nterest
unduly dominates, in which action is transmuted into pulses of
sensation, and the means of efficiency into the ends of contemplation,
is an idle life, protected from the consequences of its own impotency
only by the constructive labor of others. He who from prolonged gazing
at the spoon forgets to carry it to his mouth, must die of hunger and
cease from gazing altogether, or be fed by his friends. The
instruments of achievement may be adorned, and made delightful in the
using, but they must not {197} on that account be mistaken for the
achievement; leisure may be made a worthy pastime through the
cultivation of the sensibilities, but it must not be substituted for
vocation, or allowed to infect a serious purpose with decay.

V

It has always been recognized that there is a peculiar massiveness or
depth in aesthetic satisfaction, as though it somehow carried with it
the satisfaction of all interests. And this is not due merely to the
fact that other interests tend to fall away or remit their claims; it
is due besides to the fact that other interests may in a sense actually
be fulfilled in the aesthetic interest. In other words, this interest
serves a vicarious function, transmuting other interests into its own
form, and then affording them a fulfilment which they are incapable of
attaining when exercised in their own right.

This occurs when other interests, such as love or personal ambition,
are imagined or represented, and thus made objects of agreeable
apprehension. There is in this a compensation for failure, without
which life would be stripped of one of its main barriers against
despair. Those whom circumstance has provided no opportunity for the
fulfilment of interests so ingenerate as maternal love or heroic
action, may, in a way, make themselves whole {198} through the
contemplation of these things; for the contemplation of them engages
the same instincts, arouses the same emotions, but without requiring
the existence of their objects. The prolongation of arduous and
uncertain effort is compensated through the imaginative anticipation of
success, or through the apprehension of some symbol of perfect
fruition. It is through this happy illumination of struggle with a
vision of fulfilment, that mankind is reconciled to such tasks as
civilization and spiritual wholeness; tasks in which great efforts
produce small results, and of which the end is not seen.

Now it remains true, of course, that