate experience. But this point we need not labour, since it was fully exhausted in our treatment of the rela- tion that music bears to nature, in our chapter on painting. Suffice it to say that, as Mill shows us in a passage already quoted, music might easily be conceived as energising esthetic- ally apart from the present universe as we know it. But the following from Myers puts the matter succinctly. He says that : 170 HERMAIA " Music resembles not so much a product of terrene needs and of natural selection as a subliminal capacity attaining to an acci- dental manifestation independently of the requirements or of the external stimuli of the supraliminal self. We know the difficulties of explaining its rise on any current theory of the evo- lution of human faculty. We know that it is like something discovered, not like something manufactured; like wine found in a walled-up cellar, rather than like furniture made in a work- shop above." In other words, music represents esthetically that part of us which entirely escapes phenomenalism. It is supernatural, whilst painting is phenomenal beauty. Although it is founded, like any other art, in the phenomenal, it is not the reflection either of the objective universe or of general experience. Thus music is esthetic transcendentalism. So Schopenhauer boldly asserts, and not without reason, that music is an im- mediate revelation of the infinite Substance or " Thing-in- Itself," independent of phenomenal mediation. Further, just as the infinite Ego not only is immanent in, but also transcends, the universe, so too is man but a partial incarnation of himself. And that part of his personality which exactly transcends his normal consciousness finds its artistic expression in music. Music, then, in its bald, existential modality may be termed simple, spiritual be-ness. Man is a spirit, but has faculties. In music we primarily simply are divinely are. / But we will now pass on to consider certain inferences which arise out of our given data. Now since, as we have endeavoured to show, there is that in man which escapes his general consciousness, that which we might term his spiritual being, there surely must exist some metempiric plane or sphere which constitutes his spiritual en- vironment. If it were not so we should be in this philosophical predicament: an entity energising apart from an adequate correspondential relativity. And if a rudimental vitalism can traffic with the chemistry of nature, why not an inner sphere of spirit whereby the soul can commune with its Source. For if otherwise, how explain the spiritual aspirations of intuitional man ? How account for the accredited content of religious con- sciousness? the root of creeds and fount of all beliefs. Is the spiritual sense of an indwelling Power but the product of a super- lative susceptibility to nothing ? Or is it in genuine correspond- MUSIC EXPRESSION OF SELF 171 ence with some profound Reality? If the former, then religion is chimerical and a grievous delusion, and the cry of an im- passioned humanity finds its response only in the mocking echo of its own voice, flung back upon itself through the empty spaces of a soulless world. And what a dilemma! A godless world crying out for God. If, however, the latter, then the sanity of the universe is established, and the soul is in touch with a divine Reality, competent to explain man's spiritual faculty and afford it adequate correspondence. But the empirical psychologist is tempted to eliminate the richest contents of human personality so as to bring it in accord with what he conceives to be the sum- total of existence. Grant, however, an interior world of spirit immanent in, and impinging on this present world of tem- poralities, then the rigid demands of a genuine science are severely satisfied. The spiritual creature has now an environ- ment which sustains his inner life and fosters its growth in good- ness. And this inner world must be pre-eminently the world of realities. It is the timeless sphere of ideal values and of in- trinsic worth. It is what gives a true significance to life itself. It is what we can appreciate rather than describe a world of likes, of loves, and genuine interest. And man is a denizen of this interior realm ; his soul is rooted in the eternal. He belongs more truly to this world of reality than to the world of appear- ance. His spirit only properly functions in a timeless eternity. The true man is not then to be found in his phenomenal per- sonality, but rather in the moral worth he brings to bear on his surroundings. We have thus postulated a diviner self and its peculiar plane of activity with a resultant spiritual experience. Now it will be our present business to see how music institutes itself as the artis- tic expression of the higher life of man. And in so doing we shall pursue the matter on the lines of analogy, as we hold all art to be but a mighty symbol of the real. To begin with, all that appertains to phenomenality manifests itself in time and space, and as extension. On the other hand, music as actuality exists outside of such commanding categories. Indeed, we might regard it as a kind of fourth dimensional beauty. It is pervasive and interpenetrative of the barriers of matter. So Hegel is right when he says that music is entirely independent of time and space. Thus with respect to the first category, though music may be said 172 HERMAIA to be in, it is not of time. For here we live in depth, rather than in length of duration; as when in dreams we crowd a variety of experiences in one extended moment. So Schopenhauer says that when listening to a symphony one " will deem all possible events of life and the world to be passing before him." Music is, then, a kind of eternal present. It is not wrapped up in any ephemeral interests, but remains for ever unembarrassed by transient temporalities. It escapes entirely the time-significance of external life. Neither is it subject to the second category aforementioned, since it is not only non-phenomenal, as far as the imagination is concerned, but also non-spatial. Being the one purely non-formal art, it is unlocalised and unextended in space. Hence in music we have passed out of the objective location of the plastic arts and have entered upon the spiritual conditions of pure moralism. And in the spiritual sphere, state is the equivalent of localism on our present plane of being. Music is, thus, neither conditioned nor yet environed as to this mundane mode of existence; it is rather conditioned in soul. But deprive painting of extended form and your canvas is a blank : delete also from poetry conditional circumstance and you practically destroy its artistic possibilities. Thus whilst paint- ing lays the accent on man as conditioned, and music as man conditioning, poetry represents man as both determining and determined. And, we might add, this latter is the fuller truth about artistic reality. In the absence of solid body music is committed to no locality; and in the absence of verbal ideas it is confined to no particular personality. In short, we are here entirely outside of the temporal. Music cannot of itself be attached to any fact in experience. Yet every historical enact- ment is the temporary imprisonment of the eternal; just as every true figure-picture should be the seizure of soul at the moment of noblest incarnation. Indeed, in composition-pictures the greater part of art refers to the fact of humanity rather than to a fact in history. The great masterpieces in figure-painting deal not so much with personages as with types of humanity. The noblest Madonnas glorify the sanctity of universal motherhood. Still the body is the robe of concealment, and soul is most imma- nent in music because we have here immediate, and not mediate, manifestation. Poetry, again, does not entirely escape chron- MUSIC EXPRESSION OF SELF 173 ology, although the temporal garb it wears is of more delicate texture than the vesture of painting. Music, then, enjoys complete immunity from the limitations of both time and space. And to press it into the service of the religious consciousness, we can truthfully describe it as being in the world, but not of it. In short, it is the esthetic of " eternal life." And the intuitive enjoyment of music only serves to con- firm the argument adduced. In music we dream of an ideal world ; the soul seems detached from its physical enslavement : we die for a while unto this present scene of mortality. We are exalted. The upper levels of our common consciousness are temporarily lulled to rest. The subliminal realm begins to dawn on our all too-beclouded mental horizon. The outer blaze of physical glories is banished from our ken : we are alone with the greater beauty that is to be in the spiritual world. Music is the expression of the soul's ecstasy that has seen the indescribable and heard the unutterable. We are here caught up into the " third heaven; " and whether in the body or out of it we cannot tell. So when music courses through the labyrinthine corridors of the spirit we are subjected to a kind of hypnotic induction, a sort of mental inversion where the soul turns in upon itself and afterwards returns from its waking dream, strengthened and refreshed. It is an ideal spiritual experience wherein we recu- perate our psychic energies and recharge with force the soul for the higher fulfilment of our manifold duties. And the artistic power that raises us above all mundane affairs, that pre-emin- ently enables us to rise for the time-being superior to the harassing pressure of circumstance, that can cut us off from corroding conditions and make us feel that we are truly immortal spirits not wholly subject to the limitations of the flesh, is at once beneficent and greatly to be cherished. Indeed, so long as man loves and labours, agonises and aspires, so long will he continue to pour out his symphonies and songs, believing that the instincts of his human nature, in which he puts a wholesome trust, are both veridical and sane. Music, then, makes us feel our freedom from the world of physical phenomena. It is, in a word, the artistic earnest of man's immortality. For truly the human affections of which music so sweetly sings are the strongest surety of man's personal persistence. And to disparage the passion for personal immortality is at once hypocritical and insincere. 174 HERMAIA Only such as have neither loved nor aspired could coldly con- template the extinction of individual consciousness. What kind of vandalism, moreover, would that be, where with icono- clastic waywordness the divine Artist ruthlessly shattered the finest products of his consummate art. It were an act of sub- human malignity. Conversely: can there ever come a time when the great masterpieces of human genius will be as dead and forgotten things, because of the absence of consciousness in the cosmos? It were an incredible waste in an otherwise economic universe. OF SELF-PERSISTENCE 175 CHAPTER XXII MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF SELF-PERSISTENCE AGAIN : there is the persistence of the ego which we shall now briefly discuss with a view to proving the adequacy of music as the esthetic representative of the metaphysical in man. We have already asserted, not only the existence of this self, but also the fact that it is something other than what we technically term the natural. And now we must assert the persistence amidst change of this self-same spiritual entity, and point out in few words that music alone among the arts stands for its ideal correspondence in this particular connection. Primarily we must insist that the persistence of self-consciousness is revealed in any one given act of memory. Even two different ideas in the same mind would suffice to prove a permanent principle of being subtending all the evanescent and transitional phenomena of mind. And no less an authority than J. S. Mill practically concedes this point in the following significant sentence. He writes: " If we speak of the mind as a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future, we are reduced to the alterna- tive of believing that the mind, or ego, is something different from any series of feelings, or of accepting the paradox that something which is, ex hypothesi, but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series." Or as Reid has it: " A person is something indivisible, and is what Leibnitz calls a ' monad/ My personal identity, therefore, implies the continued existence of that indivisible thing which I call myself." In other words, change in consciousness is only possible where there is permanence or personality. So to change one's thoughts, or even one's character, is not to change one's identity. Now the only art that could conceivably satisfy the expres- sional demands of this principle of permanent self-identity is, without doubt, the art of music. And much that has already been said will give support to our contention. The plastic arts, for instance, need not concern us as their very esthetic existence 176 HERMAIA depends on the principle of materiality. Neither will poetry, although more promising in this relation, meet the peculiar demands of the case. Poetry is a sequence of ideas, a series of mental phenomena, and so cannot properly represent in art that spiritual unity of self-hood which renders them coherent and unitary. For certainly this unit of personality is quite other than the thoughts it holds within itself, and obviously quite other than the body it animates and informs. We may have ideas, but the ideas we have and ourselves as having them are two totally different aspects of consciousness. Now music has, so far as artistic expression is concerned, a total disregard for mental ideas as such. In a word, these latter constitute, not the essence, but the accidents of music. The latter art, therefore, is free to concern itself with the soul or self as a fundamental reality. And with respect to the persistence of the ego, a few observations will suffice to show how that music is competent to idealise this fundamental fact of our being. And perhaps the song will best serve to illustrate the question under discussion. For here we have successive modes of thought bound together by some melody in which they inhere and find their higher unity. Analogous to our personality, the melody runs like a thread upon which are strung the jewelled thoughts of an enriched imagination. Or to put it more poetically, the musical aspect of personality might be described in the words of Schlegel as " the chord which vibrates through earth's strangely chequered dream." Or better still, as Bergson puts it, when he likens the soul's existence to the " uninterrupted melody of an inner life." Thus, just as self-consciousness is the constant factor in mind the permanent inevitable quality in conscious- ness so music represents the permanent element in the artistic mind. For just as poetry was seen to fill the void created by the spatial disposition of objects of thought in painting, so music serves as a bond between poetic ideas. Music supplies that undercurrent of being and unifying principle left unex- pressed in other arts, and stands for the substratum of spirit that makes possible the passage of one mental or material state to another. And while, on the one hand, plastic beauty stands for physical, music stands for spiritual permanence. Poetry, again, exhibiting mental movement, is capable of conjoining cause and effect in consciousness as an artistic series, by reason OF SELF-PERSISTENCE 177 of its medial position in the world of art. But the principle that gives coherence to such a series and makes transition alone pos- sible, is only expressible in the subjective art of music. In short, the lacunae discoverable in phenomenal forms of beauty can alone be esthetically occupied by an art of strict immateriality. And from the physical point of view it stands for the intra-atomic, unseen and eternal energy in the cosmos of beauty. It accords more than any other art with the dynamic interpretation of the universe. So not inappropriately does the renaissance of modern music synchronise with the later, scientific appreciation of universal energy. Music then holds a unique position in the vast fabric of the imagination. It is the under-flow of being, and typifies, in a microcosmic sense, the mighty Over-Consciousness or World- Soul that sustains and makes possible the phenomenal universe. It becomes at once the vital connection inherent in all esthetic thinking. It binds together artistic ideas and bridges over the transition of poetic thought. It is the spiritual bond and causal nexus of all beauty. Relative to the living art of poetry, it reflects the permanent principle of personality and in a wider aspect echoes the permanent substratum which guarantees the unity of the universe. And without the persistence, unitariness, and self-knowledge of the ego, the facts of consciousness could never cohere in mutual relativity as an interior universe of thought; just as the properties or qualities of any material object require an unpicturable something in which they find their ultimate unification. We speak of properties and attributes, but attributes and properties of what? And not unwisely do we alight on music as the principle of self-sameness and unity in the language of beauty. In a similar sense the multiplicity of phenomena inheres in the divine Ego as its basal and unpicturable Unity; just as poems and pictures inhere in music as suggestible possibilities. The Over-Soul is thus neither one of a series, nor yet the sum-total thereof, but an eternally present and ever- active Cause ; even as we ourselves are related to our every mode of consciousness. God ever was, and still is awaiting the home- coming of humanity. So music represents the transition and perfect continuity of spirit. For here we meet with no sectional seclusion, no objective segregation, since it is itself a self-deter- mined and uninterrupted flow of thought. And a moment's M 178 HERMAIA consideration of the musician's mode of consciousness will suffice to support this. For there is in musical thought, as distinct from all other modes of artistic thinking, a sense of undividedness. There are here no such clearly denned divisions as in poetry ; no such distinctly marked differentiae as in painting. Of course, music occupies a facultative department all its own, being art and of man's device ; but we speak now of the essential nature of its own constitution in its most fundamental aspect. There are, further, various aspects of its own being; if, for instance, we have regard to the human voice that most perfect of all instruments, we have an adequate expression of this same principle of self-persistence. And this, not only because it is more im- manent in soul than are other instruments that are external to the executant, and therefore more removed from man himself, but since it is capable also of rendering an absolute, undivided stream of self-ness. In short, music is the one and only onto- logical continuum of beauty. But perhaps the best illustration is to be found in the con- tinuous under-current of orchestration which represents a kind of spiritual substratum to some mighty music-drama of. a Wagner. For in this surging sea of boundless being all the enactments of the super-world live, move, and have their being. Hence Spencer's definition of personality coincides with the view of music we are now taking, as it stands related to the world of imagination. He defines it as: " The permanent nexus, which is never itself conscious, but which holds states of consciousness together." In this passage, however, he seems to deny the possibility of the ego knowing itself, although in another passage he speaks of personality as " a fact of which each one is con- scious." The truth is, Spencer is guilty of a confusion in thought concerning consciousness itself, the primal fact of which he suppresses to suit his own peculiar school of psychology. But we shall speak of the self-knowledge of the ego later on, and in so doing find that music itself will strengthen our philosophical position on the artistic side. Music, then, stands mainly for the idealisation of the essential selfhood, and, analogous to the per- petual presence of the soul, runs like a golden strand through all the modifications of the artistic consciousness. Thus, while music represents pure continuity, painting exists as formal con- tiguity; and poetry combines both principles of being. So OF SELF-PERSISTENCE 179 music, if it teaches us anything within the realm of idealism, teaches us that man is something more than a series of mental phenomena. And in our subsequent section, this profound truth will gain in clearness and emphasis. But a possible objection, arising from the foregoing con- sideration, must be answered. It might be asserted, and rightly too, that since music is but a succession of emotive modifications of consciousness, it is as much a phenomenal art as any other. For is not the self that feels other than the series of feelings (however profound) it may have as experience ? I feel, but the feeling is not ontologically identical with the ego that has the feeling. Why then should music, which is the expression of the emotions, be alone capable of idealising the soul which has these emotions? If, in other words, the self be permanent, how can it be expressed in music, which is a procession of spiritual states ? Why again, if personality be not an object of sense at all, can music, which is an appeal to sense, be competent to excite in the inner consciousness the supremest of non-sensuous concepts ? Now these objections are true of reality, but when viewed in the light of artistic idealism, they assume quite another aspect. Indeed, we cannot too often insist on the fact that since reality is divine Art and art man's improvised reality, the latter, being a deduction and therefore derivative, must necessarily actualise itself one degree removed from the reality it seeks to express. Hence, however ideal the art, it must, by reason of its essential artificiality, utilise the terminology of phenomenalism. Although spiritual in essence, art cannot but be sensuous in manifestation. It is symbolism, not substance ; ideality, not identity. In other words, art cannot wholly identify itself with reality, but must, all through the ascending scale of beauty, stand one step removed from the model which excites its admiration and stimulates its energies. Thus it is more a question of approximation than of absolute appropriation. Nevertheless it is impossible to know the ego of reality as existing in an altogether unrelated state, so we must not quarrel with music for having some sort of pheno- menal content. Although the pure self is neither fact, form, nor feeling, it cannot exist apart from some such mode of conscious- ness. The idea of self is never accompanied save by sensuous modality. In short, the ego robbed of phenomenal content is simply unconsciousness. And if it is to be identified more 180 HERMAIA particularly with any one of the above mental phenomena, it is with feeling more than with thought, since we rather feel our- selves essentially to be. So Fichte writes: "The intellectual intuition from which we have started is not possible without sensuous intuition, and this not without feeling." We must remember, also, that there can be nothing artistic that is not of the nature of feeling. Still art is not actuality; neither is ex- pression, experience. In short, similarity is not identity. For paint and marble are not in themselves pulsing forms and play- ful features ; words, whether spoken or written, are not identical with things and thoughts; neither is sound, however pleasing, synonymous with emotion. The self in art, therefore, is one thing, but the self in reality, another. And this because, in the one case, self is a passive thinker; whereas in the other it is an active agent. Hence the oft-time divergence between the man as artist and the man as personality. So art, we must always remember, cannot transcend its own formal boundaries. The ideal is operative in the imagination alone; thus the actual self- hood, as such, cannot find entrance into the region of construc- tive idealism. In a word, fiction, though at times a higher kind of truth, does not partake of the realism of fact. Art all along the line of beauty is but analogical. And we are endeavour- ing to institute in theory at least music as the idealisation of man as spirit. So when we say that music, in its elemental con- stitution, is the only art which successfully expresses man as self, we mean that no other artistic activity gives such an adequate, ideal response to the super-sensuous soul. Music must, therefore, along with all other art, remain for ever phenomenal in its formal constitution; although it is non- phenomenal in its interior meaning. Though invisible, music is still sound, and as such is not, apart from our esthetic experi- ence, to be inevitably identified with the unseen realities of life. It is only what music, as rationalised sound, tells us in our in- terior consciousness that forms the subject of our inquiry. For apart from this fact, why should not colour equally well arouse our spiritual sense? Are not colour- vibrations more rapid and subtile than sound- vibrations ? But, for the present, we merely contend that for the expression of the unseen we need invisible beauty. We cannot see the spiritual; only feel it to be. So although music may excite our emotions, we must not fail to OF SELF-PERSISTENCE 181 realise the psychological implications of so wide a term. Let us beware, therefore, of enclosing emotion in artificial limitations. Indeed, music is something more than mere feeling; it is the truth about the facts of feeling. We say, for instance, that a piece of music expresses in a very general sense the emotional tone of joy. Yet, over and above this simple feeling-fact, we have the rise and fall of melody, the intricacies of harmony, beats, and accents, modifications in time, varied tone-colours, and an in- finite wealth of expression. But we have, hitherto, thought so largely upon outer extension and material massiveness, and so seldom given due attention to the inner view of reality. There is, for instance, the infinitude of space and time ; but what about the infinite aspect of mind and spirit ? Now we have regarded thought as outer extension, and emotion more as the inner intension of mind. Or as the poet has it : Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught. (C. P. CRANCH.) So we speak, not inappropriately, of extensive knowledge and of intense feeling; of breadth of mind and of depth of soul. And when we wish to be radical in our research, we speak of going to the heart of things. And as we do not limit man as to his cognition, why limit him as to his emotion ? Feeling, moreover, will deepen with the broadening of thought, since they are not mutually exclusive, but concurrent in their evolution. True development means the enrichment of all our faculties. So while painting is extensive and material, music is intensive and spiritual; and poetry unites both. Or again: since poetry literally thinks and music literally feels, the one is representa- tive of man's breadth of thought, the other of his depth of being. Thus music becomes the involution of beauty or the inner life of all that is artistic. But what about music as esthetic experience ? Is the hearer made aware of the profound reality of the selfhood in so signal a fashion as to differentiate it from the objective of all other arts? This question is readily answered in the affirmative when we remember that music is pure intuitional beauty. For music is feeling ; and feeling is that which is common to all conscious appreciation of beauty. Similarly, self -consciousness is likewise 1 82 HERMAIA an intuition, given, more or less, in every act of consciousness. So much for the logic of the case. But we must never forget that in real experience we do not so much dwell upon the self as a fact, though we cannot but be conscious of the self as a very present reality. Thus, though music, more than any other art, gives us the appreciation of the self, the fact that we are not always conscious of the self need not in any way vitiate the assumption. Yet some may theoretically deny its very exist- ence, although it is still the self that denies. And this because in analysis man loses himself in the mass of objectivity. So Rudolf Otto, writing of individuality, says that " people of a non-reflective mood are usually more successful in understanding it than those who reflect and analyse." But it is in moral experience above all that man realises the reality of his own deeper being. For here he does not so much analyse as ener- gise. And music, in its fullness, is moral " activism." The truth is we are analytical in science, but in art, synthetic. Hence the rise of art is the decline of the analytical faculty. And this it is that Anatole France meant when he wrote that " art declines in proportion as thought develops." Thus music does not excite our critical faculty so much as do the arts of plasticity. The evident reason being that, in the former, there is practically no objectivity to invite analysis. In music the sense of unity is more marked, hence its artistic alliance with the binding principle of the ego. Let us not be misunderstood, however; we are here, in this section, dealing only with music at its primary moment of initiation. It is only the form and matter, not the meaning and content, that is under discussion. At present it is purely a question of bare music-consciousness, of a tremendous structure of fact-feeling and of an immensely impressive sense of being. Music-consciousness only becomes music proper when it has been touched to finer issues by the moral persuasion of the composer. Similarly the ego becomes valuable only in so far as it posits itself as active. In any case, music primarily exists as a kind of emotional disturbance, whatever the feeling-content may be, and Professor James holds that " individuality is founded in feel- ing." Or as Otto puts it: " It is especially in ' feeling ' that what we call individuality has its roots." Or, again, as the poet Wordsworth tells us : We feel that we are greater than we know. OF SELF-PERSISTENCE 183 Thus music might be regarded in its simplicity as a fundamental state of being. Further, the variety and value of musical states depends solely on what the composer is powerful to enforce. So self-knowledge manifests itself in feeling rather than in thought ; and in music we feel we are. Music, we conclude then, is the highest expression of pure personality. And so, from a philo- sophical point of view, we cannot but approve the further quota- tion from Otto when he writes: " What is ' personality ' ? We all feel it. We respect it from the depths of our soul wherever we meet it. We bow down before it unconditionally. But what it is no philosophy has ever yet been able definitely to state. In seeking to comprehend it intuition and feeling must always play the largest part." This leads us to the consideration of music as the artistic reflection of the soul's knowledge of itself. 1 84 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXIII MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE THOUGH we are still concerned with the esthetic aspect of bald and bare musical awareness, we are now to see how it analogic- ally parallels the soul's consciousness of itself. And in doing so we are to discover a very real agreement between the peculiar essence of musical consciousness with the knowledge that the ego has of itself. No less an authority than Spencer denies the inherent possibility of the subject positing itself as its own object. We hinted that he was driven to perpetrate this fallacy by reason of the fact that his theory of all knowledge was that the object must always be something different from the subject. To quote his own words: " Clearly the true cognisance of self implies a state in which the knowing and known are one, in which subject and object are identified; and this is the annihilation of both. So that the personality of which each is conscious, and of which the existence is to each a fact beyond all others most certain, is yet a thing which cannot be known at all; knowledge of it is forbidden by the very nature of thought." The incontrovertible sense of our own personal identity, however, entirely contravenes this philosophical finding. Indeed if we did not know ourselves as conscious we could not be said to be properly conscious at all. Neither need abnormal cases of what Ribot calls " diseases of Personality " affect our point of view. For in such instances it is in reality but the same noumenal self regarding its phenomenal and objective personality as other than it actually is. Further, a man's character may undergo a total change so that we are compelled to say of him that he is an entirely different man; nevertheless, no philosopher, worthy of the name, would assert that his personal identity had thereby undergone a process of substitution. Thus speaking of this primitive fact of self- affirmation, Fichte has a passage which accords strictly with reality. He says that : " In this absolute identity of subject and object consists the very nature of the Ego. The Ego is that OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE 185 which cannot be subject, without being, in the same indivisible act, object; and cannot be object without being, in the same indivisible act, subject; and conversely, whatever has this characteristic, is Ego; the two expressions are the same." Let us remember, then, that truth can never be properly established by the suppression of facts, whether physical or psychical. Indeed to ignore the latter is a twofold offence, since, in the first place, we are dealing with facts which as such must be rationally dealt with, and in the second, being facts of mind, they appertain to what is most real about ourselves. Facts, therefore, first, theory afterwards. We shall now proceed to show that music, in its ultimate residuum, stands for the ideal of a consciousness or knowledge other than sensational or empiric. Music is fundamental art- consciousness. It expresses the spiritual awareness through which man knows himself as existing in an order of being entirely different from the phenomenal. In its essential aspect it is unlike other arts, and enjoys a unique existence. For the form of all art is feeling : and while all other arts contain a variety of content music alone makes feeling its matter for treatment. We must remember that consciousness is not confined to sensations or appearances, and that knowledge is not limited to phenomena. It is around this latter term, knowledge, that so much confused thinking circulates. For all consciousness is not necessarily "knowledge"; though all knowledge involves consciousness. But the term self-consciousness were preferable to self-know- ledge: the former, however, has quite another connotation, whereas the latter has now the more philosophic meaning. Now the most salient feature about self-knowledge is that it contains within itself no picturable element whatsoever. Analo- gous to musical consciousness, it is quite other than the appre- hension of what is not itself. It is a novel and profound piece of knowledge. In the words of Hegel: " Of the ego, one cannot even say that it is a conception of anything ; it is rather a con- sciousness that accompanies all our conceptions." Hence it differs wholly from materiality, which alone is picturable. The soul, in short, can form for itself no image of its own essence. We cannot picture ourselves to ourselves, only feel ourselves pro- foundly to be. We feel ourselves to be a force a supreme reality. So music differentiates itself from the formal art of 1 86 HERMAIA painting and the factual art of poetry. For in painting we have, as subject matter, definite drawing and obvious outline. And here the lineal limitation of form seems detrimental to the illimit- ability of spiritual essence, since to picture is to delimit and to imagine is to confine. Passing again from painting, which is presentative depiction, to poetry, which is representative de- scription, we substitute the less determinate aspect of thought for the more determinate aspect of pure perception. But spirit is not to be described in terms of material metaphor. Indeed, what you describe cannot be so real as the indescribable self, since to describe is to objectify, and to delineate is to estrange. You cannot image forth the soul in any symbol of earth. For this reason alone music comes to be the soul's ideal of itself, since form and fact are entirely absent from its essential nature. It is our metaphysical consciousness, ideally realised. Here, in realm of art, subject and object, " form " and " matter," coincide and are at one with themselves. Here we find beauty, like the soul itself, at once shapeless and indefinite, illimitable and immaterial. And here we reach the sacred source of all beauty. Not inadequately, then, does music express invisible and spiritual realities since it has no direct dealings with the facts of life, nor yet does it treat of the sensible forms of the universe. And just as one cannot describe or define the spiritual as one can pheno- menal realities, so music partakes of the nature of the indescrib- able and the indefinable. You do not observe music as you do a picture, you rather spiritually sense it. Indeed, the real things of life remain for ever unpicturable. So music alone among the /^arts meets the constitutional demands made upon it. Now to define or describe a thing you must refer to something which is simpler or more fundamental than itself. And since the self or soul is the surest, simplest, and most immediate fact given in consciousness, its unexplainableness is really a measure of its reality. So Hansel writes: "This self-personality, like all other simple and immediate presentations, is indefinable; but it is so because it is superior to definition." And so it is with music, about which there is an element of the inexplicable. For it contains, as we have already contended, the maximum of artistic indefmiteness, and so, as art, appears identical with the mystery of the spiritual self. Consequently, you do not, as with other arts, refer it to something other than itself, since it is its OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE 187 own reference. This, moreover, since feeling is the ultimate of all art, and music is feeling. And in the opinion of T. H. Green : " It is the irreducibility of this self-objectifying consciousness to anything else that compels us to regard it as the presence in us of the mind for which the world exists." Similarly, all other forms of art exist for ends that are essentially musical. Further, just as self-knowledge is the most immediate and familiar form of consciousness, so too is music, with its warmth of intimacy, nearer to the soul than any other art. It is, in short, the native beauty of the soul. Music is thus the artistic manifestation of the inner, spiritual self. It is the ideal reflection