Bach belongs to the order of objective artists. These
are wholly of their own time, and work only with the forms
and the ideas that their time proffers them. They exercise
no criticism upon the media of artistic expression that they
find lying ready to their hand, and feel no inner compulsion
to open out new paths. Their art not coming solely from
the stimulus of their outer experience, we need not seek
the roots of their work in the fortunes of its creator. In
them the artistic personality exists independently of the
human, the latter remaining in the background as if it
were something almost accidental. Bach's works would have
been the same even if his existence had run quite another
course. Did we know more of his life than is now the case,
and were we in possession of all the letters he had ever
written, we should still be no better informed as to the
inward sources of his works than we are now.