THE AIMS AND METHODS OF INDIAN . ART. 19"

^n abstruse calculation ; the conception that flashes into
the artist's mind, all these represent some true vision of
the Idea underlying phenomenal experience, some message
from the * exhaustless source of truth,' Jdeal art^.iiS^thwS"
rather j, sjg>irjj^al_dl^^ It differs

from science in its concern primarily with subjective things,
things, as they are for us, rather than in themselves.
Empirical science is a record of * facts ' ; art is the controlled
.and rhythmic expression of emotion. But both art and
science have the common aim of unity ; of formulating
natural laws.

The real aim, both of art and of science^ is to reach
the type, the Platonic Idea. Art seeks this en^

s1Łnt^ science only inductively, and

.analytically. , ,

Genius may be metaphorically described as a thin-
ning of the veil, or a permeability of the diaphragm,
which, as it were, separates the conscious „ jfroBkJJbLe
superconscious self. It is characteristic of genius that
ideas, inspiration, appear to arrive altogether from outside
the ordinary Q^gm^consciousness. They originate in fact
in a region external to the mere intellect j^^^s)^ being
.apprehended by the reasonj(iw^^) acting as a sixth sense
organ (intuition). As unity is the characteristic of,
buddhic consciousness, so it is characteristic of ideas thus
apprehended, that they are * seen ' or 4 heard '. as a whole,
and have as it were to be subsequently disentangled in
space and time.

A great poem or picture or musical composition is
thus first apprehended as a unity ; . by concentration, the
details of this presentation may be developed, like the
image on a photographic plate. The most effective genius
;$ one in whom this process Of development is most per?