Although, in this inquiry, the Fine Arts will be the subject of my particular attention, it should not be supposed that this is necessarily the department in modern life in which Nietzsche believed most disorder, most incompetence, and most scepticism prevails. I selected the Fine Arts, in the first place, merely because they are the arts concerning which I am best informed, and to which the Nietzschean doctrine can be admirably applied; and secondly, because sculpture and painting offer a wealth of examples known to all, which facilitates anything in the way of an exposition. For even outsiders and plain men in the street must be beginning to have more than an inkling of the chaos and confusion which now reigns in other spheres besides the Fine Arts. It must be apparent to most people that, in every department of modern life where culture and not calculation, where taste and not figures, where ability and not qualifications, are alone able to achieve anything great--that is to say, in religion, in morality, in law, in politics, in music, in architecture, and finally in the plastic arts, precision and government are now practically at an end. "Disintegration," says Nietzsche,"--that is to say, uncertainty--is peculiar to this age: nothing stands on solid ground or on a sound faith.... All our road is slippery and dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown unconscionably thin: we all feel the mild and gruesome breath of the thaw-wind--soon, where we are walking, no one will any longer be able to stand!"[17] We do not require to be told that in religion and moral matters, scarcely any two specialists are agreed--the extraordinarily large number of religious sects in England alone needs but to be mentioned here; in law we divine that things are in a bad state; in politics even our eyes are beginning to give us evidence of the serious uncertainty prevailing; while in architecture and music the case is pitiable. "If we really wished, if we actually dared to devise a style of architecture which corresponded to the state of our souls," says Nietzsche, "a labyrinth would be the building we should erect. But," he adds, "we are too cowardly to construct anything which would be such a complete revelation of our hearts."[18] However elementary our technical knowledge of the matter may be, we, as simple inquirers, have but to look about our streets to-day, in order to convince ourselves of the ignominious muddle of modern architecture. Here we find structural expedients used as ornaments,[19] the most rigid parts of buildings, in form (the rectangular parts, etc.), placed near the roof instead of in the basement,[20] and pillars standing supporting, and supported by, nothing.[21] Elsewhere we see solids over voids,[22] mullions supporting arches,[23] key-stones introduced into lintels,[24] real windows appearing as mere holes in the wall, while the ornamental windows are shams,[25] and pilasters resting on key-stones.[26]