Apparent exceptions will at once spring to mind, and we may ask why musicians as a class do not stand out specifically as more spiritual than their fellows. There are many reasons. Not all musicians pursue their calling with insight and understanding: mere perfunctory performance has the effect of influencing in the direction of the commonplace and the casual, and music is never the sole influence at work, and not always the chief. The character is the result, on balance, of ALL the forces that have played their part, just as the annual balance on profit and loss account represents the net result of all the transactions that have taken place. Unless the spiritual forces at work in an individual's life outweigh the material, the net result will still be on the side of the latter, even though he may have had music in his soul. When we look at the adolescent of to-day, particularly the town-bred youth of from sixteen to twenty years, we may well ask what opportunity he gets for the expression of any theme of beauty, or for any impression of the like. The mind has a kind of breathing motion, as have the lungs: it takes in, stores up and assimilates, and then expresses. Education must allow for both processes. But our youthful friend has left school, and is probably engaged in some more or less strenuous work which brings him into the closest contact with grown men. From these he derives most of his inspiration: much of it is highly coloured, and some of it is certainly degrading. He does not read, and so knows nothing of the inspiration of literature, and the past is to him a closed book. He comes across nothing artistic, and he hears no concerts. He never goes to church, and you can see him by the thousand loafing about in any large town on a Sunday. "The modern townsman... has forgotten the habits and sentiments of the village from which his forefathers came. An unnatural and unhealthy mode of life, cut off from the sweet and humanising influences of nature, has produced an unnatural and unhealthy mentality, to which we shall find no parallels in the past. Its chief characteristic is profound secularity or materialism. The typical town artisan has no religion and no superstitions: he has no ideals beyond the visible and tangible world of the senses."[20] [Note 20: W. R. Inge.]