an inability to discern form, some of it indicating a complete lapse of the plastic instinct.

A distinctive characteristic of these neurotic cults in art is the tendency to eliminate all standards of technical discipline. This in itself attracts the inept, the mentally deficient, and the charlatans who, being incapable of the work demanded of a constructive intellect in the acquirement of technical discipline, follow the line of least resistance. The exaggerated ego, seeking expression without the necessary mental equipment for technical training, turns to the Whistler cult, or to some other form of so-called impressionism, and finds temporary satisfaction. But this fact applies not only to the art students and artists who are attracted to these neurotic tendencies in art; these cults could not exist if they were not supported and applauded by a considerable class of persons who are attracted by something in the work which strikes a responsive chord in their mentality. Of course, a certain. percentage of this class follows merely to be in the fashion. Still, a large residue really sympathizes with the decadent tendencies in art. The rational conclusion in regard to this class of persons is that, as regards a sense of form, they are as degenerate as the products of the pictures.

The extent of the Whistler vogue in painting is one of the best proofs of the response of a degenerate public to the claims of this neurotic cult in art. Quite a considerable literature has sprung up around Whistler's work and personality. The reason is not far to seek. Whistler, in spite of his pose to the contrary, embodied in his personality the spirit of the advertiser a combination of bluff or the arbitrary assumption of a position of authority without a basis of real ability or power, and of dishonest pretence that art can exist without either form or design. In short, he represents the negation of form and the discrediting of technical training.

It is interesting to observe that previous to fifty years ago the cult of vagueness had never appeared in the arts. One can search the galleries of Europe without finding a vestige of it from an earlier time.. Nations have became degenerate, and their art has become extinct, but at no stage of their degeneracy did they lapse into a semi-stupor and record that stupor in their art. It is evident, therefore, that the origin of this unique form of neurosis must logically be rooted in conditions never existing before, and which are especially detrimental to evolution. This being true, it follows that capitalism has created an environment totally uniike any that has heretofore appeared on this planet, and one entirely destructive to creative mental processes.

The cult of vagueness, then, is essentially a product of

capitalist environment. It is a deeper form of negation than its opposite of violent contrasts. One can believe that the creator of the most strident poster or the painter of the vulgarest portrait might be redeemed, but the evidence of a failing sense of form gives the impression of a consciousness sinking into the insane, and is considered by alienists as one of the most fatal and hopeless symptoms of insanity.

A distinction must be made between the work of a degenerate, with its lack of clearly defined form, and the archaic art of primitive races, with its partly developed form. The first may be likened to a man whose body, atrophied and bloodless, is passing to decay; the other to a youth whose figure, though undeveloped, gives promise of future perfection.

The swollen, dropsical forms of degeneracy have reached their most extreme manifestation in the present cult of the advertising poster, and in its reflection in the paintings seen at the exhibitions. A precedent to this is to be found in the basest work of the Italian renaissance and it reflected influence in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the decadent periods of Greek art, one can also. detect the same lack of articulation and the tendency to dropsical forms.

The neurotic cult of vagueness, however, having no precedent in past art epochs, and being distinctively the product of capitalist environment. presents an interesting field of study to the sociologist and alienist. It has its counterpart in poetry, in literature, the drama and politics. In all these departments of mental activity at the present time, one can trace the will toward the negation of form. Never before were there so many political parties. Like in painting, there are two tendencies-the swollen, flamboyant lying and braggadocio of the two dominant parties, blotting out the true forms of economic justice, raising sham issues and obscuring the outlines of constructive government. Then there are the vague, anaemic political cults of Prohibition, Single Tax, Municipal Ownership, "Good Government," and the like. In former revolutionary epochs, as at the present time, there appeared compromisers, men of half measures who could not discern clear cut issues nor see beyond temporary makeshifts. But their influence was ephemeral. In the time of Cromwell such men were soon eliminated. In the French and American Revolutions they were quickly swept aside. In the War of the Rebellion the issue was soon drawn, clear cut and visible to all. But to-day there is much vagueness and confusion.

The neurotic cult of vagueness in politics is symbolized chiefly by Bryan; its opposite of the violent contrasts and flamboyant vulgarity, by Roosevelt and Hearst; while as

teachers of economics and religion we have W. H. Mallock and Bishop Potter. All are equally incapable of clear discernment of economic forms. One may even grant the sincerity and honesty of purpose of these men, which makes the situation only the more sinister. Before the economic Sphinx, with its riddle of the labor question, the two neurotic cults in politics pass in endless discord, one sinking in atrophy and inaction, going down in a fog of altruistic platitudes; the other flamboyant and delirious, keeping time to the thwacking of big sticks and blaring sensational headlines.

