On the Significance of Science and ArtTolstoy, Leo, graf
Philosophy
On the Significance of Science and Art
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Art and science; Literature; Philosophy; Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 -- Philosophy
There have always existed a true science, and a true art; but true
science and art are not such because they called themselves by that name.
It always seems to those who claim at any given period to be the
representatives of science and art, that they have performed, and are
performing, and--most of all--that they will presently perform, the most
amazing marvels, and that beside them there never has been and there is
not any science or any art. Thus it seemed to the sophists, the
scholastics, the alchemists, the cabalists, the talmudists; and thus it
seems to our own scientific science, and to our art for the sake of art.
CHAPTER V.
"But art,--science! You repudiate art and science; that is, you
repudiate that by which mankind lives!" People are constantly making
this--it is not a reply--to me, and they employ this mode of reception in
order to reject my deductions without examining into them. "He
repudiates science and art, he wants to send people back again into a
savage state; so what is the use of listening to him and of talking to
him?" But this is unjust. I not only do not repudiate art and science,
but, in the name of that which is true art and true science, I say that
which I do say; merely in order that mankind may emerge from that savage
state into which it will speedily fall, thanks to the erroneous teaching
of our time,--only for this purpose do I say that which I say.
Art and science are as indispensable as food and drink and clothing,--more
indispensable even; but they become so, not because we decide that what
we designate as art and science are indispensable, but simply because
they really are indispensable to people.
Surely, if hay is prepared for the bodily nourishment of men, the fact
that we are convinced that hay is the proper food for man will not make
hay the food of man. Surely I cannot say, "Why do not you eat hay, when
it is the indispensable food?" Food is indispensable, but it may happen
that that which I offer is not food at all. This same thing has occurred
with our art and science. It seems to us, that if we add to a Greek word
the word "logy," and call that a science, it will be a science; and, if
we call any abominable thing--like the dancing of nude females--by a
Greek word, choreography, that that is art, and that it will be art. But
no matter how much we may say this, the business with which we occupy
ourselves when we count beetles, and investigate the chemical
constituents of the stars in the Milky Way, when we paint nymphs and
compose novels and symphonies,--our business will not become either art
or science until such time as it is accepted by those people for whom it
is wrought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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