GUSTUS SPIRITUALIS: REMARKS ON THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN AESTHETICS

The article considers the concept of gustus spiritualis, in particular its possible historical connection with (aesthetic) taste in the seventeenth century. By ‘aesthetic’, I mean a radically modern phenomenon, attitude, sensibility, and so forth, that is, a new type of experience. Its discourse has many keywords; one of them is taste, an inner faculty by which its possessor is able to make sharp and proper distinctions, and simultaneously to enjoy fine delights. Here, I am obliged to confine myself to the interpretation of some Jesuit authors within the wide tradition of gustus spiritualis: St Ignatius of Loyola, St Francis de Sales, Baltasar Gracián, and Dominique Bouhours in sequence. The latter two are usually treated in the historical narratives of aesthetics, which, however, usually take gustus/gusto/goût as if it were a purely secular (moral, political) notion in the seventeenth century, while its theological roots are ignored. Exploring the role of gustus spiritualis in the evolution of (aesthetic) taste can cast light, on the one hand, on the important fact that this entails volition, that is, the determination and enchantment of human desire and hope without constraint; and, on the other, on the historical process of the emergence of a new type of ‘beholder’ with a sensitive attitude to transcendence, and, in the same manner, to his or her worldly life as well; moreover, it is a process in which, simultaneously, the nature of transcendence is transformed into a tastable one.

of délicatesse, perhaps the most important antecedent of 'the aesthetic' . 6 By this, I mean to say that the theological interest should not be excluded from their 'aesthetic' reflections. The concept of gustus spiritualis apparently offers itself for an inquiry into the theological 'burden' of modern (aesthetic) taste.
In the present article, I confine myself to the interpretation of some Jesuit Several other Jesuits of course played important roles in the history of aesthetics (in the wider sense of the term). For example, René Rapin and his Réflexions sur la poétique d'Aristote (Paris: Muguet, 1674), or Camillo Ettori and his Il buon gusto ne' componimenti rettorici (Bologna: Santi, 1696), or Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, who was a Jesuit sympathizer and author of Les délices de l'esprit: Dialogues (Paris: Audinet, 1677), in which the faculty of taste is treated as a proof of the existence of , and perhaps the last important Jesuit in the early history of aesthetics was Feijóo; see Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro, Theatro critico universal, 9 vols. (Madrid, 1726-40). 7 Here, I am thinking of the role of the Jesuit theological attitude in the historical progress of inventing the aesthetic; it is different and more specific than acknowledging in general the enormous importance of the Jesuit Order in modern European culture, education, and scholarship.

I
The tradition of the spiritual senses in Christian theology stemmed from Origen, whose intention might have been to introduce a faculty or experience called 'divine sense' , which 'transcends the rational and discursive operations of our intellect ' . 12 This 'divine sense' 13 is analogous, though distantly, to the bodily senses, and it seems to be able adequately to approach God. It therefore concerns not only vision -which is central in the tradition of Greek philosophy -, nor only audition -which is the most important divine sense in the Jewish (Old Testament) tradition -but all our bodily senses. Amongst them is taste. What concerns us here is the impact that Origen's doctrine of 'divine sense' had -probably through The first prelude is here the forming of the place; which is to set before the eyes of the imagination the length, breadth, and depth of hell. The second consists in asking for an intimate perception of the punishments which the damned undergo; that, if at any time I should be forgetful of the love of God, at least the fear of punishment may restrain me from sins. The first point is, to see by the imagination [vista de la imaginación] the vast fires of hell, and the souls inclosed in certain fiery bodies, as […] in dungeons. The second, to hear in imagination [oír con las orejas] the lamentations, the howlings, the exclamations, and the blasphemies against Christ and His saints, thence breaking forth. The third, to perceive by the smell also of the imagination [oler con el olfato], the smoke, the brimstone, and the stench of a kind of sink or filth, and of putrefaction. The fourth, to taste [gustar con el gusto] in like manner those most bitter things, as the tears, the rottenness, and the worm of conscience. The fifth, to touch [tocar con el tacto] in a manner those fires by the touch of which the souls themselves are burnt. 16 Though the etymology of the word imaginación can refer us to the image and, consequently, to the eyes, the description lists and equally stresses all five senses.
