Émile Chartier

“ To say all, beauty has this privilege to exist. And when there would not be, to form this robust world, but one object in each genre, a beautiful edifice, a beautiful piece of furniture, a beautiful musical piece, a beautiful poem, a beautiful drawing, a beautiful statue, a beautiful portrait, it is not necessary for more of them that one be able to expose, by the universal relations that they suppose, these judgments without name. ”

“ This is not but the form of oratory which separates it from the others. In it and for it all idea is universal. And the common error is without doubt to not want to believe at all in the spirit, as the priests have caught a glimpse of it. For the universal does not prove itself at all; the one who wants to prove supposes always, and never attempts to prove, that his proof is univerally valid. What is general is the sole object of proof, and does not lead but to a practical agreement, meaning political by connection to the human order, and industrial by connection to the exterior order. ”

“ And these forceful scriptures, which are temples, statues, designs, have kept this power to convert without proofs, in terminating the wanderings, as the harp of David would do for the mad king. Models for the written language which is not as yet fully object. It was being necessary therefore to bring back the articulated language to the conditions which effect a work to be universal and durable. And one can remark that the lightning flashes of beauty of true prose offers a truth without proofs, in the sense where beautiful music is without proofs and the Venus de Milo without proofs. ”

“ This is what always searches after all men who go thinking; but whatever desire that one has of it, the truth never reduces itself entirely to beauty. Also beauty is as a recompense, in other words the sole fact of the spirit possible. ”

“ Or this other method, which recalls all doctrine to analytic exposure, suits all subjects, but I had noticed for a long time that, as soon as one wants to treat with aesthetics, the one doesn't present itself to the other, for here the choice is already made, and immovable, and what one would like to prove, to know that the work is beautiful, is affirmed without any doubt by the same work. If one would like to define beauty, it would be necessary to define it by these judgments immediate, assured, irrevocable ”

“ It turns out that by equality of rights one can make a settling of fortune, and that with a plan and some iron one can fabricate many times the same machine. But such successes do not content the spirit at all. ”

“ If one was reflecting on this, that the solitary thought does not take form but in the common expression, one would understand better the virtue of signs, of which any thought is never separable, and, by that last proposition, that a thought which is not common is not in any sense a thought. ”

“ I have been obligated to proceed otherwise regarding a directing idea no less important, that I have found in Descartes, but that the Prince of Extension has in no way approached regarding the present subject. I speak of imagination as a human function or power, but essentially defined by the mechanism and the affections of the human body. This important idea has certainly not been followed enough by those who have attempted to appropriately describe human nature without the spirit of system ”

“ What is going to follow is on this way, and oriented by that, but intermediate, since it determines some species and not some individuals; and its middle is not but analoguous to beauty, whatever it leads there, for the end here pursued is to make to perceive this grand object in its systematic unity, not at all logical but real, by the force of the oppositions and of the singular characters of each species of work. The critic can not do more, and I warn you, reader, that this essay does still well less. If therefore a mute genius pushes you, take rather the plume or the paint-brush. ”

“ And this is here the only case where the observation can be free and without any precaution. For one knows well enough that the observer of the objects of nature like celestial movements or the fall of a body wanders from the question soon if he is not rigidly prepared. ”