THOU SHALT NOT PEEACH 135 



of the intellect over the prohlema of the universe 

 ■which science gives ? By bending science to partic- 

 ular and secondary ends we lay the basis of our ma- 

 terial civilization, but it is still true that the final end 

 of science is, not our material benefit, but our mental 

 enlightenment ; nor is the highest end of art the good 

 which the preacher and the moralist seek to give us. 

 A. poem of Milton's or Tennyson's carries its own 

 proof, its own justification. When we demand a mes- 

 sage of the poet, or of any artist, outside of himself, 

 outside of the truth which he unconsciously con- 

 veys through his own personality and point of view, 

 we degrade his art, or destroy that disinterestedness 

 which is its crown. Art exists for ideal ends ; it 

 looks askance at devotees, at doctrinaires, at all 

 men engaged in the dissemination of particular ideas. 

 I am not now thinking of art as mere craft, but as 

 the province of man's freest, most spontaneous, most 

 joyous, most complete soul activity, — the kind of 

 activity that has no other end, seeks no other reward, 

 than it finds in or of itself, the joy of being and be- 

 holding, the free play of cresative energy. Art does 

 not rebuke vice, it depicts it ; it does not urge re- 

 form, it shows us the reformers. Its work is play, 

 its lesson is an allegory. The preacher works by 

 selection and exclusion, the artist by inclusion and 

 contrast. 



When the resources of literary art are enlisted in 

 any propaganda, in the dissemination of particular 

 ideas or doctrines, or when the end is moral or sci- 

 entific or political or philosophical, and not aesthetic, 



