Modern poets, finding little to inspire them in their own times, and driven back into ancient life by the classical system, have already idealized some of the past phases of Humanity. Our great Corneille, for instance, is principally remembered for the series of dramas in which he has so admirably depicted various periods of Roman history. In our own times where the historical spirit has become stronger, novelists, like Scott and Manzoni, have made similar though less perfect attempts to idealize later periods. Such examples, however, are but spontaneous and imperfect indications of the new field which Positivism now offers to the artist; a field which extends over the whole region of the Past and even of the Future. Until this vast domain had been conceived of as a whole by the philosopher, it would have been impossible to bring it within the compass of poetry. Now theological and metaphysical philosophers were prevented by the absolute spirit of their doctrines from understanding history in all its phases, and were totally incapable of idealizing them as they deserved. Positivism, on the contrary, is always relative; and its principal feature is a theory of history which enables us to appreciate and become familiar with every mode in which human society has formed itself. No sincere Monotheist can understand and represent with fairness the life of Polytheists or Fetichists. But the Positivist poet, accustomed to look upon all past historical stages in their proper filiation, will be able so thoroughly to identify himself with all, as to awaken our sympathies for them, and revive the traces which each individual may recognize of corresponding phases in his own history. Thus we shall be able thoroughly to enter into the esthetic beauty of the Pagan creeds of Greece and Rome, without any of the scruples which Christians could not but feel when engaged on the same subject. In the Art of the Future all phases of the Past will be recalled to life with the same distinctness with which some of them have been already idealized by Homer and Corneille. And the value of this new source of inspiration is the greater that, at the same time that it is being opened out to the artist, the public is being prepared for its enjoyment. An almost exhaustless series of beautiful creations in epic or dramatic art may be produced, which, by rendering it more easy to comprehend and to glorify the Past in all its phases, will form an essential element, on the one hand, of our educational system, and on the other, of the worship of Humanity. [Art requires the highest education; but little special instruction] Lastly, not only will the field for Art become wider, but its organs will be men of a higher stamp. The present system, in which the arts are cultivated by special classes, must be abolished, as being wholly alien to that synthetic spirit which always characterizes the highest poetic genius.