persuasion, in which something is being done to the will, and in
which desires are being turned continually toward new objects, and
composite feelings are being formed which will direct the course of
future experience. So art and the aesthetic experience are not things
apart from life, but may even be thought of as the method and the
quality of life in some of its most dynamic forms. They are not added
to life as an ornament or a luxury, but are the spirit in which life
is lived when it is indeed most productive.

When we make specific analyses of aesthetic experience we find
represented in it all the deep motives and tendencies, of life. This
gives us our clew to the practical application of the aesthetic in the
business of life. All it contains, all the art and the play of the
world must be put to work, although this is a conclusion that might
readily be misunderstood. We do not expect to harness the powers of
childhood to the world's tasks, or expect industry to become fine art,
but we do expect art and play to be something more than passive and
unproductive states. We expect them to sustain and to create the
energies by which the world's work is to be carried on. We would
utilize them to give more power to life at every point, and to make
all activities of the practical life more free and creative. And was
there ever a time when power was more greatly needed--in industry, in
political life and in every phase of life both of the individual and
of society?

But it is not only in creating and doing that the world needs art
to-day, in the sense in which we mean to define it. An aroused world
is called upon to feel to the depths of reality, and to draw from
these depths new and more profound valuations. We stand at a point
where many things in life must be tested and judged anew, where the
danger of perverting and misjudging many things is great. It is by the
powers of appreciation gained in dynamic states of consciousness, we
may believe, rather than by discoveries and an accumulation of data
that we shall be most certain of finding true values, and the way of
extrication from our present grave doubts.

Can one hesitate to conclude, then, that in all our educational
experiences, we must try not only to train these powers that we call
aesthetic, but to give opportunity at every point for the exercise of
them as selective functions, and as a means of creating and expressing
power in the mental life?

CHAPTER X