for _first-hand_ emotion and expression, and
that expression is found for all classes in a revival of the ritual
dance. Some of the strenuous, exciting, self-expressive dances of to-day
are of the soil and some exotic, but, based as they mostly are on very
primitive ritual, they stand as singular evidence of this real recurrent
need. Art in these latter days goes back as it were on her own steps,
recrossing the ritual bridge back to life.

* * * * *

It remains to ask what, in the light of this ritual origin, is the
function of art? How do we relate it to other forms of life, to science,
to religion, to morality, to philosophy? These are big-sounding
questions, and towards their solution only hints here and there can be
offered, stray thoughts that have grown up out of this study of ritual
origins and which, because they have helped the writer, are offered,
with no thought of dogmatism, to the reader.

* * * * *

We English are not supposed to be an artistic people, yet art, in some
form or another, bulks large in the national life. We have theatres, a
National Gallery, we have art-schools, our tradesmen provide for us
"art-furniture," we even hear, absurdly enough, of "art-colours."
Moreover, all this is not a matter of mere antiquarian interest, we do
not simply go and admire the beauty of the past in museums; a movement
towards or about art is all alive and astir among us. We have new
developments of the theatre, problem plays, Reinhardt productions,
Gordon Craig scenery, Russian ballets. We have new schools of painting
treading on each other's heels with breathless rapidity: Impressionists,
Post-Impressionists, Futurists. Art--or at least the desire for, the
interest in, art--is assuredly not dead.

Moreover, and this is very important, we all feel about art a certain
obligation, such as some of us feel about religion. There is an "ought"
about it. Perhaps we do not really care much about pictures and poetry
and music, but we feel we "ought to." In the case of music it has
happily been at last recognized that if you have not an "ear" you cannot
care for it, but two generations ago, owing to the unfortunate cheapness
and popularity of keyed instruments, it was widely held that one half of
humanity, the feminine half, "ought" to play the piano. This "ought"
is, of course, like most social "oughts," a very complex product, but
its existence is well wor