such amazing complexity may exist in different
combinations in nature; but when a musician steps out of his way to
imitate the crowing of cocks or the roar of the tempest, we regard
his achievement merely as a graceful conceit. Art is, therefore, an
imitation of nature; but it is an intellectual and not a mechanical
imitation; and the performances of the camera and the music-box are
not to be classed with those of the violinist's bow or the sculptor's
chisel.

And lastly, in distinguishing art from science, Taine remarks, that
in disengaging from their complexity the causes which are at work in
nature, and the fundamental laws according to which they work, science
describes them in abstract formulas conveyed in technical language. But
art reveals these operative causes and these dominant laws, not in arid
definitions, inaccessible to most people, intelligible only to specially
instructed men, but in a concrete symbol, addressing itself not only to
the understanding, but still more to the sentiments of the ordinary man.
Art has, therefore, this peculiarity, that it is at once elevated and
popular, that it manifests that which is often most recondite, and that
it manifests it to all.

Having determined what a work of art is, our author goes on to study
the social conditions under which works of art are produced; and he
concludes that the general character of a work of art is determined
by the state of intellect and morals in the society in which it is
executed. There is, in fact, a sort of moral temperature which acts
upon mental development much as physical temperature acts upon organic
development. The condition of society does not produce the artist's
talent; but it assists or checks its efforts to display itself; it
decides whether or not it shall be successful And it exerts a "natural
selection" between different kinds of talents, stimulating some and
starving others. To make this perfectly clear, we will cite at some
length Taine's brilliant illustration.

The case chosen for illustration is a very simple one,--that of a state
of society in which one of the predominant feelings is melancholy. This
is not an arbitrary supposition, for such a time has occurred more than
once in human history; in Asia, in the sixth century before Christ, and
especially in Europe, from the fourth to the tenth centuries of our
era. To produce such a state of feeling, five or six generations of
decadence, accompanied with diminution o