THE FANTASTIC, THE GROTESQUE 163 



matters of delicacy have been viewed. Tintoretto elevates 

 our imagination by his pictures of Eve tempting Adam ; 

 Michel Angelo restrains and chastens wandering fancy ; 

 Raphael removes the same theme beyond the sphere of 

 voluptuous suggestion, while retaining something of its sen- 

 suous allurement ; Rembrandt produces a cynical satire in 

 the style of Swift's description of Yahoos ; Luca Giordano 

 disgusts by coarse and full-blown carnalism. 



These considerations lead us finally to inquire in what 

 sphere of human sensibility the arts legitimately move. 



It is usual to distinguish between aesthetic and non- 

 aesthetic senses meaning by the former sight and hearing, 

 by the latter touch, taste, smell. In truth, no great art has 

 yet been based upon the three last-mentioned senses, in the 

 same way as painting and sculpture have been based on sight 

 and music upon hearing. This is because the two so-called 

 aesthetic senses are links between what is spiritual in us and 

 external nature ; we use them in the finer operations of our 

 intelligence. The three non-aesthetic senses serve utility and 

 natural needs ; they have not been brought into that comity 

 where thought and emotion can be sensuously presented to 

 the mind. It is only by the faintest suggestions that a touch, 

 a taste, a smell evokes some spiritual mood. When it does 

 so the effect is indeed striking ; we are thrilled in our very 

 entrails and marrow. But these suggestions are, in our 

 present condition, so vague, so elusive, so evanescent, so 

 peculiar to the individual, that no attempt has been made to 

 regard them as a substantial groundwork for the edifice of art. 



In man we find an uninterrupted rhythm from the simplest 

 to the most complex states of consciousness, passing from 

 mere sensation up to elaborated thought. No break can be 

 detected in this rhythm, although psychologists are wont to 

 denote its salient moments by distinctive names. They speak 

 of sensation, perception, emotion, will, reason, and so forth, as 

 though these were separate faculties. But the infinite subtlety 



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