tiform plastic beauty. Knowledge of this puts Greek art, for ever, in the place defined by the discipline which was accepted by a small nation first and later by part of the smallest of the continents in order to utilize their means.
III
However, I repeat, the Greek genius went as far, if not as profoundly, as possible in its chosen direction. If to-day we find the Egyptian more noble, the Indian more lyric, the Chinese more profound, the Gothic more human, and the Negro more accentuated, it is very likely because we have a more pressing need of the forces set free by these new-comers than of the forces revealed by the Greek genius which was so long the animator of our own. But we have still to explain how such a perfection rose from such baseness—and that is precisely what we have learned from the study of civilizations which developed anterior or exterior to that of Greece. Baseness is everywhere the same (or at least among artistic peoples, for there are moral, or relatively moral peoples) but elsewhere it may be less in evidence, less resistant, less generalized, less aggressive and irremediable than in Greece, and often relieved by some mystic or aristocratic virtues the Greeks did not know. And that is what gave to Greek art its orderly character.
The Greeks pursued an absolute, but as it is rather limited, they believed candidly in the possibility of its immediate realization. Their imagination has terrible desires, but whatever they say or even think, these desires are not beyond possible attainment, and if they clothe their pretexts in an ingenuous idealism, it crumbles like a stage-set when the prey escapes. They leap in one bound upon their prey, by no matter what road, most often without reflection. Reflection comes when perils or obstacles appear. The Greek fears two things: responsibility and death. He never follows to the bitter end a leader who seeks the one or accepts the other, and after suddenly idolizing such a one because his desire has been flattered and his imagination fired, he treats him brusquely, with calumny and martyrdom. As his desires lead him beyond his capacities, he accuses the capacities of his leader if his desire be not fully gratified. The great man is the enemy because his gestures provoke reflection, ac-
