The Complex Vision

vidual human minds-which we have come to call "art"-is found, if the complex vision is to be trusted at all, in the contact of the emotion of love with the "objective

otion differs radically from reason, conscience, will, imagination, taste, and the rest, in that it is not only a clarifying, directing and discriminating activity but is also-as none of these others are-an ac

of the apex-thought may perhaps be understood better if we think of emotion as being an actual outflowing of the soul itself, springing up from unfat

the soul as it manifests itself through the physical body. Thus our theory brings us back, as all theories must if they are consonant with experience, to the traditional language of the human race. For in ordinary language there i

duality-is larger in volume as it manifests itself through the body than in normal cases; a

l from some exterior source a stream of emotion distinct from the integral being of the soul itself. What we mean is that the soul itsel

ody, or the soul itself. What we are now indicating, as to the less or greater degree of volume in the soul's manifestation through the body, is borne witness to in the

e directing, selecting, clarifying, interpreting activities of the soul as it flings itself upon the objective mystery. Thus, while it is by means of that activity of the soul which we call conscience that we distinguish between good and evil; and by means of that activity called the aesthetic sense that we distinguish between beauty and hideousness

that the soul of man comes at last to comprehend that those primordial ideas of goodness, beauty and truth, out of which the universe i

cts of the soul makes it now clear how it is that we are compelled to regard these three primordial ideas

a consideration of the fact that the outflowing of the soul takes the form of emotion, and that this emotion is at perpetual war within itself and is for ever contradicting itself, we arrive at our first axiomatic principle with regard to art, namely that art is,

tion and what resists creation, or between love and malice. It is just here, in regard to the character of these

rit of some primordial self-expansion projects what we call "matter" as its secondary manifes

f the necessity of this conflict emerge all those rigid logical concepts and mathematical formula

whose place they occupy, nothing but empty bodiless generalizations abstracted from the concrete living reality of the soul. But quite apart from our criticism of the Bergsonian "spirit" and "matter" on the ground of their being unreal conceptions illegitimately abstracted from real personali

sophical abstractions, we find our ultimate axiomatic "data" in the realities of human experiences. Bergson seeks to interpret human life in terms of the universe. We seek to interpret the universe in terms of human life. And we contend that we are justified in doing this

ternally malicious, in its deliberate inert resistance to creation. It is natural enough, therefore, that while Bergson's "creative evolution" resolves itself into a series of forward-movements which are as easy and organic as the gro

ric" philosophy. From all this it will be clearly seen that it would be impossible for us to hypostasize a super-moral or sub-moral universe in complete disregard of the primordial conscience of the human soul. It will be equ

has suppressed in himself the first two of the three primordial ideas of which we speak, he has become an all-or-nothing slave of the last of these three ideas-namely, the idea of truth. He has sacrificed his conscience and his taste to t

ppress, the one for the sake of "goodness" and the other for the sake of "beauty," the third great primordial idea which we have

, those so-called "saints" and "artists" become, when, in their neglect of reason and truth, they persist in following

through the medium of an individual temperament, of a beauty which is one of the primordial aspects of this pluralistic world. The eternal duality of things implies that this

wn to us as a relative victory over evil. Truth is known to us as a relative victory over the false and the unreal. The fact that each of these ideas can only be known in a condition of conflict with its opposite and in a condition of relative victory over its opposite is due to the fact that all thre

ity. And since the very existence of emotion depends upon the struggle between love and malice, in the same way the very existence of our aesthetic sense depends upon the struggle between beauty and hideousness; and the very existence of reason depen

egard to truth. If any one of them absolutely overcame the other, so as com

ile plurality of absolutes. As far as we are concerned it would be synonymous with death. Thus the ultimate nature of the world is found to be unfathomably dualistic. A sharp dividing line of i

on of the gods. When once we have apprehended the inherent nature of beauty, we are in a position to understand what the spirit of art must be, whose business it is to re-create this beauty

a particular soul to its own universe; it is also felt, in the rare moments when the apex-thought of

