that of the chemist,
depending upon the law of affinities. Here need be no confusion. The
science is positive. The mystery of the natural law implies a
hypothesis,--even were the proposition negative.

Delsarte insisted upon the influence of a religious sentiment in art, as
a part of the constitutive animating faculties of the human being. In
the light of this proposition his enemies maintain that he teaches this
heresy: that success in aesthetics depends upon a definite faith--even
upon the observance of the _Catholic religion!_ This distinction between
religion and creed, between sentiment and assertion, I have followed
carefully since the beginning of my study. Delsarte was able to so
address his pupils at the beginning of a lecture, as to arouse the
apathetic, and electrify the passionate; but his teaching was far from
dogmatic. I do not say that at times, in his aspirations and dreams,
which he regarded perhaps as intuitions, this religious philosophy did
not make some incursions into the region of mysticism. I have seen at
his home charts named from the circumincession,[7] and classifying
celestial spirits; but these trans-mundane personifications found no
place in his practical lectures. They are not found in the great
synthetical chart which I possess, and which recapitulates the system as
the master arranged it in the strength of his youth and genius, free
from all mystical element.

When, in 1859, I submitted to Delsarte my treatise containing a succinct
statement of his method, he said to me: "You have not followed me so far
as the angels."

I replied: "I have related and recognized as truth all that I have heard
you teach upon the laws of art as deduced from the relations of the
human faculties, because I have observed and verified it among people
and upon myself. But I speak not of things which you have never shown
me, and whose existence you have never _demonstrated_. The angels are of
this number."

Yet he received with no less approval my profane work. And it is the
judgment which he placed upon that essay which authorizes my resuming
the subject, augmented by further developments and evidence.

I should not state with so great confidence this great truth--the
application of a natural law to a succession of discoveries constituting
a science, an incontestable innovation--were I not able to refer to
competent opinions supporting my statement. A few of these opinions I
would here quote from some of t