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diff --git a/26842-h/26842-h.htm b/26842-h/26842-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f39f42 --- /dev/null +++ b/26842-h/26842-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7520 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sense of Beauty, by George Santayana</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-top:100px; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 75%;} +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sense of Beauty, by George Santayana + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sense of Beauty + Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory + +Author: George Santayana + +Release Date: October 8, 2008 [EBook #26842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SENSE OF BEAUTY *** + + + + +Produced by Ruth Hart + + + + + +</pre> + +<center> +<p>[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to +the beginning of the text and slightly modified it to conform with the online +format. I have also made one spelling change: "ominiscient intelligence" +to "omniscient intelligence".]</p> + +<br> +<br> + +<p>THE SENSE OF BEAUTY</p> + +<p>BEING THE OUTLINES OF AESTHETIC THEORY</p> + +<p>by</p> + +<p>GEORGE SANTAYANA<br></p> +<br> + +<p>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br> +NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON</p> + +<br> + +<p>COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY<br> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p> + +<br> + +<p>Printed in the United States of America<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CONTENTS<br> +<br></p> + +<table id="table1"> +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x01">Preface</a></td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x02">Introduction — The Methods of Aesthetics</a></td> + +<td align="right">1-13</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td> </td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x03">Part I. — The Nature of Beauty</a></td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 1. </td> + +<td><a href="#01">The philosophy of beauty is a theory of values</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 14</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 2. </td> + +<td><a href="#02">Preference is ultimately irrational</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 18</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 3. </td> + +<td><a href="#03">Contrast between moral and aesthetic values</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 28</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 4. </td> + +<td><a href="#04">Work and play</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 25</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 5. </td> + +<td><a href="#05">All values are in one sense aesthetic</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 28</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 6. </td> + +<td><a href="#06">Aesthetic consecration of general principles</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 31</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 7. </td> + +<td><a href="#07">Contrast of aesthetic and physical pleasures</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 35</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 8. </td> + +<td><a href="#08">The differentia of aesthetic pleasure not its +disinterestedness</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 37</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 9. </td> + +<td><a href="#09">The differentia of aesthetic pleasure not its universality</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 40</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 10. </td> + +<td><a href="#10">The differential of aesthetic pleasure: its +objectification</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 44</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 11. </td> + +<td><a href="#11">The definition of beauty</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 49</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td> </td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x04">Part II. — The Materials of Beauty</a></td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 12. </td> + +<td><a href="#12">All human functions may contribute to the sense of beauty</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 53</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 13. </td> + +<td><a href="#13">The influence of the passion of love</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 56</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 14. </td> + +<td><a href="#14">Social instincts and their aesthetic influence</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 62</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 15. </td> + +<td><a href="#15">The lower senses</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 65</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 16. </td> + +<td><a href="#16">Sound</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 68</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 17. </td> + +<td><a href="#17">Colour</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 72</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 18. </td> + +<td><a href="#18">Materials surveyed</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 76</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td> </td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x05">Part III. — Form</a></td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 19. </td> + +<td><a href="#19">There is a beauty of form</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 82</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 20. </td> + +<td><a href="#20">Physiology of the perception of form</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 85</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 21. </td> + +<td><a href="#21">Values of geometrical figures</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 88</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 22. </td> + +<td><a href="#22">Symmetry</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 91</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 23. </td> + +<td><a href="#23">Form the unity of a manifold</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 95</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 24. </td> + +<td><a href="#24">Multiplicity in uniformity</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 97</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 25. </td> + +<td><a href="#25">Example of the stars</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 100</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 26. </td> + +<td><a href="#26">Defects of pure multiplicity</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 106</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 27. </td> + +<td><a href="#27">Aesthetics of democracy</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 110</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 28. </td> + +<td><a href="#28">Values of types and values of examples</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 112</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 29. </td> + +<td><a href="#29">Origin of types</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 116</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 30. </td> + +<td><a href="#30">The average modified in the direction of pleasure</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 121</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 31. </td> + +<td><a href="#31">Are all things beautiful?</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 126</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 32. </td> + +<td><a href="#32">Effects of indeterminate form</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 131</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 33. </td> + +<td><a href="#33">Example of landscape</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 133</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 34. </td> + +<td><a href="#34">Extensions to objects usually not regarded aesthetically</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 138</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 35. </td> + +<td><a href="#35">Further dangers of indeterminateness</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 142</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 36. </td> + +<td><a href="#36">The illusion of infinite perfection</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 146</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 37. </td> + +<td><a href="#37">Organized nature the source of apperceptive forms</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 152</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 38. </td> + +<td><a href="#38">Utility the principle of organization in nature</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 155</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 39. </td> + +<td><a href="#39">The relation of utility to beauty</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 157</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 40. </td> + +<td><a href="#40">Utility the principle of organization in the arts</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 160</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 41. </td> + +<td><a href="#41">Form and adventitious ornament</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 163</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 42. </td> + +<td><a href="#42">Syntactical form</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 167</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 42. </td> + +<td><a href="#43">Literary form. The plot</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 171</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 44. </td> + +<td><a href="#44">Character as an aesthetic form</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 174</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 45. </td> + +<td><a href="#45">Ideal characters</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 176</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 46. </td> + +<td><a href="#46">The religious imagination</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 180</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 47. </td> + +<td><a href="#47">Preference is ultimately irrational</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 185</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td> </td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x06">Part IV. — Expression</a></td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 48. </td> + +<td><a href="#48">Expression defined</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 192</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 49. </td> + +<td><a href="#49">The associative process</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 198</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 50. </td> + +<td><a href="#50">Kinds of value in the second term</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 201</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 51. </td> + +<td><a href="#51">Aesthetic value in the second term</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 205</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 52. </td> + +<td><a href="#52">Practical value in the same</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 208</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 53. </td> + +<td><a href="#53">Cost as an element of effect</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 211</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 54. </td> + +<td><a href="#54">The expression of economy and fitness</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 214</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 55. </td> + +<td><a href="#55">The authority of morals over aesthetics</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 218</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 56. </td> + +<td><a href="#56">Negative values in the second term</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 221</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 57. </td> + +<td><a href="#57">Influence of the first term in the pleasing expression of evil</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 226</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 58. </td> + +<td><a href="#58">Mixture of other expressions, including that of truth</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 228</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 59. </td> + +<td><a href="#59">The liberation of self</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 233</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 60. </td> + +<td><a href="#60">The sublime independent of the expression of evil</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 239</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 61. </td> + +<td><a href="#61">The comic</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 245</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 62. </td> + +<td><a href="#62">Wit</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 250</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 63. </td> + +<td><a href="#63">Humour</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 253</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 64. </td> + +<td><a href="#64">The grotesque</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 256</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 65. </td> + +<td><a href="#65">The possibility of finite perfection</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 258</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 66. </td> + +<td><a href="#66">The stability of the ideal</a></td> + +<td align="right"> 263</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td> </td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">§ 67. </td> + +<td><a href="#x07">Conclusion</a></td> + +<td align="right">266-270</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x08">Footnotes</a></td> + +<td align="right"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"> </td> + +<td><a href="#x09">Index</a></td> + +<td align="right">271-275</td> +</tr> +</table> +</center><br> +<br> +<a name="x01" id="x01"></a><br> + +<p>PREFACE</p> + +<p>This little work contains the chief ideas gathered together for a course of +lectures on the theory and history of aesthetics given at Harvard College from +1892 to 1895. The only originality I can claim is that which may result from the +attempt to put together the scattered commonplaces of criticism into a system, +under the inspiration of a naturalistic psychology. I have studied sincerity +rather than novelty, and if any subject, as for instance the excellence of +tragedy, is presented in a new light, the change consists only in the stricter +application to a complex subject of the principles acknowledged to obtain in our +simple judgments. My effort throughout has been to recall those fundamental +aesthetic feelings the orderly extension of which yields sanity of judgment and +distinction of taste.</p> + +<p>The influences under which the book has been written are rather too general +and pervasive to admit of specification; yet the student of philosophy will not +fail to perceive how much I owe to writers, both living and dead, to whom no +honour could be added by my acknowledgments. I have usually omitted any +reference to them in foot-notes or in the text, in order that the air of +controversy might be avoided, and the reader might be enabled to compare what is +said more directly with the reality of his own experience.</p> + +<p> G. S.<br> + September, 1906.</p><br> +<a name="x02" id="x02"></a><br> + +<p>INTRODUCTION</p> + +<p>The sense of beauty has a more important place in life than aesthetic theory +has ever taken in philosophy. The plastic arts, with poetry and music, are the +most conspicuous monuments of this human interest, because they appeal only to +contemplation, and yet have attracted to their service, in all civilized ages, +an amount of effort, genius, and honour, little inferior to that given to +industry, war, or religion. The fine arts, however, where aesthetic feeling +appears almost pure, are by no means the only sphere in which men show their +susceptibility to beauty. In all products of human industry we notice the +keenness with which the eye is attracted to the mere appearance of things: great +sacrifices of time and labour are made to it in the most vulgar manufactures; +nor does man select his dwelling, his clothes, or his companions without +reference to their effect on his aesthetic senses. Of late we have even learned +that the forms of many animals are due to the survival by sexual selection of +the colours and forms most attractive to the eye. There must therefore be in our +nature a very radical and wide-spread tendency to observe beauty, and to value +it. No account of the principles of the mind can be at all adequate that passes +over so conspicuous a faculty.</p> + +<p>That aesthetic theory has received so little attention from the world is not +due to the unimportance of the subject of which it treats, but rather to lack of +an adequate motive for speculating upon it, and to the small success of the +occasional efforts to deal with it. Absolute curiosity, and love of +comprehension for its own sake, are not passions we have much leisure to +indulge: they require not only freedom from affairs but, what is more rare, +freedom from prepossessions and from the hatred of all ideas that do not make +for the habitual goal of our thought.</p> + +<p>Now, what has chiefly maintained such speculation as the world has seen has +been either theological passion or practical use. All we find, for example, +written about beauty may be divided into two groups: that group of writings in +which philosophers have interpreted aesthetic facts in the light of their +metaphysical principles, and made of their theory of taste a corollary or +footnote to their systems; and that group in which artists and critics have +ventured into philosophic ground, by generalizing somewhat the maxims of the +craft or the comments of the sensitive observer. A treatment of the subject at +once direct and theoretic has been very rare: the problems of nature and morals +have attracted the reasoners, and the description and creation of beauty have +absorbed the artists; between the two reflection upon aesthetic experience has +remained abortive or incoherent.</p> + +<p>A circumstance that has also contributed to the absence or to the failure of +aesthetic speculation is the subjectivity of the phenomenon with which it deals. +Man has a prejudice against himself: anything which is a product of his mind +seems to him to be unreal or comparatively insignificant. We are satisfied only +when we fancy ourselves surrounded by objects and laws independent of our +nature. The ancients long speculated about the constitution of the universe +before they became aware of that mind which is the instrument of all +speculation. The moderns, also, even within the field of psychology, have +studied first the function of perception and the theory of knowledge, by which +we seem to be informed about external things; they have in comparison neglected +the exclusively subjective and human department of imagination and emotion. We +have still to recognize in practice the truth that from these despised feelings +of ours the great world of perception derives all its value, if not also its +existence. Things are interesting because we care about them, and important +because we need them. Had our perceptions no connexion with our pleasures, we +should soon close our eyes on this world; if our intelligence were of no service +to our passions, we should come to doubt, in the lazy freedom of reverie, +whether two and two make four.</p> + +<p>Yet so strong is the popular sense of the unworthiness and insignificance of +things purely emotional, that those who have taken moral problems to heart and +felt their dignity have often been led into attempts to discover some external +right and beauty of which, our moral and aesthetic feelings should be +perceptions or discoveries, just as our intellectual activity is, in men's +opinion, a perception or discovery of external fact. These philosophers seem to +feel that unless moral and aesthetic judgments are expressions of objective +truth, and not merely expressions of human nature, they stand condemned of +hopeless triviality. A judgment is not trivial, however, because it rests on +human feelings; on the contrary, triviality consists in abstraction from human +interests; only those judgments and opinions are truly insignificant which +wander beyond the reach of verification, and have no function in the ordering +and enriching of life.</p> + +<p>Both ethics and aesthetics have suffered much from the prejudice against the +subjective. They have not suffered more because both have a subject-matter which +is partly objective. Ethics deals with conduct as much as with emotion, and +therefore considers the causes of events and their consequences as well as our +judgments of their value. Esthetics also is apt to include the history and +philosophy of art, and to add much descriptive and critical matter to the theory +of our susceptibility to beauty. A certain confusion is thereby introduced into +these inquiries, but at the same time the discussion is enlivened by excursions +into neighbouring provinces, perhaps more interesting to the general reader.</p> + +<p>We may, however, distinguish three distinct elements of ethics and +aesthetics, and three different ways of approaching the subject. The first is +the exercise of the moral or aesthetic faculty itself, the actual pronouncing of +judgment and giving of praise, blame, and precept. This is not a matter of +science but of character, enthusiasm, niceness of perception, and fineness of +emotion. It is aesthetic or moral activity, while ethics and aesthetics, as +sciences, are intellectual activities, having that aesthetic or moral activity +for their subject-matter.</p> + +<p>The second method consists in the historical explanation of conduct or of art +as a part of anthropology, and seeks to discover the conditions of various types +of character, forms of polity, conceptions of justice, and schools of criticism +and of art. Of this nature is a great deal of what has been written on +aesthetics. The philosophy of art has often proved a more tempting subject than +the psychology of taste, especially to minds which were not so much fascinated +by beauty itself as by the curious problem of the artistic instinct in man and +of the diversity of its manifestations in history.</p> + +<p>The third method in ethics and aesthetics is psychological, as the other two +are respectively didactic and historical. It deals with moral and aesthetic +judgments as phenomena of mind and products of mental evolution. The problem +here is to understand the origin and conditions of these feelings and their +relation to the rest of our economy. Such an inquiry, if pursued successfully, +would yield an understanding of the reason why we think anything right or +beautiful, wrong or ugly, it would thus reveal the roots of conscience and taste +in human nature and enable us to distinguish transitory preferences and ideals, +which rest on peculiar conditions, from those which, springing from those +elements of mind which all men share, are comparatively permanent and universal.</p> + +<p>To this inquiry, as far as it concerns aesthetics, the following pages are +devoted. No attempt will be made either to impose particular appreciations or to +trace the history of art and criticism. The discussion will be limited to the +nature and elements of our aesthetic judgments. It is a theoretical inquiry and +has no directly hortatory quality. Yet insight into the basis of our +preferences, if it could be gained, would not fail to have a good and purifying +influence upon them. It would show us the futility of a dogmatism that would +impose upon another man judgments and emotions for which the needed soil is +lacking in his constitution and experience; and at the same time it would +relieve us of any undue diffidence or excessive tolerance towards aberrations of +taste, when we know what are the broader grounds of preference and the habits +that make for greater and more diversified aesthetic enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Therefore, although nothing has commonly been less attractive than treatises +on beauty or less a guide to taste than disquisitions upon it, we may yet hope +for some not merely theoretical gain from these studies. They have remained so +often without practical influence because they have been pursued under +unfavourable conditions. The writers have generally been audacious +metaphysicians and somewhat incompetent critics; they have represented general +and obscure principles, suggested by other parts of their philosophy, as the +conditions of artistic excellence and the essence of beauty. But if the inquiry +is kept close to the facts of feeling, we may hope that the resulting theory may +have a clarifying effect on the experience on which it is based. That is, after +all, the use of theory. If when a theory is bad it narrows our capacity for +observation and makes all appreciation vicarious and formal, when it is good it +reacts favourably upon our powers, guides the attention to what is really +capable of affording entertainment, and increases, by force of new analogies, +the range of our interests. Speculation is an evil if it imposes a foreign +organization on our mental life; it is a good if it only brings to light, and +makes more perfect by training, the organization already inherent in it.</p> + +<p>We shall therefore study human sensibility itself and our actual feelings +about beauty, and we shall look for no deeper, unconscious causes of our +aesthetic consciousness. Such value as belongs to metaphysical derivations of +the nature of the beautiful, comes to them not because they explain our primary +feelings, which they cannot do, but because they express, and in fact +constitute, some of our later appreciations. There is no explanation, for +instance, in calling beauty an adumbration of divine attributes. Such a +relation, if it were actual, would not help us at all to understand why the +symbols of divinity pleased. But in certain moments of contemplation, when much +emotional experience lies behind us, and we have reached very general ideas both +of nature and of life, our delight in any particular object may consist in +nothing but the thought that this object is a manifestation of universal +principles. The blue sky may come to please chiefly because it seems the image +of a serene conscience, or of the eternal youth and purity of nature after a +thousand partial corruptions. But this expressiveness of the sky is due to +certain qualities of the sensation, which bind it to all things happy and pure, +and, in a mind in which the essence of purity and happiness is embodied in an +idea of God, bind it also to that idea.</p> + +<p>So it may happen that the most arbitrary and unreal theories, which must be +rejected as general explanations of aesthetic life, may be reinstated as +particular moments of it. Those intuitions which we call Platonic are seldom +scientific, they seldom explain the phenomena or hit upon the actual law of +things, but they are often the highest expression of that activity which they +fail to make comprehensible. The adoring lover cannot understand the natural +history of love; for he is all in all at the last and supreme stage of its +development. Hence the world has always been puzzled in its judgment of the +Platonists; their theories are so extravagant, yet their wisdom seems so great. +Platonism is a very refined and beautiful expression of our natural instincts, +it embodies conscience and utters our inmost hopes. Platonic philosophers have +therefore a natural authority, as standing on heights to which the vulgar cannot +attain, but to which they naturally and half-consciously aspire.</p> + +<p>When a man tells you that beauty is the manifestation of God to the senses, +you wish you might understand him, you grope for a deep truth in his obscurity, +you honour him for his elevation of mind, and your respect may even induce you +to assent to what he says as to an intelligible proposition. Your thought may in +consequence be dominated ever after by a verbal dogma, around which all your +sympathies and antipathies will quickly gather, and the less you have penetrated +the original sense of your creed, the more absolutely will you believe it. You +will have followed Mephistopheles' advice: —</p> + +<p> Im ganzen haltet euch an Worte,<br> + So geht euch durch die sichere Pforte<br> + Zum Tempel der Gewissheit ein.</p> + +<p>Yet reflection might have shown you that the word of the master held no +objective account of the nature and origin of beauty, but was the vague +expression of his highly complex emotions.</p> + +<p>It is one of the attributes of God, one of the perfections which we +contemplate in our idea of him, that there is no duality or opposition between +his will and his vision, between the impulses of his nature and the events of +his life. This is what we commonly designate as omnipotence and creation. +Now, in the contemplation of beauty, our faculties of perception have the same +perfection: it is indeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the +occasional harmony between our nature and our environment, that we draw our +conception of the divine life. There is, then, a real propriety in calling +beauty a manifestation of God to the senses, since, in the region of sense, the +perception of beauty exemplifies that adequacy and perfection which in general +we objectify in an idea of God.</p> + +<p>But the minds that dwell in the atmosphere of these analogies are hardly +those that will care to ask what are the conditions and the varieties of this +perfection of function, in other words, how it comes about that we perceive +beauty at all, or have any inkling of divinity. Only the other philosophers, +those that wallow in Epicurus' sty, know anything about the latter question. But +it is easier to be impressed than to be instructed, and the public is very ready +to believe that where there is noble language not without obscurity there must +be profound knowledge. We should distinguish, however, the two distinct demands +in the case. One is for comprehension; we look for the theory of a human +function which must cover all possible cases of its exercise, whether noble or +base. This the Platonists utterly fail to give us. The other demand is for +inspiration; we wish to be nourished by the maxims and confessions of an exalted +mind, in whom the aesthetic function is pre-eminent. By responding to this +demand the same thinkers may win our admiration.</p> + +<p>To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. +To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the +contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great +deal more, than any science can hope to be. The poets and philosophers who +express this aesthetic experience and stimulate the same function in us by their +example, do a greater service to mankind and deserve higher honour than the +discoverers of historical truth. Reflection is indeed a part of life, but the +last part. Its specific value consists in the satisfaction of curiosity, in the +smoothing out and explanation of things: but the greatest pleasure which we +actually get from reflection is borrowed from the experience on which we +reflect. We do not often indulge in retrospect for the sake of a scientific +knowledge of human life, but rather to revive the memories of what once was +dear. And I should have little hope of interesting the reader in the present +analyses, did I not rely on the attractions of a subject associated with so many +of his pleasures.</p> + +<p>But the recognition of the superiority of aesthetics in experience to +aesthetics in theory ought not to make us accept as an explanation of aesthetic +feeling what is in truth only an expression of it. When Plato tells us of the +eternal ideas in conformity to which all excellence consists, he is making +himself the spokesman of the moral consciousness. Our conscience and taste +establish these ideals; to make a judgment is virtually to establish an ideal, +and all ideals are absolute and eternal for the judgment that involves them, +because in finding and declaring a thing good or beautiful, our sentence is +categorical, and the standard evoked by our judgment is for that case intrinsic +and ultimate. But at the next moment, when the mind is on another footing, a new +ideal is evoked, no less absolute for the present judgment than the old ideal +was for the previous one. If we are then expressing our feeling and confessing +what happens to us when we judge, we shall be quite right in saying that we have +always an absolute ideal before us, and that value lies in conformity with that +ideal. So, also, if we try to define that ideal, we shall hardly be able to say +of it anything less noble and more definite than that it is the embodiment of an +infinite good. For it is that incommunicable and illusive excellence that haunts +every beautiful thing, and</p> + +<p> like a star<br> + Beacons from the abode where the eternal are.</p> + +<p>For the expression of this experience we should go to the poets, to the more +inspired critics, and best of all to the immortal parables of Plato. But if what +we desire is to increase our knowledge rather than to cultivate our sensibility, +we should do well to close all those delightful books; for we shall not find any +instruction there upon the questions which most press upon us; namely, how an +ideal is formed in the mind, how a given object is compared with it, what is the +common element in all beautiful things, and what the substance of the absolute +ideal in which all ideals tend to be lost; and, finally, how we come to be +sensitive to beauty at all, or to value it. These questions must be capable of +answers, if any science of human nature is really possible. — So far, then, are +we from ignoring the insight of the Platonists, that we hope to explain it, and +in a sense to justify it, by showing that it is the natural and sometimes the +supreme expression of the common principles of our nature.</p> + +<br> + +<a name="x03" id="x03"></a><br> + +<p>PART I</p> + +<p>THE NATURE OF BEAUTY</p> + +<a name="01"></a> +<br> + +<p><i>The philosophy of beauty is a theory of values.</i></p> + +<p>§ 1. It would be easy to find a definition of beauty that should give +in a few words a telling paraphrase of the word. We know on excellent authority +that beauty is truth, that it is the expression of the ideal, the symbol of +divine perfection, and the sensible manifestation of the good. A litany of these +titles of honour might easily be compiled, and repeated in praise of our +divinity. Such phrases stimulate thought and give us a momentary pleasure, but +they hardly bring any permanent enlightenment. A definition that should really +define must be nothing less than the exposition of the origin, place, and +elements of beauty as an object of human experience. We must learn from it, as +far as possible, why, when, and how beauty appears, what conditions an object +must fulfil to be beautiful, what elements of our nature make us sensible of +beauty, and what the relation is between the constitution of the object and the +excitement of our susceptibility. Nothing less will really define beauty or make +us understand what aesthetic appreciation is. The definition of beauty in this +sense will be the task of this whole book, a task that can be only very +imperfectly accomplished within its limits.</p> + +<p>The historical titles of our subject may give us a hint towards the beginning +of such a definition. Many writers of the last century called the philosophy of +beauty +<i>Criticism,</i> and the word is still retained as the title for the reasoned +appreciation of works of art. We could hardly speak, however, of delight in +nature as criticism. A sunset is not criticised; it is felt and enjoyed. The +word "criticism," used on such an occasion, would emphasize too much the element +of deliberate judgment and of comparison with standards. Beauty, although often +so described, is seldom so perceived, and all the greatest excellences of nature +and art are so far from being approved of by a rule that they themselves furnish +the standard and ideal by which critics measure inferior effects.</p> + +<p>This age of science and of nomenclature has accordingly adopted a more +learned word, +<i>Aesthetics,</i> that is, the theory of perception or of susceptibility. If +criticism is too narrow a word, pointing exclusively to our more artificial +judgments, aesthetics seems to be too broad and to include within its sphere all +pleasures and pains, if not all perceptions whatsoever. Kant used it, as we +know, for his theory of time and space as forms of all perception; and it has at +times been narrowed into an equivalent for the philosophy of art.</p> + +<p>If we combine, however, the etymological meaning of criticism with that of +aesthetics, we shall unite two essential qualities of the theory of beauty. +Criticism implies judgment, and aesthetics perception. To get the common ground, +that of perceptions which are critical, or judgments which are perceptions, we +must widen our notion of deliberate criticism so as to include those judgments +of value which are instinctive and immediate, that is, to include pleasures and +pains; and at the same time we must narrow our notion of aesthetics so as to +exclude all perceptions which are not appreciations, which do not find a value +in their objects. We thus reach the sphere of critical or appreciative +perception, which is, roughly speaking, what we mean to deal with. And retaining +the word "aesthetics," which is now current, we may therefore say that +aesthetics is concerned with the perception of values. The meaning and +conditions of value is, then, what we must first consider.</p> + +<p>Since the days of Descartes it has been a conception familiar to philosophers +that every visible event in nature might be explained by previous visible +events, and that all the motions, for instance, of the tongue in speech, or of +the hand in painting, might have merely physical causes. If consciousness is +thus accessory to life and not essential to it, the race of man might have +existed upon the earth and acquired all the arts necessary for its subsistence +without possessing a single sensation, idea, or emotion. Natural selection might +have secured the survival of those automata which made useful reactions upon +their environment. An instinct of self-preservation would have been developed, +dangers would have been shunned without being feared, and injuries revenged +without being felt.</p> + +<p>In such a world there might have come to be the most perfect organization. +There would have been what we should call the expression of the deepest +interests and the apparent pursuit of conceived goods. For there would have been +spontaneous and ingrained tendencies to avoid certain contingencies and to +produce others; all the dumb show and evidence of thinking would have been +patent to the observer. Yet there would surely have been no thinking, no +expectation, and no conscious achievement in the whole process.</p> + +<p>The onlooker might have feigned ends and objects of forethought, as we do in +the case of the water that seeks its own level, or in that of the vacuum which +nature abhors. But the particles of matter would have remained unconscious of +their collocation, and all nature would have been insensible of their changing +arrangement. We only, the possible spectators of that process, by virtue of our +own interests and habits, could see any progress or culmination in it. We should +see culmination where the result attained satisfied our practical or aesthetic +demands, and progress wherever such a satisfaction was approached. But apart +from ourselves, and our human bias, we can see in such a mechanical world no +element of value whatever. In removing consciousness, we have removed the +possibility of worth.</p> + +<p>But it is not only in the absence of all consciousness that value would be +removed from the world; by a less violent abstraction from the totality of human +experience, we might conceive beings of a purely intellectual cast, minds in +which the transformations of nature were mirrored without any emotion. Every +event would then be noted, its relations would be observed, its recurrence might +even be expected; but all this would happen without a shadow of desire, of +pleasure, or of regret. No event would be repulsive, no situation terrible. We +might, in a word, have a world of idea without a world of will. In this case, as +completely as if consciousness were absent altogether, all value and excellence +would be gone. So that for the existence of good in any form it is not merely +consciousness but emotional consciousness that is needed. Observation will not +do, appreciation is required.</p><a name="02"></a><br> + +<p><i>Preference is ultimately irrational.</i></p> + +<p>§ 2. We may therefore at once assert this axiom, important for all moral +philosophy and fatal to certain stubborn incoherences of thought, that there is +no value apart from some appreciation of it, and no good apart from some +preference of it before its absence or its opposite. In appreciation, in +preference, lies the root and essence of all excellence. Or, as Spinoza clearly +expresses it, we desire nothing because it is good, but it is good only because +we desire it.</p> + +<p>It is true that in the absence of an instinctive reaction we can still apply +these epithets by an appeal to usage. We may agree that an action is bad, or a +building good, because we recognize in them a character which we have learned to +designate by that adjective; but unless there is in us some trace of passionate +reprobation or of sensible delight, there is no moral or aesthetic judgment. It +is all a question of propriety of speech, and of the empty titles of things. The +verbal and mechanical proposition, that passes for judgment of worth, is the +great cloak of ineptitude in these matters. Insensibility is very quick in the +conventional use of words. If we appealed more often to actual feeling, our +judgments would be more diverse, but they would be more legitimate and +instructive. Verbal judgments are often useful instruments of thought, but it is +not by them that worth can ultimately be determined.</p> + +<p>Values spring from the immediate and inexplicable reaction of vital impulse, +and from the irrational part of our nature. The rational part is by its essence +relative; it leads us from data to conclusions, or from parts to wholes; it +never furnishes the data with which it works. If any preference or precept were +declared to be ultimate and primitive, it would thereby be declared to be +irrational, since mediation, inference, and synthesis are the essence of +rationality. The ideal of rationality is itself as arbitrary, as much dependent +on the needs of a finite organization, as any other ideal. Only as ultimately +securing tranquillity of mind, which the philosopher instinctively pursues, has +it for him any necessity. In spite of the verbal propriety of saying that reason +demands rationality, what really demands rationality, what makes it a good and +indispensable thing and gives it all its authority, is not its own nature, but +our need of it both in safe and economical action and in the pleasures of +comprehension.</p> + +<p>It is evident that beauty is a species of value, and what we have said of +value in general applies to this particular kind. A first approach to a +definition of beauty has therefore been made by the exclusion of all +intellectual judgments, all judgments of matter of fact or of relation. To +substitute judgments of fact for judgments of value, is a sign of a pedantic and +borrowed criticism. If we approach a work of art or nature scientifically, for +the sake of its historical connexions or proper classification, we do not +approach it aesthetically. The discovery of its date or of its author may be +otherwise interesting; it only remotely affects our aesthetic appreciation by +adding to the direct effect certain associations. If the direct effect were +absent, and the object in itself uninteresting, the circumstances would be +immaterial. Molière's +<i>Misanthrope</i> says to the court poet who commends his sonnet as written in +a quarter of an hour,</p> + +<p> Voyons, monsieur, le temps ne fait rien à l'affaire,</p> + +<p>and so we might say to the critic that sinks into the archaeologist, show us +the work, and let the date alone.</p> + +<p>In an opposite direction the same substitution of facts for values makes its +appearance, whenever the reproduction of fact is made the sole standard of +artistic excellence. Many half-trained observers condemn the work of some naïve +or fanciful masters with a sneer, because, as they truly say, it is out of +drawing. The implication is that to be correctly copied from a model is the +prerequisite of all beauty. Correctness is, indeed, an element of effect and one +which, in respect to familiar objects, is almost indispensable, because its +absence would cause a disappointment and dissatisfaction incompatible with +enjoyment. We learn to value truth more and more as our love and knowledge of +nature increase. But fidelity is a merit only because it is in this way a factor +in our pleasure. It stands on a level with all other ingredients of effect. When +a man raises it to a solitary pre-eminence and becomes incapable of appreciating +anything else, he betrays the decay of aesthetic capacity. The scientific habit +in him inhibits the artistic.</p> + +<p>That facts have a value of their own, at once complicates and explains this +question. We are naturally pleased by every perception, and recognition and +surprise are particularly acute sensations. When we see a striking truth in any +imitation, we are therefore delighted, and this kind of pleasure is very +legitimate, and enters into the best effects of all the representative arts. +Truth and realism are therefore aesthetically good, but they are not +all-sufficient, since the representation of everything is not equally pleasing +and effective. The fact that resemblance is a source of satisfaction justifies +the critic in demanding it, while the aesthetic insufficiency of such veracity +shows the different value of truth in science and in art. Science is the +response to the demand for information, and in it we ask for the whole truth and +nothing but the truth. Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for +the stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into it only as +it subserves these ends.</p> + +<p>Even the scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It +rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our ideas are +gradually brought into conformity with the facts by the painful process of +selection, — for intuition runs equally into truth and into error, and can +settle nothing if not controlled by experience, — we gain vastly in our command +over our environment. This is the fundamental value of natural science, and the +fruit it is yielding in our day. We have no better vision of nature and life +than some of our predecessors, but we have greater material resources. To know +the truth about the composition and history of things is good for this reason. +It is also good because of the enlarged horizon it gives us, because the +spectacle of nature is a marvellous and fascinating one, full of a serious +sadness and large peace, which gives us back our birthright as children of the +planet and naturalizes us upon the earth. This is the poetic value of the +scientific <i>Weltanschauung.</i> From these two benefits, the practical and the +imaginative, all the value of truth is derived.</p> + +<p>Aesthetic and moral judgments are accordingly to be classed together in +contrast to judgments intellectual; they are both judgments of value, while +intellectual judgments are judgments of fact. If the latter have any value, it +is only derivative, and our whole intellectual life has its only justification +in its connexion with our pleasures and pains.</p><a name="03"></a><br> + +<p><i>Contrast between moral and aesthetic values.</i></p> + +<p>§ 3. The relation between aesthetic and moral judgments, between the spheres +of the beautiful and the good, is close, but the distinction between them is +important. One factor of this distinction is that while aesthetic judgments are +mainly positive, that is, perceptions of good, moral judgments are mainly and +fundamentally negative, or perceptions of evil. Another factor of the +distinction is that whereas, in the perception of beauty, our judgment is +necessarily intrinsic and based on the character of the immediate experience, +and never consciously on the idea of an eventual utility in the object, +judgments about moral worth, on the contrary, are always based, when they are +positive, upon the consciousness of benefits probably involved. Both these +distinctions need some elucidation.</p> + +<p>Hedonistic ethics have always had to struggle against the moral sense of +mankind. Earnest minds, that feel the weight and dignity of life, rebel against +the assertion that the aim of right conduct is enjoyment. Pleasure usually +appears to them as a temptation, and they sometimes go so far as to make +avoidance of it a virtue. The truth is that morality is not mainly concerned +with the attainment of pleasure; it is rather concerned, in all its deeper and +more authoritative maxims, with the prevention of suffering. There is something +artificial in the deliberate pursuit of pleasure; there is something absurd in +the obligation to enjoy oneself. We feel no duty in that direction; we take to +enjoyment naturally enough after the work of life is done, and the freedom and +spontaneity of our pleasures is what is most essential to them.</p> + +<p>The sad business of life is rather to escape certain dreadful evils to which +our nature exposes us, — death, hunger, disease, weariness, isolation, and +contempt. By the awful authority of these things, which stand like spectres +behind every moral injunction, conscience in reality speaks, and a mind which +they have duly impressed cannot but feel, by contrast, the hopeless triviality +of the search for pleasure. It cannot but feel that a life abandoned to +amusement and to changing impulses must run unawares into fatal dangers. The +moment, however, that society emerges from the early pressure of the environment +and is tolerably secure against primary evils, morality grows lax. The forms +that life will farther assume are not to be imposed by moral authority, but are +determined by the genius of the race, the opportunities of the moment, and the +tastes and resources of individual minds. The reign of duty gives place to the +reign of freedom, and the law and the covenant to the dispensation of grace.</p> + +<p>The appreciation of beauty and its embodiment in the arts are activities +which belong to our holiday life, when we are redeemed for the moment from the +shadow of evil and the slavery to fear, and are following the bent of our nature +where it chooses to lead us. The values, then, with which we here deal are +positive; they were negative in the sphere of morality. The ugly is hardly an +exception, because it is not the cause of any real pain. In itself it is rather +a source of amusement. If its suggestions are vitally repulsive, its presence +becomes a real evil towards which we assume a practical and moral attitude. And, +correspondingly, the pleasant is never, as we hare seen, the object of a truly +moral injunction.</p><a name="04"></a><br> + +<p><i>Work and play.</i></p> + +<p>§ 4. We have here, then, an important element of the distinction between +aesthetic and moral values. It is the same that has been pointed to in the +famous contrast between work and play. These terms may be used in different +senses and their importance in moral classification differs with the meaning +attached to them. We may call everything play which is useless activity, +exercise that springs from the physiological impulse to discharge the energy +which the exigencies of life have not called out. Work will then be all action +that is necessary or useful for life. Evidently if work and play are thus +objectively distinguished as useful and useless action, work is a eulogistic +term and play a disparaging one. It would be better for us that all our energy +should be turned to account, that none of it should be wasted in aimless motion. +Play, in this sense, is a sign of imperfect adaptation. It is proper to +childhood, when the body and mind are not yet fit to cope with the environment, +but it is unseemly in manhood and pitiable in old age, because it marks an +atrophy of human nature, and a failure to take hold of the opportunities of +life.</p> + +<p>Play is thus essentially frivolous. Some persons, understanding the term in +this sense, have felt an aversion, which every liberal mind will share, to +classing social pleasures, art, and religion under the head of play, and by that +epithet condemning them, as a certain school seems to do, to gradual extinction +as the race approaches maturity. But if all the useless ornaments of our life +are to be cut off in the process of adaptation, evolution would impoverish +instead of enriching our nature. Perhaps that is the tendency of evolution, and +our barbarous ancestors amid their toils and wars, with their flaming passions +and mythologies, lived better lives than are reserved to our well-adapted +descendants.</p> + +<p>We may be allowed to hope, however, that some imagination may survive +parasitically even in the most serviceable brain. Whatever course history may +take, — and we are not here concerned with prophecy, — the question of what is +desirable is not affected. To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations +because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of +life irrespective of its content. For such a system the worthiest function of +the universe should be to establish perpetual motion. Uselessness is a fatal +accusation to bring against any act which is done for its presumed utility, but +those which are done for their own sake are their own justification.