Higher than kings or captains, higher even than the giant producers and distributers of wealth, comes this delicate, sensitive, exquisitely specialised organ of society. For true service he deserves all the love and honour society can give, as well as the support due all of us—nothing can overestimate his value. For true service,—but what service does he give? The more highly developed the organ, the more open to disease. No feature in human production is marked with worse depravity than is found in art. Because of the extreme pleasure found in the transmission of his peculiar power, because of the special sensitiveness involved in his form of service, we too often find the artist sunken in a sublimated selfishness and arrogant to a degree beyond comparison. It is as though an eye should plume itself loftily on its power of sight. “You poor, blind body! You cannot see, but I can! I only can see, and I like to see. It gives me pleasure. I will see only what gives me pleasure. It is my pleasure to see things pink—all things pink. And round—all things are round.” The poor blind body cannot deny that things are pink—if the eyes say so; but it has hands at least, to tell it that some things are flat and others sharp; so it works on, sadly misled by its servant. And if we reason with the servant, saying: “Are you so sure that things are pink? It does not seem reasonable—it does not seem right,”—the servant loftily and unapproachably replies: “The Eye does not reason! There is no right or wrong to the Eye! I am an Eye, and I see as I like. If you differ with me, go blind!” When we recognise production as a social process, for the social good, all work will change its standard of measurement. The worker, artist or scientist, inventor or teacher, must often differ with the purchasing public; must modify his work by his own reason and conscience, not by that of the other people; but the purpose to which he modifies it is social service. It may cost him his life at the time; he may have to set himself and his views against those of the past and present; but he should do so with unfaltering devotion to what he believes the social good; not in this lunatic position that he and his work are unique in the universe—that he owes no responsibility to anything—that “art is for art’s sake.” When we are alive to the nature of our social processes, when we see that production is both duty and pleasure, personal good and social advantage, we shall bend our tremendous powers to develop and educate the productive energy in all our children, and provide the best conditions for its free exercise. XIII: DISTRIBUTION _Summary_