is subsumed, according to Tolstoy, in
the religion of the day. This is how he explains the constant affinity
in nearly all ages of art and religion. Instead of regarding religion as
an early phase of art, he proceeds to define religious perception as the
highest social ideal of the moment, as that "understanding of the
meaning of life which represents the highest level to which men of that
society have attained, an understanding defining the highest good at
which that society aims." "Religious perception in a society," he
beautifully adds, "is like the direction of a flowing river. If the
river flows at all, it must have a direction." Thus, religion, to
Tolstoy, is not dogma, not petrifaction, it makes indeed dogma
impossible. The religious perception of to-day flows, Tolstoi says, in
the Christian channel towards the union of man in a common brotherhood.
It is the business of the modern artist to feel and transmit emotion
towards this unity of man.

Now it is not our purpose to examine whether Tolstoy's definition of
religion is adequate or indeed illuminating. What we wish to note is
that he grasps the truth that in art we must look and feel, and look and
feel forward, not backward, if we would live. Art somehow, like
language, is always feeling forward to newer, fuller, subtler emotions.
She seems indeed in a way to feel ahead even of science; a poet will
forecast dimly what a later discovery will confirm. Whether and how long
old channels, old forms will suffice for the new spirit can never be
foreseen.

* * * * *

We end with a point of great importance, though the doctrine we would
emphasize may be to some a hard saying, even a stumbling-block. Art, as
Tolstoy divined, is social, not individual. Art is, as we have seen,
social in origin, it remains and must remain social in function. The
dance from which the drama rose was a choral dance, the dance of a band,
a group, a church, a community, what the Greeks called a _thiasos_. The
word means a _band_ and a _thing of devotion_; and reverence, devotion,
collective emotion, is social in its very being. That band was, to
begin with, as we saw, the whole collection of initiated tribesmen,
linked by a common name, rallying round a common symbol.

Even to-day, when individualism is rampant, art bears traces of its
collective, social origin. We feel about it, as noted before, a certain
"ought" which always spells social obligation. Moreo