of pure egoity : or as Hegel would say:" The spirit that is conscious of itself as spirit." And this, of course, in terms of art. But this present consideration must give us pause, since it is at once both the strength of music, to such as are tunefully inclined, and its weakness, to those who have no ear for its secret intimations. For it is just the latter who argue that, since music delivers itself of no definite discourse and is incapable of ex- pressing any exact thought, it is therefore but amorphous art and inchoate beauty a kind of low-graded estheticism with neither message nor meaning with which to commend itself. There is, however, a deeper significance which underlies this possible assumption; and it is the intellectual disability which mistakes the mystical for mystification, the indefinite for the undeveloped, and the noumenal for nonentity. And to such a mental bias music cannot but be the empty echo of vacuity and the utterance of an absurdity; just as the science of metaphysics is to some but ' muddle-headed moonshine ! ' And to draw once more upon our analogy, music, which we have shown to be the unsubstantial symbol of pure spirituality, must be, to such as are esthetically unspiritual, merely artistic foolishness. For the sceptic in art prefers the presentation of tangible forms and sensuous shapes such things as can be seen and handled. But, we ask: Is the indefinite identical with the undeveloped? Are the unpicturable concepts necessarily representative of the non-existent? What indeed are the deep and abiding realities of life ? Are they not exactly our joys and sorrows, our hopes and disappointments, and all such unseen qualities which prompt our every action, and go to make up the very soul of our existence ? We love, and cannot tell why : we worship, and know not how : 1 88 HERMAIA and yet they are of all facts in the cosmic scheme of things the most cogent and enduring, coming out at the further end of the universal process as its richest and ripest fruit. Yet whoever saw an inspiration? Whoever revealed the colour of righteousness? Or who has ever measured an aspiration or plumbed the depths of a sentiment ? Can the deftest artist limn for us the form and features of a pious hope? Was there ever poet, however vision- ary, who adequately described the posture of a soul at prayer? And yet these are the very real things in and amongst which music secretly moves and vivifies into ideal beauty. Truly the deepest things in life are indefinable realities. For is not life itself more real than the organism it animates ? Yet what more intangible and recondite ? So, too, is the mystery of human personality, with its inscrutable volition, more pro- foundly real than the atomic body it inhabits; and the undiffer- entiated ego of more account than the differentiated molecularity of the brain. Indeed, the sense of self, though eternally unim- aginable, is the very acme of certitude. Finally, is not the unit of conscience the undivided utterance of the soul superior to the many moral judgments of progressive man? and love, the unit of divine passion higher than the multiple codes of ethics that have their little day and cease to be? The higher purpose of music, therefore, is to give expression to the ineffable divinity within. To sum up: the so-called definite is not necessarily the most certain ; neither is the indistinct, of necessity, synonymous with unreality. Indeed, the exact are not inevitably the most con- vincing things in life. The truth is, definition is only too often a process of elimination. We are exact by omission; precise by impoverishment. For when we would explain we so often exclude, rather than include, the deeper realities of existence. And when science or logic endeavours to tighten its grip on truth, it invariably squeezes out of consciousness much that is of vital consequence. This too is a common defect of much of our philosophy. Emerson was wise, therefore, when he voluntarily renounced the function of the exact thinker in favour of that of the moralist. In other words, the more material and external a thing, the more readily does it submit itself to definition ; whereas the more mental and internal the truth, the less easily is it defined. Yet it is exactly the inner, mental states that are more real, than OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE 189 are the well-defined, lower order of objects which lie on the periphery of experience. But this only means that religion and art are higher than philosophy and science. For as we reach the spiritual, definite- ness declines. The unitary mood of the mystic, for instance, is less distinct than the apprehension of manifold objects. So we may suggest that the passage from homogeneity to heterogeneity may be true of physical evolution, but otherwise in the case of spiritual involution. And this, because the ultimate in man as a spiritual being is found, not so much in the complex of his activities, as in their obedience to the personal principle of unification in the inner life. And what is all this but the truth about art in general ? Do we not pass from definite painting to indefinite music? from formal fixation in space to mystic mobility in time ? Neverthe- less, whatever the mode of beauty, there is nothing artistic that is not of the indefinite and indescribable. Indeed, it is just this which differentiates it from science, since it creates an atmosphere over and above mere thinking wherein the spirit may breathe as in the ampler spaces of heaven. So we speak not unwisely of " atmosphere " in pictures, poems, and music; and in so doing, pronounce upon its indubitable merit. For does not character create an atmosphere for itself? and is not art of the nature of character? Indeed, this rarefied, " atmospheric " element of estheticism is of the very nature of beauty itself. It is, again, the principle of impressionism which is the soul of art. And, conversely, bald, bare definiteness is inimical to the truly artistic. But to such as have not yet been baptised into beauty ; to such as have not yet seen the " beatific vision," nor scaled the lofty heights of transfigured realism, all high art is inadequate to meet the demands of their cramped and confined imagination. To such, the purely artistic is only too obscurely indistinct is not sufficiently pronounced. The inartistic fain would see the crude and raw edges of pictorial objects, and have a lurking distaste for atmospheric effects. The musical philistine must have the " catchy " tune, such as is dearly loved by the peripatetic siffleur. Or, again, the poetic pagan cannot understand why a rose should be called by any other name. Indeed, such resent altogether the essentially suggestive side of the artistic, and are impatient of the inspirational in art. 1 90 HERMAIA We can now more readily realise the difficulty of framing a conclusive criticism of music. For we may feel convinced of a truth, yet feel incapable of giving a sufficient reason for such conviction. And music seems to hover so much without the confines of the more debatable consciousness. The difficulty, therefore, we have here to contend with is such as confronts us when, in moments of critical introspection, we essay to explain ourselves to ourselves. It is a task identical with that which meets the ethical philosopher when he seeks to logically circum- vent our most sacred instincts. And just as it is almost im- possible to merely argue a man into a state of spirituality, so too are we confronted with the difficulty of commending, experi- entially, the value and virtue of music. How, for instance, can we, through reason, convince a man of the beauty of a picture ? How can we by argument prove the reality of the sense of God ? Indeed, religion and art are alike in their superiority to logic: they are what they are apart from any process of ratiocination. In either case, man must be first conscious of the thing itself. It is a question of, respectively, spiritual and esthetic experience. Yet we are not without constraining reasons of analogy for our assumptions : and it is to these we look for at least a theoretical ratification of our thesis. Music, then, we hold is not merely euphony, devoid of inner meaning, but has a specially spiritual significance; just as poetry and painting have their peculiar subject-matter, as apart from colour, form, and words. For every picture has its subject and every poem its meaning; so too has music an esthetic message all its own. To be para- doxical, it expresses the ineffable in man. OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 191 CHAPTER XXIV MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS ALL our previous remarks have been but an endeavour to establish music as the one and only art of transcendental con- sciousness. It is, as already argued, the ideal knowledge of our deeper intuitional selfhood. It expresses no necessary objective content; hence its adequate capacity to idealise man's con- sciousness of God. And, as we shall see, only in and through this art of self-consciousness can we possibly rise to that rarer altitude of pure abstract idealism ; since it is here alone that we touch upon ultimate spiritual Substance, in the strictly philo- sophical sense of the term. Indeed, it is only from the conscious- ness of the underlying self that we derive our intuitive conception of a permanent Substratum which underlies and connects the world of accidental phenomena. In the words of Lotze: " The identity of the subject of inward experience is all that we require. So far as, and so long as, the soul knows itself as this identical subject, it is, and is named, simply for that reason, substance." Or again, as Mansel has it : " It is from the intense consciousness of our real existence as persons that the conception of reality takes its rise in our minds : it is through that consciousness alone that we can raise ourselves to the faintest image of the supreme reality of God." And as regards the higher reaches of music, as esthetic ex- perience, our analogical position is more than warranted. For just as in the region of self -consciousness man is capable of an infinite process of self-realisation, so too in music do we enjoy that supreme sense of the illimitable which is never granted us through any other artistic medium. It makes us feel that, although we are individuals, we have, nevertheless, in our inmost nature, a capacity for the Universal. And this because it contains " no foreign element " to render it needlessly particular. So both individuality and music are rooted in universality. Indeed, music is just that form of the artistic which has got rid 192 HERMAIA of all the merely accidental elements of beauty. And this, since it is not so much one among other objects of the beautiful, as the fundamental mode of esthetic activity itself: not so much conditional beauty, as the expression of the conditioning cause of all beauty. Similarly, as Martineau says: " If you believe that God exists and understands your words when you call Him ' infinite ' and ' eternal,' you cannot expect to find Him as one object among many, but as a Spirit in all." And so it is with music. It is, in a word, esthetic experience, rather than the expression of an object. It is not attached to this or that phenomenal aspect of art, but is radically related to any and all. For the thought - essence of music contains within itself the promise of pictures and the potency of poems. Surely, then, it is not illogical to affirm, quite apart from its being an experiential fact of consciousness, this God-capacity for man. For since everything that is, exists in a state of relativity, and nothing that is, exists in a state of isolation, surely we should expect to find in man's higher consciousness a point of contact with Divinity. As Plato puts it: " God holds the soul attached to Him by its root." But it may be asserted that some great souls are not properly conscious of God. And here we must remind the reader that much turns on the term consciousness. For many master- minds, as already hinted, deny the reality of the self, whilst their very denial is dependent on their consciousness of the self that denies; just as a sceptical science denies, while being itself the very outcome of, autonomous mental activity. In short, there is all the difference between being and thinking. To be good is to be, in essence, as God. You may think kindly, without being kind. The intellect may assent to a proposition, while the soul may refuse its allegiance. Indeed, in matters moral and in things spiritual, it is more a question of heart-appropriation than of understanding : of affinity than of apprehension. Hence the primal Fount of Love, the source and cause of every virtue, is more desirous of godlike acts than of a purely theoretical recognition of Divinity itself. But there is still a trace of oriental despotism lingering in the idea of a Being who is more concerned about His own dignity than about the eternal interests of morality : there is still a touch of anthropomorphic weakness about a Deity who attaches more importance to acts of adulatory worship than OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 193 to deeds of sweetest charity. Of course the richer the spiritual consciousness, the deeper the awareness of the Divine, since all true progression is God-ward. Moreover, any mode of conscious- ness may become either vague through neglect, or convincing through cultivation. But we have hitherto drawn too hard and fast a line between the moral and specifically spiritual. For where exactly the so-called secular ends and the religious really begins, it is difficult to tell. As Emerson pithily puts it : Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine. Indeed, music will have none of these arbitrary and artificial distinctions. In music there is no well-defined division between the secular and sacred. It is not so clearly self-differenced as are other forms of beauty. Its content or subject-material does not offer us the same internal differentia as do painting and poetry. A picture, for instance, delivers up its secret at once, and a poem reveals immediately its intellectual point of view; but with music it is otherwise. It represents rather a graduated continuum of beauty, and does not, like other arts, tell us so specifically of its subject-matter under consideration. Take, for example, the peerless prelude to "Lohengrin"; although nominally attached to a secular yet semi-mystical subject, there could be no more beauteous expression of the influx of Divinity than this matchless piece of music. Similarly, many a classical song would in no wise lose in appositeness were purely sacred words substituted for such as are secular. Or again, a slow movement from a Beethoven sonata may have as much divineness in it as any aria from an oratorio. It is something more than a pious wish. It may be a very prayer itself : an un worded aspira- tion. For though it cannot state the needs of the soul like poetry, it is itself the needy state of soul and basal attitude of spirit. This, moreover, is essential religion, since spiritual desire is more an affair of the heart than of the head. Thus many a composer has written better than he knew; just as many a man may be other than he thinks he is. Not in verba utterance then, but in musical being, is religious man to be ideally discovered: not in the attitude of the body, but in the orientation of the soul is true spirituality to be found. And i 9 4 HERMAIA herein we distinguish painting from music. For if we regard let us say Rembrandt's exquisite etching of " David at Prayer " as beautiful, still it is the prayful posture rather than the inward inclination of the heart, whereas inwardness is the characteristic possibility of music. It is music alone that takes of the things of each man's deeper consciousness and reveals them to himself; and this too in proportion to his capacity to receive the inspiration of Divinity. So a materialistic musician is really a contradiction in terms. But to come to closer grips with our analogy. Spencer holds that : " Besides that definite consciousness of which logic formu- lates the laws, there is also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated. Besides complete thoughts and besides thoughts which, though incomplete, admit of completion, there -are thoughts which it is impossible to complete, and yet which are still real, in the sense that they are normal affections of the intellect. Observe in the first place, that every one of the argu- ments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative. To say that we cannot know the Absolute, is, by implication, to affirm that there is an Absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn what the Absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it is ; and the making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been present to the mind, not as nothing but as something." And our first observation is that music is a mode of conscious- ness which, in a specifically esthetic sense, is incapable of com- pletion ; and yet, at the same time, is a normal affection of the intellect. For it cannot be formulated like painting, nor yet completed in thought like poetry. It is the " undifferentiated substance " and " indefinite consciousness " of beauty; but only indefinite, as feeling is indefinite, only undifferentiated, as emo- tion is undifferentiated. It is, moreover, the positive existence of something, since none but the few fail to feel its power. In other words, musical experience does not hem us in ; never cir- cumvallates the soul, but rather favours the innate idea of its own infinitude. It does not limit our knowledge as do other arts which are tied up, more or less, to phenomena, but seeks rather to expand the soul as regards its own noumenal being. It agitates the fringe of consciousness which is itself more than OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 195 thought: it overflows the boundary of normal consciousness, and passes out into that region of mind where time melts into eternity and space into infinitude. Hence it is expressive of that " form " of consciousness which is greater than knowledge; for though in musical awareness we are certainly conscious, we can- not be said to know, as in poetry or painting. In music we exist esthetically for ourselves, as having a divine destiny, and not as things that exist for intelligence. For here we are artistically conscious of the ground of all our consciousness. Thus music comes to be the foundation and feeling-support of all modes of estheticism, since it contains such basal qualities as are alone necessary to essential beauty. Hence it can be faithfully de- scribed as the only possible idealisation of God-consciousness. But Spencer, whilst admitting the existence of the Absolute, holds that it is impossible to " know "it. He writes that " By the laws of thought we are prevented from ridding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute existence, and by the laws of thought we are equally prevented from forming any conception of absolute existence." And again: "That which persists under those sensible appearances which the universe presents to us, tran- scends human knowledge and conception, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognise as without limit in space, and without beginning in time." Or, more tersely : " The reality existing behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown." We must, however, distinguish between knowledge and consciousness; between " thoughts which admit of completion " and " thoughts which it is impossible to complete." Thus we may be conscious of time and space, and yet find it impossible to " think " of either as limited or unlimited. In short; con- sciousness can transcend knowledge, and yet remain conscious of its content. We must also differentiate between a negative term and a positive idea. Thus the term " infinity " is negative, but our notion thereof is emphatically positive. Indeed, the trouble is with language itself. And so long as we think of paint- ing, and even poetry, to the neglect of music, we can never hope to give expression to the Infinite Being. And so it is with our consciousness of the Absolute. For it is not an objective cogni- tion, but a subjective intuition: not a generalisation from par- ticulars, but a consciousness which is already there, and like the 196 HERMAIA sou l self-known. And this is the difference between intellectual and spiritual knowledge. Hence religion is not an intellectual deduction, but the prius of all facultative activity whatsoever. And so long as philosophy denies the possibility of intuitive knowledge, so long will it deny to consciousness the fundamentals of thought itself. And similarly, with music. This art alone constitutes the apriorism of beauty, and is privative as regards knowledge, only that it may be assertive as regards intuition. So while we cannot imagine the Absolute as in a picture, which would limit us to nature or phenomenal appearance ; nor yet think it, as in a poem, which would limit us as to our thought, we can at least experience it, as a supreme Reality, akin to the musical modification of mind. For the Absolute is not known as plurality of seeming, but as Unity in being. And fortunately we do not have to wait for a completed theory before realising its Presence in the soul. And so, if even philo- sophy fail to " prove " the Divine Existent, we can at least be sensible of it as a very real and inward experience. And this because consciousness is not confined to pure intellect. Indeed, if it were otherwise it could not fulfil the function of religion. For to make it depend on conceptual ability would be to tie it up to such intellectual aptitude as would deprive it of univer- sality. So we cannot but approve the statement of Spencer when he writes that " the Universality of Religious ideas, their independent evolution among different primitive races, and their great vitality unite in showing that their source must be deep- seated instead of superficial." Let us not gird at music, then, for its undoubted capacity to make common appeal to all humanity ; since its seeming disregard of mere mentality only serves to prove its unique claim to be the one essentially religious art. Better, therefore, hold steadfastly to the certain contents of the conscious mind than sacrifice them to a theory of the Absolute about which we " know " so little. For cannot a man satisfy his hunger before knowing the chemistry of food? Similarly, a man may be intensely musical apart from any theory of the art he holds. Indeed, it is better to be but dimly conscious of the Highest than to be fully cognisant of the lowest. But, after all, God-consciousness, like the best of music itself, is not a blind mergence,.but a self-conscious union with the Highest* And OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 197 surely the Highest, of which we are, if only dimly, conscious, is the great and abiding Reality. But what exactly are these suppositions laws of thought which prevent our knowledge of the Absolute? Mansel observes (though in a moment of inadvertence) that " The Absolute and the Infinite are names not indicating an object of thought or consciousness at all, but the mere absence of conditions under which consciousness is possible." And suffice it to say that music in this connection, analogically viewed, though void of the im- mediate apprehension of objects, is nevertheless emphatically conscious of itself as a vivid reality. Though it be wholly incompetent to name the Reality, as in poetry, it is competent to identify itself with Reality. Spencer, on the other hand, is not so hopelessly emphatic. He holds to an unquenchable belief in a Power " whose positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness," and which, though " not capable of being brought within limits, nevertheless remains as a consciousness that is positive and is not rendered negative by the negation of limits." And so it is with music. For though it cannot be said to be properly this or that, it is nevertheless the positive expression of that which is the " necessary datum " of the artistic consciousness. Still Spencer holds that " to think is to condition. Condi- tional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought." Hence the Absolute is for him unknowable. And here the psychological fallacy creeps in. For this " raw material of consciousness," which he himself admits, " persists at all times," and " must have the highest validity," is " conditioned anew in every thought." It follows, therefore, from his own propounded " law of thought " that the Absolute is not only conditioned and relative, but is so everywhere and at all times, and consequently pre-eminently thinkable. And, needless to say, music is exactly this " raw material " of the artistic con- sciousness, which is " conditioned anew " in every modification of the musical mind, and so stands for the sole conditioned Cause of all our beauteous thinking. So, at its highest stage of activity, it expresses not only God-consciousness, but even Divinity itself. And this is no empty unrelated and abortive Absolute, which would be but logically non-existent, but One that is richly related to the entire totality of infinite existence. The Absolute, therefore, is not the unrelated but the all-related Being; and 198 HERMAIA related particularly to each individual self. Hence the sacred privacy and solemn inwardness of all genuine religion. This, too, is the most personal of all relationships. We do not, more- over, so much know as feel it to be. And feeling-knowledge has its own peculiar validity. Similarly, music achieves the artistic principle of ubiquitous relativity exactly because of its esthetic detachment which thereby renders it, through the medium of suggestion, capable of illimitable attachment to the manifold modes of the beautiful. Music, therefore, dissociates itself from, that it may associate itself with, every and any form of beauty. It is in itself comprehensive relativity in the realm of art. Re- lated to no particular form of beauty, music is in consequence capable of relation to all. Yet another point of view of the present treatment of our subject. Now we hold that music stands, on its physical and sensuous side, for the ideal of cosmic force or energy. And Spencer holds that " the ' I ' which continuously survives " is " this same Power which in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness"; is, indeed, "a portion of the Unknowable Power." Or again: " We can only infer that it is a specialised and individualised form of that infinite and eternal energy which transcends both our knowledge and our imagination." And of no other art can it be so truthfully asserted, as of music, that it " wells up " in the soul, analogous to Spencer's " Universal Energy." For we can neither know it through poetry, nor yet imagine it in picture, in this the Spencerian sense. It stands, therefore, for the ideal representation of the cardinal Postulate of the moralised intellect. For with the influx of noble music we have an esthetic experience ideally consistent with the impress of an " Over-consciousness " and impact of the " categorical imperative." And in this it is different from any other kind of art. For we feel we are less than high-souled music, and, there- fore, in the presence of an esthetic power, higher and greater than ourselves. And because it makes us feel our failings and limita- tions, it is adequate to excite in us the consciousness of an illimit- able perfection : because it peculiarly fills us with a sense of rich and abounding beauty, it is capable of expressing that All- Sufficiency upon which our souls depend. Indeed, music is the " more than " painting and the " beyond " of poetry, and yet, like religion itself, has the " immediacy " of experience. Like OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 199 no other art, it is both personal and super-personal : both within and without the soul. So we might adopt Eucken's definition of faith as that of music, and regard it as " the recognition of the inner presence of an infinite energy." But to speak more specifically, and in terms of the religious consciousness in its more vital manifestation; music, like " conversion," is the subliminal uprush and spontaneous incur- sion of the very cosmic Life itself. In the language of science, it becomes a change from potential to kinetic, spiritual energy. Or, according to Eucken, " the human made divine, through God's superior power." For none of the arts, save music, ex- hibits the like possibility of breaking in upon our common consciousness, as with sudden irruption. Indeed, by reason of its magical potency we are lifted on to planes of higher being. At its masterful bidding, the material mists rise from off the face of a transfigured nature ; when we own its sway celestial, all human- ity becomes at once most lovable; and this, because, obedient to its inner voice divine, we are mystically, though mightily, changed from within. And this is a change in our emotional attitude, with an accession of joy of which reason cannot rob us an infusion of love which time can in no wise stale. It is what Professor James calls " a shifting of the emotional centre." For, like repentance, conversion is not so much a change of view or opinion, as something much more radical a profound change of heart. Like music, it belongs to the interior activity of spirit. So " salvation " is neither the pictorial presentation, nor yet the poetic possession, of truth ; but rather a being possessed by the musical Spirit of truth. Music, therefore, is analogous to the in-breathing of some all- pervading Presence. It is the " new birth " of beauty: a well- spring of art from on high, springing up into the esthetic of eternal Life. It is " Being in the Spirit." It is an inspiration from within, not an impression from without an insistent, in- ward motive that owes no allegiance to reason. Neither can plastic beauty translate into idealism this operation of the Spirit. For, as Lotze holds, man's religiousness is the result of impres- sions received from a source other than nature ; a truth applicable to the musical ideal alone. If, therefore, music held intimate intercourse with nature, as in the case of painting, rather than with things of the spirit, it could never be an art whose " con- 200 HERMAIA versation is in heaven." So in religion, with neither stress nor striving, we let the Divine Will work its pleasure in and through ourselves; even as in music we give ourselves up wholly to its permissive power and let it stream unimpeded through the soul. In the words of Professor Wm. James, we experience " another kind of happiness and power, based on giving up our own will and letting something higher work for us," and this experience like music "seems to show a world wider than either physics or philistine ethics can imagine." So music, in the realm of art, becomes the esthetic salvation from the baser self, wherein we enjoy the realisation of the harmony of being " right with God." It is the artistic " at-onement " of spiritual experience. It is the personal appropriation of the universal Life-energy: the ideal expression of the soul's subjective relation to Divine Reality. And Eucken might have been thinking of music when writing of the inward inspiration that quickens " in the very depths of our own nature a reawakening, which is not a mere product of our activity, but a salvation straight from God: " " a mighty con- centration of the spiritual life in man " which " unfolds itself through the seizure of this life as one's own nature." But to return. Now since this self-same Power underlying man and nature behaves rationally and puts a premium on good- ness is as a kind of musical " stream of tendency " which "makes for righteousness" it cannot but be morally conscious; be, in a word, God. Further : if we are part of this same uni- versal Power, and are self -known, surely we may be said to know, however mysteriously, the ultimate Reality with which we are so fundamentally identified. Once given the possibility of a knowledge that is noumenal, surely the knowledge of the Absolute or Infinite Ego becomes an eminently credible postulate. For, as Spencer himself attests, self-certainty is the surest and highest form of knowledge, since it is constant and ineradicable. And if we, as tiny eddies in the vast sea of " eternal energy from which all things proceed," know ourselves, what shall we say of the self-consciousness of Deity? For God does not become for the first time conscious in us, as pantheistic philosophy teaches ; it is rather we who become only properly conscious in God. So if it be argued that man makes God in his own image, it is exactly because God is striving to reproduce Himself in us. The greater must not only include, but also precede, the less. Similarly on OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 201 the art-side of our analogy ; for whereas poems and pictures wake to consciousness in us, it is we who rather wake to consciousness in music. If then the finite and Infinite self are of one and the same sub- stance, surely to know the one is to know the other. Or as Chrysostom puts it: "He who truly knows himself, knows God." And this, the more so, when we consider that, by reason of the Divine Immanence, we are more intimately identified with the Universal Spirit than with the objective universe. Indeed, it is truer to say that we are in God than in nature, though both are true. In other words God-knowledge and self-knowledge are of the same genus of consciousness : they both are intuitive and immediate knowledge, and therefore more real and certain than is the mediated knowledge of natural phenomena. For the highest things are apprehended, not comprehended ; and all that is best in man is intuitive. In short, the " Unknowable " is capable of being "known." Not, however, as a cognition; but as an intuition. For, as we have already pointed out, the knowledge of self and the knowledge of that which is not our- selves differs in the nature of awareness; just as musical con- sciousness and the re-cognition of a picture differ in the nature of their thought. We showed, further, that the consciousness of self-being and our consciousness of the great "I AM" are analo- gous : which kind of consciousness, moreover, is like the musical affection of mind, not outside of, but entirely within, the soul. For God is not so much known through reason, as given in our being. So Myers justly remarks that : " Religion, being a matter of feeling rather than of mechanical ratiocination, will obviously resist full explanation on rational grounds." It were better, therefore, to regard our consciousness of God as at once a kind of feeling-knowledge : as musical, rather than plastic or even poetic, in the realm of imagination. Moreover, if God be immanent in man, man must partake somewhat of the divine nature : if man has a capacity for his Maker, he must answer somehow to the deific principle of freedom and responsibility: be, in short, all that constitutes real personality. Hence it follows that our knowledge of God arises out of an intenser knowledge of our- selves. The consciousness we have of ourselves leads logically up to the consciousness we have of God. So to be filled with God is to deepen and extend our consciousness; to be virtually 202 HERMAIA "a larger self," an " expanded identity," accordant with the deeper and more expansive art of music. So the more we know of ourselves, not objectively and intel- lectually, but subjectively and emotively, the more we shall realise the infinite Self. For it seems to be more a question of the coalescence of intensive being than of comprehensive know- ing: more akin to musical mergence than to poetic or pictorial apprehension. That is to say, this divine coalition is not to be achieved through the atomic personalism of poetry, nor yet through the exclusive independence of painting, but only in and through such ontological union as music presents us with. In other words, God-consciousness is more of the nature of our feelings which are capable of an intimate fusion than of pieces of knowledge which seem to derive their meaning in and through the principle of contrast, if not of contradiction. So God is known, as we know our own consciousness not through media- torial manifestation, but in and through ourselves alone. For could we scrutinise him as we can the phenomenal, we should at once negate his Being. And this because intellect tends to limit, whereas emotion has the capacity to expand man's spiritual nature. Thought-relations are partial, whereas feeling-relation is total and all-embracing, whether relative to God, man, or nature. If, for instance, in the presence of nature we literally think, we treat her as fragmentary: if, on the other hand, we simply feel her beauty, we embrace her as a total, synthetic unity. Emotion, moreover, is more intimate than thought. Feelings have a tendency to melt into one another, whilst thoughts tend more to separateness. For what we think about, we objectify put away from ourselves; but that which we feel about, we take into ourselves. Hence to feel, rather than to think, is to be. Surely, then, music alone, in this connection, supplies us with the true and adequate ideal of the primal spiritual instinct man's incurable passion for union with God. For mark the Spencerian method of arriving at the reality of the Absolute. It is but a dispassionate operation of the intellect : a mere sum in mental subtraction. You denude the mind of all ideas save one, which stands out against the background of universal Being, and indeed would not be known at all apart from the latter. But music is no blank canvas of beauty against which such straggling thoughts as stray across it serve to prove OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 203 its existence, but rather a full strain and ample measure that streams into the soul flushing its every secret cranny. Though in it we discern the evaporation of verbal assertion and the evanishment of symbolic statement, music is not a negation, but a positive presentment of a sublime " something." It merely denies the lower that it may affirm the higher. Though it expresses the " Nameless " and " Inscrutable Anonymous," it is nevertheless expressive of a rich and abounding Reality. Hence religion, like music, can never be reared upon the conclusions of the intellect; only on the affectional aspirations of the heart. To know the spiritual is to deeply feel. So we conclude that whilst painting gives us the graceful form and poetry the gracious personality; music, in this connection, idealises the saving and regenerating " grace " of God, which, if properly realised, contains within itself the superlative power of attraction. Let us not be misunderstood, however ; we speak more particularly of art . For though religion cannot but contain an element of moral beauty, beauty is not necessarily religion. Further, Spencer says that: " Unlike the ordinary conscious- ness, the religious consciousness is concerned