would no longer seem to be founded on the truth: the gratification which
it gives to the mind would be deemed illusory, the result of tradition and
prejudice; or, in other words, what is true being found no longer
consistent with what we have been accustomed to call beauty, the latter
would cease to be an object of desire, though something widely alien to it
might usurp its name. If beauty be devoid of independent right to be, and
definable only as an attribute of truth, then undoubtedly the cynosure to-
day may be the scarecrow of to-morrow, and _vice versa_, according to our
varying conception of what truth is.

And, as a matter of fact, art already shows the effects of the agnostic
influence. Artists have begun to doubt whether their old conceptions of
beauty be not fanciful and silly. They betray a tendency to eschew the
loftier flights of the imagination, and confine themselves to what they
call facts. Critics deprecate idealism as something fit only for children,
and extol the courage of seeing and representing things as they are.
Sculpture is either a stern student of modern trousers and coat-tails or a
vapid imitator of classic prototypes. Painters try all manner of
experiments, and shrink from painting beneath the surface of their canvas.
Much of recent effort in the different branches of art comes to us in the
form of "studies," but the complete work still delays to be born. We would
not so much mind having our old idols and criterions done away with were
something new and better, or as good, substituted for them. But apparently
nothing definite has yet been decided on. Doubt still reigns, and, once
more, doubt is not creative. One of two things must presently happen. The
time will come when we must stop saying that we do not know whether or not
God, and all that God implies, exists, and affirm definitely and finally
either that he does not exist or that he does. That settled, we shall soon
see what will become of art. If there is a God, he will be understood and
worshipped, not superstitiously and literally as heretofore, but in a new