takes a level below that of sculpture or painting, even when the
powers of mind developed in it are of the same high order.

When we pronounce the name of Giotto, our venerant thoughts are at
Assisi and Padua, before they climb the Campanile of Santa Maria del
Fiore. And he who would raise the ghost of Michael Angelo, must
haunt the Sistine and St. Lorenzo, not St. Peter's.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE THEORETIC FACULTY AS CONCERNED WITH PLEASURES OF SENSE.

Sec. 1. Explanation of the term "theoretic."

I proceed therefore first, to examine the nature of what I have called
the Theoretic faculty, and to justify my substitution of the term
"theoretic" for aesthetic, which is the one commonly employed with
reference to it.

Now the term "aesthesis" properly signifies mere sensual perception of
the outward qualities and necessary effects of bodies, in which sense
only, if we would arrive at any accurate conclusions on this difficult
subject, it should always be used. But I wholly deny that the
impressions of beauty are in any way sensual,--they are neither sensual
nor intellectual, but moral, and for the faculty receiving them, whose
difference from mere perception I shall immediately endeavor to explain,
no term can be more accurate or convenient than that employed by the
Greeks, "theoretic," which I pray permission, therefore, always to use,
and to call the operation of the faculty itself, Theoria.

Sec. 2. Of the differences of rank in pleasures of sense.

Let us begin at the lowest point, and observe, first, what differences
of dignity may exist between different kinds of aesthetic or sensual
pleasure, properly so called.

Now it is evident that the being common to brutes, or peculiar to man,
can alone be no rational test of inferiority, or dignity in pleasures.
We must not assume that man is the nobler animal, and then deduce the
nobleness of his delights; but we must prove the nobleness of the
delights, and thence the nobleness of the animal. The dignity of
affection is no way lessened because a large measure of it may be found
in lower animals, neither is the vileness of gluttony and lust abated
because they are common to men. It is clear, therefore, that there is a
standard of dignity in the pleasures and passions themselves, by which
we also class the creatures capable of, or suffering them.

Sec. 3. Use of the terms Temperate and Intemperate.