1877] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 411 



universe, the artist confines himself to thoughts which 

 possess for him a value quite independent of the inferences 

 that may be drawn from them for a more general body 

 of truth thoughts to which he can give a self-contained 

 expression, without caring to use them as means to a 

 remoter end. In a word, every work of art is a product 

 of creative thought, having its end within itself. In 

 science the joy of each new attainment is absorbed in the 

 fresh impulse to further pursuit of truth ; the search for 

 knowledge knows no rest till the whole universe has been 

 subdued. A work of fine art points to no end beyond 

 itself, and urges directly to no activity save that of enjoying 

 to the full the satisfaction that accompanies every exertion 

 of completed mastery of thought over matter. 



It is obvious that the earliest efforts of human thought 

 could not possibly go out in the direction of scientific 

 construction. The notion of an organic system of truth 

 advancing from generation to generation, till it grasp the 

 whole universe, can begin to be entertained only with the 

 beginning of a scientific diadoche, of a regular organisation 

 of thinkers and workers, each of whom takes up and 

 carries forward in fresh developments the truth received 

 from his predecessor or his neighbour. And this again 

 involves an amount of mental discipline, a power of 

 continuous self-denying effort, and a devotion to an 

 abstract aim lying far beyond the lifetime of the individual 

 worker, which are wholly unknown in the childhood of 

 society. But we are not therefore to conceive of the early 

 races of mankind as savages, acting only under the 

 pressure of material needs or the incitement of animal 

 instinct. If history and psychology have a voice at all, 

 they declare to us that man was not developed by chance 

 from the lower creation, but came complete from the hands 

 of God Himself, with an eye to behold the harmony of 

 creation, a heart sensitive to emotion and sympathy, a 

 spirit not passive and perplexed under the myriad impres 

 sions that pour in upon it from the universe without, but 