</p> + +<p>At the same time there is an undeniable propriety in calling all the liberal +and imaginative activities of man play, because they are spontaneous, and not +carried on under pressure of external necessity or danger. Their utility for +self-preservation may be very indirect and accidental, but they are not +worthless for that reason. On the contrary, we may measure the degree of +happiness and civilization which any race has attained by the proportion of its +energy which is devoted to free and generous pursuits, to the adornment of life +and the culture of the imagination. For it is in the spontaneous play of his +faculties that man finds himself and his happiness. Slavery is the most +degrading condition of which he is capable, and he is as often a slave to the +niggardness of the earth and the inclemency of heaven, as to a master or an +institution. He is a slave when all his energy is spent in avoiding suffering +and death, when all his action is imposed from without, and no breath or +strength is left him for free enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Work and play here take on a different meaning, and become equivalent to +servitude and freedom. The change consists in the subjective point of view from +which the distinction is now made. We no longer mean by work all that is done +usefully, but only what is done unwillingly and by the spur of necessity. By +play we are designating, no longer what is done fruitlessly, but whatever is +done spontaneously and for its own sake, whether it have or not an ulterior +utility. Play, in this sense, may be our most useful occupation. So far would a +gradual adaptation to the environment be from making this play obsolete, that it +would tend to abolish work, and to make play universal. For with the elimination +of all the conflicts and errors of instinct, the race would do spontaneously +whatever conduced to its welfare and we should live safely and prosperously +without external stimulus or restraint.</p><a name="05"></a><br> + +<p><i>All values are in one sense aesthetic.</i></p> + +<p>§ 5. In this second and subjective sense, then, work is the disparaging term +and play the eulogistic one. All who feel the dignity and importance of the +things of the imagination, need not hesitate to adopt the classification which +designates them as play. We point out thereby, not that they have no value, but +that their value is intrinsic, that in them is one of the sources of all worth. +Evidently all values must be ultimately intrinsic. The useful is good because of +the excellence of its consequences; but these must somewhere cease to be merely +useful in their turn, or only excellent as means; somewhere we must reach the +good that is good in itself and for its own sake, else the whole process is +futile, and the utility of our first object illusory. We here reach the second +factor in our distinction, between aesthetic and moral values, which regards +their immediacy.</p> + +<p>If we attempt to remove from life all its evils, as the popular imagination +has done at times, we shall find little but aesthetic pleasures remaining to +constitute unalloyed happiness. The satisfaction of the passions and the +appetites, in which we chiefly place earthly happiness, themselves take on an +aesthetic tinge when we remove ideally the possibility of loss or variation. +What could the Olympians honour in one another or the seraphim worship in God +except the embodiment of eternal attributes, of essences which, like beauty, +make us happy only in contemplation? The glory of heaven could not be otherwise +symbolized than by light and music. Even the knowledge of truth, which the most +sober theologians made the essence of the beatific vision, is an aesthetic +delight; for when the truth has no further practical utility, it becomes a +landscape. The delight of it is imaginative and the value of it aesthetic.</p> + +<p>This reduction of all values to immediate appreciations, to sensuous or vital +activities, is so inevitable that it has struck even the minds most courageously +rationalistic. Only for them, instead of leading to the liberation of aesthetic +goods from practical entanglements and their establishment as the only pure and +positive values in life, this analysis has led rather to the denial of all pure +and positive goods altogether. Such thinkers naturally assume that moral values +are intrinsic and supreme; and since these moral values would not arise but for +the existence or imminence of physical evils, they embrace the paradox that +without evil no good whatever is conceivable.</p> + +<p>The harsh requirements of apologetics have no doubt helped them to this +position, from which one breath of spring or the sight of one well-begotten +creature should be enough to dislodge them. Their ethical temper and the fetters +of their imagination forbid them to reconsider their original assumption and to +conceive that morality is a means and not an end; that it is the price of human +non-adaptation, and the consequence of the original sin of unfitness. It is the +compression of human conduct within the narrow limits of the safe and possible. +Remove danger, remove pain, remove the occasion of pity, and the need of +morality is gone. To say "thou shalt not" would then be an impertinence.</p> + +<p>But this elimination of precept would not be a cessation of life. The senses +would still be open, the instincts would still operate, and lead all creatures +to the haunts and occupations that befitted them. The variety of nature and the +infinity of art, with the companionship of our fellows, would fill the leisure +of that ideal existence. These are the elements of our positive happiness, the +things which, amid a thousand vexations and vanities, make the clear profit of +living.</p><a name="06"></a><br> + +<p><i>Aesthetic consecration of general principles.</i></p> + +<p>§ 6. Not only are the various satisfactions which morals are meant to secure +aesthetic in the last analysis, but when the conscience is formed, and right +principles acquire an immediate authority, our attitude to these principles +becomes aesthetic also. Honour, truthfulness, and cleanliness are obvious +examples. When the absence of these virtues causes an instinctive disgust, as it +does in well-bred people, the reaction is essentially aesthetic, because it is +not based on reflection and benevolence, but on constitutional sensitiveness. +This aesthetic sensitiveness is, however, properly enough called moral, because +it is the effect of conscientious training and is more powerful for good in +society than laborious virtue, because it is much more constant and catching. It +is <font face= +"Times New Roman">καλοκάγαθία</font>, the aesthetic demand for the morally good, +and perhaps the finest flower of human nature.</p> + +<p>But this tendency of representative principles to become independent powers +and acquire intrinsic value is sometimes mischievous. It is the foundation of +the conflicts between sentiment and justice, between intuitive and utilitarian +morals. Every human reform is the reassertion of the primary interests of man +against the authority of general principles which have ceased to represent those +interests fairly, but which still obtain the idolatrous veneration of mankind. +Nor are chivalry and religion alone liable to fall into this moral superstition. +It arises wherever an abstract good is substituted for its concrete equivalent. +The miser's fallacy is the typical case, and something very like it is the +ethical principle of half our respectable population. To the exercise of certain +useful habits men come to sacrifice the advantage which was the original basis +and justification of those habits. Minute knowledge is pursued at the expense of +largeness of mind, and riches at the expense of comfort and freedom.</p> + +<p>This error is all the more specious when the derived aim has in itself some +aesthetic charm, such as belongs to the Stoic idea of playing one's part in a +vast drama of things, irrespective of any advantage thereby accruing to any one; +somewhat as the miser's passion is rendered a little normal when his eye is +fascinated not merely by the figures of a bank account, but by the glitter of +the yellow gold. And the vanity of playing a tragic part and the glory of +conscious self-sacrifice have the same immediate fascination. Many irrational +maxims thus acquire a kind of nobility. An object is chosen as the highest good +which has not only a certain representative value, but also an intrinsic one, — +which is not merely a method for the realization of other values, but a value in +its own realization.</p> + +<p>Obedience to God is for the Christian, as conformity to the laws of nature or +reason is for the Stoic, an attitude which has a certain emotional and +passionate worth, apart from its original justification by maxims of utility. +This emotional and passionate force is the essence of fanaticism, it makes +imperatives categorical, and gives them absolute sway over the conscience in +spite of their one-sidedness and their injustice to the manifold demands of +human nature.</p> + +<p>Obedience to God or reason can originally recommend itself to a man only as +the surest and ultimately least painful way of balancing his aims and +synthesizing his desires. So necessary is this sanction even to the most +impetuous natures, that no martyr would go to the stake if he did not believe +that the powers of nature, in the day of judgment, would be on his side. But the +human mind is a turbulent commonwealth, and the laws that make for the greatest +good cannot be established in it without some partial sacrifice, without the +suppression of many particular impulses. Hence the voice of reason or the +command of God, which makes for the maximum ultimate satisfaction, finds itself +opposed by sundry scattered and refractory forces, which are henceforth +denominated bad. The unreflective conscience, forgetting the vicarious source of +its own excellence, then assumes a solemn and incomprehensible immediacy, as if +its decrees were absolute and intrinsically authoritative, not of to-day or +yesterday, and no one could tell whence they had arisen. Instinct can all the +more easily produce this mystification when it calls forth an imaginative +activity full of interest and eager passion. This effect is conspicuous in the +absolutist conscience, both devotional and rationalistic, as also in the passion +of love. For in all these a certain individuality, definiteness, and +exclusiveness is given to the pursued object which is very favourable to zeal, +and the heat of passion melts together the various processes of volition into +the consciousness of one adorable influence.</p> + +<p>However deceptive these complications may prove to men of action and +eloquence, they ought not to impose on the critic of human nature. Evidently +what value general goods do not derive from the particular satisfactions they +stand for, they possess in themselves as ideas pleasing and powerful over the +imagination. This intrinsic advantage of certain principles and methods is none +the less real for being in a sense aesthetic. Only a sordid utilitarianism that +subtracts the imagination from human nature, or at least slurs over its immense +contribution to our happiness, could fail to give these principles the +preference over others practically as good.</p> + +<p>If it could be shown, for instance, that monarchy was as apt, in a given +case, to secure the public well-being as some other form of government, monarchy +should be preferred, and would undoubtedly be established, on account of its +imaginative and dramatic superiority. But if, blinded by this somewhat ethereal +advantage, a party sacrificed to it important public interests, the injustice +would be manifest. In a doubtful case, a nation decides, not without painful +conflicts, how much it will sacrifice to its sentimental needs. The important +point is to remember that the representative or practical value of a principle +is one thing, and its intrinsic or aesthetic value is another, and that the +latter can be justly counted only as an item in its favour to be weighed; +against possible external disadvantages. Whenever this comparison and balancing +of ultimate benefits of every kind is angrily dismissed in favour of some +absolute principle, laid down in contempt of human misery and happiness, we have +a personal and fantastic system of ethics, without practical sanctions. It is an +evidence that the superstitious imagination has invaded the sober and practical +domain of morals.</p><a name="07"></a><br> + +<p><i>Aesthetic and physical pleasure.</i></p> + +<p>§ 7. We have now separated with some care intellectual and moral judgments +from the sphere of our subject, and found that we are to deal only with +perceptions of value, and with these only when they are positive and immediate. +But even with these distinctions the most remarkable characteristic of the sense +of beauty remains undefined. All pleasures are intrinsic and positive values, +but all pleasures are not perceptions of beauty. Pleasure is indeed the essence +of that perception, but there is evidently in this particular pleasure a +complication which is not present in others and which is the basis of the +distinction made by consciousness and language between it and the rest. It will +be instructive to notice the degrees of this difference.</p> + +<p>The bodily pleasures are those least resembling perceptions of beauty. By +bodily pleasures we mean, of course, more than pleasures with a bodily seat; for +that class would include them all, as well as all forms and elements of +consciousness. Aesthetic pleasures have physical conditions, they depend on the +activity of the eye and the ear, of the memory and the other ideational +functions of the brain. But we do not connect those pleasures with their seats +except in physiological studies; the ideas with which aesthetic pleasures are +associated are not the ideas of their bodily causes. The pleasures we call +physical, and regard as low, on the contrary, are those which call our attention +to some part of our own body, and which make no object so conspicuous to us as +the organ in which they arise.</p> + +<p>There is here, then, a very marked distinction between physical and aesthetic +pleasure; the organs of the latter must be transparent, they must not intercept +our attention, but carry it directly to some external object. The greater +dignity and range of aesthetic pleasure is thus made very intelligible. The soul +is glad, as it were, to forget its connexion with the body and to fancy that it +can travel over the world with the liberty with which it changes the objects of +its thought. The mind passes from China to Peru without any conscious change in +the local tensions of the body. This illusion of disembodiment is very +exhilarating, while immersion in the flesh and confinement to some organ gives a +tone of grossness and selfishness to our consciousness. The generally meaner +associations of physical pleasures also help to explain their comparative +crudity.</p><a name="08"></a><br> + +<p><i>The differetia of aesthetic pleasure not its disinterestedness. </i></p> + +<p>§ 8. The distinction between pleasure and the sense of beauty has sometimes +been said to consist in the unselfishness of aesthetic satisfaction. In other +pleasures, it is said, we gratify our senses and passions; in the contemplation +of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are +happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess. The painter +does not look at a spring of water with the eyes of a thirsty man, nor at a +beautiful woman with those of a satyr. The difference lies, it is urged, in the +impersonality of the enjoyment. But this distinction is one of intensity and +delicacy, not of nature, and it seems satisfactory only to the least aesthetic +minds.<a href="#note01"><u>[1]</u></a></p> + +<p>In the second place, the supposed disinterestedness of aesthetic delights is +not truly fundamental. Appreciation of a picture is not identical with the +desire to buy it, but it is, or ought to be, closely related and preliminary to +that desire. The beauties of nature and of the plastic arts are not consumed by +being enjoyed; they retain all the efficacy to impress a second beholder. But +this circumstance is accidental, and those aesthetic objects which depend upon +change and are exhausted in time, as are all performances, are things the +enjoyment of which is an object of rivalry and is coveted as much as any other +pleasure. And even plastic beauties can often not be enjoyed except by a few, on +account of the necessity of travel or other difficulties of access, and then +this aesthetic enjoyment is as selfishly pursued as the rest.</p> + +<p>The truth which the theory is trying to state seems rather to be that when we +seek aesthetic pleasures we have no further pleasure in mind; that we do not mix +up the satisfactions of vanity and proprietorship with the delight of +contemplation. This is true, but it is true at bottom of all pursuits and +enjoyments. Every real pleasure is in one sense disinterested. It is not sought +with ulterior motives, and what fills the mind is no calculation, but the image +of an object or event, suffused with emotion. A sophisticated consciousness may +often take the idea of self as the touchstone of its inclinations; but this +self, for the gratification and aggrandizement of which a man may live, is +itself only a complex of aims and memories, which once had their direct objects, +in which he had taken a spontaneous and unselfish interest. The gratifications +which, merged together, make the selfishness are each of them ingenuous, and no +more selfish than the most altruistic, impersonal emotion. The content of +selfishness is a mass of unselfishness. There is no reference to the nominal +essence called oneself either in one's appetites or in one's natural affections; +yet a man absorbed in his meat and drink, in his houses and lands, in his +children and dogs, is called selfish because these interests, although natural +and instinctive in him, are not shared by others. The unselfish man is he whose +nature has a more universal direction, whose interests are more widely diffused.</p> + +<p>But as impersonal thoughts are such only in their object, not in their +subject or agents, since, all thoughts are the thoughts of somebody: so also +unselfish interests have to be somebody's interests. If we were not interested +in beauty, if it were of no concern to our happiness whether things were +beautiful or ugly, we should manifest not the maximum, but the total absence of +aesthetic faculty. The disinterestedness of this pleasure is, therefore, that of +all primitive and intuitive satisfactions, which are in no way conditioned by a +reference to an artificial general concept, like that of the self, all the +potency of which must itself be derived from the independent energy of its +component elements. I care about myself because "myself" is a name for the +things I have at heart. To set up the verbal figment of personality and make it +an object of concern apart from the interests which were its content and +substance, turns the moralist into a pedant, and ethics into a superstition. The +self which is the object of <i>amour propre</i> is an idol of the tribe, and +needs to be disintegrated into the primitive objective interests that underlie +it before the cultus of it can be justified by reason.</p><a name="09"></a><br> + +<p><i>The differentia of aesthetic pleasure not its universality.</i></p> + +<p>§ 9. The supposed disinterestedness of our love of beauty passes into another +characteristic of it often regarded as essential, — its universality. The +pleasures of the senses have, it is said, no dogmatism in them; that anything +gives me pleasure involves no assertion about its capacity to give pleasure to +another. But when I judge a thing to be beautiful, my judgment means that the +thing is beautiful in itself, or (what is the same thing more critically +expressed) that it should seem so to everybody. The claim to universality +is, according to this doctrine, the essence of the aesthetic; what makes the +perception of beauty a judgment rather than a sensation. All aesthetic precepts +would be impossible, and all criticism arbitrary and subjective, unless we admit +a paradoxical universality in our judgment, the philosophical implications of +which we may then go on to develope. But we are fortunately not required to +enter the labyrinth into which this method leads; there is a much simpler and +clearer way of studying such questions, which is to challenge and analyze the +assertion before us and seek its basis in human nature. Before this is done, we +should run the risk of expanding a natural misconception or inaccuracy of +thought into an inveterate and pernicious prejudice by making it the centre of +an elaborate construction.</p> + +<p>That the claim of universality is such a natural inaccuracy will not be hard +to show. There is notoriously no great agreement upon aesthetic matters; and +such agreement as there is, is based upon similarity of origin, nature, and +circumstance among men, a similarity which, where it exists, tends to bring +about identity in all judgments and feelings. It is unmeaning to say that what +is beautiful to one man <i>ought</i> to be beautiful to another. If their senses +are the same, their associations and dispositions similar, then the same thing +will certainly be beautiful to both. If their natures are different, the form +which to one will be entrancing will be to another even invisible, because his +classifications and discriminations in perception will be different, and he may +see a hideous detached fragment or a shapeless aggregate of things, in what to +another is a perfect whole — so entirely are the unities of function and use. It +is absurd to say that what is invisible to a given being <i>ought</i> to seem +beautiful to him. Evidently this obligation of recognizing the same qualities is +conditioned by the possession of the same faculties. But no two men have exactly +the same faculties, nor can things have for any two exactly the same values.</p> + +<p>What is loosely expressed by saying that any one ought to see this or that +beauty is that he would see it if his disposition, training, or attention were +what our ideal demands for him; and our ideal of what any one should be has +complex but discoverable sources. We take, for instance, a certain pleasure in +having our own judgments supported by those of others; we are intolerant, if not +of the existence of a nature different from our own, at least of its expression +in words and judgments. We are confirmed or made happy in our doubtful opinions +by seeing them accepted universally. We are unable to find the basis of our +taste in our own experience and therefore refuse to look for it there. If we +were sure of our ground, we should be willing to acquiesce in the naturally +different feelings and ways of others, as a man who is conscious of speaking his +language with the accent of the capital confesses its arbitrariness with gayety, +and is pleased and interested in the variations of it he observes in +provincials; but the provincial is always zealous to show that he has reason and +ancient authority to justify his oddities. So people who have no sensations, and +do not know why they judge, are always trying to show that they judge by +universal reason.</p> + +<p>Thus the frailty and superficiality of our own judgments cannot brook +contradiction. We abhor another man's doubt when we cannot tell him why we +ourselves believe. Our ideal of other men tends therefore to include the +agreement of their judgments with our own; and although we might acknowledge the +fatuity of this demand in regard to natures very different from the human, we +may be unreasonable enough to require that all races should admire the same +style of architecture, and all ages the same poets.</p> + +<p>The great actual unity of human taste within the range of conventional +history helps the pretension. But in principle it is untenable. Nothing has less +to do with the real merit of a work of imagination than the capacity of all men +to appreciate it; the true test is the degree and kind of satisfaction it can +give to him who appreciates it most. The symphony would lose nothing if half +mankind had always been deaf, as nine-tenths of them actually are to the +intricacies of its harmonies; but it would have lost much if no Beethoven had +existed. And more: incapacity to appreciate certain types of beauty may be the +condition <i>sine qua non</i> for the appreciation of another kind; the greatest +capacity both for enjoyment and creation is highly specialized and exclusive, +and hence the greatest ages of art have often been strangely intolerant. </p> + +<p>The invectives of one school against another, perverse as they are +philosophically, are artistically often signs of health, because they indicate a +vital appreciation of certain kinds of beauty, a love of them that has grown +into a jealous passion. The architects that have pieced out the imperfections of +ancient buildings with their own thoughts, like Charles V. when he raised his +massive palace beside the Alhambra, may be condemned from a certain point of +view. They marred much by their interference; but they showed a splendid +confidence in their own intuitions, a proud assertion of their own taste, which +is the greatest evidence of aesthetic sincerity. On the contrary, our own +gropings, eclecticism, and archaeology are the symptoms of impotence. If we were +less learned and less just, we might be more efficient. If our appreciation were +less general, it might be more real, and if we trained our imagination into +exclusiveness, it might attain to character.</p><a name="10"></a><br> + +<p><i>The differentia of aesthetic pleasure: its objectification.</i></p> + +<p>§ 10. There is, however, something more in the claim to universality in +aesthetic judgments than the desire to generalize our own opinions. There is the +expression of a curious but well-known psychological phenomenon, viz., the +transformation of an element of sensation into the quality of a thing. If we say +that other men should see the beauties we see, it is because <i>we</i> think +those beauties <i>are in the object,</i> +like its colour, proportion, or size. Our judgment appears to us merely the +perception and discovery of an external existence, of the real excellence that +is without. But this notion is radically absurd and contradictory. Beauty, as we +have seen, is a value; it cannot be conceived as an independent existence which +affects our senses and which we consequently perceive. It exists in perception, +and cannot exist otherwise. A beautynot perceived is a pleasure not felt, and a +contradiction. But modern philosophy has taught us to say the same thing of +every element of the perceived world; all are sensations; and their grouping +into objects imagined to be permanent and external is the work of certain habits +of our intelligence. We should be incapable of surveying or retaining the +diffused experiences of life, unless we organized and classified them, and out +of the chaos of impressions framed the world of conventional and recognizable +objects.</p> + +<p>How this is done is explained by the current theories of perception. External +objects usually affect various senses at once, the impressions of which are +thereby associated. Repeated experiences of one object are also associated on +account of their similarity; hence a double tendency to merge and unify into a +single percept, to which a name is attached, the group of those memories and +reactions which in fact had one external thing for their cause. But this +percept, once formed, is clearly different from those particular experiences out +of which it grew. It is permanent, they are variable. They are but partial views +and glimpses of it. The constituted notion therefore comes to be the reality, +and the materials of it merely the appearance. The distinction between substance +and quality, reality and appearance, matter and mind, has no other origin.</p> + +<p>The objects thus conceived and distinguished from our ideas of them, are at +first compacted of all the impressions, feelings, and memories, which offer +themselves for association and fall within the vortex of the amalgamating +imagination. Every sensation we get from a thing is originally treated as one of +its qualities. Experiment, however, and the practical need of a simpler +conception of the structure of objects lead us gradually to reduce the qualities +of the object to a minimum, and to regard most perceptions as an effect of those +few qualities upon us. These few primary qualities, like extension which we +persist in treating as independently real and as the quality of a substance, are +those which suffice to explain the order of our experiences. All the rest, like +colour, are relegated to the subjective sphere, as merely effects upon our +minds, and apparent or secondary qualities of the object.</p> + +<p>But this distinction has only a practical justification. Convenience and +economy of thought alone determine what combination of our sensations we shall +continue to objectify and treat as the cause of the rest. The right and tendency +to be objective is equal in all, since they are all prior to the artifice of +thought by which we separate the concept from its materials, the thing from our +experiences.</p> + +<p>The qualities which we now conceive to belong to real objects are for the +moat part images of sight and touch. One of the first classes of effects to be +treated as secondary were naturally pleasures and pains, since it could commonly +conduce very little to intelligent and successful action to conceive our +pleasures and pains as resident in objects. But emotions are essentially capable +of objectification, as well as impressions of sense; and one may well believe +that a primitive and inexperienced consciousness would rather people the world +with ghosts of its own terrors and passions than with projections of those +luminous and mathematical concepts which as yet it could hardly have formed.</p> + +<p>This animistic and mythological habit of thought still holds its own at the +confines of knowledge, where mechanical explanations are not found. In +ourselves, where nearness makes observation difficult, in the intricate chaos of +animal and human life, we still appeal to the efficacy of will and ideas, as +also in the remote night of cosmic and religious problems. But in all the +intermediate realm of vulgar day, where mechanical science has made progress, +the inclusion of emotional or passionate elements in the concept of the reality +would be now an extravagance. Here our idea of things is composed exclusively of +perceptual elements, of the ideas of form and of motion.</p> + +<p>The beauty of objects, however, forms an exception to this rule. Beauty is an +emotional element, a pleasure of ours, which nevertheless we regard as a quality +of things. But we are now prepared to understand the nature of this exception. +It is the survival of a tendency originally universal to make every effect of a +thing upon us a constituent of its conceived nature. The scientific idea of a +thing is a great abstraction from the mass of perceptions and reactions which +that thing produces the aesthetic idea is less abstract, since it retains the +emotional reaction, the pleasure of the perception, as an integral part of the +conceived thing.</p> + +<p>Nor is it hard to find the ground of this survival in the sense of beauty of +an objectification of feeling elsewhere extinct. Most of the pleasures which +objects cause are easily distinguished and separated from the perception of the +object: the object has to be applied to a particular organ, like the palate, or +swallowed like wine, or used and operated upon in some way before the pleasure +arises. The cohesion is therefore slight between the pleasure and the other +associated elements of sense; the pleasure is separated in time from the +perception, or it is localized in a different organ, and consequently is at once +recognized as an effect and not as a quality of the object. But when the process +of perception itself is pleasant, as it may easily be, when the intellectual +operation, by which the elements of sense are associated and projected, and the +concept of the form and substance of the thing produced, is naturally +delightful, then we have a pleasure intimately bound up in the thing, +inseparable from its character and constitution, the seat of which in us is the +same as the seat of the perception. We naturally fail, under these +circumstances, to separate the pleasure from the other objectified feelings. It +becomes, like them, a quality of the object, which we distinguish from pleasures +not so incorporated in the perception of things, by giving it the name of +beauty.</p><a name="11"></a><br> + +<p><i>The definition of beauty.</i></p> + +<p>§ 11. We have now reached our definition of beauty, which, in the terms of +our successive analysis and narrowing of the conception, is value positive, +intrinsic, and objectified. Or, in less technical language, Beauty is pleasure +regarded as the quality of a thing.</p> + +<p>This definition is intended to sum up a variety of distinctions and +identifications which should perhaps be here more explicitly set down. Beauty is +a value, that is, it is not a perception of a matter of fact or of a relation: +it is an emotion, an affection of our volitional and appreciative nature. An +object cannot be beautiful if it can give pleasure to nobody: a beauty to which +all men were forever indifferent is a contradiction in terms.</p> + +<p>In the second place this value is positive, it is the sense of the presence +of something good, or (in the case of ugliness) of its absence. It is never the +perception of a positive evil, it is never a negative value. That we are endowed +with the sense of beauty is a pure gain which brings no evil with it. When the +ugly ceases to be amusing or merely uninteresting and becomes disgusting, it +becomes indeed a positive evil: but a moral and practical, not an aesthetic one. +In aesthetics that saying is true — often so disingenuous in ethics — that evil +is nothing but the absence of good: for even the tedium and vulgarity of an +existence without beauty is not itself ugly so much as lamentable and degrading. +The absence of aesthetic goods is a moral evil: the aesthetic evil is merely +relative, and means less of aesthetic good than was expected at the place and +time. No form in itself gives pain, although some forms give pain by causing a +shock of surprise even when they are really beautiful: as if a mother found a +fine bull pup in her child's cradle, when her pain would not be aesthetic in its +nature.</p> + +<p>Further, this pleasure must not be in the consequence of the utility of the +object or event, but in its immediate perception; in other words, beauty is an +ultimate good, something that gives satisfaction to a natural function, to some +fundamental need or capacity of our minds. Beauty is therefore a positive value +that is intrinsic; it is a pleasure. These two circumstances sufficiently +separate the sphere of aesthetics from that of ethics. Moral values are +generally negative, and always remote. Morality has to do with the avoidance of +evil and the pursuit of good: aesthetics only with enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Finally, the pleasures of sense are distinguished from the perception of +beauty, as sensation in general is distinguished from perception; by the +objectification of the elements and their appearance as qualities rather of +things than of consciousness. The passage from sensation to perception is +gradual, and the path may be sometimes retraced: so it is with beauty and the +pleasures of sensation. There is no sharp line between them, but it depends upon +the degree of objectivity my feeling has attained at the moment whether I say +"It pleases me," or "It is beautiful." If I am self-conscious and critical, I +shall probably use, one phrase; if I am impulsive and susceptible, the other. +The more remote, interwoven, and inextricable the pleasure is, the more +objective it will appear; and the union of two pleasures often makes one beauty. +In Shakespeare's LIVth sonnet are these words:</p> + +<p> O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem<br> + By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!<br> + The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem<br> + For that sweet odour which doth in it live.<br> + The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye<br> + As the perfumed tincture of the roses,<br> + Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly<br> + When summer's breath their masked buds discloses.<br> + But, for their beauty only is their show,<br> + They live unwooed and unrespected fade;<br> + Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so:<br> + Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.</p> + +<p>One added ornament, we see, turns the deep dye, which was but show and mere +sensation before, into an element of beauty and reality, and as truth is here +the co-operation of perceptions, so beauty is the co-operation of pleasures. If +colour, form, and motion are hardly beautiful without the sweetness of the +odour, how much more necessary would they be for the sweetness itself to become +a beauty! If we had the perfume in a flask, no one would think of calling it +beautiful: it would give us too detached and controllable a sensation. There +would be no object in which it could be easily incorporated. But let it float +from the garden, and it will add another sensuous charm to objects +simultaneously recognized, and help to make them beautiful. Thus beauty is +constituted by the objectification of pleasure. It is pleasure objectified.</p> + +<br> + +<a name="x04" id= +"x04"></a><br> + +<p>PART II</p> + +<p>THE MATERIALS OF BEAUTY</p><a name="12"></a><br> + +<p><i>All human functions may contribute to the sense of beauty.</i></p> + +<p>§ 12. Our task will now be to pass in review the various elements of our +consciousness, and see what each contributes to the beauty of the world. We +shall find that they do so whenever they are inextricably associated with the +objectifying activity of the understanding. Whenever the golden thread of +pleasure enters that web of things which our intelligence is always busily +spinning, it lends to the visible world that mysterious and subtle charm which +we call beauty.</p> + +<p>There is no function of our nature which cannot contribute something to this +effect, but one function differs very much from another in the amount and +directness of its contribution. The pleasures of the eye and ear, of the +imagination and memory, are the most easily objectified and merged in ideas; but +it would betray inexcusable haste and slight appreciation of the principle +involved, if we called them the only materials of beauty. Our effort will rather +be to discover its other sources, which have been more generally ignored, and +point out their importance. For the five senses and the three powers of the +soul, which play so large a part in traditional psychology, are by no means the +only sources or factors of consciousness; they are more or less external +divisions of its content, and not even exhaustive of that. The nature and +changes of our life have deeper roots, and are controlled by less obvious +processes.</p> + +<p>The human body is a machine that holds together by virtue of certain vital +functions, on the cessation of which it is dissolved. Some of these, like the +circulation of the blood, the growth and decay of the tissues, are at first +sight unconscious. Yet any important disturbance of these fundamental processes +at once produces great and painful changes in consciousness. Slight alterations +are not without their conscious echo: and the whole temper and tone of our mind, +the strength of our passions, the grip and concatenation of our habits, our +power of attention, and the liveliness of our fancy and affections are due to +the influence of these vital forces. They do not, perhaps, constitute the whole +basis of any one idea or emotion: but they are the conditions of the existence +and character of all.</p> + +<p>Particularly important are they for the <i>value</i> of our experience. They +constitute health, without which no pleasure can be pure. They determine our +impulses in leisure, and furnish that surplus energy which we spend in play, in +art, and in speculation. The attraction of these pursuits, and the very +existence of an aesthetic sphere, is due to the efficiency and perfection of our +vital processes. The pleasures which they involve are not exclusively bound to +any particular object, and therefore do not account for the relative beauty of +things. They are loose and unlocalized, having no special organ, or one which is +internal and hidden within the body. They therefore remain undiscriminated in +consciousness, and can serve to add interest to any object, or to cast a general +glamour over the world, very favourable to its interest and beauty.</p> + +<p>The aesthetic value of vital functions differs according to their +physiological concomitants: those that are favourable to ideation are of course +more apt to extend something of their intimate warmth to the pleasures of +contemplation, and thus to intensify the sense of beauty and the interest of +thought. Those, on the other hand, that for physiological reasons tend to +inhibit ideation, and to drown the attention in dumb and unrepresentable +feelings, are less favourable to aesthetic activity. The double effect of +drowsiness and reverie will illustrate this difference. The heaviness of sleep +seems to fall first on the outer senses, and of course makes them incapable of +acute impressions; but if it goes no further, it leaves the imagination all the +freer, and by heightening the colours of the fancy, often suggests and reveals +beautiful images. There is a kind of poetry and invention that comes only in +such moments. In them many lovely melodies must first have been heard, and +centaurs and angels originally imagined.</p> + +<p>If, however, the lethargy is more complete, or if the cause of it is such +that the imagination is retarded while the senses remain awake, — as is the case +with an over-fed or over-exercised body, — we have a state of aesthetic +insensibility. The exhilaration which comes with pure and refreshing air has a +marked influence on our appreciations. To it is largely due the beauty of the +morning, and the entirely different charm it has from the evening. The opposite +state of all the functions here adds an opposite emotion to externally similar +scenes, making both infinitely but differently beautiful.</p> + +<p>It would be curious and probably surprising to discover how much the pleasure +of breathing has to do with our highest and most transcendental ideals. It is +not merely a metaphor that makes us couple airiness with exquisiteness and +breathlessness with awe; it is the actual recurrence of a sensation in the +throat and lungs that gives those impressions an immediate power, prior to all +reflection upon their significance. It is, therefore, to this vital sensation of +deep or arrested respiration that the impressiveness of those objects is +immediately due.</p><a name="13"></a><br> + +<p><i>The influence of the passion of love.</i></p> + +<p>§ 13. Half-way between vital and social functions, lies the sexual instinct. +If nature had solved the problem of reproduction without the differentiation of +sex, our emotional life would have been radically different. So profound and, +especially in woman, so pervasive an influence does this function exert, that we +should betray an entirely unreal view of human nature if we did not inquire into +the relations of sex with our aesthetic susceptibility. We must not expect, +however, any great difference between man and woman in the scope or objects of +aesthetic interest: what is important in emotional life is not which sex an +animal has, but that it has sex at all. For if we consider the difficult problem +which nature had to solve in sexual reproduction, and the nice adjustment of +instinct which it demands, we shall see that the reactions and susceptibilities +which must be implanted in the individual are for the most part identical in +both sexes, as the sexual organization is itself fundamentally similar in both. +Indeed, individuals of various species and the whole animal kingdom have the +same sexual disposition, although, of course, the particular object destined to +call forth the complete sexual reaction, differs with every species, and with +each sex.</p> + +<p>If we were dealing with the philosophy of love, and not with that of beauty, +our problem would be to find out by what machinery this fundamental +susceptibility, common to all animals of both sexes, is gradually directed to +more and more definite objects: first, to one species and one sex, and +ultimately to one individual. It is not enough that sexual organs should be +differentiated: the connexion must be established between them and the outer +senses, so that the animal may recognize and pursue the proper object.</p> + +<p>The case of lifelong fidelity to one mate — perhaps even to an unsatisfied +and hopeless love — is the maximum of differentiation, which even overleaps the +utility which gave it a foothold in nature, and defeats its own object. For the +differentiation of the instinct in respect to sex, age, and species is obviously +necessary to its success as a device for reproduction. While this +differentiation is not complete, — and it often is not, — there is a great deal +of groping and waste; and the force and constancy of the instinct must make up +for its lack of precision. A great deal of vital energy is thus absorbed by this +ill-adjusted function. The most economical arrangement which can be conceived, +would be one by which only the one female best fitted to bear offspring to a +male should arouse his desire, and only so many times as it was well she should +grow pregnant, thus leaving his energy and attention free at all other times to +exercise the other faculties of his nature.</p> + +<p>If this ideal had been reached, the instinct, like all those perfectly +adjusted, would tend to become unconscious; and we should miss those secondary +effects with which we are exclusively concerned in aesthetics. For it is +precisely from the waste, from the radiation of the sexual passion, that I +beauty borrows warmth. As a harp, made to vibrate to the fingers, gives some +music to every wind, so the nature of man, necessarily susceptible to woman, +becomes simultaneously sensitive to other influences, and capable of tenderness +toward every object. The capacity to love gives our contemplation that glow +without which it might often fail to manifest beauty; and the whole sentimental +side of our aesthetic sensibility — without which it would be perceptive and +mathematical rather than aesthetic — is due to our sexual organization remotely +stirred.</p> + +<p>The attraction of sex could not become efficient unless the senses were first +attracted. The eye must be fascinated and the ear charmed by the object which +nature intends should be pursued. Both sexes for this reason develope secondary +sexual characteristics; and the sexual emotions are simultaneously extended to +various secondary objects. The colour, the grace, the form, which become the +stimuli of sexual passion, and the guides of sexual selection, acquire, before +they can fulfil that office, a certain intrinsic charm. This charm is not only +present for reasons which, in an admissible sense, we may call teleological, on +account, that is, of its past utility in reproduction, but its intensity and +power are due to the simultaneous stirring of profound sexual impulses. Not, of +course, that any specifically sexual ideas are connected with these feelings: +such ideas are absent in a modest and inexperienced mind even in the obviously +sexual passions of love and jealousy.</p> + +<p>These secondary objects of interest, which are some of the most conspicuous +elements of beauty, are to be called sexual for these two reasons: because the +contingencies of the sexual function hare helped to establish them in our race, +and because they owe their fascination in a great measure to the participation +of our sexual life in the reaction which they cause.</p> + +<p>If any one were desirous to produce a being with a great susceptibility to +beauty, he could not invent an instrument better designed for that object than +sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rearing of each +generation, might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be +necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, +the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and +powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another; +makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a +companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest +rage, and to solitude an eternal melancholy.</p> + +<p>What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and +beauty? The attention is fixed upon a well-defined object, and all the effects +it produces in the mind are easily regarded as powers or qualities of that +object. But these effects are here powerful and profound. The soul is stirred to +its depths. Its hidden treasures are brought to the surface of consciousness. +The imagination and the heart awake for the first time. All these new values +crystallize about the objects then offered to the mind. If the fancy is occupied +by the image of a single person, whose qualities have had the power of +precipitating this revolution, all the values gather about that one image. The +object becomes perfect, and we are said to be in love.<a href="#note02"><u>[2]</u></a> +If the stimulus does not appear as a definite image, the values evoked are +dispersed over the world, and we are said to have become lovers of nature, and +to have discovered the beauty and meaning of things.</p> + +<p>To a certain extent this kind of interest will centre in the proper object of +sexual passion, and in the special characteristics of the opposite sex; and we +find accordingly that woman is the most lovely object to man, and man, if female +modesty would confess it, the most interesting to woman. But the effects of so +fundamental and primitive a reaction are much more general. Sex is not the only +object of sexual passion. When love lacks its specific object, when it does not +yet understand itself, or has been sacrificed to some other interest, we see the +stifled fire bursting out in various directions. One is religious devotion, +another is zealous philanthropy, a third is the fondling of pet animals, but not +the least fortunate is the love of nature, and of art; for nature also is often +a second mistress that consoles us for the loss of a first. Passion then +overflows and visibly floods those neighbouring regions which it had always +secretly watered. For the same nervous organization which sex involves, with its +necessarily wide branchings and associations in the brain, must be partially +stimulated by other objects than its specific or ultimate one especially in man, +who, unlike some of the lower animals, has not his instincts clearly distinct +and intermittent, but always partially active, and never active in isolation. We +may say, then, that for man all nature is a secondary object of sexual passion, +and that to this fact the beauty of nature is largely due.</p><a name="14"></a><br> + +<p><i>Social instincts and their aesthetic influence.</i></p> + +<p>§ 14. The function of reproduction carries with it not only direct +modifications of the body and mind, but a whole set of social institutions, for +the existence of which social instincts and habits are necessary in man. These +social feelings, the parental, the patriotic, or the merely gregarious, are not +of much direct value for aesthetics, although, as is seen in the case of +fashions, they are important in determining the duration and prevalence of a +taste once formed. Indirectly they are of vast importance and play a great +rôle in arts like poetry, where the effect depends on what is signified more +than on what is offered to sense. Any appeal to a human interest rebounds in +favour of a work of art in which it is successfully made. That interest, +unaesthetic in itself, helps to fix the attention and to furnish subject-matter +and momentum to arts and modes of appreciation which are aesthetic. Thus +comprehension of the passion of love is necessary to the appreciation of +numberless songs, plays, and novels, and not a few works of musical and plastic +art.</p> + +<p>The treatment of these matters must be postponed until we are prepared to +deal with expression — the most complex element of effect. It will suffice here +to point out why social and gregarious impulses, in the satisfaction of which +happiness mainly resides, are those in which beauty finds least support. This +may help us to understand better the relations between aesthetics and <i> +hedonics,</i> and the nature of that objectification in which we have placed the +difference between beauty and pleasure.</p> + +<p>So long as happiness is conceived as a poet might conceive it, namely, in its +immediately sensuous and emotional factors, so long as we live in the moment and +make our happiness consist in the simplest things, — in breathing, seeing, +hearing, loving, and sleeping, — our happiness has the same substance, the same +elements, as our aesthetic delight, for it is aesthetic delight that makes our +happiness. Yet poets and artists, with their immediate and aesthetic joys, are +not thought to be happy men; they themselves are apt to be loud in their +lamentations, and to regard themselves as eminently and tragically unhappy. This +arises from the intensity and inconstancy of their emotions, from their +improvidence, and from the eccentricity of their social habits. While among them +the sensuous and vital functions have the upper hand, the gregarious and social +instincts are subordinated and often deranged; and their unhappiness consists in +the sense of their unfitness to live in the world into which they are born.</p> + +<p>But man is pre-eminently a political animal, and social needs are almost as +fundamental in him as vital functions, and often more conscious. Friendship, +wealth, reputation, power, and influence, when added to family life, constitute +surely the main elements of happiness. Now these are only very partially +composed of definite images of objects. The desire for them, the consciousness +of their absence or possession, comes upon us only when we reflect, when we are +planning, considering the future, gathering the words of others, rehearsing +their scorn or admiration for ourselves, conceiving possible situations in which +our virtue, our fame or power would become conspicuous, comparing our lot with +that of others, and going through other discursive processes of thought. +Apprehension, doubt, isolation, are things which come upon us keenly when we +reflect upon our lives; they cannot easily become qualities of any object. If by +chance they can, they acquire a great aesthetic value. For instance, "home," +which in its social sense is a concept of happiness, when it becomes +materialized in a cottage and a garden becomes an aesthetic concept, becomes a +beautiful thing. The happiness is objectified, and the object beautified.