{"product_id":"2940013769083","title":"The Dance of Life","description":"IT has always been difficult for Man to realise that his life is all\u003cbr\u003ean art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it\u003cbr\u003eso. For that is always how he has more or less acted it. At the\u003cbr\u003ebeginning, indeed, the primitive philosopher whose business it was to\u003cbr\u003eaccount for the origin of things usually came to the conclusion that\u003cbr\u003ethe whole universe was a work of art, created by some Supreme Artist,\u003cbr\u003ein the way of artists, out of material that was practically nothing,\u003cbr\u003eeven out of his own excretions, a method which, as children sometimes\u003cbr\u003einstinctively feel, is a kind of creative art. The most familiar to us\u003cbr\u003eof these primitive philosophical statements--and really a statement\u003cbr\u003ethat is as typical as any--is that of the Hebrews in the first chapter\u003cbr\u003eof their Book of Genesis. We read there how the whole cosmos was\u003cbr\u003efashioned out of nothing, in a measurable period of time by the art of\u003cbr\u003eone Jehovah, who proceeded methodically by first forming it in the\u003cbr\u003erough, and gradually working in the details, the finest and most\u003cbr\u003edelicate last, just as a sculptor might fashion a statue. We may find\u003cbr\u003emany statements of the like kind even as far away as the Pacific.\u003cbr\u003e[Footnote: See, for instance, Turner's _Samoa_, chap. I. Usually,\u003cbr\u003ehowever, in the Pacific, creation was accomplished, in a more\u003cbr\u003egenuinely evolutionary manner, by a long series of progressive\u003cbr\u003egenerations.] And--also even at the same distance--the artist and the\u003cbr\u003ecraftsman, who resembled the divine creator of the world by making the\u003cbr\u003emost beautiful and useful things for Mankind, himself also partook of\u003cbr\u003ethe same divine nature. Thus, in Samoa, as also in Tonga, the\u003cbr\u003ecarpenter, who built canoes, occupied a high and almost sacred\u003cbr\u003eposition, approaching that of the priest. Even among ourselves, with\u003cbr\u003eour Roman traditions, the name Pontiff, or Bridge-Builder, remains\u003cbr\u003ethat of an imposing and hieratic personage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that is only the primitive view of the world.  When Man developed,\u003cbr\u003ewhen he became more scientific and more moralistic, however much his\u003cbr\u003epractice remained essentially that of the artist, his conception\u003cbr\u003ebecame much less so. He was learning to discover the mystery of\u003cbr\u003emeasurement; he was approaching the beginnings of geometry and\u003cbr\u003emathematics; he was at the same time becoming warlike. So he saw\u003cbr\u003ethings in straight lines, more rigidly; he formulated laws and\u003cbr\u003ecommandments. It was, Einstein assures us, the right way. But it was,\u003cbr\u003eat all events in the first place, most unfavourable to the view of\u003cbr\u003elife as an art. It remains so even to-day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet there are always some who, deliberately or by instinct, have\u003cbr\u003eperceived the immense significance in life of the conception of art.\u003cbr\u003eThat is especially so as regards the finest thinkers of the two\u003cbr\u003ecountries which, so far as we may divine,--however difficult it may\u003cbr\u003ehere be to speak positively and by demonstration,--have had the finest\u003cbr\u003ecivilisations, China and Greece. The wisest and most recognisably\u003cbr\u003egreatest practical philosophers of both these lands have believed that\u003cbr\u003ethe whole of life, even government, is an art of definitely like kind\u003cbr\u003ewith the other arts, such as that of music or the dance. We may, for\u003cbr\u003einstance, recall to memory one of the most typical of Greeks. Of\u003cbr\u003eProtagoras, calumniated by Plato,--though, it is interesting to\u003cbr\u003eobserve that Plato's own transcendental doctrine of Ideas has been\u003cbr\u003eregarded as an effort to escape from the solvent influence of\u003cbr\u003eProtagoras' logic,--it is possible for the modern historian of\u003cbr\u003ephilosophy to say that \"the greatness of this man can scarcely be\u003cbr\u003emeasured.\" It was with measurement that his most famous saying was\u003cbr\u003econcerned: \"Man is the measure of all things, of those which exist and\u003cbr\u003eof those which have no existence.\" It was by his insistence on Man as\u003cbr\u003ethe active creator of life and knowledge, the artist of the world,\u003cbr\u003emoulding it it to his own measure, that Protagoras is interesting to\u003cbr\u003eus to-day. He recognised that there are no absolute criteria by which\u003cbr\u003eto judge actions. He was the father of relativism and of\u003cbr\u003ephenomenalism, probably the initiator of the modern doctrine that the\u003cbr\u003edefinitions of geometry are only approximately true abstractions from\u003cbr\u003eempirical experiences. We need not, and probably should not, suppose\u003cbr\u003ethat in undermining dogma-tism he was setting up an individual\u003cbr\u003esubjectivism. It was the function of Man in the world, rather than of\u003cbr\u003ethe individual, that he had in mind when he enunciated his great\u003cbr\u003eprinciple, and it was with the reduction of human activity and conduct\u003cbr\u003eto art that he was mainly concerned. His projects for the art of\u003cbr\u003eliving began with speech, and he was a pioneer in the arts of\u003cbr\u003elanguage, the initiator of modern grammar.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070265540848,"sku":"2940013769083","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013769083_p0.jpg?v=1763590029","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013769083","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}