with that which lies beyond the sphere of sense." And since the consciousness of self is such as cannot be derived from " the sphere of sense," it is in and through self-consciousness that communion with God is made possible, or, as Eucken phrases it: " A genuine self is constituted only by the coming to life of the infinite spiritual world in an independent concentration in the individual ! " But music was seen to be not only entirely destitute of sense- phenomena as regards its esthetic essence, but capable also of immediately expressing the consciousness of self. It was shown to be, so far as art is concerned, pre-eminently metaphysical. And according to Fichte: " From the beginning of the world down to the present day, religion, whatever form it may have assumed, has been essentially metaphysic." Consequently, this art is alone adequate as the organ of religious consciousness in the world of symbolism. In short, whether in reality or ideality, self-consciousness, through the medium of identity, is that " holy ground " whereon man meets with God. So although Spencer denies the implication, he identifies " Being as present to us in consciousness with Being as other- wise conditioned beyond consciousness." And he holds further 204 HERMAIA that " the Power which manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of the Power which manifests itself beyond consciousness." It is the Infinite, in short, appearing as limited in the finite. Though different in " form," it is still the same Power that emerges. And so it is with music. For to speak analogously, music, though persisting ideally as the divinity of Power and Being, raises as many different thoughts, assumes as many varied shapes, as there are auditors attuned to its message. Though shapeless, it suggests form : though nameless, it excites thought. So despite the play upon the words " form " and " substance," the human and divine are here unmistakably identified. And what is more intimate than identity of substance ? This, moreover, it is that matters, rather than difference of form. So Tennyson was never more philosophical than when he wrote that: Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. What then is the logical inference to be drawn from this which is nothing less than God's intimacy with man? Surely the presence of so vast a Power in the soul of man must be something which cannot but make itself felt. It is surely not enough to say that it merely exists in us, without giving us some virtual intimation of itself. Is it not wiser, therefore, to assume, and so accord with human experience, that all that is richest and ripest in man's consciousness is, in a very specific sense, attributable to God's action in and on the soul ? The question now arises, Through what especial mode or mental form of consciousness does the Absolute relate itself to the finite mind of man ? For it is not enough to merely identify the human and Divine in and through the medium of spiritual substance, without there being some qualitative affection of consciousness as resultant. Though it may guarantee the per- petuation of personality, it is surely not enough for man to simply exist as part of the Infinite Being, which he can in no wise help; he must, in some way, be conscious of a relation subsisting between himself and the Divine Power before he can be said to be God-conscious at all. And a bald theoretical relativity a bare formal identity is of no spiritual worth whatsoever. At the very least, man must be " feeling after God, if haply he may find him." And we hold that it is exactly in and through feeling OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 205 or spiritual emotion that we find the peculiar organ of the religious consciousness. For we might reason perfectly about the divine essence; we might have the clearest conception of thj incarnate Presence; but only as we aspire after the Highest, only as we are moved towards the Good, do we prove ourselves of real, eternal value. So we cannot but hold with Fichte that " The Deity is not to be approached by the understanding, but by the moral sense: not to be conceived, but to be felt." Or again, according to Matthew Arnold: " The very power of religion lies in its bringing emotion to bear on our rules of conduct, and thus making us care for them so much, consider them so deeply and reverentially, that we surmount the great practical difficulty of acting in obedience to them, and follow them heartily and easily/' Or yet one other quotation and this from Pro- fessor W. James, to prove the unanimity of opinion on the subject : " I do believe that feeling is the deeper source of religion, and that philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like the translation of a text into another tongue." And to show how congruent music is with the findings of such authorities is but to needlessly repeat ourselves. We can now see why Spencer failed to deliver up a genuine conception of man's consciousness of God. By confining his attentions to the limitations of the knowing intellect and ignoring the capaciousness of feeling-intuition, he vainly substituted the consciousness of the Absolute for man's passion for God; argu- ment for moral aspiration, logic for spiritual longing. And this too is the fallacy of all such intellectualistic schools of philosophy as make " thought " or " idea " the governing, instead of the guiding, principle of personal expression. For as Myers perti- nently puts it: " Mere intellect does not exhaust the potenti- alities of man's spirit." We see, moreover, an analogous fallacy appearing in the naturalistic science that substitutes the " all- sufficiency of natural selection " for " the true inwardness of 'becoming' which," as Otto wisely remarks (like music), "is hidden in the mystery of the transcendental." Hence it is the divine Love-Life alone which is the primal cause of universal manifestation; the mode of appearing being subsequently obedient to the secondary principle of divine Intelligence. As Dr. A. J. Davis, the latter-day seer, has it: "Deeper than thought is the fountain." 206 HERMAIA Now we have consistently held feeling or emotion to be force or energy, in terms of mind. We have, moreover, maintained that music is this self-same force or energy in the universe of art. And since, according to Spencer, it is this very energy of which each one of us is conscious in what we call our self-consciousness, it follows that the universal Power manifests itself in this parti- cular mode of feeling-force or emotive energy. And this is no vague or vapid consciousness, since we know that we feel, and realise that we are moved. Indeed, we might even say that we know what we feel and why we feel; for it is quite other than the emotion of pleasure or the feeling of happiness. It does not, moreover, arise from a cause in the world around, but like music comes immediately from within, rather than like plastic beauty which is mediated from without : comes, moreover, bringing with itself an irreducible authority all its own. So, in the language of F. W. H. Myers: Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound, nor doubt him, nor deny. Hence the religious consciousness registers its own virtue and value : its emotive quality is its own validity. And so with art, and specifically music; for music is either good or bad, high or low, simply on the strength of its capacity to excite various conditions of mind varied states of being in the secret places of our consciousness. How different, then, is the coldly philosophical, and the warmly religious, terminology. The one speaks grandiloquently of " energy," " power," and " being," as if the Soul of nature were entirely destitute of any sympathetic element whatsoever; whilst the other speaks the homely language of human affection. And this, because the spirit of man craves for something far more personal than a cold immersion in so vast a sea of power. As St. Augustine so fervently says : " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is ever restless till it rest in Thee." And just as the tender infant feels secure within its mother's fond embrace, so the immortal soul, without knowing, or even caring how, is quite content to feel that " underneath are the Everlasting Arms." Under what figure, then, does the heart of man come to picture the divine solicitude, if it be not that of the feeling-attitude of highest music? So music warms the "indefinite " into being, OF GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS 207 and fires the " infinite energy " into the everlastingness of Love. It is thus the artistic redemption from the frigidly scientific aspect of things. It is spirit-touched power: soul-inspired sound. If, therefore, we should at any time be tempted to dis- credit the voice of the musical in man, let us recall the following forcible verse of Tennyson : A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd, " I have felt." Now since God-consciousness is not an essentially intellectual concept, it is not in poetry the distinctively rational art that the consciousness of God is to be ideally discerned. For as Plotinus, who has been advisedly called " the only analytical mystic," wisely remarks: "To attempt to grasp the Infinite by reason is futile; it can only be known in immediate presence. The faculty by which the mind divests itself of its personality is Ecstasy. In ecstasy the soul becomes loosed from its material prison, separated from individual consciousness, and becomes absorbed in the Infinite Intelligence from which it emanated." Not in the intellection of poetry, therefore, but in the intuition of music, is the Deity to be expressed in the language of beauty. For only in the latter art can we be set free from the trammels of matter, and fired with the ardour of ecstatic rapture. Music, we have seen, is the expression of the deeper self, and, as Otto writes, " even ' pronounced individuality ' has an element of mysticism in it of the non-rational, which we feel the more distinctly the more decidedly we reject all attempts to make it rational again through crude or subtle mythologies." So religion might, in a sense, be aptly termed superlative self- assertion, and a piece of magnificent egoism. Compare, again, the following passage from Professor W. James: " All personal religious experience has its roots and centre in mystical states of consciousness." And so it is with music. And now we have reached that which constitutes the very genius of religion itself the mystical element without which religion could not possibly exist. We might even go further and say that, apart from the mystical faculty, no man can really be morally great. For only those who have stolen fire from heaven can ever hope to keep the fervent flame of enthusiasm burning 208 HERMAIA with steady constancy and undiminished ardour. Indeed, no man has ever yet profoundly moved the world whose straitened path of exacting duty has not been illumined by the Promethean torch of mysticism. Go deep enough, and all men are mystics. For as Thoreau reminds us: " We are all inlets to the great sea of life." So a brief discussion on this particular aspect of our subject becomes inevitable. It behoves us, therefore, to pay, at this juncture, more especial attention to the artistic agreement that inherently exists between music and mysticism. EXPRESSION OF MYSTICISM 209 CHAPTER XXV MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF MYSTICISM AND to reach to the heart of the matter at once, let us record the following relevant remarks of Professor W. James: " In mystical literature such self-contradictory phrases as ' dazzling obscurity,' ' whispering silence/ ' teeming desert/ are continually met with. They prove that not conceptual speech, but music rather, is the element through which we are best spoken to by mystical truth. Many mystical scriptures are indeed little more than musical compositions/' And, we might add, without their melodious precision and harmonious exactitude. For the ideal of music is not the inward excitation of vague, effervescent emotion, but the more arduous task of endowing the indefinite with definitude. It is no mental mirage, no chimerical consciousness, for it con- tains within itself the promise of a luminous vision. It is not therefore misty, but mystical. Though we neither describe nor depict we are definitely conscious of such supernal states of being as lofty music alone is capable of expressing. Such, too, is the superior condition of the mystic. For " by God Almighty! there is no delusion in the matter! It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind." So spoke Tennyson, as re- corded by Tyndall, with all the supreme confidence that is born of personal experience. But again, and from the same acute author, Professor W. James: "Music gives us ontological messages which non-musical criticism is unable to contradict, though it may laugh at our foolishness in minding them. There is a verge of the mind which these things haunt; and whispers therefrom mingle with the operations of our understanding, even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves to break among the pebbles that lie upon our shores." In short, music alone attacks artistically this " transmarginal region " of consciousness through which break heaven's battalions into the overcrowded territory of worldly-mindedness. And ' such musical states of mystical rapture may serve as material for the inartistic to scoff at, though the cynicism be as fatuous as if a blind man sought to discredit our enthusiasm for colour. Not unwisely, therefore, o 210 HERMAIA did the ancient Hebrews requisition music as the medium for divine inspiration in the schools of their prophets. Further, to the critical, yet not unsympathetic, mind of Pro- fessor Pfleiderer, " mysticism is the immediate feeling of the unity of the self with God ; it is nothing therefore but the funda- mental feeling of religion the religious life at its very heart and centre." And like music, not merely feeling, but transcendental feeling. For here, in such high musical moments, we are in- toxicated with the wine of the Spirit, and open to the higher sources of affectional activity : here, on such supreme occasions, the human heart is warmed at the central, radiant heart of the universe. So a cold and passionless mysticism is obviously a contradiction in terms. Hence we can fully concur with Otto when he writes that "it is only in exaltation, in quiet en- thusiasm, that religious feelings can come to life and become pervasive ": with which compare, " religion and religious inter- pretations are nothing if not ' enthusiasms/ that is to say, ex- pressions of the art of sustaining a permanent exaltation of spirit." And what is all this but music? For the musician, like the religious zealot, is nothing if not enthusiastic. Indeed, " mad on music " has passed into a byword with the anti- musical scoffer. Nevertheless, take heart, O tuneful soul ! since " the ' enthusiasts ' will undoubtedly make a better figure in the ' kingdom of God/ as well as find an easier entrance therein, than the prosaic matter-of-fact people." Obviously, then, poetry, in view of such characteristic in- gredients of the mystical faculty, cannot be claimed as the im- mediate expression of mysticism. For as Professor W. James writes: " The fact is that the mystical feeling of enlargement, union, and emancipation has no specific intellectual content whatever of its own." How musical it all sounds! For as already observed, music alone among the arts is emptied of noetic content, though it speaks albeit with the voice of authority. It expands the bounds of personality ; snaps the bonds of a slavish egoism and binds the soul in the bundle of divine Life. It is the visitation of a beauty from on high. It is the most refined mode of comeliness we know. Sensuous imagery here evaporates as we rise to this the highest form of esthetic consciousness. For we are raised above empirical experience: we are lifted beyond the illusions of phenomenal existence. Hence music adumbrates EXPRESSION OF MYSTICISM 211 a larger sphere of spiritual activity. Its voice is constantly call- ing the earthly traveller towards the " summer-land," whither his wearied footsteps are for ever homing. We hold, therefore, that the mystical state of awareness is the highest attainable height possible to the mind of man; and music, by parity of reasoning, the highest type of beauty pos- sible to art. For is not all development but the enlargement of mind and deepening of experience? Indeed, inspiration itself has been regarded as but " an intensified state of consciousness." Hence it is reasonable to suppose that such as have not attained to the consciousness of the divine Reality have not reached the higher levels possible to conscious being have not, as yet, passed out of moral, into spiritual, awareness. And since each stage of progressive development means the revelation of new realities and the emergence of higher values, we cannot but conclude that man's insensitiveness to God is but the measure of his arrested unfoldment. Such extension of consciousness, moreover, is not necessarily along the lines of intellect and reason; it is rather, like music, commensurate with the amplification of the aff ectional sensibilities of the heart. In short; to lack this sense of God is to be destitute of the " homing instinct " of the soul. The elimination, therefore, of God-consciousness is not progression, but retrogression. Neither does the evolution of the faculty for God disprove the Deity any more than the evolution of the eye disproves the existence of the visible universe. The truth is, evolutionists do not carry their tentative theory to its logical conclusion. Why should the fish say to the feathered songster that, as regards the overarching trees and aerial expanse, it must for ever remain sceptical ? Nor is it valid to plead obscurity with respect to this same sacred capacity, since spiritual infancy cannot but be semiconscious. For was not the pristine play of light and shade that fell upon the protoplasmic dawn of life but prophetic of a waiting world of coloured glories ? And so is it with the message of music, though to some unmusical minds it is but the fluttering of the feelings. Man, like music, is progressive, and in the making. To sum up ; we hold that mysticism is the soul of religion and the spirit of worship ; and " as the kernel of religion does certainly consist in this " to again quote Pfleiderer " it cannot be without direct advantage for the philosophical comprehension of 212 HERMAIA religion in general to sound these depths of the mystical con- sciousness as a guide to the innermost features of the religious life." Similarly, to sound the depths of mystical music is to come into touch with that which is the very quintessence of spiritual beauty itself. Music, then, is the one and only esthetic of " cosmic conscious- ness " which is capable of transcending the privacy of self- awareness, just as poetic personalism was seen to transcend the simpler mode of consciousness, as found in painting. To put it otherwise; in painting we wake to the consciousness of things other than ourselves ; in poetry, to both the thought of self and things other than self; but only in music can we rise from an esthetic self-knowledge to the fuller consciousness of the cosmic Over-Self. Consequently, only in and through the musical medium of abstract awareness of individuality do we reach out towards that which is above and beyond the ordinary consciousness of self. And after all it is only by reason of the moral and spiritual in man, whether in beauty or being, that the mystical can properly exist at all. Just as music, therefore, which is the pre-eminently ethical art, is the latest phase of beauty to appear, so may the mystical mode of mind be regarded as the highest point of con- sciousness within the reach of religious man. So if painting stand for the union of self with nature, and poetry for that of the divisive duality which separates man from nature ; music achieves that higher synthesis where the soul unites with that which is higher than nature. Here knower and known are one. " Who are you? " the angel asks of the mystic in the Persian legend; to which the mystic replies, " I am thyself." Or as the Vedantic philosophy puts it : ' ' Thou thyself art a part of the All. ' ' Hence music appeals to the transcendental ego of man. Such mystical union is not connected by means of thought, but rather contained in feeling. For music overleaps the barriers of the intellect. It discards all words, which are but the counters of consciousness, and disavows all such physical symbols as inter- pose themselves betwixt the soul and its beatific vision of the Highest. It is intuitive inspiration: esthetic enthusiasm. It is reality rather than reason : faith, not its formula. It is spiritual life itself; and " Life " says Emerson " is an ecstasy, and nothing else is really living." So all the true seers of the ages have seen in music the one artistic agency for spiritual exaltation EXPRESSION OF MYSTICISM 213 and the esthetic excitation of a love that is at once the master- motive of a pure and powerful morality. Still all music is not of the mystical order. Indeed, mysticism in music might be said to have been born with the prelude to " Lohengrin." And not unnaturally did it take its rise in the land of modern mysticism and of philosophic idealism. We might add, moreover, that where music abounds, there will mysticism flourish. To sum up : though all true art is a personal persuasion, to speak comparatively, painting is impersonal, poetry personal, whilst music is supra-personal in its artistic mode of mani- festation. Such, then, are the three stages of man's beauty- consciousness. We hold, therefore, that the sensitive soul in certain music may realise the oneness of the finite and infinite; for music is spiritual resonance and the unison with Divinity. Such inspira- tional moments come only as music might come, in a flash, as in the crashing of some mighty chord wherein all conflicts cease and the soul sinks back in spiritual submersion infinitely satisfied. Only in music, then, do we enjoy that sacred intimacy, where " I and my Father are one." In the language of the Sufic mystic : With thy sweet soul this soul of mine Hath mixed as water doth with wine. Who can the wine and water part, Or me and thee when we combine ? Thou art become my greater self; Small bounds no more can me confine. Thou hast my being taken on; And shall not I now take on thine? Or as the master-mystic, Eckhart, describes it: "While God makes himself man in us, he makes us divine in him." And though the above be poetic, such mystical union is essentially a mood of music. For as it is written in the Upanishad: " In the tranquillity of the senses and the quiet of the mind ye may behold the glory of the self." So whether it be the " Brahmic splendour " of the East, the " illumination " of Plotinus, or the " utter clearness " of a Tennyson, it is not in thought but in feeling that we discern the Infinite. For whatever pictural possibilities of vision if any such mystical union may contain, it is not in the appreciable forms of the visual, but in a Life- fusion, such as music can alone concede. Only in music, then, do we spiritually " see " God. For purity of heart is essentially a 214 HERMAIA musical state of mind. Not so much the vision, therefore, as He who gives the vision. In other words, music alone is capable of " transhumanising a man into God." Hence we cannot but regard music as the adequate mouthpiece of mysticism. For we have already assumed it to be the immediate expression of the profounder possibilities of personality. And since painting con- tains within itself much that passes out beyond the borders of the canvas; since poetry is excessive beyond the boundaries of thought, surely music may sound such deeps of self as cannot but escape the plummet of the temporal. But our present analysis would be imperfect and one-sided were we unmindful of the DANGERS OF Music AND MYSTICISM. So a passing reference, in this connection, will not be out of place. Undoubtedly both musical and religious excitation are liable to serious perversion.. And the especial danger lies in man's fatal facility to trace any and all his feelings to the operation of the Divine Spirit. Indeed, such has been the language of many a mystic, that it has lent colour to the psychological theory which holds that religion, as well as art, is founded upon the tender passion of the physical. And to peruse the devotional writings of say a St. Bernard of Clairvaux, is to be conscious of the ease with which a God-enthused soul may lapse into the language of erotic emotionalism. And similarly with music. Were this art incapable of expressing ethical opposites, it could not be the pellucid mirror of the mystical. For of thought, pure and simple, it can only be said that it is either true or false ; whereas feeling, as such, can be faithfully designated as either good or bad. True it is, however, that the grosser physical is suggestive of the higher spiritual, into which it is sublimed; and therefore, there is a sense in which the human affection of love is symbolic of the higher spiritual union of God and the soul. And both, moreover, on their respective planes, contain the promise of a new-created life. But to condemn mysticism, as well as music, on account of its aberrations, is to quarrel with the sun because it can both warm and scorch. There is, as a matter of fact, a very close affinity between the musical and religious dispositions of the soul. Both, for instance, are characterised by a hyperesthetic temperament, by a " touchi- EXPRESSION OF MYSTICISM 215 ness " and sensitiveness to adverse criticism. But we must remember that in criticising the creedal conceptions of a man, we are oftentimes but ruthlessly vivisecting his most cherished con- victions, those by which his higher nature is nurtured and main- tained; just as incur animadversions on the musician's work we are probing to the quick what, in a very real sense, is the outcome of a fervent sincerity. In either case, we wound him in his deeper feelings. Both again are liable to a dreamy unpracticality. But the dubiously-termed man of practice is apt to forget that the world owes all that is of intrinsic worth to the dreamer of poetic dreams and the seer of pictural visions. We hear too much about the intolerance of the religionist, as well as the self-assertiveness of many a musician; but surely the field of science likewise affords us the sorry spectacle of many a doughty champion of a failing cause mailed in all the panoply of a self-centred and impenetrable bigotry. The truth is, however, that only when the musical spirit of gentle love and sweet forbearance have fled the human heart, does religion utterly deny itself. But again, and perhaps of more serious import; both music and religion are prone to the extremes of a nerveless reverie and a riot of feeling wherein is lost the health of a sane self-possession, and the even balance of the soul is too often destroyed. Still the musical and religious ideals are assuredly both sanity of spirit and harmony of being. Nevertheless, the dangers of mysticism are only what we should expect, since here we tread the dizzy heights of mountain-splendours, and any declension is disastrously precipitant ; even as the philo-musical are in touch with exactly such feeling-forces as are liable to saddest perversion. For it is the highest that has the farthest to fall; and the cor- ruption of the best is the worst. Finally, it has been argued that overmuch hearing of music, as well as recurrent states of ecstatic alienation, tends to the weakening of the will. And of certain kinds of music this is only too true. So, though we may feel it good to be there, it is perhaps wise not to dwell too long on the mount of transfiguration. Still all good things, by reason of their very nature, are capable of perversion, and so neurotic music has as much to do with the truth of art as the incoherent babblings of the hysterical devotee has to do with sober-minded religion. Nor should we condemn other arts because of pesti- ferous poems and prurient pictures. 216 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXVI MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF RELIGION WE are beginning to see that true religion is not the immediate progeny of the intellect, but rather the offspring of the heart. Hence whilst the head is theological, the heart is religious. It follows, therefore, that creeds and dogmas are of secondary import. And this since reason tends to restrict the spiritual imagination, whereas our feeling-nature gives wider scope for the play of the mystical faculty. So, in the words of Jacob Boehme, " The kingdom of heaven consisteth of no opinion, but in Power and Love." And what is this, in both its positive and negative aspects, but the artistic kingdom of music ? For music is neither a system of thought, nor yet a method of conduct: but a supreme spiritual power. It is not a theory, but a state of soul: not a belief in, but the experience of, the divinity of Love. It appeals to the universal instinct for religion, and is the esthetic satisfaction of " the ethical cravings of the emotions." So music emphasises no theological standpoint of view, and favours no particular creed. In its highest aspect, it is simply and solely the conscious relation of the soul to God. Other arts, however, in this present religious connection are committed to specific statements of fact, or tied up to some particular presentment of truth. In music alone are we granted the esthetic appeasement, or artistic expression of that soul- thirst or heart-hunger which is the primal promise and pure potency of a genuine life in God. And so it comes about that Handel, when dogmatic in his music, is not so convincing as Bach, when experiential. Still it must not be assumed that music is incapable of betraying personal bias in religion. Only those who are devoid of musical instinct can fail to note the dis- positional tendencies revealed in the compositions of classical writers. Compare, for instance, such musical moderns as Brahms and Gounod. The chaste classicism of the one, breathes the austere Lutheran spirit with all its moral stability and severe sincerity, whilst the music of the other is replete with all the AS EXPRESSION OF RELIGION 217 sensuous imagery of gorgeous Rome. Still music cannot claim its Dante or its Milton, in the sense in which they proclaim pro- nounced creedal convictions ; neither can it give us the formative outlook of sacred paintings, such as betray the sacerdotalism of a Raphael or the homely humanism of a Rembrandt. Yet all true art, in a very real sense, promotes the interests of a non-committal beauty. That is to say, religious art is great and imperishable only in so far as it perpetuates divine realities and promulgates eternal truths. Hence dogmatic poetry is anomalous ; does not at least rely on its dogmatics for its supreme effect; just as Christian painting does not rely on its intellectual formulation for its esthetic excellence. For genuine art should not expound, but express : should not argue, but aspire. Nevertheless, the several arts grade themselves into an ever-increasing formal- ism as they move in turn away from the central spirit of religion. And it is interesting to notice the respective relations of the various arts to man's religious consciousness. Thus whilst music is pre-eminently mystical, other arts become creedal and dog- matic. And our present contention is that music, being funda- mental to all other art, is not so much the expression of, as religious experience itself. And this because experience is the prius of explanation ; and dogma the deposit of experience. As Dr. Otto writes: " The religious recognition of the sway of an eternal Providence cannot possibly be directly derived from, or proved by, any consideration of nature and history. If we had not had it already, no apologetic and no evidence of the existence of God would have given it to us." While painting can frame for us the natural clothing of an historical event, music is the present enjoyment of what we have of religion already. So again there must be the esthetic awakening of musical experience before poetic pronouncement can bring with itself any evidential validity whatsoever. In a word: religion was before reason; just as the message of music takes precedence of the matter of poetry. Thus the germinal relation between music and poetry is that which exists between religion and theology. But according to Professor W. James, " The theories which religion generates, being thus variable, are secondary ; and if you wish to grasp her essence, you must look to the feelings and the conduct as being the more constant elements." And this because reason acts from thought 218 HERMAIA to feeling, whereas religion acts from feeling to thought. Hence theology divides, whilst religion, like music, unites. So poetry is the way of artistically stating the inner experience which music directly expresses. And while prophetic souls may voice their utterances in the pages of the former, it is only in the latter that we come into vital relation with that spiritual power by which they were inspired. That is to say, poetry is the esthetic form, and so accords with theology ; while music is the esthetic essence, and so accords with religion. So creeds are but the expression of experience ; even as poetry verbalises the esthetic enunciation of music. But, let us remember, that description is not the thing itself; explanation is not experience. So poetry and music differ as do reason and faith; belief and intuition. But as Dr. Otto writing of " religious conceptions " reminds us : " They weave themselves together out of the most inward and subtle experiences, out of impressions which are coarsened in the very art of expressing them. Their import and value must be judged entirely by the standards of conscience and feeling, by their own self-sufficiency and validity. The best part of them lies in the intensity and vitality of their experience, and in the spontaneous acceptance and recognition which they receive." Indeed, we lose when we translate the music of the soul into the vernacular of the intellect. And the trouble begins when we endeavour to rationalise our most sacred instincts. What mystic ever adequately described his holiest experience? Like music, ecstatic experience is an unanalysable state of mind. Both are at times accompanied by a kind of unconscious con- sciousness. And this, since unity and similarity are never so obvious as are diversity and multiplicity; just as the oneness of music is less self-evident than the pluralism of painting or the dualism of poetry. Spiritual experience is never so ostensible as are the tenable tenets of the theologian. True, we may " think " God and become theologic, but only as we " feel " God are we truly religious. Reason is not the same as reliance. We do not put our trust in theories, but in God. So in passing from devotional music to sacred poetry we feel that we are really substituting a secondary for the primary activity of soul. When we pass from poetry to painting as the expression of the spiritual in man, we are even still more formal in our religious outlook, still more limited in our spiritual vision of the Highest. AS EXPRESSION OF RELIGION 219 For here we materialise our holiest motives; here we further contract the ambit of our consciousness and only the ministry of music can lead us back to the primal realities of our spiritual life. For in music we give up the earthly shadow for the spiritual substance: the symbol for the state of soul. So we cannot rest content with either pictured Madonnas, however reverently beautiful, or with even poetic psalmody, however passionately worded; we must needs press on and engage the potency of music wherein is effected the esthetic ideal of " being " essentially religious. And this since musical experience is greater than poetic description, and deeper than pictorial depiction. Music is the religion of beauty and the beauty of religion. And yet in a wider sense, all high art is of the mystical per- suasion : it is our deeper feeling about reality. For it is to science and philosophy that we look for explanation and rigid, verbal expression. But religion, be it remembered, is unlike either science or philosophy. Man can be religious without compre- hending, but not philosophic or scientific. So " Mysticism " as Pfleiderer conceives it " overleaps all those channels by which religion is at once interpreted and obscured in the dogma and the worship of the church, in order to find its life directly in religion itself, to experience the revelation of God in the heart of the individual, and to possess salvation now and here, in the sense of most intimate union with God." Similarly, music overleaps the barriers of painting and the bounds of poetry. Hence the relation of art to science is that of religion to theology ; the former being reality as it is, the latter what we say about it. But to assent to a doctrine is not necessarily to espouse it in the bonds of love. After all it is not so much explanation, as ex- pression, that is most needed in matters religious. It is moral experience, spiritual assurance, for which man craves. So music is the pure white light of spiritual truth which, passing through the prism of poetry and painting, breaks up into diverse hues and colourings of thought. Still all art must make its ultimate appeal to that part of our nature for which music specifically stands. As Hoffding rightly says: "It matters not whether an idea be the cause or effect of experience, it must be tested as experience." And music exactly is the esthetic of such experience. Nevertheless, dogmas and creeds are valuable inasmuch as they 220 HERMAIA give concreteness to experience, and so serve a very real purpose. They prevent the dissipation of faith and the evaporation of certitude. They save, moreover, from flabbiness and the dangers of discursiveness. So religious poetry is powerful in pinning the mind down to the great verities of religion, and sacred pictures are potent in promulgating the " historicity " of eternal truth. It still remains true, however, that the relation of religion to theology is that of soul to body, of music to plastic beauty. And to make dogma primal is to stultify spiritual progress. For life is not primarily the result of anything outside of itself; it is an interior impulse to be, and express itself. And if indefinite mysticism tends to dissipate, definite theology tends to stereotype, the energies of the spirit. Hence the mysticism of music is the great antidote to the magic of external formalism, however picturesque it be. Music, therefore, is greater than the creed of poetry or the symbolism of painting. It is more akin to faith, which Eucken defines as " a conviction of an axiomatic char- acter, which refuses to be analysed into reasons, and which, indeed, precedes all reasons." So when we pass from pious poems and holy pictures to the mysticism