Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
But art has a further function. However beautiful and harmonious our
lives, they are at best confined within narrow boundaries; and the
lover of beauty will always rejoice in the glimpses which art affords
into an ideal realm beyond his daily horizon. He will gaze eagerly
at the masterpieces of color and form that he cannot have forever about
him, he will enrich his imagination with the great scenes of drama,
he will solace his soul with the cadenced lines of poetry and the melody
of music, he will live with the heroes of fiction for a day, and return
to his work ennobled and sweetened by the contact with these forms
of excellence which lie beyond the bounds of his own outward life.
In two ways the fine arts add to the preexisting beauty in a man's
life: by representing to him beautiful scenes and objects which he
cannot enjoy in themselves, because he cannot go where they are, and
by creating from the artist's imagination a new universe of emotions
and satisfactions, congenial to the human spirit and full of a refined
and pure joy.
What dangers are there in culture and art for life?
We must now glance at the other side of the picture. Enormous as are
the potentialities for good in culture and art, they also have their
perils.
(1) Culture and art must not take time, energy, or money that is needed
for work. Achievement necessitates concentration and sacrifice; beauty
must not beguile men away from service. [Footnote: Cf. what Pater says
of Winckelmann (The Renaissance, p. 195): "The development of his force
was the single interest of Winckelmann, unembarrassed by anything else
in him. Other interests, practical or intellectual, those slighter
motives and talents not supreme, which in most men are the waste part
of nature, and drain away their vitality, he plucked out and cast from
him."] The boys and girls who squander health in their eagerness to
explore the new worlds opening before them, the older folk who give
a disproportionate share of their time and money to music or the theater,
the voracious readers who pore over every new novel and magazine
without really assimilating and using what they read, are turning what
ought to be recreation or inspiration into dissipation, and thereby
seriously impairing their efficiency. It is so much easier to read
something new than to meditate fruitfully upon what one has read, to
pass from picture to picture in a gallery and win no genuine insight
from any. A single great book thoroughly mastered-the Bible, Homer,
Shakespeare-were better for a man than the superficial skimming of
many, one beautiful picture well loved than a hundred idly glanced
at and labeled with some trite comment. Too many of the upper class,
for whom limitless cultural opportunities are open, dabble in everything,
know names and schools, repeat glibly the current phrases of criticism,
but miss the lesson, the clarification of insight, the vision of the
author or artist. Such superficial culture is a futile expenditure
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