These deviations can lead in various directions. Following the distinctions and terminology of an eminent Italian philosopher[2] in an analogous case, we shall be inclined to say that they arise either from _excess_ or from _defect._ The deviation from defect would be that which denies the existence of a special æsthetic and imaginative activity, or, which amounts to the same thing, denies its autonomy, and thus mutilates the reality of the spirit. Deviation by excess is that which substitutes for it or imposes upon it another activity, altogether undiscoverable in the experience of the interior life, a mysterious activity which does not really exist. Both these deviations, as can be deduced from the theoretical part of this work, take various forms. The first, that due to defect, may be: (_a_) _purely hedonistic,_ in so far as it considers and accepts art as a simple fact of sensuous pleasure; (_b_) _rigoristic-hedonistic,_ in so far as, looking upon it in the same way, it declares it to be irreconcilable with the highest life of man; (_c_) _hedonistic-moralistic_ or _pedagogic,_ in so far as it consents to a compromise, and while still considering art to be a fact of sense, declares that it need not be harmful, indeed that it may render some service to morality, provided always that it is submissive and obedient.[3] The forms of the second deviation (which we shall call "mystical") are not determinable _a priori,_ for they belong to feeling and imagination in their infinite variety and shades of meaning.[4] [Sidenote: _Mistaken tendencies, and attempts towards an Æsthetic, in Græco-Roman antiquity._] The Græco-Roman world presents all these fundamental forms of deviation: pure hedonism, moralism or pedagogism, mysticism, and together with them the most solemn and celebrated rigoristic negation of art which has ever been made. It also exhibits attempts at the theory of expression or pure imagination; but nothing more than approaches and attempts. Hence, since we must now take sides in the controversy as to whether Æsthetic is an ancient or modern science, we cannot but place ourselves upon the side of those who affirm its modernity. A rapid glance at the theories of antiquity will suffice to justify what we have said. We say rapid, because to enter into minute particulars, collecting all the scattered observations of ancient writers upon art, would be to do again what has been done many times and sometimes very well. Further, those ideas, propositions and theories have passed into the common patrimony of knowledge, together with what else remains of the classical world. It is therefore more advisable here than in any other part of this history merely to indicate the general lines of development. [Sidenote: Origin of the æsthetic problem in Greece.]