</p> + +<p>Social objects, however, are seldom thus aesthetic, because they are not thus +definitely imaginable. They are diffuse and abstract, and verbal rather than +sensuous in their materials. Therefore the great emotions that go with them are +not immediately transmutable into beauty. If artists and poets are unhappy, it +is after all because happiness does not interest them. They cannot seriously +pursue it, because its components are not components of beauty, and being in +love with beauty, they neglect and despise those unaesthetic social virtues in +the operation of which happiness is found. On the other hand those who pursue +happiness conceived merely in the abstract and conventional terms, as money, +success, or respectability, often miss that real and fundamental part of +happiness which flows from the senses and imagination. This element is what +aesthetics supplies to life; for beauty also can be a cause and a factor of +happiness. Yet the happiness of loving beauty is either too sensuous to be +stable, or else too ultimate, too sacramental, to be accounted happiness by the +worldly mind.</p><a name="15"></a><br> + +<p><i>The lower senses.</i></p> + +<p>§ 15. The senses of touch, taste, and smell, although capable no doubt of a +great development, have not served in man for the purposes of intelligence so +much as those of sight and hearing. It is natural that as they remain normally +in the background of consciousness, and furnish the least part of our +objectified ideas, the pleasures connected with them should remain also +detached, and unused for the purpose of appreciation of nature. They have been +called the unaesthetic, as well as the lower, senses; but the propriety of these +epithets, which is undeniable, is due not to any intrinsic sensuality or +baseness of these senses, but to the function which they happen to have in our +experience. Smell and taste, like hearing, have the great disadvantage of not +being intrinsically spatial: they are therefore not fitted to serve for the +representation of nature, which allows herself to be accurately conceived only +in spatial terms.<a href="#note03"><u>[3]</u></a> They have not reached, +moreover, the same organization as sounds, and therefore cannot furnish any play +of subjective sensation comparable to music in interest.</p> + +<p>The objectification of musical forms is due to their fixity and complexity: +like words, they are thought of as existing in a social medium, and can be +beautiful without being spatial. But tastes have never been so accurately or +universally classified and distinguished; the instrument of sensation does not +allow such nice and stable discriminations as does the ear. The art of combining +dishes and wines, although one which everybody practises with more or less skill +and attention, deals with a material far too unrepresentable to be called +beautiful. The art remains in the sphere of the pleasant, and is consequently +regarded as servile, rather than fine.</p> + +<p>Artists in life, if that expression may be used for those who have beautified +social and domestic existence, have appealed continually to these lower senses. +A fragrant garden, and savoury meats, incense, and perfumes, soft stuffs, and +delicious colours, form our ideal of oriental luxuries, an ideal which appeals +too much to human nature ever to lose its charm. Yet our northern poets have +seldom attempted to arouse these images in their sensuous intensity, without +relieving them by some imaginative touch. In Keats, for example, we find the +following lines: —</p> + +<p> And still she slept in azure-lidded sleep,<br> + In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered,<br> + While he from forth the closet brought a heap<br> + Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd,<br> + With jellies soother than the creamy curd,<br> + And lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon;<br> + Manna and dates in argosy transferred<br> + From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one<br> + From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.</p> + +<p>Even the most sensuous of English poets, in whom the love of beauty is +supreme, cannot keep long to the primal elements of beauty; the higher flight is +inevitable for him. And how much does not the appeal to things in argosy +transferred from Fez, reinforced with the reference to Samarcand and especially +to the authorized beauties of the cedars of Lebanon, which even the Puritan may +sing without a blush, add to our wavering satisfaction and reconcile our +conscience to this unchristian indulgence of sense!</p> + +<p>But the time may be near when such scruples will be less common, and our +poetry, with our other arts, will dwell nearer to the fountain-head of all +inspiration. For if nothing not once in sense is to be found in the intellect, +much less is such a thing to be found in the imagination. If the cedars of +Lebanon did not spread a grateful shade, or the winds rustle through the maze of +their branches, if Lebanon had never been beautiful to sense, it would not now +be a fit or poetic subject of allusion. And the word "Fez" would be without +imaginative value if no traveller had ever felt the intoxication of the torrid +sun, the languors of oriental luxury, or, like the British soldier, cried amid +the dreary moralities of his native land: —</p> + +<p> Take me somewhere east of Suez<br> + Where the best is like +the worst,<br> + Where there ain't no ten commandments<br> + And a man may raise a +thirst.</p> + +<p>Nor would Samarcand be anything but for the mystery of the desert and the +picturesqueness of caravans, nor would an argosy be poetic if the sea had no +voices and no foam, the winds and oars no resistance, and the rudder and taut +sheets no pull. From these real sensations imagination draws its life, and +suggestion its power. The sweep of the fancy is itself also agreeable; but the +superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety +of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that +can at any time be felt.</p><a name="16"></a><br> + +<p><i>Sound.</i></p> + +<p>§ 16. Sound shares with the lower senses the disadvantage of having no +intrinsic spatial character; it, therefore, forms no part of the properly +abstracted external world, and the pleasures of the ear cannot become, in the +literal sense, qualities of +<i>things.</i> But there is in sounds such an exquisite and continuous gradation +in pitch, and such a measurable relation in length, that an object almost as +complex and describable as the visible one can be built out of them. What gives +spatial forms their value in description of the environment is the ease with +which discriminations and comparisons can be made in spatial objects: they are +measurable, while unspatial sensations commonly are not. But sounds are also +measurable in their own category: they have comparable pitches and durations, +and definite and recognizable combinations of those sensuous elements are as +truly <i>objects</i> as chairs and tables. Not that a musical composition exists +in any mystical way, as a portion of the music of the spheres, which no one is +hearing; but that, for a critical philosophy, visible objects are also nothing +but possibilities of sensation. The real world is merely the shadow of that +assurance of eventual experience which accompanies sanity. This objectivity can +accrue to any mental figment that has enough cohesion, content, and +individuality to be describable and recognizable, and these qualities belong no +less to audible than to spatial ideas.</p> + +<p>There is, accordingly, some justification in Schopenhauer's speculative +assertion that music repeats the entire world of sense, and is a parallel method +of expression of the underlying substance, or will. The world of sound is +certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite +extensions; and it has as much as the world of matter the power to interest us +and to stir our emotions. It was therefore potentially as full of meaning. But +it has proved the less serviceable and constant apparition; and, therefore, +music, which builds with its materials, while the purest and most impressive of +the arts, is the least human and instructive of them.</p> + +<p>The pleasantness of sounds has a simple physical basis. All sensations are +pleasant only between certain limits of intensity; but the ear can discriminate +easily between noises, that in themselves are uninteresting, if not annoying, +and notes, which have an unmistakable charm. A sound is a note if the pulsations +of the air by which it is produced recur at regular intervals. If there is no +regular recurrence of waves, it is a noise. The rapidity of these regular beats +determines the pitch of tones. That quality or +<i>timbre</i> by which one sound is distinguished from another of the same pitch +and intensity is due to the different complications of waves in the air; the +ability to discriminate the various waves in the vibrating air is, therefore, +the condition of our finding music in it; for every wave has its period, and +what we call a noise is a complication of notes too complex for our organs or +our attention to decipher.</p> + +<p>We find here, at the very threshold of our subject, a clear instance of a +conflict of principles which appears everywhere in aesthetics, and is the source +and explanation of many conflicts of taste. Since a note is heard when a set of +regular vibrations can be discriminated in the chaos of sound, it appears that +the perception and value of this artistic element depends on abstraction, on the +omission from the field of attention, of all the elements which do not conform +to a simple law. This may be called the principle of purity. But if it were, the +only principle at work, there would be no music more beautiful than the tone of +a tuning-fork. Such sounds, although delightful perhaps to a child, are soon +tedious. The principle of purity must make some compromise with another +principle, which we may call that of interest. The object must have enough +variety and expression to hold our attention for a while, and to stir our nature +widely.</p> + +<p>As we are more acutely sensitive to results or to processes, we find the most +agreeable effect nearer to one or to the other of these extremes of a tedious +beauty or of an unbeautiful expressiveness. But these principles, as is clear, +are not coordinate. The child who enjoys his rattle or his trumpet has aesthetic +enjoyment, of however rude a kind; but the master of technique who should give a +performance wholly without sensuous charm would be a gymnast and not a musician, +and the author whose novels and poems should be merely expressive, and +interesting only by their meaning and moral, would be a writer of history or +philosophy, but not an artist. The principle of purity is therefore essential to +aesthetic effect, but the principle of interest is subsidiary, and if appealed +to alone would fail to produce beauty.</p> + +<p>The distinction, however, is not absolute: for the simple sensation is itself +interesting, and the complication, if it is appreciable by sense and does not +require discursive thought to grasp it, is itself beautiful. There may be a work +of art in which the sensuous materials are not pleasing, as a discourse without +euphony, if the structure and expression give delight; and there may be an +interesting object without perceived structure, like musical notes, or the blue +sky. Perfection would, of course, lie in the union of elements all intrinsically +beautiful, in forms also intrinsically so; but where this is impossible, +different natures prefer to sacrifice one or the other advantage.</p><a name="17"></a><br> + +<p><i>Colour.</i></p> + +<p>§ 17. In the eye we have an organ so differentiated that it is sensitive to a +much more subtle influence than even that of air waves. There seems to be, in +the interstellar spaces, some pervasive fluid, for the light of the remotest +star is rapidly conveyed to us, and we can hardly understand how this radiation +of light, which takes place beyond our atmosphere, could be realized without +some medium. This hypothetical medium we call the ether. It is capable of very +rapid vibrations, which are propagated in all directions, like the waves of +sound, only much more quickly. Many common observations, such as the apparent +interval between lightning and thunder, make us aware of the quicker motion of +light. Now, since nature was filled with this responsive fluid, which propagated +to all distances vibrations originating at any point, and moreover as these +vibrations, when intercepted by a solid body, were reflected wholly or in part, +it obviously became very advantageous to every animal to develope an organ +sensitive to these vibrations — sensitive, that is, to light. For this would +give the mind instantaneous impressions dependent upon the presence and nature +of distant objects.</p> + +<p>To this circumstance we must attribute the primacy of sight in our +perception, a primacy that makes light the natural symbol of knowledge. When the +time came for our intelligence to take the great metaphysical leap, and conceive +its content as permanent and independent, or, in other words, to imagine <i> +things,</i> the idea of these +<i>things</i> had to be constructed out of the materials already present to the +mind. But the fittest material for such construction was that furnished by the +eye, since it is the eye that brings us into widest relations with our actual +environment, and gives us the quickest warning of approaching impressions. Sight +has a prophetic function. We are less interested in it for itself than for the +suggestion it brings of what may follow after. Sight is a method of presenting +psychically what is practically absent; and as the essence of the <i>thing</i> +is its existence in our absence, the <i>thing</i> is spontaneously conceived in +terms of sight.</p> + +<p>Sight is, therefore, perception <i>par excellence,</i> since we become most +easily aware of objects through visual agency and in visual terms. Now, as the +values of perception are those we call aesthetic, and there could be no beauty +if there was no conception of independent objects, we may expect to find beauty +derived mainly from the pleasures of sight. And, in fact, form, which is almost +a synonym of beauty, is for us usually something visible: it is a synthesis of +the seen. But prior to the effect of form, which arises in the constructive +imagination, comes the effect of colour; this is purely sensuous, and no better +intrinsically than the effects of any other sense: but being more involved in +the perception of objects than are the rest, it becomes more readily an element +of beauty.</p> + +<p>The values of colours differ appreciably and have analogy to the differing +values of other sensations. As sweet or pungent smells, as high and low notes, +or major and minor chords, differ from each other by virtue of their different +stimulation of the senses, so also red differs from green, and green from +violet. There is a nervous process for each, and consequently a specific value. +This emotional quality has affinity to the emotional quality of other +sensations; we need not be surprised that the high rate of vibration which +yields a sharp note to the ear should involve somewhat the same feeling that is +produced by the high rate of vibration which, to the eye, yields a violet +colour. These affinities escape many minds; but it is conceivable that the sense +of them should be improved by accident or training. There are certain effects of +colour which give all men pleasure, and others which jar, almost like a musical +discord. A more general development of this sensibility would make possible a +new abstract art, an art that should deal with colours as music does with sound.</p> + +<p>We have not studied these effects, however, with enough attention, we have +not allowed them to penetrate enough into the soul, to think them very +significant. The stimulation of fireworks, or of kaleidoscopic effects, seems to +us trivial. But everything which has a varied content has a potentiality of form +and also of meaning. The form will be enjoyed as soon as attention accustoms us +to discriminate and recognize its variations; and meaning will accrue to it, +when the various emotional values of these forms ally the new object to all +other experiences which involve similar emotions, and thus give it a sympathetic +environment in the mind. The colours of the sunset have a brilliancy that +attracts attention, and a softness and illusiveness that enchant the eye; while +the many associations of the evening and of heaven gather about this kindred +charm and deepen it. Thus the most sensuous of beauties can be full of +sentimental suggestion. In stained glass, also, we have an example of masses of +colour made to exert their powerful direct influence, to intensify an emotion +eventually to be attached to very ideal objects; what is in itself a gorgeous +and unmeaning ornament, by its absolute impressiveness becomes a vivid symbol of +those other ultimates which have a similar power over the soul.</p><a name="18"></a><br> + +<p><i>Materials surveyed.</i></p> + +<p>§ 18. We have now gone over those organs of perception that give us the +materials out of which we construct objects, and mentioned the most conspicuous +pleasures which, as they arise from those organs, are easily merged in the ideas +furnished by the same. We have also noticed that these ideas, conspicuous as +they are in our developed and operating consciousness, are not so much factors +in our thought, independent contributors to it, as they are discriminations and +excisions in its content, which, after they are all made, leave still a +background of vital feeling. For the outer senses are but a portion of our +sensorium, and the ideas of each, or of all together, but a portion of our +consciousness.</p> + +<p>The pleasures which accompany ideation we have also found to be unitary and +vital; only just as for practical purposes it is necessary to abstract and +discriminate the contribution of one sense from that of another, and thus to +become aware of particular and definable impressions, so it is natural that the +diffused emotional tone of the body should also be divided, and a certain +modicum of pleasure or pain should be attributed to each idea. Our pleasures are +thus described as the pleasures of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight, and +may become elements of beauty at the same time as the ideas to, which they are +attached become elements of objects. There is, however, a remainder of emotion +as there is a remainder of sensation; and the importance of this remainder — of +the continuum in which lie all particular pleasures and pains — was insisted +upon in the beginning.</p> + +<p>The beauty of the world, indeed, cannot be attributed wholly or mainly to +pleasures thus attached to abstracted sensations. It is only the beauty of the +materials of things which is drawn from the pleasures of sensation. By far the +most important effects are not attributable to these materials, but to their +arrangement and their ideal relations. We have yet to study those processes of +our mind by which this arrangement and these relations are conceived; and the +pleasures which we can attach to these processes may then be added to the +pleasures attached to sense as further and more subtle elements of beauty.</p> + +<p>But before passing to the consideration of this more intricate subject, we +may note that however subordinate the beauty may be which a garment, a building, +or a poem derives from its sensuous material, yet the presence of this sensuous +material is indispensable. Form cannot be the form of nothing. If, then, in +finding or creating beauty, we ignore the materials of things, and attend only +to their form, we miss an ever-present opportunity to heighten our effects. For +whatever delight the form may bring, the material might have given delight +already, and so much would have been gained towards the value of the total +result.</p> + +<p>Sensuous beauty is not the greatest or most important element of effect, but +it is the most primitive and fundamental, and the most universal. There is no +effect of form which an effect of material could not enhance, and this effect of +material, underlying that of form, raises the latter to a higher power and gives +the beauty of the object a certain poignancy, thoroughness, and infinity which +it otherwise would have lacked. The Parthenon not in marble, the king's crown +not of gold, and the stars not of fire, would be feeble and prosaic things. The +greater hold which material beauty has upon the senses, stimulates us here, +where the form is also sublime, and lifts and intensifies our emotions. We need +this stimulus if our perceptions are to reach the highest pitch of strength and +acuteness. Nothing can be ravishing that is not beautiful pervasively.</p> + +<p>And another point. The wider diffusion of sensuous beauty makes it as it were +the poor man's good. Fewer factors are needed to produce it and less training to +appreciate it. The senses are indispensable instruments of labour, developed by +the necessities of life; but their perfect development produces a harmony +between the inward structure and instinct of the organ and the outward +opportunities for its use; and this harmony is the source of continual +pleasures. In the sphere of sense, therefore, a certain cultivation is +inevitable in man; often greater, indeed, among rude peoples, perhaps among +animals, than among those whose attention takes a wider sweep and whose ideas +are more abstract. Without requiring, therefore, that a man should rise above +his station, or develope capacities which his opportunities will seldom employ, +we may yet endow his life with aesthetic interest, if we allow him the enjoyment +of sensuous beauty. This enriches him without adding to his labour, and flatters +him without alienating him from his world.</p> + +<p>Taste, when it is spontaneous, always begins with the senses. Children and +savages, as we are so often told, delight in bright and variegated colours; the +simplest people appreciate the neatness of muslin curtains, shining varnish, and +burnished pots. A rustic garden is a shallow patchwork of the liveliest flowers, +without that reserve and repose which is given by spaces and masses. Noise and +vivacity is all that childish music contains, and primitive songs add little +more of form than what is required to compose a few monotonous cadences. +These limitations are not to be regretted; they are a proof of sincerity. +Such simplicity is not the absence of taste, but the beginning of it.</p> + +<p>A people with genuine aesthetic perceptions creates traditional forms and +expresses the simple pathos of its life, in unchanging but significant themes, +repeated by generation after generation. When sincerity is lost, and a snobbish +ambition is substituted bad taste comes in. The essence of it is a substitution +of non-aesthetic for aesthetic values. To love glass beads because they are +beautiful is barbarous, perhaps, but not vulgar; to love jewels only because +they are dear is vulgar, and to betray the motive by placing them ineffectively +is an offence against taste. The test is always the same: Does the thing itself +actually please? If it does, your taste is real; it may be different from that +of others, but is equally justified and grounded in human nature. If it does +not, your whole judgment is spurious, and you are guilty, not of heresy, which +in aesthetics is orthodoxy itself, but of hypocrisy, which is a +self-excommunication from its sphere.</p> + +<p>Now, a great sign of this hypocrisy is insensibility to sensuous beauty. When +people show themselves indifferent to primary and fundamental effects, when they +are incapable of finding pictures except in frames or beauties except in the +great masters, we may justly suspect that they are parrots, and that their +verbal and historical knowledge covers a natural lack of aesthetic sense. Where, +on the contrary, insensibility to higher forms of beauty does not exclude a +natural love of the lower, we have every reason to be encouraged; there is a +true and healthy taste, which only needs experience to refine it. If a man +demands light, sound, and splendour, he proves that he has the aesthetic +equilibrium; that appearances as such interest him, and that he can pause in +perception to enjoy. We have but to vary his observation, to enlarge his +thought, to multiply his discriminations — all of which education can do — and +the same aesthetic habit will reveal to him every shade of the fit and fair. Or +if it should not, and the man, although sensuously gifted, proved to be +imaginatively dull, at least he would not have failed to catch an intimate and +wide-spread element of effect. The beauty of material is thus the groundwork of +all higher beauty, both in the object, whose form and meaning have to be lodged +in something sensible, and in the mind, where sensuous ideas, being the first to +emerge, are the first that can arouse delight.</p> + +<br> + +<a name="x05" id= +"x05"></a><br> + +<p>PART III</p> + +<p>FORM</p><a name="19"></a><br> + +<p><i>There is a beauty of form.</i></p> + +<p>§ 19. The most remarkable and characteristic problem of aesthetics is that of +beauty of form. Where there is a sensuous delight, like that of colour, and the +impression of the object is in its elements agreeable, we have to look no +farther for an explanation of the charm we feel. Where there is expression, and +an object indifferent to the senses is associated with other ideas which are +interesting, the problem, although complex and varied, is in principle +comparatively plain. But there is an intermediate effect which is more +mysterious, and more specifically an effect of beauty. It is found where +sensible elements, by themselves indifferent, are so united as to please in +combination. There is something unexpected in this phenomenon, so much so that +those who cannot conceive its explanation often reassure themselves by denying +its existence. To reduce beauty of form, however, to beauty of elements would +not be easy, because the creation and variation of effect, by changing the +relation of the simplest lines, offers too easy an experiment in refutation. And +it would, moreover, follow to the comfort of the vulgar that all marble houses +are equally beautiful.</p> + +<p>To attribute beauty of form to expression is more plausible. If I take the +meaningless short lines in the figure and arrange them in the given ways, +intended to represent the human face, there appear at once notably different +aesthetic values.</p> + +<center> +<p><img src="images/sense01.png" width="42" height="72" alt= +"[Illustration: sense01]"></p> +</center><br> + +<center> +<p><img src="images/sense02.png" width="164" height="112" alt= +"[Illustration: sense02]"></p> +</center> + +<p>Two of the forms are differently grotesque and one approximately beautiful. +Now these effects are due to the expression of the lines; not only because they +make one think of fair or ugly faces, but because, it may be said, these faces +would in reality be fair or ugly according to their expression, according to the +vital and moral associations of the different types.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, beauty of form cannot be reduced to expression without denying +the existence of immediate aesthetic values altogether, and reducing them all to +suggestions of moral good. For if the object expressed by the form, and from +which the form derives its value, had itself beauty of form, we should not +advance; we must come somewhere to the point where the expression is of +something else than beauty; and this something else would of course be some +practical or moral good. Moralists are fond of such an interpretation, and it is +a very interesting one. It puts beauty in the same relation to morals in which +morals stand to pleasure and pain; both would be intuitions, qualitatively new, +but with the same materials; they would be new perspectives of the same object.</p> + +<p>But this theory is actually inadmissible. Innumerable aesthetic effects, +indeed all specific and unmixed ones, are direct transmutations of pleasures and +pains; they express nothing extrinsic to themselves, much less moral +excellences. The detached lines of our figure signify nothing, but they are not +absolutely uninteresting; the straight line is the simplest and not the least +beautiful of forms. To say that it owes its interest to the thought of the +economy of travelling over the shortest road, or of other practical advantages, +would betray a feeble hold on psychological reality. The impression of a +straight line differs in a certain almost emotional way from that of a curve, as +those of various curves do from one another. The quality of the sensation is +different, like that of various colours or sounds. To attribute the character of +these forms to association would be like explaining sea-sickness as the fear of +shipwreck. There is a distinct quality and value, often a singular beauty, in +these simple lines that is intrinsic in the perception of their form.</p> + +<p>It would be pedantic, perhaps, anywhere but in a treatise on aesthetics, to +deny to this quality the name of expression; we might commonly say that the +circle has one expression and the oval another. But what does the circle express +except circularity, or the oval except the nature of the ellipse? Such +expression <i>expresses</i> nothing; it is really impression. There may be +analogy between it and other impressions; we may admit that odours, colours, and +sounds correspond, and may mutually suggest one another; but this analogy is a +superadded charm felt by very sensitive natures, and does not constitute the +original value of the sensations. The common emotional tinge is rather what +enables them to suggest one another, and what makes them comparable. Their +expression, such as it is, is therefore due to the accident that both feelings +have a kindred quality; and this quality has its effectiveness for sense +independently of the perception of its recurrence in a different sphere. We +shall accordingly take care to reserve the term "expression" for the suggestion +of some other and assignable object, from which the expressive thing borrows an +interest; and we shall speak of the intrinsic quality of forms as their +emotional tinge or specific value.</p><a name="20"></a><br> + +<p><i>Physiology of the perception of form.</i></p> + +<p>§ 20. The charm of a line evidently consists in the relation of its parts; in +order to understand this interest in spatial relations, we must inquire how they +are perceived.<a href="#note04"><u>[4]</u></a> If the eye had its sensitive +surface, the retina, exposed directly to the light, we could never have a +perception of form any more than in the nose or ear, which also perceive the +object through media. When the perception is not through a medium, but direct, +as in the case of the skin, we might get a notion of form, because each point of +the object would excite a single point in the skin, and as the sensations in +different parts of the skin differ in quality, a manifold of sense, in which +discrimination of parts would be involved, could be presented to the mind. But +when the perception is through a medium, a difficulty arises.</p> + +<p>Any point, <font face="Times New Roman">α</font>, in the object will send a +ray to every point, <i>a', b', c',</i> of the sensitive surface; every point of +the retina will therefore be similarly affected, since each will receive rays +from every part of the object.</p> + +<center> +<p><img src="images/sense03.png" width="167" height="139" alt= +"[Illustration: sense03]"></p> +</center> + +<p>If all the rays from one point of the object, a, are to be concentrated on a +corresponding point of the retina, <font face="Times New Roman">α,</font> which +would then become the exclusive representative of <font face= +"Times New Roman">α,</font> we must have one or more refracting surfaces +interposed, to gather the rays together. The presence of the lens, with its +various coatings, has made representation of point by point possible for the +eye. The absence of such an instrument makes the same sort of representation +impossible to other senses, such as the nose, which does not smell in one place +the effluvia of one part of the environment and in another place the effluvia of +another, but smells indiscriminately the combination of all. Eyes without lenses +like those possessed by some animals, undoubtedly give only a consciousness of +diffused light, without the possibility of boundaries or divisions in the field +of view. The abstraction of colour from form is therefore by no means an +artificial one, since, by a simplification of the organ of sense, one may be +perceived without the other.</p> + +<p>But even if the lens enables the eye to receive a distributed image of the +object, the manifold which consciousness would perceive would not be necessarily +a manifold of parts juxtaposed in space. Bach point of the retina might send to +the brain a detached impression; these might be comparable, but not necessarily +in their spatial position. The ear sends to the brain such a manifold of +impressions (since the ear also has an apparatus by which various external +differences in rapidity of vibrations are distributed into different parts of +the organ). But this discriminated manifold is a manifold of pitches, not of +positions. How does it happen that the manifold conveyed by the optic nerve +appears in consciousness as spatial, and that the relation between its elements +is seen as a relation of position?</p> + +<p>An answer to this question has been suggested by various psychologists. The +eye, by an instinctive movement, turns so as to bring every impression upon that +point of the retina, near its centre, which has the acutest sensibility. A +series of muscular sensations therefore always follows upon the conspicuous +excitement of any outlying point. The object, as the eye brings it to the centre +of vision, excites a series of points upon the retina; and the local sign, or +peculiar quality of sensation, proper to each of these spots, is associated with +that series of muscular feelings involved in turning the eyes. These feelings +henceforth revive together; it is enough that a point in the periphery of the +retina should receive a ray, for the mind to feel, together with that +impression, the suggestion of a motion, and of the line of points that lies +between the excited point and the centre of vision. A network of associations is +thus formed, whereby the sensation of each retinal point is connected with all +the others in a manner which is that of points in a plane. Every visible point +becomes thus a point in a field, and has a felt radiation of lines of possible +motion about it. Our notion of visual space has this origin, since the manifold +of retinal impressions is distributed in a manner which serves as the type and +exemplar of what we mean by a surface.</p><a name= +"21"></a><br> + +<p><i>Values of geometrical figures.</i></p> + +<p>§ 21. The reader will perhaps pardon these details and the strain they put on +his attention, when he perceives how much they help us to understand the value +of forms. The sense, then, of the position of any point consists in the tensions +in the eye, that not only tends to bring that point to the centre of vision, but +feels the suggestion of all the other points which are related to the given one +in the web of visual experience. The definition of space as the possibility of +motion is therefore an accurate and significant one, since the most direct and +native perception of space we can have is the awakening of many tendencies to +move our organs.</p> + +<p>For example, if a circle is presented, the eye will fall upon its centre, as +to the centre of gravity, as it were, of the balanced attractions of all the +points; and there will be, in that position, an indifference and sameness of +sensation, in whatever direction some accident moves the eye, that accounts very +well for the emotional quality of the circle. It is a form which, although +beautiful in its purity and simplicity, and wonderful in its continuity, lacks +any stimulating quality, and is often ugly in the arts, especially when found in +vertical surfaces where it is not always seen in perspective. For horizontal +surfaces it is better because it is there always an ellipse to vision, and the +ellipse has a less dull and stupefying effect. The eye can move easily, organize +and subordinate its parts, and its relations to the environment are not similar +in all directions. Small circles, like buttons, are not in the same danger of +becoming ugly, because the eye considers them as points, and they diversify and +help to divide surfaces, without appearing as surfaces themselves.</p> + +<p>The straight line offers a curious object for analysis. It is not for the eye +a very easy form to grasp. We bend it or we leave it. Unless it passes through +the centre of vision, it is obviously a tangent to the points which have +analogous relations to that centre. The local signs or tensions of the points in +such a tangent vary in an unseizable progression; there is violence in keeping +to it, and the effect is forced. This makes the dry and stiff quality of any +long straight line, which the skilful Greeks avoided by the curves of their +columns and entablatures, and the less economical barbarians by a profusion of +interruptions and ornaments.</p> + +<p>The straight line, when made the direct object of attention, is, of course, +followed by the eye and not seen by the outlying parts of the retina in one +eccentric position. The same explanation is good for this more common case, +since the consciousness that the eye travels in a straight line consists in the +surviving sense of the previous position, and in the manner in which the +tensions of these various positions overlap. If the tensions change from moment +to moment entirely, we have a broken, a fragmentary effect, as that of zigzag, +where all is dropping and picking up again of associated motions; in the +straight line, much prolonged, we have a gradual and inexorable rending of these +tendencies to associated movements.</p> + +<p>In the curves we call flowing and graceful, we have, on the contrary, a more +natural and rhythmical set of movements in the optic muscles; and certain points +in the various gyrations make rhymes and assonances, as it were, to the eye that +reaches them. We find ourselves at every turn reawakening, with a variation, the +sense of the previous position. It is easy to understand by analogy with the +superficially observed conditions of pleasure, that such rhythms and harmonies +should be delightful. The deeper question of the physical basis of pleasure we +have not intended to discuss. Suffice it that measure, in quantity, in +intensity, and in time, must involve that physiological process, whatever it may +be, the consciousness of which is pleasure.</p><a name="22"></a><br> + +<p><i>Symmetry.</i></p> + +<p>§ 22. An important exemplification of these physiological principles is found +in the charm of symmetry. When for any reason the eye is to be habitually +directed to a single point, as to the opening of a gate or window, to an altar, +a throne, a stage, or a fireplace, there will be violence and distraction caused +by the tendency to look aside in the recurring necessity of looking forward, if +the object is not so arranged that the tensions of eye are balanced, and the +centre of gravity of vision lies in the point which one is obliged to keep in +sight. In all such objects we therefore require bilateral symmetry. The +necessity of vertical symmetry is not felt because the eyes and head do not so +readily survey objects from top to bottom as from side to side. The inequality +of the upper and lower parts does not generate the same tendency to motion, the +same restlessness, as does the inequality of the right and left sides of an +object in front of us. The comfort and economy that comes from muscular balance +in the eye, is therefore in some cases the source of the value of symmetry.<a href="#note05"><u>[5]</u></a></p> + +<p>In other cases symmetry appeals to us through the charm of recognition and +rhythm. When the eye runs over a facade, and finds the objects that attract it +at equal intervals, an expectation, like the anticipation of an inevitable note +or requisite word, arises in the mind, and its non-satisfaction involves a +shock. This shock, if caused by the emphatic emergence of an interesting object, +gives the effect of the picturesque; but when it comes with no compensation, it +gives us the feeling of ugliness and imperfection — the defect which symmetry +avoids. This kind of symmetry is accordingly in itself a negative merit, but +often the condition of the greatest of all merits, — the permanent power to +please. It contributes to that completeness which delights without stimulating, +and to which our jaded senses return gladly, after all sorts of extravagances, +as to a kind of domestic peace. The inwardness and solidity of this quiet beauty +comes from the intrinsic character of the pleasure which makes it up. It is no +adventitious charm; but the eye in its continual passage over the object finds +always the same response, the same adequacy; and the very process of perception +is made delightful by the object's fitness to be perceived. The parts, thus +coalescing, form a single object, the unity and simplicity of which are based +upon the rhythm and correspondence of its elements.</p> + +<p>Symmetry is here what metaphysicians call a principle of individuation. By +the emphasis which it lays upon the recurring elements, it cuts up the field +into determinate units; all that lies between the beats is one interval, one +individual. If there were no recurrent impressions, no corresponding points, the +field of perception would remain a fluid continuum, without defined and +recognizable divisions. The outlines of most things are symmetrical because we +choose what symmetrical lines we find to be the boundaries of objects. Their +symmetry is the condition of their unity, and their unity of their individuality +and separate existence.</p> + +<p>Experience, to be sure, can teach us to regard unsymmetrical objects as +wholes, because their elements move and change together in nature; but this is a +principle of individuation, <i>a posteriori,</i> founded on the association of +recognized elements. These elements, to be recognized and seen to go together +and form one thing, must first be somehow discriminated; and the symmetry, +either of their parts, or of their position as wholes, may enable us to fix +their boundaries and to observe their number. The category of unity, which we +are so constantly imposing upon nature and its parts, has symmetry, then, for +one of its instruments, for one of its bases of application.</p> + +<p>If symmetry, then, is a principle of individuation and helps us to +distinguish objects, we cannot wonder that it helps us to enjoy the perception. +For our intelligence loves to perceive; water is not more grateful to a parched +throat than a principle of comprehension to a confused understanding. Symmetry +clarifies, and we all know that light is sweet. At the same time, we can see +why there are limits to the value of symmetry. In objects, for instance, that +are too small or too diffused for composition, symmetry has no value. In an +avenue symmetry is stately and impressive, but in a large park, or in the plan +of a city, or the side wall of a gallery it produces monotony in the various +views rather than unity in any one of them. Greek temples, never being very +large, were symmetrical on all their facades; Gothic churches were generally +designed to be symmetrical only in the west front, and in the transepts, while +the side elevation as a whole was eccentric. This was probably an accident, due +to the demands of the interior arrangement; but it was a fortunate one, as we +may see by contrasting its effect with that of our stations, exhibition +buildings, and other vast structures, where symmetry is generally introduced +even in the most extensive facades which, being too much prolonged for their +height, cannot be treated as units. The eye is not able to take them in at a +glance, and does not get the effect of repose from the balance of the extremes, +while the mechanical sameness of the sections, surveyed in succession, makes the +impression of an unmeaning poverty of resource.</p> + +<p>Symmetry thus loses its value when it cannot, on account of the size of the +object, contribute to the unity of our perception. The synthesis which it +facilitates must be instantaneous. If the comprehension by which we unify our +object is discursive, as, for instance, in conceiving the arrangement and +numbering of the streets of New York, or the plan of the Escurial, the advantage +of symmetry is an intellectual one; we can better imagine the relations of the +parts, and draw a map of the whole in the fancy; but there is no advantage to +direct perception, and therefore no added beauty. Symmetry is superfluous in +those objects. Similarly animal and vegetable forms gain nothing by being +symmetrically displayed, if the sense of their life and motion is to be given. +When, however, these forms are used for mere decoration, not for the expression +of their own vitality, then symmetry is again required to accentuate their unity +and organization. This justifies the habit of conventionalizing natural forms, +and the tendency of some kinds of hieratic art, like the Byzantine or Egyptian, +to affect a rigid symmetry of posture. We can thereby increase the unity and +force of the image without suggesting that individual life and mobility, which +would interfere with the religious function of the object, as the symbol and +embodiment of an impersonal faith.</p><a name="23"></a><br> + +<p><i>Form the unity of a manifold.</i></p> + +<p>§ 23. Symmetry is evidently a kind of unity in variety, where a whole is +determined by the rhythmic repetition of similars. We have seen that it has a +value where it is an aid to unification. Unity would thus appear to be the +virtue of forms; but a moment's reflection will show us that unity cannot be +absolute and be a form; a form is an aggregation, it must have elements, and the +manner in which the elements are combined constitutes the character of the form. +A perfectly simple perception, in which there was no consciousness of the +distinction and relation of parts, would not be a perception of form; it would +be a sensation. Physiologically these sensations may be aggregates and their +values, as in the case of musical tones, may differ according to the manner in +which certain elements, beats, vibrations, nervous processes, or what not, are +combined; but for consciousness the result is simple, and the value is the +pleasantness of a datum and not of a process. Form, therefore, does not appeal +to the unattentive; they get from objects only a vague sensation which may in +them awaken extrinsic associations; they do not stop to survey the parts or to +appreciate their relation, and consequently are insensible to the various charms +of various unifications; they can find in objects only the value of material or +of function, not that of form.</p> + +<p>Beauty of form, however, is what specifically appeals to an aesthetic nature; +it is equally removed from the crudity of formless stimulation and from the +emotional looseness of reverie and discursive thought. The indulgence in +sentiment and suggestion, of which our time is fond, to the sacrifice of formal +beauty, marks an absence of cultivation as real, if not as confessed, as that of +the barbarian who revels in gorgeous confusion.</p> + +<p>The synthesis, then, which constitutes form is an activity of the mind; the +unity arises consciously, and is an insight into the relation of sensible +elements separately perceived. It differs from sensation in the consciousness of +the synthesis, and from expression in the homogeneity of the elements, and in +their common presence to sense.</p> + +<p>The variety of forms depends upon the character of the elements and on the +variety of possible methods of unification. The elements may be all alike, and +their only diversity be numerical. Their unity will then be merely the sense of +their uniformity.<a href= +"#note06"><u>[6]</u></a> Or they may differ in kind, but so as to compel the +mind to no particular order in their unification. Or they may finally be so +constituted that they suggest inevitably the scheme of their unity; in this case +there is organization in the object, and the synthesis of its parts is one and +pre-determinate. We shall discuss these various forms in succession, pointing +out the effects proper to each.</p><a name= +"24"></a><br> + +<p><i>Multiplicity in uniformity.</i></p> + +<p>§ 24. The radical and typical case of the first kind of unity in variety is +found in the perception of extension itself. This perception, if we look to its +origin, may turn out to be primitive; no doubt the feeling of "crude extensity" +is an original sensation; every inference, association, and distinction is a +thing that looms up suddenly before the mind, and the nature and actuality of +which is a datum of what — to indicate its irresistible immediacy and +indescribability — we may well call sense. Forms are seen, and if we think of +the origin of the perception, we may well call this vision a sensation. The +distinction between a sensation of form, however, and one which is formless, +regards the content and character, not the genesis of the perception. A +distinction and association, or an inference, is a direct experience, a sensible +fact; but it is the experience of a process, of a motion between two terms, and +a consciousness of their coexistence and distinction; it is a feeling of +relation. Now the sense of space is a feeling of this kind; the essence of it is +the realization of a variety of directions and of possible motions, by which the +relation of point to point is vaguely but inevitably given. The perception of +extension is therefore a perception of form, although of the most rudimentary +kind. It is merely <i>Auseinandersein,</i> and we might call it the <i>materia +prima</i> of form, were it not capable of existing without further +determination. For we can have the sense of space without the sense of +boundaries; indeed, this intuition is what tempts us to declare space infinite. +Space would have to consist of a finite number of juxtaposed blocks, if our +experience of extension carried with it essentially the realization of limits.</p> + +<p>The aesthetic effect of extensiveness is also entirely different from that of +particular shapes. Some things appeal to us by their surfaces, others by the +lines that limit those surfaces. And this effect of surface is not necessarily +an effect of material or colour; the evenness, monotony, and vastness of a great +curtain of colour produce an effect which is that of the extreme of uniformity +in the extreme of multiplicity; the eye wanders over a fluid infinity of +unrecognizable positions, and the sense of their numberlessness and continuity +is precisely the source of the emotion of extent. The emotion is primary and has +undoubtedly a physiological ground, while the idea of size is secondary and +involves associations and inferences. A small photograph of St. Peter's gives +the idea of size; as does a distant view of the same object. But this is of +course dependent on our realization of the distance, or of the scale of the +representation. The value of size becomes immediate only when we are at close +quarters with the object; then the surfaces really subtend a large angle in the +field of vision, and the sense of vastness establishes its standard, which can +afterwards be applied to other objects by analogy and contrast. There is also, +to be sure, a moral and practical import in the known size of objects, which, by +association, determines their dignity; but the pure sense of extension, based +upon the attack of the object upon the apperceptive resources of the eye, is the +truly aesthetic value which it concerns us to point out here, as the most +rudimentary example of form.</p> + +<p>Although the effect of extension is not that of material, the two are best +seen in conjunction. Material must appear in some form; but when its beauty is +to be made prominent, it is well that this form should attract attention as +little as possible to itself. Now, of all forms, absolute uniformity in +extension is the simplest and most allied to the material; it gives the latter +only just enough form to make it real and perceptible. Very rich and beautiful +materials therefore do well to assume this form. You will spoil the beauty you +have by superimposing another; as if you make a statue of gold, or flute a +jasper column, or bedeck a velvet cloak. The beauty of stuffs appears when they +are plain. Even stone gives its specific quality best in great unbroken spaces +of wall; the simplicity of the form emphasizes the substance. And again, the +effect of extensity is never long satisfactory unless it is superinduced upon +some material beauty; the dignity of great hangings would suffer if they were +not of damask, but of cotton, and the vast smoothness of the sky would grow +oppressive if it were not of so tender a blue.</p><a name="25"></a><br> + +<p><i>Example of the stars.</i></p> + +<p>§ 25. Another beauty of the sky — the stars — offers so striking and +fascinating an illustration of the effect of multiplicity in uniformity, that I +am tempted to analyze it at some length. To most people, I fancy, the stars are +beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they +remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance +and possible habitation of those orbs. The vague and illusive ideas thus aroused +fall in so well with the dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we attribute +this emotion to those ideas, and persuade ourselves that the power of the starry +heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.</p> + +<p>The idea of the insignificance of our earth and of the incomprehensible +multiplicity of worlds is indeed immensely impressive; it may even be intensely +disagreeable. There is something baffling about infinity; in its presence the +sense of finite humility can never wholly banish the rebellious suspicion that +we are being deluded. Our mathematical imagination is put on the rack by an +attempted conception that has all the anguish of a nightmare and probably, could +we but awake, all its laughable absurdity. But the obsession of this dream is an +intellectual puzzle, not an aesthetic delight. It is not essential to our +admiration. Before the days of Kepler the heavens declared the glory of God; and +we needed no calculation of stellar distances, no fancies about a plurality of +worlds, no image of infinite spaces, to make the stars sublime.