A SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY 81 



the nature of a man and try and understand him — 

 he .will probably find that Nature works in very 

 much the same way as he himself works, and is of 

 much the same character as himself. 



The Artist will observe that Nature neither 

 works by mere chance, tossing up at each turning 

 whether she shall go to the right or to the left, 

 and quite indifferent as to which way she takes; 

 nor in the set and rigid manner of a machine ; nor 

 yet, again, in the cut-and-dried fashion which the 

 execution of a previously conceived plan implies. 

 Order everywhere the Artist will have observed. 

 But order need not mean woodenness and 

 machinery. Order is simply the absolutely 

 essential prerequisite of any Freedom. And it is 

 Freedom that the Artist everywhere observes. 

 Nature is not closed in by the designed overarch 

 of an eventually-to-be-completed plan. The 

 zenith and horizon are always open. There is 

 always order, but there is scope illimitable for 

 Nature's workings. 



So the sum impression the Artist will probably 

 receive is that Nature is in her essential character 

 an Artist like himself — ^that she creates and goes 

 on creating, just as he creates and goes on creating. 

 A painter who is a true artist and not a mere 

 copyist paints "out of his head," as the saying 

 goes, pictures which are true creations — something 

 new and unique, though founded on and related 

 to the pre-existing. And there is no limit to the 

 pictures he might paint out of his head. He is 

 not tied down in advance by any preconceived plan. 

 According as he is roused and stirred by the 



