"The rise of new science in the seventeenth century laid hold upon general culture in the next century. The enlightenment... testified to the widespread belief that at last light had dawned, that dissipation of ignorance, superstition, and bigotry was at hand, and the triumph of reason was assured -- for reason was counterpart in man of the laws of nature which science was disclosing. The reign of law in the natural world was to be followed by the reign of law in human affairs."

“Because rhythm is a universal scheme of existence, underlying all realization of order in change, it pervades all the arts, literary, musical, plastic and architectural, as well as the dance. Since man succeeds only as he adapts his behavior to the order of nature, his achievements and victories, as they ensue upon resistance and struggle, become the matrix of all esthetic subject-matter; in some sense they constitute the common pattern of art, the ultimate conditions of form. Their cumulative orders of succession become without express intent the means by which man commemorates and celebrates the most intense and full moments of his experience. Underneath the rhythm of every art and every work of art there lies, as a substratum in the depths of the subconsciousness, the basic pattern of the relations of the live creature to his environment.”

“Naturalism is a word of many meetings in philosophy as well as in art. like most isms — classicism and romanticism, idealism and realism in art — it’s has become an emotional term, a war cry of partisans.”

“Well both original seizure and subsequent critical discrimination have equal claims, each to its own complete development and must not be forgotten that direct and unreasoned impression comes first. There is such occasions something of the quality of the wind that bloweth where it listeth. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it does not, even in the presence of the same object. It cannot be forced and when it does not arrive it is not wise to seek to recover by direct action the first fine rapture.”

“What happens in the movement of art is emergence of new materials of experience demanding expression, and therefore involving in their expression new forms and techniques.”

“There can be no movement toward a consummating close unless there is a progressive massing of values, a cumulative effect. This result cannot exist without conservation of the import of what has gone before. Moreover, to secure the needed continuity, the accumulated experience must be such as to create suspense and anticipation of resolution. Accumulation is at the same time preparation, as with each phase of the growth of a living embryo. Only that is carried on which is led to; otherwise there is arrest and a break. For this reason consummation is relative; instead of occurring once for all at a given point, it is recurrent. The final end is anticipated by rhythmic pauses, while that end is final only in an external way. For as we turn from reading a poem or novel or seeing a picture the effect presses forward in further experiences, even if only subconsciously.”

“Art expresses, it does not state; it is concerned with existences in their perceived qualities, not with conceptions symbolized in terms.”