Those who are familiar with the writings of M. Jacques Maritain will remember his summary of the ancient and mediaeval teaching upon art. The foundation of these doctrines was tha distinction between the speculative and the practical reason. In the first category were placed philosophy and pure science, in the second, action and making. Any man seeking knowledge, directing his actions or making objects, was equipped for his task by a habitus, a virtue which (perfecting and directing his natural gifts) could be perfected itself by correct training and right use.

The maker, artist, or artisan, working in matter, gave it a shape or form already conceived in his mind. The genesis and perfection of this spiritual form depended upon the end in view, the degree of habitus in the artist and his sincerity in the use of his gift. The form once achieved, the difficult work of individualising it in matter demanded skill, discipline, technique. The end and principle of the whole operation, however, was the intellectual form without which no art was possible. The genesis of the form requiring a true intellectual habitus, a right appreciation of the end in view; the shaping of the matter demanding a just estimate of its possibilities and an adequate ordering of the means to the end, it is clear the basis of the classical theory of making is the reason. Reason being the distinctive mark of man, we may qualify this doctrine as essentially human.