But it is not at all necessary for a work of art to present a sensual picture in order to awaken ideas of love. It is enough for it to be beautiful, captivating. It stirs passion. Where shall we seek the seat of this passion? The brain is merely a centre of transmission. It is not a terminus. It is a happy and praiseworthy error to have made man's brain his absolute centre, but it is an error. The sole natural end of man is reproduction. If his activity had another goal, he would no longer be an animal, and we fall back into Christianity, to be confronted again by the soul, demerit and all the jargon employed by spiritualistic quacks. Emotion becomes conscious at the very moment of its passing, but it merely passes, leaving its image, and descends to the loins. This manner of speaking is perhaps figurative, and, moreover, I am not speaking of intense and strongly localized excitations. What is meant is merely that aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favourable to the reception of erotic emotion. This state is communicated to some by music, to others by painting, the drama. I have known a man--of a certain age, it is true--who could cheat a sexual desire by glancing at engravings. The reverse example would, doubtless, be less paradoxical. Aesthetic emotion is that from which man lets himself be most easily diverted by love, so easy, almost fatal, is the passage from one to the other. This intimate union between art and love is, moreover, the sole explanation of art. Without it--without this genital repercussion--it would never have been born; and, without it, it would not be perpetuated. Nothing is useless in deep-seated human habits. Everything which has lasted is, for that reason, necessary. Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away, and there is no longer art. Take art away, and love becomes merely a physiological need. But it is less here art itself that is concerned than its emotional power, and there must therefore be grouped under the name of art everything in the nature of spectacle or sport--every diversion enjoyed in public, or with regard to which one communicates to himself his impressions. Fireworks can thrill quite as much as a tragedy. The sole hierarchy is that of intensity; but there is no doubt that the success of a work of art greatly increases its emotional power upon men in general. Hence, for the crowd, the quite natural belief that every successful work is beautiful, and that failure and scorn are always merited. In short, what the caste calls beauty, the people call success; but they have learned from the aristocrats this word truly devoid of meaning for them, and employ it to enhance the quality of their pleasures. That is not entirely illegitimate, success and beauty having a common origin in the emotions, their sole difference being the difference of the nervous systems in which they have evolved.