</p> + +<p>Had we been taught to believe that the stars governed our fortunes, and were +we reminded of fate whenever we looked at them, we should similarly tend to +imagine that this belief was the source of their sublimity; and, if the +superstition were dispelled, we should think the interest gone from the +apparition. But experience would soon undeceive us, and prove to us that the +sensuous character of the object was sublime in itself. Indeed, on account of +that intrinsic sublimity the sky can be fitly chosen as a symbol for a sublime +conception; the common quality in both makes each suggest the other. For that +reason, too, the parable of the natal stars governing our lives is such a +natural one to express our subjection to circumstances, and can be transformed +by the stupidity of disciples into a literal tenet. In the same way, the kinship +of the emotion produced by the stars with the emotion proper to certain +religious moments makes the stars seem a religious object. They become, like +impressive music, a stimulus to worship. But fortunately there are experiences +which remain untouched by theory, and which maintain the mutual intelligence of +men through the estrangements wrought by intellectual and religious systems. +When the superstructures crumble, the common foundation of human sentience and +imagination is exposed beneath.</p> + +<p>The intellectual suggestion of the infinity of nature can, moreover, be +awakened by other experiences which are by no means sublime. A heap of sand will +involve infinity as surely as a universe of suns and planets. Any object is +infinitely divisible and, when we press the thought, can contain as many worlds +with as many winged monsters and ideal republics as can the satellites of +Sirius. But the infinitesimal does not move us aesthetically; it can only awaken +an amused curiosity. The difference cannot lie in the import of the idea, which +is objectively the same in both cases. It lies in the different immediate effect +of the crude images which give us the type and meaning of each; the crude image +that underlies the idea of the infinitesimal is the dot, the poorest and most +uninteresting of impressions; while the crude image that underlies the idea of +infinity is space, multiplicity in uniformity, and this, as we have seen, has a +powerful effect on account of the breadth, volume, and omnipresence of the +stimulation. Every point in the retina is evenly excited, and the local signs of +all are simultaneously felt. This equable tension, this balance and elasticity +in the very absence of fixity, give the vague but powerful feeling that we wish +to describe. Did not the infinite, by this initial assault upon our senses, awe +us and overwhelm us, as solemn music might, the idea of it would be abstract and +moral like that of the infinitesimal, and nothing but an amusing curiosity.</p> + +<p>Nothing is objectively impressive; things are impressive only when they +succeed in touching the sensibility of the observer, by finding the avenues to +his brain and heart. The idea that the universe is a multitude of minute spheres +circling, like specks of dust, in a dark and boundless void, might leave us cold +and indifferent, if not bored and depressed, were it not that we identify this +hypothetical scheme with the visible splendour, the poignant intensity, and the +baffling number of the stars. So far is the object from giving value to the +impression, that it is here, as it must always ultimately be, the impression +that gives value to the object. For all worth leads us back to actual feeling +somewhere, or else evaporates into nothing — into a word and a superstition.</p> + +<p>Now, the starry heavens are very happily designed to intensify the sensations +on which their beauties must rest. In the first place, the continuum of space is +broken into points, numerous enough to give the utmost idea of multiplicity and +yet so distinct and vivid that it is impossible not to remain aware of their +individuality. The variety of local signs, without becoming organized into +forms, remains prominent and irreducible. This makes the object infinitely more +exciting than a plane surface would be. In the second place, the sensuous +contrast of the dark background, — blacker the clearer the night and the more +stars we can see, — with the palpitating fire of the stars themselves, could not +be exceeded by any possible device. This material beauty adds incalculably, as +we have already pointed out, to the inwardness and sublimity of the effect. To +realize the great importance of these two elements, we need but to conceive +their absence, and observe the change in the dignity of the result.</p> + +<p>Fancy a map of the heavens and every star plotted upon it, even those +invisible to the naked eye: why would this object, as full of scientific +suggestion surely as the reality, leave us so comparatively cold? Quite +indifferent it might not leave us, for I have myself watched stellar photographs +with almost inexhaustible wonder. The sense of multiplicity is naturally in no +way diminished by the representation; but the poignancy of the sensation, the +life of the light, are gone; and with the dulled impression the keenness of the +emotion disappears. Or imagine the stars, undiminished in number, without losing +any of their astronomical significance and divine immutability, marshalled in +geometrical patterns; say in a Latin cross, with the words <i>In hoc signo +vinces</i> in a scroll around them. The beauty of the illumination would be +perhaps increased, and its import, practical, religious, and cosmic, would +surely be a little plainer; but where would be the sublimity of the spectacle? +Irretrievably lost: and lost because the form of the object would no longer +tantalize us with its sheer multiplicity, and with the consequent overpowering +sense of suspense and awe.</p> + +<p>In a word, the infinity which moves us is the sense of multiplicity in +uniformity. Accordingly things which have enough multiplicity, as the lights of +a city seen across water, have an effect similar to that of the stars, if less +intense; whereas a star, if alone, because the multiplicity is lacking, makes a +wholly different impression. The single star is tender, beautiful, and mild; we +can compare it to the humblest and sweetest of things:</p> + +<p> A violet by a mossy stone<br> + Half hidden from the eye,<br> + Fair as <i>a star when only one<br> + Is shining in the sky.</i></p> + +<p>It is, not only in fact but in nature, an attendant on the moon, associated +with the moon, if we may be so prosaic here, not only by contiguity but also by +similarity.</p> + +<p> Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-regioned star<br> + Or vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky.</p> + +<p>The same poet can say elsewhere of a passionate lover:</p> + +<p> He arose<br> + Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star,<br> + Amid the sapphire heaven's deep repose.</p> + +<p>How opposite is all this from the cold glitter, the cruel and mysterious +sublimity of the stars when they are many! With these we have no Sapphic +associations; they make us think rather of Kant who could hit on nothing else to +compare with his categorical imperative, perhaps because he found in both the +same baffling incomprehensibility and the same fierce actuality. Such ultimate +feelings are sensations of physical tension.</p><a name="26"></a><br> + +<p><i>Defects of pure multiplicity.</i></p> + +<p>§ 26. This long analysis will be a sufficient illustration of the power of +multiplicity in uniformity; we may now proceed to point out the limitations +inherent in this form. The most obvious one is that of monotony; a file of +soldiers or an iron railing is impressive in its way, but cannot long entertain +us, nor hold us with that depth of developing interest, with which we might +study a crowd or a forest of trees.</p> + +<p>The tendency of monotony is double, and in two directions deadens our +pleasure. When the repeated impressions are acute, and cannot be forgotten in +their endless repetition, their monotony becomes painful. The constant appeal to +the same sense, the constant requirement of the same reaction, tires the system, +and we long for change as for a relief. If the repeated stimulations are not +very acute, we soon become unconscious of them; like the ticking of the clock, +they become merely a factor in our bodily one, a cause, as the case may be, of a +diffused pleasure or unrest; but they cease to present a distinguishable object.</p> + +<p>The pleasures, therefore, which a kindly but monotonous environment produces, +often fail to make it beautiful, for the simple reason that the environment is +not perceived. Likewise the hideousness of things to which we are accustomed — +the blemishes of the landscape, the ugliness of our clothes or of our walls — do +not oppress us, not so much because we do not see the ugliness as because we +overlook the things. The beauties or defects of monotonous objects are easily +lost, because the objects are themselves intermittent in consciousness. But it +is of some practical importance to remark that this indifference of monotonous +values is more apparent than real. The particular object ceases to be of +consequence; but the congruity of its structure and quality with our faculties +of perception remains, and its presence in our environment is still a constant +source of vague irritation and friction, or of subtle and pervasive delight. And +this value, although not associated with the image of the monotonous object, +lies there in our mind, like all the vital and systemic feelings, ready to +enhance the beauty of any object that arouses our attention, and meantime adding +to the health and freedom of our life — making whatever we do a little easier +and pleasanter for us. A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It +can quicken us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or the consciousness +of a right life, can quicken us from within. To humanize our surroundings is, +therefore, a task which should interest the physicians both of soul and body.</p> + +<p>But the monotony of multiplicity is not merely intrinsic in the form; what is +perhaps even of greater consequence in the arts is the fact that its capacity +for association is restricted. What is in itself uniform cannot have a great +diversity of relations. Hence the dryness, the crisp definiteness and hardness, +of those products of art which contain an endless repetition of the same +elements. Their affinities are necessarily few; they are not fit for many uses, +nor capable of expressing many ideas. The heroic couplet, now too much derided, +is a form of this kind. Its compactness and inevitableness make it excellent for +an epigram and adequate it for a satire, but its perpetual snap and unvarying +rhythm are thin for an epic, and impossible for a song. The Greek colonnade, a +form in many ways analogous, has similar limitations. Beautiful with a finished +and restrained beauty, which our taste is hardly refined enough to appreciate, +it is incapable of development. The experiments of Roman architecture +sufficiently show it; the glory of which is their Roman frame rather than their +Hellenic ornament.</p> + +<p>When the Greeks themselves had to face the problem of larger and more complex +buildings, in the service of a supernatural and hierarchical system, they +transformed their architecture into what we call Byzantine, and St. Sophia took +the place of the Parthenon. Here a vast vault was introduced, the colonnade +disappeared, the architrave was rounded into an arch from column to column, the +capitals of these were changed from concave to convex, and a thousand other +changes in structure and ornament introduced flexibility and variety. +Architecture could in this way, precisely because more vague and barbarous, +better adapt itself to the conditions of the new epoch. Perfect taste is itself +a limitation, not because it intentionally excludes any excellence, but because +it impedes the wandering of the arts into those bypaths of caprice and +grotesqueness in which, although at the sacrifice of formal beauty, interesting +partial effects might still be discovered. And this objection applies with +double force to the first crystallizations of taste, when tradition has carried +us but a little way in the right direction. The authorized effects are then very +simple, and if we allow no others, our art becomes wholly inadequate to the +functions ultimately imposed upon it. Primitive arts might furnish examples, but +the state of English poetry at the time of Queen Anne is a sufficient +illustration of this possibility. The French classicism, of which, the English +school was an echo, was more vital and human, because it embodied a more native +taste and a wider training.</p><a name="27"></a><br> + +<p><i>Aesthetics of democracy.</i></p> + +<p>§ 27. It would be an error to suppose that aesthetic principles apply only to +our judgments of works of art or of those natural objects which we attend to +chiefly on account of their beauty. Every idea which is formed in the human +mind, every activity and emotion, has some relation, direct or indirect, to pain +and pleasure. If, as is the case in all the more important instances, these +fluid activities and emotions precipitate, as it were, in their evanescence +certain psychical solids called ideas of things, then the concomitant pleasures +are incorporated more or less in those concrete ideas and the things acquire an +aesthetic colouring. And although this aesthetic colouring may be the last +quality we notice in objects of practical interest, its influence upon us is +none the less real, and often accounts for a great deal in our moral and +practical attitude.</p> + +<p>In the leading political and moral idea of our time, in the idea of +democracy, I think there is a strong aesthetic ingredient, and the power of the +idea of democracy over the imagination is an illustration of that effect of +multiplicity in uniformity which we have been studying. Of course, nothing could +be more absurd than to suggest that the French Revolution, with its immense +implications, had an aesthetic preference for its basis; it sprang, as we know, +from the hatred of oppression, the rivalry of classes, and the aspiration after +a freer social and strictly moral organization. But when these moral forces were +suggesting and partly realizing the democratic idea, this idea was necessarily +vividly present to men's thoughts; the picture of human life which it presented +was becoming familiar, and was being made the sanction and goal of constant +endeavour. Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it. The +consequence was that democracy, prized at first as a means to happiness and as +an instrument of good government, was acquiring an intrinsic value; it was +beginning to seem good in itself, in fact, the only intrinsically right and +perfect arrangement. A utilitarian scheme was receiving an aesthetic +consecration. That which was happening to democracy had happened before to the +feudal and royalist systems; they too had come to be prized in themselves, for +the pleasure men took in thinking of society organized in such an ancient, and +thereby to their fancy, appropriate and beautiful manner. The practical value of +the arrangement, on which, of course, it is entirely dependent for its origin +and authority, was forgotten, and men were ready to sacrifice their welfare to +their sense of propriety; that is, they allowed an aesthetic good to outweigh a +practical one. That seems now a superstition, although, indeed, a very natural +and even noble one. Equally natural and noble, but no less superstitious, is our +own belief in the divine right of democracy. Its essential right is something +purely aesthetic.</p> + +<p>Such aesthetic love of uniformity, however, is usually disguised under some +moral label: we call it the lore of justice, perhaps because we have not +considered that the value of justice also, in so far as it is not derivative and +utilitarian, must be intrinsic, or, what is practically the same thing, +aesthetic. But occasionally the beauties of democracy are presented to us +undisguised. The writings of Walt Whitman are a notable example. Never, perhaps, +has the charm of uniformity in multiplicity been felt so completely and so +exclusively. Everywhere it greets us with a passionate preference; not flowers +but leaves of grass, not music but drum-taps, not composition but aggregation, +not the hero but the average man, not the crisis but the vulgarest moment; and +by this resolute marshalling of nullities, by this effort to show us everything +as a momentary pulsation of a liquid and structureless whole, he profoundly +stirs the imagination. We may wish to dislike this power, but, I think, we must +inwardly admire it. For whatever practical dangers we may see in this terrible +levelling, our aesthetic faculty can condemn no actual effect; its privilege is +to be pleased by opposites, and to be capable of finding chaos sublime without +ceasing to make nature beautiful.</p><a name= +"28"></a><br> + +<p><i>Values of types and values of examples.</i></p> + +<p>§ 28. It is time we should return to the consideration of abstract forms. +Nearest in nature to the example of uniformity in multiplicity, we found those +objects, like a reversible pattern, that having some variety of parts invite us +to survey them in different orders, and so bring into play in a marked manner +the faculty of apperception.</p> + +<p>There is in the senses, as we have seen, a certain form of stimulation, a +certain measure and rhythm of waves with which the aesthetic value of the +sensation is connected. So when, in the perception of the object, a notable +contribution is made by memory and mental habit, the value of the perception +will be due, not only to the pleasantness of the external stimulus, but also to +the pleasantness of the apperceptive reaction; and the latter source of value +will be more important in proportion as the object perceived is more dependent, +for the form and meaning it presents, upon our past experience and imaginative +trend, and less on the structure of the external object.</p> + +<p>Our apperception of form varies not only with our constitution, age, and +health, as does the appreciation of sensuous values, but also with our education +and genius. The more indeterminate the object, the greater share must subjective +forces have in determining our perception; for, of course, every perception is +in itself perfectly specific, and can be called indefinite only in reference to +an abstract ideal which it is expected to approach. Every cloud has just the +outline it has, although we may call it vague, because we cannot classify its +form under any geometrical or animal species; it would be first definitely a +whale, and then would become indefinite until we saw our way to calling it a +camel. But while in the intermediate stage, the cloud would be a form in the +perception of which there would be little apperceptive activity little reaction +from the store of our experience, little sense of form; its value would be in +its colour and transparency, and in the suggestion of lightness and of complex +but gentle movement.</p> + +<p>But the moment we said "Yes, very like a whale," a new kind of value would +appear; the cloud could now be beautiful or ugly, not as a cloud merely, but as +a whale. We do not speak now of the associations of the idea, as with the sea, +or fishermen's yarns; that is an extrinsic matter of expression. We speak simply +of the intrinsic value of the form of the whale, of its lines, its movement, its +proportion. This is a more or less individual set of images which are revived in +the act of recognition; this revival constitutes the recognition, and the beauty +of the form is the pleasure of that revival. A certain musical phrase, as it +were, is played in the brain; the awakening of that echo is the act of +apperception and the harmony of the present stimulation with the form of that +phrase; the power of this particular object to develope and intensify that +generic phrase in the direction of pleasure, is the test of the formal beauty of +this example. For these cerebral phrases have a certain rhythm; this rhythm can, +by the influence of the stimulus that now reawakens it, be marred or enriched, +be made more or less marked and delicate; and as this conflict or reinforcement +comes, the object is ugly or beautiful in form.</p> + +<p>Such an aesthetic value is thus dependent on two things. The first is the +acquired character of the apperceptive form evoked; it may be a cadenza or a +trill, a major or a minor chord, a rose or a violet, a goddess or a dairy-maid; +and as one or another of these is recognized, an aesthetic dignity and tone is +given to the object. But it will be noticed that in such mere recognition very +little pleasure is found, or, what is the same thing, different aesthetic types +in the abstract have little difference in intrinsic beauty. The great difference +lies in their affinities. What will decide us to like or not to like the type of +our apperception will be not so much what this type is, as its fitness to the +context of our mind. It is like a word in a poem, more effective by its fitness +than by its intrinsic beauty, although that is requisite too. We can be shocked +at an incongruity of natures more than we can be pleased by the intrinsic beauty +of each nature apart, so long, that is, as they remain abstract natures, objects +recognized without being studied. The aesthetic dignity of the form, then, tells +us the kind of beauty we are to expect, affects us by its welcome or unwelcome +promise, but hardly gives us a positive pleasure in the beauty itself.</p> + +<p>Now this is the first thing in the value of a form, the value of the type as +such; the second and more important element is the relation of the particular +impression to the form under which it is apperceived. This determines the value +of the object as an example of its class. After our mind is pitched to the key +and rhythm of a certain idea, say of a queen, it remains for the impression to +fulfil, aggrandize, or enrich this form by a sympathetic embodiment of it. Then +we have a queen that is truly royal. But if instead there is disappointment, if +this particular queen is an ugly one, although perhaps she might have pleased as +a witch, this is because the apperceptive form and the impression give a +cerebral discord. The object is unideal, that is, the novel, external element is +inharmonious with the revived and internal element by suggesting which the +object has been apperceived.</p><a name="29"></a><br> + +<p><i>Origin of types.</i></p> + +<p>§ 29. A most important thing, therefore, in the perception of form is the +formation of types in our mind, with reference to which examples are to be +judged. I say the formation of them, for we can hardly consider the theory that +they are eternal as a possible one in psychology. The Platonic doctrine on that +point is a striking illustration of an equivocation we mentioned in the +beginning;<a href= +"#note07"><u>[7]</u></a> namely, that the import of an experience is regarded as +a manifestation of its cause — the product of a faculty substituted for the +description of its function. Eternal types are the instrument of aesthetic life, +not its foundation. Take the aesthetic attitude, and you have for the moment an +eternal idea; an idea, I mean, that you treat as an absolute standard, just as +when you take the perceptive attitude you have an external object which you +treat as an absolute existence. But the aesthetic, like the perceptive faculty, +can be made an object of study in turn, and its theory can be sought; and then +the eternal idea, like the external object, is seen to be a product of human +nature, a symbol of experience, and an instrument of thought.</p> + +<p>The question whether there are not, in external nature or in the mind of God, +objects and eternal types, is indeed not settled, it is not even touched by this +inquiry; but it is indirectly shown to be futile, because such transcendent +realities, if they exist, can have nothing to do with our ideas of them. The +Platonic idea of a tree may exist; how should I deny it? How should I deny that +I might some day find myself outside the sky gazing at it, and feeling that I, +with my mental vision, am beholding the plenitude of arboreal beauty, perceived +in this world only as a vague essence haunting the multiplicity of finite trees? +But what can that have to do with my actual sense of what a tree should be? +Shall we take the Platonic myth literally, and say the idea is a memory of the +tree I have already seen in heaven? How else establish any relation between that +eternal object and the type in my mind? But why, in that case, this infinite +variability of ideal trees? Was the Tree Beautiful an oak, or a cedar, an +English or an American elm? My actual types are finite and mutually exclusive; +that heavenly type must be one and infinite. The problem is hopeless.</p> + +<p>Very simple, on the other hand, is the explanation of the existence of that +type as a residuum of experience. Our idea of an individual thing is a compound +and residuum of our several experiences of it; and in the same manner our idea +of a class is a compound and residuum of our ideas of the particulars that +compose it. Particular impressions have, by virtue of their intrinsic similarity +or of the identity of their relations, a tendency to be merged and identified, +so that many individual perceptions leave but a single blurred memory that +stands for them all, because it combines their several associations. Similarly, +when various objects have many common characteristics, the mind is incapable of +keeping them apart. It cannot hold clearly so great a multitude of distinctions +and relations as would be involved in naming and conceiving separately each +grain of sand, or drop of water, each fly or horse or man that we have ever +seen. The mass of our experience has therefore to be classified, if it is to be +available at all. Instead of a distinct image to represent each of our original +impressions, we have a general resultant — a composite photograph — of those +impressions.</p> + +<p>This resultant image is the idea of the class. It often has very few, if any, +of the sensible properties of the particulars that underlie it, often an +artificial symbol — the sound of a word — is the only element, present to all +the instances, which the generic image clearly contains. For, of course, the +reason why a name can represent a class of objects is that the name is the most +conspicuous element of identity in the various experiences of objects in that +class. We have seen many horses, but if we are not lovers of the animal, nor +particularly keen observers, very likely we retain no clear image of all that +mass of impressions except the reverberation of the sound "horse," which really +or mentally has accompanied all those impressions. This sound, therefore, is the +content of our general idea, and to it cling all the associations which +constitute our sense of what the word means. But a person with a memory +predominantly visual would probably add to this remembered sound a more or less +detailed image of the animal; some particular horse in some particular attitude +might possibly be recalled, but more probably some imaginative construction, +some dream image, would accompany the sound. An image which reproduced no +particular horse exactly, but which was a spontaneous fiction of the fancy, +would serve, by virtue of its felt relations, the same purpose as the sound +itself. Such a spontaneous image would be, of course, variable. In fact, no +image can, strictly speaking, ever recur. But these percepts, as they are +called, springing up in the mind like flowers from the buried seeds of past +experience, would inherit all the powers of suggestion which are required by any +instrument of classification.</p> + +<p>These powers of suggestion have probably a cerebral basis. The new percept — +the generic idea — repeats to a great extent, both in nature and localization, +the excitement constituting the various original impressions; as the percept +reproduces more or less of these it will be a more or less full and impartial +representative of them. Not all the suggestions of a word or image are equally +ripe. A generic idea or type usually presents to us a very inadequate and +biassed view of the field it means to cover. As we reflect and seek to correct +this inadequacy, the percept changes on our hands. The very consciousness that +other individuals and other qualities fall under our concept, changes this +concept, as a psychological presence, and alters its distinctness and extent. +When I remember, to use a classical example, that the triangle is not isosceles, +nor scalene, nor rectangular, but each and all of those, I reduce my percept to +the word and its definition, with perhaps a sense of the general motion of the +hand and eye by which we trace a three-cornered figure.</p> + +<p>Since the production of a general idea is thus a matter of subjective bias, +we cannot expect that a type should be the exact average of the examples from +which it is drawn. In a rough way, it is the average; a fact that in itself is +the strongest of arguments against the independence or priority of the general +idea. The beautiful horse, the beautiful speech, the beautiful face, is always a +medium between the extremes which our experience has offered. It is enough that +a given characteristic should be generally present in our experience, for it to +become an indispensable element of the ideal. There is nothing in itself +beautiful or necessary in the shape of the human ear, or in the presence of +nails on the fingers and toes; but the ideal of man, which the preposterous +conceit of our judgment makes us set up as divine and eternal, requires these +precise details; without them the human form would be repulsively ugly.</p> + +<p>It often happens that the accidents of experience make us in this way +introduce into the ideal, elements which, if they could be excluded without +disgusting us, would make possible satisfactions greater than those we can now +enjoy. Thus the taste formed by one school of art may condemn the greater +beauties created by another. In morals we have the same phenomenon. A barbarous +ideal of life requires tasks and dangers incompatible with happiness; a rude and +oppressed conscience is incapable of regarding as good a state which excludes +its own acrid satisfactions. So, too, a fanatical imagination cannot regard God +as just unless he is represented as infinitely cruel. The purpose of education +is, of course, to free us from these prejudices, and to develope our ideals in +the direction of the greatest possible good. Evidently the ideal has been formed +by the habit of perception; it is, in a rough way, that average form which we +expect and most readily apperceive. The propriety and necessity of it is +entirely relative to our experience and faculty of apperception. The shock of +surprise, the incongruity with the formed percept, is the essence and measure of +ugliness.</p><a name="30"></a><br> + +<p><i>The average modified in the direction of pleasure.</i></p> + +<p>§ 30. Nevertheless we do not form aesthetic ideals any more than other +general types, entirely without bias. We have already observed that a percept +seldom gives an impartial compound of the objects of which it is the generic +image. This partiality is due to a variety of circumstances. One is the unequal +accuracy of our observation. If some interest directs our attention to a +particular quality of objects, that quality will be prominent in our percept; it +may even be the only content clearly given in our general idea; and any object, +however similar in other respects to those of the given class, will at once be +distinguished as belonging to a different species if it lacks that +characteristic on which our attention is particularly fixed. Our percepts are +thus habitually biassed in the direction of practical interest, if practical +interest does not indeed entirely govern their formation. In the same manner, +our aesthetic ideals are biassed in the direction of aesthetic interest. Not all +parts of an object are equally congruous with our perceptive faculty; not all +elements are noted with the same pleasure. Those, therefore, which are agreeable +are chiefly dwelt upon by the lover of beauty, and his percept will give an +average of things with a great emphasis laid on that part of them which is +beautiful. The ideal will thus deviate from the average in the direction of the +observer's pleasure.</p> + +<p>For this reason the world is so much more beautiful to a poet or an artist +than to an ordinary man. Each object, as his aesthetic sense is developed, is +perhaps less beautiful than to the uncritical eye; his taste becomes difficult, +and only the very best gives him unalloyed satisfaction. But while each work of +nature and art is thus apparently blighted by his greater demands and keener +susceptibility, the world itself, and the various natures it contains, are to +him unspeakably beautiful. The more blemishes he can see in men, the more +excellence he sees in man, and the more bitterly he laments the fate of each +particular soul, the more reverence and love he has for the soul in its ideal +essence. Criticism and idealization involve each other. The habit of looking for +beauty in everything makes us notice the shortcomings of things; our sense, +hungry for complete satisfaction, misses the perfection it demands. But this +demand for perfection becomes at the same time the nucleus of our observation; +from every side a quick affinity draws what is beautiful together and stores it +in the mind, giving body there to the blind yearnings of our nature. Many +imperfect things crystallize into a single perfection. The mind is thus peopled +by general ideas in which beauty is the chief quality; and these ideas are at +the same time the types of things. The type is still a natural resultant of +particular impressions; but the formation of it has been guided by a deep +subjective bias in favour of what has delighted the eye.</p> + +<p>This theory can be easily tested by asking whether, in the case where the +ideal differs from the average form of objects, this variation is not due to the +intrinsic pleasantness or impressiveness of the quality exaggerated. For +instance, in the human form, the ideal differs immensely from the average. In +many respects the extreme or something near it is the most beautiful. Xenophon +describes the women of Armenia as +<font face="Times New Roman">καλαί καί μεγάλαι</font>, and we should still speak +of one as fair and tall and of another as fair but little. Size is therefore, +even where least requisite, a thing in which the ideal exceeds the average. And +the reason — apart from associations of strength — is that unusual size makes +things conspicuous. The first prerequisite of effect is impression, and size +helps that; therefore in the aesthetic ideal the average will be modified by +being enlarged, because that is a change in the direction of our pleasure, and +size will be an element of beauty.<a href= +"#note08"><u>[8]</u></a></p> + +<p>Similarly the eyes, in themselves beautiful, will be enlarged also; and +generally whatever makes by its sensuous quality, by its abstract form, or by +its expression, a particular appeal to our attention and contribution to our +delight, will count for more in the ideal type than its frequency would warrant. +The generic image has been constructed under the influence of a selective +attention, bent upon aesthetic worth.</p> + +<p>To praise any object for approaching the ideal of its kind is therefore only +a roundabout way of specifying its intrinsic merit and expressing its direct +effect on our sensibility. If in referring to the ideal we were not thus +analyzing the real, the ideal would be an irrelevant and unmeaning thing. We +know what the ideal is because we observe what pleases us in the reality. If we +allow the general notion to tyrannize at all over the particular impression and +to blind us to new and unclassified beauties which the latter may contain, we +are simply substituting words for feelings, and making a verbal classification +pass for an aesthetic judgment. Then the sense of beauty is gone to seed. Ideals +have their uses, but their authority is wholly representative. They stand for +specific satisfactions, or else they stand for nothing at all.</p> + +<p>In fact, the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, +fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and gods, are so many symbolic, +algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are +incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should +flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and +direct our course by these intellectual devices. Theory helps us to bear our +ignorance of fact.</p> + +<p>The same thing happens, in a way, in other fields. Our armies are devices +necessitated by our weakness; our property an encumbrance required by our need. +If our situation were not precarious, these great engines of death and life +would not be invented. And our intelligence is such another weapon against fate. +We need not lament the fact, since, after all, to build these various structures +is, up to a certain point, the natural function of human nature. The trouble is +not that the products are always subjective, but that they are sometimes unfit +and torment the spirit which they exercise. The pathetic part of our situation +appears only when we so attach ourselves to those necessary but imperfect +fictions, as to reject the facts from which they spring and of which they seek +to be prophetic. We are then guilty of that substitution of means for ends, +which is called idolatry in religion, absurdity in logic, and folly in morals. +In aesthetics the thing has no name, but is nevertheless very common; for it is +found whenever we speak of what ought to please, rather than of what actually +pleases.</p> + +<p><a name="31"></a></p> + +<p><i>Are all things beautiful?</i></p> + +<p>§ 31. These principles lead to an intelligible answer to a question which is +not uninteresting in itself and crucial in a system of aesthetics. Are all +things beautiful? Are all types equally beautiful when we abstract from our +practical prejudices? If the reader has given his assent to the foregoing +propositions, he will easily see that, in one sense, we must declare that no +object is essentially ugly. If impressions are painful, they are objectified +with difficulty; the perception of a thing is therefore, under normal +circumstances, when the senses are not fatigued, rather agreeable than +disagreeable. And when the frequent perception of a class of objects has given +rise to an apperceptive norm, and we have an ideal of the species, the +recognition and exemplification of that norm will give pleasure, in proportion +to the degree of interest and accuracy with which we have made our observations. +The naturalist accordingly sees beauties to which the academic artist is blind, +and each new environment must open to us, if we allow it to educate our +perception, a new wealth of beautiful forms.</p> + +<p>But we are not for this reason obliged to assert that all gradations of +beauty and dignity are a matter of personal and accidental bias. The mystics who +declare that to God there is no distinction in the value of things, and that +only our human prejudice makes us prefer a rose to an oyster, or a lion to a +monkey, have, of course, a reason for what they say. If we could strip ourselves +of our human nature, we should undoubtedly find ourselves incapable of making +these distinctions, as well as of thinking, perceiving, or willing in any way +which is now possible to us. But how things would appear to us if we were not +human is, to a man, a question of no importance. Even, the mystic to whom the +definite constitution of his own mind is so hateful, can only paralyze without +transcending his faculties. A passionate negation, the motive of which, although +morbid, is in spite of itself perfectly human, absorbs all his energies, and his +ultimate triumph is to attain the absoluteness of indifference.</p> + +<p>What is true of mysticism in general, is true also of its manifestation in +aesthetics. If we could so transform our taste as to find beauty everywhere, +because, perhaps, the ultimate nature of things is as truly exemplified in one +thing as in another, we should, in fact, have abolished taste altogether. For +the ascending series of aesthetic satisfactions we should have substituted a +monotonous judgment of identity. If things are beautiful not by virtue of their +differences but by virtue of an identical something which they equally contain, +then there could be no discrimination in beauty. Like substance, beauty would be +everywhere one and the same, and any tendency to prefer one thing to another +would be a proof of finitude and illusion. When we try to make our judgments +absolute, what we do is to surrender our natural standards and categories, and +slip into another genus, until we lose ourselves in the satisfying vagueness of +mere being.</p> + +<p>Relativity to our partial nature is therefore essential to all our definite +thoughts, judgments, and feelings. And when once the human bias is admitted as a +legitimate, because for us a necessary, basis of preference, the whole wealth of +nature is at once organized by that standard into a hierarchy of values. +Everything is beautiful because everything is capable in some degree of +interesting and charming our attention; but things differ immensely in this +capacity to please us in the contemplation of them, and therefore they differ +immensely in beauty. Could our nature be fixed and determined once for all in +every particular, the scale of aesthetic values would become certain. We should +not dispute about tastes, no longer because a common principle of preference +could not be discovered, but rather because any disagreement would then be +impossible.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, however, human nature is a vague abstraction; that which +is common to all men is the least part of their natural endowment. Aesthetic +capacity is accordingly very unevenly distributed; and the world of beauty is +much vaster and more complex to one man than to another. So long, indeed, as the +distinction is merely one of development, so that we recognize in the greatest +connoisseur only the refinement of the judgments of the rudest peasant, our +aesthetic principle has not changed; we might say that, in so far, we had a +common standard more or less widely applied. We might say so, because that +standard would be an implication of a common nature more or less fully +developed.</p> + +<p>But men do not differ only in the degree of their susceptibility, they differ +also in its direction. Human nature branches into opposed and incompatible +characters. And taste follows this bifurcation. We cannot, except whimsically, +say that a taste for music is higher or lower than a taste for sculpture. A man +might be a musician and a sculptor by turns; that would only involve a perfectly +conceivable enlargement in human genius. But the union thus effected would be an +accumulation of gifts in the observer, not a combination of beauties in the +object. The excellence of sculpture and that of music would remain entirely +independent and heterogeneous. Such divergences are like those of the outer +senses to which these arts appeal. Sound and colour have analogies only in their +lowest depth, as vibrations and excitement; as they grow specific and objective, +they diverge; and although the same consciousness perceives them, it perceives +them as unrelated and uncombinable objects.</p> + +<p>The ideal enlargement of human capacity, therefore, has no tendency to +constitute a single standard of beauty. These standards remain the expression of +diverse habits of sense and imagination. The man who combines the greatest range +with the greatest endowment in each particular, will, of course, be the critic +most generally respected. He will express the feelings of the greater number of +men. The advantage of scope in criticism lies not in the improvement of our +sense in each particular field; here the artist will detect the amateur's +shortcomings. But no man is a specialist with his whole soul. Some latent +capacity he has for other perceptions; and it is for the awakening of these, and +their marshalling before him, that the student of each kind of beauty turns to +the lover of them all.</p> + +<p>The temptation, therefore, to say that all things are really equally +beautiful arises from an imperfect analysis, by which the operations of the +aesthetic consciousness are only partially disintegrated. The dependence of the <i> +degrees</i> of beauty upon our nature is perceived, while the dependence of its <i> +essence</i> upon our nature is still ignored. All things are not equally +beautiful because the subjective bias that discriminates between them is the +cause of their being beautiful at all. The principle of personal preference is +the same as that of human taste; real and objective beauty, in contrast to a +vagary of individuals, means only an affinity to a more prevalent and lasting +susceptibility, a response to a more general and fundamental demand. And the +keener discrimination, by which the distance between beautiful and ugly things +is increased, far from being a loss of aesthetic insight, is a development of +that faculty by the exercise of which beauty comes into the world.</p><a name="32"></a><br> + +<p><i>Effects of indeterminate organization.</i></p> + +<p>§ 32. It is the free exercise of the activity of apperception that gives so +peculiar an interest to indeterminate objects, to the vague, the incoherent, the +suggestive, the variously interpretable. The more this effect is appealed to, +the greater wealth of thought is presumed in the observer, and the less mastery +is displayed by the artist. A poor and literal mind cannot enjoy the opportunity +for reverie and construction given by the stimulus of indeterminate objects; it +lacks the requisite resources. It is nonplussed and annoyed, and turns away to +simpler and more transparent things with a feeling of helplessness often turning +into contempt. And, on the other hand, the artist who is not artist enough, who +has too many irrepressible talents and too little technical skill, is sure to +float in the region of the indeterminate. He sketches and never paints; he hints +and never expresses; he stimulates and never informs. This is the method of the +individuals and of the nations that have more genius than art.</p> + +<p>The consciousness that accompanies this characteristic is the sense of +profundity, of mighty significance. And this feeling is not necessarily an +illusion. The nature of our materials — be they words, colours, or plastic +matter — imposes a limit and bias upon our expression. The reality of experience +can never be quite rendered through these media. The greatest mastery of +technique will therefore come short of perfect adequacy and exhaustiveness; +there must always remain a penumbra and fringe of suggestion if the most +explicit representation is to communicate a truth. When there is real +profundity, — when the living core of things is most firmly grasped, — there +will accordingly be a felt inadequacy of expression, and an appeal to the +observer to piece out our imperfections with his thoughts. But this should come +only after the resources of a patient and well-learned art have been exhausted; +else what is felt as depth is really confusion and incompetence. The simplest +thing becomes unutterable, if we have forgotten how to speak. And a habitual +indulgence in the inarticulate is a sure sign of the philosopher who has not +learned to think, the poet who has not learned to write, the painter who has not +learned to paint, and the impression that has not learned to express itself — +all of which are compatible with an immensity of genius in the inexpressible +soul.</p> + +<p>Our age is given to this sort of self-indulgence, and on both the grounds +mentioned. Our public, without being really trained, — for we appeal to too +large a public to require training in it, — is well informed and eagerly +responsive to everything; it is ready to work pretty hard, and do its share +towards its own profit and entertainment. It becomes a point of pride with it to +understand and appreciate everything. And our art, in its turn, does not +overlook this opportunity. It becomes disorganized, sporadic, whimsical, and +experimental. The crudity we are too distracted to refine, we accept as +originality, and the vagueness we are too pretentious to make accurate, we pass +off as sublimity. This is the secret of making great works on novel principles, +and of writing hard books easily.</p><a name="33"></a><br> + +<p><i>Example of landscape.</i></p> + +<p>§ 33. An extraordinary taste for landscape compensates us for this ignorance +of what is best and most finished in the arts. The natural landscape is an +indeterminate object; it almost always contains enough diversity to allow the +eye a great liberty in selecting, emphasizing, and grouping its elements, and it +is furthermore rich in suggestion and in vague emotional stimulus. A landscape +to be seen has to be composed, and to be loved has to be moralized. That is the +reason why rude or vulgar people are indifferent to their natural surroundings. +It does not occur to them that the work-a-day world is capable of aesthetic +contemplation. Only on holidays, when they add to themselves and their +belongings some unusual ornament, do they stop to watch the effect. The far more +beautiful daily aspects of their environment escape them altogether. When, +however, we learn to apperceive; when we grow fond of tracing lines and +developing vistas; when, above all, the subtler influences of places on our +mental tone are transmuted into an expressiveness in those places, and they are +furthermore poetized by our day-dreams, and turned by our instant fancy into so +many hints of a fairyland of happy living and vague adventure, — then we feel +that the landscape is beautiful. The forest, the fields, all wild or rural +scenes, are then full of companionship and entertainment.</p> + +<p>This is a beauty dependent on reverie, fancy, and objectified emotion. The +promiscuous natural landscape cannot be enjoyed in any other way. It has no real +unity, and therefore requires to have some form or other supplied by the fancy; +which can be the more readily done, in that the possible forms are many, and the +constant changes in the object offer varying suggestions to the eye. In fact, +psychologically speaking, there is no such thing as a landscape; what we call +such is an infinity of different scraps and glimpses given in succession. Even a +painted landscape, although it tends to select and emphasize some parts of the +field, is composed by adding together a multitude of views. When this painting +is observed in its turn, it is surveyed as a real landscape would be, and +apperceived partially and piecemeal; although, of course, it offers much less +wealth of material than its living original, and is therefore vastly inferior.</p> + +<p>Only the extreme of what is called impressionism tries to give upon canvas +one absolute momentary view; the result is that when the beholder has himself +actually been struck by that aspect, the picture has an extraordinary force and +emotional value — like the vivid power of recalling the past possessed by +smells. But, on the other hand, such a work is empty and trivial in the extreme; +it is the photograph of a detached impression, not followed, as it would be in +nature, by many variations of itself. An object so unusual is often +unrecognizable, if the vision thus unnaturally isolated has never happened to +come vividly into our own experience. The opposite school — what might be called <i> +discursive</i> landscape painting — collects so many glimpses and gives so fully +the sum of our positive observations of a particular scene, that its work is +sure to be perfectly intelligible and plain. If it seems unreal and +uninteresting, that is because it is formless, like the collective object it +represents, while it lacks that sensuous intensity and movement which might have +made the reality stimulating.</p> + +<p>The landscape contains, of course, innumerable things which have determinate +forms; but if the attention is directed specifically to them, we have no longer +what, by a curious limitation of the word, is called the love of nature. Not +very long ago it was usual for painters of landscapes to introduce figures, +buildings, or ruins to add some human association to the beauty of the place. +Or, if wildness and desolation were to be pictured, at least one weary wayfarer +must be seen sitting upon a broken column. He might wear a toga and then be +Marius among the ruins of Carthage. The landscape without figures would have +seemed meaningless; the spectator would have sat in suspense awaiting something, +as at the theatre when the curtain rises on an empty stage. The +indeterminateness of the suggestions of an unhumanized scene was then felt as a +defect; now we feel it rather as an exaltation. We need to be free; our emotion +suffices us; we do not ask for a description of the object which interests us as +a part of ourselves. We should blush to say so simple and obvious a thing as +that to us "the mountains are a feeling"; nor should we think of apologizing for +our romanticism as Byron did:</p> + +<p> I love not man the less but nature more<br> + From these our interviews, in which I steal,<br> + From all I may be, or have been before,<br> + To mingle with the universe, and feel<br> + What I can ne'er express.</p> + +<p>This ability to rest in nature unadorned and to find entertainment in her +aspects, is, of course, a great gain. Aesthetic education consists in training +ourselves to see the maximum of beauty. To see it in the physical world, which +must continually be about us, is a great progress toward that marriage of the +imagination with the reality which is the goal of contemplation.</p> + +<p>While we gain this mastery of the formless, however, we should not lose the +more necessary capacity of seeing form in those things which happen to have it. +In respect to most of those things which are determinate as well as natural, we +are usually in that state of aesthetic unconsciousness which the peasant is in +in respect to the landscape. We treat human life and its environment with the +same utilitarian eye with which he regards the field and mountain. That is +beautiful which is expressive of convenience and wealth; the rest is +indifferent. If we mean by love of nature aesthetic delight in the world in +which we casually live (and what can be more <i>natural</i> than man and all his +arts?), we may say that the absolute love of <i>nature</i> hardly exists among +us. What we love is the stimulation of our own personal emotions and dreams; and +landscape appeals to us, as music does to those who have no sense for musical +form.