specialised, less capable of feeling things directly, the power of
escaping to the world of ecstasy decays, and art and religion begin to
sink. When the majority lack, not only the emotion out of which art and
religion are made, but even the sensibility to respond to what the few
can still offer, art and religion founder. After that, nothing is left
of art and religion but their names; illusion and prettiness are called
art, politics and sentimentality religion.

Now, if I am right in thinking that art is a manifestation--a
manifestation, mark, and not an expression--of man's spiritual state,
then in the history of art we shall read the spiritual history of the
race. I am not surprised that those who have devoted their lives to the
study of history should take it ill when one who professes only to
understand the nature of art hints that by understanding his own
business he may become a judge of theirs. Let me be as conciliatory as
possible. No one can have less right than I, or, indeed, less
inclination to assume the proud title of "scientific historian": no one
can care less about historical small-talk or be more at a loss to
understand what precisely is meant by "historical science." Yet if
history be anything more than a chronological catalogue of facts, if it
be concerned with the movements of mind and spirit, then I submit that
to read history aright we must know, not only the works of art that each
age produced, but also their value as works of art. If the aesthetic
significance or insignificance of works of art does, indeed, bear
witness to a spiritual state, then he who can appreciate that
significance should be in a position to form some opinion concerning the
spiritual state of the men who produced those works and of those who
appreciated them. If art be at all the sort of thing it is commonly
supposed to be, the history of art must be an index to the spiritual
history of the race. Only, the historian who wishes to use art as an