power which we receive from a calculation of unseen difficulty, and an
estimate of unseen strength, can never be so impressive as that which we
receive from the present sensation or sight of the one resisting, and
the other overwhelming. In the one case the power is imagined, and in
the other felt.

Sec. 4. There are two modes of receiving ideas of power, commonly
inconsistent.

There are thus two modes in which we receive the conception of power;
one, the most just, when by a perfect knowledge of the difficulty to be
overcome, and the means employed, we form a right estimate of the
faculties exerted; the other, when without possessing such intimate and
accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a sensation of power in visible
action. If these two modes of receiving the impression agree in the
result, and if the sensation be equal to the estimate, we receive the
utmost possible idea of power. But this is the case perhaps with the
works of only one man out of the whole circle of the fathers of art, of
him to whom we have just referred, Michael Angelo. In others, the
estimate and the sensation are constantly unequal, and often
contradictory.

Sec. 5. First reason of the inconsistency.

The first reason of this inconsistency is, that in order to receive a
_sensation_ of power, we must see it in operation. Its victory,
therefore, must not be achieved, but achieving, and therefore imperfect.
Thus we receive a greater sensation of power from the half-hewn limbs of
the Twilight to the Day of the Cappella de' Medici, than even from the
divine inebriety of the Bacchus in the gallery--greater from the life
dashed out along the Friezes of the Parthenon, than from the polished
limbs of the Apollo,--greater from the ink sketch of the head of
Raffaelle's St. Catherine, than from the perfection of its realization.

Sec. 6. Second reason for the inconsistency.

Another reason of the inconsistency is, that the sensation of power is
in proportion to the apparent inadequacy of the means to the end; so
that the impression is much greater from a partial success attained with
slight effort, than from perfect success attained with greater
proportional effort. Now, in all art, every touch or effort does
individually less in proportion as the work approaches perfection. The
first five chalk touches bring a head into existence out of nothing. No
five touches in the whole course of the work will ever do so much as
these, and the