of music, we do but pass from the doctrinal to the devout. For as Ritschl rightly remarks: "The origin of religion is transferred from outward to inward experience." So music, like religion itself, transfers the centre of artistic gravity from the picturesque rites of cere- monial man to the inner voice of the Divine Spirit. In music we wait on God. Hence the future of music, as the esthetic organ of the religious consciousness, is fraught with immense possibilities. Music, then, enlarges the range, and deepens the scope, of our spiritual consciousness. It is not an appeal to objectivity, but an appeal from the higher authority of our subjective nature. It is akin to all our deeper intuitions. It is the artistic consciousness of cosmic Causality, and so transcends the limitations of thought. It is exactly the Other than nature. For in our interior musical mentality we are, so far as art is concerned, entirely unconscious of ourselves as bodies, our finite minds seem to be temporarily ignored: we are alone with the un worded Infinite, we enjoy a divine communion, and experience an unspeakable oneness, with the Absolute. And " God," says Boehme, the mystic, " is nearer to man than his own body." So music is the beauty of AS EXPRESSION OF RELIGION 221 spiritual assurance. In its highest attainment it becomes a kind of divine awareness. And this theopathetic state of consciousness is no empty sentiment, for it alone, with its satisfying fulness, is capable of meeting the cravings of the soul. And so it is with music ; since here no secret aspiration is unexpressed, no spiritual longing left unuttered. Music is the esthetic satiety of spirit, the ample expression of the ultimate in man as an artistic being. It is, in short, the fulness of beauty, the pleroma of comeliness. And we have only to compare, says Watts, " The All- Pervading," with some instrumental masterpiece to realise the force of the truth enunciated; for only in music do we seem to " live, move, and have our being " as the Pauline phrase has it in the universality of divine Life. It is said of Beethoven that he wrote his gih symphony to prove the existence of God. And who can say but that it is a spiritual success? Place yourself under the magic of his spell. Close your eyes to the alluring sights of time. Empty the mind of all distracting thoughts: empty self of all pictured attitude or poetic bias, and be filled with the spirit of music. You may say you are impoverished, but strange to say you are mightily enriched. Listen to some of his immortal symphonies. Let the world go: for only as we are world-depleted are we mindful of, and face to face with, eternal Being. You may seem to lose consciousness; to be losing hold of all that matters. You are alone, yet not alone: only alone with the great " Companion." And if you are unconscious of such, it is not because you are an intellectualist, but because you are deficient and undeveloped in your feeling-nature. It is a consciousness analogous to that of self, but self-enhanced and strengthened by the potent sway of music. In the tonal art, therefore, a fresh and limpid spring has broken through all earthly encrustations to slake man's thirst for spiritual beauty. It wells up from the subliminal sphere of consciousness. It is the ultimate, esthetic emergence of Divinity. It merges soul with soul, even as the finite merges with the Infinite. It does not define soul, nor yet describe spirit, but as an intuition is at one with spiritual essence. In its moral intensity, it over- reaches all processes of the intellect. As Plato's phrase has it, we are " bereft of reason and filled with divinity." It binds us to the upward cosmic tendenc}^ love flowing towards its own 222 HERMAIA consummation. It is the inauguration of a new artistic order where the soul comes into touch with, is fed and nourished by, a new esthetic environment. So music, after all, has a nature, an ideal of its own ; and in its self-communion is no profitless pursuit, but a potential source of power. It is essential, qualitative beauty. And this is not merely theoretical, but artistic experience, though it finds vindi- cation in the inner recesses of consciousness alone. For music does not exhibit its esthetic truth after the manner of pictorial representation, neither does it state its artistic case in poetic fashion; it simply exists beautifully, and sublimely is. Thus other arts have other secrets to divulge; other values of beauty to sustain, but, says Browning: God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know. We have now said enough about the raw-stuff of music, which in its elemental state stands primarily for feeling-tone or feeling- intuition ; or better still, feeling-adjustment. In the first instance, then, this rudimentary music-matter is the ideal expression of spiritual substance or self -immediacy ; or again the esthetic representative of what German philosophy calls " being-for- self." Having now paved the way for an ampler consideration of our subject let us pass on to discuss the interiority of music in its relation to man's deeper spiritual personality, and consider music as will and moral freedom. AS EXPRESSION OF THE WILL 223 CHAPTER XXVII MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE WILL UP to the present we have been dealing with music in its ideal relation to the ego or consciousness of self. And it will be remem- bered that we started off with the consideration of the latter in its bare, formal aspect. Later on, however, we turned our gaze inward and sought to prove the adequacy of music to express what is interior to the soul of man. But now we must reverse the process, and see in the upbuild of music, as indeed of the entire world of art, the ideal reflection of the rise and growth of pure, personal activity. All art is an inward and subjective concern, so we must look within the soul for the fuller elucidation of the art of music. The senses do not acquaint us with the idea of force at all; it is only in the self as cause that we immediately detect a moving sense of power. Will or causation, therefore,, is only properly known in personal experience, in our private, volitional push or urge against an otherness. Like music, it is fundamental self-expression. Similarly, the idea of matter,, though more remote from the will, is realised by us in and through the resistance of our own bodies. Music, with the composer,, becomes, then, not a vague impersonal force but a truly personal power. Indeed, as such, force is nothing, and can do nothing of itself. All true thinkers have realised this much. So A. R. Wallace writes: "We have traced one force to an origin in- cur own will, while we have no knowledge of any other primary cause of force." Or more succinctly still to quote Faraday's dictum " All force is will-force." Boscovich, another eminent physicist, held also that we were, in our essential selves, but "points of force." And if this be so, can we not logically con- clude that the universal energy is but the immediate expression of what Wells calls the " Good- Will " of the universe? To put it otherwise: force, to achieve anything rational or beautiful, must be subject to the principle of directivity. That is to say, force or energy, in a more real sense than can be said even of matter, must be the expression of mind. For surely an 224 HERMAIA universal energy that generates a world of law-abiding beauty cannot but be the impelling agency of Divinity. So we must conceive of the creative musician as using this beauty-power, even as the painter manipulates materiality for purely esthetic purposes. In short, only in so far as these two outstanding principles of ideality are consciously controlled by their respective devotees can they become anything like artistic at all. Hence it were perhaps more logical to say that music is, primarily, not so much force, as forceful, moving, and all-powerful in its appeal to beauty. Music is not merely life-force but love-force, and at its best expresses the perfectly loving- will. Should, however, we wish to illustrate pure power on the one hand, and moral force on the other, we have only to recall certain passages from Handel, aptly termed " the mighty Saxon," and other musical moments from the mightier Bach, to realise the difference between massive muscularity and spiritual energy. For the one is impersonal and dogmatic, whereas the other is personal and devout : the one expostulates, the other experiences. And it may be the former's capacity to set creedal conceptions to music that has rendered him the idol of the plain-speaking Briton. At the same time, much of our modern music is not really spiritual power, but sensational force. It is too often power without principle; and might, not inappropriately, be termed the gospel of Nietzsche musically interpreted, or the artistic apotheosis of brute-force. And while it may startle us into transient wonderment, it can never permanently satisfy the artistic instincts of the soul. Strength divorced from spirituality can never appeal to the eternal in man. But will-force, again, is an immediate attribute of personality, whether in the cosmos or in the creature. So music, by parity of reasoning, becomes at once the immediate expression of personality. We do not, however, regard music as Schopen- hauer does as simply the expression of " the will-to-live/' but rather as the " will-to-be "; since to anticipate future conclu- sions music voices man's yearning desire to be something of spiritual value and worth. Neither do we regard music simply as the expression of force, but of moral force, which according to Fichte is " the only force that is possible for a free being." Man, therefore, is supremely personality when he wills, and personality has most to do with character. Will is not, however, AS EXPRESSION OF THE WILL 225 a blind and irresistible impulse, not a purposeless form of aimless energy, but, like music, the outgoing of a well-ordered and har- monious potency. Indeed, music is exactly classical inasmuch as it is not merely power, but moral power, self-controlled; not simply energy, but spiritual energy, self -directed. It is, in a word, artistic life itself; that by which esthetic energy is directed and controlled. Cousin, again, holds that the will is really the man himself, so that we once more alight upon our previous assertion that music, more than any other art, expresses man's basic personality. But even on the sensuous side additional light is thrown on the subject. For in a significant passage Swedenborg tells us that " the things which enter by the sense of sight enter into man's understanding and enlighten him ; but those which enter by the sense of hearing enter into the understanding and at the same time into the will; wherefore by hearing is signified perception and obedience." Thus in the act of hearing we have a more moralistic aspect of sense. And in biblical thought, the ear is ever the vestibule of the heart. In music, then, we are esthetically conscious of ourselves as personal force. It is the esthetic appreciation of the living will ; or again, it is the artistic expression of the " unit of vital power and volition." No other art has within itself the same supreme sense of self-movement and of driving power. Let any one view, for instance, Turner's " Rain, Steam, and Speed," wherein, by means of pure impressionism, movement seems almost divorced from matter; then read let us say Byron's vigorous descrip- tion of an Alpine storm; or, again, hear the "storm-music" from Beethoven's pastoral symphony; when assuredly the principle of activity will be seen to growingly assert itself through- out the ascension of these several arts. The least, then, we can say of music is that it is a kind of " non-matter in motion." And this, of course, in terms of beauty. If music is the idealisation of the human will, further ana- logical reasons for so thinking must be forthcoming as we follow this line of reasoning. To begin with, volition must be regarded as the primary activity of the soul. There is nothing thinkable that can possibly stand between the soul and its act of willing. As T. H. Green has it : " There is no such thing as a will which a man is not conscious of as belonging to himself; no such thing p 226 HERMAIA as an act of will which he is not conscious of as issuing from him- self." And so it is with music; for it is nothing if not, in the first instance, an inward self -power issuing forth from a man's innermost being. Since, then, music is primarily the ideal correlative of the ego itself, we shall expect to find it, at its initial stage of energisation, behaving in a manner similar to the phenomenon of volition. Now in willing we experience the consciousness of effort and endeavour, just as energy, its counterpart in the physical world, might be regarded as of the nature of push or pressure. And we have only to strike a single chord of music to realise at once the appositeness of the art in question to meet the demands of our analogy. Music is an appeal purely from within, outward. It presses forward from the centre of our being towards the circum- ference of consciousness. In its loftier flights of idealism it be- comes the divine " urge," the expression of a life-impulse and of vital desire. It energises beneath our general experience, and emits ideas and fancied actions even as the will is active behind all human achievement. And with this matter of internal push, urgency, or endeavour, no other art could conceivably bear comparison. For whilst painting exists outside of conscious experience, and whilst poetry, practically speaking, simply parallels reality, music lives, moves, and has its being in an unseen world of causation and of force. Hence it is the inner, invisible, driving energy of the soul: it is simple, spiritual power. Music, as a mode of beauty, is pure will-force, which, moreover, may in its higher manifestation rise to the potency of love. Thus to hear great music, is to be baptised with power from within. But if we turn now for a moment to the material aspect of music and its counterpart in physical nature, we shall find that our analogy meets with still further corroboration. For we point out that feeling or emotion in the ideal world is analogous to force or energy in that of the real. We suggest also that, speaking generally, thoughts may stand in ideal correspondence with the phenomena of the physical world. And in endeavouring to discover the exact relation that energy bears to the material universe, we come upon a well-nigh indistinguishable line of demarcation where the latter seems all but lost in the former. That is to say, at root, matter is dynamical, and consists probably of atomic " centres of force." In other words, the electron may AS EXPRESSION OF THE WILL 227 be said to be the ultimate residuum of matter ; and the electron, which is charged with enormous energy, is, again, but a " centre of strain in ether." To pass over, therefore, to the artistic side of our analogy; if music be ideal energy, and the other arts be in graduated degrees ideal phenomenalism, the relation of energy to matter should bear some symbolic resemblance to the relation of music to other modes of beauty. And so it would appear. For in this our present superficial view of music, we might regard it, primarily, as an all-pervasive energy, analogous to the ultimate reality of the physical universe. Further, music is at once the most energetic and compulsive form of beauty, and lastly it may be said to exist, in its elementary constitution, as a sort of stress or strain in the esthetic consciousness. Indeed, music appeals to us initially as a kind of thrill or tension in the most rarefied manifestation of the beautiful. In other words, it is a persistent sense-strain, a kind of disembodied electrical energy whence spring all forms of physical comeliness. To put it otherwise; motional music energises beneath all other art, even as the ceaseless activity of energy is at the heart of all material things. Now we have purposely put the matter after this fashion in order that we might press the analogy into the service of man's higher consciousness. For does not this stress or strain in the sphere of ether find its subjective correspondence with personal effort or endeavour? Does not the exercise of the will, again, discover itself in the stress or strain of feeling which he might regard as a kind of electric potency of mind ? And if this be so, then surely it is not illogical to suppose that the so-called " centres of strain in ether " represent a kind of cosmic nisus or manifesta- tion of the Divine Will relative to the outer plane of nature. In any case, consciousness approves the proposition, since in every act of volition there is a sense of strain, just as, analogically speaking, in every musical progression there is stress and tension. So Heraclitus said, in the cosmic sense, that " strife is the father of all things." And though all this be but purely parabolical, yet it affords additional reasons for regarding music as the beauteous expression of will. To sum up : music, at present, is simply force; and force is only known in consciousness as will; music, therefore, becomes the ideal expression of the basal endowment of the ego volition or willing of real experience. 228 HERMAIA It is not merely the esthetic of man as agent, but of his spiritual agency as well. But is not feeling, it may be asked, the passive part of our nature ? and is not music, feeling ? How then can music be the art of spiritual activity ? Now early in our discussion we asserted that music was something more than mere emotion ; that it was actually thinking in terms of emotion. So if thought be regarded as an active principle of mind, musical thought-feeling becomes at once essential, mental activity, or, as we are coming to see, moral activism itself. The amateurish idea, therefore, which thinks of musical enjoyment as but the passive recipience of emotional disturbance is entirely erroneous. In music, the soul is doing something all the time. It is never static and inoperant. Take, for instance, its simple expression of either despair or delight. These it neither immures in marble, nor prisons in the permanent inactivity of painting. On the contrary : in the case of the musical expression of such sentiments, we are continually on the move, we are always doing something with the same, the soul is never, for a single instant, idle or inert. So for the present, we arrive at the following conclusion : that whilst paint- ing reflects the act, and poetry, action, music is the reflection of self-activity. But let us, before passing on, add yet a few more words anent the relation of force to matter, and of music to such of those arts as are more particularly phenomenal in their esthetic persuasion. Now we showed how music was the artistic representative of force, and plastic art, that of matter; or, respectively, the active and passive principles of beauty. Poetry, again, we intimate, is the syncretism of both, wherein ideal force is seen in conjunction with ideal matter, moving and moulding the same within the confines of the productive imagination. Now matter, we noticed, is resolvable ultimately into energy by which it is constructed and controlled. Energy, again, we pointed out, exists as a kind of urge or effort. But this same energy of exertion in itself is merely an abstraction, unless it be the energisation of substance. Thus the question arises, what is the nature of this substance, and can we have any knowledge or consciousness of the same ? Now man is part of nature, and to know man properly is to know what nature is. According to naturalistic philosophy man is the highest product of the natural, so to know the highest or AS EXPRESSION OF THE WILL 229 deepest in man is to know the highest or deepest in nature. The most fundamental reality known to man is the consciousness of his own ego. And this innermost centre of creative energy to gather up the threads of our previous argument is alone capable of giving meaning to such radical terms as " substance," " cause," and "power." Thus Lotze writes: "We meet with the word ' soul ' in the language of all civilised peoples ; and this proves that the imagination of man must have had reasons of weight for its supposition, that there is an existence of some special nature underlying the phenomena of the inner life as their subject and cause." Neither is it an inference drawn from dreams. Man's belief in his own immortal essence has in no wise declined with his power to discriminate between waking and sleeping experiences. Or again, in the words of Zeller: " We are the only cause of whose mode of action we have immediate knowledge through ' inner intuition/ ' And similarly, in the art-sense, music is the only mode of beauty wherein we are directly conscious of causal force-feeling and of esthetic self- substance. But Spencer holds that the self or " substance of consciousness " is identical with the " fundamental reality of all being," which extract teaches us that as in man, so in nature. But man is both force and matter; and force, again, is will- power or the activity of self-substance; surely, then, Will or Self is within and behind the phenomenal universe. And again: our idea of cause, like that of self-unity, is an intuition which we apply to, and not abstract from, nature; just as music is intuitive, and not imitative beauty like painting, which derives its ideas from the sphere of the natural. Further, cause according to Kant, in his criticism of Hume is spiritual; hence man in self -causation is spiritual in being. And since freedom is of the nature of spirit, liberty is implicit in man as will or cause. Indeed, man is by nature free, and, by implica- tion, is capable of indefinitely broadening the boundaries of his liberty. In the language of art, then, painting, with its forms of matter, becomes the artistic effect, whilst in musical modes of being we have the power lodged in the cause ; the esthetic free- force by which the effect comes to be at all. Poetry, again, is both cause and effect in the realm of beauty. And just as spiritual cause contains within itself the physical effect, so too is the matter of painting packed away in the spirit of music, 230 HERMAIA even as the principle of causation is hidden beneath the subject- material of pictures. Or, in other words, spirit is cause and matter effect; which again in art, are, respectively, music and painting, whilst in the conjunctive art of poetry we realise the ideal representation of man propei, in whom the two principles are most intimately associated. Now we have all along regarded the arts of plasticity as repre- senting material beauty, and poetry as that of force and matter in idealistic combination. And finally we have shown how that music is expressive of the beauty-force in the world of art. But force, again, is only properly known in consciousness as will or self-activity, so that, in accordance with our previous findings, we now conclude that this latter art is the ideal manifestation of the two categorical concepts of Cause and Substance. Indeed, in this our definition of musical essence, we are forcibly reminded of Spinoza's definition of Substance: "That which is in itself and conceived through itself." And this is to close with our original datum, which was that music expresses directly the metaphysical consciousness of man. OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 231 CHAPTER -XXVIII MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL THROUGHOUT the previous pages we have been at pains to prove that music is the ideal of selfhood and the symbol of the will. Now, however, we are to discuss more fully music as the expres- sion of moral freedom, the further corollary that arises naturally from such fundamental assumptions. So our present concern will be specifically music, in its self-creative activity, as the expression of the freedom of the will that which constitutes it the one and only purely metaphysical art possible to the inventive faculty of man. But though we are here dealing with the transcendental element of the artistic consciousness, let us remember that it is still the form, and not the content, thereof, which engages our attention. It is music as potential, and not actual, moral beauty. For the immediate expression of that which the soul brings with itself to our general experience, such as conscience, motive, and self-determination, will receive a detailed analysis in chapters yet to come. But is not all art, it may be legitimately asked, moralistic in its ultimate persuasion ? And the question answers itself in the affirmative. Indeed, in the wider generalisation of beauty, all art is moralistic, intuitive, and spiritual: all art, in short, implies an element of apriority; that is, something which we ourselves bring to the appreciation of the beautiful. And having postulated this much, we must once more insist that we are always speaking of discreted kingdoms within this wider domain of spiritual and intuitional comeliness; just as, for pur- poses of analysis, man's mind splits up into thought, feeling, and will (faculties respectively agreeable to science, art, and morality), divisions which in no way contravene the principle of mental monism, but together comprise the triune personality of man. Though we may be said to possess separate capacities of soul, it is difficult to believe that any one or more of these is operant apart from the activity of all. It is more a question of varying degrees of activity. Thus when we reason, the feelings are 232 HERMAIA comparatively quiescent ; and when we give play to the imagina- tion, reason is less in evidence and the emotions more actively engaged; yet in either case, speaking relatively, the entire personality is variously employed. It is more a question of the occasional dominance of one particular faculty along with the comparative abatement of others, whilst all inhere in the funda- mental will. The unity of mind, together with the sum-total of all its powers, is therefore fully assured. But we have spoken of an element of apriority in conscious- ness, whereas it were truer to say that the entire mental constitu- tion is what we bring to external experience to which it is prior, though without the latter it could never consciously exist on this our present plane of being. Thus, for instance, things do not think themselves ; we must bring a prior capacity for thought, although we cannot think apart from things to think about. Neither can we feel, although we must have a prior capacity so to do, apart from something which has an ingredient of phenomenal externality about which we can feel. And so with other capaci- ties of consciousness. But though all mentality is apriorism, still there is an element in consciousness which partakes peculi- arly of this self-same nature. Thus whilst reason, for instance, functions behind all sense-impressions, which it dominates; the will of man is behind all else, powerful to dominate his entire personality. Similarly, whilst all art is of the same distinctive nature, music is the accentuation of all that is radically artistic. But it will be interesting, before entering upon our immediate concern, to notice how the several arts relate themselves to the several powers of the mind. Painting, to start with, represents the initial reaction of the subjective consciousness upon the facts and forms of life and experience. It is thus more akin to the scientific procedure, and might be aptly termed artistic under- standing. Then the secondary art of poetry takes these same immediate impressions into the inner consciousness, and submits them to judgment. And here we have the more philosophical process. Poetry may, therefore, be regarded as artistic reason. Music, finally, neglects, to all intents and purposes, the subject- matter of previous modes of beauty, and consequently strictly accords with the metaphysical method. Hence music becomes esthetic intuition, and is, therefore, more directly concerned with the moral and spiritual in man. As already stated, these OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 233 several modes of beauty are, respectively, empiricism, rationalism, and idealism in the domain of art. In short, poetry is interior to painting, as music is to all other modes of expression. And music and painting might be termed, respectively, "a priori'* and " a posteriori " forms of beauty. It follows, then, that the rise of art is practically the gradual emergence of personal power. That is to say, the evolution of the beautiful is synonymous with the rise and unfoldment of personality. It passes from impersonal understanding to private intuition. In painting, the material world, which engages the objective understanding, preponderates over the purely personal element; whilst with music, the inner dictates of the private consciousness outweigh objective nature, which, comparatively speaking, it practically ignores. Poetry, on the other hand, holds the balance between the personal and impersonal man and nature. As each art, therefore, appears in turn upon the scene, we have an added wealth and worth of beauty; just as reason is higher than understanding, and moral or spiritual intuition superior to both these mental endowments. In other words ; the self is of more account than the not-self, and man of higher significance than nature. To take, for a moment, however, a broader view of our subject. Now the evolution of art is that of both the creature and creation ; for whether it be man or nature, the development of either is but the gradual revelation of the spiritual. Thus the psycho- physical parallelism of the materialistic monist is not the entire truth about the universe. It were truer to say that, low down in the scale of evolution, matter dominates spirit : that midway in the cosmic stream of progress, matter and spirit seem to parallel each other : whilst in the fullness of time, spirit ultimately gains the ascendency over its physical partner. So only as the internal rises superior to the external is morality made possible of achieve- ment. And this, again, is what obtains in the world of art as a whole. For if the above be true, then painting, poetry, and music are, respectively, the physical, psycho-physical, and psychical modes of beauty. Nature, then, mediates spirit, even as man's spirit mediates God. And that, moreover, which is mediated is greater than that which mediates. Thus, though nature is the means by which man reveals himself to himself, the self which knows is greater than the not-self which is known. And 234 HERMAIA this since knowledge is within the knower. We may think nature with nature as in painting; but we do something as over and against nature as in music. But man is even greater than his knowledge of himself, and more than his own conscious- ness. Indeed, we feel ourselves, as yet, but partially manifested personalities. Similarly, in the world of consciousness, the feelings are of more significance than the thoughts through which they percolate; even as the will is deeper than the emotions which stimulate its activity. But, after all, man's consciousness is unitary; and no soul is complete without the activity of all its faculties. And these latter, moreover, are not so many discreted departments, but rather different ways in which the soul manifests itself. Still these same mental activities represent various grades of con- sciousness; even as the various esthetic faculties fall into a graduated scale of beauty. And if we put them alongside one another, we detect at once a graduated process of interiorisation. That is to say, we leave the outer plane of knowledge and pass into the inner region of feeling, even as \ve leave the comparative impersonalism of painting for the pure personalism of music. And in a similar, though wider, sense, we rise out of the objective knowledge of science to the rarer region of art with its more deli- cate feeling-intuition. And what is all this but the rise of man's deeper self, which only fully wakes with the consciousness of moral freedom ? So all soul-growth is but knowing more about our real selves. For there is an infinitude in each one of us which slowly emerges with the development of our consciousness. Nevertheless, man has ever evolved as an individual unit. Thus knowledge and feeling have developed concurrently, reacting on one another. And the higher the thinking, the deeper the feeling: the broader the thoughts, the nobler the emotions. Man, therefore, as an occupant of the spiritual world, as the experient of hypersensible realities, comprises in his consciousness, intellect, as well as non-intelligential elements of mind. Still, on whatever plane the ego energises, the will if true to itself must ever subtend all other mental activities. And the business of music is to emphasise all that is specifically spiritual. It must accentuate that which we more expressly bring with ourselves to life and experience. Now as we pass from objective thinking to subjective being, OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 235 there is an obvious decline in external phenomenality. Thus in understanding there is a maximum of physical reality ; in reason less, and in intuition a minimum of objectivity. In short, as we approach the spirit of man, the self -principle asserts itself to the comparative exclusion of the natural. This could not well be otherwise, since the reins of governance must be in the hands of unity; for if relegated to control by multiplicity it would seriously endanger the integrity of personality. And though, on all occasions, man is conscious of exercising judgment and reason; music, as the supremely spiritual art, practically ignores such mental functions as do not bear directly on man as a moral agent. Thus with the idealisation of conscience, moral judgments are held in abeyance as not constituting the quintes- sential nature of the psychological phenomenon. Neither does it respect intellectual problems regarding the Deity when seeking to mirror in art the God-enthused soul. Nor yet, again, in its reflection of the beauty of moral fervour does it concern itself about argumentation regarding the metaphysical problem of right and wrong. But of this later. Suffice it to say, music works through assumptive affinity, not by a process of proof: it does not reason, but points to the moral nature of things, leaving the beauty thereof to be its own unaided recommendation. This, then, is what we mean when we say that music esthetically represents that which the soul brings with itself that which is peculiarly immanent in every individual as a moral being. To be more explicit, however, what is all the foregoing but the RISE OF PERSONALISM in general and the rise of art in particular? For have we not passed out of the unconscious in painting into the self-conscious in music ? Just as we rise, in reality, out of the unconsciousness of nature into the consciousness that spirit has of itself. Indeed, this same process of mental internalisation is apparent in the growth of the individual. For among primitive peoples, the individual was lost in the tribe ; the family was regarded as the unit, and condign punishment was indiscriminately meted out to the many for the offences of the one. And only as the newer sense of individuality evolved was personal religion and private morality fully established. It was, moreover, through such 236 HERMAIA pronounced, prophetic personalities as Amos and Jeremiah, among the ancient Hebrews, that the ethical value of the indivi- dual was insisted upon. Hence the development of consciousness was but the increased recognition of the worth of personality. We hold, moreover, that this same sense of self-hood was quickened by the emotions of pain and pleasure, and emphasised by the feeling-strain of volitional activity. And how all this bears on the evolutionary tendency of art becomes at once ap- parent. For to particularise : just as painting gives place to music, so too is the externally patent displaced by the internally potent. So in music we see the full and rich releasement of a wealth of spiritual internalism. It is artistic personalism coming at last into its very own. This, moreover, accords well with the modern spirit of philosophy. All too long has objective science held sovereign sway, and the supremer side of subjective reality is wreaking fearful vengeance on the previous neglect of a higher mentalism. We can now understand how that the art-anarchic Nietzsche turned round and rent with a fearsome rhetoric his erstwhile comrade Wagner. For since the former regarded with utter detestation this introversion of the modern soul that which he calls the " internalisation " of man it is surely not surprising to find him vehemently inveighing against the latter who must be regarded as the most severely introspective of all modern music- makers. Indeed, Nietzsche came latterly to estimate music as but a nerve-poison, and the music of Wagner as but a certain means of deranging the minds of those who heard it. Neither is this to be wondered at; since he speaks of " a bad conscience " as " this secret self- violation, this artist cruelty, this form of burning into oneself a will, a criticism, an opposition, a contempt, a ' No/ this dismal work of a voluntarily divided soul, which, because it delights to make suffer, makes itself suffer." And so he would reverse the programme of moral progress and stifle "all unnatural bents, all aspirations for another life, all that is hostile to the senses, to the instincts, to nature, to animality; in a word, all the old ideals which are, each and every one, hostile to life and slandering the world." And since music is moral beauty and the inward condition of soul, rather than the ideal of physical force and non-moral energi- sation, how could we expect the pungent protagonist of a glorified OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 237 brutality to look kindly on the art of persuasive power and searching inwardness ? But we must not forget that we are here pledged to the considera- tion of music as the artistic expression of the freedom of the will. And in the prosecution of this aspect of our subject we shall follow our previous plan, taking the several cardinal points of view and seeing how each in turn accords with the constitution of musical beauty. Now we have already been at pains to show how the ego or self-conscious self is not an inactive epiphenomenon, no mere appendage of consciousness, not simply an excrescence that grows out of our sensational or relational mentality having for its sole nourishment the nitrations of sense. It must be noticed, however, that, though holding to the above truth, the causal sequence of phenomena, if not exactly militating against the existence of the ego, might still negative its autono- mous activity. On the other hand, such causal sequence may only mean as indeed it only really does that the conditions under which character and conduct exist must, of necessity, be cosmic and not chaotic ; that though we cannot but act according to, we are not necessarily bound by law; that the