Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/81

 SOCIAL CONTROL 67

influence of a social art. "Put yourself in his place!" is the cry of the artist, and our obedience is the test of his genius.

Not all art is sociable. Conventional art, ornamental art, art that interprets nature these aim to please rather than to socialize. But the kinds like poetry, eloquence, novel, or drama that deal with human life rather than forms or hues cer- tainly modify moral character. The interest and sympathy they awaken is not virtue, but it is the seed-plot of the virtues and their natural climate. We. are apt to regard culture as compati- ble with selfishness, but the iciest indifference of the man of culture is aglow compared with the absolute zero of heartlessness possible to the savage. There is little good art that has not in it something of the sociable, and he who has been long exposed to its humanizing influences cannot get away from the compre- hension of his kind. His eyes have been opened, his imagination unsealed. At some point or other his interest in his fellow-men will betray him into generosity and demonstrate that art has made him a citizen of humanity.

(c) By exploiting the (esthetic sense. It is in the power of art to foster goodness by making it beautiful and to blight badness by making it ugly. There are, of course, aesthetic elements in social conduct, and the artist in quest of beauty is the one to reveal them. But the lukewarm support the aesthetic sense of itself lends to morality is by no means enough for society in its stern conflict with the rampant individual will. 1 If the aesthetic will not of its own motion join the social banner, it must be pressed into service under leadership of the lords of the imagination. While some men naturally abominate selfishness, all men abom- inate filth ; and by art it is possible so to link together the two that the loathing for defilement shall extend to self-seeking. When conscience is weak it can be reinforced by taste, so that he who is not saved by his sympathies may be saved even by his fastidi- ousness.

'In "The /Esthetic Element in Morality" PROFESSOR SHARP concludes that the statement of Martineau that "the beauty of conduct is conditioned by its tightness" certainly represents "a serious error."