Page:A World Without God.pdf/14

 arts. Human, brute, vegetable, mineral, forms of beauty—on these alone can the sculptor and the painter draw. The existence of God, the immortality of the human soul, cannot affect the artist's materials. These exist, whether or not there be a God; an invisible, incorporeal being is not well adapted to serve as model for sculptor or painter; souls may wield the chisel and the brush beyond the grave, but it is the human brain and the human hand that guide them here.

Nor do poetry, music, and architecture, need religion for their inspiration now, any more than they have needed it in the past. Belief in God is no more necessary to great poetry than is belief in fairies or in magic, although poets have long used Gods, fairies, and witchcraft as part of their machinery, and will probably continue to do so for many a day to come. They are fancies, not realities, yet fancies often find beautiful poetic setting. Ariel and Caliban need not exist in order that Shakspere [sic] may introduce them into a play, and if any of the Gods be coveted by a poet among his dramatis personæ their real existence is not necessary for their utilisation. Lucretius among ancients, Shelley and Swinburne among moderns, tell us that poetry is possible without God. It is often alleged that all the grandest music is sacred, but this is prejudice, not fact. No mass or oratorio ever written rivals the sonatas, symphonies, and concerted chamber music of Beethoven; the secular music of Mozart is grander than his masses; the works of Schubert, Bach, Brahms, all bear the same testimony; Berlioz was not the least of the musicians of his day. The masses and oratorios are at present more popular, partly because they are better known, partly because, being inferior, they are better understood by the majority, and chiefly because the religious words "cast a glamor over" the music, and make people fancy that they are performing a work of piety while listening to them. Amusement flavored with religion has a special charm for persons superficially religious and inwardly world-loving. But architecture, at least, it is urged, owes its greatness to religion. Yet the Forum, the Coliseum, can surely hold their own against any cathedral in the world.

Though, however, it may be worth while to find out how unsubstantial is the claim made on the arts by religion, the real answer to that claim is one not of detail, but of principle. Even had man always given his best to his