will or ego cannot really function save in and through a rational universe. To take an illustration from the art of music. The composer, for instance, must think in orderly sequence. Given a chord, it must be followed by another having some vital harmonic con- nection, however slender, therewith. But this does not mean that he is tied up to one, and only one, harmonic progression. It means rather that, though he must think within the limits of harmonial rationality, he is still at liberty to initiate, practically, an infinite number of musical movements. And, be it said, the very development of music itself is but a gradual loosening of the chordal bonds which bound the early harmonists, analogous to the widening of the area of inward personal liberty. True, the relation of will to consciousness is a mystery, but so is that of the eye to objects of sight ; yet we do not doubt the faculty of vision. We hold, therefore, that we are something more than conscious catenation; something other than fatalistic effects of the past and automatic causes of an inevitable future. On the contrary, we are neither shackled slaves to states of consciousness, nor yet inanimate reflections of external reality. We marshal the deliveries of sense, and so understand; govern our intellectual 238 HERMAIA ideas, and so reason ; control our desires and direct our actions, and so are capable of both self-determination and self -adjustment. That is to say, we have personal value and stand for something of eternal worth. If, moreover, a metaphysical ego, why not a metaphysical activity? Furthermore, were there no supernatural element in consciousness we should have no logical grounds for assuming the possibility of pure spiritual activity. Indeed, morality is nothing if not metaphysical, mental phenomena being merely the occasion for its manifestation. But we have already shown that we are not simply successive modes of consciousness; not simply spectators of our own mental states, but are discreted selves behind both thought and feeling. And it is just because we are other than these, that we can modify our emotions and mould our ideas in accordance with the demands of conscience and morality. So it is tautological to speak of the freedom of the will. In the very nature of the case, will, if such there be, must be free. For it is not so much that we have, as that we are, wills. And since, according to the foregoing, it is we who are free, it follows that we, as wills, are likewise free. As T. H. Green writes : " Since in all willing a man is his own subject, the will is always free." In short, it is we who will, we who are free. So man is morally responsible. There is, moreover, an inner court of appeal which transcends his normal consciousness. There is the trenchant testimony of his interior nature and the delivery of his inmost being. He belongs, therefore, to a higher than natural order of reality. And music is primarily an appeal to the centrality of consciousness. For here we have a vital, pulsating personality energising in complete independence in the realm of art. The human ego is thus not only a transcendental entity, but is likewise capable of activity on a transcendental plane. In other words, it does something. And it is my activity with which I am primarily concerned: not, however, activity of body or even of thought, as in poetry, but activity of self, as in music. So music is essentially spiritual action, and therefore the freest of all beauty-movement. It is the activity of self-substance, of a vital self-reality, at once warmly conscious of its own free agency and being. Hence, with its subtle change of thought, it can deviate more suddenly than poetry: with its capacity for " modulation " it can deflect its own movement OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 239 with a flexibility supreme in art. It has a power over the inner life of self that is unique. It is pure creative activity. There are discreted planes of the artistic consciousness. In painting, for instance, we are conscious, and in poetry, conscious of ourselves as conscious; whilst in music we are conscious of having a power over ourselves. In other words : first conscious- ness is limited by the influx of phenomena, then We are aware of this limitation, which limitation we finally transcend. And though the power we have over our own consciousness is only known in consciousness, it points unmistakably to a self-endow- ment which is more than that which we know of as consciousness. That is to say, the self that criticises and controls must be greater than the mind that is controlled and criticised. Hence the man who calls himself a " free thinker " is guilty of a serious misnomer, since on his own confession his thoughts are compelled to follow one another in slavish succession like a horde of serfs led captive by the senseless potentate of physical law. Now all art, being such, exemplifies this self-same power. But whereas painting exemplifies power over matter, and poetry power over mind, in the interests of moral idealism; music exemplifies power over our moral nature in the interests of itself, and so expresses the over-consciousness in man. In other words, music impresses poetry, and poetry imposes itself on painting; just as the moral governs the mental, which again dominates the material. And these same esthetic categories might be said to accord, respectively, with the metaphysical, philosophical, and scientific activities of mind. So man, as will, is not merely transcendental, but is also conscious of his transcendental nature. He is consciously capable of using his own mental material as an executant plays upon his instrument. And the instrumentalist is greater than his instrument, just as the thinker is greater than his thought, and the agent greater than the act. Consciousness, therefore, is something more than a Locke's " tabula rasa." It is not, as Bacon taught, but " a passive mirror " held up to objective nature. It is no inanimate canvas whereon externality executes the picture. True the pigment is supplied from without, yet it is the man himself who has the power to discriminate and select. Man is not a photographic plate; he is an artist. Neither is he a blank sheet upon which the poem is auto- 240 HERMAIA matically precipitated: we must postulate the prior powers of the poet. Or to put it otherwise: all existence undergoes a process of self-differentiation. First unconsciousness; then consciousness, which is only possible where mind is differentiated from its environment; and finally the higher consciousness, where the ego is self -differenced from the material of which it is conscious. And here alone have we the establishment of true individuality. Hence genius is characterised by a strong sense of self-centrality which stands over and against inner and outer reality. So we pass from a vague nebulous consciousness, to organised mental life, even as nature has passed from stellar dust to the ordered system of the stars. And as the central sun controls the orbits of the heavenly bodies, so man himself his thoughts. Or as Novalis puts it: " Man is a Sun; his senses are the Planets." And, perchance, we too are thrown off, detached and relatively self-realised, from the fervent Heart of Divinity. Now the more differentiated the central self is from its own mentality, the higher is the grade of consciousness; and that man is only properly mental who stands apart from his own conscious- ness, regarding himself as without himself, and so becoming his own material for thought. Indeed, you cannot really identify yourself with what is not yourself, save through a previous sense of otherness. The unity that is not mediated through conscious difference is the at-onement of the brute with its physical environ- ment. Subject to a life of blind instinct, it is scarcely sensible of itself as distinct from nature. Its union with the natural is semi- conscious, not self-conscious. In other words, an animal may be conscious of matter, but only man proper is conscious of both matter and himself. But the former may be said of even undeveloped man, as well as of children, for he seldom lifts his eyes above the momentary circumstance. And to be properly intellectual we must know ourselves as other than our thoughts and things: to be properly moral we must rise superior to the surgent torrents of elemental emotion. To deny the temporal is to affirm the eternal. But the art-world, likewise, undergoes a process of differentia- tion, analogous to the world of reality. First of all we have the plastic arts which are barely differentiated from their own objectivity, and differentiated only in so far as they are arts OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 241 at all. These, therefore, cannot be properly mental. That is to say, you cannot express consciousness, as such, in either sculpture or painting. Then comes poetry which, more differ- entiated from the apparent and visibly existent than are either of the former arts, represents beauty becoming conscious of itself. And finally we find that with music we stand entirely over and against the natural, whether mental or material. For music does not draw on nature for its pabulum, but feeds on the things of the spirit. Its complete exemption from the natural permits of its identification with the supernatural. In short: painting is nature; poetry, part nature and part super-nature; whilst music is entirely super-nature. Indeed, the latter enjoys a kind of consciousness within consciousness. Hence the searching inwardness of music. And morality or self-determination is only possible where self or will is completely divorced from sensible experience. Thus our moral and spiritual nature are identical with music, inasmuch as both imply supranormal agency. So of all the arts music is most at home in the realm of moral freedom and spiritual causation. It is not the circumstance, but the centre-stance, of beauty. In volition, therefore, man proves his capacity for conscious detachment from, and superiority over, the so-called natural. In other words: man, as will, represents the most complete differentiation from his own mental furniture. And the differ- entiation of his ego from his thoughts leaves him with the self-conscious aspect of his individual being; whilst this same self-differentiation from his emotions represents more specifically the nature of his will his deeper, moral mode of being. That is to say, to will our thoughts aright is reason, and to will our feelings aright is morality. And will, in either case, is the pivotal centre of difference. But mere differentiation is not an end in itself. There is a supreme reason for being free. The will is no cosmic accident. It has arrived for the prosecution of a beauty-goodness. It is not enough for the pianist to be other than the piano, he exists apart for the express purpose of bringing out the music of moral beauty. And we shall ultimately find that only that part of mind which is essential to pure morality, and makes it what exactly it is, adheres to music as its own substantial content. Now seeing that all art is spiritual and moral in essence, all art Q 242 HERMAIA will exhibit this power of selective control. But since there is a graduated scale of beauty in the world of art, the rise of beauty will represent the growth of moral liberty and of spiritual dominance. Thus in painting we have the comparatively easy task of the composite arrangement of objects; in poetry, the more difficult task of manipulating ideas; whilst in music we arrive at the supreme achievement of dominating the emotions. And they represent, respectively, power over body, power over mind, and power over spirit. But because it is the man himself who is spirit, music represents nothing less than self-domination, or power over self. Since, moreover, it is the self that is free, the rise of art will reveal the gradual process of self-exposure. So, finally, in music, it will be the true man himself who will be seen to step out into a full, free, and personal expression. Similarly, in the realm of pure knowledge. The problems of philosophy are more subtle than those of science, since mind is more subtle than matter. The evolution of art, then, is that of a quasi-ethical domination. And in the graduated scale of the arts, we have, roughly speaking, manipulated forms, facts, and feelings. And this represents the growth of moral supremacy. In the control of the feelings, therefore, we have the highest psychical attainment and the express prerogative of music. Music, in a word, is pure self-governance, and its mastery over the interior region of personality constitutes its artistic triumph, since the deeper we delve into the soul, the greater are the obstacles by which the will is beset. And this because the feel- ings are so purely private, so preciously personal to the man himself. The reason, therefore, why the man of art brings about the mighty products of his genius with such masterful ease, is just because his mental department is a will-less imagina- tion ; whilst in the region of the actual the very will itself is constantly called upon to personally adjust itself to its immediate environment. Music, like spirit, is self-determination from within. It wills its own being. For to repeat ourselves the musician has not only created his own life of beauty, but also those very instru- ments through which alone is music made manifest. Hence music and morality are alike creational in essence. And the very method of music suffices to prove all this. For whereas in painting and to a certain extent in poetry, given a subject OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 243 there is a kind of pre-ordained consistency and coherence wherein we detect a lurking element of fatal pre-destination, given a theme in music the composer is left to wander fancy free in the unfettered liberty of the spirit. And this, since things, like painting, are determined from without, whereas souls, like music, are determined from within. Spirit, moreover, is an end in itself. When most itself it is most irrespective of its conditions. It has its own detached value; unlike things which are compelled from without and only valuable in relation to other things. Similarly, music lives apart and inhabits a sphere of its own. Not, however, as a mere metaphysical abstraction, but as an esthetic emanation of an emotive-ethical entity. It is that independence of character which we bring to bear on our environ- ment. It partakes of the nature of a genuine moral freedom which, like musical harmony itself, consists in the balance of our inward powers. So we feel it to be an end in itself, requiring no further explanation. It is goodness for its own sake, apart from ulterior considerations. So when we hear music, it seems to say in the language of Kant " Be a person, and treat all other men as persons." To sum up : music, like will, is of all the arts the most differ- entiated from the not-self. The highest man is most self- differentiated. He stands as a rock amidst the surging waves of circumstance, or as a central sun controlling the vast con- stellation of events. Man, moreover, is divine, in virtue of his will. He is god-like because he can morally impress existence. God and man meet in their common exemption from causal catenation. Hence good music, beyond all other forms of art, expresses the life of moral liberty. Freedom, again, like music, is an inner property of mind; and music, like freedom, is the establishment of a central autonomous kingdom in the world of beauty. Indeed, the following quotation from Eucken might be regarded as a faithful description of music itself. He writes that " the spiritual life must have spontaneity, independence, and pure inwardness if it is to exist at all; it must be lived for its own sake and cannot be imparted or transferred from without." Freedom is only valuable in so far as it supplies the indis- pensable condition of spiritual life. And music, as detached and emancipated estheticism, is of no artistic avail save for the opportunity it affords for the expression of spiritual loveliness. 244 HERMAIA It obeys, therefore, the law of its own harmonious being, and expresses goodness and self-sacrificing love such moral qualities as are alone possible to beings who, like itself, are both self- conscious and free. For man is free as the flowing melody is free ; yet only so as he lives in harmony with others. He is free that he may really live, and free in proportion to the amount of life he possesses. Life is the supreme test that which interprets, but cannot be interpreted by things less than itself. So to have spiritual life is to have perfect freedom. Hence Eucken once more calls Christianity " the religion of religions, because it is the religion of the freedom of the human spirit." And for a similar reason we might designate music as the most spiritual of the arts. AvS EXPRESSION OF MORALISM 245 CHAPTER XXIX MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF MORALISM BUT another implication of moral freedom involves the question of the possible or impossible passage of the non-moral to the moral. And it is here our duty to show how music complies with the analogical demands of this consideration. Now in a pointed passage Professor W. James sums up the matter in succinct fashion. He says: " Calling a thing bad means, if it means anything at all, that it ought not to be; that something else ought to be in its stead. Determinism in denying that anything else can be in its stead virtually defines the universe as a place in which what ought to be is impossible." But no man endowed with even a modicum of moral sanity would assert that all is as it should be. But that which is, and that which ought to be, stand in an irreconcilable opposition the one to the other. It is not merely a question of contrast, but one of flat contradiction. And there is no logical way of bridging the gulf. Even Huxley realised that nature was at variance with our moral ideals. There is, therefore, a distinct break in the sequence of the natural. That is to say, we cannot pass over naturally from the non-moral, to the moral, order of existence. Indeed, moral activity is a direct violation of the purely natural process of events. As has been rightly said : " Every act of will is thereby a new creation." Or as Professor Poynting puts it : " Freedom of choice is unlike anything else in nature." That is to say, moral freedom, whatever its degree, either is or is not. Unless, there- fore, we can initiate, the very idea of goodness is chimerical. In other words, if nature works in us to the exclusion of self- activity, we are but automatic agents. But in morals, nature does not act so much through us as we through nature. Though we are in, we are not entirely of, the natural. And what is this but a radical reversal, or insuperable breach in the natural con- tinuity of evolution? Man is not morally what must be, but the personal creator of what ought to be. He is a denizen of two kingdoms the supernatural and the natural. He is free 246 HERMAIA within himself, but limited without. And the clash between the possible ideal and the present real constitutes the moral conflict. If, therefore, man were not in part other than nature, he could subordinate neither himself nor nature to ends specifically moral. So ethical man, like music, sets himself over and against the natural, and virtually assumes the impossibility of the non-moral nature of things giving rise to the moral. For in a non-moral universe all is as it should be, but with man comes the idea of what ought to be otherwise. It is the fundamental opposition implied in the moral imperative. It is the supernatural asserting its superiority over the natural. So we can say with Martineau that " there must, then, have been a time when, in the midst of the primitive sensory and instinctive phenomena, this con- sciousness of right emerged and took its place in the life as something new." And, we might add, it is no more incredible than the emergence of self-consciousness out of a prior period of unconsciousness, which, at least, is the supervention of that which was at one time certainly not explicit in the universe. Indeed, all evolution is but the increscent revelation of new realities; and to limit it to mere animalistic receptivity and responsiveness is to stultify the process. Evolutional ethics, moreover, may speak of " organic morality," but only as morality is conscious of its own free, volitional activity can it be said to be moral at all. And man alone answers to such a definition, since he controls himself from within in response to the demands of his higher nature. Science, moreover, is faced, all along the line, with the recurring difficulties of beginnings. As Hamilton points out in discussing " libertarianism," it is as difficult to conceive of a non-commencement in eternity as an absolute beginning in time. The fact is, whereas science sees nothing but the outer continuity, philosophy grapples with the inner constitution, of reality. And both are right in their relative degrees of truth : the one, external and mechanical in time ; the other, internal and spiritual in being. So man's moral nature is an inauguration of a totally new mode of self-consciousness ; and the when and how thereof will probably remain an insoluble mystery. As Sir Oliver Lodge remarks : ' ' The history and origin of the spiritual part of man is unknown, and can only be spoken of in terms of mysticism and poetry." Evolution, therefore, can neither prove nor disprove the spiritual nature of morality; it AS EXPRESSION OF MORALISM 247 may describe its development, but it cannot explain its origin. Suffice it to say morality is here for what it is. But to turn once more to the artistic side of our analogy. Since morality is the assertion of that which ought to be, as against that which is, and since all true art contains some touch of moral beauty, it follows that art, in proportion to its stage of spirituality, will assert this self-same principle of otherness. We shall find that plastic beauty is nearest to, and music farthest removed from what already is. And similarly, though on a wider scale, art being more moralistic than science, the former relates to that which ought to be, whereas the latter confines its attention to what already and exactly is. Hence man, as purely creative, is forbidden entrance into the field of science. Let us take painting first: though here a certain amount of repetition is unavoidable. In landscape-painting, for instance, we have the artistic reflection of what already exists, the amount of otherness consisting in the comparatively slender play of personal predilection. And this because it contains a maximum of matter, and matter, as such, is exactly that which does not morally count. So the products of the plastic imagination do not contain within themselves that spiritual imperative dis- coverable in music, since it is only moral qualities that have an infinite value. These products, therefore, are nearer science and utility. With portraiture again, in its ideal aspect, we find the revelation of what might or ought to be, were the physical more obedient to the formative principle of the spiritual. If, however, painting is capable of expressing in substance what we physically ought to be, poetry is capable of expressing substantially that which we mentally ought to be. And here we have an extension of this principle of otherness, since mind is freer than matter. In any case, all true art presents us with that which really ought to be. In music, however, we reach complete esthetic otherness; and so this art alone expresses what we ourselves ought spiritually to be the self in music being, unlike the self in poetry, an entirely discrete entity. Indeed, without this completest sense of otherness, morality, self-conscious and absolute, could not exist at all. All art, then, being ideal, contains an element of personal liberty; but the point here is that the rise of art is commen- surate with the extension of the private " zone of freedom." And 248 HERMAIA music alone brings with itself the something of beauty which has come into being as entirely apart from the existing order of things. Music is the one and only art that expresses an absolute moral otherness. It is not simply reaction against impinging circum- stance, but an absolutely new mode of consciousness. It speaks of an extra-cosmic ideal. It voices the supernatural order of existence. It tells eloquently of the moral beauty of what ought to be, as against that which mostly is. Thus, relatively speaking, painting, which is inexorably bound up with objective reality, exhibits what already exists ; whereas music, which is quite other than that which naturally is, expresses the moral ideal to which man owes unswerving allegiance. That is to say, in painting the artist is not wholly responsible for his esthetic productions, whilst in music he becomes entirely accountable for what of beauty he creates. So, on the one hand, we have massed pictorial bulk and ample poetic wealth, over and against which stands the slender stuff of music-matter, yet vocal with moral authority. And surely there must be an inner ingredient other than naturalistic in what we call our moral consciousness, since its magisterial tones, however weak, can silence a noisy world of hide-bound custom and the shrill cries of feverish desire. So music, though tenuous in structure, sounds the deeper note of moral law. In short, it entirely discredits the naturalistic thesis that " whatever is, is right," since it is for ever voicing the higher claims of harmony and love, and is the ideal expression of the inner kingdom of eternal righteousness. If poetry is the art of reason, and music that of the interior sense of right, in passing from one to the other that which merely might be gives place to that which ought inherently to be. But to say that what already is should be otherwise than what it is, would have absolutely no meaning were we not em- powered to direct or alter the existing trend of events. And what is this but to admit that man has the power to correct and control is, in other words, free. Hence man accounts himself relatively responsible. For if it were otherwise, the " categorical imperative " would never have emerged the " ought " of con- science would never have become authoritative ; whilst the sense of sin and shame would not have evolved from a non-moral universe of pure phenomenalism. Neither would the terms AS EXPRESSION OF MORALISM 249 higher and lower have any meaning apart from man's moral freedom. Even music itself could make no adequate appeal were man conscious mechanism, since it is rooted in such moral feeling-difference. Indeed, the higher our humanity the stronger are our moral sentiments ; the deeper our spiritual emotions, the more do we regard ourselves as personal centres of volitional agency. But that which controls must obviously be greater than that which is controlled; and as we have power over not only our bodies, but also over our minds, there must be that in each one of us which is greater than the phenomenon of either body or mind. The moral, therefore, cannot be the direct outcome of the purely mental, since it holds it in subjection; just as the mental cannot be the product of the material it directs and controls. In the nature of either, the governing principle must be resident in something other than that which is governed. Nor again can we cross over from mere emotional sensitivity to conscience itself, since the latter exercises authority over the former. And though we psychologise persistently for and against volitional freedom, we shall never cease to blame ourselves for moral defection, or fail to rejoice over self -conquest, as something peculiarly our own. So whatever the intellect may say to the contrary, the registrations of our deeper being are stronger than the frequent findings of the reason. Theory apart, the holy tears of repentance will for ever flow over something more than mere imprudence, and the sacred sigh of remorse be born of nothing less than guilt. And if pain tells of bodily sickness, why should not contrition speak to us of the soul's ill-health? Why should we credit physical, and discredit spiritual symptoms ? Why should evolutionists deny the validity of the highest pro- ducts of evolution? But strange it is that the same school of sensational ethics which makes emotional states the ultimate test of right, should degrade the emotions to the level of delusion. Has not conduct, moreover, ofttimes discredited creed, and behaviour belied belief? It is not unusual for man's being to be at variance with his thinking. Surely then it is logical to trust our inner intuition of comparative freedom, whereon all that is noble and properly progressive ultimately rests. In any case it is our spiritual constitution which must ultimately prevail. 250 HERMAIA The truth is, reality is stronger than theory; and subjective being is ofttimes other than objective reason. So whilst one man may hold to the naturalistic, and another to the spiritual view of conscience, both may be sensible of the superiority of its claims. Similarly, though the intellect may deny the freedom of the will, yet we are compelled to act towards one another as though we were comparatively free. No honest determinist but has not felt himself morally culpable if he has done wrong. In other words, the intellectual acceptance of a ready-made theory of volition is not indispensable to moral activity. Though we cannot frame for ourselves a mental conception of an autonomous act of will, it is none the less a spiritual reality. And so it is with music. For, philosophically speaking, it is the one non-presentational form of beauty, yet of all the arts the most convincing since it is an immediate appeal to moral realism. It is simply and solely the noumenal energisation of the spirit, and expresses the will as operant outside of both time and space. And in this it differs from both painting and poetry which are, respectively, explicitly and implicitly wrapped up in the natural. For music appertains more to the agent than to the act, more to the percipient than to the perception of pheno- mena. And, after all, it is we who matter we who are the mystery and the riddle of the universe. Nevertheless, we feel that many musical minds do not get out of music all that is possible to music. Perhaps it is that they do not fully attend to the deeper significance of the art. So first we are as in music ; then we think about what we are as in poetry ; but what we are, and what we think we are, need not of necessity be in logical accord. Indeed, it sometimes happens that, in matters moral and spiritual, the deeper feelings refuse to accept the conclusions of the intellect. For as T. H. Green puts it, there is such a thing as being " right on wrong grounds." Nevertheless, we sometimes talk as if there were no such thing as erroneous argument. And the fact that the standard of right changes, no more annuls the sense of right than do the changeful views of science annul the existence of an external universe, or the fluctuations of philosophy nullify the reality of truth. Or again : theological development merely presupposes a consciousness of God that is capable of develop- ment. And because two people see the same thing differently AS EXPRESSION OF MORALISM 251 in no wise proves that there is nothing to be seen. Why then should we trust sense-impressions, which are mediate and external, and distrust the findings of the inner consciousness, which are immediate and internal? The fact that both are variable in different individuals should not discredit their basal existence in reality. It is incredible that delusion should lie at the root of man's most passionately-personal nature, whilst authority should characterise the non-moral verdict of sense. Why then listen to the discordant clash of atoms, and turn a deaf ear to the celestial music of hope? Why should uplifting desires and ennobling feelings be born of unfounded deceit? Why should the lower, physical hunger have a reliable purpose- fulness and the higher spiritual thirst have none ? Is it that the latest evolutionary products are the least reliable? Is it that the seonian labours of the universe are consummated in but sorry deception? On the contrary, life itself is very jealous of " the conservation of value." Surely, then, it is more logical to suppose that the moral intuitions which really matter contain the maximum of veracity, and that with the substitution of immediacy for mediacy we move to a higher stage of trust- worthiness. The fact is, it is matter that contains the greater possibility of illusion, since the hiatus fixed between that which mediates and that which is mediated leaves more room for its insinuation; whereas in spirit we are in proximate touch with deeper realities and in immediate correspondence with profounder truth. In fine, nothing intervenes between God and the soul, hence all that appertains to moral and spiritual intuition is of primary importance. So it is with true philosophical instinct that the genuine religionist has ever warned humanity against intellectual pride and the vanities of sense. But it is necessary to remember that there are degrees of truth, just as there are degrees of beauty; that there are varieties of facts entailing different kinds of evidence. Thus physical facts are objectively verifiable, whereas facts of the inner mind find their court of appeal in the sphere of subjectivity alone. Hence God and the soul are not validated by an appeal to physical nature, but to our inner being which is the home of their immediate manifestation. As Dr. R. Otto states it: "The truths of the religious outlook cannot be put on the same level as those of ordinary and every day life. And when the mind passes from 252 HERMAIA one to the other it does so with the consciousness that the differ- ence is in kind. The knowledge of God and eternity, and the real value, transcending space and time, of our own inner being, cannot even in form be mixed up with the trivial truths of the normal human understanding or the conclusions of science. In fact, the truths of religion exhibit, in quite a special way, the character of all ideal truths, which are not really true for every day at all, but are altogether bound up with exalted states of feeling." And this is why men differ more about religion than about science. For the one treats of truth about feeling, and the other of truth about facts. And it is feeling which appertains more to the liberty inherent in personality, and so permits of the wider play of moral predilection. Similarly, philosophers hold more varied views about a subject than scientists, since the nature of philosophy is quasi-moral and cannot, therefore, disregard man's feeling-nature. And the same may be said of the men of art. Further, the arts themselves, within the genus of beauty, exhibit a like variety in kind of beauty-truth, from the more palpable facts in painting to the finer intuitions in music. Indeed, as we rise in the scale of both reality and ideality, the objective tends to coalesce with the subjective: with the ascent of worth and ac- cession of quality the authority of feeling increases. As already contended, God-knowledge and self-knowledge are the highest forms of feeling-knowledge; they are fundamental feeling-facts of spiritual consciousness, where subject and object meet in seeming identity. To put it otherwise: the ascent of man's mental activities passes from science to philosophy, thence from art to religion; and this because in such order of merit we are conscious of the growth of qualitative feeling. In science, for instance, feeling entirely abates; in philosophy it is intruded; whilst in art, and especially in religion and morals, it comes at last into its very own. This, too, is but the gradual ascent of personality. And so it is with the ascent of art in general. For we have all along held that the entire realm of beauty is but the apodeictic attestation of the principle of feeling-validity. OF FEELING-VALIDITY 253 CHAPTER XXX MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF FEELING-VALIDITY ALL that is of the artistic takes our common humanity for granted, and poems and pictures, song and sculpture are great only as they accord with the constitution of our nature. And esthetic evolution is but the gradual assertion of intuitive feeling. So in plastic beauty, wherein external matter is involved, we have not the same emotive value as in music, wherein we ourselves are more particularly implicated. Painting, poetry, and music are, therefore, respectively spiritual truth about nature, mind, and soul. Or to take music alone, we find that in its relation to matter it is but aerial vibration, in relation to the sense-end of conscious- ness it is sensuous impression, but relative to the inner mind it becomes the spiritual sense of beauty. In short, as we rise in the scale of truth, evidence becomes increasingly internal, and this is so because emotion is more subjective than reason; and it is emotion that gives qualitative worth to thought. As feeling deepens, the possibility of virtue increases. But in any case, we know only our own states of consciousness, so why should not moral intuition be as valid as our intuition of external reality ? The higher the truth, therefore, the nearer we approach the self. The dictates of conscience are nearer the ego than the concepts of the intellect. Hence truth, as expressed in personal art, is higher than truth as expounded in impersonal science or even in semi-personal philosophy. And it is for this reason that highest truth is self-evidential. If it were otherwise, man would have to wait for a perfected philosophy of life before he could really live. On the other hand, man comes into being with a certain constitution, mental and moral, to which philosophy, if it is to be true at all, must obediently address itself. So there are moral, as well as mental, axioms. But whereas the know- ledge of a logical universal is static, the intuition of an ethical postulate is dynamic, and so liable to degrees of intensity. Thus the sense of sin, for instance, is not emphasised by arguing with oneself, but through the intensification of feeling. And this, since 254 HERMAIA morality appertains to personality; and feeling is more private than thought. Hence to artistically appreciate spiritual realities we must become musical. And this because music bids us look within the soul for the highest revelation of beauty. So whilst we look to nature for the exhibition of wisdom and power, it is to the spirit of man that we turn for the manifestation of Divine Love. For the foregoing reasons music becomes at once the artistic assertion of man's intuitive nature, and its most favour- able opportunity for manifestation is when our true humanity is most gravely implicated in moral and spiritual experience. Musical consciousness is man's most inward self made artistically aware of itself. It is thus the one art that relies solely for its paramount authority on our essential humanity. So along