360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



may threaten the rest of the system and readiness to apply the reme- 

 dies. It is one of the prerogatives of science to cure the wounds which 

 itself inflicts, and it will do this in the present case by means of a bet- 

 ter regulated education, through a more complete understanding of 

 hygiene and gymnastics, and generally by a more methodical applica- 

 tion of the laws that regulate the harmonious development of the or- 

 gans. While there is doubtless something admirable in the motionless 

 purity of forms, in proportion, and in the perfect adaptation of the 

 organs to their functions which constitute plastic beauty, supreme and 

 really poetic beauty, nevertheless, lies pre-eminently in expression and 

 movement. To the modern age, the face is still the most beautiful 

 part of the man, and that is constantly tending, by the development of 

 the nervous system, of intelligence and morality, to become more ex- 

 pressive. By virtue of the mutual dependence of the organs, the man 

 of future ages, if the development of his nervous system continues in 

 a manner compatible with his general vigor, will wear in his very 

 physiognomy the steadily brightening reflection of intelligence, " and 

 infinity of thought in the depth of his eyes." Even if the body is less 

 sturdy and less handsome than the bodies of the athletes of Polycletus 

 and the fleshy giants of Rubens, the head will have acquired a superior 

 beauty. Are a brow radiant with living thought and eyes through 

 which the soul is shining of no value from the plastic point of view ? 

 Intelligence ultimately impresses its mark upon the whole body, which, 

 if less fitted under its predominance for the combat or the race, gains 

 nevertheless a beauty peculiarly its own. Beauty, in short, will be intel- 

 lectualized, and the same will be the case with art. Now, if modern art 

 and poetry are to live chiefly by expression ; if the head and thought 

 are already assuming an increasing importance in the works of our 

 epoch ; if movement, the visible sign of thought, is finally to animate 

 everything with it, as in the works of Michael Angelo and Puget — will 

 art be destroyed in undergoing the transformation ? We might say, 

 borrowing the terminology of contemporary science, that the ancients 

 were mainly acquainted with " static " art, while modern art, with its 

 movement and expression, is " dynamic." Following in its course the 

 evolution of human beauty, art tends to rise, as it were, from the limbs 

 to the face and the brain. 



History also, as well as physiology, has furnished some specious ar- 

 guments against the future of art. The development of particular arts 

 seems frequently connected with particular manners and a particular 

 social condition. M, Taine believes that many arts now languishing 

 are threatened with starvation in the future. M. Renan says the reign 

 of sculpture was over when men ceased to go half naked. Epic poetry 

 disappeared when the age of individual heroism passed away, and can 

 not coexist with artillery. Every art, except music, is thus dependent 

 upon a past state ; and music, too, which may be regarded as the art of 

 the nineteenth century, will some day have run its course. 