The point is to feel intensively and deeply the horrors of Hell by means of sensual perceptions through imagination. Here the general task is to taste (to feel) the bitterness, and not the divine sweetness, the abhorrence, not the felicity, the reprobation, not the salvation. Both experiences may be beneficial and meaningful for an exercitant -only the measure of intensity matters; consequently, all the senses have to be stimulated. Two points are traditionally discerned in Ignatian discourse: compositio loci -constructing the place in detail in a quasisensual image; and applicatio sensuum -stimulating all five senses to achieve an extraordinary experience which can produce a state of sensual and emotional deepness in the exercises of prayer and contemplation. Here Ignatius definitely belongs to -and at the same time also systematizes -the tradition of the application of the five senses and of raising the devotional emotions that stemmed from Origen's spiritual (divine) senses. 17 Contrary to Origen's conception, however, Ignatius does not make a sharp distinction between the sensual and the spiritual senses in his meditative exercises. Of course, it is quite different to burn the soul of exercitants with the flames of an imagined hell than to burn their bodies on a real fire. Yet both the characteristics of the excited feelings and the modes of operation of the senses involved are rather similar; at least the analogy between sensual and spiritual seems quite close. The exercitants have to feel pain, torment, and horror -it would thus be unreasonable to say that the bodily sensations do not play any role in this imaginative experience. To be sure, Ignatius also prescribes, for example, that light has to be excluded during meditation; a dark closet is recommended on these occasions. Yet he seems to suggest that the direction of the glance has to be turned inward from outside (that the concentration of inner perception is to be increased by ignoring secondary, external matters), but the nature of this sense ought not to be transformed (as in Origen). Concerning the fourth week, he says that the last exercise before dinner is the office of the senses being applied [traiendo los cinco sentidos sobre], in order to impress the more strongly on the mind the three contemplations made the same day, those parts or places being marked in passing, and handled thoroughly, in which we have felt more efficacious movements of the mind, and a greater spiritual relish [donde haya sentido mayores mociones y gustos spirituales]. 20 The motion and the spiritual relish (gustos spirituales) are the contents and the aim of final experience. The taste or relish is therefore not only one of the senses (sometimes even a seemingly distinguished sense) 21 to be stimulated, but is rather the model of the whole experience, the entire inner perception in the application of the senses.
There seems to be an intriguing difference in wording if one compares Ignatius's Exercises to De imitatione Christi, an earlier work now unequivocally attributed to Thomas à Kempis. Since its first publication in 1418, it has always been very influential and popular among religious books, and highly recommended, regardless of the denomination of the faithful. Ignatius too suggests its frequent reading. 22 In this one can find the following passage in the context of the renunciation of the body and turning away from worldly life: 18 Generally speaking, contemplation is always used by Ignatius with direct reference to the canonical narrative, while meditation 'generally denotes prayer on material not directly given in the Gospel. […] Quite evidently it was not taken up, even by the early generations of Jesuits. […] "meditation" is clearly being used to denote all forms of Ignatian imaginative prayer with the exception of the Application of the Senses. ' Endean,'Ignatian Prayer' , The interpretation of applicatio sensuum was always a matter of uncertainty in Jesuit theology, from the first followers to the twentieth-century interpreters like Joseph Maréchal and Hugo Rahner Conspicuously, following the long tradition evolved from Psalm 33:9, 24 amongst other passages in the Bible, Kempis also discusses the enjoyment of the sweetness of the word, the tasting of the delight of God's presence (and the distasting of, that is, the aversion to His absence), the flavour of Him in everything which is tasteful, and so forth. Yet the wording differs from Ignatius's: instead of (de)gusto, the verb sapio and its derivations occur. In Kempis, true taste or relish (sapis / sapiet) directly connects to true wisdom (sapientia) even through the common root of sapio, whereas Ignatius employs the word gusto and its derivations in similar contexts. 25 Kempis puts it clearly that there is nothing in common between spiritual joys and worldly delights, nor must there be. This is changed -or at this time at least is being changed -in Ignatius, and perhaps hence the altered phrasing, though I would not like to overemphasize this.
