THE MEANING OP THE ^ESTHETIC IMPULSE. 239 



realist in painting depicts a dungheap, or a realist in poetry describes 

 a leper, the resultant is not beautiful. 



Again, I should wish to have spoken at some length, had time 

 allowed, on the fallacy so popular with certain fanatics of the brush 

 and the pen, that ars propter artem, art for art's sake, is a kind of 

 eleventh commandment not to be disputed. Now, I am sure that 

 it is fallacious. 



Life is a unity, no part of it can elude the grasp of the whole. The 

 artist is not free from restraints, any more than is the politician or 

 the doctor, or the farmer. 



If the farmer were to say, " A dirty ditch is no eyesore to me, I 

 shall not clear my ditches," he would be promptly and properly visited 

 with penalties. If a doctor were to say, " I shall experiment on my 

 patients without regard to health, decency or suffering," he would be 

 properly punished. What holds good of them, holds also of the 

 artist. He may not delineate any and every object with impunity 

 for art is only a section of life, and may not violate the whole. 



I heartily endorse the lecturer's denunciation of ugliness, especially 

 of ugliness in Church, and would have no ugly tunes nor robes nor 

 ornaments used in the houses of God. 



The Eev. J. E. H. Thomson, M.A., D.D., writes :— Although in 

 my early student days I devoted myself very much to the study of, 

 ^Esthetics on its theoretic side, my studies in more recent years have 

 rendered it impossible for me to keep abreast with recent philosophy 

 on that subject, consequently I am ignorant of the theories of Croce. 

 As I understand the views of the Italian philosopher as expounded 

 by Mr. McDowall, I in the main agree with them. The ^Esthetic 

 Impulse purified and sublimated becomes Love, and love of the highest, 

 of God. In short, the sense of Beauty is ultimately the intuition of 

 God ; and Art is the expression of this in the terms of emotion. 

 The history of art confirms this. The earliest poetry was embodied 

 in hymns to Deity, the earliest music, in the rhythmic tones in which 

 they were chanted ; the earliest sculpture exercised itself in carving 

 statues of the gods to be worshipped, the earliest architecture erected 

 buildings in which these statues were enshrined, the earliest paintings 

 adorned the courts of these temples. While all this is so, there is an 

 antinomy which Mr. McDowall has not faced. 



The evidence of history appears to prove indubitably that the 

 more worship was improved aesthetically the less earnest and spiritual 



B 