</p> + +<p>There would seem to be no truth in the saying that the ancients loved nature +less than we. They loved landscape less — less, at least, in proportion to their +love of the definite things it contained. The vague and changing effects of the +atmosphere, the masses of mountains, the infinite and living complexity of +forests, did not fascinate them. They had not that preponderant taste for the +indeterminate that makes the landscape a favourite subject of contemplation. But +love of nature, and comprehension of her, they had in a most eminent degree; in +fact, they actually made explicit that objectification of our own soul in her, +which for the romantic poet remains a mere vague and shifting suggestion. What +are the celestial gods, the nymphs, the fauns, the dryads, but the definite +apperceptions of that haunting spirit which we think we see in the sky, the +mountains, and the woods? We may think that our vague intuition grasps the truth +of what their childish imagination turned into a fable. But our belief, if it is +one, is just as fabulous, just as much a projection of human nature into +material things; and if we renounce all positive conception of quasi-mental +principles in nature, and reduce our moralizing of her to a poetic expression of +our own sensations, then can we say that our verbal and illusive images are +comparable as representations of the life of nature to the precision, variety, +humour, and beauty of the Greek mythology?</p><a name="34"></a><br> + +<p><i>Extensions to objects usually not regarded authentically.</i></p> + +<p>§ 34. It may not be superfluous to mention here certain analogous +fields where the human mind gives a series of unstable forms to objects in +themselves indeterminate.<a href="#note09"><u>[9]</u></a> History, philosophy, +natural as well as moral, and religion are evidently such fields. All theory is +a subjective form given to an indeterminate material. The material is +experience; and although each part of experience is, of course, perfectly +definite in itself, and just that experience which it is, yet the recollection +and relating together of the successive experiences is a function of the +theoretical faculty. The systematic relations of things in time and space, and +their dependence upon one another, are the work of our imagination. Theory can +therefore never have the kind of truth which belongs to experience; as Hobbes +has it, no discourse whatsoever can end in absolute knowledge of fact.</p> + +<p>It is conceivable that two different theories should be equally true in +respect to the same facts. All that is required is that they should be equally +complete schemes for the relation and prediction of the realities they deal +with. The choice between them would be an arbitrary one, determined by personal +bias, for the object being indeterminate, its elements can be apperceived as +forming all kinds of unities. A theory is a form of apperception, and in +applying it to the facts, although our first concern is naturally the adequacy +of our instrument of comprehension, we are also influenced, more than we think, +by the ease and pleasure with which we think in its terms, that is, by its +beauty.</p> + +<p>The case of two alternative theories of nature, both exhaustive and adequate, +may seem somewhat imaginary. The human mind is, indeed, not rich and +indeterminate enough to drive, as the saying is, many horses abreast; it wishes +to have one general scheme of conception only, under which it strives to bring +everything. Yet the philosophers, who are the scouts of common sense, have come +in sight of this possibility of a variety of methods of dealing with the same +facts. As at the basis of evolution generally there are many variations, only +some of which remain fixed, so at the origin of conception there are many +schemes; these are simultaneously developed, and at most stages of thought +divide the intelligence among themselves. So much is thought of on one principle +— say mechanically — and so much on another — say teleologically. In those minds +only that have a speculative turn, that is, in whom the desire for unity of +comprehension outruns practical exigencies, does the conflict become +intolerable. In them one or another of these theories tends to swallow all +experience, but is commonly incapable of doing so.</p> + +<p>The final victory of a single philosophy is not yet won, because none as yet +has proved adequate to all experience. If ever unity should be attained, our +unanimity would not indicate that, as the popular fancy conceives it, the truth +had been discovered; it would only indicate that the human mind had found a +definitive way of classifying its experience. Very likely, if man still retained +his inveterate habit of hypostatizing his ideas, that definitive scheme would be +regarded as a representation of the objective relations of things; but no proof +that it was so would ever be found, nor even any hint that there were external +objects, not to speak of relations between them. As the objects are hypostatized +percepts, so the relations are hypostatized processes of the human +understanding.</p> + +<p>To have reached a final philosophy would be only to have formulated the +typical and satisfying form of human apperception; the view would remain a +theory, an instrument of comprehension and survey fitted to the human eye; it +would be for ever utterly heterogeneous from fact, utterly unrepresentative of +any of those experiences which it would artificially connect and weave into a +pattern. Mythology and theology are the most striking illustrations of this +human method of incorporating much diffuse experience into graphic and +picturesque ideas; but steady reflection will hardly allow us to see anything +else in the theories of science and philosophy. These, too, are creatures of our +intelligence, and have their only being in the movement of our thought, as they +have their only justification in their fitness to our experience.</p> + +<p>Long before we can attain, however, the ideal unification of experience under +one theory, the various fields of thought demand provisional surveys; we are +obliged to reflect on life in a variety of detached and unrelated acts, since +neither can the whole material of life be ever given while we still live, nor +can that which is given be impartially retained in the human memory. When +omniscience was denied us, we were endowed with versatility. The picturesqueness +of human thought may console us for its imperfection.</p> + +<p>History, for instance, which passes for the account of facts, is in reality a +collection of apperceptions of an indeterminate material; for even the material +of history is not fact, but consists of memories and words subject to +ever-varying interpretation. No historian can be without bias, because the bias +defines the history. The memory in the first place is selective; official and +other records are selective, and often intentionally partial. Monuments and +ruins remain by chance. And when the historian has set himself to study these +few relics of the past, the work of his own intelligence begins. He must have +some guiding interest. A history is not an indiscriminate register of every +known event; a file of newspapers is not an inspiration of Clio. A history is a +view of the fortunes of some institution or person; it traces the development of +some interest. This interest furnishes the standard by which the facts are +selected, and their importance gauged. Then, after the facts are thus chosen, +marshalled, and emphasized, comes the indication of causes and relations; and in +this part of his work the historian plunges avowedly into speculation, and +becomes a philosophical poet. Everything will then depend on his genius, on his +principles, on his passions, — in a word, on his apperceptive forms. And the +value of history is similar to that of poetry, and varies with the beauty, +power, and adequacy of the form in which the indeterminate material of human +life is presented.</p><a name="35"></a><br> + +<p><i>Further dangers of indeterminateness.</i></p> + +<p>§ 35. The fondness of a race or epoch for any kind of effect is a natural +expression of temperament and circumstances, and cannot be blamed or easily +corrected. At the same time we may stop to consider some of the disadvantages of +a taste for the indeterminate. We shall be registering a truth and at the same +time, perhaps, giving some encouragement to that rebellion which we may inwardly +feel against this too prevalent manner. The indeterminate is by its nature +ambiguous; it is therefore obscure and uncertain in its effect, and if used, as +in many arts it often is, to convey a meaning, must fail to do so unequivocally. +Where a meaning is not to be conveyed, as in landscape, architecture, or music, +the illusiveness of the form is not so objectionable: although in all these +objects the tendency to observe forms and to demand them is a sign of increasing +appreciation. The ignorant fail to see the forms of music, architecture, and +landscape, and therefore are insensible to relative rank and technical values in +these spheres; they regard the objects only as so many stimuli to emotion, as +soothing or enlivening influences. But the sensuous and associative values of +these things — especially of music — are so great, that even without an +appreciation of form considerable beauty may be found in them.</p> + +<p>In literature, however, where the sensuous value of the words is +comparatively small, indeterminateness of form is fatal to beauty, and, if +extreme, even to expressiveness. For meaning is conveyed by the <i>form</i> and +order of words, not by the words themselves, and no precision of meaning can be +reached without precision of style. Therefore no respectable writer is +voluntarily obscure in the structure of his phrases — that is an abuse reserved +for the clowns of literary fashion. But a book is a larger sentence, and if it +is formless it fails to mean anything, for the same reason that an unformed +collection of words means nothing. The chapters and verses may have said +something, as loose words may have a known sense and a tone; but the book will +have brought no message.</p> + +<p>In fact, the absence of form in composition has two stages: that in which, as +in the works of Emerson, significant fragments are collected, and no system, no +total thought, constructed out of them; and secondly, that in which, as in the +writings of the Symbolists of our time, all the significance is kept back in the +individual words, or even in the syllables that compose them. This mosaic of +word-values has, indeed, a possibility of effect, for the absence of form does +not destroy materials, but, as we have observed, rather allows the attention to +remain fixed upon them; and for this reason absence of sense is a means of +accentuating beauty of sound and verbal suggestion. But this example shows how +the tendency to neglect structure in literature is a tendency to surrender the +use of language as an instrument of thought The descent is easy from ambiguity +to meaninglessness.</p> + +<p>The indeterminate in form is also indeterminate in value. It needs completion +by the mind of the observer and as this completion differs, the value of the +result must vary. An indeterminate object is therefore beautiful to him who can +make it so, and ugly to him who cannot. It appeals to a few and to them +diversely. In fact, the observer's own mind is the storehouse from which the +beautiful form has to be drawn. If the form is not there, it cannot be applied +to the half-finished object; it is like asking a man without skill to complete +another man's composition. The indeterminate object therefore requires an active +and well-equipped mind, and is otherwise without value.</p> + +<p>It is furthermore unprofitable even to the mind which takes it up; it +stimulates that mind to action, but it presents it with no new object. We can +respond only with those forms of apperception which we already are accustomed +to. A formless object cannot +<i>inform</i> the mind, cannot mould it to a new habit. That happens only when +the data, by their clear determination, compel the eye and imagination to follow +new paths and see new relations. Then we are introduced to a new beauty, and +enriched to that extent. But the indeterminate, like music to the sentimental, +is a vague stimulus. It calls forth at random such ideas and memories as may lie +to hand, stirring the mind, but leaving it undisciplined and unacquainted with +any new object. This stirring, like that of the pool of Bethesda, may indeed +have its virtue. A creative mind, already rich in experience and observation, +may, under the influence of such a stimulus, dart into a new thought, and give +birth to that with which it is already pregnant; but the fertilizing seed came +from elsewhere, from study and admiration of those definite forms which nature +contains, or which art, in imitation of nature, has conceived and brought to +perfection.</p><a name= +"36"></a><br> + +<p><i>Illusion of infinite perfection.</i></p> + +<p>§ 36. The great advantage, then, of indeterminate organization is that it +cultivates that spontaneity, intelligence, and imagination without which many +important objects would remain unintelligible, and because unintelligible, +uninteresting. The beauty of landscape, the forms of religion and science, the +types of human nature itself, are due to this apperceptive gift. Without it we +should have a chaos; but its patient and ever-fresh activity carves out of the +fluid material a great variety of forms. An object which stimulates us to this +activity, therefore, seems often to be more sublime and beautiful than one which +presents to us a single unchanging form, however perfect. There seems to be a +life and infinity in the incomplete, which the determinate excludes by its own +completeness and petrifaction. And yet the effort in this very activity is to +reach determination; we can only see beauty in so far as we introduce form. The +instability of the form can be no advantage to a work of art; the determinate +keeps constantly what the indeterminate reaches only in those moments in which +the observer's imagination is especially propitious. If we feel a certain +disappointment in the monotonous limits of a definite form and its eternal, +unsympathizing message, might we not feel much more the melancholy transiency of +those glimpses of beauty which elude us in the indeterminate? Might not the +torment and uncertainty of this contemplation, with the self-consciousness it +probably involves, more easily tire us than the quiet companionship of a +constant object? May we not prefer the unchangeable to the irrecoverable?</p> + +<p>We may; and the preference is one which we should all more clearly feel, were +it not for an illusion, proper to the romantic temperament, which lends a +mysterious charm to things which are indefinite and indefinable. It is the +suggestion of infinite perfection. In reality, perfection is a synonym of +finitude. Neither in nature nor in the fancy can anything be perfect except by +realizing a definite type, which excludes all variation, and contrasts sharply +with every other possibility of being. There is no perfection apart from a form +of apperception or type; and there are as many kinds of perfection as there are +types or forms of apperception latent in the mind.</p> + +<p>Now these various perfections are mutually exclusive. Only in a kind of +aesthetic orgy — in the madness of an intoxicated imagination — can we confuse +them. As the Roman emperor wished that the Roman people had but a single neck, +to murder them at one blow, so we may sometimes wish that all beauties had but +one form, that we might behold them together. But in the nature of things +beauties are incompatible. The spring cannot coexist with the autumn, nor day +with night; what is beautiful in a child is hideous in a man, and <i>vice versa;</i> +every age, every country, each sex, has a peculiar beauty, finite and +incommunicable; the better it is attained the more completely it excludes every +other. The same is evidently true of schools of art, of styles and languages, +and of every effect whatsoever. It exists by its finitude and is great in +proportion to its determination.</p> + +<p>But there is a loose and somewhat helpless state of mind in which while we +are incapable of realizing any particular thought or vision in its perfect +clearness and absolute beauty, we nevertheless feel its haunting presence in the +background of consciousness. And one reason why the idea cannot emerge from that +obscurity is that it is not alone in the brain; a thousand other ideals, a +thousand other plastic tendencies of thought, simmer there in confusion; and if +any definite image is presented in response to that vague agitation of our soul, +we feel its inadequacy to our need in spite of, or perhaps on account of, its +own particular perfection. We then say that the classic does not satisfy us, and +that the "Grecian cloys us with his perfectness." We are not capable of that +concentrated and serious attention to one thing at a time which would enable us +to sink into its being, and enjoy the intrinsic harmonies of its form, and the +bliss of its immanent particular heaven; we flounder in the vague, but at the +same time we are full of yearnings, of half-thoughts and semi-visions, and the +upward tendency and exaltation of our mood is emphatic and overpowering in +proportion to our incapacity to think, speak, or imagine.</p> + +<p>The sum of our incoherences has, however, an imposing volume and even, +perhaps, a vague, general direction. We feel ourselves laden with an infinite +burden; and what delights us most and seems to us to come nearest to the ideal +is not what embodies any one possible form, but that which, by embodying none, +suggests many, and stirs the mass of our inarticulate imagination with a +pervasive thrill. Each thing, without being a beauty in itself, by stimulating +our indeterminate emotion, seems to be a hint and expression of infinite beauty. +That infinite perfection which cannot be realized, because it is +self-contradictory, may be thus suggested, and on account of this suggestion an +indeterminate effect may be regarded as higher, more significant, and more +beautiful than any determinate one.</p> + +<p>The illusion, however, is obvious. The infinite perfection suggested is an +absurdity. What exists is a vague emotion, the objects of which, if they could +emerge from the chaos of a confused imagination, would turn out to be a +multitude of differently beautiful determinate things. This emotion of infinite +perfection is the <i>materia prima — rudis indigestaque moles —</i> out of which +attention, inspiration, and art can bring forth an infinity of particular +perfections. Every aesthetic success, whether in contemplation or production, is +the birth of one of these possibilities with which the sense of infinite +perfection is pregnant. A work of art or an act of observation which remains +indeterminate is, therefore, a failure, however much it may stir our emotion. It +is a failure for two reasons. In the first place this emotion is seldom wholly +pleasant; it is disquieting and perplexing; it brings a desire rather than a +satisfaction. And in the second place, the emotion, not being embodied, fails to +constitute the beauty of anything; and what we have is merely a sentiment, a +consciousness that values are or might be there, but a failure to extricate +those values, or to make them explicit and recognizable in an appropriate +object.</p> + +<p>These gropings after beauty have their worth as signs of aesthetic vitality +and intimations of future possible accomplishment; but in themselves they are +abortive, and mark the impotence of the imagination. Sentimentalism in the +observer and romanticism in the artist are examples of this aesthetic +incapacity. Whenever beauty is really seen and loved, it has a definite +embodiment: the eye has precision, the work has style, and the object has +perfection. The kind of perfection may indeed be new; and if the discovery of +new perfections is to be called romanticism, then romanticism is the beginning +of all aesthetic life. But if by romanticism we mean indulgence in confused +suggestion and in the exhibition of turgid force, then there is evidently need +of education, of attentive labour, to disentangle the beauties so vaguely felt, +and give each its adequate embodiment. The breadth of our inspiration need not +be lost in this process of clarification, for there is no limit to the number +and variety of forms which the world may be made to wear; only, if it is to be +appreciated as beautiful and not merely felt as unutterable, it must be seen as +a kingdom of forms. Thus the works of Shakespeare give us a great variety, with +a frequent marvellous precision of characterization, and the forms of his art +are definite although its scope is great.</p> + +<p>But by a curious anomaly, we are often expected to see the greatest +expressiveness in what remains indeterminate, and in reality expresses nothing. +As we have already observed, the sense of profundity and significance is a very +detachable emotion; it can accompany a confused jumble of promptings quite as +easily as it can a thorough comprehension of reality. The illusion of infinite +perfection is peculiarly apt to produce this sensation. That illusion arises by +the simultaneous awakening of many incipient thoughts and dim ideas; it stirs +the depths of the mind as a wind stirs the thickets of a forest; and the unusual +consciousness of the life and longing of the soul, brought by that gust of +feeling, makes us recognize in the object a singular power, a mysterious +meaning.</p> + +<p>But the feeling of significance signifies little. All we have in this case is +a potentiality of imagination; and only when this potentiality begins to be +realized in definite ideas, does a real meaning, or any object which that +meaning can mean, arise in the mind. The highest aesthetic good is not that +vague potentiality, nor that contradictory, infinite perfection so strongly +desired; it is the greatest number and variety of finite perfections. To learn +to see in nature and to enshrine in the arts the typical forms of things; to +study and recognize their variations; to domesticate the imagination in the +world, so that everywhere beauty can be seen, and a hint found for artistic +creation, — that is the goal of contemplation. Progress lies in the direction of +discrimination and precision, not in that of formless emotion and reverie.</p><a name="37"></a><br> + +<p><i>Organized nature the source of apperceptive forms; example of sculpture.</i></p> + +<p>§ 37. The form of the material world is in one sense always perfectly +definite, since the particles that compose it are at each moment in a given +relative position; but a world that had no other form than that of such a +constellation of atoms would remain chaotic to our perception, because we should +not be able to survey it as a whole, or to keep our attention suspended evenly +over its innumerable parts. According to evolutionary theory, mechanical +necessity has, however, brought about a distribution and aggregation of elements +such as, for our purposes, constitutes individual things. Certain systems of +atoms move together as units; and these organisms reproduce themselves and recur +so often in our environment, that our senses become accustomed to view their +parts together. Their form becomes a natural and recognizable one. An order and +sequence is established in our imagination by virtue of the order and sequence +in which the corresponding impressions have come to our senses. We can remember, +reproduce, and in reproducing vary, by kaleidoscopic tricks of the fancy, the +forms in which our perceptions have come.</p> + +<p>The mechanical organization of external nature is thus the source of +apperceptive forms in the mind. Did not sensation, by a constant repetition of +certain sequences, and a recurring exactitude of mathematical relations, keep +our fancy clear and fresh, we should fall into an imaginative lethargy. +Idealization would degenerate into indistinctness, and, by the dulling of our +memory, we should dream a world daily more poor and vague.</p> + +<p>This process is periodically observable in the history of the arts. The way +in which the human figure, for instance, is depicted, is an indication of the +way in which it is apperceived. The arts give back only so much of nature as the +human eye has been able to master. The most primitive stage of drawing and +sculpture presents man with his arms and legs, his ten fingers and ten toes, +branching out into mid-air; the apperception of the body has been evidently +practical and successive, and the artist sets down what he knows rather than any +of the particular perceptions that conveyed that knowledge. Those perceptions +are merged and lost in the haste to reach the practically useful concept of the +object. By a naïve expression of the same principle, we find in some Assyrian +drawings the eye seen from the front introduced into a face seen in profile, +each element being represented in that form in which it was most easily observed +and remembered. The development of Greek sculpture furnishes a good example of +the gradual penetration of nature into the mind, of the slowly enriched +apperception of the object. The quasi-Egyptian stiffness melts away, first from +the bodies of the minor figures, afterwards of those of the gods, and finally +the face is varied, and the hieratic smile almost disappears.<a href="#note10"><u>[10]</u></a></p> + +<p>But this progress has a near limit; once the most beautiful and inclusive +apperception reached, once the best form caught at its best moment, the artist +seems to have nothing more to do. To reproduce the imperfections of individuals +seems wrong, when beauty, after all, is the thing desired. And the ideal, as +caught by the master's inspiration, is more beautiful than anything his pupils +can find for themselves in nature. From its summit, the art therefore declines +in one of two directions. It either becomes academic, forsakes the study of +nature, and degenerates into empty convention, or else it becomes ignoble, +forsakes beauty, and sinks into a tasteless and unimaginative technique. The +latter was the course of sculpture in ancient times, the former, with moments of +reawakening, has been its dreadful fate among the moderns.</p> + +<p>This reawakening has come whenever there has been a return to nature, for a +new form of apperception and a new ideal. Of this return there is continual need +in all the arts; without it our apperceptions grow thin and worn, and subject to +the sway of tradition and fashion. We continue to judge about beauty, but we +give up looking for it. The remedy is to go back to the reality, to study it +patiently, to allow new aspects of it to work upon the mind, sink into it, and +beget there an imaginative offspring after their own kind. Then a new art can +appear, which, having the same origin in admiration for nature which the old art +had, may hope to attain the same excellence in a new direction.</p> + +<p>In fact, one of the dangers to which a modern artist is exposed is the +seduction of his predecessors. The gropings of our muse, the distracted +experiments of our architecture, often arise from the attraction of some +historical school; we cannot work out our own style because we are hampered by +the beauties of so many others. The result is an eclecticism, which, in spite of +its great historical and psychological interest, is without aesthetic unity or +permanent power to please. Thus the study of many schools of art may become an +obstacle to proficiency in any.</p><a name="38"></a><br> + +<p><i>Utility the principle of organization in nature.</i></p> + +<p>§ 38. Utility (or, as it is now called, adaptation, and natural selection) +organizes the material world into definite species and individuals. Only certain +aggregations of matter are in equilibrium with the prevailing forces of the +environment. Gravity, for instance, is in itself a chaotic force; it pulls all +particles indiscriminately together without reference to the wholes into which +the human eye may have grouped them. But the result is not chaos, because matter +arranged in some ways is welded together by the very tendency which +disintegrates it when arranged in other forms. These forms, selected by their +congruity with gravity, are therefore fixed in nature, and become types. Thus +the weight of the stones keeps the pyramid standing: here a certain shape has +become a guarantee of permanence in the presence of a force in itself mechanical +and undiscriminating. It is the utility of the pyramidal form — its fitness to +stand — that has made it a type in building. The Egyptians merely repeated a +process that they might have observed going on of itself in nature, who builds a +pyramid in every hill, not indeed because she wishes to, or because pyramids are +in any way an object of her action, but because she has no force which can +easily dislodge matter that finds itself in that shape.</p> + +<p>Such an accidental stability of structure is, in this moving world, a +sufficient principle of permanence and individuality. The same mechanical +principles, in more complex applications, insure the persistence of animal forms +and prevent any permanent deviation from them. What is called the principle of +self-preservation, and the final causes and substantial forms of the +Aristotelian philosophy, are descriptions of the result of this operation. The +tendency of everything to maintain and propagate its nature is simply the +inertia of a stable juxtaposition of elements, which are not enough disturbed by +ordinary accidents to lose their equilibrium; while the incidence of a too great +disturbance causes that disruption we call death, or that variation of type, +which, on account of its incapacity to establish itself permanently, we call +abnormal.</p> + +<p>Nature thus organizes herself into recognizable species; and the aesthetic +eye, studying her forms, tends, as we have already shown, to bring the type +within even narrower limits than do the external exigencies of life.</p><a name="39"></a><br> + +<p><i>The relation of utility to beauty.</i></p> + +<p>§ 39. This natural harmony between utility and beauty, when its origin is not +understood, is of course the subject of much perplexed and perplexing theory. +Sometimes we are told that utility is itself the essence of beauty, that is, +that our consciousness of the practical advantages of certain forms is the +ground of our aesthetic admiration of them. The horse's legs are said to be +beautiful because they are fit to run, the eye because it is made to see, the +house because it is convenient to live in. An amusing application — which might +pass for a <i>reductio ad absurdum,</i> — of this dense theory is put by +Xenophon into the mouth of Socrates. Comparing himself with a youth present at +the same banquet, who was about to receive the prize of beauty, Socrates +declares himself more beautiful and more worthy of the crown. For utility makes +beauty, and eyes bulging out from the head like his are the most advantageous +for seeing; nostrils wide and open to the air, like his, most appropriate for +smell; and a mouth large and voluminous, like his, best fitted for both eating +and kissing.<a href= +"#note11"><u>[11]</u></a></p> + +<p>Now since these things are, in fact, hideous, the theory that shows they <i> +ought to be</i> beautiful, is vain and ridiculous. But that theory contains this +truth: that had the utility of Socratic features been so great that men of all +other type must have perished, Socrates would have been beautiful. He would have +represented the human type. The eye would have been then accustomed to that +form, the imagination would have taken it as the basis of its refinements, and +accentuated its naturally effective points. The beautiful does not depend on the +useful; it is constituted by the imagination in ignorance and contempt of +practical advantage; but it is not independent of the necessary, for the +necessary must also be the habitual and consequently the basis of the type, and +of all its imaginative variations.</p> + +<p>There are, moreover, at a late and derivative stage in our aesthetic +judgment, certain cases in which the knowledge of fitness and utility enters +into our sense of beauty. But it does so very indirectly, rather by convincing +us that we should tolerate what practical conditions have imposed on an artist, +by arousing admiration of his ingenuity, or by suggesting the interesting things +themselves with which the object is known to be connected. Thus a +cottage-chimney, stout and tall, with the smoke floating from it, pleases +because we fancy it to mean a hearth, a rustic meal, and a comfortable family. +But that is all extraneous association. The most ordinary way in which utility +affects us is negatively; if we know a thing to be useless and fictitious, the +uncomfortable haunting sense of waste and trickery prevents all enjoyment, and +therefore banishes beauty. But this is also an adventitious complication. The +intrinsic value of a form is in no way affected by it.</p> + +<p>Opposed to this utilitarian theory stands the metaphysical one that would +make the beauty or intrinsic rightness of things the source of their efficiency +and of their power to survive. Taken literally, as it is generally meant, this +idea must, from our point of view, appear preposterous. Beauty and rightness are +relative to our judgment and emotion; they in no sense exist in nature or +preside over her. She everywhere appears to move by mechanical law. The types of +things exist by what, in relation to our approbation, is mere chance, and it is +our faculties that must adapt themselves to our environment and not our +environment to our faculties. Such is the naturalistic point of view which we +have adopted.</p> + +<p>To say, however, that beauty is in some sense the ground of practical +fitness, need not seem to us wholly unmeaning. The fault of the Platonists who +say things of this sort is seldom that of emptiness. They have an intuition; +they have sometimes a strong sense of the facts of consciousness. But they turn +their discoveries into so many revelations, and the veil of the infinite and +absolute soon covers their little light of specific truth. Sometimes, after +patient digging, the student comes upon the treasure of some simple fact, some +common experience, beneath all their mystery and unction. And so it may be in +this case. If we make allowances for the tendency to express experience in +allegory and myth, we shall see that the idea of beauty and rationality +presiding over nature and guiding her, as it were, for their own greater glory, +is a projection and a writing large of a psychological principle.</p> + +<p>The mind that perceives nature is the same that understands and enjoys her; +indeed, these three functions are really elements of one process. There is +therefore in the mere perceptibility of a thing a certain prophecy of its +beauty; if it were not on the road to beauty, if it had no approach to fitness +to our faculties of perception, the object would remain eternally unperceived. +The sense, therefore, that the whole world is made to be food for the soul; that +beauty is not only its own, but all things' excuse for being; that universal +aspiration towards perfection is the key and secret of the world, — that sense +is the poetical reverberation of a psychological fact — of the fact that our +mind is an organism tending to unity, to unconsciousness of what is refractory +to its action, and to assimilation and sympathetic transformation of what is +kept within its sphere. The idea that nature could be governed by an aspiration +towards beauty is, therefore, to be rejected as a confusion, but at the same +time we must confess that this confusion is founded on a consciousness of the +subjective relation between the perceptibility, rationality, and beauty of +things.</p><a name="40"></a><br> + +<p><i>Utility the principle of organization in the arts.</i></p> + +<p>§ 40. This subjective relation is, however, exceedingly loose. Most things +that are perceivable are not perceived so distinctly as to be intelligible, nor +so delightfully as to be beautiful. If our eye had infinite penetration, or our +imagination infinite elasticity, this would not be the case; to see would then +be to understand and to enjoy. As it is, the degree of determination needed for +perception is much less than that needed for comprehension or ideality. Hence +there is room for hypothesis and for art. As hypothesis organizes experiences +imaginatively in ways in which observation has not been able to do, so art +organizes objects in ways to which nature, perhaps, has never condescended.</p> + +<p>The chief thing which the imitative arts add to nature is permanence, the +lack of which is the saddest defect of many natural beauties. The forces which +determine natural forms, therefore, determine also the forms of the imitative +arts. But the non-imitative arts supply organisms different in kind from those +which nature affords. If we seek the principle by which these objects are +organized, we shall generally find that it is likewise utility. Architecture, +for instance, has all its forms suggested by practical demands. Use requires our +buildings to assume certain determinate forms; the mechanical properties of our +materials, the exigency of shelter, light, accessibility, economy, and +convenience, dictate the arrangements of our buildings.</p> + +<p>Houses and temples have an evolution like that of animals and plants. Various +forms arise by mechanical necessity, like the cave, or the shelter of +overhanging boughs. These are perpetuated by a selection in which the needs and +pleasures of man are the environment to which the structure must be adapted. +Determinate forms thus establish themselves, and the eye becomes accustomed to +them. The line of use, by habit of apperception, becomes the line of beauty. A +striking example may be found in the pediment of the Greek temple and the gable +of the northern house. The exigencies of climate determine these forms +differently, but the eye in each case accepts what utility imposes. We admire +height in one and breadth in the other, and we soon find the steep pediment +heavy and the low gable awkward and mean.</p> + +<p>It would be an error, however, to conclude that habit alone establishes the +right proportion in these various types of building. We have the same intrinsic +elements to consider as in natural forms. That is, besides the unity of type and +correspondence of parts which custom establishes, there are certain appeals to +more fundamental susceptibilities of the human eye and imagination. There is, +for instance, the value of abstract form, determined by the pleasantness and +harmony of implicated retinal or muscular tensions. Different structures contain +or suggest more or less of this kind of beauty, and in that proportion may be +called intrinsically better or worse. Thus artificial forms may be arranged in a +hierarchy like natural ones, by reference to the absolute values of their +contours and masses. Herein lies the superiority of a Greek to a Chinese vase, +or of Gothic to Saracenic construction. Thus although every useful form is +capable of proportion and beauty, when once its type is established, we cannot +say that this beauty is always potentially equal; and an iron bridge, for +instance, although it certainly possesses and daily acquires aesthetic interest, +will probably never, on the average, equal a bridge of stone.</p><a name="41"></a><br> + +<p><i>Form and adventitious ornament.</i></p> + +<p>§ 41. Beauty of form is the last to be found or admired in artificial as in +natural objects. Time is needed to establish it, and training and nicety of +perception to enjoy it. Motion or colour is what first interests a child in +toys, as in animals; and the barbarian artist decorates long before he designs. +The cave and wigwam are daubed with paint, or hung with trophies, before any +pleasure is taken in their shape; and the appeal to the detached senses, and to +associations of wealth and luxury, precedes by far the appeal to the perceptive +harmonies of form. In music we observe the same gradation; first, we appreciate +its sensuous and sentimental value; only with education can we enjoy its form. +The plastic arts begin, therefore, with adventitious ornament and with +symbolism. The aesthetic pleasure is in the richness of the material, the +profusion of the ornament, the significance of the shape — in everything, rather +than in the shape itself.</p> + +<p>We have accordingly, in works of art two independent sources of effect. The +first is the useful form, which generates the type, and ultimately the beauty of +form, when the type has been idealized by emphasizing its intrinsically pleasing +traits. The second is the beauty of ornament, which comes from the excitement of +the senses, or of the imagination, by colour, or by profusion or delicacy of +detail. Historically, the latter is first developed, and applied to a form as +yet merely useful. But the very presence of ornament attracts contemplation; the +attention lavished on the object helps to fix its form in the mind, and to make +us discriminate the less from the more graceful. The two kinds of beauty are +then felt, and, yielding to that tendency to unity which the mind always +betrays, we begin to subordinate and organize these two excellences. The +ornament is distributed so as to emphasize the aesthetic essence of the form; to +idealize it even more, by adding adventitious interests harmoniously to the +intrinsic interest of the lines of structure.</p> + +<p>There is here a great field, of course, for variety of combination and +compromise. Some artists are fascinated by the decoration, and think of the +structure merely as the background on which it can be most advantageously +displayed. Others, of more austere taste, allow ornament only to emphasize the +main lines of the design, or to conceal such inharmonious elements as nature or +utility may prevent them from eliminating.<a href= +"#note12"><u>[12]</u></a> We may thus oscillate between decorative and +structural motives, and only in one point, for each style, can we find the ideal +equilibrium, in which the greatest strength and lucidity is combined with the +greatest splendour.</p> + +<p>A less subtle, but still very effective, combination is that hit upon by many +oriental and Gothic architects, and found, also, by accident perhaps, in many +buildings of the plateresque style; the ornament and structure are both +presented with extreme emphasis, but locally divided; a vast rough wall, for +instance, represents the one, and a profusion of mad ornament huddled around a +central door or window represents the other.</p> + +<p>Gothic architecture offers us in the pinnacle and flying buttress a striking +example of the adoption of a mechanical feature, and its transformation into an +element of beauty. Nothing could at first sight be more hopeless than the +external half-arch propping the side of a pier, or the chimney-like weight of +stones pressing it down from above; but a courageous acceptance of these +necessities, and a submissive study of their form, revealed a new and strange +effect: the bewildering and stimulating intricacy of masses suspended in +mid-air; the profusion of line, variety of surface, and picturesqueness of light +and shade. It needed but a little applied ornament judiciously distributed; a +moulding in the arches; a florid canopy and statue amid the buttresses; a few +grinning monsters leaning out of unexpected nooks; a leafy budding of the +topmost pinnacles; a piercing here and there of some little gallery, parapet, or +turret into lacework against the sky — and the building became a poem, an +inexhaustible emotion. Add some passing cloud casting its moving shadow over the +pile, add the circling of birds about the towers, and you have an unforgettable +type of beauty; not perhaps the noblest, sanest, or most enduring, but one for +the existence of which the imagination is richer, and the world more +interesting.</p> + +<p>In this manner we accept the forms imposed upon us by utility, and train +ourselves to apperceive their potential beauty. Familiarity breeds contempt only +when it breeds inattention. When the mind is absorbed and dominated by its +perceptions, it incorporates into them more and more of its own functional +values, and makes them ultimately beautiful and expressive. Thus no language can +be ugly to those who speak it well, no religion unmeaning to those who have +learned to pour their life into its moulds.</p> + +<p>Of course these forms vary in intrinsic excellence; they are by their +specific character more or less fit and facile for the average mind. But the man +and the age are rare who can choose their own path; we have generally only a +choice between going ahead in the direction already chosen, or halting and +blocking the path for others. The only kind of reform usually possible is reform +from within; a more intimate study and more intelligent use of the traditional +forms. Disaster follows rebellion against tradition or against utility, which +are the basis and root of our taste and progress. But, within the given school, +and as exponents of its spirit, we can adapt and perfect our works, if haply we +are better inspired than our predecessors. For the better we know a given thing, +and the more we perceive its strong and weak points, the more capable we are of +idealizing it.</p><a name="42"></a><br> + +<p><i>Form in words.</i></p> + +<p>§ 42. The main effect of language consists in its meaning, in the ideas which +it expresses. But no expression is possible without a presentation, and this +presentation must have a form. This form of the instrument of expression is +itself an element of effect, although in practical life we may overlook it in +our haste to attend to the meaning it conveys. It is, moreover, a condition of +the kind of expression possible, and often determines the manner in which the +object suggested shall be apperceived. No word has the exact value of any other +in the same or in another language.<a href= +"#note13"><u>[13]</u></a> But the intrinsic effect of language does not stop +there. The single word is but a stage in the series of formations which +constitute language, and which preserve for men the fruit of their experience, +distilled and concentrated into a symbol.</p> + +<p>This formation begins with the elementary sounds themselves, which have to be +discriminated and combined to make recognizable symbols. The evolution of these +symbols goes on spontaneously, suggested by our tendency to utter all manner of +sounds, and preserved by the ease with which the ear discriminates these sounds +when made. Speech would be an absolute and unrelated art, like music, were it +not controlled by utility. The sounds have indeed no resemblance to the objects +they symbolize; but before the system of sounds can represent the system of +objects, there has to be a correspondence in the groupings of both. The +structure of language, unlike that of music, thus becomes a mirror of the +structure of the world as presented to the intelligence.</p> + +<p>Grammar, philosophically studied, is akin to the deepest metaphysics, because +in revealing the constitution of speech, it reveals the constitution of thought, +and the hierarchy of those categories by which we conceive the world. It is by +virtue of this parallel development that language has its function of expressing +experience with exactness, and the poet — to whom language is an instrument of +art — has to employ it also with a constant reference to meaning and veracity; +that is, he must be a master of experience before he can become a true master of +words. Nevertheless, language is primarily a sort of music, and the beautiful +effects which it produces are due to its own structure, giving, as it +crystallizes in a new fashion, an unforeseen form to experience.</p> + +<p>Poets may be divided into two classes: the musicians and the psychologists. +The first are masters of significant language as harmony; they know what notes +to sound together and in succession; they can produce, by the marshalling of +sounds and images, by the fugue of passion and the snap of wit, a thousand +brilliant effects out of old materials. The Ciceronian orator, the epigrammatic, +lyric, and elegiac poets, give examples of this art. The psychologists, on the +other hand, gain their effect not by the intrinsic mastery of language, but by +the closer adaptation of it to things. The dramatic poets naturally furnish an +illustration.</p> + +<p>But however transparent we may wish to make our language, however little we +may call for its intrinsic effects, and direct our attention exclusively to its +expressiveness, we cannot avoid the limitations of our particular medium. The +character of the tongue a man speaks, and the degree of his skill in speaking +it, must always count enormously in the aesthetic value of his compositions; no +skill in observation, no depth of thought or feeling, but is spoiled by a bad +style and enhanced by a good one. The diversities of tongues and their +irreducible aesthetic values, begins with the very sound of the letters, with +the mode of utterance, and the characteristic inflections of the voice; notice, +for instance, the effect of the French of these lines of Alfred de Musset,</p> + +<p> Jamais deux yeux plus doux n'ont du ciel le plus pur<br> + Sondé la profondeur et réfléchi l'azur.</p> + +<p>and compare with its flute-like and treble quality the breadth, depth, and +volume of the German in this inimitable stanza of Goethe's:</p> + +<p> Ueber alien Gipfeln<br> + Ist Ruh,<br> + In allen Wipfeln<br> + Spürest du<br> + Kaum einen Hauch;<br> + Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.<br> + Warte nur, balde<br> + Ruhest du auch.</p> + +<p>Even if the same tune could be played on both these vocal instruments, the +difference in their <i>timbre</i> would make the value of the melody entirely +distinct in each case.</p><a name="43"></a><br> + +<p><i>Syntactical form.</i></p> + +<p>§ 43. The known impossibility of adequate translation appears here at the +basis of language. The other diversities are superadded upon this diversity of +sound. The syntax is the next source of effect. What could be better than Homer, +or what worse than almost any translation of him? And this holds even of +languages so closely allied as the Indo-European, which, after all, have certain +correspondences of syntax and inflection. If there could be a language with +other parts of speech than ours, — a language without nouns, for instance, — how +would that grasp of experience, that picture of the world, which all our +literature contains, be reproduced in it? Whatever beauties that language might +be susceptible of, none of the effects produced on us, I will not say by poets, +but even by nature itself, could be expressed in it.</p> + +<p>Nor is such a language inconceivable. Instead of summarizing all our +experiences of a thing by one word, its name, we should have to recall by +appropriate adjectives the various sensations we had received from it; the +objects we think of would be disintegrated, or, rather, would never have been +unified. For "sun," they would say "high, yellow, dazzling, round, slowly +moving," and the enumeration of these qualities (as we call them), without any +suggestion of a unity at their source, might give a more vivid, and profound, if +more cumbrous, representation of the facts. But how could the machinery of such +an imagination be capable of repeating the effects of ours, when the objects to +us most obvious and real would be to those minds utterly indescribable?</p> + +<p>The same diversity appears in the languages we ordinarily know, only in a +lesser degree. The presence or absence of case-endings in nouns and adjectives, +their difference of gender, the richness of inflections in the verbs, the +frequency of particles and conjunctions, — all these characteristics make one +language differ from another entirely in genius and capacity of expression. +Greek is probably the best of all languages in melody, richness, elasticity, and +simplicity; so much so, that in spite of its complex inflections, when once a +vocabulary is acquired, it is more easy and natural for a modern than his +ancestral Latin itself. Latin is the stiffer tongue; it is by nature at once +laconic and grandiloquent, and the exceptional condensation and transposition of +which it is capable make its effects entirely foreign to a modern, scarcely +inflected, tongue. Take, for instance, these lines of Horace:</p> + +<p> me tabula sacer<br> + votiva paries indicat uvida<br> + suspendisse potenti<br> + vestimenta maris deo,</p> + +<p>or these of Lucretius:</p> + +<p> Jauaque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator<br> + Crebrius incassum magnum cecidisse laborem.</p> + +<p>What conglomerate plebeian speech of our time could utter the stately +grandeur of these Lucretian words, every one of which is noble, and wears the +toga?</p> + +<p>As a substitute for the inimitable interpenetration of the words in the +Horatian strophe, we might have the external links of rhyme; and it seems, in +fact, to be a justification of rhyme, that besides contributing something to +melody and to the distribution of parts, it gives an artificial relationship to +the phrases between which it obtains, which, but for it, would run away from one +another in a rapid and irrevocable flux. In such a form as the sonnet, for +instance, we have, by dint of assonance, a real unity forced upon the thought; +for a sonnet in which the thought is not distributed appropriately to the +structure of the verse, has no excuse for being a sonnet. By virtue of this +interrelation of parts, the sonnet, the <i>non plus ultra</i> of rhyme, is the +most classic of modern poetical forms: much more classic in spirit than blank +verse, which lacks almost entirely the power of synthesizing the phrase, and +making the unexpected seem the inevitable.</p> + +<p>This beauty given to the ancients by the syntax of their language, the +moderns can only attain by the combination of their rhymes. It is a bad +substitute perhaps, but better than the total absence of form, favoured by the +atomic character of our words, and the flat juxtaposition of our clauses. The +art which was capable of making a gem of every prose sentence, — the art which, +carried, perhaps, to, a pitch at which it became too conscious, made the phrases +of Tacitus a series of cameos, — that art is inapplicable to our looser medium; +we cannot give clay the finish and nicety of marble. Our poetry and speech in +general, therefore, start out upon a lower level; the same effort will not, with +this instrument, attain the same beauty. If equal beauty is ever attained, it +comes from the wealth of suggestion, or the refinement of sentiment. The art of +words remains hopelessly inferior. And what best proves this, is that when, as +in our time, a reawakening of the love of beauty has prompted a refinement of +our poetical language, we pass so soon into extravagance, obscurity, and +affectation. Our modern languages are not susceptible of great formal beauty.