To be sure, both gusto and sapio have wide-ranging connotations; both are used in the intellectual or spiritual and in the bodily sense. Yet, on the one hand, gusto is not associated with sapientia and its traditional intellectual aura, and, on the other, amongst its meanings its sensual feature seems to be more characteristic, that is, to taste, to relish something with palate. So it has a somewhat closer connection to delicious food and drink. To eat -to taste and relish -something is a kind of internalization, a fusion of subject and object. Taste is the only sensual Gustus Spiritualis: Remarks on the Emergence of Modern Aesthetics sense which can offer a model of direct synthesis with the thing grasped, and its immediate distinction and enjoyment. It is worth remarking, especially with regard to the process of inventing the aesthetic, that this kind of experience ('internalization' , fusion or synthesis by means of fine distinction) is considerably different from the traditional mystical experience (and from unio mystica, its final goal) or from 'transportation into the beyond' . In other words, the movement of an Ignatian day of exercise with the climax of the application of the five senses 'is one from reflection on the scene to reflection of the scene, one of deepening imaginative involvement.
[…] Retreatants are challenged to react to the events of Christ's life, and to imagine how their own lives might become responses to those events. ' 26 The increasing significance of gusto can be demonstrated with Ignatius's second annotation in which the retreat-giver is asked to deliver faithfully but briefly the story for daily meditation: For the effect of this will be, that when [the exercitant] finds anything which may furnish something more of elucidation or of apprehension of the history, (whether this be effected by his own reasoning, or by divine illumination of the mind,) he will experience a more delightful taste and more abundant fruit [gusto y fructo spiritual], than if the matter itself had been more diffusely set forth and drawn out by another. For it is not the abundance of the knowledge, but the interior feeling and taste of the things, which is accustomed to satisfy the desire of the soul [no el mucho saber harta y satisface al ánima, mas el sentir y gusta de las cosas internamente]. 27 The Ignatian exercitant is not as passive as Origen's bride in his homily on the Song of Songs, since the spontaneity of 'his own reasoning' can be sufficient to achieve the experience (without the 'divine illumination of the mind') of more spiritual taste and spiritual fruit (gusto y fructo spiritual). Apprehension, reasoning, and eventually knowledge prove only a means to a spiritual end, to a superior experience, that is, to the inner sensation -the sense and taste (sentir y gusta) -of things, and it is simultaneously the utmost satisfaction of the soul. 28 So the Ignatian consummate spiritual involvement is formulated in terms of taste 26 Endean, 'Ignatian Prayer ' , 404. 27 Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, 1-2. The last sentence in the authorized Latin reads: 'Non enim abundantia scientiae, sed sensus et gustus rerum interior desiderium animae explere solet. ' Exercitia spiritualia, 53. 28 One of Ignatius's techniques of contemplation is a special kind of praying, in which the one praying slowly tastes and relishes the words of the prayer in succession, finding (and, in a sense, creating) a deeper, richer, and more extraordinary meaning of words in this way. We have to close our eyes or to fix them on one spot motionlessly, and 'to say the Lord's Prayer from the beginning, and on the first word, that is, on Pater, to fix the meditation [consideración] so long as [we find] various significations, likenesses, spiritual tastes, and other devout motions [significaciones, comparaciones, gustos y consolación] concerning that word; and in like manner we shall do successively with each word of the same or another prayer' . Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, 105-6.

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Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics, LI/VII, 2014, No. 1, 00-00 and sensation, and not in those of sight or hearing or both, which are traditionally considered the more intellectual senses, and as intimately connected to sapientia.
