Notice, however, that Mr. Bennett does not confuse the "spectator" attitude to the work of art with the same disposition toward life. As just suggested above, it is my view that this withdrawn and restful experience of looking upon beauty does not last long before the recollection of life tries to get inside the picture. To be sure there is nothing demanding to be done by what is inside the artist's depiction, that momentary world being complete and perfect. But so soon as the rest of the world by recollection, begins to obtrude itself, then immediately there is everything to be done above it. And as the result of the rest, of the refreshment, and literal recreation of the experience, there are new powers ready for the task.

And this pressure of the world as a whole to come within the frame, Mr. Bennett intimates: "Art, we say, in effect, if not in intention, redeems the world from ugliness. The goal of artistic endeavor would be attained when it had been shown that nothing was outcast from the world of beauty, when a rendering of life had been given in which ugliness was included and transformed."

I do not claim that this natural tendency to translate the energy of the artistic experience into definite moral effects in the practical world is the usual issue in the life of the average man. Ordinarily, it fails unless the man has in other connections already been touched by a religious motive, and instructed in the moral life. This purposive moment is the point where, as it were, Art leaves off and Religion begins. I do believe, none the less, that this expressive tendency is the logic of the experience of beauty even by itself. The average man, moved by the power of beauty in nature or art possesses no artistic technique, no particular skill in poetry, painting, or architecture. His clay is the plastic stuff of his own character and his materials the fluctuating affairs of the workaday world. Probably thousands of men have not only been moved by impressions of beauty henceforth to express themselves more richly in common life but have had definite success in carrying out the impulse.

Is there any very great difference between the expressive

logic of the Arts and the expressive demand of Religion? Religion itself does not always succeed in getting its vitality coupled up with the moral life. Religion and art are alike in the impulse to recreate the world after the heart's desire.

If all these things are anything like true, why have we been so slow in recognizing it? Why even have so many thought of the arts as subversive of religion? If Religion and Art are so much kin in their common Assumption of Unity in the Universe, in their Experience of Contemplation, and in their Mandate to Expression, why have we so frequently thought of artists as irreligious? The answer is that we have thought wrong.

Modern art is individualistic, very little devoted to setting forth a definitely religious content. But this is the nature of the age and not the fault of the artists. This is the artist's empirical approach to reality no less than the scientist's.

Artists have been habitually antinomian, lawless. So have prophets, breaking down old moralities that newer and better might be formed. Not many devotees of art seem to apprehend the full course of their own typical career. This is partly due to much bad art. Not all art is good any more than average popular religion is the best religion. The better the art, the more likely it is to result in a completed course of experience.

Artists and critics of art often stand outside the definite institutions of religion. But it would astonish the ignorant church worker to be made aware of the range and passion of the search for reality and of right attitudes toward it which is revealed in the total world of music, letters, painting, building, and all the other forms through which the artists of the world are attempting to set forth "their scheme of the weal and the woe."

I am not sufficiently a philosopher to launch a discussion of the nature of the limitations of art as compared with religion. The transcendence of religion is viewed to be such, not in one direction merely, but in several, especially in relation to the three aspects of experience so briefly presented

in this chapter. I can suggest only a hint of such a discussion by another sentence or two from Croce, "Art is the root of all our theoretic life. To be the root, not the flower or fruit, is the function of art. And without a root, there can be no flower and no fruit."* Or again, to much the same intent: "If art, then, be the first and most ingenuous form of knowledge, it cannot give complete satisfaction to man's need to know, and therefore cannot be the ultimate end of the theoretic spirit."

Nevertheless, Art and Religion belong together by certain profound identities of Origin, Subject Matter, and Inner Experience.

* Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic," p. 386.

Chapter IV: The Cleft between Art and Religion

W

E cannot live without truth, goodness, and beauty. Not everyone cares for these, but they are the supreme human values. Religion cannot live without them. Yet there is a world of Thought outside the world of religion which repudiates much of what organized religion claims to be the truth. There is a world of Moral Aspiration outside the religious world which is impatient of the lagging step of organized religious faith toward better conceptions of justice and brotherhood. So also there is a world of Art dissevered from the institutions of religion, its spiritual hunger unsatisfied by the ugliness of present-day religious forms. Religion cannot complete her reformation until she has squared her experience not only with Scientist and Moralist but also with the Artist.

Since the mid-nineteenth century there have appeared innumerable books concerned with healing the breach between religion and science. The opening of the twentieth century saw the setting of a full tide of interest in making earnest with the newer moral implications of religion. The coming generation will insist upon its birthright to beauty.

The cleft between science and religion is an old story. I recall hearing Governor Baldwin of Connecticut say some years ago something about the happy completion of the task of transition from the old theology to the new. It was true for the noble old parish of which he was a member. It is not true of the larger part of the Christian world. The "modernist" movement in the Roman Catholic Church has been stamped out ruthlessly. There would appear to be glimmers of light here and there in the Greek Church. The Anglican communion still maintains rigidly a view of the sacraments and of ordination which is a sheer logical impossibility to the accepted scientific assumptions of modern life. In the great city where I live most of the Protestant preaching still

holds to an essentially traditional view of the scriptures and does not accept the canons of historical learning. There is indeed a deep cleft between religion and thought.

No one claims that science is always right. It is itself humble and teachable. In these virtues it is often more religious than religion. But it does claim to be one of the avenues toward the truth. It has achieved conceptions of the material universe and certain methods of work accepted by so large a part of the world of thought that religion can do nothing else than examine them fearlessly and try them bravely.

Many are no longer interested especially in this controversy. The flank of the battle against tradition has been turned by religion itself, in the charge that the traditional views of church and scriptures are not only unscientific but irreligious. Modern religion believes in the prophet, and in the continued revelation of truth as ever of old. The traditional experience is not sufficiently religious for the modern

man.

The cleft between morals and religion is the issue of the hour. Many times have I listened to the claim on the part of some social worker that there was more of the Kingdom of God outside the church than in it. Many times has it been charged that the church was interested in charity but not in justice. The older aristocratic churches do not in the nature of the case sympathize with the growingly democratic character of modern morals. Of late, there has been large attention on the part of denominational leaders and newspapers to the industrial and civic questions of the day. But even so, the leadership in social criticism and in constructive social suggestion has been outside the church rather than in it. The fault does not lie with Christianity as such. The implications of that are wide and deep, and would involve profound alterations in many institutional structures if logically and thoroughly applied. It is a misfortune not merely for religion but for the world of social and moral leadership that they are so dissevered.

More and more people are becoming interested in this subject. It is the overwhelming question of the day. It is