Until recent years the percentage of the population who were in direct contact with the fine arts had remained much the same in civilized countries from probably the earliest times. Art had almost invariably depended upon direct patronage of some kind or other, religious or secular, if not entirely at least to an important degree. I would not denounce this; one cannot, when one remembers that the system fostered art which has not been equalled under the new régime. But direct patronage by the few is rapidly declining and is to-day almost negligible. It has been replaced, simply as a result of the mechanical factor, by a more democratic economic basis. Some arts are still to some extent produced for the few, but others entirely for the many. The important fact is that wherever reproduction is easiest that art is the most democratic--books and music, for example; wherever least possible its range is narrower and its support less democratic, e.g., sculpture, household decoration, etc. * * * * * The character of our artistic experience has therefore to a very large extent been decided by purely non-artistic factors. That which _can_ be reproduced has been reproduced, and opportunity has developed taste. This is a generalization, though not a fallacious one. We may assume that the artistic needs of men have been led into their different channels partly as a result of personal inclination, but very largely through the influence of opportunity. If a number of men were cast upon a desert island with only books to minister to their aesthetic needs, the majority would take what was to hand and be quite content. I am not saying that this is a good tendency but that it is a true hypothesis, applicable to modern life, and a contention which is tenable on historical grounds. The favourite pursuits of early civilizations were not those of to-day, and it is very unlikely that any one factor has done so much to change taste as the development of means of reproduction. The pursuit of once-popular arts need not die out; it need not even decline, since the numbers of those interested in all the arts is increasing; but the proportionate or relative interest alters. This being so, can we ignore the influence of the mechanical factor? It is operating in a striking manner to-day when _relatively_ music is being appreciated by more and literature by fewer people, when the theatre is attracting, relatively again, fewer every day than the cinema, when the graphic arts are becoming more significant than the plastic arts.