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 aesthetics 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 Gueroult (Presse, May 15, 1858):  “To discover and produce wonderful effects, is preeminently 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.”