152 ON SCIENCE AND ART 



That is where the province of art overlays and embraces 

 the province of intellect. And, if I may venture to ex- 

 press an opinion on such a subject, the great majority 

 of forms of art are not in a sense what I just now de- 

 fined them to be pure art; but they derive much of 

 their quality from simultaneous and even unconscious 

 excitement of the intellect. 



When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I 

 am so now; and it so happened that I had the oppor- 

 tunity of hearing much good music. Among other 

 things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing that 

 great old master, Sebastian Bach. I remember per- 

 fectly well though I knew nothing about music then, 

 and, I may add, know nothing whatever about it now 

 the intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listen- 

 ing, by the hour together, to Bach's fugues. It is a 

 pleasure which remains with me, I am glad to think; 

 but, of late years, I have tried to find out the why and 

 wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that the 

 pleasure derived from musical compositions of this kind 

 is essentially of the same nature as that which is derived 

 from pursuits which are commonly regarded as purely 

 intellectual. I mean, that the source of pleasure is 

 exactly the same as in most of my problems in morph- 

 ology that you have the theme in one of the old 

 master's works followed out in all its endless variations, 

 always appearing and always reminding you of unity in 

 variety. So in painting; what is called "truth to nature" 

 is the intellectual element coming in, and truth to nature 

 depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the 

 person to whom art is addressed. If you are in Australia, 

 you may get credit for being a good artist I mean 

 among the natives if you draw a kangaroo after a 

 fashion. But, among men of higher civilisation, the 

 intellectual knowledge we possess brings its criticism into 



