exhibit is nothing if not true, or by way of becoming or being
recognized as true.

A technical standard in any one of the liberal or practical arts cannot
be applied as rigorously as can the standard of scientific truth,
because the standard itself is not so authentic. In all these arts many
differences of opinion exist among masters as to the methods and forms
which should be authoritative; and in so far as such is the case, the
individual must be allowed to make many apparently arbitrary personal
choices. The fact that a man has such choices to make is the
circumstance which most clearly distinguishes the practice of an art
from that of a science, but this circumstance, instead of being an
excuse for technical irresponsibility or mere eclecticism, should, on
the contrary, stimulate the individual more completely to justify his
choice. In his work he is fighting the battle not merely of his own
personal career, but of a method, of a style, of an idea, or of an
ideal. The practice of the several arts need not suffer from diversity
of standard, provided the several separate standards are themselves
incorruptible. In all the arts--and by the arts I mean all disinterested
and liberal practical occupations--the difficulty is not that
sufficiently authoritative standards do not exist, but that they are not
applied. The standard which is applied is merely that of the
good-enough. The juries are either too kindly or too lax or too much
corrupted by the nature of their own work. They are prevented from being
incorruptible about the work of other people by a sub-conscious
apprehension of the fate of their own performances--in case similar
standards were applied to themselves. Just in so far as the second-rate
performer is allowed to acquire any standing, he inevitably enters into
a conspiracy with his fellows to discourage exhibitions of genuine and
considerable excellence, and, of course, to a certain extent he
succeeds. By the waste which he encourages of good human appreciation,
by the confusion which he introduces into the popular critical
standards, he helps to effect a popular discrimination against any
genuine superiority of achievement.

Individual independence and fulfillment is conditioned on the technical
excellence of the individual's work, because the most authentic standard
is for the time being constituted by excellence of this kind. An
authentic standard must be based either upon acquired knowledge or an
acce