B521 <=> B523 [BTG XXX Art, p. 522]

“The temple I referred to exists there even up till now and is called, it seems, ‘Mont-Saint-Michel.’

“In this Europe still several other inquiring beings noticed from time to time lawful inexactitudes in the works of various branches of art which had reached them from ancient times; but no sooner did they find the key to the understanding of these inexactitudes than their existence came to an end.

“Still one other, that is, another being from that continent Europe, also noticed them, and continuing to interest himself further and laboring perseveringly, he began fully to decipher the productions of almost all the branches of art.

“And this wise terrestrial three-brained being was named ‘Leonardo da Vinci.’

“At the conclusion of my present tale about the terrestrial contemporary art, I might as well, I think, remark about yet one other of the many specific particularities of just those beings of the contemporary civilization who are occupied with this famous art.

“This specific particularity of theirs is that whenever one or other of the mentioned beings, namely, of the beings who notice in various productions which have reached them from ancient times some very ‘lawful illogicality’ and begin to produce the given branch in quite a new manner, perhaps in order to make the said lawful illogicality practically clear to himself, then most of the beings around him belonging to the profession of the same branch at once become his followers and begin doing supposedly the same thing but of course without either aim or sense.