Of course, Raphael put them in there! “Alas!” say his critics, “what a fatal mistake! What have those two figures to do there but to mar the work! All for the gratification of a selfish pride!” Always trust an Artist to dispose of the Finite; he, of all men, knows how to digest it and subordinate it to the idea. Raphael wanted just such figures in just that place. Of course, the most natural thing in the world that could happen, would be the ascent of some one to bear the message to Christ that there was need of him below. But what is the effect of that upon the work as a piece of Romantic Art? It would destroy that characteristic, if permitted in certain forms. Raphael, however, seizes upon this incident to show the entire spiritual character of the upper part of the picture. The disciples are dazzled so, that even the firm Peter cannot endure the light at all. Is this a physical light? Look at the messengers that have come up the mountain! Do their eyes indicate anything bright, not to say dazzling? They stand there with supplicating looks and gestures, but see no transfiguration. It must be confessed, Cardinal de Medici, that your uncle and father are not much complimented, after all; they are merely natural men, and have no inner sense by which to see the Eternal Verities that illume the mystery of existence! Even if you are Cardinal, and they were Popes’ counselors, they never saw anything higher in Religion than what should add comfort to us here below! No! The transfiguration, as Raphael clearly tells us, was a Spiritual one: Christ, on the mountain with his favored three disciples, opened up such celestial clearness in his exposition of the truth, that they saw Moses and Elias, as it were, combined in one Person, and a new Heaven and a new Earth arose before them, and they were lost in that revelation of infinite splendor. In closing, a remark forces itself upon us with reference to the comparative merits of Raphael and Michael Angelo. Raphael is the perfection of Romantic Art. Michael Angelo is almost a Greek. His paintings all seem to be pictures of statuary. In his grandest—The Last Judgment—we have the visible presence as the highest. Art with him could represent the Absolute. With Raphael it could only, in its loftiest flights, express its own impotence. Whether we are to consider Raphael or Michael Angelo as the higher artist, must be decided by an investigation of the merits of the “Last Judgment.” INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. CHAPTER I.