412 Life as a Fine Art. 



cussion. Suffice it to say, by way of preliminary definition, 

 that it is that perfected form or mode of mental activity 

 which arises from an approximately complete psychical 

 adaptation to the conditions of the environment social, in- 

 tellectual, and physical out of which it has been evolved ; 

 which, no longer conscious of meeting resistance in its 

 efforts at intellectual apprehension, acts, as it were, spon- 

 taneously, and conceives of its own activities under the 

 form of freedom ; which appears, therefore, to the conscious 

 individual as a self-creative impulse, not as the mechanic- 

 ally constrained resultant of external determinative forces. 

 It is, nevertheless, no supernaturally intruded new creation 

 in man's psychic nature, but a natural evolution out of 

 previously existent modes of psychical activity, having a 

 recognized correspondence with parallel stages of devel- 

 opment in every field and phase of the evolutionary pro- 

 cess. This may perhaps be rendered clear by an illus- 

 tration drawn from certain familiar biological phenom- 

 ena. 



Before studying more in detail the characteristics of life 

 as inspired and molded by the art-impulse, let us there- 

 fore pause a moment to note that the process of evolution 

 which we have briefly traced in the actuating motives of 

 human thought and endeavor is but a repetition of similar 

 tendencies that are observable throughout all the processes 

 of growing life. In its earlier stages, organic evolution ap- 

 pears to be almost wholly empirical in its method, depend- 

 ing upon accidental juxtapositions and variations, or those 

 which seem accidental, for the conditions under which life 

 is sustained and the operation of the law of natural selec- 

 tion the chief factor in progressive development is ren- 

 dered possible. When more complex organisms are thus 

 finally brought into being, the processes whereby life is pre- 

 served and organic changes are initiated involve an exercise 

 of effort which we would naturally infer to be volitional 

 the strife for definite ends, the overcoming of opposing 

 tendencies and forces, and consequent stress, wear, and pain 

 resulting from the friction of opposition. But the processes 

 which preserve life in highly organized beings have become 

 relatively unconscious and automatic. The subjective ac- 

 companiment of their perfect operation is no longer a sense 

 of painful or thwarted effort, but simply a general feeling 

 of well-being and satisfaction. With man it is a conscious- 

 ness of ability to think, to work, to grapple with the prob- 



