function of art. Because art can not only fix ideas but also make them
{209} alluring, it may invest them with a fictitious value. I refer to
what is only a different aspect of that sentimentalism or chronic
emotionalism to which I have already called attention. Not only is it
possible that men should be brought through the aesthetic interest to
replace action with emotion; they may also persuade themselves that the
higher principles of life owe their validity to some quality that is
discerned immediately in the apprehension of them. But purpose,
justice, and good-will are essentially principles of organization;
their virtue is their provident working. To regard them only as images
with a value inhering in their bare essence, is to forfeit their
benefits. Verbalism, formalism, mysticism, are given a certain false
charm and semblance of self-sufficiency by the cultivation and exercise
of the aesthetic interest. Hence morality and religion must here
resist its enticements, and never cease to remind themselves that
theirs is the task of acknowledging all interests according to their
real inwardness, and of banishing cruelty and blindness in their behalf.

VIII

Finally, art serves to _liberalize_ life, to make it expansive and
generous in spirit. This is possible because, in the first place, art
is unworldly. I mean simply that the enjoyment of beauty is not {210}
a part of ambition; that it does not call into play those habits of
calculation and forms of skill that conduce to success in livelihood or
the gaining of any of the proximate ends of organized social life. It
frees the mind from its harness and turns it out to pasture. I suppose
that every one has had that experience of spiritual refreshment which
occasionally comes when one has gone body and soul _out of doors_, or
when one is delivered over to the enchantment of sober and elevating
music, and suddenly made aware of the better things that have been long
forgotten. Such experiences are a moral inspiration. It is as though,
the clamor of the world being for the moment shut out, one hears at
last the voices that speak with authority. For an instant the broad
sweep of truth flashes upon eyes that have been too intently watchful
of affairs near at hand. The good-will can be sustained only by a mind
that now and then withdraws itself from its engagements, and expands
its view to the full measure of life. For the momentary inhibiting of
the narrower