What the study of history and artistic creation have in common is a mode of forming images.

Under weak government, in a wide, thinly populated country, in the struggle against the raw natural environment and with the freeplay of economic forces, unified social groups become the transmitters of culture.

The things which can make life enjoyable remain the same. They are, now as before, reading, music, fine arts, travel, the enjoyment of nature, sports, fashion, social vanity (knightly orders, honorary offices, gatherings) and the intoxication of the senses.

Whether the aim is in heaven or on earth, wisdom or wealth, the essential condition of its pursuit and attainment is always security and order.

Today the average inhabitant of the western hemisphere knows a little of everything. He has the newspaper on his breakfast table and wireless within reach. For the evening there is the film, cards, or a meeting to complete a day spent in the office or factory where nothing that is essential has been learnt. With slight variation this picture of a low cultural average holds good over the entire range from factory-hand of clerk to manager or director. Only the personal will to culture, in whatever field and however pursued raises modern man above this level.

The modern city hardly knows a pure darkness or true silence anymore, nor does it know the effect of a single small light or that of a lonely distant shout.

From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.