us struggle of the emotion of love with the emotion of malice. For although the human sense of the beauty of the world, which may be called the objective sense of the beauty of the world, since the vision of the immortals

have chosen to name by the name "emotion." This may indeed be called an actual concrete extension of the psychic-stuff of the substantial soul. None of t

of the will with regard to our relation to the universe. But the emotion of love, in its struggle with the emotion of malice, is much more than this. It is the ac

sence in any particular case of the authentic and objective "note" of true art. This "note" is the presence in a work of art of the decisive relative victory of love over malice. When, on the contr

ks of art of the world, wherein the subjective vision of the artist expresses itself in mysterious reciprocity with the objective vision of the immortals, there is always found a certain large "humanity." Thi

But the emotion of love, in such works, will always be found to have its fingers, as it were, firmly upon the throat of its antagonist, so that the resultant rhythm

le number, and the lacerated and distorted beauty of them remains as a perpetual witness to what they have missed. In speaking of these inferior works of art the aesthetic psychologist

ndirect expression of that instinct; for, as one can clearly understand, almost every creative undertaking implies som

creative instinct, and is indeed the expression of the creative instinct on the plane of purely material energy. But it must be understood, howeve

may easily be observed in certain famous but not supreme works of art. It must also be understood that the impulse to sensuality or lust is not always

impulse to create, as these things are inseparably linked together in the normal "possession" of a woman by a man. In such "possession" the active masculine principle

rcoming of resistance may get itself mentally associated with the parallel sensation experienced on the sensual plane. The point we have to make is this: that while in normal cases the impulse to sensualit

it of the emotion of love. There exists, however, other instances, when the work of art in question is obviously inferior, in which we are confronted by something much more evil than the mere presence of the sadistic impuls

nergy of sadism renders the actual destructive power of malice much more formidable, we must remember that what really constitutes the essence of evil is never the energy of destruction but always the malicious inertness of resistance to creation. We have thus arrived at some measure of insight as to the nature of art and we

e malice, dominates the emotional atmosphere, such a work of art, however admirable it may be in other respects, falls below the level of the most excellent. The relation between the id

ment or substratum of beauty is the same love that is the element or substratum of goodness and truth. And since all these three elements are in reality one element, which is indeed nothing less than the dominant outflowing of the soul itself, it follows that those portions of the sou

ess another, and the idea of beauty another or a third. What we mean by the use of the term "identity" is simply this: that the universe revealed by each one of these three ideas is the same universe as is reve

omplete harmony. Short of this extreme limit they tend to deviate from each other and to utter contradictory oracles. We may therefore lay it down as an unalterable law of their

ong with such ideas when they contradict one another, we are able to predicate with certainty as to what precisely is wrong. For the "something wrong" which leads to this contradiction, the "something wrong" which s

also the life of the sap of the uttermost branches; it is the force that makes the fragrance of each topmost

f the idea of goodness in the world; and few will deny that the figure of Christ represents not only the idea of goodness but the ideas of truth and beauty also. If one contemplates many another famous "good man" of history, such as easily ma

art is the concentrated essence of a man's ultimate reaction to the universe. It has an undertone of immense tragedy; but in the depths of this tragedy there is no despair, because an infinite pity accompanies the infinite sorrow, and in such pity love finds itself stronger than fate. No work of art,

ind. And such an uneasiness is justified by reason of the fact that the popular notion both of goodness and truth does so often fall lamentably short of such demands. The moral conscience of a

hy the aesthetic sense seems to come on the scene with an apparatus of valuation so much more advanced and refined than that possessed by the conscience or by the reason, is that both conscience and reason are continua

and pell-mell of life, are driven to compr

th of these things tend to become, under the pressure of the play of circumstance, pragmatical, time-serving, and opportunist. But the aesthetic sense, although in

ith art? Common-sense has never been able, and never will be able, to understand even the rudiments of art. For art is the half-discovery of something that must always seem an impossibility to common-sense; and it is the half-creation of something that must always render common-sense irrelevant and unimportant. T

