This all-important spark of inner life today is at present only a
spark. Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after
years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief,
of lack of purpose and ideal. The nightmare of materialism, which
has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game,
is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip.
Only a feeble light glimmers like a tiny star in a vast gulf of
darkness. This feeble light is but a presentiment, and the soul,
when it sees it, trembles in doubt whether the light is not a
dream, and the gulf of darkness reality. This doubt, and the
still harsh tyranny of the materialistic philosophy, divide our
soul sharply from that of the Primitives. Our soul rings cracked
when we seek to play upon it, as does a costly vase, long buried
in the earth, which is found to have a flaw when it is dug up
once more. For this reason, the Primitive phase, through which we
are now passing, with its temporary similarity of form, can only
be of short duration.

These two possible resemblances between the art forms of today
and those of the past will be at once recognized as diametrically
opposed to one another. The first, being purely external, has no
future. The second, being internal, contains the seed of the
future within itself. After the period of materialist effort,
which held the soul in check until it was shaken off as evil, the
soul is emerging, purged by trials and sufferings. Shapeless
emotions such as fear, joy, grief, etc., which belonged to this
time of effort, will no longer greatly attract the artist. He
will endeavour to awake subtler emotions, as yet unnamed. Living
himself a complicated and comparatively subtle life, his work