The meaning of life Man doesn’t know. Art is, and always has been, Man’s testimony to the fact that he believes that life has a meaning and that his quest for that meaning is not destined to be forever futile. Recently the race came into possession of what seemed to be at first a new toy, not to be taken too seriously, but worthy, as it presently appeared, of development as a most fascinating addition to our recreational resources. But of late the public has begun to realize vaguely that the screen is becoming something of more vital importance to mankind than merely a plaything that serves only as a time-killer. The fact to which the provincial manager above quoted called my attention, namely, that movie audiences are constantly emphasizing their demand for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth possesses a significance that is entitled to the most earnest consideration. Is it possible that Man has come finally into possession of an art-form enabling him to come nearer to solving the riddle of the Sphinx we call Life than has been hitherto possible? There will be those among my readers, I fully realize, who will feel that my inclination all through this book has been to take the screen too seriously, to overrate its psychical dynamics and to underrate its gross materialism, to prophesy for it a future that could be made possible only if producers became archangels and movie patrons pilgrims to a shrine where the soul of the race became no longer of the earth earthy. Well, so be it. Perhaps, as regards the subject in hand, I am allowing my naturally optimistic liver to dominate my habitually pessimistic brain. But neither I nor my critics will live long enough to know which of us was in the right. A conviction, nevertheless, has come to me of late out of which I am sure that I shall never be shaken—namely, that when Man recently found a way to stop living, now and then, that he might look at life, he took the greatest step forward that he has ever taken toward becoming a philosopher. He pauses periodically in these days before a screen and sees, as he never did before, what manner of creature he is. By so doing, he must eventually attain to a self-knowledge such as he has hitherto craved but has not known how to acquire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX THE MOVIE IMPROVES ITS MORALS _War and Love Degraded—The Crook and the Vampire—Pursuers and Pursued—The Box-Office Finally Vindicates Dr. Jekyll—The Photoplay’s Marvellous Future—Booths and Barrymores Pass, Shakespeare Remains—Survey of the Screen as an Amusement Concluded._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX THE MOVIE IMPROVES ITS MORALS