We moderns, victims of the giddy pace at which we live, may be somewhat oblivious of the fact; but it is a fact that anyone who knows history cannot ignore. To create and foster an art really worthy of the name,—Greek sculpture, Italian painting, the French decorative art of the eighteenth century,—the immense sums at our disposal are useless, and the sciences of steam and electricity of no avail. I have already had occasion to prove this in the preceding chapters. The nations and the generations which have created the most famous arts and whose relics are still our delight, were poor and ignorant compared with us. In order to create and foster art, it is necessary to educate generations of artists to do good work and generations of amateurs to understand and appreciate it. Neither the artists nor the public taste can be educated without a spirit of tradition and of æsthetic discipline, which induces the public to allow the artists the time necessary for the perfecting of their respective arts in all their details; which induces the artist to recognise the legitimate requirements of the public for which he works, and to seek to satisfy it by adapting his own work to those requirements. Anyone can see, however, that nowadays these two conditions have become well-nigh impossible. In the gigantic confusion of the modern world, races, cultures, and populations are continually intermingling. Generations follow each other with the fixed determination not to continue what their immediate predecessor has done but to do something different. Ancient traditions are dying out, and no new ones are being formed or can be formed. Change is the order of the day. Sons but rarely adopt their father’s professions, and not a few die in lands other than those in which they were born. Modern society is agitated by a continual process of renewal, which is the deep-seated source of her energy and activity, but is also a reason for her artistic decadence. In this continual mobility of bodies, wills, and ideas; in this perpetual change of tendencies, tastes, and standards, art is losing her bearings and, alone in this age of bold enterprises, is becoming greedy and diffident. Public and artists, instead of helping each other, have grown timid. The public no longer does what it likes. It no longer has any standard of judgment. It has become timid and diffident. It is obsessed by the fear of mistaking a masterpiece for a deception or a deception for a masterpiece. This uncertainty of tastes and desires in the public in its turn bewilders the artists. When the painter, the sculptor, the musician, and the poet try to find in the desires and inclinations of the public the sure indication which in times past used to be the support and guidance of artists in their creations, they find that the public is ready to admire anything, but has no marked preference for anything in particular. The artist is free, but his liberty is a liberty which embarrasses and paralyses him.