it is because it has not been sufficiently
prized or cultivated. The savant must have the faculties of the artist,
as had Kepler; the artist those of the savant, as had Michael Angelo and
Leonardo da Vinci. Study, reflective power, logical ability, erudition,
are _absolutely_ necessary; but one of their principal functions is to
be able to analyze aright the products of spontaneity; to give the soul
the consciousness and comprehension of the innumerable phenomena which
arise in it, in its varied relations with the world of ideas. The man
who is at the same time _spontaneous_ and _reflective_, is alone
_complete_, be he artist or savant; he lives, yet is able to analyze
life. Of such mental character are indeed all men of true genius,
whether mechanicians, architects, philosophers, savants, or artists.

The truths surging dimly through the universal consciousness, find
interpreters in the men of genius; through them the moral and religious
ideas of an epoch take form, and crystallize themselves in poetry and
the arts--as the laws of the divine geometry are realized in the
crystallizations of minerals. Poetry and the arts may be regarded as the
_sum_ of the absolute truths to the conception of which the masses have
risen at any given period in the life of a people.

Lamartine says:

'If humanity were forced to lose entirely one of the two orders of
truth--either all the mathematical or all the moral truths--it
should not hesitate to sacrifice the mathematical, for though it is
true if these were lost the world would suffer immense detriment,
yet if we should lose a single one of the moral truths, where would
man himself be? Humanity would be decomposed and perish!'

It cannot be denied that art has an incontestable superiority over
science in appealing to _all_, in addressing the masses in the language
they most readily understand, the language of feeling, imagination, and
enthusiasm. It is not intended only for men of culture, of leisure; all
classes are to be benefited by its exalting influence. Men whose lives
are almost entirely absorbed by occupations necessary for the comfort of
their families, can scarcely be contented with the monotonous and
wearisome spectacle of actual every-day life. Their cares are very
exhausting, agitating the heart and mind with harassing emotions; while
the immortal soul thirsts for eternal happiness. Can it be doubted that
such dim, vague, unsatisfied long