scientific truths whose splendor bursts
forth when they are freed from heterogeneous accessories. We cannot
otherwise explain the resistance of certain minds, distinguished
otherwise, to the recognition in him of the artist who excited the
enthusiasm of all the most competent critics and brilliant amateurs.

Chapter VI.

The Law of AEsthetics.

However striking and superior the system of Francois Delsarte has been
shown to be, however admirable and attractive the manifestation of art
in his person,--herein lie not his first rights to the grateful sympathy
which we owe to his memory. His works and discoveries in aesthetics are a
benefit of general interest, while they disclose to us the fruitful
resources of his genius.

In the first place, what is a law? We have here to deal, not with the
legislation decreed by man for the regulation of social and political
relations, but with those laws deduced from a natural order, as the
principle of life itself, which govern the relations of beings and of
things. In religion these laws are its dogmas and mysteries;
philosophically speaking, the laws of things are the essentials of their
nature, their specific relations.

Voltaire has written: "Law is the instinct by which we feel justice." In
Littre's Dictionary we find stated that "laws are conditions imposed by
circumstances." Another has said: "The constant, uneludable succession
in which phenomena occur, takes the name of law."

I would here state, that in no one of the last three citations does the
word "law" seem to me to be precisely defined. From the different
explanations of the natural laws which I have been able to compare, I
conclude that laws are forces containing in themselves the reasons, to
us unknown, of a power and permanence which are unchangeable. Plato
named them _ideas_. We must now conclude that the nature of a law, in
the present acceptation of the term, _can_ be but imperfectly
interpreted by exact formulae. Laws are still much involved in the
secrets of creation. Here must we seek their origin or origins.

But courage still! Although these formulae but imperfectly define law,
the facts suffice to establish them. They (facts) show the certain
action and, as stated heretofore, the uneludable nature of these
formulae.

But the discovery of Delsarte is the application to aesthetics of a
natural law, proven and established by science. This law is that which
governs the system of man's organi