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It has been said, and it is Catholic doctrine, that man is a bridge connecting the material and the spiritual. Both are real, both are good. God is spirit, man is matter and spirit. Man is therefore able to see, to present in material terms things spiritual and, conversely, though he cannot represent it, he is able to comprehend, though not fully, the spiritual significance of the material. He can show the spiritual in terms of matter, but he cannot show the material in terms of spirit.
The art of man, though ultimately unimportant, for, like all material things, works of art will return to dust, has therefore two claims to attention. In the first place it is the only activity of which man is capable which is in itself worth pursuing, and in the second it is man’s sole abiding solace in this vale of tears. In this age, an age noted for every sort of material achievement but such as can be called works of art, these are very controversial statements. Let us proceed to their demonstration. The essence of Religion is the affirmation of absolute values. Religions may be good or bad, values may be true or false, but the affirmation of an absolute value is a religious affirmation. Without such affirmations there would be sciences, moralities, and—Royal Academies of Art, but there would be no religion. To affirm that such and such is true because it is true and for no other reason, or that such and such is good because it is good and for no other reason are religious affirmations.
3 Vide Christopher Dawson, ‘The Nature and Destiny of Man,’ in God and the Supernatural, p. 87. Cf. also Nietzsche: ‘What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, a bridge leading from animal to beyond man.’ But Nietzsche meant a sort of moving platform and taught no proper doctrine of the nature of man.
4 As justice is truth in practice and prudence is goodness in practice.
5 As the true act is called just, so the true thing is called right. E.g.‘a right line.’.
6 The ‘contemplative’ orders of monks and nuns have not necessarily a developed sense of beauty in particular, for the object of their contemplation is not specifically the good or the true nor that combination of good and true which is the beautiful, but is specifically the hypotasis of the good, the true and the beautiful which is God.
7 See my essay, ‘Grammar of Aesthetics,’ wherein this point is discussed at greater length (Blackfriars, April, 1921.).
8 Compare the great seals of Henry IV and Henry V with those of Edward VII and George V. The first two are identical but for names and dates and are very admirable emblems of kingship; the last two are, of course, supposed to represent King Edward and King George, and are remarkably bad seals though photographically accurate as portraits.