with the inner sense of moral freedom music becomes esthetic imme- diacy. And of the freedom of the will, McCosh writes that : " This truth is revealed to us by immediate consciousness, and is not to be set aside by any other truth whatever." But it is often asserted by non-spiritual thinkers that our subjective, emotional consciousness has no real validity at all, and refers to no objective reality outside of itself. They affirm that we can rely for truth only on intellectual grounds and logical demonstration, and that feeling-intuition contains within itself no claim to authority whatsoever. They argue that because Wordsworth, for instance, failed to appreciate Keats, and since Brahms saw nothing of real merit in Wagner, an appeal to feeling is nugatory and invalid. But what about reason ? If the intel- lect is the only reliable organ of truth, why should Haeckel be diametrically opposed to Hegel, and Martineau be so hopelessly at variance with Mill? Surely it is wiser to infer that there is truth in feeling as well as in thinking, each in its own sphere, although we may reason incorrectly and feel only too imperfectly. So we conclude that the climax of evolution is neither a mag- nificent falsehood, nor is man merely a non-moral marionette moved by the senseless strings of impersonal law. He is rather a free agent, offering a dignified obedience to the mighty Heart of the universe which loved into being the image of himself. We hold, then, that the highest things are not proved, but experienced. And the things we feel are mightier than the things we know. God, for instance, is not so much known as felt to be. Feeling-intuition is deeper than intellectual explanation : spiritual OF FEELING-VALIDITY 255 experience is greater than moral philosophy. Life is not proved by argument, but by living it out. Religion is not a philosophy, but a life; and that, like music, a life of love. Consciousness is not verified in the laboratory, but in ourselves. No man waits for a true theory of conscience before blaming himself for moral defection. It is the things that matter least that are most capable of being locked up in the laws of logic, and the things that matter most that are soonest taken for granted. The mathematical is of all proofs the most incontrovertible, but has least to do with our humanity. Indeed, as we rise in the scale of reality, we leave the objectively verifiable severely alone. The " rule of three " is the formulation of inviolable certainty, whereas the " rule of faith " has no such indisputable proof > and this since feeling has more to do with religion than with exact thinking. Indeed, we might almost say that as the tide of feeling rises, as the flood of emotion deepens, proof declines. Hence the value of moral and spiritual reality is, that it is to be appre- ciated on its own account. And this leaves the needful room for volitional spontaneity and the authority of feeling-experience. So in music we feel we are free. And the deepest feelings are the surest guide to highest truth, and the neglect of the emotional element in man does violence to his higher nature. In both music and morals we feel certain states of being to be " higher "* or " lower " than others. We feel intuitively that when we do wrong we succumb to the solicitations of the lower self, and when we do right we, conversely, obey the promptings of our higher nature. We judge by our feelings in the matter by a kind of musical " scale of values " in the mind. So the normal man who is true to himself feels prayer, for instance, to be the soul's highest activity; yet we cannot adduce a positive proof thereof. What man was ever made properly self-sacrificial on purely rational grounds ? The highest necessarily escapes proof because it is the highest ; and this since man's life-experience is deeper than his logic. Now we conclude from the foregoing that our moral nature appertains to a plane of reality interior to that of the strictly mental, just as the essentially mental is interior to the purely sense-plane of consciousness ; and the internal is superior to the external. But though we hold to the discreteness of such planes of reality, we in no way discredit the principle of monism ; only the 256 HERMAIA principle of unity must be spiritual and discoverable within, and not without, the soul. It is not a unit without variety of content, but a unity which alone ensures communal multiplicity. Never- theless, it is truer to say that the manifold is the outcome of unity, than that unity is the resultant of the manifold, though neither has meaning apart from the other. But there is a mistaken monism, such as cancels the very possibility of morality itself. For to alter the existing order of things is virtually to assume some productive power, some directive principle greater and other than that which is altered. So a monism that does not permit of discreted diversity is committed to a oneness of being, to a sameness of substance, which could never rise above itself. And the evolution of such a unitariness would merely gyrate in a vicious circle; the simple could never become the complex, neither could homogeneity pass out into heterogeneity. Though life is one, its functions are diverse and many. Uniformity is not identical with unity. Our present business, therefore, is to do justice to the principle of differentiation within unity. All we know is commensurate with our own consciousness, and to be faithful to reality is the saving business of a genuine philosophy; whilst it is only necessary to add that the mental postulate of Oneness must for ever transcend the limitations of the intellect. But a certain type of science is unwilling to recognise any breach whatsoever in the concatenation of phenomena. It starts with a minimum of material, and undertakes to evolve a maximum of reality. But, we are entitled to ask, were such original and beggarly elements competent to cause sequent reality, as we now know it ? Or could total reality be represented at any time by such original destitution and primal impoverish- ment ? Either the lower originates the higher or merely permits of its emergence. And surely the latter is the more credible, since the converse would mean the capacity of nature to create its own principle of control, as revealed in man. The fact is there is more in nature than appears in manifestation: the heart of things is never entirely externalised. In other words, the soul of man or essence of the natural must ever remain interior to its outer mode of expression, else it would contradict its own nature. Neither was the wealth of reality merely secreted in some OF FEELING-VALIDITY 257 elemental nature-stuff. It must have eternally existed, if only as an archetypal " Idea," in the divine Mind, else all development would have brought with itself an undignified surprise to even Deity itself. Only on this wise could the cosmic process be assured of perpetual realisation. Surely human imperfection is conscious of itself by reason of the fact that Infinite Perfection already is. Nor are we without analogical reasons for so be- lieving. For just as music is audible in the mind of the composer before it is produced, so may all natural development be as some mighty composition pre-existent in the consciousness of the Eternal. Progressive evolution would then become the actual performance of the music of God. It is said of Mozart that he heard with the inward ear the whole of one of his sym- phonies, as in a moment of time. A pale reflection of an infinite possibility. So we must realise that there is an inner-dimensional aspect of reality. The lineal extension of evolutional science is thus incomplete without the philosophic aspect of intensive expansion. The mechanical view of existence, as length and breadth, must be supplemented by the spiritual view of height and depth. It is not enough to skim the superficies of the vast ocean of being, we must endeavour to sound its unplumbed depths. The inner cause is higher and greater than the outer effect. And it is more a ques' 1 ion of planes and degrees of reality stretching intensively towards some invisible and inscrutable interior of passion-power and purpose, than a question of some superficial and linear extension with no involution worthy the name. In the language of art, reality is musical as well as pictorial. But we find both such views reflected in the mirror of beauty. We saw in the relation that painting bore to poetry how that through the principle of suggestion we could readily pass from the one mode of beauty to the other. Also, when dealing with the relation of speech to song, we realised the close connection subsisting between the fervid utterance of the poet and music proper. Herein we paid tribute to the principle of continuity in the world of art. Although the several arts are differentiated the unity of the artistic universe is established in the deeper feelings of humanity. It is the same emotive life which inspires all modes of beauty. So though there is art within art, by reason of the principle of suggestion the world of estheticism enjoys an R 258 HERMAIA interplay of beauty; even as there are planes within planes that interpenetrate one another in the realm of reality. On the other hand, there are distinct breaks in the upward trend of the beautiful. Poetry, for instance, brings with itself what is impossible of expression in painting ; and that something is the accession of conscious life. There is a sense in which painting, however post-impressionistic its outlook, can in no way bridge the esthetic gulf. It may be poetic, but never poetry. It is as impossible by reason of their constitutive capacities to pass over from one art to another, as it is to traverse the gaping chasm that yawns 'twixt cerebration and consciousness. And similarly, music, in the light of its present state of muturity, represents an entirely novel creation in the realm of idealism. Though poetry may be musical, music is quite distinct from poetry. Indeed, as regards the actual material for consciousness, the difficulty of filling in the breach which separates these arts in question is only too apparent. Respecting the actual facts of incidental experience, poetry seems more nearly allied to painting. And although music in its pure moralism claims kinship with poetry, yet, from the constitutive point of view, there is a well-defined cleavage divorcing the two. In music we break from the servi- tude of circumstance and the tyranny of words. And herein the world of art seems to parallel that of reality, where the moral impresses the mental from an inner sphere of being. Now, respecting the above, it need hardly be said that we treat of the main outstanding branches of beauty alone, such as automatically allot themselves to the major kingdoms of reality. So we shall have nothing to say about either decorative art, or even architecture in this connection. Plastic beauty, which, analogous to the manifold in material nature, covers so wide an area, will be here represented by painting alone. We shall fasten only on such " new beginnings " as are more obviously underived from antecedent stages: not that there are no other interventions in the rectilinear process of the natural. To take but a single illustration. Just as living substance involves an intervention from within, so does the formation of a crystal re- veal the presence of a new and mysterious energy operative within non-living matter. As Dr. R. Otto writes: " At the formation of the first crystal there came into action a directing force of the same kind as the will of the sculptor at the making of the Venus OF FEELING-VALIDITY 259 of Melos." Yet, even over and above the successive stages in evolution, every sequent effect in nature is, in a very profound sense, an entirely new creation; and every cause might con- ceivably come to an untimely end were it not for the ceaseless activity of the Creator. But now a word as to the particular increment of beauty which each art brings with itself to the infraction of an otherwise inviolable continuity. Analogous to the rise of reality, poetry comes with its vital mode of beauty and endows the material mould of painting with consciousness and life. Yet it does not exhibit itself materially, but uses rather the material symbols for vital ends. To take away, therefore, the cohesive and con- taining influence of poetic life is to lapse back again into the inorganic compound of painting. For though painting may be the promise of, poetry alone is actual, life. Indeed, the pictorial material is more akin to the " physical basis of life," paint itself suggesting the " slimy, granular, semi-fluid " content character- istic of protoplasm. And all this means that something entirely new has entered the realm of beauty. Now when dealing specifically with plastic art we showed that it was effectuated solely through a process of accretion. Its method was seen to be molecular; its mediumship, external. But let us not be misunderstood. All real art is vital; all true pictures are warm with the ardour of living ; every worthy piece of sculpture has life streaming through its every pore. Our discussion is entirely within the wider generalisation of the beauti- ful. Our present point is that life is not a mode of matter, not the result of physical combinations, the which we find predomin- ant in the plastic forms of art ; it is a prior power dwelling in the bodily organism, and so is more accordant with the principle of poetic beauty. And in like manner, the moral sense is not the precipitate of character; not the sum-total of our faculties as discoverable in poetry, but rather like music, a unitary principle of spiritual life informing and inspiring our every mode of consciousness. So life proper is not the sum-total of its vital functions : some- how we feel it to be a prior principle distinct from that which merely appears. Life, in short, is interior to organisation, as poetry is interior to painting. It is the germ within which dominates the structure, the central root-principle of any growth 260 HERMAIA whatsoever. The same food may nourish different forms of life. Two flowers may spring from the same soil, and yet bloom with a glory each its own. All life has its pre-ordained type. And if man be divinely derived, he is pre-destined to figure forth the life of divinity. His circumstances are but the means by which he manifests divinity. Just as protoplasm mediates the will to live, so human consciousness mediates the will to goodness. Evolution is not to be identified with Darwinism. If, again, we liken universal evolution to the blossoming of a plant whose roots are in God, then may we regard man as the flower in whom alone is enfolded the seed of Divinity. The life of the universe is one, and informs all its parts. It is implicit in cosmic begin- nings, and explicit in the fruitage of spiritual humanity. So despite the sensational materialist, it is the inner that governs the outer, even as music itself is the interior principle of all artistic governance. Though the plant subsists on what is outside itself, it is the root principle which alone determines to what kind of growth the nutriment shall contribute. Similarly, man may derive his mental and moral support from without, yet it is his will, or rather he himself, who ultimately determines what kind of character he is to become. Though life is impossible without environment, it is the former, and not the latter, which contains the dominating principle of directivity. The vague feelings that animate lower forms of life have themselves been instrumental in forming limbs and fashioning members adequate to their satisfaction; just as the spiritual longings and religious instincts of man have been the inspiring cause of all forms of worship and formulations of dogma. Hence environment is really the occasion, and natural conditions the opportunity, for vital development. But nature itself is contingent, and so becomes a divinely appointed prearrangement in the interests of the creature. God is the determining cause of the universe, and the infinite condition of the finite. Now the above holds good with respect to painting and poetry. Both may contemplate in the imagination the same subject- matter; but whereas the one will convert it into static exter- nalism, the other will transmute it into internal vitalism. That is to say, the inner principle of being, inherent in each art, governs the resultant mode of manifestation. Similarly, whilst music may feed upon material afforded by the natural, it cannot but OF FEELING-VALIDITY 261 result in artistic products peculiarly its own. So though we may pass in unbroken continuity, when viewing the evolution of art in its external aspect, painting supplying poetic material, and poetry matter for music, there is no passage from the one to the other that can be properly negotiated when each art is viewed in its inwardness. In other words, whatever be the expressional material appropriated, there is an entirely new principle at work with the advent of each successive mode of beauty. To put it otherwise : from an indistinguishable, cellular beauty-life we see emergent muscle, mind, and moralism in an ascending scale of beauty. But needless to say, we speak here solely of the mould of expression. So with respect to the inner relation of painting to poetry, we cannot but commit ourselves to the following scien- tific statement anent the derivation of the organic from the inorganic: "The gulf between the two kingdoms of nature has become deeper just in proportion as our physical and chemical, our morphological and physiological knowledge of the organism has deepened." But what exactly does music bring with itself, such as would constitute a gulf that could not in any wise be bridged, however poetic we became ? The mental, as we have already seen, is or should be entirely subservient to the moral. The latter, there- fore, constitutes, like music in the world of beauty, the funda- mental power and animated principle in human consciousness. There is then, we are assured, something in human nature which is absolutely divorced from, even as music is entirely extraneous to phenomenal sequence. And just as mind is an intromission into matter, so is the moral and spiritual an intromission into mind. For as Eucken writes: "The Spiritual Life has an independent origin, and evolves new powers and standards." And so it is with music. It seems more like an artistic intrusion, and merely to occur. It visits this noisy and discordant world of ours like some angel- visit ant, singing of peace and good- will to men. Nevertheless, we do not imply that a superficial continuity is not maintained ; for although that which ought to be promises a distinct departure from the even current of events, it must still grow out of and be in living connection with that which is. Man cannot but act as from what already is, whether within or without the mind; however creative be his morality it cannot but run on lines of rational sequence. The outer scheme of 262 HERMAIA things, therefore, does not stand in irreconcilable opposition to the inner that were an impossible dichotomy; the natural is rather the outcome of, because subject to, the supremacy of the spiritual. Neither does the world of beauty represent a rigid disseverance, since the transitional art of poetry permits of an easy passage from music to painting. So painting and music are not antagonists, but artistic allies. And herein we find our artistic analogy illuminative. For just as man's bodily structure may be said to have been formed and fashioned from without submitted, as it were, to a kind of sculptural process, preparatory to human occupancy so were the prior arts of plasticity being shaped and moulded previous to the influx of the divinity of music. And obviously it is the latter art that closes the evolutionary process of esthetic develop- ment. Music is functional and painting organic. But what- ever be the precise nature of the moral endowment or spiritual enduement of human consciousness, it can only be figuratively likened to the in-breathing of Divinity itself. Like music, it is an entirely new kind of consciousness. And, be it noted, from our art -point of view, we are only concerned with that which makes man a specifically spiritual being. Now, in this connec- tion, music is intensive and influxional. It is, therefore, most competent to express that mysterious w-spiration which lifts a man from the purely rational on to the religious plane of being. Indeed, the very word religion itself finds its artistic counterpart in music which stands for the binding principle of all beauty. But more than this. The word spirit is also full of analogical significance. For what does it literally mean but " wind " or "breath"? Even Indian philosophy speaks of God as the 41 Great Breath." And what is music apart from the medium- ship of breathing? Not unnaturally, then, did primitive man regard the breath as the very soul itself, since in death the breath went out of him, his voice was silenced for ever, he literally ex-pired. So we may regard music as the very life of art and breath of beauty, or as the poet puts it as " the soul of all things beautiful." It is analogous to the operations of the Holy Spirit. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Thus the analogy between music and the spiritual is eminently OF FEELING VALIDITY 263 apposite. For just as God is said to have " breathed into man the breath of life," so man breathes into his instrument and wakes to life the spirit of beauty. And when he withdraws his breath the music dies, and the death of silence reigns supreme. So man is God's " mouth-piece " or instrument fit to make vocal the beauty of holiness. This, then, is the peculiar contribution of music to the world of art, in that it promotes us to the higher plane of moral and spiritual beauty. We have now cleared the way for the fuller treatment of music as the idealisation of man's spiritual nature in its most essential characteristics. Up to the present we have only had in view the essence of the self-hood ; now, however, we are ready to discuss music in its artistic relation to the soul and its more immediate activity. Leaving, therefore, music as mere modal existence, the subsequent section will bear directly on its specific content. 264 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXXI MUSIC AS CONTENT: INTRODUCTION Character is moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature. EMERSON. HAVING discussed the form or fashion in which musical beauty discovers itself, we are now more fully prepared to consider what the essential esthetic of this art stands for in the world of expression. And in so doing, we have but to pass from music, as external subject-matter, to music, as an internal mode of the artistic mind. In our previous pages we mainly dealt with music as a mere esthetic existent just its bald and bare differentiation from other arts; so it is now our immediate business to build it up in accordance with the stringent demands of our analogy. We shall substitute, therefore, the functional activity, for the organic structure, of music proper. It is then the potential content of music, its virtue and esthetic value, the beauty- meaning peculiar to itself, as it stands self-revealed in the artistic consciousness, that will entirely engage our attention. Hence the question now arises what is the exact ideal for which music expressly exists? In our primary section we showed that music idealised not merely the ego, but also the various implications of this principle of egoity. But this, without further amplification, would merely imprison music in a kind of iartistc solipsism, at once barren and devoid of any genuine interior reality whatsoever. And since it is far otherwise with the self in reality, which must be clothed upon before it .can have any proper meaning at all, so too must we regard music not simply as existing, but as existing for some ideal purpose. That is to say, whereas we regarded music, in the first instance, as the expression of pure esthetic energy, it now behoves us to show how this selfsame force in art behaves itself when submitted to the principle of directivity by the master-minds in music. For without such guidance it could never arrogate to itself the term artistic; just as power of will, without self -governance, could never become properly moral. MUSIC AS CONTENT 265 Now, as we shall see in the course of our argument, the self- nature contains within itself not only will, but certain peculiar potencies such as conscience and motive ; so too we shall come to realise step by step that music exists expressly for the idealisation of the specific content of man's ethical consciousness. It will be seen in due course that it stands for all that pertinently appertains to the spiritual in man, and the qualitative output of his person- ality. And this artistic aspect of human nature it strengthens, by being, through its constitutive character, compelled to neglect what does not immediately bear on man's supranormal agency. That is to say, the impotence of music to express the purely intellectual is due to the fact that it concentrates on that part of man which transcends his intellect. To sum up, music is the symbolisation of man as a metaphysi-* cal entity. And in our endeavour to prove our hypothesis, our mode of procedure will be as heretofore arguing our way from within outward; and so laying an indisputable foundation whereon we can safely build our musical superstructure, until, by a process of reversion, we have touched again those higher reaches of poetic beauty which impinge upon the elementary esthetic of music itself. It is a truly logical procedure, since in all moral considerations we start with the self and its primal energisation, tracing the course of its outgoing agency to its ultimate point of contact with the world of externality. In short, we must work from the centre to the circumference. And it is just because music is esthetic moralism that we are justified in adopting this purely moral and humanistic mode of procedure. All art is the spiritual outpouring of the soul in beauty and such pre-eminently is music. Let it once more be insisted upon, that we speak throughout of art within art. 266 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXXII MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF VOLITION IN the previous part of our discussion we endeavoured to estab- lish music, in the mind of our reader, as the ideal of autonomous self-activity as the aitistic type of our own personal being: this, however, only as potential possibility. In a word, music was seen to stand, in the world of art, primarily for the ego and its inherent freedom. Or again: it was shown to be the esthetic representation of will-power or of pure, spiritual energisation. But having said this much, we have in reality only discussed music in its relation to the mere empty form of moral activity : we have, in short, only entertained the notion of ethical possi- bility as against the higher and richer content of moral con- sciousness, which can alone give spiritual value to human conduct and endeavour. For a moment's consideration will suffice to show that in the pure ego or self-soul, as such, there is no specific value. There is no virtue in simply being. It speaks of possibility rather than of performance. So to assert one's own identity is one thing, but what we expressly stand for is quite another. And thus whilst we may talk about the principle of " being-for-self " we have still to ask ourselves whether we exist for the higher or lower selfhood implicit in each one of us. To put it otherwise, all egos, in essence, are similar and, humanly speaking, indistinguishable. That is to say, there is nothing to differentiate one ego from another. They are all fragments of shall we say? the selfsame homogeneity of Spirit. One " I am " is virtually the same as any other; that is if we essay to view objectively the bed-rock of conscious being. But on the other hand, if each ego views itself subjectively, then is there but one " I-hood " as against all others. Similarity is not identity. And although self-knowledge must be mediated through knowledge, selves, as such, do not differ in knowledge, but in being. The same knowledge in different minds would not make two persons one. So unity of being is more real than diversity of knowledge, though each is indispensable to the AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 267 other. Each self is thus set up over and against what is not itself to which it must personally respond. Similarly, if the will be the ego actively considered, then all wills are similar in the sense that they represent merely pure, positive power. Thus, from one point of view, both the ego and the will are infinite in possibility: the one in knowing and the other in doing; for it is only the elements external to self-consciousness that limit and impede, and yet are the means and condition of self- realisation. So, radically speaking, wills, as such, are neither strong nor weak. Indeed what makes them so is really the variety of mental material which the will is called upon to manipulate, as well as the greater or lesser amount of nervous energy on the physical side of man's composite being. What is often termed a strong will is in reality but uncontrolled neural disturbance, divorced from volitional push or directivity, and should be called will-lessness rather than wilfulness, in its strictest sense. Prob- ably will, as power, in man's private consciousness, is constant ; even as the vast world-energy neither gains nor loses in amount. The will, however, quite apart from the volitional output, may appear strong or weak, since the variable not-self of both heredity and environment enforces a variety of resultants. Who can judge between want of effort and absence of temptation ? Never- theless all selves at all times can will, if they will. And this because, in the mysterious nature of the case, man finds the origin of such activity nowhere but in himself. Thus, for the expression of pure volition, man is not at the mercy of externals, neither is he dependent on some impersonal endowment, for he has but to draw upon a power which is for ever potentially present. He taps, in the inner metaphysical region of his nature, a spiritual Source, infinite in its supply. So apart from either inherited tendencies or outward conditions there is always the personal equation of the living spirit. Through the exercise of volition, moreover, man can render the mental and even non-mental material at his disposal more plastic and amenable to this the primal activity of his soul. Thus, however schematically seductive other psychological theories may seem, the self remains for ever its own principle of causation. As Professor Green pithily puts it: " The will is simply the man himself, and only so, the source of action." 268 HERMAIA And we might observe, in passing, that, in view of the seeming injustice and moral inequality apparent in life, spiritual merit resides in neither mental nor material results, but in the will or man himself. For analogous reasons, music has little to say about the manifold externals of life, but finds rather its artistic value in that it reflects this fundamental activity of the soul. The self or will, then, represents simplicity of inner being, and is more profoundly real than is the multitudinous complexity of outer appearance. So too does music stand for spiritual simplicity in art as distinct from the arts of phenomenal variety. It has a maximum of reality with a minimum of content. It is indeed that aspect of esthetic consciousness which is at once the most real and profound. It is in a word artistic self-discovery: it discovers the self to the self. But we have said already more than enough about music as ideal self or will. Suffice it to say that mere pure being is of no value in itself; that there is no virtue in the bare will, as such. Pure will is neither good nor bad; it is mere possibility. The ego of theory is one thing, and the ego of reality another. The " I am " of practical experience makes all the difference in the world. Similarly the elemental fact of will-power is one thing, but moralism proper only truly arrives with the nature of the willing. It is not even so much what we will, as why we will. Indeed a motiveless volition is an impossible absurdity. It would simply mean non-moral casualism. Self-determination is, therefore, neither an indefinite power to will anything, nor yet, as Dr. Illingworth calls it, " indeterminism or liberty of indif- ference." The ego or will is restricted rather by tendencies and motives which are the very occasion for, and condition of, moral activity. Now it will be noticed that we are moving away from bare will-force, push, and effort, as apart from all moral consideration whatsoever, so that it will be our present duty to consider music as something quite other than bald, esthetic sameness. We pass from music as unitary simplicity to complex variety: from its formal aspect to its qualitative content. And, although music is what we have termed spiritual homogeneity, there is within its wider unity a rich fund of diversity; just as within the genus of our common humanity there is ample room for variety of character. Indeed, there can be no unity proper without variety, AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 269 just as there can be no variety apart from unity. So let us remind the reader that music may range from mere indefinite wishfulness to a most definite wilfulness ; even as sculpture ranges from a nerveless Thorwaldsen to a strenuous Rodin : even as painting rises from the charm of Greuze to the strength of Michelangelo, and poetry from the grace of Tennyson to the vigour of Browning. And so is it in reality. For do we not see, with respect to the human will, the varying degrees in which man's volitional agency mediates or appropriates the spiritual energy of the universe ? With the majority of mankind the process partakes more of the nature of feeble filtration, whereas with the moral genius full of prophetic passion we seem to witness an irruption of, and saturation by, the mighty Will-force of the universe which hurls him unceremoniously on to purposes higher than he knows. Music then, in the above connection, may be said to move away from mere inclination or lackadaisical longing to a self-initiated tendency: from pious wish to moral endeavour. But at lowest, music is just a disposition a temperament. It is a temper of mind rather than formulated thought. And here we are begin- ning to get at the man proper. For is not a man known mostly by his wishes and his disposition of heart? Do not his ruling affections constitute his true spiritual selfhood? To say what a man truly loves or hates is practically to say what he really is. And as we are in ourselves, so is our liking; and what we like most, so are we most likely to will. Men like opposite things because they differ in their affections, rather than because of the things themselves. As William McDougall words it : ' ' When the ambitious man forms and pursues his resolution to achieve a high place among his fellows, he does so only in virtue of the fact that the structure of his mind comprises a conative disposition, the excitement of which impels him, or gives rise to an impulse which drives him on, to assert himself, to display himself, before his fellow-men. Only in virtue of his possession of this specifi- cally directed disposition does a great position appear to him a desirable object; if it were lacking in his constitution, the desires of other men for such a position would seem to him inexplicable and absurd." What appeals to one man makes no appeal to another, because their characters are different. Two men may entertain the same idea ; but while to the one it appears attractive, to the other it seems repulsive : and this, because they differ in 270 HERMAIA the instincts of the heart. So what really matters is the moral condition in which a circumstance may find us. Hence the ethical value of music: it appeals to the moral sympathies be- hind the articulation of thought. In short, it is the desire that dictates the aim, and not the aim that dictates the desire. As Maeterlinck says : "It is our most secret desire that governs and dominates all." So in our desires we read our destiny. It is the intellect, again, which gives direction to desire, and discovers the means by which we achieve the object of our aim. So it is really how we wish, or why we want, that constitutes primarily the spiritual urge, or driving force, within the soul. First we wish, then we will; but before all else, we must first of all be. And what a man really wants to be, that will he one time become. Indeed, will in this our elemental sense may be regarded as a kind of cumulative wishfulness and summation of desires. It is my feeling-attitude, malevolent or benevolent, which constitutes the nature of my will towards my fellow-beings. So music, at this stage of our inquiry, may be said to be general wishfulness rather than definite willing. And this much is true of all art, since in its ultimate being it relates to feeling rather than to volition proper. But music, being specific beauty, is specifically such. It alone expresses the secret desires of the heart and hidden impulses of the soul. Here then we are one remove from the will in its naked simplicity. The ego is now clothed upon. It has quality. It is, at this point, endowed with native powers and original affections. It shows moral promise and spiritual possibility. Over the pure spirit of man we have thrown the mantle of music. And as Ruskin rightly remarks: " The will or the spirit of the creature is brought to its greatest strength by its own proper fuel; namely, the affections." But, of course, what we wish is not always what we ought to do. We are not here to will as we please, but to be pleased to will what we ought. Hence wish and will do not, morally speaking, necessarily accord. Still if we only wished well enough, actions would take care of themselves. We are dealing here, however, with music in its rudimental beginnings. It is the expression of moral activity in its primitive aspect. For as art in general, and music in particular, rises, the will gains in power and control over the subject-material it manipulates. Our present contention is, that just as man comes into being AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 271 with a bundle of innate propensions and instinctive proclivities, so music speaking generally expresses the original endow- ment of the will. So at this juncture of our disquisition music represents the immediate EXPRESSION OF CONATUS pure and simple. In other words, we might, for the present, term it the artistic interpretation of the primary springs of ethical activity in so far as the possibilities of art are concerned. Accord- ingly, music stands for artistic aspiration from within, and plastic beauty for artistic appeal from without. And since instinct is prior to the incidence of experience, music is the prius of