We have before pointed out that the function of an interpreter is to act as a link between the spiritual and the material: he is the prophet to reveal the otherwise hidden message. The interpreter is the artist, and the artist is the interpreter. The ability to come into contact with the finer things, tangible or intangible, is simply a capacity of response finer than normal. A trained sense-perception is more acute than a non-trained: and quite apart from training there are very wide divergences in the innate range of activity of the various senses. Again, keen interest and attention tend to make a particular sense more alert, and even to extend the boundaries of its response. A man who is particularly interested in some maiden's voice or footstep will be able to make correct distinctions which simply do not exist for anyone less actively interested in that particular lady. Concentration enables any sense to become more acute. This increased acuteness naturally gives its possessor the power to receive impressions which would otherwise escape record. In the sense of not being usual, this acute sensitiveness of the artist is thus an abnormality: but it is only a variation in the direction of progress, for the whole story of the evolutionary climb up life's ladder is one of ever-increasing sensibility and response. The artistic temperament is thus, in essence, a phase of evolution somewhat in advance of its day. Any departure from the normal, even though it be in the forward direction and carrying with it certain privileges, yet entails its disadvantages. The man who breaks out is generally made to pay pretty dearly for his temerity: but, if there were none to advance and thus break out, civilisation itself would stagnate and there could be no progress. The artist, the dreamer, the visionary, the poet, the genius, these all are the advance guard of humanity. As such they frequently receive the pioneers' scanty reward, but their eyes are scarcely fixed upon mundane munificence, already their scale of values is a spiritual one. But it is just these delicate, sensitive folk, susceptible to the gossamer impulses that would never even ruffle the surface of the average man's mind, who are open to the urge of spirit and responsive to its "drive." So they answer to the helm and steer out into the unknown, while the more sleek, comfortable, and well-fed do not so much as guess that there has been any impulse at all. "H'm," say the corpulent, "why can't they leave well alone and be comfortable?" But it is no part of the great plan that the wheels of progress should ever slow down, it is much more to the point that they should be made to turn more quickly. Spirit is the force behind evolution, the force that makes the acorn unfold into the oak, and it is the urge of spirit which compels man to unfold his own divinity.