passive_, which merely receives impressions from
without, and the intellect _active_, which reasons upon and draws
inferences from them. The senses can only give or know the _individual_;
the active intellect alone conceives the _universal_. Our eyes perceive
a triangle; but as we have this perception in common with the brutes, it
cannot raise us above their level; and to take our rank as
intelligences, as men, we must rise from the mere perception of the
individual triangle to the general idea of triangularity. Thus it is the
power of _generalizing_ which marks us as men; and the senses have in
reality nothing to do with the internal operation; they but receive the
impressions, and convey them to the active intellect. Thus to the
impressions given by the senses of _finite_ things to the passive mind,
the active intellect adds the idea of _infinity_. The eager soul, always
longing for the infinite, the absolute, then seeks to invest all with
that perfection which it divines in the Maker of all; the possibility of
which conception of perfection is added or attached by the Creator to
the Real, as a supersensuous gift to those made in His own image. Such
conceptions live ever firm and fair in the charmed world of the artist,
for his world is the Realm of pure Ideas.

Much may be quoted in proof of this view. Cicero says:

'When Phidias formed his Jupiter, he had no living model before his
eyes, but having conceived an idea of perfect beauty in his soul,
he labored only to imitate it, to produce it in the marble without
change.'

Raphael says:

'Having found no model sufficiently beautiful for my Galatea, I
worked from a certain Idea which I found in my own mind.'

Fra Angelico furnishes a striking example of working from images found
in the soul. He was an artist of very devout character, early devoting
himself and his art to God, saying: Those who work for Christ, must
dwell in Christ. Always, before commencing a picture which was to be
consecrated to the honor of God, he prepared himself with fervent prayer
and meditation, and then began in humble trust that '_it would be put
into his mind what he ought to delineate_;' he would never deviate from
the first idea, for, as he said, '_that_ was the will of God.' This he
said not in presumption, but in faith and simplicity of heart. So he
passed his life in imaging his _own ideas_, which were sent to his meek
soul by no fabled muse, but by t