d the most
saturated with culture, exhibited in his famous saying: "Nothing do I
call my own which having inherited I have not reconquered for myself."

It would indeed be a singular thing were the field of aesthetics the only
one uninvaded by the scientific spirit of the time. The one force
especially characteristic of our era is, I suppose, the scientific
spirit. It is at any rate everywhere manifest, and it possesses the best
intellects of the century. _A priori_ one may argue about its hostility,
essential or other, to the artistic, the constructive spirit; but to do
so is at the most to beat the air, to waste one's breath, to Ruskinize,
in a word. Interest in life and the world, instead of speculation or
self-expression, is the "note" of the day. The individual has withered
terribly. He is supplanted by the type. Materialism has its positive
gospel; it is not at all the formulated expression of Goethe's "spirit
that denies." Nature has acquired new dignity. She cannot be studied too
closely, nor too long. The secret of the universe is now pursued through
observation, as formerly it was through fasting and prayer. Nothing is
sacred nowadays because everything receives respect. If absolute beauty
is now smiled at as a chimera, it is because beauty is perceived
everywhere. Whatever is may not be right--the maxim has too much of an
_ex cathedra_ sound--but whatever is is interesting. Our attitude is at
once humbler and more curious. The sense of the immensity, the
immeasurableness of things, is more intimate and profound. What one may
do is more modestly conceived; what might be done, more justly
appreciated. There is less confidence and more aspiration. The artist's
eye is "on the object" in more concentrated gaze than ever heretofore.
If his sentiment, his poetry, is no longer "inevitable," as Wordsworth
complained Goethe's was not, it is more reverent, at any rate more
circumspect. If he is less exalted he is more receptive--he is more
alive to impressions for being less of a philosopher. If he scouts
authority, if even he accepts somewhat weakly the thraldom of dissent
from traditional standards and canons, it is because he is convinced
that the material with which he has to deal is superior to all canons
and standards. If he esteems truth more than beauty, it is because what
he thinks truth is more beautiful in his eyes than the stereotyped
beauty he is adjured to attain. In any case, the distinction of the
realis