f cultivated taste hear other persons speak of "goodness" or "truth" they grow distrustful and suspicious, they feel uneasy and very much on guard. For they know well that the conscience of the ordinary person is but a blunt and clumsy instrument, quite as likely to d

duct, out of all proportion to contemplation and insight, that it is so difficult to restore the balance. The tyranny of machinery has done untold evil in increasing this lack of proportion; because machinery, by placing an unmalleable and inflexible material-a material that refuses

gs, according to the temperament of the individual. It remains to note how in the supreme works of art this human temperamental vision is caught up and transcended in the high objectivity of a greater and more universal vision; a vision which is still

is that outflowing of the very substance of the soul itself which we name by the name of emotion. This actual passing of the substantial substance of the soul into whatever form or shape of objective mystery the soul'

ulse as that by the power of which it originally came into existence. In the contemplation of a statue or a picture or a piece of bric-a-brac, in the enjoyment of a poem or an exquisite passage of pr

around, the thing it loves. But even this is an inadequate expression of what happens; for this outflowing of the soul is the very force

nd half-creates the pervading beauty of things; and it also loses itself i

t from which we are able t

ch we call the objective mystery, it follows that there resides, as a potentiality, in the nature of the objective mystery, the capacity for being

ve mystery. And finally there is the ideal reality of it, objective and absolute as far as we are concerned, in the vision that I have called "the vision of the immortals." If i

subjective vision of Truth and Beauty merges itself and loses itself in an objective vision which carries the "

is to correspond with an objective reality outside the soul, that objective reality outside the soul must itself be the vision of personality. It may be asked, at this point, why it is that the potentiality or th

is touched by personality, and it is therefore quite as much a potentiality of inferior beauty, i

ause the objective mystery in its role of pure potentiality is capable of being moulded into the form of any ideas,

ne, except the reality of personality. For an idea to be eternal, therefore, it must be the idea of a personality, or of many personalities, which themselves are eternal; and since we have no evidence that the huma

swer to this is that in such moments as I have attempted to describe, when the rhythmic activity of the soul is at its highest, we become directly and intuitively conscious of an immens

necessary connection with man; it is also my answer to the question as to how, considering the capricious subjectivity of our human vision, we can be assured that the ideal vision of the immortals does not vary in the same way among themselves. We are assured against both these possibilities; against the possibility of the i

ls are possessed of personality they must be subject to this duality; and the fact that they are subject to it puts them necessarily in at le

that there is any contact between them and humanity? We are assured of this in the intuitive revelation of a most definite human experience,

these unseen Powers in a very interesting and curious way. He points out that the feeling we experience at such moments is that there exists below the level of our ordinary consciou

re, so to speak, able to "ride"; if once, in a sudden revol

osophic statements of the situation and mine, is that, whereas these are content, with the doubtful exception of Plato, to eliminate from this subconscious "more" of what is "best" in our own soul, every trace and element of personality, I am unable to escape from the conviction that compared with personality no power

y is the secret of life. And how can man, who feels so profoundly conscious that his own personal "I am I" is the inmost essence of his being, when it comes to the question of the cause of his sensa

ntense and passionate experience, when the rhythm of our nature is at the fullest, is the intuition of some world-deep authority or sanction giving an eternal validity to our ideas, this authority or sanction cannot be interpreted in mere metaphors or si

spaces of air, of water, of earth, of fire, or even of blank emptiness. To such a temperament it might seem as though to be jostled throughout eternity by other living souls were to be shut up in an unescapable prison. And when to this unending population of fellow-denizens of space we

s and ferments in eternal formlessness; these indeed are taken away from us. But as I have indicated again and again, no movement of human logic, no energy of human reason, can destroy the unfathomableness of Nature. The immense spectacle of the material universe, wit

