300 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
has to do chiefly with the feelings. “ Of all the phenomena which 
relate to man human affections are the most modifiable and there- 
fore the most susceptible of idealization. Being more perfect 
than any other, by virtue of their higher complexity, they allow 
greater scope for improvement. ... All aesthetic study .. . 
may become a useful moral exercise, by calling sympathies and 
antipathies into healthy play. The effect is far greater when the 
representation, passing the limits of strict accuracy, is suitably 
idealized. This, indeed, is the characteristic mission of art. Its 
function is to construct types of the noblest kind by the contem- 
plation of which our feelings and thoughts may be elevated.” ! 
There are three stages in the aesthetic process, imitation, ideal- 
ization and expression. Poetry is the art which idealizes the 
most and imitates the least. The function of the poet is esteemed 
because of his power to idealize and to stimulate.? 
As to the relation of art to social progress our author says: 
“ Utopias are to the art of social life what geometrical and me- 
chanical types are to their respective arts. In these their neces- 
sity is universally recognized; and surely the necessity cannot be 
less in problems of such far greater intricacy. Accordingly we see 
that, notwithstanding the empirical condition in which political 
art has hitherto existed, every great change has been ushered in, 
one or two centuries beforehand, by an Utopia bearing some 
analogy to it. It was the product of the aesthetic genius of 
Humanity working under an imperfect sense of its conditions and 
requirements.” 3 
The function of art in education, in the propagation of positi- 
vism, in government and religion is discussed at some length, and 
he concludes “ that the priest of Humanity will not have attained 
his full measure of superiority over the priest of God, until, with 
the intellect of the philosopher, he combines the enthusiasm of the 
poet, as well as the tenderness of woman and the people’s 
energy.” 4 
1 A General View, p. 315. 
2 Ibid., p. 325. Compare the teaching of Buckle who ignores this function of 
literature and art, — supra, ch. VI. 
3 Ibid., p. 317. 4 Ibid., p. 354. 
