not only to remember, but, which is quite as important, to forget and
neglect; it is an organ of oblivion. By neglecting most of the things we
see and hear, we can focus just on those which are important for action;
we can cease to be potential artists and become efficient practical
human beings; but it is only by limiting our view, by a great
renunciation as to the things we see and feel. The artist does just the
reverse. He renounces doing in order to practise seeing. He is by nature
what Professor Bergson calls "distrait," aloof, absent-minded, intent
only, or mainly, on contemplation. That is why the ordinary man often
thinks the artist a fool, or, if he does not go so far as that, is made
vaguely uncomfortable by him, never really understands him. The artist's
focus, all his system of values, is different, his world is a world of
images which are his realities.

* * * * *

The distinction between art and ritual, which has so long haunted and
puzzled us, now comes out quite clearly, and also in part the relation
of each to actual life. Ritual, we saw, was a re-presentation or a
pre-presentation, a re-doing or pre-doing, a copy or imitation of life,
but,--and this is the important point,--always with a practical end. Art
is also a representation of life and the emotions of life, but cut loose
from immediate action. Action may be and often is represented, but it is
not that it may lead on to a practical further end. The end of art is in
itself. Its value is not mediate but _im_mediate. Thus ritual _makes, as
it were, a bridge between real life and art_, a bridge over which in
primitive times it would seem man must pass. In his actual life he hunts
and fishes and ploughs and sows, being utterly intent on the practical
end of gaining his food; in the _dromenon_ of the Spring Festival,
though his _acts_ are unpractical, being mere singing and dancing and