erent from man's experience of the physical world. The child is
born: he grows up into his family; the circle widens to include
neighbors and the community; the circle widens again as the boy
goes away to school and then to college. With ever-widening sweep
the outermost bound recedes, though still embracing him, as he
reaches out to Europe and at length compasses the earth, conquering
experience and bringing its treasures into tribute to his own spirit.
The things were there; but for the boy each was in turn created as he
made it his own. So the artist, revealing new aspects of the supreme
unity, creates in the sense that he makes possible for his fellows a
fuller taking-up of this life into themselves.

It may be said that he is the greatest artist who has felt the most of
harmony in life,--the greatest artist but potentially. The beauty he
has perceived must in accordance with our human needs find
expression concretely, because it is only as he manifests himself in
forms which we can understand that we are able to recognize him.
Though a mute, inglorious Milton were Milton still, yet our human
limitations demand his utterance that we may know him. So the
artist accomplishes his mission when he communicates himself. The
human spirit is able to bring the supreme life into unity with itself
according to the measure of its own growth made possible through
expression.

The supreme life, of which every created thing partakes,--the stone,
the flower, the animal, and man,--is beauty, because it is the
supreme harmony wherein everything has its place in relation to
every other thing. This central unity has its existence in expression.
The round earth, broken off from the stellar system and whirling
along its little orbit through space, is yet ever in communication
with the great system; the tree, with its roots in the earth, puts forth
branches, the branches expand into twigs, the twigs burst into leaves
whose veins reach out into the air; out of the twigs spring buds
swelling into blossoms, the blossoms ripen into fruit, the fruit drops
seed into the earth which gave it and springs up into new trees. The
tree by its growth, which is the putting forth of itself or expression,
develops needs, these needs are satisfied, and the satisfying of the
needs is the condition of its continued expansion.

Man, too, has his existence in expression. By growth through
expression, which is the creation of a new need, he is enabled to tak