poraries these eccentricities spring from an
inclination toward originality, caprice, grotesque taste; from a similar
impulse to that which directs literature toward burlesque and parodies,
and the plastic arts toward caricature. Such productions may please some
distinguished and intelligent natures which cannot have been highly
favored in the distribution of the delicacies of sentiment and the
exquisite graces of wit. In a word, the art indulging in this class of
manifestations acts according to the _mode simpliste_. I borrow this
term from Charles Fourier, and I say once for all, that by it I mean not
the entire, but the almost exclusive predominance of one or the other of
the modalities of the human being. Here the _simplisme_ being altogether
intellectual, while it is inferior to manifestations in which the being
expands harmoniously, it wounds no essential in the synthesis of the
_me_; while a predomination of the sensual to the same degree is most
pernicious to that which delights in it and antipathetic to those who do
not live solely in the material aspects of existence.

Existing among the elements of aesthetics, as the faculties of man, are
certain dependencies, connections, affinities, penetrations, which
render an abstraction of one of them almost impossible. Thus I have
anticipated allusions to the Beautiful in considering the Good. By thus
connecting them, the better to distinguish them, I have reached the
conclusion that moral evil should never be manifested in the arts unless
with the view of redressing it. In this case the better its real
characteristics are studied, the more strongly they are accentuated
throughout, the more successful the work will be from the plastic point
of view, and the more power it will have to repel those inward wrongs
which it denounces, and this even though the intention of the artist
should not touch this result.

_The Beautiful._

The Beautiful Purifies the Emotions.

At first glance, it might seem the privilege of each one to say, "The
Beautiful is that which appears to me as such." I believe in this
regard, that the most capable artist, should he be also the most perfect
logician, would never be able to persuade sainted and simple ignorance
that it should not remain firmly grounded upon faith in its own
impressions.

Place Hugo, Mercie, Bonnat, Saint-Saens, Massenet, Joncieres in the
presence of simple countrymen--or, what is worse still, of inferior
artists an