This explanation does not apply, however, to such special qualities as, for instance, symmetry and proportion. Neither can it be denied that these qualities may be of incalculable importance in art as means of heightening the effectiveness of the work. But we hold that a problem like that of symmetry belongs to the science of beauty rather than to the theory of art. By a symmetrical arrangement of its parts, or by a right proportion between them, an object may indeed become a thing of beauty; but it acquires an artistic character only in so far as this symmetry and proportion perform or assist the function of expression. Even among the most authors who lay most stress on the paramount importance of form there are few who contend that these abstract qualities can by themselves bestow the title of art upon a work or a manifestation. Quite different is the case of those æsthetic laws which have been deduced from the arts of description. As the majority of writers on æsthetic have restricted their attention to works of art in which nature has been imitated or represented, it is only natural that artistic merit should be thought to depend on the relation of the copy to the original. The most simple explanation is undoubtedly that which is adopted by a large section of the public, viz., that an artistic manifestation is perfect in proportion as it gives a faithful rendering of objective nature. For all that has been contended by the opponents of the realistic movements which predominated in the eighties, we do not think that many producing authors have been guided in their work by such narrow notions. In æsthetic literature at least so radical a realism has been upheld only by a few isolated authors.[154] Ever since Aristotle’s time it has been laid down that a work of art must be something other and better than a mere copy. And æsthetic science from its first beginning has in the main agreed upon the general principles by which artistic imitation attains perfection. These principles, formulated with varying clearness in the earlier systems, have found their most philosophical elaboration in the works of Vischer and Taine. In his Hegelian terminology the German author puts it that the work of art must show us, in an æsthetic semblance, the full and whole presence of an idea which is underlying the things represented. In the philosophy of Taine, which, by making science its point of departure, differs so greatly from Hegelianism and yet resembles it so strikingly in general character, the same thought has been expressed in the doctrine of dominant qualities.[155] If these criteria are divested of the technical garb which makes them so inconvenient to handle, they appear to rest ultimately on a simple observation which may be repeated in all æsthetic experience. We find in all descriptive art-works a subordination of qualities supposed to be of inferior importance to what philosophers of Taine’s school term “la faculté maîtresse.” In