Was Delsarte a Philosopher?
If we consider philosophy in the light of all the questions upon which
it touches, the subjects which it embraces, we must answer "No;" but if
we concentrate the word within the limits of æsthetics, we may reply in
the affirmative. Did not Delsarte point out the origin of art, its
object and its aim?
Not that this master never exceeded the limits of his science and his
method. He had sketched out a "Treatise on Reason," and had begun to
classify the faculties of being, entering into the subject more
profoundly than the categories of Kant; but all this only exists in mere
outline, in a technology whose terms have not been weighed and connected
together by a solid chain of reasoning: logic has not uttered its final
word therein.
A separate volume would be required to give an idea of these _gigantic
sketches_, which must remain in their rudimentary state.
If Delsarte had finished his work, it would seem that he must have
leaned toward the scholastic method, now so much out of favor; but
certainly he would put his own personality into this, as into everything
that he undertook to investigate; for he was held back on the steeps of
mysticism by the science which he had created, and which could only
afford a shelter to the supernatural as an extension of those psychical
faculties which have been called intuition, imagination, etc.
Then the influence of Raymond Brucker, who died shortly after Delsarte,
being lessened, and conscientious and patient study having fed the flame
in that vast brain, we might have obtained affirmations of a new order.
And Delsarte might have met with thinkers like Leibnitz, Descartes and
Jean Reynaud, on that height where religion is purged of superstition
and fanaticism, philosophy set free from atheism and materialism!
If Delsarte had a fault, it was that he regarded all modern philosophy
as sensuous naturalism; and if reason sometimes seemed to him
suspicious, it was because he often confounded it with sophistry, which
reasons indeed, but is far from being _reason_.
Let us regret that Delsarte never finished his complete philosophy; but
let us be grateful to him for having raised his art and all arts to the
level of philosophy, by giving them truth as a basis and morality as a
final aim; which fairly justifies, it seems to me, the title of
_artist-philosopher_, which I have sometimes applied to him.
I should not neglect, in this connection, to set down the explanation,
given by Delsarte, of what he meant by the word _trinity_, as used in
his scientific system. The reader cannot fail to see the elements of a
system of philosophy in this succinct statement, this outline to be
filled up:
"The principle of the system lies in the statement that there is in the
world a universal formula which may be applied to all sciences, to all
things possible: --this formula is _the trinity_.
"What is requisite for the formation of a trinity?
"Three expressions are requisite, each presupposing and implying the
other two. Each of three terms must imply the other two. There must also
be an absolute co-necessity between them; thus, the three principles of
our being--life, mind and soul--form a trinity.
"Why?
"Because life and mind are one and the same soul; soul and mind are one
and the same life; life and soul are one and the same mind."