THE ARTS AND RELIGION 265 



houses and public buildings, and this necessity has 

 very commonly obscured the attainment of aesthetic 

 qualities. That admirable types of civic architec- 

 ture are capable of exerting a refining influence 

 cannot be questioned, and the intimacy and inevi- 

 tableness of the contact makes the influence more 

 powerful and permanent than might be supposed. 

 And it is not only in its relation to living men that 

 architecture is significant. Something of the pain at- 

 tending the disposal of the dead might be mitigated 

 by the substitution of very beautiful and dignified 

 surroundings of the last resting place for the unlovely 

 and squalid conditions that now commonly prevail 

 and add an unnecessary burden and mental discom- 

 fort to the lives of the stricken survivors. Some 

 adaptation of the Renaissance of France and Italy 

 to modern needs seems the most likely and logical 

 tendency in the architecture of Anglo-Saxon races. 



The relatively low value of musical sounds in the 

 self-preservative struggle, and the unlikeness of 

 highly developed music to any habitual aural experi- 

 ences, have the effect of making music the most 

 detached and abstract of the arts and the farthest 

 removed in its content from everyday experience. 

 These qualities make it the most difficult of appre- 

 hension for people in general, while for those endowed 

 by nature with the necessary neural machinery and 