The influence and determination of the will of the faithful is involved by means of distasting the evil and tasting the bliss. As for Ignatius, experience that has a sensual character and emotional intensity can directly reach the heart, in other words, this experience can be internalized in the most efficient way to the heart. Intellectual insight (in a sense, knowledge) is less important; Ignatius is instead concerned with ways of convincing or conquering the heart. The theological interpretation of free will was linked to this question. Ignatius's followers would later face the Jansenist doctrine of 'efficacious grace' , according to which nobody can do good without the direct and irresistible divine impulse of volition. As for the members of the Society, however, everybody is bestowed with the 'sufficient grace' as adequate divine aid for choosing and doing right. The intensive sensual-emotional experience in meditation or other devotional practice can make this volitional potentiality actual, and with this it can prompt the soul to find the right way to salvation. 29 Slightly more than half a century later, a new kind of devotion emerged in St Francis de Sales. His Philothea, first published in 1609, was highly influential from the outset. Given that true devotion is rooted in the perfect love of God, he warns his readers against the prospective dangers of devotional exercises: the 'devotion does not always consist in that sweetness, delight, consolation, or sensible tenderness of heart [la dévotion ne consiste pas en la douceur, suavité consolation et tendreté sensible du coeur], which moves us to tears, and causes us to find satisfaction [une certaine satisfaction agréable] in some spiritual exercises ' . 30 In his book, the pious French Jesuit does not set out to invent an exact schedule and a series of prescriptions and rules for meditative, cure-like training in the spirit of military discipline for retreat-givers (and not primarily for exercitants). On The Ignatian approach helps the exercitant make the right choice also concerning his or her life, so it implicitly entails the orientation towards the world which later becomes explicit in St Francis de Sales and especially Baltasar Gracián. 30 Francis de Sales, Introduction to a Devout Life, trans. anon. (Regensburg: Pustet, n.d.), 315. For the French text, see Introduction à la vie dévote (Lyon: Perisse, 1832). 31 As the Saint himself writes: 'Almost all that have hitherto treated of devotion have had in view the instruction of persons wholly retired from the world; or have taught a kind of devotion leading to this absolute retirement; whereas my intention is to instruct such as live in towns, in families, or at court, and who, by their condition, are obliged to lead, as to the exterior, a common life [vie commune]. ' Sales, Introduction to a Devout Life, xv-xvi. primarily treated as part of an exegetical project or a training programme aiming at individual spiritual purification and strengthening. The ordinary devotional exercises can be harmful if the intensive feelings or emotions experienced become merely pleasant satisfaction or even 'entertainment' . In such cases, the believer looses the real meaning of devotion, which is simply to do good fervently, which God has in reserve for the souls that seek him; they are little delicacies which he gives to his children to allure them; they are the cordials with which he strengthens them, and they are also sometimes the earnest of eternal felicity. 33 The tender and delightful affections arising during different devotional exercises are to be considered gifts, heavenly awards by which God attracts the faithful to Himself. To put it a bit blasphemously: He enchants (even seduces) them for the good. It is true, by the fine 'tastes' of tenderness and sweetness in themselves, nobody becomes good. Though the faithful could know that God has to be loved for His own sake alone, many of them, like children, require the help of the Father.
This sweet aid manifests itself in the 'relish which we find in the things of God' .
These consolations are actually the foretastes of heavenly delights; and, at the same time, this holy cheerfulness penetrates the action of the faithful in this world, thus it makes their deeds beautiful and agreeable (belles et agréables). In other words, though devotion depends on good actions, indeed, the way these deeds are done belongs to the realm of goût, in which the echo of gustus spiritualis can be clearly heard, since this taste is said to relish immortal sweetness (suavités immortelles). In a passage of Philothea -though not using the term goût -, Francis de Sales seems to reflect on this shift in the tradition, that is, the dichotomy between (visible) divine beauty and (tastable) divine sweetness as the difference between past and present.
