ugh in
them to produce any art at all.[6]

[6] On this subject Schlegel has some of the wisest and happiest
sayings that I have met with. For example: "All truly creative
poetry must proceed from the inward life of a people, and from
religion, the root of that life." And again: "Were it possible
for man to renounce all religion, including that which is
unconscious, or independent of the will, he would become a mere
surface without any internal substance. When this centre is
disturbed, the whole system of the mental faculties and feelings
takes a new shape." Once more, speaking of the Greeks: "Their
religion was the deification of the powers of Nature and of
earthly life; but this worship, which, among other nations,
clouded the imagination with hideous shapes, and hardened the
heart to cruelty, assumed among the Greeks a mild, a grand, and
a dignified form. Superstition, too often the tyrant of the
human faculties, here seems to have contributed to their freest
development. It cherished the arts by which itself was adorned,
and its idols became the models of beauty. But, however highly
the Greeks may have succeeded in the Beautiful and even in the
Moral, we cannot concede any higher character to their
civilization than that of a refined and ennobling sensuality. Of
course this must be understood generally. The conjectures of a
few philosophers, and the irradiations of poetical inspiration,
constitute an occasional exception. Man can never altogether
turn aside his thoughts from infinity, and some obscure
recollections will always remind him of the home he has lost."

As I am on the subject of Art considered as the offspring of Religion
or the religious Imagination, I am moved to add a brief episode in
that direction. And I the rather do so, forasmuch as Artistic Beauty
is commonly recognized as among the greatest educational forces now in
operation in the Christian world. On this point a decided reaction has
taken place within my remembrance. The agonistic or argumentative
modes, which were for a long time in the ascendant, and which
proceeded by a logical and theological presentation of Christian
thought, seem to have spent themselves, insomuch as to be giving way
to what may be called the poetical and imaginative forms of
expression. It is not my purpose to discuss whether the change be
right or for the better, but m