painting in order of being. So we cannot agree with the " experience- philosophers " who make man but the sport and play of accidental conditions. As Martineau wisely interrogates: " Can anything be more perverse than thus to attribute all the stir and activity to the external scene, and all the indifference to him ? Is he not introduced as a living being among given objects, and is it not just the characteristic of the living being to be stocked with forces that determine his lines of direction in the field on which he is set and find out what suits him there? " Hence music appertains more to the creature than to conditions belongs more to the soul than its surroundings. It starts its esthetic career with the preparatory " make-up " of moral man. Music, therefore, in this our primitive sense, is not the pictured object of our affection, but the artistic appreciation of affection itself. It does not present us with the object of our love it is the esthetic of love itself. It expresses not what, but how, we love ; not even so much how, as the fact that we love. It is man, moreover, as loving or hating, that constitutes the substance of his morality, since morality appertains to qualitative personality. And since music belongs more to personality than to things, its love or hate is relative to persons. Further, it is general, not particular; being fundamental beauty it relates to moral prin- ciples which govern the outgoings of the soul, rather than, like other modes of art, to specific things or persons. It is more the fact that we love or hate, than the object of our affection or aversion. And no man ever lived who really loved evil for its own sake, since goodness alone inspires love. 272 HERMAIA So in the language of psychology, music is the immediate expression of conative purposive energy. It is what William McDougall would call the " affective-conative attitude " of the soul. It does not idealise the objective " what/' but the sub- jective " why," we wish or will. And this, because the objective "what" is not exactly the seat or substance of personal, moral activity. What we wish or will is left, therefore, to the sugges- tions! principle in music, and the private imagination of the auditor. Music is more intensiveness than intention. Hence, in the light of comparative estheticism, whilst music expresses conation and painting cognition, poetry, combining both aspects of art, stands for the balance of cognitive-conative beauty. And in this connection McDougall asserts that " the affective and conative organisation of the mind is largely independent of and separate from its cognitive organisation; and there must exist, for the determination of these faculties, distinct dispositions which form an important part of the structure of the mind. Common speech and thought recognise this fact. For, as knowledge is the word used in popular speech to denote the structure of the mind in so far as it is cognitive, so the word character is used to denote its structure in so far as it is affective and conative." And the latter faculties he holds are practically identical are at least " much more intimately bound up to- gether than they are connected with the cognitive organisation." But further and from the same author. " The basis of character, or of the affective-conative organisation of the mind, seems to consist in dispositions whose number, compared with that of the cognitive dispositions, is small." Hence it follows that the matter of music is more limited in scope than the matter of either poetry or painting. It is the difference between dynamic intension and material extension. Up to this point, therefore, we find music to be the expression of essential character. It is the ideal of man as moral possibility that part of his nature whence all ethical activity springs. And this, since his affections, rather than his intellect, have most to do with his character. So the simple ideal truth, as set before us in music, is not only good- will, but also the will to be good; or, as William Law would say, " a perfect will to all goodness." There is then much truth in the following words of J. S. Mill: "" To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger and AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 273 more various than those of another is merely to say that he has more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature than of an indolent and impassive one. Those who have most natural feeling are always those whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love of virtue and the sternest self -control." Since, therefore, impulses may be good or bad, in a sense inapplic- able to ideas as such, music, operating in and amongst these self- same impulses, partakes of the nature of moral distinction. It is, in a word, the self-direction of desire. So music is not only the idealisation of the " affective-conative organisation of the mind," but is itself the artistic means of furthering its development. But be it remembered we are here dealing with the raw material of morality, rather than with morality itself. He writes further, that " a person whose desires and impulses are his own is said to have character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own has no character, no more than a steam- engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he has an energetic character." And music, again, is peculiarly expressive, not only of impulse, but of my impulse, will-controlled. It is, therefore, the pure EXPRESSION OF CHARACTER. Indeed, no art betrays so vividly the moral qualities, reflects so faithfully the spiritual bias of a man, as does the art of music. And after all, it is not intellect, but character which really matters that for which a man most truly exists ; not what he knows, but what he is. Now we have all along regarded music as relative to personality, and in no wise competent to cope with the visible person the peculiar prerogative of painting. Music gives us various qualities inherent in individuality ; it delivers up for our artistic apprecia- tion differences in kind of man's self-nature. Hence, between s 274 HERMAIA the purposeful will of Brahms and the comparative will-lessness of Mendelssohn ; between the strong insistence of Handel and the genial good-nature of Haydn, the stressful Strauss and the languorous Debussy, we see music swinging between the sundered poles of quietistic passivity and vigorous activity. Beethoven, again, represents in the main a will attuned to the demands of morality. His music reflects the equipoise of a well-balanced character of a temperate self-control. We have in his com- positions an unconscious sense of easeful, moral conformity to the universal order of things. Here there is neither bias nor pre- judice. As in Shakespeare, all is artistic normality. And the service which such eminently sane and sober idealism renders humanity consists in its capacity to train and temper the re- active agency of the will, and to quicken in the soul a more ready response to the ethical claims of duty. Wagner, on the other hand, exhibits a more powerful self -insistence. His is essentially a strong and strenuous will. To hear his music is to enjoy the presence of a powerful personality. Tschaikovsky again, among the moderns, gives us rather a sense of moral nonconformity. His is the haunting beauty of a soul striving to be other than it is. And before the tone- vision of such a spirit, we seldom fail to be stirred by the pitifulness of love. Indeed, much of the witchery of his music is attributable to just those very miasmic mists which seem to shroud his personality, even as the beauty of a morning landscape lies in the very beclouding haze which the uprising sun of strength is destined to shine away. His music, therefore, partakes more of the nature of self-will than of un- selfish wishfulness. It savours also of a discontent, albeit at times divine. Music, then, can be not only sympathetic and spiritually solicitous, but also passionately aggressive and seriously con- cerned about itself. It may have the soul-quality of receptivity as in the joy of life as well as the power to exercise itself over some spiritual reaction as in the turbulence of moral revolt. Hence there are divergent kinds, as well as different degrees, of music. It ranges from the peaceful to the passional ; from a simple ethical tendency to the vividness of a spiritual crisis. And since all willing is not of the strenuous order, all music does not bear the stamp of stringency as found in a Strauss. Indeed, in some of our noblest moments we flow out towards others AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 275 throw ourselves into acts at once beneficent, with neither let nor hindrance. So in some " movement " by a Mozart let us say we have an outgoing of personality, unaccompanied by any internal sense of strife whatsoever. Besides feverish unrest, we have the spiritual serenity of supreme self-conquest. But do we it may be asked realise all this in music? To which we put a counter-question: Is a man, in real life, so definitely conscious of moral processes, as he is clearly aware of such conditions as circumvent his activities? Although the moral sense be acute, we can the better describe the manner of action than the movements of our motives. We must bear in mind that the difference between moral experience and the expression of morality is the difference between actual reality and imaginative idealism. The former must of necessity be more keenly personal than the latter. And it is just because in the moral realm man is so intensely himself, and so close up against the realities of life, that any seeming disparity 'twixt music and its model is readily accounted for. On the other hand, in painting, the closer resemblance between the ideal and real makes it easier of comprehension, and so less liable to misinter- pretation. But other modes of art may be justly said to exhibit similar shades and like varieties of personality. And this because of the very nature of art itself. Nevertheless, the peculiar essence of music which renders it particularly mighty is its ideal treatment of the life of the will. Music is the artistic representation of will- activity the very seat of personality itself in all its varying moods and operations. Be it remembered, however, we speak here of music in general, and not in any particular sense. 276 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXXIII MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF VOLITION: continued BUT a moment's reflection on the several divergent views respect- ing the will should be of interest in the light of the evolutionary rise of music. Indeed, the early stages of music seem to favour a respectively lower and more mechanical theory of volition, whilst maturer music seems to accord more readily with the metaphysical aspect. Of the latter, however, we shall speak when our argument has reached the higher levels of morality proper. Thus we find both Bain and Mill identifying volition with muscular effort. Spencer, also, holds that " a volition is a discharge of nervous force along a line which experience has rendered the line of least resistance." But this contradicts the deliverance of consciousness, and merely states the physical concomitant of the will when, possibly, scarcely operant at all. Indeed, it eliminates the most salient features of volition. So we must turn for illumination, not to the physicist as such, but to the psychologist proper, who, in virtue of his subjective stancl- ppint of view, is the more capable of taking stock of the constitu- tive elements of willing. Nevertheless, both views have validity the one from without, the other from within if only the in- tuitionist will regard the neural conditions, and the empiricist respect the self-determining power of the individual. Still the balance of truth favours the former, because volition is only properly known within the sphere of personal activity. But since music is the expression of the will, its most elemental form, as might be expected, accords more agreeably with the physical aspect of volition. And we have only to reflect on the corybantic gyrations of the fanatical devotee on the frenzied dervishes who dance to appropriate instruments of percussion or even on the modern disciples of Terpsichore, goddess of the " poetry of motion," who move to the swaying measure of the Valse, to catch a glimpse of music as the ideal correlative of volition, regarded merely as an automatic process of reflex, muscular activity. And it will here be noticed that we depend AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 277 most of all on rhythm the primordial germ of inchoate music. Indeed, to introduce a sufficient amount of rhythmic accentuation at all, is enough to excite the pedal extremities of such as lay more stress on the comparatively physical, than on the positively psychical aspect of music. Further light and that of a more dramatic nature is thrown on the question of the relation of music to volitional activity, in view of certain interesting experiments made with hypnotic subjects. Here, various kinds of music have been performed, entirely unfamiliar to the subject, who has been previously thrown into a trance or deep state of hypnosis, and he responds, immediately and spontaneously, with varied postures, gestures, and facial expressions, which faithfully reflect the inner meaning of the music. It is the outer expression (unconscious, albeit) of an inner soul-experience; and whether it be gaiety of disposition, or the enactment of some tragic life-episode all is a living and picturesque presentation, in artistic accord with the nature of the musical composition. It suggests, moreover, that in music's inner recesses there is packed away the potential of poem and picture of something more than what is heard with the outer ear. We have already pointed out, in an earlier chapter, the relation of music to geometrical figures, representative of some recondite connection between the tonal art and architecture; and now we see a subtle relation subsisting between music and the arts of plasticity. It suggests, also, that music holds within itself a meaning over and above its own tuneful speech, and which can alone be interpreted in the deeps of personal being. Suffice it to say, we have here an example of the physical effects, of which music represents the spiritual principle of causa- tion. We can see now the graduated degrees of music, from rhythmic insistence, with its attendant bodily agitation, to music proper, with its excitation of a spiritual experience from an instinctive, semi-conscious urge to a responsible, self-conscious motivation. And between these two musical poles, we can trace a vast historical process of gradual internalisation, analogous to that which obtains in the developmental process of the entire world of art. For artistic evolution is but beauty turning in upon itself, until, with music, it reaches the inner sanctuary of the soul. So music will be seen, later on, to be more in artistic accord with the metaphysical interpretation of the power and agency of the 278 HERMAIA will. To sum up: we have travelled in this somewhat cursory and particular view of musical mentation from music as the ideal of will in its relation to bodily activity to music as the ideal of will in its relation to motive of mind: from the motor march - measure to the motive - melody : from subconscious motivity to self-conscious motivation. But to take, for a moment, the wider survey of art in general : we realise that the more mechanical view of volition finds its closer correspondence with the relatively physical beauty of painting. For if will, or nisus, be suggested in the latter, it must be in and through the artistic agency of muscular articulation. It repre- sents, therefore, more the relation of volition to bodily activity, whereas music is representative of the relation of self to volition. Poetry, on the other hand, but faintly suggests the corporeal, and so is free to express the more mysterious movement of mind. It is sufficiently evident, then, that music, in the process of its development, stands for the ideal counterpart of the evolution of man's moral consciousness and spiritual freedom. Or to take a still wider view of music, we might speak of it in its relation to the ascending grades of physical, mental, and spiritual conscious- ness. For does not music start its artistic career with mere rhythmic accentuation, such as obtains so severely in the dance or march-measure ? And herein apart from musicality proper it readily accords with the pulse or heart-beats of physical life. And to follow it in its gradual process of interiorisation is to witness its distraction from mechanical pulsation, and its gravi- tation towards the inner intension of musical ideation itself. And thus evolved, music may express the soul, as in desire or mere amiable willingness, or as in the case of masterful music in imperious willing. Further, in the qualitative ideas therein expressed, we find the self-bias or private motivation of the com- poser. But we must not linger over this phase of our subject. Let but a man say " I will," and throughout the whole range of art it is music alone that can adequately deliver up, in terms of beauty, that secret motion of the spirit we associate with the initiation of an act of volition. It is, in a word, expressive of man, as an individual centre of spiritual, self-conscious energy. Of music, in relation to definite behaviour or purposive activity, we shall have something to say later on. For the present, let our definition of elementary music, as the inward impulsion AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 279 which makes for willing, suffice. But, needless to say, morality is only possible to a self-conscious being one who holds himself responsible for the activity of his own impulses. Similarly, music only becomes moral beauty when metamorphosed by the personal consciousness of the composer. It achieves its noblest triumphs in and through the esthetic employment of the ethical data of consciousness, even as facts and figures are wrought up into supreme beauty through the respective agency of poet and painter. In music, therefore, we follow the fortunes, trace the vicissitudes of the active will. And to hear a symphony is to become acquainted with the most private of all auto- biographies. Again : it must be remembered that the human will has been stimulated into activity, has been educated by the pressure of circumstance, and the antagonism which surrounding con- ditions are bound to arouse. And if we trace the ethical develop- ment of both man in particular, and humanity in general, we shall find that environment, first of all, presses most heavily on the individual's " will-to-live." Later on, however, with the comparative maturity of moral man, the will itself asserts its spiritual regnancy over external conditions. Indeed, what was once a seemingly hostile universe becomes, through man's willing obedience, a friendly servitor. And similarly with the world of personal phenomena; since here as well there is an interior world which only too often opposes the central self. And so it is with the evolutionary progress of music in the main. For if we take the more typical works of Bach as an example of early modern music, although he initiated the principle of musical internalism, still speaking generally he represents the com- plementary principle of musical externalism. That is to say, in his fugal argumentation and " canonical " cunning, he is intel- lectual, mathematical, and objectively analytical. In short, we can scrutinise his compositions, and view them as from with- out the soul. Broadly speaking, he is not so intimately wrapped up in spiritual interests as such personal romanticists as, say, Schumann and Schubert. But to take the more modern master, Wagner. Here we see the scientific and impersonal side of music subordinated to the more personal and inward claims of beauty. Here the objective gives place to the subjective. Here art becomes warmer, richer, and more potent. It marks a higher 280 HERMAIA stage in the development of interior personality. In a word, his music inspires us with a passionate sense of the seriousness of being at all : of the tremendous reality of self-existence. And does not this type of music lend colour to a more spiritual inter- pretation of life? Does it not harmonise with the subjectivism of contemporary thinking and present-day personal idealism? Truly Wagner builded better than he knew. But enough has been said, anent the graduated scale of music, to show that it is not simply the will in idealism, but the life of the will in all its throbbing activity and resplendent variety. Now some pages back we dealt exhaustively with music as the idealisation of pure being, will, or essential egoity. And this we found to be but a part of the truth about ourselves, since the self cannot possibly be divorced from what is not the self. That is to say, we can only be conscious of ourselves in so far as we are conscious of something not ourselves. In short, the subject cannot realise himself apart from an experiential content. Again, we treated of the will or self-activity as musically ideal- ised, but found also that this the initial force of the soul as naked ideation, undirected towards something other than itself, was but a fictitious non-entity. So the ego is never out of re- lation to something not itself. In short, consciousness presup- poses relativity. We have realised, therefore, that the self-life must be clothed upon with some phenomenal vestment : we saw that the will must will something must be directed towards, and stand over and against, an element of otherness. Indeed, only in and through antagonism does the will-life consciously assert itself. In other words, the self must do something, must stand for something, over and above itself. Hence music is something more than the impossible idealisation of an isolated, self-identical entity. So in passing let us once and for all disabuse the reader's mind of the erroneous supposition that music merely gyrates in a vicious circle of interior feeling that it is simply a series of soul-states out of all relation to the realism of life that it is imprisoned within its own emotional content from which there is no escape. This might be true were art merely what is osten- sibly expressed, without being further what it suggested; were pictures locked up entirely in form, and poems tied up wholly to bald statements of facts. But no man has ever felt without AS EXPRESSION OF VOLITION 281 thinking. And though exact thought is not the datum, it is nevertheless the inevitable corollary, of musical feeling. Hence, in musical consciousness, the processes of thought partake of the nature of suggestion. Here sensuous images or intellectual ideas are purely arbitrary. That is to say, as art-stuff, the free activity of music overcomes all mental limitation, and suffers no determination from without. For here the artistic soul is free to inhabit whatsoever mould of thought it pleases. In short, music is a kind of mighty "song without words." Thus the same music might attune itself to various poetic passages without violating the piinciple of artistic fitness; even as the poetic description of some historical hero might conjure up as many different pictures of his personal appearance in as many different minds. And this, since form can only be suggested in poetry; and further, because suggestion is the shadowy side of which expression is the substance. So, in music, we feel; but what we feel about is left to the autonomous activity of the imagination. In other words, the message of music, on its expressional side, reminds us that we are of eternal essence; while on its suggestional side it recalls the fact that we are creatures of time and place. The voice of music is an appeal from within the soul; but it also finds an echo outside the soul as it strikes upon the world of solid fact. But more than this. Though music is not informative truth it has the value and validity of moral realism. It treats of souls, not things ; and is, therefore, of all the arts the most real. For what has more of reality than the natural affections which harass and oppress the recalcitrant will? What can be of more value than the love and sympathy which stimulate the soul's activity ? And music it is which alone mirrors the triumphs and failures of a self in strife. Surely, then, we have here of all content the most morally significant for the spirit of man. So although emotional states, as such, have no defined content, music is not to be fairly dismissed as but anoetic sentience. It is moral beauty, and so has intense interest- value. It is the activity of personality, and so has momentous meaning for the individual. It touches the vital instincts of the spirit and is therefore of serious import. Indeed, the apparent lack of " content " in music is exactly due to its spiritual persuasion. For only in spiritual relativity do we approximate the mergence of subject 282 HERMAIA and object, wherein form and content seem scarcely differenced one from another. Thus in religious consciousness, it is difficult to differentiate between the self and " Higher-than-self." What is man's desire for God, but God's desire for man ? It is matter that divides, mind that mediates, and spirit that unites. So music is no mental impoverishment ; no negation of artistic thought. It is no sterilisation of the imagination; no meagre state of estheticism, denuded of any beauteous content whatso- ever. It is rather a rich and full positive spirituality. What, for instance, is the mental ingredient of righteousness? What is the exact content of purity? or, for the matter of that, any of the spiritual sentiments and moral qualities which music is so powerful to stimulate? In short, the incomprehensible is not the annulling of ideation: the unimaginable is not the deprivation of consciousness: rather, we might add, that with the increase of mystery and inconceivability we have a corre- sponding growth in reality. So rather than being a kind of impotent art, music is replete with emphatic and pronounced meaning. It is just because it is emptied of restrictive imaginings that music is so much at home with the fundamentals of moral consciousness. In a word, the reason for much misunderstand- ing respecting the art in question finds an analogy in the con- fusion of universality with emptiness. But surely, what is common to all is private to each. Though all may hear and understand, music whispers a peculiar secret in the ear of every wistful soul. Obviously, then, music is subjective and moralistic. It is of the interior potency of art, and partakes of the beauty of man's inner spiritual nature. Thus, so far as direct expression is con- cerned, it is isolated from external experience. Its relational aspect is humanistic and ethical rather than factual and formal. It is rich in humanity. Its intercourse is moral sympathy. THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY 283 CHAPTER XXXIV MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY WE have now spoken of music in relation to the fundamental aspect of volition. We intimated, moreover, that the objective of volition was to be found in what music suggested alone. But our present concern is to show that essential music as expression proper, apart from what it might possibly suggest, has a content peculiarly its own. So before discussing in detail the more specific potencies of spiritual life, we must see how music accords with the indispensable elements, which alone make pure moralism possible. And these will be the inevitable ingredient of emotion which condenses into what we term motive, and the necessary social conditions wherein our motives either conflict or co-operate for the furtherance and evolvement of morality. And in pursuit of our inquiry, we shall still adopt the moral method such as accords with the processes of man's ethical consciousness and argue from within to without the soul. For, be it remembered, morality consists essentially in man's persona] reaction towards the claims of conditional circumstance. Hence, in the following pages, we shall show how music, in its interior mode of being, harmonises with the self-will as it presses forward into actual experience. So it will be our present business to prove, by analogy, that musical ideation adequately expresses such mental attributes as are immediately immanent in man's moral consciousness ; not forgetting, moreover, that the compara tively non-moral qualities partake necessarily of the nature of suggestion. And as we pass from the general mode of music which is our present consideration, to the particular matter of musical consciousness which will concern us later, we feel that the reader will be pressed into the sure acceptance of music as the only pure expression of moral beauty. Our matter to hand, then, is to trace the concurrent parallelism subsisting between the essentials of moral activism and the esthetic constitution of music in essence. To anticipate, we are now to discuss the super- 284 HERMAIA addition of emotion to the central self or will, whereby we attain to moral and qualitative energy, and show that in its relation to art it finds its appropriate counterpart especially in music. Now it will be wisest to view our subject primarily in the light of genetic psychology, since whatever moral evolution may have in prospect for the individual, we shall here, at least, be in touch with those very primal forces which saw the birth of morality proper. And whatever type of ethical theory we consider, ethi cists of the evolutional persuasion are all agreed that " life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling." Or again: " No school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable state of feeling called by what- ever name gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure some- where, at some time, to some being or beings, is an inexpungable element of the conception.' 1 The theory, then, " which takes, in some shape or other, the greatest happiness as the end of conduct," may be said to be the fundamental principle of "organic morality;" and although not exhausting the moral content may surely be accepted as far as it goes. In any case, these few quotations suffice to show that feeling, in some form or other, is peculiarly associated with morality. And in terms of art, it is essential musicality in the realm of beauty. Indeed, even so modern an authority as Dr. Wester- marck holds, after an exhaustive treatment of the subject, that moral judgments have their origin in the emotions. Be it noted, in passing, however, that though there is a certain amount of truth in what is called " organic morality," it is not the whole truth about ethical philosophy, and does not exhaust the entire content of moral consciousness. The moral quality of conduct does undoubtedly depend, to a very large extent, on its utility, and more especially on its contribution to the general fund of happiness. But these, we feel, are the effects rather than the cause of morality proper; they are secondary, not primary considerations in the discussion of the moral sense. If, for instance, wrong is done, the moral agent does not, in the first place, deplore the loss of happiness, and certainly not the diminu- tion of usefulness, but primarily, if not solely, the neglect to do that which he could and ought to have done. He deplores the dereliction of duty; and in his sorrow we see the emergence of the emotive element which we hold to be of the very genius of THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY 285 the moral faculty itself. So though we hold feeling to be the peculiar content of the moral sense, it is something interior to mere biological sentiency. We are here confronted with some- thing far deeper that which we connote by the term moral feeling. And from the idealistic point of view, music, by reason of its esthetic internalism, finds in the latter its true artistic con- tent. But of moral feeling we shall speak later on, as we seek to gradually rear the stately structure of music. For the present, it is sufficient to insist that, in a very real sense, where there is no emotion, there is and can be no moralism proper. An indifferent moiality is a contradiction in terms. A dispassionate goodness is an impossibility. If character were sapped of emotion, conduct would be but a non-moral product. If morality were deprived of feeling it would become painfully prudential. Apart from feeling, man's behaviour would in the language of estheticism partake more of the nature of a sym- metrical mosaic than of music's generous flood; charity would degenerate into a sum in subtraction, and meanness become merely a. sum in addition. True morality, therefore, must ever be whole-hearted and enthusiastic. Positive evil enthuses no man. The very derivation of the word " enthusiasm " speaks for itself. In feeling, then, we have the material for morality. And the higher the feeling, the nobler the conduct. That is to say, moral states differ in feeling rather than in fact. So it is better to feel for others than merely to think about them. To do right without feeling is but a mechanical adjustment, whereas to do right because we feel is nothing short of spiritual life. A moral principle apart from emotion would be akin to a geo- metrical postulate, and would reform no man: precept without passion is as a body without a soul. For what is a moral principle but the ascertained application of ethical feeling to social environ- ment ? If, for instance, love be not emotive, then is it of the nature of some mathematical truth, which is in no wise dependent on the relation between human beings who feel. Hence it is to such as feel deeply that the world owes its true moral uplift. Men of action are strong in feeling. Moral genius, therefore, is only possible where there is the capacity for both affection and aversion. And the same feelings which reprobate the bad, applaud the good. True temperance, moreover, is not absence of feeling, but rather a sign of emotional equipoise. Equilibrium 286 HERMAIA is not rest. Hence calm, peaceful natures are not necessarily such through lack of feeling; it is more often depth of feeling that makes them so. It is rather the shallow natures who are most excitable, and not such as are capable of being profoundly moved. Even the failings of what we vaguely term affection are fraught with more power for goodness than is the rigid recti- tude of punctilious Pharisaism. And though we are wise in our praise of self-control, let us not forget that incapacity for emo- tional disturbance is nothing short of spiritual death. Better be roused unduly than not at all. The man who cannot be moved is morally dead. He is " passed all feeling." It is, then, in the passionate rather than in the phlegmatic natures that the greatest spiritual possibilities are to be found. The cautious and critical are seldom, if ever, heroic. Prudence is not power. In short, true spiritual experience is only possible where there is depth of feeling. He who is not touched cannot be properly moral; neither can he be religious who cannot be moved. For it is sympathy that saves; love which redeems. And it is the emotions, rather than the intellect, which make all nations kin. So there is more hope for the man who finds it difficult to control his feelings than for the man who has few, if any, to control. There is, at all events, the promise of moral achievement in exuberance of feeling, but little in sluggish emotionalism. Indeed, few have shown such self-composure as those of a cruel, callous nature. They are entirely undisturbed by the intrusion of the higher emotions. So stagnancy of feeling constitutes a very real moral danger. Warm impulse, therefore, and not cold criticism is the real cause of moral attainment. The man who continually criticises seldom does anything great. He is, moreover, in danger of losing his own humanity. Hence a listless, passionless age is ever an unheroic one. It is to the warm and affectionate natures that we look for the higher self-sacrifice, and not to the phlegmatic critic. And this because emotion tends to evaporate in the cold, white light of prudential criticism. We may reason successfully about the self and its activity, but far otherwise is it to feel the warm throb of potential being. Similarly, metaphysical dialectics may overrule a frigid intel- lectualism and reinstate the Deity on a throne shrouded in misty thought, but that is as nothing to the ecstatic rapture felt by the divinely-touched heart of the mystic. So if we thought a little THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY 287 less, and felt a little more, we should be less liable to the sterilisa- tion of the sympathetic faculties. The truth is, we are too- academic. We are too prone to rationalise our humanity out of all recognition. And such a process of mental ossification can only serve to produce in man the sapless spirit and the hardened heart. So while we may reason about the cause and effect of our several actions, it is only in so far as we are repelled by evil, and attracted towards goodness, that we become properly moral. And the outgoing of the soul towards the morally beauti- ful, and the indrawing of the soul in the presence of the morally ugly, are musical motions of the spirit which alone give virtue and value to conduct. Great moral issues demand strong emotive reaction. And this it is which makes art superior to- science, or even philosophy. In art, and specifically in music, we are sensitive to goodness. For as we near the emotions the possibilities of morality increase, and the dispassionate delibera- tions of the intellect decline. It is no longer a question of cold calculation but of the attitude of our active sympathies. Here a feeling-preference is involved, inapplicable to our thoughts about things. We may " know " all about morality without being personally moral. And music is being, rather than knowing. So the true makers of history, the true pioneers of human progress, are all to be found strong in their affectional nature. As has been well said: " History is not made by the intellect, but by the emotions." Indeed, the inner history of every nation is properly musical. Poetry may record in epic the events and incidental happenings, painting may portray for us the changing types and fleeting fashions of progressive man, but music pecu- liarly registers in perpetuity the moral and spiritual tendencies which really govern and control the destiny of humanity. Herder said with much truth that Germany was reformed by song. It is in the feeling-nature that the measure of man's moral develop- ment is most faithfully registered. Or as Ruskin puts it: " The ennobling difference between one man and another is precisely in this, that one feels more than another." Thus in cases of moral degeneracy, the pervert may know perfectly well what he ought not to do ; what he lacks, however, is the reactive agency of the emotions. Similarly though on higher