Amid all this din and stupor, there are two classes who are definite in their aims-the Capitalists and the Socialists. The capitalist class-like its prototype among the fishes of the elemental drift, with only a stomach and an instinct for prey feels nothing but the devouring instinct, which for the capitalist is the supreme life and motive power of the universe. In eliminating every other possible motive or impulse to action, the capitalist thereby lays the foundation for the wide spread sentiment of pessimistic negation which, issuing from capitalism as a world movement, is enveloping the races of

man.

The Socialist, on the other hand, with a clear plastic instinct or sense of form, as relates to economics, perceives clearly the aim and ultimate catastrophe of the ideals of capitalism.. He sees the irrepressible conflict of two cosmic forces in which there can be no compromise until one or the other is destroyed. Consequently, with his clearness of vision, the true Socialist will understand that in viewing the conflict of these forces every manifestation, either material or esthetic, must have a direct connection with this cosmic struggle. But even the Socialists, while having a clear perception of the economic conflict and being under no delusions as to the inevitable outcome, are still to some extent enveloped in the vast hypnotic atmosphere of negation thrown out by capitalism, from which issue the neurotic cults in art.

The Socialist sets himself squarely against all forms of adulteration in economics-of food, clothing and the material. utilities of life-and in a large measure guards himself against the hypnotic trickery of cheats and humbugs produced by capitalism for the purpose of imposing their adulterations upon him. But in the arts he is less successful. The forms of hypnotism which make for the corruption of esthetics are more subtle. Even the antagonisms between these neurotic. cults are misleading. For example, the Socialist observes the conflict between the old established Academies, with their forms of dry-rot neurosis, and the manifestations of various phenomena as l'art nouveau, or the German Secession, Salon

des Independents, and so on, which from their very strangeness arouse the opposition of the older cults. The Socialist, with the instinct of opposition to old forms, true to his role of revolutionist, and, with few exceptions, being without esthetic culture, supports the newer cult. He unconsciously inherits from capitalist environments a sub-conscious negation of beauty, and, in obedience to that instinct, upholds some of the most deadly and pernicious forms of negation cast out by the evil mentality of capitalism.

Thus, for example, Gorky - who has a clear cut plastic instinct in the execution of his literary work, both in poetry and prose applauded the abominations of the German Secession at Munich, clearly proving that while he is free from the hypnotic trance of negation in literature, his plastic instinct as regards painting is still beclouded. Bernard Shaw, too, allines himself with the degenerates by eulogizing the later work of Rodin. Maeterlinck, also, has raised his voice in praise of works of esthetic neurosis.

Suppose Bernard Shaw or Gorky were to put forth a play so wanting in the simplest elements of construction and form. as may be found in the paintings of the Munich Secession, or the average work of an American art exhibition. Such a play would fall to pieces from its lack of cohesion; it would be incoherent and impossible. Yet both these men applaud paintings and sculpture the defects of which, if incorporated into their own work, would at once eliminate their dramas and literary productions from the plane of art.

The revolutionary aspect of the neurotic cults in art is false and misleading. These cults are purely the subconscious negation of beauty, induced by an approach to the absolute materialism of capitalist economics. In resisting this hypnotic power of negation, the effects of environment must be overcome. As before noted, the environments imposed by capitalism are the most destructive to esthetics that ever existed. The repudiation of the ideal of justice by capitalism is brought home to the working class by their suffering. The existing conditions carry with them their own indictment so far as relates to the utilities of life. In short, the negation of the ethical ideal develops self-evident proofs of its falsity which are easily detected. The material environments as relating to esthetics also manifest proofs of their being equally false to the esthetic ideal. But these proofs are impossible of discernment to minds wherein the esthetic instinct has been deadened. Conseqeuntly, there are many well-meaning Socialists who, helpless before the problem herein presented, alline themselves as reactionaries when it comes to the question of art. Others believe, as did the fanatics of the

French Revolution, that painting and sculpture are only diversions of the idle class, and therefore wholly useless. This belief, allied to a total elimination from the minds of such people of the element of imagination, places the person so affected in the position of depending wholly upon the mere animal functions for the ideals of existence-precisely the position occupied by the present trading class.

JOHN H. FRY.