It might be objected to the explanation of the physically beautiful as a simple adjunct for the reproduction of the internally beautiful, that is to say, of expressions, that the artist creates his expressions by painting or by sculpturing, by writing or by composing, and that therefore the physically beautiful, instead of following, sometimes precedes the aesthetically beautiful. This would be a somewhat superficial mode of understanding the procedure of the artist, who never makes a stroke with his brush without having previously seen it with his imagination; and if he has not yet seen it, he will make the stroke, not in order to externalize his expression (which does not yet exist), but as though to have a rallying point for ulterior meditation and for internal concentration. The physical point on which he leans is not the physically beautiful, instrument of reproduction, but what may be called a pedagogic means, similar to retiring into solitude, or to the many other expedients, frequently very strange, adopted by artists and philosophers, who vary in these according to their various idiosyncrasies. The old aesthetician Baumgarten advised poets to ride on horseback, as a means of inspiration, to drink wine in moderation, and (provided they were chaste) to look at beautiful women. XIV MISTAKES ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC It is necessary to mention a series of scientific mistakes which have arisen from the failure to understand the purely external relation between the aesthetic fact or artistic vision, and the physical fact or instrument, which serves as an aid to reproduce it. We must here indicate the proper criticism, which derives from what has already been said. [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic associationism_ That form of associationism which identifies the aesthetic fact with the _association of two_ images finds a place among these errors. By what path has it been possible to arrive at such a mistake, against which our aesthetic consciousness, which is a consciousness of perfect unity, never of duality, rebels? Just because the physical and the aesthetic facts have been considered separately, as two distinct images, which enter the spirit, the one drawn forth from the other, the one first and the other afterwards. A picture is divided into the image of the _picture_ and the image of the _meaning_ of the picture; a poem, into the image of the words and the image of the _meaning_ of the words. But this dualism of images is non-existent: the physical fact does not enter the spirit as an image, but causes the reproduction of the image (the only image, which is the aesthetic fact), in so far as it blindly stimulates the psychic organism and produces an impression answering to the aesthetic expression already produced.