Art And Morality by Robert G. Ingersoll North American Review, March. 1888.
Art is the highest form of expression, and exists for the sake of expression.
Through art thoughts become visible. Back of forms are the desire, the longing, the brooding creative instinct, the maternity of mind and the passion that give pose and swell, outline and color. Of course there is no such thing as absolute beauty or absolute morality. We now clearly perceive that beauty and conduct are relative. We have outgrown the provincialism that thought is back of substance, as well as the old Platonic absurdity, that ideas existed before the subjects of thought.