ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the purpose of a work of art. A work of art, like everything else, has for its internal finality the full realization of its nature. It expresses beauty, as fire burns, as an alms relieves. Such is the plausible sense that we can attach to the formula: "Art for art's sake." The general principles of individual morality are sufficient to show that, if it is optional for the artist to put his works to the service of an idea or religion or a moral code, we do not well see in the name of what principle he should be obliged to do so. Artistic apologies for suicide have cost the lives of thousands of men of every age and of every condition; impure art has precipitated into culpable voluptuousness legions of young people.
