CHAPTER III. ARTISTIC MENTAL ACTION, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THAT IN RELIGION AND SCIENCE. That which is Expressed in Art-The Play-Impulse as Described by Schiller, Spencer, Brown-Relation of the Art-Impulse to Excess of LifeForce and to Imitation-To Spiritual Force-To Inspiration-The Conscious and Subconscious Spheres of Mind; Memory-Hypnotism -Trained Automatic Skill-Subconscious Mathematical, Logical, and Musical Proficiency-Religious Inspiration, Scientific Investigation, and Artistic Imagination—Differences between Religion and Art—Art Can Influence for Good Religious Thought and Life-Differences between Science and Art-The Main Work of Science Conducted in the Conscious Mental Region; that of Art Equally in the Subconscious -Illustrations-The Man of Imagination and of None-Subconscious Mental and Imaginative Action is not Irrational, though it is Rapid and Emotional Connection between Artistic Mental Action and Temperament-Artists are Men of Sentiment. CERT ERTAIN limitations of the sights and sounds that can be used in the arts of the highest rank-termed by the French Les Beaux Arts-were considered in the chapter just closed. Let us now consider certain limitations of the thoughts and emotions that can be expressed through such arts. A moment's thought will reveal to us that these thoughts and emotions when exercised, in accordance with what was said on page 6, for a useful and therefore, a non-æsthetic end are usually such as are fitted to meet some external emergency; whereas thoughts and emotions exercised for an æsthetic and, therefore, a non-useful end are usually such as are not intentionally fitted to meet any external emergency, but, on the contrary, are under the predominating influence of some inward impulse of the mind. The products of the higher arts are of the nature of those owing their origin, in the sphere of thought, to dreaming rather than to planning; in the sphere of feeling, to spontaneity rather than to responsiveness; in the sphere of action, to play rather than to work. In accordance with this latter conception, the poet Frederick von Schiller, in his "Briefe über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen," attributes all æsthetic results to what he terms the play-impulse. Developing this theory, Herbert Spencer, in his "Principles of Psychology," says that "as we ascend to animals of high types, we begin to find that time and strength are not wholly absorbed in providing for immediate needs. A cat with claws and appended muscles adjusted to daily action in catching prey, but now leading a life that is but in a small degree predatory, has a craving to exercise these parts. This useless activity of unused organs, which in these cases hardly rises to what we call play, passes into play ordinarily so called, when there is a more manifest union of feeling with the action. . Dogs and other predatory creatures show us unmistakably that their play consists of mimic chase and mimic fighting. The plays of children-nursing dolls, giving tea parties, and so on—are dramatisings of adult activities. The sports of boys, chasing one another, wrestling, making prisoners, obviously gratify in a partial way the predatory instincts. G. Baldwin Brown, in his work on "The Fine Arts," after quoting this passage, adds: "Man possesses an ideal self-determined life, existing side by side with, but apart from, his life as conditioned by material needs. This life expresses itself in, and is nourished by, various forms of 'free and spontaneous expression and action,' which in the lower grades of being may be termed simply 'play,' but in the higher grades take the shape of that rational and significant play resulting in art." This is much the same as to say that every animate creature is an embodiment of vitality, or life-force, as we may term it; and, as if to prevent a lack of it in him, it is usually given him in excess. For this reason, as in the case of the desires behind all the appetites, it always tends to overflow the channels of necessary activity. When it does this, one invariable characteristic of play, as is suggested by Mr. Spencer in the quotation just made, is imitation. The same is invariably a characteristic of the art-impulse. Not only is dramatising, as Mr. Spencer intimates, imitation, but so, in a sense, is poetising, being supposedly representative of what men are supposed to say, or think, or do. So, too, are reproductions of scenes in nature through drawing, colouring, or modelling; and the same may also be affirmed, in a sense that need not be explained here, of much that is reproduced in music and architecture. These facts explain why it is, and how it is, that art of the highest rank, while that which reproduces most extensively and accurately the appearances, and, as shown in the preceding. chapter, the beauties of nature, is also the art which furnishes expression for thoughts and emotions that are most freely and spontaneously impelled from within. Those, therefore, who identify the art-impulse with the play-impulse are justified when they apply their tests either to the results of the two, or to their sources. It is hardly necessary to point out, after what has been said, that the products which are human in the finest and most distinctive sense, do not result from an excess of lifeforce in general, but only of that particular phase of it which is expended distinctively upon modes of expressing thought or feeling. Force, moreover, is something which derives its importance, if not its quality, less from itself than from that in which or upon which it operates. We all recognise a difference in both importance and quality in what we term hand-power and electric power. According to a similar analogy, it is evident that the force which is expended upon the imitation of nature may be much more important and very different in quality when it is used in the expression of thought and feeling than when representing merely physical phases of activity as among the lower animals. When this is understood, one can understand how art, while traceable to that which, in one sphere, is a play-motive, and while produced with an aim irrespective of any consideration of material utility, nevertheless often springs from mental and spiritual activity of the most distinctive kind, and results in the greatest possible benefit to the race. A being with a mind and spirit perpetually evolving thought and feeling possesses that which, for its own sake alone, ought to be expressed. With this thought we come upon a philosophic, if not a scientific, warrant for that common opinion, so often held without reasoning and expressed without discrimination, that the products of art are to be ascribed to what is termed inspiration. When we have traced them to this overflow at the very springs of mental vitality, no one who thinks can fail to feel that, if human life anywhere can come into contact with the divine life, it must be here. There are reservoirs behind the springs |