One paper, _L'Union_, said in this connection:
"M. Delsarte is a spontaneous soul, his mind is at once Christian
and free, his only passion is the proselytism of the Beautiful, and
this is the charm of his speech....I do not assert that everything
in it should be of an absolute rigor of philosophy," etc.
The same paper says elsewhere:
"All these theories are new, original, ingenious, in a word,
_felicitous_. Are they undeniably true? What I can affirm is that
none doubt it who hear the master make various applications of them
by examples. Delsarte is an irresistible enchanter."
The opposition of principles with which he is reproached, these doubts
of the strength of his logic, will be greatly diminished if this point
of view be taken: that Delsarte traced back an assured science, that he
deduced from the faculties of man the hypothesis that these faculties
are contained in essence and in the full power of their development, in
an archetype which, to his mind, is no other than the Divine Trinity.
Plato's ideal in aesthetics and in philosophy was similar although less
precise.
There is a saying that Italians "have two souls." In Delsarte there were
two distinct types, the theistic philosopher and the scientist.
Now, the philosopher could give himself up to the study of causes and
their finality, that faculty being allotted to the mental activity; he
could even, without giving the scientist cause for complaint, make, or
admit, speculative theories regarding the end and aim of art, provided
that the scientific part of the system was neither denied nor diminished
thereby.
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