Here is the intriguing formulation of this In his well-known commentary on Gracián, Hans-Georg Gadamer writes that 'the concept of taste was originally more a moral than an aesthetic idea' . 38 To this one might add that the moral-social content of taste seems already to have a theological background. The phrase 'one of heaven's greatest gifts' in the end of the above aphorism is far from being a flower of speech. The word gusto occurs here neither in an exegetical context, nor in spiritual exercises, prayers, and so forth. It is quite telling that Gracián accurately omits biblical references in the Oráculo manual. This taste is primarily buen gusto -that is, at first glance, a social skill applying to many functions: it is a self-defensive weapon in the hostile social (courtly) world, it is a quick insight into complex, obscure, or embarrassing situations of everyday life, an aristocratic feature by which the one who possess it is able to differentiate himself from the vulgar, a necessary means to become an independent individual (persona), so to gain perfection. 39 In what follows, I shall concentrate on the heavenly aspects -stemming possibly from the gustus spiritualis tradition -which can be discerned in forming the world of good taste, that is, in the emerging cultural sphere of perfection. Gadamer continues: 'The mark of good taste is being able to stand back from ourselves and our private preferences. Thus taste, in its essential nature, is not private but a social phenomenon of the first order.' 40 I would argue that, conceived in terms of gustus spiritualis, this inherent sociability can find its pre-figuration in the communio with God (or at least in striving to gain this communio). And spiritual purification as a precondition of this communio can then be conceived as framing the pattern for getting rid of our 'private preferences' , and the demand of indispensable gymnasia and spiritual exercises (ejercicios) can be conceived as a model for the unceasing refinement of buen gusto. I am speaking of patterns and models which naturally require proper application to the new context. For Gadamer, Gracián proceeds from 'the sense of taste' , which is 'the most animal and most inward of our senses, [and] still contains the beginnings of the intellectual differentiation we make in judging things' . 41 [The] sensory differentiation of taste [argues Gadamer], which accepts or rejects in the most immediate way, is in fact not merely an instinct, but strikes a balance between sensory instinct and intellectual freedom.
[…] Thus Gracian already sees in taste a 'spiritualization of animality' [Vergeistigung der Animalität] and rightly points out that there is cultivation (cultura) not only of the mind (ingenio) but also of taste (gusto). 42 Albeit the exact reference is lacking, Gadamer is probably referring to Aphorism 65, which can, however, also be read from another point of view: not as an explication of the spiritualization 43 of animality in taste, 44 but as the worldly application of gustus, well known from Origen's tradition of the divine senses: Geist (spirit) in Gadamer's Vergeistigung goes back to Hegel, so, roughly speaking, it has to do with a kind of 'intellectualization' and not with the spirit taken in theological sense. The point here is not to offer a criticism of Gadamer's interpretation, but simply to call attention to another possible branch of the tradition of taste, which concentrates on the connection between taste and volition, and not (as has been done, especially by the Germans beginning with Johann Christoph Gottsched and Alexander Baumgarten) on the intellectuality or rationality of this faculty. 44 For example, in Meditation 49 of his El Comulgatorio, Gracián illustrates the hunger of a baby, its urgent desire for a breast, the vehement voices and gestures of appetite mostly as the instinctive behaviours of different animals, and, at the same time, he offers them as examples to be imitated for a soul desiring communio with God: the soul has to increase its animal-like or instinctive yearnings (here it is also gusto) to make the desired communio really fruitful for itself, to be able to 'enjoy, taste, eat, and be delighted [goza, gusta, come  Thus, taste can indeed be cultivated and, as such, it is therefore concerned with intellect (they seem somewhat compatible with each other, running collaterally, so to speak). But this means neither that it must be achieved in the same way in both cases nor that elevated taste would be 'closer' or more 'similar' to understanding (or 'further' from instinct) than a still uncultivated taste already is.
Instead, the aphorism states that a man with higher understanding has more requirements and finer ones in the fields of taste, too: more appetites, desires, and, consequently, enjoyments. By means of this elevation, the man of taste can withdraw from the average, the mean, the natural (in terms of harshness and grossness) and thus from the barbarous state, in order to form a new, artificial world, that of buen gusto, as his proper abode.
A man with great capacity needs great things -the large palate of sensual taste longs for large bites, just as sublime genius longs for sublime things. There is an intimate connection between sensual taste and sublime genius in the sense of longing, appetite, and affection. The man of refined taste belongs to an informal (cultural) élite, has great authority over others in his choices and judgements. This authority is based on a superior quality unavailable to many (indeed, unlearnable), and cannot be codified in rules or any system of doctrine. To acquire and refine taste, one needs to be in contact with other members of the élite of taste. Here, the exercises consist of social intercourse and public conversations. Whereas with gustus spiritualis, the exercitant has to withdraw into a solitary state of meditation or contemplation or into an intimate dialogue with his retreat-giver, with buen gusto, the courtier has to engage in social intercourse. During the exercises, the former wants to meet God for bliss and salvation, the latter wants to meet his 45 Gracián, Art of Worldly Wisdom, no. 65.

