It is then not unreasonable to expect, notwithstanding the opinion usually maintained, that the philosophical class will furnish poets of the highest rank when the time calls for them. To pass from scientific thought to esthetic thought will not be difficult for minds of the highest order; for in such minds there is always a natural inclination towards the work which is most urgently required by their age. To meet the technical conditions of the arts of sound and form, it will be necessary to provide a few special masters, who, in consideration of the importance of their services to general education, will be looked upon as accessory members of the new spiritual power. But even here the tendency to specialities will be materially restricted. This exceptional position will only be given to men of sufficient esthetic power to appreciate all the fine arts; and they should be capable of practising at least the three arts of form simultaneously, as was done by Italian painters in the sixteenth century. As an ordinary rule, it is only by their appreciation and power of explaining ideal Art in all its forms that our philosophers will exhibit their esthetic faculty. They will not be actively engaged in esthetic functions, except in the arrangement of public festivals. But when the circumstances of the time are such as to call for great epic or dramatic works, which implies the absence of any philosophical question of the first importance, the most powerful minds among them will become poets in the common sense of the word. As the work of Co-ordination and that of Idealization will for the future alternate with greater rapidity, we might conceive them, were man’s life longer, performed by the same organ. But the shortness of life, and the necessity of youthful vigour for all great undertakings, excludes this hypothesis. I only mention it to illustrate the radical identity of two forms of mental activity which are often supposed incompatible. [Women’s poetry]