germ of rational order would by this time have
penetrated into fine art and speculation from the prosperous
constructive arts that touch the one, and the prosperous natural and
mathematical sciences that touch the other. But as yet there is little
sign of it. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century painting and
sculpture have passed through several phases, representatives of each
naturally surviving after the next had appeared. Romanticism, half
lurid, half effeminate, yielded to a brutal pursuit of material truth,
and a pious preference for modern and humble sentiment. This realism
had a romantic vein in it, and studied vice and crime, tedium and
despair, with a very genuine horrified sympathy. Some went in for a
display of archaeological lore or for exotic _motifs_; others gave all
their attention to rediscovering and emphasising abstract problems of
execution, the highway of technical tradition having long been
abandoned. Beginners are still supposed to study their art, but they
have no masters from whom to learn it. Thus, when there seemed to be
some danger that art should be drowned in science and history, the
artists deftly eluded it by becoming amateurs. One gave himself to
religious archaism, another to Japanese composition, a third to
barbaric symphonies of colour; sculptors tried to express dramatic
climaxes, or inarticulate lyrical passion, such as music might better
convey; and the latest whims are apparently to abandon painful
observation altogether, to be merely decorative or frankly mystical,
and to be satisfied with the childishness of hieroglyphics or the
crudity of caricature. The arts are like truant children who think
their life will be glorious if they only run away and play for ever;
no need is felt of a dominant ideal passion and theme, nor of any
moral interest in the interpretation of nature. Artists have no less
talent than ever; their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often
interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in
their works.

In philosophy there are always the professors, as in art there are
always the portrait painters and the makers of official sculpture; and
both sorts of academicians are often very expert and well-educated.
Yet in philosophy, besides the survival of all the official and
endowed systems, there has been of late a very interesting fresh
movement, largely among the professors themselves, which in its
various hues may be called irra