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Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics, LI/VII, 2014, No. 1, 00-00 fellows (of his élite, at least) for perfection. Gracián's formulation in Aphorism 93 may show the courtier's tendency to go beyond worldly (social) practice, and, with this, its divine connotation: 'since Nature made man a compendium of the whole natural world, let art make him a universe by training his taste and intellect [ejercicio y cultura del gusto y del entendimiento]' . 46 One also finds a direct 'heavenly' reference in Aphorism 65 on gusto relevante.
Even if only from the criticism of affectation, it is clear that elevated taste longs for perfections which are the most sublime creatures of God, and obtain their dignity from the order of the universe He created. One adapts oneself to what exists in society, but that does not mean that one wisely accepts the opinions of others, that is, the 'public taste' -as Aphorism 133 seems to claim: 'What matters is to follow the current;' or Aphorism 270: 'What everyone says either is or wants to be' -, but taste, though it has to respect and consider the judgements of others, accepts and confirms the divine order, too. The latter seems to serve as the interpretative frame for the former. of the human mind does not help one to obey this rule. 'What a sad [infelicidad] age this is, when virtue is rare and malice is common. The prudent [discreto] must live as best they can, though not as they would like to. May they prefer what luck granted them to what it withheld!' We have to adapt ourselves to the present, to the circumstances in which we have to live -and to do our best in those adverse conditions. Compared to the practice of virtue, taste stands on the pragmatic side; it can bring the person who possesses it closer to the unchangeable, eternal ideal, Gustus Spiritualis: Remarks on the Emergence of Modern Aesthetics 46 Ibid., no. 93. To attain the state of universal man, of completed personality, of autonomous individuality, the cultivation and exercise of taste and of understanding are indispensable, yet taste and manners are somewhat more essential, since 'wisdom herself is coarse when polish is lacking [aun la misma sabiduría fue grosera, si desaliñada]. Not only must understanding be refined [aliñado], but also our desires and especially our conversation [y más el conversar]. Some people show a natural refinement both in their inner and outer gifts, their concepts and words, in their bodily adornment (which is like the bark) and their spiritual gifts (the fruit). Others are so gross that they tarnish everything, even their fine qualities [eminencias], with an unbearable barbaric sloppiness [intolerable bárbaro desaseo]. ' Ibid.,no. 87. to virtue, to a life of devotion. Apart from the pragmatic, even occasionally cynical, tone, there is also a nostalgic bitterness when Gracián speaks about the 'good old days' when 'good people' were not rare, and were always imitated. Nevertheless, taste can be the one true aid at present: 'Don't think [discurrir] like an ancient; taste [gustar] like a modern' , 47 for taste can discern and enjoy the good and perfection even in bad circumstances: Go straight to the good [lo bueno] in everything. It is the happy lot of those with good taste [buen gusto]. The bee goes straight for sweetness, and the viper for the bitterness it needs for its poison. So with tastes [gustos]: some go for the best, others for the worst. There is nothing that doesn't have something good, especially books, where good is imagined [pensado].
[…] Others have a happier sort of taste [gusto]: among a thousand defects they discover some perfection [perfección] that good luck happened to let drop. 48 The operation of good taste in discovering the good is similar to the activity of a bee in finding sweetness or of a viper in finding bitterness. 49 The analogy drawn between good taste and sensual taste is still strong; and the goodness in buen gusto can be understood as its capacity of grasping the best, the perfection 'among a thousand defects' . The emphasis here has also remarkably changed in the function of taste. While in St Francis de Sales the consolations of benevolent God render the ways to devotional life sweet to taste, in Gracián gusto is presumably the only faculty -from heaven -that can discern or relish the good in a corrupted world.
The one who possesses buen gusto, the social sage, appears in different figures in the Oráculo manual: the discreto (the prudent), the hombre en su punto (the consummate person), the persona la cultura (the true person), the hombre universal (the universal man), the prodigio (the marvel), and the sabio (the wise). 50 The last is particularly intriguing: The wise are sufficient unto themselves. One of them carried all of his belongings with him.
