Such were the ethics of the nation that built the Acropolis; and if I add that they are still those of all great minds, I shall merely attest the value of a common-place. It is abundantly proved that the higher intelligences of artists, writers, warriors, or statesmen have never regarded the majestic toleration of ancient morals as illegitimate. Aristotle began life by wasting his patrimony in the society of riotous women; Sappho has given her name to a special vice; Cæsar was the _mœchus calvus_; nor can we imagine Racine shunning the stage-women nor Napoleon practicing abstinence. Mirabeau’s novels, Chénier’s Greek verses, Diderot’s correspondence, and Montesquieu’s minor works are as daring as the writings of Catullus himself. And the most austere, saintly, and laborious of all French authors, Button, would you know his maxim of advice in the case of sentimental intrigues? “Love! why art thou the happiness of all beings and man’s misfortune? Because only the _physical part_ of this passion is good, and the rest is worth nothing.” Whence is this? And how comes it that in spite of the ruin of the ancient system of thought, the grand sensuality of the Greeks has remained like a ray of light upon the foreheads of the highest? It is because sensuality is the mysterious but necessary and creative condition of intellectual development. Those who have not felt the exigencies of the flesh to the uttermost, whether for love or hatred, are incapable of understanding the full range of the exigencies of the mind. Just as the beauty of the soul illumines the whole face, in like manner virility of the body is an indispensable condition of a fruitful brain. The worst insult that Delacroix could address to men, the insult that he hurled without distinction against the decriers of Rubens and the detractors of Ingres, was the terrible word: eunuchs.