</p><a name="44"></a><br> + +<p><i>Literary form. The plot.</i></p> + +<p>§ 44. The forms of composition in verse and prose which are practised in each +language are further organizations of words, and have formal values. The most +exacting of these forms and that which has been carried to the greatest +perfection is the drama; but it belongs to rhetoric and poetics to investigate +the nature of these effects, and we have here sufficiently indicated the +principle which underlies them. The plot, which Aristotle makes, and very +justly, the most important element in the effect of a drama, is the formal +element of the drama as such: the ethos and sentiments are the expression, and +the versification, music, and stage settings are the materials. It is in harmony +with the romantic tendency of modern times that modern dramatists — Shakespeare +as well as Molière, Calderon, and the rest — excel in ethos rather than in plot; +for it is the evident characteristic of modern genius to study and enjoy +expression, — the suggestion of the not-given, — rather than form, the harmony +of the given.</p> + +<p>Ethos is interesting mainly for the personal observations which it summarizes +and reveals, or for the appeal to one's own actual or imaginative experience; it +is portrait-painting, and enshrines something we love independently of the charm +which at this moment and in this place it exercises over us. It appeals to our +affections; it does not form them. But the plot is the synthesis of actions, and +is a reproduction of those experiences from which our notion of men and things +is originally derived; for character can never be observed in the world except +as manifested in action.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it would be more fundamentally accurate to say that a character is a +symbol and mental abbreviation for a peculiar set of acts, than to say that acts +are a manifestation of character. For the acts are the data, and the character +the inferred principle, and a principle, in spite of its name, is never more +than a description <i>a posteriori,</i> and a summary of what is subsumed under +it. The plot, moreover, is what gives individuality to the play, and exercises +invention; it is, as Aristotle again says, the most difficult portion of +dramatic art, and that for which practice and training are most indispensable. +And this plot, giving by its nature a certain picture of human experience, +involves and suggests the ethos of its actors.</p> + +<p>What the great characterizes, like Shakespeare, do, is simply to elaborate +and develope (perhaps far beyond the necessities of the plot) the suggestion of +human individuality which that plot contains. It is as if, having drawn from +daily observation some knowledge of the tempers of our friends, we represented +them saying and doing all manner of ultra-characteristic things, and in an +occasional soliloquy laying bare, even more clearly than by any possible action, +that character which their observed behaviour had led us to impute to them. This +is an ingenious and fascinating invention, and delights us with the clear +discovery of a hidden personality; but the serious and equable development of a +plot has a more stable worth in its greater similarity to life, which allows us +to see other men's minds through the medium of events, and not events through +the medium of other men's minds.</p><a name="45"></a><br> + +<p><i>Character as an aesthetic form.</i></p> + +<p>§ 45. We have just come upon one of the unities most coveted in our +literature, and most valued by us when attained, — the portrait, the +individuality, the character. The construction of a plot we call invention, but +that of a character we dignify with the name of creation. It may therefore not +be amiss, in finishing our discussion of form, to devote a few pages to the +psychology of character-drawing. How does the unity we call a character arise, +how is it described, and what is the basis of its effect?</p> + +<p>We may set it down at once as evident that we have here a case of the type: +the similarities of various persons are amalgamated, their differences +cancelled, and in the resulting percept those traits emphasized which have +particularly pleased or interested us. This, in the abstract, may serve for a +description of the origin of an idea of character quite as well as of an idea of +physical form. But the different nature of the material — the fact that a +character is not a presentation to sense, but a rationalistic synthesis of +successive acts and feelings, not combinable into any image — makes such a +description much more unsatisfying in this case than in that of material forms. +We cannot understand exactly how these summations and cancellings take place +when we are not dealing with a visible object. And we may even feel that there +is a wholeness and inwardness about the development of certain ideal characters, +that makes such a treatment of them fundamentally false and artificial. The +subjective element, the spontaneous expression of our own passion and will, here +counts for so much, that the creation of an ideal character becomes a new and +peculiar problem.</p> + +<p>There is, however, a way of conceiving and delineating character which still +bears a close resemblance to the process by which the imagination produces the +type of any physical species. We may gather, for instance, about the nucleus of +a word, designating some human condition or occupation, a number of detached +observations. We may keep a note-book in our memory, or even in our pocket, with +studious observations of the language, manners, dress, gesture, and history of +the people <i>we</i> meet, classifying our statistics under such heads as +innkeepers, soldiers, housemaids, governesses, adventuresses, Germans, +Frenchmen, Italians, Americans, actors, priests, and professors. And then, when +occasion offers, to describe, or to put into a book or a play, any one of these +types, all we have to do is to look over our notes, to select according to the +needs of the moment, and if we are skilful in reproduction, to obtain by that +means a life-like image of the sort of person we wish to represent.</p> + +<p>This process, which novelists and playwrights may go through deliberately, we +all carry on involuntarily. At every moment experience is leaving in our minds +some trait, some expression, some image, which will remain there attached to the +name of a person, a class, or a nationality. Our likes and dislikes, our summary +judgments on whole categories of men, are nothing but the distinct survival of +some such impression. These traits have vivacity. If the picture they draw is +one-sided and inadequate, the sensation they recall may be vivid, and suggestive +of many other aspects of the thing. Thus the epithets in Homer, although they +are often far from describing the essence of the object — <font face= +"Times New Roman">γλανκώπις Άθήνη, εύκνήμιδες Άχαιοί</font> — seem to recall a +sensation, and to give vitality to the narrative. By bringing you, through one +sense, into the presence of the object, they give you that same hint of further +discovery, that same expectation of experience, which we have at the sight of +whatever we call real.</p> + +<p>The graphic power of this method of observation and aggregation of +characteristic traits is thus seen to be great. But it is not by this method +that the most famous or most living characters have been conceived. This method +gives the average, or at most the salient, points of the type, but the great +characters of poetry — a Hamlet, a Don Quixote, an Achilles — are no averages, +they are not even a collection of salient traits common to certain classes of +men. They seem to be persons; that is, their actions and words seem to spring +from the inward nature of an individual soul. Goethe is reported to have said +that he conceived the character of his Gretchen entirely without observation of +originals. And, indeed, he would probably not have found any. His creation +rather is the original to which we may occasionally think we see some likeness +in real maidens. It is the fiction here that is the standard of naturalness. And +on this, as on so many occasions, we may repeat the saying that poetry is truer +than history. Perhaps no actual maid ever spoke and acted so naturally as this +imaginary one.</p> + +<p>If we think there is any paradox in these assertions, we should reflect that +the standard of naturalness, individuality, and truth is in us. A real person +seems to us to have character and consistency when his behaviour is such as to +impress a definite and simple image upon our mind. In themselves, if we could +count all their undiscovered springs of action, all men have character and +consistency alike: all are equally fit to be types. But their characters are not +equally intelligible to us, their behaviour is not equally deducible, and their +motives not equally appreciable. Those who appeal most to us, either in +themselves or by the emphasis they borrow from their similarity to other +individuals, are those we remember and regard as the centres around which +variations oscillate. These men are natural: all others are more or less +eccentric.</p><a name= +"46"></a><br> + +<p><i>Ideal characters.</i></p> + +<p>§ 46. The standard of naturalness being thus subjective, and determined by +the laws of our imagination, we can understand why a spontaneous creation of the +mind can be more striking and living than any reality, or any abstraction from +realities. The artist can invent a form which, by its adaptation to the +imagination, lodges there, and becomes a point of reference for all +observations, and a standard of naturalness and beauty. A type may be introduced +to the mind suddenly, by the chance presentation of a form that by its intrinsic +impressiveness and imaginative coherence, acquires that pre-eminence which +custom, or the mutual reinforcement of converging experiences, ordinarily gives +to empirical percepts.</p> + +<p>This method of originating types is what we ordinarily describe as artistic +creation. The name indicates the suddenness, originality, and individuality of +the conception thus attained. What we call idealization is often a case of it. +In idealization proper, however, what happens is the elimination of individual +eccentricities; the result is abstract, and consequently meagre. This meagreness +is often felt to be a greater disadvantage than the accidental and picturesque +imperfection of real individuals, and the artist therefore turns to the brute +fact, and studies and reproduces that with indiscriminate attention, rather than +lose strength and individuality in the presentation of an insipid type. He seems +forced to a choice between an abstract beauty and an unlovely example.</p> + +<p>But the great and masterful presentations of the ideal are somehow neither +the one nor the other. They present ideal beauty with just that definiteness +with which nature herself sometimes presents it. When we come in a crowd upon an +incomparably beautiful face, we know it immediately as an embodiment of the +ideal; while it contains the type, — for if it did not we should find it +monstrous and grotesque, — it clothes that type in a peculiar splendour of form, +colour, and expression. It has an individuality. And just so the imaginary +figures of poetry and plastic art may have an individuality given them by the +happy affinities of their elements in the imagination. They are not +idealizations, they are spontaneous variations, which can arise in the mind +quite as easily as in the world. They spring up in</p> + +<p> The wreathèd trellis of a working brain;<br> + . . . With all the gardener fancy e'er could feign<br> + Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same.</p> + +<p>Imagination, in a word, generates as well as abstracts; it observes, +combines, and cancels; but it also dreams. Spontaneous syntheses arise in it +which are not mathematical averages of the images it receives from sense; they +are effects of diffused excitements left in the brain by sensations. These +excitements vary constantly in their various renewals, and occasionally take +such a form that the soul is surprised by the inward vision of an unexampled +beauty. If this inward vision is clear and steady, we have an aesthetic +inspiration, a vocation to create; and if we can also command the technique of +an appropriate art, we shall hasten to embody that inspiration, and realize an +ideal. This ideal will be gradually recognized as supremely beautiful for the +same reason that the object, had it been presented in the real world, would have +been recognized as supremely beautiful; because while embodying a known type of +form, — being, that is, a proper man, animal, or vegetable, — it possessed in an +extraordinary degree those direct charms which most subjugate our attention.</p> + +<p>Imaginary forms then differ in dignity and beauty not according to their +closeness to fact or type in nature, but according to the ease with which the +normal imagination reproduces the synthesis they contain. To add wings to a man +has always been a natural fancy; because man can easily imagine himself to fly, +and the idea is delightful to him. The winged man is therefore a form generally +recognized as beautiful; although it can happen, as it did to Michael Angelo, +that our appreciation of the actual form of the human body should be too keen +and overmastering to allow us to relish even so charming and imaginative an +extravagance. The centaur is another beautiful monster. The imagination can +easily follow the synthesis of the dream in which horse and man melted into one, +and first gave the glorious suggestion of their united vitality.</p> + +<p>The same condition determines the worth of imaginary personalities. From the +gods to the characters of comedy, all are, in proportion to their beauty, +natural and exhilarating expressions of possible human activity. We sometimes +remould visible forms into imaginary creatures; but our originality in this +respect is meagre compared with the profusion of images of action which arise in +us, both asleep and awake; we constantly dream of new situations, extravagant +adventures, and exaggerated passions. Even our soberer thoughts are very much +given to following the possible fortunes of some enterprise, and foretasting the +satisfactions of love and ambition. The mind is therefore particularly sensitive +to pictures of action and character; we are easily induced to follow the +fortunes of any hero, and share his sentiments.</p> + +<p>Our will, as Descartes said in a different context, is infinite, while our +intelligence is finite; we follow experience pretty closely in our ideas of +things, and even the furniture of fairyland bears a sad resemblance to that of +earth; but there is no limit to the elasticity of our passion; and we love to +fancy ourselves kings and beggars, saints and villains, young and old, happy and +unhappy. There seems to be a boundless capacity of development in each of us, +which the circumstances of life determine to a narrow channel; and we like to +revenge ourselves in our reveries for this imputed limitation, by classifying +ourselves with all that we are not, but might so easily have been. We are full +of sympathy for every manifestation of life, however unusual; and even the +conception of infinite knowledge and happiness — than which nothing could be +more removed from our condition or more unrealizable to our fancy — remains +eternally interesting to us.</p> + +<p>The poet, therefore, who wishes to delineate a character need not keep a +note-book. There is a quicker road to the heart — if he has the gift to find it. +Probably his readers will not themselves have kept note-books, and his elaborate +observations will only be effective when he describes something which they also +happen to have noticed. The typical characters describable by the empirical +method are therefore few: the miser, the lover, the old nurse, the ingénue, and +the other types of traditional comedy. Any greater specification would appeal +only to a small audience for a short time, because the characteristics depicted +would no longer exist to be recognized. But whatever experience a poet's hearers +may have had, they are men. They will have certain imaginative capacities to +conceive and admire those forms of character and action which, although never +actually found, are felt by each man to express what he himself might and would +have been, had circumstances been more favourable.</p> + +<p>The poet has only to study himself, and the art of expressing his own ideals, +to find that he has expressed those of other people. He has but to enact in +himself the part of each of his personages, and if he possesses that pliability +and that definiteness of imagination which together make genius, he may express +for his fellows those inward tendencies which in them have remained painfully +dumb. He will be hailed as master of the human soul. He may know nothing of men, +he may have almost no experience; but his creations will pass for models of +naturalness, and for types of humanity. Their names will be in every one's +mouth, and the lives of many generations will be enriched by the vision, one +might almost say by the friendship, of these imaginary beings. They have +individuality without having reality, because individuality is a thing acquired +in the mind by the congeries of its impressions. They have power, also, because +that depends on the appropriateness of a stimulus to touch the springs of +reaction in the soul. And they of course have beauty, because in them is +embodied the greatest of our imaginative delights, — that of giving body to our +latent capacities, and of wandering, without the strain and contradiction of +actual existence, into all forms of possible being.</p><a name="47"></a><br> + +<p><i>The religious imagination.</i></p> + +<p>§ 47. The greatest of these creations hare not been the work of any one man. +They have been the slow product of the pious and poetic imagination. Starting +from some personification of nature or some memory of a great man, the popular +and priestly tradition has refined and developed the ideal; it has made it an +expression of men's aspiration and a counterpart of their need. The devotion of +each tribe, shrine, and psalmist has added some attribute to the god or some +parable to his legend; and thus, around the kernel of some original divine +function, the imagination of a people has gathered every possible expression of +it, creating a complete and beautiful personality, with its history, its +character, and its gifts. No poet has ever equalled the perfection or +significance of these religious creations. The greatest characters of fiction +are uninteresting and unreal compared with the conceptions of the gods; so much +so that men have believed that their gods have objective reality.</p> + +<p>The forms men see in dreams might have been a reason for believing in vague +and disquieting ghosts; but the belief in individual and well-defined +divinities, with which the visions of the dreams might be identified, is +obviously due to the intrinsic coherence and impressiveness of the conception of +those deities. The visions would never have suggested the legend and attributes +of the god; but when the figure of the god was once imaginatively conceived, and +his name and aspect fixed in the imagination, it would be easy to recognize him +in any hallucination, or to interpret any event as due to his power. These +manifestations, which constitute the evidence of his actual existence, can be +regarded as manifestations of him, rather than of a vague, unknown power, only +when the imagination already possesses a vivid picture of him, and of his +appropriate functions. This picture is the work of a spontaneous fancy.</p> + +<p>No doubt, when the belief is once specified, and the special and intelligible +god is distinguished in the night and horror of the all-pervading natural power, +the belief in his reality helps to concentrate our attention on his nature, and +thus to develope and enrich our idea. The belief in the reality of an ideal +personality brings about its further idealization. Had it ever occurred to any +Greek seer to attribute events to the influence of Achilles, or to offer +sacrifices to him in the heat of the enthusiasm kindled by the thought of his +beauty and virtue, the legend of Achilles, now become a god, would have grown +and deepened; it would have been moralized like the legend of Hercules, or +naturalized like that of Persephone, and what is now but a poetic character of +extraordinary force and sublimity would have become the adored patron of +generation after generation, and a manifestation of the divine man.</p> + +<p>Achilles would then have been as significant and unforgettable a figure as +Apollo or his sister, as Zeus, Athena, and the other greater gods. If ever, +while that phase of religion lasted, his character had been obscured and his +features dimmed, he would have been recreated by every new votary: poets would +never have tired of singing his praises, or sculptors of rendering his form. +When, after the hero had been the centre and subject of so much imaginative +labour, the belief in his reality lapsed, to be transferred to some other +conception of cosmic power, he would have remained an ideal of poetry and art, +and a formative influence of all cultivated minds. This he is still, like all +the great creations of avowed fiction, but he would have been immensely more so, +had belief in his reality kept the creative imagination continuously intent upon +his nature.</p> + +<p>The reader can hardly fail to see that all this applies with equal force to +the Christian conception of the sacred personalities. Christ, the Virgin Mary, +and the saints may have been exactly what our imagination pictures them to be; +that is entirely possible; nor can I see that it is impossible that the +conceptions of other religions might themselves have actual counterparts +somewhere in the universe. That is a question of faith and empirical evidence +with which we are not here concerned. But however descriptive of truth our +conceptions may be, they have evidently grown up in our minds by an inward +process of development. The materials of history and tradition have been melted +and recast by the devout imagination into those figures in the presence of which +our piety lives.</p> + +<p>That is the reason why the reconstructed logical gods of the metaphysicians +are always an offence and a mockery to the religious consciousness. There is +here, too, a bare possibility that some one of these absolutes may be a +representation of the truth; but the method by which this representation is +acquired is violent and artificial; while the traditional conception of God is +the spontaneous embodiment of passionate contemplation and long experience.</p> + +<p>As the God of religion differs from that of metaphysics, so does the Christ +of tradition differ from that of our critical historians. Even if we took the +literal narrative of the Gospels and accepted it as all we could know of Christ, +without allowing ourselves any imaginative interpretation of the central figure, +we should get an ideal of him, I will not say very different from that of St. +Francis or St. Theresa, but even from that of the English, prayer-book. The +Christ men have loved and adored is an ideal of their own hearts, the +construction of an ever-present personality, living and intimately understood, +out of the fragments of story and doctrine connected with a name. This +subjective image has inspired all the prayers, all the conversions, all the +penances, charities, and sacrifices, as well as half the art of the Christian +world.</p> + +<p>The Virgin Mary, whose legend is so meagre, but whose power over the Catholic +imagination is so great, is an even clearer illustration of this inward building +up of an ideal form. Everything is here spontaneous sympathetic expansion of two +given events: the incarnation and the crucifixion. The figure of the Virgin, +found in these mighty scenes, is gradually clarified and developed, until we +come to the thought on the one hand of her freedom from original sin, and on the +other to that of her universal maternity. We thus attain the conception of one +of the noblest of conceivable rôles and of one of the most beautiful of +characters. It is a pity that a foolish iconoclasm should so long have deprived +the Protestant mind of the contemplation of this ideal.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is a sign of the average imaginative dulness or fatigue of certain +races and epochs that they so readily abandon these supreme creations. For, if +we are hopeful, why should we not believe that the best we can fancy is also the +truest; and if we are distrustful in general of our prophetic gifts, why should +we cling only to the most mean and formless of our illusions? From the beginning +to the end of our perceptive and imaginative activity, we are synthesizing the +material of experience into unities the independent reality of which is beyond +proof, nay, beyond the possibility of a shadow of evidence. And yet the life of +intelligence, like the joy of contemplation, lies entirely in the formation and +inter-relation of these unities. This activity yields us all the objects with +which we can deal, and endows them with the finer and more intimate part of +their beauty. The most perfect of these forms, judged by its affinity to our +powers and its stability in the presence of our experience, is the one with +which we should be content; no other kind of veracity could add to its value.</p> + +<p>The greatest feats of synthesis which the human mind has yet accomplished +will, indeed, be probably surpassed and all ideals yet formed be superseded, +because they were not based upon enough experience, or did not fit that +experience with adequate precision. It is also possible that changes in the +character of the facts, or in the powers of intelligence, should necessitate a +continual reconstruction of our world. But unless human nature suffers an +inconceivable change, the chief intellectual and aesthetic value of our ideas +will always come from the creative action of the imagination.</p> + +<br> + +<a name= +"x06" id="x06"></a><br> + +<p>PART IV</p> + +<p>EXPRESSION</p><a name="48"></a><br> + +<p><i>Expression defined.</i></p> + +<p>§ 48. We have found in the beauty of material and form the objectification of +certain pleasures connected with the process of direct perception, with the +formation, in the one case of a sensation, or quality, in the other of a +synthesis of sensations or qualities. But the human consciousness is not a +perfectly clear mirror, with distinct boundaries and clear-cut images, +determinate in number and exhaustively perceived. Our ideas half emerge for a +moment from the dim continuum of vital feeling and diffused sense, and are +hardly fixed before they are changed and transformed, by the shifting of +attention and the perception of new relations, into ideas of really different +objects. This fluidity of the mind would make reflection impossible, did we not +fix in words and other symbols certain abstract contents; we thus become capable +of recognizing in one perception the repetition of another, and of recognizing +in certain recurrences of impressions a persistent object. This discrimination +and classification of the contents of consciousness is the work of perception +and understanding, and the pleasures that accompany these activities make the +beauty of the sensible world.</p> + +<p>But our hold upon our thoughts extends even further. We not only construct +visible unities and recognizable types, but remain aware of their affinities to +what is not at the time perceived; that is, we find in them a certain tendency +and quality, not original to them, a meaning and a tone, which upon +investigation we shall see to have been the proper characteristics of other +objects and feelings, associated with them once in our experience. The hushed +reverberations of these associated feelings continue in the brain, and by +modifying our present reaction, colour the image upon which our attention is +fixed. The quality thus acquired by objects through association is what we call +their expression. Whereas in form or material there is one object with its +emotional effect, in expression there are two, and the emotional effect belongs +to the character of the second or suggested one. Expression may thus make +beautiful by suggestion things in themselves indifferent, or it may come to +heighten the beauty which they already possess.</p> + +<p>Expression is not always distinguishable in consciousness from the value of +material or form, because we do not always have a distinguishable memory of the +related idea which the expressiveness implies. When we have such a memory, as at +the sight of some once frequented garden, we clearly and spontaneously attribute +our emotion to the memory and not to the present fact which it beautifies. The +revival of a pleasure and its embodiment in a present object which in itself +might have been indifferent, is here patent and acknowledged.</p> + +<p>The distinctness of the analysis may indeed be so great as to prevent the +synthesis; we may so entirely pass to the suggested object, that our pleasure +will be embodied in the memory of that, while the suggestive sensation will be +overlooked, and the expressiveness of the present object will fail to make it +beautiful. Thus the mementos of a lost friend do not become beautiful by virtue +of the sentimental associations which may make them precious. The value is +confined to the images of the memory; they are too clear to let any of that +value escape and diffuse itself over the rest of our consciousness, and beautify +the objects which we actually behold. We say explicitly: I value this trifle for +its associations. And so long as this division continues, the worth of the thing +is not for us aesthetic.</p> + +<p>But a little dimming of our memory will often make it so. Let the images of +the past fade, let them remain simply as a halo and suggestion of happiness +hanging about a scene; then this scene, however empty and uninteresting in +itself, will have a deep and intimate charm; we shall be pleased by its very +vulgarity. We shall not confess so readily that we value the place for its +associations; we shall rather say: I am fond of this landscape; it has for me an +ineffable attraction. The treasures of the memory have been melted and +dissolved, and are now gilding the object that supplants them; they are giving +this object expression.</p> + +<p>Expression then differs from material or formal value only as habit differs +from instinct — in its origin. Physiologically, they are both pleasurable +radiations of a given stimulus; mentally, they are both values incorporated in +an object. But an observer, looking at the mind historically, sees in the one +case the survival of an experience, in the other the reaction of an innate +disposition. This experience, moreover, is generally rememberable, and then the +extrinsic source of the charm which expression gives becomes evident even to the +consciousness in which it arises. A word, for instance, is often beautiful +simply by virtue of its meaning and associations; but sometimes this expressive +beauty is added to a musical quality in the world itself. In all +expression we may thus distinguish two terms: the first is the object actually +presented, the word, the image, the expressive thing; the second is the object +suggested, the further thought, emotion, or image evoked, the thing expressed.</p> + +<p>These lie together in the mind, and their union constitutes expression. If +the value lies wholly in the first term, we have no beauty of expression. The +decorative inscriptions in Saracenic monuments can have no beauty of expression +for one who does not read Arabic; their charm is wholly one of material and +form. Or if they have any expression, it is by virtue of such thoughts as they +might suggest, as, for instance, of the piety and oriental sententiousness of +the builders and of the aloofness from us of all their world. And even these +suggestions, being a wandering of our fancy rather than a study of the object, +would fail to arouse a pleasure which would be incorporated in the present +image. The scroll would remain without expression, although its presence might +have suggested to us interesting visions of other things. The two terms would be +too independent, and the intrinsic values of each would remain distinct from +that of the other. There would be no visible expressiveness, although there +might have been discursive suggestions.</p> + +<p>Indeed, if expression were constituted by the external relation of object +with object, everything would be expressive equally, indeterminately, and +universally. The flower in the crannied wall would express the same thing as the +bust of Caesar or the <i>Critique of Pure Reason.</i> What constitutes the +individual expressiveness of these things is the circle of thoughts allied to +each in a given mind; my words, for instance, express the thoughts which they +actually arouse in the reader; they may express more to one man than to another, +and to me they may have expressed more or less than to yon. My thoughts remain +unexpressed, if my words do not arouse them in you, and very likely your greater +wisdom will find in what I say the manifestation of a thousand principles of +which I never dreamed. Expression depends upon the union of two terms, one of +which must be furnished by the imagination; and a mind cannot furnish what it +does not possess. The expressiveness of everything accordingly increases with +the intelligence of the observer.</p> + +<p>But for expression to be an element of beauty, it must, of course, fulfil +another condition. I may see the relations of an object, I may understand it +perfectly, and may nevertheless regard it with entire indifference. If the +pleasure fails, the very substance and protoplasm of beauty is wanting. Nor, as +we have seen, is even the pleasure enough; for I may receive a letter full of +the most joyous news, but neither the paper, nor the writing, nor the style, +need seem beautiful to me. Not until I confound the impressions, and suffuse the +symbols themselves with the emotions they arouse, and find joy and sweetness in +the very words I hear, will the expressiveness constitute a beauty; as when they +sing, <i>Gloria in excelsis Deo</i>.</p> + +<p>The value of the second term must be incorporated in the first; for the +beauty of expression is as inherent in the object as that of material or form, +only it accrues to that object not from the bare act of perception, but from the +association with it of further processes, due to the existence of former +impressions. We may conveniently use the word "expressiveness" to mean all the +capacity of suggestion possessed by a thing, and the word "expression" for the +aesthetic modification which that expressiveness may cause in it. Expressiveness +is thus the power given by experience to any image to call up others in the +mind; and this expressiveness becomes an aesthetic value, that is, becomes +expression, when the value involved in the associations thus awakened are +incorporated in the present object.</p><a name="49"></a><br> + +<p><i>The associative process.</i></p> + +<p>§ 49. The purest case in which, an expressive value could arise might seem to +be that in which both terms were indifferent in themselves, and what pleased was +the activity of relating them. We have such a phenomenon in mathematics, and in +any riddle, puzzle, or play with symbols. But such pleasures fall without the +aesthetic field in the absence of any objectification; they are pleasures of +exercise, and the objects involved are not regarded as the substances in which +those values inhere. We think of more or less interesting problems or +calculations, but it never occurs to the mathematician to establish a hierarchy +of forms according to their beauty. Only by a metaphor could he say that (a + b)<sup>2</sup> += a<sup>2</sup> + 2ab + b<sup>2</sup> was a more beautiful formula than 2 + 2 = +4. Yet in proportion as such conceptions become definite and objective in the +mind, they approach aesthetic values, and the use of aesthetic epithets in +describing them becomes more constant and literal.</p> + +<p>The beauties of abstract music are but one step beyond such mathematical +relations — they are those relations presented in a sensible form, and +constituting an imaginable object. But, as we see clearly in this last case, +when the relation and not the terms constitute the object, we have, if there is +beauty at all, a beauty of form, not of expression; for the more mathematical +the charm of music is the more form and the less expression do we see in it. In +fact, the sense of relation is here the essence of the object itself, and the +activity of passing from term to term, far from taking us beyond our +presentation to something extrinsic, constitutes that presentation. The pleasure +of this relational activity is therefore the pleasure of conceiving a determined +form, and nothing could be more thoroughly a formal beauty.</p> + +<p>And we may here insist upon a point of fundamental importance; namely, that +the process of association enters consciousness as directly, and produces as +simple a sensation, as any process in any organ. The pleasures and pains of +cerebration, the delight and the fatigue of it, are felt exactly like bodily +impressions; they have the same directness, although not the same localization. +Their seat is not open to our daily observation, and therefore we leave them +disembodied, and fancy they are peculiarly spiritual and intimate to the soul. +Or we try to think that they flow by some logical necessity from the essences of +objects simultaneously in our mind. We involve ourselves in endless perplexities +in trying to deduce excellence and beauty, unity and necessity, from the +describable qualities of things; we repeat the rationalistic fiction of turning +the notions which we abstract from the observation of facts into the powers that +give those facts character and being.</p> + +<p>We have, for instance, in the presence of two images a sense of their +incongruity; and we say that the character of the images causes this emotion; +whereas in dreams we constantly have the most rapid transformations and patent +contradictions without any sense of incongruity at all; because the brain is +dozing and the necessary shock and mental inhibition is avoided. Add this +stimulation, and the incongruity returns. Had such a shock never been felt, we +should not know what incongruity meant; no more than without eyes we should know +the meaning of blue or yellow.</p> + +<p>In saying this, we are not really leaning upon physiological theory. The +appeal to our knowledge of the brain facilitates the conception of the immediacy +of our feelings of relation; but that immediacy would be apparent to a sharp +introspection. We do not need to think of the eye or skin to feel that light and +heat are ultimate data; no more do we need to think of cerebral excitements to +see that right and left, before and after, good and bad, one and two, like and +unlike, are irreducible feelings. The categories are senses without organs, or +with organs unknown. Just as the discrimination of our feelings of colour and +sound might never have been distinct and constant, had we not come upon the +organs that seem to convey and control them; so perhaps our classification of +our inner sensations will never be settled until their respective organs are +discovered; for psychology has always been physiological, without knowing it. +But this truth remains — quite apart from physical conceptions, not to speak of +metaphysical materialism — that whatever the historical conditions of any state +of mind may be said to be, it exists, when it does exist, immediately and +absolutely; each of its distinguishable parts might conceivably have been absent +from it; and its character, as well as its existence, is a mere datum of sense.</p> + +<p>The pleasure that belongs to the consciousness of relations is therefore as +immediate as any other; indeed, our emotional consciousness is always single, +but we treat it as a resultant of many and even of conflicting feelings because +we look at it historically with a view to comprehending it, and distribute it +into as many factors as we find objects or causes to which to attribute it. The +pleasure of association is an immediate feeling, which we account for by its +relation to a feeling in the past, or to cerebral structure modified by a former +experience; just as memory itself, which we explain by a reference to the past, +is a peculiar complication of present consciousness.</p><a name= +"50"></a><br> + +<p><i>Kinds of value in the second term.</i></p> + +<p>§ 50. These reflections may make less surprising to us what is the most +striking fact about the philosophy of expression; namely, that the value +acquired by the expressive thing is often of an entirely different kind from +that which the thing expressed possesses. The expression of physical pleasure, +of passion, or even of pain, may constitute beauty and please the beholder. Thus +the value of the second term may be physical, or practical, or even negative; +and it may be transmuted, as it passes to the first term, into a value at once +positive and aesthetic. The transformation of practical values into aesthetic +has often been noted, and has even led to the theory that beauty is utility seen +at arm's length; a premonition of pleasure and prosperity, much as smell is a +premonition of taste. The transformation of negative values into positive has +naturally attracted even more attention, and given rise to various theories of +the comic, tragic, and sublime. For these three species of aesthetic good seem +to please us by the suggestion of evil; and the problem arises how a mind can be +made happier by having suggestions of unhappiness stirred within it; an +unhappiness it cannot understand without in some degree sharing in it. We must +now turn to the analysis of this question.</p> + +<p>The expressiveness of a smile is not discovered exactly through association +of images. The child smiles (without knowing it) when he feels pleasure; and the +nurse smiles back; his own pleasure is associated with her conduct, and her +smile is therefore expressive of pleasure. The fact of his pleasure at her smile +is the ground of his instinctive belief in her pleasure in it. For this reason +the circumstances expressive of happiness are not those that are favourable to +it in reality, but those that are congruous with it in idea. The green of +spring, the bloom of youth, the variability of childhood, the splendour of +wealth and beauty, all these are symbols of happiness, not because they have +been known to accompany it in fact, — for they do not, any more than their +opposites, — but because they produce an image and echo of it in us +aesthetically. We believe those things to be happy which it makes us happy to +think of or to see; the belief in the blessedness of the supreme being itself +has no other foundation. Our joy in the thought of omniscience makes us +attribute joy to the possession of it, which it would in fact perhaps be very +far from involving or even allowing.</p> + +<p>The expressiveness of forms has a value as a sign of the life that actually +inhabits those forms only when they resemble our own body; it is then probable +that similar conditions of body involve, in them and in us, similar emotions; +and we should not long continue to regard as the expression of pleasure an +attitude that we know, by experience in our own person, to accompany pain. +Children, indeed, may innocently torture animals, not having enough sense of +analogy to be stopped by the painful suggestions of their writhings; and, +although in a rough way we soon correct these crying misinterpretations by a +better classification of experience, we nevertheless remain essentially subject +to the same error. We cannot escape it, because the method which involves it is +the only one that justifies belief in objective consciousness at all. Analogy of +bodies helps us to distribute and classify the life we conceive about us; but +what leads us to conceive it is the direct association of our own feeling with +images of things, an association which precedes any clear representation of our +own gestures and attitude. I know that smiles mean pleasure before I have caught +myself smiling in the glass; they mean pleasure because they give it.</p> + +<p>Since these aesthetic effects include some of the most moving and profound +beauties, philosophers have not been slow to turn the unanalyzed paradox of +their formation into a principle, and to explain by it the presence and +necessity of evil. As in the tragic and the sublime, they have thought, the +sufferings and dangers to which a hero is exposed seem to add to his virtue and +dignity, and to our sacred joy in the contemplation of him, so the sundry evils +of life may be elements in the transcendent glory of the whole. And once fired +by this thought, those who pretend to justify the ways of God to man have, +naturally, not stopped to consider whether so edifying a phenomenon was not a +hasty illusion. They have, indeed, detested any attempt to explain it +rationally, as tending to obscure one of the moral laws of the universe. In +venturing, therefore, to repeat such an attempt, we should not be too sanguine +of success; for we have to encounter not only the intrinsic difficulties of the +problem, but also a wide-spread and arrogant metaphysical prejudice.</p> + +<p>For the sake of greater clearness we may begin by classifying the values that +can enter into expression; we shall then be better able to judge by what +combinations of them various well-known effects and emotions are produced. The +intrinsic value of the first term can be entirely neglected, since it does not +contribute to expression. It does, however, contribute greatly to the beauty of +the expressive object. The first term is the source of stimulation, and the +acuteness and pleasantness of this determine to a great extent the character and +sweep of the associations that will be aroused. Very often the pleasantness of +the medium will counterbalance the disagreeableness of the import, and +expressions, in themselves hideous or inappropriate, may be excused for the sake +of the object that conveys them. A beautiful voice will redeem a vulgar song, a +beautiful colour and texture an unmeaning composition. Beauty in the first term +— beauty of sound, rhythm, and image — will make any thought whatever poetic, +while no thought whatever can be so without that immediate beauty of +presentation.<a href= +"#note14"><u>[14]</u></a></p><a name="51"></a><br> + +<p><i>Aesthetic value in the second term.</i></p> + +<p>§ 51. That the noble associations of any object should embellish that object +is very comprehensible. Homer furnishes us with a good illustration of the +constant employment of this effect. The first term, one need hardly say, leaves +with him little to be desired. The verse is beautiful. Sounds, images, and +composition conspire to stimulate and delight. This immediate beauty is +sometimes used to clothe things terrible and sad; there is no dearth of the +tragic in Homer. But the tendency of his poetry is nevertheless to fill the +outskirts of our consciousness with the trooping images of things no less fair +and noble than the verse itself. The heroes are virtuous. There is none of +importance who is not admirable in his way. The palaces, the arms, the horses, +the sacrifices, are always excellent. The women are always stately and +beautiful. The ancestry and the history of every one are honourable and good. +The whole Homeric world is clean, clear, beautiful, and providential, and no +small part of the perennial charm of the poet is that he thus immerses us in an +atmosphere of beauty; a beauty not concentrated and reserved for some +extraordinary sentiment, action, or person, but permeating the whole and +colouring the common world of soldiers and sailors, war and craft, with a +marvellous freshness and inward glow. There is nothing in the associations of +life in this world or in another to contradict or disturb our delight. All is +beautiful, and beautiful through and through.</p> + +<p>Something of this quality meets us in all simple and idyllic compositions. +There is, for instance, a popular demand that stories and comedies should "end +well." The hero and heroine must be young and handsome; unless they die, — which +is another matter, — they must not in the end be poor. The landscape in the play +must be beautiful; the dresses pretty; the plot without serious mishap. A +pervasive presentation of pleasure must give warmth and ideality to the whole. +In the proprieties of social life we find the same principle; we study to make +our surroundings, manner, and conversation suggest nothing but what is pleasing. +We hide the ugly and disagreeable portion of our lives, and do not allow the +least hint of it to come to light upon festive and public occasions. Whenever, +in a word, a thoroughly pleasing effect is found, it is found by the expression, +as well as presentation, of what is in itself pleasing — and when this effect is +to be produced artificially, we attain it by the suppression of all expression +that is not suggestive of something good.</p> + +<p>If our consciousness were exclusively aesthetic, this kind of expression +would be the only one allowed in art or prized in nature. We should avoid as a +shock or an insipidity, the suggestion of anything not intrinsically beautiful. +As there would be no values not aesthetic, our pleasure could never be +heightened by any other kind of interest. But as contemplation is actually a +luxury in our lives, and things interest us chiefly on passionate and practical +grounds, the accumulation of values too exclusively aesthetic produces in our +minds an effect of closeness and artificiality. So selective a diet cloys, and +our palate, accustomed to much daily vinegar and salt, is surfeited by such +unmixed sweet.</p> + +<p>Instead we prefer to see through the medium of art — through the beautiful +first term of our expression — the miscellaneous world which is so well known to +us — perhaps so dear, and at any rate so inevitable, an object. We are more +thankful for this presentation, of the unlovely truth in a lovely form, than for +the like presentation of an abstract beauty; what is lost in the purity of the +pleasure is gained in the stimulation of our attention, and in the relief of +viewing with aesthetic detachment the same things that in practical life hold +tyrannous dominion over our souls. The beauty that is associated only with other +beauty is therefore a sort of aesthetic dainty; it leads the fancy through a +fairyland of lovely forms, where we must forget the common objects of our +interest. The charm of such an idealization is undeniable; but the other +important elements of our memory and will cannot long be banished. Thoughts of +labour, ambition, lust, anger, confusion, sorrow, and death must needs mix with +our contemplation and lend their various expressions to the objects with which +in experience they are so closely allied. Hence the incorporation in the +beautiful of values of other sorts, and the comparative rareness in nature or +art of expressions the second term of which has only aesthetic value.</p><a name="52"></a><br> + +<p><i>Practical value in the same.</i></p> + +<p>§ 52. More important and frequent is the case of the expression of utility. +This is found whenever the second term is the idea of something of practical +advantage to us, the premonition of which brings satisfaction; and this +satisfaction prompts an approval of the presented object. The tone of our +consciousness is raised by the foretaste of a success; and this heightened +pleasure is objectified in the present image, since the associated image to +which the satisfaction properly belongs often fails to become distinct. We do +not conceive clearly what this practical advantage will be; but the vague sense +that an advantage is there, that something desirable has been done, accompanies +the presentation, and gives it expression.</p> + +<p>The case that most resembles that of which we have been just speaking, is +perhaps that in which the second term is a piece of interesting information, a +theory, or other intellectual datum. Our interest in facts and theories, when +not aesthetic, is of course practical; it consists in their connexion with our +interests, and in the service they can render us in the execution of our +designs. Intellectual values are utilitarian in their origin but aesthetic in +their form, since the advantage of knowledge is often lost sight of, and ideas +are prized for their own sake. Curiosity can become a disinterested passion, and +yield intimate and immediate satisfaction like any other impulse.</p> + +<p>When we have before us, for instance, a fine map, in which the line of coast, +now rocky, now sandy, is clearly indicated, together with the windings of the +rivers, the elevations of the land, and the distribution of the population, we +have the simultaneous suggestion of so many facts, the sense of mastery over so +much reality, that we gaze at it with delight, and need no practical motive to +keep us studying it, perhaps for hours together. A map is not naturally thought +of as an aesthetic object; it is too exclusively expressive. The first term is +passed over as a mere symbol, and the mind is filled either with imaginations of +the landscape the country would really offer, or with thoughts about its history +and inhabitants. These circumstances prevent the ready objectification of our +pleasure in the map itself. And yet, let the tints of it be a little subtle, let +the lines be a little delicate, and the masses of land and sea somewhat +balanced, and we really have a beautiful thing; a thing the charm of which +consists almost entirely in its meaning, but which nevertheless pleases us in +the same way as a picture or a graphic symbol might please. Give the symbol a +little intrinsic worth of form, line, and colour, and it attracts like a magnet +all the values of the things it is known to symbolize. It becomes beautiful in +its expressiveness.