UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA ARTISTS AND THINKERS I INTRODUCTORY EACH of these essays stands by itself as a record Vof a man's thoughts on art and as a study of the man himself, of his methods of work, his aims and his outlook on life. But they are bound together, even if only in the slenderest of ways: they all have a window open on a problem. A philosopher must have his problem; his comfort demands it-a trade weakness, I admit, but one in which I must confess a share. I have taken my material from the borderline of art and philosophy. I have chosen three artists-Rodin, Wagner, and Maeterlinck—who have achieved greatness in such widely different arts as sculpture, music, and the drama; and three thinkers— Tolstoy, Hegel, and Nietzsche-who are quite unlike and fairly representative. All these men have had much to say on art; they have discussed special points and formulated general theories. Many of these theories are fanciful, unsound, clumsy; these BO VIMU ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ARTISTS AND THINKERS I have given as well as others which show remarkable insight. Incidentally I may have touched on the truth of a theory or weighed it historically, but the main interest has been elsewhere: in the problem of the interplay of art and philosophy; in tracing the (Thinker in the Artist and the Artist in the Thinker.> The problem might be put brutally in its most general form: Is the Artist at heart a Thinker, and the Thinker an Artist? But little would be gained by such a headlong impatience of results. In a mechanical puzzle the solution is the thing. Bits of steel must be twisted about in a certain way or helter skelter balls of mercury must be driven to cover; the sooner it is done, the better. With scientific problems it is much the same. But in philosophy we are often interested in the question rather than the answer; in the whereabouts, the variants, the ins and outs rather than the solution. Not every one would admit as much. There are some who dig a problem in with a spade; they much prefer to have it stay put. To me it seems more important to get the life-beat of a problem in all its unruliness. William James does it successfully because of his open mind and his taste for the individual: he indulges a problem, gives it free play, enjoys its waywardness and uncovers its richness; his work is a protest against the philosopher's idol worship of the general as such. What then should we gain by asking the general question: Is the Artist a Thinker and the Thinker an |