work or to find a subsidiary profession which leaves enough leisure for creation. This is presumably one reason, though by no means the only one, why art is less flourishing than science.
The bureaucratic State Socialist will have a simple solution for these difficulties. He will appoint a body, consisting of the most eminent celebrities in an art or a science, whose business it shall be to judge the work of young men, and to issue licences to those whose productions find favour in their eyes. A licensed artist shall be considered to have performed his duty to the community by producing works of art. But of course he will have to prove his industry by never failing to produce in reasonable quantities, and his continued ability by never failing to please his eminent judges—until, in the fullness of time, he becomes a judge himself. In this way the authorities will ensure that the artist shall be competent, regular, and obedient to the best traditions of his art. Those who fail to fulfil these conditions will be compelled by the withdrawal of their licence to seek some less dubious mode of earning their living. Such will be the ideal of the State Socialist.
In such a world all that makes life tolerable to the lover of beauty would perish. Art springs from a wild and anarchic side of human nature; between the artist and the bureaucrat there must always be a profound mutual antagonism, an age-long battle in which the artist, always outwardly worsted, wins in the end through the gratitude of mankind for the joy that he puts into their lives. If the wild side of human
