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136 THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON
the mere aspect of the world to seize and
himself to be possessed by that great cosmic
which sets the currents
rhythm of the spirit
of life in motion. We should say in Europe
that he must seize the universal in the
particular."
" The universal in the particular," that is
perhaps what the greatest art expresses.
Perhaps it is a widespread consciousness of
and
this that produces all great movements ;
perhaps the history
of their decline and fall is
nothing more than a history of its gradual
decay and disappearance. Great movements
seem to arise when men become aware suddenly
that the universe has a soul : the first artists
of a movement are the men who perceive most
clearly this soul in every part of the universe ;
they are called Primitives. They are men
driven to art by the intolerable necessity of
break silence
expressing what they feel ; they
only because they have something to say ;
and their one is object to it say as completely
and intelligibly
as
possible.
Primitives stand
in a class by themselves because they have
perceived more clearly than others the reality
that lies beneath the superficial, and because,
having no other end in view, they have
expressed it more completely.
Great movements are alike in their begin-