One more remark: The limitations opposed to the artist, for instance to the sculptor, by the material in which he works, are a helpful illustration of one of the most important ethical truths. The material is found to be intractable to the idea. The hardness of the stone, the veins that run through the marble, the unpropitious qualities of the wood, are so many hindrances to execution. The value of these hindrances is that they compel the artist to achieve a more definite grasp of the ideal itself. Before the attempt to carry it out into stone, the idea is apt to be vague in the mind of the artist. The same is true of every ideal conception—that of the author before he writes a book, that of the social reformer before he attempts to carry his scheme into practice. And it applies no less to the ethical ideal of life in general. The empirical analogue or substratum is ductile to a certain degree, else we could never achieve even partial success. But it is also hostile and mutinous in many ways, and the fact that it is so compels us to adapt our ideal to existing empirical requirements, and to make it more explicit in the process of adapting it. FOOTNOTES: [80] Aristotle regards the _Œdipus Rex_ as the most perfect example of tragedy; let it serve the purpose of illustrating the idea here proposed. Read the play and get the total impression of it. Analyze it into its parts. Synthesize after the analysis. You will not fail to realize how every character, every speech and act, contributes to the total effect, and how in turn every single factor in the play receives a new significance from its relation to the rest, while still retaining its obvious meaning (the meaning it would have when taken out of the context of the play). Take the first speech of Œdipus as an example. He is the king solicitous for the welfare of his subjects, to whom they look up with admiration and gratitude. He is the father of his people. Read this speech again after you have taken in the entire play, and note how its color is changed. How the firmness, the fatherly, protective attitude is now seen to be the outward mask of a fugitive soul, unsure of itself, haunted by hideous fears. [81] The use made of pageantry, the revival of English and other folk-songs, the morris-dances and the like, the attempt to ennoble the leisure of the industrial workers by leading them back to forms of art which sprang up centuries ago in foreign countries, is evidence of the keen desire for art rather than a step in a new direction. [82] Art, like science, is to be subordinate. The relation between persons and persons is mankind’s supreme concern. The views above expressed differ radically from those of Schiller. See his _Æsthetic Education of Man_. CHAPTER VI EDUCATIONAL VOCATIONS, OR VOCATIONS CONNECTED WITH THE STATE