levels of consciousness the erudite theologian may know all the current arguments for the existence of the Deity, and yet be wholly 288 HERMAIA antipathetic towards a spiritual mode of mind. And such facts serve to show that being is deeper than thinking; that in the ultimate we are nearer being good by feeling good, than by simply thinking about it. So we may have the most spiritual philosophy; but without emotive impulse it remains pure theory. It is possible to know truth without being of it; just as it is possible to substantiate a statement without acting upon it. In short, goodness is felt in the heart, rather than known in the intellect. Though we warm towards heroism, the " differential calculus " leaves us cold. Dr. Brodie Patterson is therefore right when he says that " intellectually, man knows a hundredfold more of the right than he lives, but if a man feels, he lives what he feels." But much that is inconclusive and inadequate has been wiitten about the emotions. Many have dissertated on the mere froth and foam which sports on the vast ocean of feeling the quickly spent spray of volatile natures profoundly unmindful of those fundamental depths of being which nestle in the unfathomable and eternal. Some pseudo - psychologists speak as if man's feeling-nature were a kind of enlightened animalism, while the purely intellectual part of mind had risen through the ages to heights of unquestioned sovereignty. But we must remember that there has been a concomitant emotive evolution. Man in music has risen from primitive passionalism to spiritual ecstasy. True it is we have passions and propensions in common with the lower order of creation, but it is exactly in man's self-relation to such that renders them of moral account. And music rises out of unregulated discordance to ordered harmony, even as humanity in general, and man in particular, passes from instinc- tive emotions, such as rage and fear, to moral sentiments, such as love and sympathy. And it is vastly important to insist on this the scale of values and grades of excellence in music. For to some unmusical minds, music presents itself as but the infantile con- dition of beauty. It is argued that just as the child exhibits an irrational and irresponsible display of feeling, so too music, which is in essence emotion, represents but the childhood of the beauti- ful. But what of truth is in this assumption is that it is the childlike state which is the divine passport into the kingdom of beauty. Youth is the age of idealism, the period of vim and verve, and it is art which maintains the heart in tenderness and THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY 289 eternally renews the receptivity of soul. On the other hand, the child, as such, is a comparatively non-moral being. It exhibits neither love nor sympathy none, in short, of such altruistic sentiments and spiritual aspirations as are characteristic of maturer man. The child is incapable, for instance, of remorse. And it is in just such mental proclivities that music is peculiarly potent. Hence true music is exactly not untamed and un- regulated emotion, but at its highest the expression of a love divine. Emotion, then, is not necessarily the undeveloped side of human nature peculiar to animals and children: indeed only such souls as have agonised in prayer, or striven with the powers of evil, can be said to have really felt at all. Are we not " made perfect through suffering"? Is logical man more sensitive to moral and spiritual impressions than emotional woman ? Indeed, no! What then is emphatically needed is not the suppression, but the purification of feeling. We are now removed from bare musical awareness as the ideal of self or will. And, as already promised, we have here under discussion the immediate clothing or proximate sheath of the man himself. For whether it be appetitive or affectional, all sane psychology holds that feeling, or desire, is nearer the will than is pure thought or disinterested reason. Indeed, it is feeling that excites volition; emotion that prompts to action. Thus love, so far from being inactive, is really that very spiritual impulse which, if strong enough, must most surely result in action. For what is self-sacrifice but love-like music up welling from beneath pure reason which it quickens and inspires ? Will, therefore, is immanent in feeling in the economy of mind. It is more intimately related to conation than to cognition. Of course these latter are mentally inseparable; but it is in the former that we find the motive-power and driving-force of voli- tion proper. We must, moreover, be careful to avoid a purely academic view of emotionalism. Feeling felt is different from feeling simply thought about; whereas when we think about thought, the mode of consciousness remains the same. And this is why philosophy so often does but scant justice to man's affectional nature, since we need not feel deeply to philosophise about feeling, but we must think to philosophise about thought. Hence Maeterlinck rightly deplores the " beggarly psychology of the schools." After all, is not all art at root man's heart - T 290 HERMAIA relation to truth, and so has for its main concern his feeling- experience? It is, therefore, nearer moralism than mentalism, which, more properly speaking, is the non-actional aspect of mind. Music, in consequence, identifying itself more particu- larly with the will, stands or falls with the majesty of the human heart. But we must plunge once more into the main current of our theme so that the sequence of our reasoning may be the better maintained. Now it will be readily seen how vitally the foregoing bears on our argument; since music answers peculiarly to the primary, analogical demands made upon it, as the ideal reflector of moral beauty. In music, we think in feeling : it is the logic of the emotions. We reason in sentiment : we argue in terms of affection. Feelings in real life become ideas in music. Emotion becomes the essential thought -essence of musical beauty. And emotion is the pure, basal awareness which makes all artistic consciousness possible. And in this respect music is unique. For how to animate the feelings directly, and not indirectly as in pictures and poems, seemed the one insoluble problem in art, seeing that normal experience never gives us feeling apart from fact. Thus without the artistic actuality of music, mere inference would have deemed the animation of feelings directly an esthetic impossibility. What, therefore, all other forms of beauty seek indirectly to arouse, music realises directly in substance. Here the objective of other modes of art becomes at once the subject- material of music. For just as in the phenomenal world spirit is svmbolically suggested, so the phenomenal arts appeal to the soul through substantial semblance. Music, however, discards the mediumship of form and fact, and identifies its mode of expression with the feelings to be expressed. In short, it eman- cipates feeling from form: it relegates the more phenomenal matters of fact to the region of suggestion. But for this bundle of emotions or group of feelings, let us substitute the term " heart " the peculiar organ of moral con- sciousness, or that part of us which moralises our activities. For it is in the heart, rather than in the head, that we apprehend moral and spiritual truth. In the language of Burns: The heart's aye the part aye, That makes us right or wrong. - It is that which makes good conduct easy or difficult. The THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY 291 history of the heart is thus the history of conduct. And in the development of music we have idealised for us the evolu- tion of moral possibilities. Hence the value of music lies in its capacity to educate the heart. For music does not poetically sing about it, nor yet pictorially draw our attention thereto, but literally is the heart, whence are the issues of moral and spiritual life. And is it not better to have sympathy than merely to talk about it, however learned or persuasive our speech ? We do not therefore argue about the heart in music, we simply bow assent to its imperious promptings. Music is heart -thinking, and is the expression of what a man exactly is. For " as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." So the robust honesty of Darwin compelled him to confess that : " If I had to live my life again 1 would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week, for perhaps the parts in my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral char- acter, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." There- fore take care of the heart, and the head will take care of itself. For there is something higher than knowledge, and that is wisdom, which is knowledge heart-inspired. So the moral and spiritual are not founded on the intellect ; they occupy a different plane of being. And any characteristically moral experience will serve to prove this. To cite but a single instance. We have nothing in the realm of reason analogous to the sudden reforma- tion of character, or to the swift revulsion of feeling towards that which one time never failed to attract. Was ever a stupid man made suddenly clever? Yet many a bad man, through a kind of cataclysmic feeling-reversion, has been suddenly made good. Deeper than philosophic thought is the moral feeling of per- sonal lightness. To sum up: in music, beauty is " spiritually discerned." It is now easy at this juncture to clear up certain miscon- ceptions concerning the nature of music, which is superficially supposed by some to be but the reflection of an unthinking stream of tendencies, whereas it is the exact opposite which alone makes classical music an artistic possibility. Music proper is not flabby emotionalism, but is emotional exactitude and definite ideality. Indeed, we see in music of real artistic merit the ideal 292 HERMAIA exemplification of the deliberate retention in consciousness of healthy spiritual proclivities. It permits of persistence in the inner mind of the moving powers of the soul. It is capable of controlling just those subtle forces which ever and anon leap from the depths of the hidden mind and surprise even conscious- ness itself. It reinforces our ideal feelings, such as are attendant on the more highly organised intellect. Thus the zeal of the patriot, the moral fervour of the reformer, and the heart-burnings of the religious devotee are soul-uprisings with which music holds high converse. Far from being, therefore, but a hazy mass of incoherence, or an indiscriminate botch of vague impressionism, as an imperfect apprehension of the art would lead us to con- jecture, music is in fact the absolute antithesis of all this. Indeed, it is justly termed art, since it makes definite what is most indefinite within ourselves. It redeems the obscure; it renders articulate that which would otherwise remain eternally inarticulate. It captures the vagrant fancies. It transforms amorphous impulse into definite, though novel, ideation. Thus the formless and incognisable, subjected to the formative principle of absolute music, becomes at once a thing of tangible appre- hension : abstract principle becomes positive personalism. Music is a kind of condensation of the heart's atmosphere. Here the abstiuse is caught up and rendered lastingly concrete by the composer. The emotions, for ever fluxional, are crys- tallised into beauteous being; the transitional, which would otherwise escape us, is transformed into a mode of utterance upon which we can linger and meditate. Moral sentiment is sealed in song; and song becomes shape in the hidden sphere of spirit. In other words, the unpicturable affinities of the soul find their delineation in well-defined melody, and moral influences discover their esthetic consolidation in mathematically-constructed har- mony. Music, then, only arises with the co-ordination of the feelings. It is the rationalisation of the emotions. It is the intellectualisation of the heart ; the logical sequence of the senti- ments. It is, in short, spiritual reason the logic of love, and voices what Pascal finely calls the " reasons of the heart " which " reason knoweth not." And what was but mystical motion in the soul is now established in the external medium of melody, ready to return again to the soul, known and interpreted. So absolute music may be viewed as formulated sensibility, and as THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY 293 the moral regulation of our impulsive and affectional nature. It becomes at once the discipline of our ethical propensions and spiritual susceptibilities the temperate employment of the emotions and control of the higher sentiments. If, again, poetry be emotionalised intellect, music may be regarded as intellectualised emotion. And while the dramatist integrates the ethical elements that go to make up character, the composer recreates the secret springs of the motive-mind. In- deed, the very value and master-merit of music is that it and it alone saves for art just that which most yearns for esthetic expression. For it bodies forth and defines the soul, without losing sight of the spiritual principle of the soul itself. It surmounts the difficulty of expressing spirit, as apart from its experiential setting in time a seemingly impossible artistic achievement. And which of the arts could conceivably do other than but slenderly suggest, or vaguely hint at, the immaterial and psychical, save this the metaphysical art of music ? The moral importance of music is then perfectly apparent, since it exercises authority over the occult forces of the unseen. And are not these the more potent, because occult ? These it captures, tames, and controls, and so becomes an art of supreme account. And yet we hear profound music flippantly criticised, as if it required of us no affectional affinity. But more than this; we must be rationally related to musical ideas before we can even pretend to- understand with the heart. For although music is language without words, it is something more than a vague excitation of the emotions, as some so glibly assert. It may at its lowest be that; but at its highest it realises for us the artistic ideation of moral sentiment, of religious aspiration in all its essence and tremendous reality. At its best, it is a divine passion a holy zeal. And if some tuneful soul should fail to extract such hidden meaning from exalted music, let him ask himself the question whether the inner content of any true picture can be fully exhausted by merely making an inventory of all the objects delineated therein. 294 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXXV MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL SENSE BUT we must now pass on to our second condition of morality, and pause to reflect how music is especially competent, by reason of its esthetic constitution, to meet the analogical demand made upon it. And it is to the social aspect of humanity to which we here refer. So it is no longer a question of myself as simply desiring, but of my desires in conjunction or conflict with the desires of others. Now ethical possibilities only really arise where we find the co-operation of consociated souls. Not, how- ever, as insensate pawns moved by the finger of fate, but bound together by vital interests : a moral coalition. Indeed, Spencei holds that the " moral consciousness " is an entirely social pro- duct. But perhaps it were truer to say and more in keeping with the genius of ethics, that society affords the indispensable con- dition of, and occasion for, the expression of personal, moral activity. But we cannot labour this at present. What we do affirm is, that morality creeps in with feeling-relations between living souls; whereas pure mentality appertains to the relation of thought to things, or thoughts to one another. Still whatever be the origin of the moral sense, it remains lastingly authoritative. It has arrived a finished product, and stands for what it is, irrespective of theory ; although, like music, it grows in intensity of feeling through social enforcement. But whereas painting communes with things, and poetry with thoughts, music traffics in the commonwealth of souls. It grows out of relations between spiritual selves. And no art has so much personal warmth and intimacy of feeling. It was born of enthusiasm for humanity, and cradled in the spirit of democracy. It is the most democratic of the arts. And it is not too much to say that it awoke with the resurgence of the social spirit. Above all the arts it breathes the spirit of modernity, and is itself instrumental in furthering the socialisation of our common Christianity. Music concentrates on the central being of man, but at the same time expresses itself in terms of a harmonious and con- AS EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL SENSE 295 certed humanity. And though it advances no poetic " pro- gramme," it does something better it socialises the conscience of the community. There would, therefore, be no antagonism between society and the individual were every member fully developed; just as altruism and egoism, as having conflicting claims, would lose their meaning were the self, the diviner self, to seek expression. Indeed, we are most ourselves when we live for others. So T. H. Green holds that " the human spirit can only realise itself, or fulfil its ideal in persons, and that it can only do this through society, since society is the condition of the development of a personality." Or in the words of McDougall : " It is only by sharing in the collective life of organised societies that the mass of men is raised above a very low level of almost purely selfish behaviour; and it is through such sharing that great numbers of men are raised to a level of consistently public-spirited conduct and even to heights of heroic self-sacri- fice." So we pass from music as the expression of personality in isolation, to music as the expression of personality, socially regarded. And we shall find that in music, as distinct from other arts, we realise ourselves in and through one another. Music, in a word, is artistic self-fulfilment. If, then, our moral nature has for its indispensable condition the inter-relation of sentient beings ; if all our ethical ideas come into existence by reason of man's social life; then music, if it be pre-eminently the art of moral beauty, must be peculiarly representative of a like mode of manifestation. And in this respect it is not difficult to show that music fulfils the condition. We have only to remind ourselves that music is primarily strong in humanity and spiritual relativity, that it is at once the most personal and intimate of the arts, and contains within itself such sympathy as renders moral evolution a possibility. It is, more- over, a question of the artistic relation of souls to one another; and not, as in painting, of souls to things. So in music there is not that sense of personal separateness we find in poetry; nor that objective estrangement which obtains in painting; nor yet that isolation felt in sculpture, which stands so far apart from the observer. And this, since the body of plastic art divides ; whereas the spirit of music unites. No art, for instance, has so great an influence on the home-life as music. It binds the member? of a family together in the holy bonds of pure affection. 296 HERMAIA So Tolstoi holds that all " art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling." And herein we find the difference between science and art. For in science, and even philosophy, we are comparatively individualistic. Scientific research and philosophic inquiry can the .better be prosecuted apart from society; whereas artistic activity is more sociably inclined. Hence the scientific consciousness, which lives by analysis and dissection, should be supple- mented by the artistic consciousness, which lives by unity and synthesis. Since morality is social, art is nearer the moral than either science or philosophy. But the above is particularly true of music. For if we trace the rise of art in general, and compare the boundaries of beauty, we find that architecture, standing apart as it does, alienates and estranges ; while music, with its wealth and warmth of sympathy, unites and socialises. Indeed, the ascent of beauty is but the growing intensity of man's social sympathies ; from the comparatively cold aloofness of statuary and the separa- tive individualism of painting, through the more social inter- course of dramatic poetry, up to the socialism of music. And what is this, but the logical transition from separateness to unity ? So, in religious parlance, music is the " Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." It is the esthetic synthesis, where egoism and altruism, " mine and thine," merge in an all-embracing unity of being. It is exactly spiritual union; while other arts, in varying degrees, but reveal the growth of this binding principle of beauty. Even the unity discoverable in painting that which makes it essentially artistic is peculiarly the corporate life of the body, whose unity lies in the parts, " fitly joined together." In music, therefore, we can truly say that we " rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." It tells of the sorrow which sanctifies, and of the joy that elevates. In music we share one another's spiritual burdens. But more than this. Music is rich in what we might term its collective possibilities. Not, however, in any materialistic, but in a purely spiritual, sense. And from this point of view, choral or concerted music is typical of the conditions we have set out to establish. Indeed, whether we have in mind the conjoint efforts of the performers, or the collective audience, we have in the concert an artistic illustration of the spiritual unity and solidarity of humanity. For have we not here, as in no AS EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL SENSE 297 other art, an expression of the one artistic bond of union ? Here chords are struck which bind men together, and prove the in- dubitable identity of human nature. It matters not how varied the audience, all are denuded of ephemeral badges of office, of worldly, social distinctions all, in short, are laid bare to the very heart's core. Crowns fall to earth; robes of titular office fall from off the back ; official insignia crumble to dust ; and all we know of is an elevation of soul above the transient and petty drama of our surface-life, when thus we become merged in the common heart of humanity. Through the influence of music, all mundane appurtenances melt into nothingness, leaving not a rack behind, save the spirit in the presence of the eternal silence, made musical by the harmony of truth. Here the imagination is wholly untrammelled, and freed from the con- ventions of thought. We see with our vision focussed soberly and truthfully; for music gives the heart's vision its normal perspective. We see the supremacy of that common touch of nature which makes the whole world kin, and the tremendous significance of the human feelings. The heart alone is regnant on such felicitous occasions. Love in its purity unites us all, brooking no obstructions of thought. Everything all the puny ceremonies of pantomimic man, with his social puppet-show bows before the expression of moral reality. Then music speaks the one true language of the soul. In the true concert, we have one common pulse: one heart beats for us all. We rise nobly out of all prejudicial particularity, and soar to the grand serenity of the general. Every auditor is caught up into some realm of esthetic elation, where all spirits are bound together in the im- plication of Divine Essence. We stream upward on the surging flood of organised sound. Time shrivels to a point, and space becomes an extinguished void. We are delocalised: we pass like vapours into a region of thought where all is one with absolute truth and impersonal reality, where private bias is fearful to follow. In fine, we shake off the dust of our mortality. Music is, then, the pre-eminently social art. It is spiritual unity: it is essential reciprocity. It proclaims the interde- pendence of humanity: it utters the language of beauteous collectivity. It substantiates the spiritual nexus that binds man- kind together. It expresses man's " root-consciousness." We have only to hear some mighty Handelian chorus, where each 298 HERMAIA part is tributary to the whole, where the separate self-idea is sunk in harmonial oneness, to be raised at once to the higher level of communistic consciousness. And as Gurney well says : " The effect of song on the masses is like a glimpse of infinite spiritual possibilities." Indeed, music is the one supreme unifier and harmoniser in the world of ideals. In music, we feel for one another as in no other art ; for it takes no note of colour, clime, or creed, but bathes us all alike in one vast sea of love. As Herder has it: " A chorus of singers is like a company of brothers; the heart is opened, and in the stream of Song they feel themselves of one heart and of one mind." Little wonder, then, that Beethoven made the key-note of his latest symphonic utterance the fellowship of souls and the brotherhood of man. And " In Fellowship " writes Meredith " religion hath its founts." And herein music shows its affinity with religion. For are not both equally bent on resolving the social discords that embitter life, and in establishing in power the harmonising principle of love ? So could we but live musically that is, were love to abound then would social injustice melt like some rancorous vapour before the morning sun. If we only saw deep enough into the heart of others, as is the wont of music, then would our moral relations be mollified, and the asperities of our social life be sweetened. So with music comes the artistic awakening of our social consciousness. Here we are sensitive, one to another. Here, in a very real sense, no man lives to himself; we rise or fall together, linked as we are by one common bond of spiritual fellowship. And all that is evil in life is anti-social. As a false note in concerted music mars the whole effect, so the suffering of a single soul militates against the music of humanity. Accord- ingly, music is a comparatively modern art, because the social conscience in man is but of recent development. And as Spencer has pointed out, it is difficult to compute how far this art has been responsible for the growth of the altruistic sense. In very truth, it has been the means of feeding and fostering just those very feelings which are the animating motive of any Christian community whatsoever. For Christianity is nothing if not a social religion. Hence no man of art is so dependent on his fellows as is the musician. Indeed, the composer has oftentimes to rely on such AS EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL SENSE 299 a variety of individual executants that it reduces enormously his chances of public production. You may read your Shake- speare in a sense in which you cannot read your Beethoven. Pictures and statues, again, need no further interpretation ; they stand already self-exhibited. Thus it comes about that, of all the sons of art, the composer is he who is most in need of help from the community. And perhaps state -aid will be forthcoming when we grow, as a nation, a little more jealous of the fortunes of spiritual beauty. But have we not in the drama it may be asked with its co- operant capability and intense humanism, a like expression of the interplay of human agents ? indicative of the fact that it shares, along with music, this social principle under discussion. And this is only what we would expect. For if the rise of art be but the gradual socialisation of the beautiful, surely we shall expect to find in those higher reaches of poetry which so closely abut on the sociological art of music a near approach to the more social-spiritual form of comeliness. But dramatic poetry, which treads so closely on the heels of music, fails in one salient par- ticular; namely, that of the principle of harmony or coinci- dental part- writing, the artistic homologue of social order and arrangement. For while in the former the inter-action of the characters is progressive consecution, in the latter we have both progression and synchronal co-existence. So, although the drama is the nearest approach to communistic, artistic activity, we cannot express in dramatic poetry such choral cohesiveness, such concordant mutuality or harmonious collectivity, as obtains in music. In the drama we may have a crowd, but not a chorus. Neither can any other art aspire to this sense of social beauty. And this brings to mind the following passage from Plotinus. He says that : " We may compare ourselves to a chorus which is placed round a Choragus, but which sings out of tune so long as it directs its attention away from him to external things; but when it turns to him it sings in perfect harmony, deriving its inspiration from him." Or again: " In the choral dance we behold the source of our life, the fountain of our intelligence, the primal good, the root of the soul." But the figure of the Neo- platonist might be brought more up to date by reference to the modern orchestra rather than the chorus. For like society itself, orchestral music is heterogeneous, whereas choral music 300 HERMAIA is homogeneous, in character. Indeed, we have in the somewhat pompous and assertive " brass " the tonal symbol of civic ability to rule; in the more delicate " wood-wind " the less ostentatious, but none the less necessary, dignitaries of the state; and in the multitudinous " strings " the very backbone of the orchestra itself, the democratic basis of society. But more than this : for just as society grows in complexity and multiplication of offices, so too we can set no limit to either the number of instruments, or the variety of colour-combinations, possible to orchestral music. So after all the " ideal kingdom " is best figured forth in the performance of let us say the symphony. For have we not here, in the various instruments, the manifold functions of the many citizens of the one state adequately idealised? Have we not, in the different instrumental tone-qualities, richly suggested for us the variety of temperaments and distinctive faculties which go to make up a highly organised, differentiated, and composite social unity? And to satisfy the claims of individualism, each member of the orchestra is expected to give ample expression to the part allotted him ; while to meet the higher claims of socialism no executant is of social value or account save in so far as he contributes to the full effect for which the orchestra alone exists. In short, each instrument contributes its specific possibility to the perfection of the symphonic whole. In other words, the total grandeur of the music depends on the individual excellence of the separate parts. Similarly, should the destiny of any single soul, however seemingly humble and insignificant, be unfulfilled, the orchestration of life is at once irrevocably marred. Though morality is personal, all are necessary to the " kingdom ; " and above all stands the divine " Conductor," controlling the destinies of co-operate humanity. And it is man's duty to be responsive to His every beat, and so bring out to the full the music latent in the mind of God. If such, therefore, be a true analogy, little wonder that the " common people " hear music gladly. But we have said more than enough to prove that music is, in this particular connection, peculiarly competent to express morality, which as Mill says " rests upon the social feelings of mankind, on that desire to be in unity with our fellow-creatures." And whatever may be incomplete in the above definition of the foundation of morality will be met by a later consideration of AS EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL SENSE 301 music as moral beauty. In any case, music helps us to realise ourselves as members one of another as belonging to God's family on earth. For just as souls grow only through social inter-relations, so music comes to itself only in and through the union of parts. Unity is fundamental ; division merely super- ficial. The only virtue in being a separate self is that we may join ourselves consciously to others. We divide that we may unite. And in music we live the higher life of the soul, wherein the limiting sense of separateness is lost. Though each man " plays his part," he needs must contribute to the " part- writing " of society. And the increase of freedom in modern musical part-writing is coincident with the growing liberties of the individual. So music, more than any other art, voices man's social consciousness. It does not picture man as living apart on some external canvas ; nor yet as merely playing his part upon the stage of life : it figures forth the spiritual kingdom of souls, where all artificial distinctions have fled, and worthless differences are sunk out of sight. It views society as Heaven views it a band of brothers, lost in the diviner sense of undividedness. And what but the music of infinite sympathy has such power of con- junction ? And so in music, we become one with the vast Whole ; for music is all-inclusive, not exclusive, beauty. So to be musi- cal, is to be initiated into the membership of universal man ; since it is the adequate mouthpiece of artistic mutualism. Hence the modernity of music, and its latter-day rise. It is not strange, therefore, that, with the age of humanitarianism and social betterment, the tuneful art should have leapt into newness of being. Indeed, music it is which has nourished the Christian feeling of brotherhood. For this, and for other reasons, it is the art of the future. It is the alluring voice of the evangel: " On earth peace, good will toward men." It is the trumpet-call which shall usher in the coming of " the kingdom." For as Shelley reminds us : We are we not formed, as notes of music are, For one another, though dissimilar; Such difference without discord, as can make Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake As trembling leaves in a continuous air ? 302 HERMAIA CHAPTER XXXVI MUSIC AS THE EXPRESSION OF MOTIVE HAVING dealt with music in relation to self or personality, as well as the innate powers and original propensions in which the ego is initially involved, we are now to consider music in relation to motive, or what we might call the affective-conative attitude of will in its more definite and determinate form. And here music becomes more distinctive: it focalises feeling, and gives direction to the native tendencies of soul. It will be noticed, moreover, that accordant with our method we are working our way out from the inner citadel of spirit towards the outer circumference of external activity. And this is an entirely natural procedure, since impulse is prior to intention, and conation is the cause of conduct. We seek an end because of instinct, whether sensuous or spiritual. Obviously, then, music concentrates on the inner motive, whilst poetry concerns itself more with the mental method of behaviour. And just as motive underlies method, so music underlies poetry. Or again : if music expresses the moral cause of conduct, painting represents esthetically the phenomenal and conditional resultant. So we might regard music, in the rough, as a kind of motive-mass, or more generally speaking as the artistic reflection of man's character and disposition. And since conduct is the outcome of character, music is fundamental to all other forms of art. We herein reverse the artistic procedure, and pass out from music, through poetry, to plastic beauty: and the further we recede from the moral esthetic of music, the less ethical does beauty become. Thus architecture, which stands at the material end of art, appertains more to a non-moral utilitarianism than any other mode of beauty: it is formal, mathematical, and typical of the mental method of externalisation. And what, again, we designate as the " applied arts " are but appurtenances to esthetic utility. Hence, the more utilitarian, the lower the art; the more intuitional, the higher the art. But preparatory to a closer scrutiny of our present subject MUSIC AS EXPRESSION OF MOTIVE 303 let us consider briefly the relation that motive bears to moral activity in general. Now Leslie Stephen writes that: "A genuine moral law distinguishes classes of conduct, not according to external circumstances, but according to the motives involved." Or again, in the language of F. H. Bradley: " Morality has not to do immediately with the outer results of the Will." And this because we might do wrong from right motives, or right from wrong motives. And while in the one case our judgment is at fault more an affair of the intellect in the other our character is at fault a far more serious concern. That is to say, prudence is not virtue: wisdom is not morality. We devise the means, discover the method, with the intellect; but we are moved by our motives. So we cannot always judge a man by his actions: motives are the true spiritual tests of character. We may have the same motive, but different actions: the same action, but different motives. Sympathy may either tend the suffering or defend the weak : a pain-fraught act may spring from either love or hate. And though we sometimes call motives by the same name, they not infrequently spring from opposite affections of the soul. Thus anger may arise either out of love of right or hatred of another, out of unselfishness or selfishness. It is, then, not in the form of activity, but in the inner motive, that the spiritual value of conduct is" to be found. Like music, morality is all a question of the attitude of the will. Even to desire without doing may be moralistic, but to do without de- siring cannot but be mechanical. In any case, it is not so much the deed, as the man behind the deed. A good intention may miscarry, yet despite the failure to achieve, the agent is adjudged as good; or we might be the unwilling cause of an accidental injury and be held as entirely guiltless. And this because, while we can exercise self-control, we cannot always control events. So moral responsibility decreases the further we recede from the motive. We are most responsible for the motives we entertain, less for the means employed, and least for the circum- stantial results. And this, be it noted, is but the natural move- ment of the arts, where each in its turn moves further away from the causal will. It is not, therefore, what we say, however poetically put we might be insincere: not even what we do, however picturesque we might do good for selfish ends: but rather the motive which prompts us to do the things we would,. 304 HERMAIA and the spirit which impels us to say the things we mean. It is the motive-force which constitutes the moral ultimate. Like music "motive" -to quote from Schopenhauer "is causality seen from within." So by motives we mean just those hidden springs of action which are interior to thought itself, and represent its animating principle. Indeed, the very word " motive " signifies that which moves. It is therefore in emotion that we find the imme-