The Good seems to be that
which can give to the greatest number of beings, existing in the
universe (conformably to their hierarchy), the greatest sum of happiness
and perfection, considering, for humanity, the importance of the mutual
relations of the faculties. If this be true of the Good in life, is not
a way clearly traced for art, whose mission is to embellish existence?
And, further, if it be incontestable, that man cannot transgress the
laws of his nature without wronging his intelligence and his happiness,
even his strength and beauty, how shall art merit our love and homage if
its power be exerted to excite inferior faculties and subversive
passions? Are not _poise_ and _harmony_ the best conditions of existence
for the human organism? That which Plato demanded for the _Beautiful_ in
favor of the _True_--namely, splendor--Delsarte demanded also of _art_
in favor of the _Good_. His thought is summed up in this formula, "Man
is the object of art." Man, being artist, becomes the agent of
aesthetics. Man, in his humanity, is the goal toward which should tend
all the efforts and experiments of the art-moralizer.
The master maintained the possibility of reaching this end by two
opposing ways, not contradictory; _i.e._, the production of the
Beautiful under its physical, mental and moral forms; and by the
manifestation of the Ugly under the same forms, exhibiting what he
called the _hideousness of vice_.
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