The same explanation may be put in another way. In order to keep any steadiness and clarity in his attitudes the ordinary man is under the necessity on most occasions of suppressing the greater part of the impulses which the situation might arouse. He is incapable of organising them; therefore they have to be left out. In the same situation the artist is able to admit far more without confusion. Hence the fact that his resultant behaviour is apt to cause dismay, irritation or envy, or to seem incomprehensible. The wheeling of the pigeons in Trafalgar Square may seem to have no relation to the colour of the water in the basins, or to the tones of a speaker’s voice or to the drift of his remarks. A narrow field of stimulation is all that we can manage, and we overlook the rest. But the artist does not, and when he needs it, he has it at his disposal. The dangers to which he is exposed, the apparent inconsequence, the difficulty on many occasions of co-operating with him, of relying upon him, of predicting what he will do, are evident and often expatiated upon. His superficial resemblance to persons who are merely mental chaoses, unorganised, without selective ability and of weak and diffused attention, is likewise clear. Essentially he is the opposite of these. [57] Henry Head, ‘The Conception of Nervous and Mental Energy’ in the _British Journal of Psychology_, Oct. 1923, Vol. XIV, p. 126. CHAPTER XXIII Tolstoy’s Infection Theory Beauty is no quality in things themselves; it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.—_Hume_. It is strange that speculations upon the arts should so rarely have begun from the most obvious fact about them. Mr Roger Fry, in his interesting Retrospect, records the shock with which Tolstoy’s insistence upon communication struck contemporary students in England. “What remained of immense importance was the idea that a work of art was not the record of beauty already existent elsewhere, but the expression of an emotion felt by the artist and conveyed to the spectator.”[58] It will be useful to examine Tolstoy’s account. He formulates his theory[59] as follows: “Art becomes more or less infectious in consequence of three conditions: (i) In consequence of a greater or lesser peculiarity of the sensation conveyed. (ii) In consequence of a greater or lesser clearness of the transmission of this sensation. (iii) In consequence of the sincerity of the artist, that is, of the greater or lesser force with which the artist himself experiences the sensation which he is conveying.” He adds, in curious contradiction to his other view which we have already discussed, “Not only is the infectiousness a certain sign of art, but the degree of the infection is the only standard of the value of art.”