VI 



" THOU SHALT NOT PEEACH " 



After Reading Tolstoi on " What is Art ? " 



rr^HEErE is one respect in which pure art and pure 

 -*- science agree : both are disinterested, and seek 

 the truth, each of its kind, for its own sake ; neither 

 has any axe to grind. Both would live in the whole, 

 — one through reason and investigation, the other 

 through imagination and contemplation. Science 

 seeks to understand the universe, art to enjoy it. A 

 man of pure science like Darwin is as disinterested 

 as a great artist like Shakespeare. He has no prac- 

 tical or secondary ends ; the truth alone is his quest. 

 He is tracing the footsteps of creative energy through 

 organic nature. He is like a detective working up a 

 case. His theory about it is only provisional, for 

 the moment. Every fact is welcome to him, and 

 the more it seems to tell against his theory of the 

 case, the more eagerly he weighs it and studies it. 

 Indeed, the man of science follows an ideal as truly 

 as does the poet, and will pass by fortune, honors, 

 and all worldly success, to cleave to it. Tolstoi 

 thinks that science for science' sake is as bad as art 

 for art's sake ; but is not knowledge a reward in it- 

 self, and is there any higher good than that mastery 



