The transience of the contents of art may be of two kinds. There is a
passing away of error, as there is in all knowledge, but such a loss
need not detain attention. What is really in issue is the passing away
of the authority of precept and example fitted to one age but not to
another, as in the case of the substitution of the ideal of humility for
that of valour, owing to a changed emphasis in the scale of virtues. The
contents of art, its general ideals, reproduce the successive periods of
our earth-history as a race, by generalizing each in its own age. A
parallel exists in the subject-matter of the sciences; astronomy,
geology, paleontology are similar statements of past phases of the
evolution of the earth, its aspects in successive stages. Or, to take a
kindred example, just as the planets in their order set forth now the
history of our system from nascent life to complete death as earths, so
these ideals exhibit man's stages from savagery to such culture as has
been attained. They have more than a descriptive and historical
significance; they retain practical vitality because the unchangeable
element in the universe and in man's nature is in the main their
subject-matter.
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