[…] Why should you need anyone else if no taste [mayor gusto] and no understanding [mayor concepto] is superior to yours? You will depend only on yourself; the greatest happiness is to resemble the Supreme Entity. The person who can live by himself is in 47 Ibid., no. 120, my emphasis. The latter distinction can be seen as a worldly version of St Francis de Sales's distinction between visible (eventually intellectual) beauty and the tastable sweetness of divinity (see above). 48 Ibid. 49 The metaphor of sweetness and bitterness is more complicated; for example, 'Those who feel nothing are not really people. They don't always act that way out of insensitivity but often out of stupidity. To feel strongly [sentimiento], when circumstances call for it, makes you a person [acto personal]. […] To alternate the bitter with the sweet [lo agrio con lo dulce] shows good taste [buen gusto]: sweetness alone is for children and fools. ' Ibid.,no. 266. 50 Ibid.,nos. 6,87,93,298,and 137.

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Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics, LI/VII, 2014, No. 1, 00-00 no way a brute; in many ways he is a wise man, in every way a god [El que puede pasar así a solas, nada tendrá de bruto, sino mucho de sabio y todo de Dios]. 51 The autarchic figure of the sabio, on the one hand, exists outside society; since he no longer needs the company of others, he should not exercise, cultivate, or refine himself more, because he is perfectly consummated. On the other hand, having achieved his aim, he has become entirely 'a god [todo de Dios]' .
The question whether this is an unattainable ideal, but never attainable condition in the present age, or is merely rarely attainable, is secondary. This aphorism suggests that the great cultural exercising organized by and around social good taste does have an ideal goal -namely, the apotheosis of the individual: perfect communio with God.
The figure of the sabio can also be illuminated by the figure of the politico, who is ever bound in the apparently relativistic sphere of society, is always obliged to 'go with the current' , and has no chance of ascending to the (solitary) state of the sabio: 'To live by yourself, you must be very godly [mucho de Dios] or a complete savage [todo de bestia]. ' 52 From this perspective, it is fair to see Gracián's enterprise as the secular application of Ignatius's spiritual exercises: the Oráculo manual is a compendium of witty maxims for courtiers, concerning how to live and survive in society; Ejercicios espirituales is a compendium of strict rules for retreat-givers (and, indirectly, for exercitants), concerning how to enter and live in the Society (of Jesus); 53 the former sets the ideal of perfection in the sabio; the goal of the latter is perfect communio; the former identifies the finest faculty necessary to achieve perfection with buen gusto; the latter models the supreme inner experience of communio (or the internalization of divinity) after gustus spiritualis.
For Gracián, buen gusto remains sensual or instinctive by nature and it is a gift from heaven. 54 Thus, the progress from the level of animality -the condition of the beast (bestia) -truly means ascension, by means of cultural exercises, to the state of the social sage, then to the state of the consummate personality who is eventually outside society, that is, toward the ideal of apotheosis. A side-effect, so to speak, of this process is that the same cultivation forms a new society of buen gusto and a new set of social skills and qualities in which gusto is in harmony Gustus Spiritualis: Remarks on the Emergence of Modern Aesthetics 51 Gracián,Art of Worldly Wisdom,no. 137. 52 Ibid., no. 133. The politicians are characterized by the terms sanity (cordura), madness (locura), and pretence (afectar), not by buen gusto or prudence. with prudence. The relationship between the divine (spiritual) and the prudential 'function' of buen gusto in Gracián's project may be similar to that between divine and human means, just as his famous sentence inspired by Ignatius says: 'Use human means [medios humanos] as though divine [divinos] ones didn't exist, and divine means as though there were no human ones. ' 55 Nevertheless, for the divine project the sensual or instinctive element of taste must be judiciously increased, and its inherent heavenly 'contents' must be perfectly exploited, instead of transcending its instinctive nature.
This inherent connection between instinctive and divine can be better demonstrated using El Comulgatorio, which directly imitates Ignatius's exercises a hundred years later. This work has usually been considered a failure, so is rarely discussed; as far as I know it is mentioned in no histories of modern aesthetics.
