estheticism is not asceticism, neither is it, on the other hand, concupiscence or mere sensualism. Does the connection between art and religion exclude the presentation of evil in art? Art would be much handicapped if it were restricted entirely to good objects. Art is a manifestation of man’s intellect and must act in accord with the nature of that faculty. If evil is artistically presented, it must be depicted as evil. To present moral evil as a good is a falsification as repugnant to the mind as would be the painting of a blue sunrise, of a green moon or of a black-and-tan sea, and as absurd as the sculpture of a five-legged lion. The enlightened mind rejects such physical monstrosities, and the enlightened mind, despite the lower appetites, rejects moral disorders with equal, if not greater, repugnance. Again, art requires that the evil, the moral ugliness or physical ugliness, be a necessary and rational part of the presentation. A fact of nature becomes at once the material of science, because science concerns itself with unadorned truth. But for a fact of nature to be material of art, it must be idealized, that is, it must be made an integral part of the art product. The pleasure of art does not arise from deception but from illusion which does not deceive. Painted grapes might deceive birds; but did they deceive men, then the effect would not be that of art but of reality. The evil or ugly can never be pleasant as long as it is present and actual. The transfer of evil to the world of art if it becomes an integral, justified and rationalized part of the illusion, is usually enough to rob evil of its actuality and unpleasantness. Sometimes in contemporary realism, with every justification of ugliness from the art product, there is depression and not true art pleasure, because we cannot forget the actual world when contemplating the imaginary world of art. Suppose “Macbeth” or “Œdipus” were really historical and were acted in the presence of their contemporaries or of the next generation. Would there be satisfaction and the emotional relief arising from illusion? Hardly. Memories would be too much lacerated with the actual to surrender to the illusion of art and to enjoy its contemplation. Actuality would put back the salt into the tears that else might have been sweetened by transfer of evil to remote and imaginary realms. The Greeks and Shakespeare were right in making their tragedies historical, whereas modern realists are somber with pessimism because they never forsake the actual.