At the outset it will be desirable tostate that when I speak of the future ofart I do not mean the “art of the future”.Art can be considered from either an insideor an outside point of view; that is tosay, we can deal either with its nature,problems, and performances—art itself,or with the amount and quality of theinterest taken in art by men and women—the“art-life” of the community. Thelatter subject is that dealt with here.

The “art-life” of the civilized worldis at present in a transition period, whichis fraught with distinct, though maybeunrealized, dangers. Its problems areonly indirectly related to the presentand the future state of art-production:whether we foresee development or retrogressionin modern tendencies in literature,[6]painting, music, and so on, these dangerswill need to be faced, or they will, atleast, minimize the value of the creativework of to-morrow. For we are concernednot with the production of artbut with the enjoyment and appreciationof art. As the latter is the more important,since without it production would besterile, it is an essential preliminary thatthe conditions necessary for the healthygrowth of a more widespread, deeper-rootedlove of the beautiful should exist.We are now viewing the situation associologists, as men, rather than as artists.The artist can be satisfied when heattains a certain level of performance:at least he can work with content andhappiness while he is seeking to reach amay-be unattainable perfection. He is,naturally and rightly, concerned withabsolute values; and the critic and theindividual lover can maintain the sameattitude. If a painting or a poem reachesperfection, he asks no more. But thesociologist must take a different attitude.To the artist and the critic the work is theend; to the sociologist it is the beginning.It is not enough for him to know that thepainting is great, since to him it is only[7]the means by which men attain artisticenjoyment; it has no significance until ithas acted upon the minds of men. Thatbeing so he must ask other questionsabout it—firstly, How