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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9306-8.txt b/9306-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10154ec --- /dev/null +++ b/9306-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10557 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesthetic as Science of Expression and +General Linguistic, by Benedetto Croce + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic + +Author: Benedetto Croce + +Posting Date: October 6, 2014 [EBook #9306] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 19, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION + +AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC + + +TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENEDETTO CROCE + + +BY + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE +B.A. (OXON.) + + +1909 + + +THE AESTHETIC IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR TO THE MEMORY OF HIS PARENTS +PASQUALE AND LUISA SIPARI AND OF HIS SISTER MARIA + + +NOTE + +I give here a close translation of the complete _Theory of Aesthetic_, +and in the Historical Summary, with the consent of the author, an +abbreviation of the historical portion of the original work. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +THEORY + +I +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + +Intuitive knowledge--Its independence in respect to the intellect-- +Intuition and perception--Intuition and the concepts of space and +time--Intuition and sensation--Intuition and association--Intuition +and representation--Intuition and expression--Illusions as to their +difference--Identity of intuition and expression. + +II +INTUITION AND ART + +Corollaries and explanations--Identity of art and of intuitive knowledge-- +No specific difference--No difference of intensity--Difference extensive +and empirical--Artistic genius--Content and form in Aesthetic--Critique +of the imitation of nature and of the artistic illusion--Critique of art +conceived as a sentimental, not a theoretic fact--The origin of Aesthetic, +and sentiment--Critique of the theory of Aesthetic senses--Unity and +indivisibility of the work of art--Art as deliverer. + +III +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + +Indissolubility of intellective and of intuitive knowledge--Critique +of the negations of this thesis--Art and science--Content and form: +another meaning. Prose and poetry--The relation of first and second +degree--Inexistence of other cognoscitive forms--Historicity--Identity +and difference in respect of art--Historical criticism--Historical +scepticism--Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural +sciences, and their limits--The phenomenon and the noumenon. + +IV +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + +Critique of the verisimilar and of naturalism--Critique of ideas in +art, of art as thesis, and of the typical--Critique of the symbol and +of the allegory--Critique of the theory of artistic and literary +categories--Errors derived from this theory in judgments on art-- +Empirical meaning of the divisions of the categories. + +V +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORY AND IN LOGIC + +Critique of the philosophy of History--Aesthetic invasions of Logic-- +Logic in its essence--Distinction between logical and non-logical +judgments--The syllogism--False Logic and true Aesthetic--Logic +reformed. + +VI +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + +The will--The will as ulterior grade in respect of knowledge--Objections +and explanations--Critique of practical judgments or judgments of +value--Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic--Critique of +the theory of the end of art and of the choice of content--Practical +innocence of art--Independence of art--Critique of the saying: the +style is the man--Critique of the concept of sincerity in art. + +VII +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + +The two forms of practical activity--The economically useful-- +Distinction between the useful and the technical--Distinction between +the useful and the egoistic--Economic and moral volition--Pure +economicity--The economic side of morality--The merely economical and +the error of the morally indifferent--Critique of utilitarianism and +the reform of Ethic and of Economic--Phenomenon and noumenon in +practical activity. + +VIII +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + +The system of the spirit--The forms of genius--Inexistence of a fifth +form of activity--Law; sociality--Religiosity--Metaphysic--Mental +imagination and the intuitive intellect--Mystical Aesthetic--Mortality +and immortality of art. + +IX +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + +The characteristics of art--Inexistence of modes of expression-- +Impossibility of translations--Critique of rhetorical categories-- +Empirical meaning of rhetorical categories--Their use as synonyms +of the aesthetic fact--Their use as indicating various aesthetic +imperfections--Their use as transcending the aesthetic fact, and +in the service of science--Rhetoric in schools--Similarities of +expressions--Relative possibility of translations. + +X +AESTHETIC SENTIMENTS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE +UGLY + +Various meanings of the word sentiment--Sentiment as activity-- +Identification of sentiment with economic activity--Critique of +hedonism--Sentiment as concomitant of every form of activity--Meaning +of certain ordinary distinctions of sentiments--Value and disvalue: +the contraries and their union--The beautiful as the value of expression, +or expression without adjunct--The ugly and the elements of beauty that +constitute it--Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful +nor ugly--Proper aesthetic sentiments and concomitant and accidental +sentiments--Critique of apparent sentiments. + +XI +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + +Critique of the beautiful as what pleases the superior senses--Critique +of the theory of play--Critique of the theory of sexuality and of the +triumph--Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic--Meaning in it of +content and of form--Aesthetic hedonism and moralism--The rigoristic +negation, and the pedagogic negation of art--Critique of pure beauty. + +XII +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the Aesthetic of the sympathetic-- +Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of its surmounting-- +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts appertain to Psychology--Impossibility of +rigorous definitions of these--Examples: definitions of the sublime, +of the comic, of the humorous--Relation between those concepts and +aesthetic concepts. + +XIII +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND IN ART + +Aesthetic activity and physical concepts--Expression in the aesthetic +sense, and expression in the naturalistic sense--Intuitions and +memory--The production of aids to memory--The physically beautiful-- +Content and form: another meaning--Natural beauty and artificial +beauty--Mixed beauty--Writings--The beautiful that is free and that +which is not free--Critique of the beautiful that is not free-- +Stimulants of production. + +XIV +ERRORS ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + +Critique of aesthetic associationism--Critique of aesthetic physic-- +Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body--Critique of +the beauty of geometrical figures--Critique of another aspect of the +imitation of nature--Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of +the beautiful--Critique of the search for the objective conditions of +the beautiful--The astrology of Aesthetic. + +XV +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION. TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + +The practical activity of externalization--The technique of +externalization--Technical theories of single arts--Critique of the +classifications of the arts--Relation of the activity of externalization +with utility and morality. + +XVI +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + +Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic reproduction-- +Impossibility of divergences--Identity of taste and genius--Analogy +with the other activities--Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and +of aesthetic relativism--Critique of relative relativism--Objections +founded on the variation of the stimulus and of the psychic disposition-- +Critique of the distinction of signs as natural and conventional--The +surmounting of variety--Restorations and historical interpretation. + +XVII +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND OF ART + +Historical criticism in literature and art. Its importance--Artistic and +literary history. Its distinction from historical criticism and from the +aesthetic judgment--The method of artistic and literary history--Critique +of the problem of the origin of art--The criterion of progress and +history--Inexistence of a single line of progress in artistic and +literary history--Errors in respect of this law--Other meanings of +the word "progress" in relation to Aesthetic. + +XVIII +CONCLUSION: IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + +Summary of the inquiry--Identity of Linguistic with Aesthetic-- +Aesthetic formulation of linguistic problems. Nature of language-- +Origin of language and its development--Relation between Grammatic +and Logic--Grammatical categories or parts of speech--Individuality +of speech and the classification of languages--Impossibility of a +normative Grammatic--Didactic organisms--Elementary linguistic +elements, or roots--The aesthetic judgment and the model language-- +Conclusion. + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +Aesthetic ideas in Graeco-Roman antiquity--In the Middle Age and + at the Renaissance--Fermentation of thought in the seventeenth +century--Aesthetic ideas in Cartesianism, Leibnitzianism, and in +the "Aesthetic" of Baumgarten--G.B. Vico--Aesthetic doctrines in +the eighteenth century--Emmanuel Kant--The Aesthetic of Idealism +with Schiller and Hegel--Schopenhauer and Herbart--Friedrich +Schleiermacher--The philosophy of language with Humboldt and +Steinthal--Aesthetic in France, England, and Italy during the first +half of the nineteenth century--Francesco de Sanctis--The Aesthetic +of the epigoni--Positivism and aesthetic naturalism--Aesthetic +psychologism and other recent tendencies--Glance at the history +of certain particular doctrines--Conclusion. + +APPENDIX + +Translation of the lecture on Pure Intuition and the lyrical nature of +art, delivered by Benedetto Croce before the International Congress of +Philosophy at Heidelberg. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +There are always Americas to be discovered: the most interesting in +Europe. + +I can lay no claim to having discovered an America, but I do claim to +have discovered a Columbus. His name is Benedetto Croce, and he dwells +on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Naples, city of the antique +Parthenope. + +Croce's America cannot be expressed in geographical terms. It is more +important than any space of mountain and river, of forest and dale. It +belongs to the kingdom of the spirit, and has many provinces. That +province which most interests me, I have striven in the following pages +to annex to the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon race; an act which cannot +be blamed as predatory, since it may be said of philosophy more truly +than of love, that "to divide is not to take away." + +The Historical Summary will show how many a brave adventurer has +navigated the perilous seas of speculation upon Art, how Aristotle's +marvellous insight gave him glimpses of its beauty, how Plato threw away +its golden fruit, how Baumgarten sounded the depth of its waters, Kant +sailed along its coast without landing, and Vico hoisted the Italian +flag upon its shore. + +But Benedetto Croce has been the first thoroughly to explore it, cutting +his way inland through the tangled undergrowth of imperfect thought. He +has measured its length and breadth, marked out and described its +spiritual features with minute accuracy. The country thus won to +philosophy will always bear his name, _Estetica di Croce_, a new +America. + +It was at Naples, in the winter of 1907, that I first saw the Philosopher +of Aesthetic. Benedetto Croce, although born in the Abruzzi, Province of +Aquila (1866), is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent +from the city, on the shore of that magical sea, where once Ulysses +sailed, and where sometimes yet (near Amalfi) we may hear the Syrens sing +their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the +Theory of Aesthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have +overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this +theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the English-speaking world. + +No one could have been further removed than myself, as I turned over at +Naples the pages of _La Critica_, from any idea that I was nearing the +solution of the problem of Art. All my youth it had haunted me. As an +undergraduate at Oxford I had caught the exquisite cadence of Walter +Pater's speech, as it came from his very lips, or rose like the perfume +of some exotic flower from the ribbed pages of the _Renaissance_. + +Seeming to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, he solved it not--only +delighted with pure pleasure of poetry and of subtle thought as he led +one along the pathways of his Enchanted Garden, where I shall always +love to tread. + +Oscar Wilde, too, I had often heard at his best, the most brilliant +talker of our time, his wit flashing in the spring sunlight of Oxford +luncheon-parties as now in his beautiful writings, like the jewelled +rapier of Mercutio. But his works, too, will be searched in vain by the +seeker after definite aesthetic truth. + +With A.C. Swinburne I had sat and watched the lava that yet flowed from +those lips that were kissed in youth by all the Muses. Neither from him +nor from J.M. Whistler's brilliant aphorisms on art could be gathered +anything more than the exquisite pleasure of the moment: the +_monochronos haedonae_. Of the great pedagogues, I had known, but never +sat at the feet of Jowett, whom I found far less inspiring than any of +the great men above mentioned. Among the dead, I had studied Herbert +Spencer and Matthew Arnold, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Guyau: I had +conversed with that living Neo-Latin, Anatole France, the modern +Rousseau, and had enjoyed the marvellous irony and eloquence of his +writings, which, while they delight the society in which he lives, may +well be one of the causes that lead to its eventual destruction. + +The solution of the problem of Aesthetic is not in the gift of the Muses. + +To return to Naples. As I looked over those pages of the bound volumes +of _La Critica_. I soon became aware that I was in the presence of a +mind far above the ordinary level of literary criticism. The profound +studies of Carducci, of d'Annunzio, and of Pascoli (to name but three), +in which those writers passed before me in all their strength and in all +their weakness, led me to devote several days to the _Critica_. At the +end of that time I was convinced that I had made a discovery, and wrote +to the philosopher, who owns and edits that journal. + +In response to his invitation, I made my way, on a sunny day in November, +past the little shops of the coral-vendors that surround, like a +necklace, the Rione de la Bellezza, and wound zigzag along the +over-crowded Toledo. I knew that Signor Croce lived in the old part of +the town, but had hardly anticipated so remarkable a change as I +experienced on passing beneath the great archway and finding myself in +old Naples. This has already been described elsewhere, and I will not +here dilate upon this world within a world, having so much of greater +interest to tell in a brief space. I will merely say that the costumes +here seemed more picturesque, the dark eyes flashed more dangerously +than elsewhere, there was a quaint life, an animation about the streets, +different from anything I had known before. As I climbed the lofty stone +steps of the Palazzo to the floor where dwells the philosopher of +Aesthetic I felt as though I had stumbled into the eighteenth century +and were calling on Giambattista Vico. After a brief inspection by a +young man with the appearance of a secretary, I was told that I was +expected, and admitted into a small room opening out of the hall. +Thence, after a few moments' waiting, I was led into a much larger room. +The walls were lined all round with bookcases, barred and numbered, +filled with volumes forming part of the philosopher's great library. I +had not long to wait. A door opened behind me on my left, and a rather +short, thick-set man advanced to greet me, and pronouncing my name at +the same time with a slight foreign accent, asked me to be seated beside +him. After the interchange of a few brief formulae of politeness in +French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better +opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held +clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid +gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most +remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, +not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy +which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was +especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the question of Art +and upon the many problems bound up with it. I do not know how long that +first interview lasted, but it seemed a few minutes only, during which +was displayed before me a vast panorama of unknown height and headland, +of league upon league of forest, with its bright-winged birds of thought +flying from tree to tree down the long avenues into the dim blue vistas +of the unknown. + +I returned with my brain awhirl, as though I had been in fairyland, and +when I looked at the second edition of the _Estetica_, with his +inscription, I was sure of it. + +These lines will suffice to show how the translation of the _Estetica_ +originated from the acquaintance thus formed, which has developed into +friendship. I will now make brief mention of Benedetto Croce's other +work, especially in so far as it throws light upon the _Aesthetic_. +For this purpose, besides articles in Italian and German reviews, I +have made use of the excellent monograph on the philosopher, by G. +Prezzolini.[1] + +First, then, it will be well to point out that the _Aesthetic_ forms +part of a complete philosophical system, to which the author gives the +general title of "Philosophy of the Spirit." The _Aesthetic_ is the +first of the three volumes. The second is the _Logic_, the third the +_Philosophy of the Practical_. + +In the _Logic_, as elsewhere in the system, Croce combats that false +conception, by which natural science, in the shape of psychology, makes +claim to philosophy, and formal logic to absolute value. The thesis of +the _pure concept_ cannot be discussed here. It is connected with the +logic of evolution as discovered by Hegel, and is the only logic which +contains in itself the interpretation and the continuity of reality. +Bergson in his _L'Evolution Créatrice_ deals with logic in a somewhat +similar manner. I recently heard him lecture on the distinction between +spirit and matter at the Collège de France, and those who read French +and Italian will find that both Croce's _Logic_ and the book above +mentioned by the French philosopher will amply repay their labour. The +conception of nature as something lying outside the spirit which informs +it, as the non-being which aspires to being, underlies all Croce's +thought, and we find constant reference to it throughout his +philosophical system. + +With regard to the third volume, the _Philosophy of the Practical_, it +is impossible here to give more than a hint of its treasures. I merely +refer in passing to the treatment of the will, which is posited as a +unity _inseparable from the volitional act_. For Croce there is no +difference between action and intention, means and end: they are one +thing, inseparable as the intuition-expression of Aesthetic. The +_Philosophy of the Practical_ is a logic and science of the will, not a +normative science. Just as in Aesthetic the individuality of expression +made models and rules impossible, so in practical life the individuality +of action removes the possibility of catalogues of virtues, of the exact +application of laws, of the existence of practical judgments and +judgments of value _previous to action_. + +The reader will probably ask here: But what, then, becomes of morality? +The question will be found answered in the _Theory of Aesthetic_, and I +will merely say here that Croce's thesis of the _double degree_ of the +practical activity, economic and moral, is one of the greatest +contributions to modern thought. Just as it is proved in the _Theory of +Aesthetic_ that the _concept_ depends upon the _intuition_, which is the +first degree, the primary and indispensable thing, so it is proved in +the _Philosophy of the Practical_ that _Morality_ or _Ethic_ depends +upon _Economic_, which is the _first_ degree of the practical activity. +The volitional act is _always economic_, but true freedom of the will +exists and consists in conforming not merely to economic, but to moral +conditions, to the human spirit, which is greater than any individual. +Here we are face to face with the ethics of Christianity, to which Croce +accords all honour. + +This Philosophy of the Spirit is symptomatic of the happy reaction of +the twentieth century against the crude materialism of the second half +of the nineteenth. It is the spirit which gives to the work of art its +value, not this or that method of arrangement, this or that tint or +cadence, which can always be copied by skilful plagiarists: not so the +_spirit_ of the creator. In England we hear too much of (natural) +science, which has usurped the very name of Philosophy. The natural +sciences are very well in their place, but discoveries such as aviation +are of infinitely less importance to the race than the smallest addition +to the philosophy of the spirit. Empirical science, with the collusion +of positivism, has stolen the cloak of philosophy and must be made to +give it back. + +Among Croce's other important contributions to thought must be mentioned +his definition of History as being aesthetic and differing from Art +solely in that history represents the _real_, art the _possible_. In +connection with this definition and its proof, the philosopher recounts +how he used to hold an opposite view. Doing everything thoroughly, he +had prepared and written out a long disquisition on this thesis, which +was already in type, when suddenly, from the midst of his meditations, +_the truth flashed upon him_. He saw for the first time clearly that +history cannot be a science, since, like art, it always deals with the +particular. Without a moment's hesitation he hastened to the printers +and bade them break up the type. + +This incident is illustrative of the sincerity and good faith of +Benedetto Croce. One knows him to be severe for the faults and +weaknesses of others, merciless for his own. + +Yet though severe, the editor of _La Critica_ is uncompromisingly just, +and would never allow personal dislike or jealousy, or any extrinsic +consideration, to stand in the way of fair treatment to the writer +concerned. Many superficial English critics might benefit considerably +by attention to this quality in one who is in other respects also so +immeasurably their superior. A good instance of this impartiality is his +critique of Schopenhauer, with whose system he is in complete +disagreement, yet affords him full credit for what of truth is contained +in his voluminous writings.[2] + +Croce's education was largely completed in Germany, and on account of +their thoroughness he has always been an upholder of German methods. One +of his complaints against the Italian Positivists is that they only read +second-rate works in French or at the most "the dilettante booklets +published in such profusion by the Anglo-Saxon press." This tendency +towards German thought, especially in philosophy, depends upon the fact +of the former undoubted supremacy of Germany in that field, but Croce +does not for a moment admit the inferiority of the Neo-Latin races, and +adds with homely humour in reference to Germany, that we "must not throw +away the baby with the bath-water"! Close, arduous study and clear +thought are the only key to scientific (philosophical) truth, and Croce +never begins an article for a newspaper without the complete collection +of the works of the author to be criticized, and his own elaborate notes +on the table before him. Schopenhauer said there were three kinds of +writers--those who write without thinking, the great majority; those who +think while they write, not very numerous; those who write after they +have thought, very rare. Croce certainly belongs to the last division, +and, as I have said, always feeds his thought upon complete erudition. +The bibliography of the works consulted for the _Estetica_ alone, as +printed at the end of the Italian edition, extends to many pages and +contains references to works in any way dealing with the subject in all +the European languages. For instance, Croce has studied Mr. B. +Bosanquet's eclectic works on Aesthetic, largely based upon German +sources and by no means without value. But he takes exception to Mr. +Bosanquet's statement that _he_ has consulted all works of importance on +the subject of Aesthetic. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bosanquet reveals his +ignorance of the greater part of the contribution to Aesthetic made by +the Neo-Latin races, which the reader of this book will recognize as of +first-rate importance. + +This thoroughness it is which gives such importance to the literary and +philosophical criticisms of _La Critica_. Croce's method is always +historical, and his object in approaching any work of art is to classify +the spirit of its author, as expressed in that work. There are, he +maintains, but two things to be considered in criticizing a book. These +are, _firstly_, what is its _peculiarity_, in what way is it singular, +how is it differentiated from other works? _Secondly_, what is its +degree of purity?--That is, to what extent has its author kept himself +free from all considerations alien to the perfection of the work as an +expression, as a lyrical intuition? With the answering of these +questions Croce is satisfied. He does not care to know if the author +keep a motor-car, like Maeterlinck; or prefer to walk on Putney Heath, +like Swinburne. This amounts to saying that all works of art must be +judged by their own standard. How far has the author succeeded in doing +what he intended? + +Croce is far above any personal animus, although the same cannot be said +of those he criticizes. These, like d'Annunzio, whose limitations he +points out--his egoism, his lack of human sympathy--are often very +bitter, and accuse the penetrating critic of want of courtesy. This +seriousness of purpose runs like a golden thread through all Croce's +work. The flimsy superficial remarks on poetry and fiction which too +often pass for criticism in England (Scotland is a good deal more +thorough) are put to shame by _La Critica_, the study of which I commend +to all readers who read or wish to read Italian.[3] They will find in +its back numbers a complete picture of a century of Italian literature, +besides a store-house of philosophical criticism. The _Quarterly_ and +_Edinburgh Reviews_ are our only journals which can be compared to _The +Critica_, and they are less exhaustive on the philosophical side. We +should have to add to these _Mind_ and the _Hibbert Journal_ to get even +an approximation to the scope of the Italian review. + +As regards Croce's general philosophical position, it is important to +understand that he is _not_ a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close +follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he +deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may +be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of +Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than +that wondrous edifice was ever before explained, and we realize at the +same time that Croce is quite as independent of Hegel as of Kant, of +Vico as of Spinoza. Of course he has made use of the best of Hegel, just +as every thinker makes use of his predecessors and is in his turn made +use of by those that follow him. But it is incorrect to accuse of +Hegelianism the author of an anti-hegelian _Aesthetic_, of a _Logic_ +where Hegel is only half accepted, and of a _Philosophy of the +Practical_, which contains hardly a trace of Hegel. I give an instance. +If the great conquest of Hegel be the dialectic of opposites, his great +mistake lies in the confusion of opposites with things which are +distinct but not opposite. If, says Croce, we take as an example the +application of the Hegelian triad that formulates becoming (affirmation, +negation and synthesis), we find it applicable for those opposites which +are true and false, good and evil, being and not-being, but _not +applicable_ to things which are distinct but not opposite, such as art +and philosophy, beauty and truth, the useful and the moral. These +confusions led Hegel to talk of the death of art, to conceive as +possible a Philosophy of History, and to the application of the natural +sciences to the absurd task of constructing a Philosophy of Nature. +Croce has cleared away these difficulties by shewing that if from the +meeting of opposites must arise a superior synthesis, such a synthesis +cannot arise from things which are distinct _but not opposite_, since +the former are connected together as superior and inferior, and the +inferior can exist without the superior, but _not vice versa_. Thus we +see how philosophy cannot exist without art, while art, occupying the +lower place, can and does exist without philosophy. This brief example +reveals Croce's independence in dealing with Hegelian problems. + +I know of no philosopher more generous than Croce in praise and +elucidation of other workers in the same field, past and present. For +instance, and apart from Hegel, _Kant_ has to thank him for drawing +attention to the marvellous excellence of the _Critique of Judgment_, +generally neglected in favour of the Critiques of _Pure Reason and of +Practical Judgment_; _Baumgarten_ for drawing the attention of the world +to his obscure name and for reprinting his Latin thesis in which the +word _Aesthetic_ occurs for the first time; and _Schleiermacher_ for the +tributes paid to his neglected genius in the History of Aesthetic. _La +Critica_, too, is full of generous appreciation of contemporaries by +Croce and by that profound thinker, Gentile. + +But it is not only philosophers who have reason to be grateful to Croce +for his untiring zeal and diligence. Historians, economists, poets, +actors, and writers of fiction have been rescued from their undeserved +limbo by this valiant Red Cross knight, and now shine with due +brilliance in the circle of their peers. It must also be admitted that a +large number of false lights, popular will o' the wisps, have been +ruthlessly extinguished with the same breath. For instance, Karl Marx, +the socialist theorist and agitator, finds in Croce an exponent of his +views, in so far as they are based upon the truth, but where he +blunders, his critic immediately reveals the origin and nature of his +mistakes. Croce's studies in Economic are chiefly represented by his +work, the title of which may be translated "Historical Materialism and +Marxist Economic." + +To indicate the breadth and variety of Croce's work I will mention the +further monograph on the sixteenth century Neapolitan Pulcinella (the +original of our Punch), and the personage of the Neapolitan in comedy, a +monument of erudition and of acute and of lively dramatic criticism, +that would alone have occupied an ordinary man's activity for half a +lifetime. One must remember, however, that Croce's average working day +is of ten hours. His interest is concentrated on things of the mind, and +although he sits on several Royal Commissions, such as those of the +Archives of all Italy and of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel, he +has taken no university degree, and much dislikes any affectation of +academic superiority. He is ready to meet any one on equal terms and try +with them to get at the truth on any subject, be it historical, +literary, or philosophical. "Truth," he says, "is democratic," and I can +testify that the search for it, in his company, is very stimulating. As +is well said by Prezzolini, "He has a new word for all." + +There can be no doubt of the great value of Croce's work as an +_educative influence_, and if we are to judge of a philosophical system +by its action on others, then we must place the _Philosophy of the +Spirit_ very high. It may be said with perfect truth that since the +death of the poet Carducci there has been no influence in Italy to +compare with that of Benedetto Croce. + +His dislike of Academies and of all forms of prejudice runs parallel +with his breadth and sympathy with all forms of thought. His activity in +the present is only equalled by his reverence for the past. Naples he +loves with the blind love of the child for its parent, and he has been +of notable assistance to such Neapolitan talent as is manifested in the +works of Salvatore di Giacomo, whose best poems are written in the +dialect of Naples, or rather in a dialect of his own, which Croce had +difficulty in persuading the author always to retain. The original jet +of inspiration having been in dialect, it is clear that to amend this +inspiration at the suggestion of wiseacres at the Café would have been +to ruin it altogether. + +Of the popularity that his system and teaching have already attained we +may judge by the fact that the _Aesthetic_[4], despite the difficulty of +the subject, is already in its third edition in Italy, where, owing to +its influence, philosophy sells better than fiction; while the French +and Germans, not to mention the Czechs, have long had translations of +the earlier editions. His _Logic_ is on the point of appearing in its +second edition, and I have no doubt that the _Philosophy of the +Practical_ will eventually equal these works in popularity. _The +importance and value of Italian thought have been too long neglected in +Great Britain_. Where, as in Benedetto Croce, we get the clarity of +vision of the Latin, joined to the thoroughness and erudition of the +best German tradition, we have a combination of rare power and +effectiveness, which can by no means be neglected. + +The philosopher feels that he has a great mission, which is nothing less +than the leading back of thought to belief in the spirit, deserted by so +many for crude empiricism and positivism. His view of philosophy is that +it sums up all the higher human activities, including religion, and that +in proper hands it is able to solve any problem. But there is no +finality about problems: the solution of one leads to the posing of +another, and so on. Man is the maker of life, and his spirit ever +proceeds from a lower to a higher perfection. Connected with this view +of life is Croce's dislike of "Modernism." When once a problem has been +correctly solved, it is absurd to return to the same problem. Roman +Catholicism cannot march with the times. It can only exist by being +conservative--its only Logic is to be illogical. Therefore, Croce is +opposed to Loisy and Neo-Catholicism, and supports the Encyclical +against Modernism. The Catholic religion, with its great stores of myth +and morality, which for many centuries was the best thing in the world, +is still there for those who are unable to assimilate other food. +Another instance of his dislike for Modernism is his criticism of +Pascoli, whose attempts to reveal enigmas in the writings of Dante he +looks upon as useless. We do not, he says, read Dante in the twentieth +century for his hidden meanings, but for his revealed poetry. + +I believe that Croce will one day be recognized as one of the very few +great teachers of humanity. At present he is not appreciated at nearly +his full value. One rises from a study of his philosophy with a sense of +having been all the time as it were in personal touch with the truth, +which is very far from the case after the perusal of certain other +philosophies. + +Croce has been called the philosopher-poet, and if we take philosophy as +Novalis understood it, certainly Croce does belong to the poets, though +not to the formal category of those who write in verse. Croce is at any +rate a born philosopher, and as every trade tends to make its object +prosaic, so does every vocation tend to make it poetic. Yet no one has +toiled more earnestly than Croce. "Thorough" might well be his motto, +and if to-day he is admitted to be a classic without the stiffness one +connects with that term, be sure he has well merited the designation. +His name stands for the best that Italy has to give the world of +serious, stimulating thought. I know nothing to equal it elsewhere. + +Secure in his strength, Croce will often introduce a joke or some +amusing illustration from contemporary life, in the midst of a most +profound and serious argument. This spirit of mirth is a sign of +superiority. He who is not sure of himself can spare no energy for the +making of mirth. Croce loves to laugh at his enemies and with his +friends. So the philosopher of Naples sits by the blue gulf and explains +the universe to those who have ears to hear. "One can philosophize +anywhere," he says--but he remains significantly at Naples. + +Thus I conclude these brief remarks upon the author of the _Aesthetic_, +confident that those who give time and attention to its study will be +grateful for having placed in their hands this pearl of great price from +the diadem of the antique Parthenope. + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE. + +THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL, _May_ 1909. + +[1] Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi, 1909. + +[2] The reader will find this critique summarized in the historical + portion of this volume. + +[3] _La Critica_ is published every other month by Laterza of Bari. + +[4] This translation is made from the third Italian edition (Bari, + 1909), enlarged and corrected by the author. The _Theory of + Aesthetic_ first appeared in 1900 in the form of a communication + to the _Accademia Pontiana_ of Naples, vol. xxx. The first edition + is dated 1902, the second 1904 (Palermo). + + + + +I + +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + + + [Sidenote] _Intuitive knowledge._ + +Human knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or +logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or +knowledge obtained through the intellect; knowledge of the individual or +knowledge of the universal; of individual things or of the relations +between them: it is, in fact, productive either of images or of +concepts. + +In ordinary life, constant appeal is made to intuitive knowledge. It +is said to be impossible to give expression to certain truths; that +they are not demonstrable by syllogisms; that they must be learnt +intuitively. The politician finds fault with the abstract reasoner, who +is without a lively knowledge of actual conditions; the pedagogue +insists upon the necessity of developing the intuitive faculty in the +pupil before everything else; the critic in judging a work of art makes +it a point of honour to set aside theory and abstractions, and to judge +it by direct intuition; the practical man professes to live rather by +intuition than by reason. + +But this ample acknowledgment, granted to intuitive knowledge in +ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate acknowledgment +in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists a very ancient +science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all without discussion, +namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge is timidly and with +difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge has appropriated the +lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and devour her companion, +yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little place of maidservant +or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive knowledge without the light +of intellective knowledge? It is a servant without a master; and though +a master find a servant useful, the master is a necessity to the +servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood. Intuition is +blind; Intellect lends her eyes. + + [Sidenote] _Its independence in respect to intellective knowledge._ + +Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive +knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does +not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has most excellent eyes +of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with +intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such a +mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of a +moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a +cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of a +sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in +ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of +intellective relation. But, think what one may of these instances, and +admitting further that one may maintain that the greater part of the +intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet +remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive. +Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions, +are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and fused, +for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have been +concepts, but they have now become simple elements of intuition. +The philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of tragedy +or of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts, but of +characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the red in a +painted figure does not there represent the red colour of the +physicists, but is a characteristic element of the portrait. The whole +it is that determines the quality of the parts. A work of art may be +full of philosophical concepts; it may contain them in greater +abundance and they may be there even more profound than in a +philosophical dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to +overflowing with descriptions and intuitions. But, notwithstanding all +these concepts it may contain, the result of the work of art is an +intuition; and notwithstanding all those intuitions, the result of the +philosophical dissertation is a concept. The _Promessi Sposi_ contains +copious ethical observations and distinctions, but it does not for +that reason lose in its total effect its character of simple story, of +intuition. In like manner the anecdotes and satirical effusions which +may be found in the works of a philosopher like Schopenhauer, do not +remove from those works their character of intellective treatises. The +difference between a scientific work and a work of art, that is, +between an intellective fact and an intuitive fact lies in the result, +in the diverse effect aimed at by their respective authors. This it is +that determines and rules over the several parts of each. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and perception._ + +But to admit the independence of intuition as regards concept does not +suffice to give a true and precise idea of intuition. Another error +arises among those who recognize this, or who, at any rate, do not make +intuition explicitly dependent upon the intellect. This error obscures +and confounds the real nature of intuition. By intuition is frequently +understood the _perception_ or knowledge of actual reality, the +apprehension of something as _real_. + +Certainly perception is intuition: the perception of the room in which I +am writing, of the ink-bottle and paper that are before me, of the pen I +am using, of the objects that I touch and make use of as instruments of +my person, which, if it write, therefore exists;--these are all +intuitions. But the image that is now passing through my brain of a me +writing in another room, in another town, with different paper, pen and +ink, is also an intuition. This means that the distinction between +reality and non-reality is extraneous, secondary, to the true nature of +intuition. If we assume the existence of a human mind which should have +intuitions for the first time, it would seem that it could have +intuitions of effective reality only, that is to say, that it could have +perceptions of nothing but the real. But if the knowledge of reality be +based upon the distinction between real images and unreal images, and if +this distinction does not originally exist, these intuitions would in +truth not be intuitions either of the real or of the unreal, but pure +intuitions. Where all is real, nothing is real. The child, with its +difficulty of distinguishing true from false, history from fable, which +are all one to childhood, can furnish us with a sort of very vague and +only remotely approximate idea of this ingenuous state. Intuition is the +indifferentiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple +image of the possible. In our intuitions we do not oppose ourselves to +external reality as empirical beings, but we simply objectify our +impressions, whatever they be. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and the concepts of space and time._ + +Those, therefore, who look upon intuition as sensation formed and +arranged simply according to the categories of space and time, would +seem to approximate more nearly to the truth. Space and time (they say) +are the forms of intuition; to have intuitions is to place in space and +in temporal sequence. Intuitive activity would then consist in this +double and concurrent function of spatiality and temporality. But for +these two categories must be repeated what was said of intellectual +distinctions, found mingled with intuitions. We have intuitions without +space and without time: a tint of sky and a tint of sentiment, an Ah! of +pain and an effort of will, objectified in consciousness. These are +intuitions, which we possess, and with their making, space and time have +nothing to do. In some intuitions, spatiality may be found without +temporality, in others, this without that; and even where both are +found, they are perceived by posterior reflexion: they can be fused with +the intuition in like manner with all its other elements: that is, they +are in it _materialiter_ and not _formaliter_, as ingredients and not as +essentials. Who, without a similar act of interruptive reflexion, is +conscious of temporal sequence while listening to a story or a piece of +music? That which intuition reveals in a work of art is not space and +time, but character, individual physiognomy. Several attempts may be +noted in modern philosophy, which confirm the view here exposed. Space +and time, far from being very simple and primitive functions, are shown +to be intellectual constructions of great complexity. And further, even +in some of those who do not altogether deny to space and time the +quality of forming or of categories and functions, one may observe the +attempt to unify and to understand them in a different manner from that +generally maintained in respect of these categories. Some reduce +intuition to the unique category of spatiality, maintaining that time +also can only be conceived in terms of space. Others abandon the three +dimensions of space as not philosophically necessary, and conceive the +function of spatiality as void of every particular spatial +determination. But what could such a spatial function be, that should +control even time? May it not be a residuum of criticisms and of +negations from which arises merely the necessity to posit a generic +intuitive activity? And is not this last truly determined, when one +unique function is attributed to it, not spatializing nor temporalizing, +but characterizing? Or, better, when this is conceived as itself a +category or function, which gives knowledge of things in their +concretion and individuality? + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and sensation._ + +Having thus freed intuitive knowledge from any suggestion of +intellectualism and from every posterior and external adjunct, we must +now make clear and determine its limits from another side and from a +different kind of invasion and confusion. On the other side, and before +the inferior boundary, is sensation, formless matter, which the spirit +can never apprehend in itself, in so far as it is mere matter. This it +can only possess with form and in form, but postulates its concept as, +precisely, a limit. Matter, in its abstraction, is mechanism, passivity; +it is what the spirit of man experiences, but does not produce. Without +it no human knowledge and activity is possible; but mere matter produces +animality, whatever is brutal and impulsive in man, not the spiritual +dominion, which is humanity. How often do we strive to understand +clearly what is passing within us? We do catch a glimpse of something, +but this does not appear to the mind as objectified and formed. In such +moments it is, that we best perceive the profound difference between +matter and form. These are not two acts of ours, face to face with one +another; but we assault and carry off the one that is outside us, while +that within us tends to absorb and make its own that without. Matter, +attacked and conquered by form, gives place to concrete form. It is the +matter, the content, that differentiates one of our intuitions from +another: form is constant: it is spiritual activity, while matter is +changeable. Without matter, however, our spiritual activity would not +leave its abstraction to become concrete and real, this or that +spiritual content, this or that definite intuition. + +It is a curious fact, characteristic of our times, that this very form, +this very activity of the spirit, which is essentially ourselves, is so +easily ignored or denied. Some confound the spiritual activity of man +with the metaphorical and mythological activity of so-called nature, +which is mechanism and has no resemblance to human activity, save when +we imagine, with Aesop, that _arbores loquuntur non tantum ferae_. Some +even affirm that they have never observed in themselves this +"miraculous" activity, as though there were no difference, or only one +of quantity, between sweating and thinking, feeling cold and the energy +of the will. Others, certainly with greater reason, desire to unify +activity and mechanism in a more general concept, though admitting that +they are specifically distinct. Let us, however, refrain for the moment +from examining if such a unification be possible, and in what sense, but +admitting that the attempt may be made, it is clear that to unify two +concepts in a third implies a difference between the two first. And here +it is this difference that is of importance and we set it in relief. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and association._ + +Intuition has often been confounded with simple sensation. But, since +this confusion is too shocking to good sense, it has more frequently +been attenuated or concealed with a phraseology which seems to wish to +confuse and to distinguish them at the same time. Thus, it has been +asserted that intuition is sensation, but not so much simple sensation +as _association_ of sensations. The equivoque arises precisely from the +word "association." Association is understood, either as memory, +mnemonic association, conscious recollection, and in that case is +evident the absurdity of wishing to join together in memory elements +which are not intuified, distinguished, possessed in some way by the +spirit and produced by consciousness: or it is understood as association +of unconscious elements. In this case we remain in the world of +sensation and of nature. Further, if with certain associationists we +speak of an association which is neither memory nor flux of sensations, +but is a _productive_ association (formative, constructive, +distinguishing); then we admit the thing itself and deny only its name. +In truth, productive association is no longer association in the sense +of the sensualists, but _synthesis_, that is to say, spiritual activity. +Synthesis may be called association; but with the concept of +productivity is already posited the distinction between passivity and +activity, between sensation and intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and representation._ + +Other psychologists are disposed to distinguish from sensation something +which is sensation no longer, but is not yet intellective concept: _the +representation or image_. What is the difference between their +representation or image, and our intuitive knowledge? The greatest, and +none at all. "Representation," too, is a very equivocal word. If by +representation be understood something detached and standing out from +the psychic base of the sensations, then representation is intuition. +If, on the other hand, it be conceived as a complex sensation, a return +is made to simple sensation, which does not change its quality according +to its richness or poverty, operating alike in a rudimentary or in a +developed organism full of traces of past sensations. Nor is the +equivoque remedied by defining representation as a psychic product of +secondary order in relation to sensation, which should occupy the first +place. What does secondary order mean here? Does it mean a qualitative, +a formal difference? If so, we agree: representation is elaboration of +sensation, it is intuition. Or does it mean greater complexity and +complication, a quantitative, material difference? In that case +intuition would be again confused with simple sensation. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and expression._ + +And yet there is a sure method of distinguishing true intuition, true +representation, from that which is inferior to it: the spiritual fact +from the mechanical, passive, natural fact. Every true intuition or +representation is, also, _expression_. That which does not objectify +itself in expression is not intuition or representation, but sensation +and naturality. The spirit does not obtain intuitions, otherwise than by +making, forming, expressing. He who separates intuition from expression +never succeeds in reuniting them. + +_Intuitive activity possesses intuitions to the extent that it expresses +them_.--Should this expression seem at first paradoxical, that is +chiefly because, as a general rule, a too restricted meaning is given to +the word "expression." It is generally thought of as restricted to +verbal expression. But there exist also non-verbal expressions, such as +those of line, colour, and sound; to all of these must be extended our +affirmation. The intuition and expression together of a painter are +pictorial; those of a poet are verbal. But be it pictorial, or verbal, +or musical, or whatever else it be called, to no intuition can +expression be wanting, because it is an inseparable part of intuition. +How can we possess a true intuition of a geometrical figure, unless we +possess so accurate an image of it as to be able to trace it immediately +upon paper or on a slate? How can we have an intuition of the contour of +a region, for example, of the island of Sicily, if we are not able to +draw it as it is in all its meanderings? Every one can experience the +internal illumination which follows upon his success in formulating to +himself his impressions and sentiments, but only so far as he is able to +formulate them. Sentiments or impressions, then, pass by means of words +from the obscure region of the soul into the clarity of the +contemplative spirit. In this cognitive process it is impossible to +distinguish intuition from expression. The one is produced with the +other at the same instant, because they are not two, but one. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions as to their difference._ + +The principal reason which makes our theme appear paradoxical as we +maintain it, is the illusion or prejudice that we possess a more +complete intuition of reality than we really do. One often hears people +say that they have in their minds many important thoughts, but that they +are not able to express them. In truth, if they really had them, they +would have coined them into beautiful, ringing words, and thus expressed +them. If these thoughts seem to vanish or to become scarce and poor in +the act of expressing them, either they did not exist or they really +were scarce and poor. People think that all of us ordinary men imagine +and have intuitions of countries, figures and scenes, like painters; of +bodies, like sculptors; save that painters and sculptors know how to +paint and to sculpture those images, while we possess them only within +our souls. They believe that anyone could have imagined a Madonna of +Raphael; but that Raphael was Raphael owing to his technical ability in +putting the Madonna upon the canvas. Nothing can be more false than this +view. The world of which as a rule we have intuitions, is a small thing. +It consists of little expressions which gradually become greater and +more ample with the increasing spiritual concentration of certain +moments. These are the sort of words which we speak within ourselves, +the judgments that we tacitly express: "Here is a man, here is a horse, +this is heavy, this is hard, this pleases me," etc. It is a medley of +light and colour, which could not pictorially attain to any more sincere +expression than a haphazard splash of colours, from among which would +with difficulty stand out a few special, distinctive traits. This and +nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary life; this is the basis +of our ordinary action. It is the index of a book. The labels tied to +things take the place of the things themselves. This index and labels +(which are themselves expressions) suffice for our small needs and small +actions. From time to time we pass from the index to the book, from the +label to the thing, or from the slight to the greater intuitions, and +from these to the greatest and most lofty. This passage is sometimes far +from being easy. It has been observed by those who have best studied the +psychology of artists, that when, after having given a rapid glance at +anyone, they attempt to obtain a true intuition of him, in order, for +example, to paint his portrait, then this ordinary vision, that seemed +so precise, so lively, reveals itself as little better than nothing. +What remains is found to be at the most some superficial trait, which +would not even suffice for a caricature. The person to be painted stands +before the artist like a world to discover. Michael Angelo said, "one +paints, not with one's hands, but with one's brain." Leonardo shocked +the prior of the convent delle Grazie by standing for days together +opposite the "Last Supper" without touching it with the brush. He +remarked of this attitude "that men of the most lofty genius, when they +are doing the least work, are then the most active, seeking invention +with their minds." The painter is a painter, because he sees what others +only feel or catch a glimpse of, but do not see. We think we see a +smile, but in reality we have only a vague impression of it, we do not +perceive all the characteristic traits from which it results, as the +painter perceives them after his internal meditations, which thus enable +him to fix them on the canvas. Even in the case of our intimate friend, +who is with us every day and at all hours, we do not possess intuitively +more than, at the most, certain traits of his physiognomy, which enable +us to distinguish him from others. The illusion is less easy as regards +musical expression; because it would seem strange to everyone to say +that the composer had added or attached notes to the motive, which is +already in the mind of him who is not the composer. As if Beethoven's +Ninth Symphony were not his own intuition and his own intuition the +Ninth Symphony. Thus, just as he who is deceived as to his material +wealth is confuted by arithmetic, which states its exact amount, so is +he confuted who nourishes delusions as to the wealth of his own thoughts +and images. He is brought back to reality, when he is obliged to cross +the Bridge of Asses of expression. We say to the former, count; to the +latter, speak, here is a pencil, draw, express yourself. + +We have each of us, as a matter of fact, a little of the poet, of the +sculptor, of the musician, of the painter, of the prose writer: but how +little, as compared with those who are so called, precisely because of +the lofty degree in which they possess the most universal dispositions +and energies of human nature! How little does a painter possess of the +intuitions of a poet! How little does one painter possess those of +another painter! Nevertheless, that little is all our actual patrimony +of intuitions or representations. Beyond these are only impressions, +sensations, feelings, impulses, emotions, or whatever else one may term +what is outside the spirit, not assimilated by man, postulated for the +convenience of exposition, but effectively inexistent, if existence be +also a spiritual fact. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of intuition and expression._ + +We may then add this to the verbal variants descriptive of intuition, +noted at the beginning: intuitive knowledge is expressive knowledge, +independent and autonomous in respect to intellectual function; +indifferent to discriminations, posterior and empirical, to reality and +to unreality, to formations and perceptions of space and time, even when +posterior: intuition or representation is distinguished as form from +what is felt and suffered, from the flux or wave of sensation, or from +psychic material; and this form this taking possession of, is +expression. To have an intuition is to express. It is nothing else! +(nothing more, but nothing less) than _to express_. + + + + +II + +INTUITION AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Corollaries and explanations._ + +Before proceeding further, it seems opportune to draw certain +consequences from what has been established and to add some explanation. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of art and intuitive knowledge._ + +We have frankly identified intuitive or expressive knowledge with the +aesthetic or artistic fact, taking works of art as examples of intuitive +knowledge and attributing to them the characteristics of intuition, and +_vice versa_. But our identification is combated by the view, held even +by many philosophers, who consider art to be an intuition of an +altogether special sort. "Let us admit" (they say) "that art is +intuition; but intuition is not always art: artistic intuition is of a +distinct species differing from intuition in general by something +_more_." + + [Sidenote] _No specific difference._ + +But no one has ever been able to indicate of what this something more +consists. It has sometimes been thought that art is not a simple +intuition, but an intuition of an intuition, in the same way as the +concept of science has been defined, not as the ordinary concept, but as +the concept of a concept. Thus man should attain to art, by +objectifying, not his sensations, as happens with ordinary intuition, +but intuition itself. But this process of raising to a second power does +not exist; and the comparison of it with the ordinary and scientific +concept does not imply what is wished, for the good reason that it is +not true that the scientific concept is the concept of a concept. If +this comparison imply anything, it implies just the opposite. The +ordinary concept, if it be really a concept and not a simple +representation, is a perfect concept, however poor and limited. Science +substitutes concepts for representations; it adds and substitutes other +concepts larger and more comprehensive for those that are poor and +limited. It is ever discovering new relations. But its method does not +differ from that by which is formed the smallest universal in the brain +of the humblest of men. What is generally called art, by antonomasia, +collects intuitions that are wider and more complex than those which we +generally experience, but these intuitions are always of sensations and +impressions. + +Art is the expression of impressions, not the expression of expressions. + + [Sidenote] _No difference of intensity._ + +For the same reason, it cannot be admitted that intuition, which is +generally called artistic, differs from ordinary intuition as to +intensity. This would be the case if it were to operate differently on +the same matter. But since artistic function is more widely distributed +in different fields, but yet does not differ in method from ordinary +intuition, the difference between the one and the other is not intensive +but extensive. The intuition of the simplest popular love-song, which +says the same thing, or very nearly, as a declaration of love such as +issues at every moment from the lips of thousands of ordinary men, may +be intensively perfect in its poor simplicity, although it be +extensively so much more limited than the complex intuition of a +love-song by Leopardi. + + [Sidenote] _The difference is extensive and empirical._ + +The whole difference, then, is quantitative, and as such, indifferent to +philosophy, _scientia qualitatum_. Certain men have a greater aptitude, +a more frequent inclination fully to express certain complex states of +the soul. These men are known in ordinary language as artists. Some very +complicated and difficult expressions are more rarely achieved and these +are called works of art. The limits of the expressions and intuitions +that are called art, as opposed to those that are vulgarly called +not-art, are empirical and impossible to define. If an epigram be art, +why not a single word? If a story; why not the occasional note of the +journalist? If a landscape, why not a topographical sketch? The teacher +of philosophy in Molière's comedy was right: "whenever we speak we +create prose." But there will always be scholars like Monsieur Jourdain, +astonished at having created prose for forty years without knowing it, +and who will have difficulty in persuading themselves that when they +call their servant John to bring their slippers, they have spoken +nothing less than--prose. + +We must hold firmly to our identification, because among the principal +reasons which have prevented Aesthetic, the science of art, from +revealing the true nature of art, its real roots in human nature, has +been its separation from the general spiritual life, the having made of +it a sort of special function or aristocratic circle. No one is +astonished when he learns from physiology that every cellule is an +organism and every organism a cellule or synthesis of cellules. No one +is astonished at finding in a lofty mountain the same chemical elements +that compose a small stone or fragment. There is not one physiology of +small animals and one of large animals; nor is there a special chemical +theory of stones as distinct from mountains. In the same way, there is +not a science of lesser intuition distinct from a science of greater +intuition, nor one of ordinary intuition distinct from artistic +intuition. There is but one Aesthetic, the science of intuitive or +expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic fact. And this +Aesthetic is the true analogy of Logic. Logic includes, as facts of the +same nature, the formation of the smallest and most ordinary concept and +the most complicated scientific and philosophical system. + + [Sidenote] _Artistic genius._ + +Nor can we admit that the word _genius_ or artistic genius, as distinct +from the non-genius of the ordinary man, possesses more than a +quantitative signification. Great artists are said to reveal us to +ourselves. But how could this be possible, unless there be identity of +nature between their imagination and ours, and unless the difference be +only one of quantity? It were well to change _poeta nascitur_ into _homo +nascitur poeta_: some men are born great poets, some small. The cult and +superstition of the genius has arisen from this quantitative difference +having been taken as a difference of quality. It has been forgotten that +genius is not something that has fallen from heaven, but humanity +itself. The man of genius, who poses or is represented as distant from +humanity, finds his punishment in becoming or appearing somewhat +ridiculous. Examples of this are the _genius_ of the romantic period and +the _superman_ of our time. + +But it is well to note here, that those who claim unconsciousness as the +chief quality of an artistic genius, hurl him from an eminence far above +humanity to a position far below it. Intuitive or artistic genius, like +every form of human activity, is always conscious; otherwise it would be +blind mechanism. The only thing that may be wanting to the artistic +genius is the _reflective_ consciousness, the superadded consciousness +of the historian or critic, which is not essential to artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form in Aesthetic._ + +The relation between matter and form, or between _content and form_, as +it is generally called, is one of the most disputed questions in +Aesthetic. Does the aesthetic fact consist of content alone, or of form +alone, or of both together? This question has taken on various meanings, +which we shall mention, each in its place. But when these words are +taken as signifying what we have above defined, and matter is understood +as emotivity not aesthetically elaborated, that is to say, impressions, +and form elaboration, intellectual activity and expression, then our +meaning cannot be doubtful. We must, therefore, reject the thesis that +makes the aesthetic fact to consist of the content alone (that is, of +the simple impressions), in like manner with that other thesis, which +makes it to consist of a junction between form and content, that is, of +impressions plus expressions. In the aesthetic fact, the aesthetic +activity is not added to the fact of the impressions, but these latter +are formed and elaborated by it. The impressions reappear as it were in +expression, like water put into a filter, which reappears the same and +yet different on the other side. The aesthetic fact, therefore, is form, +and nothing but form. + +From this it results, not that the content is something superfluous (it +is, on the contrary, the necessary point of departure for the expressive +fact); but that _there is no passage_ between the quality of the content +and that of the form. It has sometimes been thought that the content, in +order to be aesthetic, that is to say, transformable into form, should +possess some determinate or determinable quality. But were that so, then +form and content, expression and impression, would be the same thing. It +is true that the content is that which is convertible into form, but it +has no determinable qualities until this transformation takes place. We +know nothing of its nature. It does not become aesthetic content at +once, but only when it has been effectively transformed. Aesthetic +content has also been defined as what is _interesting_. That is not an +untrue statement; it is merely void of meaning. What, then, is +interesting? Expressive activity? Certainly the expressive activity +would not have raised the content to the dignity of form, had it not +been interested. The fact of its having been interested is precisely the +fact of its raising the content to the dignity of form. But the word +"interesting" has also been employed in another not illegitimate sense, +which we shall explain further on. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the imitation of nature and of the artistic + illusion._ + +The proposition that art is _imitation of nature_ has also several +meanings. Now truth has been maintained or at least shadowed with these +words, now error. More frequently, nothing definite has been thought. +One of the legitimate scientific meanings occurs when imitation is +understood as representation or intuition of nature, a form of +knowledge. And when this meaning has been understood, by placing in +greater relief the spiritual character of the process, the other +proposition becomes also legitimate: namely, that art is the +_idealization_ or _idealizing_ imitation of nature. But if by imitation +of nature be understood that art gives mechanical reproductions, more or +less perfect duplicates of natural objects, before which the same tumult +of impressions caused by natural objects begins over again, then the +proposition is evidently false. The painted wax figures that seem to be +alive, and before which we stand astonished in the museums where such +things are shown, do not give aesthetic intuitions. Illusion and +hallucination have nothing to do with the calm domain of artistic +intuition. If an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if +an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we +again have spiritual labour and artistic intuition. Finally, if +photography have anything in it of artistic, it will be to the extent +that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, +the pose and the grouping which he has striven to attain. And if it be +not altogether art, that is precisely because the element of nature in +it remains more or less insubordinate and ineradicable. Do we ever, +indeed, feel complete satisfaction before even the best of photographs? +Would not an artist vary and touch up much or little, remove or add +something to any of them? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of art conceived as a sentimental not a + theoretical fact. Aesthetic appearance and feeling._ + +The statements repeated so often, with others similar, that art is not +knowledge, that it does not tell the truth, that it does not belong to +the world of theory, but to the world of feeling, arise from the failure +to realize exactly the theoretic character of the simple intuition. This +simple intuition is quite distinct from intellectual knowledge, as it is +distinct from the perception of the real. The belief that only the +intellective is knowledge, or at the most also the perception of the +real, also arises from the failure to grasp the theoretic character of +the simple intuition. We have seen that intuition is knowledge, free of +concepts and more simple than the so-called perception of the real. +Since art is knowledge and form, it does not belong to the world of +feeling and of psychic material. The reason why so many aestheticians +have so often insisted that art is _appearance_ (_Schein_), is precisely +because they have felt the necessity of distinguishing it from the more +complex fact of perception by maintaining its pure intuitivity. For the +same reason it has been claimed that art is _sentiment_. In fact, if the +concept as content of art, and historical reality as such, be excluded, +there remains no other content than reality apprehended in all its +ingenuousness and immediateness in the vital effort, in _sentiment_, +that is to say, pure intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of theory of aesthetic senses._ + +The theory of the _aesthetic senses_ has also arisen from the failure to +establish, or from having lost to view the character of the expression +as distinct from the impression, of the form as distinct from the +matter. + +As has just been pointed out, this reduces itself to the error of +wishing to seek a passage from the quality of the content to that of the +form. To ask, in fact, what the aesthetic senses may be, implies asking +what sensible impressions may be able to enter into aesthetic +expressions, and what must of necessity do so. To this we must at once +reply, that all impressions can enter into aesthetic expressions or +formations, but that none are bound to do so. Dante raised to the +dignity of form not only the "sweet colour of the oriental sapphire" +(visual impression), but also tactile or thermic impressions, such as +the "thick air" and the "fresh rivulets" which "parch all the more" the +throat of the thirsty. The belief that a picture yields only visual +impressions is a curious illusion. The bloom of a cheek, the warmth of a +youthful body, the sweetness and freshness of a fruit, the cutting of a +sharpened blade, are not these, also, impressions that we have from a +picture? Maybe they are visual? What would a picture be for a +hypothetical man, deprived of all or many of his senses, who should in +an instant acquire the sole organ of sight? The picture we are standing +opposite and believe we see only with our eyes, would appear to his eyes +as little more than the paint-smeared palette of a painter. + +Some who hold firmly to the aesthetic character of given groups of +impressions (for example, the visual, the auditive), and exclude others, +admit, however, that if visual and auditive impressions enter _directly_ +into the aesthetic fact, those of the other senses also enter into it, +but only as _associated_. But this distinction is altogether arbitrary. +Aesthetic expression is a synthesis, in which it is impossible to +distinguish direct and indirect. All impressions are by it placed on a +level, in so far as they are aestheticised. He who takes into himself +the image of a picture or of a poem does not experience, as it were, a +series of impressions as to this image, some of which have a prerogative +or precedence over others. And nothing is known of what happens prior to +having received it, for the distinctions made after reflexion have +nothing to do with art. + +The theory of the aesthetic senses has also been presented in another +way; that is to say, as the attempt to establish what physiological +organs are necessary for the aesthetic fact. The physiological organ or +apparatus is nothing but a complex of cellules, thus and thus +constituted, thus and thus disposed; that is to say, it is merely +physical and natural fact or concept. But expression does not recognize +physiological facts. Expression has its point of departure in the +impressions, and the physiological path by which these have found their +way to the mind is to it altogether indifferent. One way or another +amounts to the same thing: it suffices that they are impressions. + +It is true that the want of given organs, that is, of given complexes of +cells, produces an absence of given impressions (when these are not +obtained by another path by a kind of organic compensation). The man +born blind cannot express or have the intuition of light. But the +impressions are not conditioned solely by the organ, but also by the +stimuli which operate upon the organ. Thus, he who has never had the +impression of the sea will never be able to express it, in the same way +as he who has never had the impression of the great world or of the +political conflict will never express the one or the other. This, +however, does not establish a dependence of the expressive function on +the stimulus or on the organ. It is the repetition of what we know +already: expression presupposes impression. Therefore, given expressions +imply given impressions. Besides, every impression excludes other +impressions during the moment in which it dominates; and so does every +expression. + + [Sidenote] _Unity and indivisibility of the work of art._ + +Another corollary of the conception of expression as activity is the +_indivisibility_ of the work of art. Every expression is a unique +expression. Activity is a fusion of the impressions in an organic whole. +A desire to express this has always prompted the affirmation that the +world of art should have _unity_, or, what amounts to the same thing, +_unity in variety_. Expression is a synthesis of the various, the +multiple, in the one. + +The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, as a poem into scenes, +episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and +objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem to be an objection to +this affirmation. But such division annihilates the work, as dividing +the organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and so on, turns the +living being into a corpse. It is true that there exist organisms in +which the division gives place to more living things, but in such a +case, and if we transfer the analogy to the aesthetic fact, we must +conclude for a multiplicity of germs of life, that is to say, for a +speedy re-elaboration of the single parts into new single expressions. + +It will be observed that expression is sometimes based on other +expressions. There are simple and there are _compound_ expressions. One +must admit some difference between the _eureka_, with which Archimedes +expressed all his joy after his discovery, and the expressive act +(indeed all the five acts) of a regular tragedy. Not in the least: +expression is always directly based on impressions. He who conceives a +tragedy puts into a crucible a great quantity, so to say, of +impressions: the expressions themselves, conceived on other occasions, +are fused together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we +can cast into a smelting furnace formless pieces of bronze and most +precious statuettes. Those most precious statuettes must be melted in +the same way as the formless bits of bronze, before there can be a new +statue. The old expressions must descend again to the level of +impressions, in order to be synthetized in a new single expression. + + [Sidenote] _Art as the deliverer._ + +By elaborating his impressions, man _frees_ himself from them. By +objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their +superior. The liberating and purifying function of art is another aspect +and another formula of its character of activity. Activity is the +deliverer, just because it drives away passivity. + +This also explains why it is customary to attribute to artists alike the +maximum of sensibility or _passion_, and the maximum insensibility or +Olympic _serenity_. Both qualifications agree, for they do not refer to +the same object. The sensibility or passion relates to the rich material +which the artist absorbs into his psychic organism; the insensibility or +serenity to the form with which he subjugates and dominates the tumult +of the feelings and of the passions. + + + + +III + +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + + + [Sidenote] _Indissolubility of intellective from intuitive knowledge._ + +The two forms of knowledge, aesthetic and intellectual or conceptual, +are indeed diverse, but this does not amount altogether to separation +and disjunction, as we find with two forces going each its own way. If +we have shown that the aesthetic form is altogether independent of the +intellectual and suffices to itself without external support, we have +not said that the intellectual can stand without the aesthetic. This +_reciprocity_ would not be true. + +What is knowledge by concepts? It is knowledge of relations of things, +and those things are intuitions. Concepts are not possible without +intuitions, just as intuition is itself impossible without the material +of impressions. Intuitions are: this river, this lake, this brook, this +rain, this glass of water; the concept is: water, not this or that +appearance and particular example of water, but water in general, in +whatever time or place it be realized; the material of infinite +intuitions, but of one single and constant concept. + +However, the concept, the universal, if it be no longer intuition in one +respect, is in another respect intuition, and cannot fail of being +intuition. For the man who thinks has impressions and emotions, in so +far as he thinks. His impression and emotion will not be love or hate, +but _the effort of his thought itself_, with the pain and the joy, the +love and the hate joined to it. This effort cannot but become intuitive +in form, in becoming objective to the mind. To speak, is not to think +logically; but to _think logically_ is, at the same time, to _speak_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the negations of this thesis._ + +That thought cannot exist without speech, is a truth generally admitted. +The negations of this thesis are all founded on equivoques and errors. + +The first of the equivoques is implied by those who observe that one can +likewise think with geometrical figures, algebraical numbers, +ideographic signs, without a single word, even pronounced silently and +almost insensibly within one. They also affirm that there are languages +in which the word, the phonetic sign, expresses nothing, unless the +written sign also be looked at. But when we said "speech," we intended +to employ a synecdoche, and that "expression" generically, should be +understood, for expression is not only so-called verbal expression, as +we have already noted. It may be admitted that certain concepts may be +thought without phonetic manifestations. But the very examples adduced +to show this also prove that those concepts never exist without +expressions. + +Others maintain that animals, or certain animals, think or reason +without speaking. Now as to how, whether, and what animals think, +whether they be rudimentary, half-savage men resisting civilization, +rather than physiological machines, as the old spiritualists would have +it, are questions that do not concern us here. When the philosopher +talks of animal, brutal, impulsive, instinctive nature and the like, he +does not base himself on conjectures as to these facts concerning dogs +or cats, lions or ants; but upon observations of what is called animal +and brutal in man: of the boundary or animal basis of what we feel in +ourselves. If individual animals, dogs or cats, lions or ants, possess +something of the activity of man, so much the better, or so much the +worse for them. This means that as regards them also we must talk, not +of their nature as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps +larger and more strong than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose +that animals think, and form concepts, what is there in the line of +conjecture to justify the admission that they do so without +corresponding expressions? The analogy with man, the knowledge of the +spirit, human psychology, which is the instrument of all our conjectures +as to animal psychology, would oblige us to suppose that if they think +in any way, they also have some sort of speech. + +It is from human psychology, that is, literary psychology, that comes +the other objection, to the effect that the concept can exist without +the word, because it is true that we all know books that are _well +thought and badly written_: that is to say, a thought which remains +thought _beyond_ the expression, _notwithstanding_ the imperfect +expression. But when we talk of books well thought and badly written, we +cannot mean other than that in those books are parts, pages, periods or +propositions well thought out and well written, and other parts (perhaps +the least important) ill thought out and badly written, not truly +thought out and therefore not truly expressed. Where Vico's _Scienza +nuova_ is really ill written, it is also ill thought out. If we pass +from the consideration of big books to a short proposition, the error or +the imprecision of this statement will be recognized at once. How could +a proposition be clearly thought and confusedly written out? + +All that can be admitted is that sometimes we possess thoughts +(concepts) in an intuitive form, or in an abbreviated or, better, +peculiar expression, sufficient for us, but not sufficient to +communicate it with ease to another or other definite individuals. Hence +people say inaccurately, that we have the thought without the +expression; whereas it should properly be said that we have, indeed, the +expression, but in a form that is not easy of social communication. +This, however, is a very variable and altogether relative fact. There +are always people who catch our thought on the wing, and prefer it in +this abbreviated form, and would be displeased with the greater +development of it, necessary for other people. In other words, the +thought considered abstractly and logically will be the same; but +aesthetically we are dealing with two different intuition-expressions, +into both of which enter different psychological elements. The same +argument suffices to destroy, that is, to interpret correctly, the +altogether empirical distinction between an _internal_ and an _external_ +language. + + [Sidenote] _Art and science._ + +The most lofty manifestations, the summits of intellectual and of +intuitive knowledge shining from afar, are called, as we know, Art and +Science. Art and Science, then, are different and yet linked together; +they meet on one side, which is the aesthetic side. Every scientific +work is also a work of art. The aesthetic side may remain little +noticed, when our mind is altogether taken up with the effort to +understand the thought of the man of science, and to examine its truth. +But it is no longer concealed, when we pass from the activity of +understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either +developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous +words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or +confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes +termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or +less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically +to be compared with harmonious, coherent, and perfect works. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry._ + +We pardon thinkers and men of science their literary mediocrity. The +fragments console us for the failure of the whole, for it is far more +easy to recover the well-arranged composition from the fragmentary work +of genius than to achieve the discovery of genius. But how can we pardon +mediocre expression in pure artists? _Mediocribus esse poetis non di, +non homines, non concessere columnae_. The poet or painter who lacks +form, lacks everything, because he lacks _himself_. Poetical material +permeates the Soul of all: the expression alone, that is to say, the +form, makes the poet. And here appears the truth of the thesis which +denies to art all content, as content being understood just the +intellectual concept. In this sense, when we take "content" as equal to +"concept" it is most true, not only that art does not consist of +content, but also that _it has no content_. + +In the same way the distinction between _poetry and prose_ cannot be +justified, save in that of art and science. It was seen in antiquity +that such distinction could not be founded on external elements, such as +rhythm and metre, or on the freedom or the limitation of the form; that +it was, on the contrary, altogether internal. Poetry is the language of +sentiment; prose of the intellect; but since the intellect is also +sentiment, in its concretion and reality, so all prose has a poetical +side. + + [Sidenote] _The relation of first and second degree._ + +The relation between intuitive knowledge or expression, and intellectual +knowledge or concept, between art and science, poetry and prose, cannot +be otherwise defined than by saying that it is one of _double degree_. +The first degree is the expression, the second the concept: the first +can exist without the second, but the second cannot exist without the +first. There exists poetry without prose, but not prose without poetry. +Expression, indeed, is the first affirmation of human activity. Poetry +is "the maternal language of the human race"; the first men "were by +nature sublime poets." We also admit this in another way, when we +observe that the passage from soul to mind, from animal to human +activity, is effected by means of language. And this should be said of +intuition or expression in general. But to us it appears somewhat +inaccurate to define language or expression as an _intermediate_ link +between nature and humanity, as though it were a mixture of the one and +of the other. Where humanity appears, the rest has already disappeared; +the man who expresses himself, certainly emerges from the state of +nature, but he really does emerge: he does not stand half within and +half without, as the use of the phrase "intermediate link" would imply. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of other forms of knowledge._ + +The cognitive intellect has no form other than these two. Expression and +concept exhaust it completely. The whole speculative life of man is +spent in passing from one to the other and back again. + + [Sidenote] _History. Its identity with and difference from art._ + +_Historicity_ is incorrectly held to be a third theoretical form. +History is not form, but content: as form, it is nothing but intuition +or aesthetic fact. History does not seek for laws nor form concepts; it +employs neither induction nor deduction; it is directed _ad narrandum, +non ad demonstrandum_; it does not construct universals and +abstractions, but posits intuitions. The this, the that, the _individuum +omni modo determinatum_, is its kingdom, as it is the kingdom of art. +History, therefore, is included under the universal concept of art. + +Faced with this proposition and with the impossibility of conceiving a +third mode of knowledge, objections have been brought forward which +would lead to the affiliation of history to intellective or scientific +knowledge. The greater portion of these objections is dominated by the +prejudice that in refusing to history the character of conceptual +science, something of its value and dignity has been taken from it. This +really arises from a false idea of art, conceived, not as an essential +theoretic function, but as an amusement, a superfluity, a frivolity. +Without reopening a long debate, which so far as we are concerned, is +finally closed, we will mention here one sophism which has been and +still is widely repeated. It is intended to show the logical and +scientific nature of history. The sophism consists in admitting that +historical knowledge has for its object the individual; but not the +representation, it is added, so much as the concept of the individual. +From this it is argued that history is also a logical or scientific form +of knowledge. History, in fact, should elaborate the concept of a +personage such as Charlemagne or Napoleon; of an epoch, like the +Renaissance or the Reformation; of an event, such as the French +Revolution and the Unification of Italy. This it is held to do in the +same way as Geometry elaborates the concepts of spatial form, or +Aesthetic those of expression. But all this is untrue. History cannot do +otherwise than represent Napoleon and Charlemagne, the Renaissance and +the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Unification of Italy as +individual facts with their individual physiognomy: that is, in the same +way as logicians state, that one cannot have a concept of an individual, +but only a representation. The so-called concept of the individual is +always a universal or general concept, full of details, very rich, if +you will, but however rich it be, yet incapable of attaining to that +individuality, to which historical knowledge, as aesthetic knowledge, +alone attains. + +Let us rather show how the content of history comes to be distinguished +from that of art. The distinction is secondary. Its origin will be found +in what has already been observed as to the ideal character of the +intuition or first perception, in which all is real and therefore +nothing is real. The mind forms the concepts of external and internal at +a later stage, as it does those of what has happened and of what is +desired, of object and subject, and the like. Thus it distinguishes +historical from non-historical intuition, the _real_ from the _unreal_, +real fancy from pure fancy. Even internal facts, what is desired and +imagined, castles in the air, and countries of Cockagne, have their +reality. The soul, too, has its history. His illusions form part of the +biography of every individual. But the history of an individual soul is +history, because in it is always active the distinction between the real +and the unreal, even when the real is the illusions themselves. But +these distinctive concepts do not appear in history as do scientific +concepts, but rather like those that we have seen dissolved and melted +in the aesthetic intuitions, although they stand out in history in an +altogether new relief. History does not construct the concepts of the +real and unreal, but makes use of them. History, in fact, is not the +theory of history. Mere conceptual analysis is of no use in realizing +whether an event in our lives were real or imaginary. It is necessary to +reproduce the intuitions in the mind in the most complete form, as they +were at the moment of production, in order to recognize the content. +Historicity is distinguished in the concrete from pure imagination only +as one intuition is distinguished from another: in the memory. + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism._ + [Sidenote] _Historical scepticism._ + +Where this is not possible, owing to the delicate and fleeting shades +between the real and unreal intuitions, which confuse the one with the +other, we must either renounce, for the time at least, the knowledge of +what really happened (and this we often do), or we must fall back upon +conjecture, verisimilitude, probability. The principle of verisimilitude +and of probability dominates in fact all historical criticism. +Examination of the sources and of authority is directed toward +establishing the most credible evidence. And what is the most credible +evidence, save that of the best observers, that is, of those who best +remember and (be it understood) have not desired to falsify, nor had +interest in falsifying the truth of things? From this it follows that +intellectual scepticism finds it easy to deny the certainty of any +history, for the certainty of history is never that of science. +Historical certainty is composed of memory and of authority, not of +analyses and of demonstration. To speak of historical induction or +demonstration, is to make a metaphorical use of these expressions, which +bear quite a different meaning in history to that which they bear in +science. The conviction of the historian is the undemonstrable +conviction of the juryman, who has heard the witnesses, listened +attentively to the case, and prayed Heaven to inspire him. Sometimes, +without doubt, he is mistaken, but the mistakes are in a negligible +minority compared with the occasions when he gets hold of the truth. +That is why good sense is right against the intellectualists, in +believing in history, which is not a "fable agreed upon," but that which +the individual and humanity remember of their past. We strive to enlarge +and to render as precise as possible this record, which in some places +is dim, in others very clear. We cannot do without it, such as it is, +and taken as a whole, it is rich in truth. In a spirit of paradox only, +can one doubt if there ever were a Greece or a Rome, an Alexander or a +Caesar, a feudal Europe overthrown by a series of revolutions, that on +the 1st of November 1517 the theses of Luther were seen fixed to the +door of the church of Wittenberg, or that the Bastile was taken by the +people of Paris on the 14th of July 1789. + +"What proof givest thou of all this?" asks the sophist, ironically. +Humanity replies "I remember." + + [Sidenote] _Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural + sciences, and their limits._ + +The world of what has happened, of the concrete, of history, is the +world that is called real, natural, including in this definition the +reality that is called physical, as well as that which is called +spiritual and human. All this world is intuition; historical intuition, +if it be realistically shown as it is, or imaginary intuition, artistic +in the strict sense, if shown under the aspect of the possible, that is +to say, of the imaginable. + +Science, true science, which is not intuition but concept, not +individuality but universality, cannot be anything but a science of the +spirit, that is, of what is universal in reality: Philosophy. If natural +_sciences_ be spoken of, apart from philosophy, it is necessary to +observe that these are not perfect sciences: they are complexes of +knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed. The so-called natural +sciences themselves recognize, in fact, that they are surrounded by +limitations. These limitations are nothing more than historical and +intuitive data. They calculate, measure, establish equalities, +regularity, create classes and types, formulate laws, show in their own +way how one fact arises out of other facts; but in their progress they +are always met with facts which are known intuitively and historically. +Even geometry now states that it rests altogether on hypotheses, since +space is not three-dimensional or Euclidean, but this assumption is made +use of by preference, because it is more convenient. What there is of +truth in the natural sciences, is either philosophy or historical fact. +What they contain proper to themselves is abstract and arbitrary. When +the natural sciences wish to form themselves into perfect sciences, they +must issue from their circle and enter the philosophical circle. This +they do when they posit concepts which are anything but natural, such as +those of the atom without extension in space, of ether or vibrating +matter, of vital force, of space beyond the reach of intuition, and the +like. These are true and proper philosophical efforts, when they are not +mere words void of meaning. The concepts of natural science are, without +doubt, most useful; but one cannot obtain from them that _system_, which +belongs only to the spirit. + +These historical and intuitive assumptions, which cannot be separated +from the natural sciences, furthermore explain, not only how, in the +progress of knowledge, that which was once considered to be truth +descends gradually to the grade of mythological beliefs and imaginary +illusions, but also how, among natural scientists, there are some who +term all that serves as basis of argument in their teaching _mythical +facts, verbal expedients_, or _conventions_. The naturalists and +mathematicians who approach the study of the energies of the spirit +without preparation, are apt to carry thither these mental habits and to +speak, in philosophy, of such and such conventions "as arranged by man." +They make conventions of truth and morality, and their supreme +convention is the Spirit itself! However, if there are to be +conventions, something must exist about which there is no convention to +be made, but which is itself the agent of the convention. This is the +spiritual activity of man. The limitation of the natural sciences +postulates the illimitation of philosophy. + + [Sidenote] _The phenomenon and the noumenon._ + +These explications have firmly established that the pure or fundamental +forms of knowledge are two: the intuition and the concept--Art, and +Science or Philosophy. With these are to be included History, which is, +as it were, the product of intuition placed in contact with the concept, +that is, of art receiving in itself philosophic distinctions, while +remaining concrete and individual. All the other forms (natural sciences +and mathematics) are impure, being mingled with extraneous elements of +practical origin. The intuition gives the world, the phenomenon; the +concept gives the noumenon, the Spirit. + + + + +IV + +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + + +These relations between intuitive or aesthetic knowledge and the other +fundamental or derivative forms of knowledge having been definitely +established, we are now in a position to reveal the errors of a series +of theories which have been, or are, presented, as theories of +Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of verisimilitude and of naturalism._ + +From the confusion between the exigencies of art in general and the +particular exigencies of history has arisen the theory (which has lost +ground to-day, but used to dominate in the past) of _verisimilitude_ as +the object of art. As is generally the case with erroneous propositions, +the intention of those who employed and employ the concept of +verisimilitude has no doubt often been much more reasonable than the +definition given of the word. By verisimilitude used to be meant the +artistic _coherence_ of the representation, that is to say, its +completeness and effectiveness. If "verisimilar" be translated by +"coherent," a most exact meaning will often be found in the discussions, +examples, and judgments of the critics. An improbable personage, an +improbable ending to a comedy, are really badly-drawn personages, +badly-arranged endings, happenings without artistic motive. It has been +said with reason that even fairies and sprites must have verisimilitude, +that is to say, be really sprites and fairies, coherent artistic +intuitions. Sometimes the word "possible" has been used instead of +"verisimilar." As we have already remarked in passing, this word +possible is synonymous with that which is imaginable or may be known +intuitively. Everything which is really, that is to say, coherently, +imagined, is possible. But formerly, and especially by the +theoreticians, by verisimilar was understood historical credibility, or +that historical truth which is not demonstrable, but conjecturable, not +true, but verisimilar. It has been sought to impose a like character +upon art. Who does not recall the great part played in literary history +by the criticism of the verisimilar? For example, the fault found with +the _Jerusalem Delivered_, based upon the history of the Crusades, or of +the Homeric poems, upon that of the verisimilitude of the costume of the +emperors and kings? + +At other times has been imposed upon art the duty of the aesthetic +reproduction of historical reality. This is another of the erroneous +significations assumed by the theory concerning _the imitation of +nature_. Verism and naturalism have since afforded the spectacle of a +confusion of the aesthetic fact with the processes of the natural +sciences, by aiming at some sort of _experimental_ drama or romance. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of ideas in art, of theses in art, and of the + typical._ + +The confusions between the methods of art and those of the philosophical +sciences have been far more frequent. Thus it has often been held to be +within the competence of art to develop concepts, to unite the +intelligible with the sensible, to represent _ideas or universals_, +putting art in the place of science, that is, confusing the artistic +function in general with the particular case in which it becomes +aesthetico-logical. + +The theory of art as supporting _theses_ can be reduced to the same +error, as can be the theory of art considered as individual +representation, exemplifying scientific laws. The example, in so far as +it is an example, stands for the thing exemplified, and is thus an +exposition of the universal, that is to say, a form of science, more or +less popular or vulgarized. + +The same may be said of the aesthetic theory of the _typical_, when by +type is understood, as it frequently is, just the abstraction or the +concept, and it is affirmed that art should make _the species shine in +the individual_. If by typical be here understood the individual, here, +too, we have a merely verbal variation. To typify would signify, in this +case, to characterize; that is, to determine and to represent the +individual. Don Quixote is a type; but of whom is he a type, if not of +all Don Quixotes? A type, that is to say, of himself. Certainly he is +not a type of abstract concepts, such as the loss of the sense of +reality, or of the love of glory. An infinite number of personages can +be thought of under these concepts, who are not Don Quixote. In other +words, we find our own impressions fully determined and verified in the +expression of a poet (for example in a poetical personage). We call that +expression typical, which we might call simply aesthetic. Poetical or +artistic universals have been spoken of in like manner, in order to show +that the artistic product is altogether spiritual and ideal in itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the symbol and of the allegory._ + +Continuing to correct these errors, or to make clear equivoques, we will +note that the _symbol_ has sometimes been given as essence of art. Now, +if the symbol be given as inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is +the synonym of the intuition itself, which always has an ideal +character. There is no double-bottom to art, but one only; in art all is +symbolical, because all is ideal. But if the symbol be looked upon as +separable--if on the one side can be expressed the symbol, and on the +other the thing symbolized, we fall back again into the intellectualist +error: that pretended symbol is the exposition of an abstract concept, +it is an _allegory_, it is science, or art that apes science. But we +must be just toward the allegorical also. In some cases, it is +altogether harmless. Given the _Gerusalemme liberata_, the allegory was +imagined afterwards; given the _Adone_ of Marino, the poet of the +lascivious insinuated afterwards that it was written to show how +"immoderate indulgence ends in pain"; given a statue of a beautiful +woman, the sculptor can write on a card that the statue represents +_Clemency_ or _Goodness_. This allegory linked to a finished work _post +festum_ does not change the work of art. What is it, then? It is an +expression externally _added_ to another expression. A little page of +prose is added to the _Gerusalemme_, expressing another thought of the +poet; a verse or a strophe is added to the _Adone_, expressing what the +poet would like to make a part of his public swallow; while to the +statue nothing more than the single word is added: _Clemency_ or +_Goodness_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of artistic and literary classes._ + +But the greatest triumph of the intellectualist error lies in the theory +of artistic and literary classes, which still has vogue in literary +treatises, and disturbs the critics and the historians of art. Let us +observe its genesis. + +The human mind can pass from the aesthetic to the logical, just because +the former is a first step, in respect to the latter. It can destroy the +expressions, that is, the thought of the individual with the thought of +the universal. It can reduce expressive facts to logical relations. We +have already shown that this operation in its turn becomes concrete in +an expression, but this does not mean that the first expressions have +not been destroyed. They have yielded their place to the new +aesthetico-logical expressions. When we are on the second step, we have +left the first. + +He who enters a picture-gallery, or who reads a series of poems, may, +after he has looked and read, go further: he may seek out the relations +of the things there expressed. Thus those pictures and compositions, +each of which is an individual inexpressible by logic, are resolved into +universals and abstractions, such as _costumes, landscapes, portraits, +domestic life, battles, animals, flowers, fruit, seascapes, lakes, +deserts, tragic, comic, piteous, cruel, lyrical, epic, dramatic, +knightly, idyllic facts_, and the like. They are often also resolved +into merely quantitative categories, such as _little picture, picture, +statuette, group, madrigal, song, sonnet, garland of sonnets, poetry, +poem, story, romance_, and the like. + +When we think the concept _domestic life_, or _knighthood_, or _idyll_, +or _cruelty_, or any other quantitative concept, the individual +expressive fact from which we started is abandoned. From aesthetes that +we were, we have been changed into logicians; from contemplators of +expression, into reasoners. Certainly no objection can be made to such a +process. In what other way could science be born, which, if aesthetic +expressions be assumed in it, yet has for function to go beyond them? +The logical or scientific form, as such, excludes the aesthetic form. He +who begins to think scientifically has already ceased to contemplate +aesthetically; although his thought will assume of necessity in its turn +an aesthetic form, as has already been said, and as it would be +superfluous to repeat. + +The error begins when we try to deduce the expression from the concept, +and to find in the thing substituting the laws of the thing substituted; +when the difference between the second and the first step has not been +observed, and when, in consequence, we declare that we are standing on +the first step, when we are really standing on the second. This error is +known as _the theory of artistic and literary classes_. + +What is the aesthetic form of domestic life, of knighthood, of the +idyll, of cruelty, and so forth? How should these contents be +_represented_? Such is the absurd problem implied in the theory of +artistic and literary classes. It is in this that consists all search +after laws or rules of styles. Domestic life, knighthood, idyll, +cruelty, and the like, are not impressions, but concepts. They are not +contents, but logico-aesthetic forms. You cannot express the form, for +it is already itself expression. And what are the words cruelty, idyll, +knighthood, domestic life, and so on, but the expression of those +concepts? + +Even the most refined of these distinctions, those that have the most +philosophic appearance, do not resist criticism; as, for instance, when +works of art are divided into the subjective and the objective styles, +into lyric and epic, into works of feeling and works of design. It is +impossible to separate in aesthetic analysis, the subjective from the +objective side, the lyric from the epic, the image of feeling from that +of things. + + [Sidenote] _Errors derived from this theory appearing in judgments + on art._ + +From the theory of the artistic and literary classes derive those +erroneous modes of judgment and of criticism, thanks to which, instead +of asking before a work of art if it be expressive, and what it +expresses, whether it speak or stammer, or be silent altogether, it is +asked if it be obedient to the _laws_ of the epic poem, or to those of +tragedy, to those of historical portraiture, or to those of landscape +painting. Artists, however, while making a verbal pretence of agreeing, +or yielding a feigned obedience to them, have really always disregarded +these _laws of styles_. Every true work of art has violated some +established class and upset the ideas of the critics, who have thus been +obliged to enlarge the number of classes, until finally even this +enlargement has proved too narrow, owing to the appearance of new works +of art, which are naturally followed by new scandals, new upsettings, +and-new enlargements. + +From the same theory come the prejudices, owing to which at one time +(and is it really passed?) people used to lament that Italy had no +tragedy (until a poet arose who gave to Italy that wreath which was the +only thing wanting to her glorious hair), nor France the epic poem +(until the _Henriade_, which slaked the thirsty throats of the critics). +Eulogies accorded to the inventors of new styles are connected with +these prejudices, so much so, that in the seventeenth century the +invention of the _mock-heroic_ poem seemed an important event, and the +honour of it was disputed, as though it were the discovery of America. +But the works adorned with this name (the _Secchia rapita_ and the +_Scherno degli Dei_) were still-born, because their authors (a slight +draw-back) had nothing new or original to say. Mediocrities racked their +brains to invent, artificially, new styles. The _piscatorial_ eclogue +was added to the _pastoral_, and then, finally, the _military_ eclogue. +The _Aminta_ was bathed and became the _Alceo_. Finally, there have been +historians of art and literature, so much fascinated with these ideas of +classes, that they claimed to write the history, not of single and +effective literary and artistic works, but of their classes, those empty +phantoms. They have claimed to portray, not the evolution of the +_artistic spirit_, but the _evolution of classes_. + +The philosophical condemnation of artistic and literary classes is found +in the formulation and demonstration of what artistic activity has ever +sought and good taste ever recognized. What is to be done if good taste +and the real fact, put into formulas, sometimes assume the air of +paradoxes? + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the divisions of classes._ + +Now if we talk of tragedies, comedies, dramas, romances, pictures of +everyday life, battle-pieces, landscapes, seascapes, poems, versicles, +lyrics, and the like, if it be only with a view to be understood, and to +draw attention in general and approximatively to certain groups of +works, to which, for one reason or another, it is desired to draw +attention, in that case, no scientific error has been committed. We +employ _vocables and phrases_; we do not establish _laws and +definitions_. The mistake arises when the weight of a scientific +definition is given to a word, when we ingenuously let ourselves be +caught in the meshes of that phraseology. Pray permit me a comparison. +It is necessary to arrange the books in a library in one way or another. +This used generally to be done by means of a rough classification by +subjects (among which the categories of miscellaneous and eccentric were +not wanting); they are now generally arranged by sizes or by publishers. +Who can deny the necessity and the utility of these groupings? But what +should we say if some one began seriously to seek out the literary laws +of miscellanies and of eccentricities from the Aldine or Bodonian +collection, from size A or size B, that is to say, from these altogether +arbitrary groupings whose sole object has been their practical use? +Well, whoever should undertake an enterprise such as this, would be +doing neither more nor less than those who seek out the aesthetic laws +of literary and artistic classes. + + + + +V + +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORIC AND LOGIC + + +The better to confirm these criticisms, it will be opportune to cast a +rapid glance over analogous and opposite errors, born of ignorance as to +the true nature of art, and of its relation to history and to science. +These errors have injured alike the theory of history and of science, of +Historic (or Historiology) and of Logic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the philosophy of history._ + +Historical intellectualism has been the cause of the many researches +which have been made, especially during the last two centuries, +researches which continue to-day, for _a philosophy of history_, for an +_ideal history_, for a _sociology_, for a _historical psychology_, or +however may be otherwise entitled or described a science whose object is +to extract from history, universal laws and concepts. Of what kind must +be these laws, these universals? Historical laws and historical +concepts? In that case, an elementary criticism of knowledge suffices to +make clear the absurdity of the attempt. When such expressions as a +_historical law_, a _historical concept_ are not simply metaphors +colloquially employed, they are true contradictions in terms: the +adjective is as unsuitable to the substantive as in the expressions +_qualitative quantity_ or _pluralistic monism_. History means concretion +and individuality, law and concept mean abstraction and universality. +If, on the other hand, the attempt to draw from history historical laws +and concepts be abandoned, and it be merely desired to draw from it laws +and concepts, the attempt is certainly not frivolous; but the science +thus obtained will be, not a philosophy of history, but rather, +according to the case, either philosophy in its various specifications +of Ethic, Logic, etc., or empirical science in its infinite divisions +and subdivisions. Thus are sought out either those philosophical +concepts which are, as has already been observed, at the bottom of every +historical construction and separate perception from intuition, +historical intuition from pure intuition, history from art; or already +formed historical intuitions are collected and reduced to types and +classes, which is exactly the method of the natural sciences. Great +thinkers have sometimes donned the unsuitable cloak of the philosophy of +history, and notwithstanding the covering, they have conquered +philosophical truths of the greatest magnitude. The cloak has been +dropped, the truth has remained. Modern sociologists are rather to be +blamed, not so much for the illusion in which they are involved when +they talk of an impossible science of sociology, as for the infecundity +which almost always accompanies their illusion. It is but a small evil +that Aesthetic should be termed sociological Aesthetic, or Logic, social +Logic. The grave evil is that their Aesthetic is an old-fashioned +expression of sensualism, their Logic verbal and incoherent. The +philosophical movement, to which we have referred, has borne two good +fruits in relation to history. First of all has been felt the desire to +construct a theory of historiography, that is, to understand the nature +and the limits of history, a theory which, in conformity with the +analyses made above, cannot obtain satisfaction, save in a general +science of intuition, in an Aesthetic, from which Historic would be +separated under a special head by means of the intervention of the +universals. Furthermore, concrete truths relating to historical events +have often been expressed beneath the false and presumptuous cloak of a +philosophy of history; canons and empirical advice have been formulated +by no means superfluous to students and critics. It does not seem +possible to deny this utility to the most recent of philosophies of +history, to so-called historical materialism, which has thrown a very +vivid light upon many sides of social life, formerly neglected or ill +understood. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic invasions into Logic._ + +The principle of authority, of the _ipse dixit_, is an invasion of +historicity into the domains of science and philosophy which has raged +in the schools. This substitutes for introspection and philosophical +analyses, this or that evidence, document, or authoritative statement, +with which history certainly cannot dispense. But Logic, the science of +thought and of intellectual knowledge, has suffered the most grave and +destructive disturbances and errors of all, through the imperfect +understanding of the aesthetic fact. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, +if logical activity come after and contain in itself aesthetic activity? +An inexact Aesthetic must of necessity drag after it an inexact Logic. + +Whoever opens logical treatises, from the _Organum_ of Aristotle to the +moderns, must admit that they all contain a haphazard mixture of verbal +facts and facts of thought, of grammatical forms and of conceptual +forms, of Aesthetic and of Logic. Not that attempts have been wanting to +escape from verbal expression and to seize thought in its effective +nature. Aristotelian logic itself did not become mere syllogistic and +verbalism, without some stumbling and oscillation. The especially +logical problem was often touched upon in the Middle Ages, by the +nominalists, realists, and conceptualists, in their disputes. With +Galileo and with Bacon, the natural sciences gave an honourable place to +induction. Vico combated formalist and mathematical logic in favour of +inventive methods. Kant called attention to _a priori_ syntheses. The +absolute idealists despised the Aristotelian logic. The followers of +Herbart, bound to Aristotle, on the other hand, set in relief those +judgments which they called narrative, which are of a character +altogether different from other logical judgments. Finally, the +linguists insisted upon the irrationality of the word, in relation to +the concept. But a conscious, sure, and radical movement of reform can +find no base or starting-point, save in the science of Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Logic in its essence._ + +In a Logic suitably reformed on this basis, it will be fitting to +proclaim before all things this truth, and to draw from it all its +consequences: the logical fact, _the only logical fact_, is _the +concept_, the universal, the spirit that forms, and in so far as it +forms, the universal. And if be understood by induction, as has +sometimes been understood, the formation of universals, and by deduction +the verbal development of these, then it is clear that true Logic can be +nothing but inductive Logic. But since by the word "deduction" has been +more frequently understood the special processes of mathematics, and by +the word "induction" those of the natural sciences, it will be advisable +to avoid the one and the other denomination, and to say that true Logic +is the Logic of the concept. The Logic of the concept, adopting a method +which is at once induction and deduction, will adopt neither the one nor +the other exclusively, that is, will adopt the (speculative) method, +which is intrinsic to it. + +The concept, the universal, is in itself, abstractly considered, +_inexpressible_. No word is proper to it. So true is this, that the +logical concept remains always the same, notwithstanding the variation +of verbal forms. In respect to the concept, expression is a simple +_sign_ or _indication_. There must be an expression, it cannot fail; but +what it is to be, this or that, is determined by the historical and +psychological conditions of the individual who is speaking. The quality +of the expression is not deducible from the nature of the concept. There +does not exist a true (logical) sense of words. He who forms a concept +bestows on each occasion their true meaning on the words. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between logical and non-logical judgements._ + +This being established, the only truly logical (that is, +aesthetico-logical) propositions, the only rigorously logical judgments, +can be nothing but those whose proper and exclusive content is the +determination of a concept. These propositions or judgments are the +_definitions_. Science itself is nothing but a complex of definitions, +unified in a supreme definition; a system of concepts, or chief concept. + +It is therefore necessary to exclude from Logic all those propositions +which do not affirm universals. Narrative judgments, not less than those +termed non-enunciative by Aristotle, such as the expression of desires, +are not properly logical judgments. They are either purely aesthetic +propositions or historical propositions. "Peter is passing; it is +raining to-day; I am sleepy; I want to read": these and an infinity of +propositions of the same kind, are nothing but either a mere enclosing, +in words the impression of the fact that Peter is passing, of the +falling rain, of my organism inclining to sleep, and of my will directed +to reading, or they are existential affirmation concerning those facts. +They are expressions of the real or of the unreal, of historical or of +pure imagination; they are certainly not definitions of universals. + + [Sidenote] _Syllogistic._ + +This exclusion cannot meet with great difficulties. It is already almost +an accomplished fact, and the only thing required is to render it +explicit, decisive, and coherent. But what is to be done with all that +part of human experience which is called _syllogistic_, consisting of +judgments and reasonings which are based on concepts. What is +syllogistic? Is it to be looked down upon from above with contempt, as +something useless, as has so often been done in the reaction of the +humanists against scholasticism, in absolute idealism, in the +enthusiastic admiration of our times for the methods of observation and +experiment of the natural sciences? Syllogistic, reasoning _in forma_, +is not a discovery of truth; it is the art of exposing, debating, +disputing with oneself and others. Proceeding from concepts already +formed, from facts already observed and making appeal to the persistence +of the true or of thought (such is the meaning of the principle of +identity and contradiction), it infers consequences from these data, +that is, it represents what has already been discovered. Therefore, if +it be an _idem per idem_ from the point of view of invention, it is most +efficacious as a teaching and an exposition. To reduce affirmations to +the syllogistic scheme is a way of controlling one's own thought and of +criticizing that of others. It is easy to laugh at syllogisers, but, if +syllogistic has been born and retains its place, it must have good roots +of its own. Satire applied to it can concern only its abuses, such as +the attempt to prove syllogistically questions of fact, observation, and +intuition, or the neglect of profound meditation and unprejudiced +investigation of problems, for syllogistic formality. And if so-called +_mathematical Logic_ can sometimes aid us in our attempt to remember +with ease, to manipulate the results of our own thought, let us welcome +this form of the syllogism also, long prophesied by Leibnitz and essayed +by many, even in our days. + +But precisely because syllogistic is the art of exposing and of +debating, its theory cannot hold the first place in a philosophical +Logic, usurping that belonging to the doctrine of the concept, which is +the central and dominating doctrine, to which is reduced everything +logical in syllogistic, without leaving a residuum (relations of +concepts, subordination, co-ordination, identification, and so on). Nor +must it ever be forgotten that the concept, the (logical) judgment, and +the syllogism do not occupy the same position. The first alone is the +logical fact, the second and third are the forms in which the first +manifests itself. These, in so far as they are forms, cannot be examined +save aesthetically (grammatically); in so far as they possess logical +content, only by neglecting the forms themselves and passing to the +doctrine of the concept. + + [Sidenote] _False Logic and true Aesthetic._ + +This shows the truth of the ordinary remark to the effect that he who +reasons ill, also speaks and writes ill, that exact logical analysis is +the basis of good expression. This truth is a tautology, for to reason +well is in fact to express oneself well, because the expression is the +intuitive possession of one's own logical thought. The principle of +contradiction, itself, is at bottom nothing but the aesthetic principle +of coherence. It will be said that starting from erroneous concepts it +is possible to write and to speak exceedingly well, as it is also +possible to reason well; that some who are dull at research may yet be +most limpid writers. That is precisely because to write well depends +upon having a clear intuition of one's own thought, even if it be +erroneous; that is to say, not of its scientific, but of its aesthetic +truth, since it is this truth itself. A philosopher like Schopenhauer +can imagine that art is a representation of the Platonic ideas. This +doctrine is absolutely false scientifically, yet he may develop this +false knowledge in excellent prose, aesthetically most true. But we have +already replied to these objections, when we observed that at that +precise point where a speaker or a writer enunciates an ill-thought +concept, he is at the same time speaking ill and writing ill. He may, +however, afterwards recover himself in the many other parts of his +thought, which consist of true propositions, not connected with the +preceding errors, and lucid expressions may with him follow upon turbid +expressions. + + [Sidenote] _Logic reformed._ + +All enquiries as to the forms of judgments and of syllogisms, on their +conversion and on their various relations, which still encumber +treatises on Logic, are therefore destined to become less, to be +transformed, to be reduced to something else. + +The doctrine of the concept and of the organism of the concepts, of +definition, of system, of philosophy, and of the various sciences, and +the like, will fill the place of these and will constitute the only true +and proper Logic. + +Those who first had some suspicion of the intimate connexion between +Aesthetic and Logic and conceived Aesthetic as a _Logic of sensible +knowledge_, were strangely addicted to applying logical categories to +the new knowledge, talking of _aesthetic concepts, aesthetic judgments, +aesthetic syllogisms_, and so on. We are less superstitious as regards +the solidity of the traditional Logic of the schools, and better +informed as to the nature of Aesthetic. We do not recommend the +application of Logic to Aesthetic, but the liberation of Logic from +aesthetic forms. These have given rise to non-existent forms or +categories of Logic, due to the following of altogether arbitrary and +crude distinctions. + +Logic thus reformed will always be _formal_ Logic; it will study the +true form or activity of thought, the concept, excluding single and +particular concepts. The old Logic is ill called formal; it were better +to call it _verbal_ or _formalistic_. Formal Logic will drive out +formalistic Logic. To attain this object, it will not be necessary to +have recourse, as some have done, to a real or material Logic, which is +not a science of thought, but thought itself in the act; not only a +Logic, but the complex of Philosophy, in which Logic also is included. +The science of thought (Logic) is that of the concept, as that of fancy +(Aesthetic) is the science of expression. The well-being of both +sciences lies in exactly following in every particular the distinction +between the two domains. + + + + +VI + +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + + +The intuitive and intellective forms exhaust, as we have said, all the +theoretic form of the spirit. But it is not possible to know them +thoroughly, nor to criticize another series of erroneous aesthetic +theories, without first establishing clearly their relations with +another form of the spirit, which is the _practical_ form. + + [Sidenote] _The will._ + +This form or practical activity is the _will_. We do not employ this +word here in the sense of any philosophical system, in which the will is +the foundation of the universe, the principle of things and the true +reality. Nor do we employ it in the ample sense of other systems, which +understand by will the energy of the spirit, the spirit or activity in +general, making of every act of the human spirit an act of will. Neither +such metaphysical nor such metaphorical meaning is ours. For us, the +will is, as generally accepted, that activity of the spirit, which +differs from the mere theoretical contemplation of things, and is +productive, not of knowledge, but of actions. Action is really action, +in so far as it is voluntary. It is not necessary to remark that in the +will to do, is included, in the scientific sense, also what is vulgarly +called not-doing: the will to resist, to reject, the prometheutic will, +is also action. + + [Sidenote] _The will as an ulterior stage in respect to knowledge._ + +Man understands things with the theoretical form, with the practical +form he changes them; with the one he appropriates the universe, with +the other he creates it. But the first form is the basis of the second; +and the relation of _double degree_, which we have already found +existing between aesthetic and logical activity, is repeated between +these two on a larger scale. Knowledge independent of the will is +thinkable; will independent of knowledge is unthinkable. Blind will is +not will; true will has eyes. + +How can we will, without having before us historical intuitions +(perceptions) of objects, and knowledge of (logical) relations, which +enlighten us as to the nature of those objects? How can we really will, +if we do not know the world which surrounds us, and the manner of +changing things by acting upon them? + + [Sidenote] _Objections and elucidations._ + +It has been objected that men of action, practical men in the eminent +sense, are the least disposed to contemplate and to theorize: their +energy is not delayed in contemplation, it rushes at once into will. And +conversely, that contemplative men, philosophers, are often very +mediocre in practical matters, weak willed, and therefore neglected and +thrust aside in the tumult of life. It is easy to see that these +distinctions are merely empirical and quantitative. Certainly, the +practical man has no need of a philosophical system in order to act, but +in the spheres where he does act, he starts from intuitions and concepts +which are most clear to him. Otherwise he could not will the most +ordinary actions. It would not be possible to will to feed oneself, for +instance, without knowledge of the food, and of the link of cause and +effect between certain movements and certain organic sensations. Rising +gradually to the more complex forms of action, for example to the +political, how could we will anything politically good or bad, without +knowing the real conditions of society, and consequently the means and +expedients to be adopted? When the practical man feels himself in the +dark about one or more of these points, or when he is seized with doubt, +action either does not begin or stops. It is then that the theoretical +moment, which in the rapid succession of human actions is hardly noticed +and rapidly forgotten, becomes important and occupies consciousness for +a longer time. And if this moment be prolonged, then the practical man +may become Hamlet, divided between desire for action and his small +amount of theoretical clarity as regards the situation and the means to +be employed. And if he develop a taste for contemplation and discovery, +and leave willing and acting, to a more or less great extent, to others, +there is formed in him the calm disposition of the artist, of the man of +science, or of the philosopher, who are sometimes unpractical or +altogether blameworthy. These observations are all obvious. Their +exactitude cannot be denied. Let us, however, repeat that they are +founded on quantitative distinctions and do not disprove, but confirm +the fact that an action, however slight it be, cannot really be an +action, that is, an action that is willed, unless it be preceded by +cognoscitive activity. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of practical judgments or judgments of value._ + +Some psychologists, on the other hand, place before practical action an +altogether special class of judgments, which they call _practical_ +judgments or judgments _of value_. They say that in order to resolve to +perform an action, it is necessary to have judged: "this action is +useful, this action is good." And at first sight this seems to have the +testimony of consciousness on its side. But he who observes better and +analyses with greater subtlety, discovers that such judgments follow +instead of preceding the affirmation of the will; they are nothing but +the expression of the already exercised volition. A good or useful +action is an action that is willed. It will always be impossible to +distil from the objective study of things a single drop of usefulness or +goodness. We do not desire things because we know them to be good or +useful; but we know them to be good and useful, because we desire them. +Here too, the rapidity, with which the facts of consciousness follow one +another has given rise to an illusion. Practical action is preceded by +knowledge, but not by practical knowledge, or better by the practical: +to obtain this, it is first necessary to have practical action. The +third moment, therefore, of practical judgments, or judgments of value, +is altogether imaginary. It does not come between the two moments or +degrees of theory and practice. That is why there exist no normative +sciences in general, which regulate or command, discover and indicate +values to the practical activity; because there is none for any other +activity, assuming every science already realized and that activity +developed, which it afterwards takes as its object. + + [Sidenote] _Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic._ + +These distinctions established, we must condemn as erroneous every +theory which confuses aesthetic with practical activity, or introduces +the laws of the second into the first. That science is theory and art +practice has been many times affirmed. Those who make this statement, +and look upon the aesthetic fact as a practical fact, do not do so +capriciously or because they are groping in the void; but because they +have their eye on something which is really practical. But the practical +which they are looking at is not Aesthetic, nor within Aesthetic; it is +_outside and beside it_; and although they are often found united, they +are not necessarily united, that is to say, by the bond of identity of +nature. + +The aesthetic fact is altogether completed in the expressive elaboration +of the impressions. When we have conquered the word within us, conceived +definitely and vividly a figure or a statue, or found a musical motive, +expression is born and is complete; there is no need for anything else. +If after this we should open our mouths and _will_ to open them, to +speak, or our throats to sing, and declare in a loud voice and with +extended throat what we have completely said or sung to ourselves; or if +we should stretch out and _will_ to stretch out our hands to touch the +notes of the piano, or to take up the brushes and the chisel, making +thus in detail those movements which we have already done rapidly, and +doing so in such a way as to leave more or less durable traces; this is +all an addition, a fact which obeys quite different laws to the first, +and with these laws we have not to occupy ourselves for the moment. Let +us, however, here recognize that this second movement is a production of +things, a _practical_ fact, or a fact of _will_. It is customary to +distinguish the internal from the external work of art: the terminology +seems here to be infelicitous, for the work of art (the aesthetic work) +is always _internal_; and that which is called _external_ is no longer a +work of art. Others distinguish between _aesthetic_ fact and _artistic_ +fact, meaning by the second the external or practical stage, which may +and generally does follow the first. But in this case, it is simply a +case of linguistic usage, doubtless permissible, although perhaps not +opportune. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the end of art and of the + choice of the content._ + +For the same reasons the search for the _end of art_ is ridiculous, when +it is understood of art as art. And since to fix an end is to choose, +the theory that the content of art must be _selected_ is another form of +the same error. A selection from among impressions and sensations +implies that these are already expressions, otherwise, how can a +selection be made among what is continuous and indistinct? To choose is +to will: to will this and not to will that: and this and that must be +before us, they must be expressed. Practice follows, it does not precede +theory; expression is free inspiration. + +The true artist, in fact, finds himself big with his theme, he knows not +how; he feels the moment of birth drawing near, but he cannot will it or +not will it. If he were to wish to act in opposition to his inspiration, +to make an arbitrary choice, if, born Anacreon, he were to wish to sing +of Atreus and of Alcides, his lyre would warn him of his mistake, +echoing only of Venus and of Love, notwithstanding his efforts to the +contrary. + + [Sidenote] _Practical innocence of art._ + +The theme or content cannot, therefore, be practically or morally +charged with epithets of praise or of blame. When critics of art remark +that a theme is _badly selected_, in cases where that observation has a +just foundation, it is a question of blaming, not the selection of the +theme (which would be absurd), but the manner in which the artist has +treated it. The expression has failed, owing to the contradictions which +it contains. And when the same critics rebel against the theme or the +content as being unworthy of art and blameworthy, in respect to works +which they proclaim to be artistically perfect; if these expressions +really are perfect, there is nothing to be done but to advise the +critics to leave the artists in peace, for they cannot get inspiration, +save from what has made an impression upon them. The critics should +think rather of how they can effect changes in nature and in society, in +order that those impressions may not exist. If ugliness were to vanish +from the world, if universal virtue and felicity were established there, +perhaps artists would no longer represent perverse or pessimistic +sentiments, but sentiments that are calm, innocent, and joyous, like +Arcadians of a real Arcady. But so long as ugliness and turpitude exist +in nature and impose themselves on the artist, it is not possible to +prevent the expression of these things also; and when it has arisen, +_factum infectum fieri nequit_. We speak thus entirely from the +aesthetic point of view, and from that of pure aesthetic criticism. + +We do not delay to pass here in review the damage which the criticism of +choice does to artistic production, with the prejudices which it +produces or maintains among the artists themselves, and with the +contrast which it occasions between artistic impulse and critical +exigencies. It is true that sometimes it seems to do some good also, by +assisting the artists to discover themselves, that is, their own +impressions and their own inspiration, and to acquire consciousness of +the task which is, as it were, imposed upon them by the historical +moment in which they live, and by their individual temperament. In these +cases, criticism of choice merely recognizes and aids the expressions +which are already being formed. It believes itself to be the mother, +where, at most, it is only the midwife. + + [Sidenote] _The independence of art._ + +The impossibility of choice of content completes the theorem of the +_independence of art_, and is also the only legitimate meaning of the +expression: _art for art's sake_. Art is thus independent of science, as +it is of the useful and the moral. Let it not be feared that thus may be +justified art that is frivolous or cold, since that which is truly +frivolous or cold is so because it has not been raised to expression; or +in other words, frivolity and frigidity come always from the form of the +aesthetic elaboration, from the lack of a content, not from the material +qualities of the content. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the saying: the style is the man._ + +The saying: _the style is the man_, can also not be completely +criticized, save by starting from the distinction between the theoretic +and the practical, and from the theoretic character of the aesthetic +activity. Man is not simply knowledge and contemplation: he is also +will, which contains in it the cognoscitive moment. Now the saying is +either altogether void, as when it is understood that the man is the +style, in so far as he is style, that is to say, the man, but only in so +far as he is an expression of activity; or it is erroneous, when the +attempt is made to deduce from what a man has seen and expressed, that +which he has done and willed, inferring thereby that there is a +necessary link between knowing and willing. Many legends in the +biographies of artists have sprung from this erroneous identification, +since it seemed impossible that a man who gives expression to generous +sentiments should not be a noble and generous man in practical life; or +that the dramatist who gives a great many stabs in his plays, should not +himself have given a few at least in real life. Vainly do the artists +protest: _lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba_. They are merely taxed +in addition with lying and hypocrisy. O you poor women of Verona, how +far more subtle you were, when you founded your belief that Dante had +really descended to hell, upon his dusky countenance! Yours was at any +rate a historical conjecture. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the concept of sincerity in art._ + +Finally, _sincerity_ imposed upon the artist as a duty (this law of +ethics which, they say, is also a law of aesthetic) arises from another +equivoke. For by sincerity is meant either the moral duty not to deceive +one's neighbour; and in that case Is foreign to the artist. For he, in +fact, deceives no one, since he gives form to what is already in his +mind. He would deceive, only if he were to betray his duty as an artist +by a lesser devotion to the intrinsic necessity of his task. If lies and +deceit are in his mind, then the form which he gives to these things +cannot be deceit or lies, precisely because it is aesthetic. The artist, +if he be a charlatan, a liar, or a miscreant, purifies his other self by +reflecting it in art. Or by sincerity is meant, fulness and truth of +expression, and it is clear that this second sense has nothing to do +with the ethical concept. The law, which is at once ethical and +aesthetic, reveals itself in this case in a word employed alike by Ethic +and Aesthetic. + + + + +VII + +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + + + [Sidenote] _The two forms of practical activity._ + +The twofold grade of the theoretical activity, aesthetic and logical, +has an important parallel in the practical activity, which has not yet +been placed in due relief. The practical activity is also divided into a +first and second degree, the second implying the first. The first +practical degree is the simply _useful_ or _economical_ activity; the +second the _moral_ activity. + +Economy is, as it were, the Aesthetic of practical life; Morality its +Logic. + + [Sidenote] _The economically useful._ + +If this has not been clearly seen by philosophers; if its suitable place +in the system of the mind has not been given to the economic activity, +and it has been left to wander in the prolegomena to treatises on +political economy, often uncertain and but slightly elaborated, this is +due, among other reasons, to the fact that the useful or economic has +been confused, now with the concept of _technique_, now with that of the +_egoistic_. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the technical._ + +_Technique_ is certainly not a special activity of the spirit. +Technique is knowledge; or better, it is knowledge itself, in general, +that takes this name, as we have seen, in so far as it serves as basis +for practical action. Knowledge which is not followed, or is presumed to +be not easily followed by practical action, is called pure: the same +knowledge, if effectively followed by action, is called applied; if it +is presumed that it can be easily followed by the same action, it is +called technical or applied. This word, then, indicates a _situation_ in +which knowledge already is, or easily can be found, not a special form +of knowledge. So true is this, that it would be altogether impossible to +establish whether a given order of knowledge were, intrinsically, pure +or applied. All knowledge, however abstract and philosophical one may +imagine it to be, can be a guide to practical acts; a theoretical error +in the ultimate principles of morals can be reflected and always is +reflected in some way, in practical life. One can only speak roughly and +unscientifically of truths that are pure and of others that are applied. + +The same knowledge which is called technical, can also be called +_useful_. But the word "useful," in conformity with the criticism of +judgments of value made above, is to be understood as used here in a +linguistic or metaphorical sense. When we say that water is useful for +putting out fire, the word "useful" is used in a non-scientific sense. +Water thrown on the fire is the cause of its going out: this is the +knowledge that serves for basis to the action, let us say, of firemen. +There is a link, not of nature, but of simple succession, between the +useful action of the person who extinguishes the conflagration, and this +knowledge. The technique of the effects of the water is the theoretical +activity which precedes; the _action_ of him who extinguishes the fire +is alone useful. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the egoistic._ + +Some economists identify utility with _egoïsm_, that is to say, with +merely economical action or desire, with that which is profitable to the +individual, in so far as individual, without regard to and indeed in +complete opposition to the moral law. The egoistic is the immoral. In +this case Economy would be a very strange science, standing, not beside, +but facing Ethic, like the devil facing God, or at least like the +_advocatus diaboli_ in the processes of canonization. Such a conception +of it is altogether inadmissible: the science of immorality is implied +in that of morality, as the science of the false is implied in _Logic_, +the science of the true, and a science of ineffectual expression in +Aesthetic, the science of successful expression. If, then, Economy were +the scientific treatment of egoism, it would be a chapter of Ethic, or +Ethic itself; because every moral determination implies, at the same +time, a negation of its contrary. + +Further, conscience tells us that to conduct oneself economically is not +to conduct oneself egoistically; that even the most morally scrupulous +man must conduct himself usefully (economically), if he does not wish to +be inconclusive and, therefore, not truly moral. If utility were egoism, +how could it be the duty of the altruist to behave like an egoist? + + [Sidenote] _Economic will and moral will._ + +If we are not mistaken, the difficulty is solved in a manner perfectly +analogous to that in which is solved the problem of the relations +between the expression and the concept, between Aesthetic and Logic. + +To will economically is to _will an end_; to will morally is to _will +the rational end_. But whoever wills and acts morally, cannot but will +and act usefully (economically). How could he will the _rational_, +unless he willed it also _as his particular end_? + + [Sidenote] _Pure economicity._ + +The reciprocal is not true; as it is not true in aesthetic science that +the expressive fact must of necessity be linked with the logical fact. +It is possible to will economically without willing morally; and it is +possible to conduct oneself with perfect economic coherence, while +pursuing an end which is objectively irrational (immoral), or, better, +an end which would be so judged in a superior grade of consciousness. + +Examples of the economic, without the moral character, are the Prince of +Machiavelli, Caesar Borgia, or the Iago of Shakespeare. Who can help +admiring their strength of will, although their activity is only +economic, and is opposed to what we hold moral? Who can help admiring +the ser Ciappelletto of Boccaccio, who, even on his death-bed, pursues +and realizes his ideal of the perfect rascal, making the small and timid +little thieves who are present at his burlesque confession exclaim: +"What manner of man is this, whose perversity, neither age, nor +infirmity, nor the fear of death, which he sees at hand, nor the fear of +God, before whose judgment-seat he must stand in a little while, have +been able to remove, nor to cause that he should not wish to die as he +has lived?" + + [Sidenote] _The economic side of morality._ + +The moral man unites with the pertinacity and fearlessness of a Caesar +Borgia, of an Iago, or of a ser Ciappelletto, the good will of the saint +or of the hero. Or, better, good will would not be will, and +consequently not good, if it did not possess, in addition to the side +which makes it _good_, also that which makes it _will_. Thus a logical +thought, which does not succeed in expressing itself, is not thought, +but at the most, a confused presentiment of a thought yet to come. + +It is not correct, then, to conceive of the amoral man as also the +anti-economical man, or to make of morality an element of coherence in +the acts of life, and therefore of economicity. Nothing prevents us from +conceiving (an hypothesis which is verified at least during certain +periods and moments, if not during whole lifetimes) a man altogether +without moral conscience. In a man thus organized, what for us is +immorality is not so for him, because it is not so felt. The +consciousness of the contradiction between what is desired as a rational +end and what is pursued egoistically cannot be born in him. This +contradiction is anti-economicity. Immoral conduct becomes also +anti-economical only in the man who possesses moral conscience. The +moral remorse which is the proof of this, is also economical remorse; +that is to say, pain at not having known how to will completely and to +attain to that moral ideal which was willed at the first moment, but was +afterwards perverted by the passions. _Video meliora proboque, deteriora +sequor_. The _video_ and the _probo_ are here an initial will +immediately contradicted and passed over. In the man deprived of moral +sense, we must admit a remorse which is _merely economic_; like that of +a thief or of an assassin who should be attacked when on the point of +robbing or of assassinating, and should abstain from doing so, not owing +to a conversion of his being, but owing to his impressionability and +bewilderment, or even owing to a momentary awakening of the moral +consciousness. When he has come back to himself, that thief or assassin +will regret and be ashamed of his inconsequence; his remorse will not be +due to having done wrong, but to not having done it; his remorse is, +therefore, economic, not moral, since the latter is excluded by +hypothesis. However, a lively moral conscience is generally found among +the majority of men, and its total absence is a rare and perhaps +non-existent monstrosity. It may, therefore, be admitted, that morality +coincides with economicity in the conduct of life. + + [Sidenote] _The merely economic and the error of the morally + indifferent._ + +There need be no fear lest the parallelism affirmed by us should +introduce afresh into the category of the _morally indifferent_, of that +which is in truth action and volition, but is neither moral nor immoral; +the category in sum of the _licit_ and of the _permissible_, which has +always been the cause or mirror of ethical corruption, as is the case +with Jesuitical morality in which it dominated. It remains quite certain +that indifferent moral actions do not exist, because moral activity +pervades and must pervade every least volitional movement of man. But +this, far from upsetting the parallelism, confirms it. Do there exist +intuitions which science and the intellect do not pervade and analyse, +resolving them into universal concepts, or changing them into historical +affirmations? We have already seen that true science, philosophy, knows +no external limits which bar its way, as happens with the so-called +natural sciences. Science and morality entirely dominate, the one the +aesthetic intuitions, the other the economic volitions of man, although +neither of them can appear in the concrete, save in the intuitive form +as regards the one, in the economic as regards the other. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of utilitarianism and the reform of Ethic and + of Economic._ + +This combined identity and difference of the useful and of the moral, of +the economic and of the ethic, explains the fortune enjoyed now and +formerly by the utilitarian theory of Ethic. It is in fact easy to +discover and to show a utilitarian side in every moral action; as it is +easy to show an aesthetic side of every logical proposition. The +criticism of ethical utilitarianism cannot escape by denying this truth +and seeking out absurd and inexistent examples of _useless_ moral +actions. It must admit the utilitarian side and explain it as the +concrete form of morality, which consists of what is _within_ this form. +Utilitarians do not see this within. This is not the place for a more +ample development of such ideas. Ethic and Economic cannot but be +gainers, as we have said of Logic and Aesthetic, by a more exact +determination of the relations that exist between them. Economic science +is now rising to the animating concept of the useful, as it strives to +pass beyond the mathematical phase, in which it is still entangled; a +phase which, when it superseded historicism, was in its turn a progress, +destroying a series of arbitrary distinctions and false theories of +Economic, implied in the confusion of the theoretical with the +historical. With this conception, it will be easy on the one hand to +absorb and to verify the semi-philosophical theories of so-called pure +economy, and on the other, by the introduction of successive +complications and additions, and by passing from the philosophical to +the empirical or naturalistic method, to include the particular theories +of the political or national economy of the schools. + + [Sidenote] _Phenomenon and noumenon in practical activity._ + +As aesthetic intuition knows the phenomenon or nature, and philosophic +intuition the noumenon or spirit; so economic activity wills the +phenomenon or nature, and moral activity the noumenon or spirit. _The +spirit which desires itself_, its true self, the universal which is in +the empirical and finite spirit: that is the formula which perhaps +defines the essence of morality with the least impropriety. This will +for the true self is _absolute liberty_. + + + + +VIII + +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + + + [Sidenote] _The system of the spirit._ + +In this summary sketch that we have given, of the entire philosophy of +the spirit in its fundamental moments, the spirit is conceived as +consisting of four moments or grades, disposed in such a way that the +theoretical activity is to the practical as is the first theoretical +grade to the second theoretical, and the first practical grade to the +second practical. The four moments imply one another regressively by +their concretion. The concept cannot be without expression, the useful +without the one and the other, and morality without the three preceding +grades. If the aesthetic fact is alone independent, and the others more +or less dependent, then the logical is the least so and the moral will +the most. Moral intention operates on given theoretic bases, which +cannot be dispensed with, save by that absurd practice, the jesuitical +_direction of intention_. Here people pretend to themselves not to know +what at bottom they know perfectly well. + + [Sidenote] _The forms of genius._ + +If the forms of human activity are four, four also are the forms of +genius. Geniuses in art, in science, in moral will or heroes, have +certainly always been recognized. But the genius of pure Economic has +met with opposition. It is not altogether without reason that a category +of bad geniuses or of _geniuses of evil_ has been created. The +practical, merely economic genius, which is not directed to a rational +end, cannot but excite an admiration mingled with alarm. It would be a +mere question of words, were we to discuss whether the word "genius" +should be applied only to creators of aesthetic expression, or also to +men of scientific research and of action. To observe, on the other hand, +that genius, of whatever kind it be, is always a quantitative conception +and an empirical distinction, would be to repeat what has already been +explained as regards artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a fifth form of activity. Law; + sociality._ + +A fifth form of spiritual activity does not exist. It would be easy to +demonstrate how all the other forms, either do not possess the character +of activity, or are verbal variants of the activities already examined, +or are complex and derived facts, in which the various activities are +mingled, or are filled with special contents and contingent data. + +The _judicial_ fact, for example, considered as what is called objective +law, is derived both from the economic and from the logical activities. +Law is a rule, a formula (whether oral or written matters little here) +in which is contained an economic relation willed by an individual or by +a collectivity. This economic side at once unites it with and +distinguishes it from moral activity. Take another example. Sociology +(among the many meanings the word bears in our times) is sometimes +conceived as the study of an original element, which is called +_sociality_. Now what is it that distinguishes sociality, or the +relations which are developed in a meeting of men, not of subhuman +beings, if it be not just the various spiritual activities which exist +among the former and which are supposed not to exist, or to exist only +in a rudimentary degree, among the latter? Sociality, then, far from +being an original, simple, irreducible conception, is very complex and +complicated. This could be proved by the impossibility, generally +recognized, of enunciating a single sociological law, properly +so-called. Those that are improperly called by that name are revealed as +either empirical historical observations, or spiritual laws, that is to +say judgments, into which are translated the conceptions of the +spiritual activities; when they are not simply empty and indeterminate +generalizations, like the so-called law of evolution. Sometimes, too, +nothing more is understood by sociality than social rule, and so law; +and thus sociology is confounded with the science or theory of law +itself. Law, sociality, and like terms, are to be dealt with in a mode +analogous to that employed by us in the consideration of historicity and +technique. + + [Sidenote] _Religiosity._ + +It may seem fitting to form a different judgment as to _religious_ +activity. But religion is nothing but knowledge, and does not differ +from its other forms and subforms. For it is in truth and in turn either +the expression of practical and ideal aspirations (religious ideals), or +historical narrative (legend), or conceptual science (dogma). + +It can therefore be maintained with equal truth, both that religion is +destroyed by the progress of human knowledge, and that it is always +present there. Their religion was the whole patrimony of knowledge of +primitive peoples: our patrimony of knowledge is our religion. The +content has been changed, bettered, refined, and it will change and +become better and more refined in the future also; but its function is +always the same. We do not know what use could be made of religion by +those who wish to preserve it side by side with the theoretic activity +of man, with his art, with his criticism, and with his philosophy. It is +impossible to preserve an imperfect and inferior kind of knowledge, like +religion, side by side with what has surpassed and disproved it. +Catholicism, which is always coherent, will not tolerate a Science, a +History, an Ethic, in contradiction to its views and doctrines. The +rationalists are less coherent. They are disposed to allow a little +space in their souls for a religion which is in contradiction with their +whole theoretic world. + +These affectations and religious susceptibilities of the rationalists of +our times have their origin in the superstitious cult of the natural +sciences. These, as we know and as is confessed by the mouth of their +chief adepts, are all surrounded by _limits_. Science having been +wrongly identified with the so-called natural sciences, it could be +foreseen that the remainder would be asked of religion; that remainder +with which the human spirit cannot dispense. We are therefore indebted +to materialism, to positivism, to naturalism for this unhealthy and +often disingenuous reflowering of religious exaltation. Such things are +the business of the hospital, when they are not the business of the +politician. + + [Sidenote] _Metaphysic._ + +Philosophy withdraws from religion all reason for existing, because it +substitutes itself for religion. As the science of the spirit, it looks +upon religion as a phenomenon, a transitory historical fact, a psychic +condition that can be surpassed. Philosophy shares the domain of +knowledge with the natural disciplines, with history and with art. It +leaves to the first, narration, measurement and classification; to the +second, the chronicling of what has individually happened; to the third, +the individually possible. There is nothing left to share with religion. +For the same reason, philosophy, as the science of the spirit, cannot be +philosophy of the intuitive datum; nor, as has been seen, _Philosophy of +History, nor Philosophy of Nature_; and therefore there cannot be a +philosophic science of what is not form and universal, but material and +particular. This amounts to affirming the impossibility of _metaphysic_. + +The Method or Logic of history followed the Philosophy of history; a +gnoseology of the conceptions which are employed in the natural sciences +succeeded natural philosophy. What philosophy can study of the one is +its mode of construction (intuition, perception, document, probability, +etc.); of the others she can study the forms of the conceptions which +appear in them (space, time, motion, number, types, classes, etc.). +Philosophy, which should become metaphysical in the sense above +described, would, on the other hand, claim to compete with narrative +history, and with the natural sciences, which in their field are alone +legitimate and effective. Such a competition becomes in fact a labour +spoiling labour. We are _antimetaphysical_ in this sense, while yet +declaring ourselves _ultrametaphysical_, if by that word it be desired +to claim and to affirm the function of philosophy as the +autoconsciousness of the spirit, as opposed to the merely empirical and +classificatory function of the natural sciences. + + [Sidenote] _Mental imagination and the intuitive intellect._ + +In order to maintain itself side by side with the sciences of the +spirit, metaphysic has been obliged to assert the existence of a +specific spiritual activity, of which it would be the product. This +activity, which in antiquity was called _mental or superior +imagination_, and in modern times more often _intuitive intellect or +intellectual intuition_, would unite in an altogether special form the +characters of imagination and of intellect. It would provide the method +of passing, by deduction or dialectically, from the infinite to the +finite, from form to matter, from the concept to the intuition, from +science to history, operating by a method which should be at once unity +and compenetration of the universal and the particular, of the abstract +and the concrete, of intuition and of intellect. A faculty marvellous +indeed and delightful to possess; but we, who do not possess it, have no +means of proving its existence. + + [Sidenote] _Mystical aesthetic._ + +Intellectual intuition has sometimes been considered as the true +aesthetic activity. At others a not less marvellous aesthetic activity +has been placed beside, below, or above it, a faculty altogether +different from simple intuition. The glories of this faculty have been +sung, and to it have been attributed the fact of art, or at the least +certain groups of artistic production, arbitrarily chosen. Art, +religion, and philosophy have seemed in turn one only, or three distinct +faculties of the spirit, now one, now another of these being superior in +the dignity assigned to each. + +It is impossible to enumerate all the various attitudes assumed by this +conception of Aesthetic, which we will call _mystical_. We are here in +the kingdom, not of the science of imagination, but of imagination +itself, which creates its world with the varying elements of the +impressions and of the feelings. Let it suffice to mention that this +mysterious faculty has been conceived, now as practical, now as a mean +between the theoretic and the practical, at others again as a theoretic +grade together with philosophy and religion. + + [Sidenote] _Mortality and immortality of art._ + +The immortality of art has sometimes been deduced from this last +conception as belonging with its sisters to the sphere of absolute +spirit. At other times, on the other hand, when religion has been looked +upon as mortal and as dissolved in philosophy, then the mortality, even +the actual death, or at least the agony of art has been proclaimed. +These questions have no meaning for us, because, seeing that the +function of art is a necessary grade of the spirit, to ask if art can be +eliminated is the same thing as asking if sensation or intelligence can +be eliminated. But metaphysic, in the above sense, since it transplants +itself to an arbitrary world, is not to be criticized in detail, any +more than one can criticize the botany of the garden of Alcina or the +navigation of the voyage of Astolfo. Criticism can only be made by +refusing to join the game; that is to say, by rejecting the very +possibility of metaphysic, always in the sense above indicated. + +As we do not admit intellectual intuition in philosophy, we can also not +admit its shadow or equivalent, aesthetic intellectual intuition, or any +other mode by which this imaginary function may be called and +represented. We repeat again that we do not know of a fifth grade beyond +the four grades of spirit which consciousness reveals to us. + + + + +IX + +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + + + [Sidenote] _The characteristics of art._ + +It is customary to give long enumerations of the characteristics of art. +Having reached this point of the treatise, having studied the artistic +function as spiritual activity, as theoretic activity, and as special +theoretic activity (intuitive), we are able to discern that those +various and copious descriptions mean, when they mean anything at all, +nothing but a repetition of what may be called the qualities of the +aesthetic function, generic, specific, and characteristic. To the first +of these are referred, as we have already observed, the characters, or +better, the verbal variants of _unity_, and of _unity_ in _variety_, +those also of _simplicity_, of _originality_, and so on; to the second of +these, the characteristics of _truth_, of _sincerity_, and the like; to +the third, the characteristics of _life_, of _vivacity_, of _animation_, +of _concretion_, of _individuality_, of _characteristicality_. The words +may vary yet more, but they will not contribute anything scientifically +new. The results which we have shown have altogether exhausted the +analysis of expression as such. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of modes of expression._ + +But at this point, the question as to whether there be various _modes or +grades_ of expression is still perfectly legitimate. We have +distinguished two grades of activity, each of which is subdivided into +two other grades, and there is certainly, so far, no visible logical +reason why there should not exist two or more modes of the aesthetic, +that is of expression.--The only objection is that these modes do not +exist. + +For the present at least, it is a question of simple internal +observation and of self consciousness. One may scrutinize aesthetic +facts as much as one will: no formal differences will ever be found +among them, nor will the aesthetic fact be divisible into a first and a +second degree. + +This signifies that a philosophical classification of expressions is not +possible. Single expressive facts are so many individuals, of which the +one cannot be compared with the other, save generically, in so far as +each is expression. To use the language of the schools, expression is a +species which cannot in its turn perform the functions of genus. +Impressions, that is to say contents, vary; every content differs from +every other content, because nothing in life repeats itself; and the +continuous variation of contents follows the irreducible variety of +expressive facts, the aesthetic syntheses of the impressions. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of translations._ + +A corollary of this is the impossibility of _translations_, in so far as +they pretend to effect the transference of one expression into another, +like a liquid poured from a vase of a certain shape into a vase of +another shape. We can elaborate logically what we have already +elaborated in aesthetic form only; but we cannot reduce that which has +already possessed its aesthetic form to another form also aesthetic. In +truth, every translation either diminishes and spoils; or it creates a +new expression, by putting the former back into the crucible and mixing +it with other impressions belonging to the pretended translator. In the +former case, the expression always remains one, that of the original, +the translation being more or less deficient, that is to say, not +properly expression: in the other case, there would certainly be two +expressions, but with two different contents. "Ugly faithful ones or +faithless beauties" is a proverb that well expresses the dilemma with +which every translator is faced. In aesthetic translations, such as +those which are word for word or interlinear, or paraphrastic +translations, are to be looked upon as simple commentaries on the +original. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of rhetorical categories._ + +The division of expressions into various classes is known in literature +by the name of theory of _ornament_ or of _rhetorical categories_. But +similar attempts at classification in the other forms of art are not +wanting: suffice it to mention the _realistic and symbolic forms_, +spoken of in painting and sculpture. + +The scientific value to be attached in Aesthetic and in aesthetic +criticism to these distinctions of _realistic and symbolic_, of _style +and absence of style_, of _objective and subjective_, of _classic and +romantic_, of _simple and ornate_, of _proper and metaphorical_, of the +fourteen forms of metaphor, of the figures of _word_ and of _sentence_, +and further of _pleonasm_, of _ellipse_, of _inversion_, of +_repetition_, of _synonyms and homonyms_, and so on; is _nil_ or +altogether negative. To none of these terms and distinctions can be +given a satisfactory aesthetic definition. Those that have been +attempted, when they are not obviously erroneous, are words devoid of +sense. A typical example of this is the very common definition of +metaphor as of _another word used in place of the word itself_. Now why +give oneself this trouble? Why take the worse and longer road when you +know the shorter and better road? Perhaps, as is generally said, because +the correct word is in certain cases not so _expressive_ as the +so-called incorrect word or metaphor? But in that case the metaphor +becomes exactly the right word, and the so-called right word, if it were +used, would be _but little expressive_ and therefore most improper. +Similar observations of elementary good sense can be made regarding the +other categories, as, for example, the generic one of the ornate. One +can ask oneself how an ornament can be joined to expression. Externally? +In that case it must always remain separate. Internally? In that case, +either it does not assist expression and mars it; or it does form part +of it and is not ornament, but a constituent element of expression, +indistinguishable from the whole. + +It is not necessary to dwell upon the harm done by these distinctions. +Rhetoric has often been declaimed against, but although there has been +rebellion against its consequences, its principles have been carefully +preserved, perhaps in order to show proof of philosophic coherence. +Rhetoric has contributed, if not to make dominant in literary +production, at least to justify theoretically, that particular mode of +writing ill which is called fine writing or writing according to +rhetoric. + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the rhetorical categories._ + +The terms above mentioned would never have gone beyond the schools, +where we all of us learned them (certain of never finding the +opportunity of using them in strictly aesthetic discussions, or even of +doing so jocosely and with a comic intention), save when occasionally +employed in one of the following significations: as _verbal variants _of +the aesthetic concept; as indications of the _anti-aesthetic_, or, +finally (and this is their most important use), in a sense which is no +longer aesthetic and literary, _but merely logical_. + + [Sidenote] _Use of these categories as synonyms of the aesthetic + fact._ + +Expressions are not divisible into classes, but some are successful, +others half-successful, others failures. There are perfect and +imperfect, complete and deficient expressions. The terms already cited, +then, sometimes indicate the successful expression, sometimes the +various forms of the failures. But they are employed in the most +inconstant and capricious manner, for it often happens that the same +word serves, now to proclaim the perfect, now to condemn the imperfect. + +An instance of this is found when someone, criticizing two pictures--the +one without inspiration, in which the author has copied natural objects +without intelligence; the other inspired, but without obvious likeness +to existing objects--calls the first _realistic_, the second _symbolic_. +Others, on the contrary, pronounce the word _realistic_ about a strongly +felt picture representing a scene of ordinary life, while they talk of +_symbolic_ in reference to another picture representing but a cold +allegory. It is evident that in the first case symbolic means artistic, +and realistic inartistic, while in the second, realistic is synonymous +with artistic and symbolic with inartistic. How, then, can we be +astonished when some hotly maintain that the true art form is the +symbolic, and that the realistic is inartistic; others, that the +realistic is the artistic, and the symbolic the inartistic? We cannot +but grant that both are right, since each makes use of the same words in +senses so diverse. + +The great disputes about the _classic_ and the _romantic_ are frequently +based upon such equivokes. Sometimes the former was understood as the +artistically perfect, and the second as lacking balance and imperfect; +at others, the classic was cold and artificial, the romantic sincere, +warm, efficacious, and truly expressive. Thus it was always possible to +take the side of the classic against the romantic, or of the romantic +against the classic. + +The same thing happens as regards the word _style_. Sometimes it is +affirmed that every writer should have style. Here style is synonymous +with form or expression. Sometimes the form of a code of laws or of a +mathematical work is said to be devoid of style. Here the error of +admitting diverse modes of expression is again committed, of admitting +an ornate and a naked form of expression, because, since style is form, +the code and the mathematical treatise must also, strictly speaking, +have each its style. At other times, one hears the critics blaming +someone for "having too much style" or for "writing a style." Here it is +clear that style signifies, not the form, nor a mode of it, but improper +and pretentious expression, which is one form of the inartistic. + + [Sidenote] _Their use to indicate various aesthetic imperfections._ + +Passing to the second, not altogether insignificant, use of these words +and distinctions, we sometimes find in the examination of a literary +composition such remarks as follow: here is a pleonasm, here an ellipse, +there a metaphor, here again a synonym or an equivoke. This means that +in one place is an error consisting of using a larger number of words +than is necessary (pleonasm); that in another the error arises from too +few having been used (ellipse), elsewhere from the use of an unsuitable +word (metaphor), or from the use of two words which seem to express two +different things, where they really express the same thing (synonym); or +that, on the contrary, it arises from having employed one which seems to +express the same thing where it expresses two different things +(equivoke). This pejorative and pathological use of the terms is, +however, more uncommon than the preceding. + + [Sidenote] _Their use in a sense transcending aesthetic, in the + service of science._ + +Finally, when rhetorical terminology possesses no aesthetic +signification similar or analogous to those passed in review, and yet +one is aware that it is not void of meaning and designates something +that deserves to be noted, it is then used in the service of logic and +of science. If it be granted that a concept used in a scientific sense +by a given writer is expressed with a definite term, it is natural that +other words formed by that writer as used to signify the same concept, +or incidentally made use of by him, become, _in respect to_ the +vocabulary fixed upon by him as true, metaphors, synecdoches, synonyms, +elliptic forms, and the like. We, too, in the course of this treatise, +have several times made use of, and intend again to make use of such +terms, in order to make clear the sense of the words we employ, or may +find employed. But this proceeding, which is of value in the +disquisitions of scientific and intellectual criticism, has none +whatever in aesthetic criticism. For science there exist appropriate +words and metaphors. The same concept may be psychologically formed in +various circumstances and therefore be expressed with various +intuitions. When the scientific terminology of a given writer has been +established, and one of these modes has been fixed as correct, then all +other uses of it become improper or tropical. But in the aesthetic fact +exist only appropriate words. The same intuition can only be expressed +in one way, precisely because it is an intuition and not a concept. + + [Sidenote] _Rhetoric in the schools._ + +Some, while they admit the aesthetic insufficiency of the rhetorical +categories, yet make a reserve as regards their utility and the service +they are supposed to render, especially in schools of literature. We +confess that we fail to understand how error and confusion can educate +the mind to logical clearness, or aid the teaching of a science which +they disturb and obscure. Perhaps it may be desired to say that they can +aid memory and learning as empirical classes, as was admitted above for +literary and artistic styles. But there is another purpose for which the +rhetorical categories should certainly continue to be admitted to the +schools: to be criticized there. We cannot simply forget the errors of +the past, and truth cannot be kept alive, save by making it fight +against error. Unless a notion of the rhetorical categories be given, +accompanied by a suitable criticism of these, there is a risk of their +springing up again. For they are already springing up with certain +philologists, disguised as most recent _psychological_ discoveries. + + [Sidenote] _The resemblances of expressions._ + +It would seem as though we wished to deny all bond of likeness among +themselves between expressions and works of art. The likenesses exist, +and owing to them, works of art can be arranged in this or that group. +But they are likenesses such as are observed among individuals, and can +never be rendered with abstract definitions. That is to say, these +likenesses have nothing to do with identification, subordination, +co-ordination, and the other relations of concepts. They consist wholly +in what is called a _family likeness_, and are connected with those +historical conditions existing at the birth of the various works, or in +an affinity of soul between the artists. + + [Sidenote] _The relative possibility of translations._ + +It is in these resemblances that lies the _relative_ possibility of +translations. This does not consist of the reproduction of the same +original expressions (which it would be vain to attempt), but in the +measure that expressions are given, more or less nearly resembling +those. The translation that passes for good is an approximation which +has original value as a work of art and can stand by itself. + + + + +X + +AESTHETIC FEELINGS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE UGLY AND THE +BEAUTIFUL + + +Passing on to the study of more complex concepts, where the aesthetic +activity is found in conjunction with other orders of facts, and showing +the mode of this union or complication, we find ourselves at once face +to face with the concept of _feeling_ and with the feelings which are +called _aesthetic_. + + [Sidenote] _Various significances of the word feeling._ + +The word "feeling" is one of the richest in meanings. We have already +had occasion to meet with it once, among those used to designate the +spirit in its passivity, the matter or content of art, and also as +synonym of _impressions_. Once again (and then the meaning was +altogether different), we have met with it as designating the +_non-logical_ and _non-historical_ character of the aesthetic fact, that +is to say pure intuition, a form of truth which defines no concept and +states no fact. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as activity._ + +But feeling is not here understood in either of these two senses, nor in +the others in which it has nevertheless been used to designate other +_cognoscitive_ forms of spirit. Its meaning here is that of a special +activity, of non-cognoscitive nature, but possessing its two poles, +positive and negative, in _pleasure_ and _pain_. This activity has +always greatly embarrassed philosophers, who have attempted either to +deny it as an activity, or to attribute it to _nature_ and to exclude it +from spirit. Both solutions bristle with difficulties, and these are of +such a kind that the solutions prove themselves finally unacceptable to +anyone who examines them with care. For of what could a non-spiritual +activity consist, an _activity of nature_, when we have no other +knowledge of activity save as spiritual, and of spirituality save as +activity? Nature is, in this case, by definition, the merely passive, +inert, mechanical and material. On the other hand, the negation of the +character of activity to feeling is energetically disproved by those +very poles of pleasure and of pain which appear in it and manifest +activity in its concreteness, and, we will say, all aquiver. + + [Sidenote] _Identification of feeling with economic activity._ + +This critical conclusion ought to place us in the greatest +embarrassment, for in the sketch of the system of the spirit given +above, we have left no room for the new activity, of which we are now +obliged to recognize the existence. But activity of feeling, if it be +activity, is not specially new. It has already had its place assigned to +it in the system which we have sketched, where, however, it has been +indicated under another name, as _economic_ activity. What is called the +activity of feeling is nothing but that more elementary and fundamental +practical activity, which we have distinguished from ethical activity, +and made to consist of the appetite and desire for some individual end, +without any moral determination. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of hedonism._ + +If feeling has been sometimes considered as organic or natural activity, +this has happened precisely because it does not coincide either with +logical, aesthetic, or ethical activity. Looked at from the standpoint +of these three (which were the only ones admitted), it has seemed to lie +_outside_ the true and real spirit, the spirit in its aristocracy, and +to be almost a determination of nature and of the soul, in so far as it +is nature. Thus the thesis, several times maintained, that the aesthetic +activity, like the ethical and intellectual activities, is not feeling, +becomes at once completely proved. This thesis was inexpugnable, when +sensation had already been reduced confusedly and implicitly to economic +volition. The view which has been refuted is known by the name of +_hedonism_. For hedonism, all the various forms of the spirit are +reduced to one, which thus itself also loses its own distinctive +character and becomes something turbid and mysterious, like "the shades +in which all cows are black." Having effected this reduction and +mutilation, the hedonists naturally do not succeed in seeing anything +else in any activity but pleasure and pain. They find no substantial +difference between the pleasure of art and that of an easy digestion, +between the pleasure of a good action and that of breathing the fresh +air with wide-expanded lungs. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as a concomitant to every form of activity._ + +But if the activity of feeling in the sense here defined must not be +substituted for all the other forms of spiritual activity, we have not +said that it cannot _accompany_ them. Indeed it accompanies them of +necessity, because they are all in close relation, both with one another +and with the elementary volitional form. Therefore each of them has for +concomitants individual volitions and volitional pleasures and pains +which are known as feeling. But we must not confound what is +concomitant, with the principal fact, and take the one for the other. +The discovery of the truth, or the satisfaction of a moral duty +fulfilled, produces in us a joy which makes our whole being vibrate, +for, by attaining to those forms of spiritual activity, it attains at +the same time that to which it was _practically_ tending, as to its end, +during the effort. Nevertheless, economic or hedonistic satisfaction, +ethical satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction, +remain always distinct, even when in union. + +Thus is solved at the same time the much-debated question, which has +seemed, not wrongly, a matter of life or death for aesthetic science, +namely, whether the feeling and the pleasure precede or follow, are +cause or effect of the aesthetic fact. We must enlarge this question, to +include the relation between the various spiritual forms, and solve it +in the sense that in the unity of the spirit one cannot talk of cause +and effect and of what comes first and what follows it in time. + +And once the relation above exposed is established, the statements, +which it is customary to make, as to the nature of aesthetic, moral, +intellectual, and even, as is sometimes said, economic feelings, must +also fall. In this last case, it is clear that it is a question, not of +two terms, but of one, and the quest of economic feeling can be but that +same one concerning the economic activity. But in the other cases also, +the search can never be directed to the substantive, but to the +adjective: aesthetic, morality, logic, explain the colouring of the +feelings as aesthetic, moral, and intellectual, while feeling, studied +alone, will never explain those refractions. + + [Sidenote] _Meaning of certain ordinary distinctions of feelings._ + +A further consequence is, that we can free ourselves from the +distinction between values or feelings _of value_, and feelings that are +merely hedonistic and _without value_; also from other similar +distinctions, like those between _disinterested_ feelings and +_interested_ feelings, between _objective _feelings and the others that +are not _objective_ but simply _subjective_, between feelings of +_approval_ and others of _mere pleasure_ (_Gefallen_ and _Vergnügen_ of +the Germans). Those distinctions strove hard to save the three spiritual +forms, which have been recognised as the triad of the _True_, the +_Good_, and the _Beautiful_, from confusion with the fourth form, still +unknown, yet insidious through its indeterminateness, and mother of +scandals. For us this triad has finished its task, because we are +capable of reaching the distinction far more directly, by welcoming even +the selfish, subjective, merely pleasurable feelings, among the +respectable forms of the spirit; and where formerly antitheses were +conceived of by ourselves and others, between value and feelings, as +between spirituality and naturality, henceforth we see nothing but +difference between value and value. + + [Sidenote] _Value and disvalue: the contraries and their union._ + +As has already been said, the economic feeling or activity reveals +itself as divided into two poles, positive and negative, pleasure and +pain, which we can now translate into useful, and useless or hurtful. +This bipartition has already been noted above, as a mark of the active +character of feeling, precisely because the same bipartition is found in +all forms of activity. If each of these is a _value_, each has opposed +to it _antivalue or disvalue_. Absence of value is not sufficient to +cause disvalue, but activity and passivity must be struggling between +themselves, without the one getting the better of the other; hence the +contradiction, and the disvalue of the activity that is embarrassed, +contested, or interrupted. Value is activity that unfolds itself freely: +disvalue is its contrary. + +We will content ourselves with this definition of the two terms, without +entering into the problem of the relation between value and disvalue, +that is, between the problem of contraries. (Are these to be thought of +dualistically, as two beings or two orders of beings, like Ormuzd and +Ahriman, angels and devils, enemies to one another; or as a unity, which +is also contrariety?) This definition of the two terms will be +sufficient for our purpose, which is to make clear aesthetic activity in +particular, and one of the most obscure and disputed concepts of +Aesthetic which arises at this point: the concept of the _Beautiful_. + + [Sidenote] _The Beautiful as the value of expression, or expression + and nothing more._ + +Aesthetic, intellectual, economic, and ethical values and disvalues are +variously denominated in current speech: _beautiful, true, good, useful, +just_, and so on--these words designate the free development of +spiritual activity, action, scientific research, artistic production, +when they are successful; _ugly, false, bad, useless, unbecoming, +unjust, inexact_ designate embarrassed activity, the product of which is +a failure. In linguistic usage, these denominations are being +continually shifted from one order of facts to another, and from this to +that. _Beautiful_, for instance, is said not only of a successful +expression, but also of a scientific truth, of an action successfully +achieved, and of a moral action: thus we talk of an _intellectual +beauty_, of a _beautiful action_, of a _moral beauty_. Many +philosophers, especially aestheticians, have lost their heads in their +pursuit of these most varied uses: they have entered an inextricable and +impervious verbal labyrinth. For this reason it has hitherto seemed +convenient studiously to avoid the use of the word beautiful to indicate +successful expression. But after all the explanations that have been +given, and all danger of misunderstanding being now dissipated, and +since, on the other hand, we cannot fail to recognize that the +prevailing tendency, alike in current speech and in philosophy, is to +limit the meaning of the vocable _beautiful_ altogether to the aesthetic +value, we may define beauty as _successful expression_, or better, as +_expression_ and nothing more, because expression, when it is not +successful, is not expression. + + [Sidenote] _The ugly, and the elements of beauty which compose it._ + +Consequently, the ugly is unsuccessful expression. The paradox is true, +that, in works of art that are failures, the beautiful is present as +_unity_ and the ugly as _multiplicity_. Thus, with regard to works of +art that are more or less failures, we talk of qualities, that is to say +of _those parts of them that are beautiful_. We do not talk thus of +perfect works. It is in fact impossible to enumerate their qualities or +to designate those parts of them that are beautiful. In them there is +complete fusion: they have but one quality. Life circulates in the whole +organism: it is not withdrawn into certain parts. + +The qualities of works that are failures may be of various degrees. They +may even be very great. The beautiful does not possess degrees, for +there is no conceiving a more beautiful, that is, an expressive that is +more expressive, an adequate that is more than adequate. Ugliness, on +the other hand, does possess degrees, from the rather ugly (or almost +beautiful) to the extremely ugly. But if the ugly were _complete_, that +is to say, without any element of beauty, it would for that very reason +cease to be ugly, because in it would be absent the contradiction which +is the reason of its existence. The disvalue would become nonvalue; +activity would give place to passivity, with which it is not at war, +save when there effectively is war. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions that there exist expressions which are neither + beautiful nor ugly._ + +And because the distinctive consciousness of the beautiful and of the +ugly is based on the contrasts and contradictions in which aesthetic +activity is developed, it is evident that this consciousness becomes +attenuated to the point of disappearing altogether, as we descend from +the more complicated to the more simple and to the simplest cases of +expression. From this arises the illusion that there are expressions +which are neither beautiful nor ugly, those which are obtained without +sensible effort and appear easy and natural being so considered. + + [Sidenote] _True aesthetic feelings and concomitant or accidental + feelings._ + +The whole mystery of the _beautiful_ and the _ugly_ is reduced to these +henceforth most easy definitions. Should any one object that there exist +perfect aesthetic expressions before which no pleasure is felt, and +others, perhaps even failures, which give him the greatest pleasure, it +is necessary to advise him to pay great attention, as regards the +aesthetic fact, to that only which is truly aesthetic pleasure. +Aesthetic pleasure is sometimes reinforced by pleasures arising from +extraneous facts, which are only casually found united with it. The poet +or any other artist affords an instance of purely aesthetic pleasure, +during the moment in which he sees (or has the intuition of) his work +for the first time; that is to say, when his impressions take form and +his countenance is irradiated with the divine joy of the creator. On the +other hand, a mixed pleasure is experienced by any one who goes to the +theatre, after a day's work, to witness a comedy: when the pleasure of +rest and amusement, and that of laughingly snatching a nail from the +gaping coffin, is accompanied at a certain moment by real aesthetic +pleasure, obtained from the art of the dramatist and of the actors. The +same may be said of the artist who looks upon his labour with pleasure, +when it is finished, experiencing, in addition to the aesthetic +pleasure, that very different one which arises from the thought of +self-love satisfied, or of the economic gain which will come to him from +his work. Examples could be multiplied. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of apparent feelings._ + +A category of _apparent_ aesthetic feelings has been formed in modern +Aesthetic. These have nothing to do with the aesthetic sensations of +pleasure arising from the form, that is to say from the work of art. On +the contrary, they arise from the content of the work of art. It has +been observed that "artistic representations arouse pleasure and pain in +their infinite variety and gradations. We tremble with anxiety, we +rejoice, we fear, we laugh, we weep, we desire, with the personages of a +drama or of a romance, with the figures in a picture, or with the melody +of music. But these feelings are not those that would give occasion to +the real fact outside art; that is to say, they are the same in quality, +but they are quantitively an attenuation. Aesthetic and _apparent_ +pleasure and pain are slight, of little depth, and changeable." We have +no need to treat of these _apparent feelings_, for the good reason that +we have already amply discussed them; indeed, we have treated of them +alone. What are ever feelings that become apparent or manifest, but +feelings objectified, intensified, expressed? And it is natural that +they do not trouble and agitate us passionately, as do those of real +life, because those were matter, these are form and activity; those true +and proper feelings, these intuitions and expressions. The formula, +then, of _apparent feelings_ is nothing but a tautology. The best that +can be done is to run the pen through it. + + + + +XI + +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + + +As we are opposed to hedonism in general, that is to say, to the theory +which is based on the pleasure and pain intrinsic to Economy and +accompanies every other form of activity, confounding the content and +that which contains it, and fails to recognize any process but the +hedonistic; so we are opposed to aesthetic hedonism in particular, which +looks upon the aesthetic at any rate, if not also upon all other +activities, as a simple fact of feeling, and confounds the _pleasurable +of expression_, which is the beautiful, with the pleasurable and nothing +more, and with the pleasurable of all sorts. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful as that which pleases the + higher senses._ + +The aesthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several +forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which +pleases the sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called superior +senses. When analysis of aesthetic facts first began, it was, in fact, +difficult to avoid the mistake of thinking that a picture and a piece of +music are impressions of sight or of hearing: it was and is an +indisputable fact that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor the +deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the aesthetic fact +does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all +sensible impressions can be raised to aesthetic expression and that none +need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only +when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso +imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to +the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically +to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes +cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the viscerally +beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of play._ + +The theory of _play_ is another form of aesthetic hedonism. The +conception of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the +actifying character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is +not really man, save when he begins to play; that is to say, when he +frees himself from natural and mechanical causality and operates +spiritually; and his first game is art. But since the word _play_ also +means that pleasure which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant +energy of the organism (that is to say, from a practical act), the +consequence of this theory has been, that every game has been called an +aesthetic fact, and that the aesthetic function has been called a game, +in so far as it is possible to play with it, for, like science and every +other thing, Aesthetic can be made part of a game. But morality cannot +be provoked at the intention of playing, on the ground that it does not +consent; on the contrary, it dominates and regulates the act of playing +itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theories of sexuality and of the triumph._ + +Finally, there have been some who have tried to deduce the pleasure of +art from the reaction of the sexual organs. There are some very modern +aestheticians who place the genesis of the aesthetic fact in the +pleasure of _conquering_, of _triumphing_, or, as others add, in the +desire of the male, who wishes to conquer the female. This theory is +seasoned with much anecdotal erudition, Heaven knows of what degree of +credibility! on the customs of savage peoples. But in very truth there +was no necessity for such important aid, for one often meets in ordinary +life poets who adorn themselves with their poetry, like cocks that raise +their crests, or turkeys that spread their tails. But he who does such +things, in so far as he does them, is not a poet, but a poor devil of a +cock or turkey. The conquest of woman does not suffice to explain the +art fact. It would be just as correct to term poetry _economic_, because +there have been aulic and stipendiary poets, and there are poets the +sale of whose verses helps them to gain their livelihood, if it does not +altogether provide it. However, this definition has not failed to win +over some zealous neophytes of historical materialism. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic. Meaning in + it of content and form._ + +Another less vulgar current of thought considers Aesthetic to be the +science of the _sympathetic_, of that with which we sympathize, which +attracts, rejoices, gives us pleasure and excites admiration. But the +sympathetic is nothing but the image or representation of what pleases. +And, as such, it is a complex fact, resulting from a constant element, +the aesthetic element of representation, and from a variable element, +the pleasing in its infinite forms, arising from all the various classes +of values. + +In ordinary language, there is sometimes a feeling of repugnance at +calling an expression beautiful, which is not an expression of the +sympathetic. Hence the continual contrast between the point of view of +the aesthetician or of the art critic and that of the ordinary person, +who cannot succeed in persuading himself that the image of pain and of +turpitude can be beautiful, or, at least, can be beautiful with as much +right as the pleasing and the good. + +The opposition could be solved by distinguishing two different sciences, +one of expression and the other of the sympathetic, if the latter could +be the object of a special science; that is to say, if it were not, as +has been shown, a complex fact. If predominance be given to the +expressive fact, it becomes a part of Aesthetic as science of +expression; if to the pleasurable content, we fall back to the study of +facts which are essentially hedonistic (utilitarian), however +complicated they may appear. The origin, also, of the connexion between +content and form is to be sought for in the Aesthetic of the +sympathetic, when this is conceived as the sum of two values. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic hedonism and moralism._ + +In all the doctrines just now discussed, the art fact is posited as +merely hedonistic. But this view cannot be maintained, save by uniting +it with a philosophic hedonism that is complete and not partial, that is +to say, with a hedonism which does not admit any other form of value. +Hardly has this hedonistic conception of art been received by +philosophers, who admit one or more spiritual values, of truth or of +morality, than the following question must necessarily be asked: What +should be done with art? To what use should it be put? Should a free +course be allowed to its pleasures? And if so, to what extent? The +question of the _end of art_, which in the Aesthetic of expression would +be a contradiction of terms, here appears in place, and altogether +logical. + + [Sidenote] _The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic justification + of art._ + +Now it is evident that, admitting the premisses, but two solutions of +such a question can be given, the one altogether negative, the other +restrictive. The first, which we shall call _rigoristic_ or _ascetic_, +appears several times, although not frequently, in the history of ideas. +It looks upon art as an inebriation of the senses, and therefore, not +only useless, but harmful. According to this theory, then, it is +necessary to drive it with all our strength from the human soul, which +it troubles. The other solution, which we shall call _pedagogic_ or +_moralistico-utilitarian_, admits art, but only in so far as it concurs +with the end of morality; in so far as it assists with innocent pleasure +the work of him who leads to the true and the good; in so far as it +sprinkles with dulcet balm the sides of the vase of wisdom and of +morality. + +It is well to observe that it would be an error to divide this second +view into intellectualist and moralistico-utilitarian, according to +whether the end of leading to the true or to what is practically good, +be assigned to art. The task of instructing, which is imposed upon it, +precisely because it is an end which is sought after and advised, is no +longer merely a theoretical fact, but a theoretical fact become the +material for practical action; it is not, therefore, intellectualism, but +pedagogism and practicism. Nor would it be more exact to subdivide the +pedagogic view into the pure utilitarian and the moralistico-utilitarian; +because those who admit only the individually useful (the desire of the +individual), precisely because they are absolute hedonists, have no +motive for seeking an ulterior justification for art. + +But to enunciate these theories at the point to which we have attained +is to confute them. We therefore restrict ourselves to observing that in +the pedagogic theory of art is to be found another of the reasons why it +has been erroneously claimed that the content of art should be _chosen_ +with a view to certain practical effects. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of pure beauty._ + +The thesis, re-echoed by the artists, that art consists of _pure +beauty_, has often been brought forward against hedonistic and pedagogic +Aesthetic: "Heaven places All our joy in _pure beauty_, and the Verse is +everything." If it is wished that this should be understood in the sense +that art is not to be confounded with sensual pleasure, that is, in +fact, with utilitarian practicism, nor with moralism, then our Aesthetic +also must be permitted to adorn itself with the title of _Aesthetic of +pure beauty_. But if (as is often the case) something mystical and +transcendental be meant by this, something that is unknown to our poor +human world, or something spiritual and beatific, but not expressive, we +must reply that while applauding the conception of a beauty, free of all +that is not the spiritual form of expression, we are yet unable to +conceive a beauty altogether purified of expression, that is to say, +separated from itself. + + + + +XII + +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the aesthetic of the + sympathetic._ + +The doctrine of the sympathetic (very often animated and seconded in +this by the capricious metaphysical and mystical Aesthetic, and by that +blind tradition which assumes an intimate connection between things by +chance treated of together by the same authors and in the same books), +has introduced and rendered familiar in systems of Aesthetic, a series +of concepts, of which one example suffices to justify our resolute +expulsion of them from our own treatise. + +Their catalogue is long, not to say interminable: _tragic, comic, +sublime, pathetic, moving, sad, ridiculous, melancholy, tragi-comic, +humoristic, majestic, dignified, serious, grave, imposing, noble, +decorous, graceful, attractive, piquant, coquettish, idyllic, elegiac, +cheerful, violent, ingenuous, cruel, base, horrible, disgusting, +dreadful, nauseating_; the list can be increased at will. + +Since that doctrine took as its special object the sympathetic, it was +naturally unable to neglect any of the varieties of this, or any of the +combinations or gradations which lead at last from the sympathetic to +the antipathetic. And seeing that the sympathetic content was held to be +the _beautiful_ and the antipathetic the _ugly_, the varieties (tragic, +comic, sublime, pathetic, etc.) constituted for it the shades and +gradations intervening between the beautiful and the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of the + ugly surmounted._ + +Having enumerated and defined, as well as it could, the chief among +these varieties, the Aesthetic of the sympathetic set itself the problem +of the place to be assigned to the _ugly in art_. This problem is +without meaning for us, who do not recognize any ugliness save the +anti-aesthetic or inexpressive, which can never form part of the +aesthetic fact, being, on the contrary, its antithesis. But the question +for the doctrine which we are here criticizing was to reconcile in some +way the false and defective idea of art from which it started, reduced +to the representation of the agreeable, with effective art, which +occupies a far wider field. Hence the artificial attempt to settle what +examples of the ugly (antipathetic) could be admitted in artistic +representation, and for what reasons, and in what ways. + +The answer was: that the ugly is admissible, only when it can be +_overcome_, an unconquerable ugliness, such as the _disgusting_ or the +_nauseating_, being altogether excluded. Further, that the duty of the +ugly, when admitted in art, is to contribute towards heightening the +effect of the beautiful (sympathetic), by producing a series of +contrasts, from which the pleasurable shall issue more efficacious and +pleasure-giving. It is, in fact, a common observation that pleasure is +more vividly felt when It has been preceded by abstinence or by +suffering. Thus the ugly in art was looked upon as the servant of the +beautiful, its stimulant and condiment. + +That special theory of hedonistic refinement, which used to be pompously +called the _surmounting of the ugly_, falls with the general theory of +the sympathetic; and with it the enumeration and the definition of the +concepts mentioned above remain completely excluded from Aesthetic. For +Aesthetic does not recognize the sympathetic or the antipathetic In +their varieties, but only the spiritual activity of the representation. + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts belong to Psychology._ + +However, the large space which, as we have said, those concepts have +hitherto occupied in aesthetic treatises makes opportune a rather more +copious explanation of what they are. What will be their lot? As they +are excluded from Aesthetic, in what other part of Philosophy will they +be received? + +Truly, in none. All those concepts are without philosophical value. They +are nothing but a series of classes, which can be bent in the most +various ways and multiplied at pleasure, to which it is sought to reduce +the infinite complications and shadings of the values and disvalues of +life. Of those classes, there are some that have an especially positive +significance, like the beautiful, the sublime, the majestic, the solemn, +the serious, the weighty, the noble, the elevated; others have a +significance especially negative, like the ugly, the horrible, the +dreadful, the tremendous, the monstrous, the foolish, the extravagant; +in others prevails a mixed significance, as is the case with the comic, +the tender, the melancholy, the humorous, the tragi-comic. The +complications are infinite, because the individuations are infinite; +hence it is not possible to construct the concepts, save in the +arbitrary and approximate manner of the natural sciences, whose duty it +is to make as good a plan as possible of that reality which they cannot +exhaust by enumeration, nor understand and surpass speculatively. And +since _Psychology_ is the naturalistic discipline, which undertakes to +construct types and plans of the spiritual processes of man (of which, +in fact, it is always accentuating in our day the merely empirical and +descriptive character), these concepts do not appertain to Aesthetic, +nor, in general, to Philosophy. They must simply be handed over to +Psychology. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of rigoristic definitions of them._ + +As is the case with all other psychological constructions, so is it with +those concepts: no rigorous definitions are possible; and consequently +the one cannot be deduced from the other and they cannot be connected in +a system, as has, nevertheless, often been attempted, at great waste of +time and without result. But it can be claimed as possible to obtain, +apart from philosophical definitions recognised as impossible, empirical +definitions, universally acceptable as true. Since there does not exist +a unique definition of a given fact, but innumerable definitions can be +given of it, according to the cases and the objects for which they are +made, so it is clear that if there were only one, and that the true one, +this would no longer be an empirical, but a rigorous and philosophical +definition. Speaking exactly, every time that one of the terms to which +we have referred has been employed, or any other of the innumerable +series, a definition of it has at the same time been given, expressed or +understood. And each one of these definitions has differed somewhat from +the others, in some particular, perhaps of very small importance, such +as tacit reference to some individual fact or other, which thus became +especially an object of attention and was raised to the position of a +general type. So it happens that not one of such definitions satisfies +him who hears it, nor does it satisfy even him who constructs it. For, +the moment after, this same individual finds himself face to face with a +new case, for which he recognizes that his definition is more or less +insufficient, ill-adapted, and in need of remodelling. It is necessary, +therefore, to leave writers and speakers free to define the sublime or +the comic, the tragic or the humoristic, on every occasion, as they +please and as may seem suitable to their purpose. And if you insist upon +obtaining an empirical definition of universal validity, we can but +submit this one:--The sublime (comic, tragic, humoristic, etc.) is +_everything_ that is or will be so _called_ by those who have employed +or shall employ this _word_. + + [Sidenote] _Examples: definitions of the sublime, the comic, and + the humoristic._ + +What is the sublime? The unexpected affirmation of an ultra-powerful +moral force: that is one definition. But that other definition is +equally good, which also recognizes the sublime where the force which +declares itself is an ultra-powerful, but immoral and destructive will. +Both remain vague and assume no precise form, until they are applied to +a concrete case, which makes clear what is here meant by +_ultra-powerful_, and what by _unexpected_. They are quantitative +concepts, but falsely quantitative, since there is no way of measuring +them; they are, at bottom, metaphors, emphatic phrases, or logical +tautologies. The humorous will be laughter mingled with tears, bitter +laughter, the sudden passage from the comic to the tragic, and from the +tragic to the comic, the comic romantic, the inverted sublime, war +declared against every attempt at insincerity, compassion which is +ashamed to lament, the mockery not of the fact, but of the ideal itself; +and whatever else may better please, according as it is desired to get a +view of the physiognomy of this or that poet, of this or that poem, +which is, in its uniqueness, its own definition, and though momentary +and circumscribed, yet the sole adequate. The comic has been defined as +the displeasure arising from the perception of a deformity immediately +followed by a greater pleasure arising from the relaxation of our +psychical forces, which were strained in anticipation of a perception +whose importance was foreseen. While listening to a narrative, which, +for example, should describe the magnificent and heroic purpose of a +definite person, we anticipate in imagination the occurrence of an +action both heroic and magnificent, and we prepare ourselves to receive +it, by straining our psychic forces. If, however, in a moment, instead +of the magnificent and heroic action, which the premises and the tone of +the narrative had led us to expect, by an unexpected change there occur +a slight, mean, foolish action, unequal to our expectation, we have been +deceived, and the recognition of the deceit brings with it an instant of +displeasure. But this instant is as it were overcome by the one +immediately following, in which we are able to discard our strained +attention, to free ourselves from the provision of psychic energy +accumulated and, henceforth superfluous, to feel ourselves reasonable +and relieved of a burden. This is the pleasure of the comic, with its +physiological equivalent, laughter. If the unpleasant fact that has +occurred should painfully affect our interests, pleasure would not +arise, laughter would be at once choked, the psychic energy would be +strained and overstrained by other more serious perceptions. If, on the +other hand, such more serious perceptions do not arise, if the whole +loss be limited to a slight deception of our foresight, then the +supervening feeling of our psychic wealth affords ample compensation for +this very slight displeasure.