Man being the object of art, it is from the working of the various faculties of the human organism that Delsarte deduces the task of the artist; as from the knowledge of the essential modalities of the ego, he deduces his law of general æsthetics.

Just as the author examined the constituent modalities of our being in the light of æsthetics, he seized the affinities between the laws of speech, as far as regards the voicelogosand the moral manifestations of art.

From the fusion of these three states, in varying and incessant combination, and from the predominance of one of the primitive modalities, whether accidental or permanent, countless individualities are formed, each with its personal constitution, its shades of difference of education, habits, age, character, etc.

But though all of these primordial modalities appear in each concept and in all artistic manifestations, the proportion in which each appears is indefinitely variable.

In regard to quantity, every judgment is universal, particular, or singular; in regard to quality, affirmative, negative, or infinite; in regard to relation, categorical, hypothetical, or disjunctive; and in regard to modality, problematical, assertory, or apodictic.