Its effective imagery is also intended to stimulate the senses and to increase the effects to the extreme. Its style is more sophisticated than Ignatius's, but it clearly manifests Ignatian inspiration and the influence of the composition of the Ejercicios espirituales. 56 The sixteenth meditation of El Comulgatorio merits particular attention for the purposes of our discussion. In this exercise, communio with God is imagined as participation in a heavenly banquet. In the second step of the meditation, Gracián offers the familiar sensual image of a worldly banquet with an abundance of food prepared in a great variety of dishes, from which each guest can choose according to his or her taste (su gusto), and eat anything that delights the palate (comiendo al sabor de su paladar). At that very point, the text changes to the subject of a heavenly feast: 'you who to-day are seated at the infinitely dainty Banquet which the power The fourth section is for thanksgiving. The guests, satisfied with gustatory pleasures (gustosos convidados), remain at the table of the Lord, converse with Him, praise the meal, and give thanks to Him. One commends one dish, another praises another, 'each guest according to the delight he experienced [según el gusto que percibió]' . Partaking of God (comiste a Dios), the soul renders eternal gratitude (eternas gracias) to the host of the feast, and fervently prays to Him in the future, thus she or he is able to converse (conversando) with Him after the banquet (or actually between two banquets, since the guests have been promised another). Moreover, the soul shows good taste (buen gusto) in knowing how to partake of God, and how to be able to praise Him. And the guest is coming to the next banquet with one of these considerations: 'to-day feeding on the dainty Heart of the Lamb of God [sabroso corazón del Corderito de Dios], another day upon His feet and wounded Hands' , for although the soul receives 'Him each time all entire, nevertheless to-day feast with special appetite on that Though the whole dialogue merits detailed analysis, here I shall only briefly discuss the end, where it becomes absolutely clear that this discourse is also, perhaps even primarily, theological, an implicit polemic with the Jansenists.
The two friends agree that everything worth admiring in this world contains a je ne sais quoi which 'surprises us' , 'dazzles us' , 'charms us' . And this mysterious quality is 'the focal point of most of our passions:' especially desire and hope -occupying the whole of human life -'have practically no other foundation' . Because 'beyond the goal we have set for ourselves there is always something else to which we unceasingly aspire and which we never attain' . At this point, the initially worldly (occasionally frivolous) dialogue explicitly takes a theological turn: [T]o speak in a Christian fashion of the je ne sasi quoi, is there not a mysterious something in us which makes us feel [nous fait sentir], despite all the weakness and disorders of corrupt nature, that our souls are immortal, that the grandeurs of the earth cannot satisfy us, that there is something beyond ourselves which is the goal of our desires [le terme de nos desires] and the centre of that felicity which we everywhere seek and never find? Do not really faithful souls recognize, as one of the Fathers of Church says, that we were made Christians not for the goods of this life but for something on an entirely different order [pour je ne sais quoi d'un autre ordre], which God promises to us in this life but which man cannot yet imagine [concevoir]? Then […] this mysterious quality partakes of the essence of grace [le je ne sais quoi est de la grâce] as well as of nature and art. 64 This passage, including the statement on the corruption of human nature, the reference to St Augustine, 65 and the last sentence on divine grace, evidently connects this excursus to the Jesuit-Jansenist debate, in other words, it convincingly demonstrates that this theological dispute is the final interpretative frame for the dialogue. Bouhours -by means of the two characters in his dialogue -distinctly claims that the most important experiences determining or enchanting our hopes and desires -that is, our volition -are, without constraint, to be felt, tasted (or foretasted, as in St Francis de Sales), and sensed, but cannot be grasped or comprehended by reason or conceived by means of rational concepts. Divine grace as a je ne sais quoi is tastable -and all human desires and passions can properly be understood from this 'aesthetic' point of view.
In the history of aesthetics it has been a commonplace to say that Gracián's concept of gusto (in association with other related keywords) is the beginning of Here Bouhours cites from St Augustine's 127th Sermon in a marginal note. The following passages are intentionally formulated in Augustinian language, and contain further explicit references to Augustine's other works in marginal notes.