164 CARICATURE, 



of nature eludes such rude attempts at classification. Art 

 finds its proper sphere of operation only in the middle region 

 of the scale. The physical rudiments of consciousness are 

 not aesthetic, because they bring our carnal functions into play, 

 and only indirectly agitate the complex of our nature. The 

 more abstract modes of thought are not aesthetic, because they 

 have renounced the element of corporeity and sense ; and art 

 has to fulfil its function through sensuous presentation. Art 

 is therefore obliged to cast roots down into sense, and to 

 flower up into thought, remaining within the province where 

 these extremes of consciousness interpenetrate. This is what 

 Hegel meant when he called beauty die sinnliche Erscheinung 

 der Idee (the apparition, to sense and in sense, of the idea) a 

 definition which, in spite of its metaphysical form, is precisely 

 suited to express the fact. 



Poetry, if I may apply these conclusions to the most purely 

 intellectual of the arts, makes an appeal to thought, emotion, 

 sense, together, in one blended harmony. If thought pre- 

 dominates too crudely, as in some cantos of Dante's ' Paradiso,' 

 in some books of Lucretius, in many passages of Milton's and 

 of Wordsworth's verse, then the external form of metre and 

 poetic diction does not save the product from being prosaic. 

 On the other hand, if a coarse appeal be made to sense 

 through sound, as in a large portion of Marino's 'Adone,' 

 we are cloyed by sweet vacuity. Or if, as in the case of 

 Baffo's Venetian lyrics, the contents be deliberately prurient, 

 awakening mere animal associations, then no form of sonnet, 

 madrigal, or ode saves this poetry from being prosaic. It 

 meets the same condemnation at the lower end of the scale as 

 we passed on parts of Dante, Lucretius, Milton, Wordsworth 

 at the higher end. Purely intellectual and purely sensual 

 poetry fail alike by contradicting the law of poetry's existence. 

 They are not poetry, but something else. 



Neither unmixed thought nor unmixed sense is the proper 

 stuff of art. Still we must remember that art, occupying the 

 middle region between these extremes, has to bring the 

 manifold orchestra of consciousness into accord. Nowhere 

 is there an abrupt chasm in man's sentient being. Touch, 



