luded; that infinitiveness is not infinity-is indeed dangerous, as it will express the exalted and the sensual with equal impartiality, for ascetic and worldling respectively, being rather of the nature of a stimulant, like hashish, which gives each man his paradise in total accord with the man's soul.

Now, we do not deny that the spiritist takes interest in art; only we desire to point out that this will be due not to his spiritism, but rather to that section of his nature yet unsubdued by his theory, or to his desire to use art as a common ground with the unconverted masses. All mankind having once become absolute spiritists in practice as well as in theory, there would be a wholesale translation of mankind, so to speak, in chariots of fire, drawn by steeds of fire, through the obscuring clouds of form to the serene depth of spotless blue, of immediate absorption in the supreme Reality. The body is a barrier. All forms of art would be barriers to ideas. May be, like windowpanes of horn, they are more transparent than walls of wood or stone. No panes, however, would be better still.

It is the inherent spiritism of Christianity that produced all the deformed medieval art, the whitewashed walls of Puritan meeting-houses, the exile of ornament and music from the sanctuary, the antisacramentalism of the Friends.

We grant that the sacramental system itself,-the symbolic method of instruction with which the New Testament familiarizes us,-seem to give their sanction to art-a charter of practical perpetuity. But we must remember that there is no balance between sign and thing signified; between idea and sensible form.

Like a perfume that can not be imprisoned in the open rose, but will disembody itself and float on the summer air, so the infinite meaning forsakes its finite suggestion. The mind fastens on the idea, and forgets the form; and with this forgetting comes neglect; and with the neglect of form, the decay of art. No one will argue, we believe, that the spiritism of Christianity ever gave a healthy encouragement to art. Spiritism is of necessity superarrogant when confronted with the translation of spirit in material language. Art, so to say, takes a little of heaven and brings it illusively down to earth. Religion strives to seize upon earth and bodily transport it into heaven. How can religion of the spiritual kind, whose problem is the apotheosis of man, agree upon fair terms of agreement with the arts whose main effort it is to terrestrialize heaven, making even the Ancient of Days appear as infinitely "magnified man," in statue, painting, and poem?

To summarize in conclusion the results of our discussion. Art will thrive, hold a position of perpetual dignity only with monism regnant.

It must suffer more or less from the predominance of either materialism or spiritism.

Under the absolutely consistent rule of positivism, art must perish.

With dualism supreme, art would run great risk of losing a fair balance, because the dualist is so sure to emphasize one or the other of his uncombinable hostile twain.

We venture to suggest that the undisputed acceptance of monism itself might tend to injure the artist, making his work too conscious a practice of a

precise and rigid aesthetic. Who knows but that the predominance of no theory in particular-intellectual anarchy-the mutual checkmating of various theories—leaving the artist heart-whole and fancy-free to follow his creative instincts-constitutes the most favorable condition for a robust and delight-giving. art? In that case, what of the perpetuity of art, on the hypothesis of a steady growth of civilization and intellectual order?

VI. GERHARDT HAUPTMANN.

"Say what you will," wrote the morose and fantastic Beddoes, "I am convinced the man who is to awaken the drama must be a bold trampling fellow, no creeper into worm-holes, no reviver even, however good. Such ghosts as Marlowe, Webster, etc., are better dramatists, better poets, I dare say, than any contemporary of ours, but they are ghosts; the worm is in their pages; and we want to see something that our great grandsires did not know." If this be true and does any one question it, when the long list of brilliant attempts at tragedy from the pens of poets of undoubted talent, nay genius, is remembered which have disappointed the expectations of our century in France, England, and Germany-if this be true, if our modern dramatist must bid farewell to Sophocles and Shakespeare and forget Seneca and Racine then we may with some confidence heed the promptings of the heart and mind, which declare that after all Hauptmann may be "the man."

One is always much embarrassed when confronted with some new thing. By what standard shall it be measured? Dare we allow ourselves to be pleased, and, still more rash, venture to express our pleasure at something wholly unprecedented? It is all very safe to take pleasure in conventional fashion, along paths well fenced to right and left by respected criticism; but to declare that in some open wilderness one has thor

oughly enjoyed one's self, seems to argue a dash of reckless boldness or sheer stupidity.

What shall we say of Hauptmann's work? Is it entitled to the noble name of tragedy? He who accepts Mr. Taine's definition of art will of course not be unwilling to confer the title of poem on any clever, piece of realism. But to us, poetry is not the handmaid of science, is not a mere illustrator,-a concrete expression of abstract truth. We have had our doubts as to "Mr. Sludge the Medium," and not a few other compositions of Mr. Browning, great poet though he be. Man imitates, but soon he is not content with imitation; he creates, or, more correctly speaking, he makes his imitation yield a more unalloyed aesthetic pleasure than nature, on account of her very complexity, can do, except at very rare or fortunate moments. The brightest or noblest art, that art which nature can not rival, presents the ideal distinctly, quickens in us a certain spiritual energy by inspiring an extranatural certainty that the perfect is not a spectral category, but one into which all things are destined in the end to fall. Of course, the finality of the ideal can be presented negatively and positively. By the statuary, whose marble and bronze mean permanence and speak of reality, the beautiful must be clearly set forth directly. In the poem, whose materials are in the last analysis successive sounds suggesting mental images that follow or supplant each other, materials that inevitably convey an impression of impermanence and vanity, the negative presentation of the ideal is more potent. Hence, in the drama, stress and sorrow have vanquished the ideal of peace and happiness. By the doom of evil and error, the survival of good