SCIENCE AND CULTURE 33 



feeling separate from intelligence, scarcely 

 ever appears except at the beginning or end 

 of a great period in the history of art. At the 

 beginning, because science is not capable of 

 keeping pace with inspiration; in the age of 

 decadence, because, tired of beauty which has 

 become classic, certain refined spirits set them- 

 selves to look for strange sensations. Art, in 

 the time of full flower, is intellectual and prac- 

 tical, as well as properly aesthetic. In the 

 ages of its highest development, art tends to 

 express, in an idealizing manner, human life 

 in its totality. The Parthenon is not some- 

 thing luxurious, built only to satisfy dilettanti. 

 It expresses national beliefs, it possesses the 

 harmony, at once exact and delicate, of a 

 Greek tragedy. And the beauty which 

 streams from it, is the beauty of light, which 

 not only charms the eye but illuminates the 

 world and maintains life. 



The truth is that the starting point of the 

 theory which sees in art a quite independent 

 activity of humanity is contrary to reality. 

 There is not in our consciousness any feeling 

 entirely isolated from thought, any intuition 



