In like manner, however these learned men may call themselves, who in their simplicity are occupied during all their lives with the investigations of the microscopical animalcule and of telescopical and spectral phenomena; or those artists who, after having carefully investigated the monuments of old times, are busy writing historical novels, making pictures, concocting symphonies and beautiful verses, all these men, notwithstanding all their zeal, cannot, according to the definition of their own science, be called men of science or art, first because their activity in science for the sake of science, and of art for art, has not in view man's welfare; and secondly, because we do not see any results of these activities for the welfare of society or mankind.
The fact that sometimes something useful or agreeable for some men comes of their activities, by no means gives us any right, according to their own scientific definition, to consider them to be men of art and science.
In like manner, however those men may call themselves who excogitate the application of electricity to lighting, heating, and motion; or who invent some new chemical combinations, producing dynamite or fine colours; men who correctly play Beethoven's symphonies; who act on the stage, or paint portraits well, domestic pictures, landscapes, and other pictures; who compose interesting novels, the object of which is merely to amuse rich people,—the activity of these men cannot be called art and science, because this activity is not directed, like the activity of the brain in the organism, to the welfare of the whole, but is guided merely by personal gain, privileges, money, which one obtains for the inventing and producing of so-called art. Therefore this activity cannot possibly be separated from other covetous, personal activity, which adds agreeable things to life, as the activity of innkeepers, jockeys, milliners, prostitutes, and so on, because the activity of the first, the second, and the last, do not come under the definition of art and science, on the ground of the division of labour, which promises to serve for the welfare of all mankind.
The scientific definition of art and science is a correct one; but unluckily, the activity of modern art and science does not come under it. Some produce directly hurtful things, others useless things; and a third party invents trifles fit only for the use of rich people. They may all be very good persons, but they do not fulfil what they have taken upon themselves to fulfil, according to their own definition; and therefore they have as little right to call themselves men of art and science as the modern clergy, who do not fulfil their duties, have right to consider themselves the bearers and teachers of divine truth.
It is not difficult to understand why the factors of modern art and science have not fulfilled their calling, and cannot fulfil it. They do not fulfil it, because they have converted their duty into a right. The scientific and art activities, in their true sense, are fruitful only when they ignore their rights, and know only their duties. Mankind value this activity so highly, only because it is a self-denying one.
If men are really called to serve others by mental labour, they will have to suffer in performing this labour, because it is only by suffering that spiritual fruit is produced. Selfdenying and suffering are the lot and portion of a thinker and an artist, because their object is the welfare of men. Men are wretched: they suffer and go to ruin. One cannot wait and lose one's time.
A thinker and an artist will never sit on the heights of Olympus, as we are apt to imagine: he must suffer in company with men in order to find salvation or consolation. He will suffer because he is constantly in anxiety and agitation; he might have found out and told what would give happiness to men, might have saved them from suffering; and he has neither found it out nor said it, and to-morrow it may be too late—he may die. And therefore suffering and self-sacrifice will always be the lot of the thinker and the artist.
He who is brought up in an establishment where learned men and artists are created (but, in reality, they create only destroyers of art and science), and who obtains a diploma, and is well provided for, for life, will not become a thinker or an artist, but he who would gladly abstain from thinking, and from expressing that which is ingrafted in his soul, but which he dare not overlook, being drawn to it by two irresistible powers,—his own inward impulse and the wants of men.
Thinkers and artists cannot be sleek, fat men, enjoying themselves in self-conceit. Spiritual and mental activity and their expressions are really necessary for others, and are the most difficult of men's callings,—a cross, as it is called in the gospel.
The only one certain characteristic of the presence of a calling is this self-denying,—the sacrifice of one's self in order to manifest the power ingrafted in man for the benefit of others. To teach how many insects there are in the world, and to observe the spots on the sun, to write novels and operas, can be done without suffering; but to teach men their welfare, which entirely consists in self denial and in serving others, and to express this teaching powerfully, cannot be done without self-denial.