Hippolyte Taine's Philosophy of Art represents such an illusion. He declares that when we have studied the diverse manifestations of art in all peoples and at all epochs, we shall then possess a complete Aesthetic. Such an Aesthetic would be a sort of Botany applied to the works of man. This mode of study would provide moral science with a basis equally as sure as that which the natural sciences already possess. Taine then proceeds to define art without regard to the natural sciences, by analysing, like a simple mortal, what passes in the human soul when brought face to face with a work of art. But what analysis and what definitions! Art, he says, is imitation, but of a sort that tries to express an essential characteristic. Thus the principal characteristic of a lion is to be "a great carnivore," and we observe this characteristic in all its limbs. Holland has for essential characteristic that of being a land formed of alluvial soil. Now without staying to consider these two remarkable instances, let us ask, what is this essential characteristic of Taine? It is the same as the ideas, types, or concepts that the old aesthetic teaching assigned to art as its object. Taine himself removes all doubt as to this, by saying that this characteristic is what philosophers call the essence of things, and for that reason they declare that the purpose of art is to manifest things. He declares that he will not employ the word essence, which is technical. But he accepts and employs the thought that the word expresses. He believes that there are two routes by which man can attain to the superior life: science and art. By the first, he apprehends fundamental laws and causes, and expresses them in abstract terms; by the second, he expresses these same laws and causes in a manner comprehensible to all, by appealing to the heart and feeling, as well as to the reason of man. Art is both superior and popular; it makes manifest what is highest, and makes it manifest to all. That Taine here falls into the old pedagogic theory of Aesthetic is evident. Works of art are arranged for him in a scale of values, as for the aesthetic metaphysicians. He began by declaring the absurdity of all judgment of taste, "à chacun son goût," but he ends by declaring that personal taste is without value, that we must establish a common measure before proceeding to praise or blame. His scale of values is double or triple. We must first fix the degree of importance of the characteristic, that is, the greater or less generality of the idea, and the degree of good in it, that is to say, its greater or lesser moral value. These, he says, are two degrees of the same thing, strength, seen from different sides. We must also establish the degree of convergence of the effects, that is, the fulness of expression, the harmony between the idea and the form.