As for our art and sciences, they are provided for: they have diplomas, and everybody only thinks about how to provide still better for them; that is, to make it impossible for them to serve men. A true art and a true science have two unmistakable characteristics,--the first, an interior one, that a minister of art or science fulfils his calling, not for the sake of gain, but with self-denial; and the second, an exterior one, that his productions are intelligible to all men, whose welfare he is aiming at. Whatever men may consider to be their destiny and welfare, science will be the teacher of this destiny and welfare, and art the expression of this teaching. The laws of Solon, of Confucius, are science; the teachings of Moses, of Christ, are science; the temples in Athens, the psalms of David, church worship, are art: but finding out the fourth dimension of matter, and tabulating chemical combinations, and so on, have never been, and never will be, science. The place of true science is occupied, in our time, by theology and law; the place of true art is occupied by the church and state ceremonies, in which nobody believes, and which are not considered seriously by anybody; while that which with us is called art and science, is only the production of idle minds and feelings desirous to stimulate similarly idle minds and feelings, and unintelligible and dumb for the people, because they have not their welfare in view. Since we have known the lives of men, we have always and everywhere found a ruling false doctrine, calling itself science, which does not show men the true meaning of life, but rather hides it from them. So it was among the Egyptians, the Indians, the Chinese, and partially among the Greeks (sophists); and among the mystics, Gnostics, and cabalists; in the Middle Ages, in theology, scholasticism, alchemy; and so on down to our days. How fortunate indeed we are to be living in such a peculiar time, when that mental activity which calls itself science is not only free from errors, but, we are assured, is in a state of peculiar progress! Does not this good fortune come from the fact that man can not and will not see his own deformities? While of the sciences of theologians, and that of cabalists, nothing is left but empty words, why should we be so particularly fortunate? The characteristics of our times and of former times are quite similar; there is the same self-conceit and blind assurance that we only are on the true way, and that only with us true knowledge begins; there are the same expectations that we shall presently discover something very wonderful; and there is the same exposure of our error, in the fact that all our wisdom remains with us, while the masses of the people do not understand it, and neither accept nor need it. Our position is a very difficult one, but why should we not look it in the face?