--This, stated in a few words, is one of +the most accurate modern definitions of the comic. It boasts of +containing, justified or corrected, the manifold attempts to define the +comic, from Hellenic antiquity to our own day. It includes Plato's +dictum in the _Philebus_, and Aristotle's, which is more explicit. The +latter looks upon the comic as an _ugliness without pain_. It contains +the theory of Hobbes, who placed it in the feeling of _individual +superiority_; of Kant, who saw in it a _relaxation of tension_; and +those of other thinkers, for whom it was _the contrast between great and +small, between the finite and the infinite_. But on close observation, +the analysis and definition above given, although most elaborate and +rigorous in appearance, yet enunciates characteristics which are +applicable, not only to the comic, but to every spiritual process; such +as the succession of painful and agreeable moments and the satisfaction +arising from the consciousness of force and of its free development. The +differentiation here given is that of quantitative determinations, to +which limits cannot be assigned. They remain vague phrases, attaining to +some meaning from their reference to this or that single comic fact. If +such definitions be taken too seriously, there happens to them what Jean +Paul Richter said of all the definitions of the comic: namely, that +their sole merit is _to be themselves comic_ and to produce, in reality, +the fact, which they vainly try to define logically. And who will ever +determine logically the dividing line between the comic and the +non-comic, between smiles and laughter, between smiling and gravity; who +will cut into clearly divided parts that ever-varying continuity into +which life melts? + + [Sidenote] _Relations between those concepts and aesthetic concepts._ + +The facts, classified as well as possible in the above-quoted +psychological concepts, bear no relation to the artistic fact, beyond +the generic that all of them, in so far as they designate the material +of life, can be represented by art; and the other accidental relation, +that aesthetic facts also may sometimes enter into the processes +described, as in the impression of the sublime that the work of a +Titanic artist such as Dante or Shakespeare may produce, and that of the +comic produced by the effort of a dauber or of a scribbler. + +The process is external to the aesthetic fact In this case also; for the +only feeling linked with that is the feeling of aesthetic value and +disvalue, of the beautiful and of the ugly. The Dantesque Farinata is +aesthetically beautiful, and nothing but beautiful: if, in addition, the +force of will of this personage appear sublime, or the expression that +Dante gives him, by reason of his great genius, seem sublime by +comparison with that of a less energetic poet, all this is not a matter +for aesthetic consideration. This consists always and only in adequation +to truth; that is, in beauty. + + + + +XIII + +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic activity and physical concepts._ + +Aesthetic activity is distinct from practical activity but when it +expresses itself is always physical accompanied by practical activity. +Hence its utilitarian or hedonistic side, and the pleasure and pain, +which are, as it were, the practical echo of aesthetic values and +disvalues, of the beautiful and of the ugly. But this practical side of +the aesthetic activity has also, in its turn, a _physical_ or +_psychophysical_ accompaniment, which consists of sounds, tones, +movements, combinations of lines and colours, and so on. + +Does it _really_ possess this side, or does it only seem to possess it, +as the result of the construction which we raise in physical science, +and of the useful and arbitrary methods, which we have shown to be +proper to the empirical and abstract sciences? Our reply cannot be +doubtful, that is, it cannot be affirmative as to the first of the two +hypotheses. + +However, it will be better to leave it at this point in suspense, for it +is not at present necessary to prosecute this line of inquiry any +further. The mention already made must suffice to prevent our having +spoken of the physical element as of something objective and existing, +for reasons of simplicity and adhesion to ordinary language, from +leading to hasty conclusions as to the concepts and the connexion +between spirit and nature. + + [Sidenote] _Expression in the aesthetic sense, and expression in + the naturalistic sense._ + +It is important to make clear that as the existence of the hedonistic +side in every spiritual activity has given rise to the confusion between +the aesthetic activity and the useful or pleasurable, so the existence, +or, better, the possibility of constructing this physical side, has +generated the confusion between _aesthetic_ expression and expression +_in the naturalistic sense_; between a spiritual fact, that is to say, +and a mechanical and passive fact (not to say, between a concrete +reality and an abstraction or fiction). In common speech, sometimes it +is the words of the poet that are called _expressions_, the notes of the +musician, or the figures of the painter; sometimes the blush which is +wont to accompany the feeling of shame, the pallor resulting from fear, +the grinding of the teeth proper to violent anger, the glittering of the +eyes, and certain movements of the muscles of the mouth, which reveal +cheerfulness. A certain degree of heat is also said to be the +_expression_ of fever, as the falling of the barometer is of rain, and +even that the height of the rate of exchange _expresses_ the discredit +of the paper-money of a State, or social discontent the approach of a +revolution. One can well imagine what sort of scientific results would +be attained by allowing oneself to be governed by linguistic usage and +placing in one sheaf facts so widely different. But there is, in fact, +an abyss between a man who is the prey of anger with all its natural +manifestations, and another man who expresses it aesthetically; between +the aspect, the cries, and the contortions of one who is tortured with +sorrow at the loss of a dear one, and the words or song with which the +same individual portrays his torture at another moment; between the +distortion of emotion and the gesture of the actor. Darwin's book on the +expression of the feelings in man and animals does not belong to +Aesthetic; because there is nothing in common between the science of +spiritual expression and a _Semiotic_, whether it be medical, +meteorological, political, physiognomic, or chiromantic. + +Expression in the naturalistic sense simply lacks expression in the +spiritual sense, that is to say, the characteristic itself of activity +and of spirituality, and therefore the bipartition into poles of beauty +and of ugliness. It is nothing more than a relation between cause and +effect, fixed by the abstract intellect. The complete process of +aesthetic production can be symbolized in four steps, which are: _a_, +impressions; _b_, expression or spiritual aesthetic synthesis; _c_, +hedonistic accompaniment, or pleasure of the beautiful (aesthetic +pleasure); _d_, translation of the aesthetic fact into physical +phenomena (sounds, tones, movements, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.). Anyone can see that the capital point, the only one that is +properly speaking aesthetic and truly real, is in that _b_, which is +lacking to the mere manifestation or naturalistic construction, +metaphorically also called expression. + +The expressive process is exhausted when those four steps have been +taken. It begins again with new impressions, a new aesthetic synthesis, +and relative accompaniments. + + [Sidenote] _Intuitions and memory._ + +Expressions or representations follow and expel one another. Certainly, +this passing away, this disassociation, is not perishing, it is not +total elimination: nothing of what is born dies with that complete death +which would be identical with never having been born. Though all things +pass away, yet none can die. The representations which we have +forgotten, also persist in some way in our spirit, for without them we +could not explain acquired habits and capacities. Thus, the strength of +life lies in this apparent forgetting: one forgets what has been +absorbed and what life has superseded. + +But many other things, many other representations, are still efficacious +elements in the actual processes of our spirit; and it is incumbent on +us not to forget them, or to be capable of recalling them when necessity +demands them. The will is always vigilant in this work of preservation, +for it aims at preserving (so to say) the greater and more fundamental +part of all our riches. Certainly its vigilance is not always +sufficient. Memory, we know, leaves or betrays us in various ways. For +this very reason, the vigilant will excogitates expedients, which help +memory in its weakness, and are its _aids_. + + [Sidenote] _The production of aids to memory._ + +We have already explained how these aids are possible. Expressions or +representations are, at the same time, practical facts, which are also +called physical facts, in so far as to the physical belongs the task of +classifying them and reducing them to types. Now it is clear, that if we +can succeed in making those facts in some way permanent, it will always +be possible (other conditions remaining equal) to reproduce in us, by +perceiving it, the already produced expression or intuition. + +If that in which the practical concomitant acts, or (to use physical +terms) the movements have been isolated and made in some sort permanent, +be called the object or physical stimulus, and if it be designated by +the letter _e_; then the process of reproduction will take place in the +following order: _e_, the physical stimulus; _d-b_, perceptions of +physical facts (sounds, tones, mimic, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.), which form together the aesthetic synthesis, already produced; +_c_, the hedonistic accompaniment, which is also reproduced. + +And what are those combinations of words which are called poetry, prose, +poems, novels, romances, tragedies or comedies, but _physical stimulants +of reproduction_ (the _e_ stage); what are those combinations of sound +which are called operas, symphonies, sonatas; and what those of lines +and of colours, which are called pictures, statues, architecture? The +spiritual energy of memory, with the assistance of those physical facts +above mentioned, makes possible the preservation and the reproduction of +the intuitions produced, often so laboriously, by ourselves and by +others. If the physiological organism, and with it memory, become +weakened; if the monuments of art be destroyed; then all the aesthetic +wealth, the fruit of the labours of many generations, becomes lessened +and rapidly disappears. + + [Sidenote] _The physically beautiful._ + +Monuments of art, which are the stimulants of aesthetic reproduction, +are called _beautiful things or the physically beautiful_. This +combination of words constitutes a verbal paradox, because the beautiful +is not a physical fact; it does not belong to things, but to the +activity of man, to spiritual energy. But henceforth it is clear through +what wanderings and what abbreviations, physical things and facts, which +are simply aids to the reproduction of the beautiful, end by being +called, elliptically, beautiful things and physically beautiful. And now +that we have made the existence of this ellipse clear, we shall +ourselves make use of it without hesitation. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning._ + +The intervention of the physically beautiful serves to explain another +meaning of the words _content and form_, as employed by aestheticians. +Some call "content" the internal fact or expression (which is for us +already form), and they call "form" the marble, the colours, the rhythm, +the sounds (for us form no longer); thus they look upon the physical +fact as the form, which may or may not be joined to the content. This +serves to explain another aspect of what is called aesthetic ugliness. +He who has nothing definite to express may try to hide his internal +emptiness with a flood of words, with sounding verse, with deafening +polyphony, with painting that dazzles the eye, or by collocating great +architectonic masses, which arrest and disturb, although, at bottom, +they convey nothing. Ugliness, then, is the arbitrary, the +charlatanesque; and, in reality, if the practical will do not intervene +in the theoretic function, there may be absence of beauty, but never +effective presence of the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Natural and artificial beauty._ + +Physical beauty is wont to be divided into _natural_ and _artificial_ +beauty. Thus we reach one of the facts, which has given great labour to +thinkers: _the beautiful in nature_. These words often designate simply +facts of practical pleasure. He alludes to nothing aesthetic who calls a +landscape beautiful where the eye rests upon verdure, where bodily +motion is easy, and where the warm sun-ray envelops and caresses the +limbs. But it is nevertheless indubitable, that on other occasions the +adjective "beautiful," applied to objects and scenes existing in nature, +has a completely aesthetic signification. + +It has been observed, that in order to enjoy natural objects +aesthetically, we should withdraw them from their external and +historical reality, and separate their simple appearance or origin from +existence; that if we contemplate a landscape with our head between our +legs, in such a way as to remove ourselves from our wonted relations +with it, the landscape appears as an ideal spectacle; that nature is +beautiful only for him who contemplates her _with the eye of the +artist_; that zoologists and botanists do not recognize beautiful +animals and flowers; that natural beauty is _discovered_ (and examples +of discovery are the points of view, pointed out by men of taste and +imagination, and to which more or less aesthetic travellers and +excursionists afterwards have recourse in pilgrimage, whence a more or +less collective _suggestion_); that, _without the aid of the +imagination_, no part of nature is beautiful, and that with such aid the +same natural object or fact is now expressive, according to the +disposition of the soul, now insignificant, now expressive of one +definite thing, now of another, sad or glad, sublime or ridiculous, +sweet or laughable; finally, that _natural beauty_, which an artist +would not _to some extent correct, does not exist_. + +All these observations are most just, and confirm the fact that natural +beauty is simply a _stimulus_ to aesthetic reproduction, which +presupposes previous production. Without preceding aesthetic intuitions +of the imagination, nature cannot arouse any at all. As regards natural +beauty, man is like the mythical Narcissus at the fountain. They show +further that since this stimulus is accidental, it is, for the most +part, imperfect or equivocal. Leopardi said that natural beauty is +"rare, scattered, and fugitive." Every one refers the natural fact to +the expression which is in his mind. One artist is, as it were, carried +away by a laughing landscape, another by a rag-shop, another by the +pretty face of a young girl, another by the squalid countenance of an +old ruffian. Perhaps the first will say that the rag-shop and the ugly +face of the old ruffian are _disgusting_; the second, that the laughing +landscape and the face of the young girl are _insipid_. They may dispute +for ever; but they will never agree, save when they have supplied +themselves with a sufficient dose of aesthetic knowledge, which will +enable them to recognize that they are both right. _Artificial_ beauty, +created by man, is a much more ductile and efficacious aid to +reproduction. + + [Sidenote] _Mixed beauty._ + +In addition to these two classes, aestheticians also sometimes talk in +their treatises of a _mixed_ beauty. Of what is it a mixture? Just of +natural and artificial. Whoso fixes and externalizes, operates with +natural materials, which he does not create, but combines and +transforms. In this sense, every artificial product is a mixture of +nature and artifice; and there would be no occasion to speak of a mixed +beauty, as of a special category. But it happens that, in certain cases, +combinations already given in nature can be used a great deal more than +in others; as, for instance, when we design a beautiful garden and +include in our design groups of trees or ponds which are already there. +On other occasions externalization is limited by the impossibility of +producing certain effects artificially. Thus we may mix the colouring +matters, but we cannot create a powerful voice or a personage and an +appearance appropriate to this or that personage of a drama. We must +therefore seek for them among things already existing, and make use of +them when we find them. When, therefore, we adopt a great number of +combinations already existing in nature, such as we should not be able +to produce artificially if they did not exist, the result is called +_mixed_ beauty. + + [Sidenote] _Writings._ + +We must distinguish from artificial beauty those instruments of +reproduction called _writings_, such as alphabets, musical notes, +hieroglyphics, and all pseudo-languages, from the language of flowers +and flags, to the language of patches (so much the vogue in the society +of the eighteenth century). Writings are not physical facts which arouse +directly impressions answering to aesthetic expressions; they are simple +_indications_ of what must be done in order to produce such physical +facts. A series of graphic signs serves to remind us of the movements +which we must execute with our vocal apparatus in order to emit certain +definite sounds. If, through practice, we become able to hear the words +without opening our mouths and (what is much more difficult) to hear the +sounds by running the eye down the page of the music, all this does not +alter anything of the nature of the writings, which are altogether +different from direct physical beauty. No one calls the book which +contains the _Divine Comedy_, or the portfolio which contains _Don +Giovanni_, beautiful in the same sense as the block of marble which +contains Michael Angelo's _Moses_, or the piece of coloured wood which +contains the _Transfiguration_ are metaphorically called beautiful. Both +serve for the reproduction of the beautiful, but the former by a far +longer and far more indirect route than the latter. + + [Sidenote] _The beautiful as free and not free._ + +Another division of the beautiful, which is still found in treatises, is +that into _free and not free_. By beauties that are not free, are +understood those objects which have to serve a double purpose, +extra-aesthetic and aesthetic (stimulants of intuitions); and since it +appears that the first purpose limits and impedes the second, the +beautiful object resulting therefrom has been considered as a beauty +that is not free. + +Architectural works are especially cited; and precisely for this reason, +has architecture often been excluded from the number of the so-called +fine arts. A temple must be above all things adapted to the use of a +cult; a house must contain all the rooms requisite for commodity of +living, and they must be arranged with a view to this commodity; a +fortress must be a construction capable of resisting the attacks of +certain armies and the blows of certain instruments of war. It is +therefore held that the architect's field is limited: he may be able to +_embellish_ to some extent the temple, the house, the fortress; but his +hands are bound by the _object_ of these buildings, and he can only +manifest that part of his vision of beauty in their construction which +does not impair their extrinsic, but fundamental, objects. + +Other examples are taken from what is called art applied to industry. +Plates, glasses, knives, guns, and combs can be made beautiful; but it +is held that their beauty must not so far exceed as to prevent our +eating from the plate, drinking from the glass, cutting with the knife, +firing off the gun, or combing one's hair with the comb. The same is +said of the art of printing: a book should be beautiful, but not to the +extent of its being difficult or impossible to read it. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful that is not free._ + +In respect to all this, we must observe, in the first place, that the +external purpose, precisely because it is such, does not of necessity +limit or trammel the other purpose of being a stimulus to aesthetic +reproduction. Nothing, therefore, can be more erroneous than the thesis +that architecture, for example, is by its nature not free and imperfect, +since it must also fulfil other practical objects. Beautiful +architectural works, however, themselves undertake to deny this by their +simple presence. + +In the second place, not only are the two objects not necessarily in +opposition; but, we must add, the artist always has the means of +preventing this contradiction from taking place. In what way? By taking, +as the material of his intuition and aesthetic externalization, +precisely the _destination_ of the object, which serves a practical end. +He will not need to add anything to the object, in order to make it the +instrument of aesthetic intuitions: it will be so, if perfectly adapted +to its practical purpose. Rustic dwellings and palaces, churches and +barracks, swords and ploughs, are beautiful, not in so far as they are +embellished and adorned, but in so far as they express the purpose for +which they were made. A garment is only beautiful because it is quite +suitable to a given person in given conditions. The sword bound to the +side of the warrior Rinaldo by the amorous Armida was not beautiful: "so +adorned that it seemed a useless ornament, not the warlike instrument of +a warrior." It was beautiful, if you will, in the eyes and imagination +of the sorceress, who loved her lover in this effeminate way. The +aesthetic fact can always accompany the practical fact, because +expression is truth. + +It cannot, however, be denied that aesthetic contemplation sometimes +hinders practical use. For instance, it is a quite common experience to +find certain new things so well adapted to their purpose, and yet so +beautiful, that people occasionally feel scruples in maltreating them by +using after contemplating them, which amounts to consuming them. It was +for this reason that King Frederick William of Prussia evinced +repugnance to ordering his magnificent grenadiers, so well suited for +war, to endure the strain of battle; but his less aesthetic son, +Frederick the Great, obtained from them excellent services. + + [Sidenote] _The stimulants of production._ + +It might be objected to the explanation of the physically beautiful as a +simple adjunct for the reproduction of the internally beautiful, that is +to say, of expressions, that the artist creates his expressions by +painting or by sculpturing, by writing or by composing, and that +therefore the physically beautiful, instead of following, sometimes +precedes the aesthetically beautiful. This would be a somewhat +superficial mode of understanding the procedure of the artist, who never +makes a stroke with his brush without having previously seen it with his +imagination; and if he has not yet seen it, he will make the stroke, not +in order to externalize his expression (which does not yet exist), but +as though to have a rallying point for ulterior meditation and for +internal concentration. The physical point on which he leans is not the +physically beautiful, instrument of reproduction, but what may be called +a pedagogic means, similar to retiring into solitude, or to the many +other expedients, frequently very strange, adopted by artists and +philosophers, who vary in these according to their various +idiosyncrasies. The old aesthetician Baumgarten advised poets to ride on +horseback, as a means of inspiration, to drink wine in moderation, and +(provided they were chaste) to look at beautiful women. + + + + +XIV + +MISTAKES ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + + +It is necessary to mention a series of scientific mistakes which have +arisen from the failure to understand the purely external relation +between the aesthetic fact or artistic vision, and the physical fact or +instrument, which serves as an aid to reproduce it. We must here +indicate the proper criticism, which derives from what has already been +said. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic associationism_ + +That form of associationism which identifies the aesthetic fact with the +_association of two_ images finds a place among these errors. By what +path has it been possible to arrive at such a mistake, against which our +aesthetic consciousness, which is a consciousness of perfect unity, +never of duality, rebels? Just because the physical and the aesthetic +facts have been considered separately, as two distinct images, which +enter the spirit, the one drawn forth from the other, the one first and +the other afterwards. A picture is divided into the image of the +_picture_ and the image of the _meaning_ of the picture; a poem, into +the image of the words and the image of the _meaning_ of the words. But +this dualism of images is non-existent: the physical fact does not enter +the spirit as an image, but causes the reproduction of the image (the +only image, which is the aesthetic fact), in so far as it blindly +stimulates the psychic organism and produces an impression answering to +the aesthetic expression already produced. + +The efforts of the associationists (the usurpers of to-day in the field +of Aesthetic) to emerge from the difficulty, and to reaffirm in some way +the unity which has been destroyed by their principle of associationism, +are highly instructive. Some maintain that the image called back again +is unconscious; others, leaving unconsciousness alone, hold that, on the +contrary, it is vague, vaporous, confused, thus reducing the _force_ of +the aesthetic fact to the _weakness_ of bad memory. But the dilemma is +inexorable: either keep association and give up unity, or keep unity and +give up association. No third way out of the difficulty exists. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic physic._ + +From the failure to analyze so-called natural beauty thoroughly, and to +recognize that it is simply an incident of aesthetic reproduction, and +from having, on the contrary, looked upon it as given in nature, is +derived all that portion of treatises upon Aesthetic which is entitled +_The Beautiful in Nature or Aesthetic Physic_; sometimes even +subdivided, save the mark! into Aesthetic Mineralogy, Botany, and +Zoology. We do not wish to deny that such treatises contain many just +remarks, and are sometimes themselves works of art, in so far as they +represent beautifully the imaginings and fantasies, that is the +impressions, of their authors. But we must state that it is +scientifically false to ask oneself if the dog be beautiful, and the +ornithorhynchus ugly; if the lily be beautiful, and the artichoke ugly. +Indeed, the error is here double. On one hand, aesthetic Physic falls +back into the equivoke of the theory of artistic and literary classes, +by attempting to determine aesthetically the abstractions of our +intellect; on the other, fails to recognize, as we said, the true +formation of so-called natural beauty; for which the question as to +whether some given individual animal, flower, or man be beautiful or +ugly, is altogether excluded. What is not produced by the aesthetic +spirit, or cannot be referred to it, is neither beautiful nor ugly. The +aesthetic process arises from the ideal relations in which natural +objects are arranged. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body._ + +The double error can be exemplified by the question, upon which whole +volumes have been written, as to the _Beauty of the human body_. Here it +is necessary, above all things, to urge those who discuss this subject +from the abstract toward the concrete, by asking: "What do you mean by +the human body, that of the male, of the female, or of the androgyne?" +Let us assume that they reply by dividing the inquiry into two distinct +inquiries, as to the virile and feminine beauty (there really are +writers who seriously discuss whether man or woman is the more +beautiful); and let us continue: "Masculine or feminine beauty; but of +what race of men--the white, the yellow, or the black, and whatever +others there may be, according to the division of races?" Let us assume +that they limit themselves to the white race, and let us continue: "What +sub-species of the white race?" And when we have restricted them +gradually to one section of the white world, that is to say, to the +Italian, Tuscan, Siennese, or Porta Camollia section, we will continue: +"Very good; but at what age of the human body, and in what condition and +state of development--that of the new-born babe, of the child, of the +boy, of the adolescent, of the man of middle age, and so on? and is the +man at rest or at work, or is he occupied as is Paul Potter's cow, or +the Ganymede of Rembrandt?" + +Having thus arrived, by successive reductions, at the individual +_omnimode determinatum_, or, better, at the man pointed out with the +finger, it will be easy to expose the other error, by recalling what has +been said about the natural fact, which is now beautiful, now ugly, +according to the point of view, according to what is passing in the mind +of the artist. Finally, if the Gulf of Naples have its detractors, and +if there be artists who declare it inexpressive, preferring the "gloomy +firs," the "clouds and perpetual north winds," of the northern seas; let +it be believed, if possible, that such relativity does not exist for the +human body, source of the most various suggestions! + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beauty of geometric figures._ + +The question of the _beauty of geometrical figures_ is connected with +aesthetic Physic. But if by geometrical figures be understood the +concepts of geometry, the concept of the triangle, the square, the cone, +these are neither beautiful nor ugly: they are concepts. If, on the +other hand, by such figures be understood bodies which possess definite +geometrical forms, these will be ugly or beautiful, like every natural +fact, according to the ideal connexions in which they are placed. Some +hold that those geometrical figures are beautiful which point upwards, +since they give the suggestion of firmness and of force. It is not +denied that such may be the case. But neither must it be denied that +those also which give the impression of instability and of being crushed +down may possess their beauty, where they represent just the ill-formed +and the crushed; and that in these last cases the firmness of the +straight line and the lightness of the cone or of the equilateral +triangle would, on the contrary, seem elements of ugliness. + +Certainly, such questions as to the beauty of nature and the beauty of +geometry, like the others analogous of the historically beautiful and of +human beauty, seem less absurd in the Aesthetic of the sympathetic, +which means, at bottom, by the words "aesthetic beauty" the +representation of what is pleasing. But the pretension to determine +scientifically what are the sympathetic contents, and what are the +irremediably antipathetic, is none the less erroneous, even in the +sphere of that doctrine and after the laying down of those premises. One +can only answer such questions by repeating with an infinitely long +postscript the _Sunt quos_ of the first ode of the first book of Horace, +and the _Havvi chi_ of Leopardi's letter to Carlo Pepoli. To each man +his beautiful ( = sympathetic), as to each man his fair one. Philography +is not a science. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of another aspect of the imitation of nature._ + +The artist sometimes has naturally existing facts before him, in +producing the artificial instrument, or physically beautiful. These are +called his _models_: bodies, stuffs, flowers, and so on. Let us run over +the sketches, the studies, and the notes of the artists: Leonardo noted +down in his pocket-book, when he was working on the Last Supper: +"Giovannina, fantastic appearance, is at St. Catherine's, at the +Hospital; Cristofano di Castiglione is at the Pietà, he has a fine head; +Christ, Giovan Conte, is of the suite of Cardinal Mortaro." And so on. +From this comes the illusion that the artist _imitates nature_; when it +would perhaps be more exact to say that nature imitates the artist, and +obeys him. The theory that _art imitates nature_ has sometimes been +grounded upon and found sustenance in this illusion, as also its +variant, more easily to be defended, which makes art the _idealizer of +nature_. This last theory presents the process in a disorderly manner, +indeed inversely to the true order; for the artist does not proceed from +extrinsic reality, in order to modify it by approaching it to the ideal; +but he proceeds from the impression of external nature to expression, +that is to say, to his ideal, and from this he passes to the natural +fact, which he employs as the instrument of reproduction of the ideal +fact. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of the + beautiful._ + +Another consequence of the confusion between the aesthetic and the +physical fact is the theory of the _elementary forms of the beautiful_. +If expression, if the beautiful, be indivisible, the physical fact, in +which it externalizes itself, can well be divided and subdivided; for +example, a painted surface, into lines and colours, groups and curves of +lines, kinds of colours, and so on; a poem, into strophes, verses, feet, +syllables; a piece of prose, into chapters, paragraphs, headings, +periods, phrases, words, and so on. The parts thus obtained are not +aesthetic facts, but smaller physical facts, cut up in an arbitrary +manner. If this path were followed, and the confusion persisted in, we +should end by concluding that the true forms of the beautiful are +_atoms_. + +The aesthetic law, several times promulgated, that beauty must have +_bulk_, could be invoked against the atoms. It cannot be the +imperceptibility of the too small, nor the unapprehensibility of the too +large. But a bigness which depends upon perceptibility, not measurement, +derives from a concept widely different from the mathematical. For what +is called imperceptible and incomprehensible does not produce an +impression, because it is not a real fact, but a concept: the requisite +of bulk in the beautiful is thus reduced to the effective reality of the +physical fact, which serves for the reproduction of the beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the search for the objective conditions of + the beautiful._ + +Continuing the search for the _physical laws_ or for the _objective +conditions of the beautiful_, it has been asked: To what physical facts +does the beautiful correspond? To what the ugly? To what unions of +tones, colours, sizes, mathematically determinable? Such inquiries are +as if in Political Economy one were to seek for the laws of exchange in +the physical nature of the objects exchanged. The constant infecundity +of the attempt should have at once given rise to some suspicion as to +its vanity. In our times, especially, has the necessity for an +_inductive_ Aesthetic been often proclaimed, of an Aesthetic starting +_from below_, which should proceed like natural science and not hasten +its conclusions. Inductive? But Aesthetic has always been both inductive +and deductive, like every philosophical science; induction and deduction +cannot be separated, nor can they separately avail to characterize a +true science. But the word "inductive" was not here pronounced +accidentally and without special intention. It was wished to imply by +its use that the aesthetic fact is nothing, at bottom, but a physical +fact, which should be studied by applying to it the methods proper to +the physical and natural sciences. With such a presupposition and in +such a faith did inductive Aesthetic or Aesthetic of the inferior (what +pride in this modesty!) begin its labours. It has conscientiously begun +by making a collection of _beautiful things_, for example of a great +number of envelopes of various shapes and sizes, and has asked which of +these give the impression of the beautiful and which of the ugly. As was +to be expected, the inductive aestheticians speedily found themselves in +a difficulty, for the same objects that appeared ugly in one aspect +would appear beautiful in another. A yellow, coarse envelope, which +would be extremely ugly for the purpose of enclosing a love-letter, is, +however, just what is wanted for a writ served by process on stamped +paper. This in its turn would look very bad, or seem at any rate an +irony, if enclosed in a square English envelope. Such considerations of +simple common sense should have sufficed to convince inductive +aestheticians, that the beautiful has no physical existence, and cause +them to remit their vain and ridiculous quest. But no: they have had +recourse to an expedient, as to which we would find it difficult to say +how far it belongs to natural science. They have sent their envelopes +round from one to the other and opened a _referendum_, thus striving to +decide by the votes of the majority in what consists the beautiful and +the ugly. + +We will not waste time over this argument, because we should seem to be +turning ourselves into narrators of comic anecdotes rather than +expositors of aesthetic science and of its problems. It is an actual +fact, that the inductive aestheticians have not yet discovered _one +single law_. + + [Sidenote] _Astrology of Aesthetic._ + +He who dispenses with doctors is prone to abandon himself to charlatans. +Thus it has befallen those who have believed in the natural laws of the +beautiful. Artists sometimes adopt empirical canons, such as that of the +proportions of the human body, or of the golden section, that is to say, +of a line divided into two parts in such a manner that the less is to +the greater as is the greater to the whole line (_bc: ac=ac: ab_). Such +canons easily become their superstitions, and they attribute to such the +success of their works. Thus Michael Angelo left as a precept to his +disciple Marco del Pino of Siena that "he should always make a pyramidal +serpentine figure multiplied by one, two, three," a precept which did +not enable Marco di Siena to emerge from that mediocrity which we can +yet observe in his many works, here in Naples. Others extracted from the +sayings of Michael Angelo the precept that serpentine undulating lines +were the true _lines of beauty_. Whole volumes have been composed on +these laws of beauty, on the golden section and on the undulating and +serpentine lines. These should in our opinion be looked upon as the +_astrology of Aesthetic_. + + + + +XV + +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION, TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + + + [Sidenote] _The practical activity of externalization._ + +The fact of the production of the physically beautiful implies, as has +already been remarked, a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing +certain visions, intuitions, or representations, to be lost. Such a will +must be able to act with the utmost rapidity, and as it were +instinctively, and also be capable of long and laborious deliberations. +Thus and only thus does the practical activity enter into relations with +the aesthetic, that is to say, in effecting the production of physical +objects, which are aids to memory. Here it is not merely a concomitant, +but really a distinct moment of the aesthetic activity. We cannot will +or not will our aesthetic vision: we can, however, will or not will to +externalize it, or better, to preserve and communicate, or not, to +others, the externalization produced. + + [Sidenote] _The technique of externalization._ + +This volitional fact of externalization is preceded by a complex of +various kinds of knowledge. These are known as _techniques_, like all +knowledge which precedes the practical activity. Thus we talk of an +artistic technique in the same metaphorical and elliptic manner that we +talk of the physically beautiful, that is to say (in more precise +language), _knowledge employed by the practical activity engaged in +producing stimuli to aesthetic reproduction_. In place of employing so +lengthy a phrase, we shall here avail ourselves of the vulgar +terminology, since we are henceforward aware of its true meaning. + +The possibility of this technical knowledge, at the service of artistic +reproduction, has caused people to imagine the existence of an aesthetic +technique of internal expression, which is tantamount to saying, _a +doctrine of the means of internal expression_, which is altogether +inconceivable. And we know well the reason why it is inconceivable; +expression, considered in itself, is primary theoretic activity, and, in +so far as it is this, it precedes the practical activity and the +intellectual knowledge which illumines the practical activity, and is +thus independent alike of the one and of the other. It also helps to +illumine the practical activity, but is not illuminated by it. +Expression does not employ _means_, because it has not an _end_; it has +intuitions of things, but does not will them, and is thus indivisible +into means and end. Thus if it be said, as sometimes is the case, that a +certain writer has invented a new technique of fiction or of drama, or +that a painter has discovered a new mode of distribution of light, the +word is used in a false sense; because the so-called _new technique is +really that romance itself, or that new picture_ itself. The +distribution of light belongs to the vision itself of the picture; as +the technique of a dramatist is his dramatic conception itself. On other +occasions, the word "technique" is used to designate certain merits or +defects in a work which is a failure; and it is said, euphemistically, +that the conception is bad, but the technique good, or that the +conception is good, and the technique bad. + +On the other hand, when the different ways of painting in oils, or of +etching, or of sculpturing in alabaster, are discussed, then the word +"technique" is in its place; but in such a case the adjective "artistic" +is used metaphorically. And if a dramatic technique in the artistic +sense be impossible, a theatrical technique is not impossible, that is +to say, processes of externalization of certain given aesthetic works. +When, for instance, women were introduced on the stage in Italy in the +second half of the sixteenth century, in place of men dressed as women, +this was a true and real discovery in theatrical technique; such too was +the perfecting in the following century by the impresarios of Venice, of +machines for the rapid changing of the scenes. + + [Sidenote] _The theoretic techniques of the individual arts._ + +The collection of technical knowledge at the service of artists desirous +of externalizing their expressions, can be divided into groups, which +may be entitled _theories of the arts_. Thus is born a theory of +Architecture, comprising mechanical laws, information relating to the +weight or to the resistance of the materials of construction or of +fortification, manuals relating to the method of mixing chalk or stucco; +a theory of Sculpture, containing advice as to the instruments to be +used for sculpturing the various sorts of stone, for obtaining a +successful fusion of bronze, for working with the chisel, for the exact +copying of the model in chalk or plaster, for keeping chalk damp; a +theory of Painting, on the various techniques of tempera, of +oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportions of the +human body, on the laws of perspective; a theory of Oratory, with +precepts as to the method of producing, of exercising and of +strengthening the voice, of mimic and gesture; a theory of Music, on the +combinations and fusions of tones and sounds; and so on. Such +collections of precepts abound in all literatures. And since it soon +becomes impossible to say what is useful and what useless to know, books +of this sort become very often a sort of encyclopaedias or catalogues of +desiderata. Vitruvius, in his treatise on Architecture, claims for the +architect a knowledge of letters, of drawing, of geometry, of +arithmetic, of optic, of history, of natural and moral philosophy, of +jurisprudence, of medicine, of astrology, of music, and so on. +Everything is worth knowing: learn the art and lay it aside. + +It should be evident that such empirical collections are not reducible +to a science. They are composed of notions, taken from various sciences +and teachings, and their philosophical and scientific principles are to +be found in them. To undertake the construction of a scientific theory +of the different arts, would be to wish to reduce to the single and +homogeneous what is by nature multiple and heterogeneous; to wish to +destroy the existence as a collection of what was put together precisely +to form a collection. Were we to give a scientific form to the manuals +of the architect, the painter, or the musician, it is clear that nothing +would remain in our hands but the general principles of Mechanic, Optic, +or Acoustic. Or if the especially artistic observations disseminated +through it be extracted and isolated, and a science be made of them, +then the sphere of the individual art is deserted and that of Aesthetic +entered upon, for Aesthetic is always general Aesthetic, or better, it +cannot be divided into general and special. This last case (that is, the +attempt to furnish a technique of Aesthetic) is found, when men +possessing strong scientific instincts and a natural tendency to +philosophy, set themselves to work to produce such theories and +technical manuals. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the aesthetic theories of the individual + arts._ + +But the confusion between Physic and Aesthetic has attained to its +highest degree, when aesthetic theories of the different arts are +imagined, to answer such questions as: What are the _limits_ of each +art? What can be represented with colours, and what with sounds? What +with simple monochromatic lines, and what with touches of various +colours? What with notes, and what with metres and rhymes? What are the +limits between the figurative and the auditional arts, between painting +and sculpture, poetry and music? + +This, translated into scientific language, is tantamount to asking: What +is the connexion between Acoustic and aesthetic expression? What between +the latter and Optic?--and the like. Now, if _there is no passage_ from +the physical fact to the aesthetic, how could there be from the +aesthetic to particular groups of aesthetic facts, such as the phenomena +of Optic or of Acoustic? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the classifications of the arts._ + +The things called _Arts_ have no aesthetic limits, because, in order to +have them, they would need to have also aesthetic existence; and we have +demonstrated the altogether empirical genesis of those divisions. +Consequently, any attempt at an aesthetic classification of the arts is +absurd. If they be without limits, they are not exactly determinable, +and consequently cannot be philosophically classified. All the books +dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned +without any loss whatever. (We say this with the utmost respect to the +writers who have expended their labours upon them.) + +The impossibility of such classifications finds, as it were, its proof +in the strange methods to which recourse has been had to carry them out. +The first and most common classification is that into arts of _hearing, +sight_, and _imagination_; as if eyes, ears, and imagination were on the +same level, and could be deduced from the same logical variable, as +foundation of the division. Others have proposed the division into arts +of _space and time_, and arts of _rest_ and _motion_; as if the concepts +of space, time, rest, and motion could determine special aesthetic +forms, or have anything in common with art as such. Finally, others have +amused themselves by dividing them into _classic and romantic_, or into +_oriental, classic, and romantic_, thereby conferring the value of +scientific concepts on simple historical denominations, or adopting +those pretended partitions of expressive forms, already criticized +above; or by talking of arts _that can only be seen from one side_, like +painting, and of arts _that can be seen from all sides_, like +sculpture--and similar extravagances, which exist neither in heaven nor +on the earth. + +The theory of the limits of the arts was, perhaps, at the time when it +was put forward, a beneficial critical reaction against those who +believed in the possibility of the flowing of one expression into +another, as of the _Iliad_ or of _Paradise Lost_ into a series of +paintings, and thus held a poem to be of greater or lesser value, +according as it could or could not be translated into pictures by a +painter. But if the rebellion were reasonable and victorious, this does +not mean that the arguments adopted and the theories made as required +were sound. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the union of the arts._ + +Another theory which is a corollary to that of the limits of the arts, +falls with them; that of the _union of the arts_. Granted different +arts, distinct and limited, the questions were asked: Which is the most +powerful? Do we not obtain more powerful effects by uniting several? We +know nothing of this: we know only, in each individual case, that +certain given artistic intuitions have need of definite physical means +for their reproduction, and that other artistic intuitions have need of +other physical means. We can obtain the effect of certain dramas by +simply reading them; others need declamation and scenic display: some +artistic intuitions, for their full extrinsication, need words, song, +musical instruments, colours, statuary, architecture, actors; while +others are beautiful and complete in a single delicate sweep of the pen, +or with a few strokes of the pencil. But it is false to suppose that +declamation and scenic effects, and all the other things we have +mentioned together, are _more powerful_ than simply reading, or than the +simple stroke with the pen and with the pencil; because each of these +facts or groups of facts has, so to say, a different object, and the +power of the different means employed cannot be compared when the +objects are different. + + [Sidenote] _Connexion of the activity of externalization with utility + and morality._ + +Finally, it is only from the point of view of a clear and rigorous +distinction between the true and proper aesthetic activity, and the +practical activity of externalization, that we can solve the involved +and confused questions as to the relations between _art and utility_, +and _art and morality_. + +That art as art is independent alike of utility and of morality, as also +of every volitional form, we have above demonstrated. Without this +independence, it would not be possible to speak of an intrinsic value of +art, nor indeed to conceive an aesthetic science, which demands the +autonomy of the aesthetic fact as a necessity of its existence. + +But it would be erroneous to maintain that this independence of the +vision or intuition or internal expression of the artist should be at +once extended to the practical activity of externalization and of +communication, which may or may not follow the aesthetic fact. If art be +understood as the externalization of art, then utility and morality have +a perfect right to deal with it; that is to say, the right one possesses +to deal with one's own household. + +We do not, as a matter of fact, externalize and fix all of the many +expressions and intuitions which we form in our mind; we do not declare +our every thought in a loud voice, or write down, or print, or draw, or +colour, or expose it to the public gaze. _We select_ from the crowd of +intuitions which are formed or at least sketched within us; and the +selection is governed by selection of the economic conditions of life +and of its moral direction. Therefore, when we have formed an intuition, +it remains to decide whether or no we should communicate it to others, +and to whom, and when, and how; all of which considerations fall equally +under the utilitarian and ethical criterion. + +Thus we find the concepts of _selection_, of the _interesting_, of +_morality_, of an _educational end_, of _popularity_, etc., to some +extent justified, although these can in no wise be justified as imposed +upon art as art, and we have ourselves denounced them in pure Aesthetic. +Error always contains an element of truth. He who formulated those +erroneous aesthetic propositions had his eye on practical facts, which +attach themselves externally to the aesthetic fact in economic and moral +life. + +By all means, be partisans of a yet greater liberty in the vulgarization +of the means of aesthetic reproduction; we are of the same opinion, and +let us leave the proposals for legislative measures, and for actions to +be instigated against immoral art, to hypocrites, to the ingenuous, and +to idlers. But the proclamation of this liberty, and the fixation of its +limits, how wide soever they be, is always the affair of morality. And +it would in any case be out of place to invoke that highest principle, +that _fundamentum Aesthetices_, which is the independence of art, in +order to deduce from it the guiltlessness of the artist, who, in the +externalization of his imaginings, should calculate upon the unhealthy +tastes of his readers; or that licenses should be granted to the hawkers +who sell obscene statuettes in the streets. This last case is the affair +of the police; the first must be brought before the tribunal of the +moral conscience. The aesthetic judgment on the work of art has nothing +to do with the morality of the artist, in so far as he is a practical +man, nor with the precautions to be taken that art may not be employed +for evil purposes alien to its essence, which is pure theoretic +contemplation. + + + + +XVI + +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic + reproduction._ + +When the entire aesthetic and externalizing process has been completed, +when a beautiful expression has been produced and fixed in a definite +physical material, what is meant by _judging it_? _To reproduce it in +oneself_, answer the critics of art, almost with one voice. Very good. +Let us try thoroughly to understand this fact, and with that object in +view, let us represent it schematically. + +The individual A is seeking the expression of an impression, which he +feels or has a presentiment of, but has not yet expressed. Behold him +trying various words and phrases, which may give the sought-for +expression, which must exist, but which he does not know. He tries the +combination _m_, but rejects it as unsuitable, inexpressive, incomplete, +ugly: he tries the combination _n_, with a like result. _He does not see +anything, or he does not see clearly_. The expression still flies from +him. After other vain attempts, during which he sometimes approaches, +sometimes leaves the sign that offers itself, all of a sudden (almost as +though formed spontaneously of itself) he creates the sought-for +expression, and _lux facta est_. He enjoys for an instant aesthetic +pleasure or the pleasure of the beautiful. The ugly, with its +correlative displeasure, was the aesthetic activity, which had not +succeeded in conquering the obstacle; the beautiful is the expressive +activity, which now displays itself triumphant. + +We have taken this example from the domain of speech, as being nearer +and more accessible, and because we all talk, though we do not all draw +or paint. Now if another individual, whom we shall term B, desire to +judge this expression and decide whether it be beautiful or ugly, he +_must of necessity place himself at A's point of view_, and go through +the whole process again, with the help of the physical sign, supplied to +him by A. If A has seen clearly, then B (who has placed himself at A's +point of view) will also see clearly and will find this expression +beautiful. If A has not seen clearly, then B also will not see clearly, +and will find the expression more or less ugly, _just as A did_. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of divergences._ + +It may be observed that we have not taken into consideration two other +cases: that of A having a clear and B an obscure vision; and that of A +having an obscure and B a clear vision. Philosophically speaking, these +two cases are _impossible_. + +Spiritual activity, precisely because it is activity, is not a caprice, +but a spiritual necessity; and it cannot solve a definite aesthetic +problem, save in one way, which is the right way. Doubtless certain +facts may be adduced, which appear to contradict this deduction. Thus +works which seem beautiful to artists, are judged to be ugly by the +critics; while works with which the artists were displeased and judged +imperfect or failures, are held to be beautiful and perfect by the +critics. But this does not mean anything, save that one of the two is +wrong: either the critics or the artists, or in one case the artist and +in another the critic. In fact, the producer of an expression does not +always fully realize what has happened in his soul. Haste, vanity, want +of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, make people say, and sometimes +others almost believe, that works of ours are beautiful, which, if we +were truly to turn inwards upon ourselves, we should see ugly, as they +really are. Thus poor Don Quixote, when he had mended his helmet as well +as he could with cardboard--the helmet that had showed itself to possess +but the feeblest force of resistance at the first encounter,--took good +care not to test it again with a well-delivered sword-thrust, but simply +declared and maintained it to be (says the author) _por celada finisima +de encaxe_. And in other cases, the same reasons, or opposite but +analogous ones, trouble the consciousness of the artist, and cause him +to disapprove of what he has successfully produced, or to strive to undo +and do again worse, what he has done well, in his artistic spontaneity. +An example of this is the _Gerusalemme conquistata_. In the same way, +haste, laziness, want of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, personal +sympathies, or animosities, and other motives of a similar sort, +sometimes cause the critics to proclaim beautiful what is ugly, and ugly +what is beautiful. Were they to eliminate such disturbing elements, they +would feel the work of art as it really is, and would not leave to +posterity, that more diligent and more dispassionate judge, to award the +palm, or to do that justice, which they have refused. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of taste and genius._ + +It is clear from the preceding theorem, that the judicial activity, +which criticizes and recognizes the beautiful, is identical with that +which produces it. The only difference lies in the diversity of +circumstances, since in the one case it is a question of aesthetic +production, in the other of reproduction. The judicial activity is +called _taste_; the productive activity is called _genius_: genius and +taste are therefore substantially _identical_. + +The common remark, that the critic should possess some of the genius of +the artist and that the artist should possess taste, reveals a glimpse +of this identity; or that there exists an active (productive) taste and +a passive (reproductive) taste. But a denial of this is contained in +other equally common remarks, as when people speak of taste without +genius, or of genius without taste. These last observations are +meaningless, unless they be taken as alluding to quantitative +differences. In this case, those would be called geniuses without taste +who produce works of art, inspired in their culminating parts and +neglected and defective in their secondary parts, and those men of taste +without genius, who succeed in obtaining certain isolated or secondary +effects, but do not possess the power necessary for a vast artistic +synthesis. Analogous explanations can easily be given of other similar +propositions. But to posit a substantial difference between genius and +taste, between artistic production and reproduction, would render +communication and judgment alike inconceivable. How could we judge what +remained extraneous to us? How could that which is produced by a given +activity be judged by a different activity? The critic will be a small +genius, the artist a great genius; the one will have the strength of +ten, the other of a hundred; the former, in order to raise himself to +the altitude of the latter, will have need of his assistance; but the +nature of both must be the same. In order to judge Dante, we must raise +ourselves to his level: let it be well understood that empirically we +are not Dante, nor Dante we; but in that moment of judgment and +contemplation, our spirit is one with that of the poet, and in that +moment we and he are one single thing. In this identity alone resides +the possibility that our little souls can unite with the great souls, +and become great with them, in the universality of the spirit. + + [Sidenote] _Analogy with the other activities._ + +Let us remark in passing that what has been said of the aesthetic +_judgment_ holds good equally for every other activity and for every +other judgment; and that scientific, economic, and ethical criticism is +effected in a like manner. To limit ourselves to this last, it is only +if we place ourselves ideally in the same conditions in which he who +took a given resolution found himself, that we can form a judgment as to +whether his resolution were moral or immoral. An action would otherwise +remain incomprehensible, and therefore impossible to judge. A homicide +may be a rascal or a hero: if this be, within limits, indifferent as +regards the safety of society, which condemns both to the same +punishment, it is not indifferent to him who wishes to distinguish and +to judge from the moral point of view, and we cannot dispense with +studying again the individual psychology of the homicide, in order to +determine the true nature of his deed, not merely in its judicial, but +also in its moral aspect. In Ethic, a moral taste or tact is sometimes +referred to, which answers to what is generally called moral conscience, +that is to say, to the activity itself of good-will. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and of aesthetic + relativism._ + +The explanation above given of aesthetic judgment or reproduction at +once affirms and denies the position of the absolutists and relativists, +of those, that is to say, who affirm and of those who deny the existence +of an absolute taste. + +The absolutists, who affirm that they can judge of the beautiful, are +right; but the theory on which they found their affirmation is not +maintainable. They conceive of the beautiful, that is, of aesthetic +value, as of something placed outside the aesthetic activity; as if it +were a model or a concept which an artist realizes in his work, and of +which the critic avails himself afterwards in order to judge the work +itself. Concepts and models alike have no existence in art, for by +proclaiming that every art can be judged only in itself, and has its own +model in itself, they have attained to the denial of the existence of +objective models of beauty, whether they be intellectual concepts, or +ideas suspended in the metaphysical sky. + +In proclaiming this, the adversaries, the relativists, are perfectly +right, and accomplish a progress. However, the initial rationality of +their thesis becomes in its turn a false theory. Repeating the old adage +that there is no accounting for tastes, they believe that aesthetic +expression is of the same nature as the pleasant and the unpleasant, +which every one feels in his own way, and as to which there is no +disputing. But we know that the pleasant and the unpleasant are +utilitarian and practical facts. Thus the relativists deny the +peculiarity of the aesthetic fact, again confounding expression with +impression, the theoretic with the practical. + +The true solution lies in rejecting alike relativism or psychologism, +and false absolutism; and in recognizing that the criterion of taste is +absolute, but absolute in a different way from that of the intellect, +which is developed by reason. The criterion of taste is absolute, with +the intuitive absoluteness of the imagination. Thus every act of +expressive activity, which is so really, will be recognized as +beautiful, and every fact in which expressive activity and passivity are +found engaged with one another in an unfinished struggle, will be +recognized as ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of relative relativism._ + +There lies, between absolutists and relativists, a third class, which +may be called that of the relative relativists. These affirm the +existence of absolute values in other fields, such as Logic and Ethic, +but deny their existence in the field of Aesthetic. To them it appears +natural and justifiable to dispute about science and morality; because +science rests on the universal, common to all men, and morality on duty, +which is also a law of human nature; but how, they say, can one dispute +about art, which rests on imagination? Not only, however, is the +imaginative activity universal and belongs to human nature, like the +logical concept and practical duty; but we must oppose a capital +objection to this intermediary thesis. If the absolute nature of the +imagination were denied, we should be obliged to deny also that of +intellectual or conceptual truth, and, implicitly, of morality. Does not +morality presuppose logical distinctions? How could these be known, +otherwise than by expressions and words, that is to say, in imaginative +form? If the absoluteness of the imagination were removed, spiritual +life would tremble to its base. One individual would no longer +understand another, nor indeed his own self of a moment before, which, +when considered a moment after, is already another individual. + + [Sidenote] _Objection founded on the variation of the stimulus and + on the psychic disposition._ + +Nevertheless, variety of judgments is an indisputable fact. Men are at +variance in their logical, ethical, and economical appreciations; and +they are equally, or even more at variance in their aesthetic +appreciations. If certain reasons detailed by us, above, such as haste, +prejudices, passions, etc., may be held to lessen the importance of this +disagreement, they do not thereby annul it. We have been cautious, when +speaking of the stimuli of reproduction, for we said that reproduction +takes place, _if all the other conditions remain equal_. Do they remain +equal? Does the hypothesis correspond to reality? + +It would appear not. In order to reproduce several times an impression +by employing a suitable physical stimulus, it is necessary that this +stimulus be not changed, and that the organism remain in the same +psychical conditions as those in which was experienced the impression +that it is desired to reproduce. Now it is a fact, that the physical +stimulus is continually changing, and in like manner the psychological +conditions. + +Oil paintings grow dark, frescoes pale, statues lose noses, hands, and +legs, architecture becomes totally or partially a ruin, the tradition of +the execution of a piece of music is lost, the text of a poem is +corrupted by bad copyists or bad printing. These are obvious instances +of the changes which daily occur in objects or physical stimuli. As +regards psychological conditions, we will not dwell upon the cases of +deafness or blindness, that is to say, upon the loss of entire orders of +psychical impressions; these cases are secondary and of less importance +compared with the fundamental, daily, inevitable, and perpetual changes +of the society around us, and of the internal conditions of our +individual life. The phonic manifestations, that is, the words and +verses of the Dantesque _Commedia_, must produce a very different +impression on a citizen engaged in the politics of the third Rome, to +that experienced by a well-informed and intimate contemporary of the +poet. The Madonna of Cimabue is still in the Church of Santa Maria +Novella; but does she speak to the visitor of to-day as she spoke to the +Florentines of the thirteenth century? Even though she were not also +darkened by time, would not the impression be altogether different? And +finally, how can a poem composed in youth make the same impression on +the same individual poet when he re-reads it in his old age, with his +psychic dispositions altogether changed? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the division of signs into natural and + conventional._ + +It is true, that certain aestheticians have attempted a distinction +between stimuli and stimuli, between _natural and conventional_ signs. +They would grant to the former a constant effect on all; to the latter, +only on a limited circle. In their belief, signs employed in painting +are natural, while the words of poetry are conventional. But the +difference between the one and the other is only of degree. It has often +been affirmed that painting is a language which all understand, while +with poetry it is otherwise. Here, for example, Leonardo placed one of +the prerogatives of his art, "which hath not need of interpreters of +different languages as have letters," and in it man and brute find +satisfaction. He relates the anecdote of that portrait of the father of +a family, "which the little grandchildren were wont to caress while they +were still in swaddling-clothes, and the dogs and cats of the house in +like manner." But other anecdotes, such as those of the savages who took +the portrait of a soldier for a boat, or considered the portrait of a +man on horseback as furnished with only one leg, are apt to shake one's +faith in the understanding of painting by sucklings, dogs, and cats. +Fortunately, no arduous researches are necessary to convince oneself +that pictures, poetry, and every work of art, produce no effects save on +souls prepared to receive them. Natural signs do not exist; because they +are all conventional in a like manner, or, to speak with greater +exactitude, all are _historically conditioned_. + + [Sidenote] _The surmounting of variety._ + +This being so, how are we to succeed in causing the expression to be +reproduced by means of the physical object? How obtain the same effect, +when the conditions are no longer the same? Would it not, rather, seem +necessary to conclude that expressions cannot be reproduced, despite the +physical instruments made by man for the purpose, and that what is +called reproduction consists in ever new expressions? Such would indeed +be the conclusion, if the variety of physical and psychic conditions +were intrinsically unsurmountable. But since the insuperability has none +of the characteristics of necessity, we must, on the contrary, conclude: +that the reproduction always occurs, when we can replace ourselves in +the conditions in which the stimulus (physical beauty) was produced. + +Not only can we replace ourselves in these conditions, as an abstract +possibility, but as a matter of fact we do so continually. Individual +life, which is communion with ourselves (with our past), and social +life, which is communion with our like, would not otherwise be possible. + + [Sidenote] _Restorations and historical interpretation._ + +As regards the physical object, paleographers and philologists, who +_restore_ to texts their original physiognomy, _restorers_ of pictures +and of statues, and similar categories of workers, exert themselves to +preserve or to give back to the physical object all its primitive +energy. These efforts certainly do not always succeed, or are not +completely successful, for never, or hardly ever, is it possible to +obtain a restoration complete in its smallest details. But the +unsurmountable is only accidentally present, and cannot cause us to fail +to recognize the favourable results which are nevertheless obtained. + +_Historical interpretation_ likewise labours to reintegrate in us +historical conditions which have been altered in the course of history. +It revives the dead, completes the fragmentary, and affords us the +opportunity of seeing a work of art (a physical object) as its author +saw it, at the moment of production. + +A condition of this historical labour is tradition, with the help of +which it is possible to collect the scattered rays and cause them to +converge on one centre. With the help of memory, we surround the +physical stimulus with all the facts among which it arose; and thus we +make it possible for it to react upon us, as it acted upon him who +produced it. + +When the tradition is broken, interpretation is arrested; in this case, +the products of the past remain _silent_ for us. Thus the expressions +contained in the Etruscan or Messapian inscriptions are unattainable; +thus we still hear discussions among ethnographers as to certain +products of the art of savages, whether they be pictures or writings; +thus archaeologists and prehistorians are not always able to establish +with certainty, whether the figures found on the ceramic of a certain +region, and on other instruments employed, be of a religious or of a +profane nature. But the arrest of interpretation, as that of +restoration, is never a definitely unsurmountable barrier; and the daily +discoveries of historical sources and of new methods of better +exploiting antiquity, which we may hope to see ever improving, link up +broken tradition. + +We do not wish to deny that erroneous historical interpretation produces +at times what we may term _palimpsests_, new expressions imposed upon +the antique, artistic imaginings instead of historical reproductions. +The so-called fascination of the past depends in part upon these +expressions of ours, which we weave into historical expressions. Thus in +hellenic plastic art has been discovered the calm and serene intuition +of life of those peoples, who feel, nevertheless, so poignantly, the +universality of sorrow; thus has recently been discerned on the faces of +the Byzantine saints "the terror of the millennium," a terror which is +an equivoke, or an artificial legend invented by modern scholars. But +_historical criticism_ tends precisely to circumscribe _vain imaginings_ +and to establish with exactitude the point of view from which we must +look. + +Thus we live in communication with other men of the present and of the +past; and we must not conclude, because sometimes, and indeed often, we +find ourselves face to face with the unknown or the badly known, that +when we believe we are engaged in a dialogue, we are always speaking a +monologue; nor that we are unable even to repeat the monologue which, in +the past, we held with ourselves. + + + + +XVII + +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism in literature and art. Its + importance._ + +This brief exposition of the method by which is obtained reintegration +of the original conditions in which the work of art was produced, and by +which reproduction and judgment are made possible, shows how important +is the function fulfilled by historical research concerning artistic and +literary works; that is to say, by what is usually called _historical +criticism_, or method, in literature and art. + +Without tradition and historical criticism, the enjoyment of all or +nearly all works of art produced by humanity, would be irrevocably lost: +we should be little more than animals, immersed in the present alone, or +in the most recent past. Only fools despise and laugh at him who +reconstitutes an authentic text, explains the sense of words and +customs, investigates the conditions in which an artist lived, and +accomplishes all those labours which revive the qualities and the +original colouring of works of art. + +Sometimes the depreciatory or negative judgment refers to the presumed +or proved uselessness of many researches, made to recover the correct +meaning of artistic works. But, it must be observed, in the first place, +that historical research does not only fulfil the task of helping to +reproduce and judge artistic works: the biography of a writer or of an +artist, for example, and the study of the costume of a period, also +possess their own interest, foreign to the history of art, but not +foreign to other forms of history. If allusion be made to those +researches which do not appear to have interest of any kind, nor to +fulfil any purpose, it must be replied that the historical student must +often reconcile himself to the useful, but little glorious, office of a +cataloguer of facts. These facts remain for the time being formless, +incoherent, and insignificant, but they are preserves, or mines, for the +historian of the future and for whomsoever may afterwards want them for +any purpose. In the same way, books which nobody asks for are placed on +the shelves and are noted in the catalogues, because they may be asked +for at some time or other. Certainly, in the same way that an +intelligent librarian gives the preference to the acquisition and to the +cataloguing of those books which he foresees may be of more or better +service, so do intelligent students possess the instinct as to what is +or may more probably be useful from among the mass of facts which they +are investigating. Others, on the other hand, less well-endowed, less +intelligent, or more hasty in producing, accumulate useless selections, +rejections and erasures, and lose themselves in refinements and gossipy +discussions. But this appertains to the economy of research, and is not +our affair. At the most, it is the affair of the master who selects the +subjects, of the publisher who pays for the printing, and of the critic +who is called upon to praise or to blame the students for their +researches. + +On the other hand, it is evident, that historical research, directed to +illuminate a work of art by placing us in a position to judge it, does +not alone suffice to bring it to birth in our spirit: taste, and an +imagination trained and awakened, are likewise presupposed. The greatest +historical erudition may accompany a taste in part gross or defective, a +lumbering imagination, or, as it is generally phrased, a cold, hard +heart, closed to art. Which is the lesser evil?--great erudition and +defective taste, or natural good taste and great ignorance? The question +has often been asked, and perhaps it will be best to deny its +possibility, because one cannot tell which of two evils is the less, or +what exactly that means. The merely learned man never succeeds in +entering into communication with the great spirits, and keeps wandering +for ever about the outer courts, the staircases, and the antechambers of +their palaces; but the gifted ignoramus either passes by masterpieces +which are to him inaccessible, or instead of understanding the works of +art, as they really are, he invents others, with his imagination. Now, +the labour of the former may at least serve to enlighten others; but the +ingenuity of the latter remains altogether sterile. How, then, can we +fail to prefer the conscientious learned man to the inconclusive man of +talent, who is not really talented, if he resign himself, and in so far +as he resigns himself, to come to no conclusion? + + [Sidenote] _Literary and artistic history. Its distinction from + historical criticism and from artistic judgement._ + +It is necessary to distinguish accurately _the history, of art and +literature_ from those historical labours which make use of works of +art, but for extraneous purposes (such as biography, civil, religious, +and political history, etc.), and also from historical erudition, whose +object is preparation for the Aesthetic synthesis of reproduction. + +The difference between the first of these is obvious. The history of art +and literature has the works of art themselves for principal subject; +the other branches of study call upon and interrogate works of art, but +only as witnesses, from which to discover the truth of facts which are +not aesthetic. The second difference to which we have referred may seem +less profound. However, it is very great. Erudition devoted to rendering +clear again the understanding of works of art, aims simply at making +appear a certain internal fact, an aesthetic reproduction. Artistic and +literary history, on the other hand, does not appear until such +reproduction has been obtained. It demands, therefore, further labour. +Like all other history, its object is to record precisely such facts as +have really taken place, that is, artistic and literary facts. A man +who, after having acquired the requisite historical erudition, +reproduces in himself and tastes a work of art, may remain simply a man +of taste, or express at the most his own feeling, with an exclamation of +beautiful or ugly. This does not suffice for the making of a historian +of literature and art. There is further need that the simple act of +reproduction be followed in him by a second internal operation. What is +this new operation? It is, in its turn, an expression: the expression of +the reproduction; the historical description, exposition, or +representation. There is this difference, then, between the man of taste +and the historian: the first merely reproduces in his spirit the work of +art; the second, after having reproduced it, represents it historically, +thus applying to it those categories by which, as we know, history is +differentiated from pure art. Artistic and literary history is, +therefore, _a historical work of art founded upon one or more works of +art_. + +The denomination of artistic or literary critic is used in various +senses: sometimes it is applied to the student who devotes his services +to literature; sometimes to the historian who reveals the works of art +of the past in their reality; more often to both. By critic is sometimes +understood, in a more restricted sense, he who judges and describes +contemporary literary works; and by historian, he who is occupied with +less recent works. These are but linguistic usages and empirical +distinctions, which may be neglected; because the true difference lies +_between the learned man, the man of taste, and the historian of art_. +These words designate, as it were, three successive stages of work, of +which each is relatively independent of the one that follows, but not of +that which precedes. As we have seen, a man may be simply learned, yet +possess little capacity for understanding works of art; he may indeed be +both learned and possess taste, yet be unable to write a page of +artistic and literary history. But the true and complete historian, +while containing in himself, as necessary pre-requisites, both the +learned man and the man of taste, must add to their qualities the gift +of historical comprehension and representation. + + [Sidenote] _The method of artistic and literary history._ + +The method of artistic and literary history presents problems and +difficulties, some common to all historical method, others peculiar to +it, because they derive from the concept of art itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the problem of the origin of art._ + +History is wont to be divided into the history of man, the history or +nature, and the mixed history of both the preceding. Without examining +here the question of the solidity of this division, it is clear that +artistic and literary history belongs in any case to the first, since it +concerns a spiritual activity, that is to say, an activity proper to +man. And since this activity is its subject, the absurdity of +propounding the historical _problem of the origin of art_ becomes at +once evident. We should note that by this formula many different things +have in turn been included on many different occasions. _Origin_ has +often meant _nature_ or _disposition_ of the artistic fact, and here was +a real scientific or philosophic problem, the very problem, in fact, +which our treatise has tried to solve. At other times, by origin has +been understood the ideal genesis, the search for the reason of art, the +deduction of the artistic fact from a first principle containing in +itself both spirit and nature. This is also a philosophical problem, and +it is complementary to the preceding, indeed it coincides with it, +though it has sometimes been strangely interpreted and solved by means +of an arbitrary and semi-fantastic metaphysic. But when it has been +sought to discover further exactly in what way the artistic function was +_historically formed_, this has resulted in the absurdity to which we +have referred. If expression be the first form of consciousness, how can +the historical origin be sought of what is _presupposed_ not to be a +product of nature and of human history? How can we find the historical +genesis of that which is a category, by means of which every historical +genesis and fact are understood? The absurdity has arisen from the +comparison with human institutions, which have, in fact, been formed in +the course of history, and which have disappeared or may disappear in +its course. There exists between the aesthetic fact and a human +institution (such as monogamic marriage or the fief) a difference to +some extent comparable with that between simple and compound bodies in +chemistry. It is impossible to indicate the formation of the former, +otherwise they would not be simple, and if this be discovered, they +cease to be simple and become compound. + +The problem of the origin of art, historically understood, is only +justified when it is proposed to seek, not for the formation of the +function, but where and when art has appeared for the first time +(appeared, that is to say, in a striking manner), at what point or in +what region of the globe, and at what point or epoch of its history; +when, that is to say, not the origin of art, but its most antique or +primitive history, is the object of research. This problem forms one +with that of the appearance of human civilization on the earth. Data for +its solution are certainly wanting, but there yet remains the abstract +possibility, and certainly attempts and hypotheses for its solution +abound. + + [Sidenote] _History and the criterion of progress._ + +Every form of human history has the concept of _progress_ for +foundation. But by progress must not be understood the imaginary and +metaphysical _law of progress_, which should lead the generations of man +with irresistible force to some unknown destiny, according to a +providential plan which we can logically divine and understand. A +supposed law of this sort is the negation of history itself, of that +accidentality, that empiricity, that contingency, which distinguish the +concrete fact from the abstraction. And for the same reason, progress +has nothing to do with the so-called _law of evolution_. If evolution +mean the concrete fact of reality which evolves (that is, which is +reality), it is not a law. If, on the other hand, it be a law, it +becomes confounded with the law of progress in the sense just described. +The progress of which we speak here, is nothing but the _concept of +human activity itself_, which, working upon the material supplied to it +by nature, conquers obstacles and bends nature to its own ends. + +Such conception of progress, that is to say, of human activity applied +to a given material, is the _point of view_ of the historian of +humanity. No one but a mere collector of stray facts, a simple seeker, +or an incoherent chronicler, can put together the smallest narrative of +human deeds, unless he have a definite point of view, that is to say, an +intimate personal conviction regarding the conception of the facts which +he has undertaken to relate. The historical work of art cannot be +achieved among the confused and discordant mass of crude facts, save by +means of this point of view, which makes it possible to carve a definite +figure from that rough and incoherent mass. The historian of a practical +action should know what is economy and what morality; the historian of +mathematics, what are mathematics; the historian of botany, what is +botany; the historian of philosophy, what is philosophy. But if he do +not really know these things, he must at least have the illusion of +knowing them; otherwise he will never be able to delude himself that he +is writing history. + +We cannot delay here to demonstrate the necessity and the inevitability +of this subjective criterion in every narrative of human affairs. We +will merely say that this criterion is compatible with the utmost +objectivity, impartiality, and scrupulosity in dealing with data, and +indeed forms a constitutive element of such subjective criterion. It +suffices to read any book of history to discover at once the point of +view of the author, if he be a historian worthy of the name and know his +own business. There exist liberal and reactionary, rationalist and +catholic historians, who deal with political or social history; for the +history of philosophy there are metaphysical, empirical, sceptical, +idealist, and spiritualist historians. Absolutely historical historians +do not and cannot exist. Can it be said that Thucydides and Polybius, +Livy and Tacitus, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Giannone and Voltaire, +were without moral and political views; and, in our time, Guizot or +Thiers, Macaulay or Balbo, Ranke or Mommsen? And in the history of +philosophy, from Hegel, who was the first to raise it to a great +elevation, to Ritter, Zeller, Cousin, Lewes, and our Spaventa, was there +one who did not possess his conception of progress and criterion of +judgment? Is there one single work of any value in the history of +Aesthetic, which has not been written from this or that point of view, +with this or that bias (Hegelian or Herbartian), from a sensualist or +from an eclectic point of view, and so on? If the historian is to escape +from the inevitable necessity of taking a side, he must become a +political and scientific eunuch; and history is not the business of +eunuchs. They would at most be of use in compiling those great tomes of +not useless erudition, _elumbis atque fracta_, which are called, not +without reason, monkish. + +If, then, the concept of progress, the point of view, the criterion, be +inevitable, the best to be done is not to try and escape from them, but +to obtain the best possible. Everyone strives for this end, when he +forms his own convictions, seriously and laboriously. Historians who +profess to wish to interrogate the facts, without adding anything of +their own to them, are not to be believed. This, at the most, is the +result of ingenuousness and illusion on their part: they will always add +what they have of personal, if they be truly historians, though it be +without knowing it, or they will believe that they have escaped doing +so, only because they have referred to it by innuendo, which is the most +insinuating and penetrative of methods. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a unique line of progress in artistic + and literary history._ + +Artistic and literary history cannot dispense with the criterion of +progress any more easily than other history. We cannot show what a given +work of art is, save by proceeding from a conception of art, in order to +fix the artistic problem which the author of such work of art had to +solve, and by determining whether or no he have solved it, or by how +much and in what way he has failed to do so. But it is important to note +that the criterion of progress assumes a different form in artistic and +literary history to that which it assumes (or is believed to assume) in +the history of science. + +The whole history of knowledge can be represented by one single line of +progress and regress. Science is the universal, and its problems are +arranged in one single vast system, or complex problem. All thinkers +weary themselves over the same problem as to the nature of reality and +of knowledge: contemplative Indians and Greek philosophers, Christians +and Mohammedans, bare heads and heads with turbans, wigged heads and +heads with the black berretta (as Heine said); and future generations +will weary themselves with it, as ours has done. It would take too long +to inquire here if this be true or not of science. But it is certainly +not true of art; art is intuition, and intuition is individuality, and +individuality is never repeated. To conceive of the history of the +artistic production of the human race as developed along a single line +of progress and regress, would therefore be altogether erroneous. + +At the most, and working to some extent with generalizations and +abstractions, it may be admitted that the history of aesthetic products +shows progressive cycles, but each cycle has its own problem, and is +progressive only in respect to that problem. When many are at work on +the same subject, without succeeding in giving to it the suitable form, +yet drawing always more nearly to it, there is said to be progress. When +he who gives to it definite form appears, the cycle is said to be +complete, progress ended. A typical example of this would be the +progress in the elaboration of the mode of using the subject-matter of +chivalry, during the Italian Renaissance, from Pulci to Ariosto. (If +this instance be made use of, excessive simplification of it must be +excused.) Nothing but repetition and imitation could be the result of +employing that same material after Ariosto. The result was repetition or +imitation, diminution or exaggeration, a spoiling of what had already +been achieved; in sum, decadence. The Ariostesque epigoni prove this. +Progress begins with the commencement of a new cycle. Cervantes, with +his more open and conscious irony, is an instance of this. In what did +the general decadence of Italian literature at the end of the sixteenth +century consist? Simply in having nothing more to say, and in repeating +and exaggerating motives already found. If the Italians of this period +had even been able to express their own decadence, they would not have +been altogether failures, but have anticipated the literary movement of +the Renaissance. Where the subject-matter is not the same, a progressive +cycle does not exist. Shakespeare does not represent a progress as +regards Dante, nor Goethe as regards Shakespeare. Dante, however, +represents a progress in respect to the visionaries of the Middle Ages, +Shakespeare to the Elizabethan dramatists, Goethe, with _Werther_ and +the first part of _Faust_, in respect to the writers of the _Sturm und +Drang_. This mode of presenting the history of poetry and art contains, +however, as we have remarked, something of abstract, of merely +practical, and is without rigorous philosophical value. Not only is the +art of savages not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, +provided it be correlative to the impressions of the savage; but every +individual, indeed every moment of the spiritual life of an individual, +has its artistic world; and all those worlds are, artistically, +incomparable with one another. + + [Sidenote] _Errors committed in respect to this law._ + +Many have sinned and continue to sin against this special form of the +criterion of progress in artistic and literary history. Some, for +instance, talk of the infancy of Italian art in Giotto, and of its +maturity in Raphael or in Titian; as though Giotto were not quite +perfect and complete, in respect to his psychic material. He was +certainly incapable of drawing a figure like Raphael, or of colouring it +like Titian; but was Raphael or Titian by any chance capable of creating +the _Matrimonio di San Francesco con la Povertà_, or the _Morte di San +Francesco_? The spirit of Giotto had not felt the attraction of the body +beautiful, which the Renaissance studied and raised to a place of +honour; but the spirits of Raphael and of Titian were no longer curious +of certain movements of ardour and of tenderness, which attracted the +man of the fourteenth century. How, then, can a comparison be made, +where there is no comparative term? + +The celebrated divisions of the history of art suffer from the same +defect. They are as follows: an oriental period, representing a +disequilibrium between idea and form, with prevalence of the second; a +classical, representing an equilibrium between idea and form; a +romantic, representing a new disequilibrium between idea and form, with +prevalence of the idea. There are also the divisions into oriental art, +representing imperfection of form; classical, perfection of form; +romantic or modern, perfection of content and of form. Thus classic and +romantic have also received, among their many other meanings, that of +progressive or regressive periods, in respect to the realization of some +indefinite artistic ideal of humanity. + + [Sidenote] _Other meanings of the word "progress" in respect to + Aesthetic._ + +There is no such thing, then, as an _aesthetic_ progress of humanity. +However, by aesthetic progress is sometimes meant, not what the two +words coupled together really signify, but the ever-increasing +accumulation of our historical knowledge, which makes us able to +sympathize with all the artistic products of all peoples and of all +times, or, as is said, to make our taste more catholic. The difference +appears very great, if the eighteenth century, so incapable of escaping +from itself, be compared with our own time, which enjoys alike Hellenic +and Roman art, now better understood, Byzantine, mediaeval, Arabic, and +Renaissance art, the art of the Cinque Cento, baroque art, and the art +of the seventeenth century. Egyptian, Babylonian, Etruscan, and even +prehistoric art, are more profoundly studied every day. Certainly, the +difference between the savage and civilized man does not lie in the +human faculties. The savage has speech, intellect, religion, and +morality, in common with civilized man, and he is a complete man. The +only difference lies in that civilized man penetrates and dominates a +larger portion of the universe with his theoretic and practical +activity. We cannot claim to be more spiritually alert than, for +example, the contemporaries of Pericles; but no one can deny that we are +richer than they--rich with their riches and with those of how many +other peoples and generations besides our own? + +By aesthetic progress is also meant, in another sense, which is also +improper, the greater abundance of artistic intuitions and the smaller +number of imperfect or decadent works which one epoch produces in +respect to another. Thus it may be said that there was aesthetic +progress, an artistic awakening, at the end of the thirteenth or of the +fifteenth centuries. + +Finally, aesthetic progress is talked of, with an eye to the refinement +and to the psychical complications exhibited in the works of art of the +most civilized peoples, as compared with those of less civilized +peoples, barbarians and savages. But in this case, the progress is that +of the complex conditions of society, not of the artistic activity, to +which the material is indifferent. + +These are the most important points concerning the method of artistic +and literary history. + + + + +XVIII + +CONCLUSION: + +IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + + + [Sidenote] _Summary of the inquiry._ + +A glance over the path traversed will show that we have completed the +entire programme of our treatise. We have studied the nature of +intuitive or expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic +fact (I. and II.), and we have described the other form of knowledge, +namely, the intellectual, with the secondary complications of its forms +(III.). Having done this, it became possible to criticize all erroneous +theories of art, which arise from the confusion between the various +forms, and from the undue transference of the characteristics of one +form to those of another (IV.), and in so doing to indicate the inverse +errors which are found in the theory of intellectual knowledge and of +historiography (V.). Passing on to examine the relations between the +aesthetic activity and the other spiritual activities, no longer +theoretic but practical, we have indicated the true character of the +practical activity and the place which it occupies in respect to the +theoretic activity, which it follows: hence the critique of the invasion +of aesthetic theory by practical concepts (VI.). We have also +distinguished the two forms of the practical activity, as economic and +ethic (VII.), adding to this the statement that there are no other forms +of the spirit beyond the four which we have analyzed; hence (VIII.) the +critique of every metaphysical Aesthetic. And, seeing that there exist +no other spiritual forms of equal degree, therefore there are no +original subdivisions of the four established, and in particular of +Aesthetic. From this arises the impossibility of classes of expressions +and the critique of Rhetoric, that is, of the partition of expressions +into simple and ornate, and of their subclasses (IX.). But, by the law +of the unity of the spirit, the aesthetic fact is also a practical fact, +and as such, occasions pleasure and pain. This led us to study the +feelings of value in general, and those of aesthetic value, or of the +beautiful, in particular (X.), to criticize aesthetic hedonism in all +its various manifestations and complications (XI.), and to expel from +the system of Aesthetic the long series of pseudo-aesthetic concepts, +which had been introduced into it (XII.). Proceeding from aesthetic +production to the facts of reproduction, we began by investigating the +mode of fixing externally the aesthetic expression, with the view of +reproduction. This is the so-called physically beautiful, whether it be +natural or artificial (XIII.). We then derived from this distinction the +critique of the errors which arise from confounding the physical with +the aesthetic side of things (XIV.). We indicated the meaning of +artistic technique, that which is the technique serving for +reproduction, thus criticizing the divisions, limits, and +classifications of the individual arts, and establishing the connections +between art, economy, and morality (XV.). Because the existence of the +physical objects does not suffice to stimulate to the full aesthetic +reproduction, and because, in order to obtain this result, it is +necessary to recall the conditions in which the stimulus first operated, +we have also studied the function of historical erudition, directed +toward the end of re-establishing our communication with the works of +the past, and toward the creation of a base for aesthetic judgment +(XVI.). We have closed our treatise by showing how the reproduction thus +obtained is afterwards elaborated by the intellectual categories, that +is to say, by an excursus on the method of literary and artistic history +(XVII.). + +The aesthetic fact has thus been considered both in itself and in its +relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings of +pleasure and of pain, with the facts that are called physical, with +memory, and with historical elaboration. It has passed from the position +of _subject_ to that of _object_, that is to say, from the moment of +_its birth_, until gradually it becomes changed for the spirit into +_historical argument_. + +Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre, when compared with the +great volumes usually consecrated to Aesthetic. But it will not seem so, +when it is observed that these volumes, as regards nine-tenths of their +contents, are full of matter which does not appertain to Aesthetic, such +as definitions, either psychical or metaphysical, of pseudo-aesthetic +concepts (of the sublime, the comic, the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or +of the exposition of the supposed Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy of +Aesthetic, and of universal history judged from the aesthetic +standpoint. The whole history of concrete art and literature has also +been dragged into those Aesthetics and generally mangled; they contain +judgments upon Homer and Dante, upon Ariosto and Shakespeare, upon +Beethoven and Rossini, Michelangelo and Raphael. When all this has been +deducted from them, our treatise will no longer be held to be too +meagre, but, on the contrary, far more copious than ordinary treatises, +for these either omit altogether, or hardly touch at all, the greater +part of the difficult problems proper to Aesthetic, which we have felt +it to be our duty to study. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of Linguistic and Aesthetic._ + +Aesthetic, then, as the science of expression, has been here studied by +us from every point of view. But there yet remains to justify the +sub-title, which we have joined to the title of our book, _General +Linguistic_, and to state and make clear the thesis that the science of +art is that of language. Aesthetic and Linguistic, in so far as they are +true sciences, are not two different sciences, but one single science. +Not that there is a special Linguistic; but the linguistic science +sought for, general Linguistic, _in so far as what it contains is +reducible to philosophy_, is nothing but Aesthetic. Whoever studies +general Linguistic, that is to say, philosophical Linguistic, studies +aesthetic problems, and _vice versa_. _Philosophy of language and +philosophy of art are the same thing_. + +Were Linguistic a _different_ science from Aesthetic, it should not have +expression, which is the essentially aesthetic fact, for its object. +This amounts to saying that it must be denied that language is +expression. But an emission of sounds, which expresses nothing, is not +language. Language is articulate, limited, organized sound, employed in +expression. If, on the other hand, language were a _special_ science in +respect to Aesthetic, it would necessarily have for its object a +_special class_ of expressions. But the inexistence of classes of +expression is a point which we have already demonstrated. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic formulization of linguistic problems. Nature + of language._ + +The problems which Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which +Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and +complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other +hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic +to their aesthetic formula. + +The disputes as to the nature of the one find their parallel in those as +to the nature of the other. Thus it has been disputed, whether +Linguistic be a scientific or a historical discipline, and the +scientific having been distinguished from the historical, it has been +asked whether it belong to the order of the natural or of the +psychological sciences, by the latter being understood empirical +Psychology, as much as the science of the spirit. The same has happened +with Aesthetic, which some have looked upon as a natural science, +confounding aesthetic expression with physical expression. Others have +looked upon it as a psychological science, confounding expression in its +universality, with the empirical classification of expressions. Others +again, denying the very possibility of a science of such a subject, have +looked upon it as a collection of historical facts. Finally, it has been +realized that it belongs to the sciences of activity or of values, which +are the spiritual sciences. + +Linguistic expression, or speech, has often seemed to be a fact of +_interjection_, which belongs to the so-called physical expressions of +the feelings, common alike to men and animals. But it was soon admitted +that an abyss yawns between the "Ah!" which is a physical reflex of +pain, and a word; as also between that "Ah!" of pain and the "Ah!" +employed as a word. The theory of the interjection being abandoned +(jocosely termed the "Ah! Ah!" theory by German linguists), the theory +of _association or convention_ appeared. This theory was refuted by the +same objection which destroyed aesthetic associationism in general: +speech is unity, not multiplicity of images, and multiplicity does not +explain, but presupposes the existence of the expression to explain. A +variant of linguistic associationism is the imitative, that is to say, +the theory of the onomatopoeia, which the same philologists deride under +the name of the "bow-wow" theory, after the imitation of the dog's bark, +which, according to the onomatopoeists, gives its name to the dog. + +The most usual theory of our times as regards language (apart from mere +crass naturalism) consists of a sort of eclecticism or mixture of the +various theories to which we have referred. It is assumed that language +is in part the product of interjections and in part of onomatopes and +conventions. This doctrine is altogether worthy of the scientific and +philosophic decadence of the second half of the nineteenth century. + + [Sidenote] _Origin of language and its development._ + +We must here note a mistake into which have fallen those very +philologists who have best penetrated the active nature of language. +These, although they admit that language was _originally a spiritual +creation_, yet maintain that it was largely increased later by +_association_. But the distinction does not prevail, for origin in this +case cannot mean anything but nature or essence. If, therefore, language +be a spiritual creation, it will always be a creation; if it be +association, it will have been so from the beginning. The mistake has +arisen from not having grasped the general principle of Aesthetic, which +we have noted: namely, that expressions already produced must redescend +to the rank of impressions before they can give rise to new impressions. +When we utter new words, we generally transform the old ones, varying or +enlarging their meaning; but this process is not associative. It is +creative, although the creation has for material the impressions, not of +the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who has lived long ages in +society, and who has, so to say, stored so many things in his psychic +organism, and among them so much language. + + [Sidenote] _Relation between Grammar and Logic._ + +The question of the distinction between the aesthetic and the +intellectual fact has appeared in Linguistic as that of the relations +between Grammar and Logic. This question has found two solutions, which +are partially true: that of the indissolubility of Logic and Grammar, +and that of their dissolubility. The complete solution is this: if the +logical form be indissoluble from the grammatical (aesthetic), the +grammatical is dissoluble from the logical. + + [Sidenote] _Grammatical classes or parts of speech._ + +If we look at a picture which, for example, portrays a man walking on a +country road, we can say: "This picture represents a fact of movement, +which, if conceived as volitional, is called _action_. And because every +movement implies _matter_, and every action a being that acts, this +picture also represents either _matter_ or a _being_. But this movement +takes place in a definite place, which is a part of a given _star_ (the +Earth), and precisely in that part of it which is called _terra-firma_, +and more properly in a part of it that is wooded and covered with grass, +which is called _country_, cut naturally or artificially, in a manner +which is called _road_. Now, there is only one example of that given +star, which is called Earth: Earth is an _individual_. But +_terra-firma_, _country_, _road_, are _classes or universals_, because +there are other terra-firmas, other countries, other roads." And it +would be possible to continue for a while with similar considerations. +By substituting a phrase for the picture that we have imagined, for +example, one to this effect, "Peter is walking on a country road," and +by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts of _verb_ (motion or +action), of _noun_ (matter or agent), of _proper noun_, of _common +nouns_; and so on. + +What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than to submit to +logical elaboration what was first elaborated only aesthetically; that +is to say, we have destroyed the aesthetical by the logical. But, as in +general Aesthetic, error begins when It is wished to return from the +logical to the aesthetical, and it is asked what is the expression of +movement, action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, +etc.; thus in like manner with language, error begins when motion or +action are called verb, being, or matter, noun or substantive, and when +linguistic categories, or _parts of speech_, are made of all these, noun +and verb and so on. The theory of parts of speech is at bottom +altogether the same as that of artistic and literary classes, already +criticized in the Aesthetic. + +It is false to say that the verb or the noun is expressed in definite +words, truly distinguishable from others. Expression is an indivisible +whole. Noun and verb do not exist in themselves, but are abstractions +made by our destroying the sole linguistic reality, which is _the +proposition_. This last is to be understood, not in the usual mode of +grammarians, but as an organism expressive of a complete meaning, from +an exclamation to a poem. This sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless a +most simple truth. + +And as in Aesthetic, the artistic productions of certain peoples have +been looked upon as imperfect, owing to the error above mentioned, +because the supposed kinds have seemed still to be indiscriminate or +absent with them; so, in Linguistic, the theory of the parts of speech +has caused the analogous error of dividing languages into formed and +unformed, according to whether there appear in them or not some of those +supposed parts of speech; for example, the verb. + + [Sidenote] _The individuality of speech and the classification of + languages._ + +Linguistic also discovered the irreducible individuality of the +aesthetic fact, when it affirmed that the word is what is really spoken, +and that two truly identical words do not exist. Thus were synonyms and +homonyms destroyed, and thus was shown the impossibility of really +translating one word into another, from so-called dialect into so-called +language, and from a so-called mother-tongue into a so-called foreign +tongue. + +But the attempt to classify languages agrees ill with this correct view. +Languages have no reality beyond the propositions and complexes of +propositions really written and pronounced by given peoples for definite +periods. That is to say, they have no existence outside the works of +art, in which they exist concretely. What is the art of a given people +but the complex of all its artistic products? What is the character of +an art (say, Hellenic art or Provençal literature), but the complex +physiognomy of those products? And how can such a question be answered, +save by giving the history of their art (of their literature, that is to +say, of their language in action)? + +It will seem that this argument, although possessing value as against +many of the wonted classifications of languages, yet is without any as +regards that queen of classifications, the historico-genealogical, that +glory of comparative philology. And this is certainly true. But why? +Precisely because the historico-genealogical method is not a +classification. He who writes history does not classify, and the +philologists themselves have hastened to say that the languages which +can be arranged in a historical series (those whose series have been +traced) are, not distinct and definite species, but a complex of facts +in the various phases of its development. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of a normative grammar._ + +Language has sometimes been looked upon as an act of volition or of +choice. But others have discovered the impossibility of creating +language artificially, by an act of will. _Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare +potes homini, verbo non poles!_ was once said to the Roman Emperor. + +The aesthetic (and therefore theoretic) nature of expression supplies +the method of correcting the scientific error which lies in the +conception of a (normative) _Grammar_, containing the rules of speaking +well. Good sense has always rebelled against this error. An example of +such rebellion is the "So much the worse for grammar" of Voltaire. But +the impossibility of a normative grammar is also recognized by those who +teach it, when they confess that to write well cannot be learned by +rules, that there are no rules without exceptions, and that the study of +Grammar should be conducted practically, by reading and by examples, +which form the literary taste. The scientific reason of this +impossibility lies in what we have already proved: that a technique of +the theoretical amounts to a contradiction in terms. And what could a +(normative) grammar be, but just a technique of linguistic expression, +that is to say, of a theoretic fact? + + [Sidenote] _Didactic purposes._ + +The case in which Grammar is understood merely as an empirical +discipline, that is to say, as a collection of groups useful for +learning languages, without any claim whatever to philosophic truth, is +quite different. Even the abstractions of the parts of speech are in +this case both admissible and of assistance. + +Many books entitled treatises of Linguistic have a merely didactic +purpose; they are simply scholastic manuals. We find in them, in truth, +a little of everything, from the description of the vocal apparatus and +of the artificial machines (phonographs) which can imitate it, to +summaries of the most important results obtained by Indo-European, +Semitic, Coptic, Chinese, or other philologies; from philosophic +generalizations on the origin or nature of language, to advice on +calligraphy, and the arrangement of schedules for philological spoils. +But this mass of notions, which is here taught in a fragmentary and +incomplete manner as regards the language in its essence, the language +as expression, resolves itself into notions of Aesthetic. Nothing exists +outside _Aesthetic_, which gives knowledge of the nature of language, +and _empirical Grammar_, which is a pedagogic expedient, save the +_History of languages_ in their living reality, that is, the history of +concrete literary productions, which is substantially identical with the +_History of literature_. + + [Sidenote] _Elementary linguistic facts or roots._ + +The same mistake of confusing the physical with the aesthetic, from +which the elementary forms of the beautiful originate, is made by those +who seek for elementary aesthetic facts, decorating with that name the +divisions of the longer series of physical sounds into shorter series. +Syllables, vowels, and consonants, and the series of syllables called +words which give no definite sense when taken alone, are not facts of +language, but simple physical concepts of sounds. + +Another mistake of the same sort is that of roots, to which the most +able philologists now accord but a very limited value. Having confused +physical with linguistic or expressive facts, and observing that, in the +order of ideas, the simple precedes the complex, they necessarily ended +by thinking that _the smaller_ physical facts were _the more simple_. +Hence the imaginary necessity that the most antique, primitive +languages, had been monosyllabic, and that the progress of historical +research must lead to the discovery of monosyllabic roots. But (to +follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first +man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: it may +have been exteriorised, not in a sound but in a gesture. And assuming +that it was exteriorised in a sound, there is no reason to suppose that +sound to have been monosyllabic rather than plurisyllabic. Philologists +frequently blame their own ignorance and impotence, if they do not +always succeed in reducing plurisyllabism to monosyllabism, and they +trust in the future. But their faith is without foundation, as their +blame of themselves is an act of humility arising from an erroneous +presumption. + +Furthermore, the limits of syllables, as those of words, are altogether +arbitrary, and distinguished, as well as may be, by empirical use. +Primitive speech, or the speech of the uncultured man, is _continuous_, +unaccompanied by any reflex consciousness of the divisions of the word +and of the syllables, which are taught at school. No true law of +Linguistic can be founded on such divisions. Proof of this is to be +found in the confession of linguists, that there are no truly phonetic +laws of the hiatus, of cacophony, of diaeresis, of synaeresis, but +merely laws of taste and convenience; that is to say, _aesthetic_ laws. +And what are the laws of _words_ which are not at the same time laws of +_style_? + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment and the model language._ + +The search for a _model language_, or for a method of reducing +linguistic usage to _unity_, arises from the misconception of a +rationalistic measurement of the beautiful, from the concept which we +have termed that of false aesthetic absoluteness. In Italy, we call this +question that of the _unity of the language_. + +Language is perpetual creation. What has been linguistically expressed +cannot be repeated, save by the reproduction of what has already been +produced. The ever-new impressions give rise to continuous changes of +sounds and of meanings, that is, to ever-new expressions. To seek the +model language, then, is to seek the immobility of motion. Every one +speaks, and should speak, according to the echoes which things arouse in +his soul, that is, according to his impressions. It is not without +reason that the most convinced supporter of any one of the solutions of +the problem of the unity of language (be it by the use of Latin, of +fourteenth-century Italian, or of Florentine) feels a repugnance in +applying his theory, when he is speaking in order to communicate his +thoughts and to make himself understood. The reason for this is that he +feels that were he to substitute Latin, fourteenth-century Italian, or +Florentine speech for that of a different origin, but which answers to +his impressions, he would be falsifying the latter. He would become a +vain listener to himself, instead of a speaker, a pedant in place of a +serious man, a histrion instead of a sincere person. To write according +to a theory is not really to write: at the most, it is _making +literature_. + +The question of the unity of language is always reappearing, because, +put as it is, there can be no solution to it, owing to its being based +upon a false conception of what language is. Language is not an arsenal +of ready-made arms, and it is not _vocabulary_, which, in so far as it +is thought of as progressive and in living use, is always a cemetery, +containing corpses more or less well embalmed, that is to say, a +collection of abstractions. + +Our mode of settling the question of the model language, or of the unity +of the language, may seem somewhat abrupt, and yet we would not wish to +appear otherwise than respectful towards the long line of literary men +who have debated this question in Italy for centuries. But those ardent +debates were, at bottom, debates upon aestheticity, not upon aesthetic +science, upon literature rather than upon literary theory, upon +effective speaking and writing, not upon linguistic science. Their error +consisted in transforming the manifestation of a want into a scientific +thesis, the need of understanding one another more easily among a people +dialectically divided, in the philosophic search for a language, which +should be one or ideal. Such a search was as absurd as that other search +for a _universal language_, with the immobility of the concept and of +the abstraction. The social need for a better understanding of one +another cannot be satisfied save by universal culture, by the increase +of communications, and by the interchange of thought among men. + + [Sidenote] _Conclusion._ + +These observations must suffice to show that all the scientific problems +of Linguistic are the same as those of Aesthetic, and that the truths +and errors of the one are the truths and errors of the other. If +Linguistic and Aesthetic appear to be two different sciences, this +arises from the fact that people think of the former as grammar, or as a +mixture between philosophy and grammar, that is, an arbitrary mnemonic +scheme. They do not think of it as a rational science and as a pure +philosophy of speech. Grammar, or something grammatical, also causes the +prejudice in people's minds, that the reality of language lies in +isolated and combinable words, not in living discourse among expressive +organisms, rationally indivisible. + +Those linguists, or glottologists with philosophical endowments, who +have best fathomed questions of language, resemble (to employ a worn but +efficacious figure) workmen piercing a tunnel: at a certain point they +must hear the voices of their companions, the philosophers of Aesthetic, +who have been piercing it from the other side. At a certain stage of +scientific elaboration, Linguistic, in so far as it is philosophy, must +be merged in Aesthetic; and indeed it is merged in it, without leaving a +residue. + + + + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +I + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN GRAECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY + + +The question, as to whether Aesthetic should be looked upon as ancient +or modern, has often been discussed. The answer will depend upon the +view taken of the nature of Aesthetic. + +Benedetto Croce has proved that Aesthetic is _the science of expressive +activity_. But this knowledge cannot be reached, until has been defined +the nature of imagination, of representation, of expression, or whatever +we may term that faculty which is theoretic, but not intellectual, which +gives knowledge of the individual, but not of the universal. + +Now the deviations from this, the correct theory, may arise in two ways: +by _defect_ or by _excess_. Negation of the special aesthetic activity, +or of its autonomy, is an instance of the former. This amounts to a +mutilation of the reality of the spirit. Of the latter, the substitution +or superposition of another mysterious and non-existent activity is an +example. + +These errors each take several forms. That which errs by defect may be: +(_a_) pure hedonism, which looks upon art as merely sensual pleasure; +(_b_) rigoristic hedonism, agreeing with (_a_), but adding that art is +irreconcilable with the loftiest activities of man; (_c_) moralistic or +pedagogic hedonism, which admits, with the two former, that art is mere +sensuality, but believes that it may not only be harmless, but of some +service to morals, if kept in proper subjection and obedience. + +The error by excess also assumes several forms, but these are +indeterminable _a priori_. This view is fully dealt with under the name +of _mystic_, in the Theory and in the Appendix. + +Graeco-Roman antiquity was occupied with the problem in all these forms. +In Greece, the problem of art and of the artistic faculty arose for the +first time after the sophistic movement, as a result of the Socratic +polemic. + +With the appearance of the word _mimesis_ or _mimetic_, we have a first +attempt at grouping the arts, and the expression, allegoric, or its +equivalent, used in defence of Homer's poetry, reminds us of what Plato +called "the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry." + +But when internal facts were all looked upon as mere phenomena of +opinion or feeling, of pleasure or of pain, of illusion or of arbitrary +caprice, there could be no question of beautiful or ugly, of difference +between the true and the beautiful, or between the beautiful and the +good. + +The problem of the nature of art assumes as solved those problems +concerning the difference between rational and irrational, material and +spiritual, bare fact and value, etc. This was first done in the Socratic +period, and therefore the aesthetic problem could only arise after +Socrates. + +And in fact it does arise, with Plato, _the author of the only great +negation of art which appears in the history of ideas_. + +Is art rational or irrational? Does it belong to the noble region of the +soul, where dwell philosophy and virtue, or does it cohabit with +sensuality and with crude passion in the lower regions? This was the +question that Plato asked, and thus was the aesthetic problem stated for +the first time. + +His Gorgias remarks with sceptical acumen, that tragedy is a deception, +which brings honour alike to deceived and to deceiver, and therefore it +is blameworthy not to know how to deceive and not to allow oneself to be +deceived. This suffices for Gorgias, but Plato, the philosopher, must +resolve the doubt. If it be in fact deception, down with tragedy and the +other arts! If it be not deception, then what is the place of tragedy in +philosophy and in the righteous life? His answer was that art or mimetic +does not realize the ideas, or the truth of things, but merely +reproduces natural or artificial things, which are themselves mere +shadows of the ideas. Art, then, is but a shadow of a shadow, a thing of +third-rate degree. The artificer fashions the object which the painter +paints. The artificer copies the divine idea and the painter copies him. +Art therefore does not belong to the rational, but to the irrational, +sensual sphere of the soul. It can serve but for sensual pleasure, which +disturbs and obscures. Therefore must mimetic, poetry, and poets be +excluded from the perfect Republic. + +Plato observed with truth, that imitation does not rise to the logical +or conceptual sphere, of which poets and painters, as such, are, in +fact, ignorant. But he _failed to realize_ that there could be any form +of knowledge other than the intellectual. + +We now know that Intuition lies on this side or outside the Intellect, +from which it differs as much as it does from passion and sensuality. + +Plato, with his fine aesthetic sense, would have been grateful to anyone +who could have shown him how to place art, which he loved and practised +so supremely himself, among the lofty activities of the spirit. But in +his day, no one could give him such assistance. His conscience and his +reason saw that art makes the false seem the true, and therefore he +resolutely banished it to the lower regions of the spirit. + +The tendency among those who followed Plato in time was to find some +means of retaining art and of depriving it of the baleful influence +which it was believed to exercise. Life without art was to the +beauty-loving Greek an impossibility, although he was equally conscious +of the demands of reason and of morality. Thus it happened that art, +which, on the purely hedonistic hypothesis, had been treated as a +beautiful courtezan, became in the hands of the moralist, a pedagogue. +Aristophanes and Strabo, and above all Aristotle, dwell upon the +didactic and moralistic possibility of poetry. For Plutarch, poetry +seems to have been a sort of preparation for philosophy, a twilight to +which the eyes should grow accustomed, before emerging into the full +light of day. + +Among the Romans, we find Lucretius comparing the beauties of his great +poem to the sweet yellow honey, with which doctors are wont to anoint +the rim of the cup containing their bitter drugs. Horace, as so +frequently, takes his inspiration from the Greek, when he offers the +double view of art: as courtezan and as pedagogue. In his _Ad Pisones_ +occur the passages, in which we find mingled with the poetic function, +that of the orator--the practical and the aesthetic. "Was Virgil a poet +or an orator?" The triple duty of pleasing, moving, and teaching, was +imposed upon the poet. Then, with a thought for the supposed +meretricious nature of their art, the ingenious Horace remarks that both +must employ the seductions of form. + +The _mystic_ view of art appeared only in late antiquity, with Plotinus. +The curious error of looking upon Plato as the head of this school and +as the Father of Aesthetic assumes that he who felt obliged to banish +art altogether from the domain of the higher functions of the spirit, +was yet ready to yield to it the highest place there. The mystical view +of Aesthetic accords a lofty place indeed to Aesthetic, placing it even +above philosophy. The enthusiastic praise of the beautiful, to be found +in the _Gorgias_, _Philebus_, _Phaedrus_, and _Symposium_ is responsible +for this misunderstanding, but it is well to make perfectly clear that +the beautiful, of which Plato discourses in those dialogues, has nothing +to do with the _artistically_ beautiful, nor with the mysticism of the +neo-Platonicians. + +Yet the thinkers of antiquity were aware that a problem lay in the +direction of Aesthetic, and Xenophon records the sayings of Socrates +that the beautiful is "that which is fitting and answers to the end +required." Elsewhere he says "it is that which is loved." Plato likewise +vibrates between various views and offers several solutions. Sometimes +he appears almost to confound the beautiful with the true, the good and +the divine; at others he leans toward the utilitarian view of Socrates; +at others he distinguishes between what is beautiful In itself and what +possesses but a relative beauty. At other times again, he is a hedonist, +and makes it to consist of pure pleasure, that is, of pleasure with no +shadow of pain; or he finds it in measure and proportion, or in the very +sound, the very colour itself. The reason for all this vacillation of +definition lay in Plato's exclusion of the artistic or mimetic fact from +the domain of the higher spiritual activities. The _Hippias major_ +expresses this uncertainty more completely than any of the other +dialogues. What is the beautiful? That is the question asked at the +beginning, and left unanswered at the end. The Platonic Socrates and +Hippias propose the most various solutions, one after another, but +always come out by the gate by which they entered in. Is the beautiful +to be found in ornament? No, for gold embellishes only where it is in +keeping. Is the beautiful that which seems ugly to no man? But it is a +question of being, not of seeming. Is it their fitness which makes +things seem beautiful? But in that case, the fitness which makes them +appear beautiful is one thing, the beautiful another. If the beautiful +be the useful or that which leads to an end, then evil would also be +beautiful, because the useful may also end evilly. Is the beautiful the +helpful, that which leads to the good? No, for in that case the good +would not be beautiful, nor the beautiful good, because cause and effect +are different. + +Thus they argued in the Platonic dialogues, and when we turn to the +pages of Aristotle, we find him also uncertain and inclined to vary his +definitions.[5] Sometimes for him the good and pleasurable are the +beautiful, sometimes it lies in actions, at others in things motionless, +or in bulk and order, or is altogether undefinable. Antiquity also +established canons of the beautiful, and the famous canon of +Polycleitus, on the proportions of the human body, fitly compares with +that of later times on the golden line, and with the Ciceronian phrase +from the Tusculan Disputations. But these are all of them mere empirical +observations, mere happy remarks and verbal substitutions, which lead to +unsurmountable difficulties when put to philosophical test. + +One important identification is absent in all those early attempts at +truth. The beautiful is never identified with art, and the artistic fact +is always clearly distinguished from beauty, mimetic from its content. +Plotinus first identified the two, and with him the beautiful and art +are dissolved together in a passion and mystic elevation of the spirit. +The beauty of natural objects is the archetype existing in the soul, +which is the fountain of all natural beauty. Thus was Plato (he said) in +error, when he despised the arts for imitating nature, for nature +herself imitates the idea, and art also seeks her inspiration directly +from those ideas whence nature proceeds. We have here, with Plotinus and +with Neoplatonism, the first appearance in the world of mystical +Aesthetic, destined to play so important a part in later aesthetic +theory. + +Aristotle was far more happy in his attempts at defining Aesthetic as +the science of representation and of expression than in his definitions +of the beautiful. He felt that some element of the problem had been +overlooked, and in attempting in his turn a solution, he had the +advantage over Plato of looking upon the ideas as simple concepts, not +as hypostases of concepts or of abstractions. Thus reality was more +vivid for Aristotle: it was the synthesis of matter and form. He saw +that art, or mimetic, was a theoretic fact, or a mode of contemplation. +"But if Poetry be a theoretic fact, in what way is it to be distinguished +from science and from historical knowledge?" Thus magnificently does the +great philosopher pose the problem at the commencement of his _Poetics_, +and thus alone can it be posed successfully. We ask the same question in +the same words to-day. But the problem is difficult, and the masterly +statement of it was not equalled by the method of solution then +available. He made an excellent start on his voyage of discovery, but +stopped half way, irresolute and perplexed. Poetry, he says, differs from +history, by portraying the possible, while history deals with what has +really happened. Poetry, like philosophy, aims at the universal, but in a +different way, which the philosopher indicates as something more (_mallon +tha katholon_) which differentiates poetry from history, occupied with the +particular (_malon tha kath ekaston_). What, then, is the possible, the +something more, and the particular of poetry? Aristotle immediately falls +into error and confusion, when he attempts to define these words. Since +art has to deal with the absurd and with the impossible, it cannot be +anything rational, but a mere imitation of reality, in accordance with +the Platonic theory--a fact of sensual pleasure. Aristotle does not, +however, attain to so precise a definition as Plato, whose erroneous +definition he does not succeed in supplanting. The truth is that he +failed of his self-imposed task; he failed to discern the true nature of +Aesthetic, although he restated and re-examined the problem with such +marvellous acumen. + +After Aristotle, there comes a lull in the discussion, until Plotinus. +The _Poetics_ were generally little studied, and the admirable statement +of the problem generally neglected by later writers. Antique psychology +knew the fancy or imagination, as preserving or reproducing sensuous +impressions, or as an intermediary between the concepts and feeling: its +autonomous productive activity was not yet understood. In the _Life of +Apollonius of Tyana_, Philostratus is said to have been the first to +make clear the difference between mimetic and creative imagination. But +this does not in reality differ from the Aristotelian mimetic, which is +concerned, not only with the real, but also with the possible. Cicero +too, before Philostratus, speaks of a kind of exquisite beauty lying +hidden in the soul of the artist, which guides his hand and art. +Antiquity seems generally to have been entrammelled in the meshes of the +belief in mimetic, or the duplication of natural objects by the artist +Philostratus and the other protagonists of the imagination may have +meant to combat this error, but the shadows lie heavy until we reach +Plotinus. + +We find already astir among the sophists the question as to the nature +of language. Admitting that language is a sign, are we to take that +as signifying a spiritual necessity (_phusis_) or as a psychological +convention (_nomos_)? Aristotle made a valuable contribution to this +difficult question, when he spoke of a kind of proposition other than +those which predicate truth or falsehood, that is, logic. With him +_euchae_ is the term proper to designate desires and aspirations, +which are the vehicle of poetry and of oratory. (It must be remembered +that for Aristotle words, like poetry, belonged to mimetic.) The +profound remark about the third mode of proposition would, one would +have thought, have led naturally to the separation of linguistic +from logic, and to its classification with poetry and art. But the +Aristotelian logic assumed a verbal and formal character, which set +back the attainment of this position by many hundred years. Yet the +genius of Epicurus had an intuition of the truth, when he remarked +that the diversity of names for the same things arose, not from +arbitrary caprice, but from the diverse impression derived from the +same object. The Stoics, too, seem to have had an inkling of the +non-logical nature of speech, but their use of the word _lekton_ +leaves it doubtful whether they distinguished by it the linguistic +representation from the abstract concept, or rather, generically, the +meaning from the sound. + +[5] In the Appendix will be found further striking quotations from + and references to Aristotle.--(D.A.) + + + + +II + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN THE MIDDLE AGE AND IN THE RENAISSANCE + + +Well-nigh all the theories of antique Aesthetic reappear in the Middle +Ages, as it were by spontaneous generation. Duns Scotus Erigena +translated the Neoplatonic mysticism of the pseudo-Dionysus. The +Christian God took the place of the chief Good or Idea: God, wisdom, +goodness, supreme beauty are the fountains of natural beauty, and these +are steps in the stair of contemplation of the Creator. In this manner +speculation began to be diverted from the art fact, which had been so +prominent with Plotinus. Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in +distinguishing the beautiful from the good, and applied his doctrine of +imitation to the beauty of the second person of the Trinity (_in quantum +est imago expressa Patris_). With the troubadours, we may find traces of +the hedonistic view of art, and the rigoristic hypothesis finds in +Tertullian and in certain Fathers of the Church staunch upholders. The +retrograde Savonarola occupied the same position at a later period. But +the narcotic, moralistic, or pedagogic view mostly prevailed, for it +best suited an epoch of relative decadence in culture. It suited +admirably the Middle Age, offering at once an excuse for the new-born +Christian art, and for those works of classical or pagan art which yet +survived. Specimens of this view abound all through the Middle Age. We +find it, for instance, in the criticism of Virgil, to whose work were +attributed four distinct meanings: literal, allegorical, moral, and +anagogic. For Dante poetry was _nihil aliud quam fictio rhetorica in +musicaque posita_. "If the vulgar be incapable of appreciating my inner +meaning, then they shall at least incline their minds to the perfection +of my beauty. If from me ye cannot gather wisdom, at the least shall ye +enjoy me as a pleasant thing." Thus spoke the Muse of Dante, whose +_Convivio_ is an attempt to aid the understanding in its effort to grasp +the moral and pedagogic elements of verse. Poetry was the _gaia +scienza_, "a fiction containing many useful things covered or veiled." + +It would be inexact to identify art in the Middle Age with philosophy +and theology. Its pleasing falsity could be adapted to useful ends, much +in the same way as matrimony excuses love and sexual union. This, +however, implies that for the Middle Age the ideal state was celibacy; +that is, pure knowledge, divorced from art. + +The only line of explanation that was altogether neglected in the Middle +Age was the right one. + +The _Poetics_ of Aristotle were badly rendered into Latin, from the +faulty paraphrase of Averroes, by one Hermann (1256). The nominalist and +realist dispute brought again into the arena the relations between +thought and speech, and we find Duns Scotus occupied with the problem in +his _De modis significandi seu grammatica speculativa_. Abelard had +defined sensation as _confusa conceptio_, and with the importance given +to intuitive knowledge, to the perception of the individual, of the +_species specialissima_ in Duns Scotus, together with the denomination +of the forms of knowledge as _confusae, indistinctae_, and _distinctae_, +we enter upon a terminology, which we shall see appearing again, big +with results, at the commencement of modern Aesthetic. + +The doctrine of the Middle Age, in respect to art and letters, may thus +be regarded as of interest rather to the history of culture than to that +of general knowledge. A like remark holds good of the Renaissance. +Theories of antiquity are studied, countless treatises in many forms are +written upon them, but no really new Ideas as regards aesthetic science +appear on the horizon. + +We find among the spokesmen of mystical Aesthetic in the thirteenth +century such names as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Bembo +and many others wrote on the Beautiful and on Love in the century that +followed. The _Dialogi di Amore_, written in Italian by a Spanish Jew +named Leone and published in 1535, had a European success, being +translated into many languages. He talks of the universality of love and +of its origin, of beauty that is grace, which delights the soul and +impels it to love. Knowledge of lesser beauties leads to loftier +spiritual beauties. Leone called these remarks _Philographia_. + +Petrarch's followers versified similar intuitions, while others wrote +parodies and burlesques of this style; Luca Paciolo, the friend of +Leonardo, made the (false) discovery of the golden section, basing his +speculating upon mathematics; Michael Angelo established an empirical +canon for painting, attempting to give rules for imparting grace and +movement to figures, by means of certain arithmetical proportions; +others found special meanings in colours; while the Platonicians placed +the seat of beauty in the soul, the Aristotelians in physical qualities. +Agostino Nifo, the Averroist, after some inconclusive remarks, is at +last fortunate enough to discover where natural beauty really dwells: +its abode is the body of Giovanna d'Aragona, Princess of Tagliacozzo, to +whom he dedicates his book. Tasso mingled the speculations of the +_Hippias major_ with those of Plotinus. + +Tommaso Campanella, in his _Poetica_, looks upon the beautiful as +_signum boni_, the ugly as _signum mali_. By goodness, he means Power, +Wisdom, and Love. Campanella was still under the influence of the +erroneous Platonic conception of the beautiful, but the use of the word +_sign_ in this place represents progress. It enabled him to see that +things in themselves are neither beautiful nor ugly. + +Nothing proves more clearly that the Renaissance did not overstep the +limits of aesthetic theory reached in antiquity, than the fact that the +pedagogic theory of art continued to prevail, in the face of +translations of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle and of the diffuse labours +expended upon that work. This theory was even grafted upon the +_Poetics_, where one is surprised to find it. There are a few hedonists +standing out from the general trend of opinion. The restatement of the +pedagogic position, reinforced with examples taken from antiquity, was +disseminated throughout Europe by the Italians of the Renaissance. +France, Spain, England, and Germany felt its influence, and we find the +writers of the period of Louis XIV. either frankly didactic, like Le +Bossu (1675), for whom the first object of the poet is to instruct, or +with La Ménardière (1640) speaking of poetry as "cette science agréable +qui mêle la gravité des préceptes avec la douceur du langage." For the +former of these critics, Homer was the author of two didactic manuals +relating to military and political matters: the _Iliad_ and the +_Odyssey_. + +Didacticism has always been looked upon as the Poetic of the +Renaissance, although the didactic is not mentioned among the kinds of +poetry of that period. The reason of this lies in the fact that for the +Renaissance all poetry was didactic, in addition to any other qualities +which it might possess. The active discussion of poetic theory, the +criticism of Aristotle and of Plato's exclusion of poetry, of the +possible and of the verisimilar, if it did not contribute much original +material to the theory of art, yet at any rate sowed the seeds which +afterwards germinated and bore fruit. Why, they asked with Aristotle, at +the Renaissance, does poetry deal with the universal, history with the +particular? What is the reason for poetry being obliged to seek +verisimilitude? What does Raphael mean by the "certain idea," which he +follows in his painting? + +These themes and others cognate were dealt with by Italian and by +Spanish writers, who occasionally reveal wonderful acumen, as when +Francesco Patrizio, criticizing Aristotle's theory of imitation, +remarks: "All languages and all philosophic writings and all other +writings would be poetry, because they are made of words, and words are +imitations." But as yet no one dared follow such a clue to the +labyrinth, and the Renaissance closes with the sense of a mystery yet to +be revealed. + + + + +III + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES + + +The seventeenth century is remarkable for the ferment of thought upon +this difficult problem. Such words as genius, taste, imagination or +fancy, and feeling, appear in this literature, and deserve a passing +notice. As regards the word "genius," we find the Italian "ingegno" +opposed to the intellect, and Dialectic adorned with the attributes of +the latter, while Rhetoric has the advantage of "ingegno" in all its +forms, such as "concetti" and "acutezze." With these the English word +ingenious has an obvious connection, especially in its earlier use as +applied to men of letters. The French worked upon the word "ingegno" and +evolved from it in various associations the expressions "esprit," "beaux +Esprits." The manual of the Spanish Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian, became +celebrated throughout Europe, and here we find "ingegno" described as +the truly inventive faculty, and from it the English word "genius," the +Italian "genio," the French "génie," first enter into general use. + +The word "gusto" or taste, "good taste," in its modern sense, also +sprang into use about this time. Taste was held to be a judicial +faculty, directed to the beautiful, and thus to some extent distinct +from the intellectual judgment. It was further bisected into active and +passive; but the former ran into the definition of "ingegno," the latter +described sterility. The word "gusto," or taste as judgment, was in use +in Italy at a very early period; and in Spain we find Lope di Vega and +his contemporaries declaring that their object is to "delight the taste" +of their public. These uses of the word are not of significance as +regards the problem of art, and we must return to Baltasar Gracian +(1642) for a definition of taste as a special faculty or attitude of the +soul. Italian writers of the period echo the praises of this laconic +moralist, who, when he spoke of "a man of taste," meant to describe what +we call to-day "a man of tact" in the conduct of life. + +The first use of the word in a strictly aesthetic sense occurs in France +in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. La Bruyère writes in his +_Caractères_ (1688): "Il y a dans l'art un point de perfection, comme de +bonté ou de maturité dans la nature: celui qui le sent et qui l'aime, a +le goût parfait; celui qui ne le sent pas, et qui aime au deçà ou au +delà, a le goût défectueux. Il y a donc un bon et un mauvais goût, et +l'on dispute des goûts avec fondement." Delicacy and variability or +variety were appended as attributes of taste. This French definition of +the Italian word was speedily adopted in England, where it became "good +taste," and we find it used in this sense in Italian and German writers +of about this period. + +The words "imagination" and "fancy" were also passed through the +crucible in this century. We find the Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino (1644) +blaming those who look for truth or falsehood, for the verisimilar or +for historical truth, in poetry. Poetry, he holds, has to do with the +primary apprehensions, which give neither truth nor falsehood. Thus the +fancy takes the place of the verisimilar of certain students of +Aristotle. The Cardinal continues his eloquence with the clinching +remark that if the intention of poetry were to be believed true, then +its real end would be falsehood, which is absolutely condemned by the +law of nature and by God. The sole object of poetic fables is, he says, +to adorn our intellect with sumptuous, new, marvellous, and splendid +imaginings, and so great has been the benefits accruing from this to the +human race, that poets have been rewarded with a glory superior to any +other, and their names have been crowned with divine honours. This, he +says in his treatise, _Del Bene_, has been the just reward of poets, +albeit they have not been bearers of knowledge, nor have they manifested +truth. + +This throwing of the bridle on the neck of Pegasus seemed to Muratori +sixty years later to be altogether too risky a proceeding--although +advocated by a Prince of the Church! He reinserts the bit of the +verisimilar, though he talks with admiration of the fancy, that +"inferior apprehensive" faculty, which is content to "represent" things, +without seeking to know if they be true or false, a task which it leaves +to the "superior apprehensive" faculty of the intellect. The severe +Gravina, too, finds his heart touched by the beauty of poetry, when he +calls it "a witch, but wholesome." + +As early as 1578, Huarte had maintained that eloquence is the work of +the imagination, not of the intellect; in England, Bacon (1605) +attributed knowledge to the intellect, history to memory, and poetry to +the imagination or fancy; Hobbes described the manifestations of the +latter; and Addison devoted several numbers of the _Spectator_ to the +analysis of "the pleasures of the imagination." + +During the same period, the division between those who are accustomed "à +juger par le sentiment" and those who "raisonnent par les principes" +became marked in France, Du Bos (1719) is an interesting example of the +upholder of the feelings as regards the production of art. Indeed, there +is in his view no other criterion, and the feeling for art is a sixth +sense, against which intellectual argument is useless. This French +school of thought found a reflex in England with the position assigned +there to emotion in artistic work. But the confusion of such words as +imagination, taste, feeling, wit, shows that at this time there was a +suspicion that these words were all applicable to the same fact. +Alexander Pope thus distinguished wit and judgment: + + For wit and judgment often are at strife, + Though meant each other's aid like man and wife. + +But there was a divergence of opinion as to whether the latter should be +looked upon as part of the intellect or not. + +There was the same divergence of opinion as to taste and intellectual +judgment. As regards the former, the opposition to the intellectual +principle was reinforced in the eighteenth century by Kant in his +_Kritik der Urtheilskraft_. But Voltaire and writers anterior to him +frequently fell back into intellectualist definitions of a word invented +precisely to avoid them. Dacier (1684) writes of taste as "Une harmonie, +un accord de l'esprit et de la raison." The difficulties surrounding a +true definition led to the creation of the expression _non so che_, or +_je ne sais quoi_, or _no se qué_, which throws into clear relief the +confusion between taste and intellectual judgment. + +As regards imagination and feeling, or sentiment, there was a strong +tendency to sensualism. The Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino talks of poetry +as ignoring alike truth or falsehood and yet delighting the senses. He +approves of the remark that poetry should make us "raise our eyebrows," +but in later life this keen-eyed prince seems to have fallen back from +the brilliant intuition of his earlier years into the pedagogic theory. +Muratori was convinced that fancy was entirely sensual, and therefore he +posted the intellect beside it, "to refrain its wild courses, like a +friend having authority." Gravina practically coincides in this view of +poetic fancy, as a subordinate faculty, incapable of knowledge, fit only +to be used by moral philosophy for the introduction into the mind of the +true, by means of novelty and the marvellous. + +In England, also, Bacon held poetry to belong to the fancy, and assigned +to it a place between history and science. Epic poetry he awarded to the +former, "parabolic" poetry to the latter. Elsewhere he talks of poetry +as a dream, and affirms that it is to be held "rather as an amusement of +the intelligence than as a science." For him music, painting, sculpture, +and the other arts are merely pleasure-giving. Addison reduced the +pleasures of the imagination to those caused by visible objects, or by +ideas taken from them. These pleasures he held to be inferior to those +of the senses and less refined than those of the intellect. He looked +upon imaginative pleasure as consisting in resemblances discovered +between imitations and things imitated, between copies and originals, an +exercise adapted to sharpen the spirit of observation. + +The sensualism of the writers headed by Du Bos, who looked upon art as a +mere pastime, like a tournament or a bull-fight, shows that the truth +about Aesthetic had not yet succeeded in emerging from the other +spiritual activities. Yet the new words and the new views of the +seventeenth century have great importance for the origins of Aesthetic; +they were the direct result of the restatement of the problem by the +writers of the Renaissance, who themselves took it up where Antiquity +had left it. These new words, and the discussions which arose from them, +were the demands of Aesthetic for its theoretical justification. But +they were not able to provide this justification, and it could not come +from elsewhere. + +With Descartes, we are not likely to find much sympathy for such studies +as relate to wit, taste, fancy, or feelings. He ignored the famous _non +so che_; he abhorred the imagination, which he believed to result from +the agitation of the animal spirits. He did not altogether condemn +poetry, but certainly looked upon it as the _folle du logis_, which must +be strictly supervised by the reason. Boileau is the aesthetic +equivalent of Cartesian intellectualism, Boileau _que la raison à ses +règles engage_, Boileau the enthusiast for allegory. France was infected +with the mathematical spirit of Cartesianism and all possibility of a +serious consideration of poetry and of art was thus removed. Witness the +diatribes of Malebranche against the imagination, and listen to the +Italian, Antonio Conti, writing from France in 1756 on the theme of the +literary disputes that were raging at the time: "They have introduced +the method of M. Descartes into belles-lettres; they judge poetry and +eloquence independently of their sensible qualities. Thus they also +confound the progress of philosophy with that of the arts. The Abbé +Terrasson says that the moderns are greater geometricians than the +ancients; therefore they are greater orators and greater poets." La +Motte, Fontenelle, Boileau, and Malebranche carried on this battle, +which was taken up by the Encyclopaedists, and when Du Bos published his +daring book, Jean Jacques le Bel published a reply to it (1726), in +which he denied to sentiment its claim to judge of art. Thus +Cartesianism could not possess an Aesthetic of the imagination. The +Cartesian J.P. de Crousaz (1715) found the beautiful to consist in what +is approved of, and thereby reduced it to ideas, ignoring the pleasing +and sentiment. + +Locke was as intellectualist in the England of this period as was +Descartes in France. He speaks of wit as combining ideas in an agreeable +variety, which strikes the imagination, while the intellect or judgment +seeks for differences according to truth. The wit, then, consists of +something which is not at all in accordance with truth and reason. For +Shaftesbury, taste is a sense or instinct of the beautiful, of order and +proportion, identical with the moral sense and with its "preconceptions" +anticipating the recognition of reason. Body, spirit, and God are the +three degrees of beauty. Francis Hutcheson proceeded from Shaftesbury +and made popular "the internal sense of beauty, which lies somewhere +between sensuality and rationality and is occupied with discussing unity +in variety, concord in multiplicity, and the true, the good, and the +beautiful in their substantial identity." Hutcheson allied the pleasure +of art with this sense, that is, with the pleasure of imitation and of +the likeness of the copy to the original. This he looked upon as +relative beauty, to be distinguished from absolute beauty. The same view +dominates the English writers of the eighteenth century, among whom may +be mentioned Reid, the head of the Scottish school, and Adam Smith. + +With far greater philosophical vigour, Leibnitz in Germany opened the +door to that crowd of psychic facts which Cartesian intellectualism had +rejected with horror. His conception of reality as _continuous_ (_natura +non facit saltus_) left room for imagination, taste, and their +congeners. Leibnitz believed that the scale of being ascended from the +lowliest to God. What we now term aesthetic facts were then identified +with what Descartes and Leibnitz had called "confused" knowledge, which +might become "clear," but not distinct. It might seem that when he +applied this terminology to aesthetic facts, Leibnitz had recognized +their peculiar essence, as being neither sensual nor intellectual. They +are not sensual for him, because they have their own "clarity," +differing from pleasure and sensual emotion, and from intellectual +"distinctio." But the Leibnitzian law of continuity and intellectualism +did not permit of such an interpretation. Obscurity and clarity are here +to be understood as quantitative grades of a _single_ form of knowledge, +the distinct or intellectual, toward which they both tend and reach at a +superior grade. Though artists judge with confused perceptions, which +are clear but not distinct, these may yet be corrected and proved true +by intellective knowledge. The intellect clearly and distinctly knows +the thing which the imagination knows confusedly but clearly. This view +of Leibnitz amounts to saying that the realization of a work of art can +be perfected by intellectually determining its concept. Thus Leibnitz +held that there was only one true form of knowledge, and that all other +forms could only reach perfection in that. His "clarity" is not a +specific difference; it is merely a partial anticipation of his +intellective "distinction." To have posited this grade is an important +achievement, but the view of Leibnitz is not fundamentally different +from that of the creators of the words and intuitions already studied. +All contributed to attract attention to the peculiarity of aesthetic +facts. + +Speculation on language at this period revealed an equally determined +intellectualist attitude. Grammar was held to be an exact science, and +grammatical variations to be explainable by the ellipse, by +abbreviation, and by failure to grasp the typical logical form. In +France, with Arnauld (1660), we have the rigorous Cartesian +intellectualism; Leibnitz and Locke both, speculated upon this subject, +and the former all his life nourished the thought of a universal +language. The absurdity of this is proved in this volume. + +A complete change of the Cartesian system, upon which Leibnitz based his +own, was necessary, if speculation were ever to surpass the Leibnitzian +aesthetic. But Wolff and the other German pupils of Leibnitz were as +unable to shake themselves free of the all-pervading intellectualism as +were the French pupils of Descartes. + +Meanwhile a young student of Berlin, named Alexander Amedeus Baumgarten, +was studying the Wolffian philosophy, and at the same time lecturing in +poetry and Latin rhetoric. While so doing, he was led to rethink and +pose afresh the problem of how to reduce the precepts of rhetoric to a +rigorous philosophical system. Thus it came about that Baumgarten +published in September 1735, at the age of twenty-one, as the thesis for +his degree of Doctor, an opuscule entitled, _Meditationes philosophicae +de nonnullis ad poèma pertinentibus_, and in it we find written +_for the first time_ the word "Aesthetic," as the name of a special +science. Baumgarten ever afterwards attached great importance to his +juvenile discovery, and lectured upon it by request in 1742, at +Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and again in 1749. It is interesting to know that +in this way Emmanuel Kant first became acquainted with the theory of +Aesthetic, which he greatly altered when he came to treat of it in his +philosophy. In 1750, Baumgarten published the first volume of a more +ample treatise, and a second part in 1762. But illness, and death in +1762, prevented his completing his work. + +What is Aesthetic for Baumgarten? It is the science of sensible +knowledge. Its objects are the sensible facts (_aisthaeta_), +which the Greeks were always careful to distinguish from the mental +facts (_noaeta_). It is therefore _scientia cognitionis +sensitivae, theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre +cogitandi, ars analogi rationis_. Rhetoric and Poetic are for him +special cases of Aesthetic, which is a general science, embracing both. +Its laws are diffused among all the arts, like the mariner's star +(_cynosura quaedam_), and they must be always referred to in all cases, +for they are universal, not empirical or merely inductive (_falsa regula +pejor est quam nulla_). Aesthetic must not be confounded with +Psychology, which supplies only suppositions. Aesthetic is an +independent science, which gives the rules for knowing sensibly, and is +occupied with the perfection of sensible knowledge, which is beauty. Its +contrary is ugliness. The beauty of objects and of matter must be +excluded from the beauty of sensible knowledge, because beautiful +objects can be badly thought and ugly objects beautifully thought. +Poetic representations are those which are confused or imaginative. +Distinction and intellectuality are not poetic. The greater the +determination, the greater the poetry; individuals absolutely determined +(_omnimodo determinata_) are very poetical, as are images or fancies, +and everything which refers to feeling. The judgment of sensible and +imaginative representations is taste. + +Such are, in brief, the truths which Baumgarten stated in his +_Meditationes_, and further developed and exemplified in his +_Aesthetica_. Close study of the two works above-mentioned leads to the +conviction that Baumgarten did not succeed in freeing himself from the +unity of the Leibnitzian monadology. He obtained from Leibnitz his +conception of the poetic as consisting of the confused, but German +critics are wrong in believing that he attributed to it a positive, not +a negative quality. Had he really done this, he would have broken at a +blow the unity of the Leibnitzian monad, and conquered the science of +Aesthetic. + +This giant's step he did not take: he failed to banish the +contradictions of Leibnitz and of the other intellectualists. To posit a +_perfection_ did not suffice. It was necessary to maintain it against +the _lex continui_ of Leibnitz and to proclaim its independence of all +intellectualism. Aesthetic truths for Baumgarten were those which did +not seem altogether false or altogether true: in fact, the verisimilar. +If it were objected to Baumgarten that one should not occupy oneself +with what, like poetry, he defines as confused and obscure, he would +reply that confusion is a condition of finding the truth, that we do not +pass at once from night to dawn. Thus he did not surpass the thought of +Leibnitz in this respect. Poor Baumgarten was always in suspense lest he +should be held to occupy himself with things unworthy of a philosopher! +"How can you, a professor of philosophy, dare to praise lying and the +mixture of truth and falsehood?" He imagined that some such reproach +might be addressed to him on account of his purely philosophical +speculations, and true enough he actually received a criticism of his +theory, in which it was argued, that if poetry consisted of sensual +perfection, then it was a bad thing for mankind. Baumgarten +contemptuously replied that he had not the time to argue with those +capable of confounding his _oratio perfecta sensitiva_ with an _oratio +perfecte (omnino!) sensitiva_. + +The fact about Baumgarten is that apart from baptizing the new science +Aesthetic, and apart from his first definitions, he does not stray far +from the old ruts of scholastic thought. The excellent Baumgarten, with +all his ardour and all his convictions, is a sympathetic and interesting +figure in the history of Aesthetic not yet formed, but in process of +formation. + +The revolutionary who set aside the old definitions of Aesthetic, and +for the first time revealed the true nature of art and poetry, is the +Italian, Giambattista Vico. + +What were the ideas developed by Vico in his _Scienza nuova_ (1725)? +They were neither more nor less than the solution of the problem, posed +by Plato, attempted in vain by Aristotle, again posed and again unsolved +at the Renaissance. + +Is poetry a rational or an irrational thing? Is it spiritual or animal? +If it be spiritual, what is its true nature, and in what way does it +differ from art and science? + +Plato, we know, banished poetry to the inferior region of the soul, +among the animal spirits. Vico on the contrary raises up poetry, and +makes of it a period in the history of humanity. And since Vico's is an +ideal history, whose periods are not concerned with contingent facts, +but with spiritual forms, he makes of it a moment of the ideal history +of the spirit, a form of knowledge. Poetry comes before the intellect, +but _after_ feeling. Plato had _confused_ it with feeling, and for that +reason banished it from his Republic. "Men _feel_," says Vico, "before +observing, then they observe with perturbation of the soul, finally they +reflect with the pure intellect," He goes on to say, that poetry being +composed of passion and of feeling, the nearer it approaches to the +_particular_, the more _true_ it is, while exactly the reverse is true +of philosophy. + +Imagination is independent and autonomous as regards the intellect. Not +only does the intellect fail of perfection, but all it can do is to +destroy it. "The studies of Poetry and Metaphysic are _naturally +opposed_. Poets are the feeling, philosophers the intellect of the human +race." The weaker the reason, the stronger the imagination. Philosophy, +he says, deals with abstract thought or universals, poetry with the +particular. Painters and poets differ only in their material. Homer and +the great poets appear in barbaric times. Dante, for instance, appeared +in "the renewed barbarism of Italy." The poetic ages preceded the +philosophical, and poetry is the father of prose, by "necessity of +nature," not by the "caprice of pleasure." Fables or "imaginary +universals" were conceived before "reasoned or philosophical +universals." To Homer, says Vico, belongs wisdom, but only poetic +wisdom. "His beauties are not those of a spirit softened and civilized +by any philosophy." + +If any one make poetry in epochs of reflexion, he becomes a child again; +he does not reflect with his intellect, but follows his fancy and dwells +upon particulars. If the true poet make use of philosophic ideas, he +only does so that he may change logic into imagination. + +Here we have a profound statement of the line of demarcation between +science and art. _They cannot be confused again_. + +His statement of the difference between poetry and history is a trifle +less clear. He explains why to Aristotle poetry seemed more +philosophical than history, and at the same time he refutes Aristotle's +error that poetry deals with the universal, history with the particular. +Poetry equals science, not because it is occupied with the intellectual +concept, but because, like science, it is ideal. A good poetical fable +must be all ideal: "With the idea the poet gives their being to things +which are without it. Poetry is all fantastic, as being the art of +painting the idea, not icastic, like the art of painting portraits. That +is why poets, like painters, are called divine, because in that respect +they resemble God the Creator." Vico ends by identifying poetry and +history. The difference between them is posterior and accidental. "But, +as it is impossible to impart false ideas, because the false consists of +a vicious combination of ideas, so it is impossible to impart a +tradition, which, though it be false, has not at first contained some +element of truth. Thus mythology appears for the first time, not as the +invention of an individual, but as the spontaneous vision of the truth +as it appears to primitive man." + +Poetry and language are for Vico substantially identical. He finds in +the origins of poetry the origins of languages and letters. He believed +that the first languages consisted in mute acts or acts accompanied by +bodies which had natural relations to the ideas that it was desired to +signify. With great cleverness he compared these pictured languages to +heraldic arms and devices, and to hieroglyphs. He observed that during +the barbarism of the Middle Age, the mute language of signs must return, +and we find it in the heraldry and blazonry of that epoch. Hence come +three kinds of languages: divine silent languages, heroic emblematic +languages, and speech languages. + +Formal logic could never satisfy a man with such revolutionary ideas +upon poetry and language. He describes the Aristotelian syllogism as a +method which explains universals In their particulars, rather than +unites particulars to obtain universals, looks upon Zeno and the sorites +as a means of subtilizing rather than sharpening the intelligence, and +concludes that Bacon is a great philosopher, when he advocates and +illustrates _induction_, "which has been followed by the English to the +great advantage of experimental philosophy." Hence he proceeds to +criticize mathematics, which, had hitherto always been looked upon as +the type of the _perfect science_. + +Vico is indeed a revolutionary, a pioneer. He knows very well that he is +in direct opposition to all that has been thought before about poetry. +"My new principles of poetry upset all that first Plato and then +Aristotle have said about the origin of poetry, all that has been said +by the Patrizzi, by the Scaligers, and by the Castelvetri. I have +discovered that It was through lack of human reason that poetry was born +so sublime that neither the Arts, nor the Poetics, nor the Critiques +could cause another equal to it to be born, I say equal, and not +superior." He goes as far as to express shame at having to report the +stupidities of great philosophers upon the origin of song and verse. He +shows his dislike for the Cartesian philosophy and its tendency to dry +up the imagination "by denying all the faculties of the soul which come +to it from the body," and talks of his own time as of one "which freezes +all the generous quality of the best poetry and thus precludes it from +being understood." + +As regards grammatical forms, Vico may be described as an adherent of +the great reaction of the Renaissance against scholastic verbalism and +formalism. This reaction brought back as a value the experience of +feeling, and afterwards with Romanticism gave its right place to the +imagination. Vico, in his _Scienza nuova_, may be said to have been the +first to draw attention to the imagination. Although he makes many +luminous remarks on history and the development of poetry among the +Greeks, his work is not really a history, but a science of the spirit or +of the ideal. It is not the ethical, logical, or economic moment of +humanity which interests him, but the _imaginative_ moment. _He +discovered the creative imagination_, and it may almost be said of the +_Scienza nuova_ of Vico that it is Aesthetic, the discovery of a new +world, of a new mode of knowledge. + +This was the contribution of the genius of Vico to the progress of +humanity: he showed Aesthetic to be an autonomous activity. It remained +to distinguish the science of the spirit from history, the modifications +of the human spirit from the historic vicissitudes of peoples, Aesthetic +from Homeric civilization. + +But although Goethe, Herder, and Wolf were acquainted with the _Scienza +nuova_, the importance of this wonderful book did not at first dawn upon +the world. Wolf, in his prolegomena to Homer, thought that he was +dealing merely with an ingenious speculator on Homeric themes. He did +not realize that the intellectual stature of Vico far surpassed that of +the most able philologists. + +The fortunes of Aesthetic after Vico were very various, and the list of +aestheticians who fell back into the old pedagogic definition, or +elaborated the mistakes of Baumgarten, is very long. Yet with C.H. +Heydenreich in Germany and Sulzer in Switzerland we find that the truths +contained in Baumgarten have begun to bear fruit. J.J. Herder (1769) was +more important than these, and he placed Baumgarten upon a pedestal, +though criticizing his pretension of creating an _ars pulchre cogitandi_ +instead of a simple _scientia de pulchro et pulchris philosophice +cogitans_. Herder admitted Baumgarten's definition of poetry as _oratio +sensitiva perfecta_, perfect sensitived speech, and this is _probably +the best definition of poetry that has ever been given_. It touches the +real essence of poetry and opens to thought the whole of the philosophy +of the beautiful. Herder, although he does not cite Vico upon aesthetic +questions, yet praises him as a philosopher. His remarks about poetry as +"the maternal language of humanity, as the garden is more ancient than +the cultivated field, painting than writing, song than declamation, +exchange than commerce," are replete with the spirit of the Italian +philosopher. + +But despite similar happy phrases, Herder is philosophically the +inferior of the great Italian. He is a firm believer in the Leibnitzian +law of continuity, and does not surpass the conclusions of Baumgarten. + +Herder and his friend Hamann did good service as regards the philosophy +of language. The French encyclopaedists, J.J. Rousseau, d'Alembert, and +many others of this period, were none of them able to get free of the +idea that a word is either a natural, mechanical fact, or a sign +attached to a thought. The only way out of this difficulty is to look +upon the imagination as itself active and expressive in _verbal +imagination_, and language as the language of _intuition_, not of the +intelligence. Herder talks of language as "an understanding of the soul +with itself." Thus language begins to appear, not as an arbitrary +invention or a mechanical fact, but as a primitive affirmation of human +activity, as a _creation_. + +But all unconscious of the discoveries of Vico, the great mass of +eighteenth century writers try their hands at every sort of solution. +The Abbé Batteux published in 1746 _Les Beaux-arts réduits a un seul +principe_, which is a perfect little bouquet of contradictions. The Abbé +finds himself confronted with difficulties at every turn, but with "un +peu d'esprit on se tire de tout," and when for instance he has to +explain artistic enjoyment of things displeasing, he remarks that the +imitation never being perfect like reality, the horror caused by reality +disappears. + +But the French were equalled and indeed surpassed by the English in +their amateur Aesthetics. The painter Hogarth was one day reading in +Italian a speech about the beauty of certain figures, attributed to +Michael Angelo. This led him to imagine that the figurative arts depend +upon a principle which consists of conforming to a given line. In 1745 +he produced a serpentine line as frontispiece of his collection of +engravings, which he described as "the line of beauty." Thus he +succeeded in exciting universal curiosity, which he proceeded to satisfy +with his "Analysis of Beauty." Here he begins by rightly combating the +error of judging paintings by their subject and by the degree of their +imitation, instead of by their form, which is the essential in art. He +gives his definition of form, and afterwards proceeds to describe the +waving lines which are beautiful and those which are not, and maintains +that among them all there is but one that is really worthy to be called +"the line of beauty," and one definite serpentine line "the line of +grace." The pig, the bear, the spider, and the frog are ugly, because +they do not possess serpentine lines. E. Burke, with a like assurance in +his examples, was equally devoid of certainty in his general principles. +He declares that the natural properties of an object cause pleasure or +pain to the imagination, but that the latter also procures pleasure from +their resemblance to the original. He does not speak further of the +second of these, but gives a long list of the natural properties of the +sensible, beautiful object. Having concluded his list, he remarks that +these are in his opinion the qualities upon which beauty depends and +which are the least liable to caprice and confusion. But "comparative +smallness, delicate structure, colouring vivid but not too much so," are +all mere empirical observations of no more value than those of Hogarth, +with whom Burke must be classed as an aesthetician. Their works are +spoken of as "classics." Classics indeed they are, but of the sort that +arrive at no conclusion. + +Henry Home (Lord Kaimes) is on a level a trifle above the two just +mentioned. He seeks "the true principles of the beaux-arts," in order to +transform criticism into "a rational science." He selects facts and +experience for this purpose, but in his definition of beauty, which he +divides into two parts, relative and intrinsic, he is unable to explain +the latter, save by a final cause, which he finds in the Almighty. + +Such theories as the three above mentioned defy classification, because +they are not composed by any scientific method. Their authors pass from +physiological sensualism to moralism, from imitation of nature to +finalism, and to transcendental mysticism, without consciousness of the +incongruity of their theses, at variance each with itself. + +The German, Ernest Platner, at any rate did not suffer from a like +confusion of thought. He developed his researches on the lines of +Hogarth, but was only able to discover a prolongation of sexual pleasure +in aesthetic facts. "Where," he exclaims, "is there any beauty that does +not come from the feminine figure, the centre of all beauty? The +undulating line is beautiful, because it is found in the body of woman; +essentially feminine movements are beautiful; the notes of music are +beautiful, when they melt into one another; a poem is beautiful, when +one thought embraces another with lightness and facility." + +French sensualism shows itself quite incapable of understanding +aesthetic production, and the associationism of David Hume is not more +fortunate in this respect. + +The Dutchman Hemsterhuis (1769) developed an ingenious theory, mingling +mystical and sensualist theory with some just remarks, which afterwards, +in the hands of Jacobi, became sentimentalism. Hemsterhuis believed +beauty to be a phenomenon arising from the meeting by the +sentimentalism, which gives multiplicity, with the internal sense, which +tends to unity. Consequently the beautiful will be that which presents +the greatest number of ideas in the shortest space of time. To man is +denied supreme unity, but here he finds approximative unity. Hence the +joy arising from the beautiful, which has some analogy with the joy of +love. + +With Winckelmann (1764) Platonism or Neo-platonism was vigorously +renewed. The creator of the history of the figurative arts saw in the +divine indifference and more than human elevation of the works of Greek +sculpture a beauty which had descended from the seventh heaven and +become incarnate in them. Mendelssohn, the follower of Baumgarten, had +denied beauty to God: Winckelmann, the Neoplatonician, gave it back to +Him. He holds that perfect beauty is to be found only in God. "The +conception of human beauty becomes the more perfect in proportion as it +can be thought as in agreement with the Supreme Being, who is +distinguished from matter by His unity and indivisibility." To the other +characteristics of supreme beauty, Winckelmann adds "the absence of any +sort of signification" (Unbezeichnung). Lines and dots cannot explain +beauty, for it is not they alone which form it. Its form is not proper +to any definite person, it expresses no sentiment, no feeling of +passion, for these break up unity and diminish or obscure beauty. +According to Winckelmann, beauty must be like a drop of pure water taken +from the spring, which is the more healthy the less it has of taste, +because it is purified of all foreign elements. + +A special faculty is required to appreciate this beauty, which +Winckelmann is inclined to call intelligence, or a delicate internal +sense, free of all instinctive passions, of pleasure, and of friendship. +Since it becomes a question of perceiving something immaterial, +Winckelmann banishes colour to a secondary place. True beauty, he says, +is that of form, a word which describes lines and contours, as though +lines and contours could not also be perceived by the senses, or could +appear to the eye without any colour. + +It is the destiny of error to be obliged to contradict itself, when it +does not decide to dwell in a brief aphorism, in order to live as well +as may be with facts and concrete problems. The "History" of Winckelmann +dealt with historic concrete facts, with which it was necessary to +reconcile the idea of a supreme beauty. His admission of the contours of +lines and his secondary admission of colours is a compromise. He makes +another with regard to the principle of expression. "Since there is no +intermediary between pain and pleasure in human nature, and since a +human being without these feelings is inconceivable, we must place the +human figure in a moment of action and of passion, which is what is +termed expression in art." So Winckelmann studied expression after +beauty. He makes a third compromise between his one, indivisible, +supreme, and constant beauty and individual beauties. Winckelmann +preferred the male to the female body as the most complete incarnation +of supreme beauty, but he was not able to shut his eyes to the +indisputable fact that there also exist beautiful bodies of women and +even of animals. + +Raphael Mengs, the painter, was an intimate friend of Winckelmann and +associated himself with him in his search for a true definition of the +beautiful. His ideas were generally in accordance with those of +Winckelmann. He defines beauty as "the visible idea of perfection, which +is to perfection what the visible is to the mathematical point." He +falls under the influence of the argument from design. The Creator has +ordained the multiplicity of beauties. Things are beautiful according to +our ideas of them, and these ideas come from the Creator. Thus each +beautiful thing has its own type, and a child would appear ugly if it +resembled a man. He adds to his remarks in this sense: "As the diamond +is alone perfect among stones, gold among metals, and man among living +creatures, so there is distinction in each species, and but little is +perfect." In his _Dreams of Beauty_, he looks upon beauty as "an +intermediate disposition," which contains a part of perfection and a +part of the agreeable, and forms a _tertium quid_, which differs from +the other two and deserves a special name. He names four sources of the +art of painting: beauty, significant or expressive character, harmony, +and colouring. The first of these he finds among the ancients, the +second with Raphael, the third with Correggio, the fourth with Titian. +Mengs does not succeed in rising above this empiricism of the studio, +save to declaim about the beauty of nature, virtue, forms, and +proportions, and indeed everything, including the First Cause, which is +the most beautiful of all. + +The name of G.E. Lessing (1766) is well known to all concerned with art +problems. The ideas of Winckelmann reappear in Lessing, with less of a +metaphysical tinge. For Lessing, the end of art is the pleasing, and +since this is "a superfluous thing," he thought that the legislator +should not allow to art the liberty indispensable to science, which +seeks the truth, necessary to the soul. For the Greeks painting was, as +it should always be, "imitation of beautiful bodies." Everything +disagreeable or ill-formed should be excluded from painting. "Painting, +as clever imitation, may imitate deformity. Painting, as a fine art, +does not permit this." He was more inclined to admit deformity in +poetry, as there it is less shocking, and the poet can make use of it to +produce in us certain feelings, such as the ridiculous or the terrible. +In his _Dramaturgie_ (1767), Lessing followed the Peripatetics, and +believed that the rules of Aristotle were as absolute as the theorems of +Euclid. His polemic against the French school is chiefly directed to +claiming a place in poetry for the verisimilar, as against absolute +historical exactitude. He held the universal to be a sort of mean of +what appears in the individual, the catharsis was in his view a +transformation of the passions into virtuous dispositions, and he held +the duty of poetry to be inspiration of the love of virtue. He followed +Winckelmann in believing that the expression of physical beauty was the +supreme object of painting. This beauty exists only as an ideal, which +finds its highest expression in man. Animals possess it to a slighter +extent, vegetable and inanimate nature not at all. Those mistaken enough +to occupy themselves with depicting the latter are imitating beauties +deprived of all ideal. They work only with eye and hand; genius has +little if any share in their productions. Lessing found the physical +ideal to reside chiefly in form, but also in the ideal of colour, and in +permanent expression. Mere colouring and transitory expression were for +him without ideal, "because nature has not imposed upon herself anything +definite as regards them." At bottom he does not care for colouring, +finding in the pen drawings of artists "a life, a liberty, a delicacy, +lacking to their pictures." He asks "whether even the most wonderful +colouring can make up for such a loss, and whether it be not desirable +that the art of oil-painting had never been invented." + +This "ideal beauty," wonderfully constructed from divine quintessence +and subtle pen and brush strokes, this academic mystery, had great +success. In Italy it was much discussed in the environment of Mengs and +of Winckelmann, who were working there. + +The first counterblast to their aesthetic Neo-platonism came from an +Italian named Spalletti, and took the form of a letter addressed to +Mengs. He represents the _characteristic_ as the true principle of art. +The pleasure obtained from beauty is intellectual, and truth is its +object. When the soul meets with what is characteristic, and what really +suits the object to be represented, the work is held to be beautiful. A +well-made man with a woman's face is ugly. Harmony, order, variety, +proportion, etc.