-stuff, so impenetrable to all analysis, assumes as far as we are concerned a three-fold form. It assumes the form of the material element in that fusion of matter and consciousness which makes up the substance of the soul. It assumes the form of the universal medium which binds all souls t

hant" for the projection of such vague imaginative images as "spirit" and "life." Forgetful that no man has ever seen or touched this "spirit," apart from a personal soul, or this "life," apart

temperament in this abysmal plunge into the ocean of existence. But my answer to the protest of this temperament-and it is an answer that has a certain measure of authority, since this temperament is no other than my own-is that this feeling of "imprisonment" is due to a superficial understanding of the doctrine against which it protests. It is superficial because it does not re

ure of Beauty it is above all things important to give complete satisfaction to every great recurrent exigency of human

bject in nature more beautiful than another object, and one work of art more beautiful than another work of art. We know that in the intuitive judgment which affixes these rela

cture than another of the same kind? The question has already been lifted out of the sphere of pure subjective taste by what has been said with regard to the eternal Ideal vision. But a

rudimentary a stage that we are not in a position to do more than indicate their general outline. The following princi

c totality, even though in some other sense

usive or otherwise, that it is the outwar

symbolic association, the p

on, balance, and harmony, both with regard to colour

g of the human mind for some symbolic expr

ouse the excitement of a passion of attention, a

ss which goes beyond the pleasur

sentative; and it must carry the mind through and beyond itself

ity, a certain monumental ease, and a ge

h springs from an inarticulate appeal; or, if it belong to art, that wistful lon

hich the future will surely provide. And I have temporally excluded from them, as can be seen, all references to those auxiliary elements drawn from reason and c

tery of art, what we are compelled to recognize, when we confront the palpable thing itself, is that, in each

art draws us, by an irresistible magnetism, into itself, until we are compelled

he shards and ashes and flints and excrement of the margins of our universe-take upon

he apparently meaningless and dead, suddenly gather themsel

rimeval clay tossed to and fro by the giant hands of chaos, what has hitherto seemed to us slabs of inhuman chemistry, s

rious oceans of Personality move

s are roused to undreamed-of response in answer to thi

e increasing pressure of this new wave of the perilous stuff "of emotion," slowly, little by little, as we

ange or confusion, the waves roll in, one after another, upon our human shore, and we are lifted up and carried out on that vast

aboriginal duality in the human soul and thus must remain indestructibly personal. But since the two elements of personality

sal. By means of sinking down into the transitory and the ephemeral, by means of moulding c

plation; from birth and death to that which is immortal; from movement

rious beauty revealed in apparently "inhuman" arrangements of line and colour and light an

osophical, or prophetic, is rendered irrelevant and meaningless when we perceive that all art, whether it be a thing of pure line and colour or a thing of passionate human content, must inevitably spring from the depths of

ry interpretation. The circumstantial and the sexual "motifs" in art, so appealing to the mob, may or may not play an aesthetic part in the resultant rhythm. If they do, they do so because such "interest" and such "eroticism" were an integral portion of the original vision that gave unity to the work in question. If they do not, but are merely dragged in by the

is the unpardonable stupidity of puritanical censorship. Such censorship, in its crass impertinence, assumes that its miserab

ent nothing

again and again, fused and blended in their supreme moments with

ey are all three nothing less than divergent aspects of the one irresi

tragic art there may be an apparent catastrophic despair,

whisper or something deeper than hope, a magical effluence, a "still, small voice" from beneath the disastrous eclipse, which not only "purges our passions by pity and terror" but

refore, a thing for the "coteries" and the "cliques"; nor is it a thing for the exclusive leisure of any privileged class. It

it is impossible to think of art as "philosophy" or "morality," it is inevitable that

n in regard to the most vague, shadowy, faint and obscure filcherings of contemplation, be regarded as a k

ist in this sense; and every personal life thus cons

e fully realized when we think of such "art" as concentrating upon a definite material medium the crea

se commercial days, in reducing art to a pastime for the lei

an attitude which undermines the basis of its life. The very essence of art is that it should be a thing common to all, within the reach of all, expressive of the inherent and universal nature of all. And that this is the nature of art is proved by the fact that a

xtent as yet hardly imaginable, the centripetal tendency of the possessive instinct in the race shall have relinquished something of its malicious resistance to the outflowing force which I have named "love." And this yiel

And the more entirely "original" such a vision is, the more closely-such is the ultimate paradox of things-will it be foun