Indeed, so esthetic is the spirit of Positive education, that no special training for Art will be needed, except that which is given spontaneously by practice. There is no other profession which requires so little direct instruction; the tendency of it in Art being to destroy originality, and to stifle the fire of genius with technical erudition. Even for the special arts no professional education is needed. These, like industrial arts, should be acquired by careful practice under the guidance of good masters. The notorious failure of public institutions established for the purpose of forming musicians and painters, makes it unnecessary to dwell further upon this point. Not to speak of their injurious effects upon character, they are a positive impediment to true genius. Poets and artists, then, require no education beyond that which is given to the public, whose thoughts and emotions it is their office to represent. Its want of speciality makes it all the more fit to develop and bring forward real talent. It will strengthen the love of all the fine arts simultaneously; for the connexion between them is so intimate that those who make it a boast that their talent is for one of them exclusively will be strongly suspected of having no real vocation for any. All the greatest masters, modern no less than ancient, have shown this universality of taste. Its absence in the present day is but a fresh proof that esthetic genius does not and cannot exist in times like these, when Art has no social purpose and rests on no philosophic principles. If even amateurs are expected to enjoy Art in all its forms, is it likely that composers of real genius will restrict their admiration to their own special mode of idealization and expression?
Artists as a class will disappear. Their function will be appropriated by the philosophic priesthood
Positivism, then, while infusing a profoundly esthetic spirit into general education, would suppress all special schools of Art on the ground that they impede its true growth, and simply promote the success of mediocrities. When this principle is carried out to its full length, we shall no longer have any special class of artists. The culture of Art, especially of poetry, will be a spontaneous addition to the functions of the three classes which constitute the moral power of society.
Under theocracy, the system by which the evolution of human society was inaugurated, the speculative class absorbed all functions except those relating to the common business of life. No distinction was made between esthetic and scientific talent. Their separation took place afterwards: and though it was indispensable to the full development of both, yet it forms no part of the permanent order of society, in which the only well-marked division is that between Theory and Practice. Ultimately all theoretic faculties will be again combined even more closely than in primitive times. So long as they are dispersed, their full influence on practical life cannot be realized. Only it was necessary that they should remain dispersed until each constituent element had attained a sufficient degree of development. For this preliminary growth the long period of time that has elapsed since the decline of theocracy was necessary. Art detached itself from the theoretical system before Science, because its progress was more rapid, and from its nature it was more independent. The priesthood had lost its hold of Art, as far back as the time of Homer: but it still continued to be the depositary of science, until it was superseded at first by philosophers strictly so called, afterwards by mathematicians and astronomers. So it was that Art first, and subsequently Science, yielded to the specializing system which, though normal for Industry, is in their case abnormal. It stimulated the growth of our speculative faculties at the time of their escape from the yoke of theocracy: but now that the need for it no longer exists, it is the principal obstacle to the final order, towards which all their partial developments have been tending. To recombine these special elements on new principles is at present the primary condition of social regeneration.
Looking at the two essential functions of the spiritual power, education and counsel, it is not difficult to see that what they require is a combination of poetic feeling with scientific insight. We look for a measure of both these qualities in the public; therefore men who are devoid of either of them cannot be fit to be its spiritual guides. That they take the name of philosophers in preference to that of poets, is because their ordinary duties are more connected with Science than with Art but they ought to be equally interested in both. Science requires systematic teaching, whereas Art is cultivated spontaneously, with the exception of the technical branches of the special arts. It must be remembered that the highest esthetic functions are not such as can be performed continuously. It is only works of rare excellence which are in the highest sense useful: these, once produced, supply an unfailing source of idealization and expression for our emotions, whether in public or in private. It is enough, if the interpreter of these works and his audience have been so educated as to appreciate what is perfect, and reject mediocrity. Organs of unusual power will arise occasionally, as in former times, from all sections of society, whenever the need of representing new emotions may be felt. But they will come more frequently from the philosophic class in whose character, when it is fully developed, Sympathy will be as prominent a feature as System.
Identity of esthetic and scientific genius
There is, in truth, no organic distinction between scientific and poetic genius. The difference lies merely in their combinations of thought, which are concrete and ideal in the one case, abstract and real in the other. Both employ analysis at starting; both alike aim ultimately at synthesis. The erroneous belief in their incompatibility proceeds merely from the absolute spirit of metaphysical philosophy, which so often leads us to mistake a transitory phase for the permanent order. If it is the fact, as appears, that they have never been actually combined in the same person, it is merely because the two functions cannot be called into action at the same moment. A state of society that calls for great philosophical efforts cannot be favourable to poetry, because it involves a new elaboration of first principles; and it is essential to Art that these should have been already fixed. This is the reason why in history we find periods of esthetic growth succeeding periods of great philosophical change, but never co-existing. If we look at instances of great minds who were never able to find their proper sphere, we see at once that had they risen at some other time, they might have cultivated either poetry or philosophy, as the case might be, with equal success. Diderot would no doubt have been a great poet in a time more favourable to art; and Goethe, under different political influences, might have been an eminent philosopher. All scientific discoverers in whom the inductive faculty has been more active than the deductive, have given manifest proof of poetic capacity. Whether the powers of invention take an abstract or a concrete direction, whether they are employed in discovering truth or in idealizing it, the cerebral function is always essentially the same. The difference is merely in the objects aimed at; and as these alternate according to the circumstances of the time, they cannot both be pursued simultaneously. The remarkably synthetic character of Buffon’s genius may be looked on historically as an instance of fusion of the scientific and esthetic spirit. Bossuet is even a more striking instance of a mind equally capable of the deepest philosophy and of the sublimest poetry, had the circumstances of his life given him a more definite impulse in either direction.
It is then not unreasonable to expect, notwithstanding the opinion usually maintained, that the philosophical class will furnish poets of the highest rank when the time calls for them. To pass from scientific thought to esthetic thought will not be difficult for minds of the highest order; for in such minds there is always a natural inclination towards the work which is most urgently required by their age. To meet the technical conditions of the arts of sound and form, it will be necessary to provide a few special masters, who, in consideration of the importance of their services to general education, will be looked upon as accessory members of the new spiritual power. But even here the tendency to specialities will be materially restricted. This exceptional position will only be given to men of sufficient esthetic power to appreciate all the fine arts; and they should be capable of practising at least the three arts of form simultaneously, as was done by Italian painters in the sixteenth century.
As an ordinary rule, it is only by their appreciation and power of explaining ideal Art in all its forms that our philosophers will exhibit their esthetic faculty. They will not be actively engaged in esthetic functions, except in the arrangement of public festivals. But when the circumstances of the time are such as to call for great epic or dramatic works, which implies the absence of any philosophical question of the first importance, the most powerful minds among them will become poets in the common sense of the word. As the work of Co-ordination and that of Idealization will for the future alternate with greater rapidity, we might conceive them, were man’s life longer, performed by the same organ. But the shortness of life, and the necessity of youthful vigour for all great undertakings, excludes this hypothesis. I only mention it to illustrate the radical identity of two forms of mental activity which are often supposed incompatible.