from geometrical reasonings. Everybody knows mathematicians speak of
solutions and problems as "elegant," and they tell you that a certain
mass of mystic symbols is "beautiful, quite lovely." Well, you do not
see it. They do see it, because the intellectual process, the process of
comprehending the reasons symbolised by these figures and these signs,
confers upon them a sort of pleasure, such as an artist has in visual
symmetry. Take a science of which I may speak with more confidence, and
which is the most attractive of those I am concerned with. It is what we
call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of
the infinitely diversified structures of animals and plants. I cannot
give you any example of a thorough aesthetic pleasure more intensely
real than a pleasure of this kind--the pleasure which arises in one's
mind when a whole mass of different structures run into one harmony
as the expression of a central law. That is where the province of art
overlays and embraces the province of intellect. And, if I may venture
to express an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of forms of
art are not in the sense what I just now defined them to be--pure
art; but they derive much of their quality from simultaneous and even
unconscious excitement of the intellect.

When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I am so now; and it so
happened that I had the opportunity of hearing much good music. Among
other things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing that great old
master, Sebastian Bach. I remember perfectly well--though I knew
nothing about music then, and, I may add, know nothing whatever about it
now--the intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listening, by
the hour together, to Bach's fugues. It is a pleasure which remains with
me, I am glad to think; but, of late years, I have tried to find out
the why and wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that the pleasure
derived from musical compositions of this kind is essentially of the
same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are commonly
regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the source of pleasure is
exactly the same as in most of my problems in morphology--that you
have the theme in one of the old master's works followed out in all its
endless variations, always appearing and always reminding you of unity
in variety. So in painting; what is called "truth to nature" is the
intellectual element coming in,