--these are elements of beauty, and man enjoys the +widening of his knowledge before disagreeable things characteristically +represented. Spalletti defines beauty as "that modification inherent to +the object observed, which presents it, as it should appear, with an +infallible characteristic." + +Thus the Aristotelian thesis found a supporter in Italy, some years +before any protestation was heard in Germany. Louis Hirt, the historian +of art (1797) observed that ancient monuments represented all sorts of +forms, from the most beautiful and sublime to the most ugly and most +common. He therefore denied that ideal beauty was the principle of art, +and for it substituted the _characteristic_, applicable equally to gods, +heroes, and animals. + +Wolfgang Goethe, in 1798, forgetting the juvenile period, during which +he had dared to raise a hymn to Gothic architecture, now began seriously +to seek a middle term between beauty and expression. He believed that he +had found it, in certain characteristic contents presenting to the +artist beautiful shapes, which the artist would then develop and reduce +to perfect beauty. Thus for Goethe at this period, the characteristic +was simply the _starting-point_, or framework, from which the beautiful +arose, through the power of the artist. + +But these writers mentioned after J.B. Vico are not true philosophers. +Winckelmann, Mengs, Hogarth, Lessing, and Goethe are great in other +ways. Meier called himself a historian of art, but he was inferior both +to Herder and to Hamann. From J.B. Vico to Emmanuel Kant, European +thought is without a name of great importance as regards this subject. + +Kant took up the problem, where Vico had left it, not in the historical, +but in the ideal sense. He resembled the Italian philosopher, in the +gravity and the tenacity of his studies in Aesthetic, but he was far +less happy in his solutions, which did not attain to the truth, and to +which he did not succeed in giving the necessary unity and +systematization. The reader must bear in mind that Kant is here +criticized solely as an aesthetician: his other conclusions do not enter +directly into the discussion. + +What was Kant's idea of art? The answer is: the same in substance as +Baumgarten's. This may seem strange to those who remember his sustained +polemic against Wolf and the conception of beauty as confused +perception. But Kant always thought highly of Baumgarten. He calls him +"that excellent analyst" in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and he used +Baumgarten's text for his University lectures on Metaphysic. Kant looked +upon Logic and Aesthetic as cognate studies, and in his scheme of +studies for 1765, and in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, he proposes to +cast a glance at the Critique of Taste, that is to say, Aesthetic, +"since the study of the one is useful for the other and they are +mutually illuminative." He followed Meier in his distinctions between +logical and aesthetic truth. He even quoted the Instance of the young +girl, whose face when distinctly seen, i.e. with a microscope, is no +longer beautiful. It is true, aesthetically, he said, that when a man is +dead he cannot come to life, although this be opposed both to logical +and to moral truth. It is aesthetically true that the sun plunges into +the sea, although that is not true logically or objectively. + +No one, even among the greatest, can yet tell to what extent logical +truth should mingle with aesthetic truth. Kant believed that logical +truth must wear the habit of Aesthetic, in order to become _accessible_. +This habit, he thought, was discarded only by the rational sciences, +which tend to depth. Aesthetic certainly is subjective. It is satisfied +with authority or with an appeal to great men. We are so feeble that +Aesthetic must eke out our thoughts. Aesthetic is a vehicle of Logic. +But there are logical truths which are not aesthetic. We must exclude +from philosophy exclamations and other emotions, which belong to +aesthetic truth. For Kant, poetry is the harmonious play of thought and +sensation, differing from eloquence, because in poetry thoughts are +fitted to suggestions, in eloquence the reverse is true. Poetry should +make virtue and intellect visible, as was done by Pope in his _Essay on +Man_. Elsewhere, he says frankly that logical perfection is the +foundation of all the rest. + +The confirmation of this is found in his _Critique of Judgment_, which +Schelling looked upon as the most important of the three _Critiques_, +and which Hegel and other metaphysical idealists always especially +esteemed. + +For Kant art was always "a sensible and imaged covering for an +intellectual concept." He did not look upon art as pure beauty without a +concept. He looked upon it as a beauty adherent and fixed about a +concept. The work of genius contains two elements: imagination and +intelligence. To these must be added taste, which combines the two. Art +may even represent the ugly in nature, for artistic beauty "is not a +beautiful thing but a beautiful representation of a thing." But this +representation of the ugly has its limits in the arts (here Kant +remembers Lessing and Winckelmann), and an absolute limit in the +disgusting and the repugnant, which kills the representation itself. He +believes that there may be artistic productions without a concept, such +as are flowers in nature, and these would be ornaments to frameworks, +music without words, etc., etc., but since they represent nothing +reducible to a definite concept, they must be classed, like flowers, +with free beauties. This would certainly seem to exclude them from +Aesthetic, which, according to Kant, should combine imagination and +intelligence. + +Kant is shut in with intellectualist barriers. A complete definition of +the _imagination_ is _wanting_ to his system. He does not admit that the +imagination belongs to the powers of the mind. He relegates it to the +facts of sensation. He is aware of the reproductive and combinative +imagination, but he does not recognize _fancy_ (_fantasia_), which is +the true productive imagination. + +Yet Kant was aware that there exists an activity other than the +intellective. Intuition is referred to by him as preceding intellective +activity and differing from sensation. He does not speak of it, however, +in his critique of art, but in the first section of the _Critique of +Pure Reason_. Sensations do not enter the mind, until it has given them +_form_. This is neither sensation nor intelligence. It is _pure +intuition_, the sum of the _a priori_ principles of sensibility. He +speaks thus: "There must, then, exist a science that forms the first +part of the transcendental doctrine of the elements, distinct from that +which contains the principles of pure thought and is called +transcendental Logic." + +What does he call this new science? He calls it _Transcendental +Aesthetic_, and refuses to allow the term to be used for the Critique of +Taste, which could never become a science. + +But although he thus states so clearly the necessity of a science of the +form of the sensations, that is of _pure intuition_, Kant here appears +to fall into grave error. This arises from _his inexact idea_ of the +_essence of the aesthetic faculty or of art_, which, as we now know, is +pure intuition. He conceives the form of sensibility to be reducible to +the _two categories of space and time_. + +Benedetto Croce has shown that space and time are far from being +categories or functions: they are complex posterior formations. Kant, +however, looked upon density, colour, etc., as material for sensations; +but the mind only observes colour or hardness when it has _already_ +given a form to its sensations. Sensations, in so far as they are _crude +matter_, are _outside_ the mind: they are a _limit_. Colour, hardness, +density, etc., are _already_ intuitions. _They are the aesthetic +activity in its rudimentary manifestation._ + +Characterizing or qualifying imagination, that is, _aesthetic activity_, +should therefore _take the place occupied by the study of space and +time_ in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and constitute the true +_Transcendental Aesthetic_, prologue to Logic. + +Had Kant done this, he would have surpassed Leibnitz and Baumgarten; he +would have equalled Vico. + +Kant did not identify the Beautiful with art. He established what he +called "the four moments of Beauty," amounting to a definition of it. +The two negative moments are, "That is beautiful which pleases _without +interest_"; this thesis was directed against the sensualist school of +English writers, with whom Kant had for a time agreed; and "That is +beautiful which pleases without a concept," directed against the +intellectualists. Thus he affirmed the existence of a spiritual domain, +distinct from that of organic pleasure, of the useful, the good, and the +true. The two other moments are, "That is beautiful which has the form +of finality without the representation of an end," and "That is +beautiful which is the object of universal pleasure." What is this +disinterested pleasure that we experience before pure colours, pure +sounds, and flowers? Benedetto Croce replies that this mysterious domain +has no existence; that the instances cited represent, either instances +of organic pleasure, or are artistic facts of expression. + +Kant was less severe with the Neoplatonicians than with the two schools +of thought above mentioned. His _Critique of Judgment_ contains some +curious passages, in one of which he gives his distinction of form from +matter: "In music, the melody is the matter, harmony the form: in a +flower, the scent is the matter, the shape or configuration the form." +In the other arts, he found that the design was the essential. "Not what +pleases in sensation, but what is approved for its form, is the +foundation of taste." + +In his pursuit of the phantom of a beauty, which is neither that of art +nor of sensual pleasure, exempt alike from expression and from +enjoyment, he became enveloped in inextricable contradictions. Little +disposed as he was to let himself be carried away by the imagination, he +expressed his contempt for philosopher-poets like Herder, and kept +saying and unsaying, affirming and then immediately criticizing his own +affirmations as to this mysterious beauty. The truth is that _this +mystery is simply his own individual uncertainty before a problem which +he could not solve_, owing to his having no clear idea of an activity of +sentiment. Such an activity represented for him a logical contradiction. +Such expressions as "necessary universal pleasure," "finality without +the idea of end," are verbal proofs of his uncertainty. + +How was he to emerge from this uncertainty, this contradiction? He fell +back upon the concept of a base of subjective finality as the base of +the judgment of taste, that is of the subjective finality of nature by +the judgment. But nothing can be known or disclosed to the object by +means of this concept, which is indeterminate in itself and not adapted +for knowledge. Its determining reason is perhaps situated in "the +suprasensible substratum of humanity." Thus beauty becomes a symbol of +morality. "The subjective principle alone, that is, the indeterminate +idea of the suprasensible in us, can be indicated as the sole key to +reveal this faculty, which remains unknown to us in its origin. Nothing +but this principle can make that hidden faculty comprehensible." + +Kant had a tendency to mysticism, which this statement does not serve to +conceal, but it was a mysticism without enthusiasm, a mysticism almost +against the grain. His failure to penetrate thoroughly the nature of the +aesthetic activity led him to see double and even triple, on several +occasions. Art being unknown to him in its essential nature, he invents +the functions of _space_ and _time_ and terms this _transcendental +aesthetic_; he develops the theory of the imaginative beautifying of the +intellectual concept by genius; he is finally forced to admit a +mysterious power of feeling, intermediate between the theoretic and the +practical activity. This power is cognoscitive and non-cognoscitive, +moral and indifferent to morality, agreeable and yet detached from the +pleasure of the senses. His successors hastened to make use of this +mysterious power, for they were glad to be able to find some sort of +justification for their bold speculations in the severe philosopher of +Königsberg. + +In addition to Schelling and Hegel, for whom, as has been said, the +_Critique of Judgment_ seemed the most important of the three Critiques, +we must now mention the name of a poet who showed himself as great in +philosophical as in aesthetic achievement. + +_Friedrich Schiller_ first elaborated that portion of the Kantian +thought contained in the _Critique of Judgment_. Before any professional +philosopher, Schiller studied that sphere of activity which unites +feeling with reason. Hegel talks with admiration of this artistic +genius, who was also so profoundly philosophical and first announced the +principle of reconciliation between life as duty and reason on the one +hand, and the life of the senses and feeling on the other. + +To Schiller belongs the great merit of having opposed the subjective +idealism of Kant and of having made the attempt to surpass it. + +The exact relations between Kant and Schiller, and the extent to which +the latter may have been influenced by Leibnitz and Herder, are of less +importance to the history of Aesthetic than the fact that Schiller +_unified_ once for all art and beauty, which had been separated by Kant, +with his distinctions between adherent and pure beauty. Schiller's +artistic sense must doubtless have stood him here in good stead. + +Schiller found a very unfortunate and misleading term to apply to the +aesthetic sphere. He called it the sphere of _play_ (Spiel). He strove +to explain that by this he did not mean ordinary games, nor material +amusement. For Schiller, this sphere of play lay intermediate between +thought and feeling. Necessity in art gives place to a free disposition +of forces; mind and nature, matter and form are here reconciled. The +beautiful is life, but not physiological life. A beautiful statue may +have life, and a living man be without it. Art conquers nature with +form. The great artist effaces matter with form. The less we are +sensible of the material in a work of art, the greater the triumph of +the artist. The soul of the spectator should leave the magic sphere of +art as pure and as perfect as when it left the hands of the Creator. The +most frivolous theme should be so treated that we can pass at once from +it to the most rigorous, and _vice versa_. Only when man has placed +himself outside the world and contemplates it aesthetically, can he know +the world. While he is merely the passive receiver of sensations, he is +one with the world, and therefore cannot realize it. Art is +indeterminism. With the help of art, man delivers himself from the yoke +of the senses, and is at the same time free of any rational or moral +duty: he may enjoy for a moment the luxury of serene contemplation. + +Schiller was well aware that the moment art is employed to teach morals +directly, it ceases to be art. All other teachings give to the soul a +special imprint. Art alone is favourable to all without prejudice. Owing +to this indifference of art, it possesses a great educative power, by +opening the path to morality without preaching or persuasion; without +determining, it produces determinability. This was the main theme of the +celebrated "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man," which Schiller +wrote to his patron the Duke of Holstein-Augustenburg. Here, and in his +lectures at the University of Jena, it is clear that Schiller addresses +himself to a popular audience. He began a work, on scientific Aesthetic, +which he intended to entitle "Kallias," but unfortunately died without +completing it. We possess only a few fragments, contained in his +correspondence with his friend Körner. Körner did not feel satisfied +with the formula of Schiller, and asks for some more precise and +objective mark of the beautiful. Schiller tells him that he has found +it, but what he had found we shall never know, as there is no document +to inform us. + +The fault of Schiller's aesthetic theory was its lack of precision. His +artistic faculty enabled him to give unsurpassable descriptions of the +catharsis and of other effects of art, but he fails to give a precise +definition of the aesthetic function. True, he disassociates it from +morality, yet admits that it may in a measure be associated with it. The +only formal activities that he recognizes are the moral and the +intellectual, and he denies altogether (against the sensualists) that +art can have anything to do with passion or sensuality. His intellectual +world consisted only of the logical and the intellectual, leaving out +the imaginative activity. + +What is art for Schiller? He admits four modes of relation between man +and external things. They are the physical, the logical, the moral, and +the aesthetic. He describes this latter as a mode by which things affect +the whole of our different forces, without being a definite object for +any one in particular. Thus a man may be said to please aesthetically, +"when he does so without appealing to any one of the senses directly, +and without any law or end being thought of in connection with him." +Schiller cannot be made to say anything more definite than this. His +general position was probably much like Kant's (save in the case above +mentioned, where he made a happy correction), and he probably looked +upon Aesthetic as a mingling of several faculties, as a play of +sentiment. + +Schiller was faithful to Kant's teaching in its main lines, and his +uncertainty was largely due to this. The existence of a _third sphere_ +uniting form and matter was for Schiller rather an ideal conformable to +reason than a _definite_ activity; it was supposititious, rather than +effective. + +But the Romantic movement in literature, which was at that time gaining +ground, with its belief in a superhuman faculty called imagination, in +genius breaker of rules, found no such need for restraint. Schiller's +modest reserve was set aside, and with J.P. Richter we approach a +mythology of the imagination. Many of his observations are, however, +just, and his distinction between productive and reproductive +imagination is excellent. How could humanity appreciate works of genius, +he asks, were it without some common measure? All men who can go as far +as saying "this is beautiful" before a beautiful thing, are capable of +the latter. He then proceeds to establish to his own satisfaction +categories of the imagination, leading from simple talent to the supreme +form of male genius in which all faculties flourish together: a faculty +of faculties. + +The Romantic conception of art is, in substance, that of idealist German +philosophy, where we find it in a more coherent and systematic form. It +is the conception of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel. + +Fichte, Kant's first great pupil, cannot be included with these, for his +view of Aesthetic, largely influenced by Schiller, is transformed in the +Fichtian system to a moral activity, to a representation of the ethical +ideal. The subjective idealism of Fichte, however, generated an +Aesthetic: that of irony as the base of art. The I that has created the +universe can also destroy it. The universe is a vain appearance, smiled +at by the Ego its creator, who surveys it as an artist his work, from +without and from above. For Friedrich Schlegel, art was a perpetual +farce, a parody of itself; and Tieck defined irony as a force which +allows the poet to dominate his material. + +Novalis, that Romantic Fichtian, dreamed of a magical idealism, an art +of creating by an instantaneous act of the Ego. But Schelling's "system +of transcendental idealism" was the first great philosophical +affirmation of Romanticism and of conscious Neo-platonism reborn in +Aesthetic. + +Schelling has obviously studied Schiller, but he brings to the problem a +mind more purely philosophical and a method more exactly scientific. He +even takes Kant to task for faultiness of method. His remarks as to +Plato's position are curious, if not conclusive. He says that Plato +condemned the art of his time, because it was realistic and +naturalistic: like all antique art, it exhibited a _finite_ character. +Plato's judgment would have been quite different had he known Christian +art, of which the character is _infinity_. + +Schelling held firm to the fusion of art and beauty effected by +Schiller, but he combated Winckelmann's theory of abstract beauty with +its negative conception of the characteristic, assigning to art the +limits of the individual. Art is characteristic beauty; it is not the +individual, but the living conception of the individual. When the artist +recognizes the eternal idea in an individual, and expresses it +outwardly, he transforms the individual into a world apart, into a +species, into an eternal idea. Characteristic beauty is the fulness of +form which slays form: it does not silence passion, but restrains it as +the banks of a river the waters that flow between them, but do not +overflow. + +Schelling's starting-point is the criticism of teleological judgment, as +stated by Kant in his third Critique. Teleology is the union of +theoretic with practical philosophy. But the system would not be +complete, unless we could show the identity of the two worlds, theoretic +and practical, in the subject itself. He must demonstrate the existence +of an activity, which is at once unconscious as nature and conscious as +spirit. This activity we find in Aesthetic, which is therefore "the +general organ of philosophy, the keystone of the whole building." + +Poetry and philosophy alone possess the world of the ideal, in which the +real world vanishes. True art is not the impression of the moment, but +the representation of infinite life: it is transcendental intuition +objectified. The time will come when philosophy will return to poetry, +which was its source, and on the new philosophy will arise a new +mythology. Philosophy does not depict real things, but their ideas; so +too, art. Those same ideas, of which real things are, as philosophy +shows, the imperfect copies, reappear in art objectified as ideas, and +therefore in their perfection. Art stands nearest to philosophy, which +itself stands nearest to the Idea, and therefore nearest to perfection. +Art differs from philosophy only by its _specialization_: in all other +ways it is the ideal world in its most complete expression. The three +Ideas of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty correspond to the three powers of +the ideal and of the real world. Beauty is not the universal whole, +which is truth, nor is it the only reality, which is action: it is the +perfect mingling of the two. "Beauty exists where the real or particular +is so adequate to its concept that this infinite thing enters into the +finite, and is contemplated in the concrete." Philosophy unites truth, +morality, and beauty, in what they possess in common, and deduces them +from their unique Source, which is God. If philosophy assume the +character of science and of truth, although it be superior to truth, the +reason for this lies in the fact that science and truth are simply the +formal determination of philosophy. + +Schelling looked upon mythology as a necessity for every art. Ideas are +Gods, considered from the point of view of reality; for the essence of +each is equal to God in a _particular_ form. The characteristics of all +Gods, including the Christian, are _pure limitation and absolute +indivisibility_. Minerva has wisdom and strength, but lacks womanly +tenderness; Juno has power and wisdom, but is without amorous charm, +which she borrows with the girdle of Venus, who in her turn is without +the wisdom of Minerva. What would these Gods become without their +limitations? They would cease to be the objects of Fancy. Fancy is a +faculty, apart from the pure intellect and from the reason. Distinct +from imagination, which develops the products of art, Fancy has +intuitions of them, grasps them herself, and herself represents them. +Fancy is to imagination as intellectual intuition is to reason. Fancy, +then, is intellectual intuition in art. In the thought of Schelling, +fancy, the new or artistic intuition, sister of intellectual intuition, +came to dominate alike the intellect and the old conception of the fancy +and the imagination, in a system for which reason alone did not suffice. + +C.G. Solger followed Schelling and agreed with him in finding but little +truth in the theories of Kant, and especially of Fichte. He held that +their dialectic had failed to solve the difficulty of intellectual +intuition. He too conceived of fancy as distinct from imagination, and +divided the former into three degrees. Imagination he held to appertain +to ordinary knowledge, "which re-establishes the original intuition to +infinity." Fancy "originates from the original antithesis in the idea, +and so operates that the opposing elements which are separated from the +idea become perfectly united in reality. By means of fancy, we are able +to understand things more lofty than those of common knowledge, and in +them we recognize the idea itself as real. In art, fancy is the faculty +of transforming the idea into reality." + +For Solger as for Schelling, beauty belongs to the region of Ideas, +which are inaccessible to common knowledge. Art is nearly allied to +religion, for as religion is the abyss of the idea, into which our +consciousness plunges, that it may become essential, so Art and the +Beautiful resolve, in their way, the world of distinctions, the +universal and the particular. Artistic activity is more than +theoretical: it is practical, realized and perfect, and therefore +belongs to practical, not to theoretic philosophy, as Kant wrongly +believed. Since art must touch infinity on one side, it cannot have +ordinary nature for its object. Art therefore _ceases_ in the portrait, +and this explains why the ancients generally chose Gods or Heroes as +models for sculpture. Every deity, even in a limited and particular +form, expresses a definite modification of the Idea. + +G.G.F. Hegel gives the same definition of art as Solger and Schelling, +All three were mystical aestheticians, and the various shades of +mystical Aesthetic, presented by these three writers, are not of great +interest. Schelling forced upon art the abstract Platonic ideas, while +Hegel reduced it to the _concrete idea_. This concrete idea was for +Hegel the first and lowest of the three forms of the liberty of the +spirit. It represented immediate, sensible, objectified knowledge; while +Religion filled the second place, as representative consciousness with +adoration, which is an element foreign to art alone. The third place was +of course occupied by Philosophy, the free thought of the absolute +spirit. Beauty and Truth are one for Hegel; they are united in the Idea. +The beautiful he defined as _the sensible appearance of the Idea_. + +Some writers have erroneously believed that the views of the three +philosophers above mentioned lead back to those of Baumgarten. But that +is not correct. They well understood that art cannot be made a medium +for the expression of philosophic concepts. Not only are they opposed to +the moralistic and intellectualistic view, but they are its active +opponents. Schelling says that aesthetic production is in its essence +absolutely free, and Hegel that art does not contain the universal as +such. + +Hegel accentuated the _cognoscitive_ character of art, more than any of +his predecessors. We have seen that he placed it with Philosophy and +Religion in the sphere of the absolute Spirit. But he does not allow +either to Art or to Religion any difference of function from that of +Philosophy, which occupies the highest place in his system. They are +therefore inferior, necessary, grades of the Spirit. Of what use are +they? Of none whatever, or at best, they merely represent transitory and +historical phases of human life. + +Thus we see that the tendency of Hegelianism is _anti-artistic_, as it +is rationalistic and anti-religious. + +This result of thought was a strange and a sad thing for one who loved +art so fervently as Hegel. Our memories conjure up Plato, who also loved +art well, and yet found himself logically obliged to banish the poet +from his ideal Republic, after crowning him with roses. But the German +philosopher was as staunch to the (supposed) command of reason as the +Greek, and felt himself obliged to announce the death of art. Art, he +says, occupies a lofty place in the human spirit, but not the most +lofty, for it is limited to a restricted content and only a certain +grade of truth can be expressed in art. Such are the Hellenic Gods, who +can be transfused in the sensible and appear in it adequately. The +Christian conception of truth is among those which cannot be so +expressed. The spirit of the modern world, and more precisely the spirit +of our religion and rational development, seem to have gone beyond the +point at which art is the chief way of apprehending the Absolute. The +peculiarity of artistic production no longer satisfies our highest +needs. Thought and reflexion have surpassed art, the beautiful. He goes +on to say that the reason generally given for this is the prevalence of +material and political interests. But the true reason is the inferiority +in degree of art as compared with pure thought. Art is dead, and +Philosophy can therefore supply its complete biography. + +Hegel's _Vorlesungen Über Aesthetik_ amounts therefore to a funeral +oration upon Art. + +Romanticism and metaphysical idealism had placed art, sometimes above +the clouds, sometimes within them, and believing that it was no good +there to anyone, Hegel provided a decent burial. + +Nothing perhaps better shows how well this fantastic conception of art +suited the spirit of the time, than the fact that even the adversaries +of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel either admit agreement with that +conception, or find themselves involuntarily in agreement with it, while +believing themselves to be very remote. They too are mystical +aestheticians. + +We all know with what virulence Arthur Schopenhauer attacked and +combated Schelling, Hegel, and all the "charlatans" and "professors" who +had divided among them the inheritance of Kant. + +Well, Schopenhauer's theory of art starts, just like Hegel's, from the +difference between the abstract and the concrete concept, which is the +_Idea_. Schopenhauer's ideas are the Platonic ideas, although in the +form which he gives to them, they have a nearer resemblance to the Ideas +of Schelling than to the Idea of Hegel. + +Schopenhauer takes much trouble to differentiate his ideas from +intellectual concepts. He calls the idea "unity which has become +plurality by means of space and time. It is the form of our intuitive +apperception. The concept is, on the contrary, unity extracted from +plurality by means of abstraction, which is an act of our intellect. The +concept may be called _unitas post rem_, the idea _unitas ante rem_." + +The origin of this psychological illusion of the ideas or types of +things is always to be found in the changing of the empirical +classifications created for their own purposes by the natural sciences, +into living realities. + +Thus each art has for its sphere a special category of ideas. +Architecture and its derivatives, gardening (and strange to say +landscape-painting is included with it), sculpture and animal-painting, +historical painting and the higher forms of sculpture, etc., all possess +their special ideas. Poetry's chief object is man as idea. Music, on the +contrary, does not belong to the hierarchy of the other arts. Schelling +had looked upon music as expressing the rhythm of the universe itself. +For Schopenhauer, music does not express ideas, but the _Will itself_. + +The analogies between music and the world, between fundamental notes and +crude matter, between the scale and the scale of species, between melody +and conscious will, lead Schopenhauer to the conclusion that music is +not only an arithmetic, as it appeared to Leibnitz, but indeed a +metaphysic: "the occult metaphysical exercise of a soul not knowing that +it philosophizes." + +For Schopenhauer, as for his idealist predecessors, art is beatific. It +is the flower of life; he who is plunged in artistic contemplation +ceases to be an individual; he is the conscious subject, pure, freed +from will, from pain, and from time. + +Yet in Schopenhauer's system exist elements for a better and a more +profound treatment of the problem of art. He could sometimes show +himself to be a lucid and acute analyst. For instance, he continually +remarks that the categories of space and time are not applicable to art, +_but only the general form of representation_. He might have deduced +from this that art is the most immediate, not the most lofty grade of +consciousness, since it precedes even the ordinary perceptions of space +and time. Vico had already observed that this freeing oneself from +ordinary perception, this dwelling in imagination, does not really mean +an ascent to the level of the Platonic Ideas, but, on the contrary, a +redescending to the sphere of immediate intuition, a return to +childhood. + +On the other hand, Schopenhauer had begun to submit the Kantian +categories to impartial criticism, and finding the two forms of +intuition insufficient, added a third, causality. + +He also drew comparisons between art and history, and was more +successful here than the idealist excogitators of a philosophy of +history. Schopenhauer rightly saw that history was irreducible to +concepts, that it is the contemplation of the individual, and therefore +not a science. Having proceeded thus far, he might have gone further, +and realized that the material of history is always the particular in +its particularity, that of art what is and always is identical. But he +preferred to execute a variation on the general motive that was in +fashion at this time. + +The fashion of the day! It rules in philosophy as elsewhere, and we are +now about to see the most rigid and arid of analysts, the leader of the +so-called _realist_ school, or school of _exact science_ in Germany in +the nineteenth century, plunge headlong into aesthetic mysticism. + +G.F. Herbart (1813) begins his Aesthetic by freeing it from the +discredit attaching to Metaphysic and to Psychology. He declares that +the only true way of understanding art is to study particular examples +of the beautiful and to note what they reveal as to its essence. + +We shall now see what came of Herbart's analysis of these examples of +beauty, and how far he succeeded in remaining free of Metaphysic. + +For Herbart, beauty consists of _relations_. The science of Aesthetic +consists of an enumeration of all the fundamental relations between +colours, lines, tones, thoughts, and will. But for him these relations +are not empirical or physiological. They cannot therefore be studied in +a laboratory, because thought and the will form part of them, and these +belong as much to Ethics as to the external world. But Herbart +explicitly states that no true beauty is sensible, although sensation +may and does often precede and follow the intuition of beauty. There is +a profound distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable or +pleasant: the latter does not require a representation, while the former +consists in representations of relations, which are immediately followed +by a judgment expressing unconditioned approval. Thus the merely +pleasurable becomes more and more indifferent, but the beautiful appears +always as of more and more permanent value. The judgment of taste is +universal, eternal, immutable. The complete representation of the same +relations always carries with it the same judgment. For Herbart, +aesthetic judgments are the general class containing the sub-class of +ethical judgments. The five ethical ideas, of internal liberty, of +perfection, of benevolence, of equity, and of justice, are five +aesthetic ideas; or better, they are aesthetic concepts applied to the +will in its relations. + +Herbart looked upon art as a complex fact, composed of an external +element possessing logical or psychological value, the content, and of a +true aesthetic element, which is the form. Entertainment, instruction, +and pleasure of all sorts are mingled with the beautiful, in order to +obtain favour for the work in question. The aesthetic judgment, calm and +serene in itself, may be accompanied by all sorts of psychic emotions, +foreign to it. But the content is always transitory, relative, subject +to moral laws, and judged by them. The form alone is perennial, +absolute, and free. The true catharsis can only be effected by +separating the form from the content. Concrete art may be the sum of two +values, _but the aesthetic fact is form alone_. + +For those capable of penetrating beneath appearances, the aesthetic +doctrines of Herbart and of Kant will appear very similar. Herbart is +notable as insisting, in the manner of Kant, on the distinction between +free and adherent beauty (or adornment as sensuous stimulant), on the +existence of pure beauty, object of necessary and universal judgments, +and on a certain mingling of ethical with his aesthetic theory. Herbart, +indeed, called himself "a Kantian, but of the year 1828." Kant's +aesthetic theory, though it be full of errors, yet is rich in fruitful +suggestions. Kant belongs to a period when philosophy is still young and +pliant. Herbart came later, and is dry and one-sided. The romantics and +the metaphysical idealists had unified the theory of the beautiful and +of art. Herbart restored the old duality and mechanism, and gave us an +absurd, unfruitful form of mysticism, void of all artistic inspiration. + +Herbart may be said to have taken all there was of false in the thought +of Kant and to have made it into a system. + +The beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany is notable for the +great number of philosophical theories and of counter-theories, broached +and rapidly discussed, before being discarded. None of the most +prominent names in the period belong to philosophers of first-rate +importance, though they made so much stir in their day. + +The thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher was obscured and misunderstood +amid those crowding mediocrities; yet it is perhaps the most interesting +and the most noteworthy of the period. + +Schleiermacher looked upon Aesthetic as an altogether modern form of +thought. He perceived a profound difference between the "Poetics" of +Aristotle, not yet freed from empirical precepts, and the tentative of +Baumgarten in the eighteenth century. He praised Kant as having been the +first to include Aesthetic among the philosophical disciplines. He +admitted that with Hegel it had attained to the highest pinnacle, being +connected with religion and with philosophy, and almost placed upon +their level. + +But he was dissatisfied with the absurdity of the attempt made by the +followers of Baumgarten to construct a science or theory of sensuous +pleasure. He disapproved of Kant's view of taste as being the principle +of Aesthetic, of Fichte's art as moral teaching, and of the vague +conception of the beautiful as the centre of Aesthetic. + +He approved of Schiller's marking of the moment of spontaneity in +productive art, and he praised Schelling for having drawn attention to +the figurative arts, as being less liable than poetry to be diverted to +false and illusory moralistic ends. Before he begins the study of the +place due to the artistic activity in Ethic, he carefully excludes from +the study of Aesthetic all practical rules (which, being empirical, are +incapable of scientific demonstration). + +For Schleiermacher, the sphere of Ethic included the whole Philosophy of +the Spirit, in addition to morality. These are the two forms of human +activity--that which, like Logic, is the same in all men, and is called +activity of identity, and the activity of difference or individuality. +There are activities which, like art, are internal or immanent and +individual, and others which are external or practical. _The true work +of art is the internal picture_. Measure is what differentiates the +artist's portrayal of anger on the stage and the anger of a really angry +man. Truth is not sought in poetry, or if it be sought there, it is +truth of an altogether different kind. The truth of poetry lies in +coherent presentation. Likeness to a model does not compose the merit of +a picture. Not the smallest amount of knowledge comes from art, which +expresses only the truth of a particular consciousness. Art has for its +field the immediate consciousness of self, which must be carefully +distinguished from the thought of the Ego. This last is the +consciousness of identity in the diversity of moments as they pass; the +immediate consciousness of self is the diversity itself of the moments, +of which we should be aware, for life is nothing but the development of +consciousness. In this field, art has sometimes been confused with two +facts which accompany it there: these are sentient consciousness (that +is, the feelings of pleasure and of pain) and religion. Schleiermacher +here alludes to the sensualistic aestheticians of the eighteenth +century, and to Hegel, who had almost identified art and religion. He +refutes both points of view by pointing out that sentient pleasure and +religious sentiment, however different they may be from other points of +view, are yet both determined by an objective fact; while art, on the +contrary, is free productivity. + +Dream is the best parallel and proof of this free productivity. All the +essential elements of art are found in dream, which is the result of +free thoughts and of sensible intuitions, consisting simply of images. +But dream, as compared with art, is chaotic: when measure and order is +established in dream, it becomes art. Thoughts and images are alike +essential to art, and to both is necessary ponderation, reflexion, +measure, and unity, because otherwise every image would be confused with +every other image. Thus the moments of inspiration and of ponderation +are both necessary to art. + +Schleiermacher's thought, so firm and lucid up to this point, begins to +become less secure, with the discussion of typicity and of the extent to +which the artist should follow Nature. He says that ideal figures, which +Nature would give, were she not impeded by external obstacles, are the +products of art. He notes that when the artist represents something +really given, such as a portrait or a landscape, he renounces freedom of +production and adheres to the real. In the artist is a double tendency, +toward the perfection of the type and toward the representation of +natural reality. He should not fall into the abstraction of the type, +nor into the insignificance of empirical reality. Schleiermacher feels +all the difficulty of such a problem as whether there be one or several +ideals of the human figure. This problem may be transferred to the +sphere of art, and we may ask whether the poet is to represent only the +ideal, or whether he should also deal with those obstacles to it that +impede Nature in her efforts to attain. Both views contain half the +truth. To art belongs the representation of the ideal as of the real, of +the subjective and of the objective alike. The representation of the +comic, that is of the anti-ideal and of the imperfect ideal, belongs to +the domain of art. For the human form, both morally and physically, +oscillates between the ideal and caricature. + +He arrives at a most important definition as to the independence of art +in respect to morality. The nature of art, as of philosophic +speculation, excludes moral and practical effects. Therefore, _there is +no other difference between works of art than their respective artistic +perfection (Vollkommenheit in der Kunst)_. If we could correctly +predicate volitional acts in respect of works of art, then we should +find ourselves admiring only those works which stimulated the will, and +there would thus be established a difference of valuation, independent +of artistic perfection. The true work of art depends upon the degree of +perfection with which the external in it agrees with the internal. + +Schleiermacher rightly combats Schiller's view that art is in any sense +a game. That, he says, is the view held by mere men of business, to whom +business alone is serious. But artistic activity is universal, and a man +completely deprived of it unthinkable, although the difference here +between man and man, is gigantic, ranging from the simple desire to +taste of art to the effective tasting of it, and from this, by infinite +gradations, to productive genius. + +The regrettable fact that Schleiermacher's thought has reached us only +in an imperfect form, may account for certain of its defects, such as +his failure to eliminate aesthetic classes and types, his retention of a +certain residue of abstract formalism, his definition of art as the +activity of difference. Had he better defined the moment of artistic +reproduction, realized the possibility of tasting the art of various +times and of other nations, and examined the true relation of art to +science, he would have seen that this difference is merely empirical and +to be surmounted. He failed also to recognize the identity of the +aesthetic activity, with language as the base of all other theoretic +activity. + +But Schleiermacher's merits far outweigh these defects. He removed from +Aesthetic its _imperativistic_ character; he distinguished _a form of +thought_ different from logical thought. He attributed to our science a +_non-metaphysical, anthropological_ character. He _denied_ the concept +of the beautiful, substituting for it _artistic perfection_, and +maintaining the aesthetic equality of a small with a great work of art, +he looked upon the aesthetic fact as an exclusively _human +productivity_. + +Thus Schleiermacher, the theologian, in this period of metaphysical +orgy, of rapidly constructed and as rapidly destroyed systems, +perceived, with the greatest philosophical acumen, what is really +characteristic of art, and distinguished its properties and relations. +Even where he fails to see clearly his way, he never abandons analysis +for mere guess-work. + +Schleiermacher, thus exploring the obscure region of the _immediate +consciousness_, or of the aesthetic fact, can almost be heard crying out +to his straying contemporaries: _Hic Rhodus, hi salta_! + +Speculation upon the origin and nature of language was rife at this time +in Germany. Many theories were put forward, among the most curious being +that of Schelling, who held language and mythology to be the product of +a pre-human consciousness, allegorically expressed as the diabolic +suggestions which had precipitated the Ego from the infinite to the +finite. + +Even Wilhelm von Humboldt was unable to free himself altogether from the +intellectualistic prejudice of the substantial identity and the merely +historical and accidental diversity of logical thought and language. He +speaks of a _perfect_ language, broken up and diminished with the lesser +capacities of lesser peoples. He believed that language is something +standing outside the individual, independent of him, and capable of +being revived by use. But there were two men in Humboldt, an old man and +a young one. The latter was always suggesting that language should be +looked upon as a living, not as a dead thing, as an activity, not as a +word. This duality of thought sometimes makes his writing difficult and +obscure. Although he speaks of an internal form of speech, he fails to +identify this with art as expression. The reason is that he looks upon +the word in too unilateral a manner, as a means of developing logical +thought, and his ideas of Aesthetic are too vague and too inexact to +enable him to discover their identity. Despite his perception of the +profound truth that poetry precedes prose, Humboldt gives grounds for +doubt as to whether he had clearly recognized and firmly grasped the +fact that language is always poetry, and that prose (science) is a +distinction, not of aesthetic form, but of content, that is, of logical +form. + +Steinthal, the greatest follower of Humboldt, solved his master's +contradictions, and in 1855 sustained successfully against the Hegelian +Becker the thesis that words are necessary for thought. He pointed to +the deaf-mute with his signs, to the mathematician with his formulae, to +the Chinese language, where the figurative portion is an essential of +speech, and declared that Becker was wrong in believing that the +Sanskrit language was derived from twelve cardinal concepts. He showed +effectively that the concept and the word, the logical judgment and the +proposition, are not comparable. The proposition is not a judgment, but +the representation of a judgment; and all propositions do not represent +logical judgments. Several judgments can be expressed with one +proposition. The logical divisions of judgments (the relations of +concepts) have no correspondence in the grammatical division of +propositions. "If we speak of a logical form of the proposition, we fall +into a contradiction in terms not less complete than his who should +speak of the angle of a circle, or of the periphery of a triangle." He +who speaks, in so far as he speaks, has not thoughts, but language. + +When Steinthal had several times solemnly proclaimed the independence of +language as regards Logic, and that it produces its forms in complete +autonomy, he proceeded to seek the origin of language, recognizing with +Humboldt that the question of Its origin is the same as that of its +nature. Language, he said, belongs to the great class of reflex +movements, but this only shows one side of it, not its true nature. +Animals, like men, have reflex actions and sensations, though nature +enters the animal by force, takes it by assault, conquers and enslaves +it. With man is born language, because he is resistance to nature, +governance of his own body, and liberty. "Language is liberation; even +to-day we feel that our soul becomes lighter, and frees itself from a +weight, when we speak." Man, before he attains to speech, must be +conceived of as accompanying all his sensations with bodily movements, +mimetic attitudes, gestures, and particularly with articulate sounds. +What is still lacking to him, that he may attain to speech? The +connexion between the reflex movements of the body and the state of the +soul. If his sentient consciousness be already consciousness, then he +lacks the consciousness of consciousness; if it be already intuition, +then he lacks the intuition of intuition. In sum, he lacks the _internal +form of language_. With this comes speech, which forms the connexion. +Man does not choose the sound of his speech. This is given to him and he +adopts it instinctively. + +When we have accorded to Steinthal the great merit of having rendered +coherent the ideas of Humboldt, and of having clearly separated +linguistic from logical thought, we must note that he too failed to +perceive the _identity_ of the internal form of language, or "intuition +of the intuition," as he called it, with the aesthetic _imagination_. +Herbart's psychology, to which Steinthal adhered, did not afford him any +means for this identification. Herbart separated logic from psychology, +calling it a normative science; he failed to discern the exact limits +between feeling and spiritual formation, psyche or soul, and spirit, and +to see that one of these spiritual formations is logical thought or +activity, which is not a code of laws imposed from without. For Herbart, +Aesthetic, as we know, was a code of beautiful formal relations. Thus +Steinthal, following Herbart in psychology, was bound to look upon Art +as a beautifying of thought, Linguistic as the science of speech, +Rhetoric and Aesthetic as the science of beautiful speech. + +Steinthal never realized that to speak is to speak well or beautifully, +under penalty of _not_ speaking, and that the revolution which he and +Humboldt had effected in the conception of language must inevitably +react upon and transform Poetic, Rhetoric, and Aesthetic. + +Thus, despite so many efforts of conscientious analysis on the part of +Humboldt and of Steinthal, the unity of language and of poetry, and the +identification of the science of language and the science of poetry +still found its least imperfect expression in the prophetic aphorisms of +Vico. + +The philosophical movement in Germany from the last quarter of the +eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth, notwithstanding +its many errors, is yet so notable and so imposing with the philosophers +already considered, as to merit the first place in the European thought +of that period. This is even more the case as regards Aesthetic than as +regards philosophy in general. + +France was the prey of Condillac's sensualism, and therefore incapable +of duly appreciating the spiritual activity of art. We hardly get a +glimpse of Winckelmann's transcendental spiritualism in Quatremère de +Quincy, and the frigid academics of Victor Cousin were easily surpassed +by Theodore Jouffroy, though he too failed of isolating the aesthetic +fact. French Romanticism defined literature as "the expression of +society," admired under German influence the grotesque and the +characteristic, declared the independence of art in the formula of "art +for art's sake," but did not succeed in surpassing philosophically the +old doctrine of the "imitation of nature." F. Schlegel and Solger indeed +were largely responsible for the Romantic movement in France--Schlegel +with his belief in the characteristic or _interesting_ as the principle +of modern art, which led him to admire the cruel and the ugly; Solger +with his dialectic arrangement, whereby the finite or terrestrial +element is absorbed and annihilated in the divine and thus becomes the +tragic, or _vice versa_, and the result is the comic. Rosenkranz +published in Königsberg an Aesthetic of the Ugly, and the works of +Vischer and Zeising abound in subtleties relating to the Idea and to its +expression in the beautiful and sublime. These writers conceived of the +Idea as the Knight Purebeautiful, constrained to abandon his tranquil +ease through the machinations of the Ugly; the Ugly leads him into all +sorts of disagreeable adventures, from all of which he eventually +emerges victorious. The Sublime, the Comic, the Humorous, and so on, are +his Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. Another version of their knight's +adventures might be described as his conquest by his enemies, but at the +moment of conquest he transforms and irradiates his conquerors. To such +a mediocre and artificial mythology led the much-elaborated theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. + +In England, the associationist psychology continued to hold sway, and +showed, with Dugald Stewart's miserable attempt at establishing two +forms of association, its incapacity to rise to the conception of the +imagination. With the poet Coleridge, England also showed the influence +of German thought, and Coleridge elaborated with Wordsworth a more +correct conception of poetry and of its difference from science. But the +most notable contribution in English at that period came from another +poet, P.B. Shelley, whose _Defence of Poetry_ contains profound, though +unsystematic views, as to the distinction between reason and +imagination, prose and poetry, on primitive language, and on the poetic +power of objectification. + +In Italy, Francesco de Sanctis gave magnificent expression to the +independence of art. He taught literature in Naples from 1838 to 1848, +in Turin and Zurich from 1850 to 1860, and after 1870 he was a professor +in the University of Naples. His _Storia della letteratura italiana_ is +a classic, and in it and in monographs on individual writers he exposed +his doctrines. + +Prompted by a natural love of speculation, he began to examine the old +grammarians and rhetoricians, with a view to systematize them. But very +soon he proceeded to criticize and to surpass their theories. The cold +rules of reason did not find favour with him, and he advised young men +to go direct to the original works. + +The philosophy of Hegel began to penetrate Italy, and the study of Vico +was again taken up. De Sanctis translated the _Logic_ of Hegel in +prison, where the Bourbon Government had thrown him for his liberalism. +Benard had begun his translation of the _Aesthetic_ of Hegel, and so +completely in harmony was De Sanctis with the thought of this master, +that he is said to have guessed from a study of the first volume what +the unpublished volumes must contain, and to have lectured upon them to +his pupils. Traces of mystical idealism and of Hegelianism persist even +in his later works, and the distinction, which he always maintained, +between imagination and fancy certainly came to him from Hegel and +Schelling. He held fancy alone to be the true poetic faculty. + +De Sanctis absorbed all the juice of Hegel, but rejected the husks of +his pedantry, of his formalism, of his apriority. + +Fancy for De Sanctis was not the mystical transcendental apperception of +the German philosophers, but simply the faculty of poetic synthesis and +creation, opposed to the imagination, which reunites details and always +has something mechanical about it. Faith and poetry, he used to say, are +not dead, but transformed. His criticism of Hegel amounted in many +places to the correction of Hegel; and as regards Vico, he is careful to +point out, that when, in dealing with the Homeric poems, Vico talks of +generic types, he is no longer the critic of art, but the historian of +civilization. De Sanctis saw that, _artistically_, Achilles must always +be Achilles, never a force or an abstraction. + +Thus De Sanctis succeeded in keeping himself free from the Hegelian +domination, at a moment when Hegel was the acknowledged master of +speculation. + +But his criticism extended also to other German aestheticians. By a +curious accident, he found himself at Zurich in the company of Theodore +Vischer, that ponderous Hegelian, who laughed disdainfully at the +mention of poetry, of music, and of the decadent Italian race. De +Sanctis laughed at Vischer's laughter. Wagner appeared to him a +corrupter of music, and "nothing in the world more unaesthetic than the +Aesthetic of Theodore Vischer." His lectures on Ariosto and Petrarch, +before an international public at Zurich, were delivered with the desire +of correcting the errors of these and of other German philosophers and +learned men. He gave his celebrated definitions of French and German +critics. The French critic does not indulge in theories: one feels +warmth of impression and sagacity of observation in his argument. He +never leaves the concrete; he divines the quality of the writer's genius +and the quality of his work, and studies the man, in order to understand +the writer. His great fault is shown in substituting for criticism of +the actual art work a historical criticism of the author and of his +time. For the German, on the other hand, there is nothing so simple that +he does not contrive to distort and to confuse it. He collects shadows +around him, from which shoot vivid rays. He laboriously brings to birth +that morsel of truth which he has within him. He would seize and define +what is most fugitive and impalpable in a work of art. Although nobody +talks so much of life as he does, yet no one so much delights in +decomposing and generalizing it. Having thus destroyed the particular, +he is able to show you as the result of this process, final in +appearance, but in reality preconceived and apriorist, one measurement +for all feet, one garment for all bodies. + +About this time he studied Schopenhauer, who was then becoming the +fashion. Schopenhauer said of this criticism of De Sanctis: "That +Italian has absorbed me _in succum et sanguinem_." What weight did he +attach to Schopenhauer's much-vaunted writings on art? Having exposed +the theory of Ideas, he barely refers to the third volume, "which +contains an exaggerated theory of Aesthetic." + +In his criticism of Petrarch, De Sanctis finally broke with metaphysical +Aesthetic, saying of Hegel's school that it believed the beautiful to +become art when it surpassed form and revealed the concept or pure idea. +This theory and the subtleties derived from it, far from characterizing +art, represent its contrary: the impotent velleity for art, which cannot +slay abstractions and come in contact with life. + +De Sanctis held that outside the domain of art all Is shapeless. The +ugly is of the domain of art, if art give it form. Is there anything +more beautiful than Iago? If he be looked upon merely as a contrast to +Othello, then we are in the position of those who looked upon the stars +as placed where they are to serve as candles for the earth. + +Form was for De Sanctis the word which should be inscribed over the +entrance to the Temple of Art. In the work of art are form and content, +but the latter is no longer chaotic: the artist has given to it a new +value, has enriched it with the gift of his own personality. But if the +content has not been assimilated and made his own by the artist, then +the work lacks generative power: it is of no value as art or literature, +though as history or scientific document its value may be great. The +Gods of Homer's _Iliad_ are dead, but the _Iliad_ remains. Guelf and +Ghibelline have disappeared from Italy: not so the _Divine Comedy_, +which is as vigorous to-day as when Dante first took pen in hand. Thus +De Sanctis held firmly to the independence of art, but he did not accept +the formula of "art for art's sake," in so far as it meant separation of +the artist from life, mutilation of the content, art reduced to mere +dexterity. + +For De Sanctis, form was identical with imagination, with the artist's +power of expressing or representing his artistic vision. This much must +be admitted by his critics. But he never attained to a clear definition +of art. His theory of Aesthetic always remained a sketch: wonderful +indeed, but not clearly developed and deduced. The reason for this was +De Sanctis' love of the concrete. No sooner had he attained from general +ideas a sufficient clarity of vision for his own purposes, than he +plunged again into the concrete and particular. He did not confine his +activity to literature, but was active also in politics and in the +prosecution and encouragement of historical studies. + +As a critic of literature, De Sanctis is far superior to Sainte-Beuve, +Lessing, Macaulay, or Taine. Flaubert's genial intuition adumbrated what +De Sanctis achieved. In one of his letters to Georges Sand, Flaubert +speaks of the lack of an _artistic_ critic. "In Laharpe's time, +criticism was grammatical; in the time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, it +is historical. They analyse with great subtlety the historical +environment in which the work appeared and the causes which have +produced it. But the _unconscious_ element In poetry? Whence does It +come? And composition? And style? And the point of view of the author? +Of all that they never speak. For such a critic, great imagination and +great goodness are necessary. I mean an ever-ready faculty of +enthusiasm, and then _taste_, a quality so rare, even among the best, +that it is never mentioned." + +De Sanctis alone fulfilled the conditions of Flaubert, and Italy has in +his writings a looking-glass for her literature unequalled by any other +country. + +But with De Sanctis, the philosopher of art, the aesthetician, is not so +great as the critic of literature. The one is accessory to the other, +and his use of aesthetic terminology is so inconstant that a lack of +clearness of thought might be found in his work by anyone who had not +studied it with care. But his want of system is more than compensated by +his vitality, by his constant citation of actual works, and by his +intuition of the truth, which never abandoned him. His writings bear the +further charm of suggesting new kingdoms to conquer, new mines of +richness to explore. + +While the cry of "Down with Metaphysic" was resounding in Germany, and a +furious reaction had set in against the sort of Walpurgisnacht to which +the later Hegelians had reduced science and history, the pupils of +Herbart came forward and with an insinuating air they seemed to say: +"What is this? Why, it is a rebellion against Metaphysic, the very thing +our master wished for and tried to achieve, half a century ago! But here +we are, his heirs and successors, and we want to be your allies! An +understanding between us will be easy. Our Metaphysic is in agreement +with the atomic theory, our Psychology with mechanicism, our Ethic and +Aesthetic with hedonism." Herbart, who died in 1841, would probably have +disdained and rejected his followers, who thus courted popularity and +cheapened Metaphysic, putting a literal interpretation on his realities, +his ideas and representations, and upon all his most lofty +excogitations. + +The protagonist of these neo-Herbartians was Robert Zimmermann. He +constructed his system of Aesthetic out of Herbart, whom he perverted to +his own uses, and even employed the much-abused Hegelian dialectic in +order to introduce modifications of the beautiful into pure beauty. The +beautiful, he said, is a model which possesses greatness, fulness, +order, correction, and definite compensation. Beauty appears to us in a +characteristic form, as a copy of this model. + +Vischer, against whom was directed this work of Zimmermann, found it +easy to reply. He ridiculed Zimmermann's meaning of the symbol as the +object around which are clustered beautiful forms. "Does an artist paint +a fox, simply that he may depict an object of animal nature. No, no, my +dear sir, far from it. This fox is a symbol, because the painter here +employs lines and colours, in order to express something different from +lines and colours. 'You think I am a fox,' cries the painted animal. +'You are mightily mistaken; I am, on the contrary, a portmanteau, an +exhibition by the painter of red, white, grey, and yellow tints.'" +Vischer also made fun of Zimmermann's enthusiasm for the aesthetic value +of the sense of touch. "What joy it must be to touch the back of the +bust of Hercules in repose! To stroke the sinuous limbs of the Venus of +Milo or of the Faun of Barberini must give a pleasure to the hand equal +to that of the ear as it listens to the puissant fugues of Bach or to +the suave melodies of Mozart." Vischer defined the formal Aesthetic of +Zimmermann as a queer mixture of mysticism and mathematic. + +Lotze, in common with the great majority of thinkers, was dissatisfied +with Zimmermann, but could only oppose his formalism with a variety of +the old mystical Aesthetic. Who, he asked, could believe that the human +form pleases only by its external proportions, regardless of the spirit +within. Art, like beauty, should "enclose the world of values in the +world of forms." This struggle between the Aesthetic of the content and +the Aesthetic of the form attained its greatest height in Germany +between 1860 and 1870, with Zimmermann, Vischer, and Lotze as +protagonists. + +These writers were followed by J. Schmidt, who in 1875 ventured to say +that both Lotze and Zimmermann had failed to see that the problem of +Aesthetic concerned, not the beauty or ugliness of the content or of the +form as mathematical relations, but their representation; Köstlin, who +erected an immense artificial structure with the materials of his +predecessors modified; Schasler, who is interesting as having converted +the old Vischer to his thesis of the importance of the Ugly, as +introducing modifications into the beautiful and being the principle of +movement there. Vischer confesses that at one time he had followed the +Hegelian method and believed that in the essence of beauty is born a +disquietude, a fermentation, a struggle: the Idea conquers, hurls the +image into the unlimited, and the Sublime is born; but the image, +offended in its finitude, declares war upon the Idea, and the Comic +appears. Thus the fight is finished and the Beautiful returns to itself, +as the result of these struggles. But now, he says, Schasler has +persuaded him that the Ugly is the leaven which is necessary to all the +special forms of the Beautiful. + +E. von Hartmann is in close relation with Schasler. His Aesthetic (1890) +also makes great use of the Ugly. Since he insists upon appearance as a +necessary characteristic of the beautiful, he considers himself +justified in calling his theory concrete idealism. Hartmann considers +himself in opposition to the formalism of Herbart, inasmuch as he +insists upon the idea as an indispensable and determining element of +beauty. Beauty, he says, is truth, but it is not historical truth, nor +scientific nor reflective truth: it is metaphysical and ideal. "Beauty +is the prophet of idealistic truth in an age without faith, hating +Metaphysic, and acknowledging only realistic truth." Aesthetic truth is +without method and without control: it leaps at once from the subjective +appearance to the essence of the ideal. But in compensation for this, it +possesses the fascination of conviction, which immediate intuition alone +possesses. The higher Philosophy rises, the less need has she of passing +through the world of the senses and of science: she approaches ever more +nearly to art. Thus Philosophy starts on the voyage to the ideal, like +Baedeker's traveller, "without too much baggage." In the Beautiful is +immanent logicity, the microcosmic idea, the unconscious. By means of +the unconscious, the process of intellectual intuition takes place in +it. The Beautiful is a mystery, because its root is in the Unconscious. + +No philosopher has ever made so great a use of the Ugly as Hartmann. He +divides Beauty into grades, of which the one below is ugly as compared +with that above it. He begins with the mathematical, superior to the +sensibly agreeable, which is unconscious. Thence to formal beauty of the +second order, the dynamically agreeable, to formal beauty of the third +order, the passive teleological; to this degree belong utensils, and +language, which in Hartmann's view is a dead thing, inspired with +seeming life, only at the moment of use. Such things did the philosopher +of the Unconscious dare to print in the country of a Humboldt during the +lifetime of a Steinthal! He proceeds in his list of things beautiful, +with formal beauty of the fourth degree, which is the active or living +teleological, with the fifth, which is that of species. Finally he +reaches concrete beauty, or the individual microcosm, the highest of +all, because the individual idea is superior to the specific, and is +beauty, no longer formal, but of content. + +All these degrees of beauty are, as has been said, connected with one +another by means of the ugly, and even in the highest degree, which has +nothing superior to it, the ugly continues its office of beneficent +titillation. The outcome of this ultimate phase is the famous theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. None of these modifications can +occur without a struggle, save the sublime and the graceful, which +appear without conflict at the side of supreme beauty. Hartmann gives +four instances: the solution is either immanent, logical, +transcendental, or combined. The idyllic, the melancholy, the sad, the +glad, the elegiac, are instances of the immanent solution; the comic in +all its forms is the logical solution; the tragic is the transcendental +solution; the combined form is found in the humorous, the tragi-comic. +When none of these solutions is possible, we have the ugly; and when an +ugliness of content is expressed by a formal ugliness, we have the +maximum of ugliness, the true aesthetic devil. + +Hartmann is the last noteworthy representative of the German +metaphysical school. His works are gigantic in size and appear +formidable. But if one be not afraid of giants and venture to approach +near, one finds nothing but a big Morgante, full of the most commonplace +prejudices, quite easily killed with the bite of a crab! + +During this period, Aesthetic had few representatives in other +countries. The famous conference of the Academy of Moral and Political +Sciences, held in Paris in 1857, gave to the world the "Science du Beau" +of Lévèque. No one is interested in it now, but it is amusing to note +that Lévèque announced himself to be a disciple of Plato, and went on to +attribute eight characteristics to the beautiful. These he discovered by +closely examining the lily! No wonder he was crowned with laurels! He +proved his wonderful theory by instancing a child playing with its +mother, a symphony of Beethoven, and the life of Socrates! One of his +colleagues, who could not resist making fun of his learned friend, +remarked that he would be glad to know what part was played in the life +of a philosopher by the normal vivacity of colour! + +Thus German theory made no way in France, and England proved even more +refractory. + +J. Ruskin showed a poverty, an incoherence, and a lack of system in +respect to Aesthetic, which puts him almost out of court. His was the +very reverse of the philosophic temperament. His pages of brilliant +prose contain his own dreams and caprices. They are the work of an +artist and should be enjoyed as such, being without any value for +philosophy. His theoretic faculty of the beautiful, which he held to be +distinct alike from the intelligence and from feeling, is connected with +his belief in beauty as a revelation of the divine intentions, "the seal +which God sets upon his works." Thus the natural beauty, which is +perceived by the pure heart, when contemplating some object untouched by +the hand of man, is far superior to the work of the artist. Ruskin was +too little capable of analysis to understand the complicated +psychologico-aesthetic process taking place within him, as he +contemplated some streamlet, or the nest of some small bird. + +At Naples flourished between 1861 and 1884 Antonio Tari, who kept +himself in touch with the movement of German thought, and followed the +German idealists in placing Aesthetic in a sort of middle kingdom, a +temperate zone, between the glacial, inhabited by the Esquimaux of +thought, and the torrid, dwelt in by the giants of action. He dethroned +the Beautiful, and put Aesthetic in its place, for the Beautiful is but +the first moment; the later ones are the Comic, the Humorous, and the +Dramatic. His fertile imagination found metaphors and similes in +everything: for instance, he called the goat the Devil, opposed to the +lamb, Jesus. His remarks on men and women are full of quaint fancies. He +granted to women grace, but not beauty, which resides in equilibrium. +This is proved by her falling down so easily when she walks; by her bow +legs, which have to support her wide hips, made for gestation; by her +narrow shoulders, and her opulent breast. She is therefore a creature +altogether devoid of equilibrium! + +I wish that it were possible to record more of the sayings of the +excellent Tari, "the last joyous priest of an arbitrary Aesthetic, +source of confusion." + +The ground lost to the German school of metaphysicians was occupied +during the second half of the nineteenth century by the evolutionary and +positivist metaphysicians, of whom Herbert Spencer is the most notable +representative. The peculiarity of this school lies in repeating at +second or third hand certain idealist views, deprived of the element of +pure philosophy, given to them by a Schelling or a Hegel, and in +substituting a quantity of minute facts and anecdotes, with a view to +providing the positivist varnish. These theories are dear to vulgar +minds, because they correspond to inveterate religious beliefs, and the +lustre of the varnish explains the good fortune of Spencerian positivism +in our time. Another notable trait of this school is its barbaric +contempt for history, especially for the history of philosophy, and its +consequent lack of all link with the series composed of the secular +efforts of so many thinkers. Without this link, there can be no fruitful +labour and no possibility of progress. + +Spencer is colossal in his ignorance of all that has been written or +thought on the subject of Aesthetic (to limit ourselves to this branch +alone). He actually begins his work on the Philosophy of Style with +these words: "No one, I believe, has ever produced a complete theory of +the art of writing." This in 1852! He begins his chapter on aesthetic +feelings in the _Principles of Psychology_ by admitting that he has +heard of the observation made by a German author, whose name he forgets +(Schiller!), on the connexion between art and play. Had Spencer's +remarks on Aesthetic been written in the eighteenth century, they might +have occupied a humble place among the first rude attempts at aesthetic +speculation, but appearing in the nineteenth century, they are without +value, as the little of value they contain had been long said by others. + +In his _Principles of Psychology_ Spencer looks upon aesthetic feelings +as arising from the discharge of the exuberant energy of the organism. +This he divides into degrees, and believes that we attain complete +enjoyment when these degrees are all working satisfactorily each on its +own plane, and when what is painful in excessive activity has been +avoided. His degrees are sensation, sensation accompanied by +representative elements, perception accompanied by more complex elements +of representation, then emotion, and that state of consciousness which +surpasses sensations and perceptions. But Spencer has no suspicion of +what art really is. His views oscillate between sensualism and moralism, +and he sees little in the whole art of antiquity, of the Middle Ages, or +of modern times, which can be looked upon as otherwise than imperfect! + +The Physiology of Aesthetics has also had its votaries in Great Britain, +among whom may be mentioned J. Sully, A. Bain, and Allen. These at any +rate show some knowledge of the concrete fact of art. Allen harks back +to the old distinction between necessary and vital activities and +superfluous activities, and gives a physiological definition, which may +be read in his _Physiological Aesthetics_. More recent writers also look +upon the physiological fact as the cause of the pleasure of art; but for +them it does not alone depend upon the visual organ, and the muscular +phenomena associated with it, but also on the participation of some of +the most important bodily functions, such as respiration, circulation, +equilibrium, intimate muscular accommodation. They believe that art owes +its origin to the pleasure that some prehistoric man must have +experienced in breathing regularly, without having to re-adapt his +organs, when he traced for the first time on a bone or on clay regular +lines separated by regular intervals. + +A similar order of physico-aesthetic researches has been made in +Germany, under the auspices of Helmholtz, Brücke, and Stumpf. But these +writers have succeeded better than the above-mentioned, by restricting +themselves to the fields of optic and acoustic, and have supplied +information as to the physical processes of artistic technique and as to +the pleasure of visual and auditive impressions, without attempting to +melt Aesthetic into Physic, or to deprive the former of its spiritual +character. They have even occasionally indicated the difference between +the two kinds of research. Even the degenerate Herbartians, converting +the metaphysical forms of their master into physiological phenomena, +made soft eyes at the new sensualists and aesthetico-physiologists. + +The Natural Sciences have become in our day a sort of superstition, +allied to a certain, perhaps unconscious, hypocrisy. Not only have +chemical, physical, and physiological laboratories become a sort of +Sibylline grots, where resound the most extraordinary questions about +everything that can interest the spirit of man, but even those who +really do prosecute their researches with the old inevitable method of +internal observation, have been unable to free themselves from the +illusion that they are, on the contrary, employing _the method of the +natural sciences_. + +Hippolyte Taine's Philosophy of Art represents such an illusion. He +declares that when we have studied the diverse manifestations of art in +all peoples and at all epochs, we shall then possess a complete +Aesthetic. Such an Aesthetic would be a sort of Botany applied to the +works of man. This mode of study would provide moral science with a +basis equally as sure as that which the natural sciences already +possess. Taine then proceeds to define art without regard to the natural +sciences, by analysing, like a simple mortal, what passes in the human +soul when brought face to face with a work of art. But what analysis and +what definitions! + +Art, he says, is imitation, but of a sort that tries to express an +essential characteristic. Thus the principal characteristic of a lion is +to be "a great carnivore," and we observe this characteristic in all its +limbs. Holland has for essential characteristic that of being a land +formed of alluvial soil. + +Now without staying to consider these two remarkable instances, let us +ask, what is this essential characteristic of Taine? It is the same as +the ideas, types, or concepts that the old aesthetic teaching assigned +to art as its object. Taine himself removes all doubt as to this, by +saying that this characteristic is what philosophers call the essence of +things, and for that reason they declare that the purpose of art is to +manifest things. He declares that he will not employ the word essence, +which is technical. But he accepts and employs the thought that the word +expresses. He believes that there are two routes by which man can attain +to the superior life: science and art. By the first, he apprehends +fundamental laws and causes, and expresses them in abstract terms; by +the second, he expresses these same laws and causes in a manner +comprehensible to all, by appealing to the heart and feeling, as well as +to the reason of man. Art is both superior and popular; it makes +manifest what is highest, and makes it manifest to all. + +That Taine here falls into the old pedagogic theory of Aesthetic is +evident. Works of art are arranged for him in a scale of values, as for +the aesthetic metaphysicians. He began by declaring the absurdity of all +judgment of taste, "à chacun son goût," but he ends by declaring that +personal taste is without value, that we must establish a common measure +before proceeding to praise or blame. His scale of values is double or +triple. We must first fix the degree of importance of the +characteristic, that is, the greater or less generality of the idea, and +the degree of good in it, that is to say, its greater or lesser moral +value. These, he says, are two degrees of the same thing, strength, seen +from different sides. We must also establish the degree of convergence +of the effects, that is, the fulness of expression, the harmony between +the idea and the form. + +This half-moral, half-metaphysical exposition is accompanied with the +usual protestations, that the matter in hand is to be studied +methodically, analytically, as the naturalist would study it, that he +will try to reach "a law, not a hymn." As if these protestations could +abolish the true nature of his thought! Taine actually went so far as to +attempt dialectic solutions of works of art! "In the primitive period of +Italian art, we find the soul without the body: Giotto. At the +Renaissance, with Verrocchio and his school, we find the body without +the soul. With Raphael, in the sixteenth century, we find expression and +anatomy in harmony: body and soul." Thesis, antithesis, synthesis! + +With G.T. Fechner we find the like protestations and the like +procedure. He will study Aesthetic inductively, from beneath. He seeks +clarity, not loftiness. Proceeding thus inductively, he discovers a long +series of laws or principles of Aesthetic, such as unity in variety, +association and contrast, change and persistence, the golden mean, etc. +He exhibits this chaos with delight at showing himself so much of a +physiologist, and so inconclusive. Then he proceeds to describe his +experiments in Aesthetics. These consist of attempts to decide, for +instance, by methods of choice, which of certain rectangles of cardboard +is the most agreeable, and which the most disagreeable, to a large +number of people arbitrarily chosen. Naturally, these results do not +agree with others obtained on other occasions, but Fechner knows that +errors correct themselves, and triumphantly publishes long lists of +these valuable experiments. He also communicates to us the shapes and +measurements of a large number of pictures in museums, as compared with +their respective subjects! Such are the experiments of physiological +aestheticians. + +But Fechner, when he comes to define what beauty and what art really +are, is, like everyone else, obliged to fall back upon introspection. +But his definition is trivial, and his comparison of his three degrees +of beauty to a family is simply grotesque in its _naïveté_. He terms +this theory the eudemonistic theory, and we are left wondering why, when +he had this theory all cut and dried in his mind, he should all the same +give himself the immense trouble of compiling his tables and of +enumerating his laws and principles, which do not agree with his theory. +Perhaps it was all a pastime for him, like playing at patience, or +collecting postage-stamps? + +Another example of superstition in respect to the natural sciences +is afforded by Ernest Grosse. Grosse abounds in contempt for what +he calls speculative Aesthetic. Yet he desires a Science of Art +(Kunstwissenschaft), which shall formulate its laws from those +historical facts which have hitherto been collected. + +But Grosse wishes us to complete the collection of historical evidence +with ethnographical and prehistoric materials, for we cannot obtain +really general laws of art from the exclusive study of cultivated +peoples, "just as a theory of reproduction exclusively based upon the +form it takes with mammifers, must necessarily be imperfect!" + +He is, however, aware that the results of experiences among savages and +prehistoric races do not alone suffice to furnish us with an equipment +for such investigations as that concerning the nature of Art, and, like +any ordinary mortal, he feels obliged to interrogate, before starting, +the spirit of man. He therefore proceeds to define Aesthetic on +apriorist principles, which, he remarks, can be discarded when we shall +have obtained the complete theory, in like manner with the scaffolding +that has served for the erection of a house. + +Words! Words! Vain words! He proceeds to define Aesthetic as the +activity which in its development and result has the immediate value of +feeling, and is, therefore, an end in itself. Art is the opposite of +practice; the activity of games stands intermediate between the two, +having also its end in its own activity. + +The Aesthetics of Taine and of Grosse have been called sociological. +Seeing that any true definition of sociology as a science is impossible, +for it is composed of psychological elements, which are for ever +varying, we do not delay to criticize the futile attempts at definition, +but pass at once to the objective results attained by the sociologists. +This superstition, like the naturalistic, takes various forms in +practical life. We have, for instance, Proudhon (1875), who would hark +back to Platonic Aesthetic, class the aesthetic activity among the +merely sensual, and command the arts to further the cause of virtue, on +pain of judicial proceedings in case of contumacy. + +But M. Guyau is the most important of sociological aestheticians. His +works, published in Paris toward the end of last century, and his +posthumous work, entitled _Les problèmes de l'Esthétique contemporaine_, +substitute for the theory of play, that of _life_, and the posthumous +work above-mentioned makes it evident that by life he means social life. +Art is the development of social sympathy, but the whole of art does not +enter into sociology. Art has two objects; the production of agreeable +sensations (colours, sounds, etc.) and of phenomena of psychological +induction, which include ideas and feelings of a more complex nature +than the foregoing, such as sympathy for the personages represented, +interest, piety, indignation, etc. Thus art becomes the expression of +life. Hence arise two tendencies: one for harmony, consonance, for all +that delights the ear and eye; the other transforming life, under the +dominion of art. True genius is destined to balance these two +tendencies; but the decadent and the unbalanced deprive art of its +sympathetic end, setting aesthetic sympathy against human sympathy. If +we translate this language into that with which we are by this time +quite familiar, we shall see that Guyau admits an art that is merely +hedonistic, and places above it another art, also hedonistic, but +serving the ends of morality. + +M. Nordau wages war against the decadent and unbalanced, in much the +same manner as Guyau. He assigns to art the function of re-establishing +the integrity of life, so much broken up and specialized in our +industrial civilization. He remarks that there is such a thing as art +for art's sake, the simple expression of the internal states of the +individual, but it is the art of the cave-dweller. + +C. Lombroso's theory of genius as degeneration may be grouped with the +naturalistic theories. His argument is in essence the following. Great +mental efforts, and total absorption in one dominant thought, often +produce physiological disorders or atrophy of important vital functions. +Now these disorders often lead to madness; therefore, genius may be +identified with madness. This proof, from the particular to the general, +does not follow that of traditional Logic. But with Lombroso, Büchner, +Nordau, and the like we have come to the boundary between specious and +vulgar error. They confuse scientific analysis with historical research. +Such inquiries may have value for history, but they have none for +Aesthetic. Thus, too, A. Lang maintains that the doctrine of the origin +of art as disinterested expression of the mimetic faculty is not +confirmed in what we know of primitive art, which is rather decorative +than expressive. But primitive art, which is a given fact to be +interpreted, cannot ever become its own criterion of interpretation. + +The naturalistic misunderstanding has had a bad effect on linguistic +researches, which have not been carried out on the lofty plane to which +Humboldt and Steinthal had brought them. + +Max Müller is popular and exaggerated. He fails clearly to distinguish +thought from logical thought, although in one place he remarks that the +formation of names has a more intimate connexion with wit than with +judgment. He holds that the science of language is not historical, but +natural, because language is not the invention of man, altogether +ignoring the science of the spirit, philosophy, of which language is a +part. For Max Müller, the natural sciences were the only sciences. The +consciousness of the science of the spirit becomes ever more obscured, +and we find the philologist W.D. Whitney combating Max Müller's +"miracles" and maintaining the separability of thought and speech. + +With Hermann Paul (1880) we have an awakening of Humboldt's spirit. Paul +maintains that the origin of language is the speech of the individual +man, and that a language has its origin every time it is spoken. Paul +also showed the fallacies contained in the _Völkerpsychologie_ of +Steinthal and Lazarus, demonstrating that there is no such thing as a +collective soul, and that there is no language save that of the +individual. + +W. Wundt (1886), on the other hand, commits the error of connecting +language with Ethnopsychology and other non-existent sciences, and +actually terms the glorious doctrine of Herder and of Humboldt +_Wundertheorie_, or theory of miracle, accusing them of mystical +obscurity. Wundt confuses the question of the historical appearance of +language with that of its internal nature and genesis. He looks upon the +theory of evolution as having attained to its complete triumph, in its +application to organic nature in general, and especially to man. He has +no suspicion whatever of the function of fancy, and of the true relation +between thought and expression, between expression in the naturalistic, +and expression in the spiritual and linguistic sense. He looks upon +speech as a specially developed form of psycho-physical vital +manifestations, of expressive animal movements. Language is developed +continuously from such facts, and thus is explained how, "beyond the +general concept of expressive movement, there is no specific quality +which delimits language in a non-arbitrary manner." + +Thus the philosophy of Wundt reveals its weak side, showing itself +incapable of understanding the spiritual nature of language and of art. +In the _Ethic_ of the same author, aesthetic facts are presented as a +mixture of logical and ethical elements, a special normative aesthetic +science is denied, and Aesthetic is merged in Logic and Ethic. + +The neo-critical and neo-Kantian movement in thought was not able to +maintain the concept of the spirit against the hedonistic, moralistic, +and psychological views of Aesthetic, in vogue from about the middle of +last century. Neo-criticism inherited from Kant his view as to the +slight importance of the creative imagination, and appears indeed to have +been ignorant of any form of knowledge, other than the intellective. + +Kirchmann (1868) was one of the early adherents to psychological +Aesthetic, defining the beautiful as the idealized image of pleasure, +the ugly as that of pain. For him the aesthetic fact is the idealized +image of the real. Failing to apprehend the true nature of the aesthetic +fact, Kirchmann invented a new psychological category of ideal or +apparent feelings, which he thought were attenuated images from those +of real life. + +The aged Theodore Fischer describes Aesthetic in his auto-criticism as +the union of mimetic and harmony, and the beautiful as the harmony of +the universe, which is never realized in fact, because it is infinite. +When we think to grasp the beautiful, we experience that exquisite +illusion, which is the aesthetic fact. Robert Fischer, son of the +foregoing, introduced the word _Einfühlung_, to express the vitality +which he believed that man inspired into things with the help of the +aesthetic process. + +E. Siebeck and M. Diez, the former writing in 1875, the latter in 1892, +unite a certain amount of idealistic influence, derived from Kant and +Herbart, with the merely empirical and psychological views that have of +late been the fashion. Diez, for instance, would explain the artistic +function as the ideal of feeling, placing it parallel to science; the +ideal of thought, morality; the ideal of will and religion, the ideal of +the personality. But this ideal of feeling escapes definition, and we +see that these writers have not had the courage of their ideas: they +have not dared to push their thought to its logical conclusion. + +The merely psychological and associationist view finds in Theodore Lipps +its chief exponent. He criticizes and rejects a series of aesthetic +theories, such as those of play, of pleasure, of art as recognition of +real life, even if disagreeable, of emotionality, of syncretism, which +attaches to art a number of other ends, in addition to those of play and +of pleasure. + +The theory of Lipps does not differ very greatly from that of Jouffroy, +for he assumes that artistic beauty is the sympathetic. "Our ego, +transplanted, objectified, and recognized in others, is the object of +sympathy. We feel ourselves in others, and others in us." Thus the +aesthetic pleasure is entirely composed of sympathy. This extends even +to the pleasure derived from architecture, geometrical forms, etc. +Whenever we meet with the positive element of human personality, we +experience this feeling of beatitude, which is the aesthetic emotion. +But the value of the personality is an ethical value: the whole sphere +of ethic is included in it. Therefore all artistic or aesthetic pleasure +is the enjoyment of something which has ethical value, but this value is +not an element of a compound, but the object of aesthetic intuition. +Thus is aesthetic activity deprived of all autonomous existence and +reduced to a mere retainer of Ethic. + +C. Groos (1895) shows some signs of recognizing aesthetic activity as a +theoretic value. Feeling and intellect, he says, are the two poles of +knowledge, and he recognizes the aesthetic fact as internal imitation. +Everything beautiful belongs to aestheticity, but not every aesthetic +fact is beautiful. The beautiful is the representation of sensible +pleasure, and the ugly of sensible displeasure. The sublime is the +representation of something powerful, in a simple form. The comic is the +representation of an inferiority, which provokes in us the pleasurable +feeling of "superiority." Groos very wisely makes mock of the supposed +function of the Ugly, which Hartmann and Schasler had inherited and +developed from a long tradition. Lipps and Groos agree in denying +aesthetic value to the comic, but Lipps, although he gives an excellent +analysis of the comic, is nevertheless in the trammels of his moralistic +thesis, and ends by sketching out something resembling the doctrine of +the overcoming of the ugly, by means of which may be attained a higher +aesthetic and (sympathetic) value. + +Labours such as those of Lipps have been of value, since they have +cleared away a number of errors that blocked the way, and restrained +speculation to the field of the internal consciousness. Similar is the +merit of E. Véron's treatise (1883) on the double form of Aesthetic, in +which he combats the academic view of the absolute beauty, and shows +that Taine confuses Art and Science, Aesthetic and Logic. He acutely +remarks that if the object of art were to reveal the essence of things, +the greatest artists would be those who best succeeded in doing this, +and the greatest works would all be _identical_; whereas we know that +the very opposite is the case. Véron was a precursor of Guyau, and we +seek for scientific system in vain in his book. Véron looks upon art as +two things: the one _decorative_, pleasing eye and ear, the other +_expressive_, "l'expression émue de la personalité humaine." He thought +that decorative art prevailed in antiquity, expressive art in modern +times. + +We cannot here dwell upon the aesthetic theories of men of letters, such +as that of E. Zola, developing his thesis of natural science and history +mixed, which is known as that of the human document or as the +experimental theory, or of Ibsen and the moralization of the art +problem, as presented by him and by the Scandinavian school. Perhaps no +French writer has written more profoundly upon art than Gustave +Flaubert. His views are contained in his Correspondence, which has been +published. L. Tolstoï wrote his book on art while under the influence of +Véron and his hatred of the concept of the beautiful. Art, he says, +communicates the feelings, as the word communicates the thoughts. But +his way of understanding this may be judged from the comparison which he +institutes between Art and Science. According to this, "Art has for its +mission to make assimilable and sensible what may not have been +assimilated in the form of argument. There is no science for science's +sake, no art for art's sake. Every human effort should be directed +toward increasing morality and suppressing violence." This amounts to +saying that well-nigh all the art that the world has hitherto seen is +false. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Dante, Tasso, +Milton, Shakespeare, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Bach, Beethoven, are all, +according to Tolstoï, "false reputations, made by the critics." + +We must also class F. Nietzsche with the artists, rather than with the +philosophers. We should do him an injustice (as with J. Ruskin) were we +to express in intellectual terminology his aesthetic affirmations. The +criticism which they provoke would be too facile. Nowhere has Nietzsche +given a complete theory of art, not even in his first book, _Die Geburt +der Tragödie oder Griechentum und Pessimismus_. What seems to be theory +there, is really the confession of the feelings and aspirations of the +writer. Nietzsche was the last, splendid representative of the romantic +period. He was, therefore, deeply preoccupied with the art problem and +with the relation of art to natural science and to philosophy, though he +never succeeded in definitely fixing those relations. From Romanticism, +rather than from Schopenhauer, he gathered those elements of thought out +of which he wove his conception of the two forms of art: the Apollonian, +all serene contemplation, as expressed in the epic and in sculpture; the +Dionysaïc, all tumult and agitation, as expressed in music and the +drama. These doctrines are not rigorously proved, and their power of +resistance to criticism is therefore but slender, but they serve to +transport the mind to a more lofty spiritual level than any others of +the second half of the nineteenth century. + +The most noteworthy thought on aesthetic of this period is perhaps to be +found among the aestheticians of special branches of the arts, and since +we know that laws relating only to special branches are not conceivable, +this thought may be considered as bearing upon the general theory of +Aesthetic. + +The Bohemian critic E. Hanslick (1854) is perhaps the most important of +these writers. His work _On Musical Beauty_ has been translated into +several languages. His polemic is chiefly directed against R. Wagner and +the pretension of finding in music a determined content of ideas and +feelings. He expresses equal contempt for those sentimentalists who +derive from music merely pathological effects, passionate excitement, or +stimulus for practical activity, in place of enjoying the musical works. +"If a few Phrygian notes sufficed to instil courage into the soldier +facing the enemy, or a Doric melody to assure the fidelity of a wife +whose husband was absent, then the loss of Greek music may cause pain to +generals and to husbands, but aestheticians and composers will have no +reason to deplore it." "If every Requiem, every lamenting Adagio, +possessed the power to make us sad, who would be able to support +existence in such conditions? But if a true musical work look upon us +with the clear and brilliant eyes of beauty, we feel ourselves bound by +its invincible fascination, though its theme be all the sorrows of the +century." + +For Hanslick, the only end of music was form, or musical beauty. The +followers of Herbart showed themselves very tender towards this +unexpected and vigorous ally, and Hanslick, not to be behindhand in +politeness, returned their compliments, by referring to Herbart and to +R. Zimmermann, in the later editions of his work, as having "completely +developed the great aesthetic principle of form." Unfortunately Hanslick +meant something altogether different from the Herbartians by his use of +the word form. Symmetry, merely acoustic relations, and the pleasure of +the ear, did not constitute the musically beautiful for him. Mathematics +were in his view useless in the Aesthetic of music. "Sonorous forms are +not empty, but perfectly full; they cannot be compared to simple lines +enclosing a space; they are the spirit, which takes form, making its own +bodily configuration. Music is more of a picture than is an arabesque; +but it is a picture of which the subject is inexpressible in words, nor +is it to be enclosed in a precise concept. In music, there is a meaning +and a connexion, but of a specially musical nature: it is a language +which we speak and understand, but which it is impossible to translate." +Hanslick admits that music, if it do not render the quality of +sentiments, renders their tone or dynamic side; it renders adjectives, +if it fail to render substantives; if not "murmuring tenderness" or +"impetuous courage," at any rate the "murmuring" and the "impetuous." + +The essence of his book is contained in the negation that it is possible +to separate form and content in music. "Take any motive you will, and +say where form begins and content ends. Are we to call the sounds +content? Very good, but they have already received form. What are we to +call form? Sounds again? But they are already form filled, that is to +say, possessing a content." These observations testify to an acute +penetration of the nature of art. Hanslick's belief that they were +characteristics peculiar to music, not common to every form of art, +alone prevented him from seeing further. + +C. Fiedler, published in German (in 1887) an extremely luminous work on +the origin of artistic activity. He describes eloquently how the passive +spectator seems to himself to grasp all reality, as the shows of life +pass before him; but at the moment that he tries to realize this +artistically, all disappears, and leaves him with the emptiness of his +own thoughts. Yet by concentration alone do we attain to expression; art +is a language that we gradually learn to speak. Artistic activity is +only to be attained by limiting ourselves; it must consist of "forms +precisely determined, tangible, sensibly demonstrable, precisely because +it is spiritual." Art does not imitate nature, for what is nature, but +that vast confusion of perceptions and representations that were +referred to above? Yet in a sense art does imitate nature; it uses +nature to produce values of a kind peculiar to itself. Those values are +true visibility. + +Fiedler's views correspond with those of his predecessor, Hanslick, but +are more rigorously and philosophically developed. The sculptor A. +Hildebrand may be mentioned with these, as having drawn attention to the +nature of art as architectonic rather than imitative, with special +application to the art of sculpture. + +What we miss with these and with other specialists, is a broad view of +art and language, as one and the same thing, the inheritance of all +humanity, not of a few persons, specially endowed. H. Bergson in his +book on laughter (1900) falls under the same criticism. He develops his +theory of art in a manner analogous to Fiedler, and errs like him in +looking upon it as something different and exceptional in respect to the +language of every moment. He declares that in life the individuality of +things escapes us: we see only as much as suffices for our practical +ends. The influence of language aids this rude simplification: all but +proper names are abstractions. Artists arise from time to time, who +recover the riches hidden beneath the labels of ordinary life. + +Amid the ruin of idealist metaphysics, is to be desired a healthy return +to the doctrine of Baumgarten, corrected and enriched with the +discoveries that have been made since his time, especially by +romanticism and psychology. C. Hermann (1876) announced this return, but +his book is a hopeless mixture of empirical precepts and of metaphysical +beliefs regarding Logic and Aesthetic, both of which, he believes, deal +not with the empirical thought and experience of the soul, but with the +pure and absolute. + +B. Bosanquet (1892) gives the following definition of the beautiful, as +"that which has a characteristic or individual expressivity for the +sensible perception, or for the imagination, subject to the conditions +of general or abstract expressivity for the same means." The problem as +posed by this writer by the antithesis of the two German schools of form +and content, appears to us insoluble. + +Though De Sanctis left no school in Italy, his teaching has been cleared +of the obscurities that had gathered round it during the last ten years; +and the thesis of the true nature of history, and of its nature, +altogether different from natural science, has been also dealt with in +Germany, although its precise relation to the aesthetic problem has not +been made clear. Such labours and such discussions constitute a more +favourable ground for the scientific development of Aesthetic than the +stars of mystical metaphysic or the stables of positivism and of +sensualism. + +We have now reached the end of the inquiry into the history of aesthetic +speculation, and we are struck with the smallness of the number of those +who have seen clearly the nature of the problem. No doubt, amid the +crowd of artists, critics, and writers on other subjects, many have +incidentally made very just remarks, and if all these were added to the +few philosophers, they would form a gallant company. But if, as Schiller +truly observed, the rhythm of philosophy consist in a withdrawal from +public opinion, in order to return to it with renewed vigour, it is +evident that this withdrawal is essential, and indeed that in it lies +the whole progress of philosophy. + +During our long journey, we have witnessed grave aberrations from the +truth, which were at the same time attempts to reach it; such were the +hedonism of the sophists and rhetoricians of antiquity, of the +sensualists of the eighteenth and second half of the nineteenth +centuries; the moralistic hedonism of Aristophanes and the Stoics, of +the Roman eclectics, of the writers of the Middle Age and of the +Renaissance; the ascetic and logical hedonism of Plato and the Fathers +of the Church; the aesthetic mysticism of Plotinus, reborn to its +greatest triumphs, during the classic period of German thought. + +Through the midst of these variously erroneous theories, that traverse +the field of thought in all directions, runs a tiny rivulet of golden +truth. Starting from the subtle empiricism of Aristotle, it flows in the +profound penetration of Vico to the nineteenth century, where it appears +again in the masterly analyses of Schleiermacher, Humboldt, and De +Sanctis. + +This brief list shows that the science of Aesthetic is no longer to be +discovered, but it also shows _that it is only at its beginning_. + +The birth of a science is like the birth of a human being. In order to +live, a science, like a man, has to withstand a thousand attacks of all +sorts. These appear in the form of errors, which must be extirpated, if +the science is not to perish. And when one set has been weeded, another +crops up; when these have been dealt with, the former errors often +return. Therefore _scientific criticism_ is always necessary. No science +can repose on its laurels, complete, unchallenged. Like a human being, +it must maintain its position by constant efforts, constant victories +over error. The general errors which reveal a negation of the very +concept of art have already been dealt with in the Historical Summary. +The particular errors have been exposed in the Theory. They may be +divided under three heads: (i.) Errors as to the characteristic quality +of the aesthetic fact, or (ii.) as to its specific quality, or (iii.) as +to its generic quality. These are contradictions of the characteristics +of intuition, of theoretic contemplation, and of spiritual activity, +which constitute the aesthetic fact. + +The principal bar to a proper understanding of the true nature of +language has been and still is Rhetoric, with the modern form it has +assumed, as style. The rhetorical categories are still mentioned in +treatises and often referred to, as having definite existence among the +parts of speech. Side by side with such phrases goes that of the double +form, or metaphor, which implies that there are two ways of saying the +same thing, the one simple, the other ornate. + +Kant, Herbart, Hegel, and many minor personages, have been shown to be +victims of the rhetorical categories, and in our own day we have writers +in Italy and in Germany who devote much attention to them, such as R. +Bonghi and G. Gröber; the latter employs a phraseology which he borrows +from the modern schools of psychology, but this does not alter the true +nature of his argument. De Sanctis gave perhaps the clearest and most +stimulating advice in his lectures on Rhetoric, which he termed +Anti-rhetoric. + +But even he failed to systematize his thought, and we may say that the +true critique of Rhetoric can only be made from the point of view of the +aesthetic activity, which is, as we know, _one_, and therefore does not +give rise to divisions, and _cannot express the same content now in one +form, now in another_. Thus only can we drive away the double monster of +naked form deprived of imagination, and of decorated form, which would +represent something more than imagination. The same remarks apply to +artistic and literary styles, and to their various laws or rules. In +modern times they have generally been comprised with rhetoric, and +although now discredited, they cannot be said to have altogether +disappeared. + +J.C. Scaliger may be entitled the protagonist of the unities in +comparatively modern times: he it was who "laid the foundations of the +classical Bastille," and supplied tyrants of literature, like Boileau, +with some of their best weapons. Lessing opposed the French rules and +restrictions with German rules and restrictions, giving as his opinion +that Corneille and others had wrongly interpreted Aristotle, whose rules +did not really prevent Shakespeare from being included among correct +writers! Lessing undoubtedly believed in intellectual rules for poetry. +Aristotle was the tyrant, father of tyrants, and we find Corneille +saying "qu'il est aisé de s'accommoder avec Aristote," much in the same +way as Tartuffe makes his "accommodements avec le ciel." In the next +century, several additions were made to the admitted styles, as for +instance the "tragédie bourgeoise." + +But these battles of the rules with one another are less interesting +than the rebellion against all the rules, which began with Pietro +Aretino in the sixteenth century, who makes mock of them in the +prologues to his comedies. Giordano Bruno took sides against the makers +of rules, saying that the rules came from the poetry, and "therefore +there are as many genuses and species of true rules as there are genuses +and species of true poets." When asked how the true poets are to be +known, he replies, "by repeating their verses, which either cause +delight, or profit, or both." Guarini, too, said that "the world judges +poetry, and its sentence is without appeal." + +Strangely enough, it was priest-ridden Spain that all through the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led the van of revolt against the +rules and precepts of the grammarians. While Torquato Tasso remained the +miserable slave of grammarians unworthy to lick the dust from his feet, +Lope de Vega slyly remarked that when he wrote his comedies, he locked +up the givers of precepts with six keys, that they might not reproach +him. J.B. Marino declared that he knew the rules better than all the +pedants in the world; "but the true rule is to know when to break the +rules, in accordance with the manners of the day and the taste of the +age." Among the most acute writers of the end of the seventeenth century +is to be mentioned Gravina, who well understood that a work of art must +be its own criterion, and said so clearly when praising a contemporary +for a work which did not enter any one of the admitted categories. +Unfortunately Gravina did not clearly formulate his views. + +France of the eighteenth century produced several writers like Du Bos, +who declared that men will always prefer the poems that move them, to +those composed according to rule. La Motte combated the unities of place +and time, and Batteux showed himself liberal in respect to rules. +Voltaire, although he opposed La Motte and described the three unities +as the three great laws of good sense, was also capable of declaring +that all styles but the tiresome are good, and that the best style is +that which is best used. In England we find Home in his _Elements of +Criticism_ deriding the critics for asserting that there must be a +precise criterion for distinguishing epic poetry from all other forms of +composition. Literary compositions, he held, melt into one another, just +like colours. + +The literary movement of the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of +the nineteenth centuries attacked rules of all sorts. We will not dwell +upon the many encounters of these periods, nor record the names of those +that conquered gloriously, or their excesses. In France the preface to +the _Cromwell_ of V. Hugo (1827), in Italy the _Lettera semiseria di +Grisostomo_, were clarions of rebellion. The principle first laid down +by A.W. Schlegel, that the form of compositions must be organic and not +mechanic, resulting from the nature of the subject, from its internal +development not from an external stamp, was enunciated in Italy. Art is +always a whole, a synthesis. + +But it would be altogether wrong to believe that this empirical defeat +of the styles and rules implied their final defeat in philosophy. Even +writers who were capable of dispensing with prejudice when judging works +of art, once they spoke as philosophers, were apt to reassume their +belief in those categories which, empirically, they had discarded. The +spectacle of these literary or rhetorical categories, raised by German +philosophers to the honours of philosophical deduction, is even more +amusing than that which afforded amusement to Home. The truth is that +they were unable to free their aesthetic systems of intellectualism, +although they proclaimed the empire of the mystic idea. Schelling (1803) +at the beginning, Hartmann (1890) at the end of the century, furnish a +good example of this head and tail. + +Schelling, in his Philosophy of Art, declares that, historically +speaking, the first place in the styles of poetry is due to Epic, but, +scientifically speaking, it falls to Lyric. In truth, if poetry be the +representation of the infinite in the finite, then lyric poetry, in +which prevails the finite, must be its first moment. Lyric poetry +corresponds to the first of the ideal series, to reflection, to +knowledge; epic poetry corresponds to the second power, to action. This +philosopher finally proceeds to the unification of epic and lyric +poetry, and from their union he deduces the dramatic form, which is in +his view "the supreme incarnation of the essence and of the _in-se_ of +every art." + +With Hartmann, poetry is divided into poetry of declamation and poetry +for reading. The first is subdivided into Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic; the +Epic is divided into plastic epic, proper epic, pictorial epic, and +lyrical epic; Lyric is divided into epical lyric, lyrical lyric, and +dramatic lyric; Dramatic is divided into lyrical dramatic, epical +dramatic, and dramatical dramatic. The second (readable poetry) is +divided into poetry which is chiefly epical, lyrical, and dramatic, with +the tertiary division of moving, comic, tragic, and humoristic; and +poetry which can all be read at once, like a short story, or that +requires several sittings, like a romance. + +These brief extracts show of what dialectic pirouettes and sublime +trivialities even philosophers are capable, when they begin to treat +of the Aesthetic of the tragic, comic, and humorous. Such false +distinctions are still taught in the schools of France and Germany, and +we find a French critic like Ferdinand Brunetière devoting a whole +volume to the evolution of literary styles or classes, which he really +believes to constitute literary history. This prejudice, less frankly +stated, still infests many histories of literature, even in Italy. + +We believe that the falsity of these rules of classes should be +scientifically demonstrated. In our Theory of Aesthetic we have shown +how we believe that it should be demonstrated. + +The proof of the theory of the limits of the arts has been credited to +Lessing, but his merit should rather be limited to having been the first +to draw attention to the problem. His solution was false, but his +achievement nevertheless great, in having posed the question clearly. No +one before him, in antiquity, in the Middle Age, or in modern times, had +seriously asked: What is the value of the distinctions between the arts? +Which of them comes first? Which second? Leonardo da Vinci had declared +his personal predilection for painting, Michael Angelo for sculpture, +but the question had not been philosophically treated before Lessing. + +Lessing's attention was drawn to the problem, through his desire to +disprove the assertions of Spence and of the Comte de Caylus, the former +in respect to the close union between poetry and painting in antiquity, +the latter as believing that a poem was good according to the number of +subjects which it should afford the painter. Lessing argued thus: +Painting manifests itself in space, poetry in time: the mode of +manifestation of painting is through objects which coexist, that of +poetry through objects which are consecutive. The objects which coexist, +or whose parts are coexistent, are called bodies. Bodies, then, owing to +their visibility, are the true objects of painting. Objects which are +consecutive, or whose parts are consecutive, are called, in general, +actions. Actions, then, are the suitable object of poetry. He admitted +that painting might represent an action, but only by means of bodies +which make allusion to it; that poetry can represent bodies, but only by +means of actions. Returning to this theme, he explained the action or +movement in painting as added by our imagination. Lessing was greatly +preoccupied with the naturalness and the unnaturalness of signs, which +is tantamount to saying that he believed each art to be strictly limited +to certain modes of expression, which are only overstepped at the cost +of coherency. In the appendix to his _Laocoön_, he quotes Plutarch as +saying that one should not chop wood with a key, or open the door with +an axe. He who should do so would not only be spoiling both those +utensils, but would also be depriving himself of the utility of both. He +believed that this applied to the arts. + +The number of philosophers and writers who have attempted empirical +classifications of the arts is enormous: it ranges in comparatively +recent times from Lessing, by way of Schasler, Solger, and Hartmann, to +Richard Wagner, whose theory of the combination of the arts was first +mooted in the eighteenth century. + +Lotze, while reflecting upon the futility of these attempts, himself +adopts a method, which he says is the most "convenient," and thereby +incurs the censure of Schasler. This method is in fact suitable for his +studies in botany and in zoology, but useless for the philosophy of the +spirit. Thus both these thinkers maintained Lessing's wrong principle as +to the constancy, the limits, and the peculiar nature of each art. + +Who among aestheticians has criticized this principle? Aristotle had a +glimpse of the truth, when he refused to admit that the distinction +between prose and poetry lay in an external fact, the metre. +Schleiermacher seems to have been the only one who was thoroughly aware +of the difficulty of the problem. In analysis, indeed, he goes so far as +to say that what the arts have in common is not the external fact, which +is an element of diversity; and connecting such an observation as this +with his clear distinction between art and what is called technique, we +might argue that Schleiermacher looked upon the divisions between the +arts as non-existent. But he does not make this logical inference, and +his thought upon the problem continues to be wavering and undecided. +Nebulous, uncertain, and contradictory as is this portion of +Schleiermacher's theory, he has yet the great merit of having doubted +Lessing's theory, and of having asked himself by what right are special +arts held to be distinct in art. + +Schleiermacher _absolutely denied the existence of a beautiful in +nature_, and praised Hegel for having sustained this negation. Hegel did +not really deserve this praise, as his negation was rather verbal than +effective; but the importance of this thesis as stated by Schleiermacher +is very great, in so far as he denied the existence of an objective +natural beauty not produced by the spirit of man. This theory of the +beautiful in nature, when taken in a metaphysical sense, does not +constitute an error peculiar to aesthetic science. It forms part of a +fallacious general theory, which can be criticized together with its +metaphysic. + +The theory of aesthetic senses, that is, of certain superior senses, +such as sight and hearing, being the only ones for which aesthetic +impressions exist, was debated as early as Plato. The _Hippias major_ +contains a discussion upon this theme, which Socrates leads to the +conclusion that there exist beautiful things, which do not reach us +through impressions of eye or ear. But further than this, there exist +things which please the eye, but not the ear, and _vice versa_; +therefore the reason of beauty cannot be visibility or audibility, but +something different from, yet common to both. Perhaps this question has +never been so acutely and so seriously dealt with as in this Platonic +dialogue. Home, Herder, Hegel, Diderot, Rousseau, Berkeley, all dealt +with the problem, but in a more or less arbitrary manner. Herder, for +instance, includes touch with the higher aesthetic senses, but Hegel +removes it, as having immediate contact with matter as such, and with +its immediate sensible qualities. + +Schleiermacher, with his wonted penetration, saw that the problem was +not to be solved so easily. He refuted the distinction between clear and +confused senses. He held that the superiority of sight and hearing over +the other senses lay in their free activity, in their capacity of an +activity proceeding from within, and able to create forms and sounds +without receiving external impressions. The eye and the ear are not +merely means of perception, for in that case there could be no visual +and no auditive arts. They are also functions of voluntary movements, +which fill the domain of the senses. Schleiermacher, however, considered +that the difference was rather one of quantity, and that we should allow +to the other senses a minimum of independence. + +The sensualists, as we know, maintain that all the senses are aesthetic. +That is the hedonistic hypothesis, which has been dealt with and +disproved in this book. We have shown the embarrassment in which the +hedonists find themselves, when they have dubbed all the senses +"aesthetic," or have been obliged to differentiate in an absurd manner +some of the senses from the others. The only way out of the difficulty +lies in abandoning the attempt to unite orders of facts so diverse as +the representative form of the spirit and the conception of given +physical organs or of a given material of impressions. + +The origin of classes of speech and of grammatical forms is to be found +in antiquity, and as regards the latter, the disputes among the +Alexandrian philosophers, the analogists, and the anomalists, resulted +in logic being identified with grammar. Anything which did not seem +logical was excluded from grammar as a deviation. The analogists, +however, did not have it all their own way, and grammar in the modern +sense of the word is a compromise between these extreme views, that is, +it contains something of the thought of Chrysippus, who composed a +treatise to show that the same thing can be expressed with different +sounds, and of Apollonius Discolus, who attempted to explain what the +rigorous analogists refused to admit into their schemes and +classifications. It is only of late years that we have begun to emerge +from the superstitious reverence for grammar, inherited from the Middle +Age. Such writers as Pott, in his introduction to Humboldt, and Paul in +his _Principien d. Sprachgeschichte_, have done good service in throwing +doubt upon the absolute validity of the parts of speech. If the old +superstitions still survive tenaciously, we must attribute this partly +to empirical and poetical grammar, partly to the venerable antiquity of +grammar itself, which has led the world to forget its illegitimate and +turbid origin. + +The theory of the relativity of taste is likewise ancient, and it would +be interesting to know whether the saying "there's no accounting for +tastes" could be traced to a merely gustatory origin. In this sense, the +saying would be quite correct, as it is _quite wrong_ when applied to +aesthetic facts. The eighteenth century writers exhibit a piteous +perplexity of thought on this subject. Home, for instance, after much +debate, decides upon a common "standard of taste," which he deduces from +the necessity of social life and from what he calls "a final cause." Of +course it will not be an easy matter to fix this "standard of taste." As +regards moral conduct, we do not seek our models among savages, so with +regard to taste, we must have recourse to those few whose taste has not +been corrupted nor spoilt by pleasure, who have received good taste from +nature, and have perfected it by education and by the practice of life. +If after this has been done, there should yet arise disputes, it will be +necessary to refer to the principles of criticism, as laid down in his +book by the said Home. + +We find similar contradictions and vicious circles in the _Discourse on +Taste_ of David Hume. We search his writings in vain for the distinctive +characteristics of the man of taste, whose judgments should be final. +Although he asserts that the general principles of taste are universal +in human nature, and admits that no notice should be accorded to +perversions and ignorance, yet there exist diversities of taste that are +irreconcilable, insuperable, and blameless. + +But the criticism of the sensualist and relativist positions cannot be +made from the point of view of those who proclaim the absolute nature of +taste and yet place it among the intellectual concepts. It has been +shown to be impossible to escape from sensualism and relativity save by +falling into the intellectualist error. Muratori in the eighteenth +century is an instance of this. He was one of the first to maintain the +existence of a rule of taste and of universal beauty. André also spoke +of what appears beautiful in a work of art as being not that which +pleases at once, owing to certain particular dispositions of the +faculties of the soul and of the organs of the body, but that which has +the right of pleasing the reason and reflection through its own +excellence. Voltaire admitted an "universal taste," which was +"intellectual," as did many others. Kant appeared, and condemned alike +the intellectualist and the sensualistic error; but placing the +beautiful in a symbol of morality, he failed to discover the imaginative +absoluteness of taste. Later speculative philosophy did not attach +importance to the question. + +The correct solution was slow in making its way. It lies, as we know, in +the fact that to judge a work of art we must place ourselves in the +position of the artist at the time of production, and that to judge is +to reproduce. Alexander Pope, in his _Essay on Criticism_, was among the +first to state this truth: + + A perfect judge will read each work of wit + With the same spirit that its author writ. + +Remarks equally luminous were made by Antonio Conti, Terrasson, and +Heydenreich in the eighteenth century, the latter with considerable +philosophical development. De Sanctis gave in his adhesion to this +formula, but a true theory of aesthetic criticism had not yet been +given, because for such was necessary, not only an exact conception of +nature in art, but also of the relations between the aesthetic fact and +its historical conditions. In more recent times has been denied the +possibility of aesthetic criticism; it has been looked upon as merely +individual and capricious, and historical criticism has been set up in +its place. This would be better called a criticism of extrinsic +erudition and of bad philosophical inspiration--positivist and +materialist. The true history of literature will always require the +reconstruction and then the judgment of the work of art. Those who have +wished to react against such emasculated erudition have often thrown +themselves into the opposite extreme, that is, into a dogmatic, +abstract, intellectualistic, or moralistic form of criticism. + +This mention of the history of certain doctrines relating to Aesthetic +suffices to show the range of error possible in the theory. Aesthetic +has need to be surrounded by a vigilant and vigorous critical literature +which shall derive from it and be at once its safeguard and its source +of strength. + + + + +APPENDIX + +I here add as an appendix, at the request of the author, a translation +of his lecture which he delivered before the Third International +Congress of Philosophy, at Heidelberg, on 2nd September 1908. + +The reader will find that it throws a vivid light upon Benedetto Croce's +general theory of Aesthetic. + + +PURE INTUITION AND THE LYRICAL CHARACTER OF ART. + +_A Lecture delivered at Heidelberg at the second general session of the +Third International Congress of Philosophy._ + +There exists an _empirical_ Aesthetic, which although it admits the +existence of facts, called aesthetic or artistic, yet holds that they +are irreducible to a single principle, to a rigorous philosophical +concept. It wishes to limit itself to collecting as many of those facts +as possible, and in the greatest possible variety, thence, at the most, +proceeding to group them together in classes and types. The logical +ideal of this school, as declared on many occasions, is zoology or +botany. This Aesthetic, when asked what art is, replies by indicating +successively single facts, and by saying: "Art is this, and this, and +this too is art," and so on, indefinitely. Zoology and botany renew the +representatives of fauna and of flora in the same way. They calculate +that the species renewed amount to some thousand, but believe that they +might easily be increased to twenty or a hundred thousand, or even to a +million, or to infinity. + +There is another Aesthetic, which has been called hedonistic, +utilitarian, moralistic, and so on, according to its various +manifestations. Its complex denomination should, however, be +_practicism_, because that is precisely what constitutes its essential +character. This Aesthetic differs from the preceding, in the belief that +aesthetic or artistic facts are not a merely empirical or nominalistic +grouping together, but that all of them possess a common foundation. Its +foundation is placed in the practical form of human activity. Those +facts are therefore considered, either generically, as manifestations of +pleasure and pain, and therefore rather as economic facts; or, more +particularly, as a special class of those manifestations; or again, as +instruments and products of the ethical spirit, which subdues and turns +to its own ends individual hedonistic and economic tendencies. + +There is a third Aesthetic, the _intellectualist_, which, while also +recognizing the reducibility of aesthetic facts to philosophical +treatment, explains them as particular cases of logical thought, +identifying beauty with intellectual truth; art, now with the natural +sciences, now with philosophy. For this Aesthetic, what is prized in art +is what is learned from it. The only distinction that it admits between +art and science, or art and philosophy, is at the most that of more or +less, or of perfection and imperfection. According to this Aesthetic, +art would be the whole mass of easy and popular truths; or it would be a +transitory form of science, a semi-science and a semi-philosophy, +preparatory to the superior and perfect form of science and of +philosophy. + +A fourth Aesthetic there is, which may be called _agnostic_. It springs +from the criticism of the positions just now indicated, and being guided +by a powerful consciousness of the truth, rejects them all, because it +finds them too evidently false, and because it is too loth to admit that +art is a simple fact of pleasure or pain, an exercise of virtue, or a +fragmentary sketch of science and philosophy. And while rejecting them, +it discovers, at the same time, that art is not now this and now that of +those things, or of other things, indefinitely, but that it has its own +principle and origin. However, it is not able to say what this principle +may be, and believes that it is impossible to do so. This Aesthetic +knows that art cannot be resolved into an empirical concept; knows that +pleasure and pain are united with the aesthetic activity only in an +indirect manner; that morality has nothing to do with art; that it is +impossible to rationalize art, as is the case with science and +philosophy, and to prove it beautiful or ugly with the aid of reason. +Here this Aesthetic is content to stop, satisfied with a knowledge +consisting entirely of negative terms. + +Finally, there is an Aesthetic which I have elsewhere proposed to call +_mystic_. This Aesthetic avails itself of those negative terms, to +define art as a spiritual form without a practical character, because it +is theoretic, and without a logical or intellective form, because it is +a theoretic form, differing alike from those of science and of +philosophy, and superior to both. According to this view, art would be +the highest pinnacle of knowledge, whence what is seen from other points +seems narrow and partial; art would alone reveal the whole horizon or +all the abysses of Reality. + +Now, the five Aesthetics so far mentioned are not referable to +contingent facts and historical epochs, as are, on the other hand, the +denominations of Greek and Mediaeval Aesthetic, of Renaissance and +eighteenth-century Aesthetic, the Aesthetic of Wolff and of Herbart, of +Vico and of Hegel. These five are, on the contrary, mental attitudes, +which are found in all periods, although they have not always +conspicuous representatives of the kind that are said to become +historical. Empirical Aesthetic is, for example, called Burke in the +eighteenth, Fechner in the nineteenth century; moralistic Aesthetic is +Horace or Plutarch in antiquity, Campanella in modern times; +intellectualist or logical Aesthetic is Cartesian in the seventeenth, +Leibnitzian in the eighteenth, and Hegelian in the nineteenth century; +agnostic Aesthetic is Francesco Patrizio at the Renaissance, Kant in the +eighteenth century; mystic Aesthetic is called Neoplatonism at the end +of the antique world, Romanticism at the beginning of the nineteenth +century, and if it be adorned during the former period with the name of +Plotinus, in the latter it will bear the name of Schelling or of Solger, +And not only are those attitudes and mental tendencies common to all +epochs, but they are also all found to some extent developed or +indicated in every thinker, and even in every man. Thus it is somewhat +difficult to classify philosophers of Aesthetic according to one or the +other category, because each philosopher also enters more or less into +some other, or into all the other categories. + +Nor can these five conceptions and points of view be looked upon as +increasable to ten or twenty, or to as many as desired, or that I have +placed them in a certain order, but that they could be capriciously +placed in another order. If this were so, they would be altogether +heterogeneous and disconnected among themselves, and the attempt to +examine and criticize them would seem altogether desperate, as also +would be that of comparing one with the other, or of stating a new one, +which should dominate them all. It is precisely thus that ordinary +sceptics look upon various and contrasting scientific views. They group +them all in the same plane, and believing that they can increase them at +will, conclude that one is as good as another, and that therefore every +one is free to select that which he prefers from a bundle of falsehoods. +The conceptions of which we speak are definite in number, and appear in +a necessary order, which is either that here stated by me, or another +which might be proposed, better than mine. This would be the necessary +order, which I should have failed to realize effectively. They are +connected one with the other, and in such a way that the view which +follows includes in itself that which precedes it. + +Thus, if the last of the five doctrines indicated be taken, which may be +summed up as the proposition that art is a form of the theoretic spirit, +superior to the scientific and philosophic form--and if it be submitted +to analysis, it will be seen that in it is included, in the first place, +the proposition affirming the existence of a group of facts, which are +called aesthetic or artistic. If such facts did not exist, it is evident +that no question would arise concerning them, and that no +systematization would be attempted. And this is the truth of empirical +Aesthetic. But there is also contained in it the proposition: that the +facts examined are reducible to a definite principle or category of the +spirit. This amounts to saying, that they belong either to the practical +spirit, or to the theoretical, or to one of their subforms. And this is +the truth of practicist Aesthetic, which is occupied with the enquiry as +to whether these ever are practical facts, and affirms that in every +case they are a special category of the spirit. Thirdly, there is +contained in it the proposition: that they are not practical facts, but +facts which should rather be placed near the facts of logic or of +thought. This is the truth of intellectualistic Aesthetic. In the fourth +place, we find also the proposition; that aesthetic facts are neither +practical, nor of that theoretic form which is called logical and +intellective. They are something which cannot be identified with the +categories of pleasure, nor of the useful, nor with those of ethic, nor +with those of logical truth. They are something of which it is necessary +to find a further definition. This is the truth of that Aesthetic which +is termed agnostic or negative. + +When these various propositions are severed from their connection; when, +that is to say, the first is taken without the second, the second +without the third, and so on,--and when each, thus mutilated, is +confined in itself and the enquiry which awaits prosecution is +arbitrarily arrested, then each one of these gives itself out as the +whole of them, that is, as the completion of the enquiry. In this way, +each becomes error, and the truths contained in empiricism, in +practicism, in intellectualism, in agnostic and in mystical Aesthetic, +become, respectively, falsity, and these tendencies of speculation are +indicated with names of a definitely depreciative colouring. Empiria +becomes empiricism, the heuristic comparison of the aesthetic activity +with the practical and logical, becomes a conclusion, and therefore +practicism and intellectualism. The criticism which rejects false +definitions, and is itself negative, affirms itself as positive and +definite, becoming agnosticism; and so on. + +But the attempt to close a mental process in an arbitrary manner is +vain, and of necessity causes remorse and self-criticism. Thus it comes +about, that each one of those unilateral and erroneous doctrines +continually tends to surpass itself and to enter the stage which follows +it. Thus empiricism, for example, assumes that it can dispense with any +philosophical conception of art; but, since it severs art from +non-art--and, however empirical it be, it will not identify a +pen-and-ink sketch and a table of logarithms, as if they were just the +same thing, or a painting and milk or blood (although milk and blood +both possess colour)--thus empiricism too must at last resort to some +kind of philosophical concept. Therefore, we see the empiricists +becoming, turn and turn about, hedonists, moralists, intellectualists, +agnostics, mystics, and sometimes they are even better than mystics, +upholding an excellent conception of art, which can only be found fault +with because introduced surreptitiously and without justification. If +they do not make that progress, it is impossible for them to speak in +any way of aesthetic facts. They must return, as regards such facts, to +that indifference and to that silence from which they had emerged when +they affirmed the existence of these facts and began to consider them in +their variety. The same may be said of all other unilateral doctrines. +They are all reduced to the alternative of advancing or of going back, +and in so far as they do not wish to do either, they live amid +contradictions and in anguish. But they do free themselves from these, +more or less slowly, and thus are compelled to advance, more or less +slowly. And here we discover why it is so difficult, and indeed +impossible, exactly to identify thinkers, philosophers, and writers with +one or the other of the doctrines which we have enunciated, because each +one of them rebels when he finds himself limited to one of those +categories, and it seems to him that he is shut up in prison. It is +precisely because those thinkers try to shut themselves up in a +unilateral doctrine, that they do not succeed, and that they take a +step, now in one direction, now in another, and are conscious of being +now on this side, now on the other, of the criticisms which are +addressed to them. But the critics fulfil their duty by putting them in +prison, thus throwing into relief the absurdity into which they are led +by their irresolution, or their resolution not to resolve. + +And from this necessary connection and progressive order of the various +propositions indicated arise also the resolve, the counsel, the +exhortation, to "return," as they say, to this or that thinker, to this +or that philosophical school of the past. Certainly, such returns are +impossible, understood literally; they are also a little ridiculous, +like all impossible attempts. We can never return to the past, precisely +because it is the past. No one is permitted to free himself from the +problems which are put by the present, and which he must solve with all +the means of the present (which includes in it the means of the past). +Nevertheless, it is a fact that the history of philosophy everywhere +resounds with cries of return. Those very people who in our day deride +the "return to Hume" or the "return to Kant," proceed to advise the +"return to Schelling," or the "return to Hegel." This means that we must +not understand those "returns" literally and in a material way. In +truth, they do not express anything but the necessity and the +ineliminability of the logical process explained above, for which the +affirmations contained in philosophical problems appear connected with +one another in such a way that the one follows the other, surpasses it, +and includes it in itself. Empiricism, practicism, intellectualism, +agnosticism, mysticism, are _eternal stages of the search for truth_. +They are eternally relived and rethought in the truth which each +contains. Thus it would be necessary for him who had not yet turned his +attention to aesthetic facts, to begin by passing them before his eyes, +that is to say, he must first traverse the empirical stage (about +equivalent to that occupied by mere men of letters and mere amateurs of +art); and while he is at this stage, he must be aroused to feel the want +of a principle of explanation, by making him compare his present +knowledge with the facts, and see if they are explained by it, that is +to say, if they be utilitarian and moral, or logical and intellective. +Then we should drive him who has made this examination to the +conclusion, that the aesthetic activity is something different from all +known forms, a form of the spirit, which it yet remains to characterize. +For the empiricists of Aesthetic, intellectualism and moralism represent +progress; for the intellectualists, hedonistic and moralistic alike, +agnosticism is progress and may be called Kant. But for Kantians, who +are real Kantians (and not neo-Kantians), progress is represented by the +mystical and romantic point of view; not because this comes after the +doctrine of Kant chronologically, but because it surpasses it ideally. +In this sense, and in this sense alone, we should now "return" to the +romantic Aesthetic. We should return to it, because it is ideally +superior to all the researches in Aesthetic made in the studies of +psychologists, of physio-psychologists, and of psycho-physiologists of +the universities of Europe and of America. It is ideally superior to the +sociological, comparative, prehistoric Aesthetic, which studies +especially the art of savages, of children, of madmen, and of idiots. It +is ideally superior also to that other Aesthetic, which has recourse to +the conceptions of the genetic pleasure, of games, of illusion, of +self-illusion, of association, of hereditary habit, of sympathy, of +social efficiency, and so on. It is ideally superior to the attempts at +logical explanation, which have not altogether ceased, even to-day, +although they are somewhat rare, because, to tell the truth, fanaticism +for Logic cannot be called the failing of our times. Finally, it is +ideally superior to that Aesthetic which repeats with Kant, that the +beautiful is finality without the idea of end, disinterested pleasure, +necessary and universal, which is neither theoretical nor practical, but +participates in both forms, or combines them in itself in an original +and ineffable manner. But we should return to it, bringing with us the +experience of a century of thought, the new facts collected, the new +problems that have arisen, the new ideas that have matured. Thus we +shall return again to the stage of mystical and romantic Aesthetic, but +not to the personal and historical stage of its representatives. For in +this matter, at least, they are certainly inferior to us: they lived a +century ago and therefore inherited so much the less of the problems and +of the results of thought which day by day mankind laboriously +accumulates. + +They should return, but not to remain there; because, if a return to the +romantic Aesthetic be advisable for the Kantians (while the idealists +should not be advised to "return to Kant," that is to say, to a lower +stage, which represents a recession), so those who come over, or already +find themselves on the ground of mystical Aesthetic, should, on the +other hand be advised to proceed yet further, in order to attain to a +doctrine which represents a stage above it. This doctrine is that of the +_pure intuition_ (or, what amounts to the same thing, of pure +expression); a doctrine which also numbers representatives in all times, +and which may be said to be immanent alike in all the discourses that +are held and in all the judgments that are passed upon art, as in all +the best criticism and artistic and literary history. + +This doctrine arises logically from the contradictions of mystical +Aesthetic; I say, _logically_, because it contains in itself those +contradictions and their solution; although _historically_ (and this +point does not at present concern us) that critical process be not +always comprehensible, explicit, and apparent. + +Mystical Aesthetic, which makes of art the supreme function of the +theoretic spirit, or, at least, a function superior to that of +philosophy, becomes involved in inextricable difficulties. How could art +ever be superior to philosophy, if philosophy make of art its object, +that is to say, if it place art beneath itself, in order to analyse and +define it? And what could this new knowledge be, supplied by art and by +the aesthetic activity, appearing when the human spirit has come full +circle, after it has imagined, perceived, thought, abstracted, +calculated, and constructed the whole world of thought and history? + +As the result of those difficulties and contradictions, mystical +Aesthetic itself also exhibits the tendency, either to surpass its +boundary, or to sink below its proper level. The descent takes place +when it falls back into agnosticism, affirming that art is art, that is, +a spiritual form, altogether different from the others and ineffable; or +worse, where it conceives art as a sort of repose or as a game; as +though diversion could ever be a category and the spirit know repose! We +find an attempt at overpassing its proper limit, when art is placed +below philosophy, as inferior to it; but this overpassing remains a +simple attempt, because the conception of art as instrument of universal +truth is always firmly held; save that this instrument is declared less +perfect and less efficacious than the philosophical instrument. Thus +they fall back again into intellectualism from another side. + +These mistakes of mystical Aesthetic were manifested during the Romantic +period in some celebrated paradoxes, such as those of _art as irony_ and +of the _death of art_. They seemed calculated to drive philosophers to +desperation as to the possibility of solving the problem of the nature +of art, since every path of solution appeared closed. Indeed, whoever +reads the aestheticians of the romantic period, feels strongly inclined +to believe himself at the heart of the enquiry and to nourish a +confident hope of immediate discovery of the truth. Above all, the +affirmation of the theoretic nature of art, and of the difference +between its cognitive method and that of science and of logic, is felt +as a definite conquest, which can indeed be combined with other +elements, but which must not in any case be allowed to slip between the +fingers. And further, it is not true that all ways of solution are +closed, or that all have been attempted. There is at least one still +open that can be tried; and it is precisely that for which we resolutely +declare ourselves: the Aesthetic of the pure intuition. + +This Aesthetic reasons as follows:--Hitherto, in all attempts to define +the place of art, it has been sought, either at the summit of the +theoretic spirit, above philosophy, or, at least, in the circle of +philosophy itself. But is not the loftiness of the search the reason why +no satisfactory result has hitherto been obtained? Why not invert the +attempt, and instead of forming the hypothesis that art is _one of the +summits or the highest grade_ of the theoretic spirit, form the very +opposite hypothesis, namely, that it is _one of the lower grades_, or +the lowest of all? Perhaps such epithets as "lower" and "lowest" are +irreconcilable with the dignity and with the splendid beauty of art? But +in the philosophy of the spirit, such words as lowest, weak, simple, +elementary, possess only the value of a scientific terminology. All the +forms of the spirit are necessary, and the higher is so only because +there is the lower, and the lower is as much to be despised or less to +be valued to the same extent as the first step of a stair is despicable, +or of less value in respect to the topmost step. + +Let us compare art with the various forms of the theoretic spirit, and +let us begin with the sciences which are called _natural_ or _positive_. +The Aesthetic of pure intuition makes it clear that the said sciences +are more _complex_ than History, because they presuppose historical +material, that is, collections of things that have happened (to men or +animals, to the earth or to the stars). They submit this material to a +further treatment, which consists in the abstraction and systematization +of the historical facts. _History_, then, is less complex than the +natural sciences. History further presupposes the world of the +imagination and the pure philosophical concepts or categories, and +produces its judgments or historical propositions, by means of the +synthesis of the imagination with the concept. And _Philosophy_ may be +said to be even less complex than History, in so far as it is +distinguished from the former as an activity whose special function it +is to make clear the categories or pure concepts, neglecting, in a +certain sense at any rate, the world of phenomena. If we compare _Art_ +with the three forms above mentioned, it must be declared inferior, that +is to say, less complex than the _natural Sciences_, in so far as it is +altogether without abstractions. In so far as it is without conceptual +determinations and does not distinguish between the real and the unreal, +what has really happened and what has been dreamed, it must be declared +inferior to _History_. In so far as it fails altogether to surpass the +phenomenal world, and does not attain to the definitions of the pure +concepts, it is inferior to _Philosophy_ itself. It is also inferior to +_Religion_, assuming that religion is (as it is) a form of speculative +truth, standing between thought and imagination. Art is governed +entirely by imagination; its only riches are images. Art does not +classify objects, nor pronounce them real or imaginary, nor qualify +them, nor define them. Art feels and represents them. Nothing more. Art +therefore is _intuition_, in so far as it is a mode of knowledge, not +abstract, but concrete, and in so far as it uses the real, without +changing or falsifying it. In so far as it apprehends it immediately, +before it is modified and made clear by the concept, it must be called +_pure intuition_. + +The strength of art lies in being thus simple, nude, and poor. Its +strength (as often happens in life) arises from its very weakness. Hence +its fascination. If (to employ an image much used by philosophers for +various ends) we think of man, in the first moment that he becomes aware +of theoretical life, with mind still clear of every abstraction and of +every reflexion, in that first purely intuitive instant he must be a +poet. He contemplates the world with ingenuous and admiring eyes; he +sinks and loses himself altogether in that contemplation. By creating +the first representations and by thus inaugurating the life of +knowledge, art continually renews within our spirit the aspects of +things, which thought has submitted to reflexion, and the intellect to +abstraction. Thus art perpetually makes us poets again. Without art, +thought would lack the stimulus, the very material, for its hermeneutic +and critical labour. Art is the root of all our theoretic life. To be +the root, not the flower or the fruit, is the function of art. And +without a root, there can be no flower and no fruit. + + + + +II + + +Such is the theory of art as pure intuition, in its fundamental +conception. This theory, then, takes its origin from the criticism of +the loftiest of all the other doctrines of Aesthetic, from the criticism +of mystical or romantic Aesthetic, and contains in itself the criticism +and the truth of all the other Aesthetics. It is not here possible to +allow ourselves to illustrate its other aspects, such as would be those +of the identity, which it lays down, between intuition and expression, +between art and language. Suffice it to say, as regards the former, that +he alone who divides the unity of the spirit into soul and body can have +faith in a pure act of the soul, and therefore in an intuition, which +should exist as an intuition, and yet be without its body, expression. +Expression is the actuality of intuition, as action is of will; and in +the same way as will not exercised in action is not will, so an +intuition unexpressed is not an intuition. As regards the second point, +I will mention in passing that, in order to recognize the identity of +art and language, it is needful to study language, not in its +abstraction and in grammatical detail, but in its immediate reality, and +in all its manifestations, spoken and sung, phonic and graphic. And we +should not take at hazard any proposition, and declare it to be +aesthetic; because, if all propositions have an aesthetic side +(precisely because intuition is the elementary form of knowledge and is, +as it were, the garment of the superior and more complex forms), all are +not _purely_ aesthetic, but some are philosophical, historical, +scientific, or mathematical; some, in fact, of these are more than +aesthetic or logical; they are aestheticological. Aristotle, in his +time, distinguished between semantic and apophantic propositions, and +noted, that if all propositions be _semantic_, not all are _apophantic_. +Language is art, not in so far as it is apophantic, but in so far as it +is, generically, semantic. It is necessary to note in it the side by +which it is expressive, and nothing but expressive. It is also well to +observe (though this may seem superfluous) that it is not necessary to +reduce the theory of pure intuition, as has been sometimes done, to a +historical fact or to a psychological concept. Because we recognize in +poetry, as it were, the ingenuousness, the freshness, the barbarity of +the spirit, it is not therefore necessary to limit poetry to youth and +to barbarian peoples. Though we recognize language as the first act of +taking possession of the world achieved by man, we must not imagine that +language is born _ex nihilo_, once only in the course of the ages, and +that later generations merely adopt the ancient instrument, applying it +to a new order of things while lamenting its slight adaptability to the +usage of civilized times. Art, poetry, intuition, and immediate +expression are the moment of barbarity and of ingenuousness, which +perpetually recur in the life of the spirit; they are youth, that is, +not chronological, but ideal. There exist very prosaic barbarians and +very prosaic youths, as there exist poetical spirits of the utmost +refinement and civilization. The mythology of those proud, gigantic +Patagonians, of whom our Vico was wont to discourse, or of those _bons +Hurons_, who were lately a theme of conversation, must be looked upon as +for ever superseded. + +But there arises an apparently very serious objection to the Aesthetic +of pure intuition, giving occasion to doubt whether this doctrine, if it +represent progress in respect to the doctrines which have preceded it, +yet is also a complete and definite doctrine as regards the fundamental +concept of art. Should it be submitted to a dialectic, by means of which +it must be surpassed and dissolved into a more lofty point of view? The +doctrine of pure intuition makes the value of art to consist of its +power of intuition; in such a manner that just in so far as pure and +concrete intuitions are achieved will art and beauty be achieved. But if +attention be paid to judgments of people of good taste and of critics, +and to what we all say when we are warmly discussing works of art and +manifesting our praise or blame of them, it would seem that what we seek +in art is something quite different, or at least something more than +simple force and intuitive and expressive purity. What pleases and what +is sought in art, what makes beat the heart and enraptures the +admiration, is life, movement, emotion, warmth, the feeling of the +artist. This alone affords the supreme criterion for distinguishing true +from false works of art, those with insight from the failures. Where +there are emotion and feeling, much is forgiven; where they are wanting, +nothing can make up for them. Not only are the most profound thoughts +and the most exquisite culture incapable of saving a work of art which +is looked upon as _cold_, but richness of imagery, ability and certainty +in the reproduction of the real, in description, characterization and +composition, and all other knowledge, only serve to arouse the regret +that so great a price has been paid and such labours endured, in vain. +We do not ask of an artist instruction as to real facts and thoughts, +nor that he should astonish us with the richness of his imagination, but +that he should have a _personality_, in contact with which the soul of +the hearer or spectator may be heated. A personality of any sort is +asked for in this case; its moral significance is excluded: let it be +sad or glad, enthusiastic or distrustful, sentimental or sarcastic, +benignant or malign, but it must be a soul. Art criticism would seem to +consist altogether in determining if there be a personality in the work +of art, and of what sort. A work that is a failure is an incoherent +work; that is to say, a work in which no single personality appears, but +a number of disaggregated and jostling personalities, that is, really, +none. There is no further correct significance than this in the +researches that are made as to the verisimilitude, the truth, the logic, +the necessity, of a work of art. + +It is true that many protests have been made by artists, critics, and +philosophers by profession, against the characteristic of _personality_. +It has been maintained that the bad artist leaves traces of his +personality in the work of art, whereas the great artist cancels them +all. It has been further maintained that the artist should portray the +reality of life, and that he should not disturb it with the opinions, +judgments, and personal feelings of the author, and that the artist +should give the tears of things and not his own tears. Hence +_impersonality_, not personality, has been proclaimed to be the +characteristic of art, that is to say, the very opposite. However, it +will not be difficult to show that what is really meant by this opposing +formula is the same as in the first case. The theory of impersonality +really coincides with that of personality in every point. The opposition +of the artists, critics, and philosophers above mentioned, was directed +against the invasion by the empirical and volitional personality of the +artist of the spontaneous and ideal personality which constitutes the +subject of the work of art. For instance, artists who do not succeed in +representing the force of piety or of love of country, add to their +colourless imaginings declamation or theatrical effects, thinking thus +to arouse such feelings. In like manner certain orators and actors +introduce into a work of art an emotion extraneous to the work of art +itself. Within these limits, the opposition of the upholders of the +theory of impersonality was most reasonable. On the other hand, there +has also been exhibited an altogether irrational opposition to +personality in the work of art. Such is the lack of comprehension and +intolerance evinced by certain souls for others differently constituted +(of calm for agitated souls, for example). + +Here we find at bottom the claim of one sort of personality to deny that +of another. Finally, it has been possible to demonstrate from among the +examples given of impersonal art, in the romances and dramas called +naturalistic, that in so far and to the extent that these are complete +artistic works, they possess personality. This holds good even when this +personality lies in a wandering or perplexity of thought regarding the +value to be given to life, or in blind faith in the natural sciences and +in modern sociology. + +Where every trace of personality was really absent, and its place taken +by the pedantic quest for human documents, the description of certain +social classes and the generic or individual process of certain +maladies, there the work of art was absent. A work of science of more or +less superficiality, and without the necessary proofs and control, +filled its place. There is no upholder of impersonality but experiences +a feeling of fatigue for a work of the utmost exactitude in the +reproduction of reality in its empirical sequence, or of industrious and +apathetic combination of images. He asks himself why such a work was +executed, and recommends the author to adopt some other profession, +since that of artist was not intended for him. + +Thus it is without doubt that if pure intuition (and pure expression, +which is the same thing) are indispensable in the work of art, the +personality of the artist is equally indispensable. If (to quote the +celebrated words in our own way) the _classic_ moment of perfect +representation or expression be necessary for the work of art, the +_romantic_ moment of feeling is not less necessary. Poetry, or art in +general, cannot be exclusively _ingenuous_ or _sentimental_; it must be +both ingenuous and sentimental. And if the first or representative +moment be termed _epic_, and the second, which is sentimental, +passionate, and personal, be termed _lyric_, then poetry and art must be +at once epic and lyric, or, if it please you better, _dramatic_. We use +these words here, not at all in their empirical and intellectualist +sense, as employed to designate special classes of works of art, +exclusive of other classes; but in that of elements or moments, which +must of necessity be found united in every work of art, how diverse +soever it may be in other respects. + +Now this irrefutable conclusion seems to constitute exactly that +above-mentioned apparently serious objection to the doctrine which +defines art as pure intuition. But if the essence of art be merely +theoretic--and it is _intuibility_--can it, on the other hand, be +practical, that is to say, feeling, personality, and _passionality_? Or, +if it be practical, how can it be theoretic? It will be answered that +feeling is the _content_, intuibility the _form_; but form and content +do not in philosophy constitute a duality, like water and its recipient; +in philosophy content is form, and form is content. Here, on the other +hand, form and content appear to be different from one another; the +content is of one quality, the form of another. Thus art appears to be +the sum of two qualities, or, as Herbart used to say in his time, of +_two values_. Accordingly we have an altogether unmaintainable +Aesthetic, as is clear from recent largely vulgarized doctrines of +Aesthetic as operating with the concept of the _infused personality_. +Here we find, on the one hand, things intuible lying dead and soulless; +on the other, the artist's feeling and personality. The artist is then +supposed to put himself into things, by an act of magic, to make them +live and palpitate, love and adore. But if we start with the +_distinction_, we can never again reach _unity_: the distinction +requires an intellectual act, and what the intellect has divided +intellect or reason alone, not art or imagination, can reunite and +synthetize. Thus the Aesthetic of infusion or transfusion--when it does +not fall into the antiquated hedonistic doctrines of agreeable illusion, +of games, and generally of what affords a pleasurable emotion; or of +moral doctrines, where art is a symbol and an allegory of the good and +the true;--is yet not able, despite its airs of modernity and its +psychology, to escape the fate of the doctrine which makes of art a +semi-imaginative conception of the world, like religion. The process +that it describes is mythological, not aesthetic; it is a making of gods +or of idols. "To make one's gods is an unhappy art," said an old Italian +poet; but if it be not unhappy, certainly it is not poetic and not +aesthetic. The artist does not make the gods, because he has other +things to do. Another reason is that, to tell the truth, he is so +ingenuous and so absorbed in the image that attracts him, that he cannot +perform that act of abstraction and conception, wherein the image must +be surpassed and made the allegory of a universal, though it be of the +crudest description. + +This recent theory, then, is of no use. It leads back to the +difficulties arising from the admission of two characteristics of art, +_intuibility_ and _lyricism_, not unified. We must recognize, either +that the duality must be destroyed and proved illusory, _or_ that we +must proceed to a more ample conception of art, in which that of pure +intuibility would remain merely secondary or particular. And to destroy +and prove it illusory must consist in showing that here too form is +content, and that pure intuition is _itself_ lyricism. + +Now, the truth is precisely this: _pure intuition is essentially +lyricism_. All the difficulties concerning this question arise from not +having thoroughly understood that concept, from having failed to +penetrate its true nature and to explore its multiple relations. When we +consider the one attentively, we see the other bursting from its bosom, +or better, the one and the other reveal themselves as one and the same, +and we escape from the desperate trilemma, of either denying the lyrical +and personal character of art, or of asserting that it is adjunctive, +external and accidental, or of excogitating a new doctrine of Aesthetic, +which we do not know where to find. In fact, as has already been +remarked, what can pure intuition mean, but intuition pure of every +abstraction, of every conceptual element, and, for this reason, neither +science, history, nor philosophy? This means that the content of the +pure intuition cannot be either an abstract concept, or a speculative +concept or idea, or a conceptualized, that is historicized, +representation. Nor can it be a so-called perception, which is a +representation intellectually, and so historically, discriminated. But +outside logic in its various forms and blendings, no other psychic +content remains, save that which is called appetites, tendencies, +feelings, and will. These things are all the same and constitute the +practical form of the spirit, in its infinite gradations and in its +dialectic (pleasure and pain). Pure intuition, then, since it does not +produce concepts, must represent the will in its manifestations, that is +to say, it can represent nothing but _states of the soul_. And states of +the soul are passionality, feeling, personality, which are found in +every art and determine its lyrical character. Where this is absent, art +is absent, _precisely because pure intuition is absent_, and we have at +the most, in exchange for it, _that reflex_, philosophical, historical, +or scientific. In the last of these, passion is represented, not +immediately, but mediately, or, to speak exactly, it is no longer +represented, but thought. Thus the origin of language, that is, its true +nature, has several times been placed in _interjection_. Thus, too, +Aristotle, when he wished to give an example of those propositions which +were not _apophantic_, but generically _semantic_ (we should say, not +logical, but purely Aesthetic), and did not predicate the logically true +and false, but nevertheless said something, gave as example invocation +or prayer, _hae enchae_. He added that these propositions do not +appertain to Logic, but to Rhetoric and Poetic. A landscape is a +state of the soul; a great poem may all be contained in an exclamation +of joy, of sorrow, of admiration, or of lament. The more objective is a +work of art, by so much the more is it poetically suggestive. + +If this deduction of lyricism from the intimate essence of pure +intuition do not appear easily acceptable, the reason is to be sought in +two very deep-rooted prejudices, of which it is useful to indicate here +the genesis. The first concerns the nature of the _imagination_, and its +likenesses to and differences from _fancy_. Imagination and fancy have +been clearly distinguished thus by certain aestheticians (and among +them, De Sanctis), as also in discussions relating to concrete art: they +have held fancy, not imagination, to be the special faculty of the poet +and the artist. Not only does a new and bizarre combination of images, +which is vulgarly called _invention_, not constitute the artist, but _ne +fait rien à l'affaire_, as Alceste remarked with reference to the length +of time expended upon writing a sonnet. Great artists have often +preferred to treat groups of images, which had already been many times +used as material for works of art. The novelty of these new works has +been solely that of art or form, that is to say, of the new _accent_ +which they have known how to give to the old material, of the new way in +which they have _felt_ and therefore _intuified_ it, thus creating _new +images_ upon the old ones. These remarks are all obvious and universally +recognized as true. But if mere imagination as such has been excluded +from art, it has not therefore been excluded from the theoretic spirit. +Hence the disinclination to admit that a pure intuition must of +necessity express a state of the soul, whereas it may also consist, as +they believe, of a pure image, without a content of feeling. If we form +an arbitrary image of any sort, _stans pede in uno_, say of a bullock's +head on a horse's body, would not this be an intuition, a pure +intuition, certainly quite without any content of reflexion? Would one +not attain to a work of art in this way, or at any rate to an artistic +motive? Certainly not. For the image given as an instance, and every +other image that may be produced by the imagination, not only is not a +pure intuition, but it is not a _theoretic_ product of any sort. It is a +product of _choice_, as was observed in the formula used by our +opponents; and choice is external to the world of thought and +contemplation. It may be said that imagination is a practical artifice +or game, played upon that patrimony of images possessed by the soul; +whereas the fancy, the translation of practical into theoretical values, +of states of the soul into images, is the _creation_ of that patrimony +itself. + +From this we learn that an image, which is not the expression of a state +of the soul, is not an image, since it is without any theoretical value; +and therefore it cannot be an obstacle to the identification of lyricism +and intuition. But the other prejudice is more difficult to eradicate, +because it is bound up with the metaphysical problem itself, on the +various solutions of which depend the various solutions of the aesthetic +problem, and _vice versa_. If art be intuition, would it therefore be +any intuition that one might have of a _physical_ object, appertaining +to _external nature_? If I open my eyes and look at the first object +that they fall upon, a chair or a table, a mountain or a river, shall I +have performed by so doing an aesthetic act? If so, what becomes of the +lyrical character, of which we have asserted the necessity? If not, what +becomes of the intuitive character, of which we have affirmed the equal +necessity and also its identity with the former? Without doubt, the +perception of a physical object, as such, does not constitute an +artistic fact; but precisely for the reason that it is not a pure +intuition, but a judgment of perception, and implies the application of +an abstract concept, which in this case is physical or belonging to +external nature. And with this reflexion and perception, we find +ourselves at once outside the domain of pure intuition. We could have a +pure perception of a physical object in one way only; that is to say, if +physical or external nature were a metaphysical reality, a truly real +reality, and not, as it is, a construction or abstraction of the +intellect. If such were the case, man would have an immediate intuition, +in his first theoretical moment, both of himself and of external nature, +of the spiritual and of the physical, in an equal degree. This +represents the dualistic hypothesis. But just as dualism is incapable of +providing a coherent system of philosophy, so is it incapable of +providing a coherent Aesthetic. If we admit dualism, we must certainly +abandon the doctrine of art as pure intuition; but we must at the same +time abandon all philosophy. But art on its side tacitly protests +against metaphysical dualism. It does so, because, being the most +immediate form of knowledge, it is in contact with activity, not with +passivity; with interiority, not exteriority; with spirit, not with +matter, and never with a double order of reality. Those who affirm the +existence of two forms of intuition--the one external or physical, the +other subjective or aesthetic; the one cold and inanimate, the other +warm and lively; the one imposed from without, the other coming from the +inner soul--attain without doubt to the distinctions and oppositions of +the vulgar (or dualistic) consciousness, but their Aesthetic is vulgar. + +The lyrical essence of pure intuition, and of art, helps to make clear +what we have already observed concerning the persistence of the +intuition and of the fancy in the higher grades of the theoretical +spirit, why philosophy, history, and science have always an artistic +side, and why their expression is subject to aesthetic valuation. The +man who ascends from art to thought does not by so doing abandon his +volitional and practical base, and therefore he too finds himself in a +particular _state of the soul_, the representation of which is intuitive +and lyrical, and accompanies of necessity the development of his ideas. +Hence the various styles of thinkers, solemn or jocose, troubled or +gladsome, mysterious and involved, or level and expansive. But it would +not be correct to divide intuition immediately into two classes, the one +of _aesthetic_, the other of _intellectual_ or _logical_ intuitions, +owing to the persistence of the artistic element in logical thought, +because the relation of degrees is not the relation of classes, and +copper is copper, whether it be found alone, or in combination as +bronze. + +Further, this close connection of feeling and intuition in pure +intuition throws much light on the reasons which have so often caused +art to be separated from the theoretic and confounded with the practical +activity. The most celebrated of these confusions are those formulated +about the relativity of tastes and of the impossibility of reproducing, +tasting, and correctly judging the art of the past, and in general the +art of others. A life lived, a feeling felt, a volition willed, are +certainly impossible to reproduce, because nothing happens more than +once, and my situation at the present moment is not that of any other +being, nor is it mine of the moment before, nor will be of the moment to +follow. But art remakes ideally, and ideally expresses my momentary +situation. Its image, produced by art, becomes separated from time and +space, and can be again made and again contemplated in its ideal-reality +from every point of time and space. It belongs not to the _world_, but +to the _superworld_; not to the flying moment, but to eternity. Thus +life passes, but art endures. + +Finally, we obtain from this relation between the intuition and the +state of the soul the criterion of exact definition of the _sincerity_ +required of artists, which is itself also an essential request. It is +essential, precisely because it means that the artist must have a state +of the soul to express, which really amounts to saying, that he must be +an artist. His must be a state of the soul really experienced, not +merely imagined, because imagination, as we know, is not a work of +truth. But, on the other hand, the demand for sincerity does not go +beyond asking for a state of the soul, and that the state of soul +expressed in the work of art be a desire or an action. It is altogether +indifferent to Aesthetic whether the artist have had only an aspiration, +or have realized that aspiration in his empirical life. All that is +quite indifferent in the sphere of art. Here we also find the +confutation of that false conception of sincerity, which maintains that +the artist, in his volitional or practical life, should be at one with +his dream, or with his incubus. Whether or no he have been so, is a +matter that interests his biographer, not his critic; it belongs to +history, which separates and qualifies that which art does not +discriminate, but represents. + + + + +III + + +This attitude of indiscrimination and indifference, observed by art in +respect to history and philosophy, is also foreshadowed at that place of +the _De interpretatione_ (_c_. 4), to which we have already referred, to +obtain thence the confirmation of the thesis of the identity of art and +language, and another confirmation, that of the identity of lyric and +pure intuition. It is a really admirable passage, containing many +profound truths in a few short, simple words, although, as is natural, +without full consciousness of their richness. Aristotle, then, is still +discussing the said rhetorical and poetical propositions, semantic and +not apophantic, and he remarks that in them there rules no distinction +between true and false: _to alaetheueion hae pseudeothai ouk +hyparchei_. Art, in fact, is in contact with palpitating reality, but +does not know that it is so in contact, and therefore is not truly in +contact. Art does not allow itself to be troubled with the abstractions +of the intellect, and therefore does not make mistakes; but it does not +know that it does not make mistakes. If art, then (to return to what we +said at the beginning), be the first and most ingenuous form of +knowledge, it cannot give complete satisfaction to man's need to know, +and therefore cannot be the ultimate end of the theoretic spirit. Art is +the dream of the life of knowledge. Its complement is waking, lyricism +no longer, but the concept; no longer the dream, but the judgment. +Thought could not be without fancy; but thought surpasses and contains +in itself the fancy, transforms the image into perception, and gives to +the world of dream the clear distinctions and the firm contours of +reality. Art cannot achieve this; and however great be our love of art, +that cannot raise it in rank, any more than the love one may have for a +beautiful child can convert it into an adult. We must accept the child +as a child, the adult as an adult. + +Therefore, the Aesthetic of pure intuition, while it proclaims +energetically the autonomy of art and of the aesthetic activity, is at +the same time averse to all _aestheticism_, that is, to every attempt at +lowering the life of thought, in order to elevate that of fancy. The +origin of aestheticism is the same as that of mysticism. Both proceed +from a rebellion against the predominance of the abstract sciences and +against the undue abuse of the principle of causation in metaphysic. +When we pass from the stuffed animals of the zoological museums, from +anatomical reconstructions, from tables of figures, from classes and +sub-classes constituted by means of abstract characters, or from the +fixation and mechanization of life for the ends of naturalistic science, +to the pages of the poets, to the pictures of the painters, to the +melodies of the composers, when in fact we look upon life with the eye +of the artist, we have the impression that we are passing from death to +life, from the abstract to the concrete, from fiction to reality. We are +inclined to proclaim that only in art and in aesthetic contemplation is +truth, and that science is either charlatanesque pedantry, or a modest +practical expedient. And certainly art has the superiority of its own +truth; simple, small, and elementary though it be, over the abstract, +which, as such, is altogether without truth. But in violently rejecting +science and frantically embracing art, that very form of the theoretic +spirit is forgotten, by means of which we can criticize science and +recognize the nature of art. Now this theoretic spirit, since it +criticizes science, is not science, and, as reflective consciousness of +art, is not art. Philosophy, the supreme fact of the theoretic world, +is forgotten. This error has been renewed in our day, because the +consciousness of the limits of the natural sciences and of the value of +the truth which belongs to intuition and to art, have been renewed. But +just as, a century ago, during the idealistic and romantic period, there +were some who reminded the fanatics for art, and the artists who were +transforming philosophy, that art was not "the most lofty form of +apprehending the Absolute"; so, in our day, it is necessary to awaken +the consciousness of Thought. And one of the means for attaining this +end is an exact understanding of the limits of art, that is, the +construction of a solid Aesthetic. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesthetic as Science of Expression and +General Linguistic, by Benedetto Croce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + +***** This file should be named 9306-8.txt or 9306-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/0/9306/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic + +Author: Benedetto Croce + +Posting Date: October 6, 2014 [EBook #9306] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 19, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION + +AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC + + +TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENEDETTO CROCE + + +BY + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE +B.A. (OXON.) + + +1909 + + +THE AESTHETIC IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR TO THE MEMORY OF HIS PARENTS +PASQUALE AND LUISA SIPARI AND OF HIS SISTER MARIA + + +NOTE + +I give here a close translation of the complete _Theory of Aesthetic_, +and in the Historical Summary, with the consent of the author, an +abbreviation of the historical portion of the original work. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +THEORY + +I +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + +Intuitive knowledge--Its independence in respect to the intellect-- +Intuition and perception--Intuition and the concepts of space and +time--Intuition and sensation--Intuition and association--Intuition +and representation--Intuition and expression--Illusions as to their +difference--Identity of intuition and expression. + +II +INTUITION AND ART + +Corollaries and explanations--Identity of art and of intuitive knowledge-- +No specific difference--No difference of intensity--Difference extensive +and empirical--Artistic genius--Content and form in Aesthetic--Critique +of the imitation of nature and of the artistic illusion--Critique of art +conceived as a sentimental, not a theoretic fact--The origin of Aesthetic, +and sentiment--Critique of the theory of Aesthetic senses--Unity and +indivisibility of the work of art--Art as deliverer. + +III +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + +Indissolubility of intellective and of intuitive knowledge--Critique +of the negations of this thesis--Art and science--Content and form: +another meaning. Prose and poetry--The relation of first and second +degree--Inexistence of other cognoscitive forms--Historicity--Identity +and difference in respect of art--Historical criticism--Historical +scepticism--Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural +sciences, and their limits--The phenomenon and the noumenon. + +IV +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + +Critique of the verisimilar and of naturalism--Critique of ideas in +art, of art as thesis, and of the typical--Critique of the symbol and +of the allegory--Critique of the theory of artistic and literary +categories--Errors derived from this theory in judgments on art-- +Empirical meaning of the divisions of the categories. + +V +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORY AND IN LOGIC + +Critique of the philosophy of History--Aesthetic invasions of Logic-- +Logic in its essence--Distinction between logical and non-logical +judgments--The syllogism--False Logic and true Aesthetic--Logic +reformed. + +VI +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + +The will--The will as ulterior grade in respect of knowledge--Objections +and explanations--Critique of practical judgments or judgments of +value--Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic--Critique of +the theory of the end of art and of the choice of content--Practical +innocence of art--Independence of art--Critique of the saying: the +style is the man--Critique of the concept of sincerity in art. + +VII +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + +The two forms of practical activity--The economically useful-- +Distinction between the useful and the technical--Distinction between +the useful and the egoistic--Economic and moral volition--Pure +economicity--The economic side of morality--The merely economical and +the error of the morally indifferent--Critique of utilitarianism and +the reform of Ethic and of Economic--Phenomenon and noumenon in +practical activity. + +VIII +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + +The system of the spirit--The forms of genius--Inexistence of a fifth +form of activity--Law; sociality--Religiosity--Metaphysic--Mental +imagination and the intuitive intellect--Mystical Aesthetic--Mortality +and immortality of art. + +IX +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + +The characteristics of art--Inexistence of modes of expression-- +Impossibility of translations--Critique of rhetorical categories-- +Empirical meaning of rhetorical categories--Their use as synonyms +of the aesthetic fact--Their use as indicating various aesthetic +imperfections--Their use as transcending the aesthetic fact, and +in the service of science--Rhetoric in schools--Similarities of +expressions--Relative possibility of translations. + +X +AESTHETIC SENTIMENTS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE +UGLY + +Various meanings of the word sentiment--Sentiment as activity-- +Identification of sentiment with economic activity--Critique of +hedonism--Sentiment as concomitant of every form of activity--Meaning +of certain ordinary distinctions of sentiments--Value and disvalue: +the contraries and their union--The beautiful as the value of expression, +or expression without adjunct--The ugly and the elements of beauty that +constitute it--Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful +nor ugly--Proper aesthetic sentiments and concomitant and accidental +sentiments--Critique of apparent sentiments. + +XI +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + +Critique of the beautiful as what pleases the superior senses--Critique +of the theory of play--Critique of the theory of sexuality and of the +triumph--Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic--Meaning in it of +content and of form--Aesthetic hedonism and moralism--The rigoristic +negation, and the pedagogic negation of art--Critique of pure beauty. + +XII +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the Aesthetic of the sympathetic-- +Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of its surmounting-- +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts appertain to Psychology--Impossibility of +rigorous definitions of these--Examples: definitions of the sublime, +of the comic, of the humorous--Relation between those concepts and +aesthetic concepts. + +XIII +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND IN ART + +Aesthetic activity and physical concepts--Expression in the aesthetic +sense, and expression in the naturalistic sense--Intuitions and +memory--The production of aids to memory--The physically beautiful-- +Content and form: another meaning--Natural beauty and artificial +beauty--Mixed beauty--Writings--The beautiful that is free and that +which is not free--Critique of the beautiful that is not free-- +Stimulants of production. + +XIV +ERRORS ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + +Critique of aesthetic associationism--Critique of aesthetic physic-- +Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body--Critique of +the beauty of geometrical figures--Critique of another aspect of the +imitation of nature--Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of +the beautiful--Critique of the search for the objective conditions of +the beautiful--The astrology of Aesthetic. + +XV +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION. TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + +The practical activity of externalization--The technique of +externalization--Technical theories of single arts--Critique of the +classifications of the arts--Relation of the activity of externalization +with utility and morality. + +XVI +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + +Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic reproduction-- +Impossibility of divergences--Identity of taste and genius--Analogy +with the other activities--Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and +of aesthetic relativism--Critique of relative relativism--Objections +founded on the variation of the stimulus and of the psychic disposition-- +Critique of the distinction of signs as natural and conventional--The +surmounting of variety--Restorations and historical interpretation. + +XVII +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND OF ART + +Historical criticism in literature and art. Its importance--Artistic and +literary history. Its distinction from historical criticism and from the +aesthetic judgment--The method of artistic and literary history--Critique +of the problem of the origin of art--The criterion of progress and +history--Inexistence of a single line of progress in artistic and +literary history--Errors in respect of this law--Other meanings of +the word "progress" in relation to Aesthetic. + +XVIII +CONCLUSION: IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + +Summary of the inquiry--Identity of Linguistic with Aesthetic-- +Aesthetic formulation of linguistic problems. Nature of language-- +Origin of language and its development--Relation between Grammatic +and Logic--Grammatical categories or parts of speech--Individuality +of speech and the classification of languages--Impossibility of a +normative Grammatic--Didactic organisms--Elementary linguistic +elements, or roots--The aesthetic judgment and the model language-- +Conclusion. + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +Aesthetic ideas in Graeco-Roman antiquity--In the Middle Age and + at the Renaissance--Fermentation of thought in the seventeenth +century--Aesthetic ideas in Cartesianism, Leibnitzianism, and in +the "Aesthetic" of Baumgarten--G.B. Vico--Aesthetic doctrines in +the eighteenth century--Emmanuel Kant--The Aesthetic of Idealism +with Schiller and Hegel--Schopenhauer and Herbart--Friedrich +Schleiermacher--The philosophy of language with Humboldt and +Steinthal--Aesthetic in France, England, and Italy during the first +half of the nineteenth century--Francesco de Sanctis--The Aesthetic +of the epigoni--Positivism and aesthetic naturalism--Aesthetic +psychologism and other recent tendencies--Glance at the history +of certain particular doctrines--Conclusion. + +APPENDIX + +Translation of the lecture on Pure Intuition and the lyrical nature of +art, delivered by Benedetto Croce before the International Congress of +Philosophy at Heidelberg. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +There are always Americas to be discovered: the most interesting in +Europe. + +I can lay no claim to having discovered an America, but I do claim to +have discovered a Columbus. His name is Benedetto Croce, and he dwells +on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Naples, city of the antique +Parthenope. + +Croce's America cannot be expressed in geographical terms. It is more +important than any space of mountain and river, of forest and dale. It +belongs to the kingdom of the spirit, and has many provinces. That +province which most interests me, I have striven in the following pages +to annex to the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon race; an act which cannot +be blamed as predatory, since it may be said of philosophy more truly +than of love, that "to divide is not to take away." + +The Historical Summary will show how many a brave adventurer has +navigated the perilous seas of speculation upon Art, how Aristotle's +marvellous insight gave him glimpses of its beauty, how Plato threw away +its golden fruit, how Baumgarten sounded the depth of its waters, Kant +sailed along its coast without landing, and Vico hoisted the Italian +flag upon its shore. + +But Benedetto Croce has been the first thoroughly to explore it, cutting +his way inland through the tangled undergrowth of imperfect thought. He +has measured its length and breadth, marked out and described its +spiritual features with minute accuracy. The country thus won to +philosophy will always bear his name, _Estetica di Croce_, a new +America. + +It was at Naples, in the winter of 1907, that I first saw the Philosopher +of Aesthetic. Benedetto Croce, although born in the Abruzzi, Province of +Aquila (1866), is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent +from the city, on the shore of that magical sea, where once Ulysses +sailed, and where sometimes yet (near Amalfi) we may hear the Syrens sing +their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the +Theory of Aesthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have +overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this +theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the English-speaking world. + +No one could have been further removed than myself, as I turned over at +Naples the pages of _La Critica_, from any idea that I was nearing the +solution of the problem of Art. All my youth it had haunted me. As an +undergraduate at Oxford I had caught the exquisite cadence of Walter +Pater's speech, as it came from his very lips, or rose like the perfume +of some exotic flower from the ribbed pages of the _Renaissance_. + +Seeming to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, he solved it not--only +delighted with pure pleasure of poetry and of subtle thought as he led +one along the pathways of his Enchanted Garden, where I shall always +love to tread. + +Oscar Wilde, too, I had often heard at his best, the most brilliant +talker of our time, his wit flashing in the spring sunlight of Oxford +luncheon-parties as now in his beautiful writings, like the jewelled +rapier of Mercutio. But his works, too, will be searched in vain by the +seeker after definite aesthetic truth. + +With A.C. Swinburne I had sat and watched the lava that yet flowed from +those lips that were kissed in youth by all the Muses. Neither from him +nor from J.M. Whistler's brilliant aphorisms on art could be gathered +anything more than the exquisite pleasure of the moment: the +_monochronos haedonae_. Of the great pedagogues, I had known, but never +sat at the feet of Jowett, whom I found far less inspiring than any of +the great men above mentioned. Among the dead, I had studied Herbert +Spencer and Matthew Arnold, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Guyau: I had +conversed with that living Neo-Latin, Anatole France, the modern +Rousseau, and had enjoyed the marvellous irony and eloquence of his +writings, which, while they delight the society in which he lives, may +well be one of the causes that lead to its eventual destruction. + +The solution of the problem of Aesthetic is not in the gift of the Muses. + +To return to Naples. As I looked over those pages of the bound volumes +of _La Critica_. I soon became aware that I was in the presence of a +mind far above the ordinary level of literary criticism. The profound +studies of Carducci, of d'Annunzio, and of Pascoli (to name but three), +in which those writers passed before me in all their strength and in all +their weakness, led me to devote several days to the _Critica_. At the +end of that time I was convinced that I had made a discovery, and wrote +to the philosopher, who owns and edits that journal. + +In response to his invitation, I made my way, on a sunny day in November, +past the little shops of the coral-vendors that surround, like a +necklace, the Rione de la Bellezza, and wound zigzag along the +over-crowded Toledo. I knew that Signor Croce lived in the old part of +the town, but had hardly anticipated so remarkable a change as I +experienced on passing beneath the great archway and finding myself in +old Naples. This has already been described elsewhere, and I will not +here dilate upon this world within a world, having so much of greater +interest to tell in a brief space. I will merely say that the costumes +here seemed more picturesque, the dark eyes flashed more dangerously +than elsewhere, there was a quaint life, an animation about the streets, +different from anything I had known before. As I climbed the lofty stone +steps of the Palazzo to the floor where dwells the philosopher of +Aesthetic I felt as though I had stumbled into the eighteenth century +and were calling on Giambattista Vico. After a brief inspection by a +young man with the appearance of a secretary, I was told that I was +expected, and admitted into a small room opening out of the hall. +Thence, after a few moments' waiting, I was led into a much larger room. +The walls were lined all round with bookcases, barred and numbered, +filled with volumes forming part of the philosopher's great library. I +had not long to wait. A door opened behind me on my left, and a rather +short, thick-set man advanced to greet me, and pronouncing my name at +the same time with a slight foreign accent, asked me to be seated beside +him. After the interchange of a few brief formulae of politeness in +French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better +opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held +clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid +gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most +remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, +not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy +which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was +especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the question of Art +and upon the many problems bound up with it. I do not know how long that +first interview lasted, but it seemed a few minutes only, during which +was displayed before me a vast panorama of unknown height and headland, +of league upon league of forest, with its bright-winged birds of thought +flying from tree to tree down the long avenues into the dim blue vistas +of the unknown. + +I returned with my brain awhirl, as though I had been in fairyland, and +when I looked at the second edition of the _Estetica_, with his +inscription, I was sure of it. + +These lines will suffice to show how the translation of the _Estetica_ +originated from the acquaintance thus formed, which has developed into +friendship. I will now make brief mention of Benedetto Croce's other +work, especially in so far as it throws light upon the _Aesthetic_. +For this purpose, besides articles in Italian and German reviews, I +have made use of the excellent monograph on the philosopher, by G. +Prezzolini.[1] + +First, then, it will be well to point out that the _Aesthetic_ forms +part of a complete philosophical system, to which the author gives the +general title of "Philosophy of the Spirit." The _Aesthetic_ is the +first of the three volumes. The second is the _Logic_, the third the +_Philosophy of the Practical_. + +In the _Logic_, as elsewhere in the system, Croce combats that false +conception, by which natural science, in the shape of psychology, makes +claim to philosophy, and formal logic to absolute value. The thesis of +the _pure concept_ cannot be discussed here. It is connected with the +logic of evolution as discovered by Hegel, and is the only logic which +contains in itself the interpretation and the continuity of reality. +Bergson in his _L'Evolution Creatrice_ deals with logic in a somewhat +similar manner. I recently heard him lecture on the distinction between +spirit and matter at the College de France, and those who read French +and Italian will find that both Croce's _Logic_ and the book above +mentioned by the French philosopher will amply repay their labour. The +conception of nature as something lying outside the spirit which informs +it, as the non-being which aspires to being, underlies all Croce's +thought, and we find constant reference to it throughout his +philosophical system. + +With regard to the third volume, the _Philosophy of the Practical_, it +is impossible here to give more than a hint of its treasures. I merely +refer in passing to the treatment of the will, which is posited as a +unity _inseparable from the volitional act_. For Croce there is no +difference between action and intention, means and end: they are one +thing, inseparable as the intuition-expression of Aesthetic. The +_Philosophy of the Practical_ is a logic and science of the will, not a +normative science. Just as in Aesthetic the individuality of expression +made models and rules impossible, so in practical life the individuality +of action removes the possibility of catalogues of virtues, of the exact +application of laws, of the existence of practical judgments and +judgments of value _previous to action_. + +The reader will probably ask here: But what, then, becomes of morality? +The question will be found answered in the _Theory of Aesthetic_, and I +will merely say here that Croce's thesis of the _double degree_ of the +practical activity, economic and moral, is one of the greatest +contributions to modern thought. Just as it is proved in the _Theory of +Aesthetic_ that the _concept_ depends upon the _intuition_, which is the +first degree, the primary and indispensable thing, so it is proved in +the _Philosophy of the Practical_ that _Morality_ or _Ethic_ depends +upon _Economic_, which is the _first_ degree of the practical activity. +The volitional act is _always economic_, but true freedom of the will +exists and consists in conforming not merely to economic, but to moral +conditions, to the human spirit, which is greater than any individual. +Here we are face to face with the ethics of Christianity, to which Croce +accords all honour. + +This Philosophy of the Spirit is symptomatic of the happy reaction of +the twentieth century against the crude materialism of the second half +of the nineteenth. It is the spirit which gives to the work of art its +value, not this or that method of arrangement, this or that tint or +cadence, which can always be copied by skilful plagiarists: not so the +_spirit_ of the creator. In England we hear too much of (natural) +science, which has usurped the very name of Philosophy. The natural +sciences are very well in their place, but discoveries such as aviation +are of infinitely less importance to the race than the smallest addition +to the philosophy of the spirit. Empirical science, with the collusion +of positivism, has stolen the cloak of philosophy and must be made to +give it back. + +Among Croce's other important contributions to thought must be mentioned +his definition of History as being aesthetic and differing from Art +solely in that history represents the _real_, art the _possible_. In +connection with this definition and its proof, the philosopher recounts +how he used to hold an opposite view. Doing everything thoroughly, he +had prepared and written out a long disquisition on this thesis, which +was already in type, when suddenly, from the midst of his meditations, +_the truth flashed upon him_. He saw for the first time clearly that +history cannot be a science, since, like art, it always deals with the +particular. Without a moment's hesitation he hastened to the printers +and bade them break up the type. + +This incident is illustrative of the sincerity and good faith of +Benedetto Croce. One knows him to be severe for the faults and +weaknesses of others, merciless for his own. + +Yet though severe, the editor of _La Critica_ is uncompromisingly just, +and would never allow personal dislike or jealousy, or any extrinsic +consideration, to stand in the way of fair treatment to the writer +concerned. Many superficial English critics might benefit considerably +by attention to this quality in one who is in other respects also so +immeasurably their superior. A good instance of this impartiality is his +critique of Schopenhauer, with whose system he is in complete +disagreement, yet affords him full credit for what of truth is contained +in his voluminous writings.[2] + +Croce's education was largely completed in Germany, and on account of +their thoroughness he has always been an upholder of German methods. One +of his complaints against the Italian Positivists is that they only read +second-rate works in French or at the most "the dilettante booklets +published in such profusion by the Anglo-Saxon press." This tendency +towards German thought, especially in philosophy, depends upon the fact +of the former undoubted supremacy of Germany in that field, but Croce +does not for a moment admit the inferiority of the Neo-Latin races, and +adds with homely humour in reference to Germany, that we "must not throw +away the baby with the bath-water"! Close, arduous study and clear +thought are the only key to scientific (philosophical) truth, and Croce +never begins an article for a newspaper without the complete collection +of the works of the author to be criticized, and his own elaborate notes +on the table before him. Schopenhauer said there were three kinds of +writers--those who write without thinking, the great majority; those who +think while they write, not very numerous; those who write after they +have thought, very rare. Croce certainly belongs to the last division, +and, as I have said, always feeds his thought upon complete erudition. +The bibliography of the works consulted for the _Estetica_ alone, as +printed at the end of the Italian edition, extends to many pages and +contains references to works in any way dealing with the subject in all +the European languages. For instance, Croce has studied Mr. B. +Bosanquet's eclectic works on Aesthetic, largely based upon German +sources and by no means without value. But he takes exception to Mr. +Bosanquet's statement that _he_ has consulted all works of importance on +the subject of Aesthetic. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bosanquet reveals his +ignorance of the greater part of the contribution to Aesthetic made by +the Neo-Latin races, which the reader of this book will recognize as of +first-rate importance. + +This thoroughness it is which gives such importance to the literary and +philosophical criticisms of _La Critica_. Croce's method is always +historical, and his object in approaching any work of art is to classify +the spirit of its author, as expressed in that work. There are, he +maintains, but two things to be considered in criticizing a book. These +are, _firstly_, what is its _peculiarity_, in what way is it singular, +how is it differentiated from other works? _Secondly_, what is its +degree of purity?--That is, to what extent has its author kept himself +free from all considerations alien to the perfection of the work as an +expression, as a lyrical intuition? With the answering of these +questions Croce is satisfied. He does not care to know if the author +keep a motor-car, like Maeterlinck; or prefer to walk on Putney Heath, +like Swinburne. This amounts to saying that all works of art must be +judged by their own standard. How far has the author succeeded in doing +what he intended? + +Croce is far above any personal animus, although the same cannot be said +of those he criticizes. These, like d'Annunzio, whose limitations he +points out--his egoism, his lack of human sympathy--are often very +bitter, and accuse the penetrating critic of want of courtesy. This +seriousness of purpose runs like a golden thread through all Croce's +work. The flimsy superficial remarks on poetry and fiction which too +often pass for criticism in England (Scotland is a good deal more +thorough) are put to shame by _La Critica_, the study of which I commend +to all readers who read or wish to read Italian.[3] They will find in +its back numbers a complete picture of a century of Italian literature, +besides a store-house of philosophical criticism. The _Quarterly_ and +_Edinburgh Reviews_ are our only journals which can be compared to _The +Critica_, and they are less exhaustive on the philosophical side. We +should have to add to these _Mind_ and the _Hibbert Journal_ to get even +an approximation to the scope of the Italian review. + +As regards Croce's general philosophical position, it is important to +understand that he is _not_ a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close +follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he +deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may +be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of +Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than +that wondrous edifice was ever before explained, and we realize at the +same time that Croce is quite as independent of Hegel as of Kant, of +Vico as of Spinoza. Of course he has made use of the best of Hegel, just +as every thinker makes use of his predecessors and is in his turn made +use of by those that follow him. But it is incorrect to accuse of +Hegelianism the author of an anti-hegelian _Aesthetic_, of a _Logic_ +where Hegel is only half accepted, and of a _Philosophy of the +Practical_, which contains hardly a trace of Hegel. I give an instance. +If the great conquest of Hegel be the dialectic of opposites, his great +mistake lies in the confusion of opposites with things which are +distinct but not opposite. If, says Croce, we take as an example the +application of the Hegelian triad that formulates becoming (affirmation, +negation and synthesis), we find it applicable for those opposites which +are true and false, good and evil, being and not-being, but _not +applicable_ to things which are distinct but not opposite, such as art +and philosophy, beauty and truth, the useful and the moral. These +confusions led Hegel to talk of the death of art, to conceive as +possible a Philosophy of History, and to the application of the natural +sciences to the absurd task of constructing a Philosophy of Nature. +Croce has cleared away these difficulties by shewing that if from the +meeting of opposites must arise a superior synthesis, such a synthesis +cannot arise from things which are distinct _but not opposite_, since +the former are connected together as superior and inferior, and the +inferior can exist without the superior, but _not vice versa_. Thus we +see how philosophy cannot exist without art, while art, occupying the +lower place, can and does exist without philosophy. This brief example +reveals Croce's independence in dealing with Hegelian problems. + +I know of no philosopher more generous than Croce in praise and +elucidation of other workers in the same field, past and present. For +instance, and apart from Hegel, _Kant_ has to thank him for drawing +attention to the marvellous excellence of the _Critique of Judgment_, +generally neglected in favour of the Critiques of _Pure Reason and of +Practical Judgment_; _Baumgarten_ for drawing the attention of the world +to his obscure name and for reprinting his Latin thesis in which the +word _Aesthetic_ occurs for the first time; and _Schleiermacher_ for the +tributes paid to his neglected genius in the History of Aesthetic. _La +Critica_, too, is full of generous appreciation of contemporaries by +Croce and by that profound thinker, Gentile. + +But it is not only philosophers who have reason to be grateful to Croce +for his untiring zeal and diligence. Historians, economists, poets, +actors, and writers of fiction have been rescued from their undeserved +limbo by this valiant Red Cross knight, and now shine with due +brilliance in the circle of their peers. It must also be admitted that a +large number of false lights, popular will o' the wisps, have been +ruthlessly extinguished with the same breath. For instance, Karl Marx, +the socialist theorist and agitator, finds in Croce an exponent of his +views, in so far as they are based upon the truth, but where he +blunders, his critic immediately reveals the origin and nature of his +mistakes. Croce's studies in Economic are chiefly represented by his +work, the title of which may be translated "Historical Materialism and +Marxist Economic." + +To indicate the breadth and variety of Croce's work I will mention the +further monograph on the sixteenth century Neapolitan Pulcinella (the +original of our Punch), and the personage of the Neapolitan in comedy, a +monument of erudition and of acute and of lively dramatic criticism, +that would alone have occupied an ordinary man's activity for half a +lifetime. One must remember, however, that Croce's average working day +is of ten hours. His interest is concentrated on things of the mind, and +although he sits on several Royal Commissions, such as those of the +Archives of all Italy and of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel, he +has taken no university degree, and much dislikes any affectation of +academic superiority. He is ready to meet any one on equal terms and try +with them to get at the truth on any subject, be it historical, +literary, or philosophical. "Truth," he says, "is democratic," and I can +testify that the search for it, in his company, is very stimulating. As +is well said by Prezzolini, "He has a new word for all." + +There can be no doubt of the great value of Croce's work as an +_educative influence_, and if we are to judge of a philosophical system +by its action on others, then we must place the _Philosophy of the +Spirit_ very high. It may be said with perfect truth that since the +death of the poet Carducci there has been no influence in Italy to +compare with that of Benedetto Croce. + +His dislike of Academies and of all forms of prejudice runs parallel +with his breadth and sympathy with all forms of thought. His activity in +the present is only equalled by his reverence for the past. Naples he +loves with the blind love of the child for its parent, and he has been +of notable assistance to such Neapolitan talent as is manifested in the +works of Salvatore di Giacomo, whose best poems are written in the +dialect of Naples, or rather in a dialect of his own, which Croce had +difficulty in persuading the author always to retain. The original jet +of inspiration having been in dialect, it is clear that to amend this +inspiration at the suggestion of wiseacres at the Cafe would have been +to ruin it altogether. + +Of the popularity that his system and teaching have already attained we +may judge by the fact that the _Aesthetic_[4], despite the difficulty of +the subject, is already in its third edition in Italy, where, owing to +its influence, philosophy sells better than fiction; while the French +and Germans, not to mention the Czechs, have long had translations of +the earlier editions. His _Logic_ is on the point of appearing in its +second edition, and I have no doubt that the _Philosophy of the +Practical_ will eventually equal these works in popularity. _The +importance and value of Italian thought have been too long neglected in +Great Britain_. Where, as in Benedetto Croce, we get the clarity of +vision of the Latin, joined to the thoroughness and erudition of the +best German tradition, we have a combination of rare power and +effectiveness, which can by no means be neglected. + +The philosopher feels that he has a great mission, which is nothing less +than the leading back of thought to belief in the spirit, deserted by so +many for crude empiricism and positivism. His view of philosophy is that +it sums up all the higher human activities, including religion, and that +in proper hands it is able to solve any problem. But there is no +finality about problems: the solution of one leads to the posing of +another, and so on. Man is the maker of life, and his spirit ever +proceeds from a lower to a higher perfection. Connected with this view +of life is Croce's dislike of "Modernism." When once a problem has been +correctly solved, it is absurd to return to the same problem. Roman +Catholicism cannot march with the times. It can only exist by being +conservative--its only Logic is to be illogical. Therefore, Croce is +opposed to Loisy and Neo-Catholicism, and supports the Encyclical +against Modernism. The Catholic religion, with its great stores of myth +and morality, which for many centuries was the best thing in the world, +is still there for those who are unable to assimilate other food. +Another instance of his dislike for Modernism is his criticism of +Pascoli, whose attempts to reveal enigmas in the writings of Dante he +looks upon as useless. We do not, he says, read Dante in the twentieth +century for his hidden meanings, but for his revealed poetry. + +I believe that Croce will one day be recognized as one of the very few +great teachers of humanity. At present he is not appreciated at nearly +his full value. One rises from a study of his philosophy with a sense of +having been all the time as it were in personal touch with the truth, +which is very far from the case after the perusal of certain other +philosophies. + +Croce has been called the philosopher-poet, and if we take philosophy as +Novalis understood it, certainly Croce does belong to the poets, though +not to the formal category of those who write in verse. Croce is at any +rate a born philosopher, and as every trade tends to make its object +prosaic, so does every vocation tend to make it poetic. Yet no one has +toiled more earnestly than Croce. "Thorough" might well be his motto, +and if to-day he is admitted to be a classic without the stiffness one +connects with that term, be sure he has well merited the designation. +His name stands for the best that Italy has to give the world of +serious, stimulating thought. I know nothing to equal it elsewhere. + +Secure in his strength, Croce will often introduce a joke or some +amusing illustration from contemporary life, in the midst of a most +profound and serious argument. This spirit of mirth is a sign of +superiority. He who is not sure of himself can spare no energy for the +making of mirth. Croce loves to laugh at his enemies and with his +friends. So the philosopher of Naples sits by the blue gulf and explains +the universe to those who have ears to hear. "One can philosophize +anywhere," he says--but he remains significantly at Naples. + +Thus I conclude these brief remarks upon the author of the _Aesthetic_, +confident that those who give time and attention to its study will be +grateful for having placed in their hands this pearl of great price from +the diadem of the antique Parthenope. + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE. + +THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL, _May_ 1909. + +[1] Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi, 1909. + +[2] The reader will find this critique summarized in the historical + portion of this volume. + +[3] _La Critica_ is published every other month by Laterza of Bari. + +[4] This translation is made from the third Italian edition (Bari, + 1909), enlarged and corrected by the author. The _Theory of + Aesthetic_ first appeared in 1900 in the form of a communication + to the _Accademia Pontiana_ of Naples, vol. xxx. The first edition + is dated 1902, the second 1904 (Palermo). + + + + +I + +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + + + [Sidenote] _Intuitive knowledge._ + +Human knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or +logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or +knowledge obtained through the intellect; knowledge of the individual or +knowledge of the universal; of individual things or of the relations +between them: it is, in fact, productive either of images or of +concepts. + +In ordinary life, constant appeal is made to intuitive knowledge. It +is said to be impossible to give expression to certain truths; that +they are not demonstrable by syllogisms; that they must be learnt +intuitively. The politician finds fault with the abstract reasoner, who +is without a lively knowledge of actual conditions; the pedagogue +insists upon the necessity of developing the intuitive faculty in the +pupil before everything else; the critic in judging a work of art makes +it a point of honour to set aside theory and abstractions, and to judge +it by direct intuition; the practical man professes to live rather by +intuition than by reason. + +But this ample acknowledgment, granted to intuitive knowledge in +ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate acknowledgment +in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists a very ancient +science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all without discussion, +namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge is timidly and with +difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge has appropriated the +lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and devour her companion, +yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little place of maidservant +or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive knowledge without the light +of intellective knowledge? It is a servant without a master; and though +a master find a servant useful, the master is a necessity to the +servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood. Intuition is +blind; Intellect lends her eyes. + + [Sidenote] _Its independence in respect to intellective knowledge._ + +Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive +knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does +not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has most excellent eyes +of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with +intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such a +mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of a +moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a +cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of a +sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in +ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of +intellective relation. But, think what one may of these instances, and +admitting further that one may maintain that the greater part of the +intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet +remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive. +Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions, +are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and fused, +for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have been +concepts, but they have now become simple elements of intuition. +The philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of tragedy +or of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts, but of +characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the red in a +painted figure does not there represent the red colour of the +physicists, but is a characteristic element of the portrait. The whole +it is that determines the quality of the parts. A work of art may be +full of philosophical concepts; it may contain them in greater +abundance and they may be there even more profound than in a +philosophical dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to +overflowing with descriptions and intuitions. But, notwithstanding all +these concepts it may contain, the result of the work of art is an +intuition; and notwithstanding all those intuitions, the result of the +philosophical dissertation is a concept. The _Promessi Sposi_ contains +copious ethical observations and distinctions, but it does not for +that reason lose in its total effect its character of simple story, of +intuition. In like manner the anecdotes and satirical effusions which +may be found in the works of a philosopher like Schopenhauer, do not +remove from those works their character of intellective treatises. The +difference between a scientific work and a work of art, that is, +between an intellective fact and an intuitive fact lies in the result, +in the diverse effect aimed at by their respective authors. This it is +that determines and rules over the several parts of each. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and perception._ + +But to admit the independence of intuition as regards concept does not +suffice to give a true and precise idea of intuition. Another error +arises among those who recognize this, or who, at any rate, do not make +intuition explicitly dependent upon the intellect. This error obscures +and confounds the real nature of intuition. By intuition is frequently +understood the _perception_ or knowledge of actual reality, the +apprehension of something as _real_. + +Certainly perception is intuition: the perception of the room in which I +am writing, of the ink-bottle and paper that are before me, of the pen I +am using, of the objects that I touch and make use of as instruments of +my person, which, if it write, therefore exists;--these are all +intuitions. But the image that is now passing through my brain of a me +writing in another room, in another town, with different paper, pen and +ink, is also an intuition. This means that the distinction between +reality and non-reality is extraneous, secondary, to the true nature of +intuition. If we assume the existence of a human mind which should have +intuitions for the first time, it would seem that it could have +intuitions of effective reality only, that is to say, that it could have +perceptions of nothing but the real. But if the knowledge of reality be +based upon the distinction between real images and unreal images, and if +this distinction does not originally exist, these intuitions would in +truth not be intuitions either of the real or of the unreal, but pure +intuitions. Where all is real, nothing is real. The child, with its +difficulty of distinguishing true from false, history from fable, which +are all one to childhood, can furnish us with a sort of very vague and +only remotely approximate idea of this ingenuous state. Intuition is the +indifferentiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple +image of the possible. In our intuitions we do not oppose ourselves to +external reality as empirical beings, but we simply objectify our +impressions, whatever they be. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and the concepts of space and time._ + +Those, therefore, who look upon intuition as sensation formed and +arranged simply according to the categories of space and time, would +seem to approximate more nearly to the truth. Space and time (they say) +are the forms of intuition; to have intuitions is to place in space and +in temporal sequence. Intuitive activity would then consist in this +double and concurrent function of spatiality and temporality. But for +these two categories must be repeated what was said of intellectual +distinctions, found mingled with intuitions. We have intuitions without +space and without time: a tint of sky and a tint of sentiment, an Ah! of +pain and an effort of will, objectified in consciousness. These are +intuitions, which we possess, and with their making, space and time have +nothing to do. In some intuitions, spatiality may be found without +temporality, in others, this without that; and even where both are +found, they are perceived by posterior reflexion: they can be fused with +the intuition in like manner with all its other elements: that is, they +are in it _materialiter_ and not _formaliter_, as ingredients and not as +essentials. Who, without a similar act of interruptive reflexion, is +conscious of temporal sequence while listening to a story or a piece of +music? That which intuition reveals in a work of art is not space and +time, but character, individual physiognomy. Several attempts may be +noted in modern philosophy, which confirm the view here exposed. Space +and time, far from being very simple and primitive functions, are shown +to be intellectual constructions of great complexity. And further, even +in some of those who do not altogether deny to space and time the +quality of forming or of categories and functions, one may observe the +attempt to unify and to understand them in a different manner from that +generally maintained in respect of these categories. Some reduce +intuition to the unique category of spatiality, maintaining that time +also can only be conceived in terms of space. Others abandon the three +dimensions of space as not philosophically necessary, and conceive the +function of spatiality as void of every particular spatial +determination. But what could such a spatial function be, that should +control even time? May it not be a residuum of criticisms and of +negations from which arises merely the necessity to posit a generic +intuitive activity? And is not this last truly determined, when one +unique function is attributed to it, not spatializing nor temporalizing, +but characterizing? Or, better, when this is conceived as itself a +category or function, which gives knowledge of things in their +concretion and individuality? + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and sensation._ + +Having thus freed intuitive knowledge from any suggestion of +intellectualism and from every posterior and external adjunct, we must +now make clear and determine its limits from another side and from a +different kind of invasion and confusion. On the other side, and before +the inferior boundary, is sensation, formless matter, which the spirit +can never apprehend in itself, in so far as it is mere matter. This it +can only possess with form and in form, but postulates its concept as, +precisely, a limit. Matter, in its abstraction, is mechanism, passivity; +it is what the spirit of man experiences, but does not produce. Without +it no human knowledge and activity is possible; but mere matter produces +animality, whatever is brutal and impulsive in man, not the spiritual +dominion, which is humanity. How often do we strive to understand +clearly what is passing within us? We do catch a glimpse of something, +but this does not appear to the mind as objectified and formed. In such +moments it is, that we best perceive the profound difference between +matter and form. These are not two acts of ours, face to face with one +another; but we assault and carry off the one that is outside us, while +that within us tends to absorb and make its own that without. Matter, +attacked and conquered by form, gives place to concrete form. It is the +matter, the content, that differentiates one of our intuitions from +another: form is constant: it is spiritual activity, while matter is +changeable. Without matter, however, our spiritual activity would not +leave its abstraction to become concrete and real, this or that +spiritual content, this or that definite intuition. + +It is a curious fact, characteristic of our times, that this very form, +this very activity of the spirit, which is essentially ourselves, is so +easily ignored or denied. Some confound the spiritual activity of man +with the metaphorical and mythological activity of so-called nature, +which is mechanism and has no resemblance to human activity, save when +we imagine, with Aesop, that _arbores loquuntur non tantum ferae_. Some +even affirm that they have never observed in themselves this +"miraculous" activity, as though there were no difference, or only one +of quantity, between sweating and thinking, feeling cold and the energy +of the will. Others, certainly with greater reason, desire to unify +activity and mechanism in a more general concept, though admitting that +they are specifically distinct. Let us, however, refrain for the moment +from examining if such a unification be possible, and in what sense, but +admitting that the attempt may be made, it is clear that to unify two +concepts in a third implies a difference between the two first. And here +it is this difference that is of importance and we set it in relief. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and association._ + +Intuition has often been confounded with simple sensation. But, since +this confusion is too shocking to good sense, it has more frequently +been attenuated or concealed with a phraseology which seems to wish to +confuse and to distinguish them at the same time. Thus, it has been +asserted that intuition is sensation, but not so much simple sensation +as _association_ of sensations. The equivoque arises precisely from the +word "association." Association is understood, either as memory, +mnemonic association, conscious recollection, and in that case is +evident the absurdity of wishing to join together in memory elements +which are not intuified, distinguished, possessed in some way by the +spirit and produced by consciousness: or it is understood as association +of unconscious elements. In this case we remain in the world of +sensation and of nature. Further, if with certain associationists we +speak of an association which is neither memory nor flux of sensations, +but is a _productive_ association (formative, constructive, +distinguishing); then we admit the thing itself and deny only its name. +In truth, productive association is no longer association in the sense +of the sensualists, but _synthesis_, that is to say, spiritual activity. +Synthesis may be called association; but with the concept of +productivity is already posited the distinction between passivity and +activity, between sensation and intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and representation._ + +Other psychologists are disposed to distinguish from sensation something +which is sensation no longer, but is not yet intellective concept: _the +representation or image_. What is the difference between their +representation or image, and our intuitive knowledge? The greatest, and +none at all. "Representation," too, is a very equivocal word. If by +representation be understood something detached and standing out from +the psychic base of the sensations, then representation is intuition. +If, on the other hand, it be conceived as a complex sensation, a return +is made to simple sensation, which does not change its quality according +to its richness or poverty, operating alike in a rudimentary or in a +developed organism full of traces of past sensations. Nor is the +equivoque remedied by defining representation as a psychic product of +secondary order in relation to sensation, which should occupy the first +place. What does secondary order mean here? Does it mean a qualitative, +a formal difference? If so, we agree: representation is elaboration of +sensation, it is intuition. Or does it mean greater complexity and +complication, a quantitative, material difference? In that case +intuition would be again confused with simple sensation. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and expression._ + +And yet there is a sure method of distinguishing true intuition, true +representation, from that which is inferior to it: the spiritual fact +from the mechanical, passive, natural fact. Every true intuition or +representation is, also, _expression_. That which does not objectify +itself in expression is not intuition or representation, but sensation +and naturality. The spirit does not obtain intuitions, otherwise than by +making, forming, expressing. He who separates intuition from expression +never succeeds in reuniting them. + +_Intuitive activity possesses intuitions to the extent that it expresses +them_.--Should this expression seem at first paradoxical, that is +chiefly because, as a general rule, a too restricted meaning is given to +the word "expression." It is generally thought of as restricted to +verbal expression. But there exist also non-verbal expressions, such as +those of line, colour, and sound; to all of these must be extended our +affirmation. The intuition and expression together of a painter are +pictorial; those of a poet are verbal. But be it pictorial, or verbal, +or musical, or whatever else it be called, to no intuition can +expression be wanting, because it is an inseparable part of intuition. +How can we possess a true intuition of a geometrical figure, unless we +possess so accurate an image of it as to be able to trace it immediately +upon paper or on a slate? How can we have an intuition of the contour of +a region, for example, of the island of Sicily, if we are not able to +draw it as it is in all its meanderings? Every one can experience the +internal illumination which follows upon his success in formulating to +himself his impressions and sentiments, but only so far as he is able to +formulate them. Sentiments or impressions, then, pass by means of words +from the obscure region of the soul into the clarity of the +contemplative spirit. In this cognitive process it is impossible to +distinguish intuition from expression. The one is produced with the +other at the same instant, because they are not two, but one. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions as to their difference._ + +The principal reason which makes our theme appear paradoxical as we +maintain it, is the illusion or prejudice that we possess a more +complete intuition of reality than we really do. One often hears people +say that they have in their minds many important thoughts, but that they +are not able to express them. In truth, if they really had them, they +would have coined them into beautiful, ringing words, and thus expressed +them. If these thoughts seem to vanish or to become scarce and poor in +the act of expressing them, either they did not exist or they really +were scarce and poor. People think that all of us ordinary men imagine +and have intuitions of countries, figures and scenes, like painters; of +bodies, like sculptors; save that painters and sculptors know how to +paint and to sculpture those images, while we possess them only within +our souls. They believe that anyone could have imagined a Madonna of +Raphael; but that Raphael was Raphael owing to his technical ability in +putting the Madonna upon the canvas. Nothing can be more false than this +view. The world of which as a rule we have intuitions, is a small thing. +It consists of little expressions which gradually become greater and +more ample with the increasing spiritual concentration of certain +moments. These are the sort of words which we speak within ourselves, +the judgments that we tacitly express: "Here is a man, here is a horse, +this is heavy, this is hard, this pleases me," etc. It is a medley of +light and colour, which could not pictorially attain to any more sincere +expression than a haphazard splash of colours, from among which would +with difficulty stand out a few special, distinctive traits. This and +nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary life; this is the basis +of our ordinary action. It is the index of a book. The labels tied to +things take the place of the things themselves. This index and labels +(which are themselves expressions) suffice for our small needs and small +actions. From time to time we pass from the index to the book, from the +label to the thing, or from the slight to the greater intuitions, and +from these to the greatest and most lofty. This passage is sometimes far +from being easy. It has been observed by those who have best studied the +psychology of artists, that when, after having given a rapid glance at +anyone, they attempt to obtain a true intuition of him, in order, for +example, to paint his portrait, then this ordinary vision, that seemed +so precise, so lively, reveals itself as little better than nothing. +What remains is found to be at the most some superficial trait, which +would not even suffice for a caricature. The person to be painted stands +before the artist like a world to discover. Michael Angelo said, "one +paints, not with one's hands, but with one's brain." Leonardo shocked +the prior of the convent delle Grazie by standing for days together +opposite the "Last Supper" without touching it with the brush. He +remarked of this attitude "that men of the most lofty genius, when they +are doing the least work, are then the most active, seeking invention +with their minds." The painter is a painter, because he sees what others +only feel or catch a glimpse of, but do not see. We think we see a +smile, but in reality we have only a vague impression of it, we do not +perceive all the characteristic traits from which it results, as the +painter perceives them after his internal meditations, which thus enable +him to fix them on the canvas. Even in the case of our intimate friend, +who is with us every day and at all hours, we do not possess intuitively +more than, at the most, certain traits of his physiognomy, which enable +us to distinguish him from others. The illusion is less easy as regards +musical expression; because it would seem strange to everyone to say +that the composer had added or attached notes to the motive, which is +already in the mind of him who is not the composer. As if Beethoven's +Ninth Symphony were not his own intuition and his own intuition the +Ninth Symphony. Thus, just as he who is deceived as to his material +wealth is confuted by arithmetic, which states its exact amount, so is +he confuted who nourishes delusions as to the wealth of his own thoughts +and images. He is brought back to reality, when he is obliged to cross +the Bridge of Asses of expression. We say to the former, count; to the +latter, speak, here is a pencil, draw, express yourself. + +We have each of us, as a matter of fact, a little of the poet, of the +sculptor, of the musician, of the painter, of the prose writer: but how +little, as compared with those who are so called, precisely because of +the lofty degree in which they possess the most universal dispositions +and energies of human nature! How little does a painter possess of the +intuitions of a poet! How little does one painter possess those of +another painter! Nevertheless, that little is all our actual patrimony +of intuitions or representations. Beyond these are only impressions, +sensations, feelings, impulses, emotions, or whatever else one may term +what is outside the spirit, not assimilated by man, postulated for the +convenience of exposition, but effectively inexistent, if existence be +also a spiritual fact. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of intuition and expression._ + +We may then add this to the verbal variants descriptive of intuition, +noted at the beginning: intuitive knowledge is expressive knowledge, +independent and autonomous in respect to intellectual function; +indifferent to discriminations, posterior and empirical, to reality and +to unreality, to formations and perceptions of space and time, even when +posterior: intuition or representation is distinguished as form from +what is felt and suffered, from the flux or wave of sensation, or from +psychic material; and this form this taking possession of, is +expression. To have an intuition is to express. It is nothing else! +(nothing more, but nothing less) than _to express_. + + + + +II + +INTUITION AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Corollaries and explanations._ + +Before proceeding further, it seems opportune to draw certain +consequences from what has been established and to add some explanation. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of art and intuitive knowledge._ + +We have frankly identified intuitive or expressive knowledge with the +aesthetic or artistic fact, taking works of art as examples of intuitive +knowledge and attributing to them the characteristics of intuition, and +_vice versa_. But our identification is combated by the view, held even +by many philosophers, who consider art to be an intuition of an +altogether special sort. "Let us admit" (they say) "that art is +intuition; but intuition is not always art: artistic intuition is of a +distinct species differing from intuition in general by something +_more_." + + [Sidenote] _No specific difference._ + +But no one has ever been able to indicate of what this something more +consists. It has sometimes been thought that art is not a simple +intuition, but an intuition of an intuition, in the same way as the +concept of science has been defined, not as the ordinary concept, but as +the concept of a concept. Thus man should attain to art, by +objectifying, not his sensations, as happens with ordinary intuition, +but intuition itself. But this process of raising to a second power does +not exist; and the comparison of it with the ordinary and scientific +concept does not imply what is wished, for the good reason that it is +not true that the scientific concept is the concept of a concept. If +this comparison imply anything, it implies just the opposite. The +ordinary concept, if it be really a concept and not a simple +representation, is a perfect concept, however poor and limited. Science +substitutes concepts for representations; it adds and substitutes other +concepts larger and more comprehensive for those that are poor and +limited. It is ever discovering new relations. But its method does not +differ from that by which is formed the smallest universal in the brain +of the humblest of men. What is generally called art, by antonomasia, +collects intuitions that are wider and more complex than those which we +generally experience, but these intuitions are always of sensations and +impressions. + +Art is the expression of impressions, not the expression of expressions. + + [Sidenote] _No difference of intensity._ + +For the same reason, it cannot be admitted that intuition, which is +generally called artistic, differs from ordinary intuition as to +intensity. This would be the case if it were to operate differently on +the same matter. But since artistic function is more widely distributed +in different fields, but yet does not differ in method from ordinary +intuition, the difference between the one and the other is not intensive +but extensive. The intuition of the simplest popular love-song, which +says the same thing, or very nearly, as a declaration of love such as +issues at every moment from the lips of thousands of ordinary men, may +be intensively perfect in its poor simplicity, although it be +extensively so much more limited than the complex intuition of a +love-song by Leopardi. + + [Sidenote] _The difference is extensive and empirical._ + +The whole difference, then, is quantitative, and as such, indifferent to +philosophy, _scientia qualitatum_. Certain men have a greater aptitude, +a more frequent inclination fully to express certain complex states of +the soul. These men are known in ordinary language as artists. Some very +complicated and difficult expressions are more rarely achieved and these +are called works of art. The limits of the expressions and intuitions +that are called art, as opposed to those that are vulgarly called +not-art, are empirical and impossible to define. If an epigram be art, +why not a single word? If a story; why not the occasional note of the +journalist? If a landscape, why not a topographical sketch? The teacher +of philosophy in Moliere's comedy was right: "whenever we speak we +create prose." But there will always be scholars like Monsieur Jourdain, +astonished at having created prose for forty years without knowing it, +and who will have difficulty in persuading themselves that when they +call their servant John to bring their slippers, they have spoken +nothing less than--prose. + +We must hold firmly to our identification, because among the principal +reasons which have prevented Aesthetic, the science of art, from +revealing the true nature of art, its real roots in human nature, has +been its separation from the general spiritual life, the having made of +it a sort of special function or aristocratic circle. No one is +astonished when he learns from physiology that every cellule is an +organism and every organism a cellule or synthesis of cellules. No one +is astonished at finding in a lofty mountain the same chemical elements +that compose a small stone or fragment. There is not one physiology of +small animals and one of large animals; nor is there a special chemical +theory of stones as distinct from mountains. In the same way, there is +not a science of lesser intuition distinct from a science of greater +intuition, nor one of ordinary intuition distinct from artistic +intuition. There is but one Aesthetic, the science of intuitive or +expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic fact. And this +Aesthetic is the true analogy of Logic. Logic includes, as facts of the +same nature, the formation of the smallest and most ordinary concept and +the most complicated scientific and philosophical system. + + [Sidenote] _Artistic genius._ + +Nor can we admit that the word _genius_ or artistic genius, as distinct +from the non-genius of the ordinary man, possesses more than a +quantitative signification. Great artists are said to reveal us to +ourselves. But how could this be possible, unless there be identity of +nature between their imagination and ours, and unless the difference be +only one of quantity? It were well to change _poeta nascitur_ into _homo +nascitur poeta_: some men are born great poets, some small. The cult and +superstition of the genius has arisen from this quantitative difference +having been taken as a difference of quality. It has been forgotten that +genius is not something that has fallen from heaven, but humanity +itself. The man of genius, who poses or is represented as distant from +humanity, finds his punishment in becoming or appearing somewhat +ridiculous. Examples of this are the _genius_ of the romantic period and +the _superman_ of our time. + +But it is well to note here, that those who claim unconsciousness as the +chief quality of an artistic genius, hurl him from an eminence far above +humanity to a position far below it. Intuitive or artistic genius, like +every form of human activity, is always conscious; otherwise it would be +blind mechanism. The only thing that may be wanting to the artistic +genius is the _reflective_ consciousness, the superadded consciousness +of the historian or critic, which is not essential to artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form in Aesthetic._ + +The relation between matter and form, or between _content and form_, as +it is generally called, is one of the most disputed questions in +Aesthetic. Does the aesthetic fact consist of content alone, or of form +alone, or of both together? This question has taken on various meanings, +which we shall mention, each in its place. But when these words are +taken as signifying what we have above defined, and matter is understood +as emotivity not aesthetically elaborated, that is to say, impressions, +and form elaboration, intellectual activity and expression, then our +meaning cannot be doubtful. We must, therefore, reject the thesis that +makes the aesthetic fact to consist of the content alone (that is, of +the simple impressions), in like manner with that other thesis, which +makes it to consist of a junction between form and content, that is, of +impressions plus expressions. In the aesthetic fact, the aesthetic +activity is not added to the fact of the impressions, but these latter +are formed and elaborated by it. The impressions reappear as it were in +expression, like water put into a filter, which reappears the same and +yet different on the other side. The aesthetic fact, therefore, is form, +and nothing but form. + +From this it results, not that the content is something superfluous (it +is, on the contrary, the necessary point of departure for the expressive +fact); but that _there is no passage_ between the quality of the content +and that of the form. It has sometimes been thought that the content, in +order to be aesthetic, that is to say, transformable into form, should +possess some determinate or determinable quality. But were that so, then +form and content, expression and impression, would be the same thing. It +is true that the content is that which is convertible into form, but it +has no determinable qualities until this transformation takes place. We +know nothing of its nature. It does not become aesthetic content at +once, but only when it has been effectively transformed. Aesthetic +content has also been defined as what is _interesting_. That is not an +untrue statement; it is merely void of meaning. What, then, is +interesting? Expressive activity? Certainly the expressive activity +would not have raised the content to the dignity of form, had it not +been interested. The fact of its having been interested is precisely the +fact of its raising the content to the dignity of form. But the word +"interesting" has also been employed in another not illegitimate sense, +which we shall explain further on. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the imitation of nature and of the artistic + illusion._ + +The proposition that art is _imitation of nature_ has also several +meanings. Now truth has been maintained or at least shadowed with these +words, now error. More frequently, nothing definite has been thought. +One of the legitimate scientific meanings occurs when imitation is +understood as representation or intuition of nature, a form of +knowledge. And when this meaning has been understood, by placing in +greater relief the spiritual character of the process, the other +proposition becomes also legitimate: namely, that art is the +_idealization_ or _idealizing_ imitation of nature. But if by imitation +of nature be understood that art gives mechanical reproductions, more or +less perfect duplicates of natural objects, before which the same tumult +of impressions caused by natural objects begins over again, then the +proposition is evidently false. The painted wax figures that seem to be +alive, and before which we stand astonished in the museums where such +things are shown, do not give aesthetic intuitions. Illusion and +hallucination have nothing to do with the calm domain of artistic +intuition. If an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if +an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we +again have spiritual labour and artistic intuition. Finally, if +photography have anything in it of artistic, it will be to the extent +that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, +the pose and the grouping which he has striven to attain. And if it be +not altogether art, that is precisely because the element of nature in +it remains more or less insubordinate and ineradicable. Do we ever, +indeed, feel complete satisfaction before even the best of photographs? +Would not an artist vary and touch up much or little, remove or add +something to any of them? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of art conceived as a sentimental not a + theoretical fact. Aesthetic appearance and feeling._ + +The statements repeated so often, with others similar, that art is not +knowledge, that it does not tell the truth, that it does not belong to +the world of theory, but to the world of feeling, arise from the failure +to realize exactly the theoretic character of the simple intuition. This +simple intuition is quite distinct from intellectual knowledge, as it is +distinct from the perception of the real. The belief that only the +intellective is knowledge, or at the most also the perception of the +real, also arises from the failure to grasp the theoretic character of +the simple intuition. We have seen that intuition is knowledge, free of +concepts and more simple than the so-called perception of the real. +Since art is knowledge and form, it does not belong to the world of +feeling and of psychic material. The reason why so many aestheticians +have so often insisted that art is _appearance_ (_Schein_), is precisely +because they have felt the necessity of distinguishing it from the more +complex fact of perception by maintaining its pure intuitivity. For the +same reason it has been claimed that art is _sentiment_. In fact, if the +concept as content of art, and historical reality as such, be excluded, +there remains no other content than reality apprehended in all its +ingenuousness and immediateness in the vital effort, in _sentiment_, +that is to say, pure intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of theory of aesthetic senses._ + +The theory of the _aesthetic senses_ has also arisen from the failure to +establish, or from having lost to view the character of the expression +as distinct from the impression, of the form as distinct from the +matter. + +As has just been pointed out, this reduces itself to the error of +wishing to seek a passage from the quality of the content to that of the +form. To ask, in fact, what the aesthetic senses may be, implies asking +what sensible impressions may be able to enter into aesthetic +expressions, and what must of necessity do so. To this we must at once +reply, that all impressions can enter into aesthetic expressions or +formations, but that none are bound to do so. Dante raised to the +dignity of form not only the "sweet colour of the oriental sapphire" +(visual impression), but also tactile or thermic impressions, such as +the "thick air" and the "fresh rivulets" which "parch all the more" the +throat of the thirsty. The belief that a picture yields only visual +impressions is a curious illusion. The bloom of a cheek, the warmth of a +youthful body, the sweetness and freshness of a fruit, the cutting of a +sharpened blade, are not these, also, impressions that we have from a +picture? Maybe they are visual? What would a picture be for a +hypothetical man, deprived of all or many of his senses, who should in +an instant acquire the sole organ of sight? The picture we are standing +opposite and believe we see only with our eyes, would appear to his eyes +as little more than the paint-smeared palette of a painter. + +Some who hold firmly to the aesthetic character of given groups of +impressions (for example, the visual, the auditive), and exclude others, +admit, however, that if visual and auditive impressions enter _directly_ +into the aesthetic fact, those of the other senses also enter into it, +but only as _associated_. But this distinction is altogether arbitrary. +Aesthetic expression is a synthesis, in which it is impossible to +distinguish direct and indirect. All impressions are by it placed on a +level, in so far as they are aestheticised. He who takes into himself +the image of a picture or of a poem does not experience, as it were, a +series of impressions as to this image, some of which have a prerogative +or precedence over others. And nothing is known of what happens prior to +having received it, for the distinctions made after reflexion have +nothing to do with art. + +The theory of the aesthetic senses has also been presented in another +way; that is to say, as the attempt to establish what physiological +organs are necessary for the aesthetic fact. The physiological organ or +apparatus is nothing but a complex of cellules, thus and thus +constituted, thus and thus disposed; that is to say, it is merely +physical and natural fact or concept. But expression does not recognize +physiological facts. Expression has its point of departure in the +impressions, and the physiological path by which these have found their +way to the mind is to it altogether indifferent. One way or another +amounts to the same thing: it suffices that they are impressions. + +It is true that the want of given organs, that is, of given complexes of +cells, produces an absence of given impressions (when these are not +obtained by another path by a kind of organic compensation). The man +born blind cannot express or have the intuition of light. But the +impressions are not conditioned solely by the organ, but also by the +stimuli which operate upon the organ. Thus, he who has never had the +impression of the sea will never be able to express it, in the same way +as he who has never had the impression of the great world or of the +political conflict will never express the one or the other. This, +however, does not establish a dependence of the expressive function on +the stimulus or on the organ. It is the repetition of what we know +already: expression presupposes impression. Therefore, given expressions +imply given impressions. Besides, every impression excludes other +impressions during the moment in which it dominates; and so does every +expression. + + [Sidenote] _Unity and indivisibility of the work of art._ + +Another corollary of the conception of expression as activity is the +_indivisibility_ of the work of art. Every expression is a unique +expression. Activity is a fusion of the impressions in an organic whole. +A desire to express this has always prompted the affirmation that the +world of art should have _unity_, or, what amounts to the same thing, +_unity in variety_. Expression is a synthesis of the various, the +multiple, in the one. + +The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, as a poem into scenes, +episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and +objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem to be an objection to +this affirmation. But such division annihilates the work, as dividing +the organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and so on, turns the +living being into a corpse. It is true that there exist organisms in +which the division gives place to more living things, but in such a +case, and if we transfer the analogy to the aesthetic fact, we must +conclude for a multiplicity of germs of life, that is to say, for a +speedy re-elaboration of the single parts into new single expressions. + +It will be observed that expression is sometimes based on other +expressions. There are simple and there are _compound_ expressions. One +must admit some difference between the _eureka_, with which Archimedes +expressed all his joy after his discovery, and the expressive act +(indeed all the five acts) of a regular tragedy. Not in the least: +expression is always directly based on impressions. He who conceives a +tragedy puts into a crucible a great quantity, so to say, of +impressions: the expressions themselves, conceived on other occasions, +are fused together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we +can cast into a smelting furnace formless pieces of bronze and most +precious statuettes. Those most precious statuettes must be melted in +the same way as the formless bits of bronze, before there can be a new +statue. The old expressions must descend again to the level of +impressions, in order to be synthetized in a new single expression. + + [Sidenote] _Art as the deliverer._ + +By elaborating his impressions, man _frees_ himself from them. By +objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their +superior. The liberating and purifying function of art is another aspect +and another formula of its character of activity. Activity is the +deliverer, just because it drives away passivity. + +This also explains why it is customary to attribute to artists alike the +maximum of sensibility or _passion_, and the maximum insensibility or +Olympic _serenity_. Both qualifications agree, for they do not refer to +the same object. The sensibility or passion relates to the rich material +which the artist absorbs into his psychic organism; the insensibility or +serenity to the form with which he subjugates and dominates the tumult +of the feelings and of the passions. + + + + +III + +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + + + [Sidenote] _Indissolubility of intellective from intuitive knowledge._ + +The two forms of knowledge, aesthetic and intellectual or conceptual, +are indeed diverse, but this does not amount altogether to separation +and disjunction, as we find with two forces going each its own way. If +we have shown that the aesthetic form is altogether independent of the +intellectual and suffices to itself without external support, we have +not said that the intellectual can stand without the aesthetic. This +_reciprocity_ would not be true. + +What is knowledge by concepts? It is knowledge of relations of things, +and those things are intuitions. Concepts are not possible without +intuitions, just as intuition is itself impossible without the material +of impressions. Intuitions are: this river, this lake, this brook, this +rain, this glass of water; the concept is: water, not this or that +appearance and particular example of water, but water in general, in +whatever time or place it be realized; the material of infinite +intuitions, but of one single and constant concept. + +However, the concept, the universal, if it be no longer intuition in one +respect, is in another respect intuition, and cannot fail of being +intuition. For the man who thinks has impressions and emotions, in so +far as he thinks. His impression and emotion will not be love or hate, +but _the effort of his thought itself_, with the pain and the joy, the +love and the hate joined to it. This effort cannot but become intuitive +in form, in becoming objective to the mind. To speak, is not to think +logically; but to _think logically_ is, at the same time, to _speak_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the negations of this thesis._ + +That thought cannot exist without speech, is a truth generally admitted. +The negations of this thesis are all founded on equivoques and errors. + +The first of the equivoques is implied by those who observe that one can +likewise think with geometrical figures, algebraical numbers, +ideographic signs, without a single word, even pronounced silently and +almost insensibly within one. They also affirm that there are languages +in which the word, the phonetic sign, expresses nothing, unless the +written sign also be looked at. But when we said "speech," we intended +to employ a synecdoche, and that "expression" generically, should be +understood, for expression is not only so-called verbal expression, as +we have already noted. It may be admitted that certain concepts may be +thought without phonetic manifestations. But the very examples adduced +to show this also prove that those concepts never exist without +expressions. + +Others maintain that animals, or certain animals, think or reason +without speaking. Now as to how, whether, and what animals think, +whether they be rudimentary, half-savage men resisting civilization, +rather than physiological machines, as the old spiritualists would have +it, are questions that do not concern us here. When the philosopher +talks of animal, brutal, impulsive, instinctive nature and the like, he +does not base himself on conjectures as to these facts concerning dogs +or cats, lions or ants; but upon observations of what is called animal +and brutal in man: of the boundary or animal basis of what we feel in +ourselves. If individual animals, dogs or cats, lions or ants, possess +something of the activity of man, so much the better, or so much the +worse for them. This means that as regards them also we must talk, not +of their nature as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps +larger and more strong than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose +that animals think, and form concepts, what is there in the line of +conjecture to justify the admission that they do so without +corresponding expressions? The analogy with man, the knowledge of the +spirit, human psychology, which is the instrument of all our conjectures +as to animal psychology, would oblige us to suppose that if they think +in any way, they also have some sort of speech. + +It is from human psychology, that is, literary psychology, that comes +the other objection, to the effect that the concept can exist without +the word, because it is true that we all know books that are _well +thought and badly written_: that is to say, a thought which remains +thought _beyond_ the expression, _notwithstanding_ the imperfect +expression. But when we talk of books well thought and badly written, we +cannot mean other than that in those books are parts, pages, periods or +propositions well thought out and well written, and other parts (perhaps +the least important) ill thought out and badly written, not truly +thought out and therefore not truly expressed. Where Vico's _Scienza +nuova_ is really ill written, it is also ill thought out. If we pass +from the consideration of big books to a short proposition, the error or +the imprecision of this statement will be recognized at once. How could +a proposition be clearly thought and confusedly written out? + +All that can be admitted is that sometimes we possess thoughts +(concepts) in an intuitive form, or in an abbreviated or, better, +peculiar expression, sufficient for us, but not sufficient to +communicate it with ease to another or other definite individuals. Hence +people say inaccurately, that we have the thought without the +expression; whereas it should properly be said that we have, indeed, the +expression, but in a form that is not easy of social communication. +This, however, is a very variable and altogether relative fact. There +are always people who catch our thought on the wing, and prefer it in +this abbreviated form, and would be displeased with the greater +development of it, necessary for other people. In other words, the +thought considered abstractly and logically will be the same; but +aesthetically we are dealing with two different intuition-expressions, +into both of which enter different psychological elements. The same +argument suffices to destroy, that is, to interpret correctly, the +altogether empirical distinction between an _internal_ and an _external_ +language. + + [Sidenote] _Art and science._ + +The most lofty manifestations, the summits of intellectual and of +intuitive knowledge shining from afar, are called, as we know, Art and +Science. Art and Science, then, are different and yet linked together; +they meet on one side, which is the aesthetic side. Every scientific +work is also a work of art. The aesthetic side may remain little +noticed, when our mind is altogether taken up with the effort to +understand the thought of the man of science, and to examine its truth. +But it is no longer concealed, when we pass from the activity of +understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either +developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous +words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or +confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes +termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or +less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically +to be compared with harmonious, coherent, and perfect works. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry._ + +We pardon thinkers and men of science their literary mediocrity. The +fragments console us for the failure of the whole, for it is far more +easy to recover the well-arranged composition from the fragmentary work +of genius than to achieve the discovery of genius. But how can we pardon +mediocre expression in pure artists? _Mediocribus esse poetis non di, +non homines, non concessere columnae_. The poet or painter who lacks +form, lacks everything, because he lacks _himself_. Poetical material +permeates the Soul of all: the expression alone, that is to say, the +form, makes the poet. And here appears the truth of the thesis which +denies to art all content, as content being understood just the +intellectual concept. In this sense, when we take "content" as equal to +"concept" it is most true, not only that art does not consist of +content, but also that _it has no content_. + +In the same way the distinction between _poetry and prose_ cannot be +justified, save in that of art and science. It was seen in antiquity +that such distinction could not be founded on external elements, such as +rhythm and metre, or on the freedom or the limitation of the form; that +it was, on the contrary, altogether internal. Poetry is the language of +sentiment; prose of the intellect; but since the intellect is also +sentiment, in its concretion and reality, so all prose has a poetical +side. + + [Sidenote] _The relation of first and second degree._ + +The relation between intuitive knowledge or expression, and intellectual +knowledge or concept, between art and science, poetry and prose, cannot +be otherwise defined than by saying that it is one of _double degree_. +The first degree is the expression, the second the concept: the first +can exist without the second, but the second cannot exist without the +first. There exists poetry without prose, but not prose without poetry. +Expression, indeed, is the first affirmation of human activity. Poetry +is "the maternal language of the human race"; the first men "were by +nature sublime poets." We also admit this in another way, when we +observe that the passage from soul to mind, from animal to human +activity, is effected by means of language. And this should be said of +intuition or expression in general. But to us it appears somewhat +inaccurate to define language or expression as an _intermediate_ link +between nature and humanity, as though it were a mixture of the one and +of the other. Where humanity appears, the rest has already disappeared; +the man who expresses himself, certainly emerges from the state of +nature, but he really does emerge: he does not stand half within and +half without, as the use of the phrase "intermediate link" would imply. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of other forms of knowledge._ + +The cognitive intellect has no form other than these two. Expression and +concept exhaust it completely. The whole speculative life of man is +spent in passing from one to the other and back again. + + [Sidenote] _History. Its identity with and difference from art._ + +_Historicity_ is incorrectly held to be a third theoretical form. +History is not form, but content: as form, it is nothing but intuition +or aesthetic fact. History does not seek for laws nor form concepts; it +employs neither induction nor deduction; it is directed _ad narrandum, +non ad demonstrandum_; it does not construct universals and +abstractions, but posits intuitions. The this, the that, the _individuum +omni modo determinatum_, is its kingdom, as it is the kingdom of art. +History, therefore, is included under the universal concept of art. + +Faced with this proposition and with the impossibility of conceiving a +third mode of knowledge, objections have been brought forward which +would lead to the affiliation of history to intellective or scientific +knowledge. The greater portion of these objections is dominated by the +prejudice that in refusing to history the character of conceptual +science, something of its value and dignity has been taken from it. This +really arises from a false idea of art, conceived, not as an essential +theoretic function, but as an amusement, a superfluity, a frivolity. +Without reopening a long debate, which so far as we are concerned, is +finally closed, we will mention here one sophism which has been and +still is widely repeated. It is intended to show the logical and +scientific nature of history. The sophism consists in admitting that +historical knowledge has for its object the individual; but not the +representation, it is added, so much as the concept of the individual. +From this it is argued that history is also a logical or scientific form +of knowledge. History, in fact, should elaborate the concept of a +personage such as Charlemagne or Napoleon; of an epoch, like the +Renaissance or the Reformation; of an event, such as the French +Revolution and the Unification of Italy. This it is held to do in the +same way as Geometry elaborates the concepts of spatial form, or +Aesthetic those of expression. But all this is untrue. History cannot do +otherwise than represent Napoleon and Charlemagne, the Renaissance and +the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Unification of Italy as +individual facts with their individual physiognomy: that is, in the same +way as logicians state, that one cannot have a concept of an individual, +but only a representation. The so-called concept of the individual is +always a universal or general concept, full of details, very rich, if +you will, but however rich it be, yet incapable of attaining to that +individuality, to which historical knowledge, as aesthetic knowledge, +alone attains. + +Let us rather show how the content of history comes to be distinguished +from that of art. The distinction is secondary. Its origin will be found +in what has already been observed as to the ideal character of the +intuition or first perception, in which all is real and therefore +nothing is real. The mind forms the concepts of external and internal at +a later stage, as it does those of what has happened and of what is +desired, of object and subject, and the like. Thus it distinguishes +historical from non-historical intuition, the _real_ from the _unreal_, +real fancy from pure fancy. Even internal facts, what is desired and +imagined, castles in the air, and countries of Cockagne, have their +reality. The soul, too, has its history. His illusions form part of the +biography of every individual. But the history of an individual soul is +history, because in it is always active the distinction between the real +and the unreal, even when the real is the illusions themselves. But +these distinctive concepts do not appear in history as do scientific +concepts, but rather like those that we have seen dissolved and melted +in the aesthetic intuitions, although they stand out in history in an +altogether new relief. History does not construct the concepts of the +real and unreal, but makes use of them. History, in fact, is not the +theory of history. Mere conceptual analysis is of no use in realizing +whether an event in our lives were real or imaginary. It is necessary to +reproduce the intuitions in the mind in the most complete form, as they +were at the moment of production, in order to recognize the content. +Historicity is distinguished in the concrete from pure imagination only +as one intuition is distinguished from another: in the memory. + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism._ + [Sidenote] _Historical scepticism._ + +Where this is not possible, owing to the delicate and fleeting shades +between the real and unreal intuitions, which confuse the one with the +other, we must either renounce, for the time at least, the knowledge of +what really happened (and this we often do), or we must fall back upon +conjecture, verisimilitude, probability. The principle of verisimilitude +and of probability dominates in fact all historical criticism. +Examination of the sources and of authority is directed toward +establishing the most credible evidence. And what is the most credible +evidence, save that of the best observers, that is, of those who best +remember and (be it understood) have not desired to falsify, nor had +interest in falsifying the truth of things? From this it follows that +intellectual scepticism finds it easy to deny the certainty of any +history, for the certainty of history is never that of science. +Historical certainty is composed of memory and of authority, not of +analyses and of demonstration. To speak of historical induction or +demonstration, is to make a metaphorical use of these expressions, which +bear quite a different meaning in history to that which they bear in +science. The conviction of the historian is the undemonstrable +conviction of the juryman, who has heard the witnesses, listened +attentively to the case, and prayed Heaven to inspire him. Sometimes, +without doubt, he is mistaken, but the mistakes are in a negligible +minority compared with the occasions when he gets hold of the truth. +That is why good sense is right against the intellectualists, in +believing in history, which is not a "fable agreed upon," but that which +the individual and humanity remember of their past. We strive to enlarge +and to render as precise as possible this record, which in some places +is dim, in others very clear. We cannot do without it, such as it is, +and taken as a whole, it is rich in truth. In a spirit of paradox only, +can one doubt if there ever were a Greece or a Rome, an Alexander or a +Caesar, a feudal Europe overthrown by a series of revolutions, that on +the 1st of November 1517 the theses of Luther were seen fixed to the +door of the church of Wittenberg, or that the Bastile was taken by the +people of Paris on the 14th of July 1789. + +"What proof givest thou of all this?" asks the sophist, ironically. +Humanity replies "I remember." + + [Sidenote] _Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural + sciences, and their limits._ + +The world of what has happened, of the concrete, of history, is the +world that is called real, natural, including in this definition the +reality that is called physical, as well as that which is called +spiritual and human. All this world is intuition; historical intuition, +if it be realistically shown as it is, or imaginary intuition, artistic +in the strict sense, if shown under the aspect of the possible, that is +to say, of the imaginable. + +Science, true science, which is not intuition but concept, not +individuality but universality, cannot be anything but a science of the +spirit, that is, of what is universal in reality: Philosophy. If natural +_sciences_ be spoken of, apart from philosophy, it is necessary to +observe that these are not perfect sciences: they are complexes of +knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed. The so-called natural +sciences themselves recognize, in fact, that they are surrounded by +limitations. These limitations are nothing more than historical and +intuitive data. They calculate, measure, establish equalities, +regularity, create classes and types, formulate laws, show in their own +way how one fact arises out of other facts; but in their progress they +are always met with facts which are known intuitively and historically. +Even geometry now states that it rests altogether on hypotheses, since +space is not three-dimensional or Euclidean, but this assumption is made +use of by preference, because it is more convenient. What there is of +truth in the natural sciences, is either philosophy or historical fact. +What they contain proper to themselves is abstract and arbitrary. When +the natural sciences wish to form themselves into perfect sciences, they +must issue from their circle and enter the philosophical circle. This +they do when they posit concepts which are anything but natural, such as +those of the atom without extension in space, of ether or vibrating +matter, of vital force, of space beyond the reach of intuition, and the +like. These are true and proper philosophical efforts, when they are not +mere words void of meaning. The concepts of natural science are, without +doubt, most useful; but one cannot obtain from them that _system_, which +belongs only to the spirit. + +These historical and intuitive assumptions, which cannot be separated +from the natural sciences, furthermore explain, not only how, in the +progress of knowledge, that which was once considered to be truth +descends gradually to the grade of mythological beliefs and imaginary +illusions, but also how, among natural scientists, there are some who +term all that serves as basis of argument in their teaching _mythical +facts, verbal expedients_, or _conventions_. The naturalists and +mathematicians who approach the study of the energies of the spirit +without preparation, are apt to carry thither these mental habits and to +speak, in philosophy, of such and such conventions "as arranged by man." +They make conventions of truth and morality, and their supreme +convention is the Spirit itself! However, if there are to be +conventions, something must exist about which there is no convention to +be made, but which is itself the agent of the convention. This is the +spiritual activity of man. The limitation of the natural sciences +postulates the illimitation of philosophy. + + [Sidenote] _The phenomenon and the noumenon._ + +These explications have firmly established that the pure or fundamental +forms of knowledge are two: the intuition and the concept--Art, and +Science or Philosophy. With these are to be included History, which is, +as it were, the product of intuition placed in contact with the concept, +that is, of art receiving in itself philosophic distinctions, while +remaining concrete and individual. All the other forms (natural sciences +and mathematics) are impure, being mingled with extraneous elements of +practical origin. The intuition gives the world, the phenomenon; the +concept gives the noumenon, the Spirit. + + + + +IV + +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + + +These relations between intuitive or aesthetic knowledge and the other +fundamental or derivative forms of knowledge having been definitely +established, we are now in a position to reveal the errors of a series +of theories which have been, or are, presented, as theories of +Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of verisimilitude and of naturalism._ + +From the confusion between the exigencies of art in general and the +particular exigencies of history has arisen the theory (which has lost +ground to-day, but used to dominate in the past) of _verisimilitude_ as +the object of art. As is generally the case with erroneous propositions, +the intention of those who employed and employ the concept of +verisimilitude has no doubt often been much more reasonable than the +definition given of the word. By verisimilitude used to be meant the +artistic _coherence_ of the representation, that is to say, its +completeness and effectiveness. If "verisimilar" be translated by +"coherent," a most exact meaning will often be found in the discussions, +examples, and judgments of the critics. An improbable personage, an +improbable ending to a comedy, are really badly-drawn personages, +badly-arranged endings, happenings without artistic motive. It has been +said with reason that even fairies and sprites must have verisimilitude, +that is to say, be really sprites and fairies, coherent artistic +intuitions. Sometimes the word "possible" has been used instead of +"verisimilar." As we have already remarked in passing, this word +possible is synonymous with that which is imaginable or may be known +intuitively. Everything which is really, that is to say, coherently, +imagined, is possible. But formerly, and especially by the +theoreticians, by verisimilar was understood historical credibility, or +that historical truth which is not demonstrable, but conjecturable, not +true, but verisimilar. It has been sought to impose a like character +upon art. Who does not recall the great part played in literary history +by the criticism of the verisimilar? For example, the fault found with +the _Jerusalem Delivered_, based upon the history of the Crusades, or of +the Homeric poems, upon that of the verisimilitude of the costume of the +emperors and kings? + +At other times has been imposed upon art the duty of the aesthetic +reproduction of historical reality. This is another of the erroneous +significations assumed by the theory concerning _the imitation of +nature_. Verism and naturalism have since afforded the spectacle of a +confusion of the aesthetic fact with the processes of the natural +sciences, by aiming at some sort of _experimental_ drama or romance. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of ideas in art, of theses in art, and of the + typical._ + +The confusions between the methods of art and those of the philosophical +sciences have been far more frequent. Thus it has often been held to be +within the competence of art to develop concepts, to unite the +intelligible with the sensible, to represent _ideas or universals_, +putting art in the place of science, that is, confusing the artistic +function in general with the particular case in which it becomes +aesthetico-logical. + +The theory of art as supporting _theses_ can be reduced to the same +error, as can be the theory of art considered as individual +representation, exemplifying scientific laws. The example, in so far as +it is an example, stands for the thing exemplified, and is thus an +exposition of the universal, that is to say, a form of science, more or +less popular or vulgarized. + +The same may be said of the aesthetic theory of the _typical_, when by +type is understood, as it frequently is, just the abstraction or the +concept, and it is affirmed that art should make _the species shine in +the individual_. If by typical be here understood the individual, here, +too, we have a merely verbal variation. To typify would signify, in this +case, to characterize; that is, to determine and to represent the +individual. Don Quixote is a type; but of whom is he a type, if not of +all Don Quixotes? A type, that is to say, of himself. Certainly he is +not a type of abstract concepts, such as the loss of the sense of +reality, or of the love of glory. An infinite number of personages can +be thought of under these concepts, who are not Don Quixote. In other +words, we find our own impressions fully determined and verified in the +expression of a poet (for example in a poetical personage). We call that +expression typical, which we might call simply aesthetic. Poetical or +artistic universals have been spoken of in like manner, in order to show +that the artistic product is altogether spiritual and ideal in itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the symbol and of the allegory._ + +Continuing to correct these errors, or to make clear equivoques, we will +note that the _symbol_ has sometimes been given as essence of art. Now, +if the symbol be given as inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is +the synonym of the intuition itself, which always has an ideal +character. There is no double-bottom to art, but one only; in art all is +symbolical, because all is ideal. But if the symbol be looked upon as +separable--if on the one side can be expressed the symbol, and on the +other the thing symbolized, we fall back again into the intellectualist +error: that pretended symbol is the exposition of an abstract concept, +it is an _allegory_, it is science, or art that apes science. But we +must be just toward the allegorical also. In some cases, it is +altogether harmless. Given the _Gerusalemme liberata_, the allegory was +imagined afterwards; given the _Adone_ of Marino, the poet of the +lascivious insinuated afterwards that it was written to show how +"immoderate indulgence ends in pain"; given a statue of a beautiful +woman, the sculptor can write on a card that the statue represents +_Clemency_ or _Goodness_. This allegory linked to a finished work _post +festum_ does not change the work of art. What is it, then? It is an +expression externally _added_ to another expression. A little page of +prose is added to the _Gerusalemme_, expressing another thought of the +poet; a verse or a strophe is added to the _Adone_, expressing what the +poet would like to make a part of his public swallow; while to the +statue nothing more than the single word is added: _Clemency_ or +_Goodness_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of artistic and literary classes._ + +But the greatest triumph of the intellectualist error lies in the theory +of artistic and literary classes, which still has vogue in literary +treatises, and disturbs the critics and the historians of art. Let us +observe its genesis. + +The human mind can pass from the aesthetic to the logical, just because +the former is a first step, in respect to the latter. It can destroy the +expressions, that is, the thought of the individual with the thought of +the universal. It can reduce expressive facts to logical relations. We +have already shown that this operation in its turn becomes concrete in +an expression, but this does not mean that the first expressions have +not been destroyed. They have yielded their place to the new +aesthetico-logical expressions. When we are on the second step, we have +left the first. + +He who enters a picture-gallery, or who reads a series of poems, may, +after he has looked and read, go further: he may seek out the relations +of the things there expressed. Thus those pictures and compositions, +each of which is an individual inexpressible by logic, are resolved into +universals and abstractions, such as _costumes, landscapes, portraits, +domestic life, battles, animals, flowers, fruit, seascapes, lakes, +deserts, tragic, comic, piteous, cruel, lyrical, epic, dramatic, +knightly, idyllic facts_, and the like. They are often also resolved +into merely quantitative categories, such as _little picture, picture, +statuette, group, madrigal, song, sonnet, garland of sonnets, poetry, +poem, story, romance_, and the like. + +When we think the concept _domestic life_, or _knighthood_, or _idyll_, +or _cruelty_, or any other quantitative concept, the individual +expressive fact from which we started is abandoned. From aesthetes that +we were, we have been changed into logicians; from contemplators of +expression, into reasoners. Certainly no objection can be made to such a +process. In what other way could science be born, which, if aesthetic +expressions be assumed in it, yet has for function to go beyond them? +The logical or scientific form, as such, excludes the aesthetic form. He +who begins to think scientifically has already ceased to contemplate +aesthetically; although his thought will assume of necessity in its turn +an aesthetic form, as has already been said, and as it would be +superfluous to repeat. + +The error begins when we try to deduce the expression from the concept, +and to find in the thing substituting the laws of the thing substituted; +when the difference between the second and the first step has not been +observed, and when, in consequence, we declare that we are standing on +the first step, when we are really standing on the second. This error is +known as _the theory of artistic and literary classes_. + +What is the aesthetic form of domestic life, of knighthood, of the +idyll, of cruelty, and so forth? How should these contents be +_represented_? Such is the absurd problem implied in the theory of +artistic and literary classes. It is in this that consists all search +after laws or rules of styles. Domestic life, knighthood, idyll, +cruelty, and the like, are not impressions, but concepts. They are not +contents, but logico-aesthetic forms. You cannot express the form, for +it is already itself expression. And what are the words cruelty, idyll, +knighthood, domestic life, and so on, but the expression of those +concepts? + +Even the most refined of these distinctions, those that have the most +philosophic appearance, do not resist criticism; as, for instance, when +works of art are divided into the subjective and the objective styles, +into lyric and epic, into works of feeling and works of design. It is +impossible to separate in aesthetic analysis, the subjective from the +objective side, the lyric from the epic, the image of feeling from that +of things. + + [Sidenote] _Errors derived from this theory appearing in judgments + on art._ + +From the theory of the artistic and literary classes derive those +erroneous modes of judgment and of criticism, thanks to which, instead +of asking before a work of art if it be expressive, and what it +expresses, whether it speak or stammer, or be silent altogether, it is +asked if it be obedient to the _laws_ of the epic poem, or to those of +tragedy, to those of historical portraiture, or to those of landscape +painting. Artists, however, while making a verbal pretence of agreeing, +or yielding a feigned obedience to them, have really always disregarded +these _laws of styles_. Every true work of art has violated some +established class and upset the ideas of the critics, who have thus been +obliged to enlarge the number of classes, until finally even this +enlargement has proved too narrow, owing to the appearance of new works +of art, which are naturally followed by new scandals, new upsettings, +and-new enlargements. + +From the same theory come the prejudices, owing to which at one time +(and is it really passed?) people used to lament that Italy had no +tragedy (until a poet arose who gave to Italy that wreath which was the +only thing wanting to her glorious hair), nor France the epic poem +(until the _Henriade_, which slaked the thirsty throats of the critics). +Eulogies accorded to the inventors of new styles are connected with +these prejudices, so much so, that in the seventeenth century the +invention of the _mock-heroic_ poem seemed an important event, and the +honour of it was disputed, as though it were the discovery of America. +But the works adorned with this name (the _Secchia rapita_ and the +_Scherno degli Dei_) were still-born, because their authors (a slight +draw-back) had nothing new or original to say. Mediocrities racked their +brains to invent, artificially, new styles. The _piscatorial_ eclogue +was added to the _pastoral_, and then, finally, the _military_ eclogue. +The _Aminta_ was bathed and became the _Alceo_. Finally, there have been +historians of art and literature, so much fascinated with these ideas of +classes, that they claimed to write the history, not of single and +effective literary and artistic works, but of their classes, those empty +phantoms. They have claimed to portray, not the evolution of the +_artistic spirit_, but the _evolution of classes_. + +The philosophical condemnation of artistic and literary classes is found +in the formulation and demonstration of what artistic activity has ever +sought and good taste ever recognized. What is to be done if good taste +and the real fact, put into formulas, sometimes assume the air of +paradoxes? + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the divisions of classes._ + +Now if we talk of tragedies, comedies, dramas, romances, pictures of +everyday life, battle-pieces, landscapes, seascapes, poems, versicles, +lyrics, and the like, if it be only with a view to be understood, and to +draw attention in general and approximatively to certain groups of +works, to which, for one reason or another, it is desired to draw +attention, in that case, no scientific error has been committed. We +employ _vocables and phrases_; we do not establish _laws and +definitions_. The mistake arises when the weight of a scientific +definition is given to a word, when we ingenuously let ourselves be +caught in the meshes of that phraseology. Pray permit me a comparison. +It is necessary to arrange the books in a library in one way or another. +This used generally to be done by means of a rough classification by +subjects (among which the categories of miscellaneous and eccentric were +not wanting); they are now generally arranged by sizes or by publishers. +Who can deny the necessity and the utility of these groupings? But what +should we say if some one began seriously to seek out the literary laws +of miscellanies and of eccentricities from the Aldine or Bodonian +collection, from size A or size B, that is to say, from these altogether +arbitrary groupings whose sole object has been their practical use? +Well, whoever should undertake an enterprise such as this, would be +doing neither more nor less than those who seek out the aesthetic laws +of literary and artistic classes. + + + + +V + +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORIC AND LOGIC + + +The better to confirm these criticisms, it will be opportune to cast a +rapid glance over analogous and opposite errors, born of ignorance as to +the true nature of art, and of its relation to history and to science. +These errors have injured alike the theory of history and of science, of +Historic (or Historiology) and of Logic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the philosophy of history._ + +Historical intellectualism has been the cause of the many researches +which have been made, especially during the last two centuries, +researches which continue to-day, for _a philosophy of history_, for an +_ideal history_, for a _sociology_, for a _historical psychology_, or +however may be otherwise entitled or described a science whose object is +to extract from history, universal laws and concepts. Of what kind must +be these laws, these universals? Historical laws and historical +concepts? In that case, an elementary criticism of knowledge suffices to +make clear the absurdity of the attempt. When such expressions as a +_historical law_, a _historical concept_ are not simply metaphors +colloquially employed, they are true contradictions in terms: the +adjective is as unsuitable to the substantive as in the expressions +_qualitative quantity_ or _pluralistic monism_. History means concretion +and individuality, law and concept mean abstraction and universality. +If, on the other hand, the attempt to draw from history historical laws +and concepts be abandoned, and it be merely desired to draw from it laws +and concepts, the attempt is certainly not frivolous; but the science +thus obtained will be, not a philosophy of history, but rather, +according to the case, either philosophy in its various specifications +of Ethic, Logic, etc., or empirical science in its infinite divisions +and subdivisions. Thus are sought out either those philosophical +concepts which are, as has already been observed, at the bottom of every +historical construction and separate perception from intuition, +historical intuition from pure intuition, history from art; or already +formed historical intuitions are collected and reduced to types and +classes, which is exactly the method of the natural sciences. Great +thinkers have sometimes donned the unsuitable cloak of the philosophy of +history, and notwithstanding the covering, they have conquered +philosophical truths of the greatest magnitude. The cloak has been +dropped, the truth has remained. Modern sociologists are rather to be +blamed, not so much for the illusion in which they are involved when +they talk of an impossible science of sociology, as for the infecundity +which almost always accompanies their illusion. It is but a small evil +that Aesthetic should be termed sociological Aesthetic, or Logic, social +Logic. The grave evil is that their Aesthetic is an old-fashioned +expression of sensualism, their Logic verbal and incoherent. The +philosophical movement, to which we have referred, has borne two good +fruits in relation to history. First of all has been felt the desire to +construct a theory of historiography, that is, to understand the nature +and the limits of history, a theory which, in conformity with the +analyses made above, cannot obtain satisfaction, save in a general +science of intuition, in an Aesthetic, from which Historic would be +separated under a special head by means of the intervention of the +universals. Furthermore, concrete truths relating to historical events +have often been expressed beneath the false and presumptuous cloak of a +philosophy of history; canons and empirical advice have been formulated +by no means superfluous to students and critics. It does not seem +possible to deny this utility to the most recent of philosophies of +history, to so-called historical materialism, which has thrown a very +vivid light upon many sides of social life, formerly neglected or ill +understood. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic invasions into Logic._ + +The principle of authority, of the _ipse dixit_, is an invasion of +historicity into the domains of science and philosophy which has raged +in the schools. This substitutes for introspection and philosophical +analyses, this or that evidence, document, or authoritative statement, +with which history certainly cannot dispense. But Logic, the science of +thought and of intellectual knowledge, has suffered the most grave and +destructive disturbances and errors of all, through the imperfect +understanding of the aesthetic fact. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, +if logical activity come after and contain in itself aesthetic activity? +An inexact Aesthetic must of necessity drag after it an inexact Logic. + +Whoever opens logical treatises, from the _Organum_ of Aristotle to the +moderns, must admit that they all contain a haphazard mixture of verbal +facts and facts of thought, of grammatical forms and of conceptual +forms, of Aesthetic and of Logic. Not that attempts have been wanting to +escape from verbal expression and to seize thought in its effective +nature. Aristotelian logic itself did not become mere syllogistic and +verbalism, without some stumbling and oscillation. The especially +logical problem was often touched upon in the Middle Ages, by the +nominalists, realists, and conceptualists, in their disputes. With +Galileo and with Bacon, the natural sciences gave an honourable place to +induction. Vico combated formalist and mathematical logic in favour of +inventive methods. Kant called attention to _a priori_ syntheses. The +absolute idealists despised the Aristotelian logic. The followers of +Herbart, bound to Aristotle, on the other hand, set in relief those +judgments which they called narrative, which are of a character +altogether different from other logical judgments. Finally, the +linguists insisted upon the irrationality of the word, in relation to +the concept. But a conscious, sure, and radical movement of reform can +find no base or starting-point, save in the science of Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Logic in its essence._ + +In a Logic suitably reformed on this basis, it will be fitting to +proclaim before all things this truth, and to draw from it all its +consequences: the logical fact, _the only logical fact_, is _the +concept_, the universal, the spirit that forms, and in so far as it +forms, the universal. And if be understood by induction, as has +sometimes been understood, the formation of universals, and by deduction +the verbal development of these, then it is clear that true Logic can be +nothing but inductive Logic. But since by the word "deduction" has been +more frequently understood the special processes of mathematics, and by +the word "induction" those of the natural sciences, it will be advisable +to avoid the one and the other denomination, and to say that true Logic +is the Logic of the concept. The Logic of the concept, adopting a method +which is at once induction and deduction, will adopt neither the one nor +the other exclusively, that is, will adopt the (speculative) method, +which is intrinsic to it. + +The concept, the universal, is in itself, abstractly considered, +_inexpressible_. No word is proper to it. So true is this, that the +logical concept remains always the same, notwithstanding the variation +of verbal forms. In respect to the concept, expression is a simple +_sign_ or _indication_. There must be an expression, it cannot fail; but +what it is to be, this or that, is determined by the historical and +psychological conditions of the individual who is speaking. The quality +of the expression is not deducible from the nature of the concept. There +does not exist a true (logical) sense of words. He who forms a concept +bestows on each occasion their true meaning on the words. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between logical and non-logical judgements._ + +This being established, the only truly logical (that is, +aesthetico-logical) propositions, the only rigorously logical judgments, +can be nothing but those whose proper and exclusive content is the +determination of a concept. These propositions or judgments are the +_definitions_. Science itself is nothing but a complex of definitions, +unified in a supreme definition; a system of concepts, or chief concept. + +It is therefore necessary to exclude from Logic all those propositions +which do not affirm universals. Narrative judgments, not less than those +termed non-enunciative by Aristotle, such as the expression of desires, +are not properly logical judgments. They are either purely aesthetic +propositions or historical propositions. "Peter is passing; it is +raining to-day; I am sleepy; I want to read": these and an infinity of +propositions of the same kind, are nothing but either a mere enclosing, +in words the impression of the fact that Peter is passing, of the +falling rain, of my organism inclining to sleep, and of my will directed +to reading, or they are existential affirmation concerning those facts. +They are expressions of the real or of the unreal, of historical or of +pure imagination; they are certainly not definitions of universals. + + [Sidenote] _Syllogistic._ + +This exclusion cannot meet with great difficulties. It is already almost +an accomplished fact, and the only thing required is to render it +explicit, decisive, and coherent. But what is to be done with all that +part of human experience which is called _syllogistic_, consisting of +judgments and reasonings which are based on concepts. What is +syllogistic? Is it to be looked down upon from above with contempt, as +something useless, as has so often been done in the reaction of the +humanists against scholasticism, in absolute idealism, in the +enthusiastic admiration of our times for the methods of observation and +experiment of the natural sciences? Syllogistic, reasoning _in forma_, +is not a discovery of truth; it is the art of exposing, debating, +disputing with oneself and others. Proceeding from concepts already +formed, from facts already observed and making appeal to the persistence +of the true or of thought (such is the meaning of the principle of +identity and contradiction), it infers consequences from these data, +that is, it represents what has already been discovered. Therefore, if +it be an _idem per idem_ from the point of view of invention, it is most +efficacious as a teaching and an exposition. To reduce affirmations to +the syllogistic scheme is a way of controlling one's own thought and of +criticizing that of others. It is easy to laugh at syllogisers, but, if +syllogistic has been born and retains its place, it must have good roots +of its own. Satire applied to it can concern only its abuses, such as +the attempt to prove syllogistically questions of fact, observation, and +intuition, or the neglect of profound meditation and unprejudiced +investigation of problems, for syllogistic formality. And if so-called +_mathematical Logic_ can sometimes aid us in our attempt to remember +with ease, to manipulate the results of our own thought, let us welcome +this form of the syllogism also, long prophesied by Leibnitz and essayed +by many, even in our days. + +But precisely because syllogistic is the art of exposing and of +debating, its theory cannot hold the first place in a philosophical +Logic, usurping that belonging to the doctrine of the concept, which is +the central and dominating doctrine, to which is reduced everything +logical in syllogistic, without leaving a residuum (relations of +concepts, subordination, co-ordination, identification, and so on). Nor +must it ever be forgotten that the concept, the (logical) judgment, and +the syllogism do not occupy the same position. The first alone is the +logical fact, the second and third are the forms in which the first +manifests itself. These, in so far as they are forms, cannot be examined +save aesthetically (grammatically); in so far as they possess logical +content, only by neglecting the forms themselves and passing to the +doctrine of the concept. + + [Sidenote] _False Logic and true Aesthetic._ + +This shows the truth of the ordinary remark to the effect that he who +reasons ill, also speaks and writes ill, that exact logical analysis is +the basis of good expression. This truth is a tautology, for to reason +well is in fact to express oneself well, because the expression is the +intuitive possession of one's own logical thought. The principle of +contradiction, itself, is at bottom nothing but the aesthetic principle +of coherence. It will be said that starting from erroneous concepts it +is possible to write and to speak exceedingly well, as it is also +possible to reason well; that some who are dull at research may yet be +most limpid writers. That is precisely because to write well depends +upon having a clear intuition of one's own thought, even if it be +erroneous; that is to say, not of its scientific, but of its aesthetic +truth, since it is this truth itself. A philosopher like Schopenhauer +can imagine that art is a representation of the Platonic ideas. This +doctrine is absolutely false scientifically, yet he may develop this +false knowledge in excellent prose, aesthetically most true. But we have +already replied to these objections, when we observed that at that +precise point where a speaker or a writer enunciates an ill-thought +concept, he is at the same time speaking ill and writing ill. He may, +however, afterwards recover himself in the many other parts of his +thought, which consist of true propositions, not connected with the +preceding errors, and lucid expressions may with him follow upon turbid +expressions. + + [Sidenote] _Logic reformed._ + +All enquiries as to the forms of judgments and of syllogisms, on their +conversion and on their various relations, which still encumber +treatises on Logic, are therefore destined to become less, to be +transformed, to be reduced to something else. + +The doctrine of the concept and of the organism of the concepts, of +definition, of system, of philosophy, and of the various sciences, and +the like, will fill the place of these and will constitute the only true +and proper Logic. + +Those who first had some suspicion of the intimate connexion between +Aesthetic and Logic and conceived Aesthetic as a _Logic of sensible +knowledge_, were strangely addicted to applying logical categories to +the new knowledge, talking of _aesthetic concepts, aesthetic judgments, +aesthetic syllogisms_, and so on. We are less superstitious as regards +the solidity of the traditional Logic of the schools, and better +informed as to the nature of Aesthetic. We do not recommend the +application of Logic to Aesthetic, but the liberation of Logic from +aesthetic forms. These have given rise to non-existent forms or +categories of Logic, due to the following of altogether arbitrary and +crude distinctions. + +Logic thus reformed will always be _formal_ Logic; it will study the +true form or activity of thought, the concept, excluding single and +particular concepts. The old Logic is ill called formal; it were better +to call it _verbal_ or _formalistic_. Formal Logic will drive out +formalistic Logic. To attain this object, it will not be necessary to +have recourse, as some have done, to a real or material Logic, which is +not a science of thought, but thought itself in the act; not only a +Logic, but the complex of Philosophy, in which Logic also is included. +The science of thought (Logic) is that of the concept, as that of fancy +(Aesthetic) is the science of expression. The well-being of both +sciences lies in exactly following in every particular the distinction +between the two domains. + + + + +VI + +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + + +The intuitive and intellective forms exhaust, as we have said, all the +theoretic form of the spirit. But it is not possible to know them +thoroughly, nor to criticize another series of erroneous aesthetic +theories, without first establishing clearly their relations with +another form of the spirit, which is the _practical_ form. + + [Sidenote] _The will._ + +This form or practical activity is the _will_. We do not employ this +word here in the sense of any philosophical system, in which the will is +the foundation of the universe, the principle of things and the true +reality. Nor do we employ it in the ample sense of other systems, which +understand by will the energy of the spirit, the spirit or activity in +general, making of every act of the human spirit an act of will. Neither +such metaphysical nor such metaphorical meaning is ours. For us, the +will is, as generally accepted, that activity of the spirit, which +differs from the mere theoretical contemplation of things, and is +productive, not of knowledge, but of actions. Action is really action, +in so far as it is voluntary. It is not necessary to remark that in the +will to do, is included, in the scientific sense, also what is vulgarly +called not-doing: the will to resist, to reject, the prometheutic will, +is also action. + + [Sidenote] _The will as an ulterior stage in respect to knowledge._ + +Man understands things with the theoretical form, with the practical +form he changes them; with the one he appropriates the universe, with +the other he creates it. But the first form is the basis of the second; +and the relation of _double degree_, which we have already found +existing between aesthetic and logical activity, is repeated between +these two on a larger scale. Knowledge independent of the will is +thinkable; will independent of knowledge is unthinkable. Blind will is +not will; true will has eyes. + +How can we will, without having before us historical intuitions +(perceptions) of objects, and knowledge of (logical) relations, which +enlighten us as to the nature of those objects? How can we really will, +if we do not know the world which surrounds us, and the manner of +changing things by acting upon them? + + [Sidenote] _Objections and elucidations._ + +It has been objected that men of action, practical men in the eminent +sense, are the least disposed to contemplate and to theorize: their +energy is not delayed in contemplation, it rushes at once into will. And +conversely, that contemplative men, philosophers, are often very +mediocre in practical matters, weak willed, and therefore neglected and +thrust aside in the tumult of life. It is easy to see that these +distinctions are merely empirical and quantitative. Certainly, the +practical man has no need of a philosophical system in order to act, but +in the spheres where he does act, he starts from intuitions and concepts +which are most clear to him. Otherwise he could not will the most +ordinary actions. It would not be possible to will to feed oneself, for +instance, without knowledge of the food, and of the link of cause and +effect between certain movements and certain organic sensations. Rising +gradually to the more complex forms of action, for example to the +political, how could we will anything politically good or bad, without +knowing the real conditions of society, and consequently the means and +expedients to be adopted? When the practical man feels himself in the +dark about one or more of these points, or when he is seized with doubt, +action either does not begin or stops. It is then that the theoretical +moment, which in the rapid succession of human actions is hardly noticed +and rapidly forgotten, becomes important and occupies consciousness for +a longer time. And if this moment be prolonged, then the practical man +may become Hamlet, divided between desire for action and his small +amount of theoretical clarity as regards the situation and the means to +be employed. And if he develop a taste for contemplation and discovery, +and leave willing and acting, to a more or less great extent, to others, +there is formed in him the calm disposition of the artist, of the man of +science, or of the philosopher, who are sometimes unpractical or +altogether blameworthy. These observations are all obvious. Their +exactitude cannot be denied. Let us, however, repeat that they are +founded on quantitative distinctions and do not disprove, but confirm +the fact that an action, however slight it be, cannot really be an +action, that is, an action that is willed, unless it be preceded by +cognoscitive activity. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of practical judgments or judgments of value._ + +Some psychologists, on the other hand, place before practical action an +altogether special class of judgments, which they call _practical_ +judgments or judgments _of value_. They say that in order to resolve to +perform an action, it is necessary to have judged: "this action is +useful, this action is good." And at first sight this seems to have the +testimony of consciousness on its side. But he who observes better and +analyses with greater subtlety, discovers that such judgments follow +instead of preceding the affirmation of the will; they are nothing but +the expression of the already exercised volition. A good or useful +action is an action that is willed. It will always be impossible to +distil from the objective study of things a single drop of usefulness or +goodness. We do not desire things because we know them to be good or +useful; but we know them to be good and useful, because we desire them. +Here too, the rapidity, with which the facts of consciousness follow one +another has given rise to an illusion. Practical action is preceded by +knowledge, but not by practical knowledge, or better by the practical: +to obtain this, it is first necessary to have practical action. The +third moment, therefore, of practical judgments, or judgments of value, +is altogether imaginary. It does not come between the two moments or +degrees of theory and practice. That is why there exist no normative +sciences in general, which regulate or command, discover and indicate +values to the practical activity; because there is none for any other +activity, assuming every science already realized and that activity +developed, which it afterwards takes as its object. + + [Sidenote] _Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic._ + +These distinctions established, we must condemn as erroneous every +theory which confuses aesthetic with practical activity, or introduces +the laws of the second into the first. That science is theory and art +practice has been many times affirmed. Those who make this statement, +and look upon the aesthetic fact as a practical fact, do not do so +capriciously or because they are groping in the void; but because they +have their eye on something which is really practical. But the practical +which they are looking at is not Aesthetic, nor within Aesthetic; it is +_outside and beside it_; and although they are often found united, they +are not necessarily united, that is to say, by the bond of identity of +nature. + +The aesthetic fact is altogether completed in the expressive elaboration +of the impressions. When we have conquered the word within us, conceived +definitely and vividly a figure or a statue, or found a musical motive, +expression is born and is complete; there is no need for anything else. +If after this we should open our mouths and _will_ to open them, to +speak, or our throats to sing, and declare in a loud voice and with +extended throat what we have completely said or sung to ourselves; or if +we should stretch out and _will_ to stretch out our hands to touch the +notes of the piano, or to take up the brushes and the chisel, making +thus in detail those movements which we have already done rapidly, and +doing so in such a way as to leave more or less durable traces; this is +all an addition, a fact which obeys quite different laws to the first, +and with these laws we have not to occupy ourselves for the moment. Let +us, however, here recognize that this second movement is a production of +things, a _practical_ fact, or a fact of _will_. It is customary to +distinguish the internal from the external work of art: the terminology +seems here to be infelicitous, for the work of art (the aesthetic work) +is always _internal_; and that which is called _external_ is no longer a +work of art. Others distinguish between _aesthetic_ fact and _artistic_ +fact, meaning by the second the external or practical stage, which may +and generally does follow the first. But in this case, it is simply a +case of linguistic usage, doubtless permissible, although perhaps not +opportune. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the end of art and of the + choice of the content._ + +For the same reasons the search for the _end of art_ is ridiculous, when +it is understood of art as art. And since to fix an end is to choose, +the theory that the content of art must be _selected_ is another form of +the same error. A selection from among impressions and sensations +implies that these are already expressions, otherwise, how can a +selection be made among what is continuous and indistinct? To choose is +to will: to will this and not to will that: and this and that must be +before us, they must be expressed. Practice follows, it does not precede +theory; expression is free inspiration. + +The true artist, in fact, finds himself big with his theme, he knows not +how; he feels the moment of birth drawing near, but he cannot will it or +not will it. If he were to wish to act in opposition to his inspiration, +to make an arbitrary choice, if, born Anacreon, he were to wish to sing +of Atreus and of Alcides, his lyre would warn him of his mistake, +echoing only of Venus and of Love, notwithstanding his efforts to the +contrary. + + [Sidenote] _Practical innocence of art._ + +The theme or content cannot, therefore, be practically or morally +charged with epithets of praise or of blame. When critics of art remark +that a theme is _badly selected_, in cases where that observation has a +just foundation, it is a question of blaming, not the selection of the +theme (which would be absurd), but the manner in which the artist has +treated it. The expression has failed, owing to the contradictions which +it contains. And when the same critics rebel against the theme or the +content as being unworthy of art and blameworthy, in respect to works +which they proclaim to be artistically perfect; if these expressions +really are perfect, there is nothing to be done but to advise the +critics to leave the artists in peace, for they cannot get inspiration, +save from what has made an impression upon them. The critics should +think rather of how they can effect changes in nature and in society, in +order that those impressions may not exist. If ugliness were to vanish +from the world, if universal virtue and felicity were established there, +perhaps artists would no longer represent perverse or pessimistic +sentiments, but sentiments that are calm, innocent, and joyous, like +Arcadians of a real Arcady. But so long as ugliness and turpitude exist +in nature and impose themselves on the artist, it is not possible to +prevent the expression of these things also; and when it has arisen, +_factum infectum fieri nequit_. We speak thus entirely from the +aesthetic point of view, and from that of pure aesthetic criticism. + +We do not delay to pass here in review the damage which the criticism of +choice does to artistic production, with the prejudices which it +produces or maintains among the artists themselves, and with the +contrast which it occasions between artistic impulse and critical +exigencies. It is true that sometimes it seems to do some good also, by +assisting the artists to discover themselves, that is, their own +impressions and their own inspiration, and to acquire consciousness of +the task which is, as it were, imposed upon them by the historical +moment in which they live, and by their individual temperament. In these +cases, criticism of choice merely recognizes and aids the expressions +which are already being formed. It believes itself to be the mother, +where, at most, it is only the midwife. + + [Sidenote] _The independence of art._ + +The impossibility of choice of content completes the theorem of the +_independence of art_, and is also the only legitimate meaning of the +expression: _art for art's sake_. Art is thus independent of science, as +it is of the useful and the moral. Let it not be feared that thus may be +justified art that is frivolous or cold, since that which is truly +frivolous or cold is so because it has not been raised to expression; or +in other words, frivolity and frigidity come always from the form of the +aesthetic elaboration, from the lack of a content, not from the material +qualities of the content. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the saying: the style is the man._ + +The saying: _the style is the man_, can also not be completely +criticized, save by starting from the distinction between the theoretic +and the practical, and from the theoretic character of the aesthetic +activity. Man is not simply knowledge and contemplation: he is also +will, which contains in it the cognoscitive moment. Now the saying is +either altogether void, as when it is understood that the man is the +style, in so far as he is style, that is to say, the man, but only in so +far as he is an expression of activity; or it is erroneous, when the +attempt is made to deduce from what a man has seen and expressed, that +which he has done and willed, inferring thereby that there is a +necessary link between knowing and willing. Many legends in the +biographies of artists have sprung from this erroneous identification, +since it seemed impossible that a man who gives expression to generous +sentiments should not be a noble and generous man in practical life; or +that the dramatist who gives a great many stabs in his plays, should not +himself have given a few at least in real life. Vainly do the artists +protest: _lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba_. They are merely taxed +in addition with lying and hypocrisy. O you poor women of Verona, how +far more subtle you were, when you founded your belief that Dante had +really descended to hell, upon his dusky countenance! Yours was at any +rate a historical conjecture. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the concept of sincerity in art._ + +Finally, _sincerity_ imposed upon the artist as a duty (this law of +ethics which, they say, is also a law of aesthetic) arises from another +equivoke. For by sincerity is meant either the moral duty not to deceive +one's neighbour; and in that case Is foreign to the artist. For he, in +fact, deceives no one, since he gives form to what is already in his +mind. He would deceive, only if he were to betray his duty as an artist +by a lesser devotion to the intrinsic necessity of his task. If lies and +deceit are in his mind, then the form which he gives to these things +cannot be deceit or lies, precisely because it is aesthetic. The artist, +if he be a charlatan, a liar, or a miscreant, purifies his other self by +reflecting it in art. Or by sincerity is meant, fulness and truth of +expression, and it is clear that this second sense has nothing to do +with the ethical concept. The law, which is at once ethical and +aesthetic, reveals itself in this case in a word employed alike by Ethic +and Aesthetic. + + + + +VII + +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + + + [Sidenote] _The two forms of practical activity._ + +The twofold grade of the theoretical activity, aesthetic and logical, +has an important parallel in the practical activity, which has not yet +been placed in due relief. The practical activity is also divided into a +first and second degree, the second implying the first. The first +practical degree is the simply _useful_ or _economical_ activity; the +second the _moral_ activity. + +Economy is, as it were, the Aesthetic of practical life; Morality its +Logic. + + [Sidenote] _The economically useful._ + +If this has not been clearly seen by philosophers; if its suitable place +in the system of the mind has not been given to the economic activity, +and it has been left to wander in the prolegomena to treatises on +political economy, often uncertain and but slightly elaborated, this is +due, among other reasons, to the fact that the useful or economic has +been confused, now with the concept of _technique_, now with that of the +_egoistic_. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the technical._ + +_Technique_ is certainly not a special activity of the spirit. +Technique is knowledge; or better, it is knowledge itself, in general, +that takes this name, as we have seen, in so far as it serves as basis +for practical action. Knowledge which is not followed, or is presumed to +be not easily followed by practical action, is called pure: the same +knowledge, if effectively followed by action, is called applied; if it +is presumed that it can be easily followed by the same action, it is +called technical or applied. This word, then, indicates a _situation_ in +which knowledge already is, or easily can be found, not a special form +of knowledge. So true is this, that it would be altogether impossible to +establish whether a given order of knowledge were, intrinsically, pure +or applied. All knowledge, however abstract and philosophical one may +imagine it to be, can be a guide to practical acts; a theoretical error +in the ultimate principles of morals can be reflected and always is +reflected in some way, in practical life. One can only speak roughly and +unscientifically of truths that are pure and of others that are applied. + +The same knowledge which is called technical, can also be called +_useful_. But the word "useful," in conformity with the criticism of +judgments of value made above, is to be understood as used here in a +linguistic or metaphorical sense. When we say that water is useful for +putting out fire, the word "useful" is used in a non-scientific sense. +Water thrown on the fire is the cause of its going out: this is the +knowledge that serves for basis to the action, let us say, of firemen. +There is a link, not of nature, but of simple succession, between the +useful action of the person who extinguishes the conflagration, and this +knowledge. The technique of the effects of the water is the theoretical +activity which precedes; the _action_ of him who extinguishes the fire +is alone useful. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the egoistic._ + +Some economists identify utility with _egoism_, that is to say, with +merely economical action or desire, with that which is profitable to the +individual, in so far as individual, without regard to and indeed in +complete opposition to the moral law. The egoistic is the immoral. In +this case Economy would be a very strange science, standing, not beside, +but facing Ethic, like the devil facing God, or at least like the +_advocatus diaboli_ in the processes of canonization. Such a conception +of it is altogether inadmissible: the science of immorality is implied +in that of morality, as the science of the false is implied in _Logic_, +the science of the true, and a science of ineffectual expression in +Aesthetic, the science of successful expression. If, then, Economy were +the scientific treatment of egoism, it would be a chapter of Ethic, or +Ethic itself; because every moral determination implies, at the same +time, a negation of its contrary. + +Further, conscience tells us that to conduct oneself economically is not +to conduct oneself egoistically; that even the most morally scrupulous +man must conduct himself usefully (economically), if he does not wish to +be inconclusive and, therefore, not truly moral. If utility were egoism, +how could it be the duty of the altruist to behave like an egoist? + + [Sidenote] _Economic will and moral will._ + +If we are not mistaken, the difficulty is solved in a manner perfectly +analogous to that in which is solved the problem of the relations +between the expression and the concept, between Aesthetic and Logic. + +To will economically is to _will an end_; to will morally is to _will +the rational end_. But whoever wills and acts morally, cannot but will +and act usefully (economically). How could he will the _rational_, +unless he willed it also _as his particular end_? + + [Sidenote] _Pure economicity._ + +The reciprocal is not true; as it is not true in aesthetic science that +the expressive fact must of necessity be linked with the logical fact. +It is possible to will economically without willing morally; and it is +possible to conduct oneself with perfect economic coherence, while +pursuing an end which is objectively irrational (immoral), or, better, +an end which would be so judged in a superior grade of consciousness. + +Examples of the economic, without the moral character, are the Prince of +Machiavelli, Caesar Borgia, or the Iago of Shakespeare. Who can help +admiring their strength of will, although their activity is only +economic, and is opposed to what we hold moral? Who can help admiring +the ser Ciappelletto of Boccaccio, who, even on his death-bed, pursues +and realizes his ideal of the perfect rascal, making the small and timid +little thieves who are present at his burlesque confession exclaim: +"What manner of man is this, whose perversity, neither age, nor +infirmity, nor the fear of death, which he sees at hand, nor the fear of +God, before whose judgment-seat he must stand in a little while, have +been able to remove, nor to cause that he should not wish to die as he +has lived?" + + [Sidenote] _The economic side of morality._ + +The moral man unites with the pertinacity and fearlessness of a Caesar +Borgia, of an Iago, or of a ser Ciappelletto, the good will of the saint +or of the hero. Or, better, good will would not be will, and +consequently not good, if it did not possess, in addition to the side +which makes it _good_, also that which makes it _will_. Thus a logical +thought, which does not succeed in expressing itself, is not thought, +but at the most, a confused presentiment of a thought yet to come. + +It is not correct, then, to conceive of the amoral man as also the +anti-economical man, or to make of morality an element of coherence in +the acts of life, and therefore of economicity. Nothing prevents us from +conceiving (an hypothesis which is verified at least during certain +periods and moments, if not during whole lifetimes) a man altogether +without moral conscience. In a man thus organized, what for us is +immorality is not so for him, because it is not so felt. The +consciousness of the contradiction between what is desired as a rational +end and what is pursued egoistically cannot be born in him. This +contradiction is anti-economicity. Immoral conduct becomes also +anti-economical only in the man who possesses moral conscience. The +moral remorse which is the proof of this, is also economical remorse; +that is to say, pain at not having known how to will completely and to +attain to that moral ideal which was willed at the first moment, but was +afterwards perverted by the passions. _Video meliora proboque, deteriora +sequor_. The _video_ and the _probo_ are here an initial will +immediately contradicted and passed over. In the man deprived of moral +sense, we must admit a remorse which is _merely economic_; like that of +a thief or of an assassin who should be attacked when on the point of +robbing or of assassinating, and should abstain from doing so, not owing +to a conversion of his being, but owing to his impressionability and +bewilderment, or even owing to a momentary awakening of the moral +consciousness. When he has come back to himself, that thief or assassin +will regret and be ashamed of his inconsequence; his remorse will not be +due to having done wrong, but to not having done it; his remorse is, +therefore, economic, not moral, since the latter is excluded by +hypothesis. However, a lively moral conscience is generally found among +the majority of men, and its total absence is a rare and perhaps +non-existent monstrosity. It may, therefore, be admitted, that morality +coincides with economicity in the conduct of life. + + [Sidenote] _The merely economic and the error of the morally + indifferent._ + +There need be no fear lest the parallelism affirmed by us should +introduce afresh into the category of the _morally indifferent_, of that +which is in truth action and volition, but is neither moral nor immoral; +the category in sum of the _licit_ and of the _permissible_, which has +always been the cause or mirror of ethical corruption, as is the case +with Jesuitical morality in which it dominated. It remains quite certain +that indifferent moral actions do not exist, because moral activity +pervades and must pervade every least volitional movement of man. But +this, far from upsetting the parallelism, confirms it. Do there exist +intuitions which science and the intellect do not pervade and analyse, +resolving them into universal concepts, or changing them into historical +affirmations? We have already seen that true science, philosophy, knows +no external limits which bar its way, as happens with the so-called +natural sciences. Science and morality entirely dominate, the one the +aesthetic intuitions, the other the economic volitions of man, although +neither of them can appear in the concrete, save in the intuitive form +as regards the one, in the economic as regards the other. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of utilitarianism and the reform of Ethic and + of Economic._ + +This combined identity and difference of the useful and of the moral, of +the economic and of the ethic, explains the fortune enjoyed now and +formerly by the utilitarian theory of Ethic. It is in fact easy to +discover and to show a utilitarian side in every moral action; as it is +easy to show an aesthetic side of every logical proposition. The +criticism of ethical utilitarianism cannot escape by denying this truth +and seeking out absurd and inexistent examples of _useless_ moral +actions. It must admit the utilitarian side and explain it as the +concrete form of morality, which consists of what is _within_ this form. +Utilitarians do not see this within. This is not the place for a more +ample development of such ideas. Ethic and Economic cannot but be +gainers, as we have said of Logic and Aesthetic, by a more exact +determination of the relations that exist between them. Economic science +is now rising to the animating concept of the useful, as it strives to +pass beyond the mathematical phase, in which it is still entangled; a +phase which, when it superseded historicism, was in its turn a progress, +destroying a series of arbitrary distinctions and false theories of +Economic, implied in the confusion of the theoretical with the +historical. With this conception, it will be easy on the one hand to +absorb and to verify the semi-philosophical theories of so-called pure +economy, and on the other, by the introduction of successive +complications and additions, and by passing from the philosophical to +the empirical or naturalistic method, to include the particular theories +of the political or national economy of the schools. + + [Sidenote] _Phenomenon and noumenon in practical activity._ + +As aesthetic intuition knows the phenomenon or nature, and philosophic +intuition the noumenon or spirit; so economic activity wills the +phenomenon or nature, and moral activity the noumenon or spirit. _The +spirit which desires itself_, its true self, the universal which is in +the empirical and finite spirit: that is the formula which perhaps +defines the essence of morality with the least impropriety. This will +for the true self is _absolute liberty_. + + + + +VIII + +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + + + [Sidenote] _The system of the spirit._ + +In this summary sketch that we have given, of the entire philosophy of +the spirit in its fundamental moments, the spirit is conceived as +consisting of four moments or grades, disposed in such a way that the +theoretical activity is to the practical as is the first theoretical +grade to the second theoretical, and the first practical grade to the +second practical. The four moments imply one another regressively by +their concretion. The concept cannot be without expression, the useful +without the one and the other, and morality without the three preceding +grades. If the aesthetic fact is alone independent, and the others more +or less dependent, then the logical is the least so and the moral will +the most. Moral intention operates on given theoretic bases, which +cannot be dispensed with, save by that absurd practice, the jesuitical +_direction of intention_. Here people pretend to themselves not to know +what at bottom they know perfectly well. + + [Sidenote] _The forms of genius._ + +If the forms of human activity are four, four also are the forms of +genius. Geniuses in art, in science, in moral will or heroes, have +certainly always been recognized. But the genius of pure Economic has +met with opposition. It is not altogether without reason that a category +of bad geniuses or of _geniuses of evil_ has been created. The +practical, merely economic genius, which is not directed to a rational +end, cannot but excite an admiration mingled with alarm. It would be a +mere question of words, were we to discuss whether the word "genius" +should be applied only to creators of aesthetic expression, or also to +men of scientific research and of action. To observe, on the other hand, +that genius, of whatever kind it be, is always a quantitative conception +and an empirical distinction, would be to repeat what has already been +explained as regards artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a fifth form of activity. Law; + sociality._ + +A fifth form of spiritual activity does not exist. It would be easy to +demonstrate how all the other forms, either do not possess the character +of activity, or are verbal variants of the activities already examined, +or are complex and derived facts, in which the various activities are +mingled, or are filled with special contents and contingent data. + +The _judicial_ fact, for example, considered as what is called objective +law, is derived both from the economic and from the logical activities. +Law is a rule, a formula (whether oral or written matters little here) +in which is contained an economic relation willed by an individual or by +a collectivity. This economic side at once unites it with and +distinguishes it from moral activity. Take another example. Sociology +(among the many meanings the word bears in our times) is sometimes +conceived as the study of an original element, which is called +_sociality_. Now what is it that distinguishes sociality, or the +relations which are developed in a meeting of men, not of subhuman +beings, if it be not just the various spiritual activities which exist +among the former and which are supposed not to exist, or to exist only +in a rudimentary degree, among the latter? Sociality, then, far from +being an original, simple, irreducible conception, is very complex and +complicated. This could be proved by the impossibility, generally +recognized, of enunciating a single sociological law, properly +so-called. Those that are improperly called by that name are revealed as +either empirical historical observations, or spiritual laws, that is to +say judgments, into which are translated the conceptions of the +spiritual activities; when they are not simply empty and indeterminate +generalizations, like the so-called law of evolution. Sometimes, too, +nothing more is understood by sociality than social rule, and so law; +and thus sociology is confounded with the science or theory of law +itself. Law, sociality, and like terms, are to be dealt with in a mode +analogous to that employed by us in the consideration of historicity and +technique. + + [Sidenote] _Religiosity._ + +It may seem fitting to form a different judgment as to _religious_ +activity. But religion is nothing but knowledge, and does not differ +from its other forms and subforms. For it is in truth and in turn either +the expression of practical and ideal aspirations (religious ideals), or +historical narrative (legend), or conceptual science (dogma). + +It can therefore be maintained with equal truth, both that religion is +destroyed by the progress of human knowledge, and that it is always +present there. Their religion was the whole patrimony of knowledge of +primitive peoples: our patrimony of knowledge is our religion. The +content has been changed, bettered, refined, and it will change and +become better and more refined in the future also; but its function is +always the same. We do not know what use could be made of religion by +those who wish to preserve it side by side with the theoretic activity +of man, with his art, with his criticism, and with his philosophy. It is +impossible to preserve an imperfect and inferior kind of knowledge, like +religion, side by side with what has surpassed and disproved it. +Catholicism, which is always coherent, will not tolerate a Science, a +History, an Ethic, in contradiction to its views and doctrines. The +rationalists are less coherent. They are disposed to allow a little +space in their souls for a religion which is in contradiction with their +whole theoretic world. + +These affectations and religious susceptibilities of the rationalists of +our times have their origin in the superstitious cult of the natural +sciences. These, as we know and as is confessed by the mouth of their +chief adepts, are all surrounded by _limits_. Science having been +wrongly identified with the so-called natural sciences, it could be +foreseen that the remainder would be asked of religion; that remainder +with which the human spirit cannot dispense. We are therefore indebted +to materialism, to positivism, to naturalism for this unhealthy and +often disingenuous reflowering of religious exaltation. Such things are +the business of the hospital, when they are not the business of the +politician. + + [Sidenote] _Metaphysic._ + +Philosophy withdraws from religion all reason for existing, because it +substitutes itself for religion. As the science of the spirit, it looks +upon religion as a phenomenon, a transitory historical fact, a psychic +condition that can be surpassed. Philosophy shares the domain of +knowledge with the natural disciplines, with history and with art. It +leaves to the first, narration, measurement and classification; to the +second, the chronicling of what has individually happened; to the third, +the individually possible. There is nothing left to share with religion. +For the same reason, philosophy, as the science of the spirit, cannot be +philosophy of the intuitive datum; nor, as has been seen, _Philosophy of +History, nor Philosophy of Nature_; and therefore there cannot be a +philosophic science of what is not form and universal, but material and +particular. This amounts to affirming the impossibility of _metaphysic_. + +The Method or Logic of history followed the Philosophy of history; a +gnoseology of the conceptions which are employed in the natural sciences +succeeded natural philosophy. What philosophy can study of the one is +its mode of construction (intuition, perception, document, probability, +etc.); of the others she can study the forms of the conceptions which +appear in them (space, time, motion, number, types, classes, etc.). +Philosophy, which should become metaphysical in the sense above +described, would, on the other hand, claim to compete with narrative +history, and with the natural sciences, which in their field are alone +legitimate and effective. Such a competition becomes in fact a labour +spoiling labour. We are _antimetaphysical_ in this sense, while yet +declaring ourselves _ultrametaphysical_, if by that word it be desired +to claim and to affirm the function of philosophy as the +autoconsciousness of the spirit, as opposed to the merely empirical and +classificatory function of the natural sciences. + + [Sidenote] _Mental imagination and the intuitive intellect._ + +In order to maintain itself side by side with the sciences of the +spirit, metaphysic has been obliged to assert the existence of a +specific spiritual activity, of which it would be the product. This +activity, which in antiquity was called _mental or superior +imagination_, and in modern times more often _intuitive intellect or +intellectual intuition_, would unite in an altogether special form the +characters of imagination and of intellect. It would provide the method +of passing, by deduction or dialectically, from the infinite to the +finite, from form to matter, from the concept to the intuition, from +science to history, operating by a method which should be at once unity +and compenetration of the universal and the particular, of the abstract +and the concrete, of intuition and of intellect. A faculty marvellous +indeed and delightful to possess; but we, who do not possess it, have no +means of proving its existence. + + [Sidenote] _Mystical aesthetic._ + +Intellectual intuition has sometimes been considered as the true +aesthetic activity. At others a not less marvellous aesthetic activity +has been placed beside, below, or above it, a faculty altogether +different from simple intuition. The glories of this faculty have been +sung, and to it have been attributed the fact of art, or at the least +certain groups of artistic production, arbitrarily chosen. Art, +religion, and philosophy have seemed in turn one only, or three distinct +faculties of the spirit, now one, now another of these being superior in +the dignity assigned to each. + +It is impossible to enumerate all the various attitudes assumed by this +conception of Aesthetic, which we will call _mystical_. We are here in +the kingdom, not of the science of imagination, but of imagination +itself, which creates its world with the varying elements of the +impressions and of the feelings. Let it suffice to mention that this +mysterious faculty has been conceived, now as practical, now as a mean +between the theoretic and the practical, at others again as a theoretic +grade together with philosophy and religion. + + [Sidenote] _Mortality and immortality of art._ + +The immortality of art has sometimes been deduced from this last +conception as belonging with its sisters to the sphere of absolute +spirit. At other times, on the other hand, when religion has been looked +upon as mortal and as dissolved in philosophy, then the mortality, even +the actual death, or at least the agony of art has been proclaimed. +These questions have no meaning for us, because, seeing that the +function of art is a necessary grade of the spirit, to ask if art can be +eliminated is the same thing as asking if sensation or intelligence can +be eliminated. But metaphysic, in the above sense, since it transplants +itself to an arbitrary world, is not to be criticized in detail, any +more than one can criticize the botany of the garden of Alcina or the +navigation of the voyage of Astolfo. Criticism can only be made by +refusing to join the game; that is to say, by rejecting the very +possibility of metaphysic, always in the sense above indicated. + +As we do not admit intellectual intuition in philosophy, we can also not +admit its shadow or equivalent, aesthetic intellectual intuition, or any +other mode by which this imaginary function may be called and +represented. We repeat again that we do not know of a fifth grade beyond +the four grades of spirit which consciousness reveals to us. + + + + +IX + +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + + + [Sidenote] _The characteristics of art._ + +It is customary to give long enumerations of the characteristics of art. +Having reached this point of the treatise, having studied the artistic +function as spiritual activity, as theoretic activity, and as special +theoretic activity (intuitive), we are able to discern that those +various and copious descriptions mean, when they mean anything at all, +nothing but a repetition of what may be called the qualities of the +aesthetic function, generic, specific, and characteristic. To the first +of these are referred, as we have already observed, the characters, or +better, the verbal variants of _unity_, and of _unity_ in _variety_, +those also of _simplicity_, of _originality_, and so on; to the second of +these, the characteristics of _truth_, of _sincerity_, and the like; to +the third, the characteristics of _life_, of _vivacity_, of _animation_, +of _concretion_, of _individuality_, of _characteristicality_. The words +may vary yet more, but they will not contribute anything scientifically +new. The results which we have shown have altogether exhausted the +analysis of expression as such. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of modes of expression._ + +But at this point, the question as to whether there be various _modes or +grades_ of expression is still perfectly legitimate. We have +distinguished two grades of activity, each of which is subdivided into +two other grades, and there is certainly, so far, no visible logical +reason why there should not exist two or more modes of the aesthetic, +that is of expression.--The only objection is that these modes do not +exist. + +For the present at least, it is a question of simple internal +observation and of self consciousness. One may scrutinize aesthetic +facts as much as one will: no formal differences will ever be found +among them, nor will the aesthetic fact be divisible into a first and a +second degree. + +This signifies that a philosophical classification of expressions is not +possible. Single expressive facts are so many individuals, of which the +one cannot be compared with the other, save generically, in so far as +each is expression. To use the language of the schools, expression is a +species which cannot in its turn perform the functions of genus. +Impressions, that is to say contents, vary; every content differs from +every other content, because nothing in life repeats itself; and the +continuous variation of contents follows the irreducible variety of +expressive facts, the aesthetic syntheses of the impressions. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of translations._ + +A corollary of this is the impossibility of _translations_, in so far as +they pretend to effect the transference of one expression into another, +like a liquid poured from a vase of a certain shape into a vase of +another shape. We can elaborate logically what we have already +elaborated in aesthetic form only; but we cannot reduce that which has +already possessed its aesthetic form to another form also aesthetic. In +truth, every translation either diminishes and spoils; or it creates a +new expression, by putting the former back into the crucible and mixing +it with other impressions belonging to the pretended translator. In the +former case, the expression always remains one, that of the original, +the translation being more or less deficient, that is to say, not +properly expression: in the other case, there would certainly be two +expressions, but with two different contents. "Ugly faithful ones or +faithless beauties" is a proverb that well expresses the dilemma with +which every translator is faced. In aesthetic translations, such as +those which are word for word or interlinear, or paraphrastic +translations, are to be looked upon as simple commentaries on the +original. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of rhetorical categories._ + +The division of expressions into various classes is known in literature +by the name of theory of _ornament_ or of _rhetorical categories_. But +similar attempts at classification in the other forms of art are not +wanting: suffice it to mention the _realistic and symbolic forms_, +spoken of in painting and sculpture. + +The scientific value to be attached in Aesthetic and in aesthetic +criticism to these distinctions of _realistic and symbolic_, of _style +and absence of style_, of _objective and subjective_, of _classic and +romantic_, of _simple and ornate_, of _proper and metaphorical_, of the +fourteen forms of metaphor, of the figures of _word_ and of _sentence_, +and further of _pleonasm_, of _ellipse_, of _inversion_, of +_repetition_, of _synonyms and homonyms_, and so on; is _nil_ or +altogether negative. To none of these terms and distinctions can be +given a satisfactory aesthetic definition. Those that have been +attempted, when they are not obviously erroneous, are words devoid of +sense. A typical example of this is the very common definition of +metaphor as of _another word used in place of the word itself_. Now why +give oneself this trouble? Why take the worse and longer road when you +know the shorter and better road? Perhaps, as is generally said, because +the correct word is in certain cases not so _expressive_ as the +so-called incorrect word or metaphor? But in that case the metaphor +becomes exactly the right word, and the so-called right word, if it were +used, would be _but little expressive_ and therefore most improper. +Similar observations of elementary good sense can be made regarding the +other categories, as, for example, the generic one of the ornate. One +can ask oneself how an ornament can be joined to expression. Externally? +In that case it must always remain separate. Internally? In that case, +either it does not assist expression and mars it; or it does form part +of it and is not ornament, but a constituent element of expression, +indistinguishable from the whole. + +It is not necessary to dwell upon the harm done by these distinctions. +Rhetoric has often been declaimed against, but although there has been +rebellion against its consequences, its principles have been carefully +preserved, perhaps in order to show proof of philosophic coherence. +Rhetoric has contributed, if not to make dominant in literary +production, at least to justify theoretically, that particular mode of +writing ill which is called fine writing or writing according to +rhetoric. + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the rhetorical categories._ + +The terms above mentioned would never have gone beyond the schools, +where we all of us learned them (certain of never finding the +opportunity of using them in strictly aesthetic discussions, or even of +doing so jocosely and with a comic intention), save when occasionally +employed in one of the following significations: as _verbal variants _of +the aesthetic concept; as indications of the _anti-aesthetic_, or, +finally (and this is their most important use), in a sense which is no +longer aesthetic and literary, _but merely logical_. + + [Sidenote] _Use of these categories as synonyms of the aesthetic + fact._ + +Expressions are not divisible into classes, but some are successful, +others half-successful, others failures. There are perfect and +imperfect, complete and deficient expressions. The terms already cited, +then, sometimes indicate the successful expression, sometimes the +various forms of the failures. But they are employed in the most +inconstant and capricious manner, for it often happens that the same +word serves, now to proclaim the perfect, now to condemn the imperfect. + +An instance of this is found when someone, criticizing two pictures--the +one without inspiration, in which the author has copied natural objects +without intelligence; the other inspired, but without obvious likeness +to existing objects--calls the first _realistic_, the second _symbolic_. +Others, on the contrary, pronounce the word _realistic_ about a strongly +felt picture representing a scene of ordinary life, while they talk of +_symbolic_ in reference to another picture representing but a cold +allegory. It is evident that in the first case symbolic means artistic, +and realistic inartistic, while in the second, realistic is synonymous +with artistic and symbolic with inartistic. How, then, can we be +astonished when some hotly maintain that the true art form is the +symbolic, and that the realistic is inartistic; others, that the +realistic is the artistic, and the symbolic the inartistic? We cannot +but grant that both are right, since each makes use of the same words in +senses so diverse. + +The great disputes about the _classic_ and the _romantic_ are frequently +based upon such equivokes. Sometimes the former was understood as the +artistically perfect, and the second as lacking balance and imperfect; +at others, the classic was cold and artificial, the romantic sincere, +warm, efficacious, and truly expressive. Thus it was always possible to +take the side of the classic against the romantic, or of the romantic +against the classic. + +The same thing happens as regards the word _style_. Sometimes it is +affirmed that every writer should have style. Here style is synonymous +with form or expression. Sometimes the form of a code of laws or of a +mathematical work is said to be devoid of style. Here the error of +admitting diverse modes of expression is again committed, of admitting +an ornate and a naked form of expression, because, since style is form, +the code and the mathematical treatise must also, strictly speaking, +have each its style. At other times, one hears the critics blaming +someone for "having too much style" or for "writing a style." Here it is +clear that style signifies, not the form, nor a mode of it, but improper +and pretentious expression, which is one form of the inartistic. + + [Sidenote] _Their use to indicate various aesthetic imperfections._ + +Passing to the second, not altogether insignificant, use of these words +and distinctions, we sometimes find in the examination of a literary +composition such remarks as follow: here is a pleonasm, here an ellipse, +there a metaphor, here again a synonym or an equivoke. This means that +in one place is an error consisting of using a larger number of words +than is necessary (pleonasm); that in another the error arises from too +few having been used (ellipse), elsewhere from the use of an unsuitable +word (metaphor), or from the use of two words which seem to express two +different things, where they really express the same thing (synonym); or +that, on the contrary, it arises from having employed one which seems to +express the same thing where it expresses two different things +(equivoke). This pejorative and pathological use of the terms is, +however, more uncommon than the preceding. + + [Sidenote] _Their use in a sense transcending aesthetic, in the + service of science._ + +Finally, when rhetorical terminology possesses no aesthetic +signification similar or analogous to those passed in review, and yet +one is aware that it is not void of meaning and designates something +that deserves to be noted, it is then used in the service of logic and +of science. If it be granted that a concept used in a scientific sense +by a given writer is expressed with a definite term, it is natural that +other words formed by that writer as used to signify the same concept, +or incidentally made use of by him, become, _in respect to_ the +vocabulary fixed upon by him as true, metaphors, synecdoches, synonyms, +elliptic forms, and the like. We, too, in the course of this treatise, +have several times made use of, and intend again to make use of such +terms, in order to make clear the sense of the words we employ, or may +find employed. But this proceeding, which is of value in the +disquisitions of scientific and intellectual criticism, has none +whatever in aesthetic criticism. For science there exist appropriate +words and metaphors. The same concept may be psychologically formed in +various circumstances and therefore be expressed with various +intuitions. When the scientific terminology of a given writer has been +established, and one of these modes has been fixed as correct, then all +other uses of it become improper or tropical. But in the aesthetic fact +exist only appropriate words. The same intuition can only be expressed +in one way, precisely because it is an intuition and not a concept. + + [Sidenote] _Rhetoric in the schools._ + +Some, while they admit the aesthetic insufficiency of the rhetorical +categories, yet make a reserve as regards their utility and the service +they are supposed to render, especially in schools of literature. We +confess that we fail to understand how error and confusion can educate +the mind to logical clearness, or aid the teaching of a science which +they disturb and obscure. Perhaps it may be desired to say that they can +aid memory and learning as empirical classes, as was admitted above for +literary and artistic styles. But there is another purpose for which the +rhetorical categories should certainly continue to be admitted to the +schools: to be criticized there. We cannot simply forget the errors of +the past, and truth cannot be kept alive, save by making it fight +against error. Unless a notion of the rhetorical categories be given, +accompanied by a suitable criticism of these, there is a risk of their +springing up again. For they are already springing up with certain +philologists, disguised as most recent _psychological_ discoveries. + + [Sidenote] _The resemblances of expressions._ + +It would seem as though we wished to deny all bond of likeness among +themselves between expressions and works of art. The likenesses exist, +and owing to them, works of art can be arranged in this or that group. +But they are likenesses such as are observed among individuals, and can +never be rendered with abstract definitions. That is to say, these +likenesses have nothing to do with identification, subordination, +co-ordination, and the other relations of concepts. They consist wholly +in what is called a _family likeness_, and are connected with those +historical conditions existing at the birth of the various works, or in +an affinity of soul between the artists. + + [Sidenote] _The relative possibility of translations._ + +It is in these resemblances that lies the _relative_ possibility of +translations. This does not consist of the reproduction of the same +original expressions (which it would be vain to attempt), but in the +measure that expressions are given, more or less nearly resembling +those. The translation that passes for good is an approximation which +has original value as a work of art and can stand by itself. + + + + +X + +AESTHETIC FEELINGS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE UGLY AND THE +BEAUTIFUL + + +Passing on to the study of more complex concepts, where the aesthetic +activity is found in conjunction with other orders of facts, and showing +the mode of this union or complication, we find ourselves at once face +to face with the concept of _feeling_ and with the feelings which are +called _aesthetic_. + + [Sidenote] _Various significances of the word feeling._ + +The word "feeling" is one of the richest in meanings. We have already +had occasion to meet with it once, among those used to designate the +spirit in its passivity, the matter or content of art, and also as +synonym of _impressions_. Once again (and then the meaning was +altogether different), we have met with it as designating the +_non-logical_ and _non-historical_ character of the aesthetic fact, that +is to say pure intuition, a form of truth which defines no concept and +states no fact. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as activity._ + +But feeling is not here understood in either of these two senses, nor in +the others in which it has nevertheless been used to designate other +_cognoscitive_ forms of spirit. Its meaning here is that of a special +activity, of non-cognoscitive nature, but possessing its two poles, +positive and negative, in _pleasure_ and _pain_. This activity has +always greatly embarrassed philosophers, who have attempted either to +deny it as an activity, or to attribute it to _nature_ and to exclude it +from spirit. Both solutions bristle with difficulties, and these are of +such a kind that the solutions prove themselves finally unacceptable to +anyone who examines them with care. For of what could a non-spiritual +activity consist, an _activity of nature_, when we have no other +knowledge of activity save as spiritual, and of spirituality save as +activity? Nature is, in this case, by definition, the merely passive, +inert, mechanical and material. On the other hand, the negation of the +character of activity to feeling is energetically disproved by those +very poles of pleasure and of pain which appear in it and manifest +activity in its concreteness, and, we will say, all aquiver. + + [Sidenote] _Identification of feeling with economic activity._ + +This critical conclusion ought to place us in the greatest +embarrassment, for in the sketch of the system of the spirit given +above, we have left no room for the new activity, of which we are now +obliged to recognize the existence. But activity of feeling, if it be +activity, is not specially new. It has already had its place assigned to +it in the system which we have sketched, where, however, it has been +indicated under another name, as _economic_ activity. What is called the +activity of feeling is nothing but that more elementary and fundamental +practical activity, which we have distinguished from ethical activity, +and made to consist of the appetite and desire for some individual end, +without any moral determination. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of hedonism._ + +If feeling has been sometimes considered as organic or natural activity, +this has happened precisely because it does not coincide either with +logical, aesthetic, or ethical activity. Looked at from the standpoint +of these three (which were the only ones admitted), it has seemed to lie +_outside_ the true and real spirit, the spirit in its aristocracy, and +to be almost a determination of nature and of the soul, in so far as it +is nature. Thus the thesis, several times maintained, that the aesthetic +activity, like the ethical and intellectual activities, is not feeling, +becomes at once completely proved. This thesis was inexpugnable, when +sensation had already been reduced confusedly and implicitly to economic +volition. The view which has been refuted is known by the name of +_hedonism_. For hedonism, all the various forms of the spirit are +reduced to one, which thus itself also loses its own distinctive +character and becomes something turbid and mysterious, like "the shades +in which all cows are black." Having effected this reduction and +mutilation, the hedonists naturally do not succeed in seeing anything +else in any activity but pleasure and pain. They find no substantial +difference between the pleasure of art and that of an easy digestion, +between the pleasure of a good action and that of breathing the fresh +air with wide-expanded lungs. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as a concomitant to every form of activity._ + +But if the activity of feeling in the sense here defined must not be +substituted for all the other forms of spiritual activity, we have not +said that it cannot _accompany_ them. Indeed it accompanies them of +necessity, because they are all in close relation, both with one another +and with the elementary volitional form. Therefore each of them has for +concomitants individual volitions and volitional pleasures and pains +which are known as feeling. But we must not confound what is +concomitant, with the principal fact, and take the one for the other. +The discovery of the truth, or the satisfaction of a moral duty +fulfilled, produces in us a joy which makes our whole being vibrate, +for, by attaining to those forms of spiritual activity, it attains at +the same time that to which it was _practically_ tending, as to its end, +during the effort. Nevertheless, economic or hedonistic satisfaction, +ethical satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction, +remain always distinct, even when in union. + +Thus is solved at the same time the much-debated question, which has +seemed, not wrongly, a matter of life or death for aesthetic science, +namely, whether the feeling and the pleasure precede or follow, are +cause or effect of the aesthetic fact. We must enlarge this question, to +include the relation between the various spiritual forms, and solve it +in the sense that in the unity of the spirit one cannot talk of cause +and effect and of what comes first and what follows it in time. + +And once the relation above exposed is established, the statements, +which it is customary to make, as to the nature of aesthetic, moral, +intellectual, and even, as is sometimes said, economic feelings, must +also fall. In this last case, it is clear that it is a question, not of +two terms, but of one, and the quest of economic feeling can be but that +same one concerning the economic activity. But in the other cases also, +the search can never be directed to the substantive, but to the +adjective: aesthetic, morality, logic, explain the colouring of the +feelings as aesthetic, moral, and intellectual, while feeling, studied +alone, will never explain those refractions. + + [Sidenote] _Meaning of certain ordinary distinctions of feelings._ + +A further consequence is, that we can free ourselves from the +distinction between values or feelings _of value_, and feelings that are +merely hedonistic and _without value_; also from other similar +distinctions, like those between _disinterested_ feelings and +_interested_ feelings, between _objective _feelings and the others that +are not _objective_ but simply _subjective_, between feelings of +_approval_ and others of _mere pleasure_ (_Gefallen_ and _Vergnuegen_ of +the Germans). Those distinctions strove hard to save the three spiritual +forms, which have been recognised as the triad of the _True_, the +_Good_, and the _Beautiful_, from confusion with the fourth form, still +unknown, yet insidious through its indeterminateness, and mother of +scandals. For us this triad has finished its task, because we are +capable of reaching the distinction far more directly, by welcoming even +the selfish, subjective, merely pleasurable feelings, among the +respectable forms of the spirit; and where formerly antitheses were +conceived of by ourselves and others, between value and feelings, as +between spirituality and naturality, henceforth we see nothing but +difference between value and value. + + [Sidenote] _Value and disvalue: the contraries and their union._ + +As has already been said, the economic feeling or activity reveals +itself as divided into two poles, positive and negative, pleasure and +pain, which we can now translate into useful, and useless or hurtful. +This bipartition has already been noted above, as a mark of the active +character of feeling, precisely because the same bipartition is found in +all forms of activity. If each of these is a _value_, each has opposed +to it _antivalue or disvalue_. Absence of value is not sufficient to +cause disvalue, but activity and passivity must be struggling between +themselves, without the one getting the better of the other; hence the +contradiction, and the disvalue of the activity that is embarrassed, +contested, or interrupted. Value is activity that unfolds itself freely: +disvalue is its contrary. + +We will content ourselves with this definition of the two terms, without +entering into the problem of the relation between value and disvalue, +that is, between the problem of contraries. (Are these to be thought of +dualistically, as two beings or two orders of beings, like Ormuzd and +Ahriman, angels and devils, enemies to one another; or as a unity, which +is also contrariety?) This definition of the two terms will be +sufficient for our purpose, which is to make clear aesthetic activity in +particular, and one of the most obscure and disputed concepts of +Aesthetic which arises at this point: the concept of the _Beautiful_. + + [Sidenote] _The Beautiful as the value of expression, or expression + and nothing more._ + +Aesthetic, intellectual, economic, and ethical values and disvalues are +variously denominated in current speech: _beautiful, true, good, useful, +just_, and so on--these words designate the free development of +spiritual activity, action, scientific research, artistic production, +when they are successful; _ugly, false, bad, useless, unbecoming, +unjust, inexact_ designate embarrassed activity, the product of which is +a failure. In linguistic usage, these denominations are being +continually shifted from one order of facts to another, and from this to +that. _Beautiful_, for instance, is said not only of a successful +expression, but also of a scientific truth, of an action successfully +achieved, and of a moral action: thus we talk of an _intellectual +beauty_, of a _beautiful action_, of a _moral beauty_. Many +philosophers, especially aestheticians, have lost their heads in their +pursuit of these most varied uses: they have entered an inextricable and +impervious verbal labyrinth. For this reason it has hitherto seemed +convenient studiously to avoid the use of the word beautiful to indicate +successful expression. But after all the explanations that have been +given, and all danger of misunderstanding being now dissipated, and +since, on the other hand, we cannot fail to recognize that the +prevailing tendency, alike in current speech and in philosophy, is to +limit the meaning of the vocable _beautiful_ altogether to the aesthetic +value, we may define beauty as _successful expression_, or better, as +_expression_ and nothing more, because expression, when it is not +successful, is not expression. + + [Sidenote] _The ugly, and the elements of beauty which compose it._ + +Consequently, the ugly is unsuccessful expression. The paradox is true, +that, in works of art that are failures, the beautiful is present as +_unity_ and the ugly as _multiplicity_. Thus, with regard to works of +art that are more or less failures, we talk of qualities, that is to say +of _those parts of them that are beautiful_. We do not talk thus of +perfect works. It is in fact impossible to enumerate their qualities or +to designate those parts of them that are beautiful. In them there is +complete fusion: they have but one quality. Life circulates in the whole +organism: it is not withdrawn into certain parts. + +The qualities of works that are failures may be of various degrees. They +may even be very great. The beautiful does not possess degrees, for +there is no conceiving a more beautiful, that is, an expressive that is +more expressive, an adequate that is more than adequate. Ugliness, on +the other hand, does possess degrees, from the rather ugly (or almost +beautiful) to the extremely ugly. But if the ugly were _complete_, that +is to say, without any element of beauty, it would for that very reason +cease to be ugly, because in it would be absent the contradiction which +is the reason of its existence. The disvalue would become nonvalue; +activity would give place to passivity, with which it is not at war, +save when there effectively is war. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions that there exist expressions which are neither + beautiful nor ugly._ + +And because the distinctive consciousness of the beautiful and of the +ugly is based on the contrasts and contradictions in which aesthetic +activity is developed, it is evident that this consciousness becomes +attenuated to the point of disappearing altogether, as we descend from +the more complicated to the more simple and to the simplest cases of +expression. From this arises the illusion that there are expressions +which are neither beautiful nor ugly, those which are obtained without +sensible effort and appear easy and natural being so considered. + + [Sidenote] _True aesthetic feelings and concomitant or accidental + feelings._ + +The whole mystery of the _beautiful_ and the _ugly_ is reduced to these +henceforth most easy definitions. Should any one object that there exist +perfect aesthetic expressions before which no pleasure is felt, and +others, perhaps even failures, which give him the greatest pleasure, it +is necessary to advise him to pay great attention, as regards the +aesthetic fact, to that only which is truly aesthetic pleasure. +Aesthetic pleasure is sometimes reinforced by pleasures arising from +extraneous facts, which are only casually found united with it. The poet +or any other artist affords an instance of purely aesthetic pleasure, +during the moment in which he sees (or has the intuition of) his work +for the first time; that is to say, when his impressions take form and +his countenance is irradiated with the divine joy of the creator. On the +other hand, a mixed pleasure is experienced by any one who goes to the +theatre, after a day's work, to witness a comedy: when the pleasure of +rest and amusement, and that of laughingly snatching a nail from the +gaping coffin, is accompanied at a certain moment by real aesthetic +pleasure, obtained from the art of the dramatist and of the actors. The +same may be said of the artist who looks upon his labour with pleasure, +when it is finished, experiencing, in addition to the aesthetic +pleasure, that very different one which arises from the thought of +self-love satisfied, or of the economic gain which will come to him from +his work. Examples could be multiplied. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of apparent feelings._ + +A category of _apparent_ aesthetic feelings has been formed in modern +Aesthetic. These have nothing to do with the aesthetic sensations of +pleasure arising from the form, that is to say from the work of art. On +the contrary, they arise from the content of the work of art. It has +been observed that "artistic representations arouse pleasure and pain in +their infinite variety and gradations. We tremble with anxiety, we +rejoice, we fear, we laugh, we weep, we desire, with the personages of a +drama or of a romance, with the figures in a picture, or with the melody +of music. But these feelings are not those that would give occasion to +the real fact outside art; that is to say, they are the same in quality, +but they are quantitively an attenuation. Aesthetic and _apparent_ +pleasure and pain are slight, of little depth, and changeable." We have +no need to treat of these _apparent feelings_, for the good reason that +we have already amply discussed them; indeed, we have treated of them +alone. What are ever feelings that become apparent or manifest, but +feelings objectified, intensified, expressed? And it is natural that +they do not trouble and agitate us passionately, as do those of real +life, because those were matter, these are form and activity; those true +and proper feelings, these intuitions and expressions. The formula, +then, of _apparent feelings_ is nothing but a tautology. The best that +can be done is to run the pen through it. + + + + +XI + +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + + +As we are opposed to hedonism in general, that is to say, to the theory +which is based on the pleasure and pain intrinsic to Economy and +accompanies every other form of activity, confounding the content and +that which contains it, and fails to recognize any process but the +hedonistic; so we are opposed to aesthetic hedonism in particular, which +looks upon the aesthetic at any rate, if not also upon all other +activities, as a simple fact of feeling, and confounds the _pleasurable +of expression_, which is the beautiful, with the pleasurable and nothing +more, and with the pleasurable of all sorts. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful as that which pleases the + higher senses._ + +The aesthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several +forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which +pleases the sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called superior +senses. When analysis of aesthetic facts first began, it was, in fact, +difficult to avoid the mistake of thinking that a picture and a piece of +music are impressions of sight or of hearing: it was and is an +indisputable fact that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor the +deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the aesthetic fact +does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all +sensible impressions can be raised to aesthetic expression and that none +need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only +when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso +imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to +the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically +to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes +cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the viscerally +beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of play._ + +The theory of _play_ is another form of aesthetic hedonism. The +conception of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the +actifying character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is +not really man, save when he begins to play; that is to say, when he +frees himself from natural and mechanical causality and operates +spiritually; and his first game is art. But since the word _play_ also +means that pleasure which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant +energy of the organism (that is to say, from a practical act), the +consequence of this theory has been, that every game has been called an +aesthetic fact, and that the aesthetic function has been called a game, +in so far as it is possible to play with it, for, like science and every +other thing, Aesthetic can be made part of a game. But morality cannot +be provoked at the intention of playing, on the ground that it does not +consent; on the contrary, it dominates and regulates the act of playing +itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theories of sexuality and of the triumph._ + +Finally, there have been some who have tried to deduce the pleasure of +art from the reaction of the sexual organs. There are some very modern +aestheticians who place the genesis of the aesthetic fact in the +pleasure of _conquering_, of _triumphing_, or, as others add, in the +desire of the male, who wishes to conquer the female. This theory is +seasoned with much anecdotal erudition, Heaven knows of what degree of +credibility! on the customs of savage peoples. But in very truth there +was no necessity for such important aid, for one often meets in ordinary +life poets who adorn themselves with their poetry, like cocks that raise +their crests, or turkeys that spread their tails. But he who does such +things, in so far as he does them, is not a poet, but a poor devil of a +cock or turkey. The conquest of woman does not suffice to explain the +art fact. It would be just as correct to term poetry _economic_, because +there have been aulic and stipendiary poets, and there are poets the +sale of whose verses helps them to gain their livelihood, if it does not +altogether provide it. However, this definition has not failed to win +over some zealous neophytes of historical materialism. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic. Meaning in + it of content and form._ + +Another less vulgar current of thought considers Aesthetic to be the +science of the _sympathetic_, of that with which we sympathize, which +attracts, rejoices, gives us pleasure and excites admiration. But the +sympathetic is nothing but the image or representation of what pleases. +And, as such, it is a complex fact, resulting from a constant element, +the aesthetic element of representation, and from a variable element, +the pleasing in its infinite forms, arising from all the various classes +of values. + +In ordinary language, there is sometimes a feeling of repugnance at +calling an expression beautiful, which is not an expression of the +sympathetic. Hence the continual contrast between the point of view of +the aesthetician or of the art critic and that of the ordinary person, +who cannot succeed in persuading himself that the image of pain and of +turpitude can be beautiful, or, at least, can be beautiful with as much +right as the pleasing and the good. + +The opposition could be solved by distinguishing two different sciences, +one of expression and the other of the sympathetic, if the latter could +be the object of a special science; that is to say, if it were not, as +has been shown, a complex fact. If predominance be given to the +expressive fact, it becomes a part of Aesthetic as science of +expression; if to the pleasurable content, we fall back to the study of +facts which are essentially hedonistic (utilitarian), however +complicated they may appear. The origin, also, of the connexion between +content and form is to be sought for in the Aesthetic of the +sympathetic, when this is conceived as the sum of two values. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic hedonism and moralism._ + +In all the doctrines just now discussed, the art fact is posited as +merely hedonistic. But this view cannot be maintained, save by uniting +it with a philosophic hedonism that is complete and not partial, that is +to say, with a hedonism which does not admit any other form of value. +Hardly has this hedonistic conception of art been received by +philosophers, who admit one or more spiritual values, of truth or of +morality, than the following question must necessarily be asked: What +should be done with art? To what use should it be put? Should a free +course be allowed to its pleasures? And if so, to what extent? The +question of the _end of art_, which in the Aesthetic of expression would +be a contradiction of terms, here appears in place, and altogether +logical. + + [Sidenote] _The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic justification + of art._ + +Now it is evident that, admitting the premisses, but two solutions of +such a question can be given, the one altogether negative, the other +restrictive. The first, which we shall call _rigoristic_ or _ascetic_, +appears several times, although not frequently, in the history of ideas. +It looks upon art as an inebriation of the senses, and therefore, not +only useless, but harmful. According to this theory, then, it is +necessary to drive it with all our strength from the human soul, which +it troubles. The other solution, which we shall call _pedagogic_ or +_moralistico-utilitarian_, admits art, but only in so far as it concurs +with the end of morality; in so far as it assists with innocent pleasure +the work of him who leads to the true and the good; in so far as it +sprinkles with dulcet balm the sides of the vase of wisdom and of +morality. + +It is well to observe that it would be an error to divide this second +view into intellectualist and moralistico-utilitarian, according to +whether the end of leading to the true or to what is practically good, +be assigned to art. The task of instructing, which is imposed upon it, +precisely because it is an end which is sought after and advised, is no +longer merely a theoretical fact, but a theoretical fact become the +material for practical action; it is not, therefore, intellectualism, but +pedagogism and practicism. Nor would it be more exact to subdivide the +pedagogic view into the pure utilitarian and the moralistico-utilitarian; +because those who admit only the individually useful (the desire of the +individual), precisely because they are absolute hedonists, have no +motive for seeking an ulterior justification for art. + +But to enunciate these theories at the point to which we have attained +is to confute them. We therefore restrict ourselves to observing that in +the pedagogic theory of art is to be found another of the reasons why it +has been erroneously claimed that the content of art should be _chosen_ +with a view to certain practical effects. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of pure beauty._ + +The thesis, re-echoed by the artists, that art consists of _pure +beauty_, has often been brought forward against hedonistic and pedagogic +Aesthetic: "Heaven places All our joy in _pure beauty_, and the Verse is +everything." If it is wished that this should be understood in the sense +that art is not to be confounded with sensual pleasure, that is, in +fact, with utilitarian practicism, nor with moralism, then our Aesthetic +also must be permitted to adorn itself with the title of _Aesthetic of +pure beauty_. But if (as is often the case) something mystical and +transcendental be meant by this, something that is unknown to our poor +human world, or something spiritual and beatific, but not expressive, we +must reply that while applauding the conception of a beauty, free of all +that is not the spiritual form of expression, we are yet unable to +conceive a beauty altogether purified of expression, that is to say, +separated from itself. + + + + +XII + +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the aesthetic of the + sympathetic._ + +The doctrine of the sympathetic (very often animated and seconded in +this by the capricious metaphysical and mystical Aesthetic, and by that +blind tradition which assumes an intimate connection between things by +chance treated of together by the same authors and in the same books), +has introduced and rendered familiar in systems of Aesthetic, a series +of concepts, of which one example suffices to justify our resolute +expulsion of them from our own treatise. + +Their catalogue is long, not to say interminable: _tragic, comic, +sublime, pathetic, moving, sad, ridiculous, melancholy, tragi-comic, +humoristic, majestic, dignified, serious, grave, imposing, noble, +decorous, graceful, attractive, piquant, coquettish, idyllic, elegiac, +cheerful, violent, ingenuous, cruel, base, horrible, disgusting, +dreadful, nauseating_; the list can be increased at will. + +Since that doctrine took as its special object the sympathetic, it was +naturally unable to neglect any of the varieties of this, or any of the +combinations or gradations which lead at last from the sympathetic to +the antipathetic. And seeing that the sympathetic content was held to be +the _beautiful_ and the antipathetic the _ugly_, the varieties (tragic, +comic, sublime, pathetic, etc.) constituted for it the shades and +gradations intervening between the beautiful and the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of the + ugly surmounted._ + +Having enumerated and defined, as well as it could, the chief among +these varieties, the Aesthetic of the sympathetic set itself the problem +of the place to be assigned to the _ugly in art_. This problem is +without meaning for us, who do not recognize any ugliness save the +anti-aesthetic or inexpressive, which can never form part of the +aesthetic fact, being, on the contrary, its antithesis. But the question +for the doctrine which we are here criticizing was to reconcile in some +way the false and defective idea of art from which it started, reduced +to the representation of the agreeable, with effective art, which +occupies a far wider field. Hence the artificial attempt to settle what +examples of the ugly (antipathetic) could be admitted in artistic +representation, and for what reasons, and in what ways. + +The answer was: that the ugly is admissible, only when it can be +_overcome_, an unconquerable ugliness, such as the _disgusting_ or the +_nauseating_, being altogether excluded. Further, that the duty of the +ugly, when admitted in art, is to contribute towards heightening the +effect of the beautiful (sympathetic), by producing a series of +contrasts, from which the pleasurable shall issue more efficacious and +pleasure-giving. It is, in fact, a common observation that pleasure is +more vividly felt when It has been preceded by abstinence or by +suffering. Thus the ugly in art was looked upon as the servant of the +beautiful, its stimulant and condiment. + +That special theory of hedonistic refinement, which used to be pompously +called the _surmounting of the ugly_, falls with the general theory of +the sympathetic; and with it the enumeration and the definition of the +concepts mentioned above remain completely excluded from Aesthetic. For +Aesthetic does not recognize the sympathetic or the antipathetic In +their varieties, but only the spiritual activity of the representation. + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts belong to Psychology._ + +However, the large space which, as we have said, those concepts have +hitherto occupied in aesthetic treatises makes opportune a rather more +copious explanation of what they are. What will be their lot? As they +are excluded from Aesthetic, in what other part of Philosophy will they +be received? + +Truly, in none. All those concepts are without philosophical value. They +are nothing but a series of classes, which can be bent in the most +various ways and multiplied at pleasure, to which it is sought to reduce +the infinite complications and shadings of the values and disvalues of +life. Of those classes, there are some that have an especially positive +significance, like the beautiful, the sublime, the majestic, the solemn, +the serious, the weighty, the noble, the elevated; others have a +significance especially negative, like the ugly, the horrible, the +dreadful, the tremendous, the monstrous, the foolish, the extravagant; +in others prevails a mixed significance, as is the case with the comic, +the tender, the melancholy, the humorous, the tragi-comic. The +complications are infinite, because the individuations are infinite; +hence it is not possible to construct the concepts, save in the +arbitrary and approximate manner of the natural sciences, whose duty it +is to make as good a plan as possible of that reality which they cannot +exhaust by enumeration, nor understand and surpass speculatively. And +since _Psychology_ is the naturalistic discipline, which undertakes to +construct types and plans of the spiritual processes of man (of which, +in fact, it is always accentuating in our day the merely empirical and +descriptive character), these concepts do not appertain to Aesthetic, +nor, in general, to Philosophy. They must simply be handed over to +Psychology. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of rigoristic definitions of them._ + +As is the case with all other psychological constructions, so is it with +those concepts: no rigorous definitions are possible; and consequently +the one cannot be deduced from the other and they cannot be connected in +a system, as has, nevertheless, often been attempted, at great waste of +time and without result. But it can be claimed as possible to obtain, +apart from philosophical definitions recognised as impossible, empirical +definitions, universally acceptable as true. Since there does not exist +a unique definition of a given fact, but innumerable definitions can be +given of it, according to the cases and the objects for which they are +made, so it is clear that if there were only one, and that the true one, +this would no longer be an empirical, but a rigorous and philosophical +definition. Speaking exactly, every time that one of the terms to which +we have referred has been employed, or any other of the innumerable +series, a definition of it has at the same time been given, expressed or +understood. And each one of these definitions has differed somewhat from +the others, in some particular, perhaps of very small importance, such +as tacit reference to some individual fact or other, which thus became +especially an object of attention and was raised to the position of a +general type. So it happens that not one of such definitions satisfies +him who hears it, nor does it satisfy even him who constructs it. For, +the moment after, this same individual finds himself face to face with a +new case, for which he recognizes that his definition is more or less +insufficient, ill-adapted, and in need of remodelling. It is necessary, +therefore, to leave writers and speakers free to define the sublime or +the comic, the tragic or the humoristic, on every occasion, as they +please and as may seem suitable to their purpose. And if you insist upon +obtaining an empirical definition of universal validity, we can but +submit this one:--The sublime (comic, tragic, humoristic, etc.) is +_everything_ that is or will be so _called_ by those who have employed +or shall employ this _word_. + + [Sidenote] _Examples: definitions of the sublime, the comic, and + the humoristic._ + +What is the sublime? The unexpected affirmation of an ultra-powerful +moral force: that is one definition. But that other definition is +equally good, which also recognizes the sublime where the force which +declares itself is an ultra-powerful, but immoral and destructive will. +Both remain vague and assume no precise form, until they are applied to +a concrete case, which makes clear what is here meant by +_ultra-powerful_, and what by _unexpected_. They are quantitative +concepts, but falsely quantitative, since there is no way of measuring +them; they are, at bottom, metaphors, emphatic phrases, or logical +tautologies. The humorous will be laughter mingled with tears, bitter +laughter, the sudden passage from the comic to the tragic, and from the +tragic to the comic, the comic romantic, the inverted sublime, war +declared against every attempt at insincerity, compassion which is +ashamed to lament, the mockery not of the fact, but of the ideal itself; +and whatever else may better please, according as it is desired to get a +view of the physiognomy of this or that poet, of this or that poem, +which is, in its uniqueness, its own definition, and though momentary +and circumscribed, yet the sole adequate. The comic has been defined as +the displeasure arising from the perception of a deformity immediately +followed by a greater pleasure arising from the relaxation of our +psychical forces, which were strained in anticipation of a perception +whose importance was foreseen. While listening to a narrative, which, +for example, should describe the magnificent and heroic purpose of a +definite person, we anticipate in imagination the occurrence of an +action both heroic and magnificent, and we prepare ourselves to receive +it, by straining our psychic forces. If, however, in a moment, instead +of the magnificent and heroic action, which the premises and the tone of +the narrative had led us to expect, by an unexpected change there occur +a slight, mean, foolish action, unequal to our expectation, we have been +deceived, and the recognition of the deceit brings with it an instant of +displeasure. But this instant is as it were overcome by the one +immediately following, in which we are able to discard our strained +attention, to free ourselves from the provision of psychic energy +accumulated and, henceforth superfluous, to feel ourselves reasonable +and relieved of a burden. This is the pleasure of the comic, with its +physiological equivalent, laughter. If the unpleasant fact that has +occurred should painfully affect our interests, pleasure would not +arise, laughter would be at once choked, the psychic energy would be +strained and overstrained by other more serious perceptions. If, on the +other hand, such more serious perceptions do not arise, if the whole +loss be limited to a slight deception of our foresight, then the +supervening feeling of our psychic wealth affords ample compensation for +this very slight displeasure.--This, stated in a few words, is one of +the most accurate modern definitions of the comic. It boasts of +containing, justified or corrected, the manifold attempts to define the +comic, from Hellenic antiquity to our own day. It includes Plato's +dictum in the _Philebus_, and Aristotle's, which is more explicit. The +latter looks upon the comic as an _ugliness without pain_. It contains +the theory of Hobbes, who placed it in the feeling of _individual +superiority_; of Kant, who saw in it a _relaxation of tension_; and +those of other thinkers, for whom it was _the contrast between great and +small, between the finite and the infinite_. But on close observation, +the analysis and definition above given, although most elaborate and +rigorous in appearance, yet enunciates characteristics which are +applicable, not only to the comic, but to every spiritual process; such +as the succession of painful and agreeable moments and the satisfaction +arising from the consciousness of force and of its free development. The +differentiation here given is that of quantitative determinations, to +which limits cannot be assigned. They remain vague phrases, attaining to +some meaning from their reference to this or that single comic fact. If +such definitions be taken too seriously, there happens to them what Jean +Paul Richter said of all the definitions of the comic: namely, that +their sole merit is _to be themselves comic_ and to produce, in reality, +the fact, which they vainly try to define logically. And who will ever +determine logically the dividing line between the comic and the +non-comic, between smiles and laughter, between smiling and gravity; who +will cut into clearly divided parts that ever-varying continuity into +which life melts? + + [Sidenote] _Relations between those concepts and aesthetic concepts._ + +The facts, classified as well as possible in the above-quoted +psychological concepts, bear no relation to the artistic fact, beyond +the generic that all of them, in so far as they designate the material +of life, can be represented by art; and the other accidental relation, +that aesthetic facts also may sometimes enter into the processes +described, as in the impression of the sublime that the work of a +Titanic artist such as Dante or Shakespeare may produce, and that of the +comic produced by the effort of a dauber or of a scribbler. + +The process is external to the aesthetic fact In this case also; for the +only feeling linked with that is the feeling of aesthetic value and +disvalue, of the beautiful and of the ugly. The Dantesque Farinata is +aesthetically beautiful, and nothing but beautiful: if, in addition, the +force of will of this personage appear sublime, or the expression that +Dante gives him, by reason of his great genius, seem sublime by +comparison with that of a less energetic poet, all this is not a matter +for aesthetic consideration. This consists always and only in adequation +to truth; that is, in beauty. + + + + +XIII + +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic activity and physical concepts._ + +Aesthetic activity is distinct from practical activity but when it +expresses itself is always physical accompanied by practical activity. +Hence its utilitarian or hedonistic side, and the pleasure and pain, +which are, as it were, the practical echo of aesthetic values and +disvalues, of the beautiful and of the ugly. But this practical side of +the aesthetic activity has also, in its turn, a _physical_ or +_psychophysical_ accompaniment, which consists of sounds, tones, +movements, combinations of lines and colours, and so on. + +Does it _really_ possess this side, or does it only seem to possess it, +as the result of the construction which we raise in physical science, +and of the useful and arbitrary methods, which we have shown to be +proper to the empirical and abstract sciences? Our reply cannot be +doubtful, that is, it cannot be affirmative as to the first of the two +hypotheses. + +However, it will be better to leave it at this point in suspense, for it +is not at present necessary to prosecute this line of inquiry any +further. The mention already made must suffice to prevent our having +spoken of the physical element as of something objective and existing, +for reasons of simplicity and adhesion to ordinary language, from +leading to hasty conclusions as to the concepts and the connexion +between spirit and nature. + + [Sidenote] _Expression in the aesthetic sense, and expression in + the naturalistic sense._ + +It is important to make clear that as the existence of the hedonistic +side in every spiritual activity has given rise to the confusion between +the aesthetic activity and the useful or pleasurable, so the existence, +or, better, the possibility of constructing this physical side, has +generated the confusion between _aesthetic_ expression and expression +_in the naturalistic sense_; between a spiritual fact, that is to say, +and a mechanical and passive fact (not to say, between a concrete +reality and an abstraction or fiction). In common speech, sometimes it +is the words of the poet that are called _expressions_, the notes of the +musician, or the figures of the painter; sometimes the blush which is +wont to accompany the feeling of shame, the pallor resulting from fear, +the grinding of the teeth proper to violent anger, the glittering of the +eyes, and certain movements of the muscles of the mouth, which reveal +cheerfulness. A certain degree of heat is also said to be the +_expression_ of fever, as the falling of the barometer is of rain, and +even that the height of the rate of exchange _expresses_ the discredit +of the paper-money of a State, or social discontent the approach of a +revolution. One can well imagine what sort of scientific results would +be attained by allowing oneself to be governed by linguistic usage and +placing in one sheaf facts so widely different. But there is, in fact, +an abyss between a man who is the prey of anger with all its natural +manifestations, and another man who expresses it aesthetically; between +the aspect, the cries, and the contortions of one who is tortured with +sorrow at the loss of a dear one, and the words or song with which the +same individual portrays his torture at another moment; between the +distortion of emotion and the gesture of the actor. Darwin's book on the +expression of the feelings in man and animals does not belong to +Aesthetic; because there is nothing in common between the science of +spiritual expression and a _Semiotic_, whether it be medical, +meteorological, political, physiognomic, or chiromantic. + +Expression in the naturalistic sense simply lacks expression in the +spiritual sense, that is to say, the characteristic itself of activity +and of spirituality, and therefore the bipartition into poles of beauty +and of ugliness. It is nothing more than a relation between cause and +effect, fixed by the abstract intellect. The complete process of +aesthetic production can be symbolized in four steps, which are: _a_, +impressions; _b_, expression or spiritual aesthetic synthesis; _c_, +hedonistic accompaniment, or pleasure of the beautiful (aesthetic +pleasure); _d_, translation of the aesthetic fact into physical +phenomena (sounds, tones, movements, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.). Anyone can see that the capital point, the only one that is +properly speaking aesthetic and truly real, is in that _b_, which is +lacking to the mere manifestation or naturalistic construction, +metaphorically also called expression. + +The expressive process is exhausted when those four steps have been +taken. It begins again with new impressions, a new aesthetic synthesis, +and relative accompaniments. + + [Sidenote] _Intuitions and memory._ + +Expressions or representations follow and expel one another. Certainly, +this passing away, this disassociation, is not perishing, it is not +total elimination: nothing of what is born dies with that complete death +which would be identical with never having been born. Though all things +pass away, yet none can die. The representations which we have +forgotten, also persist in some way in our spirit, for without them we +could not explain acquired habits and capacities. Thus, the strength of +life lies in this apparent forgetting: one forgets what has been +absorbed and what life has superseded. + +But many other things, many other representations, are still efficacious +elements in the actual processes of our spirit; and it is incumbent on +us not to forget them, or to be capable of recalling them when necessity +demands them. The will is always vigilant in this work of preservation, +for it aims at preserving (so to say) the greater and more fundamental +part of all our riches. Certainly its vigilance is not always +sufficient. Memory, we know, leaves or betrays us in various ways. For +this very reason, the vigilant will excogitates expedients, which help +memory in its weakness, and are its _aids_. + + [Sidenote] _The production of aids to memory._ + +We have already explained how these aids are possible. Expressions or +representations are, at the same time, practical facts, which are also +called physical facts, in so far as to the physical belongs the task of +classifying them and reducing them to types. Now it is clear, that if we +can succeed in making those facts in some way permanent, it will always +be possible (other conditions remaining equal) to reproduce in us, by +perceiving it, the already produced expression or intuition. + +If that in which the practical concomitant acts, or (to use physical +terms) the movements have been isolated and made in some sort permanent, +be called the object or physical stimulus, and if it be designated by +the letter _e_; then the process of reproduction will take place in the +following order: _e_, the physical stimulus; _d-b_, perceptions of +physical facts (sounds, tones, mimic, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.), which form together the aesthetic synthesis, already produced; +_c_, the hedonistic accompaniment, which is also reproduced. + +And what are those combinations of words which are called poetry, prose, +poems, novels, romances, tragedies or comedies, but _physical stimulants +of reproduction_ (the _e_ stage); what are those combinations of sound +which are called operas, symphonies, sonatas; and what those of lines +and of colours, which are called pictures, statues, architecture? The +spiritual energy of memory, with the assistance of those physical facts +above mentioned, makes possible the preservation and the reproduction of +the intuitions produced, often so laboriously, by ourselves and by +others. If the physiological organism, and with it memory, become +weakened; if the monuments of art be destroyed; then all the aesthetic +wealth, the fruit of the labours of many generations, becomes lessened +and rapidly disappears. + + [Sidenote] _The physically beautiful._ + +Monuments of art, which are the stimulants of aesthetic reproduction, +are called _beautiful things or the physically beautiful_. This +combination of words constitutes a verbal paradox, because the beautiful +is not a physical fact; it does not belong to things, but to the +activity of man, to spiritual energy. But henceforth it is clear through +what wanderings and what abbreviations, physical things and facts, which +are simply aids to the reproduction of the beautiful, end by being +called, elliptically, beautiful things and physically beautiful. And now +that we have made the existence of this ellipse clear, we shall +ourselves make use of it without hesitation. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning._ + +The intervention of the physically beautiful serves to explain another +meaning of the words _content and form_, as employed by aestheticians. +Some call "content" the internal fact or expression (which is for us +already form), and they call "form" the marble, the colours, the rhythm, +the sounds (for us form no longer); thus they look upon the physical +fact as the form, which may or may not be joined to the content. This +serves to explain another aspect of what is called aesthetic ugliness. +He who has nothing definite to express may try to hide his internal +emptiness with a flood of words, with sounding verse, with deafening +polyphony, with painting that dazzles the eye, or by collocating great +architectonic masses, which arrest and disturb, although, at bottom, +they convey nothing. Ugliness, then, is the arbitrary, the +charlatanesque; and, in reality, if the practical will do not intervene +in the theoretic function, there may be absence of beauty, but never +effective presence of the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Natural and artificial beauty._ + +Physical beauty is wont to be divided into _natural_ and _artificial_ +beauty. Thus we reach one of the facts, which has given great labour to +thinkers: _the beautiful in nature_. These words often designate simply +facts of practical pleasure. He alludes to nothing aesthetic who calls a +landscape beautiful where the eye rests upon verdure, where bodily +motion is easy, and where the warm sun-ray envelops and caresses the +limbs. But it is nevertheless indubitable, that on other occasions the +adjective "beautiful," applied to objects and scenes existing in nature, +has a completely aesthetic signification. + +It has been observed, that in order to enjoy natural objects +aesthetically, we should withdraw them from their external and +historical reality, and separate their simple appearance or origin from +existence; that if we contemplate a landscape with our head between our +legs, in such a way as to remove ourselves from our wonted relations +with it, the landscape appears as an ideal spectacle; that nature is +beautiful only for him who contemplates her _with the eye of the +artist_; that zoologists and botanists do not recognize beautiful +animals and flowers; that natural beauty is _discovered_ (and examples +of discovery are the points of view, pointed out by men of taste and +imagination, and to which more or less aesthetic travellers and +excursionists afterwards have recourse in pilgrimage, whence a more or +less collective _suggestion_); that, _without the aid of the +imagination_, no part of nature is beautiful, and that with such aid the +same natural object or fact is now expressive, according to the +disposition of the soul, now insignificant, now expressive of one +definite thing, now of another, sad or glad, sublime or ridiculous, +sweet or laughable; finally, that _natural beauty_, which an artist +would not _to some extent correct, does not exist_. + +All these observations are most just, and confirm the fact that natural +beauty is simply a _stimulus_ to aesthetic reproduction, which +presupposes previous production. Without preceding aesthetic intuitions +of the imagination, nature cannot arouse any at all. As regards natural +beauty, man is like the mythical Narcissus at the fountain. They show +further that since this stimulus is accidental, it is, for the most +part, imperfect or equivocal. Leopardi said that natural beauty is +"rare, scattered, and fugitive." Every one refers the natural fact to +the expression which is in his mind. One artist is, as it were, carried +away by a laughing landscape, another by a rag-shop, another by the +pretty face of a young girl, another by the squalid countenance of an +old ruffian. Perhaps the first will say that the rag-shop and the ugly +face of the old ruffian are _disgusting_; the second, that the laughing +landscape and the face of the young girl are _insipid_. They may dispute +for ever; but they will never agree, save when they have supplied +themselves with a sufficient dose of aesthetic knowledge, which will +enable them to recognize that they are both right. _Artificial_ beauty, +created by man, is a much more ductile and efficacious aid to +reproduction. + + [Sidenote] _Mixed beauty._ + +In addition to these two classes, aestheticians also sometimes talk in +their treatises of a _mixed_ beauty. Of what is it a mixture? Just of +natural and artificial. Whoso fixes and externalizes, operates with +natural materials, which he does not create, but combines and +transforms. In this sense, every artificial product is a mixture of +nature and artifice; and there would be no occasion to speak of a mixed +beauty, as of a special category. But it happens that, in certain cases, +combinations already given in nature can be used a great deal more than +in others; as, for instance, when we design a beautiful garden and +include in our design groups of trees or ponds which are already there. +On other occasions externalization is limited by the impossibility of +producing certain effects artificially. Thus we may mix the colouring +matters, but we cannot create a powerful voice or a personage and an +appearance appropriate to this or that personage of a drama. We must +therefore seek for them among things already existing, and make use of +them when we find them. When, therefore, we adopt a great number of +combinations already existing in nature, such as we should not be able +to produce artificially if they did not exist, the result is called +_mixed_ beauty. + + [Sidenote] _Writings._ + +We must distinguish from artificial beauty those instruments of +reproduction called _writings_, such as alphabets, musical notes, +hieroglyphics, and all pseudo-languages, from the language of flowers +and flags, to the language of patches (so much the vogue in the society +of the eighteenth century). Writings are not physical facts which arouse +directly impressions answering to aesthetic expressions; they are simple +_indications_ of what must be done in order to produce such physical +facts. A series of graphic signs serves to remind us of the movements +which we must execute with our vocal apparatus in order to emit certain +definite sounds. If, through practice, we become able to hear the words +without opening our mouths and (what is much more difficult) to hear the +sounds by running the eye down the page of the music, all this does not +alter anything of the nature of the writings, which are altogether +different from direct physical beauty. No one calls the book which +contains the _Divine Comedy_, or the portfolio which contains _Don +Giovanni_, beautiful in the same sense as the block of marble which +contains Michael Angelo's _Moses_, or the piece of coloured wood which +contains the _Transfiguration_ are metaphorically called beautiful. Both +serve for the reproduction of the beautiful, but the former by a far +longer and far more indirect route than the latter. + + [Sidenote] _The beautiful as free and not free._ + +Another division of the beautiful, which is still found in treatises, is +that into _free and not free_. By beauties that are not free, are +understood those objects which have to serve a double purpose, +extra-aesthetic and aesthetic (stimulants of intuitions); and since it +appears that the first purpose limits and impedes the second, the +beautiful object resulting therefrom has been considered as a beauty +that is not free. + +Architectural works are especially cited; and precisely for this reason, +has architecture often been excluded from the number of the so-called +fine arts. A temple must be above all things adapted to the use of a +cult; a house must contain all the rooms requisite for commodity of +living, and they must be arranged with a view to this commodity; a +fortress must be a construction capable of resisting the attacks of +certain armies and the blows of certain instruments of war. It is +therefore held that the architect's field is limited: he may be able to +_embellish_ to some extent the temple, the house, the fortress; but his +hands are bound by the _object_ of these buildings, and he can only +manifest that part of his vision of beauty in their construction which +does not impair their extrinsic, but fundamental, objects. + +Other examples are taken from what is called art applied to industry. +Plates, glasses, knives, guns, and combs can be made beautiful; but it +is held that their beauty must not so far exceed as to prevent our +eating from the plate, drinking from the glass, cutting with the knife, +firing off the gun, or combing one's hair with the comb. The same is +said of the art of printing: a book should be beautiful, but not to the +extent of its being difficult or impossible to read it. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful that is not free._ + +In respect to all this, we must observe, in the first place, that the +external purpose, precisely because it is such, does not of necessity +limit or trammel the other purpose of being a stimulus to aesthetic +reproduction. Nothing, therefore, can be more erroneous than the thesis +that architecture, for example, is by its nature not free and imperfect, +since it must also fulfil other practical objects. Beautiful +architectural works, however, themselves undertake to deny this by their +simple presence. + +In the second place, not only are the two objects not necessarily in +opposition; but, we must add, the artist always has the means of +preventing this contradiction from taking place. In what way? By taking, +as the material of his intuition and aesthetic externalization, +precisely the _destination_ of the object, which serves a practical end. +He will not need to add anything to the object, in order to make it the +instrument of aesthetic intuitions: it will be so, if perfectly adapted +to its practical purpose. Rustic dwellings and palaces, churches and +barracks, swords and ploughs, are beautiful, not in so far as they are +embellished and adorned, but in so far as they express the purpose for +which they were made. A garment is only beautiful because it is quite +suitable to a given person in given conditions. The sword bound to the +side of the warrior Rinaldo by the amorous Armida was not beautiful: "so +adorned that it seemed a useless ornament, not the warlike instrument of +a warrior." It was beautiful, if you will, in the eyes and imagination +of the sorceress, who loved her lover in this effeminate way. The +aesthetic fact can always accompany the practical fact, because +expression is truth. + +It cannot, however, be denied that aesthetic contemplation sometimes +hinders practical use. For instance, it is a quite common experience to +find certain new things so well adapted to their purpose, and yet so +beautiful, that people occasionally feel scruples in maltreating them by +using after contemplating them, which amounts to consuming them. It was +for this reason that King Frederick William of Prussia evinced +repugnance to ordering his magnificent grenadiers, so well suited for +war, to endure the strain of battle; but his less aesthetic son, +Frederick the Great, obtained from them excellent services. + + [Sidenote] _The stimulants of production._ + +It might be objected to the explanation of the physically beautiful as a +simple adjunct for the reproduction of the internally beautiful, that is +to say, of expressions, that the artist creates his expressions by +painting or by sculpturing, by writing or by composing, and that +therefore the physically beautiful, instead of following, sometimes +precedes the aesthetically beautiful. This would be a somewhat +superficial mode of understanding the procedure of the artist, who never +makes a stroke with his brush without having previously seen it with his +imagination; and if he has not yet seen it, he will make the stroke, not +in order to externalize his expression (which does not yet exist), but +as though to have a rallying point for ulterior meditation and for +internal concentration. The physical point on which he leans is not the +physically beautiful, instrument of reproduction, but what may be called +a pedagogic means, similar to retiring into solitude, or to the many +other expedients, frequently very strange, adopted by artists and +philosophers, who vary in these according to their various +idiosyncrasies. The old aesthetician Baumgarten advised poets to ride on +horseback, as a means of inspiration, to drink wine in moderation, and +(provided they were chaste) to look at beautiful women. + + + + +XIV + +MISTAKES ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + + +It is necessary to mention a series of scientific mistakes which have +arisen from the failure to understand the purely external relation +between the aesthetic fact or artistic vision, and the physical fact or +instrument, which serves as an aid to reproduce it. We must here +indicate the proper criticism, which derives from what has already been +said. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic associationism_ + +That form of associationism which identifies the aesthetic fact with the +_association of two_ images finds a place among these errors. By what +path has it been possible to arrive at such a mistake, against which our +aesthetic consciousness, which is a consciousness of perfect unity, +never of duality, rebels? Just because the physical and the aesthetic +facts have been considered separately, as two distinct images, which +enter the spirit, the one drawn forth from the other, the one first and +the other afterwards. A picture is divided into the image of the +_picture_ and the image of the _meaning_ of the picture; a poem, into +the image of the words and the image of the _meaning_ of the words. But +this dualism of images is non-existent: the physical fact does not enter +the spirit as an image, but causes the reproduction of the image (the +only image, which is the aesthetic fact), in so far as it blindly +stimulates the psychic organism and produces an impression answering to +the aesthetic expression already produced. + +The efforts of the associationists (the usurpers of to-day in the field +of Aesthetic) to emerge from the difficulty, and to reaffirm in some way +the unity which has been destroyed by their principle of associationism, +are highly instructive. Some maintain that the image called back again +is unconscious; others, leaving unconsciousness alone, hold that, on the +contrary, it is vague, vaporous, confused, thus reducing the _force_ of +the aesthetic fact to the _weakness_ of bad memory. But the dilemma is +inexorable: either keep association and give up unity, or keep unity and +give up association. No third way out of the difficulty exists. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic physic._ + +From the failure to analyze so-called natural beauty thoroughly, and to +recognize that it is simply an incident of aesthetic reproduction, and +from having, on the contrary, looked upon it as given in nature, is +derived all that portion of treatises upon Aesthetic which is entitled +_The Beautiful in Nature or Aesthetic Physic_; sometimes even +subdivided, save the mark! into Aesthetic Mineralogy, Botany, and +Zoology. We do not wish to deny that such treatises contain many just +remarks, and are sometimes themselves works of art, in so far as they +represent beautifully the imaginings and fantasies, that is the +impressions, of their authors. But we must state that it is +scientifically false to ask oneself if the dog be beautiful, and the +ornithorhynchus ugly; if the lily be beautiful, and the artichoke ugly. +Indeed, the error is here double. On one hand, aesthetic Physic falls +back into the equivoke of the theory of artistic and literary classes, +by attempting to determine aesthetically the abstractions of our +intellect; on the other, fails to recognize, as we said, the true +formation of so-called natural beauty; for which the question as to +whether some given individual animal, flower, or man be beautiful or +ugly, is altogether excluded. What is not produced by the aesthetic +spirit, or cannot be referred to it, is neither beautiful nor ugly. The +aesthetic process arises from the ideal relations in which natural +objects are arranged. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body._ + +The double error can be exemplified by the question, upon which whole +volumes have been written, as to the _Beauty of the human body_. Here it +is necessary, above all things, to urge those who discuss this subject +from the abstract toward the concrete, by asking: "What do you mean by +the human body, that of the male, of the female, or of the androgyne?" +Let us assume that they reply by dividing the inquiry into two distinct +inquiries, as to the virile and feminine beauty (there really are +writers who seriously discuss whether man or woman is the more +beautiful); and let us continue: "Masculine or feminine beauty; but of +what race of men--the white, the yellow, or the black, and whatever +others there may be, according to the division of races?" Let us assume +that they limit themselves to the white race, and let us continue: "What +sub-species of the white race?" And when we have restricted them +gradually to one section of the white world, that is to say, to the +Italian, Tuscan, Siennese, or Porta Camollia section, we will continue: +"Very good; but at what age of the human body, and in what condition and +state of development--that of the new-born babe, of the child, of the +boy, of the adolescent, of the man of middle age, and so on? and is the +man at rest or at work, or is he occupied as is Paul Potter's cow, or +the Ganymede of Rembrandt?" + +Having thus arrived, by successive reductions, at the individual +_omnimode determinatum_, or, better, at the man pointed out with the +finger, it will be easy to expose the other error, by recalling what has +been said about the natural fact, which is now beautiful, now ugly, +according to the point of view, according to what is passing in the mind +of the artist. Finally, if the Gulf of Naples have its detractors, and +if there be artists who declare it inexpressive, preferring the "gloomy +firs," the "clouds and perpetual north winds," of the northern seas; let +it be believed, if possible, that such relativity does not exist for the +human body, source of the most various suggestions! + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beauty of geometric figures._ + +The question of the _beauty of geometrical figures_ is connected with +aesthetic Physic. But if by geometrical figures be understood the +concepts of geometry, the concept of the triangle, the square, the cone, +these are neither beautiful nor ugly: they are concepts. If, on the +other hand, by such figures be understood bodies which possess definite +geometrical forms, these will be ugly or beautiful, like every natural +fact, according to the ideal connexions in which they are placed. Some +hold that those geometrical figures are beautiful which point upwards, +since they give the suggestion of firmness and of force. It is not +denied that such may be the case. But neither must it be denied that +those also which give the impression of instability and of being crushed +down may possess their beauty, where they represent just the ill-formed +and the crushed; and that in these last cases the firmness of the +straight line and the lightness of the cone or of the equilateral +triangle would, on the contrary, seem elements of ugliness. + +Certainly, such questions as to the beauty of nature and the beauty of +geometry, like the others analogous of the historically beautiful and of +human beauty, seem less absurd in the Aesthetic of the sympathetic, +which means, at bottom, by the words "aesthetic beauty" the +representation of what is pleasing. But the pretension to determine +scientifically what are the sympathetic contents, and what are the +irremediably antipathetic, is none the less erroneous, even in the +sphere of that doctrine and after the laying down of those premises. One +can only answer such questions by repeating with an infinitely long +postscript the _Sunt quos_ of the first ode of the first book of Horace, +and the _Havvi chi_ of Leopardi's letter to Carlo Pepoli. To each man +his beautiful ( = sympathetic), as to each man his fair one. Philography +is not a science. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of another aspect of the imitation of nature._ + +The artist sometimes has naturally existing facts before him, in +producing the artificial instrument, or physically beautiful. These are +called his _models_: bodies, stuffs, flowers, and so on. Let us run over +the sketches, the studies, and the notes of the artists: Leonardo noted +down in his pocket-book, when he was working on the Last Supper: +"Giovannina, fantastic appearance, is at St. Catherine's, at the +Hospital; Cristofano di Castiglione is at the Pieta, he has a fine head; +Christ, Giovan Conte, is of the suite of Cardinal Mortaro." And so on. +From this comes the illusion that the artist _imitates nature_; when it +would perhaps be more exact to say that nature imitates the artist, and +obeys him. The theory that _art imitates nature_ has sometimes been +grounded upon and found sustenance in this illusion, as also its +variant, more easily to be defended, which makes art the _idealizer of +nature_. This last theory presents the process in a disorderly manner, +indeed inversely to the true order; for the artist does not proceed from +extrinsic reality, in order to modify it by approaching it to the ideal; +but he proceeds from the impression of external nature to expression, +that is to say, to his ideal, and from this he passes to the natural +fact, which he employs as the instrument of reproduction of the ideal +fact. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of the + beautiful._ + +Another consequence of the confusion between the aesthetic and the +physical fact is the theory of the _elementary forms of the beautiful_. +If expression, if the beautiful, be indivisible, the physical fact, in +which it externalizes itself, can well be divided and subdivided; for +example, a painted surface, into lines and colours, groups and curves of +lines, kinds of colours, and so on; a poem, into strophes, verses, feet, +syllables; a piece of prose, into chapters, paragraphs, headings, +periods, phrases, words, and so on. The parts thus obtained are not +aesthetic facts, but smaller physical facts, cut up in an arbitrary +manner. If this path were followed, and the confusion persisted in, we +should end by concluding that the true forms of the beautiful are +_atoms_. + +The aesthetic law, several times promulgated, that beauty must have +_bulk_, could be invoked against the atoms. It cannot be the +imperceptibility of the too small, nor the unapprehensibility of the too +large. But a bigness which depends upon perceptibility, not measurement, +derives from a concept widely different from the mathematical. For what +is called imperceptible and incomprehensible does not produce an +impression, because it is not a real fact, but a concept: the requisite +of bulk in the beautiful is thus reduced to the effective reality of the +physical fact, which serves for the reproduction of the beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the search for the objective conditions of + the beautiful._ + +Continuing the search for the _physical laws_ or for the _objective +conditions of the beautiful_, it has been asked: To what physical facts +does the beautiful correspond? To what the ugly? To what unions of +tones, colours, sizes, mathematically determinable? Such inquiries are +as if in Political Economy one were to seek for the laws of exchange in +the physical nature of the objects exchanged. The constant infecundity +of the attempt should have at once given rise to some suspicion as to +its vanity. In our times, especially, has the necessity for an +_inductive_ Aesthetic been often proclaimed, of an Aesthetic starting +_from below_, which should proceed like natural science and not hasten +its conclusions. Inductive? But Aesthetic has always been both inductive +and deductive, like every philosophical science; induction and deduction +cannot be separated, nor can they separately avail to characterize a +true science. But the word "inductive" was not here pronounced +accidentally and without special intention. It was wished to imply by +its use that the aesthetic fact is nothing, at bottom, but a physical +fact, which should be studied by applying to it the methods proper to +the physical and natural sciences. With such a presupposition and in +such a faith did inductive Aesthetic or Aesthetic of the inferior (what +pride in this modesty!) begin its labours. It has conscientiously begun +by making a collection of _beautiful things_, for example of a great +number of envelopes of various shapes and sizes, and has asked which of +these give the impression of the beautiful and which of the ugly. As was +to be expected, the inductive aestheticians speedily found themselves in +a difficulty, for the same objects that appeared ugly in one aspect +would appear beautiful in another. A yellow, coarse envelope, which +would be extremely ugly for the purpose of enclosing a love-letter, is, +however, just what is wanted for a writ served by process on stamped +paper. This in its turn would look very bad, or seem at any rate an +irony, if enclosed in a square English envelope. Such considerations of +simple common sense should have sufficed to convince inductive +aestheticians, that the beautiful has no physical existence, and cause +them to remit their vain and ridiculous quest. But no: they have had +recourse to an expedient, as to which we would find it difficult to say +how far it belongs to natural science. They have sent their envelopes +round from one to the other and opened a _referendum_, thus striving to +decide by the votes of the majority in what consists the beautiful and +the ugly. + +We will not waste time over this argument, because we should seem to be +turning ourselves into narrators of comic anecdotes rather than +expositors of aesthetic science and of its problems. It is an actual +fact, that the inductive aestheticians have not yet discovered _one +single law_. + + [Sidenote] _Astrology of Aesthetic._ + +He who dispenses with doctors is prone to abandon himself to charlatans. +Thus it has befallen those who have believed in the natural laws of the +beautiful. Artists sometimes adopt empirical canons, such as that of the +proportions of the human body, or of the golden section, that is to say, +of a line divided into two parts in such a manner that the less is to +the greater as is the greater to the whole line (_bc: ac=ac: ab_). Such +canons easily become their superstitions, and they attribute to such the +success of their works. Thus Michael Angelo left as a precept to his +disciple Marco del Pino of Siena that "he should always make a pyramidal +serpentine figure multiplied by one, two, three," a precept which did +not enable Marco di Siena to emerge from that mediocrity which we can +yet observe in his many works, here in Naples. Others extracted from the +sayings of Michael Angelo the precept that serpentine undulating lines +were the true _lines of beauty_. Whole volumes have been composed on +these laws of beauty, on the golden section and on the undulating and +serpentine lines. These should in our opinion be looked upon as the +_astrology of Aesthetic_. + + + + +XV + +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION, TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + + + [Sidenote] _The practical activity of externalization._ + +The fact of the production of the physically beautiful implies, as has +already been remarked, a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing +certain visions, intuitions, or representations, to be lost. Such a will +must be able to act with the utmost rapidity, and as it were +instinctively, and also be capable of long and laborious deliberations. +Thus and only thus does the practical activity enter into relations with +the aesthetic, that is to say, in effecting the production of physical +objects, which are aids to memory. Here it is not merely a concomitant, +but really a distinct moment of the aesthetic activity. We cannot will +or not will our aesthetic vision: we can, however, will or not will to +externalize it, or better, to preserve and communicate, or not, to +others, the externalization produced. + + [Sidenote] _The technique of externalization._ + +This volitional fact of externalization is preceded by a complex of +various kinds of knowledge. These are known as _techniques_, like all +knowledge which precedes the practical activity. Thus we talk of an +artistic technique in the same metaphorical and elliptic manner that we +talk of the physically beautiful, that is to say (in more precise +language), _knowledge employed by the practical activity engaged in +producing stimuli to aesthetic reproduction_. In place of employing so +lengthy a phrase, we shall here avail ourselves of the vulgar +terminology, since we are henceforward aware of its true meaning. + +The possibility of this technical knowledge, at the service of artistic +reproduction, has caused people to imagine the existence of an aesthetic +technique of internal expression, which is tantamount to saying, _a +doctrine of the means of internal expression_, which is altogether +inconceivable. And we know well the reason why it is inconceivable; +expression, considered in itself, is primary theoretic activity, and, in +so far as it is this, it precedes the practical activity and the +intellectual knowledge which illumines the practical activity, and is +thus independent alike of the one and of the other. It also helps to +illumine the practical activity, but is not illuminated by it. +Expression does not employ _means_, because it has not an _end_; it has +intuitions of things, but does not will them, and is thus indivisible +into means and end. Thus if it be said, as sometimes is the case, that a +certain writer has invented a new technique of fiction or of drama, or +that a painter has discovered a new mode of distribution of light, the +word is used in a false sense; because the so-called _new technique is +really that romance itself, or that new picture_ itself. The +distribution of light belongs to the vision itself of the picture; as +the technique of a dramatist is his dramatic conception itself. On other +occasions, the word "technique" is used to designate certain merits or +defects in a work which is a failure; and it is said, euphemistically, +that the conception is bad, but the technique good, or that the +conception is good, and the technique bad. + +On the other hand, when the different ways of painting in oils, or of +etching, or of sculpturing in alabaster, are discussed, then the word +"technique" is in its place; but in such a case the adjective "artistic" +is used metaphorically. And if a dramatic technique in the artistic +sense be impossible, a theatrical technique is not impossible, that is +to say, processes of externalization of certain given aesthetic works. +When, for instance, women were introduced on the stage in Italy in the +second half of the sixteenth century, in place of men dressed as women, +this was a true and real discovery in theatrical technique; such too was +the perfecting in the following century by the impresarios of Venice, of +machines for the rapid changing of the scenes. + + [Sidenote] _The theoretic techniques of the individual arts._ + +The collection of technical knowledge at the service of artists desirous +of externalizing their expressions, can be divided into groups, which +may be entitled _theories of the arts_. Thus is born a theory of +Architecture, comprising mechanical laws, information relating to the +weight or to the resistance of the materials of construction or of +fortification, manuals relating to the method of mixing chalk or stucco; +a theory of Sculpture, containing advice as to the instruments to be +used for sculpturing the various sorts of stone, for obtaining a +successful fusion of bronze, for working with the chisel, for the exact +copying of the model in chalk or plaster, for keeping chalk damp; a +theory of Painting, on the various techniques of tempera, of +oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportions of the +human body, on the laws of perspective; a theory of Oratory, with +precepts as to the method of producing, of exercising and of +strengthening the voice, of mimic and gesture; a theory of Music, on the +combinations and fusions of tones and sounds; and so on. Such +collections of precepts abound in all literatures. And since it soon +becomes impossible to say what is useful and what useless to know, books +of this sort become very often a sort of encyclopaedias or catalogues of +desiderata. Vitruvius, in his treatise on Architecture, claims for the +architect a knowledge of letters, of drawing, of geometry, of +arithmetic, of optic, of history, of natural and moral philosophy, of +jurisprudence, of medicine, of astrology, of music, and so on. +Everything is worth knowing: learn the art and lay it aside. + +It should be evident that such empirical collections are not reducible +to a science. They are composed of notions, taken from various sciences +and teachings, and their philosophical and scientific principles are to +be found in them. To undertake the construction of a scientific theory +of the different arts, would be to wish to reduce to the single and +homogeneous what is by nature multiple and heterogeneous; to wish to +destroy the existence as a collection of what was put together precisely +to form a collection. Were we to give a scientific form to the manuals +of the architect, the painter, or the musician, it is clear that nothing +would remain in our hands but the general principles of Mechanic, Optic, +or Acoustic. Or if the especially artistic observations disseminated +through it be extracted and isolated, and a science be made of them, +then the sphere of the individual art is deserted and that of Aesthetic +entered upon, for Aesthetic is always general Aesthetic, or better, it +cannot be divided into general and special. This last case (that is, the +attempt to furnish a technique of Aesthetic) is found, when men +possessing strong scientific instincts and a natural tendency to +philosophy, set themselves to work to produce such theories and +technical manuals. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the aesthetic theories of the individual + arts._ + +But the confusion between Physic and Aesthetic has attained to its +highest degree, when aesthetic theories of the different arts are +imagined, to answer such questions as: What are the _limits_ of each +art? What can be represented with colours, and what with sounds? What +with simple monochromatic lines, and what with touches of various +colours? What with notes, and what with metres and rhymes? What are the +limits between the figurative and the auditional arts, between painting +and sculpture, poetry and music? + +This, translated into scientific language, is tantamount to asking: What +is the connexion between Acoustic and aesthetic expression? What between +the latter and Optic?--and the like. Now, if _there is no passage_ from +the physical fact to the aesthetic, how could there be from the +aesthetic to particular groups of aesthetic facts, such as the phenomena +of Optic or of Acoustic? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the classifications of the arts._ + +The things called _Arts_ have no aesthetic limits, because, in order to +have them, they would need to have also aesthetic existence; and we have +demonstrated the altogether empirical genesis of those divisions. +Consequently, any attempt at an aesthetic classification of the arts is +absurd. If they be without limits, they are not exactly determinable, +and consequently cannot be philosophically classified. All the books +dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned +without any loss whatever. (We say this with the utmost respect to the +writers who have expended their labours upon them.) + +The impossibility of such classifications finds, as it were, its proof +in the strange methods to which recourse has been had to carry them out. +The first and most common classification is that into arts of _hearing, +sight_, and _imagination_; as if eyes, ears, and imagination were on the +same level, and could be deduced from the same logical variable, as +foundation of the division. Others have proposed the division into arts +of _space and time_, and arts of _rest_ and _motion_; as if the concepts +of space, time, rest, and motion could determine special aesthetic +forms, or have anything in common with art as such. Finally, others have +amused themselves by dividing them into _classic and romantic_, or into +_oriental, classic, and romantic_, thereby conferring the value of +scientific concepts on simple historical denominations, or adopting +those pretended partitions of expressive forms, already criticized +above; or by talking of arts _that can only be seen from one side_, like +painting, and of arts _that can be seen from all sides_, like +sculpture--and similar extravagances, which exist neither in heaven nor +on the earth. + +The theory of the limits of the arts was, perhaps, at the time when it +was put forward, a beneficial critical reaction against those who +believed in the possibility of the flowing of one expression into +another, as of the _Iliad_ or of _Paradise Lost_ into a series of +paintings, and thus held a poem to be of greater or lesser value, +according as it could or could not be translated into pictures by a +painter. But if the rebellion were reasonable and victorious, this does +not mean that the arguments adopted and the theories made as required +were sound. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the union of the arts._ + +Another theory which is a corollary to that of the limits of the arts, +falls with them; that of the _union of the arts_. Granted different +arts, distinct and limited, the questions were asked: Which is the most +powerful? Do we not obtain more powerful effects by uniting several? We +know nothing of this: we know only, in each individual case, that +certain given artistic intuitions have need of definite physical means +for their reproduction, and that other artistic intuitions have need of +other physical means. We can obtain the effect of certain dramas by +simply reading them; others need declamation and scenic display: some +artistic intuitions, for their full extrinsication, need words, song, +musical instruments, colours, statuary, architecture, actors; while +others are beautiful and complete in a single delicate sweep of the pen, +or with a few strokes of the pencil. But it is false to suppose that +declamation and scenic effects, and all the other things we have +mentioned together, are _more powerful_ than simply reading, or than the +simple stroke with the pen and with the pencil; because each of these +facts or groups of facts has, so to say, a different object, and the +power of the different means employed cannot be compared when the +objects are different. + + [Sidenote] _Connexion of the activity of externalization with utility + and morality._ + +Finally, it is only from the point of view of a clear and rigorous +distinction between the true and proper aesthetic activity, and the +practical activity of externalization, that we can solve the involved +and confused questions as to the relations between _art and utility_, +and _art and morality_. + +That art as art is independent alike of utility and of morality, as also +of every volitional form, we have above demonstrated. Without this +independence, it would not be possible to speak of an intrinsic value of +art, nor indeed to conceive an aesthetic science, which demands the +autonomy of the aesthetic fact as a necessity of its existence. + +But it would be erroneous to maintain that this independence of the +vision or intuition or internal expression of the artist should be at +once extended to the practical activity of externalization and of +communication, which may or may not follow the aesthetic fact. If art be +understood as the externalization of art, then utility and morality have +a perfect right to deal with it; that is to say, the right one possesses +to deal with one's own household. + +We do not, as a matter of fact, externalize and fix all of the many +expressions and intuitions which we form in our mind; we do not declare +our every thought in a loud voice, or write down, or print, or draw, or +colour, or expose it to the public gaze. _We select_ from the crowd of +intuitions which are formed or at least sketched within us; and the +selection is governed by selection of the economic conditions of life +and of its moral direction. Therefore, when we have formed an intuition, +it remains to decide whether or no we should communicate it to others, +and to whom, and when, and how; all of which considerations fall equally +under the utilitarian and ethical criterion. + +Thus we find the concepts of _selection_, of the _interesting_, of +_morality_, of an _educational end_, of _popularity_, etc., to some +extent justified, although these can in no wise be justified as imposed +upon art as art, and we have ourselves denounced them in pure Aesthetic. +Error always contains an element of truth. He who formulated those +erroneous aesthetic propositions had his eye on practical facts, which +attach themselves externally to the aesthetic fact in economic and moral +life. + +By all means, be partisans of a yet greater liberty in the vulgarization +of the means of aesthetic reproduction; we are of the same opinion, and +let us leave the proposals for legislative measures, and for actions to +be instigated against immoral art, to hypocrites, to the ingenuous, and +to idlers. But the proclamation of this liberty, and the fixation of its +limits, how wide soever they be, is always the affair of morality. And +it would in any case be out of place to invoke that highest principle, +that _fundamentum Aesthetices_, which is the independence of art, in +order to deduce from it the guiltlessness of the artist, who, in the +externalization of his imaginings, should calculate upon the unhealthy +tastes of his readers; or that licenses should be granted to the hawkers +who sell obscene statuettes in the streets. This last case is the affair +of the police; the first must be brought before the tribunal of the +moral conscience. The aesthetic judgment on the work of art has nothing +to do with the morality of the artist, in so far as he is a practical +man, nor with the precautions to be taken that art may not be employed +for evil purposes alien to its essence, which is pure theoretic +contemplation. + + + + +XVI + +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic + reproduction._ + +When the entire aesthetic and externalizing process has been completed, +when a beautiful expression has been produced and fixed in a definite +physical material, what is meant by _judging it_? _To reproduce it in +oneself_, answer the critics of art, almost with one voice. Very good. +Let us try thoroughly to understand this fact, and with that object in +view, let us represent it schematically. + +The individual A is seeking the expression of an impression, which he +feels or has a presentiment of, but has not yet expressed. Behold him +trying various words and phrases, which may give the sought-for +expression, which must exist, but which he does not know. He tries the +combination _m_, but rejects it as unsuitable, inexpressive, incomplete, +ugly: he tries the combination _n_, with a like result. _He does not see +anything, or he does not see clearly_. The expression still flies from +him. After other vain attempts, during which he sometimes approaches, +sometimes leaves the sign that offers itself, all of a sudden (almost as +though formed spontaneously of itself) he creates the sought-for +expression, and _lux facta est_. He enjoys for an instant aesthetic +pleasure or the pleasure of the beautiful. The ugly, with its +correlative displeasure, was the aesthetic activity, which had not +succeeded in conquering the obstacle; the beautiful is the expressive +activity, which now displays itself triumphant. + +We have taken this example from the domain of speech, as being nearer +and more accessible, and because we all talk, though we do not all draw +or paint. Now if another individual, whom we shall term B, desire to +judge this expression and decide whether it be beautiful or ugly, he +_must of necessity place himself at A's point of view_, and go through +the whole process again, with the help of the physical sign, supplied to +him by A. If A has seen clearly, then B (who has placed himself at A's +point of view) will also see clearly and will find this expression +beautiful. If A has not seen clearly, then B also will not see clearly, +and will find the expression more or less ugly, _just as A did_. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of divergences._ + +It may be observed that we have not taken into consideration two other +cases: that of A having a clear and B an obscure vision; and that of A +having an obscure and B a clear vision. Philosophically speaking, these +two cases are _impossible_. + +Spiritual activity, precisely because it is activity, is not a caprice, +but a spiritual necessity; and it cannot solve a definite aesthetic +problem, save in one way, which is the right way. Doubtless certain +facts may be adduced, which appear to contradict this deduction. Thus +works which seem beautiful to artists, are judged to be ugly by the +critics; while works with which the artists were displeased and judged +imperfect or failures, are held to be beautiful and perfect by the +critics. But this does not mean anything, save that one of the two is +wrong: either the critics or the artists, or in one case the artist and +in another the critic. In fact, the producer of an expression does not +always fully realize what has happened in his soul. Haste, vanity, want +of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, make people say, and sometimes +others almost believe, that works of ours are beautiful, which, if we +were truly to turn inwards upon ourselves, we should see ugly, as they +really are. Thus poor Don Quixote, when he had mended his helmet as well +as he could with cardboard--the helmet that had showed itself to possess +but the feeblest force of resistance at the first encounter,--took good +care not to test it again with a well-delivered sword-thrust, but simply +declared and maintained it to be (says the author) _por celada finisima +de encaxe_. And in other cases, the same reasons, or opposite but +analogous ones, trouble the consciousness of the artist, and cause him +to disapprove of what he has successfully produced, or to strive to undo +and do again worse, what he has done well, in his artistic spontaneity. +An example of this is the _Gerusalemme conquistata_. In the same way, +haste, laziness, want of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, personal +sympathies, or animosities, and other motives of a similar sort, +sometimes cause the critics to proclaim beautiful what is ugly, and ugly +what is beautiful. Were they to eliminate such disturbing elements, they +would feel the work of art as it really is, and would not leave to +posterity, that more diligent and more dispassionate judge, to award the +palm, or to do that justice, which they have refused. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of taste and genius._ + +It is clear from the preceding theorem, that the judicial activity, +which criticizes and recognizes the beautiful, is identical with that +which produces it. The only difference lies in the diversity of +circumstances, since in the one case it is a question of aesthetic +production, in the other of reproduction. The judicial activity is +called _taste_; the productive activity is called _genius_: genius and +taste are therefore substantially _identical_. + +The common remark, that the critic should possess some of the genius of +the artist and that the artist should possess taste, reveals a glimpse +of this identity; or that there exists an active (productive) taste and +a passive (reproductive) taste. But a denial of this is contained in +other equally common remarks, as when people speak of taste without +genius, or of genius without taste. These last observations are +meaningless, unless they be taken as alluding to quantitative +differences. In this case, those would be called geniuses without taste +who produce works of art, inspired in their culminating parts and +neglected and defective in their secondary parts, and those men of taste +without genius, who succeed in obtaining certain isolated or secondary +effects, but do not possess the power necessary for a vast artistic +synthesis. Analogous explanations can easily be given of other similar +propositions. But to posit a substantial difference between genius and +taste, between artistic production and reproduction, would render +communication and judgment alike inconceivable. How could we judge what +remained extraneous to us? How could that which is produced by a given +activity be judged by a different activity? The critic will be a small +genius, the artist a great genius; the one will have the strength of +ten, the other of a hundred; the former, in order to raise himself to +the altitude of the latter, will have need of his assistance; but the +nature of both must be the same. In order to judge Dante, we must raise +ourselves to his level: let it be well understood that empirically we +are not Dante, nor Dante we; but in that moment of judgment and +contemplation, our spirit is one with that of the poet, and in that +moment we and he are one single thing. In this identity alone resides +the possibility that our little souls can unite with the great souls, +and become great with them, in the universality of the spirit. + + [Sidenote] _Analogy with the other activities._ + +Let us remark in passing that what has been said of the aesthetic +_judgment_ holds good equally for every other activity and for every +other judgment; and that scientific, economic, and ethical criticism is +effected in a like manner. To limit ourselves to this last, it is only +if we place ourselves ideally in the same conditions in which he who +took a given resolution found himself, that we can form a judgment as to +whether his resolution were moral or immoral. An action would otherwise +remain incomprehensible, and therefore impossible to judge. A homicide +may be a rascal or a hero: if this be, within limits, indifferent as +regards the safety of society, which condemns both to the same +punishment, it is not indifferent to him who wishes to distinguish and +to judge from the moral point of view, and we cannot dispense with +studying again the individual psychology of the homicide, in order to +determine the true nature of his deed, not merely in its judicial, but +also in its moral aspect. In Ethic, a moral taste or tact is sometimes +referred to, which answers to what is generally called moral conscience, +that is to say, to the activity itself of good-will. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and of aesthetic + relativism._ + +The explanation above given of aesthetic judgment or reproduction at +once affirms and denies the position of the absolutists and relativists, +of those, that is to say, who affirm and of those who deny the existence +of an absolute taste. + +The absolutists, who affirm that they can judge of the beautiful, are +right; but the theory on which they found their affirmation is not +maintainable. They conceive of the beautiful, that is, of aesthetic +value, as of something placed outside the aesthetic activity; as if it +were a model or a concept which an artist realizes in his work, and of +which the critic avails himself afterwards in order to judge the work +itself. Concepts and models alike have no existence in art, for by +proclaiming that every art can be judged only in itself, and has its own +model in itself, they have attained to the denial of the existence of +objective models of beauty, whether they be intellectual concepts, or +ideas suspended in the metaphysical sky. + +In proclaiming this, the adversaries, the relativists, are perfectly +right, and accomplish a progress. However, the initial rationality of +their thesis becomes in its turn a false theory. Repeating the old adage +that there is no accounting for tastes, they believe that aesthetic +expression is of the same nature as the pleasant and the unpleasant, +which every one feels in his own way, and as to which there is no +disputing. But we know that the pleasant and the unpleasant are +utilitarian and practical facts. Thus the relativists deny the +peculiarity of the aesthetic fact, again confounding expression with +impression, the theoretic with the practical. + +The true solution lies in rejecting alike relativism or psychologism, +and false absolutism; and in recognizing that the criterion of taste is +absolute, but absolute in a different way from that of the intellect, +which is developed by reason. The criterion of taste is absolute, with +the intuitive absoluteness of the imagination. Thus every act of +expressive activity, which is so really, will be recognized as +beautiful, and every fact in which expressive activity and passivity are +found engaged with one another in an unfinished struggle, will be +recognized as ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of relative relativism._ + +There lies, between absolutists and relativists, a third class, which +may be called that of the relative relativists. These affirm the +existence of absolute values in other fields, such as Logic and Ethic, +but deny their existence in the field of Aesthetic. To them it appears +natural and justifiable to dispute about science and morality; because +science rests on the universal, common to all men, and morality on duty, +which is also a law of human nature; but how, they say, can one dispute +about art, which rests on imagination? Not only, however, is the +imaginative activity universal and belongs to human nature, like the +logical concept and practical duty; but we must oppose a capital +objection to this intermediary thesis. If the absolute nature of the +imagination were denied, we should be obliged to deny also that of +intellectual or conceptual truth, and, implicitly, of morality. Does not +morality presuppose logical distinctions? How could these be known, +otherwise than by expressions and words, that is to say, in imaginative +form? If the absoluteness of the imagination were removed, spiritual +life would tremble to its base. One individual would no longer +understand another, nor indeed his own self of a moment before, which, +when considered a moment after, is already another individual. + + [Sidenote] _Objection founded on the variation of the stimulus and + on the psychic disposition._ + +Nevertheless, variety of judgments is an indisputable fact. Men are at +variance in their logical, ethical, and economical appreciations; and +they are equally, or even more at variance in their aesthetic +appreciations. If certain reasons detailed by us, above, such as haste, +prejudices, passions, etc., may be held to lessen the importance of this +disagreement, they do not thereby annul it. We have been cautious, when +speaking of the stimuli of reproduction, for we said that reproduction +takes place, _if all the other conditions remain equal_. Do they remain +equal? Does the hypothesis correspond to reality? + +It would appear not. In order to reproduce several times an impression +by employing a suitable physical stimulus, it is necessary that this +stimulus be not changed, and that the organism remain in the same +psychical conditions as those in which was experienced the impression +that it is desired to reproduce. Now it is a fact, that the physical +stimulus is continually changing, and in like manner the psychological +conditions. + +Oil paintings grow dark, frescoes pale, statues lose noses, hands, and +legs, architecture becomes totally or partially a ruin, the tradition of +the execution of a piece of music is lost, the text of a poem is +corrupted by bad copyists or bad printing. These are obvious instances +of the changes which daily occur in objects or physical stimuli. As +regards psychological conditions, we will not dwell upon the cases of +deafness or blindness, that is to say, upon the loss of entire orders of +psychical impressions; these cases are secondary and of less importance +compared with the fundamental, daily, inevitable, and perpetual changes +of the society around us, and of the internal conditions of our +individual life. The phonic manifestations, that is, the words and +verses of the Dantesque _Commedia_, must produce a very different +impression on a citizen engaged in the politics of the third Rome, to +that experienced by a well-informed and intimate contemporary of the +poet. The Madonna of Cimabue is still in the Church of Santa Maria +Novella; but does she speak to the visitor of to-day as she spoke to the +Florentines of the thirteenth century? Even though she were not also +darkened by time, would not the impression be altogether different? And +finally, how can a poem composed in youth make the same impression on +the same individual poet when he re-reads it in his old age, with his +psychic dispositions altogether changed? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the division of signs into natural and + conventional._ + +It is true, that certain aestheticians have attempted a distinction +between stimuli and stimuli, between _natural and conventional_ signs. +They would grant to the former a constant effect on all; to the latter, +only on a limited circle. In their belief, signs employed in painting +are natural, while the words of poetry are conventional. But the +difference between the one and the other is only of degree. It has often +been affirmed that painting is a language which all understand, while +with poetry it is otherwise. Here, for example, Leonardo placed one of +the prerogatives of his art, "which hath not need of interpreters of +different languages as have letters," and in it man and brute find +satisfaction. He relates the anecdote of that portrait of the father of +a family, "which the little grandchildren were wont to caress while they +were still in swaddling-clothes, and the dogs and cats of the house in +like manner." But other anecdotes, such as those of the savages who took +the portrait of a soldier for a boat, or considered the portrait of a +man on horseback as furnished with only one leg, are apt to shake one's +faith in the understanding of painting by sucklings, dogs, and cats. +Fortunately, no arduous researches are necessary to convince oneself +that pictures, poetry, and every work of art, produce no effects save on +souls prepared to receive them. Natural signs do not exist; because they +are all conventional in a like manner, or, to speak with greater +exactitude, all are _historically conditioned_. + + [Sidenote] _The surmounting of variety._ + +This being so, how are we to succeed in causing the expression to be +reproduced by means of the physical object? How obtain the same effect, +when the conditions are no longer the same? Would it not, rather, seem +necessary to conclude that expressions cannot be reproduced, despite the +physical instruments made by man for the purpose, and that what is +called reproduction consists in ever new expressions? Such would indeed +be the conclusion, if the variety of physical and psychic conditions +were intrinsically unsurmountable. But since the insuperability has none +of the characteristics of necessity, we must, on the contrary, conclude: +that the reproduction always occurs, when we can replace ourselves in +the conditions in which the stimulus (physical beauty) was produced. + +Not only can we replace ourselves in these conditions, as an abstract +possibility, but as a matter of fact we do so continually. Individual +life, which is communion with ourselves (with our past), and social +life, which is communion with our like, would not otherwise be possible. + + [Sidenote] _Restorations and historical interpretation._ + +As regards the physical object, paleographers and philologists, who +_restore_ to texts their original physiognomy, _restorers_ of pictures +and of statues, and similar categories of workers, exert themselves to +preserve or to give back to the physical object all its primitive +energy. These efforts certainly do not always succeed, or are not +completely successful, for never, or hardly ever, is it possible to +obtain a restoration complete in its smallest details. But the +unsurmountable is only accidentally present, and cannot cause us to fail +to recognize the favourable results which are nevertheless obtained. + +_Historical interpretation_ likewise labours to reintegrate in us +historical conditions which have been altered in the course of history. +It revives the dead, completes the fragmentary, and affords us the +opportunity of seeing a work of art (a physical object) as its author +saw it, at the moment of production. + +A condition of this historical labour is tradition, with the help of +which it is possible to collect the scattered rays and cause them to +converge on one centre. With the help of memory, we surround the +physical stimulus with all the facts among which it arose; and thus we +make it possible for it to react upon us, as it acted upon him who +produced it. + +When the tradition is broken, interpretation is arrested; in this case, +the products of the past remain _silent_ for us. Thus the expressions +contained in the Etruscan or Messapian inscriptions are unattainable; +thus we still hear discussions among ethnographers as to certain +products of the art of savages, whether they be pictures or writings; +thus archaeologists and prehistorians are not always able to establish +with certainty, whether the figures found on the ceramic of a certain +region, and on other instruments employed, be of a religious or of a +profane nature. But the arrest of interpretation, as that of +restoration, is never a definitely unsurmountable barrier; and the daily +discoveries of historical sources and of new methods of better +exploiting antiquity, which we may hope to see ever improving, link up +broken tradition. + +We do not wish to deny that erroneous historical interpretation produces +at times what we may term _palimpsests_, new expressions imposed upon +the antique, artistic imaginings instead of historical reproductions. +The so-called fascination of the past depends in part upon these +expressions of ours, which we weave into historical expressions. Thus in +hellenic plastic art has been discovered the calm and serene intuition +of life of those peoples, who feel, nevertheless, so poignantly, the +universality of sorrow; thus has recently been discerned on the faces of +the Byzantine saints "the terror of the millennium," a terror which is +an equivoke, or an artificial legend invented by modern scholars. But +_historical criticism_ tends precisely to circumscribe _vain imaginings_ +and to establish with exactitude the point of view from which we must +look. + +Thus we live in communication with other men of the present and of the +past; and we must not conclude, because sometimes, and indeed often, we +find ourselves face to face with the unknown or the badly known, that +when we believe we are engaged in a dialogue, we are always speaking a +monologue; nor that we are unable even to repeat the monologue which, in +the past, we held with ourselves. + + + + +XVII + +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism in literature and art. Its + importance._ + +This brief exposition of the method by which is obtained reintegration +of the original conditions in which the work of art was produced, and by +which reproduction and judgment are made possible, shows how important +is the function fulfilled by historical research concerning artistic and +literary works; that is to say, by what is usually called _historical +criticism_, or method, in literature and art. + +Without tradition and historical criticism, the enjoyment of all or +nearly all works of art produced by humanity, would be irrevocably lost: +we should be little more than animals, immersed in the present alone, or +in the most recent past. Only fools despise and laugh at him who +reconstitutes an authentic text, explains the sense of words and +customs, investigates the conditions in which an artist lived, and +accomplishes all those labours which revive the qualities and the +original colouring of works of art. + +Sometimes the depreciatory or negative judgment refers to the presumed +or proved uselessness of many researches, made to recover the correct +meaning of artistic works. But, it must be observed, in the first place, +that historical research does not only fulfil the task of helping to +reproduce and judge artistic works: the biography of a writer or of an +artist, for example, and the study of the costume of a period, also +possess their own interest, foreign to the history of art, but not +foreign to other forms of history. If allusion be made to those +researches which do not appear to have interest of any kind, nor to +fulfil any purpose, it must be replied that the historical student must +often reconcile himself to the useful, but little glorious, office of a +cataloguer of facts. These facts remain for the time being formless, +incoherent, and insignificant, but they are preserves, or mines, for the +historian of the future and for whomsoever may afterwards want them for +any purpose. In the same way, books which nobody asks for are placed on +the shelves and are noted in the catalogues, because they may be asked +for at some time or other. Certainly, in the same way that an +intelligent librarian gives the preference to the acquisition and to the +cataloguing of those books which he foresees may be of more or better +service, so do intelligent students possess the instinct as to what is +or may more probably be useful from among the mass of facts which they +are investigating. Others, on the other hand, less well-endowed, less +intelligent, or more hasty in producing, accumulate useless selections, +rejections and erasures, and lose themselves in refinements and gossipy +discussions. But this appertains to the economy of research, and is not +our affair. At the most, it is the affair of the master who selects the +subjects, of the publisher who pays for the printing, and of the critic +who is called upon to praise or to blame the students for their +researches. + +On the other hand, it is evident, that historical research, directed to +illuminate a work of art by placing us in a position to judge it, does +not alone suffice to bring it to birth in our spirit: taste, and an +imagination trained and awakened, are likewise presupposed. The greatest +historical erudition may accompany a taste in part gross or defective, a +lumbering imagination, or, as it is generally phrased, a cold, hard +heart, closed to art. Which is the lesser evil?--great erudition and +defective taste, or natural good taste and great ignorance? The question +has often been asked, and perhaps it will be best to deny its +possibility, because one cannot tell which of two evils is the less, or +what exactly that means. The merely learned man never succeeds in +entering into communication with the great spirits, and keeps wandering +for ever about the outer courts, the staircases, and the antechambers of +their palaces; but the gifted ignoramus either passes by masterpieces +which are to him inaccessible, or instead of understanding the works of +art, as they really are, he invents others, with his imagination. Now, +the labour of the former may at least serve to enlighten others; but the +ingenuity of the latter remains altogether sterile. How, then, can we +fail to prefer the conscientious learned man to the inconclusive man of +talent, who is not really talented, if he resign himself, and in so far +as he resigns himself, to come to no conclusion? + + [Sidenote] _Literary and artistic history. Its distinction from + historical criticism and from artistic judgement._ + +It is necessary to distinguish accurately _the history, of art and +literature_ from those historical labours which make use of works of +art, but for extraneous purposes (such as biography, civil, religious, +and political history, etc.), and also from historical erudition, whose +object is preparation for the Aesthetic synthesis of reproduction. + +The difference between the first of these is obvious. The history of art +and literature has the works of art themselves for principal subject; +the other branches of study call upon and interrogate works of art, but +only as witnesses, from which to discover the truth of facts which are +not aesthetic. The second difference to which we have referred may seem +less profound. However, it is very great. Erudition devoted to rendering +clear again the understanding of works of art, aims simply at making +appear a certain internal fact, an aesthetic reproduction. Artistic and +literary history, on the other hand, does not appear until such +reproduction has been obtained. It demands, therefore, further labour. +Like all other history, its object is to record precisely such facts as +have really taken place, that is, artistic and literary facts. A man +who, after having acquired the requisite historical erudition, +reproduces in himself and tastes a work of art, may remain simply a man +of taste, or express at the most his own feeling, with an exclamation of +beautiful or ugly. This does not suffice for the making of a historian +of literature and art. There is further need that the simple act of +reproduction be followed in him by a second internal operation. What is +this new operation? It is, in its turn, an expression: the expression of +the reproduction; the historical description, exposition, or +representation. There is this difference, then, between the man of taste +and the historian: the first merely reproduces in his spirit the work of +art; the second, after having reproduced it, represents it historically, +thus applying to it those categories by which, as we know, history is +differentiated from pure art. Artistic and literary history is, +therefore, _a historical work of art founded upon one or more works of +art_. + +The denomination of artistic or literary critic is used in various +senses: sometimes it is applied to the student who devotes his services +to literature; sometimes to the historian who reveals the works of art +of the past in their reality; more often to both. By critic is sometimes +understood, in a more restricted sense, he who judges and describes +contemporary literary works; and by historian, he who is occupied with +less recent works. These are but linguistic usages and empirical +distinctions, which may be neglected; because the true difference lies +_between the learned man, the man of taste, and the historian of art_. +These words designate, as it were, three successive stages of work, of +which each is relatively independent of the one that follows, but not of +that which precedes. As we have seen, a man may be simply learned, yet +possess little capacity for understanding works of art; he may indeed be +both learned and possess taste, yet be unable to write a page of +artistic and literary history. But the true and complete historian, +while containing in himself, as necessary pre-requisites, both the +learned man and the man of taste, must add to their qualities the gift +of historical comprehension and representation. + + [Sidenote] _The method of artistic and literary history._ + +The method of artistic and literary history presents problems and +difficulties, some common to all historical method, others peculiar to +it, because they derive from the concept of art itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the problem of the origin of art._ + +History is wont to be divided into the history of man, the history or +nature, and the mixed history of both the preceding. Without examining +here the question of the solidity of this division, it is clear that +artistic and literary history belongs in any case to the first, since it +concerns a spiritual activity, that is to say, an activity proper to +man. And since this activity is its subject, the absurdity of +propounding the historical _problem of the origin of art_ becomes at +once evident. We should note that by this formula many different things +have in turn been included on many different occasions. _Origin_ has +often meant _nature_ or _disposition_ of the artistic fact, and here was +a real scientific or philosophic problem, the very problem, in fact, +which our treatise has tried to solve. At other times, by origin has +been understood the ideal genesis, the search for the reason of art, the +deduction of the artistic fact from a first principle containing in +itself both spirit and nature. This is also a philosophical problem, and +it is complementary to the preceding, indeed it coincides with it, +though it has sometimes been strangely interpreted and solved by means +of an arbitrary and semi-fantastic metaphysic. But when it has been +sought to discover further exactly in what way the artistic function was +_historically formed_, this has resulted in the absurdity to which we +have referred. If expression be the first form of consciousness, how can +the historical origin be sought of what is _presupposed_ not to be a +product of nature and of human history? How can we find the historical +genesis of that which is a category, by means of which every historical +genesis and fact are understood? The absurdity has arisen from the +comparison with human institutions, which have, in fact, been formed in +the course of history, and which have disappeared or may disappear in +its course. There exists between the aesthetic fact and a human +institution (such as monogamic marriage or the fief) a difference to +some extent comparable with that between simple and compound bodies in +chemistry. It is impossible to indicate the formation of the former, +otherwise they would not be simple, and if this be discovered, they +cease to be simple and become compound. + +The problem of the origin of art, historically understood, is only +justified when it is proposed to seek, not for the formation of the +function, but where and when art has appeared for the first time +(appeared, that is to say, in a striking manner), at what point or in +what region of the globe, and at what point or epoch of its history; +when, that is to say, not the origin of art, but its most antique or +primitive history, is the object of research. This problem forms one +with that of the appearance of human civilization on the earth. Data for +its solution are certainly wanting, but there yet remains the abstract +possibility, and certainly attempts and hypotheses for its solution +abound. + + [Sidenote] _History and the criterion of progress._ + +Every form of human history has the concept of _progress_ for +foundation. But by progress must not be understood the imaginary and +metaphysical _law of progress_, which should lead the generations of man +with irresistible force to some unknown destiny, according to a +providential plan which we can logically divine and understand. A +supposed law of this sort is the negation of history itself, of that +accidentality, that empiricity, that contingency, which distinguish the +concrete fact from the abstraction. And for the same reason, progress +has nothing to do with the so-called _law of evolution_. If evolution +mean the concrete fact of reality which evolves (that is, which is +reality), it is not a law. If, on the other hand, it be a law, it +becomes confounded with the law of progress in the sense just described. +The progress of which we speak here, is nothing but the _concept of +human activity itself_, which, working upon the material supplied to it +by nature, conquers obstacles and bends nature to its own ends. + +Such conception of progress, that is to say, of human activity applied +to a given material, is the _point of view_ of the historian of +humanity. No one but a mere collector of stray facts, a simple seeker, +or an incoherent chronicler, can put together the smallest narrative of +human deeds, unless he have a definite point of view, that is to say, an +intimate personal conviction regarding the conception of the facts which +he has undertaken to relate. The historical work of art cannot be +achieved among the confused and discordant mass of crude facts, save by +means of this point of view, which makes it possible to carve a definite +figure from that rough and incoherent mass. The historian of a practical +action should know what is economy and what morality; the historian of +mathematics, what are mathematics; the historian of botany, what is +botany; the historian of philosophy, what is philosophy. But if he do +not really know these things, he must at least have the illusion of +knowing them; otherwise he will never be able to delude himself that he +is writing history. + +We cannot delay here to demonstrate the necessity and the inevitability +of this subjective criterion in every narrative of human affairs. We +will merely say that this criterion is compatible with the utmost +objectivity, impartiality, and scrupulosity in dealing with data, and +indeed forms a constitutive element of such subjective criterion. It +suffices to read any book of history to discover at once the point of +view of the author, if he be a historian worthy of the name and know his +own business. There exist liberal and reactionary, rationalist and +catholic historians, who deal with political or social history; for the +history of philosophy there are metaphysical, empirical, sceptical, +idealist, and spiritualist historians. Absolutely historical historians +do not and cannot exist. Can it be said that Thucydides and Polybius, +Livy and Tacitus, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Giannone and Voltaire, +were without moral and political views; and, in our time, Guizot or +Thiers, Macaulay or Balbo, Ranke or Mommsen? And in the history of +philosophy, from Hegel, who was the first to raise it to a great +elevation, to Ritter, Zeller, Cousin, Lewes, and our Spaventa, was there +one who did not possess his conception of progress and criterion of +judgment? Is there one single work of any value in the history of +Aesthetic, which has not been written from this or that point of view, +with this or that bias (Hegelian or Herbartian), from a sensualist or +from an eclectic point of view, and so on? If the historian is to escape +from the inevitable necessity of taking a side, he must become a +political and scientific eunuch; and history is not the business of +eunuchs. They would at most be of use in compiling those great tomes of +not useless erudition, _elumbis atque fracta_, which are called, not +without reason, monkish. + +If, then, the concept of progress, the point of view, the criterion, be +inevitable, the best to be done is not to try and escape from them, but +to obtain the best possible. Everyone strives for this end, when he +forms his own convictions, seriously and laboriously. Historians who +profess to wish to interrogate the facts, without adding anything of +their own to them, are not to be believed. This, at the most, is the +result of ingenuousness and illusion on their part: they will always add +what they have of personal, if they be truly historians, though it be +without knowing it, or they will believe that they have escaped doing +so, only because they have referred to it by innuendo, which is the most +insinuating and penetrative of methods. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a unique line of progress in artistic + and literary history._ + +Artistic and literary history cannot dispense with the criterion of +progress any more easily than other history. We cannot show what a given +work of art is, save by proceeding from a conception of art, in order to +fix the artistic problem which the author of such work of art had to +solve, and by determining whether or no he have solved it, or by how +much and in what way he has failed to do so. But it is important to note +that the criterion of progress assumes a different form in artistic and +literary history to that which it assumes (or is believed to assume) in +the history of science. + +The whole history of knowledge can be represented by one single line of +progress and regress. Science is the universal, and its problems are +arranged in one single vast system, or complex problem. All thinkers +weary themselves over the same problem as to the nature of reality and +of knowledge: contemplative Indians and Greek philosophers, Christians +and Mohammedans, bare heads and heads with turbans, wigged heads and +heads with the black berretta (as Heine said); and future generations +will weary themselves with it, as ours has done. It would take too long +to inquire here if this be true or not of science. But it is certainly +not true of art; art is intuition, and intuition is individuality, and +individuality is never repeated. To conceive of the history of the +artistic production of the human race as developed along a single line +of progress and regress, would therefore be altogether erroneous. + +At the most, and working to some extent with generalizations and +abstractions, it may be admitted that the history of aesthetic products +shows progressive cycles, but each cycle has its own problem, and is +progressive only in respect to that problem. When many are at work on +the same subject, without succeeding in giving to it the suitable form, +yet drawing always more nearly to it, there is said to be progress. When +he who gives to it definite form appears, the cycle is said to be +complete, progress ended. A typical example of this would be the +progress in the elaboration of the mode of using the subject-matter of +chivalry, during the Italian Renaissance, from Pulci to Ariosto. (If +this instance be made use of, excessive simplification of it must be +excused.) Nothing but repetition and imitation could be the result of +employing that same material after Ariosto. The result was repetition or +imitation, diminution or exaggeration, a spoiling of what had already +been achieved; in sum, decadence. The Ariostesque epigoni prove this. +Progress begins with the commencement of a new cycle. Cervantes, with +his more open and conscious irony, is an instance of this. In what did +the general decadence of Italian literature at the end of the sixteenth +century consist? Simply in having nothing more to say, and in repeating +and exaggerating motives already found. If the Italians of this period +had even been able to express their own decadence, they would not have +been altogether failures, but have anticipated the literary movement of +the Renaissance. Where the subject-matter is not the same, a progressive +cycle does not exist. Shakespeare does not represent a progress as +regards Dante, nor Goethe as regards Shakespeare. Dante, however, +represents a progress in respect to the visionaries of the Middle Ages, +Shakespeare to the Elizabethan dramatists, Goethe, with _Werther_ and +the first part of _Faust_, in respect to the writers of the _Sturm und +Drang_. This mode of presenting the history of poetry and art contains, +however, as we have remarked, something of abstract, of merely +practical, and is without rigorous philosophical value. Not only is the +art of savages not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, +provided it be correlative to the impressions of the savage; but every +individual, indeed every moment of the spiritual life of an individual, +has its artistic world; and all those worlds are, artistically, +incomparable with one another. + + [Sidenote] _Errors committed in respect to this law._ + +Many have sinned and continue to sin against this special form of the +criterion of progress in artistic and literary history. Some, for +instance, talk of the infancy of Italian art in Giotto, and of its +maturity in Raphael or in Titian; as though Giotto were not quite +perfect and complete, in respect to his psychic material. He was +certainly incapable of drawing a figure like Raphael, or of colouring it +like Titian; but was Raphael or Titian by any chance capable of creating +the _Matrimonio di San Francesco con la Poverta_, or the _Morte di San +Francesco_? The spirit of Giotto had not felt the attraction of the body +beautiful, which the Renaissance studied and raised to a place of +honour; but the spirits of Raphael and of Titian were no longer curious +of certain movements of ardour and of tenderness, which attracted the +man of the fourteenth century. How, then, can a comparison be made, +where there is no comparative term? + +The celebrated divisions of the history of art suffer from the same +defect. They are as follows: an oriental period, representing a +disequilibrium between idea and form, with prevalence of the second; a +classical, representing an equilibrium between idea and form; a +romantic, representing a new disequilibrium between idea and form, with +prevalence of the idea. There are also the divisions into oriental art, +representing imperfection of form; classical, perfection of form; +romantic or modern, perfection of content and of form. Thus classic and +romantic have also received, among their many other meanings, that of +progressive or regressive periods, in respect to the realization of some +indefinite artistic ideal of humanity. + + [Sidenote] _Other meanings of the word "progress" in respect to + Aesthetic._ + +There is no such thing, then, as an _aesthetic_ progress of humanity. +However, by aesthetic progress is sometimes meant, not what the two +words coupled together really signify, but the ever-increasing +accumulation of our historical knowledge, which makes us able to +sympathize with all the artistic products of all peoples and of all +times, or, as is said, to make our taste more catholic. The difference +appears very great, if the eighteenth century, so incapable of escaping +from itself, be compared with our own time, which enjoys alike Hellenic +and Roman art, now better understood, Byzantine, mediaeval, Arabic, and +Renaissance art, the art of the Cinque Cento, baroque art, and the art +of the seventeenth century. Egyptian, Babylonian, Etruscan, and even +prehistoric art, are more profoundly studied every day. Certainly, the +difference between the savage and civilized man does not lie in the +human faculties. The savage has speech, intellect, religion, and +morality, in common with civilized man, and he is a complete man. The +only difference lies in that civilized man penetrates and dominates a +larger portion of the universe with his theoretic and practical +activity. We cannot claim to be more spiritually alert than, for +example, the contemporaries of Pericles; but no one can deny that we are +richer than they--rich with their riches and with those of how many +other peoples and generations besides our own? + +By aesthetic progress is also meant, in another sense, which is also +improper, the greater abundance of artistic intuitions and the smaller +number of imperfect or decadent works which one epoch produces in +respect to another. Thus it may be said that there was aesthetic +progress, an artistic awakening, at the end of the thirteenth or of the +fifteenth centuries. + +Finally, aesthetic progress is talked of, with an eye to the refinement +and to the psychical complications exhibited in the works of art of the +most civilized peoples, as compared with those of less civilized +peoples, barbarians and savages. But in this case, the progress is that +of the complex conditions of society, not of the artistic activity, to +which the material is indifferent. + +These are the most important points concerning the method of artistic +and literary history. + + + + +XVIII + +CONCLUSION: + +IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + + + [Sidenote] _Summary of the inquiry._ + +A glance over the path traversed will show that we have completed the +entire programme of our treatise. We have studied the nature of +intuitive or expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic +fact (I. and II.), and we have described the other form of knowledge, +namely, the intellectual, with the secondary complications of its forms +(III.). Having done this, it became possible to criticize all erroneous +theories of art, which arise from the confusion between the various +forms, and from the undue transference of the characteristics of one +form to those of another (IV.), and in so doing to indicate the inverse +errors which are found in the theory of intellectual knowledge and of +historiography (V.). Passing on to examine the relations between the +aesthetic activity and the other spiritual activities, no longer +theoretic but practical, we have indicated the true character of the +practical activity and the place which it occupies in respect to the +theoretic activity, which it follows: hence the critique of the invasion +of aesthetic theory by practical concepts (VI.). We have also +distinguished the two forms of the practical activity, as economic and +ethic (VII.), adding to this the statement that there are no other forms +of the spirit beyond the four which we have analyzed; hence (VIII.) the +critique of every metaphysical Aesthetic. And, seeing that there exist +no other spiritual forms of equal degree, therefore there are no +original subdivisions of the four established, and in particular of +Aesthetic. From this arises the impossibility of classes of expressions +and the critique of Rhetoric, that is, of the partition of expressions +into simple and ornate, and of their subclasses (IX.). But, by the law +of the unity of the spirit, the aesthetic fact is also a practical fact, +and as such, occasions pleasure and pain. This led us to study the +feelings of value in general, and those of aesthetic value, or of the +beautiful, in particular (X.), to criticize aesthetic hedonism in all +its various manifestations and complications (XI.), and to expel from +the system of Aesthetic the long series of pseudo-aesthetic concepts, +which had been introduced into it (XII.). Proceeding from aesthetic +production to the facts of reproduction, we began by investigating the +mode of fixing externally the aesthetic expression, with the view of +reproduction. This is the so-called physically beautiful, whether it be +natural or artificial (XIII.). We then derived from this distinction the +critique of the errors which arise from confounding the physical with +the aesthetic side of things (XIV.). We indicated the meaning of +artistic technique, that which is the technique serving for +reproduction, thus criticizing the divisions, limits, and +classifications of the individual arts, and establishing the connections +between art, economy, and morality (XV.). Because the existence of the +physical objects does not suffice to stimulate to the full aesthetic +reproduction, and because, in order to obtain this result, it is +necessary to recall the conditions in which the stimulus first operated, +we have also studied the function of historical erudition, directed +toward the end of re-establishing our communication with the works of +the past, and toward the creation of a base for aesthetic judgment +(XVI.). We have closed our treatise by showing how the reproduction thus +obtained is afterwards elaborated by the intellectual categories, that +is to say, by an excursus on the method of literary and artistic history +(XVII.). + +The aesthetic fact has thus been considered both in itself and in its +relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings of +pleasure and of pain, with the facts that are called physical, with +memory, and with historical elaboration. It has passed from the position +of _subject_ to that of _object_, that is to say, from the moment of +_its birth_, until gradually it becomes changed for the spirit into +_historical argument_. + +Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre, when compared with the +great volumes usually consecrated to Aesthetic. But it will not seem so, +when it is observed that these volumes, as regards nine-tenths of their +contents, are full of matter which does not appertain to Aesthetic, such +as definitions, either psychical or metaphysical, of pseudo-aesthetic +concepts (of the sublime, the comic, the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or +of the exposition of the supposed Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy of +Aesthetic, and of universal history judged from the aesthetic +standpoint. The whole history of concrete art and literature has also +been dragged into those Aesthetics and generally mangled; they contain +judgments upon Homer and Dante, upon Ariosto and Shakespeare, upon +Beethoven and Rossini, Michelangelo and Raphael. When all this has been +deducted from them, our treatise will no longer be held to be too +meagre, but, on the contrary, far more copious than ordinary treatises, +for these either omit altogether, or hardly touch at all, the greater +part of the difficult problems proper to Aesthetic, which we have felt +it to be our duty to study. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of Linguistic and Aesthetic._ + +Aesthetic, then, as the science of expression, has been here studied by +us from every point of view. But there yet remains to justify the +sub-title, which we have joined to the title of our book, _General +Linguistic_, and to state and make clear the thesis that the science of +art is that of language. Aesthetic and Linguistic, in so far as they are +true sciences, are not two different sciences, but one single science. +Not that there is a special Linguistic; but the linguistic science +sought for, general Linguistic, _in so far as what it contains is +reducible to philosophy_, is nothing but Aesthetic. Whoever studies +general Linguistic, that is to say, philosophical Linguistic, studies +aesthetic problems, and _vice versa_. _Philosophy of language and +philosophy of art are the same thing_. + +Were Linguistic a _different_ science from Aesthetic, it should not have +expression, which is the essentially aesthetic fact, for its object. +This amounts to saying that it must be denied that language is +expression. But an emission of sounds, which expresses nothing, is not +language. Language is articulate, limited, organized sound, employed in +expression. If, on the other hand, language were a _special_ science in +respect to Aesthetic, it would necessarily have for its object a +_special class_ of expressions. But the inexistence of classes of +expression is a point which we have already demonstrated. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic formulization of linguistic problems. Nature + of language._ + +The problems which Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which +Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and +complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other +hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic +to their aesthetic formula. + +The disputes as to the nature of the one find their parallel in those as +to the nature of the other. Thus it has been disputed, whether +Linguistic be a scientific or a historical discipline, and the +scientific having been distinguished from the historical, it has been +asked whether it belong to the order of the natural or of the +psychological sciences, by the latter being understood empirical +Psychology, as much as the science of the spirit. The same has happened +with Aesthetic, which some have looked upon as a natural science, +confounding aesthetic expression with physical expression. Others have +looked upon it as a psychological science, confounding expression in its +universality, with the empirical classification of expressions. Others +again, denying the very possibility of a science of such a subject, have +looked upon it as a collection of historical facts. Finally, it has been +realized that it belongs to the sciences of activity or of values, which +are the spiritual sciences. + +Linguistic expression, or speech, has often seemed to be a fact of +_interjection_, which belongs to the so-called physical expressions of +the feelings, common alike to men and animals. But it was soon admitted +that an abyss yawns between the "Ah!" which is a physical reflex of +pain, and a word; as also between that "Ah!" of pain and the "Ah!" +employed as a word. The theory of the interjection being abandoned +(jocosely termed the "Ah! Ah!" theory by German linguists), the theory +of _association or convention_ appeared. This theory was refuted by the +same objection which destroyed aesthetic associationism in general: +speech is unity, not multiplicity of images, and multiplicity does not +explain, but presupposes the existence of the expression to explain. A +variant of linguistic associationism is the imitative, that is to say, +the theory of the onomatopoeia, which the same philologists deride under +the name of the "bow-wow" theory, after the imitation of the dog's bark, +which, according to the onomatopoeists, gives its name to the dog. + +The most usual theory of our times as regards language (apart from mere +crass naturalism) consists of a sort of eclecticism or mixture of the +various theories to which we have referred. It is assumed that language +is in part the product of interjections and in part of onomatopes and +conventions. This doctrine is altogether worthy of the scientific and +philosophic decadence of the second half of the nineteenth century. + + [Sidenote] _Origin of language and its development._ + +We must here note a mistake into which have fallen those very +philologists who have best penetrated the active nature of language. +These, although they admit that language was _originally a spiritual +creation_, yet maintain that it was largely increased later by +_association_. But the distinction does not prevail, for origin in this +case cannot mean anything but nature or essence. If, therefore, language +be a spiritual creation, it will always be a creation; if it be +association, it will have been so from the beginning. The mistake has +arisen from not having grasped the general principle of Aesthetic, which +we have noted: namely, that expressions already produced must redescend +to the rank of impressions before they can give rise to new impressions. +When we utter new words, we generally transform the old ones, varying or +enlarging their meaning; but this process is not associative. It is +creative, although the creation has for material the impressions, not of +the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who has lived long ages in +society, and who has, so to say, stored so many things in his psychic +organism, and among them so much language. + + [Sidenote] _Relation between Grammar and Logic._ + +The question of the distinction between the aesthetic and the +intellectual fact has appeared in Linguistic as that of the relations +between Grammar and Logic. This question has found two solutions, which +are partially true: that of the indissolubility of Logic and Grammar, +and that of their dissolubility. The complete solution is this: if the +logical form be indissoluble from the grammatical (aesthetic), the +grammatical is dissoluble from the logical. + + [Sidenote] _Grammatical classes or parts of speech._ + +If we look at a picture which, for example, portrays a man walking on a +country road, we can say: "This picture represents a fact of movement, +which, if conceived as volitional, is called _action_. And because every +movement implies _matter_, and every action a being that acts, this +picture also represents either _matter_ or a _being_. But this movement +takes place in a definite place, which is a part of a given _star_ (the +Earth), and precisely in that part of it which is called _terra-firma_, +and more properly in a part of it that is wooded and covered with grass, +which is called _country_, cut naturally or artificially, in a manner +which is called _road_. Now, there is only one example of that given +star, which is called Earth: Earth is an _individual_. But +_terra-firma_, _country_, _road_, are _classes or universals_, because +there are other terra-firmas, other countries, other roads." And it +would be possible to continue for a while with similar considerations. +By substituting a phrase for the picture that we have imagined, for +example, one to this effect, "Peter is walking on a country road," and +by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts of _verb_ (motion or +action), of _noun_ (matter or agent), of _proper noun_, of _common +nouns_; and so on. + +What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than to submit to +logical elaboration what was first elaborated only aesthetically; that +is to say, we have destroyed the aesthetical by the logical. But, as in +general Aesthetic, error begins when It is wished to return from the +logical to the aesthetical, and it is asked what is the expression of +movement, action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, +etc.; thus in like manner with language, error begins when motion or +action are called verb, being, or matter, noun or substantive, and when +linguistic categories, or _parts of speech_, are made of all these, noun +and verb and so on. The theory of parts of speech is at bottom +altogether the same as that of artistic and literary classes, already +criticized in the Aesthetic. + +It is false to say that the verb or the noun is expressed in definite +words, truly distinguishable from others. Expression is an indivisible +whole. Noun and verb do not exist in themselves, but are abstractions +made by our destroying the sole linguistic reality, which is _the +proposition_. This last is to be understood, not in the usual mode of +grammarians, but as an organism expressive of a complete meaning, from +an exclamation to a poem. This sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless a +most simple truth. + +And as in Aesthetic, the artistic productions of certain peoples have +been looked upon as imperfect, owing to the error above mentioned, +because the supposed kinds have seemed still to be indiscriminate or +absent with them; so, in Linguistic, the theory of the parts of speech +has caused the analogous error of dividing languages into formed and +unformed, according to whether there appear in them or not some of those +supposed parts of speech; for example, the verb. + + [Sidenote] _The individuality of speech and the classification of + languages._ + +Linguistic also discovered the irreducible individuality of the +aesthetic fact, when it affirmed that the word is what is really spoken, +and that two truly identical words do not exist. Thus were synonyms and +homonyms destroyed, and thus was shown the impossibility of really +translating one word into another, from so-called dialect into so-called +language, and from a so-called mother-tongue into a so-called foreign +tongue. + +But the attempt to classify languages agrees ill with this correct view. +Languages have no reality beyond the propositions and complexes of +propositions really written and pronounced by given peoples for definite +periods. That is to say, they have no existence outside the works of +art, in which they exist concretely. What is the art of a given people +but the complex of all its artistic products? What is the character of +an art (say, Hellenic art or Provencal literature), but the complex +physiognomy of those products? And how can such a question be answered, +save by giving the history of their art (of their literature, that is to +say, of their language in action)? + +It will seem that this argument, although possessing value as against +many of the wonted classifications of languages, yet is without any as +regards that queen of classifications, the historico-genealogical, that +glory of comparative philology. And this is certainly true. But why? +Precisely because the historico-genealogical method is not a +classification. He who writes history does not classify, and the +philologists themselves have hastened to say that the languages which +can be arranged in a historical series (those whose series have been +traced) are, not distinct and definite species, but a complex of facts +in the various phases of its development. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of a normative grammar._ + +Language has sometimes been looked upon as an act of volition or of +choice. But others have discovered the impossibility of creating +language artificially, by an act of will. _Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare +potes homini, verbo non poles!_ was once said to the Roman Emperor. + +The aesthetic (and therefore theoretic) nature of expression supplies +the method of correcting the scientific error which lies in the +conception of a (normative) _Grammar_, containing the rules of speaking +well. Good sense has always rebelled against this error. An example of +such rebellion is the "So much the worse for grammar" of Voltaire. But +the impossibility of a normative grammar is also recognized by those who +teach it, when they confess that to write well cannot be learned by +rules, that there are no rules without exceptions, and that the study of +Grammar should be conducted practically, by reading and by examples, +which form the literary taste. The scientific reason of this +impossibility lies in what we have already proved: that a technique of +the theoretical amounts to a contradiction in terms. And what could a +(normative) grammar be, but just a technique of linguistic expression, +that is to say, of a theoretic fact? + + [Sidenote] _Didactic purposes._ + +The case in which Grammar is understood merely as an empirical +discipline, that is to say, as a collection of groups useful for +learning languages, without any claim whatever to philosophic truth, is +quite different. Even the abstractions of the parts of speech are in +this case both admissible and of assistance. + +Many books entitled treatises of Linguistic have a merely didactic +purpose; they are simply scholastic manuals. We find in them, in truth, +a little of everything, from the description of the vocal apparatus and +of the artificial machines (phonographs) which can imitate it, to +summaries of the most important results obtained by Indo-European, +Semitic, Coptic, Chinese, or other philologies; from philosophic +generalizations on the origin or nature of language, to advice on +calligraphy, and the arrangement of schedules for philological spoils. +But this mass of notions, which is here taught in a fragmentary and +incomplete manner as regards the language in its essence, the language +as expression, resolves itself into notions of Aesthetic. Nothing exists +outside _Aesthetic_, which gives knowledge of the nature of language, +and _empirical Grammar_, which is a pedagogic expedient, save the +_History of languages_ in their living reality, that is, the history of +concrete literary productions, which is substantially identical with the +_History of literature_. + + [Sidenote] _Elementary linguistic facts or roots._ + +The same mistake of confusing the physical with the aesthetic, from +which the elementary forms of the beautiful originate, is made by those +who seek for elementary aesthetic facts, decorating with that name the +divisions of the longer series of physical sounds into shorter series. +Syllables, vowels, and consonants, and the series of syllables called +words which give no definite sense when taken alone, are not facts of +language, but simple physical concepts of sounds. + +Another mistake of the same sort is that of roots, to which the most +able philologists now accord but a very limited value. Having confused +physical with linguistic or expressive facts, and observing that, in the +order of ideas, the simple precedes the complex, they necessarily ended +by thinking that _the smaller_ physical facts were _the more simple_. +Hence the imaginary necessity that the most antique, primitive +languages, had been monosyllabic, and that the progress of historical +research must lead to the discovery of monosyllabic roots. But (to +follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first +man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: it may +have been exteriorised, not in a sound but in a gesture. And assuming +that it was exteriorised in a sound, there is no reason to suppose that +sound to have been monosyllabic rather than plurisyllabic. Philologists +frequently blame their own ignorance and impotence, if they do not +always succeed in reducing plurisyllabism to monosyllabism, and they +trust in the future. But their faith is without foundation, as their +blame of themselves is an act of humility arising from an erroneous +presumption. + +Furthermore, the limits of syllables, as those of words, are altogether +arbitrary, and distinguished, as well as may be, by empirical use. +Primitive speech, or the speech of the uncultured man, is _continuous_, +unaccompanied by any reflex consciousness of the divisions of the word +and of the syllables, which are taught at school. No true law of +Linguistic can be founded on such divisions. Proof of this is to be +found in the confession of linguists, that there are no truly phonetic +laws of the hiatus, of cacophony, of diaeresis, of synaeresis, but +merely laws of taste and convenience; that is to say, _aesthetic_ laws. +And what are the laws of _words_ which are not at the same time laws of +_style_? + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment and the model language._ + +The search for a _model language_, or for a method of reducing +linguistic usage to _unity_, arises from the misconception of a +rationalistic measurement of the beautiful, from the concept which we +have termed that of false aesthetic absoluteness. In Italy, we call this +question that of the _unity of the language_. + +Language is perpetual creation. What has been linguistically expressed +cannot be repeated, save by the reproduction of what has already been +produced. The ever-new impressions give rise to continuous changes of +sounds and of meanings, that is, to ever-new expressions. To seek the +model language, then, is to seek the immobility of motion. Every one +speaks, and should speak, according to the echoes which things arouse in +his soul, that is, according to his impressions. It is not without +reason that the most convinced supporter of any one of the solutions of +the problem of the unity of language (be it by the use of Latin, of +fourteenth-century Italian, or of Florentine) feels a repugnance in +applying his theory, when he is speaking in order to communicate his +thoughts and to make himself understood. The reason for this is that he +feels that were he to substitute Latin, fourteenth-century Italian, or +Florentine speech for that of a different origin, but which answers to +his impressions, he would be falsifying the latter. He would become a +vain listener to himself, instead of a speaker, a pedant in place of a +serious man, a histrion instead of a sincere person. To write according +to a theory is not really to write: at the most, it is _making +literature_. + +The question of the unity of language is always reappearing, because, +put as it is, there can be no solution to it, owing to its being based +upon a false conception of what language is. Language is not an arsenal +of ready-made arms, and it is not _vocabulary_, which, in so far as it +is thought of as progressive and in living use, is always a cemetery, +containing corpses more or less well embalmed, that is to say, a +collection of abstractions. + +Our mode of settling the question of the model language, or of the unity +of the language, may seem somewhat abrupt, and yet we would not wish to +appear otherwise than respectful towards the long line of literary men +who have debated this question in Italy for centuries. But those ardent +debates were, at bottom, debates upon aestheticity, not upon aesthetic +science, upon literature rather than upon literary theory, upon +effective speaking and writing, not upon linguistic science. Their error +consisted in transforming the manifestation of a want into a scientific +thesis, the need of understanding one another more easily among a people +dialectically divided, in the philosophic search for a language, which +should be one or ideal. Such a search was as absurd as that other search +for a _universal language_, with the immobility of the concept and of +the abstraction. The social need for a better understanding of one +another cannot be satisfied save by universal culture, by the increase +of communications, and by the interchange of thought among men. + + [Sidenote] _Conclusion._ + +These observations must suffice to show that all the scientific problems +of Linguistic are the same as those of Aesthetic, and that the truths +and errors of the one are the truths and errors of the other. If +Linguistic and Aesthetic appear to be two different sciences, this +arises from the fact that people think of the former as grammar, or as a +mixture between philosophy and grammar, that is, an arbitrary mnemonic +scheme. They do not think of it as a rational science and as a pure +philosophy of speech. Grammar, or something grammatical, also causes the +prejudice in people's minds, that the reality of language lies in +isolated and combinable words, not in living discourse among expressive +organisms, rationally indivisible. + +Those linguists, or glottologists with philosophical endowments, who +have best fathomed questions of language, resemble (to employ a worn but +efficacious figure) workmen piercing a tunnel: at a certain point they +must hear the voices of their companions, the philosophers of Aesthetic, +who have been piercing it from the other side. At a certain stage of +scientific elaboration, Linguistic, in so far as it is philosophy, must +be merged in Aesthetic; and indeed it is merged in it, without leaving a +residue. + + + + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +I + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN GRAECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY + + +The question, as to whether Aesthetic should be looked upon as ancient +or modern, has often been discussed. The answer will depend upon the +view taken of the nature of Aesthetic. + +Benedetto Croce has proved that Aesthetic is _the science of expressive +activity_. But this knowledge cannot be reached, until has been defined +the nature of imagination, of representation, of expression, or whatever +we may term that faculty which is theoretic, but not intellectual, which +gives knowledge of the individual, but not of the universal. + +Now the deviations from this, the correct theory, may arise in two ways: +by _defect_ or by _excess_. Negation of the special aesthetic activity, +or of its autonomy, is an instance of the former. This amounts to a +mutilation of the reality of the spirit. Of the latter, the substitution +or superposition of another mysterious and non-existent activity is an +example. + +These errors each take several forms. That which errs by defect may be: +(_a_) pure hedonism, which looks upon art as merely sensual pleasure; +(_b_) rigoristic hedonism, agreeing with (_a_), but adding that art is +irreconcilable with the loftiest activities of man; (_c_) moralistic or +pedagogic hedonism, which admits, with the two former, that art is mere +sensuality, but believes that it may not only be harmless, but of some +service to morals, if kept in proper subjection and obedience. + +The error by excess also assumes several forms, but these are +indeterminable _a priori_. This view is fully dealt with under the name +of _mystic_, in the Theory and in the Appendix. + +Graeco-Roman antiquity was occupied with the problem in all these forms. +In Greece, the problem of art and of the artistic faculty arose for the +first time after the sophistic movement, as a result of the Socratic +polemic. + +With the appearance of the word _mimesis_ or _mimetic_, we have a first +attempt at grouping the arts, and the expression, allegoric, or its +equivalent, used in defence of Homer's poetry, reminds us of what Plato +called "the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry." + +But when internal facts were all looked upon as mere phenomena of +opinion or feeling, of pleasure or of pain, of illusion or of arbitrary +caprice, there could be no question of beautiful or ugly, of difference +between the true and the beautiful, or between the beautiful and the +good. + +The problem of the nature of art assumes as solved those problems +concerning the difference between rational and irrational, material and +spiritual, bare fact and value, etc. This was first done in the Socratic +period, and therefore the aesthetic problem could only arise after +Socrates. + +And in fact it does arise, with Plato, _the author of the only great +negation of art which appears in the history of ideas_. + +Is art rational or irrational? Does it belong to the noble region of the +soul, where dwell philosophy and virtue, or does it cohabit with +sensuality and with crude passion in the lower regions? This was the +question that Plato asked, and thus was the aesthetic problem stated for +the first time. + +His Gorgias remarks with sceptical acumen, that tragedy is a deception, +which brings honour alike to deceived and to deceiver, and therefore it +is blameworthy not to know how to deceive and not to allow oneself to be +deceived. This suffices for Gorgias, but Plato, the philosopher, must +resolve the doubt. If it be in fact deception, down with tragedy and the +other arts! If it be not deception, then what is the place of tragedy in +philosophy and in the righteous life? His answer was that art or mimetic +does not realize the ideas, or the truth of things, but merely +reproduces natural or artificial things, which are themselves mere +shadows of the ideas. Art, then, is but a shadow of a shadow, a thing of +third-rate degree. The artificer fashions the object which the painter +paints. The artificer copies the divine idea and the painter copies him. +Art therefore does not belong to the rational, but to the irrational, +sensual sphere of the soul. It can serve but for sensual pleasure, which +disturbs and obscures. Therefore must mimetic, poetry, and poets be +excluded from the perfect Republic. + +Plato observed with truth, that imitation does not rise to the logical +or conceptual sphere, of which poets and painters, as such, are, in +fact, ignorant. But he _failed to realize_ that there could be any form +of knowledge other than the intellectual. + +We now know that Intuition lies on this side or outside the Intellect, +from which it differs as much as it does from passion and sensuality. + +Plato, with his fine aesthetic sense, would have been grateful to anyone +who could have shown him how to place art, which he loved and practised +so supremely himself, among the lofty activities of the spirit. But in +his day, no one could give him such assistance. His conscience and his +reason saw that art makes the false seem the true, and therefore he +resolutely banished it to the lower regions of the spirit. + +The tendency among those who followed Plato in time was to find some +means of retaining art and of depriving it of the baleful influence +which it was believed to exercise. Life without art was to the +beauty-loving Greek an impossibility, although he was equally conscious +of the demands of reason and of morality. Thus it happened that art, +which, on the purely hedonistic hypothesis, had been treated as a +beautiful courtezan, became in the hands of the moralist, a pedagogue. +Aristophanes and Strabo, and above all Aristotle, dwell upon the +didactic and moralistic possibility of poetry. For Plutarch, poetry +seems to have been a sort of preparation for philosophy, a twilight to +which the eyes should grow accustomed, before emerging into the full +light of day. + +Among the Romans, we find Lucretius comparing the beauties of his great +poem to the sweet yellow honey, with which doctors are wont to anoint +the rim of the cup containing their bitter drugs. Horace, as so +frequently, takes his inspiration from the Greek, when he offers the +double view of art: as courtezan and as pedagogue. In his _Ad Pisones_ +occur the passages, in which we find mingled with the poetic function, +that of the orator--the practical and the aesthetic. "Was Virgil a poet +or an orator?" The triple duty of pleasing, moving, and teaching, was +imposed upon the poet. Then, with a thought for the supposed +meretricious nature of their art, the ingenious Horace remarks that both +must employ the seductions of form. + +The _mystic_ view of art appeared only in late antiquity, with Plotinus. +The curious error of looking upon Plato as the head of this school and +as the Father of Aesthetic assumes that he who felt obliged to banish +art altogether from the domain of the higher functions of the spirit, +was yet ready to yield to it the highest place there. The mystical view +of Aesthetic accords a lofty place indeed to Aesthetic, placing it even +above philosophy. The enthusiastic praise of the beautiful, to be found +in the _Gorgias_, _Philebus_, _Phaedrus_, and _Symposium_ is responsible +for this misunderstanding, but it is well to make perfectly clear that +the beautiful, of which Plato discourses in those dialogues, has nothing +to do with the _artistically_ beautiful, nor with the mysticism of the +neo-Platonicians. + +Yet the thinkers of antiquity were aware that a problem lay in the +direction of Aesthetic, and Xenophon records the sayings of Socrates +that the beautiful is "that which is fitting and answers to the end +required." Elsewhere he says "it is that which is loved." Plato likewise +vibrates between various views and offers several solutions. Sometimes +he appears almost to confound the beautiful with the true, the good and +the divine; at others he leans toward the utilitarian view of Socrates; +at others he distinguishes between what is beautiful In itself and what +possesses but a relative beauty. At other times again, he is a hedonist, +and makes it to consist of pure pleasure, that is, of pleasure with no +shadow of pain; or he finds it in measure and proportion, or in the very +sound, the very colour itself. The reason for all this vacillation of +definition lay in Plato's exclusion of the artistic or mimetic fact from +the domain of the higher spiritual activities. The _Hippias major_ +expresses this uncertainty more completely than any of the other +dialogues. What is the beautiful? That is the question asked at the +beginning, and left unanswered at the end. The Platonic Socrates and +Hippias propose the most various solutions, one after another, but +always come out by the gate by which they entered in. Is the beautiful +to be found in ornament? No, for gold embellishes only where it is in +keeping. Is the beautiful that which seems ugly to no man? But it is a +question of being, not of seeming. Is it their fitness which makes +things seem beautiful? But in that case, the fitness which makes them +appear beautiful is one thing, the beautiful another. If the beautiful +be the useful or that which leads to an end, then evil would also be +beautiful, because the useful may also end evilly. Is the beautiful the +helpful, that which leads to the good? No, for in that case the good +would not be beautiful, nor the beautiful good, because cause and effect +are different. + +Thus they argued in the Platonic dialogues, and when we turn to the +pages of Aristotle, we find him also uncertain and inclined to vary his +definitions.[5] Sometimes for him the good and pleasurable are the +beautiful, sometimes it lies in actions, at others in things motionless, +or in bulk and order, or is altogether undefinable. Antiquity also +established canons of the beautiful, and the famous canon of +Polycleitus, on the proportions of the human body, fitly compares with +that of later times on the golden line, and with the Ciceronian phrase +from the Tusculan Disputations. But these are all of them mere empirical +observations, mere happy remarks and verbal substitutions, which lead to +unsurmountable difficulties when put to philosophical test. + +One important identification is absent in all those early attempts at +truth. The beautiful is never identified with art, and the artistic fact +is always clearly distinguished from beauty, mimetic from its content. +Plotinus first identified the two, and with him the beautiful and art +are dissolved together in a passion and mystic elevation of the spirit. +The beauty of natural objects is the archetype existing in the soul, +which is the fountain of all natural beauty. Thus was Plato (he said) in +error, when he despised the arts for imitating nature, for nature +herself imitates the idea, and art also seeks her inspiration directly +from those ideas whence nature proceeds. We have here, with Plotinus and +with Neoplatonism, the first appearance in the world of mystical +Aesthetic, destined to play so important a part in later aesthetic +theory. + +Aristotle was far more happy in his attempts at defining Aesthetic as +the science of representation and of expression than in his definitions +of the beautiful. He felt that some element of the problem had been +overlooked, and in attempting in his turn a solution, he had the +advantage over Plato of looking upon the ideas as simple concepts, not +as hypostases of concepts or of abstractions. Thus reality was more +vivid for Aristotle: it was the synthesis of matter and form. He saw +that art, or mimetic, was a theoretic fact, or a mode of contemplation. +"But if Poetry be a theoretic fact, in what way is it to be distinguished +from science and from historical knowledge?" Thus magnificently does the +great philosopher pose the problem at the commencement of his _Poetics_, +and thus alone can it be posed successfully. We ask the same question in +the same words to-day. But the problem is difficult, and the masterly +statement of it was not equalled by the method of solution then +available. He made an excellent start on his voyage of discovery, but +stopped half way, irresolute and perplexed. Poetry, he says, differs from +history, by portraying the possible, while history deals with what has +really happened. Poetry, like philosophy, aims at the universal, but in a +different way, which the philosopher indicates as something more (_mallon +tha katholon_) which differentiates poetry from history, occupied with the +particular (_malon tha kath ekaston_). What, then, is the possible, the +something more, and the particular of poetry? Aristotle immediately falls +into error and confusion, when he attempts to define these words. Since +art has to deal with the absurd and with the impossible, it cannot be +anything rational, but a mere imitation of reality, in accordance with +the Platonic theory--a fact of sensual pleasure. Aristotle does not, +however, attain to so precise a definition as Plato, whose erroneous +definition he does not succeed in supplanting. The truth is that he +failed of his self-imposed task; he failed to discern the true nature of +Aesthetic, although he restated and re-examined the problem with such +marvellous acumen. + +After Aristotle, there comes a lull in the discussion, until Plotinus. +The _Poetics_ were generally little studied, and the admirable statement +of the problem generally neglected by later writers. Antique psychology +knew the fancy or imagination, as preserving or reproducing sensuous +impressions, or as an intermediary between the concepts and feeling: its +autonomous productive activity was not yet understood. In the _Life of +Apollonius of Tyana_, Philostratus is said to have been the first to +make clear the difference between mimetic and creative imagination. But +this does not in reality differ from the Aristotelian mimetic, which is +concerned, not only with the real, but also with the possible. Cicero +too, before Philostratus, speaks of a kind of exquisite beauty lying +hidden in the soul of the artist, which guides his hand and art. +Antiquity seems generally to have been entrammelled in the meshes of the +belief in mimetic, or the duplication of natural objects by the artist +Philostratus and the other protagonists of the imagination may have +meant to combat this error, but the shadows lie heavy until we reach +Plotinus. + +We find already astir among the sophists the question as to the nature +of language. Admitting that language is a sign, are we to take that +as signifying a spiritual necessity (_phusis_) or as a psychological +convention (_nomos_)? Aristotle made a valuable contribution to this +difficult question, when he spoke of a kind of proposition other than +those which predicate truth or falsehood, that is, logic. With him +_euchae_ is the term proper to designate desires and aspirations, +which are the vehicle of poetry and of oratory. (It must be remembered +that for Aristotle words, like poetry, belonged to mimetic.) The +profound remark about the third mode of proposition would, one would +have thought, have led naturally to the separation of linguistic +from logic, and to its classification with poetry and art. But the +Aristotelian logic assumed a verbal and formal character, which set +back the attainment of this position by many hundred years. Yet the +genius of Epicurus had an intuition of the truth, when he remarked +that the diversity of names for the same things arose, not from +arbitrary caprice, but from the diverse impression derived from the +same object. The Stoics, too, seem to have had an inkling of the +non-logical nature of speech, but their use of the word _lekton_ +leaves it doubtful whether they distinguished by it the linguistic +representation from the abstract concept, or rather, generically, the +meaning from the sound. + +[5] In the Appendix will be found further striking quotations from + and references to Aristotle.--(D.A.) + + + + +II + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN THE MIDDLE AGE AND IN THE RENAISSANCE + + +Well-nigh all the theories of antique Aesthetic reappear in the Middle +Ages, as it were by spontaneous generation. Duns Scotus Erigena +translated the Neoplatonic mysticism of the pseudo-Dionysus. The +Christian God took the place of the chief Good or Idea: God, wisdom, +goodness, supreme beauty are the fountains of natural beauty, and these +are steps in the stair of contemplation of the Creator. In this manner +speculation began to be diverted from the art fact, which had been so +prominent with Plotinus. Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in +distinguishing the beautiful from the good, and applied his doctrine of +imitation to the beauty of the second person of the Trinity (_in quantum +est imago expressa Patris_). With the troubadours, we may find traces of +the hedonistic view of art, and the rigoristic hypothesis finds in +Tertullian and in certain Fathers of the Church staunch upholders. The +retrograde Savonarola occupied the same position at a later period. But +the narcotic, moralistic, or pedagogic view mostly prevailed, for it +best suited an epoch of relative decadence in culture. It suited +admirably the Middle Age, offering at once an excuse for the new-born +Christian art, and for those works of classical or pagan art which yet +survived. Specimens of this view abound all through the Middle Age. We +find it, for instance, in the criticism of Virgil, to whose work were +attributed four distinct meanings: literal, allegorical, moral, and +anagogic. For Dante poetry was _nihil aliud quam fictio rhetorica in +musicaque posita_. "If the vulgar be incapable of appreciating my inner +meaning, then they shall at least incline their minds to the perfection +of my beauty. If from me ye cannot gather wisdom, at the least shall ye +enjoy me as a pleasant thing." Thus spoke the Muse of Dante, whose +_Convivio_ is an attempt to aid the understanding in its effort to grasp +the moral and pedagogic elements of verse. Poetry was the _gaia +scienza_, "a fiction containing many useful things covered or veiled." + +It would be inexact to identify art in the Middle Age with philosophy +and theology. Its pleasing falsity could be adapted to useful ends, much +in the same way as matrimony excuses love and sexual union. This, +however, implies that for the Middle Age the ideal state was celibacy; +that is, pure knowledge, divorced from art. + +The only line of explanation that was altogether neglected in the Middle +Age was the right one. + +The _Poetics_ of Aristotle were badly rendered into Latin, from the +faulty paraphrase of Averroes, by one Hermann (1256). The nominalist and +realist dispute brought again into the arena the relations between +thought and speech, and we find Duns Scotus occupied with the problem in +his _De modis significandi seu grammatica speculativa_. Abelard had +defined sensation as _confusa conceptio_, and with the importance given +to intuitive knowledge, to the perception of the individual, of the +_species specialissima_ in Duns Scotus, together with the denomination +of the forms of knowledge as _confusae, indistinctae_, and _distinctae_, +we enter upon a terminology, which we shall see appearing again, big +with results, at the commencement of modern Aesthetic. + +The doctrine of the Middle Age, in respect to art and letters, may thus +be regarded as of interest rather to the history of culture than to that +of general knowledge. A like remark holds good of the Renaissance. +Theories of antiquity are studied, countless treatises in many forms are +written upon them, but no really new Ideas as regards aesthetic science +appear on the horizon. + +We find among the spokesmen of mystical Aesthetic in the thirteenth +century such names as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Bembo +and many others wrote on the Beautiful and on Love in the century that +followed. The _Dialogi di Amore_, written in Italian by a Spanish Jew +named Leone and published in 1535, had a European success, being +translated into many languages. He talks of the universality of love and +of its origin, of beauty that is grace, which delights the soul and +impels it to love. Knowledge of lesser beauties leads to loftier +spiritual beauties. Leone called these remarks _Philographia_. + +Petrarch's followers versified similar intuitions, while others wrote +parodies and burlesques of this style; Luca Paciolo, the friend of +Leonardo, made the (false) discovery of the golden section, basing his +speculating upon mathematics; Michael Angelo established an empirical +canon for painting, attempting to give rules for imparting grace and +movement to figures, by means of certain arithmetical proportions; +others found special meanings in colours; while the Platonicians placed +the seat of beauty in the soul, the Aristotelians in physical qualities. +Agostino Nifo, the Averroist, after some inconclusive remarks, is at +last fortunate enough to discover where natural beauty really dwells: +its abode is the body of Giovanna d'Aragona, Princess of Tagliacozzo, to +whom he dedicates his book. Tasso mingled the speculations of the +_Hippias major_ with those of Plotinus. + +Tommaso Campanella, in his _Poetica_, looks upon the beautiful as +_signum boni_, the ugly as _signum mali_. By goodness, he means Power, +Wisdom, and Love. Campanella was still under the influence of the +erroneous Platonic conception of the beautiful, but the use of the word +_sign_ in this place represents progress. It enabled him to see that +things in themselves are neither beautiful nor ugly. + +Nothing proves more clearly that the Renaissance did not overstep the +limits of aesthetic theory reached in antiquity, than the fact that the +pedagogic theory of art continued to prevail, in the face of +translations of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle and of the diffuse labours +expended upon that work. This theory was even grafted upon the +_Poetics_, where one is surprised to find it. There are a few hedonists +standing out from the general trend of opinion. The restatement of the +pedagogic position, reinforced with examples taken from antiquity, was +disseminated throughout Europe by the Italians of the Renaissance. +France, Spain, England, and Germany felt its influence, and we find the +writers of the period of Louis XIV. either frankly didactic, like Le +Bossu (1675), for whom the first object of the poet is to instruct, or +with La Menardiere (1640) speaking of poetry as "cette science agreable +qui mele la gravite des preceptes avec la douceur du langage." For the +former of these critics, Homer was the author of two didactic manuals +relating to military and political matters: the _Iliad_ and the +_Odyssey_. + +Didacticism has always been looked upon as the Poetic of the +Renaissance, although the didactic is not mentioned among the kinds of +poetry of that period. The reason of this lies in the fact that for the +Renaissance all poetry was didactic, in addition to any other qualities +which it might possess. The active discussion of poetic theory, the +criticism of Aristotle and of Plato's exclusion of poetry, of the +possible and of the verisimilar, if it did not contribute much original +material to the theory of art, yet at any rate sowed the seeds which +afterwards germinated and bore fruit. Why, they asked with Aristotle, at +the Renaissance, does poetry deal with the universal, history with the +particular? What is the reason for poetry being obliged to seek +verisimilitude? What does Raphael mean by the "certain idea," which he +follows in his painting? + +These themes and others cognate were dealt with by Italian and by +Spanish writers, who occasionally reveal wonderful acumen, as when +Francesco Patrizio, criticizing Aristotle's theory of imitation, +remarks: "All languages and all philosophic writings and all other +writings would be poetry, because they are made of words, and words are +imitations." But as yet no one dared follow such a clue to the +labyrinth, and the Renaissance closes with the sense of a mystery yet to +be revealed. + + + + +III + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES + + +The seventeenth century is remarkable for the ferment of thought upon +this difficult problem. Such words as genius, taste, imagination or +fancy, and feeling, appear in this literature, and deserve a passing +notice. As regards the word "genius," we find the Italian "ingegno" +opposed to the intellect, and Dialectic adorned with the attributes of +the latter, while Rhetoric has the advantage of "ingegno" in all its +forms, such as "concetti" and "acutezze." With these the English word +ingenious has an obvious connection, especially in its earlier use as +applied to men of letters. The French worked upon the word "ingegno" and +evolved from it in various associations the expressions "esprit," "beaux +Esprits." The manual of the Spanish Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian, became +celebrated throughout Europe, and here we find "ingegno" described as +the truly inventive faculty, and from it the English word "genius," the +Italian "genio," the French "genie," first enter into general use. + +The word "gusto" or taste, "good taste," in its modern sense, also +sprang into use about this time. Taste was held to be a judicial +faculty, directed to the beautiful, and thus to some extent distinct +from the intellectual judgment. It was further bisected into active and +passive; but the former ran into the definition of "ingegno," the latter +described sterility. The word "gusto," or taste as judgment, was in use +in Italy at a very early period; and in Spain we find Lope di Vega and +his contemporaries declaring that their object is to "delight the taste" +of their public. These uses of the word are not of significance as +regards the problem of art, and we must return to Baltasar Gracian +(1642) for a definition of taste as a special faculty or attitude of the +soul. Italian writers of the period echo the praises of this laconic +moralist, who, when he spoke of "a man of taste," meant to describe what +we call to-day "a man of tact" in the conduct of life. + +The first use of the word in a strictly aesthetic sense occurs in France +in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. La Bruyere writes in his +_Caracteres_ (1688): "Il y a dans l'art un point de perfection, comme de +bonte ou de maturite dans la nature: celui qui le sent et qui l'aime, a +le gout parfait; celui qui ne le sent pas, et qui aime au deca ou au +dela, a le gout defectueux. Il y a donc un bon et un mauvais gout, et +l'on dispute des gouts avec fondement." Delicacy and variability or +variety were appended as attributes of taste. This French definition of +the Italian word was speedily adopted in England, where it became "good +taste," and we find it used in this sense in Italian and German writers +of about this period. + +The words "imagination" and "fancy" were also passed through the +crucible in this century. We find the Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino (1644) +blaming those who look for truth or falsehood, for the verisimilar or +for historical truth, in poetry. Poetry, he holds, has to do with the +primary apprehensions, which give neither truth nor falsehood. Thus the +fancy takes the place of the verisimilar of certain students of +Aristotle. The Cardinal continues his eloquence with the clinching +remark that if the intention of poetry were to be believed true, then +its real end would be falsehood, which is absolutely condemned by the +law of nature and by God. The sole object of poetic fables is, he says, +to adorn our intellect with sumptuous, new, marvellous, and splendid +imaginings, and so great has been the benefits accruing from this to the +human race, that poets have been rewarded with a glory superior to any +other, and their names have been crowned with divine honours. This, he +says in his treatise, _Del Bene_, has been the just reward of poets, +albeit they have not been bearers of knowledge, nor have they manifested +truth. + +This throwing of the bridle on the neck of Pegasus seemed to Muratori +sixty years later to be altogether too risky a proceeding--although +advocated by a Prince of the Church! He reinserts the bit of the +verisimilar, though he talks with admiration of the fancy, that +"inferior apprehensive" faculty, which is content to "represent" things, +without seeking to know if they be true or false, a task which it leaves +to the "superior apprehensive" faculty of the intellect. The severe +Gravina, too, finds his heart touched by the beauty of poetry, when he +calls it "a witch, but wholesome." + +As early as 1578, Huarte had maintained that eloquence is the work of +the imagination, not of the intellect; in England, Bacon (1605) +attributed knowledge to the intellect, history to memory, and poetry to +the imagination or fancy; Hobbes described the manifestations of the +latter; and Addison devoted several numbers of the _Spectator_ to the +analysis of "the pleasures of the imagination." + +During the same period, the division between those who are accustomed "a +juger par le sentiment" and those who "raisonnent par les principes" +became marked in France, Du Bos (1719) is an interesting example of the +upholder of the feelings as regards the production of art. Indeed, there +is in his view no other criterion, and the feeling for art is a sixth +sense, against which intellectual argument is useless. This French +school of thought found a reflex in England with the position assigned +there to emotion in artistic work. But the confusion of such words as +imagination, taste, feeling, wit, shows that at this time there was a +suspicion that these words were all applicable to the same fact. +Alexander Pope thus distinguished wit and judgment: + + For wit and judgment often are at strife, + Though meant each other's aid like man and wife. + +But there was a divergence of opinion as to whether the latter should be +looked upon as part of the intellect or not. + +There was the same divergence of opinion as to taste and intellectual +judgment. As regards the former, the opposition to the intellectual +principle was reinforced in the eighteenth century by Kant in his +_Kritik der Urtheilskraft_. But Voltaire and writers anterior to him +frequently fell back into intellectualist definitions of a word invented +precisely to avoid them. Dacier (1684) writes of taste as "Une harmonie, +un accord de l'esprit et de la raison." The difficulties surrounding a +true definition led to the creation of the expression _non so che_, or +_je ne sais quoi_, or _no se que_, which throws into clear relief the +confusion between taste and intellectual judgment. + +As regards imagination and feeling, or sentiment, there was a strong +tendency to sensualism. The Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino talks of poetry +as ignoring alike truth or falsehood and yet delighting the senses. He +approves of the remark that poetry should make us "raise our eyebrows," +but in later life this keen-eyed prince seems to have fallen back from +the brilliant intuition of his earlier years into the pedagogic theory. +Muratori was convinced that fancy was entirely sensual, and therefore he +posted the intellect beside it, "to refrain its wild courses, like a +friend having authority." Gravina practically coincides in this view of +poetic fancy, as a subordinate faculty, incapable of knowledge, fit only +to be used by moral philosophy for the introduction into the mind of the +true, by means of novelty and the marvellous. + +In England, also, Bacon held poetry to belong to the fancy, and assigned +to it a place between history and science. Epic poetry he awarded to the +former, "parabolic" poetry to the latter. Elsewhere he talks of poetry +as a dream, and affirms that it is to be held "rather as an amusement of +the intelligence than as a science." For him music, painting, sculpture, +and the other arts are merely pleasure-giving. Addison reduced the +pleasures of the imagination to those caused by visible objects, or by +ideas taken from them. These pleasures he held to be inferior to those +of the senses and less refined than those of the intellect. He looked +upon imaginative pleasure as consisting in resemblances discovered +between imitations and things imitated, between copies and originals, an +exercise adapted to sharpen the spirit of observation. + +The sensualism of the writers headed by Du Bos, who looked upon art as a +mere pastime, like a tournament or a bull-fight, shows that the truth +about Aesthetic had not yet succeeded in emerging from the other +spiritual activities. Yet the new words and the new views of the +seventeenth century have great importance for the origins of Aesthetic; +they were the direct result of the restatement of the problem by the +writers of the Renaissance, who themselves took it up where Antiquity +had left it. These new words, and the discussions which arose from them, +were the demands of Aesthetic for its theoretical justification. But +they were not able to provide this justification, and it could not come +from elsewhere. + +With Descartes, we are not likely to find much sympathy for such studies +as relate to wit, taste, fancy, or feelings. He ignored the famous _non +so che_; he abhorred the imagination, which he believed to result from +the agitation of the animal spirits. He did not altogether condemn +poetry, but certainly looked upon it as the _folle du logis_, which must +be strictly supervised by the reason. Boileau is the aesthetic +equivalent of Cartesian intellectualism, Boileau _que la raison a ses +regles engage_, Boileau the enthusiast for allegory. France was infected +with the mathematical spirit of Cartesianism and all possibility of a +serious consideration of poetry and of art was thus removed. Witness the +diatribes of Malebranche against the imagination, and listen to the +Italian, Antonio Conti, writing from France in 1756 on the theme of the +literary disputes that were raging at the time: "They have introduced +the method of M. Descartes into belles-lettres; they judge poetry and +eloquence independently of their sensible qualities. Thus they also +confound the progress of philosophy with that of the arts. The Abbe +Terrasson says that the moderns are greater geometricians than the +ancients; therefore they are greater orators and greater poets." La +Motte, Fontenelle, Boileau, and Malebranche carried on this battle, +which was taken up by the Encyclopaedists, and when Du Bos published his +daring book, Jean Jacques le Bel published a reply to it (1726), in +which he denied to sentiment its claim to judge of art. Thus +Cartesianism could not possess an Aesthetic of the imagination. The +Cartesian J.P. de Crousaz (1715) found the beautiful to consist in what +is approved of, and thereby reduced it to ideas, ignoring the pleasing +and sentiment. + +Locke was as intellectualist in the England of this period as was +Descartes in France. He speaks of wit as combining ideas in an agreeable +variety, which strikes the imagination, while the intellect or judgment +seeks for differences according to truth. The wit, then, consists of +something which is not at all in accordance with truth and reason. For +Shaftesbury, taste is a sense or instinct of the beautiful, of order and +proportion, identical with the moral sense and with its "preconceptions" +anticipating the recognition of reason. Body, spirit, and God are the +three degrees of beauty. Francis Hutcheson proceeded from Shaftesbury +and made popular "the internal sense of beauty, which lies somewhere +between sensuality and rationality and is occupied with discussing unity +in variety, concord in multiplicity, and the true, the good, and the +beautiful in their substantial identity." Hutcheson allied the pleasure +of art with this sense, that is, with the pleasure of imitation and of +the likeness of the copy to the original. This he looked upon as +relative beauty, to be distinguished from absolute beauty. The same view +dominates the English writers of the eighteenth century, among whom may +be mentioned Reid, the head of the Scottish school, and Adam Smith. + +With far greater philosophical vigour, Leibnitz in Germany opened the +door to that crowd of psychic facts which Cartesian intellectualism had +rejected with horror. His conception of reality as _continuous_ (_natura +non facit saltus_) left room for imagination, taste, and their +congeners. Leibnitz believed that the scale of being ascended from the +lowliest to God. What we now term aesthetic facts were then identified +with what Descartes and Leibnitz had called "confused" knowledge, which +might become "clear," but not distinct. It might seem that when he +applied this terminology to aesthetic facts, Leibnitz had recognized +their peculiar essence, as being neither sensual nor intellectual. They +are not sensual for him, because they have their own "clarity," +differing from pleasure and sensual emotion, and from intellectual +"distinctio." But the Leibnitzian law of continuity and intellectualism +did not permit of such an interpretation. Obscurity and clarity are here +to be understood as quantitative grades of a _single_ form of knowledge, +the distinct or intellectual, toward which they both tend and reach at a +superior grade. Though artists judge with confused perceptions, which +are clear but not distinct, these may yet be corrected and proved true +by intellective knowledge. The intellect clearly and distinctly knows +the thing which the imagination knows confusedly but clearly. This view +of Leibnitz amounts to saying that the realization of a work of art can +be perfected by intellectually determining its concept. Thus Leibnitz +held that there was only one true form of knowledge, and that all other +forms could only reach perfection in that. His "clarity" is not a +specific difference; it is merely a partial anticipation of his +intellective "distinction." To have posited this grade is an important +achievement, but the view of Leibnitz is not fundamentally different +from that of the creators of the words and intuitions already studied. +All contributed to attract attention to the peculiarity of aesthetic +facts. + +Speculation on language at this period revealed an equally determined +intellectualist attitude. Grammar was held to be an exact science, and +grammatical variations to be explainable by the ellipse, by +abbreviation, and by failure to grasp the typical logical form. In +France, with Arnauld (1660), we have the rigorous Cartesian +intellectualism; Leibnitz and Locke both, speculated upon this subject, +and the former all his life nourished the thought of a universal +language. The absurdity of this is proved in this volume. + +A complete change of the Cartesian system, upon which Leibnitz based his +own, was necessary, if speculation were ever to surpass the Leibnitzian +aesthetic. But Wolff and the other German pupils of Leibnitz were as +unable to shake themselves free of the all-pervading intellectualism as +were the French pupils of Descartes. + +Meanwhile a young student of Berlin, named Alexander Amedeus Baumgarten, +was studying the Wolffian philosophy, and at the same time lecturing in +poetry and Latin rhetoric. While so doing, he was led to rethink and +pose afresh the problem of how to reduce the precepts of rhetoric to a +rigorous philosophical system. Thus it came about that Baumgarten +published in September 1735, at the age of twenty-one, as the thesis for +his degree of Doctor, an opuscule entitled, _Meditationes philosophicae +de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus_, and in it we find written +_for the first time_ the word "Aesthetic," as the name of a special +science. Baumgarten ever afterwards attached great importance to his +juvenile discovery, and lectured upon it by request in 1742, at +Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and again in 1749. It is interesting to know that +in this way Emmanuel Kant first became acquainted with the theory of +Aesthetic, which he greatly altered when he came to treat of it in his +philosophy. In 1750, Baumgarten published the first volume of a more +ample treatise, and a second part in 1762. But illness, and death in +1762, prevented his completing his work. + +What is Aesthetic for Baumgarten? It is the science of sensible +knowledge. Its objects are the sensible facts (_aisthaeta_), +which the Greeks were always careful to distinguish from the mental +facts (_noaeta_). It is therefore _scientia cognitionis +sensitivae, theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre +cogitandi, ars analogi rationis_. Rhetoric and Poetic are for him +special cases of Aesthetic, which is a general science, embracing both. +Its laws are diffused among all the arts, like the mariner's star +(_cynosura quaedam_), and they must be always referred to in all cases, +for they are universal, not empirical or merely inductive (_falsa regula +pejor est quam nulla_). Aesthetic must not be confounded with +Psychology, which supplies only suppositions. Aesthetic is an +independent science, which gives the rules for knowing sensibly, and is +occupied with the perfection of sensible knowledge, which is beauty. Its +contrary is ugliness. The beauty of objects and of matter must be +excluded from the beauty of sensible knowledge, because beautiful +objects can be badly thought and ugly objects beautifully thought. +Poetic representations are those which are confused or imaginative. +Distinction and intellectuality are not poetic. The greater the +determination, the greater the poetry; individuals absolutely determined +(_omnimodo determinata_) are very poetical, as are images or fancies, +and everything which refers to feeling. The judgment of sensible and +imaginative representations is taste. + +Such are, in brief, the truths which Baumgarten stated in his +_Meditationes_, and further developed and exemplified in his +_Aesthetica_. Close study of the two works above-mentioned leads to the +conviction that Baumgarten did not succeed in freeing himself from the +unity of the Leibnitzian monadology. He obtained from Leibnitz his +conception of the poetic as consisting of the confused, but German +critics are wrong in believing that he attributed to it a positive, not +a negative quality. Had he really done this, he would have broken at a +blow the unity of the Leibnitzian monad, and conquered the science of +Aesthetic. + +This giant's step he did not take: he failed to banish the +contradictions of Leibnitz and of the other intellectualists. To posit a +_perfection_ did not suffice. It was necessary to maintain it against +the _lex continui_ of Leibnitz and to proclaim its independence of all +intellectualism. Aesthetic truths for Baumgarten were those which did +not seem altogether false or altogether true: in fact, the verisimilar. +If it were objected to Baumgarten that one should not occupy oneself +with what, like poetry, he defines as confused and obscure, he would +reply that confusion is a condition of finding the truth, that we do not +pass at once from night to dawn. Thus he did not surpass the thought of +Leibnitz in this respect. Poor Baumgarten was always in suspense lest he +should be held to occupy himself with things unworthy of a philosopher! +"How can you, a professor of philosophy, dare to praise lying and the +mixture of truth and falsehood?" He imagined that some such reproach +might be addressed to him on account of his purely philosophical +speculations, and true enough he actually received a criticism of his +theory, in which it was argued, that if poetry consisted of sensual +perfection, then it was a bad thing for mankind. Baumgarten +contemptuously replied that he had not the time to argue with those +capable of confounding his _oratio perfecta sensitiva_ with an _oratio +perfecte (omnino!) sensitiva_. + +The fact about Baumgarten is that apart from baptizing the new science +Aesthetic, and apart from his first definitions, he does not stray far +from the old ruts of scholastic thought. The excellent Baumgarten, with +all his ardour and all his convictions, is a sympathetic and interesting +figure in the history of Aesthetic not yet formed, but in process of +formation. + +The revolutionary who set aside the old definitions of Aesthetic, and +for the first time revealed the true nature of art and poetry, is the +Italian, Giambattista Vico. + +What were the ideas developed by Vico in his _Scienza nuova_ (1725)? +They were neither more nor less than the solution of the problem, posed +by Plato, attempted in vain by Aristotle, again posed and again unsolved +at the Renaissance. + +Is poetry a rational or an irrational thing? Is it spiritual or animal? +If it be spiritual, what is its true nature, and in what way does it +differ from art and science? + +Plato, we know, banished poetry to the inferior region of the soul, +among the animal spirits. Vico on the contrary raises up poetry, and +makes of it a period in the history of humanity. And since Vico's is an +ideal history, whose periods are not concerned with contingent facts, +but with spiritual forms, he makes of it a moment of the ideal history +of the spirit, a form of knowledge. Poetry comes before the intellect, +but _after_ feeling. Plato had _confused_ it with feeling, and for that +reason banished it from his Republic. "Men _feel_," says Vico, "before +observing, then they observe with perturbation of the soul, finally they +reflect with the pure intellect," He goes on to say, that poetry being +composed of passion and of feeling, the nearer it approaches to the +_particular_, the more _true_ it is, while exactly the reverse is true +of philosophy. + +Imagination is independent and autonomous as regards the intellect. Not +only does the intellect fail of perfection, but all it can do is to +destroy it. "The studies of Poetry and Metaphysic are _naturally +opposed_. Poets are the feeling, philosophers the intellect of the human +race." The weaker the reason, the stronger the imagination. Philosophy, +he says, deals with abstract thought or universals, poetry with the +particular. Painters and poets differ only in their material. Homer and +the great poets appear in barbaric times. Dante, for instance, appeared +in "the renewed barbarism of Italy." The poetic ages preceded the +philosophical, and poetry is the father of prose, by "necessity of +nature," not by the "caprice of pleasure." Fables or "imaginary +universals" were conceived before "reasoned or philosophical +universals." To Homer, says Vico, belongs wisdom, but only poetic +wisdom. "His beauties are not those of a spirit softened and civilized +by any philosophy." + +If any one make poetry in epochs of reflexion, he becomes a child again; +he does not reflect with his intellect, but follows his fancy and dwells +upon particulars. If the true poet make use of philosophic ideas, he +only does so that he may change logic into imagination. + +Here we have a profound statement of the line of demarcation between +science and art. _They cannot be confused again_. + +His statement of the difference between poetry and history is a trifle +less clear. He explains why to Aristotle poetry seemed more +philosophical than history, and at the same time he refutes Aristotle's +error that poetry deals with the universal, history with the particular. +Poetry equals science, not because it is occupied with the intellectual +concept, but because, like science, it is ideal. A good poetical fable +must be all ideal: "With the idea the poet gives their being to things +which are without it. Poetry is all fantastic, as being the art of +painting the idea, not icastic, like the art of painting portraits. That +is why poets, like painters, are called divine, because in that respect +they resemble God the Creator." Vico ends by identifying poetry and +history. The difference between them is posterior and accidental. "But, +as it is impossible to impart false ideas, because the false consists of +a vicious combination of ideas, so it is impossible to impart a +tradition, which, though it be false, has not at first contained some +element of truth. Thus mythology appears for the first time, not as the +invention of an individual, but as the spontaneous vision of the truth +as it appears to primitive man." + +Poetry and language are for Vico substantially identical. He finds in +the origins of poetry the origins of languages and letters. He believed +that the first languages consisted in mute acts or acts accompanied by +bodies which had natural relations to the ideas that it was desired to +signify. With great cleverness he compared these pictured languages to +heraldic arms and devices, and to hieroglyphs. He observed that during +the barbarism of the Middle Age, the mute language of signs must return, +and we find it in the heraldry and blazonry of that epoch. Hence come +three kinds of languages: divine silent languages, heroic emblematic +languages, and speech languages. + +Formal logic could never satisfy a man with such revolutionary ideas +upon poetry and language. He describes the Aristotelian syllogism as a +method which explains universals In their particulars, rather than +unites particulars to obtain universals, looks upon Zeno and the sorites +as a means of subtilizing rather than sharpening the intelligence, and +concludes that Bacon is a great philosopher, when he advocates and +illustrates _induction_, "which has been followed by the English to the +great advantage of experimental philosophy." Hence he proceeds to +criticize mathematics, which, had hitherto always been looked upon as +the type of the _perfect science_. + +Vico is indeed a revolutionary, a pioneer. He knows very well that he is +in direct opposition to all that has been thought before about poetry. +"My new principles of poetry upset all that first Plato and then +Aristotle have said about the origin of poetry, all that has been said +by the Patrizzi, by the Scaligers, and by the Castelvetri. I have +discovered that It was through lack of human reason that poetry was born +so sublime that neither the Arts, nor the Poetics, nor the Critiques +could cause another equal to it to be born, I say equal, and not +superior." He goes as far as to express shame at having to report the +stupidities of great philosophers upon the origin of song and verse. He +shows his dislike for the Cartesian philosophy and its tendency to dry +up the imagination "by denying all the faculties of the soul which come +to it from the body," and talks of his own time as of one "which freezes +all the generous quality of the best poetry and thus precludes it from +being understood." + +As regards grammatical forms, Vico may be described as an adherent of +the great reaction of the Renaissance against scholastic verbalism and +formalism. This reaction brought back as a value the experience of +feeling, and afterwards with Romanticism gave its right place to the +imagination. Vico, in his _Scienza nuova_, may be said to have been the +first to draw attention to the imagination. Although he makes many +luminous remarks on history and the development of poetry among the +Greeks, his work is not really a history, but a science of the spirit or +of the ideal. It is not the ethical, logical, or economic moment of +humanity which interests him, but the _imaginative_ moment. _He +discovered the creative imagination_, and it may almost be said of the +_Scienza nuova_ of Vico that it is Aesthetic, the discovery of a new +world, of a new mode of knowledge. + +This was the contribution of the genius of Vico to the progress of +humanity: he showed Aesthetic to be an autonomous activity. It remained +to distinguish the science of the spirit from history, the modifications +of the human spirit from the historic vicissitudes of peoples, Aesthetic +from Homeric civilization. + +But although Goethe, Herder, and Wolf were acquainted with the _Scienza +nuova_, the importance of this wonderful book did not at first dawn upon +the world. Wolf, in his prolegomena to Homer, thought that he was +dealing merely with an ingenious speculator on Homeric themes. He did +not realize that the intellectual stature of Vico far surpassed that of +the most able philologists. + +The fortunes of Aesthetic after Vico were very various, and the list of +aestheticians who fell back into the old pedagogic definition, or +elaborated the mistakes of Baumgarten, is very long. Yet with C.H. +Heydenreich in Germany and Sulzer in Switzerland we find that the truths +contained in Baumgarten have begun to bear fruit. J.J. Herder (1769) was +more important than these, and he placed Baumgarten upon a pedestal, +though criticizing his pretension of creating an _ars pulchre cogitandi_ +instead of a simple _scientia de pulchro et pulchris philosophice +cogitans_. Herder admitted Baumgarten's definition of poetry as _oratio +sensitiva perfecta_, perfect sensitived speech, and this is _probably +the best definition of poetry that has ever been given_. It touches the +real essence of poetry and opens to thought the whole of the philosophy +of the beautiful. Herder, although he does not cite Vico upon aesthetic +questions, yet praises him as a philosopher. His remarks about poetry as +"the maternal language of humanity, as the garden is more ancient than +the cultivated field, painting than writing, song than declamation, +exchange than commerce," are replete with the spirit of the Italian +philosopher. + +But despite similar happy phrases, Herder is philosophically the +inferior of the great Italian. He is a firm believer in the Leibnitzian +law of continuity, and does not surpass the conclusions of Baumgarten. + +Herder and his friend Hamann did good service as regards the philosophy +of language. The French encyclopaedists, J.J. Rousseau, d'Alembert, and +many others of this period, were none of them able to get free of the +idea that a word is either a natural, mechanical fact, or a sign +attached to a thought. The only way out of this difficulty is to look +upon the imagination as itself active and expressive in _verbal +imagination_, and language as the language of _intuition_, not of the +intelligence. Herder talks of language as "an understanding of the soul +with itself." Thus language begins to appear, not as an arbitrary +invention or a mechanical fact, but as a primitive affirmation of human +activity, as a _creation_. + +But all unconscious of the discoveries of Vico, the great mass of +eighteenth century writers try their hands at every sort of solution. +The Abbe Batteux published in 1746 _Les Beaux-arts reduits a un seul +principe_, which is a perfect little bouquet of contradictions. The Abbe +finds himself confronted with difficulties at every turn, but with "un +peu d'esprit on se tire de tout," and when for instance he has to +explain artistic enjoyment of things displeasing, he remarks that the +imitation never being perfect like reality, the horror caused by reality +disappears. + +But the French were equalled and indeed surpassed by the English in +their amateur Aesthetics. The painter Hogarth was one day reading in +Italian a speech about the beauty of certain figures, attributed to +Michael Angelo. This led him to imagine that the figurative arts depend +upon a principle which consists of conforming to a given line. In 1745 +he produced a serpentine line as frontispiece of his collection of +engravings, which he described as "the line of beauty." Thus he +succeeded in exciting universal curiosity, which he proceeded to satisfy +with his "Analysis of Beauty." Here he begins by rightly combating the +error of judging paintings by their subject and by the degree of their +imitation, instead of by their form, which is the essential in art. He +gives his definition of form, and afterwards proceeds to describe the +waving lines which are beautiful and those which are not, and maintains +that among them all there is but one that is really worthy to be called +"the line of beauty," and one definite serpentine line "the line of +grace." The pig, the bear, the spider, and the frog are ugly, because +they do not possess serpentine lines. E. Burke, with a like assurance in +his examples, was equally devoid of certainty in his general principles. +He declares that the natural properties of an object cause pleasure or +pain to the imagination, but that the latter also procures pleasure from +their resemblance to the original. He does not speak further of the +second of these, but gives a long list of the natural properties of the +sensible, beautiful object. Having concluded his list, he remarks that +these are in his opinion the qualities upon which beauty depends and +which are the least liable to caprice and confusion. But "comparative +smallness, delicate structure, colouring vivid but not too much so," are +all mere empirical observations of no more value than those of Hogarth, +with whom Burke must be classed as an aesthetician. Their works are +spoken of as "classics." Classics indeed they are, but of the sort that +arrive at no conclusion. + +Henry Home (Lord Kaimes) is on a level a trifle above the two just +mentioned. He seeks "the true principles of the beaux-arts," in order to +transform criticism into "a rational science." He selects facts and +experience for this purpose, but in his definition of beauty, which he +divides into two parts, relative and intrinsic, he is unable to explain +the latter, save by a final cause, which he finds in the Almighty. + +Such theories as the three above mentioned defy classification, because +they are not composed by any scientific method. Their authors pass from +physiological sensualism to moralism, from imitation of nature to +finalism, and to transcendental mysticism, without consciousness of the +incongruity of their theses, at variance each with itself. + +The German, Ernest Platner, at any rate did not suffer from a like +confusion of thought. He developed his researches on the lines of +Hogarth, but was only able to discover a prolongation of sexual pleasure +in aesthetic facts. "Where," he exclaims, "is there any beauty that does +not come from the feminine figure, the centre of all beauty? The +undulating line is beautiful, because it is found in the body of woman; +essentially feminine movements are beautiful; the notes of music are +beautiful, when they melt into one another; a poem is beautiful, when +one thought embraces another with lightness and facility." + +French sensualism shows itself quite incapable of understanding +aesthetic production, and the associationism of David Hume is not more +fortunate in this respect. + +The Dutchman Hemsterhuis (1769) developed an ingenious theory, mingling +mystical and sensualist theory with some just remarks, which afterwards, +in the hands of Jacobi, became sentimentalism. Hemsterhuis believed +beauty to be a phenomenon arising from the meeting by the +sentimentalism, which gives multiplicity, with the internal sense, which +tends to unity. Consequently the beautiful will be that which presents +the greatest number of ideas in the shortest space of time. To man is +denied supreme unity, but here he finds approximative unity. Hence the +joy arising from the beautiful, which has some analogy with the joy of +love. + +With Winckelmann (1764) Platonism or Neo-platonism was vigorously +renewed. The creator of the history of the figurative arts saw in the +divine indifference and more than human elevation of the works of Greek +sculpture a beauty which had descended from the seventh heaven and +become incarnate in them. Mendelssohn, the follower of Baumgarten, had +denied beauty to God: Winckelmann, the Neoplatonician, gave it back to +Him. He holds that perfect beauty is to be found only in God. "The +conception of human beauty becomes the more perfect in proportion as it +can be thought as in agreement with the Supreme Being, who is +distinguished from matter by His unity and indivisibility." To the other +characteristics of supreme beauty, Winckelmann adds "the absence of any +sort of signification" (Unbezeichnung). Lines and dots cannot explain +beauty, for it is not they alone which form it. Its form is not proper +to any definite person, it expresses no sentiment, no feeling of +passion, for these break up unity and diminish or obscure beauty. +According to Winckelmann, beauty must be like a drop of pure water taken +from the spring, which is the more healthy the less it has of taste, +because it is purified of all foreign elements. + +A special faculty is required to appreciate this beauty, which +Winckelmann is inclined to call intelligence, or a delicate internal +sense, free of all instinctive passions, of pleasure, and of friendship. +Since it becomes a question of perceiving something immaterial, +Winckelmann banishes colour to a secondary place. True beauty, he says, +is that of form, a word which describes lines and contours, as though +lines and contours could not also be perceived by the senses, or could +appear to the eye without any colour. + +It is the destiny of error to be obliged to contradict itself, when it +does not decide to dwell in a brief aphorism, in order to live as well +as may be with facts and concrete problems. The "History" of Winckelmann +dealt with historic concrete facts, with which it was necessary to +reconcile the idea of a supreme beauty. His admission of the contours of +lines and his secondary admission of colours is a compromise. He makes +another with regard to the principle of expression. "Since there is no +intermediary between pain and pleasure in human nature, and since a +human being without these feelings is inconceivable, we must place the +human figure in a moment of action and of passion, which is what is +termed expression in art." So Winckelmann studied expression after +beauty. He makes a third compromise between his one, indivisible, +supreme, and constant beauty and individual beauties. Winckelmann +preferred the male to the female body as the most complete incarnation +of supreme beauty, but he was not able to shut his eyes to the +indisputable fact that there also exist beautiful bodies of women and +even of animals. + +Raphael Mengs, the painter, was an intimate friend of Winckelmann and +associated himself with him in his search for a true definition of the +beautiful. His ideas were generally in accordance with those of +Winckelmann. He defines beauty as "the visible idea of perfection, which +is to perfection what the visible is to the mathematical point." He +falls under the influence of the argument from design. The Creator has +ordained the multiplicity of beauties. Things are beautiful according to +our ideas of them, and these ideas come from the Creator. Thus each +beautiful thing has its own type, and a child would appear ugly if it +resembled a man. He adds to his remarks in this sense: "As the diamond +is alone perfect among stones, gold among metals, and man among living +creatures, so there is distinction in each species, and but little is +perfect." In his _Dreams of Beauty_, he looks upon beauty as "an +intermediate disposition," which contains a part of perfection and a +part of the agreeable, and forms a _tertium quid_, which differs from +the other two and deserves a special name. He names four sources of the +art of painting: beauty, significant or expressive character, harmony, +and colouring. The first of these he finds among the ancients, the +second with Raphael, the third with Correggio, the fourth with Titian. +Mengs does not succeed in rising above this empiricism of the studio, +save to declaim about the beauty of nature, virtue, forms, and +proportions, and indeed everything, including the First Cause, which is +the most beautiful of all. + +The name of G.E. Lessing (1766) is well known to all concerned with art +problems. The ideas of Winckelmann reappear in Lessing, with less of a +metaphysical tinge. For Lessing, the end of art is the pleasing, and +since this is "a superfluous thing," he thought that the legislator +should not allow to art the liberty indispensable to science, which +seeks the truth, necessary to the soul. For the Greeks painting was, as +it should always be, "imitation of beautiful bodies." Everything +disagreeable or ill-formed should be excluded from painting. "Painting, +as clever imitation, may imitate deformity. Painting, as a fine art, +does not permit this." He was more inclined to admit deformity in +poetry, as there it is less shocking, and the poet can make use of it to +produce in us certain feelings, such as the ridiculous or the terrible. +In his _Dramaturgie_ (1767), Lessing followed the Peripatetics, and +believed that the rules of Aristotle were as absolute as the theorems of +Euclid. His polemic against the French school is chiefly directed to +claiming a place in poetry for the verisimilar, as against absolute +historical exactitude. He held the universal to be a sort of mean of +what appears in the individual, the catharsis was in his view a +transformation of the passions into virtuous dispositions, and he held +the duty of poetry to be inspiration of the love of virtue. He followed +Winckelmann in believing that the expression of physical beauty was the +supreme object of painting. This beauty exists only as an ideal, which +finds its highest expression in man. Animals possess it to a slighter +extent, vegetable and inanimate nature not at all. Those mistaken enough +to occupy themselves with depicting the latter are imitating beauties +deprived of all ideal. They work only with eye and hand; genius has +little if any share in their productions. Lessing found the physical +ideal to reside chiefly in form, but also in the ideal of colour, and in +permanent expression. Mere colouring and transitory expression were for +him without ideal, "because nature has not imposed upon herself anything +definite as regards them." At bottom he does not care for colouring, +finding in the pen drawings of artists "a life, a liberty, a delicacy, +lacking to their pictures." He asks "whether even the most wonderful +colouring can make up for such a loss, and whether it be not desirable +that the art of oil-painting had never been invented." + +This "ideal beauty," wonderfully constructed from divine quintessence +and subtle pen and brush strokes, this academic mystery, had great +success. In Italy it was much discussed in the environment of Mengs and +of Winckelmann, who were working there. + +The first counterblast to their aesthetic Neo-platonism came from an +Italian named Spalletti, and took the form of a letter addressed to +Mengs. He represents the _characteristic_ as the true principle of art. +The pleasure obtained from beauty is intellectual, and truth is its +object. When the soul meets with what is characteristic, and what really +suits the object to be represented, the work is held to be beautiful. A +well-made man with a woman's face is ugly. Harmony, order, variety, +proportion, etc.--these are elements of beauty, and man enjoys the +widening of his knowledge before disagreeable things characteristically +represented. Spalletti defines beauty as "that modification inherent to +the object observed, which presents it, as it should appear, with an +infallible characteristic." + +Thus the Aristotelian thesis found a supporter in Italy, some years +before any protestation was heard in Germany. Louis Hirt, the historian +of art (1797) observed that ancient monuments represented all sorts of +forms, from the most beautiful and sublime to the most ugly and most +common. He therefore denied that ideal beauty was the principle of art, +and for it substituted the _characteristic_, applicable equally to gods, +heroes, and animals. + +Wolfgang Goethe, in 1798, forgetting the juvenile period, during which +he had dared to raise a hymn to Gothic architecture, now began seriously +to seek a middle term between beauty and expression. He believed that he +had found it, in certain characteristic contents presenting to the +artist beautiful shapes, which the artist would then develop and reduce +to perfect beauty. Thus for Goethe at this period, the characteristic +was simply the _starting-point_, or framework, from which the beautiful +arose, through the power of the artist. + +But these writers mentioned after J.B. Vico are not true philosophers. +Winckelmann, Mengs, Hogarth, Lessing, and Goethe are great in other +ways. Meier called himself a historian of art, but he was inferior both +to Herder and to Hamann. From J.B. Vico to Emmanuel Kant, European +thought is without a name of great importance as regards this subject. + +Kant took up the problem, where Vico had left it, not in the historical, +but in the ideal sense. He resembled the Italian philosopher, in the +gravity and the tenacity of his studies in Aesthetic, but he was far +less happy in his solutions, which did not attain to the truth, and to +which he did not succeed in giving the necessary unity and +systematization. The reader must bear in mind that Kant is here +criticized solely as an aesthetician: his other conclusions do not enter +directly into the discussion. + +What was Kant's idea of art? The answer is: the same in substance as +Baumgarten's. This may seem strange to those who remember his sustained +polemic against Wolf and the conception of beauty as confused +perception. But Kant always thought highly of Baumgarten. He calls him +"that excellent analyst" in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and he used +Baumgarten's text for his University lectures on Metaphysic. Kant looked +upon Logic and Aesthetic as cognate studies, and in his scheme of +studies for 1765, and in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, he proposes to +cast a glance at the Critique of Taste, that is to say, Aesthetic, +"since the study of the one is useful for the other and they are +mutually illuminative." He followed Meier in his distinctions between +logical and aesthetic truth. He even quoted the Instance of the young +girl, whose face when distinctly seen, i.e. with a microscope, is no +longer beautiful. It is true, aesthetically, he said, that when a man is +dead he cannot come to life, although this be opposed both to logical +and to moral truth. It is aesthetically true that the sun plunges into +the sea, although that is not true logically or objectively. + +No one, even among the greatest, can yet tell to what extent logical +truth should mingle with aesthetic truth. Kant believed that logical +truth must wear the habit of Aesthetic, in order to become _accessible_. +This habit, he thought, was discarded only by the rational sciences, +which tend to depth. Aesthetic certainly is subjective. It is satisfied +with authority or with an appeal to great men. We are so feeble that +Aesthetic must eke out our thoughts. Aesthetic is a vehicle of Logic. +But there are logical truths which are not aesthetic. We must exclude +from philosophy exclamations and other emotions, which belong to +aesthetic truth. For Kant, poetry is the harmonious play of thought and +sensation, differing from eloquence, because in poetry thoughts are +fitted to suggestions, in eloquence the reverse is true. Poetry should +make virtue and intellect visible, as was done by Pope in his _Essay on +Man_. Elsewhere, he says frankly that logical perfection is the +foundation of all the rest. + +The confirmation of this is found in his _Critique of Judgment_, which +Schelling looked upon as the most important of the three _Critiques_, +and which Hegel and other metaphysical idealists always especially +esteemed. + +For Kant art was always "a sensible and imaged covering for an +intellectual concept." He did not look upon art as pure beauty without a +concept. He looked upon it as a beauty adherent and fixed about a +concept. The work of genius contains two elements: imagination and +intelligence. To these must be added taste, which combines the two. Art +may even represent the ugly in nature, for artistic beauty "is not a +beautiful thing but a beautiful representation of a thing." But this +representation of the ugly has its limits in the arts (here Kant +remembers Lessing and Winckelmann), and an absolute limit in the +disgusting and the repugnant, which kills the representation itself. He +believes that there may be artistic productions without a concept, such +as are flowers in nature, and these would be ornaments to frameworks, +music without words, etc., etc., but since they represent nothing +reducible to a definite concept, they must be classed, like flowers, +with free beauties. This would certainly seem to exclude them from +Aesthetic, which, according to Kant, should combine imagination and +intelligence. + +Kant is shut in with intellectualist barriers. A complete definition of +the _imagination_ is _wanting_ to his system. He does not admit that the +imagination belongs to the powers of the mind. He relegates it to the +facts of sensation. He is aware of the reproductive and combinative +imagination, but he does not recognize _fancy_ (_fantasia_), which is +the true productive imagination. + +Yet Kant was aware that there exists an activity other than the +intellective. Intuition is referred to by him as preceding intellective +activity and differing from sensation. He does not speak of it, however, +in his critique of art, but in the first section of the _Critique of +Pure Reason_. Sensations do not enter the mind, until it has given them +_form_. This is neither sensation nor intelligence. It is _pure +intuition_, the sum of the _a priori_ principles of sensibility. He +speaks thus: "There must, then, exist a science that forms the first +part of the transcendental doctrine of the elements, distinct from that +which contains the principles of pure thought and is called +transcendental Logic." + +What does he call this new science? He calls it _Transcendental +Aesthetic_, and refuses to allow the term to be used for the Critique of +Taste, which could never become a science. + +But although he thus states so clearly the necessity of a science of the +form of the sensations, that is of _pure intuition_, Kant here appears +to fall into grave error. This arises from _his inexact idea_ of the +_essence of the aesthetic faculty or of art_, which, as we now know, is +pure intuition. He conceives the form of sensibility to be reducible to +the _two categories of space and time_. + +Benedetto Croce has shown that space and time are far from being +categories or functions: they are complex posterior formations. Kant, +however, looked upon density, colour, etc., as material for sensations; +but the mind only observes colour or hardness when it has _already_ +given a form to its sensations. Sensations, in so far as they are _crude +matter_, are _outside_ the mind: they are a _limit_. Colour, hardness, +density, etc., are _already_ intuitions. _They are the aesthetic +activity in its rudimentary manifestation._ + +Characterizing or qualifying imagination, that is, _aesthetic activity_, +should therefore _take the place occupied by the study of space and +time_ in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and constitute the true +_Transcendental Aesthetic_, prologue to Logic. + +Had Kant done this, he would have surpassed Leibnitz and Baumgarten; he +would have equalled Vico. + +Kant did not identify the Beautiful with art. He established what he +called "the four moments of Beauty," amounting to a definition of it. +The two negative moments are, "That is beautiful which pleases _without +interest_"; this thesis was directed against the sensualist school of +English writers, with whom Kant had for a time agreed; and "That is +beautiful which pleases without a concept," directed against the +intellectualists. Thus he affirmed the existence of a spiritual domain, +distinct from that of organic pleasure, of the useful, the good, and the +true. The two other moments are, "That is beautiful which has the form +of finality without the representation of an end," and "That is +beautiful which is the object of universal pleasure." What is this +disinterested pleasure that we experience before pure colours, pure +sounds, and flowers? Benedetto Croce replies that this mysterious domain +has no existence; that the instances cited represent, either instances +of organic pleasure, or are artistic facts of expression. + +Kant was less severe with the Neoplatonicians than with the two schools +of thought above mentioned. His _Critique of Judgment_ contains some +curious passages, in one of which he gives his distinction of form from +matter: "In music, the melody is the matter, harmony the form: in a +flower, the scent is the matter, the shape or configuration the form." +In the other arts, he found that the design was the essential. "Not what +pleases in sensation, but what is approved for its form, is the +foundation of taste." + +In his pursuit of the phantom of a beauty, which is neither that of art +nor of sensual pleasure, exempt alike from expression and from +enjoyment, he became enveloped in inextricable contradictions. Little +disposed as he was to let himself be carried away by the imagination, he +expressed his contempt for philosopher-poets like Herder, and kept +saying and unsaying, affirming and then immediately criticizing his own +affirmations as to this mysterious beauty. The truth is that _this +mystery is simply his own individual uncertainty before a problem which +he could not solve_, owing to his having no clear idea of an activity of +sentiment. Such an activity represented for him a logical contradiction. +Such expressions as "necessary universal pleasure," "finality without +the idea of end," are verbal proofs of his uncertainty. + +How was he to emerge from this uncertainty, this contradiction? He fell +back upon the concept of a base of subjective finality as the base of +the judgment of taste, that is of the subjective finality of nature by +the judgment. But nothing can be known or disclosed to the object by +means of this concept, which is indeterminate in itself and not adapted +for knowledge. Its determining reason is perhaps situated in "the +suprasensible substratum of humanity." Thus beauty becomes a symbol of +morality. "The subjective principle alone, that is, the indeterminate +idea of the suprasensible in us, can be indicated as the sole key to +reveal this faculty, which remains unknown to us in its origin. Nothing +but this principle can make that hidden faculty comprehensible." + +Kant had a tendency to mysticism, which this statement does not serve to +conceal, but it was a mysticism without enthusiasm, a mysticism almost +against the grain. His failure to penetrate thoroughly the nature of the +aesthetic activity led him to see double and even triple, on several +occasions. Art being unknown to him in its essential nature, he invents +the functions of _space_ and _time_ and terms this _transcendental +aesthetic_; he develops the theory of the imaginative beautifying of the +intellectual concept by genius; he is finally forced to admit a +mysterious power of feeling, intermediate between the theoretic and the +practical activity. This power is cognoscitive and non-cognoscitive, +moral and indifferent to morality, agreeable and yet detached from the +pleasure of the senses. His successors hastened to make use of this +mysterious power, for they were glad to be able to find some sort of +justification for their bold speculations in the severe philosopher of +Koenigsberg. + +In addition to Schelling and Hegel, for whom, as has been said, the +_Critique of Judgment_ seemed the most important of the three Critiques, +we must now mention the name of a poet who showed himself as great in +philosophical as in aesthetic achievement. + +_Friedrich Schiller_ first elaborated that portion of the Kantian +thought contained in the _Critique of Judgment_. Before any professional +philosopher, Schiller studied that sphere of activity which unites +feeling with reason. Hegel talks with admiration of this artistic +genius, who was also so profoundly philosophical and first announced the +principle of reconciliation between life as duty and reason on the one +hand, and the life of the senses and feeling on the other. + +To Schiller belongs the great merit of having opposed the subjective +idealism of Kant and of having made the attempt to surpass it. + +The exact relations between Kant and Schiller, and the extent to which +the latter may have been influenced by Leibnitz and Herder, are of less +importance to the history of Aesthetic than the fact that Schiller +_unified_ once for all art and beauty, which had been separated by Kant, +with his distinctions between adherent and pure beauty. Schiller's +artistic sense must doubtless have stood him here in good stead. + +Schiller found a very unfortunate and misleading term to apply to the +aesthetic sphere. He called it the sphere of _play_ (Spiel). He strove +to explain that by this he did not mean ordinary games, nor material +amusement. For Schiller, this sphere of play lay intermediate between +thought and feeling. Necessity in art gives place to a free disposition +of forces; mind and nature, matter and form are here reconciled. The +beautiful is life, but not physiological life. A beautiful statue may +have life, and a living man be without it. Art conquers nature with +form. The great artist effaces matter with form. The less we are +sensible of the material in a work of art, the greater the triumph of +the artist. The soul of the spectator should leave the magic sphere of +art as pure and as perfect as when it left the hands of the Creator. The +most frivolous theme should be so treated that we can pass at once from +it to the most rigorous, and _vice versa_. Only when man has placed +himself outside the world and contemplates it aesthetically, can he know +the world. While he is merely the passive receiver of sensations, he is +one with the world, and therefore cannot realize it. Art is +indeterminism. With the help of art, man delivers himself from the yoke +of the senses, and is at the same time free of any rational or moral +duty: he may enjoy for a moment the luxury of serene contemplation. + +Schiller was well aware that the moment art is employed to teach morals +directly, it ceases to be art. All other teachings give to the soul a +special imprint. Art alone is favourable to all without prejudice. Owing +to this indifference of art, it possesses a great educative power, by +opening the path to morality without preaching or persuasion; without +determining, it produces determinability. This was the main theme of the +celebrated "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man," which Schiller +wrote to his patron the Duke of Holstein-Augustenburg. Here, and in his +lectures at the University of Jena, it is clear that Schiller addresses +himself to a popular audience. He began a work, on scientific Aesthetic, +which he intended to entitle "Kallias," but unfortunately died without +completing it. We possess only a few fragments, contained in his +correspondence with his friend Koerner. Koerner did not feel satisfied +with the formula of Schiller, and asks for some more precise and +objective mark of the beautiful. Schiller tells him that he has found +it, but what he had found we shall never know, as there is no document +to inform us. + +The fault of Schiller's aesthetic theory was its lack of precision. His +artistic faculty enabled him to give unsurpassable descriptions of the +catharsis and of other effects of art, but he fails to give a precise +definition of the aesthetic function. True, he disassociates it from +morality, yet admits that it may in a measure be associated with it. The +only formal activities that he recognizes are the moral and the +intellectual, and he denies altogether (against the sensualists) that +art can have anything to do with passion or sensuality. His intellectual +world consisted only of the logical and the intellectual, leaving out +the imaginative activity. + +What is art for Schiller? He admits four modes of relation between man +and external things. They are the physical, the logical, the moral, and +the aesthetic. He describes this latter as a mode by which things affect +the whole of our different forces, without being a definite object for +any one in particular. Thus a man may be said to please aesthetically, +"when he does so without appealing to any one of the senses directly, +and without any law or end being thought of in connection with him." +Schiller cannot be made to say anything more definite than this. His +general position was probably much like Kant's (save in the case above +mentioned, where he made a happy correction), and he probably looked +upon Aesthetic as a mingling of several faculties, as a play of +sentiment. + +Schiller was faithful to Kant's teaching in its main lines, and his +uncertainty was largely due to this. The existence of a _third sphere_ +uniting form and matter was for Schiller rather an ideal conformable to +reason than a _definite_ activity; it was supposititious, rather than +effective. + +But the Romantic movement in literature, which was at that time gaining +ground, with its belief in a superhuman faculty called imagination, in +genius breaker of rules, found no such need for restraint. Schiller's +modest reserve was set aside, and with J.P. Richter we approach a +mythology of the imagination. Many of his observations are, however, +just, and his distinction between productive and reproductive +imagination is excellent. How could humanity appreciate works of genius, +he asks, were it without some common measure? All men who can go as far +as saying "this is beautiful" before a beautiful thing, are capable of +the latter. He then proceeds to establish to his own satisfaction +categories of the imagination, leading from simple talent to the supreme +form of male genius in which all faculties flourish together: a faculty +of faculties. + +The Romantic conception of art is, in substance, that of idealist German +philosophy, where we find it in a more coherent and systematic form. It +is the conception of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel. + +Fichte, Kant's first great pupil, cannot be included with these, for his +view of Aesthetic, largely influenced by Schiller, is transformed in the +Fichtian system to a moral activity, to a representation of the ethical +ideal. The subjective idealism of Fichte, however, generated an +Aesthetic: that of irony as the base of art. The I that has created the +universe can also destroy it. The universe is a vain appearance, smiled +at by the Ego its creator, who surveys it as an artist his work, from +without and from above. For Friedrich Schlegel, art was a perpetual +farce, a parody of itself; and Tieck defined irony as a force which +allows the poet to dominate his material. + +Novalis, that Romantic Fichtian, dreamed of a magical idealism, an art +of creating by an instantaneous act of the Ego. But Schelling's "system +of transcendental idealism" was the first great philosophical +affirmation of Romanticism and of conscious Neo-platonism reborn in +Aesthetic. + +Schelling has obviously studied Schiller, but he brings to the problem a +mind more purely philosophical and a method more exactly scientific. He +even takes Kant to task for faultiness of method. His remarks as to +Plato's position are curious, if not conclusive. He says that Plato +condemned the art of his time, because it was realistic and +naturalistic: like all antique art, it exhibited a _finite_ character. +Plato's judgment would have been quite different had he known Christian +art, of which the character is _infinity_. + +Schelling held firm to the fusion of art and beauty effected by +Schiller, but he combated Winckelmann's theory of abstract beauty with +its negative conception of the characteristic, assigning to art the +limits of the individual. Art is characteristic beauty; it is not the +individual, but the living conception of the individual. When the artist +recognizes the eternal idea in an individual, and expresses it +outwardly, he transforms the individual into a world apart, into a +species, into an eternal idea. Characteristic beauty is the fulness of +form which slays form: it does not silence passion, but restrains it as +the banks of a river the waters that flow between them, but do not +overflow. + +Schelling's starting-point is the criticism of teleological judgment, as +stated by Kant in his third Critique. Teleology is the union of +theoretic with practical philosophy. But the system would not be +complete, unless we could show the identity of the two worlds, theoretic +and practical, in the subject itself. He must demonstrate the existence +of an activity, which is at once unconscious as nature and conscious as +spirit. This activity we find in Aesthetic, which is therefore "the +general organ of philosophy, the keystone of the whole building." + +Poetry and philosophy alone possess the world of the ideal, in which the +real world vanishes. True art is not the impression of the moment, but +the representation of infinite life: it is transcendental intuition +objectified. The time will come when philosophy will return to poetry, +which was its source, and on the new philosophy will arise a new +mythology. Philosophy does not depict real things, but their ideas; so +too, art. Those same ideas, of which real things are, as philosophy +shows, the imperfect copies, reappear in art objectified as ideas, and +therefore in their perfection. Art stands nearest to philosophy, which +itself stands nearest to the Idea, and therefore nearest to perfection. +Art differs from philosophy only by its _specialization_: in all other +ways it is the ideal world in its most complete expression. The three +Ideas of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty correspond to the three powers of +the ideal and of the real world. Beauty is not the universal whole, +which is truth, nor is it the only reality, which is action: it is the +perfect mingling of the two. "Beauty exists where the real or particular +is so adequate to its concept that this infinite thing enters into the +finite, and is contemplated in the concrete." Philosophy unites truth, +morality, and beauty, in what they possess in common, and deduces them +from their unique Source, which is God. If philosophy assume the +character of science and of truth, although it be superior to truth, the +reason for this lies in the fact that science and truth are simply the +formal determination of philosophy. + +Schelling looked upon mythology as a necessity for every art. Ideas are +Gods, considered from the point of view of reality; for the essence of +each is equal to God in a _particular_ form. The characteristics of all +Gods, including the Christian, are _pure limitation and absolute +indivisibility_. Minerva has wisdom and strength, but lacks womanly +tenderness; Juno has power and wisdom, but is without amorous charm, +which she borrows with the girdle of Venus, who in her turn is without +the wisdom of Minerva. What would these Gods become without their +limitations? They would cease to be the objects of Fancy. Fancy is a +faculty, apart from the pure intellect and from the reason. Distinct +from imagination, which develops the products of art, Fancy has +intuitions of them, grasps them herself, and herself represents them. +Fancy is to imagination as intellectual intuition is to reason. Fancy, +then, is intellectual intuition in art. In the thought of Schelling, +fancy, the new or artistic intuition, sister of intellectual intuition, +came to dominate alike the intellect and the old conception of the fancy +and the imagination, in a system for which reason alone did not suffice. + +C.G. Solger followed Schelling and agreed with him in finding but little +truth in the theories of Kant, and especially of Fichte. He held that +their dialectic had failed to solve the difficulty of intellectual +intuition. He too conceived of fancy as distinct from imagination, and +divided the former into three degrees. Imagination he held to appertain +to ordinary knowledge, "which re-establishes the original intuition to +infinity." Fancy "originates from the original antithesis in the idea, +and so operates that the opposing elements which are separated from the +idea become perfectly united in reality. By means of fancy, we are able +to understand things more lofty than those of common knowledge, and in +them we recognize the idea itself as real. In art, fancy is the faculty +of transforming the idea into reality." + +For Solger as for Schelling, beauty belongs to the region of Ideas, +which are inaccessible to common knowledge. Art is nearly allied to +religion, for as religion is the abyss of the idea, into which our +consciousness plunges, that it may become essential, so Art and the +Beautiful resolve, in their way, the world of distinctions, the +universal and the particular. Artistic activity is more than +theoretical: it is practical, realized and perfect, and therefore +belongs to practical, not to theoretic philosophy, as Kant wrongly +believed. Since art must touch infinity on one side, it cannot have +ordinary nature for its object. Art therefore _ceases_ in the portrait, +and this explains why the ancients generally chose Gods or Heroes as +models for sculpture. Every deity, even in a limited and particular +form, expresses a definite modification of the Idea. + +G.G.F. Hegel gives the same definition of art as Solger and Schelling, +All three were mystical aestheticians, and the various shades of +mystical Aesthetic, presented by these three writers, are not of great +interest. Schelling forced upon art the abstract Platonic ideas, while +Hegel reduced it to the _concrete idea_. This concrete idea was for +Hegel the first and lowest of the three forms of the liberty of the +spirit. It represented immediate, sensible, objectified knowledge; while +Religion filled the second place, as representative consciousness with +adoration, which is an element foreign to art alone. The third place was +of course occupied by Philosophy, the free thought of the absolute +spirit. Beauty and Truth are one for Hegel; they are united in the Idea. +The beautiful he defined as _the sensible appearance of the Idea_. + +Some writers have erroneously believed that the views of the three +philosophers above mentioned lead back to those of Baumgarten. But that +is not correct. They well understood that art cannot be made a medium +for the expression of philosophic concepts. Not only are they opposed to +the moralistic and intellectualistic view, but they are its active +opponents. Schelling says that aesthetic production is in its essence +absolutely free, and Hegel that art does not contain the universal as +such. + +Hegel accentuated the _cognoscitive_ character of art, more than any of +his predecessors. We have seen that he placed it with Philosophy and +Religion in the sphere of the absolute Spirit. But he does not allow +either to Art or to Religion any difference of function from that of +Philosophy, which occupies the highest place in his system. They are +therefore inferior, necessary, grades of the Spirit. Of what use are +they? Of none whatever, or at best, they merely represent transitory and +historical phases of human life. + +Thus we see that the tendency of Hegelianism is _anti-artistic_, as it +is rationalistic and anti-religious. + +This result of thought was a strange and a sad thing for one who loved +art so fervently as Hegel. Our memories conjure up Plato, who also loved +art well, and yet found himself logically obliged to banish the poet +from his ideal Republic, after crowning him with roses. But the German +philosopher was as staunch to the (supposed) command of reason as the +Greek, and felt himself obliged to announce the death of art. Art, he +says, occupies a lofty place in the human spirit, but not the most +lofty, for it is limited to a restricted content and only a certain +grade of truth can be expressed in art. Such are the Hellenic Gods, who +can be transfused in the sensible and appear in it adequately. The +Christian conception of truth is among those which cannot be so +expressed. The spirit of the modern world, and more precisely the spirit +of our religion and rational development, seem to have gone beyond the +point at which art is the chief way of apprehending the Absolute. The +peculiarity of artistic production no longer satisfies our highest +needs. Thought and reflexion have surpassed art, the beautiful. He goes +on to say that the reason generally given for this is the prevalence of +material and political interests. But the true reason is the inferiority +in degree of art as compared with pure thought. Art is dead, and +Philosophy can therefore supply its complete biography. + +Hegel's _Vorlesungen Ueber Aesthetik_ amounts therefore to a funeral +oration upon Art. + +Romanticism and metaphysical idealism had placed art, sometimes above +the clouds, sometimes within them, and believing that it was no good +there to anyone, Hegel provided a decent burial. + +Nothing perhaps better shows how well this fantastic conception of art +suited the spirit of the time, than the fact that even the adversaries +of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel either admit agreement with that +conception, or find themselves involuntarily in agreement with it, while +believing themselves to be very remote. They too are mystical +aestheticians. + +We all know with what virulence Arthur Schopenhauer attacked and +combated Schelling, Hegel, and all the "charlatans" and "professors" who +had divided among them the inheritance of Kant. + +Well, Schopenhauer's theory of art starts, just like Hegel's, from the +difference between the abstract and the concrete concept, which is the +_Idea_. Schopenhauer's ideas are the Platonic ideas, although in the +form which he gives to them, they have a nearer resemblance to the Ideas +of Schelling than to the Idea of Hegel. + +Schopenhauer takes much trouble to differentiate his ideas from +intellectual concepts. He calls the idea "unity which has become +plurality by means of space and time. It is the form of our intuitive +apperception. The concept is, on the contrary, unity extracted from +plurality by means of abstraction, which is an act of our intellect. The +concept may be called _unitas post rem_, the idea _unitas ante rem_." + +The origin of this psychological illusion of the ideas or types of +things is always to be found in the changing of the empirical +classifications created for their own purposes by the natural sciences, +into living realities. + +Thus each art has for its sphere a special category of ideas. +Architecture and its derivatives, gardening (and strange to say +landscape-painting is included with it), sculpture and animal-painting, +historical painting and the higher forms of sculpture, etc., all possess +their special ideas. Poetry's chief object is man as idea. Music, on the +contrary, does not belong to the hierarchy of the other arts. Schelling +had looked upon music as expressing the rhythm of the universe itself. +For Schopenhauer, music does not express ideas, but the _Will itself_. + +The analogies between music and the world, between fundamental notes and +crude matter, between the scale and the scale of species, between melody +and conscious will, lead Schopenhauer to the conclusion that music is +not only an arithmetic, as it appeared to Leibnitz, but indeed a +metaphysic: "the occult metaphysical exercise of a soul not knowing that +it philosophizes." + +For Schopenhauer, as for his idealist predecessors, art is beatific. It +is the flower of life; he who is plunged in artistic contemplation +ceases to be an individual; he is the conscious subject, pure, freed +from will, from pain, and from time. + +Yet in Schopenhauer's system exist elements for a better and a more +profound treatment of the problem of art. He could sometimes show +himself to be a lucid and acute analyst. For instance, he continually +remarks that the categories of space and time are not applicable to art, +_but only the general form of representation_. He might have deduced +from this that art is the most immediate, not the most lofty grade of +consciousness, since it precedes even the ordinary perceptions of space +and time. Vico had already observed that this freeing oneself from +ordinary perception, this dwelling in imagination, does not really mean +an ascent to the level of the Platonic Ideas, but, on the contrary, a +redescending to the sphere of immediate intuition, a return to +childhood. + +On the other hand, Schopenhauer had begun to submit the Kantian +categories to impartial criticism, and finding the two forms of +intuition insufficient, added a third, causality. + +He also drew comparisons between art and history, and was more +successful here than the idealist excogitators of a philosophy of +history. Schopenhauer rightly saw that history was irreducible to +concepts, that it is the contemplation of the individual, and therefore +not a science. Having proceeded thus far, he might have gone further, +and realized that the material of history is always the particular in +its particularity, that of art what is and always is identical. But he +preferred to execute a variation on the general motive that was in +fashion at this time. + +The fashion of the day! It rules in philosophy as elsewhere, and we are +now about to see the most rigid and arid of analysts, the leader of the +so-called _realist_ school, or school of _exact science_ in Germany in +the nineteenth century, plunge headlong into aesthetic mysticism. + +G.F. Herbart (1813) begins his Aesthetic by freeing it from the +discredit attaching to Metaphysic and to Psychology. He declares that +the only true way of understanding art is to study particular examples +of the beautiful and to note what they reveal as to its essence. + +We shall now see what came of Herbart's analysis of these examples of +beauty, and how far he succeeded in remaining free of Metaphysic. + +For Herbart, beauty consists of _relations_. The science of Aesthetic +consists of an enumeration of all the fundamental relations between +colours, lines, tones, thoughts, and will. But for him these relations +are not empirical or physiological. They cannot therefore be studied in +a laboratory, because thought and the will form part of them, and these +belong as much to Ethics as to the external world. But Herbart +explicitly states that no true beauty is sensible, although sensation +may and does often precede and follow the intuition of beauty. There is +a profound distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable or +pleasant: the latter does not require a representation, while the former +consists in representations of relations, which are immediately followed +by a judgment expressing unconditioned approval. Thus the merely +pleasurable becomes more and more indifferent, but the beautiful appears +always as of more and more permanent value. The judgment of taste is +universal, eternal, immutable. The complete representation of the same +relations always carries with it the same judgment. For Herbart, +aesthetic judgments are the general class containing the sub-class of +ethical judgments. The five ethical ideas, of internal liberty, of +perfection, of benevolence, of equity, and of justice, are five +aesthetic ideas; or better, they are aesthetic concepts applied to the +will in its relations. + +Herbart looked upon art as a complex fact, composed of an external +element possessing logical or psychological value, the content, and of a +true aesthetic element, which is the form. Entertainment, instruction, +and pleasure of all sorts are mingled with the beautiful, in order to +obtain favour for the work in question. The aesthetic judgment, calm and +serene in itself, may be accompanied by all sorts of psychic emotions, +foreign to it. But the content is always transitory, relative, subject +to moral laws, and judged by them. The form alone is perennial, +absolute, and free. The true catharsis can only be effected by +separating the form from the content. Concrete art may be the sum of two +values, _but the aesthetic fact is form alone_. + +For those capable of penetrating beneath appearances, the aesthetic +doctrines of Herbart and of Kant will appear very similar. Herbart is +notable as insisting, in the manner of Kant, on the distinction between +free and adherent beauty (or adornment as sensuous stimulant), on the +existence of pure beauty, object of necessary and universal judgments, +and on a certain mingling of ethical with his aesthetic theory. Herbart, +indeed, called himself "a Kantian, but of the year 1828." Kant's +aesthetic theory, though it be full of errors, yet is rich in fruitful +suggestions. Kant belongs to a period when philosophy is still young and +pliant. Herbart came later, and is dry and one-sided. The romantics and +the metaphysical idealists had unified the theory of the beautiful and +of art. Herbart restored the old duality and mechanism, and gave us an +absurd, unfruitful form of mysticism, void of all artistic inspiration. + +Herbart may be said to have taken all there was of false in the thought +of Kant and to have made it into a system. + +The beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany is notable for the +great number of philosophical theories and of counter-theories, broached +and rapidly discussed, before being discarded. None of the most +prominent names in the period belong to philosophers of first-rate +importance, though they made so much stir in their day. + +The thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher was obscured and misunderstood +amid those crowding mediocrities; yet it is perhaps the most interesting +and the most noteworthy of the period. + +Schleiermacher looked upon Aesthetic as an altogether modern form of +thought. He perceived a profound difference between the "Poetics" of +Aristotle, not yet freed from empirical precepts, and the tentative of +Baumgarten in the eighteenth century. He praised Kant as having been the +first to include Aesthetic among the philosophical disciplines. He +admitted that with Hegel it had attained to the highest pinnacle, being +connected with religion and with philosophy, and almost placed upon +their level. + +But he was dissatisfied with the absurdity of the attempt made by the +followers of Baumgarten to construct a science or theory of sensuous +pleasure. He disapproved of Kant's view of taste as being the principle +of Aesthetic, of Fichte's art as moral teaching, and of the vague +conception of the beautiful as the centre of Aesthetic. + +He approved of Schiller's marking of the moment of spontaneity in +productive art, and he praised Schelling for having drawn attention to +the figurative arts, as being less liable than poetry to be diverted to +false and illusory moralistic ends. Before he begins the study of the +place due to the artistic activity in Ethic, he carefully excludes from +the study of Aesthetic all practical rules (which, being empirical, are +incapable of scientific demonstration). + +For Schleiermacher, the sphere of Ethic included the whole Philosophy of +the Spirit, in addition to morality. These are the two forms of human +activity--that which, like Logic, is the same in all men, and is called +activity of identity, and the activity of difference or individuality. +There are activities which, like art, are internal or immanent and +individual, and others which are external or practical. _The true work +of art is the internal picture_. Measure is what differentiates the +artist's portrayal of anger on the stage and the anger of a really angry +man. Truth is not sought in poetry, or if it be sought there, it is +truth of an altogether different kind. The truth of poetry lies in +coherent presentation. Likeness to a model does not compose the merit of +a picture. Not the smallest amount of knowledge comes from art, which +expresses only the truth of a particular consciousness. Art has for its +field the immediate consciousness of self, which must be carefully +distinguished from the thought of the Ego. This last is the +consciousness of identity in the diversity of moments as they pass; the +immediate consciousness of self is the diversity itself of the moments, +of which we should be aware, for life is nothing but the development of +consciousness. In this field, art has sometimes been confused with two +facts which accompany it there: these are sentient consciousness (that +is, the feelings of pleasure and of pain) and religion. Schleiermacher +here alludes to the sensualistic aestheticians of the eighteenth +century, and to Hegel, who had almost identified art and religion. He +refutes both points of view by pointing out that sentient pleasure and +religious sentiment, however different they may be from other points of +view, are yet both determined by an objective fact; while art, on the +contrary, is free productivity. + +Dream is the best parallel and proof of this free productivity. All the +essential elements of art are found in dream, which is the result of +free thoughts and of sensible intuitions, consisting simply of images. +But dream, as compared with art, is chaotic: when measure and order is +established in dream, it becomes art. Thoughts and images are alike +essential to art, and to both is necessary ponderation, reflexion, +measure, and unity, because otherwise every image would be confused with +every other image. Thus the moments of inspiration and of ponderation +are both necessary to art. + +Schleiermacher's thought, so firm and lucid up to this point, begins to +become less secure, with the discussion of typicity and of the extent to +which the artist should follow Nature. He says that ideal figures, which +Nature would give, were she not impeded by external obstacles, are the +products of art. He notes that when the artist represents something +really given, such as a portrait or a landscape, he renounces freedom of +production and adheres to the real. In the artist is a double tendency, +toward the perfection of the type and toward the representation of +natural reality. He should not fall into the abstraction of the type, +nor into the insignificance of empirical reality. Schleiermacher feels +all the difficulty of such a problem as whether there be one or several +ideals of the human figure. This problem may be transferred to the +sphere of art, and we may ask whether the poet is to represent only the +ideal, or whether he should also deal with those obstacles to it that +impede Nature in her efforts to attain. Both views contain half the +truth. To art belongs the representation of the ideal as of the real, of +the subjective and of the objective alike. The representation of the +comic, that is of the anti-ideal and of the imperfect ideal, belongs to +the domain of art. For the human form, both morally and physically, +oscillates between the ideal and caricature. + +He arrives at a most important definition as to the independence of art +in respect to morality. The nature of art, as of philosophic +speculation, excludes moral and practical effects. Therefore, _there is +no other difference between works of art than their respective artistic +perfection (Vollkommenheit in der Kunst)_. If we could correctly +predicate volitional acts in respect of works of art, then we should +find ourselves admiring only those works which stimulated the will, and +there would thus be established a difference of valuation, independent +of artistic perfection. The true work of art depends upon the degree of +perfection with which the external in it agrees with the internal. + +Schleiermacher rightly combats Schiller's view that art is in any sense +a game. That, he says, is the view held by mere men of business, to whom +business alone is serious. But artistic activity is universal, and a man +completely deprived of it unthinkable, although the difference here +between man and man, is gigantic, ranging from the simple desire to +taste of art to the effective tasting of it, and from this, by infinite +gradations, to productive genius. + +The regrettable fact that Schleiermacher's thought has reached us only +in an imperfect form, may account for certain of its defects, such as +his failure to eliminate aesthetic classes and types, his retention of a +certain residue of abstract formalism, his definition of art as the +activity of difference. Had he better defined the moment of artistic +reproduction, realized the possibility of tasting the art of various +times and of other nations, and examined the true relation of art to +science, he would have seen that this difference is merely empirical and +to be surmounted. He failed also to recognize the identity of the +aesthetic activity, with language as the base of all other theoretic +activity. + +But Schleiermacher's merits far outweigh these defects. He removed from +Aesthetic its _imperativistic_ character; he distinguished _a form of +thought_ different from logical thought. He attributed to our science a +_non-metaphysical, anthropological_ character. He _denied_ the concept +of the beautiful, substituting for it _artistic perfection_, and +maintaining the aesthetic equality of a small with a great work of art, +he looked upon the aesthetic fact as an exclusively _human +productivity_. + +Thus Schleiermacher, the theologian, in this period of metaphysical +orgy, of rapidly constructed and as rapidly destroyed systems, +perceived, with the greatest philosophical acumen, what is really +characteristic of art, and distinguished its properties and relations. +Even where he fails to see clearly his way, he never abandons analysis +for mere guess-work. + +Schleiermacher, thus exploring the obscure region of the _immediate +consciousness_, or of the aesthetic fact, can almost be heard crying out +to his straying contemporaries: _Hic Rhodus, hi salta_! + +Speculation upon the origin and nature of language was rife at this time +in Germany. Many theories were put forward, among the most curious being +that of Schelling, who held language and mythology to be the product of +a pre-human consciousness, allegorically expressed as the diabolic +suggestions which had precipitated the Ego from the infinite to the +finite. + +Even Wilhelm von Humboldt was unable to free himself altogether from the +intellectualistic prejudice of the substantial identity and the merely +historical and accidental diversity of logical thought and language. He +speaks of a _perfect_ language, broken up and diminished with the lesser +capacities of lesser peoples. He believed that language is something +standing outside the individual, independent of him, and capable of +being revived by use. But there were two men in Humboldt, an old man and +a young one. The latter was always suggesting that language should be +looked upon as a living, not as a dead thing, as an activity, not as a +word. This duality of thought sometimes makes his writing difficult and +obscure. Although he speaks of an internal form of speech, he fails to +identify this with art as expression. The reason is that he looks upon +the word in too unilateral a manner, as a means of developing logical +thought, and his ideas of Aesthetic are too vague and too inexact to +enable him to discover their identity. Despite his perception of the +profound truth that poetry precedes prose, Humboldt gives grounds for +doubt as to whether he had clearly recognized and firmly grasped the +fact that language is always poetry, and that prose (science) is a +distinction, not of aesthetic form, but of content, that is, of logical +form. + +Steinthal, the greatest follower of Humboldt, solved his master's +contradictions, and in 1855 sustained successfully against the Hegelian +Becker the thesis that words are necessary for thought. He pointed to +the deaf-mute with his signs, to the mathematician with his formulae, to +the Chinese language, where the figurative portion is an essential of +speech, and declared that Becker was wrong in believing that the +Sanskrit language was derived from twelve cardinal concepts. He showed +effectively that the concept and the word, the logical judgment and the +proposition, are not comparable. The proposition is not a judgment, but +the representation of a judgment; and all propositions do not represent +logical judgments. Several judgments can be expressed with one +proposition. The logical divisions of judgments (the relations of +concepts) have no correspondence in the grammatical division of +propositions. "If we speak of a logical form of the proposition, we fall +into a contradiction in terms not less complete than his who should +speak of the angle of a circle, or of the periphery of a triangle." He +who speaks, in so far as he speaks, has not thoughts, but language. + +When Steinthal had several times solemnly proclaimed the independence of +language as regards Logic, and that it produces its forms in complete +autonomy, he proceeded to seek the origin of language, recognizing with +Humboldt that the question of Its origin is the same as that of its +nature. Language, he said, belongs to the great class of reflex +movements, but this only shows one side of it, not its true nature. +Animals, like men, have reflex actions and sensations, though nature +enters the animal by force, takes it by assault, conquers and enslaves +it. With man is born language, because he is resistance to nature, +governance of his own body, and liberty. "Language is liberation; even +to-day we feel that our soul becomes lighter, and frees itself from a +weight, when we speak." Man, before he attains to speech, must be +conceived of as accompanying all his sensations with bodily movements, +mimetic attitudes, gestures, and particularly with articulate sounds. +What is still lacking to him, that he may attain to speech? The +connexion between the reflex movements of the body and the state of the +soul. If his sentient consciousness be already consciousness, then he +lacks the consciousness of consciousness; if it be already intuition, +then he lacks the intuition of intuition. In sum, he lacks the _internal +form of language_. With this comes speech, which forms the connexion. +Man does not choose the sound of his speech. This is given to him and he +adopts it instinctively. + +When we have accorded to Steinthal the great merit of having rendered +coherent the ideas of Humboldt, and of having clearly separated +linguistic from logical thought, we must note that he too failed to +perceive the _identity_ of the internal form of language, or "intuition +of the intuition," as he called it, with the aesthetic _imagination_. +Herbart's psychology, to which Steinthal adhered, did not afford him any +means for this identification. Herbart separated logic from psychology, +calling it a normative science; he failed to discern the exact limits +between feeling and spiritual formation, psyche or soul, and spirit, and +to see that one of these spiritual formations is logical thought or +activity, which is not a code of laws imposed from without. For Herbart, +Aesthetic, as we know, was a code of beautiful formal relations. Thus +Steinthal, following Herbart in psychology, was bound to look upon Art +as a beautifying of thought, Linguistic as the science of speech, +Rhetoric and Aesthetic as the science of beautiful speech. + +Steinthal never realized that to speak is to speak well or beautifully, +under penalty of _not_ speaking, and that the revolution which he and +Humboldt had effected in the conception of language must inevitably +react upon and transform Poetic, Rhetoric, and Aesthetic. + +Thus, despite so many efforts of conscientious analysis on the part of +Humboldt and of Steinthal, the unity of language and of poetry, and the +identification of the science of language and the science of poetry +still found its least imperfect expression in the prophetic aphorisms of +Vico. + +The philosophical movement in Germany from the last quarter of the +eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth, notwithstanding +its many errors, is yet so notable and so imposing with the philosophers +already considered, as to merit the first place in the European thought +of that period. This is even more the case as regards Aesthetic than as +regards philosophy in general. + +France was the prey of Condillac's sensualism, and therefore incapable +of duly appreciating the spiritual activity of art. We hardly get a +glimpse of Winckelmann's transcendental spiritualism in Quatremere de +Quincy, and the frigid academics of Victor Cousin were easily surpassed +by Theodore Jouffroy, though he too failed of isolating the aesthetic +fact. French Romanticism defined literature as "the expression of +society," admired under German influence the grotesque and the +characteristic, declared the independence of art in the formula of "art +for art's sake," but did not succeed in surpassing philosophically the +old doctrine of the "imitation of nature." F. Schlegel and Solger indeed +were largely responsible for the Romantic movement in France--Schlegel +with his belief in the characteristic or _interesting_ as the principle +of modern art, which led him to admire the cruel and the ugly; Solger +with his dialectic arrangement, whereby the finite or terrestrial +element is absorbed and annihilated in the divine and thus becomes the +tragic, or _vice versa_, and the result is the comic. Rosenkranz +published in Koenigsberg an Aesthetic of the Ugly, and the works of +Vischer and Zeising abound in subtleties relating to the Idea and to its +expression in the beautiful and sublime. These writers conceived of the +Idea as the Knight Purebeautiful, constrained to abandon his tranquil +ease through the machinations of the Ugly; the Ugly leads him into all +sorts of disagreeable adventures, from all of which he eventually +emerges victorious. The Sublime, the Comic, the Humorous, and so on, are +his Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. Another version of their knight's +adventures might be described as his conquest by his enemies, but at the +moment of conquest he transforms and irradiates his conquerors. To such +a mediocre and artificial mythology led the much-elaborated theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. + +In England, the associationist psychology continued to hold sway, and +showed, with Dugald Stewart's miserable attempt at establishing two +forms of association, its incapacity to rise to the conception of the +imagination. With the poet Coleridge, England also showed the influence +of German thought, and Coleridge elaborated with Wordsworth a more +correct conception of poetry and of its difference from science. But the +most notable contribution in English at that period came from another +poet, P.B. Shelley, whose _Defence of Poetry_ contains profound, though +unsystematic views, as to the distinction between reason and +imagination, prose and poetry, on primitive language, and on the poetic +power of objectification. + +In Italy, Francesco de Sanctis gave magnificent expression to the +independence of art. He taught literature in Naples from 1838 to 1848, +in Turin and Zurich from 1850 to 1860, and after 1870 he was a professor +in the University of Naples. His _Storia della letteratura italiana_ is +a classic, and in it and in monographs on individual writers he exposed +his doctrines. + +Prompted by a natural love of speculation, he began to examine the old +grammarians and rhetoricians, with a view to systematize them. But very +soon he proceeded to criticize and to surpass their theories. The cold +rules of reason did not find favour with him, and he advised young men +to go direct to the original works. + +The philosophy of Hegel began to penetrate Italy, and the study of Vico +was again taken up. De Sanctis translated the _Logic_ of Hegel in +prison, where the Bourbon Government had thrown him for his liberalism. +Benard had begun his translation of the _Aesthetic_ of Hegel, and so +completely in harmony was De Sanctis with the thought of this master, +that he is said to have guessed from a study of the first volume what +the unpublished volumes must contain, and to have lectured upon them to +his pupils. Traces of mystical idealism and of Hegelianism persist even +in his later works, and the distinction, which he always maintained, +between imagination and fancy certainly came to him from Hegel and +Schelling. He held fancy alone to be the true poetic faculty. + +De Sanctis absorbed all the juice of Hegel, but rejected the husks of +his pedantry, of his formalism, of his apriority. + +Fancy for De Sanctis was not the mystical transcendental apperception of +the German philosophers, but simply the faculty of poetic synthesis and +creation, opposed to the imagination, which reunites details and always +has something mechanical about it. Faith and poetry, he used to say, are +not dead, but transformed. His criticism of Hegel amounted in many +places to the correction of Hegel; and as regards Vico, he is careful to +point out, that when, in dealing with the Homeric poems, Vico talks of +generic types, he is no longer the critic of art, but the historian of +civilization. De Sanctis saw that, _artistically_, Achilles must always +be Achilles, never a force or an abstraction. + +Thus De Sanctis succeeded in keeping himself free from the Hegelian +domination, at a moment when Hegel was the acknowledged master of +speculation. + +But his criticism extended also to other German aestheticians. By a +curious accident, he found himself at Zurich in the company of Theodore +Vischer, that ponderous Hegelian, who laughed disdainfully at the +mention of poetry, of music, and of the decadent Italian race. De +Sanctis laughed at Vischer's laughter. Wagner appeared to him a +corrupter of music, and "nothing in the world more unaesthetic than the +Aesthetic of Theodore Vischer." His lectures on Ariosto and Petrarch, +before an international public at Zurich, were delivered with the desire +of correcting the errors of these and of other German philosophers and +learned men. He gave his celebrated definitions of French and German +critics. The French critic does not indulge in theories: one feels +warmth of impression and sagacity of observation in his argument. He +never leaves the concrete; he divines the quality of the writer's genius +and the quality of his work, and studies the man, in order to understand +the writer. His great fault is shown in substituting for criticism of +the actual art work a historical criticism of the author and of his +time. For the German, on the other hand, there is nothing so simple that +he does not contrive to distort and to confuse it. He collects shadows +around him, from which shoot vivid rays. He laboriously brings to birth +that morsel of truth which he has within him. He would seize and define +what is most fugitive and impalpable in a work of art. Although nobody +talks so much of life as he does, yet no one so much delights in +decomposing and generalizing it. Having thus destroyed the particular, +he is able to show you as the result of this process, final in +appearance, but in reality preconceived and apriorist, one measurement +for all feet, one garment for all bodies. + +About this time he studied Schopenhauer, who was then becoming the +fashion. Schopenhauer said of this criticism of De Sanctis: "That +Italian has absorbed me _in succum et sanguinem_." What weight did he +attach to Schopenhauer's much-vaunted writings on art? Having exposed +the theory of Ideas, he barely refers to the third volume, "which +contains an exaggerated theory of Aesthetic." + +In his criticism of Petrarch, De Sanctis finally broke with metaphysical +Aesthetic, saying of Hegel's school that it believed the beautiful to +become art when it surpassed form and revealed the concept or pure idea. +This theory and the subtleties derived from it, far from characterizing +art, represent its contrary: the impotent velleity for art, which cannot +slay abstractions and come in contact with life. + +De Sanctis held that outside the domain of art all Is shapeless. The +ugly is of the domain of art, if art give it form. Is there anything +more beautiful than Iago? If he be looked upon merely as a contrast to +Othello, then we are in the position of those who looked upon the stars +as placed where they are to serve as candles for the earth. + +Form was for De Sanctis the word which should be inscribed over the +entrance to the Temple of Art. In the work of art are form and content, +but the latter is no longer chaotic: the artist has given to it a new +value, has enriched it with the gift of his own personality. But if the +content has not been assimilated and made his own by the artist, then +the work lacks generative power: it is of no value as art or literature, +though as history or scientific document its value may be great. The +Gods of Homer's _Iliad_ are dead, but the _Iliad_ remains. Guelf and +Ghibelline have disappeared from Italy: not so the _Divine Comedy_, +which is as vigorous to-day as when Dante first took pen in hand. Thus +De Sanctis held firmly to the independence of art, but he did not accept +the formula of "art for art's sake," in so far as it meant separation of +the artist from life, mutilation of the content, art reduced to mere +dexterity. + +For De Sanctis, form was identical with imagination, with the artist's +power of expressing or representing his artistic vision. This much must +be admitted by his critics. But he never attained to a clear definition +of art. His theory of Aesthetic always remained a sketch: wonderful +indeed, but not clearly developed and deduced. The reason for this was +De Sanctis' love of the concrete. No sooner had he attained from general +ideas a sufficient clarity of vision for his own purposes, than he +plunged again into the concrete and particular. He did not confine his +activity to literature, but was active also in politics and in the +prosecution and encouragement of historical studies. + +As a critic of literature, De Sanctis is far superior to Sainte-Beuve, +Lessing, Macaulay, or Taine. Flaubert's genial intuition adumbrated what +De Sanctis achieved. In one of his letters to Georges Sand, Flaubert +speaks of the lack of an _artistic_ critic. "In Laharpe's time, +criticism was grammatical; in the time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, it +is historical. They analyse with great subtlety the historical +environment in which the work appeared and the causes which have +produced it. But the _unconscious_ element In poetry? Whence does It +come? And composition? And style? And the point of view of the author? +Of all that they never speak. For such a critic, great imagination and +great goodness are necessary. I mean an ever-ready faculty of +enthusiasm, and then _taste_, a quality so rare, even among the best, +that it is never mentioned." + +De Sanctis alone fulfilled the conditions of Flaubert, and Italy has in +his writings a looking-glass for her literature unequalled by any other +country. + +But with De Sanctis, the philosopher of art, the aesthetician, is not so +great as the critic of literature. The one is accessory to the other, +and his use of aesthetic terminology is so inconstant that a lack of +clearness of thought might be found in his work by anyone who had not +studied it with care. But his want of system is more than compensated by +his vitality, by his constant citation of actual works, and by his +intuition of the truth, which never abandoned him. His writings bear the +further charm of suggesting new kingdoms to conquer, new mines of +richness to explore. + +While the cry of "Down with Metaphysic" was resounding in Germany, and a +furious reaction had set in against the sort of Walpurgisnacht to which +the later Hegelians had reduced science and history, the pupils of +Herbart came forward and with an insinuating air they seemed to say: +"What is this? Why, it is a rebellion against Metaphysic, the very thing +our master wished for and tried to achieve, half a century ago! But here +we are, his heirs and successors, and we want to be your allies! An +understanding between us will be easy. Our Metaphysic is in agreement +with the atomic theory, our Psychology with mechanicism, our Ethic and +Aesthetic with hedonism." Herbart, who died in 1841, would probably have +disdained and rejected his followers, who thus courted popularity and +cheapened Metaphysic, putting a literal interpretation on his realities, +his ideas and representations, and upon all his most lofty +excogitations. + +The protagonist of these neo-Herbartians was Robert Zimmermann. He +constructed his system of Aesthetic out of Herbart, whom he perverted to +his own uses, and even employed the much-abused Hegelian dialectic in +order to introduce modifications of the beautiful into pure beauty. The +beautiful, he said, is a model which possesses greatness, fulness, +order, correction, and definite compensation. Beauty appears to us in a +characteristic form, as a copy of this model. + +Vischer, against whom was directed this work of Zimmermann, found it +easy to reply. He ridiculed Zimmermann's meaning of the symbol as the +object around which are clustered beautiful forms. "Does an artist paint +a fox, simply that he may depict an object of animal nature. No, no, my +dear sir, far from it. This fox is a symbol, because the painter here +employs lines and colours, in order to express something different from +lines and colours. 'You think I am a fox,' cries the painted animal. +'You are mightily mistaken; I am, on the contrary, a portmanteau, an +exhibition by the painter of red, white, grey, and yellow tints.'" +Vischer also made fun of Zimmermann's enthusiasm for the aesthetic value +of the sense of touch. "What joy it must be to touch the back of the +bust of Hercules in repose! To stroke the sinuous limbs of the Venus of +Milo or of the Faun of Barberini must give a pleasure to the hand equal +to that of the ear as it listens to the puissant fugues of Bach or to +the suave melodies of Mozart." Vischer defined the formal Aesthetic of +Zimmermann as a queer mixture of mysticism and mathematic. + +Lotze, in common with the great majority of thinkers, was dissatisfied +with Zimmermann, but could only oppose his formalism with a variety of +the old mystical Aesthetic. Who, he asked, could believe that the human +form pleases only by its external proportions, regardless of the spirit +within. Art, like beauty, should "enclose the world of values in the +world of forms." This struggle between the Aesthetic of the content and +the Aesthetic of the form attained its greatest height in Germany +between 1860 and 1870, with Zimmermann, Vischer, and Lotze as +protagonists. + +These writers were followed by J. Schmidt, who in 1875 ventured to say +that both Lotze and Zimmermann had failed to see that the problem of +Aesthetic concerned, not the beauty or ugliness of the content or of the +form as mathematical relations, but their representation; Koestlin, who +erected an immense artificial structure with the materials of his +predecessors modified; Schasler, who is interesting as having converted +the old Vischer to his thesis of the importance of the Ugly, as +introducing modifications into the beautiful and being the principle of +movement there. Vischer confesses that at one time he had followed the +Hegelian method and believed that in the essence of beauty is born a +disquietude, a fermentation, a struggle: the Idea conquers, hurls the +image into the unlimited, and the Sublime is born; but the image, +offended in its finitude, declares war upon the Idea, and the Comic +appears. Thus the fight is finished and the Beautiful returns to itself, +as the result of these struggles. But now, he says, Schasler has +persuaded him that the Ugly is the leaven which is necessary to all the +special forms of the Beautiful. + +E. von Hartmann is in close relation with Schasler. His Aesthetic (1890) +also makes great use of the Ugly. Since he insists upon appearance as a +necessary characteristic of the beautiful, he considers himself +justified in calling his theory concrete idealism. Hartmann considers +himself in opposition to the formalism of Herbart, inasmuch as he +insists upon the idea as an indispensable and determining element of +beauty. Beauty, he says, is truth, but it is not historical truth, nor +scientific nor reflective truth: it is metaphysical and ideal. "Beauty +is the prophet of idealistic truth in an age without faith, hating +Metaphysic, and acknowledging only realistic truth." Aesthetic truth is +without method and without control: it leaps at once from the subjective +appearance to the essence of the ideal. But in compensation for this, it +possesses the fascination of conviction, which immediate intuition alone +possesses. The higher Philosophy rises, the less need has she of passing +through the world of the senses and of science: she approaches ever more +nearly to art. Thus Philosophy starts on the voyage to the ideal, like +Baedeker's traveller, "without too much baggage." In the Beautiful is +immanent logicity, the microcosmic idea, the unconscious. By means of +the unconscious, the process of intellectual intuition takes place in +it. The Beautiful is a mystery, because its root is in the Unconscious. + +No philosopher has ever made so great a use of the Ugly as Hartmann. He +divides Beauty into grades, of which the one below is ugly as compared +with that above it. He begins with the mathematical, superior to the +sensibly agreeable, which is unconscious. Thence to formal beauty of the +second order, the dynamically agreeable, to formal beauty of the third +order, the passive teleological; to this degree belong utensils, and +language, which in Hartmann's view is a dead thing, inspired with +seeming life, only at the moment of use. Such things did the philosopher +of the Unconscious dare to print in the country of a Humboldt during the +lifetime of a Steinthal! He proceeds in his list of things beautiful, +with formal beauty of the fourth degree, which is the active or living +teleological, with the fifth, which is that of species. Finally he +reaches concrete beauty, or the individual microcosm, the highest of +all, because the individual idea is superior to the specific, and is +beauty, no longer formal, but of content. + +All these degrees of beauty are, as has been said, connected with one +another by means of the ugly, and even in the highest degree, which has +nothing superior to it, the ugly continues its office of beneficent +titillation. The outcome of this ultimate phase is the famous theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. None of these modifications can +occur without a struggle, save the sublime and the graceful, which +appear without conflict at the side of supreme beauty. Hartmann gives +four instances: the solution is either immanent, logical, +transcendental, or combined. The idyllic, the melancholy, the sad, the +glad, the elegiac, are instances of the immanent solution; the comic in +all its forms is the logical solution; the tragic is the transcendental +solution; the combined form is found in the humorous, the tragi-comic. +When none of these solutions is possible, we have the ugly; and when an +ugliness of content is expressed by a formal ugliness, we have the +maximum of ugliness, the true aesthetic devil. + +Hartmann is the last noteworthy representative of the German +metaphysical school. His works are gigantic in size and appear +formidable. But if one be not afraid of giants and venture to approach +near, one finds nothing but a big Morgante, full of the most commonplace +prejudices, quite easily killed with the bite of a crab! + +During this period, Aesthetic had few representatives in other +countries. The famous conference of the Academy of Moral and Political +Sciences, held in Paris in 1857, gave to the world the "Science du Beau" +of Leveque. No one is interested in it now, but it is amusing to note +that Leveque announced himself to be a disciple of Plato, and went on to +attribute eight characteristics to the beautiful. These he discovered by +closely examining the lily! No wonder he was crowned with laurels! He +proved his wonderful theory by instancing a child playing with its +mother, a symphony of Beethoven, and the life of Socrates! One of his +colleagues, who could not resist making fun of his learned friend, +remarked that he would be glad to know what part was played in the life +of a philosopher by the normal vivacity of colour! + +Thus German theory made no way in France, and England proved even more +refractory. + +J. Ruskin showed a poverty, an incoherence, and a lack of system in +respect to Aesthetic, which puts him almost out of court. His was the +very reverse of the philosophic temperament. His pages of brilliant +prose contain his own dreams and caprices. They are the work of an +artist and should be enjoyed as such, being without any value for +philosophy. His theoretic faculty of the beautiful, which he held to be +distinct alike from the intelligence and from feeling, is connected with +his belief in beauty as a revelation of the divine intentions, "the seal +which God sets upon his works." Thus the natural beauty, which is +perceived by the pure heart, when contemplating some object untouched by +the hand of man, is far superior to the work of the artist. Ruskin was +too little capable of analysis to understand the complicated +psychologico-aesthetic process taking place within him, as he +contemplated some streamlet, or the nest of some small bird. + +At Naples flourished between 1861 and 1884 Antonio Tari, who kept +himself in touch with the movement of German thought, and followed the +German idealists in placing Aesthetic in a sort of middle kingdom, a +temperate zone, between the glacial, inhabited by the Esquimaux of +thought, and the torrid, dwelt in by the giants of action. He dethroned +the Beautiful, and put Aesthetic in its place, for the Beautiful is but +the first moment; the later ones are the Comic, the Humorous, and the +Dramatic. His fertile imagination found metaphors and similes in +everything: for instance, he called the goat the Devil, opposed to the +lamb, Jesus. His remarks on men and women are full of quaint fancies. He +granted to women grace, but not beauty, which resides in equilibrium. +This is proved by her falling down so easily when she walks; by her bow +legs, which have to support her wide hips, made for gestation; by her +narrow shoulders, and her opulent breast. She is therefore a creature +altogether devoid of equilibrium! + +I wish that it were possible to record more of the sayings of the +excellent Tari, "the last joyous priest of an arbitrary Aesthetic, +source of confusion." + +The ground lost to the German school of metaphysicians was occupied +during the second half of the nineteenth century by the evolutionary and +positivist metaphysicians, of whom Herbert Spencer is the most notable +representative. The peculiarity of this school lies in repeating at +second or third hand certain idealist views, deprived of the element of +pure philosophy, given to them by a Schelling or a Hegel, and in +substituting a quantity of minute facts and anecdotes, with a view to +providing the positivist varnish. These theories are dear to vulgar +minds, because they correspond to inveterate religious beliefs, and the +lustre of the varnish explains the good fortune of Spencerian positivism +in our time. Another notable trait of this school is its barbaric +contempt for history, especially for the history of philosophy, and its +consequent lack of all link with the series composed of the secular +efforts of so many thinkers. Without this link, there can be no fruitful +labour and no possibility of progress. + +Spencer is colossal in his ignorance of all that has been written or +thought on the subject of Aesthetic (to limit ourselves to this branch +alone). He actually begins his work on the Philosophy of Style with +these words: "No one, I believe, has ever produced a complete theory of +the art of writing." This in 1852! He begins his chapter on aesthetic +feelings in the _Principles of Psychology_ by admitting that he has +heard of the observation made by a German author, whose name he forgets +(Schiller!), on the connexion between art and play. Had Spencer's +remarks on Aesthetic been written in the eighteenth century, they might +have occupied a humble place among the first rude attempts at aesthetic +speculation, but appearing in the nineteenth century, they are without +value, as the little of value they contain had been long said by others. + +In his _Principles of Psychology_ Spencer looks upon aesthetic feelings +as arising from the discharge of the exuberant energy of the organism. +This he divides into degrees, and believes that we attain complete +enjoyment when these degrees are all working satisfactorily each on its +own plane, and when what is painful in excessive activity has been +avoided. His degrees are sensation, sensation accompanied by +representative elements, perception accompanied by more complex elements +of representation, then emotion, and that state of consciousness which +surpasses sensations and perceptions. But Spencer has no suspicion of +what art really is. His views oscillate between sensualism and moralism, +and he sees little in the whole art of antiquity, of the Middle Ages, or +of modern times, which can be looked upon as otherwise than imperfect! + +The Physiology of Aesthetics has also had its votaries in Great Britain, +among whom may be mentioned J. Sully, A. Bain, and Allen. These at any +rate show some knowledge of the concrete fact of art. Allen harks back +to the old distinction between necessary and vital activities and +superfluous activities, and gives a physiological definition, which may +be read in his _Physiological Aesthetics_. More recent writers also look +upon the physiological fact as the cause of the pleasure of art; but for +them it does not alone depend upon the visual organ, and the muscular +phenomena associated with it, but also on the participation of some of +the most important bodily functions, such as respiration, circulation, +equilibrium, intimate muscular accommodation. They believe that art owes +its origin to the pleasure that some prehistoric man must have +experienced in breathing regularly, without having to re-adapt his +organs, when he traced for the first time on a bone or on clay regular +lines separated by regular intervals. + +A similar order of physico-aesthetic researches has been made in +Germany, under the auspices of Helmholtz, Bruecke, and Stumpf. But these +writers have succeeded better than the above-mentioned, by restricting +themselves to the fields of optic and acoustic, and have supplied +information as to the physical processes of artistic technique and as to +the pleasure of visual and auditive impressions, without attempting to +melt Aesthetic into Physic, or to deprive the former of its spiritual +character. They have even occasionally indicated the difference between +the two kinds of research. Even the degenerate Herbartians, converting +the metaphysical forms of their master into physiological phenomena, +made soft eyes at the new sensualists and aesthetico-physiologists. + +The Natural Sciences have become in our day a sort of superstition, +allied to a certain, perhaps unconscious, hypocrisy. Not only have +chemical, physical, and physiological laboratories become a sort of +Sibylline grots, where resound the most extraordinary questions about +everything that can interest the spirit of man, but even those who +really do prosecute their researches with the old inevitable method of +internal observation, have been unable to free themselves from the +illusion that they are, on the contrary, employing _the method of the +natural sciences_. + +Hippolyte Taine's Philosophy of Art represents such an illusion. He +declares that when we have studied the diverse manifestations of art in +all peoples and at all epochs, we shall then possess a complete +Aesthetic. Such an Aesthetic would be a sort of Botany applied to the +works of man. This mode of study would provide moral science with a +basis equally as sure as that which the natural sciences already +possess. Taine then proceeds to define art without regard to the natural +sciences, by analysing, like a simple mortal, what passes in the human +soul when brought face to face with a work of art. But what analysis and +what definitions! + +Art, he says, is imitation, but of a sort that tries to express an +essential characteristic. Thus the principal characteristic of a lion is +to be "a great carnivore," and we observe this characteristic in all its +limbs. Holland has for essential characteristic that of being a land +formed of alluvial soil. + +Now without staying to consider these two remarkable instances, let us +ask, what is this essential characteristic of Taine? It is the same as +the ideas, types, or concepts that the old aesthetic teaching assigned +to art as its object. Taine himself removes all doubt as to this, by +saying that this characteristic is what philosophers call the essence of +things, and for that reason they declare that the purpose of art is to +manifest things. He declares that he will not employ the word essence, +which is technical. But he accepts and employs the thought that the word +expresses. He believes that there are two routes by which man can attain +to the superior life: science and art. By the first, he apprehends +fundamental laws and causes, and expresses them in abstract terms; by +the second, he expresses these same laws and causes in a manner +comprehensible to all, by appealing to the heart and feeling, as well as +to the reason of man. Art is both superior and popular; it makes +manifest what is highest, and makes it manifest to all. + +That Taine here falls into the old pedagogic theory of Aesthetic is +evident. Works of art are arranged for him in a scale of values, as for +the aesthetic metaphysicians. He began by declaring the absurdity of all +judgment of taste, "a chacun son gout," but he ends by declaring that +personal taste is without value, that we must establish a common measure +before proceeding to praise or blame. His scale of values is double or +triple. We must first fix the degree of importance of the +characteristic, that is, the greater or less generality of the idea, and +the degree of good in it, that is to say, its greater or lesser moral +value. These, he says, are two degrees of the same thing, strength, seen +from different sides. We must also establish the degree of convergence +of the effects, that is, the fulness of expression, the harmony between +the idea and the form. + +This half-moral, half-metaphysical exposition is accompanied with the +usual protestations, that the matter in hand is to be studied +methodically, analytically, as the naturalist would study it, that he +will try to reach "a law, not a hymn." As if these protestations could +abolish the true nature of his thought! Taine actually went so far as to +attempt dialectic solutions of works of art! "In the primitive period of +Italian art, we find the soul without the body: Giotto. At the +Renaissance, with Verrocchio and his school, we find the body without +the soul. With Raphael, in the sixteenth century, we find expression and +anatomy in harmony: body and soul." Thesis, antithesis, synthesis! + +With G.T. Fechner we find the like protestations and the like +procedure. He will study Aesthetic inductively, from beneath. He seeks +clarity, not loftiness. Proceeding thus inductively, he discovers a long +series of laws or principles of Aesthetic, such as unity in variety, +association and contrast, change and persistence, the golden mean, etc. +He exhibits this chaos with delight at showing himself so much of a +physiologist, and so inconclusive. Then he proceeds to describe his +experiments in Aesthetics. These consist of attempts to decide, for +instance, by methods of choice, which of certain rectangles of cardboard +is the most agreeable, and which the most disagreeable, to a large +number of people arbitrarily chosen. Naturally, these results do not +agree with others obtained on other occasions, but Fechner knows that +errors correct themselves, and triumphantly publishes long lists of +these valuable experiments. He also communicates to us the shapes and +measurements of a large number of pictures in museums, as compared with +their respective subjects! Such are the experiments of physiological +aestheticians. + +But Fechner, when he comes to define what beauty and what art really +are, is, like everyone else, obliged to fall back upon introspection. +But his definition is trivial, and his comparison of his three degrees +of beauty to a family is simply grotesque in its _naivete_. He terms +this theory the eudemonistic theory, and we are left wondering why, when +he had this theory all cut and dried in his mind, he should all the same +give himself the immense trouble of compiling his tables and of +enumerating his laws and principles, which do not agree with his theory. +Perhaps it was all a pastime for him, like playing at patience, or +collecting postage-stamps? + +Another example of superstition in respect to the natural sciences +is afforded by Ernest Grosse. Grosse abounds in contempt for what +he calls speculative Aesthetic. Yet he desires a Science of Art +(Kunstwissenschaft), which shall formulate its laws from those +historical facts which have hitherto been collected. + +But Grosse wishes us to complete the collection of historical evidence +with ethnographical and prehistoric materials, for we cannot obtain +really general laws of art from the exclusive study of cultivated +peoples, "just as a theory of reproduction exclusively based upon the +form it takes with mammifers, must necessarily be imperfect!" + +He is, however, aware that the results of experiences among savages and +prehistoric races do not alone suffice to furnish us with an equipment +for such investigations as that concerning the nature of Art, and, like +any ordinary mortal, he feels obliged to interrogate, before starting, +the spirit of man. He therefore proceeds to define Aesthetic on +apriorist principles, which, he remarks, can be discarded when we shall +have obtained the complete theory, in like manner with the scaffolding +that has served for the erection of a house. + +Words! Words! Vain words! He proceeds to define Aesthetic as the +activity which in its development and result has the immediate value of +feeling, and is, therefore, an end in itself. Art is the opposite of +practice; the activity of games stands intermediate between the two, +having also its end in its own activity. + +The Aesthetics of Taine and of Grosse have been called sociological. +Seeing that any true definition of sociology as a science is impossible, +for it is composed of psychological elements, which are for ever +varying, we do not delay to criticize the futile attempts at definition, +but pass at once to the objective results attained by the sociologists. +This superstition, like the naturalistic, takes various forms in +practical life. We have, for instance, Proudhon (1875), who would hark +back to Platonic Aesthetic, class the aesthetic activity among the +merely sensual, and command the arts to further the cause of virtue, on +pain of judicial proceedings in case of contumacy. + +But M. Guyau is the most important of sociological aestheticians. His +works, published in Paris toward the end of last century, and his +posthumous work, entitled _Les problemes de l'Esthetique contemporaine_, +substitute for the theory of play, that of _life_, and the posthumous +work above-mentioned makes it evident that by life he means social life. +Art is the development of social sympathy, but the whole of art does not +enter into sociology. Art has two objects; the production of agreeable +sensations (colours, sounds, etc.) and of phenomena of psychological +induction, which include ideas and feelings of a more complex nature +than the foregoing, such as sympathy for the personages represented, +interest, piety, indignation, etc. Thus art becomes the expression of +life. Hence arise two tendencies: one for harmony, consonance, for all +that delights the ear and eye; the other transforming life, under the +dominion of art. True genius is destined to balance these two +tendencies; but the decadent and the unbalanced deprive art of its +sympathetic end, setting aesthetic sympathy against human sympathy. If +we translate this language into that with which we are by this time +quite familiar, we shall see that Guyau admits an art that is merely +hedonistic, and places above it another art, also hedonistic, but +serving the ends of morality. + +M. Nordau wages war against the decadent and unbalanced, in much the +same manner as Guyau. He assigns to art the function of re-establishing +the integrity of life, so much broken up and specialized in our +industrial civilization. He remarks that there is such a thing as art +for art's sake, the simple expression of the internal states of the +individual, but it is the art of the cave-dweller. + +C. Lombroso's theory of genius as degeneration may be grouped with the +naturalistic theories. His argument is in essence the following. Great +mental efforts, and total absorption in one dominant thought, often +produce physiological disorders or atrophy of important vital functions. +Now these disorders often lead to madness; therefore, genius may be +identified with madness. This proof, from the particular to the general, +does not follow that of traditional Logic. But with Lombroso, Buechner, +Nordau, and the like we have come to the boundary between specious and +vulgar error. They confuse scientific analysis with historical research. +Such inquiries may have value for history, but they have none for +Aesthetic. Thus, too, A. Lang maintains that the doctrine of the origin +of art as disinterested expression of the mimetic faculty is not +confirmed in what we know of primitive art, which is rather decorative +than expressive. But primitive art, which is a given fact to be +interpreted, cannot ever become its own criterion of interpretation. + +The naturalistic misunderstanding has had a bad effect on linguistic +researches, which have not been carried out on the lofty plane to which +Humboldt and Steinthal had brought them. + +Max Mueller is popular and exaggerated. He fails clearly to distinguish +thought from logical thought, although in one place he remarks that the +formation of names has a more intimate connexion with wit than with +judgment. He holds that the science of language is not historical, but +natural, because language is not the invention of man, altogether +ignoring the science of the spirit, philosophy, of which language is a +part. For Max Mueller, the natural sciences were the only sciences. The +consciousness of the science of the spirit becomes ever more obscured, +and we find the philologist W.D. Whitney combating Max Mueller's +"miracles" and maintaining the separability of thought and speech. + +With Hermann Paul (1880) we have an awakening of Humboldt's spirit. Paul +maintains that the origin of language is the speech of the individual +man, and that a language has its origin every time it is spoken. Paul +also showed the fallacies contained in the _Voelkerpsychologie_ of +Steinthal and Lazarus, demonstrating that there is no such thing as a +collective soul, and that there is no language save that of the +individual. + +W. Wundt (1886), on the other hand, commits the error of connecting +language with Ethnopsychology and other non-existent sciences, and +actually terms the glorious doctrine of Herder and of Humboldt +_Wundertheorie_, or theory of miracle, accusing them of mystical +obscurity. Wundt confuses the question of the historical appearance of +language with that of its internal nature and genesis. He looks upon the +theory of evolution as having attained to its complete triumph, in its +application to organic nature in general, and especially to man. He has +no suspicion whatever of the function of fancy, and of the true relation +between thought and expression, between expression in the naturalistic, +and expression in the spiritual and linguistic sense. He looks upon +speech as a specially developed form of psycho-physical vital +manifestations, of expressive animal movements. Language is developed +continuously from such facts, and thus is explained how, "beyond the +general concept of expressive movement, there is no specific quality +which delimits language in a non-arbitrary manner." + +Thus the philosophy of Wundt reveals its weak side, showing itself +incapable of understanding the spiritual nature of language and of art. +In the _Ethic_ of the same author, aesthetic facts are presented as a +mixture of logical and ethical elements, a special normative aesthetic +science is denied, and Aesthetic is merged in Logic and Ethic. + +The neo-critical and neo-Kantian movement in thought was not able to +maintain the concept of the spirit against the hedonistic, moralistic, +and psychological views of Aesthetic, in vogue from about the middle of +last century. Neo-criticism inherited from Kant his view as to the +slight importance of the creative imagination, and appears indeed to have +been ignorant of any form of knowledge, other than the intellective. + +Kirchmann (1868) was one of the early adherents to psychological +Aesthetic, defining the beautiful as the idealized image of pleasure, +the ugly as that of pain. For him the aesthetic fact is the idealized +image of the real. Failing to apprehend the true nature of the aesthetic +fact, Kirchmann invented a new psychological category of ideal or +apparent feelings, which he thought were attenuated images from those +of real life. + +The aged Theodore Fischer describes Aesthetic in his auto-criticism as +the union of mimetic and harmony, and the beautiful as the harmony of +the universe, which is never realized in fact, because it is infinite. +When we think to grasp the beautiful, we experience that exquisite +illusion, which is the aesthetic fact. Robert Fischer, son of the +foregoing, introduced the word _Einfuehlung_, to express the vitality +which he believed that man inspired into things with the help of the +aesthetic process. + +E. Siebeck and M. Diez, the former writing in 1875, the latter in 1892, +unite a certain amount of idealistic influence, derived from Kant and +Herbart, with the merely empirical and psychological views that have of +late been the fashion. Diez, for instance, would explain the artistic +function as the ideal of feeling, placing it parallel to science; the +ideal of thought, morality; the ideal of will and religion, the ideal of +the personality. But this ideal of feeling escapes definition, and we +see that these writers have not had the courage of their ideas: they +have not dared to push their thought to its logical conclusion. + +The merely psychological and associationist view finds in Theodore Lipps +its chief exponent. He criticizes and rejects a series of aesthetic +theories, such as those of play, of pleasure, of art as recognition of +real life, even if disagreeable, of emotionality, of syncretism, which +attaches to art a number of other ends, in addition to those of play and +of pleasure. + +The theory of Lipps does not differ very greatly from that of Jouffroy, +for he assumes that artistic beauty is the sympathetic. "Our ego, +transplanted, objectified, and recognized in others, is the object of +sympathy. We feel ourselves in others, and others in us." Thus the +aesthetic pleasure is entirely composed of sympathy. This extends even +to the pleasure derived from architecture, geometrical forms, etc. +Whenever we meet with the positive element of human personality, we +experience this feeling of beatitude, which is the aesthetic emotion. +But the value of the personality is an ethical value: the whole sphere +of ethic is included in it. Therefore all artistic or aesthetic pleasure +is the enjoyment of something which has ethical value, but this value is +not an element of a compound, but the object of aesthetic intuition. +Thus is aesthetic activity deprived of all autonomous existence and +reduced to a mere retainer of Ethic. + +C. Groos (1895) shows some signs of recognizing aesthetic activity as a +theoretic value. Feeling and intellect, he says, are the two poles of +knowledge, and he recognizes the aesthetic fact as internal imitation. +Everything beautiful belongs to aestheticity, but not every aesthetic +fact is beautiful. The beautiful is the representation of sensible +pleasure, and the ugly of sensible displeasure. The sublime is the +representation of something powerful, in a simple form. The comic is the +representation of an inferiority, which provokes in us the pleasurable +feeling of "superiority." Groos very wisely makes mock of the supposed +function of the Ugly, which Hartmann and Schasler had inherited and +developed from a long tradition. Lipps and Groos agree in denying +aesthetic value to the comic, but Lipps, although he gives an excellent +analysis of the comic, is nevertheless in the trammels of his moralistic +thesis, and ends by sketching out something resembling the doctrine of +the overcoming of the ugly, by means of which may be attained a higher +aesthetic and (sympathetic) value. + +Labours such as those of Lipps have been of value, since they have +cleared away a number of errors that blocked the way, and restrained +speculation to the field of the internal consciousness. Similar is the +merit of E. Veron's treatise (1883) on the double form of Aesthetic, in +which he combats the academic view of the absolute beauty, and shows +that Taine confuses Art and Science, Aesthetic and Logic. He acutely +remarks that if the object of art were to reveal the essence of things, +the greatest artists would be those who best succeeded in doing this, +and the greatest works would all be _identical_; whereas we know that +the very opposite is the case. Veron was a precursor of Guyau, and we +seek for scientific system in vain in his book. Veron looks upon art as +two things: the one _decorative_, pleasing eye and ear, the other +_expressive_, "l'expression emue de la personalite humaine." He thought +that decorative art prevailed in antiquity, expressive art in modern +times. + +We cannot here dwell upon the aesthetic theories of men of letters, such +as that of E. Zola, developing his thesis of natural science and history +mixed, which is known as that of the human document or as the +experimental theory, or of Ibsen and the moralization of the art +problem, as presented by him and by the Scandinavian school. Perhaps no +French writer has written more profoundly upon art than Gustave +Flaubert. His views are contained in his Correspondence, which has been +published. L. Tolstoi wrote his book on art while under the influence of +Veron and his hatred of the concept of the beautiful. Art, he says, +communicates the feelings, as the word communicates the thoughts. But +his way of understanding this may be judged from the comparison which he +institutes between Art and Science. According to this, "Art has for its +mission to make assimilable and sensible what may not have been +assimilated in the form of argument. There is no science for science's +sake, no art for art's sake. Every human effort should be directed +toward increasing morality and suppressing violence." This amounts to +saying that well-nigh all the art that the world has hitherto seen is +false. