_Symmetry_, as denoting balance, and as a help to obtaining a complete grasp of an idea; _Sobriety_, as revealing that restraint which a position of command presupposes; _Simplicity_, as proving the power of the great mind that has overcome the chaos in itself,[82] to reflect its order and harmony upon other things,[83] and to select the most essential features from among a host of more or less essential features; _Transfiguration_, as betraying that Dionysian elation and elevation from which the artist gives of himself to reality and makes it reflect his own glory back upon him; _Repetition_, as a means of obtaining obedience; and _Variety_, as the indispensable condition of all living Art--all Art which is hortatory and which does not aim at repose alone, at sleep, and at soothing and lulling jaded and exasperated nerves,--these are the principal qualities of ruler-art, and any work which would be deficient in one of these qualities would thereby be utterly and deservedly condemned to take its place on a lower plane. Perhaps the greatest test of all, however, in regard to the worth of an artistic production is to inquire whence it came, what was its source. Has hunger or superabundance created it?[84] If the first, the work will make nobody richer. It will rather rob them of what they have. It is likely to be either (A) true to Nature, (B) uglier than Nature, or (C) absurdly unnatural. A is the product of the ordinary man, B is the product of the man below mediocrity, save in a certain manual dexterity, and C is the outcome of the tyrannical will of the sufferer,[85] who wishes to wreak his revenge on all that thrives, and is beautiful and happy, and which bids him weave fantastic worlds of his own, away from this one, where people of his calibre can forget their wretched ailments and evil humours, and wallow in their own feverish nightmares of overstrained, palpitating and neuropathic yearnings. A is poverty-realism or Police Art. B is pessimism and incompetent Art. C is Romanticism. Where superabundance is active, the work is the gift and the blessing of the will to power of some higher man. It will seem as much above Nature to mediocre people as its creator is above them. But, since it will brook no contradiction, it will actually value Nature afresh, and stimulate them to share in this new valuation. Where poverty is active, the work is an act of robbery. It is what psychologists call a reflex action resulting from a stimulus--the only kind of action that we understand nowadays: hence our belief in Determinism, Darwinism, and such explanations of Art as we find in books by Taine and other writers who share his views.