[300] This is the second function of art^a. Now I come to the third and fundamental, which is embracing and decisive, namely the expressive function^b. Art "expresses" reality. The word expression can be used in a very large metaphysical sense. If this is done, we can do what Spinoza ^cdid who said that the substance^d of reality is expressed in the modes. The substance---of course, for him, the divine ground of everything, which has several attributes; and then there are the modes: all the

finite things in the world. In this philosophy, which theologians sometimes dismiss with the left hand with the word "pantheism^e" without giving a meaningful definition of this word! --- then perhaps the left hand wouldn't be enough! --- in any case, in this great philosophy which Spinoza^f represents, we can say we have a system of expression, namely expressing the divine ground of [or] substance of reality in everything finite, and therefore everything finite---as already in Aristotle^g---is in a drive back towards the infinite ground, a drive which Spinoza ^hcalls the "intellectual love" which becomes actual only in man. Now this doctrine of expression can be applied to artⁱ. It is a kind of ontological background of an understanding of this third function of art, namely to express^j reality. What is expressed^k? Three things. First, objectively: the material of the finite, of the

finite reality in time and space, which is used---in words or pictures or musical sounds or other expressions. Secondly, the expression of the encounter of him who creates, or in hearing and seeing recreates, the expression of subjectivity. And the third---and for this reason I brought Spinoza^l's philosophy in---the expression of ULTIMATE^m reality. And the way in which ULTIMATE