True art and true science possess two unmistakable marks: the
first, an inward mark, which is this, that the servitor of art and
science will fulfil his vocation, not for profit but with self-
sacrifice; and the second, an external sign,--his productions will
be intelligible to all the people whose welfare he has in view.

No matter what people have fixed upon as their vocation and their
welfare, science will be the doctrine of this vocation and welfare,
and art will be the expression of that doctrine. That which is
called science and art, among us, is the product of idle minds and
feelings, which have for their object to tickle similar idle minds
and feelings. Our arts and sciences are incomprehensible, and say
nothing to the people, for they have not the welfare of the common
people in view.

Ever since the life of men has been known to us, we find, always and
everywhere, the reigning doctrine falsely designating itself as
science, not manifesting itself to the common people, but obscuring
for them the meaning of life. Thus it was among the Greeks the
sophists, then among the Christians the mystics, gnostics,
scholastics, among the Hebrews the Talmudists and Cabalists, and so
on everywhere, down to our own times.

How fortunate it is for us that we live in so peculiar an age, when
that mental activity which calls itself science, not only does not
err, but finds itself, as we are assured, in a remarkably
flourishing condition! Does not this peculiar good fortune arise
from the fact that man can not and will not see his own hideousness?
Why is there nothing left of those sciences, and sophists, and
Cabalists, and Talmudists, but words, while we are so exceptionally