We come, lastly, to the =æsthetic= sentiments. These are confused, by the majority of civilised mankind, with the emotions aroused by the _subject_ of the work of art; whereas this subject is really of very minor importance; of no importance at all, if it is dictated by tradition and environment; and of secondary importance, only as it is chosen by the artist, from a number of possible subjects, because it allows the expression of personality or offers a test of difficulties overcome. What do you suppose Michael Angelo was trying to do when he painted the _Last Judgement_, or Titian when he painted the _Entombment of Christ_? The æsthetic sentiments are, in reality, those of success-bafflement-failure, ease-confusion-difficulty, approbation-criticism-condemnation, and the like. When Ruskin said “Everything that Velasquez does may be taken as absolutely right by the student,” the unmeasured approbation expresses a true æsthetic sentiment; Ruskin had _worked_ over Velasquez. When a recent writer on art directs us, in Millet’s _Gleaners_, to “these forms bowed down by labour, these coarse habiliments, these work-hardened hands,” he is outside the sphere of æsthetics altogether, and his appeal lies—at the best—to a social emotion. _These groups of sentiments, the intellectual, the moral or social, the religious and the æsthetic, are usually regarded as distinct and different._ It is true that they are called forth by different kinds of situation. We must remember, however, that _there are only two kinds of mental pattern involved_: the thought-pattern and the pattern of constructive imagination; and we have seen that these are themselves broadly similar. It is not likely, therefore, that the sentiments, or the feeling-attitudes that derive from them, differ in anything but inessentials from group to group; M. Bergeret and M. l’abbé Lantaigne felt in very much the same way. The variety of the feeling-attitudes is, indeed, surprisingly large; the point here is that this variety is essentially the same, whether one be sage or saint, artist or moralist. § 71. =The Situations and Their Appeal.=—If we wish to enquire into the nature of _the situations which arouse a sentiment_, two courses are open to us. We may undertake a study of origins; we may trace the history of primitive science and primitive art, and so on; and we may then try to generalise, both as regards the circumstances which called forth the scientific or artistic response, and as regards the appeal that such circumstances make to the human organism. Or we may turn our attention to acknowledged masterpieces, and try in like manner to ‘get behind’ them; trusting in this event rather to the typical than to the general. Both courses have been followed, and followed assiduously; but the outcome is still uncertain.