</p> + +<p>Hardly different from this example is that of travel or of reading; for in +these employments we get many aesthetic pleasures, the origin of which is in the +satisfaction of curiosity and intelligence. When we say admiringly of anything +that it is characteristic, that it embodies a whole period or a whole man, we +are absorbed by the pleasant sense that it offers innumerable avenues of +approach to interesting and important things. The less we are able to specify +what these are, the more beautiful will the object be that expresses them. For +if we could specify them, the felt value would disintegrate, and distribute +itself among the ideas of the suggested things, leaving the expressive object +bare of all interest, like the letters of a printed page.</p> + +<p>The courtiers of Philip the Second probably did not regard his rooms at the +Escurial as particularly interesting, but simply as small, ugly, and damp. The +character which we find in them and which makes us regard them as eminently +expressive of whatever was sinister in the man, probably did not strike them. +They knew the king, and had before them words, gestures, and acts enough in +which to read his character. But all these living facts are wanting to our +experience; and it is the suggestion of them in their unrealizable vagueness +that fills the apartments of the monarch with such pungent expression. It is not +otherwise with all emphatic expressiveness — moonlight and castle moats, +minarets and cypresses, camels filing through the desert — such images get their +character from the strong but misty atmosphere of sentiment and adventure which +clings about them. The profit of travel, and the extraordinary charm of all +visible relics of antiquity, consists in the acquisition of images in which to +focus a mass of discursive knowledge, not otherwise felt together. Such images +are concrete symbols of much latent experience, and the deep roots of +association give them the same hold upon our attention which might be secured by +a fortunate form or splendid material.</p><a name="53"></a><br> + +<p><i>Cost as an element of effect.</i></p> + +<p>§ 53. There is one consideration which often adds much to the interest with +which we view an object, but which we might be virtuously inclined not to admit +among aesthetic values. I mean cost. Cost is practical value expressed in +abstract terms, and from the price of anything we can often infer what relation +it has to the desires and efforts of mankind. There is no reason why cost, or +the circumstances which are its basis, should not, like other practical values, +heighten the tone of consciousness, and add to the pleasure with which we view +an object. In fact, such is our daily experience; for great as is the sensuous +beauty of gems, their rarity and price adds an expression of distinction to +them, which they would never have if they were cheap.</p> + +<p>The circumstance that makes the appreciation of cost often unaesthetic is the +abstractness of that quality. The price of an object is an algebraic symbol, it +is a conventional term, invented to facilitate our operations, which remains +arid and unmeaning if we stop with it and forget to translate it again at the +end into its concrete equivalent. The commercial mind dwells in that +intermediate limbo of symbolized values; the calculator's senses are muffled by +his intellect and by his habit of abbreviated thinking. His mental process is a +reckoning that loses sight of its original values, and is over without reaching +any concrete image. Therefore the knowledge of cost, when expressed in terms of +money, is incapable of contributing to aesthetic effect, but the reason is not +so much that the suggested value is not aesthetic, as that no real value is +suggested at all. No object of any kind is presented to the mind by the +numerical expression. If we reinterpret our price, however, and translate it +back into the facts which constitute it, into the materials employed, their +original place and quality, and the labour and art which transformed them into +the present thing, then we add to the aesthetic value of the object, by the +expression which we find in it, not of its price in money, but of its human +cost. We have now the consciousness of the real values which it represents, and +these values, sympathetically present to the fancy, increase our present +interest and admiration.</p> + +<p>I believe economists count among the elements of the value of an object the +rarity of its material, the labour of its manufacture, and the distance from +which it is brought. Now all these qualities, if attended to in themselves, +appeal greatly to the imagination. We have a natural interest in what is rare +and affects us with unusual sensations. What comes from a far country carries +our thoughts there, and gains by the wealth and picturesqueness of its +associations. And that on which human labour has been spent, especially if it +was a labour of love, and is apparent in the product, has one of the deepest +possible claims to admiration. So that the standard of cost, the most vulgar of +all standards, is such only when it remains empty and abstract. Let the thoughts +wander back and consider the elements of value, and our appreciation, from being +verbal and commercial, becomes poetic and real.</p> + +<p>We have in this one more example of the manner in which practical values, +when suggested by and incorporated in any object, contribute to its beauty. Our +sense of what lies behind, unlovely though that background may be, gives +interest and poignancy to that which is present; our attention and wonder are +engaged, and a new meaning and importance is added to such intrinsic beauty as +the presentation may possess.</p><a name= +"54"></a><br> + +<p><i>The expression of economy and fitness.</i></p> + +<p>§ 54. The same principle explains the effect of evident cleanliness, +security, economy, and comfort. This Dutch charm hardly needs explanation; we +are conscious of the domesticity and neatness which pleases us in it. There are +few things more utterly discomforting to our minds than waste: it is a sort of +pungent extract and quintessence of folly. The visible manifestation of it is +therefore very offensive; and that of its absence very reassuring. The force of +our approval of practical fitness and economy in things rises into an +appreciation that is half-aesthetic, and which becomes wholly so when the fit +form becomes fixed in a type, to the lines of which we are accustomed; so that +the practical necessity of the form is heightened and concentrated into the +aesthetic propriety of it.</p> + +<p>The much-praised expression of function and truth in architectural works +reduces itself to this principle. The useful contrivance at first appeals to our +practical approval; while we admire its ingenuity, we cannot fail to become +gradually accustomed to its presence, and to register with attentive pleasure +the relation of its parts. Utility, as we have pointed out in its place, is thus +the guiding principle in the determination of forms.</p> + +<p>The recurring observation of the utility, economy, and fitness of the +traditional arrangement in buildings or other products of art, re-enforces this +formal expectation with a reflective approval. We are accustomed, for instance, +to sloping roofs; the fact that they were necessary has made them familiar, and +the fact that they are familiar has made them objects of study and of artistic +enjoyment. If at any moment, however, the notion of condemning them passes +through the mind, — if we have visions of the balustrade against the sky, — we +revert to our homely image with kindly loyalty, when we remember the long months +of rain and snow, and the comfortless leaks to be avoided. The thought of a +glaring, practical unfitness is enough to spoil our pleasure in any form, +however beautiful intrinsically, while the sense of practical fitness is enough +to reconcile us to the most awkward and rude contrivances.</p> + +<p>This principle is, indeed, not a fundamental, but an auxiliary one; the +expression of utility modifies effect, but does not constitute it. There would +be a kind of superstitious haste in the notion that what is convenient and +economical is necessarily and by miracle beautiful. The uses and habits of one +place and society require works which are or may easily become intrinsically +beautiful; the uses and habits of another make these beautiful works impossible. +The beauty has a material and formal basis that we have already studied; no +fitness of design will make a building of ten equal storeys as beautiful as a +pavilion or a finely proportioned tower; no utility will make a steamboat as +beautiful as a sailing vessel. But the forms once established, with their +various intrinsic characters, the fitness we know to exist in them will lend +them some added charm, or their unfitness will disquiet us, and haunt us like a +conscientious qualm. The other interests of our lives here mingle with the +purely aesthetic, to enrich or to embitter it.</p> + +<p>If Sybaris is so sad a name to the memory — and who is without some Sybaris +of his own? — if the image of it is so tormenting and in the end so disgusting, +this is not because we no longer think its marbles bright, its fountains cool, +its athletes strong, or its roses fragrant; but because, mingled with all these +supreme beauties, there is the ubiquitous shade of Nemesis, the sense of a +vacant will and a suicidal inhumanity. The intolerableness of this moral +condition poisons the beauty which continues to be felt. If this beauty did not +exist, and was not still desired, the tragedy would disappear and Jehovah would +be deprived of the worth of his victim. The sternness of moral forces lies +precisely in this, that the sacrifices morality imposes upon us are real, that +the things it renders impossible are still precious.</p> + +<p>We are accustomed to think of prudence as estranging us only from low and +ignoble things; we forget that utility and the need of system in our lives is a +bar also to the free flights of the spirit. The highest instincts tend to +disorganization as much as the lowest, since order and benefit is what practical +morality everywhere insists upon, while sanctity and genius are as rebellious as +vice. The constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man only an +incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the understanding. For +this reason, utility keeps close watch over beauty, lest in her wilfulness and +riot she should offend against our practical needs and ultimate happiness. And +when the conscience is keen, this vigilance of the practical imagination over +the speculative ceases to appear as an eventual and external check. The least +suspicion of luxury, waste, impurity, or cruelty is then a signal for alarm and +insurrection. That which emits this <i>sapor hoereticus</i> becomes so initially +horrible, that naturally no beauty can ever be discovered in it; the senses and +imagination are in that case inhibited by the conscience.</p> + +<p>For this reason, the doctrine that beauty is essentially nothing but the +expression of moral or practical good appeals to persons of predominant moral +sensitiveness, not only because they wish it were the truth, but because it +largely describes the experience of their own minds, somewhat warped in this +particular. It will further be observed that the moralists are much more able to +condemn than to appreciate the effects of the arts. Their taste is delicate +without being keen, for the principle on which they judge is one which really +operates to control and extend aesthetic effects; it is a source of expression +and of certain <i>nuances</i> of satisfaction; but it is foreign to the stronger +and more primitive aesthetic values to which the same persons are comparatively +blind.</p><a name= +"55"></a><br> + +<p><i>The authority of morals over aesthetics.</i></p> + +<p>§ 55. The extent to which aesthetic goods should be sacrificed is, of course, +a moral question; for the function of practical reason is to compare, combine, +and harmonize all our interests, with a view to attaining the greatest +satisfactions of which our nature is capable. We must expect, therefore, that +virtue should place the same restraint upon all our passions — not from +superstitious aversion to any one need, but from an equal concern for them all. +The consideration to be given to our aesthetic pleasures will depend upon their +greater or less influence upon our happiness; and as this influence varies in +different ages and countries, and with different individuals, it will be right +to let aesthetic demands count for more or for less in the organization of life.</p> + +<p>We may, indeed, according to our personal sympathies, prefer one type of +creature to another. We may love the martial, or the angelic, or the political +temperament. We may delight to find in others that balance of susceptibilities +and enthusiasms which we feel in our own breast. But no moral precept can +require one species or individual to change its nature in order to resemble +another, since such a requirement can have no power or authority over those on +whom we would impose it. All that morality can require is the inward harmony of +each life: and if we still abhor the thought of a possible being who should be +happy without love, or knowledge, or beauty, the aversion we feel is not moral +but instinctive, not rational but human. What revolts us is not the want of +excellence in that other creature, but his want of affinity to ourselves. Could +we survey the whole universe, we might indeed assign to each species a moral +dignity proportionate to its general beneficence and inward wealth; but such an +absolute standard, if it exists, is incommunicable to us; and we are reduced to +judging of the excellence of every nature by its relation to the human.</p> + +<p>All these matters, however, belong to the sphere of ethics, nor should we +give them here even a passing notice, but for the influence which moral ideas +exert over aesthetic judgments. Our sense of practical benefit not only +determines the moral value of beauty, but sometimes even its existence as an +aesthetic good. Especially in the right +<i>selection</i> of effects, these considerations have weight. Forms in +themselves pleasing may become disagreeable when the practical interests then +uppermost in the mind cannot, without violence, yield a place to them. Thus too +much eloquence in a diplomatic document, or in a familiar letter, or in a +prayer, is an offence not only against practical sense, but also against taste. +The occasion has tuned us to a certain key of sentiment, and deprived us of the +power to respond to other stimuli.</p> + +<p>If things of moment are before us, we cannot stop to play with symbols and +figures of speech. We cannot attend to them with pleasure, and therefore they +lose the beauty they might elsewhere have had. They are offensive, not in +themselves, — for nothing is intrinsically ugly, — but by virtue of our present +demand for something different. A prison as gay as a bazaar, a church as dumb as +a prison, offend by their failure to support by their aesthetic quality the +moral emotion with, which we approach them. The arts must study their occasions; +they must stand modestly aside until they can slip in fitly into the interstices +of life. This is the consequence of the superficial stratum on which they +flourish; their roots, as we have seen, are not deep in the world, and they +appear only as unstable, superadded activities, employments of our freedom, +after the work of life is done and the terror of it is allayed. They must, +therefore, fit their forms, like parasites, to the stouter growths to which they +cling.</p> + +<p>Herein lies the greatest difficulty and nicety of art. It must not only +create things abstractly beautiful, but it must conciliate all the competitors +these may have to the attention of the world, and must know how to insinuate +their charms among the objects of our passion. But this subserviency and +enforced humility of beauty is not without its virtue and reward. If the +aesthetic habit lie under the necessity of respecting and observing our +passions, it possesses the privilege of soothing our griefs. There is no +situation so terrible that it may not be relieved by the momentary pause of the +mind to contemplate it aesthetically.</p> + +<p>Grief itself becomes in this way not wholly pain; a sweetness is added to it +by our reflection. The saddest scenes may lose their bitterness in their beauty. +This ministration makes, as it were, the piety of the Muses, who succour their +mother, Life, and repay her for their nurture by the comfort of their continual +presence. The aesthetic world is limited in its scope; it must submit to the +control of the organizing reason, and not trespass upon more useful and holy +ground. The garden must not encroach upon the corn-fields; but the eye of the +gardener may transform the corn-fields themselves by dint of loving observation +into a garden of a soberer kind. By finding grandeur in our disasters, and +merriment in our mishaps, the aesthetic sense thus mollifies both, and consoles +us for the frequent impossibility of a serious and perfect beauty.</p><a name= +"56"></a><br> + +<p><i>Negative values in the second term.</i></p> + +<p>§ 56. All subjects, even the most repellent, when the circumstances of +life thrust them before us, can thus be observed with curiosity and treated with +art. The calling forth of these aesthetic functions softens the violence of our +sympathetic reaction. If death, for instance, did not exist and did not thrust +itself upon our thoughts with painful importunity, art would never have been +called upon to soften and dignify it, by presenting it in beautiful forms and +surrounding it with consoling associations. Art does not seek out the pathetic, +the tragic, and the absurd; it is life that has imposed them upon our attention, +and enlisted art in their service, to make the contemplation of them, since it +is inevitable, at least as tolerable as possible.</p> + +<p>The agreeableness of the presentation is thus mixed with the horror of the +thing; and the result is that while we are saddened by the truth we are +delighted by the vehicle that conveys it to us. The mixture of these emotions +constitutes the peculiar flavour and poignancy of pathos. But because unlovely +objects and feelings are often so familiar as to be indifferent or so momentous +as to be alone in the mind, we are led into the confusion of supposing that +beauty depends upon them for its aesthetic value; whereas the truth is that only +by the addition of positive beauties can these evil experiences be made +agreeable to contemplation.</p> + +<p>There is, in reality, no such paradox in the tragic, comic, and sublime, as +has been sometimes supposed. We are not pleased by virtue of the suggested +evils, but in spite of them; and if ever the charm of the beautiful presentation +sinks so low, or the vividness of the represented evil rises so high, that the +balance is in favour of pain, at that very moment the whole object becomes +horrible, passes out of the domain of art, and can be justified only by its +scientific or moral uses. As an aesthetic value it is destroyed; it ceases to be +a benefit; and the author of it, if he were not made harmless by the neglect +that must soon overtake him, would have to be punished as a malefactor who adds +to the burden of mortal life. For the sad, the ridiculous, the grotesque, and +the terrible, unless they become aesthetic goods, remain moral evils.</p> + +<p>We have, therefore, to study the various aesthetic, intellectual, and moral +compensations by which the mind can be brought to contemplate with pleasure a +thing which, if experienced alone, would be the cause of pain. There is, to be +sure, a way of avoiding this inquiry. We might assert that since all moderate +excitement is pleasant, there is nothing strange in the fact that the +representation of evil should please; for the experience is evil by virtue of +the pain it gives; but it gives pain only when felt with great intensity. +Observed from afar, it is a pleasing impression; it is vivid enough to interest, +but not acute enough to wound. This simple explanation is possible in all those +cases where aesthetic effect is gained by the inhibition of sympathy.</p> + +<p>The term "evil" is often a conventional epithet; a conflagration may be +called an evil, because it usually involves loss and suffering; but if, without +caring for a loss and suffering we do not share, we are delighted by the blaze, +and still say that what pleases us is an evil, we are using this word as a +conventional appellation, not as the mark of a felt value. We are not pleased by +an evil; we are pleased by a vivid and exciting sensation, which is a good, but +which has for objective cause an event which may indeed be an evil to others, +but about the consequences of which we are not thinking at all. There is, in +this sense, nothing in all nature, perhaps, which is not an evil; nothing which +is not unfavourable to some interest, and does not involve some infinitesimal or +ultimate suffering in the universe of life.</p> + +<p>But when we are ignorant or thoughtless, this suffering is to us as if it did +not exist. The pleasures of drinking and walking are not tragic to us, because +we may be poisoning some bacillus or crushing some worm. To an omniscient +intelligence such acts may be tragic by virtue of the insight into their +relations to conflicting impulses; but unless these impulses are present to the +same mind, there is no consciousness of tragedy. The child that, without +understanding of the calamity, should watch a shipwreck from the shore, would +hare a simple emotion of pleasure as from a jumping jack; what passes for tragic +interest is often nothing but this. If he understood the event, but was entirely +without sympathy, he would have the aesthetic emotion of the careless tyrant, to +whom the notion of suffering is no hindrance to the enjoyment of the lyre. If +the temper of his tyranny were purposely cruel, he might add to that aesthetic +delight the luxury of +<i>Schadenfreude;</i> but the pathos and horror of the sight could only appeal +to a man who realized and shared the sufferings he beheld.</p> + +<p>A great deal of brutal tragedy has been endured in the world because the +rudeness of the representation, or of the public, or of both, did not allow a +really sympathetic reaction to arise. We all smile when Punch beats Judy in the +puppet show. The treatment and not the subject is what makes a tragedy. A parody +of <i>Hamlet</i> or of <i>King Lear</i> would not be a tragedy; and these +tragedies themselves are not wholly such, but by the strain of wit and nonsense +they contain are, as it were, occasional parodies on themselves. By treating a +tragic subject bombastically or satirically we can turn it into an amusement for +the public; they will not feel the griefs which we have been careful to harden +them against by arousing in them contrary emotions. A work, nominally a work of +art, may also appeal to non-aesthetic feelings by its political bias, brutality, +or obscenity. But if an effect of true pathos is sought, the sympathy of the +observer must be aroused; we must awaken in him the emotion we describe. The +intensity of the impression must not be so slight that its painful quality is +not felt; for it is this very sense of pain, mingling with the aesthetic +excitement of the spectacle, that gives it a tragic or pathetic colouring.</p> + +<p>We cannot therefore rest in the assertion that the slighter degree of +excitement is pleasant, when a greater degree of the same would be disagreeable; +for that principle does not express the essence of the matter, which is that we +must be aware of the evil, and conscious of it as such, absorbed more or less in +the experience of the sufferer, and consequently suffering ourselves, before we +can experience the essence of tragic emotion. This emotion must therefore be +complex; it must contain an element of pain overbalanced by an element of +pleasure; in our delight there must be a distinguishable touch of shrinking and +sorrow; for it is this conflict and rending of our will, this fascination by +what is intrinsically terrible or sad, that gives these turbid feelings their +depth and pungency.</p><a name="57"></a><br> + +<p><i>Influence of the first term in the pleasing expression of self.</i></p> + +<p>§ 57. A striking proof of the compound nature of tragic effects can be given +by a simple experiment. Remove from any drama — say from <i>Othello</i> — the +charm of the medium of presentation; reduce the tragedy to a mere account of the +facts and of the words spoken, such as our newspapers almost daily contain; and +the tragic dignity and beauty is entirely lost. Nothing remains but a +disheartening item of human folly, which may still excite curiosity, but which +will rather defile than purify the mind that considers it. A French poet has +said:</p> + +<p> Il n'est de vulgaire chagrin<br> + Qua celui d'une âme vulgaire.</p> + +<p>The counterpart of this maxim is equally true. There is no noble sorrow +except in a noble mind, because what is noble is the reaction upon the sorrow, +the attitude of the man in its presence, the language in which he clothes it, +the associations with which he surrounds it, and the fine affections and +impulses which shine through it. Only by suffusing some sinister experience with +this moral light, as a poet may do who carries that light within him, can we +raise misfortune into tragedy and make it better for us to remember our lives +than to forget them.</p> + +<p>There are times, although rare, when men are noble in the very moment of +passion: when that passion is not unqualified, but already mastered by +reflection and levelled with truth. Then the experience is itself the tragedy, +and no poet is needed to make it beautiful in representation, since the sufferer +has been an artist himself, and has moulded what he has endured. But usually +these two stages have to be successive: first we suffer, afterwards we sing. An +interval is necessary to make feeling presentable, and subjugate it to that form +in which alone it is beautiful.</p> + +<p>This form appeals to us in itself, and without its aid no subject-matter +could become an aesthetic object. The more terrible the experience described, +the more powerful must the art be which is to transform it. For this reason +prose and literalness are more tolerable in comedy than in tragedy; any violent +passion, any overwhelming pain, if it is not to make us think of a demonstration +in pathology, and bring back the smell of ether, must be rendered in the most +exalted style. Metre, rhyme, melody, the widest nights of allusion, the highest +reaches of fancy, are there in place. For these enable the mind swept by the +deepest cosmic harmonies, to endure and absorb the shrill notes which would be +intolerable in a poorer setting.</p> + +<p>The sensuous harmony of words, and still more the effects of rhythm, are +indispensable at this height of emotion. Evolutionists have said that violent +emotion naturally expresses itself in rhythm. That is hardly an empirical +observation, nor can the expressiveness of rhythms be made definite enough to +bear specific association with complex feelings. But the suspension and rush of +sound and movement have in themselves a strong effect; we cannot undergo them +without profound excitement; and this, like martial music, nerves us to courage +and, by a sort of intoxication, bears us along amid scenes which might otherwise +be sickening. The vile effect of literal and disjointed renderings of suffering, +whether in writing or acting, proves how necessary is the musical quality to +tragedy — a fact Aristotle long ago set forth. The afflatus of rhythm, even if +it be the pomp of the Alexandrine, sublimates the passion, and clarifies its +mutterings into poetry. This breadth and rationality are necessary to art, which +is not skill merely, but skill in the service of beauty.</p><a name="58"></a><br> + +<p><i>Mixture of other expressions, including that of truth.</i></p> + +<p>§ 58. To the value of these sensuous and formal elements must be added the +continual suggestion of beautiful and happy things, which no tragedy is sombre +enough to exclude. Even if we do not go so far as to intersperse comic scenes +and phrases into a pathetic subject, — a rude device, since the comic passages +themselves need that purifying which they are meant to effect, — we must at +least relieve our theme with pleasing associations. For this reason we have +palaces for our scene, rank, beauty, and virtue in our heroes, nobility in their +passions and in their fate, and altogether a sort of glorification of life +without which tragedy would lose both in depth of pathos — since things so +precious are destroyed — and in subtlety of charm, since things so precious are +manifested.</p> + +<p>Indeed, one of the chief charms that tragedies have is the suggestion of what +they might have been if they had not been tragedies. The happiness which +glimmers through them, the hopes, loves, and ambitions of which it is made, +these things fascinate us, and win our sympathy; so that we are all the more +willing to suffer with our heroes, even if we are at the same time all the more +sensitive to their suffering. Too wicked a character or too unrelieved a +situation revolts us for this reason. We do not find enough expression of good +to make us endure the expression of the evil.</p> + +<p>A curious exception to this rule, which, however, admirably illustrates the +fundamental principle of it, is where by the diversity of evils represented the +mind is relieved from painful absorption in any of them. There is a scene in <i> +King Lear,</i> +where the horror of the storm is made to brood over at least four miseries, that +of the king, of the fool, of Edgar in his real person, and of Edgar in his +assumed character. The vividness of each of these portrayals, with its different +note of pathos, keeps the mind detached and free, forces it to compare and +reflect, and thereby to universalize the spectacle. Yet even here, the beautiful +effect is not secured without some touches of good. How much is not gained by +the dumb fidelity of the fool, and by the sublime humanity of Lear, when he +says, "Art cold? There is a part of me is sorry for thee yet."</p> + +<p>Yet all these compensations would probably be unavailing but for another +which the saddest things often have, — the compensation of being true. Our +practical and intellectual nature is deeply interested in truth. What describes +fact appeals to us for that reason; it has an inalienable interest. However +unpleasant truth may prove, we long to know it, partly perhaps because +experience has shown us the prudence of this kind of intellectual courage, and +chiefly because the consciousness of ignorance and the dread of the unknown is +more tormenting than any possible discovery. A primitive instinct makes us turn +the eyes full on any object that appears in the dim borderland of our field of +vision — and this all the more quickly, the more terrible that object threatens +to be.</p> + +<p>This physical thirst for seeing has its intellectual extension. We covet +truth, and to attain it, amid all accidents, is a supreme satisfaction. Now this +satisfaction the representation of evil can also afford. Whether we hear the +account of some personal accident, or listen to the symbolic representation of +the inherent tragedy of life, we crave the same knowledge; the desire for truth +makes us welcome eagerly whatever comes in its name. To be sure, the relief of +such instruction does not of itself constitute an aesthetic pleasure: the other +conditions of beauty remain to be fulfilled. But the satisfaction of so +imperious an intellectual instinct insures our willing attention to the tragic +object, and strengthens the hold which any beauties it may possess will take +upon us. An intellectual value stands ready to be transmuted into an aesthetic +one, if once its discursiveness is lost, and it is left hanging about the object +as a vague sense of dignity and meaning.</p> + +<p>To this must be added the specific pleasure of recognition, one of the +keenest we have, and the sentimental one of nursing our own griefs and +dignifying them by assimilation to a less inglorious representation of them. +Here we have truth on a small scale; conformity in the fiction to incidents of +our personal experience. Such correspondences are the basis of much popular +appreciation of trivial and undigested works that appeal to some momentary phase +of life or feeling, and disappear with it. They have the value of personal +stimulants only; they never achieve beauty. Like the souvenirs of last season's +gayeties, or the diary of an early love, they are often hideous in themselves in +proportion as they are redolent with personal associations. But however +hopelessly mere history or confession may fail to constitute a work of art, a +work of art that has an historical warrant, either literal or symbolical, gains +the support of that vivid interest we have in facts. And many tragedies and +farces, that to a mind without experience of this sublunary world might seem +monstrous and disgusting fictions, may come to be forgiven and even perhaps +preferred over all else, when they are found to be a sketch from life.</p> + +<p>Truth is thus the excuse which ugliness has for being. Many people, in whom +the pursuit of knowledge and the indulgence in sentiment have left no room for +the cultivation of the aesthetic sense, look in art rather for this expression +of fact or of passion than for the revelation of beauty. They accordingly +produce and admire works without intrinsic value. They employ the procedure of +the fine arts without an eye to what can give pleasure in the effect. They +invoke rather the <i>a priori</i> interest which men are expected to have in the +subject-matter, or in the theories and moral implied in the presentation of it. +Instead of using the allurements of art to inspire wisdom, they require an +appreciation of wisdom to make us endure their lack of art.</p> + +<p>Of course, the instruments of the arts are public property and any one is +free to turn them to new uses. It would be an interesting development of +civilization if they should now be employed only as methods of recording +scientific ideas and personal confessions. But the experiment has not succeeded +and can hardly succeed. There are other simpler, clearer, and more satisfying +ways of expounding truth. A man who is really a student of history or philosophy +will never rest with the vague and partial oracles of poetry, not to speak of +the inarticulate suggestions of the plastic arts. He will at once make for the +principles which art cannot express, even if it can embody them, and when those +principles are attained, the works of art, if they had no other value than that +of suggesting them, will lapse from his mind. Forms will give place to formulas +as hieroglyphics have given place to the letters of the alphabet.</p> + +<p>If, on the other hand, the primary interest is really in beauty, and only the +confusion of a moral revolution has obscured for a while the vision of the +ideal, then as the mind regains its mastery over the world, and digests its new +experience, the imagination will again be liberated, and create its forms by its +inward affinities, leaving all the weary burden, archaeological, psychological, +and ethical, to those whose business is not to delight. But the sudden +inundation of science and sentiment which has made the mind of the nineteenth +century so confused, by overloading us with materials and breaking up our habits +of apperception and our ideals, has led to an exclusive sense of the value of +expressiveness, until this has been almost identified with beauty. This +exaggeration can best prove how the expression of truth may enter into the play +of aesthetic forces, and give a value to representations which, but for it, +would be repulsive.</p><a name="59"></a><br> + +<p><i>The liberation of self.</i></p> + +<p>§ 59. Hitherto we have been considering those elements of a pathetic +presentation which may mitigate our sympathetic emotion, and make it on the +whole agreeable. These consist in the intrinsic beauties of the medium of +presentation, and in the concomitant manifestation of various goods, notably of +truth. The mixture of these values is perhaps all we have in mildly pathetic +works, in the presence of which we are tolerably aware of a sort of balance and +compensation of emotions. The sorrow and the beauty, the hopelessness and the +consolation, mingle and merge into a kind of joy which has its poignancy, +indeed, but which is far too passive and penitential to contain the louder and +sublimer of our tragic moods. In these there is a wholeness, a strength, and a +rapture, which still demands an explanation.</p> + +<p>Where this explanation is to be found may be guessed from the following +circumstance. The pathetic is a quality of the object, at once lovable and sad, +which we accept and allow to flow in upon the soul; but the heroic is an +attitude of the will, by which the voices of the outer world are silenced, and a +moral energy, flowing from within, is made to triumph over them. If we fail, +therefore, to discover, by analysis of the object, anything which could make it +sublime, we must not be surprised at our failure. We must remember that the +object is always but a portion of our consciousness: that portion which has +enough coherence and articulation to be recognized as permanent and projected +into the outer world. But consciousness remains one, in spite of this +diversification of its content, and the object is not really independent, but is +in constant relation to the rest of the mind, in the midst of which it swims +like a bubble on a dark surface of water.</p> + +<p>The aesthetic effect of objects is always due to the total emotional value of +the consciousness in which they exist. We merely attribute this value to the +object by a projection which is the ground of the apparent objectivity of +beauty. Sometimes this value may be inherent in the process by which the object +itself is perceived; then we have sensuous and formal beauty; sometimes the +value may be due to the incipient formation of other ideas, which the perception +of this object evokes; then we have beauty of expression. But among the ideas +with which every object has relation there is one vaguest, most comprehensive, +and most powerful one, namely, the idea of self. The impulses, memories, +principles, and energies which we designate by that word baffle enumeration; +indeed, they constantly fade and change into one another; and whether the self +is anything, everything, or nothing depends on the aspect of it which we +momentarily fix, and especially on the definite object with which we contrast +it.</p> + +<p>Now, it is the essential privilege of beauty to so synthesize and bring to a +focus the various impulses of the self, so to suspend them to a single image, +that a great peace falls upon that perturbed kingdom. In the experience of these +momentary harmonies we have the basis of the enjoyment of beauty, and of all its +mystical meanings. But there are always two methods of securing harmony: one is +to unify all the given elements, and another is to reject and expunge all the +elements that refuse to be unified. Unity by inclusion gives us the beautiful; +unity by exclusion, opposition, and isolation gives us the sublime. Both are +pleasures: but the pleasure of the one is warm, passive, and pervasive; that of +the other cold, imperious, and keen. The one identifies us with the world, the +other raises us above it.</p> + +<p>There can be no difficulty in understanding how the expression of evil in the +object may be the occasion of this heroic reaction of the soul. In the first +place, the evil may be felt; but at the same time the sense that, great as it +may be in itself, it cannot touch us, may stimulate extraordinarily the +consciousness of our own wholeness. This is the sublimity which Lucretius calls +"sweet" in the famous lines in which he so justly analyzes it. We are not +pleased because another suffers an evil, but because, seeing it is an evil, we +see at the same time our own immunity from it. We might soften the picture a +little, and perhaps make the principle even clearer by so doing. The shipwreck +observed from the shore does not leave us wholly unmoved; we suffer, also, and +if possible, would help. So, too, the spectacle of the erring world must sadden +the philosopher even in the Acropolis of his wisdom; he would, if it might be, +descend from his meditation and teach. But those movements of sympathy are +quickly inhibited by despair of success; impossibility of action is a great +condition of the sublime. If we could count the stars, we should not weep before +them. While we think we can change the drama of history, and of our own lives, +we are not awed by our destiny. But when the evil is irreparable, when our life +is lived, a strong spirit has the sublime resource of standing at bay and of +surveying almost from the other world the vicissitudes of this.</p> + +<p>The more intimate to himself the tragedy he is able to look back upon with +calmness, the more sublime that calmness is, and the more divine the ecstasy in +which he achieves it. For the more of the accidental vesture of life we are able +to strip ourselves of, the more naked and simple is the surviving spirit; the +more complete its superiority and unity, and, consequently, the more unqualified +its joy. There remains little in us, then, but that intellectual essence, which +several great philosophers have called eternal and identified with the Divinity.</p> + +<p>A single illustration may help to fix these principles in the mind. When +Othello has discovered his fatal error, and is resolved to take his own life, he +stops his groaning, and addresses the ambassadors of Venice thus:</p> + +<p> Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate,<br> + Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak<br> + Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well;<br> + Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,<br> + Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,<br> + Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away<br> + Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,<br> + Albeit unused to the melting mood,<br> + Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees<br> + Their medicinal gum. Set you down this:<br> + And say, besides, that in Aleppo once<br> + When a malignant and a turbaned Turk<br> + Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state,<br> + I took by the throat the circumcised dog,<br> + And smote him, thus.</p> + +<p>There is a kind of criticism that would see in all these allusions, figures +of speech, and wandering reflections, an unnatural rendering of suicide. The +man, we might be told, should have muttered a few broken phrases, and killed +himself without this pomp of declamation, like the jealous husbands in the daily +papers. But the conventions of the tragic stage are more favourable to +psychological truth than the conventions of real life. If we may trust the +imagination (and in imagination lies, as we have seen, the test of propriety), +this is what Othello would have felt. If he had not expressed it, his dumbness +would have been due to external hindrances, not to the failure in his mind of +just such complex and rhetorical thoughts as the poet has put into his mouth. +The height of passion is naturally complex and rhetorical. Love makes us poets, +and the approach of death should make us philosophers. When a man knows that his +life is over, he can look back upon it from a universal standpoint. He has +nothing more to live for, but if the energy of his mind remains unimpaired, he +will still wish to live, and, being cut off from his personal ambitions, he will +impute to himself a kind of vicarious immortality by identifying himself with +what is eternal. He speaks of himself as he is, or rather as he was. He sums +himself up, and points to his achievement. This I have been, says he, this I +have done.</p> + +<p>This comprehensive and impartial view, this synthesis and objectification of +experience, constitutes the liberation of the soul and the essence of sublimity. +That the hero attains it at the end consoles us, as it consoles him, for his +hideous misfortunes. Our pity and terror are indeed purged; we go away knowing +that, however tangled the net may be in which we feel ourselves caught, there is +liberation beyond, and an ultimate peace.</p><a name="60"></a><br> + +<p><i>The sublime independent of the expression of evil.</i></p> + +<p>§ 60. So natural is the relation between the vivid conception of great evils, +and that self-assertion of the soul which gives the emotion of the sublime, that +the sublime is often thought to depend upon the terror which these conceived +evils inspire. To be sure, that terror would have to be inhibited and subdued, +otherwise we should have a passion too acute to be incorporated in any object; +the sublime would not appear as an aesthetic quality in things, but remain +merely an emotional state in the subject. But this subdued and objectified +terror is what is commonly regarded as the essence of the sublime, and so great +an authority as Aristotle would seem to countenance some such definition. The +usual cause of the sublime is here confused, however, with the sublime itself. +The suggestion of terror makes us withdraw into ourselves: there with the +supervening consciousness of safety or indifference comes a rebound, and we have +that emotion of detachment and liberation in which the sublime really consists.</p> + +<p>Thoughts and actions are properly sublime, and visible things only by analogy +and suggestion when they induce a certain moral emotion; whereas beauty belongs +properly to sensible things, and can be predicated of moral facts only by a +figure of rhetoric. What we objectify in beauty is a sensation. What we +objectify in the sublime is an act. This act is necessarily pleasant, for if it +were not the sublime would be a bad quality and one we should rather never +encounter in the world. The glorious joy of self-assertion in the face of an +uncontrollable world is indeed so deep and entire, that it furnishes just that +transcendent element of worth for which we were looking when we tried to +understand how the expression of pain could sometimes please. It can please, not +in itself, but because it is balanced and annulled by positive pleasures, +especially by this final and victorious one of detachment. If the expression of +evil seems necessary to the sublime, it is so only as a condition of this moral +reaction.</p> + +<p>We are commonly too much engrossed in objects and too little centred in +ourselves and our inalienable will, to see the sublimity of a pleasing prospect. +We are then enticed and flattered, and won over to a commerce with these +external goods, and the consummation of our happiness would lie in the perfect +comprehension and enjoyment of their nature. This is the office of art and of +love; and its partial fulfilment is seen in every perception of beauty. But when +we are checked in this sympathetic endeavour after unity and comprehension; when +we come upon a great evil or an irreconcilable power, we are driven to seek our +happiness by the shorter and heroic road; then we recognize the hopeless +foreignness of what lies before us, and stiffen ourselves against it. We thus +for the first time reach the sense of our possible separation from our world, +and of our abstract stability; and with this comes the sublime.</p> + +<p>But although experience of evil is the commonest approach to this attitude of +mind, and we commonly become philosophers only after despairing of instinctive +happiness, yet there is nothing impossible in the attainment of detachment by +other channels. The immense is sublime as well as the terrible; and mere +infinity of the object, like its hostile nature, can have the effect of making +the mind recoil upon itself. Infinity, like hostility, removes us from things, +and makes us conscious of our independence. The simultaneous view of many +things, innumerable attractions felt together, produce equilibrium and +indifference, as effectually as the exclusion of all. If we may call the +liberation of the self by the consciousness of evil in the world, the Stoic +sublime, we may assert that there is also an Epicurean sublime, which consists +in liberation by equipoise. Any wide survey is sublime in that fashion. Each +detail may be beautiful. We may even be ready with a passionate response to its +appeal. We may think we covet every sort of pleasure, and lean to every kind of +vigorous, impulsive life. But let an infinite panorama be suddenly unfolded; the +will is instantly paralyzed, and the heart choked. It is impossible to desire +everything at once, and when all is offered and approved, it is impossible to +choose everything. In this suspense, the mind soars into a kind of heaven, +benevolent but unmoved.</p> + +<p>This is the attitude of all minds to which breadth of interest or length of +years has brought balance and dignity. The sacerdotal quality of old age comes +from this same sympathy in disinterestedness. Old men full of hurry and passion +appear as fools, because we understand that their experience has not left enough +mark upon their brain to qualify with the memory of other goods any object that +may be now presented. We cannot venerate any one in whom appreciation is not +divorced from desire. And this elevation and detachment of the heart need not +follow upon any great disappointment; it is finest and sweetest where it is the +gradual fruit of many affections now merged and mellowed into a natural piety. +Indeed, we are able to frame our idea of the Deity on no other model.</p> + +<p>When the pantheists try to conceive all the parts of nature as forming a +single being, which shall contain them all and yet have absolute unity, they +find themselves soon denying the existence of the world they are trying to +deify; for nature, reduced to the unity it would assume in an omniscient mind, +is no longer nature, but something simple and impossible, the exact opposite of +the real world. Such an opposition would constitute the liberation of the divine +mind from nature, and its existence as a self-conscious individual. The effort +after comprehensiveness of view reduces things to unity, but this unity stands +out in opposition to the manifold phenomena which it transcends, and rejects as +unreal.</p> + +<p>Now this destruction of nature, which the metaphysicians since Parmenides +have so often repeated (nature nevertheless surviving still), is but a +theoretical counterpart and hypostasis of what happens in every man's conscience +when the comprehensiveness of his experience lifts him into thought, into +abstraction. The sense of the sublime is essentially mystical: it is the +transcending of distinct perception in favour of a feeling of unity and volume. +So in the moral sphere, we have the mutual cancelling of the passions in the +breast that includes them all, and their final subsidence beneath the glance +that comprehends them. This is the Epicurean approach to detachment and +perfection; it leads by systematic acceptance of instinct to the same goal which +the stoic and the ascetic reach by systematic rejection of instinct. It is thus +possible to be moved to that self-enfranchisement which constitutes the sublime, +even when the object contains no expression of evil.</p> + +<p>This conclusion supports that part of our definition of beauty which declares +that the values beauty contains are all positive; a definition which we should +have had to change if we had found that the sublime depended upon the suggestion +of evil for its effect. But the sublime is not the ugly, as some descriptions of +it might lead us to suppose; it is the supremely, the intoxicatingly beautiful. +It is the pleasure of contemplation reaching such an intensity that it begins to +lose its objectivity, and to declare itself, what it always fundamentally was, +an inward passion of the soul. For while in the beautiful we find the perfection +of life by sinking into the object, in the sublime we find a purer and more +inalienable perfection by defying the object altogether. The surprised +enlargement of vision, the sudden escape from our ordinary interests and the +identification of ourselves with something permanent and superhuman, something +much more abstract and inalienable than our changing personality, all this +carries us away from the blurred objects before us, and raises us into a sort of +ecstasy.</p> + +<p>In the trite examples of the sublime, where we speak of the vast mass, +strength, and durability of objects, or of their sinister aspect, as if we were +moved by them on account of our own danger, we seem to miss the point. For the +suggestion of our own danger would produce a touch of fear; it would be a +practical passion, or if it could by chance be objectified enough to become +aesthetic, it would merely make the object hateful and repulsive, like a mangled +corpse. The object is sublime when we forget our danger, when we escape from +ourselves altogether, and live as it were in the object itself, energizing in +imitation of its movement, and saying, "Be thou me, impetuous one!" This passage +into the object, to live its life, is indeed a characteristic of all perfect +contemplation. But when in thus translating ourselves we rise and play a higher +personage, feeling the exhilaration of a life freer and wilder than our own, +then the experience is one of sublimity. The emotion comes not from the +situation we observe, but from the powers we conceive; we fail to sympathize +with the struggling sailors because we sympathize too much with the wind and +waves. And this mystical cruelty can extend even to ourselves; we can so feel +the fascination of the cosmic forces that engulf us as to take a fierce joy in +the thought of our own destruction. We can identify ourselves with the +abstractest essence of reality, and, raised to that height, despise the human +accidents of our own nature. Lord, we say, though thou slay me, yet will I trust +in thee. The sense of suffering disappears in the sense of life and the +imagination overwhelms the understanding.</p><a name="61"></a><br> + +<p><i>The comic.</i></p> + +<p>§ 61. Something analogous takes place in the other spheres where an aesthetic +value seems to arise out of suggestions of evil, in the comic, namely, and the +grotesque. But here the translation of our sympathies is partial, and we are +carried away from ourselves only to become smaller. The larger humanity, which +cannot be absorbed, remains ready to contradict the absurdity of our fiction. +The excellence of comedy lies in the invitation to wander along some by-path of +the fancy, among scenes not essentially impossible, but not to be actually +enacted by us on account of the fixed circumstances of our lives. If the picture +is agreeable, we allow ourselves to dream it true. We forget its relations; we +forbid the eye to wander beyond the frame of the stage, or the conventions of +the fiction. We indulge an illusion which deepens our sense of the essential +pleasantness of things.