olands for the Olivers of any other artistic period.[23] They are
not all great artists, but they all are artists. If the Impressionists
raised the proportion of works of art in the general pictorial output
from about one in five hundred thousand to one in a hundred thousand,
the Post-Impressionists (for after all it is sensible to call the group
of vital artists who immediately follow the Impressionists by that
name) have raised the average again. To-day, I daresay, it stands as
high as one in ten thousand. Indeed, it is this that has led some people
to see in the new movement the dawn of a new age; for nothing is more
characteristic of a "primitive" movement than the frequent and
widespread production of genuine art. Another hopeful straw at which the
sanguine catch is the admirable power of development possessed by the
new inspiration. As a rule, the recognition of a movement as a movement
is its death. As soon as the pontiffs discovered Impressionism, some
twenty years after its patent manifestation, they academized it. They
set their faces against any sort of development and drove into revolt or
artistic suicide every student with an ounce of vitality in him. Before
the inspiration of Cezanne had time to grow stale, it was caught up by
such men as Matisse and Picasso; by them it was moulded into forms that
suited their different temperaments, and already it shows signs of
taking fresh shape to express the sensibility of a younger
generation.[24]

This is very satisfactory but it does not suffice to prove that the new
movement is the beginning of a new slope; it does not prove that we
stand now where the early Byzantines stood, with the ruins of a
civilisation clattering about our ears and our eyes set on a new
horizon. In favour of that view there are no solid arguments; yet are
there general considerations, worth stating and pondering, though not to
be pushed too violently. He who would cast the horoscope of humanity, or
of any human activity, must neither neglect history nor trust her
overmuch. Certainly the neglect of history is the last mistake into
which a modern speculator is likely to fall. To compare Victorian
England with Imperial Rome has been the pastime of the half-educated
these fifty years. "_Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento_," is
about as much Latin as it is becoming in a public schoolman to remember.
The historically minded should travel a little further with their
comparison (to be sure,