precedence of every other thing, or when the imperious call to service will make all else become as dross in value.

But such occasions do not invalidate the claim of culture, that these fruits of the human spirit are good, and that Beauty and Truth are rightful objects for men to put before themselves. Otherwise, art and science could only exist on sufferance in a world, which they are engaged in interpreting to men, the one in terms of beauty, the other in terms of truth. Science may be misused as an instrument of secularity, and art may be degraded into a procuress to the lords of hell," but it seems to be of the very nature of the best gifts that they easily lend themselves to abuse, as the history of all human institutions, and even the history of religion itself, show-corruptio optimi pessima.

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Nothing can permanently take from man the conviction that he was meant to possess these fields which culture offers, to master them for his own best life and for the world's true joy. To ban the love of beauty, to stifle inquiry into truth, to be blind to the fascination of art and letters, is in the ultimate issue infidelity, though it seem sometimes to be in the interest of faith. Faith cannot be made perfect, till she accepts the divine self-revelation through beauty, and through law, as well as through love. Though it may be that now we see many points of conflict, yet it must remain the deepest faith that, when the full yision is reached, nothing that is true in science, or beautiful in art, will need to be sacrificed in the complete round of religion. Even now, when faith opens

the ears, how often it is that the very prophets of nature can speak to us a lasting inspiration, and the masters of culture can

Instruct us how the mind of man becomes

A thousand times more beautiful than the earth.

I

III

DEFECTS OF THE ÆSTHETIC IDEAL

N spite of the great truth of the aesthetic ideal, and the distinct value it has both as a theory of

life and as a practical scheme for enriching the whole nature of man, when taken by itself it has always failed in the long run, not only in making life nobler and sweeter, but has failed even in keeping itself true to its own best self. The causes of its failure are not far to seek, when we realise some of the besetting temptations which ever attend it. Culture, when it takes the highest footing as a self-sufficient ideal claiming to cover all the ground, starts from the position that all that is needed to reach the perfect man is the consistent and persistent cultivation of all the powers and tendencies already existing in human nature; it seeks to give full play to all sides of life, and hopes to arrive at a harmonious balance of all the innate capacities. We can see how easily this can degenerate into base compliance with personal leanings, and how even it can be made an excuse for all forms of selfishness, sometimes indeed going so low as to offer a justification for the most heart-withering sensualism. If the one aim of life is that a man should unfold himself, he can argue that he is only following his nature, by tasting every sort of experience, and giving full play to every impulse. From such a creed

he can cozen himself with the thought that he is learning life and fulfilling himself, by indulging every instinct which he finds within him. We often find a bluntness of moral sense and a deep-seated selfishness of life, combined with a high degree of intellectual training. This of course could not be laid to the charge of culture, except in so far as it claims to be a sufficient guide to life, and yet does not adequately safeguard life from the moral dangers that menace it. We are beset with the temptation to give way at the point of least resistance, and if we have no moral sanctions, no imperial note of conscience, other than is contained in a scheme of natural culture, it is difficult to get firm ground in maintaining an ethical standard, that will not be pliable in the presence of keen personal tastes, not to say even in the presence of any overmastering temptation. When a man begins with the theory that every impulse only needs its due cultivation to make it contribute to a fulness of life, he is easily deceived into giving way to what he likes best, and defending it as part of his plan to develop himself along the line of his nature.

It would be untrue to suggest that moral laxity is a feature of character to be discovered in the lives of the men who have rigorously pursued a large scheme of culture-rather we have admitted that such a scheme should save the life from grosser pleasures and meaner sins-at the same time, if accepted generally without modifications as a theory of life, it offers very evident opportunities for great abuses. It may of course be asserted that it is only when the theory is falsely viewed and wrongly used that it seems to open the door to these darker excesses. It may be

asserted that a complete scheme of culture would provide moral and spiritual training, and would make a man susceptible to all noble influences, and would in any moral crisis call for adherence to the good, even though it promise to bring only unhappiness; but this after all is imported into the theory and is an arbitrary standard, and does not spring naturally out of the original position. From the premises stated we are not justified in condemning another, because he chooses for himself a lower type of experience and a grosser form of pleasure than we perhaps would approve for ourselves. There will always be a moral danger attached to culture as a system, when it is not regulated and restrained by deeper sanctions. We easily enough fall into its plan of seeking experiences and an ampler sphere of thought and emotion, but for safety this natural craving needs to be under the firm rule not only of enlightened reason but also of selfcontrolled will.

So real is this danger that Walter Pater, who is a foremost apostle of the new Hellenism, left out of the second edition of his Renaissance the chapter in which he summed up the creed of culture, because he conceived it might possibly mislead some of those young men into whose hands it might fall-and with some reason, as the chapter, restored with some changes in subsequent editions, still testifies. It states very frankly his philosophy, which is worked out in his brilliant study of the sensations and ideas of Marius the Epicurean. It is a restatement in artistic form and beautiful language of the old "sensational philosophy. To him our physical life is a perpetual motion of impressions with some exquisite intervals,