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Dante, Tasso, +Milton, Shakespeare, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Bach, Beethoven, are all, +according to Tolstoi, "false reputations, made by the critics." + +We must also class F. Nietzsche with the artists, rather than with the +philosophers. We should do him an injustice (as with J. Ruskin) were we +to express in intellectual terminology his aesthetic affirmations. The +criticism which they provoke would be too facile. Nowhere has Nietzsche +given a complete theory of art, not even in his first book, _Die Geburt +der Tragoedie oder Griechentum und Pessimismus_. What seems to be theory +there, is really the confession of the feelings and aspirations of the +writer. Nietzsche was the last, splendid representative of the romantic +period. He was, therefore, deeply preoccupied with the art problem and +with the relation of art to natural science and to philosophy, though he +never succeeded in definitely fixing those relations. From Romanticism, +rather than from Schopenhauer, he gathered those elements of thought out +of which he wove his conception of the two forms of art: the Apollonian, +all serene contemplation, as expressed in the epic and in sculpture; the +Dionysaic, all tumult and agitation, as expressed in music and the +drama. These doctrines are not rigorously proved, and their power of +resistance to criticism is therefore but slender, but they serve to +transport the mind to a more lofty spiritual level than any others of +the second half of the nineteenth century. + +The most noteworthy thought on aesthetic of this period is perhaps to be +found among the aestheticians of special branches of the arts, and since +we know that laws relating only to special branches are not conceivable, +this thought may be considered as bearing upon the general theory of +Aesthetic. + +The Bohemian critic E. Hanslick (1854) is perhaps the most important of +these writers. His work _On Musical Beauty_ has been translated into +several languages. His polemic is chiefly directed against R. Wagner and +the pretension of finding in music a determined content of ideas and +feelings. He expresses equal contempt for those sentimentalists who +derive from music merely pathological effects, passionate excitement, or +stimulus for practical activity, in place of enjoying the musical works. +"If a few Phrygian notes sufficed to instil courage into the soldier +facing the enemy, or a Doric melody to assure the fidelity of a wife +whose husband was absent, then the loss of Greek music may cause pain to +generals and to husbands, but aestheticians and composers will have no +reason to deplore it." "If every Requiem, every lamenting Adagio, +possessed the power to make us sad, who would be able to support +existence in such conditions? But if a true musical work look upon us +with the clear and brilliant eyes of beauty, we feel ourselves bound by +its invincible fascination, though its theme be all the sorrows of the +century." + +For Hanslick, the only end of music was form, or musical beauty. The +followers of Herbart showed themselves very tender towards this +unexpected and vigorous ally, and Hanslick, not to be behindhand in +politeness, returned their compliments, by referring to Herbart and to +R. Zimmermann, in the later editions of his work, as having "completely +developed the great aesthetic principle of form." Unfortunately Hanslick +meant something altogether different from the Herbartians by his use of +the word form. Symmetry, merely acoustic relations, and the pleasure of +the ear, did not constitute the musically beautiful for him. Mathematics +were in his view useless in the Aesthetic of music. "Sonorous forms are +not empty, but perfectly full; they cannot be compared to simple lines +enclosing a space; they are the spirit, which takes form, making its own +bodily configuration. Music is more of a picture than is an arabesque; +but it is a picture of which the subject is inexpressible in words, nor +is it to be enclosed in a precise concept. In music, there is a meaning +and a connexion, but of a specially musical nature: it is a language +which we speak and understand, but which it is impossible to translate." +Hanslick admits that music, if it do not render the quality of +sentiments, renders their tone or dynamic side; it renders adjectives, +if it fail to render substantives; if not "murmuring tenderness" or +"impetuous courage," at any rate the "murmuring" and the "impetuous." + +The essence of his book is contained in the negation that it is possible +to separate form and content in music. "Take any motive you will, and +say where form begins and content ends. Are we to call the sounds +content? Very good, but they have already received form. What are we to +call form? Sounds again? But they are already form filled, that is to +say, possessing a content." These observations testify to an acute +penetration of the nature of art. Hanslick's belief that they were +characteristics peculiar to music, not common to every form of art, +alone prevented him from seeing further. + +C. Fiedler, published in German (in 1887) an extremely luminous work on +the origin of artistic activity. He describes eloquently how the passive +spectator seems to himself to grasp all reality, as the shows of life +pass before him; but at the moment that he tries to realize this +artistically, all disappears, and leaves him with the emptiness of his +own thoughts. Yet by concentration alone do we attain to expression; art +is a language that we gradually learn to speak. Artistic activity is +only to be attained by limiting ourselves; it must consist of "forms +precisely determined, tangible, sensibly demonstrable, precisely because +it is spiritual." Art does not imitate nature, for what is nature, but +that vast confusion of perceptions and representations that were +referred to above? Yet in a sense art does imitate nature; it uses +nature to produce values of a kind peculiar to itself. Those values are +true visibility. + +Fiedler's views correspond with those of his predecessor, Hanslick, but +are more rigorously and philosophically developed. The sculptor A. +Hildebrand may be mentioned with these, as having drawn attention to the +nature of art as architectonic rather than imitative, with special +application to the art of sculpture. + +What we miss with these and with other specialists, is a broad view of +art and language, as one and the same thing, the inheritance of all +humanity, not of a few persons, specially endowed. H. Bergson in his +book on laughter (1900) falls under the same criticism. He develops his +theory of art in a manner analogous to Fiedler, and errs like him in +looking upon it as something different and exceptional in respect to the +language of every moment. He declares that in life the individuality of +things escapes us: we see only as much as suffices for our practical +ends. The influence of language aids this rude simplification: all but +proper names are abstractions. Artists arise from time to time, who +recover the riches hidden beneath the labels of ordinary life. + +Amid the ruin of idealist metaphysics, is to be desired a healthy return +to the doctrine of Baumgarten, corrected and enriched with the +discoveries that have been made since his time, especially by +romanticism and psychology. C. Hermann (1876) announced this return, but +his book is a hopeless mixture of empirical precepts and of metaphysical +beliefs regarding Logic and Aesthetic, both of which, he believes, deal +not with the empirical thought and experience of the soul, but with the +pure and absolute. + +B. Bosanquet (1892) gives the following definition of the beautiful, as +"that which has a characteristic or individual expressivity for the +sensible perception, or for the imagination, subject to the conditions +of general or abstract expressivity for the same means." The problem as +posed by this writer by the antithesis of the two German schools of form +and content, appears to us insoluble. + +Though De Sanctis left no school in Italy, his teaching has been cleared +of the obscurities that had gathered round it during the last ten years; +and the thesis of the true nature of history, and of its nature, +altogether different from natural science, has been also dealt with in +Germany, although its precise relation to the aesthetic problem has not +been made clear. Such labours and such discussions constitute a more +favourable ground for the scientific development of Aesthetic than the +stars of mystical metaphysic or the stables of positivism and of +sensualism. + +We have now reached the end of the inquiry into the history of aesthetic +speculation, and we are struck with the smallness of the number of those +who have seen clearly the nature of the problem. No doubt, amid the +crowd of artists, critics, and writers on other subjects, many have +incidentally made very just remarks, and if all these were added to the +few philosophers, they would form a gallant company. But if, as Schiller +truly observed, the rhythm of philosophy consist in a withdrawal from +public opinion, in order to return to it with renewed vigour, it is +evident that this withdrawal is essential, and indeed that in it lies +the whole progress of philosophy. + +During our long journey, we have witnessed grave aberrations from the +truth, which were at the same time attempts to reach it; such were the +hedonism of the sophists and rhetoricians of antiquity, of the +sensualists of the eighteenth and second half of the nineteenth +centuries; the moralistic hedonism of Aristophanes and the Stoics, of +the Roman eclectics, of the writers of the Middle Age and of the +Renaissance; the ascetic and logical hedonism of Plato and the Fathers +of the Church; the aesthetic mysticism of Plotinus, reborn to its +greatest triumphs, during the classic period of German thought. + +Through the midst of these variously erroneous theories, that traverse +the field of thought in all directions, runs a tiny rivulet of golden +truth. Starting from the subtle empiricism of Aristotle, it flows in the +profound penetration of Vico to the nineteenth century, where it appears +again in the masterly analyses of Schleiermacher, Humboldt, and De +Sanctis. + +This brief list shows that the science of Aesthetic is no longer to be +discovered, but it also shows _that it is only at its beginning_. + +The birth of a science is like the birth of a human being. In order to +live, a science, like a man, has to withstand a thousand attacks of all +sorts. These appear in the form of errors, which must be extirpated, if +the science is not to perish. And when one set has been weeded, another +crops up; when these have been dealt with, the former errors often +return. Therefore _scientific criticism_ is always necessary. No science +can repose on its laurels, complete, unchallenged. Like a human being, +it must maintain its position by constant efforts, constant victories +over error. The general errors which reveal a negation of the very +concept of art have already been dealt with in the Historical Summary. +The particular errors have been exposed in the Theory. They may be +divided under three heads: (i.) Errors as to the characteristic quality +of the aesthetic fact, or (ii.) as to its specific quality, or (iii.) as +to its generic quality. These are contradictions of the characteristics +of intuition, of theoretic contemplation, and of spiritual activity, +which constitute the aesthetic fact. + +The principal bar to a proper understanding of the true nature of +language has been and still is Rhetoric, with the modern form it has +assumed, as style. The rhetorical categories are still mentioned in +treatises and often referred to, as having definite existence among the +parts of speech. Side by side with such phrases goes that of the double +form, or metaphor, which implies that there are two ways of saying the +same thing, the one simple, the other ornate. + +Kant, Herbart, Hegel, and many minor personages, have been shown to be +victims of the rhetorical categories, and in our own day we have writers +in Italy and in Germany who devote much attention to them, such as R. +Bonghi and G. Groeber; the latter employs a phraseology which he borrows +from the modern schools of psychology, but this does not alter the true +nature of his argument. De Sanctis gave perhaps the clearest and most +stimulating advice in his lectures on Rhetoric, which he termed +Anti-rhetoric. + +But even he failed to systematize his thought, and we may say that the +true critique of Rhetoric can only be made from the point of view of the +aesthetic activity, which is, as we know, _one_, and therefore does not +give rise to divisions, and _cannot express the same content now in one +form, now in another_. Thus only can we drive away the double monster of +naked form deprived of imagination, and of decorated form, which would +represent something more than imagination. The same remarks apply to +artistic and literary styles, and to their various laws or rules. In +modern times they have generally been comprised with rhetoric, and +although now discredited, they cannot be said to have altogether +disappeared. + +J.C. Scaliger may be entitled the protagonist of the unities in +comparatively modern times: he it was who "laid the foundations of the +classical Bastille," and supplied tyrants of literature, like Boileau, +with some of their best weapons. Lessing opposed the French rules and +restrictions with German rules and restrictions, giving as his opinion +that Corneille and others had wrongly interpreted Aristotle, whose rules +did not really prevent Shakespeare from being included among correct +writers! Lessing undoubtedly believed in intellectual rules for poetry. +Aristotle was the tyrant, father of tyrants, and we find Corneille +saying "qu'il est aise de s'accommoder avec Aristote," much in the same +way as Tartuffe makes his "accommodements avec le ciel." In the next +century, several additions were made to the admitted styles, as for +instance the "tragedie bourgeoise." + +But these battles of the rules with one another are less interesting +than the rebellion against all the rules, which began with Pietro +Aretino in the sixteenth century, who makes mock of them in the +prologues to his comedies. Giordano Bruno took sides against the makers +of rules, saying that the rules came from the poetry, and "therefore +there are as many genuses and species of true rules as there are genuses +and species of true poets." When asked how the true poets are to be +known, he replies, "by repeating their verses, which either cause +delight, or profit, or both." Guarini, too, said that "the world judges +poetry, and its sentence is without appeal." + +Strangely enough, it was priest-ridden Spain that all through the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led the van of revolt against the +rules and precepts of the grammarians. While Torquato Tasso remained the +miserable slave of grammarians unworthy to lick the dust from his feet, +Lope de Vega slyly remarked that when he wrote his comedies, he locked +up the givers of precepts with six keys, that they might not reproach +him. J.B. Marino declared that he knew the rules better than all the +pedants in the world; "but the true rule is to know when to break the +rules, in accordance with the manners of the day and the taste of the +age." Among the most acute writers of the end of the seventeenth century +is to be mentioned Gravina, who well understood that a work of art must +be its own criterion, and said so clearly when praising a contemporary +for a work which did not enter any one of the admitted categories. +Unfortunately Gravina did not clearly formulate his views. + +France of the eighteenth century produced several writers like Du Bos, +who declared that men will always prefer the poems that move them, to +those composed according to rule. La Motte combated the unities of place +and time, and Batteux showed himself liberal in respect to rules. +Voltaire, although he opposed La Motte and described the three unities +as the three great laws of good sense, was also capable of declaring +that all styles but the tiresome are good, and that the best style is +that which is best used. In England we find Home in his _Elements of +Criticism_ deriding the critics for asserting that there must be a +precise criterion for distinguishing epic poetry from all other forms of +composition. Literary compositions, he held, melt into one another, just +like colours. + +The literary movement of the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of +the nineteenth centuries attacked rules of all sorts. We will not dwell +upon the many encounters of these periods, nor record the names of those +that conquered gloriously, or their excesses. In France the preface to +the _Cromwell_ of V. Hugo (1827), in Italy the _Lettera semiseria di +Grisostomo_, were clarions of rebellion. The principle first laid down +by A.W. Schlegel, that the form of compositions must be organic and not +mechanic, resulting from the nature of the subject, from its internal +development not from an external stamp, was enunciated in Italy. Art is +always a whole, a synthesis. + +But it would be altogether wrong to believe that this empirical defeat +of the styles and rules implied their final defeat in philosophy. Even +writers who were capable of dispensing with prejudice when judging works +of art, once they spoke as philosophers, were apt to reassume their +belief in those categories which, empirically, they had discarded. The +spectacle of these literary or rhetorical categories, raised by German +philosophers to the honours of philosophical deduction, is even more +amusing than that which afforded amusement to Home. The truth is that +they were unable to free their aesthetic systems of intellectualism, +although they proclaimed the empire of the mystic idea. Schelling (1803) +at the beginning, Hartmann (1890) at the end of the century, furnish a +good example of this head and tail. + +Schelling, in his Philosophy of Art, declares that, historically +speaking, the first place in the styles of poetry is due to Epic, but, +scientifically speaking, it falls to Lyric. In truth, if poetry be the +representation of the infinite in the finite, then lyric poetry, in +which prevails the finite, must be its first moment. Lyric poetry +corresponds to the first of the ideal series, to reflection, to +knowledge; epic poetry corresponds to the second power, to action. This +philosopher finally proceeds to the unification of epic and lyric +poetry, and from their union he deduces the dramatic form, which is in +his view "the supreme incarnation of the essence and of the _in-se_ of +every art." + +With Hartmann, poetry is divided into poetry of declamation and poetry +for reading. The first is subdivided into Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic; the +Epic is divided into plastic epic, proper epic, pictorial epic, and +lyrical epic; Lyric is divided into epical lyric, lyrical lyric, and +dramatic lyric; Dramatic is divided into lyrical dramatic, epical +dramatic, and dramatical dramatic. The second (readable poetry) is +divided into poetry which is chiefly epical, lyrical, and dramatic, with +the tertiary division of moving, comic, tragic, and humoristic; and +poetry which can all be read at once, like a short story, or that +requires several sittings, like a romance. + +These brief extracts show of what dialectic pirouettes and sublime +trivialities even philosophers are capable, when they begin to treat +of the Aesthetic of the tragic, comic, and humorous. Such false +distinctions are still taught in the schools of France and Germany, and +we find a French critic like Ferdinand Brunetiere devoting a whole +volume to the evolution of literary styles or classes, which he really +believes to constitute literary history. This prejudice, less frankly +stated, still infests many histories of literature, even in Italy. + +We believe that the falsity of these rules of classes should be +scientifically demonstrated. In our Theory of Aesthetic we have shown +how we believe that it should be demonstrated. + +The proof of the theory of the limits of the arts has been credited to +Lessing, but his merit should rather be limited to having been the first +to draw attention to the problem. His solution was false, but his +achievement nevertheless great, in having posed the question clearly. No +one before him, in antiquity, in the Middle Age, or in modern times, had +seriously asked: What is the value of the distinctions between the arts? +Which of them comes first? Which second? Leonardo da Vinci had declared +his personal predilection for painting, Michael Angelo for sculpture, +but the question had not been philosophically treated before Lessing. + +Lessing's attention was drawn to the problem, through his desire to +disprove the assertions of Spence and of the Comte de Caylus, the former +in respect to the close union between poetry and painting in antiquity, +the latter as believing that a poem was good according to the number of +subjects which it should afford the painter. Lessing argued thus: +Painting manifests itself in space, poetry in time: the mode of +manifestation of painting is through objects which coexist, that of +poetry through objects which are consecutive. The objects which coexist, +or whose parts are coexistent, are called bodies. Bodies, then, owing to +their visibility, are the true objects of painting. Objects which are +consecutive, or whose parts are consecutive, are called, in general, +actions. Actions, then, are the suitable object of poetry. He admitted +that painting might represent an action, but only by means of bodies +which make allusion to it; that poetry can represent bodies, but only by +means of actions. Returning to this theme, he explained the action or +movement in painting as added by our imagination. Lessing was greatly +preoccupied with the naturalness and the unnaturalness of signs, which +is tantamount to saying that he believed each art to be strictly limited +to certain modes of expression, which are only overstepped at the cost +of coherency. In the appendix to his _Laocooen_, he quotes Plutarch as +saying that one should not chop wood with a key, or open the door with +an axe. He who should do so would not only be spoiling both those +utensils, but would also be depriving himself of the utility of both. He +believed that this applied to the arts. + +The number of philosophers and writers who have attempted empirical +classifications of the arts is enormous: it ranges in comparatively +recent times from Lessing, by way of Schasler, Solger, and Hartmann, to +Richard Wagner, whose theory of the combination of the arts was first +mooted in the eighteenth century. + +Lotze, while reflecting upon the futility of these attempts, himself +adopts a method, which he says is the most "convenient," and thereby +incurs the censure of Schasler. This method is in fact suitable for his +studies in botany and in zoology, but useless for the philosophy of the +spirit. Thus both these thinkers maintained Lessing's wrong principle as +to the constancy, the limits, and the peculiar nature of each art. + +Who among aestheticians has criticized this principle? Aristotle had a +glimpse of the truth, when he refused to admit that the distinction +between prose and poetry lay in an external fact, the metre. +Schleiermacher seems to have been the only one who was thoroughly aware +of the difficulty of the problem. In analysis, indeed, he goes so far as +to say that what the arts have in common is not the external fact, which +is an element of diversity; and connecting such an observation as this +with his clear distinction between art and what is called technique, we +might argue that Schleiermacher looked upon the divisions between the +arts as non-existent. But he does not make this logical inference, and +his thought upon the problem continues to be wavering and undecided. +Nebulous, uncertain, and contradictory as is this portion of +Schleiermacher's theory, he has yet the great merit of having doubted +Lessing's theory, and of having asked himself by what right are special +arts held to be distinct in art. + +Schleiermacher _absolutely denied the existence of a beautiful in +nature_, and praised Hegel for having sustained this negation. Hegel did +not really deserve this praise, as his negation was rather verbal than +effective; but the importance of this thesis as stated by Schleiermacher +is very great, in so far as he denied the existence of an objective +natural beauty not produced by the spirit of man. This theory of the +beautiful in nature, when taken in a metaphysical sense, does not +constitute an error peculiar to aesthetic science. It forms part of a +fallacious general theory, which can be criticized together with its +metaphysic. + +The theory of aesthetic senses, that is, of certain superior senses, +such as sight and hearing, being the only ones for which aesthetic +impressions exist, was debated as early as Plato. The _Hippias major_ +contains a discussion upon this theme, which Socrates leads to the +conclusion that there exist beautiful things, which do not reach us +through impressions of eye or ear. But further than this, there exist +things which please the eye, but not the ear, and _vice versa_; +therefore the reason of beauty cannot be visibility or audibility, but +something different from, yet common to both. Perhaps this question has +never been so acutely and so seriously dealt with as in this Platonic +dialogue. Home, Herder, Hegel, Diderot, Rousseau, Berkeley, all dealt +with the problem, but in a more or less arbitrary manner. Herder, for +instance, includes touch with the higher aesthetic senses, but Hegel +removes it, as having immediate contact with matter as such, and with +its immediate sensible qualities. + +Schleiermacher, with his wonted penetration, saw that the problem was +not to be solved so easily. He refuted the distinction between clear and +confused senses. He held that the superiority of sight and hearing over +the other senses lay in their free activity, in their capacity of an +activity proceeding from within, and able to create forms and sounds +without receiving external impressions. The eye and the ear are not +merely means of perception, for in that case there could be no visual +and no auditive arts. They are also functions of voluntary movements, +which fill the domain of the senses. Schleiermacher, however, considered +that the difference was rather one of quantity, and that we should allow +to the other senses a minimum of independence. + +The sensualists, as we know, maintain that all the senses are aesthetic. +That is the hedonistic hypothesis, which has been dealt with and +disproved in this book. We have shown the embarrassment in which the +hedonists find themselves, when they have dubbed all the senses +"aesthetic," or have been obliged to differentiate in an absurd manner +some of the senses from the others. The only way out of the difficulty +lies in abandoning the attempt to unite orders of facts so diverse as +the representative form of the spirit and the conception of given +physical organs or of a given material of impressions. + +The origin of classes of speech and of grammatical forms is to be found +in antiquity, and as regards the latter, the disputes among the +Alexandrian philosophers, the analogists, and the anomalists, resulted +in logic being identified with grammar. Anything which did not seem +logical was excluded from grammar as a deviation. The analogists, +however, did not have it all their own way, and grammar in the modern +sense of the word is a compromise between these extreme views, that is, +it contains something of the thought of Chrysippus, who composed a +treatise to show that the same thing can be expressed with different +sounds, and of Apollonius Discolus, who attempted to explain what the +rigorous analogists refused to admit into their schemes and +classifications. It is only of late years that we have begun to emerge +from the superstitious reverence for grammar, inherited from the Middle +Age. Such writers as Pott, in his introduction to Humboldt, and Paul in +his _Principien d. Sprachgeschichte_, have done good service in throwing +doubt upon the absolute validity of the parts of speech. If the old +superstitions still survive tenaciously, we must attribute this partly +to empirical and poetical grammar, partly to the venerable antiquity of +grammar itself, which has led the world to forget its illegitimate and +turbid origin. + +The theory of the relativity of taste is likewise ancient, and it would +be interesting to know whether the saying "there's no accounting for +tastes" could be traced to a merely gustatory origin. In this sense, the +saying would be quite correct, as it is _quite wrong_ when applied to +aesthetic facts. The eighteenth century writers exhibit a piteous +perplexity of thought on this subject. Home, for instance, after much +debate, decides upon a common "standard of taste," which he deduces from +the necessity of social life and from what he calls "a final cause." Of +course it will not be an easy matter to fix this "standard of taste." As +regards moral conduct, we do not seek our models among savages, so with +regard to taste, we must have recourse to those few whose taste has not +been corrupted nor spoilt by pleasure, who have received good taste from +nature, and have perfected it by education and by the practice of life. +If after this has been done, there should yet arise disputes, it will be +necessary to refer to the principles of criticism, as laid down in his +book by the said Home. + +We find similar contradictions and vicious circles in the _Discourse on +Taste_ of David Hume. We search his writings in vain for the distinctive +characteristics of the man of taste, whose judgments should be final. +Although he asserts that the general principles of taste are universal +in human nature, and admits that no notice should be accorded to +perversions and ignorance, yet there exist diversities of taste that are +irreconcilable, insuperable, and blameless. + +But the criticism of the sensualist and relativist positions cannot be +made from the point of view of those who proclaim the absolute nature of +taste and yet place it among the intellectual concepts. It has been +shown to be impossible to escape from sensualism and relativity save by +falling into the intellectualist error. Muratori in the eighteenth +century is an instance of this. He was one of the first to maintain the +existence of a rule of taste and of universal beauty. Andre also spoke +of what appears beautiful in a work of art as being not that which +pleases at once, owing to certain particular dispositions of the +faculties of the soul and of the organs of the body, but that which has +the right of pleasing the reason and reflection through its own +excellence. Voltaire admitted an "universal taste," which was +"intellectual," as did many others. Kant appeared, and condemned alike +the intellectualist and the sensualistic error; but placing the +beautiful in a symbol of morality, he failed to discover the imaginative +absoluteness of taste. Later speculative philosophy did not attach +importance to the question. + +The correct solution was slow in making its way. It lies, as we know, in +the fact that to judge a work of art we must place ourselves in the +position of the artist at the time of production, and that to judge is +to reproduce. Alexander Pope, in his _Essay on Criticism_, was among the +first to state this truth: + + A perfect judge will read each work of wit + With the same spirit that its author writ. + +Remarks equally luminous were made by Antonio Conti, Terrasson, and +Heydenreich in the eighteenth century, the latter with considerable +philosophical development. De Sanctis gave in his adhesion to this +formula, but a true theory of aesthetic criticism had not yet been +given, because for such was necessary, not only an exact conception of +nature in art, but also of the relations between the aesthetic fact and +its historical conditions. In more recent times has been denied the +possibility of aesthetic criticism; it has been looked upon as merely +individual and capricious, and historical criticism has been set up in +its place. This would be better called a criticism of extrinsic +erudition and of bad philosophical inspiration--positivist and +materialist. The true history of literature will always require the +reconstruction and then the judgment of the work of art. Those who have +wished to react against such emasculated erudition have often thrown +themselves into the opposite extreme, that is, into a dogmatic, +abstract, intellectualistic, or moralistic form of criticism. + +This mention of the history of certain doctrines relating to Aesthetic +suffices to show the range of error possible in the theory. Aesthetic +has need to be surrounded by a vigilant and vigorous critical literature +which shall derive from it and be at once its safeguard and its source +of strength. + + + + +APPENDIX + +I here add as an appendix, at the request of the author, a translation +of his lecture which he delivered before the Third International +Congress of Philosophy, at Heidelberg, on 2nd September 1908. + +The reader will find that it throws a vivid light upon Benedetto Croce's +general theory of Aesthetic. + + +PURE INTUITION AND THE LYRICAL CHARACTER OF ART. + +_A Lecture delivered at Heidelberg at the second general session of the +Third International Congress of Philosophy._ + +There exists an _empirical_ Aesthetic, which although it admits the +existence of facts, called aesthetic or artistic, yet holds that they +are irreducible to a single principle, to a rigorous philosophical +concept. It wishes to limit itself to collecting as many of those facts +as possible, and in the greatest possible variety, thence, at the most, +proceeding to group them together in classes and types. The logical +ideal of this school, as declared on many occasions, is zoology or +botany. This Aesthetic, when asked what art is, replies by indicating +successively single facts, and by saying: "Art is this, and this, and +this too is art," and so on, indefinitely. Zoology and botany renew the +representatives of fauna and of flora in the same way. They calculate +that the species renewed amount to some thousand, but believe that they +might easily be increased to twenty or a hundred thousand, or even to a +million, or to infinity. + +There is another Aesthetic, which has been called hedonistic, +utilitarian, moralistic, and so on, according to its various +manifestations. Its complex denomination should, however, be +_practicism_, because that is precisely what constitutes its essential +character. This Aesthetic differs from the preceding, in the belief that +aesthetic or artistic facts are not a merely empirical or nominalistic +grouping together, but that all of them possess a common foundation. Its +foundation is placed in the practical form of human activity. Those +facts are therefore considered, either generically, as manifestations of +pleasure and pain, and therefore rather as economic facts; or, more +particularly, as a special class of those manifestations; or again, as +instruments and products of the ethical spirit, which subdues and turns +to its own ends individual hedonistic and economic tendencies. + +There is a third Aesthetic, the _intellectualist_, which, while also +recognizing the reducibility of aesthetic facts to philosophical +treatment, explains them as particular cases of logical thought, +identifying beauty with intellectual truth; art, now with the natural +sciences, now with philosophy. For this Aesthetic, what is prized in art +is what is learned from it. The only distinction that it admits between +art and science, or art and philosophy, is at the most that of more or +less, or of perfection and imperfection. According to this Aesthetic, +art would be the whole mass of easy and popular truths; or it would be a +transitory form of science, a semi-science and a semi-philosophy, +preparatory to the superior and perfect form of science and of +philosophy. + +A fourth Aesthetic there is, which may be called _agnostic_. It springs +from the criticism of the positions just now indicated, and being guided +by a powerful consciousness of the truth, rejects them all, because it +finds them too evidently false, and because it is too loth to admit that +art is a simple fact of pleasure or pain, an exercise of virtue, or a +fragmentary sketch of science and philosophy. And while rejecting them, +it discovers, at the same time, that art is not now this and now that of +those things, or of other things, indefinitely, but that it has its own +principle and origin. However, it is not able to say what this principle +may be, and believes that it is impossible to do so. This Aesthetic +knows that art cannot be resolved into an empirical concept; knows that +pleasure and pain are united with the aesthetic activity only in an +indirect manner; that morality has nothing to do with art; that it is +impossible to rationalize art, as is the case with science and +philosophy, and to prove it beautiful or ugly with the aid of reason. +Here this Aesthetic is content to stop, satisfied with a knowledge +consisting entirely of negative terms. + +Finally, there is an Aesthetic which I have elsewhere proposed to call +_mystic_. This Aesthetic avails itself of those negative terms, to +define art as a spiritual form without a practical character, because it +is theoretic, and without a logical or intellective form, because it is +a theoretic form, differing alike from those of science and of +philosophy, and superior to both. According to this view, art would be +the highest pinnacle of knowledge, whence what is seen from other points +seems narrow and partial; art would alone reveal the whole horizon or +all the abysses of Reality. + +Now, the five Aesthetics so far mentioned are not referable to +contingent facts and historical epochs, as are, on the other hand, the +denominations of Greek and Mediaeval Aesthetic, of Renaissance and +eighteenth-century Aesthetic, the Aesthetic of Wolff and of Herbart, of +Vico and of Hegel. These five are, on the contrary, mental attitudes, +which are found in all periods, although they have not always +conspicuous representatives of the kind that are said to become +historical. Empirical Aesthetic is, for example, called Burke in the +eighteenth, Fechner in the nineteenth century; moralistic Aesthetic is +Horace or Plutarch in antiquity, Campanella in modern times; +intellectualist or logical Aesthetic is Cartesian in the seventeenth, +Leibnitzian in the eighteenth, and Hegelian in the nineteenth century; +agnostic Aesthetic is Francesco Patrizio at the Renaissance, Kant in the +eighteenth century; mystic Aesthetic is called Neoplatonism at the end +of the antique world, Romanticism at the beginning of the nineteenth +century, and if it be adorned during the former period with the name of +Plotinus, in the latter it will bear the name of Schelling or of Solger, +And not only are those attitudes and mental tendencies common to all +epochs, but they are also all found to some extent developed or +indicated in every thinker, and even in every man. Thus it is somewhat +difficult to classify philosophers of Aesthetic according to one or the +other category, because each philosopher also enters more or less into +some other, or into all the other categories. + +Nor can these five conceptions and points of view be looked upon as +increasable to ten or twenty, or to as many as desired, or that I have +placed them in a certain order, but that they could be capriciously +placed in another order. If this were so, they would be altogether +heterogeneous and disconnected among themselves, and the attempt to +examine and criticize them would seem altogether desperate, as also +would be that of comparing one with the other, or of stating a new one, +which should dominate them all. It is precisely thus that ordinary +sceptics look upon various and contrasting scientific views. They group +them all in the same plane, and believing that they can increase them at +will, conclude that one is as good as another, and that therefore every +one is free to select that which he prefers from a bundle of falsehoods. +The conceptions of which we speak are definite in number, and appear in +a necessary order, which is either that here stated by me, or another +which might be proposed, better than mine. This would be the necessary +order, which I should have failed to realize effectively. They are +connected one with the other, and in such a way that the view which +follows includes in itself that which precedes it. + +Thus, if the last of the five doctrines indicated be taken, which may be +summed up as the proposition that art is a form of the theoretic spirit, +superior to the scientific and philosophic form--and if it be submitted +to analysis, it will be seen that in it is included, in the first place, +the proposition affirming the existence of a group of facts, which are +called aesthetic or artistic. If such facts did not exist, it is evident +that no question would arise concerning them, and that no +systematization would be attempted. And this is the truth of empirical +Aesthetic. But there is also contained in it the proposition: that the +facts examined are reducible to a definite principle or category of the +spirit. This amounts to saying, that they belong either to the practical +spirit, or to the theoretical, or to one of their subforms. And this is +the truth of practicist Aesthetic, which is occupied with the enquiry as +to whether these ever are practical facts, and affirms that in every +case they are a special category of the spirit. Thirdly, there is +contained in it the proposition: that they are not practical facts, but +facts which should rather be placed near the facts of logic or of +thought. This is the truth of intellectualistic Aesthetic. In the fourth +place, we find also the proposition; that aesthetic facts are neither +practical, nor of that theoretic form which is called logical and +intellective. They are something which cannot be identified with the +categories of pleasure, nor of the useful, nor with those of ethic, nor +with those of logical truth. They are something of which it is necessary +to find a further definition. This is the truth of that Aesthetic which +is termed agnostic or negative. + +When these various propositions are severed from their connection; when, +that is to say, the first is taken without the second, the second +without the third, and so on,--and when each, thus mutilated, is +confined in itself and the enquiry which awaits prosecution is +arbitrarily arrested, then each one of these gives itself out as the +whole of them, that is, as the completion of the enquiry. In this way, +each becomes error, and the truths contained in empiricism, in +practicism, in intellectualism, in agnostic and in mystical Aesthetic, +become, respectively, falsity, and these tendencies of speculation are +indicated with names of a definitely depreciative colouring. Empiria +becomes empiricism, the heuristic comparison of the aesthetic activity +with the practical and logical, becomes a conclusion, and therefore +practicism and intellectualism. The criticism which rejects false +definitions, and is itself negative, affirms itself as positive and +definite, becoming agnosticism; and so on. + +But the attempt to close a mental process in an arbitrary manner is +vain, and of necessity causes remorse and self-criticism. Thus it comes +about, that each one of those unilateral and erroneous doctrines +continually tends to surpass itself and to enter the stage which follows +it. Thus empiricism, for example, assumes that it can dispense with any +philosophical conception of art; but, since it severs art from +non-art--and, however empirical it be, it will not identify a +pen-and-ink sketch and a table of logarithms, as if they were just the +same thing, or a painting and milk or blood (although milk and blood +both possess colour)--thus empiricism too must at last resort to some +kind of philosophical concept. Therefore, we see the empiricists +becoming, turn and turn about, hedonists, moralists, intellectualists, +agnostics, mystics, and sometimes they are even better than mystics, +upholding an excellent conception of art, which can only be found fault +with because introduced surreptitiously and without justification. If +they do not make that progress, it is impossible for them to speak in +any way of aesthetic facts. They must return, as regards such facts, to +that indifference and to that silence from which they had emerged when +they affirmed the existence of these facts and began to consider them in +their variety. The same may be said of all other unilateral doctrines. +They are all reduced to the alternative of advancing or of going back, +and in so far as they do not wish to do either, they live amid +contradictions and in anguish. But they do free themselves from these, +more or less slowly, and thus are compelled to advance, more or less +slowly. And here we discover why it is so difficult, and indeed +impossible, exactly to identify thinkers, philosophers, and writers with +one or the other of the doctrines which we have enunciated, because each +one of them rebels when he finds himself limited to one of those +categories, and it seems to him that he is shut up in prison. It is +precisely because those thinkers try to shut themselves up in a +unilateral doctrine, that they do not succeed, and that they take a +step, now in one direction, now in another, and are conscious of being +now on this side, now on the other, of the criticisms which are +addressed to them. But the critics fulfil their duty by putting them in +prison, thus throwing into relief the absurdity into which they are led +by their irresolution, or their resolution not to resolve. + +And from this necessary connection and progressive order of the various +propositions indicated arise also the resolve, the counsel, the +exhortation, to "return," as they say, to this or that thinker, to this +or that philosophical school of the past. Certainly, such returns are +impossible, understood literally; they are also a little ridiculous, +like all impossible attempts. We can never return to the past, precisely +because it is the past. No one is permitted to free himself from the +problems which are put by the present, and which he must solve with all +the means of the present (which includes in it the means of the past). +Nevertheless, it is a fact that the history of philosophy everywhere +resounds with cries of return. Those very people who in our day deride +the "return to Hume" or the "return to Kant," proceed to advise the +"return to Schelling," or the "return to Hegel." This means that we must +not understand those "returns" literally and in a material way. In +truth, they do not express anything but the necessity and the +ineliminability of the logical process explained above, for which the +affirmations contained in philosophical problems appear connected with +one another in such a way that the one follows the other, surpasses it, +and includes it in itself. Empiricism, practicism, intellectualism, +agnosticism, mysticism, are _eternal stages of the search for truth_. +They are eternally relived and rethought in the truth which each +contains. Thus it would be necessary for him who had not yet turned his +attention to aesthetic facts, to begin by passing them before his eyes, +that is to say, he must first traverse the empirical stage (about +equivalent to that occupied by mere men of letters and mere amateurs of +art); and while he is at this stage, he must be aroused to feel the want +of a principle of explanation, by making him compare his present +knowledge with the facts, and see if they are explained by it, that is +to say, if they be utilitarian and moral, or logical and intellective. +Then we should drive him who has made this examination to the +conclusion, that the aesthetic activity is something different from all +known forms, a form of the spirit, which it yet remains to characterize. +For the empiricists of Aesthetic, intellectualism and moralism represent +progress; for the intellectualists, hedonistic and moralistic alike, +agnosticism is progress and may be called Kant. But for Kantians, who +are real Kantians (and not neo-Kantians), progress is represented by the +mystical and romantic point of view; not because this comes after the +doctrine of Kant chronologically, but because it surpasses it ideally. +In this sense, and in this sense alone, we should now "return" to the +romantic Aesthetic. We should return to it, because it is ideally +superior to all the researches in Aesthetic made in the studies of +psychologists, of physio-psychologists, and of psycho-physiologists of +the universities of Europe and of America. It is ideally superior to the +sociological, comparative, prehistoric Aesthetic, which studies +especially the art of savages, of children, of madmen, and of idiots. It +is ideally superior also to that other Aesthetic, which has recourse to +the conceptions of the genetic pleasure, of games, of illusion, of +self-illusion, of association, of hereditary habit, of sympathy, of +social efficiency, and so on. It is ideally superior to the attempts at +logical explanation, which have not altogether ceased, even to-day, +although they are somewhat rare, because, to tell the truth, fanaticism +for Logic cannot be called the failing of our times. Finally, it is +ideally superior to that Aesthetic which repeats with Kant, that the +beautiful is finality without the idea of end, disinterested pleasure, +necessary and universal, which is neither theoretical nor practical, but +participates in both forms, or combines them in itself in an original +and ineffable manner. But we should return to it, bringing with us the +experience of a century of thought, the new facts collected, the new +problems that have arisen, the new ideas that have matured. Thus we +shall return again to the stage of mystical and romantic Aesthetic, but +not to the personal and historical stage of its representatives. For in +this matter, at least, they are certainly inferior to us: they lived a +century ago and therefore inherited so much the less of the problems and +of the results of thought which day by day mankind laboriously +accumulates. + +They should return, but not to remain there; because, if a return to the +romantic Aesthetic be advisable for the Kantians (while the idealists +should not be advised to "return to Kant," that is to say, to a lower +stage, which represents a recession), so those who come over, or already +find themselves on the ground of mystical Aesthetic, should, on the +other hand be advised to proceed yet further, in order to attain to a +doctrine which represents a stage above it. This doctrine is that of the +_pure intuition_ (or, what amounts to the same thing, of pure +expression); a doctrine which also numbers representatives in all times, +and which may be said to be immanent alike in all the discourses that +are held and in all the judgments that are passed upon art, as in all +the best criticism and artistic and literary history. + +This doctrine arises logically from the contradictions of mystical +Aesthetic; I say, _logically_, because it contains in itself those +contradictions and their solution; although _historically_ (and this +point does not at present concern us) that critical process be not +always comprehensible, explicit, and apparent. + +Mystical Aesthetic, which makes of art the supreme function of the +theoretic spirit, or, at least, a function superior to that of +philosophy, becomes involved in inextricable difficulties. How could art +ever be superior to philosophy, if philosophy make of art its object, +that is to say, if it place art beneath itself, in order to analyse and +define it? And what could this new knowledge be, supplied by art and by +the aesthetic activity, appearing when the human spirit has come full +circle, after it has imagined, perceived, thought, abstracted, +calculated, and constructed the whole world of thought and history? + +As the result of those difficulties and contradictions, mystical +Aesthetic itself also exhibits the tendency, either to surpass its +boundary, or to sink below its proper level. The descent takes place +when it falls back into agnosticism, affirming that art is art, that is, +a spiritual form, altogether different from the others and ineffable; or +worse, where it conceives art as a sort of repose or as a game; as +though diversion could ever be a category and the spirit know repose! We +find an attempt at overpassing its proper limit, when art is placed +below philosophy, as inferior to it; but this overpassing remains a +simple attempt, because the conception of art as instrument of universal +truth is always firmly held; save that this instrument is declared less +perfect and less efficacious than the philosophical instrument. Thus +they fall back again into intellectualism from another side. + +These mistakes of mystical Aesthetic were manifested during the Romantic +period in some celebrated paradoxes, such as those of _art as irony_ and +of the _death of art_. They seemed calculated to drive philosophers to +desperation as to the possibility of solving the problem of the nature +of art, since every path of solution appeared closed. Indeed, whoever +reads the aestheticians of the romantic period, feels strongly inclined +to believe himself at the heart of the enquiry and to nourish a +confident hope of immediate discovery of the truth. Above all, the +affirmation of the theoretic nature of art, and of the difference +between its cognitive method and that of science and of logic, is felt +as a definite conquest, which can indeed be combined with other +elements, but which must not in any case be allowed to slip between the +fingers. And further, it is not true that all ways of solution are +closed, or that all have been attempted. There is at least one still +open that can be tried; and it is precisely that for which we resolutely +declare ourselves: the Aesthetic of the pure intuition. + +This Aesthetic reasons as follows:--Hitherto, in all attempts to define +the place of art, it has been sought, either at the summit of the +theoretic spirit, above philosophy, or, at least, in the circle of +philosophy itself. But is not the loftiness of the search the reason why +no satisfactory result has hitherto been obtained? Why not invert the +attempt, and instead of forming the hypothesis that art is _one of the +summits or the highest grade_ of the theoretic spirit, form the very +opposite hypothesis, namely, that it is _one of the lower grades_, or +the lowest of all? Perhaps such epithets as "lower" and "lowest" are +irreconcilable with the dignity and with the splendid beauty of art? But +in the philosophy of the spirit, such words as lowest, weak, simple, +elementary, possess only the value of a scientific terminology. All the +forms of the spirit are necessary, and the higher is so only because +there is the lower, and the lower is as much to be despised or less to +be valued to the same extent as the first step of a stair is despicable, +or of less value in respect to the topmost step. + +Let us compare art with the various forms of the theoretic spirit, and +let us begin with the sciences which are called _natural_ or _positive_. +The Aesthetic of pure intuition makes it clear that the said sciences +are more _complex_ than History, because they presuppose historical +material, that is, collections of things that have happened (to men or +animals, to the earth or to the stars). They submit this material to a +further treatment, which consists in the abstraction and systematization +of the historical facts. _History_, then, is less complex than the +natural sciences. History further presupposes the world of the +imagination and the pure philosophical concepts or categories, and +produces its judgments or historical propositions, by means of the +synthesis of the imagination with the concept. And _Philosophy_ may be +said to be even less complex than History, in so far as it is +distinguished from the former as an activity whose special function it +is to make clear the categories or pure concepts, neglecting, in a +certain sense at any rate, the world of phenomena. If we compare _Art_ +with the three forms above mentioned, it must be declared inferior, that +is to say, less complex than the _natural Sciences_, in so far as it is +altogether without abstractions. In so far as it is without conceptual +determinations and does not distinguish between the real and the unreal, +what has really happened and what has been dreamed, it must be declared +inferior to _History_. In so far as it fails altogether to surpass the +phenomenal world, and does not attain to the definitions of the pure +concepts, it is inferior to _Philosophy_ itself. It is also inferior to +_Religion_, assuming that religion is (as it is) a form of speculative +truth, standing between thought and imagination. Art is governed +entirely by imagination; its only riches are images. Art does not +classify objects, nor pronounce them real or imaginary, nor qualify +them, nor define them. Art feels and represents them. Nothing more. Art +therefore is _intuition_, in so far as it is a mode of knowledge, not +abstract, but concrete, and in so far as it uses the real, without +changing or falsifying it. In so far as it apprehends it immediately, +before it is modified and made clear by the concept, it must be called +_pure intuition_. + +The strength of art lies in being thus simple, nude, and poor. Its +strength (as often happens in life) arises from its very weakness. Hence +its fascination. If (to employ an image much used by philosophers for +various ends) we think of man, in the first moment that he becomes aware +of theoretical life, with mind still clear of every abstraction and of +every reflexion, in that first purely intuitive instant he must be a +poet. He contemplates the world with ingenuous and admiring eyes; he +sinks and loses himself altogether in that contemplation. By creating +the first representations and by thus inaugurating the life of +knowledge, art continually renews within our spirit the aspects of +things, which thought has submitted to reflexion, and the intellect to +abstraction. Thus art perpetually makes us poets again. Without art, +thought would lack the stimulus, the very material, for its hermeneutic +and critical labour. Art is the root of all our theoretic life. To be +the root, not the flower or the fruit, is the function of art. And +without a root, there can be no flower and no fruit. + + + + +II + + +Such is the theory of art as pure intuition, in its fundamental +conception. This theory, then, takes its origin from the criticism of +the loftiest of all the other doctrines of Aesthetic, from the criticism +of mystical or romantic Aesthetic, and contains in itself the criticism +and the truth of all the other Aesthetics. It is not here possible to +allow ourselves to illustrate its other aspects, such as would be those +of the identity, which it lays down, between intuition and expression, +between art and language. Suffice it to say, as regards the former, that +he alone who divides the unity of the spirit into soul and body can have +faith in a pure act of the soul, and therefore in an intuition, which +should exist as an intuition, and yet be without its body, expression. +Expression is the actuality of intuition, as action is of will; and in +the same way as will not exercised in action is not will, so an +intuition unexpressed is not an intuition. As regards the second point, +I will mention in passing that, in order to recognize the identity of +art and language, it is needful to study language, not in its +abstraction and in grammatical detail, but in its immediate reality, and +in all its manifestations, spoken and sung, phonic and graphic. And we +should not take at hazard any proposition, and declare it to be +aesthetic; because, if all propositions have an aesthetic side +(precisely because intuition is the elementary form of knowledge and is, +as it were, the garment of the superior and more complex forms), all are +not _purely_ aesthetic, but some are philosophical, historical, +scientific, or mathematical; some, in fact, of these are more than +aesthetic or logical; they are aestheticological. Aristotle, in his +time, distinguished between semantic and apophantic propositions, and +noted, that if all propositions be _semantic_, not all are _apophantic_. +Language is art, not in so far as it is apophantic, but in so far as it +is, generically, semantic. It is necessary to note in it the side by +which it is expressive, and nothing but expressive. It is also well to +observe (though this may seem superfluous) that it is not necessary to +reduce the theory of pure intuition, as has been sometimes done, to a +historical fact or to a psychological concept. Because we recognize in +poetry, as it were, the ingenuousness, the freshness, the barbarity of +the spirit, it is not therefore necessary to limit poetry to youth and +to barbarian peoples. Though we recognize language as the first act of +taking possession of the world achieved by man, we must not imagine that +language is born _ex nihilo_, once only in the course of the ages, and +that later generations merely adopt the ancient instrument, applying it +to a new order of things while lamenting its slight adaptability to the +usage of civilized times. Art, poetry, intuition, and immediate +expression are the moment of barbarity and of ingenuousness, which +perpetually recur in the life of the spirit; they are youth, that is, +not chronological, but ideal. There exist very prosaic barbarians and +very prosaic youths, as there exist poetical spirits of the utmost +refinement and civilization. The mythology of those proud, gigantic +Patagonians, of whom our Vico was wont to discourse, or of those _bons +Hurons_, who were lately a theme of conversation, must be looked upon as +for ever superseded. + +But there arises an apparently very serious objection to the Aesthetic +of pure intuition, giving occasion to doubt whether this doctrine, if it +represent progress in respect to the doctrines which have preceded it, +yet is also a complete and definite doctrine as regards the fundamental +concept of art. Should it be submitted to a dialectic, by means of which +it must be surpassed and dissolved into a more lofty point of view? The +doctrine of pure intuition makes the value of art to consist of its +power of intuition; in such a manner that just in so far as pure and +concrete intuitions are achieved will art and beauty be achieved. But if +attention be paid to judgments of people of good taste and of critics, +and to what we all say when we are warmly discussing works of art and +manifesting our praise or blame of them, it would seem that what we seek +in art is something quite different, or at least something more than +simple force and intuitive and expressive purity. What pleases and what +is sought in art, what makes beat the heart and enraptures the +admiration, is life, movement, emotion, warmth, the feeling of the +artist. This alone affords the supreme criterion for distinguishing true +from false works of art, those with insight from the failures. Where +there are emotion and feeling, much is forgiven; where they are wanting, +nothing can make up for them. Not only are the most profound thoughts +and the most exquisite culture incapable of saving a work of art which +is looked upon as _cold_, but richness of imagery, ability and certainty +in the reproduction of the real, in description, characterization and +composition, and all other knowledge, only serve to arouse the regret +that so great a price has been paid and such labours endured, in vain. +We do not ask of an artist instruction as to real facts and thoughts, +nor that he should astonish us with the richness of his imagination, but +that he should have a _personality_, in contact with which the soul of +the hearer or spectator may be heated. A personality of any sort is +asked for in this case; its moral significance is excluded: let it be +sad or glad, enthusiastic or distrustful, sentimental or sarcastic, +benignant or malign, but it must be a soul. Art criticism would seem to +consist altogether in determining if there be a personality in the work +of art, and of what sort. A work that is a failure is an incoherent +work; that is to say, a work in which no single personality appears, but +a number of disaggregated and jostling personalities, that is, really, +none. There is no further correct significance than this in the +researches that are made as to the verisimilitude, the truth, the logic, +the necessity, of a work of art. + +It is true that many protests have been made by artists, critics, and +philosophers by profession, against the characteristic of _personality_. +It has been maintained that the bad artist leaves traces of his +personality in the work of art, whereas the great artist cancels them +all. It has been further maintained that the artist should portray the +reality of life, and that he should not disturb it with the opinions, +judgments, and personal feelings of the author, and that the artist +should give the tears of things and not his own tears. Hence +_impersonality_, not personality, has been proclaimed to be the +characteristic of art, that is to say, the very opposite. However, it +will not be difficult to show that what is really meant by this opposing +formula is the same as in the first case. The theory of impersonality +really coincides with that of personality in every point. The opposition +of the artists, critics, and philosophers above mentioned, was directed +against the invasion by the empirical and volitional personality of the +artist of the spontaneous and ideal personality which constitutes the +subject of the work of art. For instance, artists who do not succeed in +representing the force of piety or of love of country, add to their +colourless imaginings declamation or theatrical effects, thinking thus +to arouse such feelings. In like manner certain orators and actors +introduce into a work of art an emotion extraneous to the work of art +itself. Within these limits, the opposition of the upholders of the +theory of impersonality was most reasonable. On the other hand, there +has also been exhibited an altogether irrational opposition to +personality in the work of art. Such is the lack of comprehension and +intolerance evinced by certain souls for others differently constituted +(of calm for agitated souls, for example). + +Here we find at bottom the claim of one sort of personality to deny that +of another. Finally, it has been possible to demonstrate from among the +examples given of impersonal art, in the romances and dramas called +naturalistic, that in so far and to the extent that these are complete +artistic works, they possess personality. This holds good even when this +personality lies in a wandering or perplexity of thought regarding the +value to be given to life, or in blind faith in the natural sciences and +in modern sociology. + +Where every trace of personality was really absent, and its place taken +by the pedantic quest for human documents, the description of certain +social classes and the generic or individual process of certain +maladies, there the work of art was absent. A work of science of more or +less superficiality, and without the necessary proofs and control, +filled its place. There is no upholder of impersonality but experiences +a feeling of fatigue for a work of the utmost exactitude in the +reproduction of reality in its empirical sequence, or of industrious and +apathetic combination of images. He asks himself why such a work was +executed, and recommends the author to adopt some other profession, +since that of artist was not intended for him. + +Thus it is without doubt that if pure intuition (and pure expression, +which is the same thing) are indispensable in the work of art, the +personality of the artist is equally indispensable. If (to quote the +celebrated words in our own way) the _classic_ moment of perfect +representation or expression be necessary for the work of art, the +_romantic_ moment of feeling is not less necessary. Poetry, or art in +general, cannot be exclusively _ingenuous_ or _sentimental_; it must be +both ingenuous and sentimental. And if the first or representative +moment be termed _epic_, and the second, which is sentimental, +passionate, and personal, be termed _lyric_, then poetry and art must be +at once epic and lyric, or, if it please you better, _dramatic_. We use +these words here, not at all in their empirical and intellectualist +sense, as employed to designate special classes of works of art, +exclusive of other classes; but in that of elements or moments, which +must of necessity be found united in every work of art, how diverse +soever it may be in other respects. + +Now this irrefutable conclusion seems to constitute exactly that +above-mentioned apparently serious objection to the doctrine which +defines art as pure intuition. But if the essence of art be merely +theoretic--and it is _intuibility_--can it, on the other hand, be +practical, that is to say, feeling, personality, and _passionality_? Or, +if it be practical, how can it be theoretic? It will be answered that +feeling is the _content_, intuibility the _form_; but form and content +do not in philosophy constitute a duality, like water and its recipient; +in philosophy content is form, and form is content. Here, on the other +hand, form and content appear to be different from one another; the +content is of one quality, the form of another. Thus art appears to be +the sum of two qualities, or, as Herbart used to say in his time, of +_two values_. Accordingly we have an altogether unmaintainable +Aesthetic, as is clear from recent largely vulgarized doctrines of +Aesthetic as operating with the concept of the _infused personality_. +Here we find, on the one hand, things intuible lying dead and soulless; +on the other, the artist's feeling and personality. The artist is then +supposed to put himself into things, by an act of magic, to make them +live and palpitate, love and adore. But if we start with the +_distinction_, we can never again reach _unity_: the distinction +requires an intellectual act, and what the intellect has divided +intellect or reason alone, not art or imagination, can reunite and +synthetize. Thus the Aesthetic of infusion or transfusion--when it does +not fall into the antiquated hedonistic doctrines of agreeable illusion, +of games, and generally of what affords a pleasurable emotion; or of +moral doctrines, where art is a symbol and an allegory of the good and +the true;--is yet not able, despite its airs of modernity and its +psychology, to escape the fate of the doctrine which makes of art a +semi-imaginative conception of the world, like religion. The process +that it describes is mythological, not aesthetic; it is a making of gods +or of idols. "To make one's gods is an unhappy art," said an old Italian +poet; but if it be not unhappy, certainly it is not poetic and not +aesthetic. The artist does not make the gods, because he has other +things to do. Another reason is that, to tell the truth, he is so +ingenuous and so absorbed in the image that attracts him, that he cannot +perform that act of abstraction and conception, wherein the image must +be surpassed and made the allegory of a universal, though it be of the +crudest description. + +This recent theory, then, is of no use. It leads back to the +difficulties arising from the admission of two characteristics of art, +_intuibility_ and _lyricism_, not unified. We must recognize, either +that the duality must be destroyed and proved illusory, _or_ that we +must proceed to a more ample conception of art, in which that of pure +intuibility would remain merely secondary or particular. And to destroy +and prove it illusory must consist in showing that here too form is +content, and that pure intuition is _itself_ lyricism. + +Now, the truth is precisely this: _pure intuition is essentially +lyricism_. All the difficulties concerning this question arise from not +having thoroughly understood that concept, from having failed to +penetrate its true nature and to explore its multiple relations. When we +consider the one attentively, we see the other bursting from its bosom, +or better, the one and the other reveal themselves as one and the same, +and we escape from the desperate trilemma, of either denying the lyrical +and personal character of art, or of asserting that it is adjunctive, +external and accidental, or of excogitating a new doctrine of Aesthetic, +which we do not know where to find. In fact, as has already been +remarked, what can pure intuition mean, but intuition pure of every +abstraction, of every conceptual element, and, for this reason, neither +science, history, nor philosophy? This means that the content of the +pure intuition cannot be either an abstract concept, or a speculative +concept or idea, or a conceptualized, that is historicized, +representation. Nor can it be a so-called perception, which is a +representation intellectually, and so historically, discriminated. But +outside logic in its various forms and blendings, no other psychic +content remains, save that which is called appetites, tendencies, +feelings, and will. These things are all the same and constitute the +practical form of the spirit, in its infinite gradations and in its +dialectic (pleasure and pain). Pure intuition, then, since it does not +produce concepts, must represent the will in its manifestations, that is +to say, it can represent nothing but _states of the soul_. And states of +the soul are passionality, feeling, personality, which are found in +every art and determine its lyrical character. Where this is absent, art +is absent, _precisely because pure intuition is absent_, and we have at +the most, in exchange for it, _that reflex_, philosophical, historical, +or scientific. In the last of these, passion is represented, not +immediately, but mediately, or, to speak exactly, it is no longer +represented, but thought. Thus the origin of language, that is, its true +nature, has several times been placed in _interjection_. Thus, too, +Aristotle, when he wished to give an example of those propositions which +were not _apophantic_, but generically _semantic_ (we should say, not +logical, but purely Aesthetic), and did not predicate the logically true +and false, but nevertheless said something, gave as example invocation +or prayer, _hae enchae_. He added that these propositions do not +appertain to Logic, but to Rhetoric and Poetic. A landscape is a +state of the soul; a great poem may all be contained in an exclamation +of joy, of sorrow, of admiration, or of lament. The more objective is a +work of art, by so much the more is it poetically suggestive. + +If this deduction of lyricism from the intimate essence of pure +intuition do not appear easily acceptable, the reason is to be sought in +two very deep-rooted prejudices, of which it is useful to indicate here +the genesis. The first concerns the nature of the _imagination_, and its +likenesses to and differences from _fancy_. Imagination and fancy have +been clearly distinguished thus by certain aestheticians (and among +them, De Sanctis), as also in discussions relating to concrete art: they +have held fancy, not imagination, to be the special faculty of the poet +and the artist. Not only does a new and bizarre combination of images, +which is vulgarly called _invention_, not constitute the artist, but _ne +fait rien a l'affaire_, as Alceste remarked with reference to the length +of time expended upon writing a sonnet. Great artists have often +preferred to treat groups of images, which had already been many times +used as material for works of art. The novelty of these new works has +been solely that of art or form, that is to say, of the new _accent_ +which they have known how to give to the old material, of the new way in +which they have _felt_ and therefore _intuified_ it, thus creating _new +images_ upon the old ones. These remarks are all obvious and universally +recognized as true. But if mere imagination as such has been excluded +from art, it has not therefore been excluded from the theoretic spirit. +Hence the disinclination to admit that a pure intuition must of +necessity express a state of the soul, whereas it may also consist, as +they believe, of a pure image, without a content of feeling. If we form +an arbitrary image of any sort, _stans pede in uno_, say of a bullock's +head on a horse's body, would not this be an intuition, a pure +intuition, certainly quite without any content of reflexion? Would one +not attain to a work of art in this way, or at any rate to an artistic +motive? Certainly not. For the image given as an instance, and every +other image that may be produced by the imagination, not only is not a +pure intuition, but it is not a _theoretic_ product of any sort. It is a +product of _choice_, as was observed in the formula used by our +opponents; and choice is external to the world of thought and +contemplation. It may be said that imagination is a practical artifice +or game, played upon that patrimony of images possessed by the soul; +whereas the fancy, the translation of practical into theoretical values, +of states of the soul into images, is the _creation_ of that patrimony +itself. + +From this we learn that an image, which is not the expression of a state +of the soul, is not an image, since it is without any theoretical value; +and therefore it cannot be an obstacle to the identification of lyricism +and intuition. But the other prejudice is more difficult to eradicate, +because it is bound up with the metaphysical problem itself, on the +various solutions of which depend the various solutions of the aesthetic +problem, and _vice versa_. If art be intuition, would it therefore be +any intuition that one might have of a _physical_ object, appertaining +to _external nature_? If I open my eyes and look at the first object +that they fall upon, a chair or a table, a mountain or a river, shall I +have performed by so doing an aesthetic act? If so, what becomes of the +lyrical character, of which we have asserted the necessity? If not, what +becomes of the intuitive character, of which we have affirmed the equal +necessity and also its identity with the former? Without doubt, the +perception of a physical object, as such, does not constitute an +artistic fact; but precisely for the reason that it is not a pure +intuition, but a judgment of perception, and implies the application of +an abstract concept, which in this case is physical or belonging to +external nature. And with this reflexion and perception, we find +ourselves at once outside the domain of pure intuition. We could have a +pure perception of a physical object in one way only; that is to say, if +physical or external nature were a metaphysical reality, a truly real +reality, and not, as it is, a construction or abstraction of the +intellect. If such were the case, man would have an immediate intuition, +in his first theoretical moment, both of himself and of external nature, +of the spiritual and of the physical, in an equal degree. This +represents the dualistic hypothesis. But just as dualism is incapable of +providing a coherent system of philosophy, so is it incapable of +providing a coherent Aesthetic. If we admit dualism, we must certainly +abandon the doctrine of art as pure intuition; but we must at the same +time abandon all philosophy. But art on its side tacitly protests +against metaphysical dualism. It does so, because, being the most +immediate form of knowledge, it is in contact with activity, not with +passivity; with interiority, not exteriority; with spirit, not with +matter, and never with a double order of reality. Those who affirm the +existence of two forms of intuition--the one external or physical, the +other subjective or aesthetic; the one cold and inanimate, the other +warm and lively; the one imposed from without, the other coming from the +inner soul--attain without doubt to the distinctions and oppositions of +the vulgar (or dualistic) consciousness, but their Aesthetic is vulgar. + +The lyrical essence of pure intuition, and of art, helps to make clear +what we have already observed concerning the persistence of the +intuition and of the fancy in the higher grades of the theoretical +spirit, why philosophy, history, and science have always an artistic +side, and why their expression is subject to aesthetic valuation. The +man who ascends from art to thought does not by so doing abandon his +volitional and practical base, and therefore he too finds himself in a +particular _state of the soul_, the representation of which is intuitive +and lyrical, and accompanies of necessity the development of his ideas. +Hence the various styles of thinkers, solemn or jocose, troubled or +gladsome, mysterious and involved, or level and expansive. But it would +not be correct to divide intuition immediately into two classes, the one +of _aesthetic_, the other of _intellectual_ or _logical_ intuitions, +owing to the persistence of the artistic element in logical thought, +because the relation of degrees is not the relation of classes, and +copper is copper, whether it be found alone, or in combination as +bronze. + +Further, this close connection of feeling and intuition in pure +intuition throws much light on the reasons which have so often caused +art to be separated from the theoretic and confounded with the practical +activity. The most celebrated of these confusions are those formulated +about the relativity of tastes and of the impossibility of reproducing, +tasting, and correctly judging the art of the past, and in general the +art of others. A life lived, a feeling felt, a volition willed, are +certainly impossible to reproduce, because nothing happens more than +once, and my situation at the present moment is not that of any other +being, nor is it mine of the moment before, nor will be of the moment to +follow. But art remakes ideally, and ideally expresses my momentary +situation. Its image, produced by art, becomes separated from time and +space, and can be again made and again contemplated in its ideal-reality +from every point of time and space. It belongs not to the _world_, but +to the _superworld_; not to the flying moment, but to eternity. Thus +life passes, but art endures. + +Finally, we obtain from this relation between the intuition and the +state of the soul the criterion of exact definition of the _sincerity_ +required of artists, which is itself also an essential request. It is +essential, precisely because it means that the artist must have a state +of the soul to express, which really amounts to saying, that he must be +an artist. His must be a state of the soul really experienced, not +merely imagined, because imagination, as we know, is not a work of +truth. But, on the other hand, the demand for sincerity does not go +beyond asking for a state of the soul, and that the state of soul +expressed in the work of art be a desire or an action. It is altogether +indifferent to Aesthetic whether the artist have had only an aspiration, +or have realized that aspiration in his empirical life. All that is +quite indifferent in the sphere of art. Here we also find the +confutation of that false conception of sincerity, which maintains that +the artist, in his volitional or practical life, should be at one with +his dream, or with his incubus. Whether or no he have been so, is a +matter that interests his biographer, not his critic; it belongs to +history, which separates and qualifies that which art does not +discriminate, but represents. + + + + +III + + +This attitude of indiscrimination and indifference, observed by art in +respect to history and philosophy, is also foreshadowed at that place of +the _De interpretatione_ (_c_. 4), to which we have already referred, to +obtain thence the confirmation of the thesis of the identity of art and +language, and another confirmation, that of the identity of lyric and +pure intuition. It is a really admirable passage, containing many +profound truths in a few short, simple words, although, as is natural, +without full consciousness of their richness. Aristotle, then, is still +discussing the said rhetorical and poetical propositions, semantic and +not apophantic, and he remarks that in them there rules no distinction +between true and false: _to alaetheueion hae pseudeothai ouk +hyparchei_. Art, in fact, is in contact with palpitating reality, but +does not know that it is so in contact, and therefore is not truly in +contact. Art does not allow itself to be troubled with the abstractions +of the intellect, and therefore does not make mistakes; but it does not +know that it does not make mistakes. If art, then (to return to what we +said at the beginning), be the first and most ingenuous form of +knowledge, it cannot give complete satisfaction to man's need to know, +and therefore cannot be the ultimate end of the theoretic spirit. Art is +the dream of the life of knowledge. Its complement is waking, lyricism +no longer, but the concept; no longer the dream, but the judgment. +Thought could not be without fancy; but thought surpasses and contains +in itself the fancy, transforms the image into perception, and gives to +the world of dream the clear distinctions and the firm contours of +reality. Art cannot achieve this; and however great be our love of art, +that cannot raise it in rank, any more than the love one may have for a +beautiful child can convert it into an adult. We must accept the child +as a child, the adult as an adult. + +Therefore, the Aesthetic of pure intuition, while it proclaims +energetically the autonomy of art and of the aesthetic activity, is at +the same time averse to all _aestheticism_, that is, to every attempt at +lowering the life of thought, in order to elevate that of fancy. The +origin of aestheticism is the same as that of mysticism. Both proceed +from a rebellion against the predominance of the abstract sciences and +against the undue abuse of the principle of causation in metaphysic. +When we pass from the stuffed animals of the zoological museums, from +anatomical reconstructions, from tables of figures, from classes and +sub-classes constituted by means of abstract characters, or from the +fixation and mechanization of life for the ends of naturalistic science, +to the pages of the poets, to the pictures of the painters, to the +melodies of the composers, when in fact we look upon life with the eye +of the artist, we have the impression that we are passing from death to +life, from the abstract to the concrete, from fiction to reality. We are +inclined to proclaim that only in art and in aesthetic contemplation is +truth, and that science is either charlatanesque pedantry, or a modest +practical expedient. And certainly art has the superiority of its own +truth; simple, small, and elementary though it be, over the abstract, +which, as such, is altogether without truth. But in violently rejecting +science and frantically embracing art, that very form of the theoretic +spirit is forgotten, by means of which we can criticize science and +recognize the nature of art. Now this theoretic spirit, since it +criticizes science, is not science, and, as reflective consciousness of +art, is not art. Philosophy, the supreme fact of the theoretic world, +is forgotten. This error has been renewed in our day, because the +consciousness of the limits of the natural sciences and of the value of +the truth which belongs to intuition and to art, have been renewed. But +just as, a century ago, during the idealistic and romantic period, there +were some who reminded the fanatics for art, and the artists who were +transforming philosophy, that art was not "the most lofty form of +apprehending the Absolute"; so, in our day, it is necessary to awaken +the consciousness of Thought. And one of the means for attaining this +end is an exact understanding of the limits of art, that is, the +construction of a solid Aesthetic. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesthetic as Science of Expression and +General Linguistic, by Benedetto Croce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + +***** This file should be named 9306.txt or 9306.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/0/9306/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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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Prose and poetry--The relation of first and second +degree--Inexistence of other cognoscitive forms--Historicity--Identity +and difference in respect of art--Historical criticism--Historical +scepticism--Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural +sciences, and their limits--The phenomenon and the noumenon. + +IV +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + +Critique of the verisimilar and of naturalism--Critique of ideas in +art, of art as thesis, and of the typical--Critique of the symbol and +of the allegory--Critique of the theory of artistic and literary +categories--Errors derived from this theory in judgments on art-- +Empirical meaning of the divisions of the categories. + +V +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORY AND IN LOGIC + +Critique of the philosophy of History--Aesthetic invasions of Logic-- +Logic in its essence--Distinction between logical and non-logical +judgments--The syllogism--False Logic and true Aesthetic--Logic +reformed. + +VI +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + +The will--The will as ulterior grade in respect of knowledge--Objections +and explanations--Critique of practical judgments or judgments of +value--Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic--Critique of +the theory of the end of art and of the choice of content--Practical +innocence of art--Independence of art--Critique of the saying: the +style is the man--Critique of the concept of sincerity in art. + +VII +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + +The two forms of practical activity--The economically useful-- +Distinction between the useful and the technical--Distinction between +the useful and the egoistic--Economic and moral volition--Pure +economicity--The economic side of morality--The merely economical and +the error of the morally indifferent--Critique of utilitarianism and +the reform of Ethic and of Economic--Phenomenon and noumenon in +practical activity. + +VIII +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + +The system of the spirit--The forms of genius--Inexistence of a fifth +form of activity--Law; sociality--Religiosity--Metaphysic--Mental +imagination and the intuitive intellect--Mystical Aesthetic--Mortality +and immortality of art. + +IX +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + +The characteristics of art--Inexistence of modes of expression-- +Impossibility of translations--Critique of rhetorical categories-- +Empirical meaning of rhetorical categories--Their use as synonyms +of the aesthetic fact--Their use as indicating various aesthetic +imperfections--Their use as transcending the aesthetic fact, and +in the service of science--Rhetoric in schools--Similarities of +expressions--Relative possibility of translations. + +X +AESTHETIC SENTIMENTS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE +UGLY + +Various meanings of the word sentiment--Sentiment as activity-- +Identification of sentiment with economic activity--Critique of +hedonism--Sentiment as concomitant of every form of activity--Meaning +of certain ordinary distinctions of sentiments--Value and disvalue: +the contraries and their union--The beautiful as the value of expression, +or expression without adjunct--The ugly and the elements of beauty that +constitute it--Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful +nor ugly--Proper aesthetic sentiments and concomitant and accidental +sentiments--Critique of apparent sentiments. + +XI +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + +Critique of the beautiful as what pleases the superior senses--Critique +of the theory of play--Critique of the theory of sexuality and of the +triumph--Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic--Meaning in it of +content and of form--Aesthetic hedonism and moralism--The rigoristic +negation, and the pedagogic negation of art--Critique of pure beauty. + +XII +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the Aesthetic of the sympathetic-- +Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of its surmounting-- +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts appertain to Psychology--Impossibility of +rigorous definitions of these--Examples: definitions of the sublime, +of the comic, of the humorous--Relation between those concepts and +aesthetic concepts. + +XIII +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND IN ART + +Aesthetic activity and physical concepts--Expression in the aesthetic +sense, and expression in the naturalistic sense--Intuitions and +memory--The production of aids to memory--The physically beautiful-- +Content and form: another meaning--Natural beauty and artificial +beauty--Mixed beauty--Writings--The beautiful that is free and that +which is not free--Critique of the beautiful that is not free-- +Stimulants of production. + +XIV +ERRORS ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + +Critique of aesthetic associationism--Critique of aesthetic physic-- +Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body--Critique of +the beauty of geometrical figures--Critique of another aspect of the +imitation of nature--Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of +the beautiful--Critique of the search for the objective conditions of +the beautiful--The astrology of Aesthetic. + +XV +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION. TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + +The practical activity of externalization--The technique of +externalization--Technical theories of single arts--Critique of the +classifications of the arts--Relation of the activity of externalization +with utility and morality. + +XVI +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + +Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic reproduction-- +Impossibility of divergences--Identity of taste and genius--Analogy +with the other activities--Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and +of aesthetic relativism--Critique of relative relativism--Objections +founded on the variation of the stimulus and of the psychic disposition-- +Critique of the distinction of signs as natural and conventional--The +surmounting of variety--Restorations and historical interpretation. + +XVII +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND OF ART + +Historical criticism in literature and art. Its importance--Artistic and +literary history. Its distinction from historical criticism and from the +aesthetic judgment--The method of artistic and literary history--Critique +of the problem of the origin of art--The criterion of progress and +history--Inexistence of a single line of progress in artistic and +literary history--Errors in respect of this law--Other meanings of +the word "progress" in relation to Aesthetic. + +XVIII +CONCLUSION: IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + +Summary of the inquiry--Identity of Linguistic with Aesthetic-- +Aesthetic formulation of linguistic problems. Nature of language-- +Origin of language and its development--Relation between Grammatic +and Logic--Grammatical categories or parts of speech--Individuality +of speech and the classification of languages--Impossibility of a +normative Grammatic--Didactic organisms--Elementary linguistic +elements, or roots--The aesthetic judgment and the model language-- +Conclusion. + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +Aesthetic ideas in Graeco-Roman antiquity--In the Middle Age and + at the Renaissance--Fermentation of thought in the seventeenth +century--Aesthetic ideas in Cartesianism, Leibnitzianism, and in +the "Aesthetic" of Baumgarten--G.B. Vico--Aesthetic doctrines in +the eighteenth century--Emmanuel Kant--The Aesthetic of Idealism +with Schiller and Hegel--Schopenhauer and Herbart--Friedrich +Schleiermacher--The philosophy of language with Humboldt and +Steinthal--Aesthetic in France, England, and Italy during the first +half of the nineteenth century--Francesco de Sanctis--The Aesthetic +of the epigoni--Positivism and aesthetic naturalism--Aesthetic +psychologism and other recent tendencies--Glance at the history +of certain particular doctrines--Conclusion. + +APPENDIX + +Translation of the lecture on Pure Intuition and the lyrical nature of +art, delivered by Benedetto Croce before the International Congress of +Philosophy at Heidelberg. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +There are always Americas to be discovered: the most interesting in +Europe. + +I can lay no claim to having discovered an America, but I do claim to +have discovered a Columbus. His name is Benedetto Croce, and he dwells +on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Naples, city of the antique +Parthenope. + +Croce's America cannot be expressed in geographical terms. It is more +important than any space of mountain and river, of forest and dale. It +belongs to the kingdom of the spirit, and has many provinces. That +province which most interests me, I have striven in the following pages +to annex to the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon race; an act which cannot +be blamed as predatory, since it may be said of philosophy more truly +than of love, that "to divide is not to take away." + +The Historical Summary will show how many a brave adventurer has +navigated the perilous seas of speculation upon Art, how Aristotle's +marvellous insight gave him glimpses of its beauty, how Plato threw away +its golden fruit, how Baumgarten sounded the depth of its waters, Kant +sailed along its coast without landing, and Vico hoisted the Italian +flag upon its shore. + +But Benedetto Croce has been the first thoroughly to explore it, cutting +his way inland through the tangled undergrowth of imperfect thought. He +has measured its length and breadth, marked out and described its +spiritual features with minute accuracy. The country thus won to +philosophy will always bear his name, _Estetica di Croce_, a new +America. + +It was at Naples, in the winter of 1907, that I first saw the Philosopher +of Aesthetic. Benedetto Croce, although born in the Abruzzi, Province of +Aquila (1866), is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent +from the city, on the shore of that magical sea, where once Ulysses +sailed, and where sometimes yet (near Amalfi) we may hear the Syrens sing +their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the +Theory of Aesthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have +overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this +theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the English-speaking world. + +No one could have been further removed than myself, as I turned over at +Naples the pages of _La Critica_, from any idea that I was nearing the +solution of the problem of Art. All my youth it had haunted me. As an +undergraduate at Oxford I had caught the exquisite cadence of Walter +Pater's speech, as it came from his very lips, or rose like the perfume +of some exotic flower from the ribbed pages of the _Renaissance_. + +Seeming to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, he solved it not--only +delighted with pure pleasure of poetry and of subtle thought as he led +one along the pathways of his Enchanted Garden, where I shall always +love to tread. + +Oscar Wilde, too, I had often heard at his best, the most brilliant +talker of our time, his wit flashing in the spring sunlight of Oxford +luncheon-parties as now in his beautiful writings, like the jewelled +rapier of Mercutio. But his works, too, will be searched in vain by the +seeker after definite aesthetic truth. + +With A.C. Swinburne I had sat and watched the lava that yet flowed from +those lips that were kissed in youth by all the Muses. Neither from him +nor from J.M. Whistler's brilliant aphorisms on art could be gathered +anything more than the exquisite pleasure of the moment: the +_monochronos haedonae_. Of the great pedagogues, I had known, but never +sat at the feet of Jowett, whom I found far less inspiring than any of +the great men above mentioned. Among the dead, I had studied Herbert +Spencer and Matthew Arnold, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Guyau: I had +conversed with that living Neo-Latin, Anatole France, the modern +Rousseau, and had enjoyed the marvellous irony and eloquence of his +writings, which, while they delight the society in which he lives, may +well be one of the causes that lead to its eventual destruction. + +The solution of the problem of Aesthetic is not in the gift of the Muses. + +To return to Naples. As I looked over those pages of the bound volumes +of _La Critica_. I soon became aware that I was in the presence of a +mind far above the ordinary level of literary criticism. The profound +studies of Carducci, of d'Annunzio, and of Pascoli (to name but three), +in which those writers passed before me in all their strength and in all +their weakness, led me to devote several days to the _Critica_. At the +end of that time I was convinced that I had made a discovery, and wrote +to the philosopher, who owns and edits that journal. + +In response to his invitation, I made my way, on a sunny day in November, +past the little shops of the coral-vendors that surround, like a +necklace, the Rione de la Bellezza, and wound zigzag along the +over-crowded Toledo. I knew that Signor Croce lived in the old part of +the town, but had hardly anticipated so remarkable a change as I +experienced on passing beneath the great archway and finding myself in +old Naples. This has already been described elsewhere, and I will not +here dilate upon this world within a world, having so much of greater +interest to tell in a brief space. I will merely say that the costumes +here seemed more picturesque, the dark eyes flashed more dangerously +than elsewhere, there was a quaint life, an animation about the streets, +different from anything I had known before. As I climbed the lofty stone +steps of the Palazzo to the floor where dwells the philosopher of +Aesthetic I felt as though I had stumbled into the eighteenth century +and were calling on Giambattista Vico. After a brief inspection by a +young man with the appearance of a secretary, I was told that I was +expected, and admitted into a small room opening out of the hall. +Thence, after a few moments' waiting, I was led into a much larger room. +The walls were lined all round with bookcases, barred and numbered, +filled with volumes forming part of the philosopher's great library. I +had not long to wait. A door opened behind me on my left, and a rather +short, thick-set man advanced to greet me, and pronouncing my name at +the same time with a slight foreign accent, asked me to be seated beside +him. After the interchange of a few brief formulae of politeness in +French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better +opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held +clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid +gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most +remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, +not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy +which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was +especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the question of Art +and upon the many problems bound up with it. I do not know how long that +first interview lasted, but it seemed a few minutes only, during which +was displayed before me a vast panorama of unknown height and headland, +of league upon league of forest, with its bright-winged birds of thought +flying from tree to tree down the long avenues into the dim blue vistas +of the unknown. + +I returned with my brain awhirl, as though I had been in fairyland, and +when I looked at the second edition of the _Estetica_, with his +inscription, I was sure of it. + +These lines will suffice to show how the translation of the _Estetica_ +originated from the acquaintance thus formed, which has developed into +friendship. I will now make brief mention of Benedetto Croce's other +work, especially in so far as it throws light upon the _Aesthetic_. +For this purpose, besides articles in Italian and German reviews, I +have made use of the excellent monograph on the philosopher, by G. +Prezzolini.[1] + +First, then, it will be well to point out that the _Aesthetic_ forms +part of a complete philosophical system, to which the author gives the +general title of "Philosophy of the Spirit." The _Aesthetic_ is the +first of the three volumes. The second is the _Logic_, the third the +_Philosophy of the Practical_. + +In the _Logic_, as elsewhere in the system, Croce combats that false +conception, by which natural science, in the shape of psychology, makes +claim to philosophy, and formal logic to absolute value. The thesis of +the _pure concept_ cannot be discussed here. It is connected with the +logic of evolution as discovered by Hegel, and is the only logic which +contains in itself the interpretation and the continuity of reality. +Bergson in his _L'Evolution Creatrice_ deals with logic in a somewhat +similar manner. I recently heard him lecture on the distinction between +spirit and matter at the College de France, and those who read French +and Italian will find that both Croce's _Logic_ and the book above +mentioned by the French philosopher will amply repay their labour. The +conception of nature as something lying outside the spirit which informs +it, as the non-being which aspires to being, underlies all Croce's +thought, and we find constant reference to it throughout his +philosophical system. + +With regard to the third volume, the _Philosophy of the Practical_, it +is impossible here to give more than a hint of its treasures. I merely +refer in passing to the treatment of the will, which is posited as a +unity _inseparable from the volitional act_. For Croce there is no +difference between action and intention, means and end: they are one +thing, inseparable as the intuition-expression of Aesthetic. The +_Philosophy of the Practical_ is a logic and science of the will, not a +normative science. Just as in Aesthetic the individuality of expression +made models and rules impossible, so in practical life the individuality +of action removes the possibility of catalogues of virtues, of the exact +application of laws, of the existence of practical judgments and +judgments of value _previous to action_. + +The reader will probably ask here: But what, then, becomes of morality? +The question will be found answered in the _Theory of Aesthetic_, and I +will merely say here that Croce's thesis of the _double degree_ of the +practical activity, economic and moral, is one of the greatest +contributions to modern thought. Just as it is proved in the _Theory of +Aesthetic_ that the _concept_ depends upon the _intuition_, which is the +first degree, the primary and indispensable thing, so it is proved in +the _Philosophy of the Practical_ that _Morality_ or _Ethic_ depends +upon _Economic_, which is the _first_ degree of the practical activity. +The volitional act is _always economic_, but true freedom of the will +exists and consists in conforming not merely to economic, but to moral +conditions, to the human spirit, which is greater than any individual. +Here we are face to face with the ethics of Christianity, to which Croce +accords all honour. + +This Philosophy of the Spirit is symptomatic of the happy reaction of +the twentieth century against the crude materialism of the second half +of the nineteenth. It is the spirit which gives to the work of art its +value, not this or that method of arrangement, this or that tint or +cadence, which can always be copied by skilful plagiarists: not so the +_spirit_ of the creator. In England we hear too much of (natural) +science, which has usurped the very name of Philosophy. The natural +sciences are very well in their place, but discoveries such as aviation +are of infinitely less importance to the race than the smallest addition +to the philosophy of the spirit. Empirical science, with the collusion +of positivism, has stolen the cloak of philosophy and must be made to +give it back. + +Among Croce's other important contributions to thought must be mentioned +his definition of History as being aesthetic and differing from Art +solely in that history represents the _real_, art the _possible_. In +connection with this definition and its proof, the philosopher recounts +how he used to hold an opposite view. Doing everything thoroughly, he +had prepared and written out a long disquisition on this thesis, which +was already in type, when suddenly, from the midst of his meditations, +_the truth flashed upon him_. He saw for the first time clearly that +history cannot be a science, since, like art, it always deals with the +particular. Without a moment's hesitation he hastened to the printers +and bade them break up the type. + +This incident is illustrative of the sincerity and good faith of +Benedetto Croce. One knows him to be severe for the faults and +weaknesses of others, merciless for his own. + +Yet though severe, the editor of _La Critica_ is uncompromisingly just, +and would never allow personal dislike or jealousy, or any extrinsic +consideration, to stand in the way of fair treatment to the writer +concerned. Many superficial English critics might benefit considerably +by attention to this quality in one who is in other respects also so +immeasurably their superior. A good instance of this impartiality is his +critique of Schopenhauer, with whose system he is in complete +disagreement, yet affords him full credit for what of truth is contained +in his voluminous writings.[2] + +Croce's education was largely completed in Germany, and on account of +their thoroughness he has always been an upholder of German methods. One +of his complaints against the Italian Positivists is that they only read +second-rate works in French or at the most "the dilettante booklets +published in such profusion by the Anglo-Saxon press." This tendency +towards German thought, especially in philosophy, depends upon the fact +of the former undoubted supremacy of Germany in that field, but Croce +does not for a moment admit the inferiority of the Neo-Latin races, and +adds with homely humour in reference to Germany, that we "must not throw +away the baby with the bath-water"! Close, arduous study and clear +thought are the only key to scientific (philosophical) truth, and Croce +never begins an article for a newspaper without the complete collection +of the works of the author to be criticized, and his own elaborate notes +on the table before him. Schopenhauer said there were three kinds of +writers--those who write without thinking, the great majority; those who +think while they write, not very numerous; those who write after they +have thought, very rare. Croce certainly belongs to the last division, +and, as I have said, always feeds his thought upon complete erudition. +The bibliography of the works consulted for the _Estetica_ alone, as +printed at the end of the Italian edition, extends to many pages and +contains references to works in any way dealing with the subject in all +the European languages. For instance, Croce has studied Mr. B. +Bosanquet's eclectic works on Aesthetic, largely based upon German +sources and by no means without value. But he takes exception to Mr. +Bosanquet's statement that _he_ has consulted all works of importance on +the subject of Aesthetic. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bosanquet reveals his +ignorance of the greater part of the contribution to Aesthetic made by +the Neo-Latin races, which the reader of this book will recognize as of +first-rate importance. + +This thoroughness it is which gives such importance to the literary and +philosophical criticisms of _La Critica_. Croce's method is always +historical, and his object in approaching any work of art is to classify +the spirit of its author, as expressed in that work. There are, he +maintains, but two things to be considered in criticizing a book. These +are, _firstly_, what is its _peculiarity_, in what way is it singular, +how is it differentiated from other works? _Secondly_, what is its +degree of purity?--That is, to what extent has its author kept himself +free from all considerations alien to the perfection of the work as an +expression, as a lyrical intuition? With the answering of these +questions Croce is satisfied. He does not care to know if the author +keep a motor-car, like Maeterlinck; or prefer to walk on Putney Heath, +like Swinburne. This amounts to saying that all works of art must be +judged by their own standard. How far has the author succeeded in doing +what he intended? + +Croce is far above any personal animus, although the same cannot be said +of those he criticizes. These, like d'Annunzio, whose limitations he +points out--his egoism, his lack of human sympathy--are often very +bitter, and accuse the penetrating critic of want of courtesy. This +seriousness of purpose runs like a golden thread through all Croce's +work. The flimsy superficial remarks on poetry and fiction which too +often pass for criticism in England (Scotland is a good deal more +thorough) are put to shame by _La Critica_, the study of which I commend +to all readers who read or wish to read Italian.[3] They will find in +its back numbers a complete picture of a century of Italian literature, +besides a store-house of philosophical criticism. The _Quarterly_ and +_Edinburgh Reviews_ are our only journals which can be compared to _The +Critica_, and they are less exhaustive on the philosophical side. We +should have to add to these _Mind_ and the _Hibbert Journal_ to get even +an approximation to the scope of the Italian review. + +As regards Croce's general philosophical position, it is important to +understand that he is _not_ a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close +follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he +deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may +be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of +Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than +that wondrous edifice was ever before explained, and we realize at the +same time that Croce is quite as independent of Hegel as of Kant, of +Vico as of Spinoza. Of course he has made use of the best of Hegel, just +as every thinker makes use of his predecessors and is in his turn made +use of by those that follow him. But it is incorrect to accuse of +Hegelianism the author of an anti-hegelian _Aesthetic_, of a _Logic_ +where Hegel is only half accepted, and of a _Philosophy of the +Practical_, which contains hardly a trace of Hegel. I give an instance. +If the great conquest of Hegel be the dialectic of opposites, his great +mistake lies in the confusion of opposites with things which are +distinct but not opposite. If, says Croce, we take as an example the +application of the Hegelian triad that formulates becoming (affirmation, +negation and synthesis), we find it applicable for those opposites which +are true and false, good and evil, being and not-being, but _not +applicable_ to things which are distinct but not opposite, such as art +and philosophy, beauty and truth, the useful and the moral. These +confusions led Hegel to talk of the death of art, to conceive as +possible a Philosophy of History, and to the application of the natural +sciences to the absurd task of constructing a Philosophy of Nature. +Croce has cleared away these difficulties by shewing that if from the +meeting of opposites must arise a superior synthesis, such a synthesis +cannot arise from things which are distinct _but not opposite_, since +the former are connected together as superior and inferior, and the +inferior can exist without the superior, but _not vice versa_. Thus we +see how philosophy cannot exist without art, while art, occupying the +lower place, can and does exist without philosophy. This brief example +reveals Croce's independence in dealing with Hegelian problems. + +I know of no philosopher more generous than Croce in praise and +elucidation of other workers in the same field, past and present. For +instance, and apart from Hegel, _Kant_ has to thank him for drawing +attention to the marvellous excellence of the _Critique of Judgment_, +generally neglected in favour of the Critiques of _Pure Reason and of +Practical Judgment_; _Baumgarten_ for drawing the attention of the world +to his obscure name and for reprinting his Latin thesis in which the +word _Aesthetic_ occurs for the first time; and _Schleiermacher_ for the +tributes paid to his neglected genius in the History of Aesthetic. _La +Critica_, too, is full of generous appreciation of contemporaries by +Croce and by that profound thinker, Gentile. + +But it is not only philosophers who have reason to be grateful to Croce +for his untiring zeal and diligence. Historians, economists, poets, +actors, and writers of fiction have been rescued from their undeserved +limbo by this valiant Red Cross knight, and now shine with due +brilliance in the circle of their peers. It must also be admitted that a +large number of false lights, popular will o' the wisps, have been +ruthlessly extinguished with the same breath. For instance, Karl Marx, +the socialist theorist and agitator, finds in Croce an exponent of his +views, in so far as they are based upon the truth, but where he +blunders, his critic immediately reveals the origin and nature of his +mistakes. Croce's studies in Economic are chiefly represented by his +work, the title of which may be translated "Historical Materialism and +Marxist Economic." + +To indicate the breadth and variety of Croce's work I will mention the +further monograph on the sixteenth century Neapolitan Pulcinella (the +original of our Punch), and the personage of the Neapolitan in comedy, a +monument of erudition and of acute and of lively dramatic criticism, +that would alone have occupied an ordinary man's activity for half a +lifetime. One must remember, however, that Croce's average working day +is of ten hours. His interest is concentrated on things of the mind, and +although he sits on several Royal Commissions, such as those of the +Archives of all Italy and of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel, he +has taken no university degree, and much dislikes any affectation of +academic superiority. He is ready to meet any one on equal terms and try +with them to get at the truth on any subject, be it historical, +literary, or philosophical. "Truth," he says, "is democratic," and I can +testify that the search for it, in his company, is very stimulating. As +is well said by Prezzolini, "He has a new word for all." + +There can be no doubt of the great value of Croce's work as an +_educative influence_, and if we are to judge of a philosophical system +by its action on others, then we must place the _Philosophy of the +Spirit_ very high. It may be said with perfect truth that since the +death of the poet Carducci there has been no influence in Italy to +compare with that of Benedetto Croce. + +His dislike of Academies and of all forms of prejudice runs parallel +with his breadth and sympathy with all forms of thought. His activity in +the present is only equalled by his reverence for the past. Naples he +loves with the blind love of the child for its parent, and he has been +of notable assistance to such Neapolitan talent as is manifested in the +works of Salvatore di Giacomo, whose best poems are written in the +dialect of Naples, or rather in a dialect of his own, which Croce had +difficulty in persuading the author always to retain. The original jet +of inspiration having been in dialect, it is clear that to amend this +inspiration at the suggestion of wiseacres at the Cafe would have been +to ruin it altogether. + +Of the popularity that his system and teaching have already attained we +may judge by the fact that the _Aesthetic_[4], despite the difficulty of +the subject, is already in its third edition in Italy, where, owing to +its influence, philosophy sells better than fiction; while the French +and Germans, not to mention the Czechs, have long had translations of +the earlier editions. His _Logic_ is on the point of appearing in its +second edition, and I have no doubt that the _Philosophy of the +Practical_ will eventually equal these works in popularity. _The +importance and value of Italian thought have been too long neglected in +Great Britain_. Where, as in Benedetto Croce, we get the clarity of +vision of the Latin, joined to the thoroughness and erudition of the +best German tradition, we have a combination of rare power and +effectiveness, which can by no means be neglected. + +The philosopher feels that he has a great mission, which is nothing less +than the leading back of thought to belief in the spirit, deserted by so +many for crude empiricism and positivism. His view of philosophy is that +it sums up all the higher human activities, including religion, and that +in proper hands it is able to solve any problem. But there is no +finality about problems: the solution of one leads to the posing of +another, and so on. Man is the maker of life, and his spirit ever +proceeds from a lower to a higher perfection. Connected with this view +of life is Croce's dislike of "Modernism." When once a problem has been +correctly solved, it is absurd to return to the same problem. Roman +Catholicism cannot march with the times. It can only exist by being +conservative--its only Logic is to be illogical. Therefore, Croce is +opposed to Loisy and Neo-Catholicism, and supports the Encyclical +against Modernism. The Catholic religion, with its great stores of myth +and morality, which for many centuries was the best thing in the world, +is still there for those who are unable to assimilate other food. +Another instance of his dislike for Modernism is his criticism of +Pascoli, whose attempts to reveal enigmas in the writings of Dante he +looks upon as useless. We do not, he says, read Dante in the twentieth +century for his hidden meanings, but for his revealed poetry. + +I believe that Croce will one day be recognized as one of the very few +great teachers of humanity. At present he is not appreciated at nearly +his full value. One rises from a study of his philosophy with a sense of +having been all the time as it were in personal touch with the truth, +which is very far from the case after the perusal of certain other +philosophies. + +Croce has been called the philosopher-poet, and if we take philosophy as +Novalis understood it, certainly Croce does belong to the poets, though +not to the formal category of those who write in verse. Croce is at any +rate a born philosopher, and as every trade tends to make its object +prosaic, so does every vocation tend to make it poetic. Yet no one has +toiled more earnestly than Croce. "Thorough" might well be his motto, +and if to-day he is admitted to be a classic without the stiffness one +connects with that term, be sure he has well merited the designation. +His name stands for the best that Italy has to give the world of +serious, stimulating thought. I know nothing to equal it elsewhere. + +Secure in his strength, Croce will often introduce a joke or some +amusing illustration from contemporary life, in the midst of a most +profound and serious argument. This spirit of mirth is a sign of +superiority. He who is not sure of himself can spare no energy for the +making of mirth. Croce loves to laugh at his enemies and with his +friends. So the philosopher of Naples sits by the blue gulf and explains +the universe to those who have ears to hear. "One can philosophize +anywhere," he says--but he remains significantly at Naples. + +Thus I conclude these brief remarks upon the author of the _Aesthetic_, +confident that those who give time and attention to its study will be +grateful for having placed in their hands this pearl of great price from +the diadem of the antique Parthenope. + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE. + +THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL, _May_ 1909. + +[1] Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi, 1909. + +[2] The reader will find this critique summarized in the historical + portion of this volume. + +[3] _La Critica_ is published every other month by Laterza of Bari. + +[4] This translation is made from the third Italian edition (Bari, + 1909), enlarged and corrected by the author. The _Theory of + Aesthetic_ first appeared in 1900 in the form of a communication + to the _Accademia Pontiana_ of Naples, vol. xxx. The first edition + is dated 1902, the second 1904 (Palermo). + + + + +I + +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + + + [Sidenote] _Intuitive knowledge._ + +Human knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or +logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or +knowledge obtained through the intellect; knowledge of the individual or +knowledge of the universal; of individual things or of the relations +between them: it is, in fact, productive either of images or of +concepts. + +In ordinary life, constant appeal is made to intuitive knowledge. It +is said to be impossible to give expression to certain truths; that +they are not demonstrable by syllogisms; that they must be learnt +intuitively. The politician finds fault with the abstract reasoner, who +is without a lively knowledge of actual conditions; the pedagogue +insists upon the necessity of developing the intuitive faculty in the +pupil before everything else; the critic in judging a work of art makes +it a point of honour to set aside theory and abstractions, and to judge +it by direct intuition; the practical man professes to live rather by +intuition than by reason. + +But this ample acknowledgment, granted to intuitive knowledge in +ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate acknowledgment +in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists a very ancient +science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all without discussion, +namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge is timidly and with +difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge has appropriated the +lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and devour her companion, +yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little place of maidservant +or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive knowledge without the light +of intellective knowledge? It is a servant without a master; and though +a master find a servant useful, the master is a necessity to the +servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood. Intuition is +blind; Intellect lends her eyes. + + [Sidenote] _Its independence in respect to intellective knowledge._ + +Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive +knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does +not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has most excellent eyes +of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with +intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such a +mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of a +moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a +cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of a +sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in +ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of +intellective relation. But, think what one may of these instances, and +admitting further that one may maintain that the greater part of the +intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet +remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive. +Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions, +are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and fused, +for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have been +concepts, but they have now become simple elements of intuition. +The philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of tragedy +or of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts, but of +characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the red in a +painted figure does not there represent the red colour of the +physicists, but is a characteristic element of the portrait. The whole +it is that determines the quality of the parts. A work of art may be +full of philosophical concepts; it may contain them in greater +abundance and they may be there even more profound than in a +philosophical dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to +overflowing with descriptions and intuitions. But, notwithstanding all +these concepts it may contain, the result of the work of art is an +intuition; and notwithstanding all those intuitions, the result of the +philosophical dissertation is a concept. The _Promessi Sposi_ contains +copious ethical observations and distinctions, but it does not for +that reason lose in its total effect its character of simple story, of +intuition. In like manner the anecdotes and satirical effusions which +may be found in the works of a philosopher like Schopenhauer, do not +remove from those works their character of intellective treatises. The +difference between a scientific work and a work of art, that is, +between an intellective fact and an intuitive fact lies in the result, +in the diverse effect aimed at by their respective authors. This it is +that determines and rules over the several parts of each. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and perception._ + +But to admit the independence of intuition as regards concept does not +suffice to give a true and precise idea of intuition. Another error +arises among those who recognize this, or who, at any rate, do not make +intuition explicitly dependent upon the intellect. This error obscures +and confounds the real nature of intuition. By intuition is frequently +understood the _perception_ or knowledge of actual reality, the +apprehension of something as _real_. + +Certainly perception is intuition: the perception of the room in which I +am writing, of the ink-bottle and paper that are before me, of the pen I +am using, of the objects that I touch and make use of as instruments of +my person, which, if it write, therefore exists;--these are all +intuitions. But the image that is now passing through my brain of a me +writing in another room, in another town, with different paper, pen and +ink, is also an intuition. This means that the distinction between +reality and non-reality is extraneous, secondary, to the true nature of +intuition. If we assume the existence of a human mind which should have +intuitions for the first time, it would seem that it could have +intuitions of effective reality only, that is to say, that it could have +perceptions of nothing but the real. But if the knowledge of reality be +based upon the distinction between real images and unreal images, and if +this distinction does not originally exist, these intuitions would in +truth not be intuitions either of the real or of the unreal, but pure +intuitions. Where all is real, nothing is real. The child, with its +difficulty of distinguishing true from false, history from fable, which +are all one to childhood, can furnish us with a sort of very vague and +only remotely approximate idea of this ingenuous state. Intuition is the +indifferentiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple +image of the possible. In our intuitions we do not oppose ourselves to +external reality as empirical beings, but we simply objectify our +impressions, whatever they be. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and the concepts of space and time._ + +Those, therefore, who look upon intuition as sensation formed and +arranged simply according to the categories of space and time, would +seem to approximate more nearly to the truth. Space and time (they say) +are the forms of intuition; to have intuitions is to place in space and +in temporal sequence. Intuitive activity would then consist in this +double and concurrent function of spatiality and temporality. But for +these two categories must be repeated what was said of intellectual +distinctions, found mingled with intuitions. We have intuitions without +space and without time: a tint of sky and a tint of sentiment, an Ah! of +pain and an effort of will, objectified in consciousness. These are +intuitions, which we possess, and with their making, space and time have +nothing to do. In some intuitions, spatiality may be found without +temporality, in others, this without that; and even where both are +found, they are perceived by posterior reflexion: they can be fused with +the intuition in like manner with all its other elements: that is, they +are in it _materialiter_ and not _formaliter_, as ingredients and not as +essentials. Who, without a similar act of interruptive reflexion, is +conscious of temporal sequence while listening to a story or a piece of +music? That which intuition reveals in a work of art is not space and +time, but character, individual physiognomy. Several attempts may be +noted in modern philosophy, which confirm the view here exposed. Space +and time, far from being very simple and primitive functions, are shown +to be intellectual constructions of great complexity. And further, even +in some of those who do not altogether deny to space and time the +quality of forming or of categories and functions, one may observe the +attempt to unify and to understand them in a different manner from that +generally maintained in respect of these categories. Some reduce +intuition to the unique category of spatiality, maintaining that time +also can only be conceived in terms of space. Others abandon the three +dimensions of space as not philosophically necessary, and conceive the +function of spatiality as void of every particular spatial +determination. But what could such a spatial function be, that should +control even time? May it not be a residuum of criticisms and of +negations from which arises merely the necessity to posit a generic +intuitive activity? And is not this last truly determined, when one +unique function is attributed to it, not spatializing nor temporalizing, +but characterizing? Or, better, when this is conceived as itself a +category or function, which gives knowledge of things in their +concretion and individuality? + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and sensation._ + +Having thus freed intuitive knowledge from any suggestion of +intellectualism and from every posterior and external adjunct, we must +now make clear and determine its limits from another side and from a +different kind of invasion and confusion. On the other side, and before +the inferior boundary, is sensation, formless matter, which the spirit +can never apprehend in itself, in so far as it is mere matter. This it +can only possess with form and in form, but postulates its concept as, +precisely, a limit. Matter, in its abstraction, is mechanism, passivity; +it is what the spirit of man experiences, but does not produce. Without +it no human knowledge and activity is possible; but mere matter produces +animality, whatever is brutal and impulsive in man, not the spiritual +dominion, which is humanity. How often do we strive to understand +clearly what is passing within us? We do catch a glimpse of something, +but this does not appear to the mind as objectified and formed. In such +moments it is, that we best perceive the profound difference between +matter and form. These are not two acts of ours, face to face with one +another; but we assault and carry off the one that is outside us, while +that within us tends to absorb and make its own that without. Matter, +attacked and conquered by form, gives place to concrete form. It is the +matter, the content, that differentiates one of our intuitions from +another: form is constant: it is spiritual activity, while matter is +changeable. Without matter, however, our spiritual activity would not +leave its abstraction to become concrete and real, this or that +spiritual content, this or that definite intuition. + +It is a curious fact, characteristic of our times, that this very form, +this very activity of the spirit, which is essentially ourselves, is so +easily ignored or denied. Some confound the spiritual activity of man +with the metaphorical and mythological activity of so-called nature, +which is mechanism and has no resemblance to human activity, save when +we imagine, with Aesop, that _arbores loquuntur non tantum ferae_. Some +even affirm that they have never observed in themselves this +"miraculous" activity, as though there were no difference, or only one +of quantity, between sweating and thinking, feeling cold and the energy +of the will. Others, certainly with greater reason, desire to unify +activity and mechanism in a more general concept, though admitting that +they are specifically distinct. Let us, however, refrain for the moment +from examining if such a unification be possible, and in what sense, but +admitting that the attempt may be made, it is clear that to unify two +concepts in a third implies a difference between the two first. And here +it is this difference that is of importance and we set it in relief. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and association._ + +Intuition has often been confounded with simple sensation. But, since +this confusion is too shocking to good sense, it has more frequently +been attenuated or concealed with a phraseology which seems to wish to +confuse and to distinguish them at the same time. Thus, it has been +asserted that intuition is sensation, but not so much simple sensation +as _association_ of sensations. The equivoque arises precisely from the +word "association." Association is understood, either as memory, +mnemonic association, conscious recollection, and in that case is +evident the absurdity of wishing to join together in memory elements +which are not intuified, distinguished, possessed in some way by the +spirit and produced by consciousness: or it is understood as association +of unconscious elements. In this case we remain in the world of +sensation and of nature. Further, if with certain associationists we +speak of an association which is neither memory nor flux of sensations, +but is a _productive_ association (formative, constructive, +distinguishing); then we admit the thing itself and deny only its name. +In truth, productive association is no longer association in the sense +of the sensualists, but _synthesis_, that is to say, spiritual activity. +Synthesis may be called association; but with the concept of +productivity is already posited the distinction between passivity and +activity, between sensation and intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and representation._ + +Other psychologists are disposed to distinguish from sensation something +which is sensation no longer, but is not yet intellective concept: _the +representation or image_. What is the difference between their +representation or image, and our intuitive knowledge? The greatest, and +none at all. "Representation," too, is a very equivocal word. If by +representation be understood something detached and standing out from +the psychic base of the sensations, then representation is intuition. +If, on the other hand, it be conceived as a complex sensation, a return +is made to simple sensation, which does not change its quality according +to its richness or poverty, operating alike in a rudimentary or in a +developed organism full of traces of past sensations. Nor is the +equivoque remedied by defining representation as a psychic product of +secondary order in relation to sensation, which should occupy the first +place. What does secondary order mean here? Does it mean a qualitative, +a formal difference? If so, we agree: representation is elaboration of +sensation, it is intuition. Or does it mean greater complexity and +complication, a quantitative, material difference? In that case +intuition would be again confused with simple sensation. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and expression._ + +And yet there is a sure method of distinguishing true intuition, true +representation, from that which is inferior to it: the spiritual fact +from the mechanical, passive, natural fact. Every true intuition or +representation is, also, _expression_. That which does not objectify +itself in expression is not intuition or representation, but sensation +and naturality. The spirit does not obtain intuitions, otherwise than by +making, forming, expressing. He who separates intuition from expression +never succeeds in reuniting them. + +_Intuitive activity possesses intuitions to the extent that it expresses +them_.--Should this expression seem at first paradoxical, that is +chiefly because, as a general rule, a too restricted meaning is given to +the word "expression." It is generally thought of as restricted to +verbal expression. But there exist also non-verbal expressions, such as +those of line, colour, and sound; to all of these must be extended our +affirmation. The intuition and expression together of a painter are +pictorial; those of a poet are verbal. But be it pictorial, or verbal, +or musical, or whatever else it be called, to no intuition can +expression be wanting, because it is an inseparable part of intuition. +How can we possess a true intuition of a geometrical figure, unless we +possess so accurate an image of it as to be able to trace it immediately +upon paper or on a slate? How can we have an intuition of the contour of +a region, for example, of the island of Sicily, if we are not able to +draw it as it is in all its meanderings? Every one can experience the +internal illumination which follows upon his success in formulating to +himself his impressions and sentiments, but only so far as he is able to +formulate them. Sentiments or impressions, then, pass by means of words +from the obscure region of the soul into the clarity of the +contemplative spirit. In this cognitive process it is impossible to +distinguish intuition from expression. The one is produced with the +other at the same instant, because they are not two, but one. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions as to their difference._ + +The principal reason which makes our theme appear paradoxical as we +maintain it, is the illusion or prejudice that we possess a more +complete intuition of reality than we really do. One often hears people +say that they have in their minds many important thoughts, but that they +are not able to express them. In truth, if they really had them, they +would have coined them into beautiful, ringing words, and thus expressed +them. If these thoughts seem to vanish or to become scarce and poor in +the act of expressing them, either they did not exist or they really +were scarce and poor. People think that all of us ordinary men imagine +and have intuitions of countries, figures and scenes, like painters; of +bodies, like sculptors; save that painters and sculptors know how to +paint and to sculpture those images, while we possess them only within +our souls. They believe that anyone could have imagined a Madonna of +Raphael; but that Raphael was Raphael owing to his technical ability in +putting the Madonna upon the canvas. Nothing can be more false than this +view. The world of which as a rule we have intuitions, is a small thing. +It consists of little expressions which gradually become greater and +more ample with the increasing spiritual concentration of certain +moments. These are the sort of words which we speak within ourselves, +the judgments that we tacitly express: "Here is a man, here is a horse, +this is heavy, this is hard, this pleases me," etc. It is a medley of +light and colour, which could not pictorially attain to any more sincere +expression than a haphazard splash of colours, from among which would +with difficulty stand out a few special, distinctive traits. This and +nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary life; this is the basis +of our ordinary action. It is the index of a book. The labels tied to +things take the place of the things themselves. This index and labels +(which are themselves expressions) suffice for our small needs and small +actions. From time to time we pass from the index to the book, from the +label to the thing, or from the slight to the greater intuitions, and +from these to the greatest and most lofty. This passage is sometimes far +from being easy. It has been observed by those who have best studied the +psychology of artists, that when, after having given a rapid glance at +anyone, they attempt to obtain a true intuition of him, in order, for +example, to paint his portrait, then this ordinary vision, that seemed +so precise, so lively, reveals itself as little better than nothing. +What remains is found to be at the most some superficial trait, which +would not even suffice for a caricature. The person to be painted stands +before the artist like a world to discover. Michael Angelo said, "one +paints, not with one's hands, but with one's brain." Leonardo shocked +the prior of the convent delle Grazie by standing for days together +opposite the "Last Supper" without touching it with the brush. He +remarked of this attitude "that men of the most lofty genius, when they +are doing the least work, are then the most active, seeking invention +with their minds." The painter is a painter, because he sees what others +only feel or catch a glimpse of, but do not see. We think we see a +smile, but in reality we have only a vague impression of it, we do not +perceive all the characteristic traits from which it results, as the +painter perceives them after his internal meditations, which thus enable +him to fix them on the canvas. Even in the case of our intimate friend, +who is with us every day and at all hours, we do not possess intuitively +more than, at the most, certain traits of his physiognomy, which enable +us to distinguish him from others. The illusion is less easy as regards +musical expression; because it would seem strange to everyone to say +that the composer had added or attached notes to the motive, which is +already in the mind of him who is not the composer. As if Beethoven's +Ninth Symphony were not his own intuition and his own intuition the +Ninth Symphony. Thus, just as he who is deceived as to his material +wealth is confuted by arithmetic, which states its exact amount, so is +he confuted who nourishes delusions as to the wealth of his own thoughts +and images. He is brought back to reality, when he is obliged to cross +the Bridge of Asses of expression. We say to the former, count; to the +latter, speak, here is a pencil, draw, express yourself. + +We have each of us, as a matter of fact, a little of the poet, of the +sculptor, of the musician, of the painter, of the prose writer: but how +little, as compared with those who are so called, precisely because of +the lofty degree in which they possess the most universal dispositions +and energies of human nature! How little does a painter possess of the +intuitions of a poet! How little does one painter possess those of +another painter! Nevertheless, that little is all our actual patrimony +of intuitions or representations. Beyond these are only impressions, +sensations, feelings, impulses, emotions, or whatever else one may term +what is outside the spirit, not assimilated by man, postulated for the +convenience of exposition, but effectively inexistent, if existence be +also a spiritual fact. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of intuition and expression._ + +We may then add this to the verbal variants descriptive of intuition, +noted at the beginning: intuitive knowledge is expressive knowledge, +independent and autonomous in respect to intellectual function; +indifferent to discriminations, posterior and empirical, to reality and +to unreality, to formations and perceptions of space and time, even when +posterior: intuition or representation is distinguished as form from +what is felt and suffered, from the flux or wave of sensation, or from +psychic material; and this form this taking possession of, is +expression. To have an intuition is to express. It is nothing else! +(nothing more, but nothing less) than _to express_. + + + + +II + +INTUITION AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Corollaries and explanations._ + +Before proceeding further, it seems opportune to draw certain +consequences from what has been established and to add some explanation. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of art and intuitive knowledge._ + +We have frankly identified intuitive or expressive knowledge with the +aesthetic or artistic fact, taking works of art as examples of intuitive +knowledge and attributing to them the characteristics of intuition, and +_vice versa_. But our identification is combated by the view, held even +by many philosophers, who consider art to be an intuition of an +altogether special sort. "Let us admit" (they say) "that art is +intuition; but intuition is not always art: artistic intuition is of a +distinct species differing from intuition in general by something +_more_." + + [Sidenote] _No specific difference._ + +But no one has ever been able to indicate of what this something more +consists. It has sometimes been thought that art is not a simple +intuition, but an intuition of an intuition, in the same way as the +concept of science has been defined, not as the ordinary concept, but as +the concept of a concept. Thus man should attain to art, by +objectifying, not his sensations, as happens with ordinary intuition, +but intuition itself. But this process of raising to a second power does +not exist; and the comparison of it with the ordinary and scientific +concept does not imply what is wished, for the good reason that it is +not true that the scientific concept is the concept of a concept. If +this comparison imply anything, it implies just the opposite. The +ordinary concept, if it be really a concept and not a simple +representation, is a perfect concept, however poor and limited. Science +substitutes concepts for representations; it adds and substitutes other +concepts larger and more comprehensive for those that are poor and +limited. It is ever discovering new relations. But its method does not +differ from that by which is formed the smallest universal in the brain +of the humblest of men. What is generally called art, by antonomasia, +collects intuitions that are wider and more complex than those which we +generally experience, but these intuitions are always of sensations and +impressions. + +Art is the expression of impressions, not the expression of expressions. + + [Sidenote] _No difference of intensity._ + +For the same reason, it cannot be admitted that intuition, which is +generally called artistic, differs from ordinary intuition as to +intensity. This would be the case if it were to operate differently on +the same matter. But since artistic function is more widely distributed +in different fields, but yet does not differ in method from ordinary +intuition, the difference between the one and the other is not intensive +but extensive. The intuition of the simplest popular love-song, which +says the same thing, or very nearly, as a declaration of love such as +issues at every moment from the lips of thousands of ordinary men, may +be intensively perfect in its poor simplicity, although it be +extensively so much more limited than the complex intuition of a +love-song by Leopardi. + + [Sidenote] _The difference is extensive and empirical._ + +The whole difference, then, is quantitative, and as such, indifferent to +philosophy, _scientia qualitatum_. Certain men have a greater aptitude, +a more frequent inclination fully to express certain complex states of +the soul. These men are known in ordinary language as artists. Some very +complicated and difficult expressions are more rarely achieved and these +are called works of art. The limits of the expressions and intuitions +that are called art, as opposed to those that are vulgarly called +not-art, are empirical and impossible to define. If an epigram be art, +why not a single word? If a story; why not the occasional note of the +journalist? If a landscape, why not a topographical sketch? The teacher +of philosophy in Moliere's comedy was right: "whenever we speak we +create prose." But there will always be scholars like Monsieur Jourdain, +astonished at having created prose for forty years without knowing it, +and who will have difficulty in persuading themselves that when they +call their servant John to bring their slippers, they have spoken +nothing less than--prose. + +We must hold firmly to our identification, because among the principal +reasons which have prevented Aesthetic, the science of art, from +revealing the true nature of art, its real roots in human nature, has +been its separation from the general spiritual life, the having made of +it a sort of special function or aristocratic circle. No one is +astonished when he learns from physiology that every cellule is an +organism and every organism a cellule or synthesis of cellules. No one +is astonished at finding in a lofty mountain the same chemical elements +that compose a small stone or fragment. There is not one physiology of +small animals and one of large animals; nor is there a special chemical +theory of stones as distinct from mountains. In the same way, there is +not a science of lesser intuition distinct from a science of greater +intuition, nor one of ordinary intuition distinct from artistic +intuition. There is but one Aesthetic, the science of intuitive or +expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic fact. And this +Aesthetic is the true analogy of Logic. Logic includes, as facts of the +same nature, the formation of the smallest and most ordinary concept and +the most complicated scientific and philosophical system. + + [Sidenote] _Artistic genius._ + +Nor can we admit that the word _genius_ or artistic genius, as distinct +from the non-genius of the ordinary man, possesses more than a +quantitative signification. Great artists are said to reveal us to +ourselves. But how could this be possible, unless there be identity of +nature between their imagination and ours, and unless the difference be +only one of quantity? It were well to change _poeta nascitur_ into _homo +nascitur poeta_: some men are born great poets, some small. The cult and +superstition of the genius has arisen from this quantitative difference +having been taken as a difference of quality. It has been forgotten that +genius is not something that has fallen from heaven, but humanity +itself. The man of genius, who poses or is represented as distant from +humanity, finds his punishment in becoming or appearing somewhat +ridiculous. Examples of this are the _genius_ of the romantic period and +the _superman_ of our time. + +But it is well to note here, that those who claim unconsciousness as the +chief quality of an artistic genius, hurl him from an eminence far above +humanity to a position far below it. Intuitive or artistic genius, like +every form of human activity, is always conscious; otherwise it would be +blind mechanism. The only thing that may be wanting to the artistic +genius is the _reflective_ consciousness, the superadded consciousness +of the historian or critic, which is not essential to artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form in Aesthetic._ + +The relation between matter and form, or between _content and form_, as +it is generally called, is one of the most disputed questions in +Aesthetic. Does the aesthetic fact consist of content alone, or of form +alone, or of both together? This question has taken on various meanings, +which we shall mention, each in its place. But when these words are +taken as signifying what we have above defined, and matter is understood +as emotivity not aesthetically elaborated, that is to say, impressions, +and form elaboration, intellectual activity and expression, then our +meaning cannot be doubtful. We must, therefore, reject the thesis that +makes the aesthetic fact to consist of the content alone (that is, of +the simple impressions), in like manner with that other thesis, which +makes it to consist of a junction between form and content, that is, of +impressions plus expressions. In the aesthetic fact, the aesthetic +activity is not added to the fact of the impressions, but these latter +are formed and elaborated by it. The impressions reappear as it were in +expression, like water put into a filter, which reappears the same and +yet different on the other side. The aesthetic fact, therefore, is form, +and nothing but form. + +From this it results, not that the content is something superfluous (it +is, on the contrary, the necessary point of departure for the expressive +fact); but that _there is no passage_ between the quality of the content +and that of the form. It has sometimes been thought that the content, in +order to be aesthetic, that is to say, transformable into form, should +possess some determinate or determinable quality. But were that so, then +form and content, expression and impression, would be the same thing. It +is true that the content is that which is convertible into form, but it +has no determinable qualities until this transformation takes place. We +know nothing of its nature. It does not become aesthetic content at +once, but only when it has been effectively transformed. Aesthetic +content has also been defined as what is _interesting_. That is not an +untrue statement; it is merely void of meaning. What, then, is +interesting? Expressive activity? Certainly the expressive activity +would not have raised the content to the dignity of form, had it not +been interested. The fact of its having been interested is precisely the +fact of its raising the content to the dignity of form. But the word +"interesting" has also been employed in another not illegitimate sense, +which we shall explain further on. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the imitation of nature and of the artistic + illusion._ + +The proposition that art is _imitation of nature_ has also several +meanings. Now truth has been maintained or at least shadowed with these +words, now error. More frequently, nothing definite has been thought. +One of the legitimate scientific meanings occurs when imitation is +understood as representation or intuition of nature, a form of +knowledge. And when this meaning has been understood, by placing in +greater relief the spiritual character of the process, the other +proposition becomes also legitimate: namely, that art is the +_idealization_ or _idealizing_ imitation of nature. But if by imitation +of nature be understood that art gives mechanical reproductions, more or +less perfect duplicates of natural objects, before which the same tumult +of impressions caused by natural objects begins over again, then the +proposition is evidently false. The painted wax figures that seem to be +alive, and before which we stand astonished in the museums where such +things are shown, do not give aesthetic intuitions. Illusion and +hallucination have nothing to do with the calm domain of artistic +intuition. If an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if +an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we +again have spiritual labour and artistic intuition. Finally, if +photography have anything in it of artistic, it will be to the extent +that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, +the pose and the grouping which he has striven to attain. And if it be +not altogether art, that is precisely because the element of nature in +it remains more or less insubordinate and ineradicable. Do we ever, +indeed, feel complete satisfaction before even the best of photographs? +Would not an artist vary and touch up much or little, remove or add +something to any of them? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of art conceived as a sentimental not a + theoretical fact. Aesthetic appearance and feeling._ + +The statements repeated so often, with others similar, that art is not +knowledge, that it does not tell the truth, that it does not belong to +the world of theory, but to the world of feeling, arise from the failure +to realize exactly the theoretic character of the simple intuition. This +simple intuition is quite distinct from intellectual knowledge, as it is +distinct from the perception of the real. The belief that only the +intellective is knowledge, or at the most also the perception of the +real, also arises from the failure to grasp the theoretic character of +the simple intuition. We have seen that intuition is knowledge, free of +concepts and more simple than the so-called perception of the real. +Since art is knowledge and form, it does not belong to the world of +feeling and of psychic material. The reason why so many aestheticians +have so often insisted that art is _appearance_ (_Schein_), is precisely +because they have felt the necessity of distinguishing it from the more +complex fact of perception by maintaining its pure intuitivity. For the +same reason it has been claimed that art is _sentiment_. In fact, if the +concept as content of art, and historical reality as such, be excluded, +there remains no other content than reality apprehended in all its +ingenuousness and immediateness in the vital effort, in _sentiment_, +that is to say, pure intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of theory of aesthetic senses._ + +The theory of the _aesthetic senses_ has also arisen from the failure to +establish, or from having lost to view the character of the expression +as distinct from the impression, of the form as distinct from the +matter. + +As has just been pointed out, this reduces itself to the error of +wishing to seek a passage from the quality of the content to that of the +form. To ask, in fact, what the aesthetic senses may be, implies asking +what sensible impressions may be able to enter into aesthetic +expressions, and what must of necessity do so. To this we must at once +reply, that all impressions can enter into aesthetic expressions or +formations, but that none are bound to do so. Dante raised to the +dignity of form not only the "sweet colour of the oriental sapphire" +(visual impression), but also tactile or thermic impressions, such as +the "thick air" and the "fresh rivulets" which "parch all the more" the +throat of the thirsty. The belief that a picture yields only visual +impressions is a curious illusion. The bloom of a cheek, the warmth of a +youthful body, the sweetness and freshness of a fruit, the cutting of a +sharpened blade, are not these, also, impressions that we have from a +picture? Maybe they are visual? What would a picture be for a +hypothetical man, deprived of all or many of his senses, who should in +an instant acquire the sole organ of sight? The picture we are standing +opposite and believe we see only with our eyes, would appear to his eyes +as little more than the paint-smeared palette of a painter. + +Some who hold firmly to the aesthetic character of given groups of +impressions (for example, the visual, the auditive), and exclude others, +admit, however, that if visual and auditive impressions enter _directly_ +into the aesthetic fact, those of the other senses also enter into it, +but only as _associated_. But this distinction is altogether arbitrary. +Aesthetic expression is a synthesis, in which it is impossible to +distinguish direct and indirect. All impressions are by it placed on a +level, in so far as they are aestheticised. He who takes into himself +the image of a picture or of a poem does not experience, as it were, a +series of impressions as to this image, some of which have a prerogative +or precedence over others. And nothing is known of what happens prior to +having received it, for the distinctions made after reflexion have +nothing to do with art. + +The theory of the aesthetic senses has also been presented in another +way; that is to say, as the attempt to establish what physiological +organs are necessary for the aesthetic fact. The physiological organ or +apparatus is nothing but a complex of cellules, thus and thus +constituted, thus and thus disposed; that is to say, it is merely +physical and natural fact or concept. But expression does not recognize +physiological facts. Expression has its point of departure in the +impressions, and the physiological path by which these have found their +way to the mind is to it altogether indifferent. One way or another +amounts to the same thing: it suffices that they are impressions. + +It is true that the want of given organs, that is, of given complexes of +cells, produces an absence of given impressions (when these are not +obtained by another path by a kind of organic compensation). The man +born blind cannot express or have the intuition of light. But the +impressions are not conditioned solely by the organ, but also by the +stimuli which operate upon the organ. Thus, he who has never had the +impression of the sea will never be able to express it, in the same way +as he who has never had the impression of the great world or of the +political conflict will never express the one or the other. This, +however, does not establish a dependence of the expressive function on +the stimulus or on the organ. It is the repetition of what we know +already: expression presupposes impression. Therefore, given expressions +imply given impressions. Besides, every impression excludes other +impressions during the moment in which it dominates; and so does every +expression. + + [Sidenote] _Unity and indivisibility of the work of art._ + +Another corollary of the conception of expression as activity is the +_indivisibility_ of the work of art. Every expression is a unique +expression. Activity is a fusion of the impressions in an organic whole. +A desire to express this has always prompted the affirmation that the +world of art should have _unity_, or, what amounts to the same thing, +_unity in variety_. Expression is a synthesis of the various, the +multiple, in the one. + +The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, as a poem into scenes, +episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and +objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem to be an objection to +this affirmation. But such division annihilates the work, as dividing +the organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and so on, turns the +living being into a corpse. It is true that there exist organisms in +which the division gives place to more living things, but in such a +case, and if we transfer the analogy to the aesthetic fact, we must +conclude for a multiplicity of germs of life, that is to say, for a +speedy re-elaboration of the single parts into new single expressions. + +It will be observed that expression is sometimes based on other +expressions. There are simple and there are _compound_ expressions. One +must admit some difference between the _eureka_, with which Archimedes +expressed all his joy after his discovery, and the expressive act +(indeed all the five acts) of a regular tragedy. Not in the least: +expression is always directly based on impressions. He who conceives a +tragedy puts into a crucible a great quantity, so to say, of +impressions: the expressions themselves, conceived on other occasions, +are fused together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we +can cast into a smelting furnace formless pieces of bronze and most +precious statuettes. Those most precious statuettes must be melted in +the same way as the formless bits of bronze, before there can be a new +statue. The old expressions must descend again to the level of +impressions, in order to be synthetized in a new single expression. + + [Sidenote] _Art as the deliverer._ + +By elaborating his impressions, man _frees_ himself from them. By +objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their +superior. The liberating and purifying function of art is another aspect +and another formula of its character of activity. Activity is the +deliverer, just because it drives away passivity. + +This also explains why it is customary to attribute to artists alike the +maximum of sensibility or _passion_, and the maximum insensibility or +Olympic _serenity_. Both qualifications agree, for they do not refer to +the same object. The sensibility or passion relates to the rich material +which the artist absorbs into his psychic organism; the insensibility or +serenity to the form with which he subjugates and dominates the tumult +of the feelings and of the passions. + + + + +III + +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + + + [Sidenote] _Indissolubility of intellective from intuitive knowledge._ + +The two forms of knowledge, aesthetic and intellectual or conceptual, +are indeed diverse, but this does not amount altogether to separation +and disjunction, as we find with two forces going each its own way. If +we have shown that the aesthetic form is altogether independent of the +intellectual and suffices to itself without external support, we have +not said that the intellectual can stand without the aesthetic. This +_reciprocity_ would not be true. + +What is knowledge by concepts? It is knowledge of relations of things, +and those things are intuitions. Concepts are not possible without +intuitions, just as intuition is itself impossible without the material +of impressions. Intuitions are: this river, this lake, this brook, this +rain, this glass of water; the concept is: water, not this or that +appearance and particular example of water, but water in general, in +whatever time or place it be realized; the material of infinite +intuitions, but of one single and constant concept. + +However, the concept, the universal, if it be no longer intuition in one +respect, is in another respect intuition, and cannot fail of being +intuition. For the man who thinks has impressions and emotions, in so +far as he thinks. His impression and emotion will not be love or hate, +but _the effort of his thought itself_, with the pain and the joy, the +love and the hate joined to it. This effort cannot but become intuitive +in form, in becoming objective to the mind. To speak, is not to think +logically; but to _think logically_ is, at the same time, to _speak_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the negations of this thesis._ + +That thought cannot exist without speech, is a truth generally admitted. +The negations of this thesis are all founded on equivoques and errors. + +The first of the equivoques is implied by those who observe that one can +likewise think with geometrical figures, algebraical numbers, +ideographic signs, without a single word, even pronounced silently and +almost insensibly within one. They also affirm that there are languages +in which the word, the phonetic sign, expresses nothing, unless the +written sign also be looked at. But when we said "speech," we intended +to employ a synecdoche, and that "expression" generically, should be +understood, for expression is not only so-called verbal expression, as +we have already noted. It may be admitted that certain concepts may be +thought without phonetic manifestations. But the very examples adduced +to show this also prove that those concepts never exist without +expressions. + +Others maintain that animals, or certain animals, think or reason +without speaking. Now as to how, whether, and what animals think, +whether they be rudimentary, half-savage men resisting civilization, +rather than physiological machines, as the old spiritualists would have +it, are questions that do not concern us here. When the philosopher +talks of animal, brutal, impulsive, instinctive nature and the like, he +does not base himself on conjectures as to these facts concerning dogs +or cats, lions or ants; but upon observations of what is called animal +and brutal in man: of the boundary or animal basis of what we feel in +ourselves. If individual animals, dogs or cats, lions or ants, possess +something of the activity of man, so much the better, or so much the +worse for them. This means that as regards them also we must talk, not +of their nature as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps +larger and more strong than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose +that animals think, and form concepts, what is there in the line of +conjecture to justify the admission that they do so without +corresponding expressions? The analogy with man, the knowledge of the +spirit, human psychology, which is the instrument of all our conjectures +as to animal psychology, would oblige us to suppose that if they think +in any way, they also have some sort of speech. + +It is from human psychology, that is, literary psychology, that comes +the other objection, to the effect that the concept can exist without +the word, because it is true that we all know books that are _well +thought and badly written_: that is to say, a thought which remains +thought _beyond_ the expression, _notwithstanding_ the imperfect +expression. But when we talk of books well thought and badly written, we +cannot mean other than that in those books are parts, pages, periods or +propositions well thought out and well written, and other parts (perhaps +the least important) ill thought out and badly written, not truly +thought out and therefore not truly expressed. Where Vico's _Scienza +nuova_ is really ill written, it is also ill thought out. If we pass +from the consideration of big books to a short proposition, the error or +the imprecision of this statement will be recognized at once. How could +a proposition be clearly thought and confusedly written out? + +All that can be admitted is that sometimes we possess thoughts +(concepts) in an intuitive form, or in an abbreviated or, better, +peculiar expression, sufficient for us, but not sufficient to +communicate it with ease to another or other definite individuals. Hence +people say inaccurately, that we have the thought without the +expression; whereas it should properly be said that we have, indeed, the +expression, but in a form that is not easy of social communication. +This, however, is a very variable and altogether relative fact. There +are always people who catch our thought on the wing, and prefer it in +this abbreviated form, and would be displeased with the greater +development of it, necessary for other people. In other words, the +thought considered abstractly and logically will be the same; but +aesthetically we are dealing with two different intuition-expressions, +into both of which enter different psychological elements. The same +argument suffices to destroy, that is, to interpret correctly, the +altogether empirical distinction between an _internal_ and an _external_ +language. + + [Sidenote] _Art and science._ + +The most lofty manifestations, the summits of intellectual and of +intuitive knowledge shining from afar, are called, as we know, Art and +Science. Art and Science, then, are different and yet linked together; +they meet on one side, which is the aesthetic side. Every scientific +work is also a work of art. The aesthetic side may remain little +noticed, when our mind is altogether taken up with the effort to +understand the thought of the man of science, and to examine its truth. +But it is no longer concealed, when we pass from the activity of +understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either +developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous +words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or +confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes +termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or +less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically +to be compared with harmonious, coherent, and perfect works. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry._ + +We pardon thinkers and men of science their literary mediocrity. The +fragments console us for the failure of the whole, for it is far more +easy to recover the well-arranged composition from the fragmentary work +of genius than to achieve the discovery of genius. But how can we pardon +mediocre expression in pure artists? _Mediocribus esse poetis non di, +non homines, non concessere columnae_. The poet or painter who lacks +form, lacks everything, because he lacks _himself_. Poetical material +permeates the Soul of all: the expression alone, that is to say, the +form, makes the poet. And here appears the truth of the thesis which +denies to art all content, as content being understood just the +intellectual concept. In this sense, when we take "content" as equal to +"concept" it is most true, not only that art does not consist of +content, but also that _it has no content_. + +In the same way the distinction between _poetry and prose_ cannot be +justified, save in that of art and science. It was seen in antiquity +that such distinction could not be founded on external elements, such as +rhythm and metre, or on the freedom or the limitation of the form; that +it was, on the contrary, altogether internal. Poetry is the language of +sentiment; prose of the intellect; but since the intellect is also +sentiment, in its concretion and reality, so all prose has a poetical +side. + + [Sidenote] _The relation of first and second degree._ + +The relation between intuitive knowledge or expression, and intellectual +knowledge or concept, between art and science, poetry and prose, cannot +be otherwise defined than by saying that it is one of _double degree_. +The first degree is the expression, the second the concept: the first +can exist without the second, but the second cannot exist without the +first. There exists poetry without prose, but not prose without poetry. +Expression, indeed, is the first affirmation of human activity. Poetry +is "the maternal language of the human race"; the first men "were by +nature sublime poets." We also admit this in another way, when we +observe that the passage from soul to mind, from animal to human +activity, is effected by means of language. And this should be said of +intuition or expression in general. But to us it appears somewhat +inaccurate to define language or expression as an _intermediate_ link +between nature and humanity, as though it were a mixture of the one and +of the other. Where humanity appears, the rest has already disappeared; +the man who expresses himself, certainly emerges from the state of +nature, but he really does emerge: he does not stand half within and +half without, as the use of the phrase "intermediate link" would imply. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of other forms of knowledge._ + +The cognitive intellect has no form other than these two. Expression and +concept exhaust it completely. The whole speculative life of man is +spent in passing from one to the other and back again. + + [Sidenote] _History. Its identity with and difference from art._ + +_Historicity_ is incorrectly held to be a third theoretical form. +History is not form, but content: as form, it is nothing but intuition +or aesthetic fact. History does not seek for laws nor form concepts; it +employs neither induction nor deduction; it is directed _ad narrandum, +non ad demonstrandum_; it does not construct universals and +abstractions, but posits intuitions. The this, the that, the _individuum +omni modo determinatum_, is its kingdom, as it is the kingdom of art. +History, therefore, is included under the universal concept of art. + +Faced with this proposition and with the impossibility of conceiving a +third mode of knowledge, objections have been brought forward which +would lead to the affiliation of history to intellective or scientific +knowledge. The greater portion of these objections is dominated by the +prejudice that in refusing to history the character of conceptual +science, something of its value and dignity has been taken from it. This +really arises from a false idea of art, conceived, not as an essential +theoretic function, but as an amusement, a superfluity, a frivolity. +Without reopening a long debate, which so far as we are concerned, is +finally closed, we will mention here one sophism which has been and +still is widely repeated. It is intended to show the logical and +scientific nature of history. The sophism consists in admitting that +historical knowledge has for its object the individual; but not the +representation, it is added, so much as the concept of the individual. +From this it is argued that history is also a logical or scientific form +of knowledge. History, in fact, should elaborate the concept of a +personage such as Charlemagne or Napoleon; of an epoch, like the +Renaissance or the Reformation; of an event, such as the French +Revolution and the Unification of Italy. This it is held to do in the +same way as Geometry elaborates the concepts of spatial form, or +Aesthetic those of expression. But all this is untrue. History cannot do +otherwise than represent Napoleon and Charlemagne, the Renaissance and +the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Unification of Italy as +individual facts with their individual physiognomy: that is, in the same +way as logicians state, that one cannot have a concept of an individual, +but only a representation. The so-called concept of the individual is +always a universal or general concept, full of details, very rich, if +you will, but however rich it be, yet incapable of attaining to that +individuality, to which historical knowledge, as aesthetic knowledge, +alone attains. + +Let us rather show how the content of history comes to be distinguished +from that of art. The distinction is secondary. Its origin will be found +in what has already been observed as to the ideal character of the +intuition or first perception, in which all is real and therefore +nothing is real. The mind forms the concepts of external and internal at +a later stage, as it does those of what has happened and of what is +desired, of object and subject, and the like. Thus it distinguishes +historical from non-historical intuition, the _real_ from the _unreal_, +real fancy from pure fancy. Even internal facts, what is desired and +imagined, castles in the air, and countries of Cockagne, have their +reality. The soul, too, has its history. His illusions form part of the +biography of every individual. But the history of an individual soul is +history, because in it is always active the distinction between the real +and the unreal, even when the real is the illusions themselves. But +these distinctive concepts do not appear in history as do scientific +concepts, but rather like those that we have seen dissolved and melted +in the aesthetic intuitions, although they stand out in history in an +altogether new relief. History does not construct the concepts of the +real and unreal, but makes use of them. History, in fact, is not the +theory of history. Mere conceptual analysis is of no use in realizing +whether an event in our lives were real or imaginary. It is necessary to +reproduce the intuitions in the mind in the most complete form, as they +were at the moment of production, in order to recognize the content. +Historicity is distinguished in the concrete from pure imagination only +as one intuition is distinguished from another: in the memory. + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism._ + [Sidenote] _Historical scepticism._ + +Where this is not possible, owing to the delicate and fleeting shades +between the real and unreal intuitions, which confuse the one with the +other, we must either renounce, for the time at least, the knowledge of +what really happened (and this we often do), or we must fall back upon +conjecture, verisimilitude, probability. The principle of verisimilitude +and of probability dominates in fact all historical criticism. +Examination of the sources and of authority is directed toward +establishing the most credible evidence. And what is the most credible +evidence, save that of the best observers, that is, of those who best +remember and (be it understood) have not desired to falsify, nor had +interest in falsifying the truth of things? From this it follows that +intellectual scepticism finds it easy to deny the certainty of any +history, for the certainty of history is never that of science. +Historical certainty is composed of memory and of authority, not of +analyses and of demonstration. To speak of historical induction or +demonstration, is to make a metaphorical use of these expressions, which +bear quite a different meaning in history to that which they bear in +science. The conviction of the historian is the undemonstrable +conviction of the juryman, who has heard the witnesses, listened +attentively to the case, and prayed Heaven to inspire him. Sometimes, +without doubt, he is mistaken, but the mistakes are in a negligible +minority compared with the occasions when he gets hold of the truth. +That is why good sense is right against the intellectualists, in +believing in history, which is not a "fable agreed upon," but that which +the individual and humanity remember of their past. We strive to enlarge +and to render as precise as possible this record, which in some places +is dim, in others very clear. We cannot do without it, such as it is, +and taken as a whole, it is rich in truth. In a spirit of paradox only, +can one doubt if there ever were a Greece or a Rome, an Alexander or a +Caesar, a feudal Europe overthrown by a series of revolutions, that on +the 1st of November 1517 the theses of Luther were seen fixed to the +door of the church of Wittenberg, or that the Bastile was taken by the +people of Paris on the 14th of July 1789. + +"What proof givest thou of all this?" asks the sophist, ironically. +Humanity replies "I remember." + + [Sidenote] _Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural + sciences, and their limits._ + +The world of what has happened, of the concrete, of history, is the +world that is called real, natural, including in this definition the +reality that is called physical, as well as that which is called +spiritual and human. All this world is intuition; historical intuition, +if it be realistically shown as it is, or imaginary intuition, artistic +in the strict sense, if shown under the aspect of the possible, that is +to say, of the imaginable. + +Science, true science, which is not intuition but concept, not +individuality but universality, cannot be anything but a science of the +spirit, that is, of what is universal in reality: Philosophy. If natural +_sciences_ be spoken of, apart from philosophy, it is necessary to +observe that these are not perfect sciences: they are complexes of +knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed. The so-called natural +sciences themselves recognize, in fact, that they are surrounded by +limitations. These limitations are nothing more than historical and +intuitive data. They calculate, measure, establish equalities, +regularity, create classes and types, formulate laws, show in their own +way how one fact arises out of other facts; but in their progress they +are always met with facts which are known intuitively and historically. +Even geometry now states that it rests altogether on hypotheses, since +space is not three-dimensional or Euclidean, but this assumption is made +use of by preference, because it is more convenient. What there is of +truth in the natural sciences, is either philosophy or historical fact. +What they contain proper to themselves is abstract and arbitrary. When +the natural sciences wish to form themselves into perfect sciences, they +must issue from their circle and enter the philosophical circle. This +they do when they posit concepts which are anything but natural, such as +those of the atom without extension in space, of ether or vibrating +matter, of vital force, of space beyond the reach of intuition, and the +like. These are true and proper philosophical efforts, when they are not +mere words void of meaning. The concepts of natural science are, without +doubt, most useful; but one cannot obtain from them that _system_, which +belongs only to the spirit. + +These historical and intuitive assumptions, which cannot be separated +from the natural sciences, furthermore explain, not only how, in the +progress of knowledge, that which was once considered to be truth +descends gradually to the grade of mythological beliefs and imaginary +illusions, but also how, among natural scientists, there are some who +term all that serves as basis of argument in their teaching _mythical +facts, verbal expedients_, or _conventions_. The naturalists and +mathematicians who approach the study of the energies of the spirit +without preparation, are apt to carry thither these mental habits and to +speak, in philosophy, of such and such conventions "as arranged by man." +They make conventions of truth and morality, and their supreme +convention is the Spirit itself! However, if there are to be +conventions, something must exist about which there is no convention to +be made, but which is itself the agent of the convention. This is the +spiritual activity of man. The limitation of the natural sciences +postulates the illimitation of philosophy. + + [Sidenote] _The phenomenon and the noumenon._ + +These explications have firmly established that the pure or fundamental +forms of knowledge are two: the intuition and the concept--Art, and +Science or Philosophy. With these are to be included History, which is, +as it were, the product of intuition placed in contact with the concept, +that is, of art receiving in itself philosophic distinctions, while +remaining concrete and individual. All the other forms (natural sciences +and mathematics) are impure, being mingled with extraneous elements of +practical origin. The intuition gives the world, the phenomenon; the +concept gives the noumenon, the Spirit. + + + + +IV + +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + + +These relations between intuitive or aesthetic knowledge and the other +fundamental or derivative forms of knowledge having been definitely +established, we are now in a position to reveal the errors of a series +of theories which have been, or are, presented, as theories of +Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of verisimilitude and of naturalism._ + +From the confusion between the exigencies of art in general and the +particular exigencies of history has arisen the theory (which has lost +ground to-day, but used to dominate in the past) of _verisimilitude_ as +the object of art. As is generally the case with erroneous propositions, +the intention of those who employed and employ the concept of +verisimilitude has no doubt often been much more reasonable than the +definition given of the word. By verisimilitude used to be meant the +artistic _coherence_ of the representation, that is to say, its +completeness and effectiveness. If "verisimilar" be translated by +"coherent," a most exact meaning will often be found in the discussions, +examples, and judgments of the critics. An improbable personage, an +improbable ending to a comedy, are really badly-drawn personages, +badly-arranged endings, happenings without artistic motive. It has been +said with reason that even fairies and sprites must have verisimilitude, +that is to say, be really sprites and fairies, coherent artistic +intuitions. Sometimes the word "possible" has been used instead of +"verisimilar." As we have already remarked in passing, this word +possible is synonymous with that which is imaginable or may be known +intuitively. Everything which is really, that is to say, coherently, +imagined, is possible. But formerly, and especially by the +theoreticians, by verisimilar was understood historical credibility, or +that historical truth which is not demonstrable, but conjecturable, not +true, but verisimilar. It has been sought to impose a like character +upon art. Who does not recall the great part played in literary history +by the criticism of the verisimilar? For example, the fault found with +the _Jerusalem Delivered_, based upon the history of the Crusades, or of +the Homeric poems, upon that of the verisimilitude of the costume of the +emperors and kings? + +At other times has been imposed upon art the duty of the aesthetic +reproduction of historical reality. This is another of the erroneous +significations assumed by the theory concerning _the imitation of +nature_. Verism and naturalism have since afforded the spectacle of a +confusion of the aesthetic fact with the processes of the natural +sciences, by aiming at some sort of _experimental_ drama or romance. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of ideas in art, of theses in art, and of the + typical._ + +The confusions between the methods of art and those of the philosophical +sciences have been far more frequent. Thus it has often been held to be +within the competence of art to develop concepts, to unite the +intelligible with the sensible, to represent _ideas or universals_, +putting art in the place of science, that is, confusing the artistic +function in general with the particular case in which it becomes +aesthetico-logical. + +The theory of art as supporting _theses_ can be reduced to the same +error, as can be the theory of art considered as individual +representation, exemplifying scientific laws. The example, in so far as +it is an example, stands for the thing exemplified, and is thus an +exposition of the universal, that is to say, a form of science, more or +less popular or vulgarized. + +The same may be said of the aesthetic theory of the _typical_, when by +type is understood, as it frequently is, just the abstraction or the +concept, and it is affirmed that art should make _the species shine in +the individual_. If by typical be here understood the individual, here, +too, we have a merely verbal variation. To typify would signify, in this +case, to characterize; that is, to determine and to represent the +individual. Don Quixote is a type; but of whom is he a type, if not of +all Don Quixotes? A type, that is to say, of himself. Certainly he is +not a type of abstract concepts, such as the loss of the sense of +reality, or of the love of glory. An infinite number of personages can +be thought of under these concepts, who are not Don Quixote. In other +words, we find our own impressions fully determined and verified in the +expression of a poet (for example in a poetical personage). We call that +expression typical, which we might call simply aesthetic. Poetical or +artistic universals have been spoken of in like manner, in order to show +that the artistic product is altogether spiritual and ideal in itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the symbol and of the allegory._ + +Continuing to correct these errors, or to make clear equivoques, we will +note that the _symbol_ has sometimes been given as essence of art. Now, +if the symbol be given as inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is +the synonym of the intuition itself, which always has an ideal +character. There is no double-bottom to art, but one only; in art all is +symbolical, because all is ideal. But if the symbol be looked upon as +separable--if on the one side can be expressed the symbol, and on the +other the thing symbolized, we fall back again into the intellectualist +error: that pretended symbol is the exposition of an abstract concept, +it is an _allegory_, it is science, or art that apes science. But we +must be just toward the allegorical also. In some cases, it is +altogether harmless. Given the _Gerusalemme liberata_, the allegory was +imagined afterwards; given the _Adone_ of Marino, the poet of the +lascivious insinuated afterwards that it was written to show how +"immoderate indulgence ends in pain"; given a statue of a beautiful +woman, the sculptor can write on a card that the statue represents +_Clemency_ or _Goodness_. This allegory linked to a finished work _post +festum_ does not change the work of art. What is it, then? It is an +expression externally _added_ to another expression. A little page of +prose is added to the _Gerusalemme_, expressing another thought of the +poet; a verse or a strophe is added to the _Adone_, expressing what the +poet would like to make a part of his public swallow; while to the +statue nothing more than the single word is added: _Clemency_ or +_Goodness_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of artistic and literary classes._ + +But the greatest triumph of the intellectualist error lies in the theory +of artistic and literary classes, which still has vogue in literary +treatises, and disturbs the critics and the historians of art. Let us +observe its genesis. + +The human mind can pass from the aesthetic to the logical, just because +the former is a first step, in respect to the latter. It can destroy the +expressions, that is, the thought of the individual with the thought of +the universal. It can reduce expressive facts to logical relations. We +have already shown that this operation in its turn becomes concrete in +an expression, but this does not mean that the first expressions have +not been destroyed. They have yielded their place to the new +aesthetico-logical expressions. When we are on the second step, we have +left the first. + +He who enters a picture-gallery, or who reads a series of poems, may, +after he has looked and read, go further: he may seek out the relations +of the things there expressed. Thus those pictures and compositions, +each of which is an individual inexpressible by logic, are resolved into +universals and abstractions, such as _costumes, landscapes, portraits, +domestic life, battles, animals, flowers, fruit, seascapes, lakes, +deserts, tragic, comic, piteous, cruel, lyrical, epic, dramatic, +knightly, idyllic facts_, and the like. They are often also resolved +into merely quantitative categories, such as _little picture, picture, +statuette, group, madrigal, song, sonnet, garland of sonnets, poetry, +poem, story, romance_, and the like. + +When we think the concept _domestic life_, or _knighthood_, or _idyll_, +or _cruelty_, or any other quantitative concept, the individual +expressive fact from which we started is abandoned. From aesthetes that +we were, we have been changed into logicians; from contemplators of +expression, into reasoners. Certainly no objection can be made to such a +process. In what other way could science be born, which, if aesthetic +expressions be assumed in it, yet has for function to go beyond them? +The logical or scientific form, as such, excludes the aesthetic form. He +who begins to think scientifically has already ceased to contemplate +aesthetically; although his thought will assume of necessity in its turn +an aesthetic form, as has already been said, and as it would be +superfluous to repeat. + +The error begins when we try to deduce the expression from the concept, +and to find in the thing substituting the laws of the thing substituted; +when the difference between the second and the first step has not been +observed, and when, in consequence, we declare that we are standing on +the first step, when we are really standing on the second. This error is +known as _the theory of artistic and literary classes_. + +What is the aesthetic form of domestic life, of knighthood, of the +idyll, of cruelty, and so forth? How should these contents be +_represented_? Such is the absurd problem implied in the theory of +artistic and literary classes. It is in this that consists all search +after laws or rules of styles. Domestic life, knighthood, idyll, +cruelty, and the like, are not impressions, but concepts. They are not +contents, but logico-aesthetic forms. You cannot express the form, for +it is already itself expression. And what are the words cruelty, idyll, +knighthood, domestic life, and so on, but the expression of those +concepts? + +Even the most refined of these distinctions, those that have the most +philosophic appearance, do not resist criticism; as, for instance, when +works of art are divided into the subjective and the objective styles, +into lyric and epic, into works of feeling and works of design. It is +impossible to separate in aesthetic analysis, the subjective from the +objective side, the lyric from the epic, the image of feeling from that +of things. + + [Sidenote] _Errors derived from this theory appearing in judgments + on art._ + +From the theory of the artistic and literary classes derive those +erroneous modes of judgment and of criticism, thanks to which, instead +of asking before a work of art if it be expressive, and what it +expresses, whether it speak or stammer, or be silent altogether, it is +asked if it be obedient to the _laws_ of the epic poem, or to those of +tragedy, to those of historical portraiture, or to those of landscape +painting. Artists, however, while making a verbal pretence of agreeing, +or yielding a feigned obedience to them, have really always disregarded +these _laws of styles_. Every true work of art has violated some +established class and upset the ideas of the critics, who have thus been +obliged to enlarge the number of classes, until finally even this +enlargement has proved too narrow, owing to the appearance of new works +of art, which are naturally followed by new scandals, new upsettings, +and-new enlargements. + +From the same theory come the prejudices, owing to which at one time +(and is it really passed?) people used to lament that Italy had no +tragedy (until a poet arose who gave to Italy that wreath which was the +only thing wanting to her glorious hair), nor France the epic poem +(until the _Henriade_, which slaked the thirsty throats of the critics). +Eulogies accorded to the inventors of new styles are connected with +these prejudices, so much so, that in the seventeenth century the +invention of the _mock-heroic_ poem seemed an important event, and the +honour of it was disputed, as though it were the discovery of America. +But the works adorned with this name (the _Secchia rapita_ and the +_Scherno degli Dei_) were still-born, because their authors (a slight +draw-back) had nothing new or original to say. Mediocrities racked their +brains to invent, artificially, new styles. The _piscatorial_ eclogue +was added to the _pastoral_, and then, finally, the _military_ eclogue. +The _Aminta_ was bathed and became the _Alceo_. Finally, there have been +historians of art and literature, so much fascinated with these ideas of +classes, that they claimed to write the history, not of single and +effective literary and artistic works, but of their classes, those empty +phantoms. They have claimed to portray, not the evolution of the +_artistic spirit_, but the _evolution of classes_. + +The philosophical condemnation of artistic and literary classes is found +in the formulation and demonstration of what artistic activity has ever +sought and good taste ever recognized. What is to be done if good taste +and the real fact, put into formulas, sometimes assume the air of +paradoxes? + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the divisions of classes._ + +Now if we talk of tragedies, comedies, dramas, romances, pictures of +everyday life, battle-pieces, landscapes, seascapes, poems, versicles, +lyrics, and the like, if it be only with a view to be understood, and to +draw attention in general and approximatively to certain groups of +works, to which, for one reason or another, it is desired to draw +attention, in that case, no scientific error has been committed. We +employ _vocables and phrases_; we do not establish _laws and +definitions_. The mistake arises when the weight of a scientific +definition is given to a word, when we ingenuously let ourselves be +caught in the meshes of that phraseology. Pray permit me a comparison. +It is necessary to arrange the books in a library in one way or another. +This used generally to be done by means of a rough classification by +subjects (among which the categories of miscellaneous and eccentric were +not wanting); they are now generally arranged by sizes or by publishers. +Who can deny the necessity and the utility of these groupings? But what +should we say if some one began seriously to seek out the literary laws +of miscellanies and of eccentricities from the Aldine or Bodonian +collection, from size A or size B, that is to say, from these altogether +arbitrary groupings whose sole object has been their practical use? +Well, whoever should undertake an enterprise such as this, would be +doing neither more nor less than those who seek out the aesthetic laws +of literary and artistic classes. + + + + +V + +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORIC AND LOGIC + + +The better to confirm these criticisms, it will be opportune to cast a +rapid glance over analogous and opposite errors, born of ignorance as to +the true nature of art, and of its relation to history and to science. +These errors have injured alike the theory of history and of science, of +Historic (or Historiology) and of Logic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the philosophy of history._ + +Historical intellectualism has been the cause of the many researches +which have been made, especially during the last two centuries, +researches which continue to-day, for _a philosophy of history_, for an +_ideal history_, for a _sociology_, for a _historical psychology_, or +however may be otherwise entitled or described a science whose object is +to extract from history, universal laws and concepts. Of what kind must +be these laws, these universals? Historical laws and historical +concepts? In that case, an elementary criticism of knowledge suffices to +make clear the absurdity of the attempt. When such expressions as a +_historical law_, a _historical concept_ are not simply metaphors +colloquially employed, they are true contradictions in terms: the +adjective is as unsuitable to the substantive as in the expressions +_qualitative quantity_ or _pluralistic monism_. History means concretion +and individuality, law and concept mean abstraction and universality. +If, on the other hand, the attempt to draw from history historical laws +and concepts be abandoned, and it be merely desired to draw from it laws +and concepts, the attempt is certainly not frivolous; but the science +thus obtained will be, not a philosophy of history, but rather, +according to the case, either philosophy in its various specifications +of Ethic, Logic, etc., or empirical science in its infinite divisions +and subdivisions. Thus are sought out either those philosophical +concepts which are, as has already been observed, at the bottom of every +historical construction and separate perception from intuition, +historical intuition from pure intuition, history from art; or already +formed historical intuitions are collected and reduced to types and +classes, which is exactly the method of the natural sciences. Great +thinkers have sometimes donned the unsuitable cloak of the philosophy of +history, and notwithstanding the covering, they have conquered +philosophical truths of the greatest magnitude. The cloak has been +dropped, the truth has remained. Modern sociologists are rather to be +blamed, not so much for the illusion in which they are involved when +they talk of an impossible science of sociology, as for the infecundity +which almost always accompanies their illusion. It is but a small evil +that Aesthetic should be termed sociological Aesthetic, or Logic, social +Logic. The grave evil is that their Aesthetic is an old-fashioned +expression of sensualism, their Logic verbal and incoherent. The +philosophical movement, to which we have referred, has borne two good +fruits in relation to history. First of all has been felt the desire to +construct a theory of historiography, that is, to understand the nature +and the limits of history, a theory which, in conformity with the +analyses made above, cannot obtain satisfaction, save in a general +science of intuition, in an Aesthetic, from which Historic would be +separated under a special head by means of the intervention of the +universals. Furthermore, concrete truths relating to historical events +have often been expressed beneath the false and presumptuous cloak of a +philosophy of history; canons and empirical advice have been formulated +by no means superfluous to students and critics. It does not seem +possible to deny this utility to the most recent of philosophies of +history, to so-called historical materialism, which has thrown a very +vivid light upon many sides of social life, formerly neglected or ill +understood. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic invasions into Logic._ + +The principle of authority, of the _ipse dixit_, is an invasion of +historicity into the domains of science and philosophy which has raged +in the schools. This substitutes for introspection and philosophical +analyses, this or that evidence, document, or authoritative statement, +with which history certainly cannot dispense. But Logic, the science of +thought and of intellectual knowledge, has suffered the most grave and +destructive disturbances and errors of all, through the imperfect +understanding of the aesthetic fact. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, +if logical activity come after and contain in itself aesthetic activity? +An inexact Aesthetic must of necessity drag after it an inexact Logic. + +Whoever opens logical treatises, from the _Organum_ of Aristotle to the +moderns, must admit that they all contain a haphazard mixture of verbal +facts and facts of thought, of grammatical forms and of conceptual +forms, of Aesthetic and of Logic. Not that attempts have been wanting to +escape from verbal expression and to seize thought in its effective +nature. Aristotelian logic itself did not become mere syllogistic and +verbalism, without some stumbling and oscillation. The especially +logical problem was often touched upon in the Middle Ages, by the +nominalists, realists, and conceptualists, in their disputes. With +Galileo and with Bacon, the natural sciences gave an honourable place to +induction. Vico combated formalist and mathematical logic in favour of +inventive methods. Kant called attention to _a priori_ syntheses. The +absolute idealists despised the Aristotelian logic. The followers of +Herbart, bound to Aristotle, on the other hand, set in relief those +judgments which they called narrative, which are of a character +altogether different from other logical judgments. Finally, the +linguists insisted upon the irrationality of the word, in relation to +the concept. But a conscious, sure, and radical movement of reform can +find no base or starting-point, save in the science of Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Logic in its essence._ + +In a Logic suitably reformed on this basis, it will be fitting to +proclaim before all things this truth, and to draw from it all its +consequences: the logical fact, _the only logical fact_, is _the +concept_, the universal, the spirit that forms, and in so far as it +forms, the universal. And if be understood by induction, as has +sometimes been understood, the formation of universals, and by deduction +the verbal development of these, then it is clear that true Logic can be +nothing but inductive Logic. But since by the word "deduction" has been +more frequently understood the special processes of mathematics, and by +the word "induction" those of the natural sciences, it will be advisable +to avoid the one and the other denomination, and to say that true Logic +is the Logic of the concept. The Logic of the concept, adopting a method +which is at once induction and deduction, will adopt neither the one nor +the other exclusively, that is, will adopt the (speculative) method, +which is intrinsic to it. + +The concept, the universal, is in itself, abstractly considered, +_inexpressible_. No word is proper to it. So true is this, that the +logical concept remains always the same, notwithstanding the variation +of verbal forms. In respect to the concept, expression is a simple +_sign_ or _indication_. There must be an expression, it cannot fail; but +what it is to be, this or that, is determined by the historical and +psychological conditions of the individual who is speaking. The quality +of the expression is not deducible from the nature of the concept. There +does not exist a true (logical) sense of words. He who forms a concept +bestows on each occasion their true meaning on the words. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between logical and non-logical judgements._ + +This being established, the only truly logical (that is, +aesthetico-logical) propositions, the only rigorously logical judgments, +can be nothing but those whose proper and exclusive content is the +determination of a concept. These propositions or judgments are the +_definitions_. Science itself is nothing but a complex of definitions, +unified in a supreme definition; a system of concepts, or chief concept. + +It is therefore necessary to exclude from Logic all those propositions +which do not affirm universals. Narrative judgments, not less than those +termed non-enunciative by Aristotle, such as the expression of desires, +are not properly logical judgments. They are either purely aesthetic +propositions or historical propositions. "Peter is passing; it is +raining to-day; I am sleepy; I want to read": these and an infinity of +propositions of the same kind, are nothing but either a mere enclosing, +in words the impression of the fact that Peter is passing, of the +falling rain, of my organism inclining to sleep, and of my will directed +to reading, or they are existential affirmation concerning those facts. +They are expressions of the real or of the unreal, of historical or of +pure imagination; they are certainly not definitions of universals. + + [Sidenote] _Syllogistic._ + +This exclusion cannot meet with great difficulties. It is already almost +an accomplished fact, and the only thing required is to render it +explicit, decisive, and coherent. But what is to be done with all that +part of human experience which is called _syllogistic_, consisting of +judgments and reasonings which are based on concepts. What is +syllogistic? Is it to be looked down upon from above with contempt, as +something useless, as has so often been done in the reaction of the +humanists against scholasticism, in absolute idealism, in the +enthusiastic admiration of our times for the methods of observation and +experiment of the natural sciences? Syllogistic, reasoning _in forma_, +is not a discovery of truth; it is the art of exposing, debating, +disputing with oneself and others. Proceeding from concepts already +formed, from facts already observed and making appeal to the persistence +of the true or of thought (such is the meaning of the principle of +identity and contradiction), it infers consequences from these data, +that is, it represents what has already been discovered. Therefore, if +it be an _idem per idem_ from the point of view of invention, it is most +efficacious as a teaching and an exposition. To reduce affirmations to +the syllogistic scheme is a way of controlling one's own thought and of +criticizing that of others. It is easy to laugh at syllogisers, but, if +syllogistic has been born and retains its place, it must have good roots +of its own. Satire applied to it can concern only its abuses, such as +the attempt to prove syllogistically questions of fact, observation, and +intuition, or the neglect of profound meditation and unprejudiced +investigation of problems, for syllogistic formality. And if so-called +_mathematical Logic_ can sometimes aid us in our attempt to remember +with ease, to manipulate the results of our own thought, let us welcome +this form of the syllogism also, long prophesied by Leibnitz and essayed +by many, even in our days. + +But precisely because syllogistic is the art of exposing and of +debating, its theory cannot hold the first place in a philosophical +Logic, usurping that belonging to the doctrine of the concept, which is +the central and dominating doctrine, to which is reduced everything +logical in syllogistic, without leaving a residuum (relations of +concepts, subordination, co-ordination, identification, and so on). Nor +must it ever be forgotten that the concept, the (logical) judgment, and +the syllogism do not occupy the same position. The first alone is the +logical fact, the second and third are the forms in which the first +manifests itself. These, in so far as they are forms, cannot be examined +save aesthetically (grammatically); in so far as they possess logical +content, only by neglecting the forms themselves and passing to the +doctrine of the concept. + + [Sidenote] _False Logic and true Aesthetic._ + +This shows the truth of the ordinary remark to the effect that he who +reasons ill, also speaks and writes ill, that exact logical analysis is +the basis of good expression. This truth is a tautology, for to reason +well is in fact to express oneself well, because the expression is the +intuitive possession of one's own logical thought. The principle of +contradiction, itself, is at bottom nothing but the aesthetic principle +of coherence. It will be said that starting from erroneous concepts it +is possible to write and to speak exceedingly well, as it is also +possible to reason well; that some who are dull at research may yet be +most limpid writers. That is precisely because to write well depends +upon having a clear intuition of one's own thought, even if it be +erroneous; that is to say, not of its scientific, but of its aesthetic +truth, since it is this truth itself. A philosopher like Schopenhauer +can imagine that art is a representation of the Platonic ideas. This +doctrine is absolutely false scientifically, yet he may develop this +false knowledge in excellent prose, aesthetically most true. But we have +already replied to these objections, when we observed that at that +precise point where a speaker or a writer enunciates an ill-thought +concept, he is at the same time speaking ill and writing ill. He may, +however, afterwards recover himself in the many other parts of his +thought, which consist of true propositions, not connected with the +preceding errors, and lucid expressions may with him follow upon turbid +expressions. + + [Sidenote] _Logic reformed._ + +All enquiries as to the forms of judgments and of syllogisms, on their +conversion and on their various relations, which still encumber +treatises on Logic, are therefore destined to become less, to be +transformed, to be reduced to something else. + +The doctrine of the concept and of the organism of the concepts, of +definition, of system, of philosophy, and of the various sciences, and +the like, will fill the place of these and will constitute the only true +and proper Logic. + +Those who first had some suspicion of the intimate connexion between +Aesthetic and Logic and conceived Aesthetic as a _Logic of sensible +knowledge_, were strangely addicted to applying logical categories to +the new knowledge, talking of _aesthetic concepts, aesthetic judgments, +aesthetic syllogisms_, and so on. We are less superstitious as regards +the solidity of the traditional Logic of the schools, and better +informed as to the nature of Aesthetic. We do not recommend the +application of Logic to Aesthetic, but the liberation of Logic from +aesthetic forms. These have given rise to non-existent forms or +categories of Logic, due to the following of altogether arbitrary and +crude distinctions. + +Logic thus reformed will always be _formal_ Logic; it will study the +true form or activity of thought, the concept, excluding single and +particular concepts. The old Logic is ill called formal; it were better +to call it _verbal_ or _formalistic_. Formal Logic will drive out +formalistic Logic. To attain this object, it will not be necessary to +have recourse, as some have done, to a real or material Logic, which is +not a science of thought, but thought itself in the act; not only a +Logic, but the complex of Philosophy, in which Logic also is included. +The science of thought (Logic) is that of the concept, as that of fancy +(Aesthetic) is the science of expression. The well-being of both +sciences lies in exactly following in every particular the distinction +between the two domains. + + + + +VI + +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + + +The intuitive and intellective forms exhaust, as we have said, all the +theoretic form of the spirit. But it is not possible to know them +thoroughly, nor to criticize another series of erroneous aesthetic +theories, without first establishing clearly their relations with +another form of the spirit, which is the _practical_ form. + + [Sidenote] _The will._ + +This form or practical activity is the _will_. We do not employ this +word here in the sense of any philosophical system, in which the will is +the foundation of the universe, the principle of things and the true +reality. Nor do we employ it in the ample sense of other systems, which +understand by will the energy of the spirit, the spirit or activity in +general, making of every act of the human spirit an act of will. Neither +such metaphysical nor such metaphorical meaning is ours. For us, the +will is, as generally accepted, that activity of the spirit, which +differs from the mere theoretical contemplation of things, and is +productive, not of knowledge, but of actions. Action is really action, +in so far as it is voluntary. It is not necessary to remark that in the +will to do, is included, in the scientific sense, also what is vulgarly +called not-doing: the will to resist, to reject, the prometheutic will, +is also action. + + [Sidenote] _The will as an ulterior stage in respect to knowledge._ + +Man understands things with the theoretical form, with the practical +form he changes them; with the one he appropriates the universe, with +the other he creates it. But the first form is the basis of the second; +and the relation of _double degree_, which we have already found +existing between aesthetic and logical activity, is repeated between +these two on a larger scale. Knowledge independent of the will is +thinkable; will independent of knowledge is unthinkable. Blind will is +not will; true will has eyes. + +How can we will, without having before us historical intuitions +(perceptions) of objects, and knowledge of (logical) relations, which +enlighten us as to the nature of those objects? How can we really will, +if we do not know the world which surrounds us, and the manner of +changing things by acting upon them? + + [Sidenote] _Objections and elucidations._ + +It has been objected that men of action, practical men in the eminent +sense, are the least disposed to contemplate and to theorize: their +energy is not delayed in contemplation, it rushes at once into will. And +conversely, that contemplative men, philosophers, are often very +mediocre in practical matters, weak willed, and therefore neglected and +thrust aside in the tumult of life. It is easy to see that these +distinctions are merely empirical and quantitative. Certainly, the +practical man has no need of a philosophical system in order to act, but +in the spheres where he does act, he starts from intuitions and concepts +which are most clear to him. Otherwise he could not will the most +ordinary actions. It would not be possible to will to feed oneself, for +instance, without knowledge of the food, and of the link of cause and +effect between certain movements and certain organic sensations. Rising +gradually to the more complex forms of action, for example to the +political, how could we will anything politically good or bad, without +knowing the real conditions of society, and consequently the means and +expedients to be adopted? When the practical man feels himself in the +dark about one or more of these points, or when he is seized with doubt, +action either does not begin or stops. It is then that the theoretical +moment, which in the rapid succession of human actions is hardly noticed +and rapidly forgotten, becomes important and occupies consciousness for +a longer time. And if this moment be prolonged, then the practical man +may become Hamlet, divided between desire for action and his small +amount of theoretical clarity as regards the situation and the means to +be employed. And if he develop a taste for contemplation and discovery, +and leave willing and acting, to a more or less great extent, to others, +there is formed in him the calm disposition of the artist, of the man of +science, or of the philosopher, who are sometimes unpractical or +altogether blameworthy. These observations are all obvious. Their +exactitude cannot be denied. Let us, however, repeat that they are +founded on quantitative distinctions and do not disprove, but confirm +the fact that an action, however slight it be, cannot really be an +action, that is, an action that is willed, unless it be preceded by +cognoscitive activity. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of practical judgments or judgments of value._ + +Some psychologists, on the other hand, place before practical action an +altogether special class of judgments, which they call _practical_ +judgments or judgments _of value_. They say that in order to resolve to +perform an action, it is necessary to have judged: "this action is +useful, this action is good." And at first sight this seems to have the +testimony of consciousness on its side. But he who observes better and +analyses with greater subtlety, discovers that such judgments follow +instead of preceding the affirmation of the will; they are nothing but +the expression of the already exercised volition. A good or useful +action is an action that is willed. It will always be impossible to +distil from the objective study of things a single drop of usefulness or +goodness. We do not desire things because we know them to be good or +useful; but we know them to be good and useful, because we desire them. +Here too, the rapidity, with which the facts of consciousness follow one +another has given rise to an illusion. Practical action is preceded by +knowledge, but not by practical knowledge, or better by the practical: +to obtain this, it is first necessary to have practical action. The +third moment, therefore, of practical judgments, or judgments of value, +is altogether imaginary. It does not come between the two moments or +degrees of theory and practice. That is why there exist no normative +sciences in general, which regulate or command, discover and indicate +values to the practical activity; because there is none for any other +activity, assuming every science already realized and that activity +developed, which it afterwards takes as its object. + + [Sidenote] _Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic._ + +These distinctions established, we must condemn as erroneous every +theory which confuses aesthetic with practical activity, or introduces +the laws of the second into the first. That science is theory and art +practice has been many times affirmed. Those who make this statement, +and look upon the aesthetic fact as a practical fact, do not do so +capriciously or because they are groping in the void; but because they +have their eye on something which is really practical. But the practical +which they are looking at is not Aesthetic, nor within Aesthetic; it is +_outside and beside it_; and although they are often found united, they +are not necessarily united, that is to say, by the bond of identity of +nature. + +The aesthetic fact is altogether completed in the expressive elaboration +of the impressions. When we have conquered the word within us, conceived +definitely and vividly a figure or a statue, or found a musical motive, +expression is born and is complete; there is no need for anything else. +If after this we should open our mouths and _will_ to open them, to +speak, or our throats to sing, and declare in a loud voice and with +extended throat what we have completely said or sung to ourselves; or if +we should stretch out and _will_ to stretch out our hands to touch the +notes of the piano, or to take up the brushes and the chisel, making +thus in detail those movements which we have already done rapidly, and +doing so in such a way as to leave more or less durable traces; this is +all an addition, a fact which obeys quite different laws to the first, +and with these laws we have not to occupy ourselves for the moment. Let +us, however, here recognize that this second movement is a production of +things, a _practical_ fact, or a fact of _will_. It is customary to +distinguish the internal from the external work of art: the terminology +seems here to be infelicitous, for the work of art (the aesthetic work) +is always _internal_; and that which is called _external_ is no longer a +work of art. Others distinguish between _aesthetic_ fact and _artistic_ +fact, meaning by the second the external or practical stage, which may +and generally does follow the first. But in this case, it is simply a +case of linguistic usage, doubtless permissible, although perhaps not +opportune. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the end of art and of the + choice of the content._ + +For the same reasons the search for the _end of art_ is ridiculous, when +it is understood of art as art. And since to fix an end is to choose, +the theory that the content of art must be _selected_ is another form of +the same error. A selection from among impressions and sensations +implies that these are already expressions, otherwise, how can a +selection be made among what is continuous and indistinct? To choose is +to will: to will this and not to will that: and this and that must be +before us, they must be expressed. Practice follows, it does not precede +theory; expression is free inspiration. + +The true artist, in fact, finds himself big with his theme, he knows not +how; he feels the moment of birth drawing near, but he cannot will it or +not will it. If he were to wish to act in opposition to his inspiration, +to make an arbitrary choice, if, born Anacreon, he were to wish to sing +of Atreus and of Alcides, his lyre would warn him of his mistake, +echoing only of Venus and of Love, notwithstanding his efforts to the +contrary. + + [Sidenote] _Practical innocence of art._ + +The theme or content cannot, therefore, be practically or morally +charged with epithets of praise or of blame. When critics of art remark +that a theme is _badly selected_, in cases where that observation has a +just foundation, it is a question of blaming, not the selection of the +theme (which would be absurd), but the manner in which the artist has +treated it. The expression has failed, owing to the contradictions which +it contains. And when the same critics rebel against the theme or the +content as being unworthy of art and blameworthy, in respect to works +which they proclaim to be artistically perfect; if these expressions +really are perfect, there is nothing to be done but to advise the +critics to leave the artists in peace, for they cannot get inspiration, +save from what has made an impression upon them. The critics should +think rather of how they can effect changes in nature and in society, in +order that those impressions may not exist. If ugliness were to vanish +from the world, if universal virtue and felicity were established there, +perhaps artists would no longer represent perverse or pessimistic +sentiments, but sentiments that are calm, innocent, and joyous, like +Arcadians of a real Arcady. But so long as ugliness and turpitude exist +in nature and impose themselves on the artist, it is not possible to +prevent the expression of these things also; and when it has arisen, +_factum infectum fieri nequit_. We speak thus entirely from the +aesthetic point of view, and from that of pure aesthetic criticism. + +We do not delay to pass here in review the damage which the criticism of +choice does to artistic production, with the prejudices which it +produces or maintains among the artists themselves, and with the +contrast which it occasions between artistic impulse and critical +exigencies. It is true that sometimes it seems to do some good also, by +assisting the artists to discover themselves, that is, their own +impressions and their own inspiration, and to acquire consciousness of +the task which is, as it were, imposed upon them by the historical +moment in which they live, and by their individual temperament. In these +cases, criticism of choice merely recognizes and aids the expressions +which are already being formed. It believes itself to be the mother, +where, at most, it is only the midwife. + + [Sidenote] _The independence of art._ + +The impossibility of choice of content completes the theorem of the +_independence of art_, and is also the only legitimate meaning of the +expression: _art for art's sake_. Art is thus independent of science, as +it is of the useful and the moral. Let it not be feared that thus may be +justified art that is frivolous or cold, since that which is truly +frivolous or cold is so because it has not been raised to expression; or +in other words, frivolity and frigidity come always from the form of the +aesthetic elaboration, from the lack of a content, not from the material +qualities of the content. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the saying: the style is the man._ + +The saying: _the style is the man_, can also not be completely +criticized, save by starting from the distinction between the theoretic +and the practical, and from the theoretic character of the aesthetic +activity. Man is not simply knowledge and contemplation: he is also +will, which contains in it the cognoscitive moment. Now the saying is +either altogether void, as when it is understood that the man is the +style, in so far as he is style, that is to say, the man, but only in so +far as he is an expression of activity; or it is erroneous, when the +attempt is made to deduce from what a man has seen and expressed, that +which he has done and willed, inferring thereby that there is a +necessary link between knowing and willing. Many legends in the +biographies of artists have sprung from this erroneous identification, +since it seemed impossible that a man who gives expression to generous +sentiments should not be a noble and generous man in practical life; or +that the dramatist who gives a great many stabs in his plays, should not +himself have given a few at least in real life. Vainly do the artists +protest: _lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba_. They are merely taxed +in addition with lying and hypocrisy. O you poor women of Verona, how +far more subtle you were, when you founded your belief that Dante had +really descended to hell, upon his dusky countenance! Yours was at any +rate a historical conjecture. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the concept of sincerity in art._ + +Finally, _sincerity_ imposed upon the artist as a duty (this law of +ethics which, they say, is also a law of aesthetic) arises from another +equivoke. For by sincerity is meant either the moral duty not to deceive +one's neighbour; and in that case Is foreign to the artist. For he, in +fact, deceives no one, since he gives form to what is already in his +mind. He would deceive, only if he were to betray his duty as an artist +by a lesser devotion to the intrinsic necessity of his task. If lies and +deceit are in his mind, then the form which he gives to these things +cannot be deceit or lies, precisely because it is aesthetic. The artist, +if he be a charlatan, a liar, or a miscreant, purifies his other self by +reflecting it in art. Or by sincerity is meant, fulness and truth of +expression, and it is clear that this second sense has nothing to do +with the ethical concept. The law, which is at once ethical and +aesthetic, reveals itself in this case in a word employed alike by Ethic +and Aesthetic. + + + + +VII + +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + + + [Sidenote] _The two forms of practical activity._ + +The twofold grade of the theoretical activity, aesthetic and logical, +has an important parallel in the practical activity, which has not yet +been placed in due relief. The practical activity is also divided into a +first and second degree, the second implying the first. The first +practical degree is the simply _useful_ or _economical_ activity; the +second the _moral_ activity. + +Economy is, as it were, the Aesthetic of practical life; Morality its +Logic. + + [Sidenote] _The economically useful._ + +If this has not been clearly seen by philosophers; if its suitable place +in the system of the mind has not been given to the economic activity, +and it has been left to wander in the prolegomena to treatises on +political economy, often uncertain and but slightly elaborated, this is +due, among other reasons, to the fact that the useful or economic has +been confused, now with the concept of _technique_, now with that of the +_egoistic_. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the technical._ + +_Technique_ is certainly not a special activity of the spirit. +Technique is knowledge; or better, it is knowledge itself, in general, +that takes this name, as we have seen, in so far as it serves as basis +for practical action. Knowledge which is not followed, or is presumed to +be not easily followed by practical action, is called pure: the same +knowledge, if effectively followed by action, is called applied; if it +is presumed that it can be easily followed by the same action, it is +called technical or applied. This word, then, indicates a _situation_ in +which knowledge already is, or easily can be found, not a special form +of knowledge. So true is this, that it would be altogether impossible to +establish whether a given order of knowledge were, intrinsically, pure +or applied. All knowledge, however abstract and philosophical one may +imagine it to be, can be a guide to practical acts; a theoretical error +in the ultimate principles of morals can be reflected and always is +reflected in some way, in practical life. One can only speak roughly and +unscientifically of truths that are pure and of others that are applied. + +The same knowledge which is called technical, can also be called +_useful_. But the word "useful," in conformity with the criticism of +judgments of value made above, is to be understood as used here in a +linguistic or metaphorical sense. When we say that water is useful for +putting out fire, the word "useful" is used in a non-scientific sense. +Water thrown on the fire is the cause of its going out: this is the +knowledge that serves for basis to the action, let us say, of firemen. +There is a link, not of nature, but of simple succession, between the +useful action of the person who extinguishes the conflagration, and this +knowledge. The technique of the effects of the water is the theoretical +activity which precedes; the _action_ of him who extinguishes the fire +is alone useful. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the egoistic._ + +Some economists identify utility with _egoism_, that is to say, with +merely economical action or desire, with that which is profitable to the +individual, in so far as individual, without regard to and indeed in +complete opposition to the moral law. The egoistic is the immoral. In +this case Economy would be a very strange science, standing, not beside, +but facing Ethic, like the devil facing God, or at least like the +_advocatus diaboli_ in the processes of canonization. Such a conception +of it is altogether inadmissible: the science of immorality is implied +in that of morality, as the science of the false is implied in _Logic_, +the science of the true, and a science of ineffectual expression in +Aesthetic, the science of successful expression. If, then, Economy were +the scientific treatment of egoism, it would be a chapter of Ethic, or +Ethic itself; because every moral determination implies, at the same +time, a negation of its contrary. + +Further, conscience tells us that to conduct oneself economically is not +to conduct oneself egoistically; that even the most morally scrupulous +man must conduct himself usefully (economically), if he does not wish to +be inconclusive and, therefore, not truly moral. If utility were egoism, +how could it be the duty of the altruist to behave like an egoist? + + [Sidenote] _Economic will and moral will._ + +If we are not mistaken, the difficulty is solved in a manner perfectly +analogous to that in which is solved the problem of the relations +between the expression and the concept, between Aesthetic and Logic. + +To will economically is to _will an end_; to will morally is to _will +the rational end_. But whoever wills and acts morally, cannot but will +and act usefully (economically). How could he will the _rational_, +unless he willed it also _as his particular end_? + + [Sidenote] _Pure economicity._ + +The reciprocal is not true; as it is not true in aesthetic science that +the expressive fact must of necessity be linked with the logical fact. +It is possible to will economically without willing morally; and it is +possible to conduct oneself with perfect economic coherence, while +pursuing an end which is objectively irrational (immoral), or, better, +an end which would be so judged in a superior grade of consciousness. + +Examples of the economic, without the moral character, are the Prince of +Machiavelli, Caesar Borgia, or the Iago of Shakespeare. Who can help +admiring their strength of will, although their activity is only +economic, and is opposed to what we hold moral? Who can help admiring +the ser Ciappelletto of Boccaccio, who, even on his death-bed, pursues +and realizes his ideal of the perfect rascal, making the small and timid +little thieves who are present at his burlesque confession exclaim: +"What manner of man is this, whose perversity, neither age, nor +infirmity, nor the fear of death, which he sees at hand, nor the fear of +God, before whose judgment-seat he must stand in a little while, have +been able to remove, nor to cause that he should not wish to die as he +has lived?" + + [Sidenote] _The economic side of morality._ + +The moral man unites with the pertinacity and fearlessness of a Caesar +Borgia, of an Iago, or of a ser Ciappelletto, the good will of the saint +or of the hero. Or, better, good will would not be will, and +consequently not good, if it did not possess, in addition to the side +which makes it _good_, also that which makes it _will_. Thus a logical +thought, which does not succeed in expressing itself, is not thought, +but at the most, a confused presentiment of a thought yet to come. + +It is not correct, then, to conceive of the amoral man as also the +anti-economical man, or to make of morality an element of coherence in +the acts of life, and therefore of economicity. Nothing prevents us from +conceiving (an hypothesis which is verified at least during certain +periods and moments, if not during whole lifetimes) a man altogether +without moral conscience. In a man thus organized, what for us is +immorality is not so for him, because it is not so felt. The +consciousness of the contradiction between what is desired as a rational +end and what is pursued egoistically cannot be born in him. This +contradiction is anti-economicity. Immoral conduct becomes also +anti-economical only in the man who possesses moral conscience. The +moral remorse which is the proof of this, is also economical remorse; +that is to say, pain at not having known how to will completely and to +attain to that moral ideal which was willed at the first moment, but was +afterwards perverted by the passions. _Video meliora proboque, deteriora +sequor_. The _video_ and the _probo_ are here an initial will +immediately contradicted and passed over. In the man deprived of moral +sense, we must admit a remorse which is _merely economic_; like that of +a thief or of an assassin who should be attacked when on the point of +robbing or of assassinating, and should abstain from doing so, not owing +to a conversion of his being, but owing to his impressionability and +bewilderment, or even owing to a momentary awakening of the moral +consciousness. When he has come back to himself, that thief or assassin +will regret and be ashamed of his inconsequence; his remorse will not be +due to having done wrong, but to not having done it; his remorse is, +therefore, economic, not moral, since the latter is excluded by +hypothesis. However, a lively moral conscience is generally found among +the majority of men, and its total absence is a rare and perhaps +non-existent monstrosity. It may, therefore, be admitted, that morality +coincides with economicity in the conduct of life. + + [Sidenote] _The merely economic and the error of the morally + indifferent._ + +There need be no fear lest the parallelism affirmed by us should +introduce afresh into the category of the _morally indifferent_, of that +which is in truth action and volition, but is neither moral nor immoral; +the category in sum of the _licit_ and of the _permissible_, which has +always been the cause or mirror of ethical corruption, as is the case +with Jesuitical morality in which it dominated. It remains quite certain +that indifferent moral actions do not exist, because moral activity +pervades and must pervade every least volitional movement of man. But +this, far from upsetting the parallelism, confirms it. Do there exist +intuitions which science and the intellect do not pervade and analyse, +resolving them into universal concepts, or changing them into historical +affirmations? We have already seen that true science, philosophy, knows +no external limits which bar its way, as happens with the so-called +natural sciences. Science and morality entirely dominate, the one the +aesthetic intuitions, the other the economic volitions of man, although +neither of them can appear in the concrete, save in the intuitive form +as regards the one, in the economic as regards the other. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of utilitarianism and the reform of Ethic and + of Economic._ + +This combined identity and difference of the useful and of the moral, of +the economic and of the ethic, explains the fortune enjoyed now and +formerly by the utilitarian theory of Ethic. It is in fact easy to +discover and to show a utilitarian side in every moral action; as it is +easy to show an aesthetic side of every logical proposition. The +criticism of ethical utilitarianism cannot escape by denying this truth +and seeking out absurd and inexistent examples of _useless_ moral +actions. It must admit the utilitarian side and explain it as the +concrete form of morality, which consists of what is _within_ this form. +Utilitarians do not see this within. This is not the place for a more +ample development of such ideas. Ethic and Economic cannot but be +gainers, as we have said of Logic and Aesthetic, by a more exact +determination of the relations that exist between them. Economic science +is now rising to the animating concept of the useful, as it strives to +pass beyond the mathematical phase, in which it is still entangled; a +phase which, when it superseded historicism, was in its turn a progress, +destroying a series of arbitrary distinctions and false theories of +Economic, implied in the confusion of the theoretical with the +historical. With this conception, it will be easy on the one hand to +absorb and to verify the semi-philosophical theories of so-called pure +economy, and on the other, by the introduction of successive +complications and additions, and by passing from the philosophical to +the empirical or naturalistic method, to include the particular theories +of the political or national economy of the schools. + + [Sidenote] _Phenomenon and noumenon in practical activity._ + +As aesthetic intuition knows the phenomenon or nature, and philosophic +intuition the noumenon or spirit; so economic activity wills the +phenomenon or nature, and moral activity the noumenon or spirit. _The +spirit which desires itself_, its true self, the universal which is in +the empirical and finite spirit: that is the formula which perhaps +defines the essence of morality with the least impropriety. This will +for the true self is _absolute liberty_. + + + + +VIII + +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + + + [Sidenote] _The system of the spirit._ + +In this summary sketch that we have given, of the entire philosophy of +the spirit in its fundamental moments, the spirit is conceived as +consisting of four moments or grades, disposed in such a way that the +theoretical activity is to the practical as is the first theoretical +grade to the second theoretical, and the first practical grade to the +second practical. The four moments imply one another regressively by +their concretion. The concept cannot be without expression, the useful +without the one and the other, and morality without the three preceding +grades. If the aesthetic fact is alone independent, and the others more +or less dependent, then the logical is the least so and the moral will +the most. Moral intention operates on given theoretic bases, which +cannot be dispensed with, save by that absurd practice, the jesuitical +_direction of intention_. Here people pretend to themselves not to know +what at bottom they know perfectly well. + + [Sidenote] _The forms of genius._ + +If the forms of human activity are four, four also are the forms of +genius. Geniuses in art, in science, in moral will or heroes, have +certainly always been recognized. But the genius of pure Economic has +met with opposition. It is not altogether without reason that a category +of bad geniuses or of _geniuses of evil_ has been created. The +practical, merely economic genius, which is not directed to a rational +end, cannot but excite an admiration mingled with alarm. It would be a +mere question of words, were we to discuss whether the word "genius" +should be applied only to creators of aesthetic expression, or also to +men of scientific research and of action. To observe, on the other hand, +that genius, of whatever kind it be, is always a quantitative conception +and an empirical distinction, would be to repeat what has already been +explained as regards artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a fifth form of activity. Law; + sociality._ + +A fifth form of spiritual activity does not exist. It would be easy to +demonstrate how all the other forms, either do not possess the character +of activity, or are verbal variants of the activities already examined, +or are complex and derived facts, in which the various activities are +mingled, or are filled with special contents and contingent data. + +The _judicial_ fact, for example, considered as what is called objective +law, is derived both from the economic and from the logical activities. +Law is a rule, a formula (whether oral or written matters little here) +in which is contained an economic relation willed by an individual or by +a collectivity. This economic side at once unites it with and +distinguishes it from moral activity. Take another example. Sociology +(among the many meanings the word bears in our times) is sometimes +conceived as the study of an original element, which is called +_sociality_. Now what is it that distinguishes sociality, or the +relations which are developed in a meeting of men, not of subhuman +beings, if it be not just the various spiritual activities which exist +among the former and which are supposed not to exist, or to exist only +in a rudimentary degree, among the latter? Sociality, then, far from +being an original, simple, irreducible conception, is very complex and +complicated. This could be proved by the impossibility, generally +recognized, of enunciating a single sociological law, properly +so-called. Those that are improperly called by that name are revealed as +either empirical historical observations, or spiritual laws, that is to +say judgments, into which are translated the conceptions of the +spiritual activities; when they are not simply empty and indeterminate +generalizations, like the so-called law of evolution. Sometimes, too, +nothing more is understood by sociality than social rule, and so law; +and thus sociology is confounded with the science or theory of law +itself. Law, sociality, and like terms, are to be dealt with in a mode +analogous to that employed by us in the consideration of historicity and +technique. + + [Sidenote] _Religiosity._ + +It may seem fitting to form a different judgment as to _religious_ +activity. But religion is nothing but knowledge, and does not differ +from its other forms and subforms. For it is in truth and in turn either +the expression of practical and ideal aspirations (religious ideals), or +historical narrative (legend), or conceptual science (dogma). + +It can therefore be maintained with equal truth, both that religion is +destroyed by the progress of human knowledge, and that it is always +present there. Their religion was the whole patrimony of knowledge of +primitive peoples: our patrimony of knowledge is our religion. The +content has been changed, bettered, refined, and it will change and +become better and more refined in the future also; but its function is +always the same. We do not know what use could be made of religion by +those who wish to preserve it side by side with the theoretic activity +of man, with his art, with his criticism, and with his philosophy. It is +impossible to preserve an imperfect and inferior kind of knowledge, like +religion, side by side with what has surpassed and disproved it. +Catholicism, which is always coherent, will not tolerate a Science, a +History, an Ethic, in contradiction to its views and doctrines. The +rationalists are less coherent. They are disposed to allow a little +space in their souls for a religion which is in contradiction with their +whole theoretic world. + +These affectations and religious susceptibilities of the rationalists of +our times have their origin in the superstitious cult of the natural +sciences. These, as we know and as is confessed by the mouth of their +chief adepts, are all surrounded by _limits_. Science having been +wrongly identified with the so-called natural sciences, it could be +foreseen that the remainder would be asked of religion; that remainder +with which the human spirit cannot dispense. We are therefore indebted +to materialism, to positivism, to naturalism for this unhealthy and +often disingenuous reflowering of religious exaltation. Such things are +the business of the hospital, when they are not the business of the +politician. + + [Sidenote] _Metaphysic._ + +Philosophy withdraws from religion all reason for existing, because it +substitutes itself for religion. As the science of the spirit, it looks +upon religion as a phenomenon, a transitory historical fact, a psychic +condition that can be surpassed. Philosophy shares the domain of +knowledge with the natural disciplines, with history and with art. It +leaves to the first, narration, measurement and classification; to the +second, the chronicling of what has individually happened; to the third, +the individually possible. There is nothing left to share with religion. +For the same reason, philosophy, as the science of the spirit, cannot be +philosophy of the intuitive datum; nor, as has been seen, _Philosophy of +History, nor Philosophy of Nature_; and therefore there cannot be a +philosophic science of what is not form and universal, but material and +particular. This amounts to affirming the impossibility of _metaphysic_. + +The Method or Logic of history followed the Philosophy of history; a +gnoseology of the conceptions which are employed in the natural sciences +succeeded natural philosophy. What philosophy can study of the one is +its mode of construction (intuition, perception, document, probability, +etc.); of the others she can study the forms of the conceptions which +appear in them (space, time, motion, number, types, classes, etc.). +Philosophy, which should become metaphysical in the sense above +described, would, on the other hand, claim to compete with narrative +history, and with the natural sciences, which in their field are alone +legitimate and effective. Such a competition becomes in fact a labour +spoiling labour. We are _antimetaphysical_ in this sense, while yet +declaring ourselves _ultrametaphysical_, if by that word it be desired +to claim and to affirm the function of philosophy as the +autoconsciousness of the spirit, as opposed to the merely empirical and +classificatory function of the natural sciences. + + [Sidenote] _Mental imagination and the intuitive intellect._ + +In order to maintain itself side by side with the sciences of the +spirit, metaphysic has been obliged to assert the existence of a +specific spiritual activity, of which it would be the product. This +activity, which in antiquity was called _mental or superior +imagination_, and in modern times more often _intuitive intellect or +intellectual intuition_, would unite in an altogether special form the +characters of imagination and of intellect. It would provide the method +of passing, by deduction or dialectically, from the infinite to the +finite, from form to matter, from the concept to the intuition, from +science to history, operating by a method which should be at once unity +and compenetration of the universal and the particular, of the abstract +and the concrete, of intuition and of intellect. A faculty marvellous +indeed and delightful to possess; but we, who do not possess it, have no +means of proving its existence. + + [Sidenote] _Mystical aesthetic._ + +Intellectual intuition has sometimes been considered as the true +aesthetic activity. At others a not less marvellous aesthetic activity +has been placed beside, below, or above it, a faculty altogether +different from simple intuition. The glories of this faculty have been +sung, and to it have been attributed the fact of art, or at the least +certain groups of artistic production, arbitrarily chosen. Art, +religion, and philosophy have seemed in turn one only, or three distinct +faculties of the spirit, now one, now another of these being superior in +the dignity assigned to each. + +It is impossible to enumerate all the various attitudes assumed by this +conception of Aesthetic, which we will call _mystical_. We are here in +the kingdom, not of the science of imagination, but of imagination +itself, which creates its world with the varying elements of the +impressions and of the feelings. Let it suffice to mention that this +mysterious faculty has been conceived, now as practical, now as a mean +between the theoretic and the practical, at others again as a theoretic +grade together with philosophy and religion. + + [Sidenote] _Mortality and immortality of art._ + +The immortality of art has sometimes been deduced from this last +conception as belonging with its sisters to the sphere of absolute +spirit. At other times, on the other hand, when religion has been looked +upon as mortal and as dissolved in philosophy, then the mortality, even +the actual death, or at least the agony of art has been proclaimed. +These questions have no meaning for us, because, seeing that the +function of art is a necessary grade of the spirit, to ask if art can be +eliminated is the same thing as asking if sensation or intelligence can +be eliminated. But metaphysic, in the above sense, since it transplants +itself to an arbitrary world, is not to be criticized in detail, any +more than one can criticize the botany of the garden of Alcina or the +navigation of the voyage of Astolfo. Criticism can only be made by +refusing to join the game; that is to say, by rejecting the very +possibility of metaphysic, always in the sense above indicated. + +As we do not admit intellectual intuition in philosophy, we can also not +admit its shadow or equivalent, aesthetic intellectual intuition, or any +other mode by which this imaginary function may be called and +represented. We repeat again that we do not know of a fifth grade beyond +the four grades of spirit which consciousness reveals to us. + + + + +IX + +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + + + [Sidenote] _The characteristics of art._ + +It is customary to give long enumerations of the characteristics of art. +Having reached this point of the treatise, having studied the artistic +function as spiritual activity, as theoretic activity, and as special +theoretic activity (intuitive), we are able to discern that those +various and copious descriptions mean, when they mean anything at all, +nothing but a repetition of what may be called the qualities of the +aesthetic function, generic, specific, and characteristic. To the first +of these are referred, as we have already observed, the characters, or +better, the verbal variants of _unity_, and of _unity_ in _variety_, +those also of _simplicity_, of _originality_, and so on; to the second of +these, the characteristics of _truth_, of _sincerity_, and the like; to +the third, the characteristics of _life_, of _vivacity_, of _animation_, +of _concretion_, of _individuality_, of _characteristicality_. The words +may vary yet more, but they will not contribute anything scientifically +new. The results which we have shown have altogether exhausted the +analysis of expression as such. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of modes of expression._ + +But at this point, the question as to whether there be various _modes or +grades_ of expression is still perfectly legitimate. We have +distinguished two grades of activity, each of which is subdivided into +two other grades, and there is certainly, so far, no visible logical +reason why there should not exist two or more modes of the aesthetic, +that is of expression.--The only objection is that these modes do not +exist. + +For the present at least, it is a question of simple internal +observation and of self consciousness. One may scrutinize aesthetic +facts as much as one will: no formal differences will ever be found +among them, nor will the aesthetic fact be divisible into a first and a +second degree. + +This signifies that a philosophical classification of expressions is not +possible. Single expressive facts are so many individuals, of which the +one cannot be compared with the other, save generically, in so far as +each is expression. To use the language of the schools, expression is a +species which cannot in its turn perform the functions of genus. +Impressions, that is to say contents, vary; every content differs from +every other content, because nothing in life repeats itself; and the +continuous variation of contents follows the irreducible variety of +expressive facts, the aesthetic syntheses of the impressions. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of translations._ + +A corollary of this is the impossibility of _translations_, in so far as +they pretend to effect the transference of one expression into another, +like a liquid poured from a vase of a certain shape into a vase of +another shape. We can elaborate logically what we have already +elaborated in aesthetic form only; but we cannot reduce that which has +already possessed its aesthetic form to another form also aesthetic. In +truth, every translation either diminishes and spoils; or it creates a +new expression, by putting the former back into the crucible and mixing +it with other impressions belonging to the pretended translator. In the +former case, the expression always remains one, that of the original, +the translation being more or less deficient, that is to say, not +properly expression: in the other case, there would certainly be two +expressions, but with two different contents. "Ugly faithful ones or +faithless beauties" is a proverb that well expresses the dilemma with +which every translator is faced. In aesthetic translations, such as +those which are word for word or interlinear, or paraphrastic +translations, are to be looked upon as simple commentaries on the +original. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of rhetorical categories._ + +The division of expressions into various classes is known in literature +by the name of theory of _ornament_ or of _rhetorical categories_. But +similar attempts at classification in the other forms of art are not +wanting: suffice it to mention the _realistic and symbolic forms_, +spoken of in painting and sculpture. + +The scientific value to be attached in Aesthetic and in aesthetic +criticism to these distinctions of _realistic and symbolic_, of _style +and absence of style_, of _objective and subjective_, of _classic and +romantic_, of _simple and ornate_, of _proper and metaphorical_, of the +fourteen forms of metaphor, of the figures of _word_ and of _sentence_, +and further of _pleonasm_, of _ellipse_, of _inversion_, of +_repetition_, of _synonyms and homonyms_, and so on; is _nil_ or +altogether negative. To none of these terms and distinctions can be +given a satisfactory aesthetic definition. Those that have been +attempted, when they are not obviously erroneous, are words devoid of +sense. A typical example of this is the very common definition of +metaphor as of _another word used in place of the word itself_. Now why +give oneself this trouble? Why take the worse and longer road when you +know the shorter and better road? Perhaps, as is generally said, because +the correct word is in certain cases not so _expressive_ as the +so-called incorrect word or metaphor? But in that case the metaphor +becomes exactly the right word, and the so-called right word, if it were +used, would be _but little expressive_ and therefore most improper. +Similar observations of elementary good sense can be made regarding the +other categories, as, for example, the generic one of the ornate. One +can ask oneself how an ornament can be joined to expression. Externally? +In that case it must always remain separate. Internally? In that case, +either it does not assist expression and mars it; or it does form part +of it and is not ornament, but a constituent element of expression, +indistinguishable from the whole. + +It is not necessary to dwell upon the harm done by these distinctions. +Rhetoric has often been declaimed against, but although there has been +rebellion against its consequences, its principles have been carefully +preserved, perhaps in order to show proof of philosophic coherence. +Rhetoric has contributed, if not to make dominant in literary +production, at least to justify theoretically, that particular mode of +writing ill which is called fine writing or writing according to +rhetoric. + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the rhetorical categories._ + +The terms above mentioned would never have gone beyond the schools, +where we all of us learned them (certain of never finding the +opportunity of using them in strictly aesthetic discussions, or even of +doing so jocosely and with a comic intention), save when occasionally +employed in one of the following significations: as _verbal variants _of +the aesthetic concept; as indications of the _anti-aesthetic_, or, +finally (and this is their most important use), in a sense which is no +longer aesthetic and literary, _but merely logical_. + + [Sidenote] _Use of these categories as synonyms of the aesthetic + fact._ + +Expressions are not divisible into classes, but some are successful, +others half-successful, others failures. There are perfect and +imperfect, complete and deficient expressions. The terms already cited, +then, sometimes indicate the successful expression, sometimes the +various forms of the failures. But they are employed in the most +inconstant and capricious manner, for it often happens that the same +word serves, now to proclaim the perfect, now to condemn the imperfect. + +An instance of this is found when someone, criticizing two pictures--the +one without inspiration, in which the author has copied natural objects +without intelligence; the other inspired, but without obvious likeness +to existing objects--calls the first _realistic_, the second _symbolic_. +Others, on the contrary, pronounce the word _realistic_ about a strongly +felt picture representing a scene of ordinary life, while they talk of +_symbolic_ in reference to another picture representing but a cold +allegory. It is evident that in the first case symbolic means artistic, +and realistic inartistic, while in the second, realistic is synonymous +with artistic and symbolic with inartistic. How, then, can we be +astonished when some hotly maintain that the true art form is the +symbolic, and that the realistic is inartistic; others, that the +realistic is the artistic, and the symbolic the inartistic? We cannot +but grant that both are right, since each makes use of the same words in +senses so diverse. + +The great disputes about the _classic_ and the _romantic_ are frequently +based upon such equivokes. Sometimes the former was understood as the +artistically perfect, and the second as lacking balance and imperfect; +at others, the classic was cold and artificial, the romantic sincere, +warm, efficacious, and truly expressive. Thus it was always possible to +take the side of the classic against the romantic, or of the romantic +against the classic. + +The same thing happens as regards the word _style_. Sometimes it is +affirmed that every writer should have style. Here style is synonymous +with form or expression. Sometimes the form of a code of laws or of a +mathematical work is said to be devoid of style. Here the error of +admitting diverse modes of expression is again committed, of admitting +an ornate and a naked form of expression, because, since style is form, +the code and the mathematical treatise must also, strictly speaking, +have each its style. At other times, one hears the critics blaming +someone for "having too much style" or for "writing a style." Here it is +clear that style signifies, not the form, nor a mode of it, but improper +and pretentious expression, which is one form of the inartistic. + + [Sidenote] _Their use to indicate various aesthetic imperfections._ + +Passing to the second, not altogether insignificant, use of these words +and distinctions, we sometimes find in the examination of a literary +composition such remarks as follow: here is a pleonasm, here an ellipse, +there a metaphor, here again a synonym or an equivoke. This means that +in one place is an error consisting of using a larger number of words +than is necessary (pleonasm); that in another the error arises from too +few having been used (ellipse), elsewhere from the use of an unsuitable +word (metaphor), or from the use of two words which seem to express two +different things, where they really express the same thing (synonym); or +that, on the contrary, it arises from having employed one which seems to +express the same thing where it expresses two different things +(equivoke). This pejorative and pathological use of the terms is, +however, more uncommon than the preceding. + + [Sidenote] _Their use in a sense transcending aesthetic, in the + service of science._ + +Finally, when rhetorical terminology possesses no aesthetic +signification similar or analogous to those passed in review, and yet +one is aware that it is not void of meaning and designates something +that deserves to be noted, it is then used in the service of logic and +of science. If it be granted that a concept used in a scientific sense +by a given writer is expressed with a definite term, it is natural that +other words formed by that writer as used to signify the same concept, +or incidentally made use of by him, become, _in respect to_ the +vocabulary fixed upon by him as true, metaphors, synecdoches, synonyms, +elliptic forms, and the like. We, too, in the course of this treatise, +have several times made use of, and intend again to make use of such +terms, in order to make clear the sense of the words we employ, or may +find employed. But this proceeding, which is of value in the +disquisitions of scientific and intellectual criticism, has none +whatever in aesthetic criticism. For science there exist appropriate +words and metaphors. The same concept may be psychologically formed in +various circumstances and therefore be expressed with various +intuitions. When the scientific terminology of a given writer has been +established, and one of these modes has been fixed as correct, then all +other uses of it become improper or tropical. But in the aesthetic fact +exist only appropriate words. The same intuition can only be expressed +in one way, precisely because it is an intuition and not a concept. + + [Sidenote] _Rhetoric in the schools._ + +Some, while they admit the aesthetic insufficiency of the rhetorical +categories, yet make a reserve as regards their utility and the service +they are supposed to render, especially in schools of literature. We +confess that we fail to understand how error and confusion can educate +the mind to logical clearness, or aid the teaching of a science which +they disturb and obscure. Perhaps it may be desired to say that they can +aid memory and learning as empirical classes, as was admitted above for +literary and artistic styles. But there is another purpose for which the +rhetorical categories should certainly continue to be admitted to the +schools: to be criticized there. We cannot simply forget the errors of +the past, and truth cannot be kept alive, save by making it fight +against error. Unless a notion of the rhetorical categories be given, +accompanied by a suitable criticism of these, there is a risk of their +springing up again. For they are already springing up with certain +philologists, disguised as most recent _psychological_ discoveries. + + [Sidenote] _The resemblances of expressions._ + +It would seem as though we wished to deny all bond of likeness among +themselves between expressions and works of art. The likenesses exist, +and owing to them, works of art can be arranged in this or that group. +But they are likenesses such as are observed among individuals, and can +never be rendered with abstract definitions. That is to say, these +likenesses have nothing to do with identification, subordination, +co-ordination, and the other relations of concepts. They consist wholly +in what is called a _family likeness_, and are connected with those +historical conditions existing at the birth of the various works, or in +an affinity of soul between the artists. + + [Sidenote] _The relative possibility of translations._ + +It is in these resemblances that lies the _relative_ possibility of +translations. This does not consist of the reproduction of the same +original expressions (which it would be vain to attempt), but in the +measure that expressions are given, more or less nearly resembling +those. The translation that passes for good is an approximation which +has original value as a work of art and can stand by itself. + + + + +X + +AESTHETIC FEELINGS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE UGLY AND THE +BEAUTIFUL + + +Passing on to the study of more complex concepts, where the aesthetic +activity is found in conjunction with other orders of facts, and showing +the mode of this union or complication, we find ourselves at once face +to face with the concept of _feeling_ and with the feelings which are +called _aesthetic_. + + [Sidenote] _Various significances of the word feeling._ + +The word "feeling" is one of the richest in meanings. We have already +had occasion to meet with it once, among those used to designate the +spirit in its passivity, the matter or content of art, and also as +synonym of _impressions_. Once again (and then the meaning was +altogether different), we have met with it as designating the +_non-logical_ and _non-historical_ character of the aesthetic fact, that +is to say pure intuition, a form of truth which defines no concept and +states no fact. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as activity._ + +But feeling is not here understood in either of these two senses, nor in +the others in which it has nevertheless been used to designate other +_cognoscitive_ forms of spirit. Its meaning here is that of a special +activity, of non-cognoscitive nature, but possessing its two poles, +positive and negative, in _pleasure_ and _pain_. This activity has +always greatly embarrassed philosophers, who have attempted either to +deny it as an activity, or to attribute it to _nature_ and to exclude it +from spirit. Both solutions bristle with difficulties, and these are of +such a kind that the solutions prove themselves finally unacceptable to +anyone who examines them with care. For of what could a non-spiritual +activity consist, an _activity of nature_, when we have no other +knowledge of activity save as spiritual, and of spirituality save as +activity? Nature is, in this case, by definition, the merely passive, +inert, mechanical and material. On the other hand, the negation of the +character of activity to feeling is energetically disproved by those +very poles of pleasure and of pain which appear in it and manifest +activity in its concreteness, and, we will say, all aquiver. + + [Sidenote] _Identification of feeling with economic activity._ + +This critical conclusion ought to place us in the greatest +embarrassment, for in the sketch of the system of the spirit given +above, we have left no room for the new activity, of which we are now +obliged to recognize the existence. But activity of feeling, if it be +activity, is not specially new. It has already had its place assigned to +it in the system which we have sketched, where, however, it has been +indicated under another name, as _economic_ activity. What is called the +activity of feeling is nothing but that more elementary and fundamental +practical activity, which we have distinguished from ethical activity, +and made to consist of the appetite and desire for some individual end, +without any moral determination. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of hedonism._ + +If feeling has been sometimes considered as organic or natural activity, +this has happened precisely because it does not coincide either with +logical, aesthetic, or ethical activity. Looked at from the standpoint +of these three (which were the only ones admitted), it has seemed to lie +_outside_ the true and real spirit, the spirit in its aristocracy, and +to be almost a determination of nature and of the soul, in so far as it +is nature. Thus the thesis, several times maintained, that the aesthetic +activity, like the ethical and intellectual activities, is not feeling, +becomes at once completely proved. This thesis was inexpugnable, when +sensation had already been reduced confusedly and implicitly to economic +volition. The view which has been refuted is known by the name of +_hedonism_. For hedonism, all the various forms of the spirit are +reduced to one, which thus itself also loses its own distinctive +character and becomes something turbid and mysterious, like "the shades +in which all cows are black." Having effected this reduction and +mutilation, the hedonists naturally do not succeed in seeing anything +else in any activity but pleasure and pain. They find no substantial +difference between the pleasure of art and that of an easy digestion, +between the pleasure of a good action and that of breathing the fresh +air with wide-expanded lungs. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as a concomitant to every form of activity._ + +But if the activity of feeling in the sense here defined must not be +substituted for all the other forms of spiritual activity, we have not +said that it cannot _accompany_ them. Indeed it accompanies them of +necessity, because they are all in close relation, both with one another +and with the elementary volitional form. Therefore each of them has for +concomitants individual volitions and volitional pleasures and pains +which are known as feeling. But we must not confound what is +concomitant, with the principal fact, and take the one for the other. +The discovery of the truth, or the satisfaction of a moral duty +fulfilled, produces in us a joy which makes our whole being vibrate, +for, by attaining to those forms of spiritual activity, it attains at +the same time that to which it was _practically_ tending, as to its end, +during the effort. Nevertheless, economic or hedonistic satisfaction, +ethical satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction, +remain always distinct, even when in union. + +Thus is solved at the same time the much-debated question, which has +seemed, not wrongly, a matter of life or death for aesthetic science, +namely, whether the feeling and the pleasure precede or follow, are +cause or effect of the aesthetic fact. We must enlarge this question, to +include the relation between the various spiritual forms, and solve it +in the sense that in the unity of the spirit one cannot talk of cause +and effect and of what comes first and what follows it in time. + +And once the relation above exposed is established, the statements, +which it is customary to make, as to the nature of aesthetic, moral, +intellectual, and even, as is sometimes said, economic feelings, must +also fall. In this last case, it is clear that it is a question, not of +two terms, but of one, and the quest of economic feeling can be but that +same one concerning the economic activity. But in the other cases also, +the search can never be directed to the substantive, but to the +adjective: aesthetic, morality, logic, explain the colouring of the +feelings as aesthetic, moral, and intellectual, while feeling, studied +alone, will never explain those refractions. + + [Sidenote] _Meaning of certain ordinary distinctions of feelings._ + +A further consequence is, that we can free ourselves from the +distinction between values or feelings _of value_, and feelings that are +merely hedonistic and _without value_; also from other similar +distinctions, like those between _disinterested_ feelings and +_interested_ feelings, between _objective _feelings and the others that +are not _objective_ but simply _subjective_, between feelings of +_approval_ and others of _mere pleasure_ (_Gefallen_ and _Vergnuegen_ of +the Germans). Those distinctions strove hard to save the three spiritual +forms, which have been recognised as the triad of the _True_, the +_Good_, and the _Beautiful_, from confusion with the fourth form, still +unknown, yet insidious through its indeterminateness, and mother of +scandals. For us this triad has finished its task, because we are +capable of reaching the distinction far more directly, by welcoming even +the selfish, subjective, merely pleasurable feelings, among the +respectable forms of the spirit; and where formerly antitheses were +conceived of by ourselves and others, between value and feelings, as +between spirituality and naturality, henceforth we see nothing but +difference between value and value. + + [Sidenote] _Value and disvalue: the contraries and their union._ + +As has already been said, the economic feeling or activity reveals +itself as divided into two poles, positive and negative, pleasure and +pain, which we can now translate into useful, and useless or hurtful. +This bipartition has already been noted above, as a mark of the active +character of feeling, precisely because the same bipartition is found in +all forms of activity. If each of these is a _value_, each has opposed +to it _antivalue or disvalue_. Absence of value is not sufficient to +cause disvalue, but activity and passivity must be struggling between +themselves, without the one getting the better of the other; hence the +contradiction, and the disvalue of the activity that is embarrassed, +contested, or interrupted. Value is activity that unfolds itself freely: +disvalue is its contrary. + +We will content ourselves with this definition of the two terms, without +entering into the problem of the relation between value and disvalue, +that is, between the problem of contraries. (Are these to be thought of +dualistically, as two beings or two orders of beings, like Ormuzd and +Ahriman, angels and devils, enemies to one another; or as a unity, which +is also contrariety?) This definition of the two terms will be +sufficient for our purpose, which is to make clear aesthetic activity in +particular, and one of the most obscure and disputed concepts of +Aesthetic which arises at this point: the concept of the _Beautiful_. + + [Sidenote] _The Beautiful as the value of expression, or expression + and nothing more._ + +Aesthetic, intellectual, economic, and ethical values and disvalues are +variously denominated in current speech: _beautiful, true, good, useful, +just_, and so on--these words designate the free development of +spiritual activity, action, scientific research, artistic production, +when they are successful; _ugly, false, bad, useless, unbecoming, +unjust, inexact_ designate embarrassed activity, the product of which is +a failure. In linguistic usage, these denominations are being +continually shifted from one order of facts to another, and from this to +that. _Beautiful_, for instance, is said not only of a successful +expression, but also of a scientific truth, of an action successfully +achieved, and of a moral action: thus we talk of an _intellectual +beauty_, of a _beautiful action_, of a _moral beauty_. Many +philosophers, especially aestheticians, have lost their heads in their +pursuit of these most varied uses: they have entered an inextricable and +impervious verbal labyrinth. For this reason it has hitherto seemed +convenient studiously to avoid the use of the word beautiful to indicate +successful expression. But after all the explanations that have been +given, and all danger of misunderstanding being now dissipated, and +since, on the other hand, we cannot fail to recognize that the +prevailing tendency, alike in current speech and in philosophy, is to +limit the meaning of the vocable _beautiful_ altogether to the aesthetic +value, we may define beauty as _successful expression_, or better, as +_expression_ and nothing more, because expression, when it is not +successful, is not expression. + + [Sidenote] _The ugly, and the elements of beauty which compose it._ + +Consequently, the ugly is unsuccessful expression. The paradox is true, +that, in works of art that are failures, the beautiful is present as +_unity_ and the ugly as _multiplicity_. Thus, with regard to works of +art that are more or less failures, we talk of qualities, that is to say +of _those parts of them that are beautiful_. We do not talk thus of +perfect works. It is in fact impossible to enumerate their qualities or +to designate those parts of them that are beautiful. In them there is +complete fusion: they have but one quality. Life circulates in the whole +organism: it is not withdrawn into certain parts. + +The qualities of works that are failures may be of various degrees. They +may even be very great. The beautiful does not possess degrees, for +there is no conceiving a more beautiful, that is, an expressive that is +more expressive, an adequate that is more than adequate. Ugliness, on +the other hand, does possess degrees, from the rather ugly (or almost +beautiful) to the extremely ugly. But if the ugly were _complete_, that +is to say, without any element of beauty, it would for that very reason +cease to be ugly, because in it would be absent the contradiction which +is the reason of its existence. The disvalue would become nonvalue; +activity would give place to passivity, with which it is not at war, +save when there effectively is war. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions that there exist expressions which are neither + beautiful nor ugly._ + +And because the distinctive consciousness of the beautiful and of the +ugly is based on the contrasts and contradictions in which aesthetic +activity is developed, it is evident that this consciousness becomes +attenuated to the point of disappearing altogether, as we descend from +the more complicated to the more simple and to the simplest cases of +expression. From this arises the illusion that there are expressions +which are neither beautiful nor ugly, those which are obtained without +sensible effort and appear easy and natural being so considered. + + [Sidenote] _True aesthetic feelings and concomitant or accidental + feelings._ + +The whole mystery of the _beautiful_ and the _ugly_ is reduced to these +henceforth most easy definitions. Should any one object that there exist +perfect aesthetic expressions before which no pleasure is felt, and +others, perhaps even failures, which give him the greatest pleasure, it +is necessary to advise him to pay great attention, as regards the +aesthetic fact, to that only which is truly aesthetic pleasure. +Aesthetic pleasure is sometimes reinforced by pleasures arising from +extraneous facts, which are only casually found united with it. The poet +or any other artist affords an instance of purely aesthetic pleasure, +during the moment in which he sees (or has the intuition of) his work +for the first time; that is to say, when his impressions take form and +his countenance is irradiated with the divine joy of the creator. On the +other hand, a mixed pleasure is experienced by any one who goes to the +theatre, after a day's work, to witness a comedy: when the pleasure of +rest and amusement, and that of laughingly snatching a nail from the +gaping coffin, is accompanied at a certain moment by real aesthetic +pleasure, obtained from the art of the dramatist and of the actors. The +same may be said of the artist who looks upon his labour with pleasure, +when it is finished, experiencing, in addition to the aesthetic +pleasure, that very different one which arises from the thought of +self-love satisfied, or of the economic gain which will come to him from +his work. Examples could be multiplied. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of apparent feelings._ + +A category of _apparent_ aesthetic feelings has been formed in modern +Aesthetic. These have nothing to do with the aesthetic sensations of +pleasure arising from the form, that is to say from the work of art. On +the contrary, they arise from the content of the work of art. It has +been observed that "artistic representations arouse pleasure and pain in +their infinite variety and gradations. We tremble with anxiety, we +rejoice, we fear, we laugh, we weep, we desire, with the personages of a +drama or of a romance, with the figures in a picture, or with the melody +of music. But these feelings are not those that would give occasion to +the real fact outside art; that is to say, they are the same in quality, +but they are quantitively an attenuation. Aesthetic and _apparent_ +pleasure and pain are slight, of little depth, and changeable." We have +no need to treat of these _apparent feelings_, for the good reason that +we have already amply discussed them; indeed, we have treated of them +alone. What are ever feelings that become apparent or manifest, but +feelings objectified, intensified, expressed? And it is natural that +they do not trouble and agitate us passionately, as do those of real +life, because those were matter, these are form and activity; those true +and proper feelings, these intuitions and expressions. The formula, +then, of _apparent feelings_ is nothing but a tautology. The best that +can be done is to run the pen through it. + + + + +XI + +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + + +As we are opposed to hedonism in general, that is to say, to the theory +which is based on the pleasure and pain intrinsic to Economy and +accompanies every other form of activity, confounding the content and +that which contains it, and fails to recognize any process but the +hedonistic; so we are opposed to aesthetic hedonism in particular, which +looks upon the aesthetic at any rate, if not also upon all other +activities, as a simple fact of feeling, and confounds the _pleasurable +of expression_, which is the beautiful, with the pleasurable and nothing +more, and with the pleasurable of all sorts. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful as that which pleases the + higher senses._ + +The aesthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several +forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which +pleases the sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called superior +senses. When analysis of aesthetic facts first began, it was, in fact, +difficult to avoid the mistake of thinking that a picture and a piece of +music are impressions of sight or of hearing: it was and is an +indisputable fact that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor the +deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the aesthetic fact +does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all +sensible impressions can be raised to aesthetic expression and that none +need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only +when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso +imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to +the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically +to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes +cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the viscerally +beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of play._ + +The theory of _play_ is another form of aesthetic hedonism. The +conception of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the +actifying character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is +not really man, save when he begins to play; that is to say, when he +frees himself from natural and mechanical causality and operates +spiritually; and his first game is art. But since the word _play_ also +means that pleasure which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant +energy of the organism (that is to say, from a practical act), the +consequence of this theory has been, that every game has been called an +aesthetic fact, and that the aesthetic function has been called a game, +in so far as it is possible to play with it, for, like science and every +other thing, Aesthetic can be made part of a game. But morality cannot +be provoked at the intention of playing, on the ground that it does not +consent; on the contrary, it dominates and regulates the act of playing +itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theories of sexuality and of the triumph._ + +Finally, there have been some who have tried to deduce the pleasure of +art from the reaction of the sexual organs. There are some very modern +aestheticians who place the genesis of the aesthetic fact in the +pleasure of _conquering_, of _triumphing_, or, as others add, in the +desire of the male, who wishes to conquer the female. This theory is +seasoned with much anecdotal erudition, Heaven knows of what degree of +credibility! on the customs of savage peoples. But in very truth there +was no necessity for such important aid, for one often meets in ordinary +life poets who adorn themselves with their poetry, like cocks that raise +their crests, or turkeys that spread their tails. But he who does such +things, in so far as he does them, is not a poet, but a poor devil of a +cock or turkey. The conquest of woman does not suffice to explain the +art fact. It would be just as correct to term poetry _economic_, because +there have been aulic and stipendiary poets, and there are poets the +sale of whose verses helps them to gain their livelihood, if it does not +altogether provide it. However, this definition has not failed to win +over some zealous neophytes of historical materialism. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic. Meaning in + it of content and form._ + +Another less vulgar current of thought considers Aesthetic to be the +science of the _sympathetic_, of that with which we sympathize, which +attracts, rejoices, gives us pleasure and excites admiration. But the +sympathetic is nothing but the image or representation of what pleases. +And, as such, it is a complex fact, resulting from a constant element, +the aesthetic element of representation, and from a variable element, +the pleasing in its infinite forms, arising from all the various classes +of values. + +In ordinary language, there is sometimes a feeling of repugnance at +calling an expression beautiful, which is not an expression of the +sympathetic. Hence the continual contrast between the point of view of +the aesthetician or of the art critic and that of the ordinary person, +who cannot succeed in persuading himself that the image of pain and of +turpitude can be beautiful, or, at least, can be beautiful with as much +right as the pleasing and the good. + +The opposition could be solved by distinguishing two different sciences, +one of expression and the other of the sympathetic, if the latter could +be the object of a special science; that is to say, if it were not, as +has been shown, a complex fact. If predominance be given to the +expressive fact, it becomes a part of Aesthetic as science of +expression; if to the pleasurable content, we fall back to the study of +facts which are essentially hedonistic (utilitarian), however +complicated they may appear. The origin, also, of the connexion between +content and form is to be sought for in the Aesthetic of the +sympathetic, when this is conceived as the sum of two values. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic hedonism and moralism._ + +In all the doctrines just now discussed, the art fact is posited as +merely hedonistic. But this view cannot be maintained, save by uniting +it with a philosophic hedonism that is complete and not partial, that is +to say, with a hedonism which does not admit any other form of value. +Hardly has this hedonistic conception of art been received by +philosophers, who admit one or more spiritual values, of truth or of +morality, than the following question must necessarily be asked: What +should be done with art? To what use should it be put? Should a free +course be allowed to its pleasures? And if so, to what extent? The +question of the _end of art_, which in the Aesthetic of expression would +be a contradiction of terms, here appears in place, and altogether +logical. + + [Sidenote] _The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic justification + of art._ + +Now it is evident that, admitting the premisses, but two solutions of +such a question can be given, the one altogether negative, the other +restrictive. The first, which we shall call _rigoristic_ or _ascetic_, +appears several times, although not frequently, in the history of ideas. +It looks upon art as an inebriation of the senses, and therefore, not +only useless, but harmful. According to this theory, then, it is +necessary to drive it with all our strength from the human soul, which +it troubles. The other solution, which we shall call _pedagogic_ or +_moralistico-utilitarian_, admits art, but only in so far as it concurs +with the end of morality; in so far as it assists with innocent pleasure +the work of him who leads to the true and the good; in so far as it +sprinkles with dulcet balm the sides of the vase of wisdom and of +morality. + +It is well to observe that it would be an error to divide this second +view into intellectualist and moralistico-utilitarian, according to +whether the end of leading to the true or to what is practically good, +be assigned to art. The task of instructing, which is imposed upon it, +precisely because it is an end which is sought after and advised, is no +longer merely a theoretical fact, but a theoretical fact become the +material for practical action; it is not, therefore, intellectualism, but +pedagogism and practicism. Nor would it be more exact to subdivide the +pedagogic view into the pure utilitarian and the moralistico-utilitarian; +because those who admit only the individually useful (the desire of the +individual), precisely because they are absolute hedonists, have no +motive for seeking an ulterior justification for art. + +But to enunciate these theories at the point to which we have attained +is to confute them. We therefore restrict ourselves to observing that in +the pedagogic theory of art is to be found another of the reasons why it +has been erroneously claimed that the content of art should be _chosen_ +with a view to certain practical effects. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of pure beauty._ + +The thesis, re-echoed by the artists, that art consists of _pure +beauty_, has often been brought forward against hedonistic and pedagogic +Aesthetic: "Heaven places All our joy in _pure beauty_, and the Verse is +everything." If it is wished that this should be understood in the sense +that art is not to be confounded with sensual pleasure, that is, in +fact, with utilitarian practicism, nor with moralism, then our Aesthetic +also must be permitted to adorn itself with the title of _Aesthetic of +pure beauty_. But if (as is often the case) something mystical and +transcendental be meant by this, something that is unknown to our poor +human world, or something spiritual and beatific, but not expressive, we +must reply that while applauding the conception of a beauty, free of all +that is not the spiritual form of expression, we are yet unable to +conceive a beauty altogether purified of expression, that is to say, +separated from itself. + + + + +XII + +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the aesthetic of the + sympathetic._ + +The doctrine of the sympathetic (very often animated and seconded in +this by the capricious metaphysical and mystical Aesthetic, and by that +blind tradition which assumes an intimate connection between things by +chance treated of together by the same authors and in the same books), +has introduced and rendered familiar in systems of Aesthetic, a series +of concepts, of which one example suffices to justify our resolute +expulsion of them from our own treatise. + +Their catalogue is long, not to say interminable: _tragic, comic, +sublime, pathetic, moving, sad, ridiculous, melancholy, tragi-comic, +humoristic, majestic, dignified, serious, grave, imposing, noble, +decorous, graceful, attractive, piquant, coquettish, idyllic, elegiac, +cheerful, violent, ingenuous, cruel, base, horrible, disgusting, +dreadful, nauseating_; the list can be increased at will. + +Since that doctrine took as its special object the sympathetic, it was +naturally unable to neglect any of the varieties of this, or any of the +combinations or gradations which lead at last from the sympathetic to +the antipathetic. And seeing that the sympathetic content was held to be +the _beautiful_ and the antipathetic the _ugly_, the varieties (tragic, +comic, sublime, pathetic, etc.) constituted for it the shades and +gradations intervening between the beautiful and the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of the + ugly surmounted._ + +Having enumerated and defined, as well as it could, the chief among +these varieties, the Aesthetic of the sympathetic set itself the problem +of the place to be assigned to the _ugly in art_. This problem is +without meaning for us, who do not recognize any ugliness save the +anti-aesthetic or inexpressive, which can never form part of the +aesthetic fact, being, on the contrary, its antithesis. But the question +for the doctrine which we are here criticizing was to reconcile in some +way the false and defective idea of art from which it started, reduced +to the representation of the agreeable, with effective art, which +occupies a far wider field. Hence the artificial attempt to settle what +examples of the ugly (antipathetic) could be admitted in artistic +representation, and for what reasons, and in what ways. + +The answer was: that the ugly is admissible, only when it can be +_overcome_, an unconquerable ugliness, such as the _disgusting_ or the +_nauseating_, being altogether excluded. Further, that the duty of the +ugly, when admitted in art, is to contribute towards heightening the +effect of the beautiful (sympathetic), by producing a series of +contrasts, from which the pleasurable shall issue more efficacious and +pleasure-giving. It is, in fact, a common observation that pleasure is +more vividly felt when It has been preceded by abstinence or by +suffering. Thus the ugly in art was looked upon as the servant of the +beautiful, its stimulant and condiment. + +That special theory of hedonistic refinement, which used to be pompously +called the _surmounting of the ugly_, falls with the general theory of +the sympathetic; and with it the enumeration and the definition of the +concepts mentioned above remain completely excluded from Aesthetic. For +Aesthetic does not recognize the sympathetic or the antipathetic In +their varieties, but only the spiritual activity of the representation. + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts belong to Psychology._ + +However, the large space which, as we have said, those concepts have +hitherto occupied in aesthetic treatises makes opportune a rather more +copious explanation of what they are. What will be their lot? As they +are excluded from Aesthetic, in what other part of Philosophy will they +be received? + +Truly, in none. All those concepts are without philosophical value. They +are nothing but a series of classes, which can be bent in the most +various ways and multiplied at pleasure, to which it is sought to reduce +the infinite complications and shadings of the values and disvalues of +life. Of those classes, there are some that have an especially positive +significance, like the beautiful, the sublime, the majestic, the solemn, +the serious, the weighty, the noble, the elevated; others have a +significance especially negative, like the ugly, the horrible, the +dreadful, the tremendous, the monstrous, the foolish, the extravagant; +in others prevails a mixed significance, as is the case with the comic, +the tender, the melancholy, the humorous, the tragi-comic. The +complications are infinite, because the individuations are infinite; +hence it is not possible to construct the concepts, save in the +arbitrary and approximate manner of the natural sciences, whose duty it +is to make as good a plan as possible of that reality which they cannot +exhaust by enumeration, nor understand and surpass speculatively. And +since _Psychology_ is the naturalistic discipline, which undertakes to +construct types and plans of the spiritual processes of man (of which, +in fact, it is always accentuating in our day the merely empirical and +descriptive character), these concepts do not appertain to Aesthetic, +nor, in general, to Philosophy. They must simply be handed over to +Psychology. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of rigoristic definitions of them._ + +As is the case with all other psychological constructions, so is it with +those concepts: no rigorous definitions are possible; and consequently +the one cannot be deduced from the other and they cannot be connected in +a system, as has, nevertheless, often been attempted, at great waste of +time and without result. But it can be claimed as possible to obtain, +apart from philosophical definitions recognised as impossible, empirical +definitions, universally acceptable as true. Since there does not exist +a unique definition of a given fact, but innumerable definitions can be +given of it, according to the cases and the objects for which they are +made, so it is clear that if there were only one, and that the true one, +this would no longer be an empirical, but a rigorous and philosophical +definition. Speaking exactly, every time that one of the terms to which +we have referred has been employed, or any other of the innumerable +series, a definition of it has at the same time been given, expressed or +understood. And each one of these definitions has differed somewhat from +the others, in some particular, perhaps of very small importance, such +as tacit reference to some individual fact or other, which thus became +especially an object of attention and was raised to the position of a +general type. So it happens that not one of such definitions satisfies +him who hears it, nor does it satisfy even him who constructs it. For, +the moment after, this same individual finds himself face to face with a +new case, for which he recognizes that his definition is more or less +insufficient, ill-adapted, and in need of remodelling. It is necessary, +therefore, to leave writers and speakers free to define the sublime or +the comic, the tragic or the humoristic, on every occasion, as they +please and as may seem suitable to their purpose. And if you insist upon +obtaining an empirical definition of universal validity, we can but +submit this one:--The sublime (comic, tragic, humoristic, etc.) is +_everything_ that is or will be so _called_ by those who have employed +or shall employ this _word_. + + [Sidenote] _Examples: definitions of the sublime, the comic, and + the humoristic._ + +What is the sublime? The unexpected affirmation of an ultra-powerful +moral force: that is one definition. But that other definition is +equally good, which also recognizes the sublime where the force which +declares itself is an ultra-powerful, but immoral and destructive will. +Both remain vague and assume no precise form, until they are applied to +a concrete case, which makes clear what is here meant by +_ultra-powerful_, and what by _unexpected_. They are quantitative +concepts, but falsely quantitative, since there is no way of measuring +them; they are, at bottom, metaphors, emphatic phrases, or logical +tautologies. The humorous will be laughter mingled with tears, bitter +laughter, the sudden passage from the comic to the tragic, and from the +tragic to the comic, the comic romantic, the inverted sublime, war +declared against every attempt at insincerity, compassion which is +ashamed to lament, the mockery not of the fact, but of the ideal itself; +and whatever else may better please, according as it is desired to get a +view of the physiognomy of this or that poet, of this or that poem, +which is, in its uniqueness, its own definition, and though momentary +and circumscribed, yet the sole adequate. The comic has been defined as +the displeasure arising from the perception of a deformity immediately +followed by a greater pleasure arising from the relaxation of our +psychical forces, which were strained in anticipation of a perception +whose importance was foreseen. While listening to a narrative, which, +for example, should describe the magnificent and heroic purpose of a +definite person, we anticipate in imagination the occurrence of an +action both heroic and magnificent, and we prepare ourselves to receive +it, by straining our psychic forces. If, however, in a moment, instead +of the magnificent and heroic action, which the premises and the tone of +the narrative had led us to expect, by an unexpected change there occur +a slight, mean, foolish action, unequal to our expectation, we have been +deceived, and the recognition of the deceit brings with it an instant of +displeasure. But this instant is as it were overcome by the one +immediately following, in which we are able to discard our strained +attention, to free ourselves from the provision of psychic energy +accumulated and, henceforth superfluous, to feel ourselves reasonable +and relieved of a burden. This is the pleasure of the comic, with its +physiological equivalent, laughter. If the unpleasant fact that has +occurred should painfully affect our interests, pleasure would not +arise, laughter would be at once choked, the psychic energy would be +strained and overstrained by other more serious perceptions. If, on the +other hand, such more serious perceptions do not arise, if the whole +loss be limited to a slight deception of our foresight, then the +supervening feeling of our psychic wealth affords ample compensation for +this very slight displeasure.--This, stated in a few words, is one of +the most accurate modern definitions of the comic. It boasts of +containing, justified or corrected, the manifold attempts to define the +comic, from Hellenic antiquity to our own day. It includes Plato's +dictum in the _Philebus_, and Aristotle's, which is more explicit. The +latter looks upon the comic as an _ugliness without pain_. It contains +the theory of Hobbes, who placed it in the feeling of _individual +superiority_; of Kant, who saw in it a _relaxation of tension_; and +those of other thinkers, for whom it was _the contrast between great and +small, between the finite and the infinite_. But on close observation, +the analysis and definition above given, although most elaborate and +rigorous in appearance, yet enunciates characteristics which are +applicable, not only to the comic, but to every spiritual process; such +as the succession of painful and agreeable moments and the satisfaction +arising from the consciousness of force and of its free development. The +differentiation here given is that of quantitative determinations, to +which limits cannot be assigned. They remain vague phrases, attaining to +some meaning from their reference to this or that single comic fact. If +such definitions be taken too seriously, there happens to them what Jean +Paul Richter said of all the definitions of the comic: namely, that +their sole merit is _to be themselves comic_ and to produce, in reality, +the fact, which they vainly try to define logically. And who will ever +determine logically the dividing line between the comic and the +non-comic, between smiles and laughter, between smiling and gravity; who +will cut into clearly divided parts that ever-varying continuity into +which life melts? + + [Sidenote] _Relations between those concepts and aesthetic concepts._ + +The facts, classified as well as possible in the above-quoted +psychological concepts, bear no relation to the artistic fact, beyond +the generic that all of them, in so far as they designate the material +of life, can be represented by art; and the other accidental relation, +that aesthetic facts also may sometimes enter into the processes +described, as in the impression of the sublime that the work of a +Titanic artist such as Dante or Shakespeare may produce, and that of the +comic produced by the effort of a dauber or of a scribbler. + +The process is external to the aesthetic fact In this case also; for the +only feeling linked with that is the feeling of aesthetic value and +disvalue, of the beautiful and of the ugly. The Dantesque Farinata is +aesthetically beautiful, and nothing but beautiful: if, in addition, the +force of will of this personage appear sublime, or the expression that +Dante gives him, by reason of his great genius, seem sublime by +comparison with that of a less energetic poet, all this is not a matter +for aesthetic consideration. This consists always and only in adequation +to truth; that is, in beauty. + + + + +XIII + +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic activity and physical concepts._ + +Aesthetic activity is distinct from practical activity but when it +expresses itself is always physical accompanied by practical activity. +Hence its utilitarian or hedonistic side, and the pleasure and pain, +which are, as it were, the practical echo of aesthetic values and +disvalues, of the beautiful and of the ugly. But this practical side of +the aesthetic activity has also, in its turn, a _physical_ or +_psychophysical_ accompaniment, which consists of sounds, tones, +movements, combinations of lines and colours, and so on. + +Does it _really_ possess this side, or does it only seem to possess it, +as the result of the construction which we raise in physical science, +and of the useful and arbitrary methods, which we have shown to be +proper to the empirical and abstract sciences? Our reply cannot be +doubtful, that is, it cannot be affirmative as to the first of the two +hypotheses. + +However, it will be better to leave it at this point in suspense, for it +is not at present necessary to prosecute this line of inquiry any +further. The mention already made must suffice to prevent our having +spoken of the physical element as of something objective and existing, +for reasons of simplicity and adhesion to ordinary language, from +leading to hasty conclusions as to the concepts and the connexion +between spirit and nature. + + [Sidenote] _Expression in the aesthetic sense, and expression in + the naturalistic sense._ + +It is important to make clear that as the existence of the hedonistic +side in every spiritual activity has given rise to the confusion between +the aesthetic activity and the useful or pleasurable, so the existence, +or, better, the possibility of constructing this physical side, has +generated the confusion between _aesthetic_ expression and expression +_in the naturalistic sense_; between a spiritual fact, that is to say, +and a mechanical and passive fact (not to say, between a concrete +reality and an abstraction or fiction). In common speech, sometimes it +is the words of the poet that are called _expressions_, the notes of the +musician, or the figures of the painter; sometimes the blush which is +wont to accompany the feeling of shame, the pallor resulting from fear, +the grinding of the teeth proper to violent anger, the glittering of the +eyes, and certain movements of the muscles of the mouth, which reveal +cheerfulness. A certain degree of heat is also said to be the +_expression_ of fever, as the falling of the barometer is of rain, and +even that the height of the rate of exchange _expresses_ the discredit +of the paper-money of a State, or social discontent the approach of a +revolution. One can well imagine what sort of scientific results would +be attained by allowing oneself to be governed by linguistic usage and +placing in one sheaf facts so widely different. But there is, in fact, +an abyss between a man who is the prey of anger with all its natural +manifestations, and another man who expresses it aesthetically; between +the aspect, the cries, and the contortions of one who is tortured with +sorrow at the loss of a dear one, and the words or song with which the +same individual portrays his torture at another moment; between the +distortion of emotion and the gesture of the actor. Darwin's book on the +expression of the feelings in man and animals does not belong to +Aesthetic; because there is nothing in common between the science of +spiritual expression and a _Semiotic_, whether it be medical, +meteorological, political, physiognomic, or chiromantic. + +Expression in the naturalistic sense simply lacks expression in the +spiritual sense, that is to say, the characteristic itself of activity +and of spirituality, and therefore the bipartition into poles of beauty +and of ugliness. It is nothing more than a relation between cause and +effect, fixed by the abstract intellect. The complete process of +aesthetic production can be symbolized in four steps, which are: _a_, +impressions; _b_, expression or spiritual aesthetic synthesis; _c_, +hedonistic accompaniment, or pleasure of the beautiful (aesthetic +pleasure); _d_, translation of the aesthetic fact into physical +phenomena (sounds, tones, movements, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.). Anyone can see that the capital point, the only one that is +properly speaking aesthetic and truly real, is in that _b_, which is +lacking to the mere manifestation or naturalistic construction, +metaphorically also called expression. + +The expressive process is exhausted when those four steps have been +taken. It begins again with new impressions, a new aesthetic synthesis, +and relative accompaniments. + + [Sidenote] _Intuitions and memory._ + +Expressions or representations follow and expel one another. Certainly, +this passing away, this disassociation, is not perishing, it is not +total elimination: nothing of what is born dies with that complete death +which would be identical with never having been born. Though all things +pass away, yet none can die. The representations which we have +forgotten, also persist in some way in our spirit, for without them we +could not explain acquired habits and capacities. Thus, the strength of +life lies in this apparent forgetting: one forgets what has been +absorbed and what life has superseded. + +But many other things, many other representations, are still efficacious +elements in the actual processes of our spirit; and it is incumbent on +us not to forget them, or to be capable of recalling them when necessity +demands them. The will is always vigilant in this work of preservation, +for it aims at preserving (so to say) the greater and more fundamental +part of all our riches. Certainly its vigilance is not always +sufficient. Memory, we know, leaves or betrays us in various ways. For +this very reason, the vigilant will excogitates expedients, which help +memory in its weakness, and are its _aids_. + + [Sidenote] _The production of aids to memory._ + +We have already explained how these aids are possible. Expressions or +representations are, at the same time, practical facts, which are also +called physical facts, in so far as to the physical belongs the task of +classifying them and reducing them to types. Now it is clear, that if we +can succeed in making those facts in some way permanent, it will always +be possible (other conditions remaining equal) to reproduce in us, by +perceiving it, the already produced expression or intuition. + +If that in which the practical concomitant acts, or (to use physical +terms) the movements have been isolated and made in some sort permanent, +be called the object or physical stimulus, and if it be designated by +the letter _e_; then the process of reproduction will take place in the +following order: _e_, the physical stimulus; _d-b_, perceptions of +physical facts (sounds, tones, mimic, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.), which form together the aesthetic synthesis, already produced; +_c_, the hedonistic accompaniment, which is also reproduced. + +And what are those combinations of words which are called poetry, prose, +poems, novels, romances, tragedies or comedies, but _physical stimulants +of reproduction_ (the _e_ stage); what are those combinations of sound +which are called operas, symphonies, sonatas; and what those of lines +and of colours, which are called pictures, statues, architecture? The +spiritual energy of memory, with the assistance of those physical facts +above mentioned, makes possible the preservation and the reproduction of +the intuitions produced, often so laboriously, by ourselves and by +others. If the physiological organism, and with it memory, become +weakened; if the monuments of art be destroyed; then all the aesthetic +wealth, the fruit of the labours of many generations, becomes lessened +and rapidly disappears. + + [Sidenote] _The physically beautiful._ + +Monuments of art, which are the stimulants of aesthetic reproduction, +are called _beautiful things or the physically beautiful_. This +combination of words constitutes a verbal paradox, because the beautiful +is not a physical fact; it does not belong to things, but to the +activity of man, to spiritual energy. But henceforth it is clear through +what wanderings and what abbreviations, physical things and facts, which +are simply aids to the reproduction of the beautiful, end by being +called, elliptically, beautiful things and physically beautiful. And now +that we have made the existence of this ellipse clear, we shall +ourselves make use of it without hesitation. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning._ + +The intervention of the physically beautiful serves to explain another +meaning of the words _content and form_, as employed by aestheticians. +Some call "content" the internal fact or expression (which is for us +already form), and they call "form" the marble, the colours, the rhythm, +the sounds (for us form no longer); thus they look upon the physical +fact as the form, which may or may not be joined to the content. This +serves to explain another aspect of what is called aesthetic ugliness. +He who has nothing definite to express may try to hide his internal +emptiness with a flood of words, with sounding verse, with deafening +polyphony, with painting that dazzles the eye, or by collocating great +architectonic masses, which arrest and disturb, although, at bottom, +they convey nothing. Ugliness, then, is the arbitrary, the +charlatanesque; and, in reality, if the practical will do not intervene +in the theoretic function, there may be absence of beauty, but never +effective presence of the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Natural and artificial beauty._ + +Physical beauty is wont to be divided into _natural_ and _artificial_ +beauty. Thus we reach one of the facts, which has given great labour to +thinkers: _the beautiful in nature_. These words often designate simply +facts of practical pleasure. He alludes to nothing aesthetic who calls a +landscape beautiful where the eye rests upon verdure, where bodily +motion is easy, and where the warm sun-ray envelops and caresses the +limbs. But it is nevertheless indubitable, that on other occasions the +adjective "beautiful," applied to objects and scenes existing in nature, +has a completely aesthetic signification. + +It has been observed, that in order to enjoy natural objects +aesthetically, we should withdraw them from their external and +historical reality, and separate their simple appearance or origin from +existence; that if we contemplate a landscape with our head between our +legs, in such a way as to remove ourselves from our wonted relations +with it, the landscape appears as an ideal spectacle; that nature is +beautiful only for him who contemplates her _with the eye of the +artist_; that zoologists and botanists do not recognize beautiful +animals and flowers; that natural beauty is _discovered_ (and examples +of discovery are the points of view, pointed out by men of taste and +imagination, and to which more or less aesthetic travellers and +excursionists afterwards have recourse in pilgrimage, whence a more or +less collective _suggestion_); that, _without the aid of the +imagination_, no part of nature is beautiful, and that with such aid the +same natural object or fact is now expressive, according to the +disposition of the soul, now insignificant, now expressive of one +definite thing, now of another, sad or glad, sublime or ridiculous, +sweet or laughable; finally, that _natural beauty_, which an artist +would not _to some extent correct, does not exist_. + +All these observations are most just, and confirm the fact that natural +beauty is simply a _stimulus_ to aesthetic reproduction, which +presupposes previous production. Without preceding aesthetic intuitions +of the imagination, nature cannot arouse any at all. As regards natural +beauty, man is like the mythical Narcissus at the fountain. They show +further that since this stimulus is accidental, it is, for the most +part, imperfect or equivocal. Leopardi said that natural beauty is +"rare, scattered, and fugitive." Every one refers the natural fact to +the expression which is in his mind. One artist is, as it were, carried +away by a laughing landscape, another by a rag-shop, another by the +pretty face of a young girl, another by the squalid countenance of an +old ruffian. Perhaps the first will say that the rag-shop and the ugly +face of the old ruffian are _disgusting_; the second, that the laughing +landscape and the face of the young girl are _insipid_. They may dispute +for ever; but they will never agree, save when they have supplied +themselves with a sufficient dose of aesthetic knowledge, which will +enable them to recognize that they are both right. _Artificial_ beauty, +created by man, is a much more ductile and efficacious aid to +reproduction. + + [Sidenote] _Mixed beauty._ + +In addition to these two classes, aestheticians also sometimes talk in +their treatises of a _mixed_ beauty. Of what is it a mixture? Just of +natural and artificial. Whoso fixes and externalizes, operates with +natural materials, which he does not create, but combines and +transforms. In this sense, every artificial product is a mixture of +nature and artifice; and there would be no occasion to speak of a mixed +beauty, as of a special category. But it happens that, in certain cases, +combinations already given in nature can be used a great deal more than +in others; as, for instance, when we design a beautiful garden and +include in our design groups of trees or ponds which are already there. +On other occasions externalization is limited by the impossibility of +producing certain effects artificially. Thus we may mix the colouring +matters, but we cannot create a powerful voice or a personage and an +appearance appropriate to this or that personage of a drama. We must +therefore seek for them among things already existing, and make use of +them when we find them. When, therefore, we adopt a great number of +combinations already existing in nature, such as we should not be able +to produce artificially if they did not exist, the result is called +_mixed_ beauty. + + [Sidenote] _Writings._ + +We must distinguish from artificial beauty those instruments of +reproduction called _writings_, such as alphabets, musical notes, +hieroglyphics, and all pseudo-languages, from the language of flowers +and flags, to the language of patches (so much the vogue in the society +of the eighteenth century). Writings are not physical facts which arouse +directly impressions answering to aesthetic expressions; they are simple +_indications_ of what must be done in order to produce such physical +facts. A series of graphic signs serves to remind us of the movements +which we must execute with our vocal apparatus in order to emit certain +definite sounds. If, through practice, we become able to hear the words +without opening our mouths and (what is much more difficult) to hear the +sounds by running the eye down the page of the music, all this does not +alter anything of the nature of the writings, which are altogether +different from direct physical beauty. No one calls the book which +contains the _Divine Comedy_, or the portfolio which contains _Don +Giovanni_, beautiful in the same sense as the block of marble which +contains Michael Angelo's _Moses_, or the piece of coloured wood which +contains the _Transfiguration_ are metaphorically called beautiful. Both +serve for the reproduction of the beautiful, but the former by a far +longer and far more indirect route than the latter. + + [Sidenote] _The beautiful as free and not free._ + +Another division of the beautiful, which is still found in treatises, is +that into _free and not free_. By beauties that are not free, are +understood those objects which have to serve a double purpose, +extra-aesthetic and aesthetic (stimulants of intuitions); and since it +appears that the first purpose limits and impedes the second, the +beautiful object resulting therefrom has been considered as a beauty +that is not free. + +Architectural works are especially cited; and precisely for this reason, +has architecture often been excluded from the number of the so-called +fine arts. A temple must be above all things adapted to the use of a +cult; a house must contain all the rooms requisite for commodity of +living, and they must be arranged with a view to this commodity; a +fortress must be a construction capable of resisting the attacks of +certain armies and the blows of certain instruments of war. It is +therefore held that the architect's field is limited: he may be able to +_embellish_ to some extent the temple, the house, the fortress; but his +hands are bound by the _object_ of these buildings, and he can only +manifest that part of his vision of beauty in their construction which +does not impair their extrinsic, but fundamental, objects. + +Other examples are taken from what is called art applied to industry. +Plates, glasses, knives, guns, and combs can be made beautiful; but it +is held that their beauty must not so far exceed as to prevent our +eating from the plate, drinking from the glass, cutting with the knife, +firing off the gun, or combing one's hair with the comb. The same is +said of the art of printing: a book should be beautiful, but not to the +extent of its being difficult or impossible to read it. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful that is not free._ + +In respect to all this, we must observe, in the first place, that the +external purpose, precisely because it is such, does not of necessity +limit or trammel the other purpose of being a stimulus to aesthetic +reproduction. Nothing, therefore, can be more erroneous than the thesis +that architecture, for example, is by its nature not free and imperfect, +since it must also fulfil other practical objects. Beautiful +architectural works, however, themselves undertake to deny this by their +simple presence. + +In the second place, not only are the two objects not necessarily in +opposition; but, we must add, the artist always has the means of +preventing this contradiction from taking place. In what way? By taking, +as the material of his intuition and aesthetic externalization, +precisely the _destination_ of the object, which serves a practical end. +He will not need to add anything to the object, in order to make it the +instrument of aesthetic intuitions: it will be so, if perfectly adapted +to its practical purpose. Rustic dwellings and palaces, churches and +barracks, swords and ploughs, are beautiful, not in so far as they are +embellished and adorned, but in so far as they express the purpose for +which they were made. A garment is only beautiful because it is quite +suitable to a given person in given conditions. The sword bound to the +side of the warrior Rinaldo by the amorous Armida was not beautiful: "so +adorned that it seemed a useless ornament, not the warlike instrument of +a warrior." It was beautiful, if you will, in the eyes and imagination +of the sorceress, who loved her lover in this effeminate way. The +aesthetic fact can always accompany the practical fact, because +expression is truth. + +It cannot, however, be denied that aesthetic contemplation sometimes +hinders practical use. For instance, it is a quite common experience to +find certain new things so well adapted to their purpose, and yet so +beautiful, that people occasionally feel scruples in maltreating them by +using after contemplating them, which amounts to consuming them. It was +for this reason that King Frederick William of Prussia evinced +repugnance to ordering his magnificent grenadiers, so well suited for +war, to endure the strain of battle; but his less aesthetic son, +Frederick the Great, obtained from them excellent services. + + [Sidenote] _The stimulants of production._ + +It might be objected to the explanation of the physically beautiful as a +simple adjunct for the reproduction of the internally beautiful, that is +to say, of expressions, that the artist creates his expressions by +painting or by sculpturing, by writing or by composing, and that +therefore the physically beautiful, instead of following, sometimes +precedes the aesthetically beautiful. This would be a somewhat +superficial mode of understanding the procedure of the artist, who never +makes a stroke with his brush without having previously seen it with his +imagination; and if he has not yet seen it, he will make the stroke, not +in order to externalize his expression (which does not yet exist), but +as though to have a rallying point for ulterior meditation and for +internal concentration. The physical point on which he leans is not the +physically beautiful, instrument of reproduction, but what may be called +a pedagogic means, similar to retiring into solitude, or to the many +other expedients, frequently very strange, adopted by artists and +philosophers, who vary in these according to their various +idiosyncrasies. The old aesthetician Baumgarten advised poets to ride on +horseback, as a means of inspiration, to drink wine in moderation, and +(provided they were chaste) to look at beautiful women. + + + + +XIV + +MISTAKES ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + + +It is necessary to mention a series of scientific mistakes which have +arisen from the failure to understand the purely external relation +between the aesthetic fact or artistic vision, and the physical fact or +instrument, which serves as an aid to reproduce it. We must here +indicate the proper criticism, which derives from what has already been +said. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic associationism_ + +That form of associationism which identifies the aesthetic fact with the +_association of two_ images finds a place among these errors. By what +path has it been possible to arrive at such a mistake, against which our +aesthetic consciousness, which is a consciousness of perfect unity, +never of duality, rebels? Just because the physical and the aesthetic +facts have been considered separately, as two distinct images, which +enter the spirit, the one drawn forth from the other, the one first and +the other afterwards. A picture is divided into the image of the +_picture_ and the image of the _meaning_ of the picture; a poem, into +the image of the words and the image of the _meaning_ of the words. But +this dualism of images is non-existent: the physical fact does not enter +the spirit as an image, but causes the reproduction of the image (the +only image, which is the aesthetic fact), in so far as it blindly +stimulates the psychic organism and produces an impression answering to +the aesthetic expression already produced. + +The efforts of the associationists (the usurpers of to-day in the field +of Aesthetic) to emerge from the difficulty, and to reaffirm in some way +the unity which has been destroyed by their principle of associationism, +are highly instructive. Some maintain that the image called back again +is unconscious; others, leaving unconsciousness alone, hold that, on the +contrary, it is vague, vaporous, confused, thus reducing the _force_ of +the aesthetic fact to the _weakness_ of bad memory. But the dilemma is +inexorable: either keep association and give up unity, or keep unity and +give up association. No third way out of the difficulty exists. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic physic._ + +From the failure to analyze so-called natural beauty thoroughly, and to +recognize that it is simply an incident of aesthetic reproduction, and +from having, on the contrary, looked upon it as given in nature, is +derived all that portion of treatises upon Aesthetic which is entitled +_The Beautiful in Nature or Aesthetic Physic_; sometimes even +subdivided, save the mark! into Aesthetic Mineralogy, Botany, and +Zoology. We do not wish to deny that such treatises contain many just +remarks, and are sometimes themselves works of art, in so far as they +represent beautifully the imaginings and fantasies, that is the +impressions, of their authors. But we must state that it is +scientifically false to ask oneself if the dog be beautiful, and the +ornithorhynchus ugly; if the lily be beautiful, and the artichoke ugly. +Indeed, the error is here double. On one hand, aesthetic Physic falls +back into the equivoke of the theory of artistic and literary classes, +by attempting to determine aesthetically the abstractions of our +intellect; on the other, fails to recognize, as we said, the true +formation of so-called natural beauty; for which the question as to +whether some given individual animal, flower, or man be beautiful or +ugly, is altogether excluded. What is not produced by the aesthetic +spirit, or cannot be referred to it, is neither beautiful nor ugly. The +aesthetic process arises from the ideal relations in which natural +objects are arranged. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body._ + +The double error can be exemplified by the question, upon which whole +volumes have been written, as to the _Beauty of the human body_. Here it +is necessary, above all things, to urge those who discuss this subject +from the abstract toward the concrete, by asking: "What do you mean by +the human body, that of the male, of the female, or of the androgyne?" +Let us assume that they reply by dividing the inquiry into two distinct +inquiries, as to the virile and feminine beauty (there really are +writers who seriously discuss whether man or woman is the more +beautiful); and let us continue: "Masculine or feminine beauty; but of +what race of men--the white, the yellow, or the black, and whatever +others there may be, according to the division of races?" Let us assume +that they limit themselves to the white race, and let us continue: "What +sub-species of the white race?" And when we have restricted them +gradually to one section of the white world, that is to say, to the +Italian, Tuscan, Siennese, or Porta Camollia section, we will continue: +"Very good; but at what age of the human body, and in what condition and +state of development--that of the new-born babe, of the child, of the +boy, of the adolescent, of the man of middle age, and so on? and is the +man at rest or at work, or is he occupied as is Paul Potter's cow, or +the Ganymede of Rembrandt?" + +Having thus arrived, by successive reductions, at the individual +_omnimode determinatum_, or, better, at the man pointed out with the +finger, it will be easy to expose the other error, by recalling what has +been said about the natural fact, which is now beautiful, now ugly, +according to the point of view, according to what is passing in the mind +of the artist. Finally, if the Gulf of Naples have its detractors, and +if there be artists who declare it inexpressive, preferring the "gloomy +firs," the "clouds and perpetual north winds," of the northern seas; let +it be believed, if possible, that such relativity does not exist for the +human body, source of the most various suggestions! + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beauty of geometric figures._ + +The question of the _beauty of geometrical figures_ is connected with +aesthetic Physic. But if by geometrical figures be understood the +concepts of geometry, the concept of the triangle, the square, the cone, +these are neither beautiful nor ugly: they are concepts. If, on the +other hand, by such figures be understood bodies which possess definite +geometrical forms, these will be ugly or beautiful, like every natural +fact, according to the ideal connexions in which they are placed. Some +hold that those geometrical figures are beautiful which point upwards, +since they give the suggestion of firmness and of force. It is not +denied that such may be the case. But neither must it be denied that +those also which give the impression of instability and of being crushed +down may possess their beauty, where they represent just the ill-formed +and the crushed; and that in these last cases the firmness of the +straight line and the lightness of the cone or of the equilateral +triangle would, on the contrary, seem elements of ugliness. + +Certainly, such questions as to the beauty of nature and the beauty of +geometry, like the others analogous of the historically beautiful and of +human beauty, seem less absurd in the Aesthetic of the sympathetic, +which means, at bottom, by the words "aesthetic beauty" the +representation of what is pleasing. But the pretension to determine +scientifically what are the sympathetic contents, and what are the +irremediably antipathetic, is none the less erroneous, even in the +sphere of that doctrine and after the laying down of those premises. One +can only answer such questions by repeating with an infinitely long +postscript the _Sunt quos_ of the first ode of the first book of Horace, +and the _Havvi chi_ of Leopardi's letter to Carlo Pepoli. To each man +his beautiful ( = sympathetic), as to each man his fair one. Philography +is not a science. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of another aspect of the imitation of nature._ + +The artist sometimes has naturally existing facts before him, in +producing the artificial instrument, or physically beautiful. These are +called his _models_: bodies, stuffs, flowers, and so on. Let us run over +the sketches, the studies, and the notes of the artists: Leonardo noted +down in his pocket-book, when he was working on the Last Supper: +"Giovannina, fantastic appearance, is at St. Catherine's, at the +Hospital; Cristofano di Castiglione is at the Pieta, he has a fine head; +Christ, Giovan Conte, is of the suite of Cardinal Mortaro." And so on. +From this comes the illusion that the artist _imitates nature_; when it +would perhaps be more exact to say that nature imitates the artist, and +obeys him. The theory that _art imitates nature_ has sometimes been +grounded upon and found sustenance in this illusion, as also its +variant, more easily to be defended, which makes art the _idealizer of +nature_. This last theory presents the process in a disorderly manner, +indeed inversely to the true order; for the artist does not proceed from +extrinsic reality, in order to modify it by approaching it to the ideal; +but he proceeds from the impression of external nature to expression, +that is to say, to his ideal, and from this he passes to the natural +fact, which he employs as the instrument of reproduction of the ideal +fact. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of the + beautiful._ + +Another consequence of the confusion between the aesthetic and the +physical fact is the theory of the _elementary forms of the beautiful_. +If expression, if the beautiful, be indivisible, the physical fact, in +which it externalizes itself, can well be divided and subdivided; for +example, a painted surface, into lines and colours, groups and curves of +lines, kinds of colours, and so on; a poem, into strophes, verses, feet, +syllables; a piece of prose, into chapters, paragraphs, headings, +periods, phrases, words, and so on. The parts thus obtained are not +aesthetic facts, but smaller physical facts, cut up in an arbitrary +manner. If this path were followed, and the confusion persisted in, we +should end by concluding that the true forms of the beautiful are +_atoms_. + +The aesthetic law, several times promulgated, that beauty must have +_bulk_, could be invoked against the atoms. It cannot be the +imperceptibility of the too small, nor the unapprehensibility of the too +large. But a bigness which depends upon perceptibility, not measurement, +derives from a concept widely different from the mathematical. For what +is called imperceptible and incomprehensible does not produce an +impression, because it is not a real fact, but a concept: the requisite +of bulk in the beautiful is thus reduced to the effective reality of the +physical fact, which serves for the reproduction of the beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the search for the objective conditions of + the beautiful._ + +Continuing the search for the _physical laws_ or for the _objective +conditions of the beautiful_, it has been asked: To what physical facts +does the beautiful correspond? To what the ugly? To what unions of +tones, colours, sizes, mathematically determinable? Such inquiries are +as if in Political Economy one were to seek for the laws of exchange in +the physical nature of the objects exchanged. The constant infecundity +of the attempt should have at once given rise to some suspicion as to +its vanity. In our times, especially, has the necessity for an +_inductive_ Aesthetic been often proclaimed, of an Aesthetic starting +_from below_, which should proceed like natural science and not hasten +its conclusions. Inductive? But Aesthetic has always been both inductive +and deductive, like every philosophical science; induction and deduction +cannot be separated, nor can they separately avail to characterize a +true science. But the word "inductive" was not here pronounced +accidentally and without special intention. It was wished to imply by +its use that the aesthetic fact is nothing, at bottom, but a physical +fact, which should be studied by applying to it the methods proper to +the physical and natural sciences. With such a presupposition and in +such a faith did inductive Aesthetic or Aesthetic of the inferior (what +pride in this modesty!) begin its labours. It has conscientiously begun +by making a collection of _beautiful things_, for example of a great +number of envelopes of various shapes and sizes, and has asked which of +these give the impression of the beautiful and which of the ugly. As was +to be expected, the inductive aestheticians speedily found themselves in +a difficulty, for the same objects that appeared ugly in one aspect +would appear beautiful in another. A yellow, coarse envelope, which +would be extremely ugly for the purpose of enclosing a love-letter, is, +however, just what is wanted for a writ served by process on stamped +paper. This in its turn would look very bad, or seem at any rate an +irony, if enclosed in a square English envelope. Such considerations of +simple common sense should have sufficed to convince inductive +aestheticians, that the beautiful has no physical existence, and cause +them to remit their vain and ridiculous quest. But no: they have had +recourse to an expedient, as to which we would find it difficult to say +how far it belongs to natural science. They have sent their envelopes +round from one to the other and opened a _referendum_, thus striving to +decide by the votes of the majority in what consists the beautiful and +the ugly. + +We will not waste time over this argument, because we should seem to be +turning ourselves into narrators of comic anecdotes rather than +expositors of aesthetic science and of its problems. It is an actual +fact, that the inductive aestheticians have not yet discovered _one +single law_. + + [Sidenote] _Astrology of Aesthetic._ + +He who dispenses with doctors is prone to abandon himself to charlatans. +Thus it has befallen those who have believed in the natural laws of the +beautiful. Artists sometimes adopt empirical canons, such as that of the +proportions of the human body, or of the golden section, that is to say, +of a line divided into two parts in such a manner that the less is to +the greater as is the greater to the whole line (_bc: ac=ac: ab_). Such +canons easily become their superstitions, and they attribute to such the +success of their works. Thus Michael Angelo left as a precept to his +disciple Marco del Pino of Siena that "he should always make a pyramidal +serpentine figure multiplied by one, two, three," a precept which did +not enable Marco di Siena to emerge from that mediocrity which we can +yet observe in his many works, here in Naples. Others extracted from the +sayings of Michael Angelo the precept that serpentine undulating lines +were the true _lines of beauty_. Whole volumes have been composed on +these laws of beauty, on the golden section and on the undulating and +serpentine lines. These should in our opinion be looked upon as the +_astrology of Aesthetic_. + + + + +XV + +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION, TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + + + [Sidenote] _The practical activity of externalization._ + +The fact of the production of the physically beautiful implies, as has +already been remarked, a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing +certain visions, intuitions, or representations, to be lost. Such a will +must be able to act with the utmost rapidity, and as it were +instinctively, and also be capable of long and laborious deliberations. +Thus and only thus does the practical activity enter into relations with +the aesthetic, that is to say, in effecting the production of physical +objects, which are aids to memory. Here it is not merely a concomitant, +but really a distinct moment of the aesthetic activity. We cannot will +or not will our aesthetic vision: we can, however, will or not will to +externalize it, or better, to preserve and communicate, or not, to +others, the externalization produced. + + [Sidenote] _The technique of externalization._ + +This volitional fact of externalization is preceded by a complex of +various kinds of knowledge. These are known as _techniques_, like all +knowledge which precedes the practical activity. Thus we talk of an +artistic technique in the same metaphorical and elliptic manner that we +talk of the physically beautiful, that is to say (in more precise +language), _knowledge employed by the practical activity engaged in +producing stimuli to aesthetic reproduction_. In place of employing so +lengthy a phrase, we shall here avail ourselves of the vulgar +terminology, since we are henceforward aware of its true meaning. + +The possibility of this technical knowledge, at the service of artistic +reproduction, has caused people to imagine the existence of an aesthetic +technique of internal expression, which is tantamount to saying, _a +doctrine of the means of internal expression_, which is altogether +inconceivable. And we know well the reason why it is inconceivable; +expression, considered in itself, is primary theoretic activity, and, in +so far as it is this, it precedes the practical activity and the +intellectual knowledge which illumines the practical activity, and is +thus independent alike of the one and of the other. It also helps to +illumine the practical activity, but is not illuminated by it. +Expression does not employ _means_, because it has not an _end_; it has +intuitions of things, but does not will them, and is thus indivisible +into means and end. Thus if it be said, as sometimes is the case, that a +certain writer has invented a new technique of fiction or of drama, or +that a painter has discovered a new mode of distribution of light, the +word is used in a false sense; because the so-called _new technique is +really that romance itself, or that new picture_ itself. The +distribution of light belongs to the vision itself of the picture; as +the technique of a dramatist is his dramatic conception itself. On other +occasions, the word "technique" is used to designate certain merits or +defects in a work which is a failure; and it is said, euphemistically, +that the conception is bad, but the technique good, or that the +conception is good, and the technique bad. + +On the other hand, when the different ways of painting in oils, or of +etching, or of sculpturing in alabaster, are discussed, then the word +"technique" is in its place; but in such a case the adjective "artistic" +is used metaphorically. And if a dramatic technique in the artistic +sense be impossible, a theatrical technique is not impossible, that is +to say, processes of externalization of certain given aesthetic works. +When, for instance, women were introduced on the stage in Italy in the +second half of the sixteenth century, in place of men dressed as women, +this was a true and real discovery in theatrical technique; such too was +the perfecting in the following century by the impresarios of Venice, of +machines for the rapid changing of the scenes. + + [Sidenote] _The theoretic techniques of the individual arts._ + +The collection of technical knowledge at the service of artists desirous +of externalizing their expressions, can be divided into groups, which +may be entitled _theories of the arts_. Thus is born a theory of +Architecture, comprising mechanical laws, information relating to the +weight or to the resistance of the materials of construction or of +fortification, manuals relating to the method of mixing chalk or stucco; +a theory of Sculpture, containing advice as to the instruments to be +used for sculpturing the various sorts of stone, for obtaining a +successful fusion of bronze, for working with the chisel, for the exact +copying of the model in chalk or plaster, for keeping chalk damp; a +theory of Painting, on the various techniques of tempera, of +oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportions of the +human body, on the laws of perspective; a theory of Oratory, with +precepts as to the method of producing, of exercising and of +strengthening the voice, of mimic and gesture; a theory of Music, on the +combinations and fusions of tones and sounds; and so on. Such +collections of precepts abound in all literatures. And since it soon +becomes impossible to say what is useful and what useless to know, books +of this sort become very often a sort of encyclopaedias or catalogues of +desiderata. Vitruvius, in his treatise on Architecture, claims for the +architect a knowledge of letters, of drawing, of geometry, of +arithmetic, of optic, of history, of natural and moral philosophy, of +jurisprudence, of medicine, of astrology, of music, and so on. +Everything is worth knowing: learn the art and lay it aside. + +It should be evident that such empirical collections are not reducible +to a science. They are composed of notions, taken from various sciences +and teachings, and their philosophical and scientific principles are to +be found in them. To undertake the construction of a scientific theory +of the different arts, would be to wish to reduce to the single and +homogeneous what is by nature multiple and heterogeneous; to wish to +destroy the existence as a collection of what was put together precisely +to form a collection. Were we to give a scientific form to the manuals +of the architect, the painter, or the musician, it is clear that nothing +would remain in our hands but the general principles of Mechanic, Optic, +or Acoustic. Or if the especially artistic observations disseminated +through it be extracted and isolated, and a science be made of them, +then the sphere of the individual art is deserted and that of Aesthetic +entered upon, for Aesthetic is always general Aesthetic, or better, it +cannot be divided into general and special. This last case (that is, the +attempt to furnish a technique of Aesthetic) is found, when men +possessing strong scientific instincts and a natural tendency to +philosophy, set themselves to work to produce such theories and +technical manuals. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the aesthetic theories of the individual + arts._ + +But the confusion between Physic and Aesthetic has attained to its +highest degree, when aesthetic theories of the different arts are +imagined, to answer such questions as: What are the _limits_ of each +art? What can be represented with colours, and what with sounds? What +with simple monochromatic lines, and what with touches of various +colours? What with notes, and what with metres and rhymes? What are the +limits between the figurative and the auditional arts, between painting +and sculpture, poetry and music? + +This, translated into scientific language, is tantamount to asking: What +is the connexion between Acoustic and aesthetic expression? What between +the latter and Optic?--and the like. Now, if _there is no passage_ from +the physical fact to the aesthetic, how could there be from the +aesthetic to particular groups of aesthetic facts, such as the phenomena +of Optic or of Acoustic? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the classifications of the arts._ + +The things called _Arts_ have no aesthetic limits, because, in order to +have them, they would need to have also aesthetic existence; and we have +demonstrated the altogether empirical genesis of those divisions. +Consequently, any attempt at an aesthetic classification of the arts is +absurd. If they be without limits, they are not exactly determinable, +and consequently cannot be philosophically classified. All the books +dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned +without any loss whatever. (We say this with the utmost respect to the +writers who have expended their labours upon them.) + +The impossibility of such classifications finds, as it were, its proof +in the strange methods to which recourse has been had to carry them out. +The first and most common classification is that into arts of _hearing, +sight_, and _imagination_; as if eyes, ears, and imagination were on the +same level, and could be deduced from the same logical variable, as +foundation of the division. Others have proposed the division into arts +of _space and time_, and arts of _rest_ and _motion_; as if the concepts +of space, time, rest, and motion could determine special aesthetic +forms, or have anything in common with art as such. Finally, others have +amused themselves by dividing them into _classic and romantic_, or into +_oriental, classic, and romantic_, thereby conferring the value of +scientific concepts on simple historical denominations, or adopting +those pretended partitions of expressive forms, already criticized +above; or by talking of arts _that can only be seen from one side_, like +painting, and of arts _that can be seen from all sides_, like +sculpture--and similar extravagances, which exist neither in heaven nor +on the earth. + +The theory of the limits of the arts was, perhaps, at the time when it +was put forward, a beneficial critical reaction against those who +believed in the possibility of the flowing of one expression into +another, as of the _Iliad_ or of _Paradise Lost_ into a series of +paintings, and thus held a poem to be of greater or lesser value, +according as it could or could not be translated into pictures by a +painter. But if the rebellion were reasonable and victorious, this does +not mean that the arguments adopted and the theories made as required +were sound. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the union of the arts._ + +Another theory which is a corollary to that of the limits of the arts, +falls with them; that of the _union of the arts_. Granted different +arts, distinct and limited, the questions were asked: Which is the most +powerful? Do we not obtain more powerful effects by uniting several? We +know nothing of this: we know only, in each individual case, that +certain given artistic intuitions have need of definite physical means +for their reproduction, and that other artistic intuitions have need of +other physical means. We can obtain the effect of certain dramas by +simply reading them; others need declamation and scenic display: some +artistic intuitions, for their full extrinsication, need words, song, +musical instruments, colours, statuary, architecture, actors; while +others are beautiful and complete in a single delicate sweep of the pen, +or with a few strokes of the pencil. But it is false to suppose that +declamation and scenic effects, and all the other things we have +mentioned together, are _more powerful_ than simply reading, or than the +simple stroke with the pen and with the pencil; because each of these +facts or groups of facts has, so to say, a different object, and the +power of the different means employed cannot be compared when the +objects are different. + + [Sidenote] _Connexion of the activity of externalization with utility + and morality._ + +Finally, it is only from the point of view of a clear and rigorous +distinction between the true and proper aesthetic activity, and the +practical activity of externalization, that we can solve the involved +and confused questions as to the relations between _art and utility_, +and _art and morality_. + +That art as art is independent alike of utility and of morality, as also +of every volitional form, we have above demonstrated. Without this +independence, it would not be possible to speak of an intrinsic value of +art, nor indeed to conceive an aesthetic science, which demands the +autonomy of the aesthetic fact as a necessity of its existence. + +But it would be erroneous to maintain that this independence of the +vision or intuition or internal expression of the artist should be at +once extended to the practical activity of externalization and of +communication, which may or may not follow the aesthetic fact. If art be +understood as the externalization of art, then utility and morality have +a perfect right to deal with it; that is to say, the right one possesses +to deal with one's own household. + +We do not, as a matter of fact, externalize and fix all of the many +expressions and intuitions which we form in our mind; we do not declare +our every thought in a loud voice, or write down, or print, or draw, or +colour, or expose it to the public gaze. _We select_ from the crowd of +intuitions which are formed or at least sketched within us; and the +selection is governed by selection of the economic conditions of life +and of its moral direction. Therefore, when we have formed an intuition, +it remains to decide whether or no we should communicate it to others, +and to whom, and when, and how; all of which considerations fall equally +under the utilitarian and ethical criterion. + +Thus we find the concepts of _selection_, of the _interesting_, of +_morality_, of an _educational end_, of _popularity_, etc., to some +extent justified, although these can in no wise be justified as imposed +upon art as art, and we have ourselves denounced them in pure Aesthetic. +Error always contains an element of truth. He who formulated those +erroneous aesthetic propositions had his eye on practical facts, which +attach themselves externally to the aesthetic fact in economic and moral +life. + +By all means, be partisans of a yet greater liberty in the vulgarization +of the means of aesthetic reproduction; we are of the same opinion, and +let us leave the proposals for legislative measures, and for actions to +be instigated against immoral art, to hypocrites, to the ingenuous, and +to idlers. But the proclamation of this liberty, and the fixation of its +limits, how wide soever they be, is always the affair of morality. And +it would in any case be out of place to invoke that highest principle, +that _fundamentum Aesthetices_, which is the independence of art, in +order to deduce from it the guiltlessness of the artist, who, in the +externalization of his imaginings, should calculate upon the unhealthy +tastes of his readers; or that licenses should be granted to the hawkers +who sell obscene statuettes in the streets. This last case is the affair +of the police; the first must be brought before the tribunal of the +moral conscience. The aesthetic judgment on the work of art has nothing +to do with the morality of the artist, in so far as he is a practical +man, nor with the precautions to be taken that art may not be employed +for evil purposes alien to its essence, which is pure theoretic +contemplation. + + + + +XVI + +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic + reproduction._ + +When the entire aesthetic and externalizing process has been completed, +when a beautiful expression has been produced and fixed in a definite +physical material, what is meant by _judging it_? _To reproduce it in +oneself_, answer the critics of art, almost with one voice. Very good. +Let us try thoroughly to understand this fact, and with that object in +view, let us represent it schematically. + +The individual A is seeking the expression of an impression, which he +feels or has a presentiment of, but has not yet expressed. Behold him +trying various words and phrases, which may give the sought-for +expression, which must exist, but which he does not know. He tries the +combination _m_, but rejects it as unsuitable, inexpressive, incomplete, +ugly: he tries the combination _n_, with a like result. _He does not see +anything, or he does not see clearly_. The expression still flies from +him. After other vain attempts, during which he sometimes approaches, +sometimes leaves the sign that offers itself, all of a sudden (almost as +though formed spontaneously of itself) he creates the sought-for +expression, and _lux facta est_. He enjoys for an instant aesthetic +pleasure or the pleasure of the beautiful. The ugly, with its +correlative displeasure, was the aesthetic activity, which had not +succeeded in conquering the obstacle; the beautiful is the expressive +activity, which now displays itself triumphant. + +We have taken this example from the domain of speech, as being nearer +and more accessible, and because we all talk, though we do not all draw +or paint. Now if another individual, whom we shall term B, desire to +judge this expression and decide whether it be beautiful or ugly, he +_must of necessity place himself at A's point of view_, and go through +the whole process again, with the help of the physical sign, supplied to +him by A. If A has seen clearly, then B (who has placed himself at A's +point of view) will also see clearly and will find this expression +beautiful. If A has not seen clearly, then B also will not see clearly, +and will find the expression more or less ugly, _just as A did_. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of divergences._ + +It may be observed that we have not taken into consideration two other +cases: that of A having a clear and B an obscure vision; and that of A +having an obscure and B a clear vision. Philosophically speaking, these +two cases are _impossible_. + +Spiritual activity, precisely because it is activity, is not a caprice, +but a spiritual necessity; and it cannot solve a definite aesthetic +problem, save in one way, which is the right way. Doubtless certain +facts may be adduced, which appear to contradict this deduction. Thus +works which seem beautiful to artists, are judged to be ugly by the +critics; while works with which the artists were displeased and judged +imperfect or failures, are held to be beautiful and perfect by the +critics. But this does not mean anything, save that one of the two is +wrong: either the critics or the artists, or in one case the artist and +in another the critic. In fact, the producer of an expression does not +always fully realize what has happened in his soul. Haste, vanity, want +of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, make people say, and sometimes +others almost believe, that works of ours are beautiful, which, if we +were truly to turn inwards upon ourselves, we should see ugly, as they +really are. Thus poor Don Quixote, when he had mended his helmet as well +as he could with cardboard--the helmet that had showed itself to possess +but the feeblest force of resistance at the first encounter,--took good +care not to test it again with a well-delivered sword-thrust, but simply +declared and maintained it to be (says the author) _por celada finisima +de encaxe_. And in other cases, the same reasons, or opposite but +analogous ones, trouble the consciousness of the artist, and cause him +to disapprove of what he has successfully produced, or to strive to undo +and do again worse, what he has done well, in his artistic spontaneity. +An example of this is the _Gerusalemme conquistata_. In the same way, +haste, laziness, want of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, personal +sympathies, or animosities, and other motives of a similar sort, +sometimes cause the critics to proclaim beautiful what is ugly, and ugly +what is beautiful. Were they to eliminate such disturbing elements, they +would feel the work of art as it really is, and would not leave to +posterity, that more diligent and more dispassionate judge, to award the +palm, or to do that justice, which they have refused. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of taste and genius._ + +It is clear from the preceding theorem, that the judicial activity, +which criticizes and recognizes the beautiful, is identical with that +which produces it. The only difference lies in the diversity of +circumstances, since in the one case it is a question of aesthetic +production, in the other of reproduction. The judicial activity is +called _taste_; the productive activity is called _genius_: genius and +taste are therefore substantially _identical_. + +The common remark, that the critic should possess some of the genius of +the artist and that the artist should possess taste, reveals a glimpse +of this identity; or that there exists an active (productive) taste and +a passive (reproductive) taste. But a denial of this is contained in +other equally common remarks, as when people speak of taste without +genius, or of genius without taste. These last observations are +meaningless, unless they be taken as alluding to quantitative +differences. In this case, those would be called geniuses without taste +who produce works of art, inspired in their culminating parts and +neglected and defective in their secondary parts, and those men of taste +without genius, who succeed in obtaining certain isolated or secondary +effects, but do not possess the power necessary for a vast artistic +synthesis. Analogous explanations can easily be given of other similar +propositions. But to posit a substantial difference between genius and +taste, between artistic production and reproduction, would render +communication and judgment alike inconceivable. How could we judge what +remained extraneous to us? How could that which is produced by a given +activity be judged by a different activity? The critic will be a small +genius, the artist a great genius; the one will have the strength of +ten, the other of a hundred; the former, in order to raise himself to +the altitude of the latter, will have need of his assistance; but the +nature of both must be the same. In order to judge Dante, we must raise +ourselves to his level: let it be well understood that empirically we +are not Dante, nor Dante we; but in that moment of judgment and +contemplation, our spirit is one with that of the poet, and in that +moment we and he are one single thing. In this identity alone resides +the possibility that our little souls can unite with the great souls, +and become great with them, in the universality of the spirit. + + [Sidenote] _Analogy with the other activities._ + +Let us remark in passing that what has been said of the aesthetic +_judgment_ holds good equally for every other activity and for every +other judgment; and that scientific, economic, and ethical criticism is +effected in a like manner. To limit ourselves to this last, it is only +if we place ourselves ideally in the same conditions in which he who +took a given resolution found himself, that we can form a judgment as to +whether his resolution were moral or immoral. An action would otherwise +remain incomprehensible, and therefore impossible to judge. A homicide +may be a rascal or a hero: if this be, within limits, indifferent as +regards the safety of society, which condemns both to the same +punishment, it is not indifferent to him who wishes to distinguish and +to judge from the moral point of view, and we cannot dispense with +studying again the individual psychology of the homicide, in order to +determine the true nature of his deed, not merely in its judicial, but +also in its moral aspect. In Ethic, a moral taste or tact is sometimes +referred to, which answers to what is generally called moral conscience, +that is to say, to the activity itself of good-will. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and of aesthetic + relativism._ + +The explanation above given of aesthetic judgment or reproduction at +once affirms and denies the position of the absolutists and relativists, +of those, that is to say, who affirm and of those who deny the existence +of an absolute taste. + +The absolutists, who affirm that they can judge of the beautiful, are +right; but the theory on which they found their affirmation is not +maintainable. They conceive of the beautiful, that is, of aesthetic +value, as of something placed outside the aesthetic activity; as if it +were a model or a concept which an artist realizes in his work, and of +which the critic avails himself afterwards in order to judge the work +itself. Concepts and models alike have no existence in art, for by +proclaiming that every art can be judged only in itself, and has its own +model in itself, they have attained to the denial of the existence of +objective models of beauty, whether they be intellectual concepts, or +ideas suspended in the metaphysical sky. + +In proclaiming this, the adversaries, the relativists, are perfectly +right, and accomplish a progress. However, the initial rationality of +their thesis becomes in its turn a false theory. Repeating the old adage +that there is no accounting for tastes, they believe that aesthetic +expression is of the same nature as the pleasant and the unpleasant, +which every one feels in his own way, and as to which there is no +disputing. But we know that the pleasant and the unpleasant are +utilitarian and practical facts. Thus the relativists deny the +peculiarity of the aesthetic fact, again confounding expression with +impression, the theoretic with the practical. + +The true solution lies in rejecting alike relativism or psychologism, +and false absolutism; and in recognizing that the criterion of taste is +absolute, but absolute in a different way from that of the intellect, +which is developed by reason. The criterion of taste is absolute, with +the intuitive absoluteness of the imagination. Thus every act of +expressive activity, which is so really, will be recognized as +beautiful, and every fact in which expressive activity and passivity are +found engaged with one another in an unfinished struggle, will be +recognized as ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of relative relativism._ + +There lies, between absolutists and relativists, a third class, which +may be called that of the relative relativists. These affirm the +existence of absolute values in other fields, such as Logic and Ethic, +but deny their existence in the field of Aesthetic. To them it appears +natural and justifiable to dispute about science and morality; because +science rests on the universal, common to all men, and morality on duty, +which is also a law of human nature; but how, they say, can one dispute +about art, which rests on imagination? Not only, however, is the +imaginative activity universal and belongs to human nature, like the +logical concept and practical duty; but we must oppose a capital +objection to this intermediary thesis. If the absolute nature of the +imagination were denied, we should be obliged to deny also that of +intellectual or conceptual truth, and, implicitly, of morality. Does not +morality presuppose logical distinctions? How could these be known, +otherwise than by expressions and words, that is to say, in imaginative +form? If the absoluteness of the imagination were removed, spiritual +life would tremble to its base. One individual would no longer +understand another, nor indeed his own self of a moment before, which, +when considered a moment after, is already another individual. + + [Sidenote] _Objection founded on the variation of the stimulus and + on the psychic disposition._ + +Nevertheless, variety of judgments is an indisputable fact. Men are at +variance in their logical, ethical, and economical appreciations; and +they are equally, or even more at variance in their aesthetic +appreciations. If certain reasons detailed by us, above, such as haste, +prejudices, passions, etc., may be held to lessen the importance of this +disagreement, they do not thereby annul it. We have been cautious, when +speaking of the stimuli of reproduction, for we said that reproduction +takes place, _if all the other conditions remain equal_. Do they remain +equal? Does the hypothesis correspond to reality? + +It would appear not. In order to reproduce several times an impression +by employing a suitable physical stimulus, it is necessary that this +stimulus be not changed, and that the organism remain in the same +psychical conditions as those in which was experienced the impression +that it is desired to reproduce. Now it is a fact, that the physical +stimulus is continually changing, and in like manner the psychological +conditions. + +Oil paintings grow dark, frescoes pale, statues lose noses, hands, and +legs, architecture becomes totally or partially a ruin, the tradition of +the execution of a piece of music is lost, the text of a poem is +corrupted by bad copyists or bad printing. These are obvious instances +of the changes which daily occur in objects or physical stimuli. As +regards psychological conditions, we will not dwell upon the cases of +deafness or blindness, that is to say, upon the loss of entire orders of +psychical impressions; these cases are secondary and of less importance +compared with the fundamental, daily, inevitable, and perpetual changes +of the society around us, and of the internal conditions of our +individual life. The phonic manifestations, that is, the words and +verses of the Dantesque _Commedia_, must produce a very different +impression on a citizen engaged in the politics of the third Rome, to +that experienced by a well-informed and intimate contemporary of the +poet. The Madonna of Cimabue is still in the Church of Santa Maria +Novella; but does she speak to the visitor of to-day as she spoke to the +Florentines of the thirteenth century? Even though she were not also +darkened by time, would not the impression be altogether different? And +finally, how can a poem composed in youth make the same impression on +the same individual poet when he re-reads it in his old age, with his +psychic dispositions altogether changed? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the division of signs into natural and + conventional._ + +It is true, that certain aestheticians have attempted a distinction +between stimuli and stimuli, between _natural and conventional_ signs. +They would grant to the former a constant effect on all; to the latter, +only on a limited circle. In their belief, signs employed in painting +are natural, while the words of poetry are conventional. But the +difference between the one and the other is only of degree. It has often +been affirmed that painting is a language which all understand, while +with poetry it is otherwise. Here, for example, Leonardo placed one of +the prerogatives of his art, "which hath not need of interpreters of +different languages as have letters," and in it man and brute find +satisfaction. He relates the anecdote of that portrait of the father of +a family, "which the little grandchildren were wont to caress while they +were still in swaddling-clothes, and the dogs and cats of the house in +like manner." But other anecdotes, such as those of the savages who took +the portrait of a soldier for a boat, or considered the portrait of a +man on horseback as furnished with only one leg, are apt to shake one's +faith in the understanding of painting by sucklings, dogs, and cats. +Fortunately, no arduous researches are necessary to convince oneself +that pictures, poetry, and every work of art, produce no effects save on +souls prepared to receive them. Natural signs do not exist; because they +are all conventional in a like manner, or, to speak with greater +exactitude, all are _historically conditioned_. + + [Sidenote] _The surmounting of variety._ + +This being so, how are we to succeed in causing the expression to be +reproduced by means of the physical object? How obtain the same effect, +when the conditions are no longer the same? Would it not, rather, seem +necessary to conclude that expressions cannot be reproduced, despite the +physical instruments made by man for the purpose, and that what is +called reproduction consists in ever new expressions? Such would indeed +be the conclusion, if the variety of physical and psychic conditions +were intrinsically unsurmountable. But since the insuperability has none +of the characteristics of necessity, we must, on the contrary, conclude: +that the reproduction always occurs, when we can replace ourselves in +the conditions in which the stimulus (physical beauty) was produced. + +Not only can we replace ourselves in these conditions, as an abstract +possibility, but as a matter of fact we do so continually. Individual +life, which is communion with ourselves (with our past), and social +life, which is communion with our like, would not otherwise be possible. + + [Sidenote] _Restorations and historical interpretation._ + +As regards the physical object, paleographers and philologists, who +_restore_ to texts their original physiognomy, _restorers_ of pictures +and of statues, and similar categories of workers, exert themselves to +preserve or to give back to the physical object all its primitive +energy. These efforts certainly do not always succeed, or are not +completely successful, for never, or hardly ever, is it possible to +obtain a restoration complete in its smallest details. But the +unsurmountable is only accidentally present, and cannot cause us to fail +to recognize the favourable results which are nevertheless obtained. + +_Historical interpretation_ likewise labours to reintegrate in us +historical conditions which have been altered in the course of history. +It revives the dead, completes the fragmentary, and affords us the +opportunity of seeing a work of art (a physical object) as its author +saw it, at the moment of production. + +A condition of this historical labour is tradition, with the help of +which it is possible to collect the scattered rays and cause them to +converge on one centre. With the help of memory, we surround the +physical stimulus with all the facts among which it arose; and thus we +make it possible for it to react upon us, as it acted upon him who +produced it. + +When the tradition is broken, interpretation is arrested; in this case, +the products of the past remain _silent_ for us. Thus the expressions +contained in the Etruscan or Messapian inscriptions are unattainable; +thus we still hear discussions among ethnographers as to certain +products of the art of savages, whether they be pictures or writings; +thus archaeologists and prehistorians are not always able to establish +with certainty, whether the figures found on the ceramic of a certain +region, and on other instruments employed, be of a religious or of a +profane nature. But the arrest of interpretation, as that of +restoration, is never a definitely unsurmountable barrier; and the daily +discoveries of historical sources and of new methods of better +exploiting antiquity, which we may hope to see ever improving, link up +broken tradition. + +We do not wish to deny that erroneous historical interpretation produces +at times what we may term _palimpsests_, new expressions imposed upon +the antique, artistic imaginings instead of historical reproductions. +The so-called fascination of the past depends in part upon these +expressions of ours, which we weave into historical expressions. Thus in +hellenic plastic art has been discovered the calm and serene intuition +of life of those peoples, who feel, nevertheless, so poignantly, the +universality of sorrow; thus has recently been discerned on the faces of +the Byzantine saints "the terror of the millennium," a terror which is +an equivoke, or an artificial legend invented by modern scholars. But +_historical criticism_ tends precisely to circumscribe _vain imaginings_ +and to establish with exactitude the point of view from which we must +look. + +Thus we live in communication with other men of the present and of the +past; and we must not conclude, because sometimes, and indeed often, we +find ourselves face to face with the unknown or the badly known, that +when we believe we are engaged in a dialogue, we are always speaking a +monologue; nor that we are unable even to repeat the monologue which, in +the past, we held with ourselves. + + + + +XVII + +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism in literature and art. Its + importance._ + +This brief exposition of the method by which is obtained reintegration +of the original conditions in which the work of art was produced, and by +which reproduction and judgment are made possible, shows how important +is the function fulfilled by historical research concerning artistic and +literary works; that is to say, by what is usually called _historical +criticism_, or method, in literature and art. + +Without tradition and historical criticism, the enjoyment of all or +nearly all works of art produced by humanity, would be irrevocably lost: +we should be little more than animals, immersed in the present alone, or +in the most recent past. Only fools despise and laugh at him who +reconstitutes an authentic text, explains the sense of words and +customs, investigates the conditions in which an artist lived, and +accomplishes all those labours which revive the qualities and the +original colouring of works of art. + +Sometimes the depreciatory or negative judgment refers to the presumed +or proved uselessness of many researches, made to recover the correct +meaning of artistic works. But, it must be observed, in the first place, +that historical research does not only fulfil the task of helping to +reproduce and judge artistic works: the biography of a writer or of an +artist, for example, and the study of the costume of a period, also +possess their own interest, foreign to the history of art, but not +foreign to other forms of history. If allusion be made to those +researches which do not appear to have interest of any kind, nor to +fulfil any purpose, it must be replied that the historical student must +often reconcile himself to the useful, but little glorious, office of a +cataloguer of facts. These facts remain for the time being formless, +incoherent, and insignificant, but they are preserves, or mines, for the +historian of the future and for whomsoever may afterwards want them for +any purpose. In the same way, books which nobody asks for are placed on +the shelves and are noted in the catalogues, because they may be asked +for at some time or other. Certainly, in the same way that an +intelligent librarian gives the preference to the acquisition and to the +cataloguing of those books which he foresees may be of more or better +service, so do intelligent students possess the instinct as to what is +or may more probably be useful from among the mass of facts which they +are investigating. Others, on the other hand, less well-endowed, less +intelligent, or more hasty in producing, accumulate useless selections, +rejections and erasures, and lose themselves in refinements and gossipy +discussions. But this appertains to the economy of research, and is not +our affair. At the most, it is the affair of the master who selects the +subjects, of the publisher who pays for the printing, and of the critic +who is called upon to praise or to blame the students for their +researches. + +On the other hand, it is evident, that historical research, directed to +illuminate a work of art by placing us in a position to judge it, does +not alone suffice to bring it to birth in our spirit: taste, and an +imagination trained and awakened, are likewise presupposed. The greatest +historical erudition may accompany a taste in part gross or defective, a +lumbering imagination, or, as it is generally phrased, a cold, hard +heart, closed to art. Which is the lesser evil?--great erudition and +defective taste, or natural good taste and great ignorance? The question +has often been asked, and perhaps it will be best to deny its +possibility, because one cannot tell which of two evils is the less, or +what exactly that means. The merely learned man never succeeds in +entering into communication with the great spirits, and keeps wandering +for ever about the outer courts, the staircases, and the antechambers of +their palaces; but the gifted ignoramus either passes by masterpieces +which are to him inaccessible, or instead of understanding the works of +art, as they really are, he invents others, with his imagination. Now, +the labour of the former may at least serve to enlighten others; but the +ingenuity of the latter remains altogether sterile. How, then, can we +fail to prefer the conscientious learned man to the inconclusive man of +talent, who is not really talented, if he resign himself, and in so far +as he resigns himself, to come to no conclusion? + + [Sidenote] _Literary and artistic history. Its distinction from + historical criticism and from artistic judgement._ + +It is necessary to distinguish accurately _the history, of art and +literature_ from those historical labours which make use of works of +art, but for extraneous purposes (such as biography, civil, religious, +and political history, etc.), and also from historical erudition, whose +object is preparation for the Aesthetic synthesis of reproduction. + +The difference between the first of these is obvious. The history of art +and literature has the works of art themselves for principal subject; +the other branches of study call upon and interrogate works of art, but +only as witnesses, from which to discover the truth of facts which are +not aesthetic. The second difference to which we have referred may seem +less profound. However, it is very great. Erudition devoted to rendering +clear again the understanding of works of art, aims simply at making +appear a certain internal fact, an aesthetic reproduction. Artistic and +literary history, on the other hand, does not appear until such +reproduction has been obtained. It demands, therefore, further labour. +Like all other history, its object is to record precisely such facts as +have really taken place, that is, artistic and literary facts. A man +who, after having acquired the requisite historical erudition, +reproduces in himself and tastes a work of art, may remain simply a man +of taste, or express at the most his own feeling, with an exclamation of +beautiful or ugly. This does not suffice for the making of a historian +of literature and art. There is further need that the simple act of +reproduction be followed in him by a second internal operation. What is +this new operation? It is, in its turn, an expression: the expression of +the reproduction; the historical description, exposition, or +representation. There is this difference, then, between the man of taste +and the historian: the first merely reproduces in his spirit the work of +art; the second, after having reproduced it, represents it historically, +thus applying to it those categories by which, as we know, history is +differentiated from pure art. Artistic and literary history is, +therefore, _a historical work of art founded upon one or more works of +art_. + +The denomination of artistic or literary critic is used in various +senses: sometimes it is applied to the student who devotes his services +to literature; sometimes to the historian who reveals the works of art +of the past in their reality; more often to both. By critic is sometimes +understood, in a more restricted sense, he who judges and describes +contemporary literary works; and by historian, he who is occupied with +less recent works. These are but linguistic usages and empirical +distinctions, which may be neglected; because the true difference lies +_between the learned man, the man of taste, and the historian of art_. +These words designate, as it were, three successive stages of work, of +which each is relatively independent of the one that follows, but not of +that which precedes. As we have seen, a man may be simply learned, yet +possess little capacity for understanding works of art; he may indeed be +both learned and possess taste, yet be unable to write a page of +artistic and literary history. But the true and complete historian, +while containing in himself, as necessary pre-requisites, both the +learned man and the man of taste, must add to their qualities the gift +of historical comprehension and representation. + + [Sidenote] _The method of artistic and literary history._ + +The method of artistic and literary history presents problems and +difficulties, some common to all historical method, others peculiar to +it, because they derive from the concept of art itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the problem of the origin of art._ + +History is wont to be divided into the history of man, the history or +nature, and the mixed history of both the preceding. Without examining +here the question of the solidity of this division, it is clear that +artistic and literary history belongs in any case to the first, since it +concerns a spiritual activity, that is to say, an activity proper to +man. And since this activity is its subject, the absurdity of +propounding the historical _problem of the origin of art_ becomes at +once evident. We should note that by this formula many different things +have in turn been included on many different occasions. _Origin_ has +often meant _nature_ or _disposition_ of the artistic fact, and here was +a real scientific or philosophic problem, the very problem, in fact, +which our treatise has tried to solve. At other times, by origin has +been understood the ideal genesis, the search for the reason of art, the +deduction of the artistic fact from a first principle containing in +itself both spirit and nature. This is also a philosophical problem, and +it is complementary to the preceding, indeed it coincides with it, +though it has sometimes been strangely interpreted and solved by means +of an arbitrary and semi-fantastic metaphysic. But when it has been +sought to discover further exactly in what way the artistic function was +_historically formed_, this has resulted in the absurdity to which we +have referred. If expression be the first form of consciousness, how can +the historical origin be sought of what is _presupposed_ not to be a +product of nature and of human history? How can we find the historical +genesis of that which is a category, by means of which every historical +genesis and fact are understood? The absurdity has arisen from the +comparison with human institutions, which have, in fact, been formed in +the course of history, and which have disappeared or may disappear in +its course. There exists between the aesthetic fact and a human +institution (such as monogamic marriage or the fief) a difference to +some extent comparable with that between simple and compound bodies in +chemistry. It is impossible to indicate the formation of the former, +otherwise they would not be simple, and if this be discovered, they +cease to be simple and become compound. + +The problem of the origin of art, historically understood, is only +justified when it is proposed to seek, not for the formation of the +function, but where and when art has appeared for the first time +(appeared, that is to say, in a striking manner), at what point or in +what region of the globe, and at what point or epoch of its history; +when, that is to say, not the origin of art, but its most antique or +primitive history, is the object of research. This problem forms one +with that of the appearance of human civilization on the earth. Data for +its solution are certainly wanting, but there yet remains the abstract +possibility, and certainly attempts and hypotheses for its solution +abound. + + [Sidenote] _History and the criterion of progress._ + +Every form of human history has the concept of _progress_ for +foundation. But by progress must not be understood the imaginary and +metaphysical _law of progress_, which should lead the generations of man +with irresistible force to some unknown destiny, according to a +providential plan which we can logically divine and understand. A +supposed law of this sort is the negation of history itself, of that +accidentality, that empiricity, that contingency, which distinguish the +concrete fact from the abstraction. And for the same reason, progress +has nothing to do with the so-called _law of evolution_. If evolution +mean the concrete fact of reality which evolves (that is, which is +reality), it is not a law. If, on the other hand, it be a law, it +becomes confounded with the law of progress in the sense just described. +The progress of which we speak here, is nothing but the _concept of +human activity itself_, which, working upon the material supplied to it +by nature, conquers obstacles and bends nature to its own ends. + +Such conception of progress, that is to say, of human activity applied +to a given material, is the _point of view_ of the historian of +humanity. No one but a mere collector of stray facts, a simple seeker, +or an incoherent chronicler, can put together the smallest narrative of +human deeds, unless he have a definite point of view, that is to say, an +intimate personal conviction regarding the conception of the facts which +he has undertaken to relate. The historical work of art cannot be +achieved among the confused and discordant mass of crude facts, save by +means of this point of view, which makes it possible to carve a definite +figure from that rough and incoherent mass. The historian of a practical +action should know what is economy and what morality; the historian of +mathematics, what are mathematics; the historian of botany, what is +botany; the historian of philosophy, what is philosophy. But if he do +not really know these things, he must at least have the illusion of +knowing them; otherwise he will never be able to delude himself that he +is writing history. + +We cannot delay here to demonstrate the necessity and the inevitability +of this subjective criterion in every narrative of human affairs. We +will merely say that this criterion is compatible with the utmost +objectivity, impartiality, and scrupulosity in dealing with data, and +indeed forms a constitutive element of such subjective criterion. It +suffices to read any book of history to discover at once the point of +view of the author, if he be a historian worthy of the name and know his +own business. There exist liberal and reactionary, rationalist and +catholic historians, who deal with political or social history; for the +history of philosophy there are metaphysical, empirical, sceptical, +idealist, and spiritualist historians. Absolutely historical historians +do not and cannot exist. Can it be said that Thucydides and Polybius, +Livy and Tacitus, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Giannone and Voltaire, +were without moral and political views; and, in our time, Guizot or +Thiers, Macaulay or Balbo, Ranke or Mommsen? And in the history of +philosophy, from Hegel, who was the first to raise it to a great +elevation, to Ritter, Zeller, Cousin, Lewes, and our Spaventa, was there +one who did not possess his conception of progress and criterion of +judgment? Is there one single work of any value in the history of +Aesthetic, which has not been written from this or that point of view, +with this or that bias (Hegelian or Herbartian), from a sensualist or +from an eclectic point of view, and so on? If the historian is to escape +from the inevitable necessity of taking a side, he must become a +political and scientific eunuch; and history is not the business of +eunuchs. They would at most be of use in compiling those great tomes of +not useless erudition, _elumbis atque fracta_, which are called, not +without reason, monkish. + +If, then, the concept of progress, the point of view, the criterion, be +inevitable, the best to be done is not to try and escape from them, but +to obtain the best possible. Everyone strives for this end, when he +forms his own convictions, seriously and laboriously. Historians who +profess to wish to interrogate the facts, without adding anything of +their own to them, are not to be believed. This, at the most, is the +result of ingenuousness and illusion on their part: they will always add +what they have of personal, if they be truly historians, though it be +without knowing it, or they will believe that they have escaped doing +so, only because they have referred to it by innuendo, which is the most +insinuating and penetrative of methods. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a unique line of progress in artistic + and literary history._ + +Artistic and literary history cannot dispense with the criterion of +progress any more easily than other history. We cannot show what a given +work of art is, save by proceeding from a conception of art, in order to +fix the artistic problem which the author of such work of art had to +solve, and by determining whether or no he have solved it, or by how +much and in what way he has failed to do so. But it is important to note +that the criterion of progress assumes a different form in artistic and +literary history to that which it assumes (or is believed to assume) in +the history of science. + +The whole history of knowledge can be represented by one single line of +progress and regress. Science is the universal, and its problems are +arranged in one single vast system, or complex problem. All thinkers +weary themselves over the same problem as to the nature of reality and +of knowledge: contemplative Indians and Greek philosophers, Christians +and Mohammedans, bare heads and heads with turbans, wigged heads and +heads with the black berretta (as Heine said); and future generations +will weary themselves with it, as ours has done. It would take too long +to inquire here if this be true or not of science. But it is certainly +not true of art; art is intuition, and intuition is individuality, and +individuality is never repeated. To conceive of the history of the +artistic production of the human race as developed along a single line +of progress and regress, would therefore be altogether erroneous. + +At the most, and working to some extent with generalizations and +abstractions, it may be admitted that the history of aesthetic products +shows progressive cycles, but each cycle has its own problem, and is +progressive only in respect to that problem. When many are at work on +the same subject, without succeeding in giving to it the suitable form, +yet drawing always more nearly to it, there is said to be progress. When +he who gives to it definite form appears, the cycle is said to be +complete, progress ended. A typical example of this would be the +progress in the elaboration of the mode of using the subject-matter of +chivalry, during the Italian Renaissance, from Pulci to Ariosto. (If +this instance be made use of, excessive simplification of it must be +excused.) Nothing but repetition and imitation could be the result of +employing that same material after Ariosto. The result was repetition or +imitation, diminution or exaggeration, a spoiling of what had already +been achieved; in sum, decadence. The Ariostesque epigoni prove this. +Progress begins with the commencement of a new cycle. Cervantes, with +his more open and conscious irony, is an instance of this. In what did +the general decadence of Italian literature at the end of the sixteenth +century consist? Simply in having nothing more to say, and in repeating +and exaggerating motives already found. If the Italians of this period +had even been able to express their own decadence, they would not have +been altogether failures, but have anticipated the literary movement of +the Renaissance. Where the subject-matter is not the same, a progressive +cycle does not exist. Shakespeare does not represent a progress as +regards Dante, nor Goethe as regards Shakespeare. Dante, however, +represents a progress in respect to the visionaries of the Middle Ages, +Shakespeare to the Elizabethan dramatists, Goethe, with _Werther_ and +the first part of _Faust_, in respect to the writers of the _Sturm und +Drang_. This mode of presenting the history of poetry and art contains, +however, as we have remarked, something of abstract, of merely +practical, and is without rigorous philosophical value. Not only is the +art of savages not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, +provided it be correlative to the impressions of the savage; but every +individual, indeed every moment of the spiritual life of an individual, +has its artistic world; and all those worlds are, artistically, +incomparable with one another. + + [Sidenote] _Errors committed in respect to this law._ + +Many have sinned and continue to sin against this special form of the +criterion of progress in artistic and literary history. Some, for +instance, talk of the infancy of Italian art in Giotto, and of its +maturity in Raphael or in Titian; as though Giotto were not quite +perfect and complete, in respect to his psychic material. He was +certainly incapable of drawing a figure like Raphael, or of colouring it +like Titian; but was Raphael or Titian by any chance capable of creating +the _Matrimonio di San Francesco con la Poverta_, or the _Morte di San +Francesco_? The spirit of Giotto had not felt the attraction of the body +beautiful, which the Renaissance studied and raised to a place of +honour; but the spirits of Raphael and of Titian were no longer curious +of certain movements of ardour and of tenderness, which attracted the +man of the fourteenth century. How, then, can a comparison be made, +where there is no comparative term? + +The celebrated divisions of the history of art suffer from the same +defect. They are as follows: an oriental period, representing a +disequilibrium between idea and form, with prevalence of the second; a +classical, representing an equilibrium between idea and form; a +romantic, representing a new disequilibrium between idea and form, with +prevalence of the idea. There are also the divisions into oriental art, +representing imperfection of form; classical, perfection of form; +romantic or modern, perfection of content and of form. Thus classic and +romantic have also received, among their many other meanings, that of +progressive or regressive periods, in respect to the realization of some +indefinite artistic ideal of humanity. + + [Sidenote] _Other meanings of the word "progress" in respect to + Aesthetic._ + +There is no such thing, then, as an _aesthetic_ progress of humanity. +However, by aesthetic progress is sometimes meant, not what the two +words coupled together really signify, but the ever-increasing +accumulation of our historical knowledge, which makes us able to +sympathize with all the artistic products of all peoples and of all +times, or, as is said, to make our taste more catholic. The difference +appears very great, if the eighteenth century, so incapable of escaping +from itself, be compared with our own time, which enjoys alike Hellenic +and Roman art, now better understood, Byzantine, mediaeval, Arabic, and +Renaissance art, the art of the Cinque Cento, baroque art, and the art +of the seventeenth century. Egyptian, Babylonian, Etruscan, and even +prehistoric art, are more profoundly studied every day. Certainly, the +difference between the savage and civilized man does not lie in the +human faculties. The savage has speech, intellect, religion, and +morality, in common with civilized man, and he is a complete man. The +only difference lies in that civilized man penetrates and dominates a +larger portion of the universe with his theoretic and practical +activity. We cannot claim to be more spiritually alert than, for +example, the contemporaries of Pericles; but no one can deny that we are +richer than they--rich with their riches and with those of how many +other peoples and generations besides our own? + +By aesthetic progress is also meant, in another sense, which is also +improper, the greater abundance of artistic intuitions and the smaller +number of imperfect or decadent works which one epoch produces in +respect to another. Thus it may be said that there was aesthetic +progress, an artistic awakening, at the end of the thirteenth or of the +fifteenth centuries. + +Finally, aesthetic progress is talked of, with an eye to the refinement +and to the psychical complications exhibited in the works of art of the +most civilized peoples, as compared with those of less civilized +peoples, barbarians and savages. But in this case, the progress is that +of the complex conditions of society, not of the artistic activity, to +which the material is indifferent. + +These are the most important points concerning the method of artistic +and literary history. + + + + +XVIII + +CONCLUSION: + +IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + + + [Sidenote] _Summary of the inquiry._ + +A glance over the path traversed will show that we have completed the +entire programme of our treatise. We have studied the nature of +intuitive or expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic +fact (I. and II.), and we have described the other form of knowledge, +namely, the intellectual, with the secondary complications of its forms +(III.). Having done this, it became possible to criticize all erroneous +theories of art, which arise from the confusion between the various +forms, and from the undue transference of the characteristics of one +form to those of another (IV.), and in so doing to indicate the inverse +errors which are found in the theory of intellectual knowledge and of +historiography (V.). Passing on to examine the relations between the +aesthetic activity and the other spiritual activities, no longer +theoretic but practical, we have indicated the true character of the +practical activity and the place which it occupies in respect to the +theoretic activity, which it follows: hence the critique of the invasion +of aesthetic theory by practical concepts (VI.). We have also +distinguished the two forms of the practical activity, as economic and +ethic (VII.), adding to this the statement that there are no other forms +of the spirit beyond the four which we have analyzed; hence (VIII.) the +critique of every metaphysical Aesthetic. And, seeing that there exist +no other spiritual forms of equal degree, therefore there are no +original subdivisions of the four established, and in particular of +Aesthetic. From this arises the impossibility of classes of expressions +and the critique of Rhetoric, that is, of the partition of expressions +into simple and ornate, and of their subclasses (IX.). But, by the law +of the unity of the spirit, the aesthetic fact is also a practical fact, +and as such, occasions pleasure and pain. This led us to study the +feelings of value in general, and those of aesthetic value, or of the +beautiful, in particular (X.), to criticize aesthetic hedonism in all +its various manifestations and complications (XI.), and to expel from +the system of Aesthetic the long series of pseudo-aesthetic concepts, +which had been introduced into it (XII.). Proceeding from aesthetic +production to the facts of reproduction, we began by investigating the +mode of fixing externally the aesthetic expression, with the view of +reproduction. This is the so-called physically beautiful, whether it be +natural or artificial (XIII.). We then derived from this distinction the +critique of the errors which arise from confounding the physical with +the aesthetic side of things (XIV.). We indicated the meaning of +artistic technique, that which is the technique serving for +reproduction, thus criticizing the divisions, limits, and +classifications of the individual arts, and establishing the connections +between art, economy, and morality (XV.). Because the existence of the +physical objects does not suffice to stimulate to the full aesthetic +reproduction, and because, in order to obtain this result, it is +necessary to recall the conditions in which the stimulus first operated, +we have also studied the function of historical erudition, directed +toward the end of re-establishing our communication with the works of +the past, and toward the creation of a base for aesthetic judgment +(XVI.). We have closed our treatise by showing how the reproduction thus +obtained is afterwards elaborated by the intellectual categories, that +is to say, by an excursus on the method of literary and artistic history +(XVII.). + +The aesthetic fact has thus been considered both in itself and in its +relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings of +pleasure and of pain, with the facts that are called physical, with +memory, and with historical elaboration. It has passed from the position +of _subject_ to that of _object_, that is to say, from the moment of +_its birth_, until gradually it becomes changed for the spirit into +_historical argument_. + +Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre, when compared with the +great volumes usually consecrated to Aesthetic. But it will not seem so, +when it is observed that these volumes, as regards nine-tenths of their +contents, are full of matter which does not appertain to Aesthetic, such +as definitions, either psychical or metaphysical, of pseudo-aesthetic +concepts (of the sublime, the comic, the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or +of the exposition of the supposed Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy of +Aesthetic, and of universal history judged from the aesthetic +standpoint. The whole history of concrete art and literature has also +been dragged into those Aesthetics and generally mangled; they contain +judgments upon Homer and Dante, upon Ariosto and Shakespeare, upon +Beethoven and Rossini, Michelangelo and Raphael. When all this has been +deducted from them, our treatise will no longer be held to be too +meagre, but, on the contrary, far more copious than ordinary treatises, +for these either omit altogether, or hardly touch at all, the greater +part of the difficult problems proper to Aesthetic, which we have felt +it to be our duty to study. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of Linguistic and Aesthetic._ + +Aesthetic, then, as the science of expression, has been here studied by +us from every point of view. But there yet remains to justify the +sub-title, which we have joined to the title of our book, _General +Linguistic_, and to state and make clear the thesis that the science of +art is that of language. Aesthetic and Linguistic, in so far as they are +true sciences, are not two different sciences, but one single science. +Not that there is a special Linguistic; but the linguistic science +sought for, general Linguistic, _in so far as what it contains is +reducible to philosophy_, is nothing but Aesthetic. Whoever studies +general Linguistic, that is to say, philosophical Linguistic, studies +aesthetic problems, and _vice versa_. _Philosophy of language and +philosophy of art are the same thing_. + +Were Linguistic a _different_ science from Aesthetic, it should not have +expression, which is the essentially aesthetic fact, for its object. +This amounts to saying that it must be denied that language is +expression. But an emission of sounds, which expresses nothing, is not +language. Language is articulate, limited, organized sound, employed in +expression. If, on the other hand, language were a _special_ science in +respect to Aesthetic, it would necessarily have for its object a +_special class_ of expressions. But the inexistence of classes of +expression is a point which we have already demonstrated. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic formulization of linguistic problems. Nature + of language._ + +The problems which Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which +Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and +complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other +hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic +to their aesthetic formula. + +The disputes as to the nature of the one find their parallel in those as +to the nature of the other. Thus it has been disputed, whether +Linguistic be a scientific or a historical discipline, and the +scientific having been distinguished from the historical, it has been +asked whether it belong to the order of the natural or of the +psychological sciences, by the latter being understood empirical +Psychology, as much as the science of the spirit. The same has happened +with Aesthetic, which some have looked upon as a natural science, +confounding aesthetic expression with physical expression. Others have +looked upon it as a psychological science, confounding expression in its +universality, with the empirical classification of expressions. Others +again, denying the very possibility of a science of such a subject, have +looked upon it as a collection of historical facts. Finally, it has been +realized that it belongs to the sciences of activity or of values, which +are the spiritual sciences. + +Linguistic expression, or speech, has often seemed to be a fact of +_interjection_, which belongs to the so-called physical expressions of +the feelings, common alike to men and animals. But it was soon admitted +that an abyss yawns between the "Ah!" which is a physical reflex of +pain, and a word; as also between that "Ah!" of pain and the "Ah!" +employed as a word. The theory of the interjection being abandoned +(jocosely termed the "Ah! Ah!" theory by German linguists), the theory +of _association or convention_ appeared. This theory was refuted by the +same objection which destroyed aesthetic associationism in general: +speech is unity, not multiplicity of images, and multiplicity does not +explain, but presupposes the existence of the expression to explain. A +variant of linguistic associationism is the imitative, that is to say, +the theory of the onomatopoeia, which the same philologists deride under +the name of the "bow-wow" theory, after the imitation of the dog's bark, +which, according to the onomatopoeists, gives its name to the dog. + +The most usual theory of our times as regards language (apart from mere +crass naturalism) consists of a sort of eclecticism or mixture of the +various theories to which we have referred. It is assumed that language +is in part the product of interjections and in part of onomatopes and +conventions. This doctrine is altogether worthy of the scientific and +philosophic decadence of the second half of the nineteenth century. + + [Sidenote] _Origin of language and its development._ + +We must here note a mistake into which have fallen those very +philologists who have best penetrated the active nature of language. +These, although they admit that language was _originally a spiritual +creation_, yet maintain that it was largely increased later by +_association_. But the distinction does not prevail, for origin in this +case cannot mean anything but nature or essence. If, therefore, language +be a spiritual creation, it will always be a creation; if it be +association, it will have been so from the beginning. The mistake has +arisen from not having grasped the general principle of Aesthetic, which +we have noted: namely, that expressions already produced must redescend +to the rank of impressions before they can give rise to new impressions. +When we utter new words, we generally transform the old ones, varying or +enlarging their meaning; but this process is not associative. It is +creative, although the creation has for material the impressions, not of +the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who has lived long ages in +society, and who has, so to say, stored so many things in his psychic +organism, and among them so much language. + + [Sidenote] _Relation between Grammar and Logic._ + +The question of the distinction between the aesthetic and the +intellectual fact has appeared in Linguistic as that of the relations +between Grammar and Logic. This question has found two solutions, which +are partially true: that of the indissolubility of Logic and Grammar, +and that of their dissolubility. The complete solution is this: if the +logical form be indissoluble from the grammatical (aesthetic), the +grammatical is dissoluble from the logical. + + [Sidenote] _Grammatical classes or parts of speech._ + +If we look at a picture which, for example, portrays a man walking on a +country road, we can say: "This picture represents a fact of movement, +which, if conceived as volitional, is called _action_. And because every +movement implies _matter_, and every action a being that acts, this +picture also represents either _matter_ or a _being_. But this movement +takes place in a definite place, which is a part of a given _star_ (the +Earth), and precisely in that part of it which is called _terra-firma_, +and more properly in a part of it that is wooded and covered with grass, +which is called _country_, cut naturally or artificially, in a manner +which is called _road_. Now, there is only one example of that given +star, which is called Earth: Earth is an _individual_. But +_terra-firma_, _country_, _road_, are _classes or universals_, because +there are other terra-firmas, other countries, other roads." And it +would be possible to continue for a while with similar considerations. +By substituting a phrase for the picture that we have imagined, for +example, one to this effect, "Peter is walking on a country road," and +by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts of _verb_ (motion or +action), of _noun_ (matter or agent), of _proper noun_, of _common +nouns_; and so on. + +What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than to submit to +logical elaboration what was first elaborated only aesthetically; that +is to say, we have destroyed the aesthetical by the logical. But, as in +general Aesthetic, error begins when It is wished to return from the +logical to the aesthetical, and it is asked what is the expression of +movement, action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, +etc.; thus in like manner with language, error begins when motion or +action are called verb, being, or matter, noun or substantive, and when +linguistic categories, or _parts of speech_, are made of all these, noun +and verb and so on. The theory of parts of speech is at bottom +altogether the same as that of artistic and literary classes, already +criticized in the Aesthetic. + +It is false to say that the verb or the noun is expressed in definite +words, truly distinguishable from others. Expression is an indivisible +whole. Noun and verb do not exist in themselves, but are abstractions +made by our destroying the sole linguistic reality, which is _the +proposition_. This last is to be understood, not in the usual mode of +grammarians, but as an organism expressive of a complete meaning, from +an exclamation to a poem. This sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless a +most simple truth. + +And as in Aesthetic, the artistic productions of certain peoples have +been looked upon as imperfect, owing to the error above mentioned, +because the supposed kinds have seemed still to be indiscriminate or +absent with them; so, in Linguistic, the theory of the parts of speech +has caused the analogous error of dividing languages into formed and +unformed, according to whether there appear in them or not some of those +supposed parts of speech; for example, the verb. + + [Sidenote] _The individuality of speech and the classification of + languages._ + +Linguistic also discovered the irreducible individuality of the +aesthetic fact, when it affirmed that the word is what is really spoken, +and that two truly identical words do not exist. Thus were synonyms and +homonyms destroyed, and thus was shown the impossibility of really +translating one word into another, from so-called dialect into so-called +language, and from a so-called mother-tongue into a so-called foreign +tongue. + +But the attempt to classify languages agrees ill with this correct view. +Languages have no reality beyond the propositions and complexes of +propositions really written and pronounced by given peoples for definite +periods. That is to say, they have no existence outside the works of +art, in which they exist concretely. What is the art of a given people +but the complex of all its artistic products? What is the character of +an art (say, Hellenic art or Provencal literature), but the complex +physiognomy of those products? And how can such a question be answered, +save by giving the history of their art (of their literature, that is to +say, of their language in action)? + +It will seem that this argument, although possessing value as against +many of the wonted classifications of languages, yet is without any as +regards that queen of classifications, the historico-genealogical, that +glory of comparative philology. And this is certainly true. But why? +Precisely because the historico-genealogical method is not a +classification. He who writes history does not classify, and the +philologists themselves have hastened to say that the languages which +can be arranged in a historical series (those whose series have been +traced) are, not distinct and definite species, but a complex of facts +in the various phases of its development. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of a normative grammar._ + +Language has sometimes been looked upon as an act of volition or of +choice. But others have discovered the impossibility of creating +language artificially, by an act of will. _Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare +potes homini, verbo non poles!_ was once said to the Roman Emperor. + +The aesthetic (and therefore theoretic) nature of expression supplies +the method of correcting the scientific error which lies in the +conception of a (normative) _Grammar_, containing the rules of speaking +well. Good sense has always rebelled against this error. An example of +such rebellion is the "So much the worse for grammar" of Voltaire. But +the impossibility of a normative grammar is also recognized by those who +teach it, when they confess that to write well cannot be learned by +rules, that there are no rules without exceptions, and that the study of +Grammar should be conducted practically, by reading and by examples, +which form the literary taste. The scientific reason of this +impossibility lies in what we have already proved: that a technique of +the theoretical amounts to a contradiction in terms. And what could a +(normative) grammar be, but just a technique of linguistic expression, +that is to say, of a theoretic fact? + + [Sidenote] _Didactic purposes._ + +The case in which Grammar is understood merely as an empirical +discipline, that is to say, as a collection of groups useful for +learning languages, without any claim whatever to philosophic truth, is +quite different. Even the abstractions of the parts of speech are in +this case both admissible and of assistance. + +Many books entitled treatises of Linguistic have a merely didactic +purpose; they are simply scholastic manuals. We find in them, in truth, +a little of everything, from the description of the vocal apparatus and +of the artificial machines (phonographs) which can imitate it, to +summaries of the most important results obtained by Indo-European, +Semitic, Coptic, Chinese, or other philologies; from philosophic +generalizations on the origin or nature of language, to advice on +calligraphy, and the arrangement of schedules for philological spoils. +But this mass of notions, which is here taught in a fragmentary and +incomplete manner as regards the language in its essence, the language +as expression, resolves itself into notions of Aesthetic. Nothing exists +outside _Aesthetic_, which gives knowledge of the nature of language, +and _empirical Grammar_, which is a pedagogic expedient, save the +_History of languages_ in their living reality, that is, the history of +concrete literary productions, which is substantially identical with the +_History of literature_. + + [Sidenote] _Elementary linguistic facts or roots._ + +The same mistake of confusing the physical with the aesthetic, from +which the elementary forms of the beautiful originate, is made by those +who seek for elementary aesthetic facts, decorating with that name the +divisions of the longer series of physical sounds into shorter series. +Syllables, vowels, and consonants, and the series of syllables called +words which give no definite sense when taken alone, are not facts of +language, but simple physical concepts of sounds. + +Another mistake of the same sort is that of roots, to which the most +able philologists now accord but a very limited value. Having confused +physical with linguistic or expressive facts, and observing that, in the +order of ideas, the simple precedes the complex, they necessarily ended +by thinking that _the smaller_ physical facts were _the more simple_. +Hence the imaginary necessity that the most antique, primitive +languages, had been monosyllabic, and that the progress of historical +research must lead to the discovery of monosyllabic roots. But (to +follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first +man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: it may +have been exteriorised, not in a sound but in a gesture. And assuming +that it was exteriorised in a sound, there is no reason to suppose that +sound to have been monosyllabic rather than plurisyllabic. Philologists +frequently blame their own ignorance and impotence, if they do not +always succeed in reducing plurisyllabism to monosyllabism, and they +trust in the future. But their faith is without foundation, as their +blame of themselves is an act of humility arising from an erroneous +presumption. + +Furthermore, the limits of syllables, as those of words, are altogether +arbitrary, and distinguished, as well as may be, by empirical use. +Primitive speech, or the speech of the uncultured man, is _continuous_, +unaccompanied by any reflex consciousness of the divisions of the word +and of the syllables, which are taught at school. No true law of +Linguistic can be founded on such divisions. Proof of this is to be +found in the confession of linguists, that there are no truly phonetic +laws of the hiatus, of cacophony, of diaeresis, of synaeresis, but +merely laws of taste and convenience; that is to say, _aesthetic_ laws. +And what are the laws of _words_ which are not at the same time laws of +_style_? + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment and the model language._ + +The search for a _model language_, or for a method of reducing +linguistic usage to _unity_, arises from the misconception of a +rationalistic measurement of the beautiful, from the concept which we +have termed that of false aesthetic absoluteness. In Italy, we call this +question that of the _unity of the language_. + +Language is perpetual creation. What has been linguistically expressed +cannot be repeated, save by the reproduction of what has already been +produced. The ever-new impressions give rise to continuous changes of +sounds and of meanings, that is, to ever-new expressions. To seek the +model language, then, is to seek the immobility of motion. Every one +speaks, and should speak, according to the echoes which things arouse in +his soul, that is, according to his impressions. It is not without +reason that the most convinced supporter of any one of the solutions of +the problem of the unity of language (be it by the use of Latin, of +fourteenth-century Italian, or of Florentine) feels a repugnance in +applying his theory, when he is speaking in order to communicate his +thoughts and to make himself understood. The reason for this is that he +feels that were he to substitute Latin, fourteenth-century Italian, or +Florentine speech for that of a different origin, but which answers to +his impressions, he would be falsifying the latter. He would become a +vain listener to himself, instead of a speaker, a pedant in place of a +serious man, a histrion instead of a sincere person. To write according +to a theory is not really to write: at the most, it is _making +literature_. + +The question of the unity of language is always reappearing, because, +put as it is, there can be no solution to it, owing to its being based +upon a false conception of what language is. Language is not an arsenal +of ready-made arms, and it is not _vocabulary_, which, in so far as it +is thought of as progressive and in living use, is always a cemetery, +containing corpses more or less well embalmed, that is to say, a +collection of abstractions. + +Our mode of settling the question of the model language, or of the unity +of the language, may seem somewhat abrupt, and yet we would not wish to +appear otherwise than respectful towards the long line of literary men +who have debated this question in Italy for centuries. But those ardent +debates were, at bottom, debates upon aestheticity, not upon aesthetic +science, upon literature rather than upon literary theory, upon +effective speaking and writing, not upon linguistic science. Their error +consisted in transforming the manifestation of a want into a scientific +thesis, the need of understanding one another more easily among a people +dialectically divided, in the philosophic search for a language, which +should be one or ideal. Such a search was as absurd as that other search +for a _universal language_, with the immobility of the concept and of +the abstraction. The social need for a better understanding of one +another cannot be satisfied save by universal culture, by the increase +of communications, and by the interchange of thought among men. + + [Sidenote] _Conclusion._ + +These observations must suffice to show that all the scientific problems +of Linguistic are the same as those of Aesthetic, and that the truths +and errors of the one are the truths and errors of the other. If +Linguistic and Aesthetic appear to be two different sciences, this +arises from the fact that people think of the former as grammar, or as a +mixture between philosophy and grammar, that is, an arbitrary mnemonic +scheme. They do not think of it as a rational science and as a pure +philosophy of speech. Grammar, or something grammatical, also causes the +prejudice in people's minds, that the reality of language lies in +isolated and combinable words, not in living discourse among expressive +organisms, rationally indivisible. + +Those linguists, or glottologists with philosophical endowments, who +have best fathomed questions of language, resemble (to employ a worn but +efficacious figure) workmen piercing a tunnel: at a certain point they +must hear the voices of their companions, the philosophers of Aesthetic, +who have been piercing it from the other side. At a certain stage of +scientific elaboration, Linguistic, in so far as it is philosophy, must +be merged in Aesthetic; and indeed it is merged in it, without leaving a +residue. + + + + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +I + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN GRAECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY + + +The question, as to whether Aesthetic should be looked upon as ancient +or modern, has often been discussed. The answer will depend upon the +view taken of the nature of Aesthetic. + +Benedetto Croce has proved that Aesthetic is _the science of expressive +activity_. But this knowledge cannot be reached, until has been defined +the nature of imagination, of representation, of expression, or whatever +we may term that faculty which is theoretic, but not intellectual, which +gives knowledge of the individual, but not of the universal. + +Now the deviations from this, the correct theory, may arise in two ways: +by _defect_ or by _excess_. Negation of the special aesthetic activity, +or of its autonomy, is an instance of the former. This amounts to a +mutilation of the reality of the spirit. Of the latter, the substitution +or superposition of another mysterious and non-existent activity is an +example. + +These errors each take several forms. That which errs by defect may be: +(_a_) pure hedonism, which looks upon art as merely sensual pleasure; +(_b_) rigoristic hedonism, agreeing with (_a_), but adding that art is +irreconcilable with the loftiest activities of man; (_c_) moralistic or +pedagogic hedonism, which admits, with the two former, that art is mere +sensuality, but believes that it may not only be harmless, but of some +service to morals, if kept in proper subjection and obedience. + +The error by excess also assumes several forms, but these are +indeterminable _a priori_. This view is fully dealt with under the name +of _mystic_, in the Theory and in the Appendix. + +Graeco-Roman antiquity was occupied with the problem in all these forms. +In Greece, the problem of art and of the artistic faculty arose for the +first time after the sophistic movement, as a result of the Socratic +polemic. + +With the appearance of the word _mimesis_ or _mimetic_, we have a first +attempt at grouping the arts, and the expression, allegoric, or its +equivalent, used in defence of Homer's poetry, reminds us of what Plato +called "the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry." + +But when internal facts were all looked upon as mere phenomena of +opinion or feeling, of pleasure or of pain, of illusion or of arbitrary +caprice, there could be no question of beautiful or ugly, of difference +between the true and the beautiful, or between the beautiful and the +good. + +The problem of the nature of art assumes as solved those problems +concerning the difference between rational and irrational, material and +spiritual, bare fact and value, etc. This was first done in the Socratic +period, and therefore the aesthetic problem could only arise after +Socrates. + +And in fact it does arise, with Plato, _the author of the only great +negation of art which appears in the history of ideas_. + +Is art rational or irrational? Does it belong to the noble region of the +soul, where dwell philosophy and virtue, or does it cohabit with +sensuality and with crude passion in the lower regions? This was the +question that Plato asked, and thus was the aesthetic problem stated for +the first time. + +His Gorgias remarks with sceptical acumen, that tragedy is a deception, +which brings honour alike to deceived and to deceiver, and therefore it +is blameworthy not to know how to deceive and not to allow oneself to be +deceived. This suffices for Gorgias, but Plato, the philosopher, must +resolve the doubt. If it be in fact deception, down with tragedy and the +other arts! If it be not deception, then what is the place of tragedy in +philosophy and in the righteous life? His answer was that art or mimetic +does not realize the ideas, or the truth of things, but merely +reproduces natural or artificial things, which are themselves mere +shadows of the ideas. Art, then, is but a shadow of a shadow, a thing of +third-rate degree. The artificer fashions the object which the painter +paints. The artificer copies the divine idea and the painter copies him. +Art therefore does not belong to the rational, but to the irrational, +sensual sphere of the soul. It can serve but for sensual pleasure, which +disturbs and obscures. Therefore must mimetic, poetry, and poets be +excluded from the perfect Republic. + +Plato observed with truth, that imitation does not rise to the logical +or conceptual sphere, of which poets and painters, as such, are, in +fact, ignorant. But he _failed to realize_ that there could be any form +of knowledge other than the intellectual. + +We now know that Intuition lies on this side or outside the Intellect, +from which it differs as much as it does from passion and sensuality. + +Plato, with his fine aesthetic sense, would have been grateful to anyone +who could have shown him how to place art, which he loved and practised +so supremely himself, among the lofty activities of the spirit. But in +his day, no one could give him such assistance. His conscience and his +reason saw that art makes the false seem the true, and therefore he +resolutely banished it to the lower regions of the spirit. + +The tendency among those who followed Plato in time was to find some +means of retaining art and of depriving it of the baleful influence +which it was believed to exercise. Life without art was to the +beauty-loving Greek an impossibility, although he was equally conscious +of the demands of reason and of morality. Thus it happened that art, +which, on the purely hedonistic hypothesis, had been treated as a +beautiful courtezan, became in the hands of the moralist, a pedagogue. +Aristophanes and Strabo, and above all Aristotle, dwell upon the +didactic and moralistic possibility of poetry. For Plutarch, poetry +seems to have been a sort of preparation for philosophy, a twilight to +which the eyes should grow accustomed, before emerging into the full +light of day. + +Among the Romans, we find Lucretius comparing the beauties of his great +poem to the sweet yellow honey, with which doctors are wont to anoint +the rim of the cup containing their bitter drugs. Horace, as so +frequently, takes his inspiration from the Greek, when he offers the +double view of art: as courtezan and as pedagogue. In his _Ad Pisones_ +occur the passages, in which we find mingled with the poetic function, +that of the orator--the practical and the aesthetic. "Was Virgil a poet +or an orator?" The triple duty of pleasing, moving, and teaching, was +imposed upon the poet. Then, with a thought for the supposed +meretricious nature of their art, the ingenious Horace remarks that both +must employ the seductions of form. + +The _mystic_ view of art appeared only in late antiquity, with Plotinus. +The curious error of looking upon Plato as the head of this school and +as the Father of Aesthetic assumes that he who felt obliged to banish +art altogether from the domain of the higher functions of the spirit, +was yet ready to yield to it the highest place there. The mystical view +of Aesthetic accords a lofty place indeed to Aesthetic, placing it even +above philosophy. The enthusiastic praise of the beautiful, to be found +in the _Gorgias_, _Philebus_, _Phaedrus_, and _Symposium_ is responsible +for this misunderstanding, but it is well to make perfectly clear that +the beautiful, of which Plato discourses in those dialogues, has nothing +to do with the _artistically_ beautiful, nor with the mysticism of the +neo-Platonicians. + +Yet the thinkers of antiquity were aware that a problem lay in the +direction of Aesthetic, and Xenophon records the sayings of Socrates +that the beautiful is "that which is fitting and answers to the end +required." Elsewhere he says "it is that which is loved." Plato likewise +vibrates between various views and offers several solutions. Sometimes +he appears almost to confound the beautiful with the true, the good and +the divine; at others he leans toward the utilitarian view of Socrates; +at others he distinguishes between what is beautiful In itself and what +possesses but a relative beauty. At other times again, he is a hedonist, +and makes it to consist of pure pleasure, that is, of pleasure with no +shadow of pain; or he finds it in measure and proportion, or in the very +sound, the very colour itself. The reason for all this vacillation of +definition lay in Plato's exclusion of the artistic or mimetic fact from +the domain of the higher spiritual activities. The _Hippias major_ +expresses this uncertainty more completely than any of the other +dialogues. What is the beautiful? That is the question asked at the +beginning, and left unanswered at the end. The Platonic Socrates and +Hippias propose the most various solutions, one after another, but +always come out by the gate by which they entered in. Is the beautiful +to be found in ornament? No, for gold embellishes only where it is in +keeping. Is the beautiful that which seems ugly to no man? But it is a +question of being, not of seeming. Is it their fitness which makes +things seem beautiful? But in that case, the fitness which makes them +appear beautiful is one thing, the beautiful another. If the beautiful +be the useful or that which leads to an end, then evil would also be +beautiful, because the useful may also end evilly. Is the beautiful the +helpful, that which leads to the good? No, for in that case the good +would not be beautiful, nor the beautiful good, because cause and effect +are different. + +Thus they argued in the Platonic dialogues, and when we turn to the +pages of Aristotle, we find him also uncertain and inclined to vary his +definitions.