pnotism acts entirely by suggestion, and he who paints or does other
work entirely according to Tradition, also carries out what is or has
been suggested to him. Men of earlier times who thus worked for
thousands of years like the Egyptians in one style, were guided by the
faith that it had been begun by the Creator or God.

For men cannot conceive of creation as separate from pre-determined
plan or end, and all because they cannot understand that Creative
innate force, _potentia_, must have some result, or that the simplest
Law once set agoing awakens, acquires strength in going and develops
great Laws, which, with an all-susceptible or _capable_ material to
work on, may, or _must_, create infinite ingenuities, so that in time
there may be an organic principle with sentiency, and yet no Will,
save in its exponents, or working to end or aim, but ever tending to
further unfolding "a seizing and giving the fire of the living" ever
onwards into Eternity, in which there may be a million times more
perfect "mind" than we can now grasp.

Now, having for many years attempted at least to familiarize myself
with the aspect or sound, of this problem, though I could not solve
it, it seems at last to be natural enough that even matter (which so
many persist in regarding as a kind of dust or something resistant to
the touch, but which I regard as infinite millions of degrees more
subtle), may _think_ just as well as it may act in Instinct. It is,
indeed, absurd to admit souls to idiots or savages, who have not the
sense to live as comfortably as many animals, and yet deny it to the
latter. When we really become familiar with the idea, it appears
sensible enough. But its opponents do _not_ become familiar with it,
it irritates them, they call it Atheistic, although it is nothing of
the kind, just as if we were to say that a man who bravely and nobly
pursued his way in life, doing his duty because it was his duty, and
giving no thought as to future reward or punishment, must needs want
_soul_ or be an Atheist.

If all men were perfectly good, they would act morally and
instinctively, without consciousness of behaving well, and if we felt
a high ideal of Art it would be just the same. When Art was natural
men never signed their names to their work, but now the Name takes
precedence of the picture.

Therefore, as we go backward into the night of things, we find, though
we forget it all the time, that Instinct or the living in the Sp