</p> + +<p>So far, there is nothing in comedy that is not delightful, except, perhaps, +the moment when it is over. But fiction, like all error or abstraction, is +necessarily unstable; and the awakening is not always reserved for the +disheartening moment at the end. Everywhere, when we are dealing with pretension +or mistake, we come upon sudden and vivid contradictions; changes of view, +transformations of apperception which are extremely stimulating to the +imagination. We have spoken of one of these: when the sudden dissolution of our +common habits of thought lifts us into a mystical contemplation, filled with the +sense of the sublime; when the transformation is back to common sense and +reality, and away from some fiction, we have a very different emotion. We feel +cheated, relieved, abashed, or amused, in proportion as our sympathy attaches +more to the point of view surrendered or to that attained.</p> + +<p>The disintegration of mental forms and their redintegration is the life of +the imagination. It is a spiritual process of birth and death, nutrition and +generation. The strongest emotions accompany these changes, and vary infinitely +with their variations. All the qualities of discourse, wit, eloquence, cogency, +absurdity, are feelings incidental to this process, and involved in the +juxtapositions, tensions, and resolutions of our ideas. Doubtless the last +explanation of these things would be cerebral; but we are as yet confined to +verbal descriptions and classifications of them, which are always more or less +arbitrary.</p> + +<p>The most conspicuous headings under which comic effects are gathered are +perhaps incongruity and degradation. But clearly it cannot be the logical +essence of incongruity or degradation that constitutes the comic; for then +contradiction and deterioration would always amuse. Amusement is a much more +directly physical thing. We may be amused without any idea at all, as when we +are tickled, or laugh in sympathy with others by a contagious imitation of their +gestures. We may be amused by the mere repetition of a thing at first not +amusing. There must therefore be some nervous excitement on which the feeling of +amusement directly depends, although this excitement may most often coincide +with a sudden transition to an incongruous or meaner image. Nor can we suppose +that particular ideational excitement to be entirely dissimilar to all others; +wit is often hardly distinguishable from brilliancy, as humour from pathos. We +must, therefore, be satisfied with saying vaguely that the process of ideation +involves various feelings of movement and relation, — feelings capable of +infinite gradation and complexity, and ranging from sublimity to tedium and from +pathos to uncontrollable merriment.</p> + +<p>Certain crude and obvious cases of the comic seem to consist of little more +than a shock of surprise: a pun is a sort of jack-in-the-box, popping from +nowhere into our plodding thoughts. The liveliness of the interruption, and its +futility, often please; +<i>dulce est desipere in loco;</i> and yet those who must endure the society of +inveterate jokers know how intolerable this sort of scintillation can become. +There is something inherently vulgar about it; perhaps because our train of +thought cannot be very entertaining in itself when we are so glad to break in +upon it with irrelevant nullities. The same undertone of disgust mingles with +other amusing surprises, as when a dignified personage slips and falls, or some +disguise is thrown off, or those things are mentioned and described which +convention ignores. The novelty and the freedom please, yet the shock often +outlasts the pleasure, and we have cause to wish we had been stimulated by +something which did not involve this degradation. So, also, the impossibility in +plausibility which tickles the fancy in Irish bulls, and in wild exaggerations, +leaves an uncomfortable impression, a certain aftertaste of foolishness.</p> + +<p>The reason will be apparent if we stop to analyze the situation. We have a +prosaic background of common sense and every-day reality; upon this background +an unexpected idea suddenly impinges. But the thing is a futility. The comic +accident falsifies the nature before us, starts a wrong analogy in the mind, a +suggestion that cannot be carried out. In a word, we are in the presence of an +absurdity; and man, being a rational animal, can like absurdity no better than +he can like hunger or cold. A pinch of either may not be so bad, and he will +endure it merrily enough if you repay him with abundance of warm victuals; so, +too, he will play with all kinds of nonsense for the sake of laughter and good +fellowship and the tickling of his fancy with a sort of caricature of thought. +But the qualm remains, and the pleasure is never perfect. The same exhilaration +might have come without the falsification, just as repose follows more swiftly +after pleasant than after painful exertions.</p> + +<p>Fun is a good thing, but only when it spoils nothing better. The best place +for absurdity is in the midst of what is already absurd — then we have the play +of fancy without the sense of ineptitude. Things amuse us in the mouth of a fool +that would not amuse us in that of a gentleman; a fact which shows how little +incongruity and degradation have to do with our pleasure in the comic. In fact, +there is a kind of congruity and method even in fooling. The incongruous and the +degraded displease us even there, as by their nature they must at all times. The +shock which they bring may sometimes be the occasion of a subsequent pleasure, +by attracting our attention, or by stimulating passions, such as scorn, or +cruelty, or self-satisfaction (for there is a good deal of malice in our love of +fun); but the incongruity and degradation, as such, always remain unpleasant. +The pleasure comes from the inward rationality and movement of the fiction, not +from its inconsistency with anything else. There are a great many topsy-turvy +worlds possible to our fancy, into which we like to drop at times. We enjoy the +stimulation and the shaking up of our wits. It is like getting into a new +posture, or hearing a new song.</p> + +<p>Nonsense is good only because common sense is so limited. For reason, after +all, is one convention picked out of a thousand. We love expansion, not +disorder, and when we attain freedom without incongruity we have a much greater +and a much purer delight. The excellence of wit can dispense with absurdity. For +on the same prosaic background of common sense, a novelty might have appeared +that was not absurd, that stimulated the attention quite as much as the +ridiculous, without so baffling the intelligence. This purer and more thoroughly +delightful amusement comes from what we call wit.</p><a name= +"62"></a><br> + +<p><i>Wit.</i></p> + +<p>§ 62. Wit also depends upon transformation and substitution of ideas. It has +been said to consist in quick association by similarity. The substitution must +here be valid, however, and the similarity real, though unforeseen. Unexpected +justness makes wit, as sudden incongruity makes pleasant foolishness. It is +characteristic of wit to penetrate into hidden depths of things, to pick out +there some telling circumstance or relation, by noting which the whole object +appears in a new and clearer light. Wit often seems malicious because analysis +in discovering common traits and universal principles assimilates things at the +poles of being; it can apply to cookery the formulas of theology, and find in +the human heart a case of the fulcrum and lever. We commonly keep the +departments of experience distinct; we think that different principles hold in +each and that the dignity of spirit is inconsistent with the explanation of it +by physical analogy, and the meanness of matter unworthy of being an +illustration of moral truths. Love must not be classed under physical cravings, +nor faith under hypnotization. When, therefore, an original mind overleaps these +boundaries, and recasts its categories, mixing up our old classifications, we +feel that the values of things are also confused. But these depended upon a +deeper relation, upon their response to human needs and aspirations. All that +can be changed by the exercise of intelligence is our sense of the unity and +homogeneity of the world. We may come to hold an object of thought in less +isolated respect, and another in less hasty derision; but the pleasures we +derive from all, or our total happiness and wonder, will hardly be diminished. +For this reason the malicious or destructive character of intelligence must not +be regarded as fundamental. Wit belittles one thing and dignifies another; and +its comparisons are as often flattering as ironical.</p> + +<p>The same process of mind that we observed in wit gives rise to those effects +we call charming, brilliant, or inspired. When Shakespeare says,</p> + +<p> Come and kiss me, <i>sweet and twenty,<br> + </i> Youth's a stuff will not endure,</p> + +<p>the fancy of the phrase consists in a happy substitution, a merry way of +saying something both true and tender. And where could we find a more exquisite +charm? So, to take a weightier example, when St. Augustine is made to say that +pagan virtues were +<i>splendid vices,</i> we have — at least if we catch the full meaning — a +pungent assimilation of contrary things, by force of a powerful principle; a +triumph of theory, the boldness of which can only be matched by its consistency. +In fact, a phrase could not be more brilliant, or better condense one theology +and two civilizations. The Latin mind is particularly capable of this sort of +excellence. Tacitus alone could furnish a hundred examples. It goes with the +power of satirical and bitter eloquence, a sort of scornful rudeness of +intelligence, that makes for the core of a passion or of a character, and +affixes to it a more or less scandalous label. For in our analytical zeal it is +often possible to condense and abstract too much. Reality is more fluid and +elusive than reason, and has, as it were, more dimensions than are known even to +the latest geometry. Hence the understanding, when not suffused with some glow +of sympathetic emotion or some touch of mysticism, gives but a dry, crude image +of the world. The quality of wit inspires more admiration than confidence. It is +a merit we should miss little in any one we love.</p> + +<p>The same principle, however, can have more sentimental embodiments. When our +substitutions are brought on by the excitement of generous emotion, we call wit +inspiration. There is the same finding of new analogies, and likening of +disparate things; there is the same transformation of our apperception. But the +brilliancy is here not only penetrating, but also exalting. For instance:</p> + +<p> Peace, peace, he is not dead, he doth not sleep,<br> + He hath awakened from the +dream of life:<br> + 'Tis we that wrapped in stormy visions keep<br> + With phantoms an +unprofitable strife.</p> + +<p>There is here paradox, and paradox justified by reflection. The poet +analyzes, and analyzes without reserve. The dream, the storm, the phantoms, and +the unprofitableness could easily make a satirical picture. But the mood is +transmuted; the mind takes an upward flight, with a sense of liberation from the +convention it dissolves, and of freer motion in the vagueness beyond. The +disintegration of our ideal here leads to mysticism, and because of this effort +towards transcendence, the brilliancy becomes sublime.</p><a name="63"></a><br> + +<p><i>Humour.</i></p> + +<p>§ 63. A different mood can give a different direction to the same processes. +The sympathy by which we reproduce the feeling of another, is always very much +opposed to the aesthetic attitude to which the whole world is merely a stimulus +to our sensibility. In the tragic, we have seen how the sympathetic feeling, by +which suffering is appreciated and shared, has to be overlaid by many incidental +aesthetic pleasures, if the resulting effect is to be on the whole good. We have +also seen how the only way in which the ridiculous can be kept within the sphere +of the aesthetically good is abstracting it from its relations, and treating it +as an independent and curious stimulus; we should stop laughing and begin to be +annoyed if we tried to make sense out of our absurdity. The less sympathy we +have with men the more exquisite is our enjoyment of their folly: satirical +delight is closely akin to cruelty. Defect and mishap stimulate our fancy, as +blood and tortures excite in us the passions of the beast of prey. The more this +inhuman attitude yields to sympathy and reason, the less are folly and error +capable of amusing us. It would therefore seem impossible that we should be +pleased by the foibles or absurdities of those we love. And in fact we never +enjoy seeing our own persons in a satirical light, or any one else for whom we +really feel affection. Even in farces, the hero and heroine are seldom made +ridiculous, because that would jar upon the sympathy with which we are expected +to regard them. Nevertheless, the essence of what we call humour is that amusing +weaknesses should be combined with an amicable humanity. Whether it be in the +way of ingenuity, or oddity, or drollery, the humorous person must have an +absurd side, or be placed in an absurd situation. Yet this comic aspect, at +which we ought to wince, seems to endear the character all the more. This is a +parallel case to that of tragedy, where the depth of the woe we sympathize with +seems to add to our satisfaction. And the explanation of the paradox is the +same. We do not enjoy the expression of evil, but only the pleasant excitements +that come with it; namely, the physical stimulus and the expression of good. In +tragedy, the misfortunes help to give the impression of truth, and to bring out +the noble qualities of the hero, but are in themselves depressing, so much so +that over-sensitive people cannot enjoy the beauty of the representation. So +also in humour, the painful suggestions are felt as such, and need to be +overbalanced by agreeable elements. These come from both directions, from the +aesthetic and the sympathetic reaction. On the one hand there is the sensuous +and merely perceptive stimulation, the novelty, the movement, the vivacity of +the spectacle. On the other hand, there is the luxury of imaginative sympathy, +the mental assimilation of another congenial experience, the expansion into +another life.</p> + +<p>The juxtaposition of these two pleasures produces just that tension and +complication in which the humorous consists. We are satirical, and we are +friendly at the same time. The consciousness of the friendship gives a regretful +and tender touch to the satire, and the sting of the satire makes the friendship +a trifle humble and sad. Don Quixote is mad; he is old, useless, and ridiculous, +but he is the soul of honour, and in all his laughable adventures we follow him +like the ghost of our better selves. We enjoy his discomfitures too much to wish +he had been a perfect Amadis; and we have besides a shrewd suspicion that he is +the only kind of Amadis there can ever be in this world. At the same time it +does us good to see the courage of his idealism, the ingenuity of his wit, and +the simplicity of his goodness. But how shall we reconcile our sympathy with his +dream and our perception of its absurdity? The situation is contradictory. We +are drawn to some different point of view, from which the comedy may no longer +seem so amusing. As humour becomes deep and really different from satire, it +changes into pathos, and passes out of the sphere of the comic altogether. The +mischances that were to amuse us as scoffers now grieve us as men, and the value +of the representation depends on the touches of beauty and seriousness with +which it is adorned.</p><a name="64"></a><br> + +<p><i>The grotesque.</i></p> + +<p>§ 64. Something analogous to humour can appear in plastic forms, when we call +it the grotesque. This is an interesting effect produced by such a +transformation of an ideal type as exaggerates one of its elements or combines +it with other types. The real excellence of this, like that of all fiction, +consists in re-creation; in the formation of a thing which nature has not, but +might conceivably have offered. We call these inventions comic and grotesque +when we are considering their divergence from the natural rather than their +inward possibility. But the latter constitutes their real charm; and the more we +study and develope them, the better we understand it. The incongruity with the +conventional type than disappears, and what was impossible and ridiculous at +first takes its place among recognized ideals. The centaur and the satyr are no +longer grotesque; the type is accepted. And the grotesqueness of an individual +has essentially the same nature. If we like the inward harmony, the +characteristic balance of his features, we are able to disengage this individual +from the class into which we were trying to force him; we can forget the +expectation which he was going to disappoint. The ugliness then disappears, and +only the reassertion of the old habit and demand can make us regard him as in +any way extravagant.</p> + +<p>What appears as grotesque may be intrinsically inferior or superior to the +normal. That is a question of its abstract material and form. But until the new +object impresses its form on our imagination, so that we can grasp its unity and +proportion, it appears to us as a jumble and distortion of other forms. If this +confusion is absolute, the object is simply null; it does not exist +aesthetically, except by virtue of materials. But if the confusion is not +absolute, and we have an inkling of the unity and character in the midst of the +strangeness of the form, then we have the grotesque. It is the half-formed, the +perplexed, and the suggestively monstrous.</p> + +<p>The analogy to the comic is very close, as we can readily conceive that it +should be. In the comic we have this same juxtaposition of a new and an old +idea, and if the new is not futile and really inconceivable, it may in time +establish itself in the mind, and cease to be ludicrous. Good wit is novel +truth, as the good grotesque is novel beauty. But there are natural conditions +of organization, and we must not mistake every mutilation for the creation of a +new form. The tendency of nature to establish well-marked species of animals +shows what various combinations are most stable in the face of physical forces, +and there is a fitness also for survival in the mind, which is determined by the +relation of any form to our fixed method of perception. New things are therefore +generally bad because, as has been well said, they are incapable of becoming +old. A thousand originalities are produced by defect of faculty, for one that is +produced by genius. For in the pursuit of beauty, as in that of truth, an +infinite number of paths lead to failure, and only one to success.</p><a name="65"></a><br> + +<p><i>The possibility of finite perfection.</i></p> + +<p>§ 65. If these observations have any accuracy, they confirm this important +truth, — that no aesthetic value is really founded on the experience or the +suggestion of evil. This conclusion will doubtless seem the more interesting if +we think of its possible extension to the field of ethics and of the implied +vindication of the ideal of moral perfection as something essentially definable +and attainable. But without insisting on an analogy to ethics, which might be +misleading, we may hasten to state the principle which emerges from our analysis +of expression. Expressiveness may be found in any one thing that suggests +another, or draws from association with that other any of its emotional +colouring. There may, therefore, of course, be an expressiveness of evil; but +this expressiveness will not have any aesthetic value. The description or +suggestion of suffering may have a worth as science or discipline, but can never +in itself enhance any beauty. Tragedy and comedy please in spite of this +expressiveness and not by virtue of it; and except for the pleasures they give, +they have no place among the fine arts. Nor have they, in such a case, any place +in human life at all; unless they are instruments of some practical purpose and +serve to preach a moral, or achieve a bad notoriety. For ugly things can attract +attention, although they cannot keep it; and the scandal of a new horror may +secure a certain vulgar admiration which follows whatever is momentarily +conspicuous, and which is attained even by crime. Such admiration, however, has +nothing aesthetic about it, and is only made possible by the bluntness of our +sense of beauty.</p> + +<p>The effect of the pathetic and comic is therefore never pure; since the +expression of some evil is mixed up with those elements by which the whole +appeals to us. These elements we have seen to be the truth of the presentation, +which involves the pleasures of recognition and comprehension, the beauty of the +medium, and the concomitant expression of things intrinsically good. To these +sources all the aesthetic value of comic and tragic is due; and the sympathetic +emotion which arises from the spectacle of evil must never be allowed to +overpower these pleasures of contemplation, else the entire object becomes +distasteful and loses its excuse for being. Too exclusive a relish for the comic +and pathetic is accordingly a sign of bad taste and of comparative insensibility +to beauty.</p> + +<p>This situation has generally been appreciated in the practice of the arts, +where effect is perpetually studied; but the greatest care has not always +succeeded in avoiding the dangers of the pathetic, and history is full of +failures due to bombast, caricature, and unmitigated horror. In all these the +effort to be expressive has transgressed the conditions of pleasing effect. For +the creative and imitative impulse is indiscriminate. It does not consider the +eventual beauty of the effect, but only the blind instinct of self-expression. +Hence an untrained and not naturally sensitive mind cannot distinguish or +produce anything good. This critical incapacity has always been a cause of +failure and a just ground for ridicule; but it remained for some thinkers of our +time — a time of little art and much undisciplined production — to erect this +abuse into a principle and declare that the essence of beauty is to express the +artist and not to delight the world. But the conditions of effect, and the +possibility of pleasing, are the only criterion of what is capable and worthy of +expression. Art exists and has value by its adaptation to these universal +conditions of beauty.</p> + +<p>Nothing but the good of life enters into the texture of the beautiful. What +charms us in the comic, what stirs us in the sublime and touches us in the +pathetic, is a glimpse of some good; imperfection has value only as an incipient +perfection. Could the labours and sufferings of life be reduced, and a better +harmony between man and nature be established, nothing would be lost to the +arts; for the pure and ultimate value of the comic is discovery, of the +pathetic, love, of the sublime, exaltation; and these would still subsist. +Indeed, they would all be increased; and it has ever been, accordingly, in the +happiest and most prosperous moments of humanity, when the mind and the world +were knit into a brief embrace, that natural beauty has been best perceived, and +art has won its triumphs. But it sometimes happens, in moments less propitious, +that the soul is subdued to what it works in, and loses its power of +idealization and hope. By a pathetic and superstitious self-depreciation, we +then punish ourselves for the imperfection of nature. Awed by the magnitude of a +reality that we can no longer conceive as free from evil, we try to assert that +its evil also is a good; and we poison the very essence of the good to make its +extension universal. We confuse the causal connexion of those things in nature +which we call good or evil by an adventitious denomination with the logical +opposition between good and evil themselves; because one generation makes room +for another, we say death is necessary to life; and because the causes of sorrow +and joy are so mingled in this world, we cannot conceive how, in a better world, +they might be disentangled.</p> + +<p>This incapacity of the imagination to reconstruct the conditions of life and +build the frame of things nearer to the heart's desire is dangerous to a steady +loyalty to what is noble and fine. We surrender ourselves to a kind of +miscellaneous appreciation, without standard or goal; and calling every +vexatious apparition by the name of beauty, we become incapable of +discriminating its excellence or feeling its value. We need to clarify our +ideals, and enliven our vision of perfection. No atheism is so terrible as the +absence of an ultimate ideal, nor could any failure of power be more contrary to +human nature than the failure of moral imagination, or more incompatible with +healthy life. For we have faculties, and habits, and impulses. These are the +basis of our demands. And these demands, although variable, constitute an +ever-present intrinsic standard of value by which we feel and judge. The ideal +is immanent in them; for the ideal means that environment in which our faculties +would find their freest employment, and their most congenial world. Perfection +would be nothing but life under those conditions. Accordingly our consciousness +of the ideal becomes distinct in proportion as we advance in virtue and in +proportion to the vigour and definiteness with which our faculties work. When +the vital harmony is complete, when the <i>act</i> is <i>pure,</i> faith in +perfection passes into vision. That man is unhappy indeed, who in all his life +has had no glimpse of perfection, who in the ecstasy of love, or in the delight +of contemplation, has never been able to say: It is attained. Such moments of +inspiration are the source of the arts, which have no higher function than to +renew them.</p> + +<p>A work of art is indeed a monument to such a moment, the memorial to such a +vision; and its charm varies with its power of recalling us from the +distractions of common life to the joy of a more natural and perfect activity.</p><a name="66"></a><br> + +<p><i>The stability of the ideal.</i></p> + +<p>§ 66. The perfection thus revealed is relative to our nature and faculties; +if it were not, it could have no value for us. It is revealed to us in brief +moments, but it is not for that reason an unstable or fantastic thing. Human +attention inevitably flickers; we survey things in succession, and our acts of +synthesis and our realization of fact are only occasional. This is the tenure of +all our possessions; we are not uninterruptedly conscious of ourselves, our +physical environment, our ruling passions, or our deepest conviction. What +wonder, then, that we are not constantly conscious of that perfection which is +the implicit ideal of all our preferences and desires? We view it only in parts, +as passion or perception successively directs our attention to its various +elements. Some of us never try to conceive it in its totality. Yet our whole +life is an act of worship to this unknown divinity; every heartfelt prayer is +offered before one or another of its images.</p> + +<p>This ideal of perfection varies, indeed, but only with the variations of our +nature of which it is the counterpart and entelechy. There is perhaps no more +frivolous notion than that to which Schopenhauer has given a new currency, that +a good, once attained, loses all its value. The instability of our attention, +the need of rest and repair in our organs, makes a round of objects necessary to +our minds; but we turn from a beautiful thing, as from a truth or a friend, only +to return incessantly, and with increasing appreciation. Nor do we lose all the +benefit of our achievements in the intervals between our vivid realizations of +what we have gained. The tone of the mind is permanently raised; and we live +with that general sense of steadfastness and resource which is perhaps the +kernel of happiness. Knowledge, affection, religion, and beauty are not less +constant influences in a man's life because his consciousness of them is +intermittent. Even when absent, they fill the chambers of the mind with a kind +of fragrance. They have a continual efficacy, as well as a perennial worth.</p> + +<p>There are, indeed, other objects of desire that if attained leave nothing but +restlessness and dissatisfaction behind them. These are the objects pursued by +fools. That such objects ever attract us is a proof of the disorganization of +our nature, which drives us in contrary directions and is at war with itself. If +we had attained anything like steadiness of thought or fixity of character, if +we knew ourselves, we should know also our inalienable satisfactions. To say +that all goods become worthless in possession is either a piece of superficial +satire that intentionally denies the normal in order to make the abnormal seem +more shocking, or else it is a confession of frivolity, a confession that, as an +idiot never learns to distinguish reality amid the phantasms of his brain, so we +have never learned to distinguish true goods amid our extravagances of whim and +passion. That true goods exist is nevertheless a fact of moral experience. "A +thing of beauty is a joy for ever"; a great affection, a clear thought, a +profound and well-tried faith, are eternal possessions. And this is not merely a +fact, to be asserted upon the authority of those who know it by experience. It +is a psychological necessity. While we retain the same senses, we must get the +same impressions from the same objects; while we keep our instincts and +passions, we must pursue the same goods; while we hare the same powers of +imagination, we must experience the same delight in their exercise. Age brings +about, of course, variation in all these particulars, and the susceptibility of +two individuals is never exactly similar. But the eventual decay of our personal +energies does not destroy the natural value of objects, so long as the same will +embodies itself in other minds, and human nature subsists in the world. The sun +is not now unreal because each one of us in succession, and all of us in the +end, must close our eyes upon it; and yet the sun exists for us only because we +perceive it. The ideal has the same conditions of being, but has this advantage +over the sun, that we cannot know if its light is ever destined to fail us.</p> + +<p>There is then a broad foundation of identity in our nature, by virtue of +which we live in a common world, and have an art and a religion in common. That +the ideal should be constant within these limits is as inevitable as that it +should vary beyond them. And so long as we exist and recognize ourselves +individually as persons or collectively as human, we must recognize also our +immanent ideal, the realization of which would constitute perfection for us. +That ideal cannot be destroyed except in proportion as we ourselves perish. An +absolute perfection, independent of human nature and its variations, may +interest the metaphysician; but the artist and the man will be satisfied with a +perfection that is inseparable from the consciousness of mankind, since it is at +once the natural vision of the imagination, and the rational goal of the will.</p><a name="x07" +id="x07"></a><br> + +<p><i>Conclusion.</i></p> + +<p>§ 67. We have now studied the sense of beauty in what seem to be its +fundamental manifestations, and in some of the more striking complications which +it undergoes. In surveying so broad a field we stand in need of some +classification and subdivision; and we have chosen the familiar one of matter, +form, and expression, as least likely to lead us into needless artificiality. +But artificiality there must always be in the discursive description of anything +given in consciousness. Psychology attempts what is perhaps impossible, namely, +the anatomy of life. Mind is a fluid; the lights and shadows that flicker +through it have no real boundaries, and no possibility of permanence. Our whole +classification of mental facts is borrowed from the physical conditions or +expressions of them. The very senses are distinguished because of the readiness +with which we can isolate their outer organs. Ideas can be identified only by +identifying their objects. Feelings are recognized by their outer expression, +and when we try to recall an emotion, we must do so by recalling the +circumstances in which it occurred.</p> + +<p>In distinguishing, then, in our sense of beauty, an appreciation of sensible +material, one of abstract form, and another of associated values, we have been +merely following the established method of psychology, the only one by which it +is possible to analyze the mind. We have distinguished the elements of the +object, and treated the feeling as if it were composed of corresponding parts. +The worlds of nature and fancy, which are the object of aesthetic feeling, can +be divided into parts in space and time. We can then distinguish the +material of things from the various forms it may successively assume; we can +distinguish, also, the earlier and the later impressions made by the same +object; and we can ascertain the coexistence of one impression with another, or +with the memory of others. But aesthetic feeling itself has no parts, and this +physiology of its causes is not a description of its proper nature.</p> + +<p>Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable: what it is or what it means +can never be said. By appealing to experiment and memory we can show that +this feeling varies as certain things vary in the objective conditions; that it +varies with the frequency, for instance, with which a form has been presented, +or with the associates which that form has had in the past. This will justify a +description of the feeling as composed of the various contributions of these +objects. But the feeling itself knows nothing of composition nor contributions. +It is an affection of the soul, a consciousness of joy and security, a pang, a +dream, a pure pleasure. It suffuses an object without telling why; nor has it +any need to ask the question. It justifies itself and the vision it gilds; nor +is there any meaning in seeking for a cause of it, in this inward sense. Beauty +exists for the same reason that the object which is beautiful exists, or the +world in which that object lies, or we that look upon both. It is an experience: +there is nothing more to say about it. Indeed, if we look at things +teleologically, and as they ultimately justify themselves to the heart, beauty +is of all things what least calls for explanation. For matter and space and time +and principles of reason and of evolution, all are ultimately brute, +unaccountable data. We may describe what actually is, but it might have been +otherwise, and the mystery of its being is as baffling and dark as ever.</p> + +<p>But we, — the minds that ask all questions and judge of the validity of all +answers, — we are not ourselves independent of this world in which we live. We +sprang from it, and our relations in it determine all our instincts and +satisfactions. This final questioning and sense of mystery is an unsatisfied +craving which nature has her way of stilling. Now we only ask for reasons when +we are surprised. If we had no expectations we should have no surprises. And +what gives us expectation is the spontaneous direction of our thought, +determined by the structure of our brain and the effects of our experience. If +our spontaneous thoughts came to run in harmony with the course of nature, if +our expectations were then continually fulfilled, the sense of mystery would +vanish. We should be incapable of asking why the world existed or had such a +nature, just as we are now little inclined to ask why anything is right, but +mightily disinclined to give up asking why anything is wrong.</p> + +<p>This satisfaction of our reason, due to the harmony between our nature and +our experience, is partially realized already. The sense of beauty is its +realization. When our senses and imagination find what they crave, when the +world so shapes itself or so moulds the mind that the correspondence between +them is perfect, then perception is pleasure, and existence needs no apology. +The duality which is the condition of conflict disappears. There is no inward +standard different from the outward fact with which that outward fact may be +compared. A unification of this kind is the goal of our intelligence and of our +affection, quite as much as of our aesthetic sense; but we have in those +departments fewer examples of success. In the heat of speculation or of love +there may come moments of equal perfection, but they are unstable. The reason +and the heart remain deeply unsatisfied. But the eye finds in nature, and in +some supreme achievements of art, constant and fuller satisfaction. For the eye +is quick, and seems to have been more docile to the education of life than the +heart or the reason of man, and able sooner to adapt itself to the reality. +Beauty therefore seems to be the clearest manifestation of perfection, and the +best evidence of its possibility. If perfection is, as it should be, the +ultimate justification of being, we may understand the ground of the moral +dignity of beauty. Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the +soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of +the good.</p> + +<br> + +<a name="x08" id= +"x08"></a><br> + +<p>FOOTNOTES</p> + +<p><a name="note01" id="note01"><u>1</u> </a> Schopenhauer, indeed, who makes +much of it, was a good critic, but his psychology suffered much from the +pessimistic generalities of his system. It concerned him to show that the will +was bad, and, as he felt beauty to be a good if not a holy thing, he hastened to +convince himself that it came from the suppression of the will. But even in his +system this suppression is only relative. The desire of individual objects, +indeed, is absent in the perception of beauty, but there is still present that +initial love of the general type and principles of things which is the first +illusion of the absolute, and drives it on to the fatal experiment of creation. +So that, apart from Schopenhauer's mythology, we have even in him the +recognition that beauty gives satisfaction to some dim and underlying demand of +our nature, just as particular objects give more special and momentary pleasures +to our individualized wills. His psychology was, however, far too vague and +general to undertake an analysis of those mysterious feelings.</p> + +<p><a name="note02" id="note02"><u>2</u> </a> Cf. Stendhal, <i>De L'Amour, +passim.</i></p> + +<p><a name="note03" id="note03"><u>3</u> </a> This is not the place to enter +into a discussion of the metaphysical value of the idea of space. Suffice it to +point out that in human experience serviceable knowledge of our environment is +to be had only in spatial symbols, and, for whatever reason or accident, this is +the language which the mind must speak if it is to advance in clearness and +efficiency.</p> + +<p><a name="note04" id="note04"><u>4</u> </a> The discussion is limited in this +chapter to visible form, audible form is probably capable of a parallel +treatment, but requires studies too technical for this place.</p> + +<p><a name="note05" id="note05"><u>5</u> </a> The relation to stability also +makes us sensitive to certain kinds of symmetry; but this is an adventitious +consideration with which we are not concerned.</p> + +<p><a name="note06" id="note06"><u>6</u> </a> Cf. Fechner, <i>Vorschule der +Aesthetik,</i> Erster Theil, S. 73, a passage by which the following +classification of forms was first suggested.</p> + +<p><a name="note07" id="note07"><u>7</u> </a> See Introduction, p. 12.</p> + +<p><a name="note08" id="note08"><u>8</u> </a> The contention of Burke that the +beautiful is small is due to an arbitrary definition. By beautiful he means +pretty and charming; agreeable as opposed to impressive. He only exaggerates the +then usual opposition of the beautiful to the sublime.</p> + +<p><a name="note09" id="note09"><u>9</u> </a> When we speak of things definite +in themselves, we of course mean things made definite by some human act of +definition. The senses are instruments that define and differentiate sensation; +and the result of one operation is that definite object upon which the next +operation is performed. The memory, for example, classifies in time what the +senses may have classified in space. We are nowhere concerned with objects other +than objects of human experience, and the epithets, definite and indefinite, +refer necessarily to their relation to our various categories of perception and +comprehension.</p> + +<p><a name="note10" id="note10"><u>10</u> </a> In the Aegina marbles the wounded +and dying warriors still wear this Buddha-like expression: their bodies, +although conventional, show a great progress in observation, compared with the +impossible Athena in the centre with her sacred feet in Egyptian profile and her +owl-like visage.</p> + +<p><a name="note11" id="note11"><u>11</u> </a> Symposium of Xenophon, V.</p> + +<p><a name="note12" id="note12"><u>12</u> </a> It is a superstition to suppose +that a refined taste would necessarily find the actual and useful to be the +perfect; to conceal structure is as legitimate as to emphasize it, and for the +name reason. We emphasize in the direction of abstract beauty, in the +direction of absolute pleasure; and we conceal or eliminate in the same +direction. The most exquisite Greek taste, for instance, preferred to drape the +lower part of the female figure, as in the Venus of Milo; also in men to shave +the hair of the face and body, in order to maintain the purity and strength of +the lines. In the one case we conceal structure, in the other we reveal it, +modifying nature into greater sympathy with our faculties of perception. For, +after all, it must be remembered that beauty, or pleasure to be given to the +eye, is not a guiding principle in the world of nature or in that of the +practical arts. The beauty is in nature a result of the functional adaptation of +our senses and imagination to the mechanical products of our environment. This +adaptation is never complete, and there is, accordingly, room for the fine arts, +in which beauty is a result of the intentional adaptation of mechanical forms to +the functions which our senses and imagination already have acquired. This +watchful subservience to our aesthetic demands is the essence of fine art. +Nature is the basis, but man is the goal.</p> + +<p><a name="note13" id="note13"><u>13</u> </a> Not only are words untranslatable +when the exact object has no name in another language, as "home" or "mon ami," +but even when the object is the same, the attitude toward it, incorporated in +one word, cannot be rendered by another. Thus, to my sense, "bread" is as +inadequate a translation of the human intensity of the Spanish "pan" as "Dios" +is of the awful mystery of the English "God." This latter word does not +designate an object at all, but a sentiment, a psychosis, not to say a whole +chapter of religious history. English is remarkable for the intensity and +variety of the colour of its words. No language, I believe, has so many words +specifically poetic.</p> + +<p><a name="note14" id="note14"><u>14</u> </a> Curiously enough, common speech +here reverses our use of terms, because it looks at the matter from the +practical instead of from the aesthetic point of view, regarding (very +unpsychologically) the thought as the source of the image, not the image as the +source of the thought. People call the words the expression of the thought: +whereas for the observer, the hearer (and generally for the speaker, too), the +words are the datum and the thought is their expressiveness — that which they +suggest.</p> + +<br> +<a name="x09" id="x09"></a><br> + +<p>INDEX</p> + +<p>Achilles, 179, 187.<br> +Aesthetic feeling, its importance, 1.<br> + speculation, causes of its neglect, 2.<br> + theory, its uses, 6, 7.<br> +Aesthetics, Use of the word, 15.<br> +Angels, 55, 182.<br> +Apperception, 96 <i>et seq.<br></i>Arabic inscriptions as ornament, 195.<br> +Architecture, Effects of Gothic, 165, 166.<br> + governed by use, 161, 162.<br> +Aristotelian forms, 156.<br> +Aristotle, 174, 175, 288.<br> +Associative process, 198 <i>et seq.<br></i>Augustine, Saint, quoted, 252.</p> + +<p><br> +Beauty a value, 14 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> as felt is indescribable, 267, 268.<br> + a justification of things, 268, 269.<br> + defined, 49 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> verbal definitions quoted, 14.<br> +Beethoven, 43.<br> +Breathing related to the sense of beauty, 56.<br> +Burke, 124, note.<br> +Byron, quoted, 136.<br> +Byzantine architecture, 108, 109.</p> + +<p>Calderon, 174.<br> +Centaurs, 183, 256.<br> +Character as an aesthetic form, 176 <i>et seq.<br></i>Characters, Ideal, 180 <i> +et seq.<br></i>Charles V.'s palace at the Alhambra, 44.<br> +Christ, the various ideas of his nature, 189.<br> +Circle, its aesthetic quality, 89.<br> +Classicism, French and English, 109.<br> +Colonnades, 108.<br> +Colour, 72 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> its analogy to other sensations, 74, 75.<br> + possibility of an abstract art of colour, 75.<br> +Comic, The, 245 <i>et seq.<br></i>Conscience, its representative character, 33, +34.<br> +Cost as an element of effect, 211 <i>et seq.<br></i>Couplet, The, 108.<br> +Criticism, Use of the word, 15.</p> + +<p>Definite and indefinite, meaning of the terms, 138, note.<br> +Degradation not what pleases in the comic, 247 <i>et seq.<br></i>Democracy, +aesthetics of it, 109<br> +Descartes, 16, 183.<br> +Disinterestedness not the differentia of aesthetic pleasure, 37 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Don Quixote, 179, 255.</p> + +<p>Economy and fitness, 214 <i>et seq.<br></i>Emerson, 144.<br> +Epicurean esthetics, 10, 11.<br> + sublime, The, 241, 243.<br> +Escurial, The, 95, 210.<br> +Ethos, 174, 175.<br> +Evil, life without it aesthetic, 29, 30.<br> + in the second term of expression, 221 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> conventional use of the word, 223.<br> + an occasion of the sublime, 235 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> excluded from the beautiful, 260, 261.<br> +Evolution, its possible tendency to eliminate imagination, 26<br> +Exclusiveness a sign of aesthetic vigour, 44.<br> +Experience superior to theory in aesthetics, 11, 12.<br> +Expression defined, 192 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> of feeling in another, 202, 203.<br> + of practical values, 208 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Expressiveness, Use of the word, 197.</p> + +<p>Fechner, 97.<br> +Form, There is a beauty of, 82 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> the unity of a manifold, 95 <i>et seq.<br></i> Functions of the mind +may all contribute to the sense of beauty, 53 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Geometrical figures, 88 <i>et seq.<br></i>God, the idea of him in tradition +and in metaphysics, 188, 189.<br> +Gods, development of their ideal characters, 185 <i>et seq.<br></i>Goethe, 9, +170, 179.<br> +Grammar, its analogy to metaphysics, 169.<br> +Gretchen, 179.<br> +Grotesque, The, 256 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Hamlet, 179.<br> +Happiness and aesthetic interest, 63, 65.<br> +Health a condition of aesthetic life, 54.<br> +Hedonism opposed by the moral sense, 23, 24.<br> +History an imaginative thing, 141, 142.<br> +Home as a social and as an aesthetic idea, 64.<br> +Homer, 171.<br> + his aesthetic quality, 205, 206.<br> + his epithets, 179.<br> +Horace, quoted, 172.<br> +Humour, 253 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Ideals are modified averages, 121 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> immanent in human nature, 262.<br> + stable, 263 <i>et seq.<br></i> Imagination has a +universal creative function, 190, 191.<br> + and sense alternately active, 55, 56.<br> +Impression distinguished from expression, 84, 85.<br> +Impressionism in painting, 134, 136.<br> +incongruity not what pleases in the comic, 247 <i>et seq.<br></i>Indeterminate +organizational <i>et seq.<br></i>Infinite beauty, the idea impossible, 148 <i> +et seq.<br></i>Inspiration, 252, 253.</p> + +<p><font face= +"Times New Roman">καλοκάγαθία</font>, 31.<br> +Kant, 105.<br> +Keats, quoted, 67, 105, 181, 264.<br> +King Lear, 229.<br> +Kipling, R., quoted, 68.</p> + +<p>Landscape, 133 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> with figures, 135, 136.<br> +Liberation of self, 233 <i>et seq.<br></i> Love, influence of the passion, 56 <i> +et seq.<br></i>Lowell, J. R., quoted, 148.<br> +Lower senses, 65 <i>et seq.<br></i> Lucretius, quoted, 172.<br> + on the sublime, 236.</p> + +<p>Maps, 209, 210.<br> +Material beauty most easily appreciated, 78 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> its effect the fundamental one, 78.<br> +Materials of beauty surveyed, 76 <i>et seq.<br></i>Methods in aesthetics, 5.<br> +Michael Angelo, 182.<br> +Miser's fallacy, its parallel in morals and aesthetics, 31, 32.<br> +Modern languages inferior to the ancient, 173, 174.<br> +Moli<font face="Times New Roman">è</font>re, 174; quoted, 20.<br> +Monarchy, its imaginative value, 34, 35.<br> +Moral and aesthetic values, 23 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> the authority of morals over aesthetics, 218 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Morality and utility jealous of art, 216, 217.<br> +Multiplicity in uniformity, 97 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> its defects, 106 <i>et seq.</i><br> +Musset, Alfred de, quoted, 170, 226.<br> +Mysticism in aesthetics, 126 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Naturalism, the ground of its value, 21.<br> +Nature, its organization the source of apperceptive forms, 152 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> the love of it among the ancients, 137, 138.<br> +New York, the plan of the streets, 95.<br> +Nouns, idea of a language without them, 171.</p> + +<p>Objectification the differentia of aesthetic pleasure, 44 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Ornament and form, 63 <i>et seq.<br></i>Othello, 237.<br> +Ovid, quoted, 149.</p> + +<p>Pantheism, its contradictions, 242, 243.<br> +Perception, the psychological theory of it, 45 <i>et seq.<br></i> Perfection, +illusion of infinite, 146 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> possibility of finite, 258 <i>et seq.<br></i> Physical pleasure +distinguished from aesthetic, 35 <i>et seq.<br></i> Physiology of the perception +of form, 85 <i>et seq.</i><br> +Picturesqueness contrasted with symmetry, 92.<br> +Platonic ideas useless in explaining types, 117, 118.<br> +Platonic intuitions, their nature and value, 8 <i>et seq.<br></i>Platonists, +159.<br> +Plot, The, 174 <i>et seq.<br></i>Preference ultimately irrational, 18 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> necessary to value, 17, 18.<br> +Principles consecrated aesthetically, 31 <i>et seq.<br></i>Purity, The aesthetic +principle of, 70 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Rationality, the source of its value, 19, 20.<br> +Religious characters, their truth, 188.<br> + imagination, 185 <i>et seq.<br></i> Rhyme, 173, 174.<br> +Romanticism, 150.</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer, 263.<br> + criticised, 37,<br> + note, on music, 69.<br> +Scientific attitude in criticism opposed to the aesthetic, 20, 21.<br> +Sculpture, its development, 153, 154.<br> +Self not a primary object of interest, 39, 40.<br> +Sensuous beauty of fundamental importance, 80, 81.<br> +Sex, its relation to aesthetic life, 56 <i>et seq.<br></i>Shakespeare, 151, 174, +175;<br> + quoted, 51, 114, 229, 237, 251.<br> +Shelley quoted, 12, 244, 253.<br> +Sight, its primacy in perception, 73, 74.<br> +Size related to beauty, 123, 124.<br> +Sky, The, its expressiveness, 8.<br> +Social interests and their aesthetic influence, 62 <i>et seq.<br></i>Socrates, +his utilitarian aesthetics, 157.<br> +Sonnet, The, 173.<br> +Sound, 68 <i>et seq.<br></i> Space, its metaphysical value, 66, note.<br> +Stars, the effect analyzed, 100 <i>et seq.<br></i>Stendhal, 61.<br> +Stoic Sublime, The, 241.<br> +Straight lines, 89, 90.<br> +Subjectivity of aesthetic values, 3,4.<br> +Sublime, The, its independence of the expression of evil, 239 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Sublimity, 233 <i>et seq.</i><br> +Sybaris, 216.<br> +Symbolists, 144.<br> +Symmetry, 91 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> a principle of individuation, 93.<br> + limits of its application, 95.<br> +Syntactical form, 171 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Tacitus, 173, 252.<br> +Terms, the first and second terms in expression defined, 195.<br> + influence of the first term in the pleasing expression +of evil, 226 <i>et seq.<br></i>Theory a method of apperception, 138 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Tragedy mitigated by beauty of form and the expression of good, 228, 229.<br> + mitigated by the diversity of evils, 229.<br> + mixed with comedy, 224, 225, 228.<br> + consists in treatment not in subject, 224.<br> +Translation necessarily inadequate, 168.<br> +Truth, grounds of its value, 22, 23.<br> +Truth, mixture of the expression of truth with that of evil, 228 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Types, their origin, 116 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> their value and that of examples, 112 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Ugly, The, not a cause of pain, 25.<br> +Universality not the differentia of aesthetic pleasure, 40 <i>et seq.<br></i> +Utility the principle of organization in nature, 155 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> its relation to beauty, 157 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> the principle of organization in the arts, 160 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Value, aesthetic value in the second term of expression, 205 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> all in one sense aesthetic, 28 <i>et seq.<br> + </i> physical, practical, and negative transformed into aesthetic, 201 <i>et +seq.<br></i> Venus of Milo, 165, note.<br> +Virgin Mary, The, 189, 190.</p> + +<p>Whitman, 112.<br> +Wit, 250 <i>et seq.<br></i> Words, 167 <i>et seq.<br></i> Wordsworth quoted, +105.<br> +Work and play, 25 <i>et seq</i>.</p> + +<p>Xenophon quoted, 123.<br> + his <i>Symposium,</i> 157.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sense of Beauty, by George Santayana + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SENSE OF BEAUTY *** + +***** This file should be named 26842-h.htm or 26842-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/4/26842/ + +Produced by Ruth Hart + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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