Leroux affirmed a relation between the unity of man and the universality of his pantheism; both relying at the outset upon an idea at once religious and philosophical. But the research of Leroux was philosophically inclined, while that of Delsarte was of a character more especially religious.
Is it necessary to urge that you accept this obviously primitive classification of the human faculties? Who, that shall have considered a moment to convince himself, can doubt this truth,--that our sensations, our sentiments, our understanding, are the principal elements of our life, and that all that we are able to know of ourselves is made known to us by them directly, or by the result of their combinations? This consideration will soon lead us to the rational development of the theory of Delsarte. For the present, it suffices to receive these principles as they have been presented to us, and to admit that art could not go far astray while following a clue leading from a law invincible, and guiding to a science as positive as that of the astronomer, derived from the law of attraction, or that of the chemist, depending upon the law of affinities. Here need be no confusion. The science is positive. The mystery of the natural law implies a hypothesis,--even were the proposition negative.
Delsarte insisted upon the influence of a religious sentiment in art, as a part of the constitutive animating faculties of the human being. In the light of this proposition his enemies maintain that he teaches this heresy: that success in æsthetics depends upon a definite faith--even upon the observance of the Catholic religion! This distinction between religion and creed, between sentiment and assertion, I have followed carefully since the beginning of my study. Delsarte was able to so address his pupils at the beginning of a lecture, as to arouse the apathetic, and electrify the passionate; but his teaching was far from dogmatic. I do not say that at times, in his aspirations and dreams, which he regarded perhaps as intuitions, this religious philosophy did not make some incursions into the region of mysticism. I have seen at his home charts named from the circumincession,[7] and classifying celestial spirits; but these trans-mundane personifications found no place in his practical lectures. They are not found in the great synthetical chart which I possess, and which recapitulates the system as the master arranged it in the strength of his youth and genius, free from all mystical element.
When, in 1859, I submitted to Delsarte my treatise containing a succinct statement of his method, he said to me: "You have not followed me so far as the angels."
I replied: "I have related and recognized as truth all that I have heard you teach upon the laws of art as deduced from the relations of the human faculties, because I have observed and verified it among people and upon myself. But I speak not of things which you have never shown me, and whose existence you have never demonstrated. The angels are of this number."
Yet he received with no less approval my profane work. And it is the judgment which he placed upon that essay which authorizes my resuming the subject, augmented by further developments and evidence.
I should not state with so great confidence this great truth--the application of a natural law to a succession of discoveries constituting a science, an incontestable innovation--were I not able to refer to competent opinions supporting my statement. A few of these opinions I would here quote from some of the journals I have examined, many of which thoroughly appreciated Delsarte throughout the long period of his teaching.
It was said by Adolphe Guéroult (Presse, May 15, 1858): "To discover and produce wonderful effects, is preëminently the characteristic of great artists, but never, so far as I can learn, has it occurred to any one, before Delsarte, to attach these strokes of genius to positive laws." And further: "The eloquent secrets of pantomime, the imperceptible movements which, in great actors, so forcibly impress us, coming under the observation of this discoverer, were by him analyzed and synthetized in accordance with laws whose clearness and simplicity render them doubly admirable."
I give also some statements from the Journal des Débats (May 10, 1859). Though in the following the word "law" does not appear, it bears interestingly upon the relations of the ideas and expressions under consideration. The quotation is:--
"The audience was charmed and instructed. It applauded the new definitions. It divined the essence of each art, and comprehended that the various manifestations of art are classified according to the classifications of the human faculties. It knows why each passion produces each accent: 'because the accent is the modulation of the soul,' and why a given emotion produces a given expression of the face, gesture and attitude of the body."