t those who have since continued the work have little
to add but to give precision to these and fill them up.[5347] In their
hands, from Herschel and Laplace, from Volta, Cuvier, Ampere, Fresnel
and Faraday to Darwin and Pasteur, Burnouf, Mommsen and Renan, the
blanks on the canvas have been covered, the relief of the figures shown
and new features added in the sense of the old ones, thus completing it
without changing in any sense the expression of the whole, but, on the
contrary, in such a way as to consolidate, strengthen and perfect the
master-conception which, purposely or not, had imposed itself on the
original painters, all, predecessors and successors, working from
nature and constantly inviting a comparison between the painting and
the model.--And, for one hundred years, this picture, so interesting, so
magnificent, and the accuracy of which is so well guaranteed, instead
of being kept private and seen only by select visitors, as in the
eighteenth century, is publicly exposed and daily contemplated by an
ever-increasing crowd. Through the practical application of the same
scientific discoveries, owing to increased facilities for travel and
intercommunication, to abundance of information, to the multitude
and cheapness of books and newspapers, to the diffusion of primary
instruction, the number of visitors has increased enormously.[5348] Not
only has curiosity been aroused among the workmen in towns, but also
with the peasants formerly plodding along in the routine of their daily
labor, confined to their circle of six leagues in circumference. This or
that small daily journal treats of divine and human things for a million
of subscribers and probably for three millions of readers.--Of
course, out of a hundred visitors, ninety of them are not capable of
comprehending the sense of the picture; they give it only a cursory
glance; moreover, their eyes are not properly educated for it, and they
are unable to grasp masses and seize proportions. Their attention is
generally arrested by a detail which they interpret in a wrong way, and
the mental image they carry away is merely a fragment or a caricature;
basically, if they have come to see a magisterial work, it is most of
all due to vanity and so that his spectacle, which some of them enjoy,
should not remain the privileged of a few. Nevertheless, however
imperfect and confused their impressions, however false and ill-founded
their judgments, they have learned something