Baumgarten did not extensively develop his comment that art must be touching, but this became central to Meier’s aesthetics. In his early work on the emotions, Meier emphasized that aesthetics should deal with the passions because they have a “strong influence on sensible cognition.” His position is not just that the passions have influence on sensible cognition, but that they are themselves a great source of sensible pleasure, and that it is therefore part of the aim of art to arouse them. Meie