ood and drink and clothing,--more
indispensable even; but they become so, not because we decide that what
we designate as art and science are indispensable, but simply because
they really are indispensable to people.

Surely, if hay is prepared for the bodily nourishment of men, the fact
that we are convinced that hay is the proper food for man will not make
hay the food of man. Surely I cannot say, "Why do not you eat hay, when
it is the indispensable food?" Food is indispensable, but it may happen
that that which I offer is not food at all. This same thing has occurred
with our art and science. It seems to us, that if we add to a Greek word
the word "logy," and call that a science, it will be a science; and, if
we call any abominable thing--like the dancing of nude females--by a
Greek word, choreography, that that is art, and that it will be art. But
no matter how much we may say this, the business with which we occupy
ourselves when we count beetles, and investigate the chemical
constituents of the stars in the Milky Way, when we paint nymphs and
compose novels and symphonies,--our business will not become either art
or science until such time as it is accepted by those people for whom it
is wrought.

If it were decided that only certain people should produce food, and if
all the rest were forbidden to do this, or if they were rendered
incapable of producing food, I suppose that the quality of food would be
lowered. If the people who enjoyed the monopoly of producing food were
Russian peasants, there would be no other food than black bread and
cabbage-soup, and so on, and kvas,--nothing except what they like, and
what is agreeable to them. The same thing would happen in the case of
that loftiest human pursuit, of arts and sciences, if one caste were to
arrogate to itself a monopoly of them: but with this sole difference,
that, in the matter of bodily food, there can be no great departure from
nature, and bread and cabbage-soup, although not very savory viands, are
fit for consumption; but in spiritual food, there may exist the very
greatest departures from nature, and some people may feed themselves for
a long time on poisonous spiritual nourishment, which is directly
unsuitable for, or injurious to, them; they may slowly kill themselves
with spiritual opium or liquors, and they may offer this same food to the
masses.

It is this very thing that is going on among us. And it has come about
because the posit