The dangers of pre-occupation with art, however, must not be passed over. Just because it creates the illusion of perfection it is apt to encourage the indolence of our nature, which ever prefers to content itself with illusion, and to desist from effort. It is on this account that periods in which art greatly flourishes are apt to lead to the halting of progress and eventually to decay. A second danger is that the artist, in applying the ideal of present perfection, is in danger of selfishly subordinating other persons to himself (cf. Goethe as a notable example), or of setting up a special kind of morality for artists.[82] In a full account of the matter, the different so-called fine arts should be specifically treated from the point of view of this chapter. The particular contribution of each to the general purpose of art should be noted, the distinctions marked between painting, sculpture, poetry, etc., and in each case the kind of art which is favorable to the spiritual development of man be discriminated from that which is hostile to it. Plato attempted to do this in the case of music. To summarize: What has been attempted in this chapter is a theory not of art but of the relation of art to ethics. The dominating thought is this: in a work of art each line, color, sound, word, must be irreplaceable, and on that account convincing. Each member must be indispensable in its place and the connection with the rest inevitable. Substitute for line, color, sound, etc., a life—an ethical being,—conceive the members to be not a few but in number infinite, and you have the spiritual ideal, which is the reality whereof the art work is a semblance. This is the relation of art to ethics—the quality which we call in art “convincing,” in ethics we call “worth.” NOTES