stimulation is likely to come from such exercise as is
characterized by the mutual checking of antagonistic impulses
producing an equilibrium. The diffusion of stimulation would be
our formula for the aesthetic state only if interpreted as
stimulation arresting action.

<1> _Problemes de l'Esthetique Contemporaine_ 1902, p. 77.

The diffusion of stimulation, the equilibrium of impulses, life-
enhancement through repose!--this is the aesthetic experience.
But how, then, it will be asked, are we to interpret the temporal
arts? A picture or a statue maybe understood through this formula,
but hardly a drama or a symphony. If the form of the one is
symmetry, hidden or not, would not the form of the other be
represented by a straight line? That which has beginning, middle,
and end is not static but dynamic.

Let us consider once more the concept of equilibrium. Inhibition
of action through antagonistic impulses, or action returning upon
itself, we have defined it; and the line cannot be drawn sharply
between these types. The visual analogue for equilibrium may be
either symmetrical figure or circle; the excursion from the
centre may be either the swing of the pendulum or the sweep of
the planet. The RETURN is the essential. Now it is a commonplace
of criticism--though the significance of the dictum has never been
sufficiently seen--that the great drama, novel, or symphony does
return upon itself. The excursion is merely longer, of a different
order of impulses from that of the picture. The last note is the
only possible answer to the first; it contains the first. The
last scene has meaning only as the satisfaction of the first. The