Life as a Fine Art. 413 



lems of life freely and without friction, sustained by an 

 abundance of stored-up energy. 



The earlier efforts of organic growth, which we hare 

 characterized as empirical, may be illustrated by the action 

 of the simple unicellular organism when it stretches out its 

 pseudopodia in search for nourishment, obedient to tran- 

 sient and accidental stinmli. The second stage, which we 

 have denominated orderly or scientific, is represented by 

 the action of more highly organized beings when they make 

 repeated conscious efforts, along established lines of least 

 resistance, to seek for and to appropriate nourishment, to 

 initiate growth and variation, to become what they are not ; 

 to adapt themselves more perfectly, in short, to an ever- 

 changing environment. Finally, the organism reaches its 

 highest perfection in the production of those spontaneous 

 and automatic impulses which, subjectively regarded, may 

 properly be termed artistic. Such impulses appear to flow 

 from the possession of a surplus of vital energy, and repre- 

 sent and attest the fullness of perfect adaptation. Their 

 character as art-impulses clearly appears in such processes 

 as those involved in the recrescence or renewal of mutilated 

 or destroyed organs. Herein Nature seems to be definitely 

 striving, by sheer excess of productive energy, to fulfill an 

 ideal already constituted to be working toward an end held 

 definitely in view and prophetically outlined and prefigured. 

 Similar, also, is the principle involved in those processes so 

 familiar in their outcome, yet so mysterious in their rationale, 

 whereby each seed produces an organism after its own kind, 

 imperatively demanding and securing the desired materials 

 in proper proportions and of suitable characters and potencies 

 from the environing soil, air, cellular tissue, or blood-plasma. 



Thus the processes of perfected life being directed, as it 

 were, by an imperative impulse toward an ideal end may 

 rightly be regarded as art-processes, and Nature in her 

 highest moods is seen to be a divine artist and not a mere 

 mechanical artificer. As to the true artist the technique of 

 his work has become automatic, so it is in these processes of 

 Nature. In all conscious artistic efforts, inner impulse com- 

 mands the efforts of the artist. He works because he must 

 from inspiration, as we say and not by rule or measure ; and 

 so it appears to be in these higher processes of organic life. 



If we now further contemplate the nature of art, and of 

 all really artistic work, we may be able better to understand 