[5] Sometimes for him the good and pleasurable are the +beautiful, sometimes it lies in actions, at others in things motionless, +or in bulk and order, or is altogether undefinable. Antiquity also +established canons of the beautiful, and the famous canon of +Polycleitus, on the proportions of the human body, fitly compares with +that of later times on the golden line, and with the Ciceronian phrase +from the Tusculan Disputations. But these are all of them mere empirical +observations, mere happy remarks and verbal substitutions, which lead to +unsurmountable difficulties when put to philosophical test. + +One important identification is absent in all those early attempts at +truth. The beautiful is never identified with art, and the artistic fact +is always clearly distinguished from beauty, mimetic from its content. +Plotinus first identified the two, and with him the beautiful and art +are dissolved together in a passion and mystic elevation of the spirit. +The beauty of natural objects is the archetype existing in the soul, +which is the fountain of all natural beauty. Thus was Plato (he said) in +error, when he despised the arts for imitating nature, for nature +herself imitates the idea, and art also seeks her inspiration directly +from those ideas whence nature proceeds. We have here, with Plotinus and +with Neoplatonism, the first appearance in the world of mystical +Aesthetic, destined to play so important a part in later aesthetic +theory. + +Aristotle was far more happy in his attempts at defining Aesthetic as +the science of representation and of expression than in his definitions +of the beautiful. He felt that some element of the problem had been +overlooked, and in attempting in his turn a solution, he had the +advantage over Plato of looking upon the ideas as simple concepts, not +as hypostases of concepts or of abstractions. Thus reality was more +vivid for Aristotle: it was the synthesis of matter and form. He saw +that art, or mimetic, was a theoretic fact, or a mode of contemplation. +"But if Poetry be a theoretic fact, in what way is it to be distinguished +from science and from historical knowledge?" Thus magnificently does the +great philosopher pose the problem at the commencement of his _Poetics_, +and thus alone can it be posed successfully. We ask the same question in +the same words to-day. But the problem is difficult, and the masterly +statement of it was not equalled by the method of solution then +available. He made an excellent start on his voyage of discovery, but +stopped half way, irresolute and perplexed. Poetry, he says, differs from +history, by portraying the possible, while history deals with what has +really happened. Poetry, like philosophy, aims at the universal, but in a +different way, which the philosopher indicates as something more (_mallon +tha katholon_) which differentiates poetry from history, occupied with the +particular (_malon tha kath ekaston_). What, then, is the possible, the +something more, and the particular of poetry? Aristotle immediately falls +into error and confusion, when he attempts to define these words. Since +art has to deal with the absurd and with the impossible, it cannot be +anything rational, but a mere imitation of reality, in accordance with +the Platonic theory--a fact of sensual pleasure. Aristotle does not, +however, attain to so precise a definition as Plato, whose erroneous +definition he does not succeed in supplanting. The truth is that he +failed of his self-imposed task; he failed to discern the true nature of +Aesthetic, although he restated and re-examined the problem with such +marvellous acumen. + +After Aristotle, there comes a lull in the discussion, until Plotinus. +The _Poetics_ were generally little studied, and the admirable statement +of the problem generally neglected by later writers. Antique psychology +knew the fancy or imagination, as preserving or reproducing sensuous +impressions, or as an intermediary between the concepts and feeling: its +autonomous productive activity was not yet understood. In the _Life of +Apollonius of Tyana_, Philostratus is said to have been the first to +make clear the difference between mimetic and creative imagination. But +this does not in reality differ from the Aristotelian mimetic, which is +concerned, not only with the real, but also with the possible. Cicero +too, before Philostratus, speaks of a kind of exquisite beauty lying +hidden in the soul of the artist, which guides his hand and art. +Antiquity seems generally to have been entrammelled in the meshes of the +belief in mimetic, or the duplication of natural objects by the artist +Philostratus and the other protagonists of the imagination may have +meant to combat this error, but the shadows lie heavy until we reach +Plotinus. + +We find already astir among the sophists the question as to the nature +of language. Admitting that language is a sign, are we to take that +as signifying a spiritual necessity (_phusis_) or as a psychological +convention (_nomos_)? Aristotle made a valuable contribution to this +difficult question, when he spoke of a kind of proposition other than +those which predicate truth or falsehood, that is, logic. With him +_euchae_ is the term proper to designate desires and aspirations, +which are the vehicle of poetry and of oratory. (It must be remembered +that for Aristotle words, like poetry, belonged to mimetic.) The +profound remark about the third mode of proposition would, one would +have thought, have led naturally to the separation of linguistic +from logic, and to its classification with poetry and art. But the +Aristotelian logic assumed a verbal and formal character, which set +back the attainment of this position by many hundred years. Yet the +genius of Epicurus had an intuition of the truth, when he remarked +that the diversity of names for the same things arose, not from +arbitrary caprice, but from the diverse impression derived from the +same object. The Stoics, too, seem to have had an inkling of the +non-logical nature of speech, but their use of the word _lekton_ +leaves it doubtful whether they distinguished by it the linguistic +representation from the abstract concept, or rather, generically, the +meaning from the sound. + +[5] In the Appendix will be found further striking quotations from + and references to Aristotle.--(D.A.) + + + + +II + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN THE MIDDLE AGE AND IN THE RENAISSANCE + + +Well-nigh all the theories of antique Aesthetic reappear in the Middle +Ages, as it were by spontaneous generation. Duns Scotus Erigena +translated the Neoplatonic mysticism of the pseudo-Dionysus. The +Christian God took the place of the chief Good or Idea: God, wisdom, +goodness, supreme beauty are the fountains of natural beauty, and these +are steps in the stair of contemplation of the Creator. In this manner +speculation began to be diverted from the art fact, which had been so +prominent with Plotinus. Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in +distinguishing the beautiful from the good, and applied his doctrine of +imitation to the beauty of the second person of the Trinity (_in quantum +est imago expressa Patris_). With the troubadours, we may find traces of +the hedonistic view of art, and the rigoristic hypothesis finds in +Tertullian and in certain Fathers of the Church staunch upholders. The +retrograde Savonarola occupied the same position at a later period. But +the narcotic, moralistic, or pedagogic view mostly prevailed, for it +best suited an epoch of relative decadence in culture. It suited +admirably the Middle Age, offering at once an excuse for the new-born +Christian art, and for those works of classical or pagan art which yet +survived. Specimens of this view abound all through the Middle Age. We +find it, for instance, in the criticism of Virgil, to whose work were +attributed four distinct meanings: literal, allegorical, moral, and +anagogic. For Dante poetry was _nihil aliud quam fictio rhetorica in +musicaque posita_. "If the vulgar be incapable of appreciating my inner +meaning, then they shall at least incline their minds to the perfection +of my beauty. If from me ye cannot gather wisdom, at the least shall ye +enjoy me as a pleasant thing." Thus spoke the Muse of Dante, whose +_Convivio_ is an attempt to aid the understanding in its effort to grasp +the moral and pedagogic elements of verse. Poetry was the _gaia +scienza_, "a fiction containing many useful things covered or veiled." + +It would be inexact to identify art in the Middle Age with philosophy +and theology. Its pleasing falsity could be adapted to useful ends, much +in the same way as matrimony excuses love and sexual union. This, +however, implies that for the Middle Age the ideal state was celibacy; +that is, pure knowledge, divorced from art. + +The only line of explanation that was altogether neglected in the Middle +Age was the right one. + +The _Poetics_ of Aristotle were badly rendered into Latin, from the +faulty paraphrase of Averroes, by one Hermann (1256). The nominalist and +realist dispute brought again into the arena the relations between +thought and speech, and we find Duns Scotus occupied with the problem in +his _De modis significandi seu grammatica speculativa_. Abelard had +defined sensation as _confusa conceptio_, and with the importance given +to intuitive knowledge, to the perception of the individual, of the +_species specialissima_ in Duns Scotus, together with the denomination +of the forms of knowledge as _confusae, indistinctae_, and _distinctae_, +we enter upon a terminology, which we shall see appearing again, big +with results, at the commencement of modern Aesthetic. + +The doctrine of the Middle Age, in respect to art and letters, may thus +be regarded as of interest rather to the history of culture than to that +of general knowledge. A like remark holds good of the Renaissance. +Theories of antiquity are studied, countless treatises in many forms are +written upon them, but no really new Ideas as regards aesthetic science +appear on the horizon. + +We find among the spokesmen of mystical Aesthetic in the thirteenth +century such names as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Bembo +and many others wrote on the Beautiful and on Love in the century that +followed. The _Dialogi di Amore_, written in Italian by a Spanish Jew +named Leone and published in 1535, had a European success, being +translated into many languages. He talks of the universality of love and +of its origin, of beauty that is grace, which delights the soul and +impels it to love. Knowledge of lesser beauties leads to loftier +spiritual beauties. Leone called these remarks _Philographia_. + +Petrarch's followers versified similar intuitions, while others wrote +parodies and burlesques of this style; Luca Paciolo, the friend of +Leonardo, made the (false) discovery of the golden section, basing his +speculating upon mathematics; Michael Angelo established an empirical +canon for painting, attempting to give rules for imparting grace and +movement to figures, by means of certain arithmetical proportions; +others found special meanings in colours; while the Platonicians placed +the seat of beauty in the soul, the Aristotelians in physical qualities. +Agostino Nifo, the Averroist, after some inconclusive remarks, is at +last fortunate enough to discover where natural beauty really dwells: +its abode is the body of Giovanna d'Aragona, Princess of Tagliacozzo, to +whom he dedicates his book. Tasso mingled the speculations of the +_Hippias major_ with those of Plotinus. + +Tommaso Campanella, in his _Poetica_, looks upon the beautiful as +_signum boni_, the ugly as _signum mali_. By goodness, he means Power, +Wisdom, and Love. Campanella was still under the influence of the +erroneous Platonic conception of the beautiful, but the use of the word +_sign_ in this place represents progress. It enabled him to see that +things in themselves are neither beautiful nor ugly. + +Nothing proves more clearly that the Renaissance did not overstep the +limits of aesthetic theory reached in antiquity, than the fact that the +pedagogic theory of art continued to prevail, in the face of +translations of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle and of the diffuse labours +expended upon that work. This theory was even grafted upon the +_Poetics_, where one is surprised to find it. There are a few hedonists +standing out from the general trend of opinion. The restatement of the +pedagogic position, reinforced with examples taken from antiquity, was +disseminated throughout Europe by the Italians of the Renaissance. +France, Spain, England, and Germany felt its influence, and we find the +writers of the period of Louis XIV. either frankly didactic, like Le +Bossu (1675), for whom the first object of the poet is to instruct, or +with La Menardiere (1640) speaking of poetry as "cette science agreable +qui mele la gravite des preceptes avec la douceur du langage." For the +former of these critics, Homer was the author of two didactic manuals +relating to military and political matters: the _Iliad_ and the +_Odyssey_. + +Didacticism has always been looked upon as the Poetic of the +Renaissance, although the didactic is not mentioned among the kinds of +poetry of that period. The reason of this lies in the fact that for the +Renaissance all poetry was didactic, in addition to any other qualities +which it might possess. The active discussion of poetic theory, the +criticism of Aristotle and of Plato's exclusion of poetry, of the +possible and of the verisimilar, if it did not contribute much original +material to the theory of art, yet at any rate sowed the seeds which +afterwards germinated and bore fruit. Why, they asked with Aristotle, at +the Renaissance, does poetry deal with the universal, history with the +particular? What is the reason for poetry being obliged to seek +verisimilitude? What does Raphael mean by the "certain idea," which he +follows in his painting? + +These themes and others cognate were dealt with by Italian and by +Spanish writers, who occasionally reveal wonderful acumen, as when +Francesco Patrizio, criticizing Aristotle's theory of imitation, +remarks: "All languages and all philosophic writings and all other +writings would be poetry, because they are made of words, and words are +imitations." But as yet no one dared follow such a clue to the +labyrinth, and the Renaissance closes with the sense of a mystery yet to +be revealed. + + + + +III + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES + + +The seventeenth century is remarkable for the ferment of thought upon +this difficult problem. Such words as genius, taste, imagination or +fancy, and feeling, appear in this literature, and deserve a passing +notice. As regards the word "genius," we find the Italian "ingegno" +opposed to the intellect, and Dialectic adorned with the attributes of +the latter, while Rhetoric has the advantage of "ingegno" in all its +forms, such as "concetti" and "acutezze." With these the English word +ingenious has an obvious connection, especially in its earlier use as +applied to men of letters. The French worked upon the word "ingegno" and +evolved from it in various associations the expressions "esprit," "beaux +Esprits." The manual of the Spanish Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian, became +celebrated throughout Europe, and here we find "ingegno" described as +the truly inventive faculty, and from it the English word "genius," the +Italian "genio," the French "genie," first enter into general use. + +The word "gusto" or taste, "good taste," in its modern sense, also +sprang into use about this time. Taste was held to be a judicial +faculty, directed to the beautiful, and thus to some extent distinct +from the intellectual judgment. It was further bisected into active and +passive; but the former ran into the definition of "ingegno," the latter +described sterility. The word "gusto," or taste as judgment, was in use +in Italy at a very early period; and in Spain we find Lope di Vega and +his contemporaries declaring that their object is to "delight the taste" +of their public. These uses of the word are not of significance as +regards the problem of art, and we must return to Baltasar Gracian +(1642) for a definition of taste as a special faculty or attitude of the +soul. Italian writers of the period echo the praises of this laconic +moralist, who, when he spoke of "a man of taste," meant to describe what +we call to-day "a man of tact" in the conduct of life. + +The first use of the word in a strictly aesthetic sense occurs in France +in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. La Bruyere writes in his +_Caracteres_ (1688): "Il y a dans l'art un point de perfection, comme de +bonte ou de maturite dans la nature: celui qui le sent et qui l'aime, a +le gout parfait; celui qui ne le sent pas, et qui aime au deca ou au +dela, a le gout defectueux. Il y a donc un bon et un mauvais gout, et +l'on dispute des gouts avec fondement." Delicacy and variability or +variety were appended as attributes of taste. This French definition of +the Italian word was speedily adopted in England, where it became "good +taste," and we find it used in this sense in Italian and German writers +of about this period. + +The words "imagination" and "fancy" were also passed through the +crucible in this century. We find the Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino (1644) +blaming those who look for truth or falsehood, for the verisimilar or +for historical truth, in poetry. Poetry, he holds, has to do with the +primary apprehensions, which give neither truth nor falsehood. Thus the +fancy takes the place of the verisimilar of certain students of +Aristotle. The Cardinal continues his eloquence with the clinching +remark that if the intention of poetry were to be believed true, then +its real end would be falsehood, which is absolutely condemned by the +law of nature and by God. The sole object of poetic fables is, he says, +to adorn our intellect with sumptuous, new, marvellous, and splendid +imaginings, and so great has been the benefits accruing from this to the +human race, that poets have been rewarded with a glory superior to any +other, and their names have been crowned with divine honours. This, he +says in his treatise, _Del Bene_, has been the just reward of poets, +albeit they have not been bearers of knowledge, nor have they manifested +truth. + +This throwing of the bridle on the neck of Pegasus seemed to Muratori +sixty years later to be altogether too risky a proceeding--although +advocated by a Prince of the Church! He reinserts the bit of the +verisimilar, though he talks with admiration of the fancy, that +"inferior apprehensive" faculty, which is content to "represent" things, +without seeking to know if they be true or false, a task which it leaves +to the "superior apprehensive" faculty of the intellect. The severe +Gravina, too, finds his heart touched by the beauty of poetry, when he +calls it "a witch, but wholesome." + +As early as 1578, Huarte had maintained that eloquence is the work of +the imagination, not of the intellect; in England, Bacon (1605) +attributed knowledge to the intellect, history to memory, and poetry to +the imagination or fancy; Hobbes described the manifestations of the +latter; and Addison devoted several numbers of the _Spectator_ to the +analysis of "the pleasures of the imagination." + +During the same period, the division between those who are accustomed "a +juger par le sentiment" and those who "raisonnent par les principes" +became marked in France, Du Bos (1719) is an interesting example of the +upholder of the feelings as regards the production of art. Indeed, there +is in his view no other criterion, and the feeling for art is a sixth +sense, against which intellectual argument is useless. This French +school of thought found a reflex in England with the position assigned +there to emotion in artistic work. But the confusion of such words as +imagination, taste, feeling, wit, shows that at this time there was a +suspicion that these words were all applicable to the same fact. +Alexander Pope thus distinguished wit and judgment: + + For wit and judgment often are at strife, + Though meant each other's aid like man and wife. + +But there was a divergence of opinion as to whether the latter should be +looked upon as part of the intellect or not. + +There was the same divergence of opinion as to taste and intellectual +judgment. As regards the former, the opposition to the intellectual +principle was reinforced in the eighteenth century by Kant in his +_Kritik der Urtheilskraft_. But Voltaire and writers anterior to him +frequently fell back into intellectualist definitions of a word invented +precisely to avoid them. Dacier (1684) writes of taste as "Une harmonie, +un accord de l'esprit et de la raison." The difficulties surrounding a +true definition led to the creation of the expression _non so che_, or +_je ne sais quoi_, or _no se que_, which throws into clear relief the +confusion between taste and intellectual judgment. + +As regards imagination and feeling, or sentiment, there was a strong +tendency to sensualism. The Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino talks of poetry +as ignoring alike truth or falsehood and yet delighting the senses. He +approves of the remark that poetry should make us "raise our eyebrows," +but in later life this keen-eyed prince seems to have fallen back from +the brilliant intuition of his earlier years into the pedagogic theory. +Muratori was convinced that fancy was entirely sensual, and therefore he +posted the intellect beside it, "to refrain its wild courses, like a +friend having authority." Gravina practically coincides in this view of +poetic fancy, as a subordinate faculty, incapable of knowledge, fit only +to be used by moral philosophy for the introduction into the mind of the +true, by means of novelty and the marvellous. + +In England, also, Bacon held poetry to belong to the fancy, and assigned +to it a place between history and science. Epic poetry he awarded to the +former, "parabolic" poetry to the latter. Elsewhere he talks of poetry +as a dream, and affirms that it is to be held "rather as an amusement of +the intelligence than as a science." For him music, painting, sculpture, +and the other arts are merely pleasure-giving. Addison reduced the +pleasures of the imagination to those caused by visible objects, or by +ideas taken from them. These pleasures he held to be inferior to those +of the senses and less refined than those of the intellect. He looked +upon imaginative pleasure as consisting in resemblances discovered +between imitations and things imitated, between copies and originals, an +exercise adapted to sharpen the spirit of observation. + +The sensualism of the writers headed by Du Bos, who looked upon art as a +mere pastime, like a tournament or a bull-fight, shows that the truth +about Aesthetic had not yet succeeded in emerging from the other +spiritual activities. Yet the new words and the new views of the +seventeenth century have great importance for the origins of Aesthetic; +they were the direct result of the restatement of the problem by the +writers of the Renaissance, who themselves took it up where Antiquity +had left it. These new words, and the discussions which arose from them, +were the demands of Aesthetic for its theoretical justification. But +they were not able to provide this justification, and it could not come +from elsewhere. + +With Descartes, we are not likely to find much sympathy for such studies +as relate to wit, taste, fancy, or feelings. He ignored the famous _non +so che_; he abhorred the imagination, which he believed to result from +the agitation of the animal spirits. He did not altogether condemn +poetry, but certainly looked upon it as the _folle du logis_, which must +be strictly supervised by the reason. Boileau is the aesthetic +equivalent of Cartesian intellectualism, Boileau _que la raison a ses +regles engage_, Boileau the enthusiast for allegory. France was infected +with the mathematical spirit of Cartesianism and all possibility of a +serious consideration of poetry and of art was thus removed. Witness the +diatribes of Malebranche against the imagination, and listen to the +Italian, Antonio Conti, writing from France in 1756 on the theme of the +literary disputes that were raging at the time: "They have introduced +the method of M. Descartes into belles-lettres; they judge poetry and +eloquence independently of their sensible qualities. Thus they also +confound the progress of philosophy with that of the arts. The Abbe +Terrasson says that the moderns are greater geometricians than the +ancients; therefore they are greater orators and greater poets." La +Motte, Fontenelle, Boileau, and Malebranche carried on this battle, +which was taken up by the Encyclopaedists, and when Du Bos published his +daring book, Jean Jacques le Bel published a reply to it (1726), in +which he denied to sentiment its claim to judge of art. Thus +Cartesianism could not possess an Aesthetic of the imagination. The +Cartesian J.P. de Crousaz (1715) found the beautiful to consist in what +is approved of, and thereby reduced it to ideas, ignoring the pleasing +and sentiment. + +Locke was as intellectualist in the England of this period as was +Descartes in France. He speaks of wit as combining ideas in an agreeable +variety, which strikes the imagination, while the intellect or judgment +seeks for differences according to truth. The wit, then, consists of +something which is not at all in accordance with truth and reason. For +Shaftesbury, taste is a sense or instinct of the beautiful, of order and +proportion, identical with the moral sense and with its "preconceptions" +anticipating the recognition of reason. Body, spirit, and God are the +three degrees of beauty. Francis Hutcheson proceeded from Shaftesbury +and made popular "the internal sense of beauty, which lies somewhere +between sensuality and rationality and is occupied with discussing unity +in variety, concord in multiplicity, and the true, the good, and the +beautiful in their substantial identity." Hutcheson allied the pleasure +of art with this sense, that is, with the pleasure of imitation and of +the likeness of the copy to the original. This he looked upon as +relative beauty, to be distinguished from absolute beauty. The same view +dominates the English writers of the eighteenth century, among whom may +be mentioned Reid, the head of the Scottish school, and Adam Smith. + +With far greater philosophical vigour, Leibnitz in Germany opened the +door to that crowd of psychic facts which Cartesian intellectualism had +rejected with horror. His conception of reality as _continuous_ (_natura +non facit saltus_) left room for imagination, taste, and their +congeners. Leibnitz believed that the scale of being ascended from the +lowliest to God. What we now term aesthetic facts were then identified +with what Descartes and Leibnitz had called "confused" knowledge, which +might become "clear," but not distinct. It might seem that when he +applied this terminology to aesthetic facts, Leibnitz had recognized +their peculiar essence, as being neither sensual nor intellectual. They +are not sensual for him, because they have their own "clarity," +differing from pleasure and sensual emotion, and from intellectual +"distinctio." But the Leibnitzian law of continuity and intellectualism +did not permit of such an interpretation. Obscurity and clarity are here +to be understood as quantitative grades of a _single_ form of knowledge, +the distinct or intellectual, toward which they both tend and reach at a +superior grade. Though artists judge with confused perceptions, which +are clear but not distinct, these may yet be corrected and proved true +by intellective knowledge. The intellect clearly and distinctly knows +the thing which the imagination knows confusedly but clearly. This view +of Leibnitz amounts to saying that the realization of a work of art can +be perfected by intellectually determining its concept. Thus Leibnitz +held that there was only one true form of knowledge, and that all other +forms could only reach perfection in that. His "clarity" is not a +specific difference; it is merely a partial anticipation of his +intellective "distinction." To have posited this grade is an important +achievement, but the view of Leibnitz is not fundamentally different +from that of the creators of the words and intuitions already studied. +All contributed to attract attention to the peculiarity of aesthetic +facts. + +Speculation on language at this period revealed an equally determined +intellectualist attitude. Grammar was held to be an exact science, and +grammatical variations to be explainable by the ellipse, by +abbreviation, and by failure to grasp the typical logical form. In +France, with Arnauld (1660), we have the rigorous Cartesian +intellectualism; Leibnitz and Locke both, speculated upon this subject, +and the former all his life nourished the thought of a universal +language. The absurdity of this is proved in this volume. + +A complete change of the Cartesian system, upon which Leibnitz based his +own, was necessary, if speculation were ever to surpass the Leibnitzian +aesthetic. But Wolff and the other German pupils of Leibnitz were as +unable to shake themselves free of the all-pervading intellectualism as +were the French pupils of Descartes. + +Meanwhile a young student of Berlin, named Alexander Amedeus Baumgarten, +was studying the Wolffian philosophy, and at the same time lecturing in +poetry and Latin rhetoric. While so doing, he was led to rethink and +pose afresh the problem of how to reduce the precepts of rhetoric to a +rigorous philosophical system. Thus it came about that Baumgarten +published in September 1735, at the age of twenty-one, as the thesis for +his degree of Doctor, an opuscule entitled, _Meditationes philosophicae +de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus_, and in it we find written +_for the first time_ the word "Aesthetic," as the name of a special +science. Baumgarten ever afterwards attached great importance to his +juvenile discovery, and lectured upon it by request in 1742, at +Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and again in 1749. It is interesting to know that +in this way Emmanuel Kant first became acquainted with the theory of +Aesthetic, which he greatly altered when he came to treat of it in his +philosophy. In 1750, Baumgarten published the first volume of a more +ample treatise, and a second part in 1762. But illness, and death in +1762, prevented his completing his work. + +What is Aesthetic for Baumgarten? It is the science of sensible +knowledge. Its objects are the sensible facts (_aisthaeta_), +which the Greeks were always careful to distinguish from the mental +facts (_noaeta_). It is therefore _scientia cognitionis +sensitivae, theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre +cogitandi, ars analogi rationis_. Rhetoric and Poetic are for him +special cases of Aesthetic, which is a general science, embracing both. +Its laws are diffused among all the arts, like the mariner's star +(_cynosura quaedam_), and they must be always referred to in all cases, +for they are universal, not empirical or merely inductive (_falsa regula +pejor est quam nulla_). Aesthetic must not be confounded with +Psychology, which supplies only suppositions. Aesthetic is an +independent science, which gives the rules for knowing sensibly, and is +occupied with the perfection of sensible knowledge, which is beauty. Its +contrary is ugliness. The beauty of objects and of matter must be +excluded from the beauty of sensible knowledge, because beautiful +objects can be badly thought and ugly objects beautifully thought. +Poetic representations are those which are confused or imaginative. +Distinction and intellectuality are not poetic. The greater the +determination, the greater the poetry; individuals absolutely determined +(_omnimodo determinata_) are very poetical, as are images or fancies, +and everything which refers to feeling. The judgment of sensible and +imaginative representations is taste. + +Such are, in brief, the truths which Baumgarten stated in his +_Meditationes_, and further developed and exemplified in his +_Aesthetica_. Close study of the two works above-mentioned leads to the +conviction that Baumgarten did not succeed in freeing himself from the +unity of the Leibnitzian monadology. He obtained from Leibnitz his +conception of the poetic as consisting of the confused, but German +critics are wrong in believing that he attributed to it a positive, not +a negative quality. Had he really done this, he would have broken at a +blow the unity of the Leibnitzian monad, and conquered the science of +Aesthetic. + +This giant's step he did not take: he failed to banish the +contradictions of Leibnitz and of the other intellectualists. To posit a +_perfection_ did not suffice. It was necessary to maintain it against +the _lex continui_ of Leibnitz and to proclaim its independence of all +intellectualism. Aesthetic truths for Baumgarten were those which did +not seem altogether false or altogether true: in fact, the verisimilar. +If it were objected to Baumgarten that one should not occupy oneself +with what, like poetry, he defines as confused and obscure, he would +reply that confusion is a condition of finding the truth, that we do not +pass at once from night to dawn. Thus he did not surpass the thought of +Leibnitz in this respect. Poor Baumgarten was always in suspense lest he +should be held to occupy himself with things unworthy of a philosopher! +"How can you, a professor of philosophy, dare to praise lying and the +mixture of truth and falsehood?" He imagined that some such reproach +might be addressed to him on account of his purely philosophical +speculations, and true enough he actually received a criticism of his +theory, in which it was argued, that if poetry consisted of sensual +perfection, then it was a bad thing for mankind. Baumgarten +contemptuously replied that he had not the time to argue with those +capable of confounding his _oratio perfecta sensitiva_ with an _oratio +perfecte (omnino!) sensitiva_. + +The fact about Baumgarten is that apart from baptizing the new science +Aesthetic, and apart from his first definitions, he does not stray far +from the old ruts of scholastic thought. The excellent Baumgarten, with +all his ardour and all his convictions, is a sympathetic and interesting +figure in the history of Aesthetic not yet formed, but in process of +formation. + +The revolutionary who set aside the old definitions of Aesthetic, and +for the first time revealed the true nature of art and poetry, is the +Italian, Giambattista Vico. + +What were the ideas developed by Vico in his _Scienza nuova_ (1725)? +They were neither more nor less than the solution of the problem, posed +by Plato, attempted in vain by Aristotle, again posed and again unsolved +at the Renaissance. + +Is poetry a rational or an irrational thing? Is it spiritual or animal? +If it be spiritual, what is its true nature, and in what way does it +differ from art and science? + +Plato, we know, banished poetry to the inferior region of the soul, +among the animal spirits. Vico on the contrary raises up poetry, and +makes of it a period in the history of humanity. And since Vico's is an +ideal history, whose periods are not concerned with contingent facts, +but with spiritual forms, he makes of it a moment of the ideal history +of the spirit, a form of knowledge. Poetry comes before the intellect, +but _after_ feeling. Plato had _confused_ it with feeling, and for that +reason banished it from his Republic. "Men _feel_," says Vico, "before +observing, then they observe with perturbation of the soul, finally they +reflect with the pure intellect," He goes on to say, that poetry being +composed of passion and of feeling, the nearer it approaches to the +_particular_, the more _true_ it is, while exactly the reverse is true +of philosophy. + +Imagination is independent and autonomous as regards the intellect. Not +only does the intellect fail of perfection, but all it can do is to +destroy it. "The studies of Poetry and Metaphysic are _naturally +opposed_. Poets are the feeling, philosophers the intellect of the human +race." The weaker the reason, the stronger the imagination. Philosophy, +he says, deals with abstract thought or universals, poetry with the +particular. Painters and poets differ only in their material. Homer and +the great poets appear in barbaric times. Dante, for instance, appeared +in "the renewed barbarism of Italy." The poetic ages preceded the +philosophical, and poetry is the father of prose, by "necessity of +nature," not by the "caprice of pleasure." Fables or "imaginary +universals" were conceived before "reasoned or philosophical +universals." To Homer, says Vico, belongs wisdom, but only poetic +wisdom. "His beauties are not those of a spirit softened and civilized +by any philosophy." + +If any one make poetry in epochs of reflexion, he becomes a child again; +he does not reflect with his intellect, but follows his fancy and dwells +upon particulars. If the true poet make use of philosophic ideas, he +only does so that he may change logic into imagination. + +Here we have a profound statement of the line of demarcation between +science and art. _They cannot be confused again_. + +His statement of the difference between poetry and history is a trifle +less clear. He explains why to Aristotle poetry seemed more +philosophical than history, and at the same time he refutes Aristotle's +error that poetry deals with the universal, history with the particular. +Poetry equals science, not because it is occupied with the intellectual +concept, but because, like science, it is ideal. A good poetical fable +must be all ideal: "With the idea the poet gives their being to things +which are without it. Poetry is all fantastic, as being the art of +painting the idea, not icastic, like the art of painting portraits. That +is why poets, like painters, are called divine, because in that respect +they resemble God the Creator." Vico ends by identifying poetry and +history. The difference between them is posterior and accidental. "But, +as it is impossible to impart false ideas, because the false consists of +a vicious combination of ideas, so it is impossible to impart a +tradition, which, though it be false, has not at first contained some +element of truth. Thus mythology appears for the first time, not as the +invention of an individual, but as the spontaneous vision of the truth +as it appears to primitive man." + +Poetry and language are for Vico substantially identical. He finds in +the origins of poetry the origins of languages and letters. He believed +that the first languages consisted in mute acts or acts accompanied by +bodies which had natural relations to the ideas that it was desired to +signify. With great cleverness he compared these pictured languages to +heraldic arms and devices, and to hieroglyphs. He observed that during +the barbarism of the Middle Age, the mute language of signs must return, +and we find it in the heraldry and blazonry of that epoch. Hence come +three kinds of languages: divine silent languages, heroic emblematic +languages, and speech languages. + +Formal logic could never satisfy a man with such revolutionary ideas +upon poetry and language. He describes the Aristotelian syllogism as a +method which explains universals In their particulars, rather than +unites particulars to obtain universals, looks upon Zeno and the sorites +as a means of subtilizing rather than sharpening the intelligence, and +concludes that Bacon is a great philosopher, when he advocates and +illustrates _induction_, "which has been followed by the English to the +great advantage of experimental philosophy." Hence he proceeds to +criticize mathematics, which, had hitherto always been looked upon as +the type of the _perfect science_. + +Vico is indeed a revolutionary, a pioneer. He knows very well that he is +in direct opposition to all that has been thought before about poetry. +"My new principles of poetry upset all that first Plato and then +Aristotle have said about the origin of poetry, all that has been said +by the Patrizzi, by the Scaligers, and by the Castelvetri. I have +discovered that It was through lack of human reason that poetry was born +so sublime that neither the Arts, nor the Poetics, nor the Critiques +could cause another equal to it to be born, I say equal, and not +superior." He goes as far as to express shame at having to report the +stupidities of great philosophers upon the origin of song and verse. He +shows his dislike for the Cartesian philosophy and its tendency to dry +up the imagination "by denying all the faculties of the soul which come +to it from the body," and talks of his own time as of one "which freezes +all the generous quality of the best poetry and thus precludes it from +being understood." + +As regards grammatical forms, Vico may be described as an adherent of +the great reaction of the Renaissance against scholastic verbalism and +formalism. This reaction brought back as a value the experience of +feeling, and afterwards with Romanticism gave its right place to the +imagination. Vico, in his _Scienza nuova_, may be said to have been the +first to draw attention to the imagination. Although he makes many +luminous remarks on history and the development of poetry among the +Greeks, his work is not really a history, but a science of the spirit or +of the ideal. It is not the ethical, logical, or economic moment of +humanity which interests him, but the _imaginative_ moment. _He +discovered the creative imagination_, and it may almost be said of the +_Scienza nuova_ of Vico that it is Aesthetic, the discovery of a new +world, of a new mode of knowledge. + +This was the contribution of the genius of Vico to the progress of +humanity: he showed Aesthetic to be an autonomous activity. It remained +to distinguish the science of the spirit from history, the modifications +of the human spirit from the historic vicissitudes of peoples, Aesthetic +from Homeric civilization. + +But although Goethe, Herder, and Wolf were acquainted with the _Scienza +nuova_, the importance of this wonderful book did not at first dawn upon +the world. Wolf, in his prolegomena to Homer, thought that he was +dealing merely with an ingenious speculator on Homeric themes. He did +not realize that the intellectual stature of Vico far surpassed that of +the most able philologists. + +The fortunes of Aesthetic after Vico were very various, and the list of +aestheticians who fell back into the old pedagogic definition, or +elaborated the mistakes of Baumgarten, is very long. Yet with C.H. +Heydenreich in Germany and Sulzer in Switzerland we find that the truths +contained in Baumgarten have begun to bear fruit. J.J. Herder (1769) was +more important than these, and he placed Baumgarten upon a pedestal, +though criticizing his pretension of creating an _ars pulchre cogitandi_ +instead of a simple _scientia de pulchro et pulchris philosophice +cogitans_. Herder admitted Baumgarten's definition of poetry as _oratio +sensitiva perfecta_, perfect sensitived speech, and this is _probably +the best definition of poetry that has ever been given_. It touches the +real essence of poetry and opens to thought the whole of the philosophy +of the beautiful. Herder, although he does not cite Vico upon aesthetic +questions, yet praises him as a philosopher. His remarks about poetry as +"the maternal language of humanity, as the garden is more ancient than +the cultivated field, painting than writing, song than declamation, +exchange than commerce," are replete with the spirit of the Italian +philosopher. + +But despite similar happy phrases, Herder is philosophically the +inferior of the great Italian. He is a firm believer in the Leibnitzian +law of continuity, and does not surpass the conclusions of Baumgarten. + +Herder and his friend Hamann did good service as regards the philosophy +of language. The French encyclopaedists, J.J. Rousseau, d'Alembert, and +many others of this period, were none of them able to get free of the +idea that a word is either a natural, mechanical fact, or a sign +attached to a thought. The only way out of this difficulty is to look +upon the imagination as itself active and expressive in _verbal +imagination_, and language as the language of _intuition_, not of the +intelligence. Herder talks of language as "an understanding of the soul +with itself." Thus language begins to appear, not as an arbitrary +invention or a mechanical fact, but as a primitive affirmation of human +activity, as a _creation_. + +But all unconscious of the discoveries of Vico, the great mass of +eighteenth century writers try their hands at every sort of solution. +The Abbe Batteux published in 1746 _Les Beaux-arts reduits a un seul +principe_, which is a perfect little bouquet of contradictions. The Abbe +finds himself confronted with difficulties at every turn, but with "un +peu d'esprit on se tire de tout," and when for instance he has to +explain artistic enjoyment of things displeasing, he remarks that the +imitation never being perfect like reality, the horror caused by reality +disappears. + +But the French were equalled and indeed surpassed by the English in +their amateur Aesthetics. The painter Hogarth was one day reading in +Italian a speech about the beauty of certain figures, attributed to +Michael Angelo. This led him to imagine that the figurative arts depend +upon a principle which consists of conforming to a given line. In 1745 +he produced a serpentine line as frontispiece of his collection of +engravings, which he described as "the line of beauty." Thus he +succeeded in exciting universal curiosity, which he proceeded to satisfy +with his "Analysis of Beauty." Here he begins by rightly combating the +error of judging paintings by their subject and by the degree of their +imitation, instead of by their form, which is the essential in art. He +gives his definition of form, and afterwards proceeds to describe the +waving lines which are beautiful and those which are not, and maintains +that among them all there is but one that is really worthy to be called +"the line of beauty," and one definite serpentine line "the line of +grace." The pig, the bear, the spider, and the frog are ugly, because +they do not possess serpentine lines. E. Burke, with a like assurance in +his examples, was equally devoid of certainty in his general principles. +He declares that the natural properties of an object cause pleasure or +pain to the imagination, but that the latter also procures pleasure from +their resemblance to the original. He does not speak further of the +second of these, but gives a long list of the natural properties of the +sensible, beautiful object. Having concluded his list, he remarks that +these are in his opinion the qualities upon which beauty depends and +which are the least liable to caprice and confusion. But "comparative +smallness, delicate structure, colouring vivid but not too much so," are +all mere empirical observations of no more value than those of Hogarth, +with whom Burke must be classed as an aesthetician. Their works are +spoken of as "classics." Classics indeed they are, but of the sort that +arrive at no conclusion. + +Henry Home (Lord Kaimes) is on a level a trifle above the two just +mentioned. He seeks "the true principles of the beaux-arts," in order to +transform criticism into "a rational science." He selects facts and +experience for this purpose, but in his definition of beauty, which he +divides into two parts, relative and intrinsic, he is unable to explain +the latter, save by a final cause, which he finds in the Almighty. + +Such theories as the three above mentioned defy classification, because +they are not composed by any scientific method. Their authors pass from +physiological sensualism to moralism, from imitation of nature to +finalism, and to transcendental mysticism, without consciousness of the +incongruity of their theses, at variance each with itself. + +The German, Ernest Platner, at any rate did not suffer from a like +confusion of thought. He developed his researches on the lines of +Hogarth, but was only able to discover a prolongation of sexual pleasure +in aesthetic facts. "Where," he exclaims, "is there any beauty that does +not come from the feminine figure, the centre of all beauty? The +undulating line is beautiful, because it is found in the body of woman; +essentially feminine movements are beautiful; the notes of music are +beautiful, when they melt into one another; a poem is beautiful, when +one thought embraces another with lightness and facility." + +French sensualism shows itself quite incapable of understanding +aesthetic production, and the associationism of David Hume is not more +fortunate in this respect. + +The Dutchman Hemsterhuis (1769) developed an ingenious theory, mingling +mystical and sensualist theory with some just remarks, which afterwards, +in the hands of Jacobi, became sentimentalism. Hemsterhuis believed +beauty to be a phenomenon arising from the meeting by the +sentimentalism, which gives multiplicity, with the internal sense, which +tends to unity. Consequently the beautiful will be that which presents +the greatest number of ideas in the shortest space of time. To man is +denied supreme unity, but here he finds approximative unity. Hence the +joy arising from the beautiful, which has some analogy with the joy of +love. + +With Winckelmann (1764) Platonism or Neo-platonism was vigorously +renewed. The creator of the history of the figurative arts saw in the +divine indifference and more than human elevation of the works of Greek +sculpture a beauty which had descended from the seventh heaven and +become incarnate in them. Mendelssohn, the follower of Baumgarten, had +denied beauty to God: Winckelmann, the Neoplatonician, gave it back to +Him. He holds that perfect beauty is to be found only in God. "The +conception of human beauty becomes the more perfect in proportion as it +can be thought as in agreement with the Supreme Being, who is +distinguished from matter by His unity and indivisibility." To the other +characteristics of supreme beauty, Winckelmann adds "the absence of any +sort of signification" (Unbezeichnung). Lines and dots cannot explain +beauty, for it is not they alone which form it. Its form is not proper +to any definite person, it expresses no sentiment, no feeling of +passion, for these break up unity and diminish or obscure beauty. +According to Winckelmann, beauty must be like a drop of pure water taken +from the spring, which is the more healthy the less it has of taste, +because it is purified of all foreign elements. + +A special faculty is required to appreciate this beauty, which +Winckelmann is inclined to call intelligence, or a delicate internal +sense, free of all instinctive passions, of pleasure, and of friendship. +Since it becomes a question of perceiving something immaterial, +Winckelmann banishes colour to a secondary place. True beauty, he says, +is that of form, a word which describes lines and contours, as though +lines and contours could not also be perceived by the senses, or could +appear to the eye without any colour. + +It is the destiny of error to be obliged to contradict itself, when it +does not decide to dwell in a brief aphorism, in order to live as well +as may be with facts and concrete problems. The "History" of Winckelmann +dealt with historic concrete facts, with which it was necessary to +reconcile the idea of a supreme beauty. His admission of the contours of +lines and his secondary admission of colours is a compromise. He makes +another with regard to the principle of expression. "Since there is no +intermediary between pain and pleasure in human nature, and since a +human being without these feelings is inconceivable, we must place the +human figure in a moment of action and of passion, which is what is +termed expression in art." So Winckelmann studied expression after +beauty. He makes a third compromise between his one, indivisible, +supreme, and constant beauty and individual beauties. Winckelmann +preferred the male to the female body as the most complete incarnation +of supreme beauty, but he was not able to shut his eyes to the +indisputable fact that there also exist beautiful bodies of women and +even of animals. + +Raphael Mengs, the painter, was an intimate friend of Winckelmann and +associated himself with him in his search for a true definition of the +beautiful. His ideas were generally in accordance with those of +Winckelmann. He defines beauty as "the visible idea of perfection, which +is to perfection what the visible is to the mathematical point." He +falls under the influence of the argument from design. The Creator has +ordained the multiplicity of beauties. Things are beautiful according to +our ideas of them, and these ideas come from the Creator. Thus each +beautiful thing has its own type, and a child would appear ugly if it +resembled a man. He adds to his remarks in this sense: "As the diamond +is alone perfect among stones, gold among metals, and man among living +creatures, so there is distinction in each species, and but little is +perfect." In his _Dreams of Beauty_, he looks upon beauty as "an +intermediate disposition," which contains a part of perfection and a +part of the agreeable, and forms a _tertium quid_, which differs from +the other two and deserves a special name. He names four sources of the +art of painting: beauty, significant or expressive character, harmony, +and colouring. The first of these he finds among the ancients, the +second with Raphael, the third with Correggio, the fourth with Titian. +Mengs does not succeed in rising above this empiricism of the studio, +save to declaim about the beauty of nature, virtue, forms, and +proportions, and indeed everything, including the First Cause, which is +the most beautiful of all. + +The name of G.E. Lessing (1766) is well known to all concerned with art +problems. The ideas of Winckelmann reappear in Lessing, with less of a +metaphysical tinge. For Lessing, the end of art is the pleasing, and +since this is "a superfluous thing," he thought that the legislator +should not allow to art the liberty indispensable to science, which +seeks the truth, necessary to the soul. For the Greeks painting was, as +it should always be, "imitation of beautiful bodies." Everything +disagreeable or ill-formed should be excluded from painting. "Painting, +as clever imitation, may imitate deformity. Painting, as a fine art, +does not permit this." He was more inclined to admit deformity in +poetry, as there it is less shocking, and the poet can make use of it to +produce in us certain feelings, such as the ridiculous or the terrible. +In his _Dramaturgie_ (1767), Lessing followed the Peripatetics, and +believed that the rules of Aristotle were as absolute as the theorems of +Euclid. His polemic against the French school is chiefly directed to +claiming a place in poetry for the verisimilar, as against absolute +historical exactitude. He held the universal to be a sort of mean of +what appears in the individual, the catharsis was in his view a +transformation of the passions into virtuous dispositions, and he held +the duty of poetry to be inspiration of the love of virtue. He followed +Winckelmann in believing that the expression of physical beauty was the +supreme object of painting. This beauty exists only as an ideal, which +finds its highest expression in man. Animals possess it to a slighter +extent, vegetable and inanimate nature not at all. Those mistaken enough +to occupy themselves with depicting the latter are imitating beauties +deprived of all ideal. They work only with eye and hand; genius has +little if any share in their productions. Lessing found the physical +ideal to reside chiefly in form, but also in the ideal of colour, and in +permanent expression. Mere colouring and transitory expression were for +him without ideal, "because nature has not imposed upon herself anything +definite as regards them." At bottom he does not care for colouring, +finding in the pen drawings of artists "a life, a liberty, a delicacy, +lacking to their pictures." He asks "whether even the most wonderful +colouring can make up for such a loss, and whether it be not desirable +that the art of oil-painting had never been invented." + +This "ideal beauty," wonderfully constructed from divine quintessence +and subtle pen and brush strokes, this academic mystery, had great +success. In Italy it was much discussed in the environment of Mengs and +of Winckelmann, who were working there. + +The first counterblast to their aesthetic Neo-platonism came from an +Italian named Spalletti, and took the form of a letter addressed to +Mengs. He represents the _characteristic_ as the true principle of art. +The pleasure obtained from beauty is intellectual, and truth is its +object. When the soul meets with what is characteristic, and what really +suits the object to be represented, the work is held to be beautiful. A +well-made man with a woman's face is ugly. Harmony, order, variety, +proportion, etc.--these are elements of beauty, and man enjoys the +widening of his knowledge before disagreeable things characteristically +represented. Spalletti defines beauty as "that modification inherent to +the object observed, which presents it, as it should appear, with an +infallible characteristic." + +Thus the Aristotelian thesis found a supporter in Italy, some years +before any protestation was heard in Germany. Louis Hirt, the historian +of art (1797) observed that ancient monuments represented all sorts of +forms, from the most beautiful and sublime to the most ugly and most +common. He therefore denied that ideal beauty was the principle of art, +and for it substituted the _characteristic_, applicable equally to gods, +heroes, and animals. + +Wolfgang Goethe, in 1798, forgetting the juvenile period, during which +he had dared to raise a hymn to Gothic architecture, now began seriously +to seek a middle term between beauty and expression. He believed that he +had found it, in certain characteristic contents presenting to the +artist beautiful shapes, which the artist would then develop and reduce +to perfect beauty. Thus for Goethe at this period, the characteristic +was simply the _starting-point_, or framework, from which the beautiful +arose, through the power of the artist. + +But these writers mentioned after J.B. Vico are not true philosophers. +Winckelmann, Mengs, Hogarth, Lessing, and Goethe are great in other +ways. Meier called himself a historian of art, but he was inferior both +to Herder and to Hamann. From J.B. Vico to Emmanuel Kant, European +thought is without a name of great importance as regards this subject. + +Kant took up the problem, where Vico had left it, not in the historical, +but in the ideal sense. He resembled the Italian philosopher, in the +gravity and the tenacity of his studies in Aesthetic, but he was far +less happy in his solutions, which did not attain to the truth, and to +which he did not succeed in giving the necessary unity and +systematization. The reader must bear in mind that Kant is here +criticized solely as an aesthetician: his other conclusions do not enter +directly into the discussion. + +What was Kant's idea of art? The answer is: the same in substance as +Baumgarten's. This may seem strange to those who remember his sustained +polemic against Wolf and the conception of beauty as confused +perception. But Kant always thought highly of Baumgarten. He calls him +"that excellent analyst" in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and he used +Baumgarten's text for his University lectures on Metaphysic. Kant looked +upon Logic and Aesthetic as cognate studies, and in his scheme of +studies for 1765, and in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, he proposes to +cast a glance at the Critique of Taste, that is to say, Aesthetic, +"since the study of the one is useful for the other and they are +mutually illuminative." He followed Meier in his distinctions between +logical and aesthetic truth. He even quoted the Instance of the young +girl, whose face when distinctly seen, i.e. with a microscope, is no +longer beautiful. It is true, aesthetically, he said, that when a man is +dead he cannot come to life, although this be opposed both to logical +and to moral truth. It is aesthetically true that the sun plunges into +the sea, although that is not true logically or objectively. + +No one, even among the greatest, can yet tell to what extent logical +truth should mingle with aesthetic truth. Kant believed that logical +truth must wear the habit of Aesthetic, in order to become _accessible_. +This habit, he thought, was discarded only by the rational sciences, +which tend to depth. Aesthetic certainly is subjective. It is satisfied +with authority or with an appeal to great men. We are so feeble that +Aesthetic must eke out our thoughts. Aesthetic is a vehicle of Logic. +But there are logical truths which are not aesthetic. We must exclude +from philosophy exclamations and other emotions, which belong to +aesthetic truth. For Kant, poetry is the harmonious play of thought and +sensation, differing from eloquence, because in poetry thoughts are +fitted to suggestions, in eloquence the reverse is true. Poetry should +make virtue and intellect visible, as was done by Pope in his _Essay on +Man_. Elsewhere, he says frankly that logical perfection is the +foundation of all the rest. + +The confirmation of this is found in his _Critique of Judgment_, which +Schelling looked upon as the most important of the three _Critiques_, +and which Hegel and other metaphysical idealists always especially +esteemed. + +For Kant art was always "a sensible and imaged covering for an +intellectual concept." He did not look upon art as pure beauty without a +concept. He looked upon it as a beauty adherent and fixed about a +concept. The work of genius contains two elements: imagination and +intelligence. To these must be added taste, which combines the two. Art +may even represent the ugly in nature, for artistic beauty "is not a +beautiful thing but a beautiful representation of a thing." But this +representation of the ugly has its limits in the arts (here Kant +remembers Lessing and Winckelmann), and an absolute limit in the +disgusting and the repugnant, which kills the representation itself. He +believes that there may be artistic productions without a concept, such +as are flowers in nature, and these would be ornaments to frameworks, +music without words, etc., etc., but since they represent nothing +reducible to a definite concept, they must be classed, like flowers, +with free beauties. This would certainly seem to exclude them from +Aesthetic, which, according to Kant, should combine imagination and +intelligence. + +Kant is shut in with intellectualist barriers. A complete definition of +the _imagination_ is _wanting_ to his system. He does not admit that the +imagination belongs to the powers of the mind. He relegates it to the +facts of sensation. He is aware of the reproductive and combinative +imagination, but he does not recognize _fancy_ (_fantasia_), which is +the true productive imagination. + +Yet Kant was aware that there exists an activity other than the +intellective. Intuition is referred to by him as preceding intellective +activity and differing from sensation. He does not speak of it, however, +in his critique of art, but in the first section of the _Critique of +Pure Reason_. Sensations do not enter the mind, until it has given them +_form_. This is neither sensation nor intelligence. It is _pure +intuition_, the sum of the _a priori_ principles of sensibility. He +speaks thus: "There must, then, exist a science that forms the first +part of the transcendental doctrine of the elements, distinct from that +which contains the principles of pure thought and is called +transcendental Logic." + +What does he call this new science? He calls it _Transcendental +Aesthetic_, and refuses to allow the term to be used for the Critique of +Taste, which could never become a science. + +But although he thus states so clearly the necessity of a science of the +form of the sensations, that is of _pure intuition_, Kant here appears +to fall into grave error. This arises from _his inexact idea_ of the +_essence of the aesthetic faculty or of art_, which, as we now know, is +pure intuition. He conceives the form of sensibility to be reducible to +the _two categories of space and time_. + +Benedetto Croce has shown that space and time are far from being +categories or functions: they are complex posterior formations. Kant, +however, looked upon density, colour, etc., as material for sensations; +but the mind only observes colour or hardness when it has _already_ +given a form to its sensations. Sensations, in so far as they are _crude +matter_, are _outside_ the mind: they are a _limit_. Colour, hardness, +density, etc., are _already_ intuitions. _They are the aesthetic +activity in its rudimentary manifestation._ + +Characterizing or qualifying imagination, that is, _aesthetic activity_, +should therefore _take the place occupied by the study of space and +time_ in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and constitute the true +_Transcendental Aesthetic_, prologue to Logic. + +Had Kant done this, he would have surpassed Leibnitz and Baumgarten; he +would have equalled Vico. + +Kant did not identify the Beautiful with art. He established what he +called "the four moments of Beauty," amounting to a definition of it. +The two negative moments are, "That is beautiful which pleases _without +interest_"; this thesis was directed against the sensualist school of +English writers, with whom Kant had for a time agreed; and "That is +beautiful which pleases without a concept," directed against the +intellectualists. Thus he affirmed the existence of a spiritual domain, +distinct from that of organic pleasure, of the useful, the good, and the +true. The two other moments are, "That is beautiful which has the form +of finality without the representation of an end," and "That is +beautiful which is the object of universal pleasure." What is this +disinterested pleasure that we experience before pure colours, pure +sounds, and flowers? Benedetto Croce replies that this mysterious domain +has no existence; that the instances cited represent, either instances +of organic pleasure, or are artistic facts of expression. + +Kant was less severe with the Neoplatonicians than with the two schools +of thought above mentioned. His _Critique of Judgment_ contains some +curious passages, in one of which he gives his distinction of form from +matter: "In music, the melody is the matter, harmony the form: in a +flower, the scent is the matter, the shape or configuration the form." +In the other arts, he found that the design was the essential. "Not what +pleases in sensation, but what is approved for its form, is the +foundation of taste." + +In his pursuit of the phantom of a beauty, which is neither that of art +nor of sensual pleasure, exempt alike from expression and from +enjoyment, he became enveloped in inextricable contradictions. Little +disposed as he was to let himself be carried away by the imagination, he +expressed his contempt for philosopher-poets like Herder, and kept +saying and unsaying, affirming and then immediately criticizing his own +affirmations as to this mysterious beauty. The truth is that _this +mystery is simply his own individual uncertainty before a problem which +he could not solve_, owing to his having no clear idea of an activity of +sentiment. Such an activity represented for him a logical contradiction. +Such expressions as "necessary universal pleasure," "finality without +the idea of end," are verbal proofs of his uncertainty. + +How was he to emerge from this uncertainty, this contradiction? He fell +back upon the concept of a base of subjective finality as the base of +the judgment of taste, that is of the subjective finality of nature by +the judgment. But nothing can be known or disclosed to the object by +means of this concept, which is indeterminate in itself and not adapted +for knowledge. Its determining reason is perhaps situated in "the +suprasensible substratum of humanity." Thus beauty becomes a symbol of +morality. "The subjective principle alone, that is, the indeterminate +idea of the suprasensible in us, can be indicated as the sole key to +reveal this faculty, which remains unknown to us in its origin. Nothing +but this principle can make that hidden faculty comprehensible." + +Kant had a tendency to mysticism, which this statement does not serve to +conceal, but it was a mysticism without enthusiasm, a mysticism almost +against the grain. His failure to penetrate thoroughly the nature of the +aesthetic activity led him to see double and even triple, on several +occasions. Art being unknown to him in its essential nature, he invents +the functions of _space_ and _time_ and terms this _transcendental +aesthetic_; he develops the theory of the imaginative beautifying of the +intellectual concept by genius; he is finally forced to admit a +mysterious power of feeling, intermediate between the theoretic and the +practical activity. This power is cognoscitive and non-cognoscitive, +moral and indifferent to morality, agreeable and yet detached from the +pleasure of the senses. His successors hastened to make use of this +mysterious power, for they were glad to be able to find some sort of +justification for their bold speculations in the severe philosopher of +Koenigsberg. + +In addition to Schelling and Hegel, for whom, as has been said, the +_Critique of Judgment_ seemed the most important of the three Critiques, +we must now mention the name of a poet who showed himself as great in +philosophical as in aesthetic achievement. + +_Friedrich Schiller_ first elaborated that portion of the Kantian +thought contained in the _Critique of Judgment_. Before any professional +philosopher, Schiller studied that sphere of activity which unites +feeling with reason. Hegel talks with admiration of this artistic +genius, who was also so profoundly philosophical and first announced the +principle of reconciliation between life as duty and reason on the one +hand, and the life of the senses and feeling on the other. + +To Schiller belongs the great merit of having opposed the subjective +idealism of Kant and of having made the attempt to surpass it. + +The exact relations between Kant and Schiller, and the extent to which +the latter may have been influenced by Leibnitz and Herder, are of less +importance to the history of Aesthetic than the fact that Schiller +_unified_ once for all art and beauty, which had been separated by Kant, +with his distinctions between adherent and pure beauty. Schiller's +artistic sense must doubtless have stood him here in good stead. + +Schiller found a very unfortunate and misleading term to apply to the +aesthetic sphere. He called it the sphere of _play_ (Spiel). He strove +to explain that by this he did not mean ordinary games, nor material +amusement. For Schiller, this sphere of play lay intermediate between +thought and feeling. Necessity in art gives place to a free disposition +of forces; mind and nature, matter and form are here reconciled. The +beautiful is life, but not physiological life. A beautiful statue may +have life, and a living man be without it. Art conquers nature with +form. The great artist effaces matter with form. The less we are +sensible of the material in a work of art, the greater the triumph of +the artist. The soul of the spectator should leave the magic sphere of +art as pure and as perfect as when it left the hands of the Creator. The +most frivolous theme should be so treated that we can pass at once from +it to the most rigorous, and _vice versa_. Only when man has placed +himself outside the world and contemplates it aesthetically, can he know +the world. While he is merely the passive receiver of sensations, he is +one with the world, and therefore cannot realize it. Art is +indeterminism. With the help of art, man delivers himself from the yoke +of the senses, and is at the same time free of any rational or moral +duty: he may enjoy for a moment the luxury of serene contemplation. + +Schiller was well aware that the moment art is employed to teach morals +directly, it ceases to be art. All other teachings give to the soul a +special imprint. Art alone is favourable to all without prejudice. Owing +to this indifference of art, it possesses a great educative power, by +opening the path to morality without preaching or persuasion; without +determining, it produces determinability. This was the main theme of the +celebrated "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man," which Schiller +wrote to his patron the Duke of Holstein-Augustenburg. Here, and in his +lectures at the University of Jena, it is clear that Schiller addresses +himself to a popular audience. He began a work, on scientific Aesthetic, +which he intended to entitle "Kallias," but unfortunately died without +completing it. We possess only a few fragments, contained in his +correspondence with his friend Koerner. Koerner did not feel satisfied +with the formula of Schiller, and asks for some more precise and +objective mark of the beautiful. Schiller tells him that he has found +it, but what he had found we shall never know, as there is no document +to inform us. + +The fault of Schiller's aesthetic theory was its lack of precision. His +artistic faculty enabled him to give unsurpassable descriptions of the +catharsis and of other effects of art, but he fails to give a precise +definition of the aesthetic function. True, he disassociates it from +morality, yet admits that it may in a measure be associated with it. The +only formal activities that he recognizes are the moral and the +intellectual, and he denies altogether (against the sensualists) that +art can have anything to do with passion or sensuality. His intellectual +world consisted only of the logical and the intellectual, leaving out +the imaginative activity. + +What is art for Schiller? He admits four modes of relation between man +and external things. They are the physical, the logical, the moral, and +the aesthetic. He describes this latter as a mode by which things affect +the whole of our different forces, without being a definite object for +any one in particular. Thus a man may be said to please aesthetically, +"when he does so without appealing to any one of the senses directly, +and without any law or end being thought of in connection with him." +Schiller cannot be made to say anything more definite than this. His +general position was probably much like Kant's (save in the case above +mentioned, where he made a happy correction), and he probably looked +upon Aesthetic as a mingling of several faculties, as a play of +sentiment. + +Schiller was faithful to Kant's teaching in its main lines, and his +uncertainty was largely due to this. The existence of a _third sphere_ +uniting form and matter was for Schiller rather an ideal conformable to +reason than a _definite_ activity; it was supposititious, rather than +effective. + +But the Romantic movement in literature, which was at that time gaining +ground, with its belief in a superhuman faculty called imagination, in +genius breaker of rules, found no such need for restraint. Schiller's +modest reserve was set aside, and with J.P. Richter we approach a +mythology of the imagination. Many of his observations are, however, +just, and his distinction between productive and reproductive +imagination is excellent. How could humanity appreciate works of genius, +he asks, were it without some common measure? All men who can go as far +as saying "this is beautiful" before a beautiful thing, are capable of +the latter. He then proceeds to establish to his own satisfaction +categories of the imagination, leading from simple talent to the supreme +form of male genius in which all faculties flourish together: a faculty +of faculties. + +The Romantic conception of art is, in substance, that of idealist German +philosophy, where we find it in a more coherent and systematic form. It +is the conception of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel. + +Fichte, Kant's first great pupil, cannot be included with these, for his +view of Aesthetic, largely influenced by Schiller, is transformed in the +Fichtian system to a moral activity, to a representation of the ethical +ideal. The subjective idealism of Fichte, however, generated an +Aesthetic: that of irony as the base of art. The I that has created the +universe can also destroy it. The universe is a vain appearance, smiled +at by the Ego its creator, who surveys it as an artist his work, from +without and from above. For Friedrich Schlegel, art was a perpetual +farce, a parody of itself; and Tieck defined irony as a force which +allows the poet to dominate his material. + +Novalis, that Romantic Fichtian, dreamed of a magical idealism, an art +of creating by an instantaneous act of the Ego. But Schelling's "system +of transcendental idealism" was the first great philosophical +affirmation of Romanticism and of conscious Neo-platonism reborn in +Aesthetic. + +Schelling has obviously studied Schiller, but he brings to the problem a +mind more purely philosophical and a method more exactly scientific. He +even takes Kant to task for faultiness of method. His remarks as to +Plato's position are curious, if not conclusive. He says that Plato +condemned the art of his time, because it was realistic and +naturalistic: like all antique art, it exhibited a _finite_ character. +Plato's judgment would have been quite different had he known Christian +art, of which the character is _infinity_. + +Schelling held firm to the fusion of art and beauty effected by +Schiller, but he combated Winckelmann's theory of abstract beauty with +its negative conception of the characteristic, assigning to art the +limits of the individual. Art is characteristic beauty; it is not the +individual, but the living conception of the individual. When the artist +recognizes the eternal idea in an individual, and expresses it +outwardly, he transforms the individual into a world apart, into a +species, into an eternal idea. Characteristic beauty is the fulness of +form which slays form: it does not silence passion, but restrains it as +the banks of a river the waters that flow between them, but do not +overflow. + +Schelling's starting-point is the criticism of teleological judgment, as +stated by Kant in his third Critique. Teleology is the union of +theoretic with practical philosophy. But the system would not be +complete, unless we could show the identity of the two worlds, theoretic +and practical, in the subject itself. He must demonstrate the existence +of an activity, which is at once unconscious as nature and conscious as +spirit. This activity we find in Aesthetic, which is therefore "the +general organ of philosophy, the keystone of the whole building." + +Poetry and philosophy alone possess the world of the ideal, in which the +real world vanishes. True art is not the impression of the moment, but +the representation of infinite life: it is transcendental intuition +objectified. The time will come when philosophy will return to poetry, +which was its source, and on the new philosophy will arise a new +mythology. Philosophy does not depict real things, but their ideas; so +too, art. Those same ideas, of which real things are, as philosophy +shows, the imperfect copies, reappear in art objectified as ideas, and +therefore in their perfection. Art stands nearest to philosophy, which +itself stands nearest to the Idea, and therefore nearest to perfection. +Art differs from philosophy only by its _specialization_: in all other +ways it is the ideal world in its most complete expression. The three +Ideas of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty correspond to the three powers of +the ideal and of the real world. Beauty is not the universal whole, +which is truth, nor is it the only reality, which is action: it is the +perfect mingling of the two. "Beauty exists where the real or particular +is so adequate to its concept that this infinite thing enters into the +finite, and is contemplated in the concrete." Philosophy unites truth, +morality, and beauty, in what they possess in common, and deduces them +from their unique Source, which is God. If philosophy assume the +character of science and of truth, although it be superior to truth, the +reason for this lies in the fact that science and truth are simply the +formal determination of philosophy. + +Schelling looked upon mythology as a necessity for every art. Ideas are +Gods, considered from the point of view of reality; for the essence of +each is equal to God in a _particular_ form. The characteristics of all +Gods, including the Christian, are _pure limitation and absolute +indivisibility_. Minerva has wisdom and strength, but lacks womanly +tenderness; Juno has power and wisdom, but is without amorous charm, +which she borrows with the girdle of Venus, who in her turn is without +the wisdom of Minerva. What would these Gods become without their +limitations? They would cease to be the objects of Fancy. Fancy is a +faculty, apart from the pure intellect and from the reason. Distinct +from imagination, which develops the products of art, Fancy has +intuitions of them, grasps them herself, and herself represents them. +Fancy is to imagination as intellectual intuition is to reason. Fancy, +then, is intellectual intuition in art. In the thought of Schelling, +fancy, the new or artistic intuition, sister of intellectual intuition, +came to dominate alike the intellect and the old conception of the fancy +and the imagination, in a system for which reason alone did not suffice. + +C.G. Solger followed Schelling and agreed with him in finding but little +truth in the theories of Kant, and especially of Fichte. He held that +their dialectic had failed to solve the difficulty of intellectual +intuition. He too conceived of fancy as distinct from imagination, and +divided the former into three degrees. Imagination he held to appertain +to ordinary knowledge, "which re-establishes the original intuition to +infinity." Fancy "originates from the original antithesis in the idea, +and so operates that the opposing elements which are separated from the +idea become perfectly united in reality. By means of fancy, we are able +to understand things more lofty than those of common knowledge, and in +them we recognize the idea itself as real. In art, fancy is the faculty +of transforming the idea into reality." + +For Solger as for Schelling, beauty belongs to the region of Ideas, +which are inaccessible to common knowledge. Art is nearly allied to +religion, for as religion is the abyss of the idea, into which our +consciousness plunges, that it may become essential, so Art and the +Beautiful resolve, in their way, the world of distinctions, the +universal and the particular. Artistic activity is more than +theoretical: it is practical, realized and perfect, and therefore +belongs to practical, not to theoretic philosophy, as Kant wrongly +believed. Since art must touch infinity on one side, it cannot have +ordinary nature for its object. Art therefore _ceases_ in the portrait, +and this explains why the ancients generally chose Gods or Heroes as +models for sculpture. Every deity, even in a limited and particular +form, expresses a definite modification of the Idea. + +G.G.F. Hegel gives the same definition of art as Solger and Schelling, +All three were mystical aestheticians, and the various shades of +mystical Aesthetic, presented by these three writers, are not of great +interest. Schelling forced upon art the abstract Platonic ideas, while +Hegel reduced it to the _concrete idea_. This concrete idea was for +Hegel the first and lowest of the three forms of the liberty of the +spirit. It represented immediate, sensible, objectified knowledge; while +Religion filled the second place, as representative consciousness with +adoration, which is an element foreign to art alone. The third place was +of course occupied by Philosophy, the free thought of the absolute +spirit. Beauty and Truth are one for Hegel; they are united in the Idea. +The beautiful he defined as _the sensible appearance of the Idea_. + +Some writers have erroneously believed that the views of the three +philosophers above mentioned lead back to those of Baumgarten. But that +is not correct. They well understood that art cannot be made a medium +for the expression of philosophic concepts. Not only are they opposed to +the moralistic and intellectualistic view, but they are its active +opponents. Schelling says that aesthetic production is in its essence +absolutely free, and Hegel that art does not contain the universal as +such. + +Hegel accentuated the _cognoscitive_ character of art, more than any of +his predecessors. We have seen that he placed it with Philosophy and +Religion in the sphere of the absolute Spirit. But he does not allow +either to Art or to Religion any difference of function from that of +Philosophy, which occupies the highest place in his system. They are +therefore inferior, necessary, grades of the Spirit. Of what use are +they? Of none whatever, or at best, they merely represent transitory and +historical phases of human life. + +Thus we see that the tendency of Hegelianism is _anti-artistic_, as it +is rationalistic and anti-religious. + +This result of thought was a strange and a sad thing for one who loved +art so fervently as Hegel. Our memories conjure up Plato, who also loved +art well, and yet found himself logically obliged to banish the poet +from his ideal Republic, after crowning him with roses. But the German +philosopher was as staunch to the (supposed) command of reason as the +Greek, and felt himself obliged to announce the death of art. Art, he +says, occupies a lofty place in the human spirit, but not the most +lofty, for it is limited to a restricted content and only a certain +grade of truth can be expressed in art. Such are the Hellenic Gods, who +can be transfused in the sensible and appear in it adequately. The +Christian conception of truth is among those which cannot be so +expressed. The spirit of the modern world, and more precisely the spirit +of our religion and rational development, seem to have gone beyond the +point at which art is the chief way of apprehending the Absolute. The +peculiarity of artistic production no longer satisfies our highest +needs. Thought and reflexion have surpassed art, the beautiful. He goes +on to say that the reason generally given for this is the prevalence of +material and political interests. But the true reason is the inferiority +in degree of art as compared with pure thought. Art is dead, and +Philosophy can therefore supply its complete biography. + +Hegel's _Vorlesungen Ueber Aesthetik_ amounts therefore to a funeral +oration upon Art. + +Romanticism and metaphysical idealism had placed art, sometimes above +the clouds, sometimes within them, and believing that it was no good +there to anyone, Hegel provided a decent burial. + +Nothing perhaps better shows how well this fantastic conception of art +suited the spirit of the time, than the fact that even the adversaries +of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel either admit agreement with that +conception, or find themselves involuntarily in agreement with it, while +believing themselves to be very remote. They too are mystical +aestheticians. + +We all know with what virulence Arthur Schopenhauer attacked and +combated Schelling, Hegel, and all the "charlatans" and "professors" who +had divided among them the inheritance of Kant. + +Well, Schopenhauer's theory of art starts, just like Hegel's, from the +difference between the abstract and the concrete concept, which is the +_Idea_. Schopenhauer's ideas are the Platonic ideas, although in the +form which he gives to them, they have a nearer resemblance to the Ideas +of Schelling than to the Idea of Hegel. + +Schopenhauer takes much trouble to differentiate his ideas from +intellectual concepts. He calls the idea "unity which has become +plurality by means of space and time. It is the form of our intuitive +apperception. The concept is, on the contrary, unity extracted from +plurality by means of abstraction, which is an act of our intellect. The +concept may be called _unitas post rem_, the idea _unitas ante rem_." + +The origin of this psychological illusion of the ideas or types of +things is always to be found in the changing of the empirical +classifications created for their own purposes by the natural sciences, +into living realities. + +Thus each art has for its sphere a special category of ideas. +Architecture and its derivatives, gardening (and strange to say +landscape-painting is included with it), sculpture and animal-painting, +historical painting and the higher forms of sculpture, etc., all possess +their special ideas. Poetry's chief object is man as idea. Music, on the +contrary, does not belong to the hierarchy of the other arts. Schelling +had looked upon music as expressing the rhythm of the universe itself. +For Schopenhauer, music does not express ideas, but the _Will itself_. + +The analogies between music and the world, between fundamental notes and +crude matter, between the scale and the scale of species, between melody +and conscious will, lead Schopenhauer to the conclusion that music is +not only an arithmetic, as it appeared to Leibnitz, but indeed a +metaphysic: "the occult metaphysical exercise of a soul not knowing that +it philosophizes." + +For Schopenhauer, as for his idealist predecessors, art is beatific. It +is the flower of life; he who is plunged in artistic contemplation +ceases to be an individual; he is the conscious subject, pure, freed +from will, from pain, and from time. + +Yet in Schopenhauer's system exist elements for a better and a more +profound treatment of the problem of art. He could sometimes show +himself to be a lucid and acute analyst. For instance, he continually +remarks that the categories of space and time are not applicable to art, +_but only the general form of representation_. He might have deduced +from this that art is the most immediate, not the most lofty grade of +consciousness, since it precedes even the ordinary perceptions of space +and time. Vico had already observed that this freeing oneself from +ordinary perception, this dwelling in imagination, does not really mean +an ascent to the level of the Platonic Ideas, but, on the contrary, a +redescending to the sphere of immediate intuition, a return to +childhood. + +On the other hand, Schopenhauer had begun to submit the Kantian +categories to impartial criticism, and finding the two forms of +intuition insufficient, added a third, causality. + +He also drew comparisons between art and history, and was more +successful here than the idealist excogitators of a philosophy of +history. Schopenhauer rightly saw that history was irreducible to +concepts, that it is the contemplation of the individual, and therefore +not a science. Having proceeded thus far, he might have gone further, +and realized that the material of history is always the particular in +its particularity, that of art what is and always is identical. But he +preferred to execute a variation on the general motive that was in +fashion at this time. + +The fashion of the day! It rules in philosophy as elsewhere, and we are +now about to see the most rigid and arid of analysts, the leader of the +so-called _realist_ school, or school of _exact science_ in Germany in +the nineteenth century, plunge headlong into aesthetic mysticism. + +G.F. Herbart (1813) begins his Aesthetic by freeing it from the +discredit attaching to Metaphysic and to Psychology. He declares that +the only true way of understanding art is to study particular examples +of the beautiful and to note what they reveal as to its essence. + +We shall now see what came of Herbart's analysis of these examples of +beauty, and how far he succeeded in remaining free of Metaphysic. + +For Herbart, beauty consists of _relations_. The science of Aesthetic +consists of an enumeration of all the fundamental relations between +colours, lines, tones, thoughts, and will. But for him these relations +are not empirical or physiological. They cannot therefore be studied in +a laboratory, because thought and the will form part of them, and these +belong as much to Ethics as to the external world. But Herbart +explicitly states that no true beauty is sensible, although sensation +may and does often precede and follow the intuition of beauty. There is +a profound distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable or +pleasant: the latter does not require a representation, while the former +consists in representations of relations, which are immediately followed +by a judgment expressing unconditioned approval. Thus the merely +pleasurable becomes more and more indifferent, but the beautiful appears +always as of more and more permanent value. The judgment of taste is +universal, eternal, immutable. The complete representation of the same +relations always carries with it the same judgment. For Herbart, +aesthetic judgments are the general class containing the sub-class of +ethical judgments. The five ethical ideas, of internal liberty, of +perfection, of benevolence, of equity, and of justice, are five +aesthetic ideas; or better, they are aesthetic concepts applied to the +will in its relations. + +Herbart looked upon art as a complex fact, composed of an external +element possessing logical or psychological value, the content, and of a +true aesthetic element, which is the form. Entertainment, instruction, +and pleasure of all sorts are mingled with the beautiful, in order to +obtain favour for the work in question. The aesthetic judgment, calm and +serene in itself, may be accompanied by all sorts of psychic emotions, +foreign to it. But the content is always transitory, relative, subject +to moral laws, and judged by them. The form alone is perennial, +absolute, and free. The true catharsis can only be effected by +separating the form from the content. Concrete art may be the sum of two +values, _but the aesthetic fact is form alone_. + +For those capable of penetrating beneath appearances, the aesthetic +doctrines of Herbart and of Kant will appear very similar. Herbart is +notable as insisting, in the manner of Kant, on the distinction between +free and adherent beauty (or adornment as sensuous stimulant), on the +existence of pure beauty, object of necessary and universal judgments, +and on a certain mingling of ethical with his aesthetic theory. Herbart, +indeed, called himself "a Kantian, but of the year 1828." Kant's +aesthetic theory, though it be full of errors, yet is rich in fruitful +suggestions. Kant belongs to a period when philosophy is still young and +pliant. Herbart came later, and is dry and one-sided. The romantics and +the metaphysical idealists had unified the theory of the beautiful and +of art. Herbart restored the old duality and mechanism, and gave us an +absurd, unfruitful form of mysticism, void of all artistic inspiration. + +Herbart may be said to have taken all there was of false in the thought +of Kant and to have made it into a system. + +The beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany is notable for the +great number of philosophical theories and of counter-theories, broached +and rapidly discussed, before being discarded. None of the most +prominent names in the period belong to philosophers of first-rate +importance, though they made so much stir in their day. + +The thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher was obscured and misunderstood +amid those crowding mediocrities; yet it is perhaps the most interesting +and the most noteworthy of the period. + +Schleiermacher looked upon Aesthetic as an altogether modern form of +thought. He perceived a profound difference between the "Poetics" of +Aristotle, not yet freed from empirical precepts, and the tentative of +Baumgarten in the eighteenth century. He praised Kant as having been the +first to include Aesthetic among the philosophical disciplines. He +admitted that with Hegel it had attained to the highest pinnacle, being +connected with religion and with philosophy, and almost placed upon +their level. + +But he was dissatisfied with the absurdity of the attempt made by the +followers of Baumgarten to construct a science or theory of sensuous +pleasure. He disapproved of Kant's view of taste as being the principle +of Aesthetic, of Fichte's art as moral teaching, and of the vague +conception of the beautiful as the centre of Aesthetic. + +He approved of Schiller's marking of the moment of spontaneity in +productive art, and he praised Schelling for having drawn attention to +the figurative arts, as being less liable than poetry to be diverted to +false and illusory moralistic ends. Before he begins the study of the +place due to the artistic activity in Ethic, he carefully excludes from +the study of Aesthetic all practical rules (which, being empirical, are +incapable of scientific demonstration). + +For Schleiermacher, the sphere of Ethic included the whole Philosophy of +the Spirit, in addition to morality. These are the two forms of human +activity--that which, like Logic, is the same in all men, and is called +activity of identity, and the activity of difference or individuality. +There are activities which, like art, are internal or immanent and +individual, and others which are external or practical. _The true work +of art is the internal picture_. Measure is what differentiates the +artist's portrayal of anger on the stage and the anger of a really angry +man. Truth is not sought in poetry, or if it be sought there, it is +truth of an altogether different kind. The truth of poetry lies in +coherent presentation. Likeness to a model does not compose the merit of +a picture. Not the smallest amount of knowledge comes from art, which +expresses only the truth of a particular consciousness. Art has for its +field the immediate consciousness of self, which must be carefully +distinguished from the thought of the Ego. This last is the +consciousness of identity in the diversity of moments as they pass; the +immediate consciousness of self is the diversity itself of the moments, +of which we should be aware, for life is nothing but the development of +consciousness. In this field, art has sometimes been confused with two +facts which accompany it there: these are sentient consciousness (that +is, the feelings of pleasure and of pain) and religion. Schleiermacher +here alludes to the sensualistic aestheticians of the eighteenth +century, and to Hegel, who had almost identified art and religion. He +refutes both points of view by pointing out that sentient pleasure and +religious sentiment, however different they may be from other points of +view, are yet both determined by an objective fact; while art, on the +contrary, is free productivity. + +Dream is the best parallel and proof of this free productivity. All the +essential elements of art are found in dream, which is the result of +free thoughts and of sensible intuitions, consisting simply of images. +But dream, as compared with art, is chaotic: when measure and order is +established in dream, it becomes art. Thoughts and images are alike +essential to art, and to both is necessary ponderation, reflexion, +measure, and unity, because otherwise every image would be confused with +every other image. Thus the moments of inspiration and of ponderation +are both necessary to art. + +Schleiermacher's thought, so firm and lucid up to this point, begins to +become less secure, with the discussion of typicity and of the extent to +which the artist should follow Nature. He says that ideal figures, which +Nature would give, were she not impeded by external obstacles, are the +products of art. He notes that when the artist represents something +really given, such as a portrait or a landscape, he renounces freedom of +production and adheres to the real. In the artist is a double tendency, +toward the perfection of the type and toward the representation of +natural reality. He should not fall into the abstraction of the type, +nor into the insignificance of empirical reality. Schleiermacher feels +all the difficulty of such a problem as whether there be one or several +ideals of the human figure. This problem may be transferred to the +sphere of art, and we may ask whether the poet is to represent only the +ideal, or whether he should also deal with those obstacles to it that +impede Nature in her efforts to attain. Both views contain half the +truth. To art belongs the representation of the ideal as of the real, of +the subjective and of the objective alike. The representation of the +comic, that is of the anti-ideal and of the imperfect ideal, belongs to +the domain of art. For the human form, both morally and physically, +oscillates between the ideal and caricature. + +He arrives at a most important definition as to the independence of art +in respect to morality. The nature of art, as of philosophic +speculation, excludes moral and practical effects. Therefore, _there is +no other difference between works of art than their respective artistic +perfection (Vollkommenheit in der Kunst)_. If we could correctly +predicate volitional acts in respect of works of art, then we should +find ourselves admiring only those works which stimulated the will, and +there would thus be established a difference of valuation, independent +of artistic perfection. The true work of art depends upon the degree of +perfection with which the external in it agrees with the internal. + +Schleiermacher rightly combats Schiller's view that art is in any sense +a game. That, he says, is the view held by mere men of business, to whom +business alone is serious. But artistic activity is universal, and a man +completely deprived of it unthinkable, although the difference here +between man and man, is gigantic, ranging from the simple desire to +taste of art to the effective tasting of it, and from this, by infinite +gradations, to productive genius. + +The regrettable fact that Schleiermacher's thought has reached us only +in an imperfect form, may account for certain of its defects, such as +his failure to eliminate aesthetic classes and types, his retention of a +certain residue of abstract formalism, his definition of art as the +activity of difference. Had he better defined the moment of artistic +reproduction, realized the possibility of tasting the art of various +times and of other nations, and examined the true relation of art to +science, he would have seen that this difference is merely empirical and +to be surmounted. He failed also to recognize the identity of the +aesthetic activity, with language as the base of all other theoretic +activity. + +But Schleiermacher's merits far outweigh these defects. He removed from +Aesthetic its _imperativistic_ character; he distinguished _a form of +thought_ different from logical thought. He attributed to our science a +_non-metaphysical, anthropological_ character. He _denied_ the concept +of the beautiful, substituting for it _artistic perfection_, and +maintaining the aesthetic equality of a small with a great work of art, +he looked upon the aesthetic fact as an exclusively _human +productivity_. + +Thus Schleiermacher, the theologian, in this period of metaphysical +orgy, of rapidly constructed and as rapidly destroyed systems, +perceived, with the greatest philosophical acumen, what is really +characteristic of art, and distinguished its properties and relations. +Even where he fails to see clearly his way, he never abandons analysis +for mere guess-work. + +Schleiermacher, thus exploring the obscure region of the _immediate +consciousness_, or of the aesthetic fact, can almost be heard crying out +to his straying contemporaries: _Hic Rhodus, hi salta_! + +Speculation upon the origin and nature of language was rife at this time +in Germany. Many theories were put forward, among the most curious being +that of Schelling, who held language and mythology to be the product of +a pre-human consciousness, allegorically expressed as the diabolic +suggestions which had precipitated the Ego from the infinite to the +finite. + +Even Wilhelm von Humboldt was unable to free himself altogether from the +intellectualistic prejudice of the substantial identity and the merely +historical and accidental diversity of logical thought and language. He +speaks of a _perfect_ language, broken up and diminished with the lesser +capacities of lesser peoples. He believed that language is something +standing outside the individual, independent of him, and capable of +being revived by use. But there were two men in Humboldt, an old man and +a young one. The latter was always suggesting that language should be +looked upon as a living, not as a dead thing, as an activity, not as a +word. This duality of thought sometimes makes his writing difficult and +obscure. Although he speaks of an internal form of speech, he fails to +identify this with art as expression. The reason is that he looks upon +the word in too unilateral a manner, as a means of developing logical +thought, and his ideas of Aesthetic are too vague and too inexact to +enable him to discover their identity. Despite his perception of the +profound truth that poetry precedes prose, Humboldt gives grounds for +doubt as to whether he had clearly recognized and firmly grasped the +fact that language is always poetry, and that prose (science) is a +distinction, not of aesthetic form, but of content, that is, of logical +form. + +Steinthal, the greatest follower of Humboldt, solved his master's +contradictions, and in 1855 sustained successfully against the Hegelian +Becker the thesis that words are necessary for thought. He pointed to +the deaf-mute with his signs, to the mathematician with his formulae, to +the Chinese language, where the figurative portion is an essential of +speech, and declared that Becker was wrong in believing that the +Sanskrit language was derived from twelve cardinal concepts. He showed +effectively that the concept and the word, the logical judgment and the +proposition, are not comparable. The proposition is not a judgment, but +the representation of a judgment; and all propositions do not represent +logical judgments. Several judgments can be expressed with one +proposition. The logical divisions of judgments (the relations of +concepts) have no correspondence in the grammatical division of +propositions. "If we speak of a logical form of the proposition, we fall +into a contradiction in terms not less complete than his who should +speak of the angle of a circle, or of the periphery of a triangle." He +who speaks, in so far as he speaks, has not thoughts, but language. + +When Steinthal had several times solemnly proclaimed the independence of +language as regards Logic, and that it produces its forms in complete +autonomy, he proceeded to seek the origin of language, recognizing with +Humboldt that the question of Its origin is the same as that of its +nature. Language, he said, belongs to the great class of reflex +movements, but this only shows one side of it, not its true nature. +Animals, like men, have reflex actions and sensations, though nature +enters the animal by force, takes it by assault, conquers and enslaves +it. With man is born language, because he is resistance to nature, +governance of his own body, and liberty. "Language is liberation; even +to-day we feel that our soul becomes lighter, and frees itself from a +weight, when we speak." Man, before he attains to speech, must be +conceived of as accompanying all his sensations with bodily movements, +mimetic attitudes, gestures, and particularly with articulate sounds. +What is still lacking to him, that he may attain to speech? The +connexion between the reflex movements of the body and the state of the +soul. If his sentient consciousness be already consciousness, then he +lacks the consciousness of consciousness; if it be already intuition, +then he lacks the intuition of intuition. In sum, he lacks the _internal +form of language_. With this comes speech, which forms the connexion. +Man does not choose the sound of his speech. This is given to him and he +adopts it instinctively. + +When we have accorded to Steinthal the great merit of having rendered +coherent the ideas of Humboldt, and of having clearly separated +linguistic from logical thought, we must note that he too failed to +perceive the _identity_ of the internal form of language, or "intuition +of the intuition," as he called it, with the aesthetic _imagination_. +Herbart's psychology, to which Steinthal adhered, did not afford him any +means for this identification. Herbart separated logic from psychology, +calling it a normative science; he failed to discern the exact limits +between feeling and spiritual formation, psyche or soul, and spirit, and +to see that one of these spiritual formations is logical thought or +activity, which is not a code of laws imposed from without. For Herbart, +Aesthetic, as we know, was a code of beautiful formal relations. Thus +Steinthal, following Herbart in psychology, was bound to look upon Art +as a beautifying of thought, Linguistic as the science of speech, +Rhetoric and Aesthetic as the science of beautiful speech. + +Steinthal never realized that to speak is to speak well or beautifully, +under penalty of _not_ speaking, and that the revolution which he and +Humboldt had effected in the conception of language must inevitably +react upon and transform Poetic, Rhetoric, and Aesthetic. + +Thus, despite so many efforts of conscientious analysis on the part of +Humboldt and of Steinthal, the unity of language and of poetry, and the +identification of the science of language and the science of poetry +still found its least imperfect expression in the prophetic aphorisms of +Vico. + +The philosophical movement in Germany from the last quarter of the +eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth, notwithstanding +its many errors, is yet so notable and so imposing with the philosophers +already considered, as to merit the first place in the European thought +of that period. This is even more the case as regards Aesthetic than as +regards philosophy in general. + +France was the prey of Condillac's sensualism, and therefore incapable +of duly appreciating the spiritual activity of art. We hardly get a +glimpse of Winckelmann's transcendental spiritualism in Quatremere de +Quincy, and the frigid academics of Victor Cousin were easily surpassed +by Theodore Jouffroy, though he too failed of isolating the aesthetic +fact. French Romanticism defined literature as "the expression of +society," admired under German influence the grotesque and the +characteristic, declared the independence of art in the formula of "art +for art's sake," but did not succeed in surpassing philosophically the +old doctrine of the "imitation of nature." F. Schlegel and Solger indeed +were largely responsible for the Romantic movement in France--Schlegel +with his belief in the characteristic or _interesting_ as the principle +of modern art, which led him to admire the cruel and the ugly; Solger +with his dialectic arrangement, whereby the finite or terrestrial +element is absorbed and annihilated in the divine and thus becomes the +tragic, or _vice versa_, and the result is the comic. Rosenkranz +published in Koenigsberg an Aesthetic of the Ugly, and the works of +Vischer and Zeising abound in subtleties relating to the Idea and to its +expression in the beautiful and sublime. These writers conceived of the +Idea as the Knight Purebeautiful, constrained to abandon his tranquil +ease through the machinations of the Ugly; the Ugly leads him into all +sorts of disagreeable adventures, from all of which he eventually +emerges victorious. The Sublime, the Comic, the Humorous, and so on, are +his Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. Another version of their knight's +adventures might be described as his conquest by his enemies, but at the +moment of conquest he transforms and irradiates his conquerors. To such +a mediocre and artificial mythology led the much-elaborated theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. + +In England, the associationist psychology continued to hold sway, and +showed, with Dugald Stewart's miserable attempt at establishing two +forms of association, its incapacity to rise to the conception of the +imagination. With the poet Coleridge, England also showed the influence +of German thought, and Coleridge elaborated with Wordsworth a more +correct conception of poetry and of its difference from science. But the +most notable contribution in English at that period came from another +poet, P.B. Shelley, whose _Defence of Poetry_ contains profound, though +unsystematic views, as to the distinction between reason and +imagination, prose and poetry, on primitive language, and on the poetic +power of objectification. + +In Italy, Francesco de Sanctis gave magnificent expression to the +independence of art. He taught literature in Naples from 1838 to 1848, +in Turin and Zurich from 1850 to 1860, and after 1870 he was a professor +in the University of Naples. His _Storia della letteratura italiana_ is +a classic, and in it and in monographs on individual writers he exposed +his doctrines. + +Prompted by a natural love of speculation, he began to examine the old +grammarians and rhetoricians, with a view to systematize them. But very +soon he proceeded to criticize and to surpass their theories. The cold +rules of reason did not find favour with him, and he advised young men +to go direct to the original works. + +The philosophy of Hegel began to penetrate Italy, and the study of Vico +was again taken up. De Sanctis translated the _Logic_ of Hegel in +prison, where the Bourbon Government had thrown him for his liberalism. +Benard had begun his translation of the _Aesthetic_ of Hegel, and so +completely in harmony was De Sanctis with the thought of this master, +that he is said to have guessed from a study of the first volume what +the unpublished volumes must contain, and to have lectured upon them to +his pupils. Traces of mystical idealism and of Hegelianism persist even +in his later works, and the distinction, which he always maintained, +between imagination and fancy certainly came to him from Hegel and +Schelling. He held fancy alone to be the true poetic faculty. + +De Sanctis absorbed all the juice of Hegel, but rejected the husks of +his pedantry, of his formalism, of his apriority. + +Fancy for De Sanctis was not the mystical transcendental apperception of +the German philosophers, but simply the faculty of poetic synthesis and +creation, opposed to the imagination, which reunites details and always +has something mechanical about it. Faith and poetry, he used to say, are +not dead, but transformed. His criticism of Hegel amounted in many +places to the correction of Hegel; and as regards Vico, he is careful to +point out, that when, in dealing with the Homeric poems, Vico talks of +generic types, he is no longer the critic of art, but the historian of +civilization. De Sanctis saw that, _artistically_, Achilles must always +be Achilles, never a force or an abstraction. + +Thus De Sanctis succeeded in keeping himself free from the Hegelian +domination, at a moment when Hegel was the acknowledged master of +speculation. + +But his criticism extended also to other German aestheticians. By a +curious accident, he found himself at Zurich in the company of Theodore +Vischer, that ponderous Hegelian, who laughed disdainfully at the +mention of poetry, of music, and of the decadent Italian race. De +Sanctis laughed at Vischer's laughter. Wagner appeared to him a +corrupter of music, and "nothing in the world more unaesthetic than the +Aesthetic of Theodore Vischer." His lectures on Ariosto and Petrarch, +before an international public at Zurich, were delivered with the desire +of correcting the errors of these and of other German philosophers and +learned men. He gave his celebrated definitions of French and German +critics. The French critic does not indulge in theories: one feels +warmth of impression and sagacity of observation in his argument. He +never leaves the concrete; he divines the quality of the writer's genius +and the quality of his work, and studies the man, in order to understand +the writer. His great fault is shown in substituting for criticism of +the actual art work a historical criticism of the author and of his +time. For the German, on the other hand, there is nothing so simple that +he does not contrive to distort and to confuse it. He collects shadows +around him, from which shoot vivid rays. He laboriously brings to birth +that morsel of truth which he has within him. He would seize and define +what is most fugitive and impalpable in a work of art. Although nobody +talks so much of life as he does, yet no one so much delights in +decomposing and generalizing it. Having thus destroyed the particular, +he is able to show you as the result of this process, final in +appearance, but in reality preconceived and apriorist, one measurement +for all feet, one garment for all bodies. + +About this time he studied Schopenhauer, who was then becoming the +fashion. Schopenhauer said of this criticism of De Sanctis: "That +Italian has absorbed me _in succum et sanguinem_." What weight did he +attach to Schopenhauer's much-vaunted writings on art? Having exposed +the theory of Ideas, he barely refers to the third volume, "which +contains an exaggerated theory of Aesthetic." + +In his criticism of Petrarch, De Sanctis finally broke with metaphysical +Aesthetic, saying of Hegel's school that it believed the beautiful to +become art when it surpassed form and revealed the concept or pure idea. +This theory and the subtleties derived from it, far from characterizing +art, represent its contrary: the impotent velleity for art, which cannot +slay abstractions and come in contact with life. + +De Sanctis held that outside the domain of art all Is shapeless. The +ugly is of the domain of art, if art give it form. Is there anything +more beautiful than Iago? If he be looked upon merely as a contrast to +Othello, then we are in the position of those who looked upon the stars +as placed where they are to serve as candles for the earth. + +Form was for De Sanctis the word which should be inscribed over the +entrance to the Temple of Art. In the work of art are form and content, +but the latter is no longer chaotic: the artist has given to it a new +value, has enriched it with the gift of his own personality. But if the +content has not been assimilated and made his own by the artist, then +the work lacks generative power: it is of no value as art or literature, +though as history or scientific document its value may be great. The +Gods of Homer's _Iliad_ are dead, but the _Iliad_ remains. Guelf and +Ghibelline have disappeared from Italy: not so the _Divine Comedy_, +which is as vigorous to-day as when Dante first took pen in hand. Thus +De Sanctis held firmly to the independence of art, but he did not accept +the formula of "art for art's sake," in so far as it meant separation of +the artist from life, mutilation of the content, art reduced to mere +dexterity. + +For De Sanctis, form was identical with imagination, with the artist's +power of expressing or representing his artistic vision. This much must +be admitted by his critics. But he never attained to a clear definition +of art. His theory of Aesthetic always remained a sketch: wonderful +indeed, but not clearly developed and deduced. The reason for this was +De Sanctis' love of the concrete. No sooner had he attained from general +ideas a sufficient clarity of vision for his own purposes, than he +plunged again into the concrete and particular. He did not confine his +activity to literature, but was active also in politics and in the +prosecution and encouragement of historical studies. + +As a critic of literature, De Sanctis is far superior to Sainte-Beuve, +Lessing, Macaulay, or Taine. Flaubert's genial intuition adumbrated what +De Sanctis achieved. In one of his letters to Georges Sand, Flaubert +speaks of the lack of an _artistic_ critic. "In Laharpe's time, +criticism was grammatical; in the time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, it +is historical. They analyse with great subtlety the historical +environment in which the work appeared and the causes which have +produced it. But the _unconscious_ element In poetry? Whence does It +come? And composition? And style? And the point of view of the author? +Of all that they never speak. For such a critic, great imagination and +great goodness are necessary. I mean an ever-ready faculty of +enthusiasm, and then _taste_, a quality so rare, even among the best, +that it is never mentioned." + +De Sanctis alone fulfilled the conditions of Flaubert, and Italy has in +his writings a looking-glass for her literature unequalled by any other +country. + +But with De Sanctis, the philosopher of art, the aesthetician, is not so +great as the critic of literature. The one is accessory to the other, +and his use of aesthetic terminology is so inconstant that a lack of +clearness of thought might be found in his work by anyone who had not +studied it with care. But his want of system is more than compensated by +his vitality, by his constant citation of actual works, and by his +intuition of the truth, which never abandoned him. His writings bear the +further charm of suggesting new kingdoms to conquer, new mines of +richness to explore. + +While the cry of "Down with Metaphysic" was resounding in Germany, and a +furious reaction had set in against the sort of Walpurgisnacht to which +the later Hegelians had reduced science and history, the pupils of +Herbart came forward and with an insinuating air they seemed to say: +"What is this? Why, it is a rebellion against Metaphysic, the very thing +our master wished for and tried to achieve, half a century ago! But here +we are, his heirs and successors, and we want to be your allies! An +understanding between us will be easy. Our Metaphysic is in agreement +with the atomic theory, our Psychology with mechanicism, our Ethic and +Aesthetic with hedonism." Herbart, who died in 1841, would probably have +disdained and rejected his followers, who thus courted popularity and +cheapened Metaphysic, putting a literal interpretation on his realities, +his ideas and representations, and upon all his most lofty +excogitations. + +The protagonist of these neo-Herbartians was Robert Zimmermann. He +constructed his system of Aesthetic out of Herbart, whom he perverted to +his own uses, and even employed the much-abused Hegelian dialectic in +order to introduce modifications of the beautiful into pure beauty. The +beautiful, he said, is a model which possesses greatness, fulness, +order, correction, and definite compensation. Beauty appears to us in a +characteristic form, as a copy of this model. + +Vischer, against whom was directed this work of Zimmermann, found it +easy to reply. He ridiculed Zimmermann's meaning of the symbol as the +object around which are clustered beautiful forms. "Does an artist paint +a fox, simply that he may depict an object of animal nature. No, no, my +dear sir, far from it. This fox is a symbol, because the painter here +employs lines and colours, in order to express something different from +lines and colours. 'You think I am a fox,' cries the painted animal. +'You are mightily mistaken; I am, on the contrary, a portmanteau, an +exhibition by the painter of red, white, grey, and yellow tints.'" +Vischer also made fun of Zimmermann's enthusiasm for the aesthetic value +of the sense of touch. "What joy it must be to touch the back of the +bust of Hercules in repose! To stroke the sinuous limbs of the Venus of +Milo or of the Faun of Barberini must give a pleasure to the hand equal +to that of the ear as it listens to the puissant fugues of Bach or to +the suave melodies of Mozart." Vischer defined the formal Aesthetic of +Zimmermann as a queer mixture of mysticism and mathematic. + +Lotze, in common with the great majority of thinkers, was dissatisfied +with Zimmermann, but could only oppose his formalism with a variety of +the old mystical Aesthetic. Who, he asked, could believe that the human +form pleases only by its external proportions, regardless of the spirit +within. Art, like beauty, should "enclose the world of values in the +world of forms." This struggle between the Aesthetic of the content and +the Aesthetic of the form attained its greatest height in Germany +between 1860 and 1870, with Zimmermann, Vischer, and Lotze as +protagonists. + +These writers were followed by J. Schmidt, who in 1875 ventured to say +that both Lotze and Zimmermann had failed to see that the problem of +Aesthetic concerned, not the beauty or ugliness of the content or of the +form as mathematical relations, but their representation; Koestlin, who +erected an immense artificial structure with the materials of his +predecessors modified; Schasler, who is interesting as having converted +the old Vischer to his thesis of the importance of the Ugly, as +introducing modifications into the beautiful and being the principle of +movement there. Vischer confesses that at one time he had followed the +Hegelian method and believed that in the essence of beauty is born a +disquietude, a fermentation, a struggle: the Idea conquers, hurls the +image into the unlimited, and the Sublime is born; but the image, +offended in its finitude, declares war upon the Idea, and the Comic +appears. Thus the fight is finished and the Beautiful returns to itself, +as the result of these struggles. But now, he says, Schasler has +persuaded him that the Ugly is the leaven which is necessary to all the +special forms of the Beautiful. + +E. von Hartmann is in close relation with Schasler. His Aesthetic (1890) +also makes great use of the Ugly. Since he insists upon appearance as a +necessary characteristic of the beautiful, he considers himself +justified in calling his theory concrete idealism. Hartmann considers +himself in opposition to the formalism of Herbart, inasmuch as he +insists upon the idea as an indispensable and determining element of +beauty. Beauty, he says, is truth, but it is not historical truth, nor +scientific nor reflective truth: it is metaphysical and ideal. "Beauty +is the prophet of idealistic truth in an age without faith, hating +Metaphysic, and acknowledging only realistic truth." Aesthetic truth is +without method and without control: it leaps at once from the subjective +appearance to the essence of the ideal. But in compensation for this, it +possesses the fascination of conviction, which immediate intuition alone +possesses. The higher Philosophy rises, the less need has she of passing +through the world of the senses and of science: she approaches ever more +nearly to art. Thus Philosophy starts on the voyage to the ideal, like +Baedeker's traveller, "without too much baggage." In the Beautiful is +immanent logicity, the microcosmic idea, the unconscious. By means of +the unconscious, the process of intellectual intuition takes place in +it. The Beautiful is a mystery, because its root is in the Unconscious. + +No philosopher has ever made so great a use of the Ugly as Hartmann. He +divides Beauty into grades, of which the one below is ugly as compared +with that above it. He begins with the mathematical, superior to the +sensibly agreeable, which is unconscious. Thence to formal beauty of the +second order, the dynamically agreeable, to formal beauty of the third +order, the passive teleological; to this degree belong utensils, and +language, which in Hartmann's view is a dead thing, inspired with +seeming life, only at the moment of use. Such things did the philosopher +of the Unconscious dare to print in the country of a Humboldt during the +lifetime of a Steinthal! He proceeds in his list of things beautiful, +with formal beauty of the fourth degree, which is the active or living +teleological, with the fifth, which is that of species. Finally he +reaches concrete beauty, or the individual microcosm, the highest of +all, because the individual idea is superior to the specific, and is +beauty, no longer formal, but of content. + +All these degrees of beauty are, as has been said, connected with one +another by means of the ugly, and even in the highest degree, which has +nothing superior to it, the ugly continues its office of beneficent +titillation. The outcome of this ultimate phase is the famous theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. None of these modifications can +occur without a struggle, save the sublime and the graceful, which +appear without conflict at the side of supreme beauty. Hartmann gives +four instances: the solution is either immanent, logical, +transcendental, or combined. The idyllic, the melancholy, the sad, the +glad, the elegiac, are instances of the immanent solution; the comic in +all its forms is the logical solution; the tragic is the transcendental +solution; the combined form is found in the humorous, the tragi-comic. +When none of these solutions is possible, we have the ugly; and when an +ugliness of content is expressed by a formal ugliness, we have the +maximum of ugliness, the true aesthetic devil. + +Hartmann is the last noteworthy representative of the German +metaphysical school. His works are gigantic in size and appear +formidable. But if one be not afraid of giants and venture to approach +near, one finds nothing but a big Morgante, full of the most commonplace +prejudices, quite easily killed with the bite of a crab! + +During this period, Aesthetic had few representatives in other +countries. The famous conference of the Academy of Moral and Political +Sciences, held in Paris in 1857, gave to the world the "Science du Beau" +of Leveque. No one is interested in it now, but it is amusing to note +that Leveque announced himself to be a disciple of Plato, and went on to +attribute eight characteristics to the beautiful. These he discovered by +closely examining the lily! No wonder he was crowned with laurels! He +proved his wonderful theory by instancing a child playing with its +mother, a symphony of Beethoven, and the life of Socrates! One of his +colleagues, who could not resist making fun of his learned friend, +remarked that he would be glad to know what part was played in the life +of a philosopher by the normal vivacity of colour! + +Thus German theory made no way in France, and England proved even more +refractory. + +J. Ruskin showed a poverty, an incoherence, and a lack of system in +respect to Aesthetic, which puts him almost out of court. His was the +very reverse of the philosophic temperament. His pages of brilliant +prose contain his own dreams and caprices. They are the work of an +artist and should be enjoyed as such, being without any value for +philosophy. His theoretic faculty of the beautiful, which he held to be +distinct alike from the intelligence and from feeling, is connected with +his belief in beauty as a revelation of the divine intentions, "the seal +which God sets upon his works." Thus the natural beauty, which is +perceived by the pure heart, when contemplating some object untouched by +the hand of man, is far superior to the work of the artist. Ruskin was +too little capable of analysis to understand the complicated +psychologico-aesthetic process taking place within him, as he +contemplated some streamlet, or the nest of some small bird. + +At Naples flourished between 1861 and 1884 Antonio Tari, who kept +himself in touch with the movement of German thought, and followed the +German idealists in placing Aesthetic in a sort of middle kingdom, a +temperate zone, between the glacial, inhabited by the Esquimaux of +thought, and the torrid, dwelt in by the giants of action. He dethroned +the Beautiful, and put Aesthetic in its place, for the Beautiful is but +the first moment; the later ones are the Comic, the Humorous, and the +Dramatic. His fertile imagination found metaphors and similes in +everything: for instance, he called the goat the Devil, opposed to the +lamb, Jesus. His remarks on men and women are full of quaint fancies. He +granted to women grace, but not beauty, which resides in equilibrium. +This is proved by her falling down so easily when she walks; by her bow +legs, which have to support her wide hips, made for gestation; by her +narrow shoulders, and her opulent breast. She is therefore a creature +altogether devoid of equilibrium! + +I wish that it were possible to record more of the sayings of the +excellent Tari, "the last joyous priest of an arbitrary Aesthetic, +source of confusion." + +The ground lost to the German school of metaphysicians was occupied +during the second half of the nineteenth century by the evolutionary and +positivist metaphysicians, of whom Herbert Spencer is the most notable +representative. The peculiarity of this school lies in repeating at +second or third hand certain idealist views, deprived of the element of +pure philosophy, given to them by a Schelling or a Hegel, and in +substituting a quantity of minute facts and anecdotes, with a view to +providing the positivist varnish. These theories are dear to vulgar +minds, because they correspond to inveterate religious beliefs, and the +lustre of the varnish explains the good fortune of Spencerian positivism +in our time. Another notable trait of this school is its barbaric +contempt for history, especially for the history of philosophy, and its +consequent lack of all link with the series composed of the secular +efforts of so many thinkers. Without this link, there can be no fruitful +labour and no possibility of progress. + +Spencer is colossal in his ignorance of all that has been written or +thought on the subject of Aesthetic (to limit ourselves to this branch +alone). He actually begins his work on the Philosophy of Style with +these words: "No one, I believe, has ever produced a complete theory of +the art of writing." This in 1852! He begins his chapter on aesthetic +feelings in the _Principles of Psychology_ by admitting that he has +heard of the observation made by a German author, whose name he forgets +(Schiller!), on the connexion between art and play. Had Spencer's +remarks on Aesthetic been written in the eighteenth century, they might +have occupied a humble place among the first rude attempts at aesthetic +speculation, but appearing in the nineteenth century, they are without +value, as the little of value they contain had been long said by others. + +In his _Principles of Psychology_ Spencer looks upon aesthetic feelings +as arising from the discharge of the exuberant energy of the organism. +This he divides into degrees, and believes that we attain complete +enjoyment when these degrees are all working satisfactorily each on its +own plane, and when what is painful in excessive activity has been +avoided. His degrees are sensation, sensation accompanied by +representative elements, perception accompanied by more complex elements +of representation, then emotion, and that state of consciousness which +surpasses sensations and perceptions. But Spencer has no suspicion of +what art really is. His views oscillate between sensualism and moralism, +and he sees little in the whole art of antiquity, of the Middle Ages, or +of modern times, which can be looked upon as otherwise than imperfect! + +The Physiology of Aesthetics has also had its votaries in Great Britain, +among whom may be mentioned J. Sully, A. Bain, and Allen. These at any +rate show some knowledge of the concrete fact of art. Allen harks back +to the old distinction between necessary and vital activities and +superfluous activities, and gives a physiological definition, which may +be read in his _Physiological Aesthetics_. More recent writers also look +upon the physiological fact as the cause of the pleasure of art; but for +them it does not alone depend upon the visual organ, and the muscular +phenomena associated with it, but also on the participation of some of +the most important bodily functions, such as respiration, circulation, +equilibrium, intimate muscular accommodation. They believe that art owes +its origin to the pleasure that some prehistoric man must have +experienced in breathing regularly, without having to re-adapt his +organs, when he traced for the first time on a bone or on clay regular +lines separated by regular intervals. + +A similar order of physico-aesthetic researches has been made in +Germany, under the auspices of Helmholtz, Bruecke, and Stumpf. But these +writers have succeeded better than the above-mentioned, by restricting +themselves to the fields of optic and acoustic, and have supplied +information as to the physical processes of artistic technique and as to +the pleasure of visual and auditive impressions, without attempting to +melt Aesthetic into Physic, or to deprive the former of its spiritual +character. They have even occasionally indicated the difference between +the two kinds of research. Even the degenerate Herbartians, converting +the metaphysical forms of their master into physiological phenomena, +made soft eyes at the new sensualists and aesthetico-physiologists. + +The Natural Sciences have become in our day a sort of superstition, +allied to a certain, perhaps unconscious, hypocrisy. Not only have +chemical, physical, and physiological laboratories become a sort of +Sibylline grots, where resound the most extraordinary questions about +everything that can interest the spirit of man, but even those who +really do prosecute their researches with the old inevitable method of +internal observation, have been unable to free themselves from the +illusion that they are, on the contrary, employing _the method of the +natural sciences_. + +Hippolyte Taine's Philosophy of Art represents such an illusion. He +declares that when we have studied the diverse manifestations of art in +all peoples and at all epochs, we shall then possess a complete +Aesthetic. Such an Aesthetic would be a sort of Botany applied to the +works of man. This mode of study would provide moral science with a +basis equally as sure as that which the natural sciences already +possess. Taine then proceeds to define art without regard to the natural +sciences, by analysing, like a simple mortal, what passes in the human +soul when brought face to face with a work of art. But what analysis and +what definitions! + +Art, he says, is imitation, but of a sort that tries to express an +essential characteristic. Thus the principal characteristic of a lion is +to be "a great carnivore," and we observe this characteristic in all its +limbs. Holland has for essential characteristic that of being a land +formed of alluvial soil. + +Now without staying to consider these two remarkable instances, let us +ask, what is this essential characteristic of Taine? It is the same as +the ideas, types, or concepts that the old aesthetic teaching assigned +to art as its object. Taine himself removes all doubt as to this, by +saying that this characteristic is what philosophers call the essence of +things, and for that reason they declare that the purpose of art is to +manifest things. He declares that he will not employ the word essence, +which is technical. But he accepts and employs the thought that the word +expresses. He believes that there are two routes by which man can attain +to the superior life: science and art. By the first, he apprehends +fundamental laws and causes, and expresses them in abstract terms; by +the second, he expresses these same laws and causes in a manner +comprehensible to all, by appealing to the heart and feeling, as well as +to the reason of man. Art is both superior and popular; it makes +manifest what is highest, and makes it manifest to all. + +That Taine here falls into the old pedagogic theory of Aesthetic is +evident. Works of art are arranged for him in a scale of values, as for +the aesthetic metaphysicians. He began by declaring the absurdity of all +judgment of taste, "a chacun son gout," but he ends by declaring that +personal taste is without value, that we must establish a common measure +before proceeding to praise or blame. His scale of values is double or +triple. We must first fix the degree of importance of the +characteristic, that is, the greater or less generality of the idea, and +the degree of good in it, that is to say, its greater or lesser moral +value. These, he says, are two degrees of the same thing, strength, seen +from different sides. We must also establish the degree of convergence +of the effects, that is, the fulness of expression, the harmony between +the idea and the form. + +This half-moral, half-metaphysical exposition is accompanied with the +usual protestations, that the matter in hand is to be studied +methodically, analytically, as the naturalist would study it, that he +will try to reach "a law, not a hymn." As if these protestations could +abolish the true nature of his thought! Taine actually went so far as to +attempt dialectic solutions of works of art! "In the primitive period of +Italian art, we find the soul without the body: Giotto. At the +Renaissance, with Verrocchio and his school, we find the body without +the soul. With Raphael, in the sixteenth century, we find expression and +anatomy in harmony: body and soul." Thesis, antithesis, synthesis! + +With G.T. Fechner we find the like protestations and the like +procedure. He will study Aesthetic inductively, from beneath. He seeks +clarity, not loftiness. Proceeding thus inductively, he discovers a long +series of laws or principles of Aesthetic, such as unity in variety, +association and contrast, change and persistence, the golden mean, etc. +He exhibits this chaos with delight at showing himself so much of a +physiologist, and so inconclusive. Then he proceeds to describe his +experiments in Aesthetics. These consist of attempts to decide, for +instance, by methods of choice, which of certain rectangles of cardboard +is the most agreeable, and which the most disagreeable, to a large +number of people arbitrarily chosen. Naturally, these results do not +agree with others obtained on other occasions, but Fechner knows that +errors correct themselves, and triumphantly publishes long lists of +these valuable experiments. He also communicates to us the shapes and +measurements of a large number of pictures in museums, as compared with +their respective subjects! Such are the experiments of physiological +aestheticians. + +But Fechner, when he comes to define what beauty and what art really +are, is, like everyone else, obliged to fall back upon introspection. +But his definition is trivial, and his comparison of his three degrees +of beauty to a family is simply grotesque in its _naivete_. He terms +this theory the eudemonistic theory, and we are left wondering why, when +he had this theory all cut and dried in his mind, he should all the same +give himself the immense trouble of compiling his tables and of +enumerating his laws and principles, which do not agree with his theory. +Perhaps it was all a pastime for him, like playing at patience, or +collecting postage-stamps? + +Another example of superstition in respect to the natural sciences +is afforded by Ernest Grosse. Grosse abounds in contempt for what +he calls speculative Aesthetic. Yet he desires a Science of Art +(Kunstwissenschaft), which shall formulate its laws from those +historical facts which have hitherto been collected. + +But Grosse wishes us to complete the collection of historical evidence +with ethnographical and prehistoric materials, for we cannot obtain +really general laws of art from the exclusive study of cultivated +peoples, "just as a theory of reproduction exclusively based upon the +form it takes with mammifers, must necessarily be imperfect!" + +He is, however, aware that the results of experiences among savages and +prehistoric races do not alone suffice to furnish us with an equipment +for such investigations as that concerning the nature of Art, and, like +any ordinary mortal, he feels obliged to interrogate, before starting, +the spirit of man. He therefore proceeds to define Aesthetic on +apriorist principles, which, he remarks, can be discarded when we shall +have obtained the complete theory, in like manner with the scaffolding +that has served for the erection of a house. + +Words! Words! Vain words! He proceeds to define Aesthetic as the +activity which in its development and result has the immediate value of +feeling, and is, therefore, an end in itself. Art is the opposite of +practice; the activity of games stands intermediate between the two, +having also its end in its own activity. + +The Aesthetics of Taine and of Grosse have been called sociological. +Seeing that any true definition of sociology as a science is impossible, +for it is composed of psychological elements, which are for ever +varying, we do not delay to criticize the futile attempts at definition, +but pass at once to the objective results attained by the sociologists. +This superstition, like the naturalistic, takes various forms in +practical life. We have, for instance, Proudhon (1875), who would hark +back to Platonic Aesthetic, class the aesthetic activity among the +merely sensual, and command the arts to further the cause of virtue, on +pain of judicial proceedings in case of contumacy. + +But M. Guyau is the most important of sociological aestheticians. His +works, published in Paris toward the end of last century, and his +posthumous work, entitled _Les problemes de l'Esthetique contemporaine_, +substitute for the theory of play, that of _life_, and the posthumous +work above-mentioned makes it evident that by life he means social life. +Art is the development of social sympathy, but the whole of art does not +enter into sociology. Art has two objects; the production of agreeable +sensations (colours, sounds, etc.) and of phenomena of psychological +induction, which include ideas and feelings of a more complex nature +than the foregoing, such as sympathy for the personages represented, +interest, piety, indignation, etc. Thus art becomes the expression of +life. Hence arise two tendencies: one for harmony, consonance, for all +that delights the ear and eye; the other transforming life, under the +dominion of art. True genius is destined to balance these two +tendencies; but the decadent and the unbalanced deprive art of its +sympathetic end, setting aesthetic sympathy against human sympathy. If +we translate this language into that with which we are by this time +quite familiar, we shall see that Guyau admits an art that is merely +hedonistic, and places above it another art, also hedonistic, but +serving the ends of morality. + +M. Nordau wages war against the decadent and unbalanced, in much the +same manner as Guyau. He assigns to art the function of re-establishing +the integrity of life, so much broken up and specialized in our +industrial civilization. He remarks that there is such a thing as art +for art's sake, the simple expression of the internal states of the +individual, but it is the art of the cave-dweller. + +C. Lombroso's theory of genius as degeneration may be grouped with the +naturalistic theories. His argument is in essence the following. Great +mental efforts, and total absorption in one dominant thought, often +produce physiological disorders or atrophy of important vital functions. +Now these disorders often lead to madness; therefore, genius may be +identified with madness. This proof, from the particular to the general, +does not follow that of traditional Logic. But with Lombroso, Buechner, +Nordau, and the like we have come to the boundary between specious and +vulgar error. They confuse scientific analysis with historical research. +Such inquiries may have value for history, but they have none for +Aesthetic. Thus, too, A. Lang maintains that the doctrine of the origin +of art as disinterested expression of the mimetic faculty is not +confirmed in what we know of primitive art, which is rather decorative +than expressive. But primitive art, which is a given fact to be +interpreted, cannot ever become its own criterion of interpretation. + +The naturalistic misunderstanding has had a bad effect on linguistic +researches, which have not been carried out on the lofty plane to which +Humboldt and Steinthal had brought them. + +Max Mueller is popular and exaggerated. He fails clearly to distinguish +thought from logical thought, although in one place he remarks that the +formation of names has a more intimate connexion with wit than with +judgment. He holds that the science of language is not historical, but +natural, because language is not the invention of man, altogether +ignoring the science of the spirit, philosophy, of which language is a +part. For Max Mueller, the natural sciences were the only sciences. The +consciousness of the science of the spirit becomes ever more obscured, +and we find the philologist W.D. Whitney combating Max Mueller's +"miracles" and maintaining the separability of thought and speech. + +With Hermann Paul (1880) we have an awakening of Humboldt's spirit. Paul +maintains that the origin of language is the speech of the individual +man, and that a language has its origin every time it is spoken. Paul +also showed the fallacies contained in the _Voelkerpsychologie_ of +Steinthal and Lazarus, demonstrating that there is no such thing as a +collective soul, and that there is no language save that of the +individual. + +W. Wundt (1886), on the other hand, commits the error of connecting +language with Ethnopsychology and other non-existent sciences, and +actually terms the glorious doctrine of Herder and of Humboldt +_Wundertheorie_, or theory of miracle, accusing them of mystical +obscurity. Wundt confuses the question of the historical appearance of +language with that of its internal nature and genesis. He looks upon the +theory of evolution as having attained to its complete triumph, in its +application to organic nature in general, and especially to man. He has +no suspicion whatever of the function of fancy, and of the true relation +between thought and expression, between expression in the naturalistic, +and expression in the spiritual and linguistic sense. He looks upon +speech as a specially developed form of psycho-physical vital +manifestations, of expressive animal movements. Language is developed +continuously from such facts, and thus is explained how, "beyond the +general concept of expressive movement, there is no specific quality +which delimits language in a non-arbitrary manner." + +Thus the philosophy of Wundt reveals its weak side, showing itself +incapable of understanding the spiritual nature of language and of art. +In the _Ethic_ of the same author, aesthetic facts are presented as a +mixture of logical and ethical elements, a special normative aesthetic +science is denied, and Aesthetic is merged in Logic and Ethic. + +The neo-critical and neo-Kantian movement in thought was not able to +maintain the concept of the spirit against the hedonistic, moralistic, +and psychological views of Aesthetic, in vogue from about the middle of +last century. Neo-criticism inherited from Kant his view as to the +slight importance of the creative imagination, and appears indeed to have +been ignorant of any form of knowledge, other than the intellective. + +Kirchmann (1868) was one of the early adherents to psychological +Aesthetic, defining the beautiful as the idealized image of pleasure, +the ugly as that of pain. For him the aesthetic fact is the idealized +image of the real. Failing to apprehend the true nature of the aesthetic +fact, Kirchmann invented a new psychological category of ideal or +apparent feelings, which he thought were attenuated images from those +of real life. + +The aged Theodore Fischer describes Aesthetic in his auto-criticism as +the union of mimetic and harmony, and the beautiful as the harmony of +the universe, which is never realized in fact, because it is infinite. +When we think to grasp the beautiful, we experience that exquisite +illusion, which is the aesthetic fact. Robert Fischer, son of the +foregoing, introduced the word _Einfuehlung_, to express the vitality +which he believed that man inspired into things with the help of the +aesthetic process. + +E. Siebeck and M. Diez, the former writing in 1875, the latter in 1892, +unite a certain amount of idealistic influence, derived from Kant and +Herbart, with the merely empirical and psychological views that have of +late been the fashion. Diez, for instance, would explain the artistic +function as the ideal of feeling, placing it parallel to science; the +ideal of thought, morality; the ideal of will and religion, the ideal of +the personality. But this ideal of feeling escapes definition, and we +see that these writers have not had the courage of their ideas: they +have not dared to push their thought to its logical conclusion. + +The merely psychological and associationist view finds in Theodore Lipps +its chief exponent. He criticizes and rejects a series of aesthetic +theories, such as those of play, of pleasure, of art as recognition of +real life, even if disagreeable, of emotionality, of syncretism, which +attaches to art a number of other ends, in addition to those of play and +of pleasure. + +The theory of Lipps does not differ very greatly from that of Jouffroy, +for he assumes that artistic beauty is the sympathetic. "Our ego, +transplanted, objectified, and recognized in others, is the object of +sympathy. We feel ourselves in others, and others in us." Thus the +aesthetic pleasure is entirely composed of sympathy. This extends even +to the pleasure derived from architecture, geometrical forms, etc. +Whenever we meet with the positive element of human personality, we +experience this feeling of beatitude, which is the aesthetic emotion. +But the value of the personality is an ethical value: the whole sphere +of ethic is included in it. Therefore all artistic or aesthetic pleasure +is the enjoyment of something which has ethical value, but this value is +not an element of a compound, but the object of aesthetic intuition. +Thus is aesthetic activity deprived of all autonomous existence and +reduced to a mere retainer of Ethic. + +C. Groos (1895) shows some signs of recognizing aesthetic activity as a +theoretic value. Feeling and intellect, he says, are the two poles of +knowledge, and he recognizes the aesthetic fact as internal imitation. +Everything beautiful belongs to aestheticity, but not every aesthetic +fact is beautiful. The beautiful is the representation of sensible +pleasure, and the ugly of sensible displeasure. The sublime is the +representation of something powerful, in a simple form. The comic is the +representation of an inferiority, which provokes in us the pleasurable +feeling of "superiority." Groos very wisely makes mock of the supposed +function of the Ugly, which Hartmann and Schasler had inherited and +developed from a long tradition. Lipps and Groos agree in denying +aesthetic value to the comic, but Lipps, although he gives an excellent +analysis of the comic, is nevertheless in the trammels of his moralistic +thesis, and ends by sketching out something resembling the doctrine of +the overcoming of the ugly, by means of which may be attained a higher +aesthetic and (sympathetic) value. + +Labours such as those of Lipps have been of value, since they have +cleared away a number of errors that blocked the way, and restrained +speculation to the field of the internal consciousness. Similar is the +merit of E. Veron's treatise (1883) on the double form of Aesthetic, in +which he combats the academic view of the absolute beauty, and shows +that Taine confuses Art and Science, Aesthetic and Logic. He acutely +remarks that if the object of art were to reveal the essence of things, +the greatest artists would be those who best succeeded in doing this, +and the greatest works would all be _identical_; whereas we know that +the very opposite is the case. Veron was a precursor of Guyau, and we +seek for scientific system in vain in his book. Veron looks upon art as +two things: the one _decorative_, pleasing eye and ear, the other +_expressive_, "l'expression emue de la personalite humaine." He thought +that decorative art prevailed in antiquity, expressive art in modern +times. + +We cannot here dwell upon the aesthetic theories of men of letters, such +as that of E. Zola, developing his thesis of natural science and history +mixed, which is known as that of the human document or as the +experimental theory, or of Ibsen and the moralization of the art +problem, as presented by him and by the Scandinavian school. Perhaps no +French writer has written more profoundly upon art than Gustave +Flaubert. His views are contained in his Correspondence, which has been +published. L. Tolstoi wrote his book on art while under the influence of +Veron and his hatred of the concept of the beautiful. Art, he says, +communicates the feelings, as the word communicates the thoughts. But +his way of understanding this may be judged from the comparison which he +institutes between Art and Science. According to this, "Art has for its +mission to make assimilable and sensible what may not have been +assimilated in the form of argument. There is no science for science's +sake, no art for art's sake. Every human effort should be directed +toward increasing morality and suppressing violence." This amounts to +saying that well-nigh all the art that the world has hitherto seen is +false. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Dante, Tasso, +Milton, Shakespeare, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Bach, Beethoven, are all, +according to Tolstoi, "false reputations, made by the critics." + +We must also class F. Nietzsche with the artists, rather than with the +philosophers. We should do him an injustice (as with J. Ruskin) were we +to express in intellectual terminology his aesthetic affirmations. The +criticism which they provoke would be too facile. Nowhere has Nietzsche +given a complete theory of art, not even in his first book, _Die Geburt +der Tragoedie oder Griechentum und Pessimismus_. What seems to be theory +there, is really the confession of the feelings and aspirations of the +writer. Nietzsche was the last, splendid representative of the romantic +period. He was, therefore, deeply preoccupied with the art problem and +with the relation of art to natural science and to philosophy, though he +never succeeded in definitely fixing those relations. From Romanticism, +rather than from Schopenhauer, he gathered those elements of thought out +of which he wove his conception of the two forms of art: the Apollonian, +all serene contemplation, as expressed in the epic and in sculpture; the +Dionysaic, all tumult and agitation, as expressed in music and the +drama. These doctrines are not rigorously proved, and their power of +resistance to criticism is therefore but slender, but they serve to +transport the mind to a more lofty spiritual level than any others of +the second half of the nineteenth century. + +The most noteworthy thought on aesthetic of this period is perhaps to be +found among the aestheticians of special branches of the arts, and since +we know that laws relating only to special branches are not conceivable, +this thought may be considered as bearing upon the general theory of +Aesthetic. + +The Bohemian critic E. Hanslick (1854) is perhaps the most important of +these writers. His work _On Musical Beauty_ has been translated into +several languages. His polemic is chiefly directed against R. Wagner and +the pretension of finding in music a determined content of ideas and +feelings. He expresses equal contempt for those sentimentalists who +derive from music merely pathological effects, passionate excitement, or +stimulus for practical activity, in place of enjoying the musical works. +"If a few Phrygian notes sufficed to instil courage into the soldier +facing the enemy, or a Doric melody to assure the fidelity of a wife +whose husband was absent, then the loss of Greek music may cause pain to +generals and to husbands, but aestheticians and composers will have no +reason to deplore it." "If every Requiem, every lamenting Adagio, +possessed the power to make us sad, who would be able to support +existence in such conditions? But if a true musical work look upon us +with the clear and brilliant eyes of beauty, we feel ourselves bound by +its invincible fascination, though its theme be all the sorrows of the +century." + +For Hanslick, the only end of music was form, or musical beauty. The +followers of Herbart showed themselves very tender towards this +unexpected and vigorous ally, and Hanslick, not to be behindhand in +politeness, returned their compliments, by referring to Herbart and to +R. Zimmermann, in the later editions of his work, as having "completely +developed the great aesthetic principle of form." Unfortunately Hanslick +meant something altogether different from the Herbartians by his use of +the word form. Symmetry, merely acoustic relations, and the pleasure of +the ear, did not constitute the musically beautiful for him. Mathematics +were in his view useless in the Aesthetic of music. "Sonorous forms are +not empty, but perfectly full; they cannot be compared to simple lines +enclosing a space; they are the spirit, which takes form, making its own +bodily configuration. Music is more of a picture than is an arabesque; +but it is a picture of which the subject is inexpressible in words, nor +is it to be enclosed in a precise concept. In music, there is a meaning +and a connexion, but of a specially musical nature: it is a language +which we speak and understand, but which it is impossible to translate." +Hanslick admits that music, if it do not render the quality of +sentiments, renders their tone or dynamic side; it renders adjectives, +if it fail to render substantives; if not "murmuring tenderness" or +"impetuous courage," at any rate the "murmuring" and the "impetuous." + +The essence of his book is contained in the negation that it is possible +to separate form and content in music. "Take any motive you will, and +say where form begins and content ends. Are we to call the sounds +content? Very good, but they have already received form. What are we to +call form? Sounds again? But they are already form filled, that is to +say, possessing a content." These observations testify to an acute +penetration of the nature of art. Hanslick's belief that they were +characteristics peculiar to music, not common to every form of art, +alone prevented him from seeing further. + +C. Fiedler, published in German (in 1887) an extremely luminous work on +the origin of artistic activity. He describes eloquently how the passive +spectator seems to himself to grasp all reality, as the shows of life +pass before him; but at the moment that he tries to realize this +artistically, all disappears, and leaves him with the emptiness of his +own thoughts. Yet by concentration alone do we attain to expression; art +is a language that we gradually learn to speak. Artistic activity is +only to be attained by limiting ourselves; it must consist of "forms +precisely determined, tangible, sensibly demonstrable, precisely because +it is spiritual." Art does not imitate nature, for what is nature, but +that vast confusion of perceptions and representations that were +referred to above? Yet in a sense art does imitate nature; it uses +nature to produce values of a kind peculiar to itself. Those values are +true visibility. + +Fiedler's views correspond with those of his predecessor, Hanslick, but +are more rigorously and philosophically developed. The sculptor A. +Hildebrand may be mentioned with these, as having drawn attention to the +nature of art as architectonic rather than imitative, with special +application to the art of sculpture. + +What we miss with these and with other specialists, is a broad view of +art and language, as one and the same thing, the inheritance of all +humanity, not of a few persons, specially endowed. H. Bergson in his +book on laughter (1900) falls under the same criticism. He develops his +theory of art in a manner analogous to Fiedler, and errs like him in +looking upon it as something different and exceptional in respect to the +language of every moment. He declares that in life the individuality of +things escapes us: we see only as much as suffices for our practical +ends. The influence of language aids this rude simplification: all but +proper names are abstractions. Artists arise from time to time, who +recover the riches hidden beneath the labels of ordinary life. + +Amid the ruin of idealist metaphysics, is to be desired a healthy return +to the doctrine of Baumgarten, corrected and enriched with the +discoveries that have been made since his time, especially by +romanticism and psychology. C. Hermann (1876) announced this return, but +his book is a hopeless mixture of empirical precepts and of metaphysical +beliefs regarding Logic and Aesthetic, both of which, he believes, deal +not with the empirical thought and experience of the soul, but with the +pure and absolute. + +B. Bosanquet (1892) gives the following definition of the beautiful, as +"that which has a characteristic or individual expressivity for the +sensible perception, or for the imagination, subject to the conditions +of general or abstract expressivity for the same means." The problem as +posed by this writer by the antithesis of the two German schools of form +and content, appears to us insoluble. + +Though De Sanctis left no school in Italy, his teaching has been cleared +of the obscurities that had gathered round it during the last ten years; +and the thesis of the true nature of history, and of its nature, +altogether different from natural science, has been also dealt with in +Germany, although its precise relation to the aesthetic problem has not +been made clear. Such labours and such discussions constitute a more +favourable ground for the scientific development of Aesthetic than the +stars of mystical metaphysic or the stables of positivism and of +sensualism. + +We have now reached the end of the inquiry into the history of aesthetic +speculation, and we are struck with the smallness of the number of those +who have seen clearly the nature of the problem. No doubt, amid the +crowd of artists, critics, and writers on other subjects, many have +incidentally made very just remarks, and if all these were added to the +few philosophers, they would form a gallant company. But if, as Schiller +truly observed, the rhythm of philosophy consist in a withdrawal from +public opinion, in order to return to it with renewed vigour, it is +evident that this withdrawal is essential, and indeed that in it lies +the whole progress of philosophy. + +During our long journey, we have witnessed grave aberrations from the +truth, which were at the same time attempts to reach it; such were the +hedonism of the sophists and rhetoricians of antiquity, of the +sensualists of the eighteenth and second half of the nineteenth +centuries; the moralistic hedonism of Aristophanes and the Stoics, of +the Roman eclectics, of the writers of the Middle Age and of the +Renaissance; the ascetic and logical hedonism of Plato and the Fathers +of the Church; the aesthetic mysticism of Plotinus, reborn to its +greatest triumphs, during the classic period of German thought. + +Through the midst of these variously erroneous theories, that traverse +the field of thought in all directions, runs a tiny rivulet of golden +truth. Starting from the subtle empiricism of Aristotle, it flows in the +profound penetration of Vico to the nineteenth century, where it appears +again in the masterly analyses of Schleiermacher, Humboldt, and De +Sanctis. + +This brief list shows that the science of Aesthetic is no longer to be +discovered, but it also shows _that it is only at its beginning_. + +The birth of a science is like the birth of a human being. In order to +live, a science, like a man, has to withstand a thousand attacks of all +sorts. These appear in the form of errors, which must be extirpated, if +the science is not to perish. And when one set has been weeded, another +crops up; when these have been dealt with, the former errors often +return. Therefore _scientific criticism_ is always necessary. No science +can repose on its laurels, complete, unchallenged. Like a human being, +it must maintain its position by constant efforts, constant victories +over error. The general errors which reveal a negation of the very +concept of art have already been dealt with in the Historical Summary. +The particular errors have been exposed in the Theory. They may be +divided under three heads: (i.) Errors as to the characteristic quality +of the aesthetic fact, or (ii.) as to its specific quality, or (iii.) as +to its generic quality. These are contradictions of the characteristics +of intuition, of theoretic contemplation, and of spiritual activity, +which constitute the aesthetic fact. + +The principal bar to a proper understanding of the true nature of +language has been and still is Rhetoric, with the modern form it has +assumed, as style. The rhetorical categories are still mentioned in +treatises and often referred to, as having definite existence among the +parts of speech. Side by side with such phrases goes that of the double +form, or metaphor, which implies that there are two ways of saying the +same thing, the one simple, the other ornate. + +Kant, Herbart, Hegel, and many minor personages, have been shown to be +victims of the rhetorical categories, and in our own day we have writers +in Italy and in Germany who devote much attention to them, such as R. +Bonghi and G. Groeber; the latter employs a phraseology which he borrows +from the modern schools of psychology, but this does not alter the true +nature of his argument. De Sanctis gave perhaps the clearest and most +stimulating advice in his lectures on Rhetoric, which he termed +Anti-rhetoric. + +But even he failed to systematize his thought, and we may say that the +true critique of Rhetoric can only be made from the point of view of the +aesthetic activity, which is, as we know, _one_, and therefore does not +give rise to divisions, and _cannot express the same content now in one +form, now in another_. Thus only can we drive away the double monster of +naked form deprived of imagination, and of decorated form, which would +represent something more than imagination. The same remarks apply to +artistic and literary styles, and to their various laws or rules. In +modern times they have generally been comprised with rhetoric, and +although now discredited, they cannot be said to have altogether +disappeared. + +J.C. Scaliger may be entitled the protagonist of the unities in +comparatively modern times: he it was who "laid the foundations of the +classical Bastille," and supplied tyrants of literature, like Boileau, +with some of their best weapons. Lessing opposed the French rules and +restrictions with German rules and restrictions, giving as his opinion +that Corneille and others had wrongly interpreted Aristotle, whose rules +did not really prevent Shakespeare from being included among correct +writers! Lessing undoubtedly believed in intellectual rules for poetry. +Aristotle was the tyrant, father of tyrants, and we find Corneille +saying "qu'il est aise de s'accommoder avec Aristote," much in the same +way as Tartuffe makes his "accommodements avec le ciel." In the next +century, several additions were made to the admitted styles, as for +instance the "tragedie bourgeoise." + +But these battles of the rules with one another are less interesting +than the rebellion against all the rules, which began with Pietro +Aretino in the sixteenth century, who makes mock of them in the +prologues to his comedies. Giordano Bruno took sides against the makers +of rules, saying that the rules came from the poetry, and "therefore +there are as many genuses and species of true rules as there are genuses +and species of true poets." When asked how the true poets are to be +known, he replies, "by repeating their verses, which either cause +delight, or profit, or both." Guarini, too, said that "the world judges +poetry, and its sentence is without appeal." + +Strangely enough, it was priest-ridden Spain that all through the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led the van of revolt against the +rules and precepts of the grammarians. While Torquato Tasso remained the +miserable slave of grammarians unworthy to lick the dust from his feet, +Lope de Vega slyly remarked that when he wrote his comedies, he locked +up the givers of precepts with six keys, that they might not reproach +him. J.B. Marino declared that he knew the rules better than all the +pedants in the world; "but the true rule is to know when to break the +rules, in accordance with the manners of the day and the taste of the +age." Among the most acute writers of the end of the seventeenth century +is to be mentioned Gravina, who well understood that a work of art must +be its own criterion, and said so clearly when praising a contemporary +for a work which did not enter any one of the admitted categories. +Unfortunately Gravina did not clearly formulate his views. + +France of the eighteenth century produced several writers like Du Bos, +who declared that men will always prefer the poems that move them, to +those composed according to rule. La Motte combated the unities of place +and time, and Batteux showed himself liberal in respect to rules. +Voltaire, although he opposed La Motte and described the three unities +as the three great laws of good sense, was also capable of declaring +that all styles but the tiresome are good, and that the best style is +that which is best used. In England we find Home in his _Elements of +Criticism_ deriding the critics for asserting that there must be a +precise criterion for distinguishing epic poetry from all other forms of +composition. Literary compositions, he held, melt into one another, just +like colours. + +The literary movement of the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of +the nineteenth centuries attacked rules of all sorts. We will not dwell +upon the many encounters of these periods, nor record the names of those +that conquered gloriously, or their excesses. In France the preface to +the _Cromwell_ of V. Hugo (1827), in Italy the _Lettera semiseria di +Grisostomo_, were clarions of rebellion. The principle first laid down +by A.W. Schlegel, that the form of compositions must be organic and not +mechanic, resulting from the nature of the subject, from its internal +development not from an external stamp, was enunciated in Italy. Art is +always a whole, a synthesis. + +But it would be altogether wrong to believe that this empirical defeat +of the styles and rules implied their final defeat in philosophy. Even +writers who were capable of dispensing with prejudice when judging works +of art, once they spoke as philosophers, were apt to reassume their +belief in those categories which, empirically, they had discarded. The +spectacle of these literary or rhetorical categories, raised by German +philosophers to the honours of philosophical deduction, is even more +amusing than that which afforded amusement to Home. The truth is that +they were unable to free their aesthetic systems of intellectualism, +although they proclaimed the empire of the mystic idea. Schelling (1803) +at the beginning, Hartmann (1890) at the end of the century, furnish a +good example of this head and tail. + +Schelling, in his Philosophy of Art, declares that, historically +speaking, the first place in the styles of poetry is due to Epic, but, +scientifically speaking, it falls to Lyric. In truth, if poetry be the +representation of the infinite in the finite, then lyric poetry, in +which prevails the finite, must be its first moment. Lyric poetry +corresponds to the first of the ideal series, to reflection, to +knowledge; epic poetry corresponds to the second power, to action. This +philosopher finally proceeds to the unification of epic and lyric +poetry, and from their union he deduces the dramatic form, which is in +his view "the supreme incarnation of the essence and of the _in-se_ of +every art." + +With Hartmann, poetry is divided into poetry of declamation and poetry +for reading. The first is subdivided into Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic; the +Epic is divided into plastic epic, proper epic, pictorial epic, and +lyrical epic; Lyric is divided into epical lyric, lyrical lyric, and +dramatic lyric; Dramatic is divided into lyrical dramatic, epical +dramatic, and dramatical dramatic. The second (readable poetry) is +divided into poetry which is chiefly epical, lyrical, and dramatic, with +the tertiary division of moving, comic, tragic, and humoristic; and +poetry which can all be read at once, like a short story, or that +requires several sittings, like a romance. + +These brief extracts show of what dialectic pirouettes and sublime +trivialities even philosophers are capable, when they begin to treat +of the Aesthetic of the tragic, comic, and humorous. Such false +distinctions are still taught in the schools of France and Germany, and +we find a French critic like Ferdinand Brunetiere devoting a whole +volume to the evolution of literary styles or classes, which he really +believes to constitute literary history. This prejudice, less frankly +stated, still infests many histories of literature, even in Italy. + +We believe that the falsity of these rules of classes should be +scientifically demonstrated. In our Theory of Aesthetic we have shown +how we believe that it should be demonstrated. + +The proof of the theory of the limits of the arts has been credited to +Lessing, but his merit should rather be limited to having been the first +to draw attention to the problem. His solution was false, but his +achievement nevertheless great, in having posed the question clearly. No +one before him, in antiquity, in the Middle Age, or in modern times, had +seriously asked: What is the value of the distinctions between the arts? +Which of them comes first? Which second? Leonardo da Vinci had declared +his personal predilection for painting, Michael Angelo for sculpture, +but the question had not been philosophically treated before Lessing. + +Lessing's attention was drawn to the problem, through his desire to +disprove the assertions of Spence and of the Comte de Caylus, the former +in respect to the close union between poetry and painting in antiquity, +the latter as believing that a poem was good according to the number of +subjects which it should afford the painter. Lessing argued thus: +Painting manifests itself in space, poetry in time: the mode of +manifestation of painting is through objects which coexist, that of +poetry through objects which are consecutive. The objects which coexist, +or whose parts are coexistent, are called bodies. Bodies, then, owing to +their visibility, are the true objects of painting. Objects which are +consecutive, or whose parts are consecutive, are called, in general, +actions. Actions, then, are the suitable object of poetry. He admitted +that painting might represent an action, but only by means of bodies +which make allusion to it; that poetry can represent bodies, but only by +means of actions. Returning to this theme, he explained the action or +movement in painting as added by our imagination. Lessing was greatly +preoccupied with the naturalness and the unnaturalness of signs, which +is tantamount to saying that he believed each art to be strictly limited +to certain modes of expression, which are only overstepped at the cost +of coherency. In the appendix to his _Laocooen_, he quotes Plutarch as +saying that one should not chop wood with a key, or open the door with +an axe. He who should do so would not only be spoiling both those +utensils, but would also be depriving himself of the utility of both. He +believed that this applied to the arts. + +The number of philosophers and writers who have attempted empirical +classifications of the arts is enormous: it ranges in comparatively +recent times from Lessing, by way of Schasler, Solger, and Hartmann, to +Richard Wagner, whose theory of the combination of the arts was first +mooted in the eighteenth century. + +Lotze, while reflecting upon the futility of these attempts, himself +adopts a method, which he says is the most "convenient," and thereby +incurs the censure of Schasler. This method is in fact suitable for his +studies in botany and in zoology, but useless for the philosophy of the +spirit. Thus both these thinkers maintained Lessing's wrong principle as +to the constancy, the limits, and the peculiar nature of each art. + +Who among aestheticians has criticized this principle? Aristotle had a +glimpse of the truth, when he refused to admit that the distinction +between prose and poetry lay in an external fact, the metre. +Schleiermacher seems to have been the only one who was thoroughly aware +of the difficulty of the problem. In analysis, indeed, he goes so far as +to say that what the arts have in common is not the external fact, which +is an element of diversity; and connecting such an observation as this +with his clear distinction between art and what is called technique, we +might argue that Schleiermacher looked upon the divisions between the +arts as non-existent. But he does not make this logical inference, and +his thought upon the problem continues to be wavering and undecided. +Nebulous, uncertain, and contradictory as is this portion of +Schleiermacher's theory, he has yet the great merit of having doubted +Lessing's theory, and of having asked himself by what right are special +arts held to be distinct in art. + +Schleiermacher _absolutely denied the existence of a beautiful in +nature_, and praised Hegel for having sustained this negation. Hegel did +not really deserve this praise, as his negation was rather verbal than +effective; but the importance of this thesis as stated by Schleiermacher +is very great, in so far as he denied the existence of an objective +natural beauty not produced by the spirit of man. This theory of the +beautiful in nature, when taken in a metaphysical sense, does not +constitute an error peculiar to aesthetic science. It forms part of a +fallacious general theory, which can be criticized together with its +metaphysic. + +The theory of aesthetic senses, that is, of certain superior senses, +such as sight and hearing, being the only ones for which aesthetic +impressions exist, was debated as early as Plato. The _Hippias major_ +contains a discussion upon this theme, which Socrates leads to the +conclusion that there exist beautiful things, which do not reach us +through impressions of eye or ear. But further than this, there exist +things which please the eye, but not the ear, and _vice versa_; +therefore the reason of beauty cannot be visibility or audibility, but +something different from, yet common to both. Perhaps this question has +never been so acutely and so seriously dealt with as in this Platonic +dialogue. Home, Herder, Hegel, Diderot, Rousseau, Berkeley, all dealt +with the problem, but in a more or less arbitrary manner. Herder, for +instance, includes touch with the higher aesthetic senses, but Hegel +removes it, as having immediate contact with matter as such, and with +its immediate sensible qualities. + +Schleiermacher, with his wonted penetration, saw that the problem was +not to be solved so easily. He refuted the distinction between clear and +confused senses. He held that the superiority of sight and hearing over +the other senses lay in their free activity, in their capacity of an +activity proceeding from within, and able to create forms and sounds +without receiving external impressions. The eye and the ear are not +merely means of perception, for in that case there could be no visual +and no auditive arts. They are also functions of voluntary movements, +which fill the domain of the senses. Schleiermacher, however, considered +that the difference was rather one of quantity, and that we should allow +to the other senses a minimum of independence. + +The sensualists, as we know, maintain that all the senses are aesthetic. +That is the hedonistic hypothesis, which has been dealt with and +disproved in this book. We have shown the embarrassment in which the +hedonists find themselves, when they have dubbed all the senses +"aesthetic," or have been obliged to differentiate in an absurd manner +some of the senses from the others. The only way out of the difficulty +lies in abandoning the attempt to unite orders of facts so diverse as +the representative form of the spirit and the conception of given +physical organs or of a given material of impressions. + +The origin of classes of speech and of grammatical forms is to be found +in antiquity, and as regards the latter, the disputes among the +Alexandrian philosophers, the analogists, and the anomalists, resulted +in logic being identified with grammar. Anything which did not seem +logical was excluded from grammar as a deviation. The analogists, +however, did not have it all their own way, and grammar in the modern +sense of the word is a compromise between these extreme views, that is, +it contains something of the thought of Chrysippus, who composed a +treatise to show that the same thing can be expressed with different +sounds, and of Apollonius Discolus, who attempted to explain what the +rigorous analogists refused to admit into their schemes and +classifications. It is only of late years that we have begun to emerge +from the superstitious reverence for grammar, inherited from the Middle +Age. Such writers as Pott, in his introduction to Humboldt, and Paul in +his _Principien d. Sprachgeschichte_, have done good service in throwing +doubt upon the absolute validity of the parts of speech. If the old +superstitions still survive tenaciously, we must attribute this partly +to empirical and poetical grammar, partly to the venerable antiquity of +grammar itself, which has led the world to forget its illegitimate and +turbid origin. + +The theory of the relativity of taste is likewise ancient, and it would +be interesting to know whether the saying "there's no accounting for +tastes" could be traced to a merely gustatory origin. In this sense, the +saying would be quite correct, as it is _quite wrong_ when applied to +aesthetic facts. The eighteenth century writers exhibit a piteous +perplexity of thought on this subject. Home, for instance, after much +debate, decides upon a common "standard of taste," which he deduces from +the necessity of social life and from what he calls "a final cause." Of +course it will not be an easy matter to fix this "standard of taste." As +regards moral conduct, we do not seek our models among savages, so with +regard to taste, we must have recourse to those few whose taste has not +been corrupted nor spoilt by pleasure, who have received good taste from +nature, and have perfected it by education and by the practice of life. +If after this has been done, there should yet arise disputes, it will be +necessary to refer to the principles of criticism, as laid down in his +book by the said Home. + +We find similar contradictions and vicious circles in the _Discourse on +Taste_ of David Hume. We search his writings in vain for the distinctive +characteristics of the man of taste, whose judgments should be final. +Although he asserts that the general principles of taste are universal +in human nature, and admits that no notice should be accorded to +perversions and ignorance, yet there exist diversities of taste that are +irreconcilable, insuperable, and blameless. + +But the criticism of the sensualist and relativist positions cannot be +made from the point of view of those who proclaim the absolute nature of +taste and yet place it among the intellectual concepts. It has been +shown to be impossible to escape from sensualism and relativity save by +falling into the intellectualist error. Muratori in the eighteenth +century is an instance of this. He was one of the first to maintain the +existence of a rule of taste and of universal beauty. Andre also spoke +of what appears beautiful in a work of art as being not that which +pleases at once, owing to certain particular dispositions of the +faculties of the soul and of the organs of the body, but that which has +the right of pleasing the reason and reflection through its own +excellence. Voltaire admitted an "universal taste," which was +"intellectual," as did many others. Kant appeared, and condemned alike +the intellectualist and the sensualistic error; but placing the +beautiful in a symbol of morality, he failed to discover the imaginative +absoluteness of taste. Later speculative philosophy did not attach +importance to the question. + +The correct solution was slow in making its way. It lies, as we know, in +the fact that to judge a work of art we must place ourselves in the +position of the artist at the time of production, and that to judge is +to reproduce. Alexander Pope, in his _Essay on Criticism_, was among the +first to state this truth: + + A perfect judge will read each work of wit + With the same spirit that its author writ. + +Remarks equally luminous were made by Antonio Conti, Terrasson, and +Heydenreich in the eighteenth century, the latter with considerable +philosophical development. De Sanctis gave in his adhesion to this +formula, but a true theory of aesthetic criticism had not yet been +given, because for such was necessary, not only an exact conception of +nature in art, but also of the relations between the aesthetic fact and +its historical conditions. In more recent times has been denied the +possibility of aesthetic criticism; it has been looked upon as merely +individual and capricious, and historical criticism has been set up in +its place. This would be better called a criticism of extrinsic +erudition and of bad philosophical inspiration--positivist and +materialist. The true history of literature will always require the +reconstruction and then the judgment of the work of art. Those who have +wished to react against such emasculated erudition have often thrown +themselves into the opposite extreme, that is, into a dogmatic, +abstract, intellectualistic, or moralistic form of criticism. + +This mention of the history of certain doctrines relating to Aesthetic +suffices to show the range of error possible in the theory. Aesthetic +has need to be surrounded by a vigilant and vigorous critical literature +which shall derive from it and be at once its safeguard and its source +of strength. + + + + +APPENDIX + +I here add as an appendix, at the request of the author, a translation +of his lecture which he delivered before the Third International +Congress of Philosophy, at Heidelberg, on 2nd September 1908. + +The reader will find that it throws a vivid light upon Benedetto Croce's +general theory of Aesthetic. + + +PURE INTUITION AND THE LYRICAL CHARACTER OF ART. + +_A Lecture delivered at Heidelberg at the second general session of the +Third International Congress of Philosophy._ + +There exists an _empirical_ Aesthetic, which although it admits the +existence of facts, called aesthetic or artistic, yet holds that they +are irreducible to a single principle, to a rigorous philosophical +concept. It wishes to limit itself to collecting as many of those facts +as possible, and in the greatest possible variety, thence, at the most, +proceeding to group them together in classes and types. The logical +ideal of this school, as declared on many occasions, is zoology or +botany. This Aesthetic, when asked what art is, replies by indicating +successively single facts, and by saying: "Art is this, and this, and +this too is art," and so on, indefinitely. Zoology and botany renew the +representatives of fauna and of flora in the same way. They calculate +that the species renewed amount to some thousand, but believe that they +might easily be increased to twenty or a hundred thousand, or even to a +million, or to infinity. + +There is another Aesthetic, which has been called hedonistic, +utilitarian, moralistic, and so on, according to its various +manifestations. Its complex denomination should, however, be +_practicism_, because that is precisely what constitutes its essential +character. This Aesthetic differs from the preceding, in the belief that +aesthetic or artistic facts are not a merely empirical or nominalistic +grouping together, but that all of them possess a common foundation. Its +foundation is placed in the practical form of human activity. Those +facts are therefore considered, either generically, as manifestations of +pleasure and pain, and therefore rather as economic facts; or, more +particularly, as a special class of those manifestations; or again, as +instruments and products of the ethical spirit, which subdues and turns +to its own ends individual hedonistic and economic tendencies. + +There is a third Aesthetic, the _intellectualist_, which, while also +recognizing the reducibility of aesthetic facts to philosophical +treatment, explains them as particular cases of logical thought, +identifying beauty with intellectual truth; art, now with the natural +sciences, now with philosophy. For this Aesthetic, what is prized in art +is what is learned from it. The only distinction that it admits between +art and science, or art and philosophy, is at the most that of more or +less, or of perfection and imperfection. According to this Aesthetic, +art would be the whole mass of easy and popular truths; or it would be a +transitory form of science, a semi-science and a semi-philosophy, +preparatory to the superior and perfect form of science and of +philosophy. + +A fourth Aesthetic there is, which may be called _agnostic_. It springs +from the criticism of the positions just now indicated, and being guided +by a powerful consciousness of the truth, rejects them all, because it +finds them too evidently false, and because it is too loth to admit that +art is a simple fact of pleasure or pain, an exercise of virtue, or a +fragmentary sketch of science and philosophy. And while rejecting them, +it discovers, at the same time, that art is not now this and now that of +those things, or of other things, indefinitely, but that it has its own +principle and origin. However, it is not able to say what this principle +may be, and believes that it is impossible to do so. This Aesthetic +knows that art cannot be resolved into an empirical concept; knows that +pleasure and pain are united with the aesthetic activity only in an +indirect manner; that morality has nothing to do with art; that it is +impossible to rationalize art, as is the case with science and +philosophy, and to prove it beautiful or ugly with the aid of reason. +Here this Aesthetic is content to stop, satisfied with a knowledge +consisting entirely of negative terms. + +Finally, there is an Aesthetic which I have elsewhere proposed to call +_mystic_. This Aesthetic avails itself of those negative terms, to +define art as a spiritual form without a practical character, because it +is theoretic, and without a logical or intellective form, because it is +a theoretic form, differing alike from those of science and of +philosophy, and superior to both. According to this view, art would be +the highest pinnacle of knowledge, whence what is seen from other points +seems narrow and partial; art would alone reveal the whole horizon or +all the abysses of Reality. + +Now, the five Aesthetics so far mentioned are not referable to +contingent facts and historical epochs, as are, on the other hand, the +denominations of Greek and Mediaeval Aesthetic, of Renaissance and +eighteenth-century Aesthetic, the Aesthetic of Wolff and of Herbart, of +Vico and of Hegel. These five are, on the contrary, mental attitudes, +which are found in all periods, although they have not always +conspicuous representatives of the kind that are said to become +historical. Empirical Aesthetic is, for example, called Burke in the +eighteenth, Fechner in the nineteenth century; moralistic Aesthetic is +Horace or Plutarch in antiquity, Campanella in modern times; +intellectualist or logical Aesthetic is Cartesian in the seventeenth, +Leibnitzian in the eighteenth, and Hegelian in the nineteenth century; +agnostic Aesthetic is Francesco Patrizio at the Renaissance, Kant in the +eighteenth century; mystic Aesthetic is called Neoplatonism at the end +of the antique world, Romanticism at the beginning of the nineteenth +century, and if it be adorned during the former period with the name of +Plotinus, in the latter it will bear the name of Schelling or of Solger, +And not only are those attitudes and mental tendencies common to all +epochs, but they are also all found to some extent developed or +indicated in every thinker, and even in every man. Thus it is somewhat +difficult to classify philosophers of Aesthetic according to one or the +other category, because each philosopher also enters more or less into +some other, or into all the other categories. + +Nor can these five conceptions and points of view be looked upon as +increasable to ten or twenty, or to as many as desired, or that I have +placed them in a certain order, but that they could be capriciously +placed in another order. If this were so, they would be altogether +heterogeneous and disconnected among themselves, and the attempt to +examine and criticize them would seem altogether desperate, as also +would be that of comparing one with the other, or of stating a new one, +which should dominate them all. It is precisely thus that ordinary +sceptics look upon various and contrasting scientific views. They group +them all in the same plane, and believing that they can increase them at +will, conclude that one is as good as another, and that therefore every +one is free to select that which he prefers from a bundle of falsehoods. +The conceptions of which we speak are definite in number, and appear in +a necessary order, which is either that here stated by me, or another +which might be proposed, better than mine. This would be the necessary +order, which I should have failed to realize effectively. They are +connected one with the other, and in such a way that the view which +follows includes in itself that which precedes it. + +Thus, if the last of the five doctrines indicated be taken, which may be +summed up as the proposition that art is a form of the theoretic spirit, +superior to the scientific and philosophic form--and if it be submitted +to analysis, it will be seen that in it is included, in the first place, +the proposition affirming the existence of a group of facts, which are +called aesthetic or artistic. If such facts did not exist, it is evident +that no question would arise concerning them, and that no +systematization would be attempted. And this is the truth of empirical +Aesthetic. But there is also contained in it the proposition: that the +facts examined are reducible to a definite principle or category of the +spirit. This amounts to saying, that they belong either to the practical +spirit, or to the theoretical, or to one of their subforms. And this is +the truth of practicist Aesthetic, which is occupied with the enquiry as +to whether these ever are practical facts, and affirms that in every +case they are a special category of the spirit. Thirdly, there is +contained in it the proposition: that they are not practical facts, but +facts which should rather be placed near the facts of logic or of +thought. This is the truth of intellectualistic Aesthetic. In the fourth +place, we find also the proposition; that aesthetic facts are neither +practical, nor of that theoretic form which is called logical and +intellective. They are something which cannot be identified with the +categories of pleasure, nor of the useful, nor with those of ethic, nor +with those of logical truth. They are something of which it is necessary +to find a further definition. This is the truth of that Aesthetic which +is termed agnostic or negative. + +When these various propositions are severed from their connection; when, +that is to say, the first is taken without the second, the second +without the third, and so on,--and when each, thus mutilated, is +confined in itself and the enquiry which awaits prosecution is +arbitrarily arrested, then each one of these gives itself out as the +whole of them, that is, as the completion of the enquiry. In this way, +each becomes error, and the truths contained in empiricism, in +practicism, in intellectualism, in agnostic and in mystical Aesthetic, +become, respectively, falsity, and these tendencies of speculation are +indicated with names of a definitely depreciative colouring. Empiria +becomes empiricism, the heuristic comparison of the aesthetic activity +with the practical and logical, becomes a conclusion, and therefore +practicism and intellectualism. The criticism which rejects false +definitions, and is itself negative, affirms itself as positive and +definite, becoming agnosticism; and so on. + +But the attempt to close a mental process in an arbitrary manner is +vain, and of necessity causes remorse and self-criticism. Thus it comes +about, that each one of those unilateral and erroneous doctrines +continually tends to surpass itself and to enter the stage which follows +it. Thus empiricism, for example, assumes that it can dispense with any +philosophical conception of art; but, since it severs art from +non-art--and, however empirical it be, it will not identify a +pen-and-ink sketch and a table of logarithms, as if they were just the +same thing, or a painting and milk or blood (although milk and blood +both possess colour)--thus empiricism too must at last resort to some +kind of philosophical concept. Therefore, we see the empiricists +becoming, turn and turn about, hedonists, moralists, intellectualists, +agnostics, mystics, and sometimes they are even better than mystics, +upholding an excellent conception of art, which can only be found fault +with because introduced surreptitiously and without justification. If +they do not make that progress, it is impossible for them to speak in +any way of aesthetic facts. They must return, as regards such facts, to +that indifference and to that silence from which they had emerged when +they affirmed the existence of these facts and began to consider them in +their variety. The same may be said of all other unilateral doctrines. +They are all reduced to the alternative of advancing or of going back, +and in so far as they do not wish to do either, they live amid +contradictions and in anguish. But they do free themselves from these, +more or less slowly, and thus are compelled to advance, more or less +slowly. And here we discover why it is so difficult, and indeed +impossible, exactly to identify thinkers, philosophers, and writers with +one or the other of the doctrines which we have enunciated, because each +one of them rebels when he finds himself limited to one of those +categories, and it seems to him that he is shut up in prison. It is +precisely because those thinkers try to shut themselves up in a +unilateral doctrine, that they do not succeed, and that they take a +step, now in one direction, now in another, and are conscious of being +now on this side, now on the other, of the criticisms which are +addressed to them. But the critics fulfil their duty by putting them in +prison, thus throwing into relief the absurdity into which they are led +by their irresolution, or their resolution not to resolve. + +And from this necessary connection and progressive order of the various +propositions indicated arise also the resolve, the counsel, the +exhortation, to "return," as they say, to this or that thinker, to this +or that philosophical school of the past. Certainly, such returns are +impossible, understood literally; they are also a little ridiculous, +like all impossible attempts. We can never return to the past, precisely +because it is the past. No one is permitted to free himself from the +problems which are put by the present, and which he must solve with all +the means of the present (which includes in it the means of the past). +Nevertheless, it is a fact that the history of philosophy everywhere +resounds with cries of return. Those very people who in our day deride +the "return to Hume" or the "return to Kant," proceed to advise the +"return to Schelling," or the "return to Hegel." This means that we must +not understand those "returns" literally and in a material way. In +truth, they do not express anything but the necessity and the +ineliminability of the logical process explained above, for which the +affirmations contained in philosophical problems appear connected with +one another in such a way that the one follows the other, surpasses it, +and includes it in itself. Empiricism, practicism, intellectualism, +agnosticism, mysticism, are _eternal stages of the search for truth_. +They are eternally relived and rethought in the truth which each +contains. Thus it would be necessary for him who had not yet turned his +attention to aesthetic facts, to begin by passing them before his eyes, +that is to say, he must first traverse the empirical stage (about +equivalent to that occupied by mere men of letters and mere amateurs of +art); and while he is at this stage, he must be aroused to feel the want +of a principle of explanation, by making him compare his present +knowledge with the facts, and see if they are explained by it, that is +to say, if they be utilitarian and moral, or logical and intellective. +Then we should drive him who has made this examination to the +conclusion, that the aesthetic activity is something different from all +known forms, a form of the spirit, which it yet remains to characterize. +For the empiricists of Aesthetic, intellectualism and moralism represent +progress; for the intellectualists, hedonistic and moralistic alike, +agnosticism is progress and may be called Kant. But for Kantians, who +are real Kantians (and not neo-Kantians), progress is represented by the +mystical and romantic point of view; not because this comes after the +doctrine of Kant chronologically, but because it surpasses it ideally. +In this sense, and in this sense alone, we should now "return" to the +romantic Aesthetic. We should return to it, because it is ideally +superior to all the researches in Aesthetic made in the studies of +psychologists, of physio-psychologists, and of psycho-physiologists of +the universities of Europe and of America. It is ideally superior to the +sociological, comparative, prehistoric Aesthetic, which studies +especially the art of savages, of children, of madmen, and of idiots. It +is ideally superior also to that other Aesthetic, which has recourse to +the conceptions of the genetic pleasure, of games, of illusion, of +self-illusion, of association, of hereditary habit, of sympathy, of +social efficiency, and so on. It is ideally superior to the attempts at +logical explanation, which have not altogether ceased, even to-day, +although they are somewhat rare, because, to tell the truth, fanaticism +for Logic cannot be called the failing of our times. Finally, it is +ideally superior to that Aesthetic which repeats with Kant, that the +beautiful is finality without the idea of end, disinterested pleasure, +necessary and universal, which is neither theoretical nor practical, but +participates in both forms, or combines them in itself in an original +and ineffable manner. But we should return to it, bringing with us the +experience of a century of thought, the new facts collected, the new +problems that have arisen, the new ideas that have matured. Thus we +shall return again to the stage of mystical and romantic Aesthetic, but +not to the personal and historical stage of its representatives. For in +this matter, at least, they are certainly inferior to us: they lived a +century ago and therefore inherited so much the less of the problems and +of the results of thought which day by day mankind laboriously +accumulates. + +They should return, but not to remain there; because, if a return to the +romantic Aesthetic be advisable for the Kantians (while the idealists +should not be advised to "return to Kant," that is to say, to a lower +stage, which represents a recession), so those who come over, or already +find themselves on the ground of mystical Aesthetic, should, on the +other hand be advised to proceed yet further, in order to attain to a +doctrine which represents a stage above it. This doctrine is that of the +_pure intuition_ (or, what amounts to the same thing, of pure +expression); a doctrine which also numbers representatives in all times, +and which may be said to be immanent alike in all the discourses that +are held and in all the judgments that are passed upon art, as in all +the best criticism and artistic and literary history. + +This doctrine arises logically from the contradictions of mystical +Aesthetic; I say, _logically_, because it contains in itself those +contradictions and their solution; although _historically_ (and this +point does not at present concern us) that critical process be not +always comprehensible, explicit, and apparent. + +Mystical Aesthetic, which makes of art the supreme function of the +theoretic spirit, or, at least, a function superior to that of +philosophy, becomes involved in inextricable difficulties. How could art +ever be superior to philosophy, if philosophy make of art its object, +that is to say, if it place art beneath itself, in order to analyse and +define it? And what could this new knowledge be, supplied by art and by +the aesthetic activity, appearing when the human spirit has come full +circle, after it has imagined, perceived, thought, abstracted, +calculated, and constructed the whole world of thought and history? + +As the result of those difficulties and contradictions, mystical +Aesthetic itself also exhibits the tendency, either to surpass its +boundary, or to sink below its proper level. The descent takes place +when it falls back into agnosticism, affirming that art is art, that is, +a spiritual form, altogether different from the others and ineffable; or +worse, where it conceives art as a sort of repose or as a game; as +though diversion could ever be a category and the spirit know repose! We +find an attempt at overpassing its proper limit, when art is placed +below philosophy, as inferior to it; but this overpassing remains a +simple attempt, because the conception of art as instrument of universal +truth is always firmly held; save that this instrument is declared less +perfect and less efficacious than the philosophical instrument. Thus +they fall back again into intellectualism from another side. + +These mistakes of mystical Aesthetic were manifested during the Romantic +period in some celebrated paradoxes, such as those of _art as irony_ and +of the _death of art_. They seemed calculated to drive philosophers to +desperation as to the possibility of solving the problem of the nature +of art, since every path of solution appeared closed. Indeed, whoever +reads the aestheticians of the romantic period, feels strongly inclined +to believe himself at the heart of the enquiry and to nourish a +confident hope of immediate discovery of the truth. Above all, the +affirmation of the theoretic nature of art, and of the difference +between its cognitive method and that of science and of logic, is felt +as a definite conquest, which can indeed be combined with other +elements, but which must not in any case be allowed to slip between the +fingers. And further, it is not true that all ways of solution are +closed, or that all have been attempted. There is at least one still +open that can be tried; and it is precisely that for which we resolutely +declare ourselves: the Aesthetic of the pure intuition. + +This Aesthetic reasons as follows:--Hitherto, in all attempts to define +the place of art, it has been sought, either at the summit of the +theoretic spirit, above philosophy, or, at least, in the circle of +philosophy itself. But is not the loftiness of the search the reason why +no satisfactory result has hitherto been obtained? Why not invert the +attempt, and instead of forming the hypothesis that art is _one of the +summits or the highest grade_ of the theoretic spirit, form the very +opposite hypothesis, namely, that it is _one of the lower grades_, or +the lowest of all? Perhaps such epithets as "lower" and "lowest" are +irreconcilable with the dignity and with the splendid beauty of art? But +in the philosophy of the spirit, such words as lowest, weak, simple, +elementary, possess only the value of a scientific terminology. All the +forms of the spirit are necessary, and the higher is so only because +there is the lower, and the lower is as much to be despised or less to +be valued to the same extent as the first step of a stair is despicable, +or of less value in respect to the topmost step. + +Let us compare art with the various forms of the theoretic spirit, and +let us begin with the sciences which are called _natural_ or _positive_. +The Aesthetic of pure intuition makes it clear that the said sciences +are more _complex_ than History, because they presuppose historical +material, that is, collections of things that have happened (to men or +animals, to the earth or to the stars). They submit this material to a +further treatment, which consists in the abstraction and systematization +of the historical facts. _History_, then, is less complex than the +natural sciences. History further presupposes the world of the +imagination and the pure philosophical concepts or categories, and +produces its judgments or historical propositions, by means of the +synthesis of the imagination with the concept. And _Philosophy_ may be +said to be even less complex than History, in so far as it is +distinguished from the former as an activity whose special function it +is to make clear the categories or pure concepts, neglecting, in a +certain sense at any rate, the world of phenomena. If we compare _Art_ +with the three forms above mentioned, it must be declared inferior, that +is to say, less complex than the _natural Sciences_, in so far as it is +altogether without abstractions. In so far as it is without conceptual +determinations and does not distinguish between the real and the unreal, +what has really happened and what has been dreamed, it must be declared +inferior to _History_. In so far as it fails altogether to surpass the +phenomenal world, and does not attain to the definitions of the pure +concepts, it is inferior to _Philosophy_ itself. It is also inferior to +_Religion_, assuming that religion is (as it is) a form of speculative +truth, standing between thought and imagination. Art is governed +entirely by imagination; its only riches are images. Art does not +classify objects, nor pronounce them real or imaginary, nor qualify +them, nor define them. Art feels and represents them. Nothing more. Art +therefore is _intuition_, in so far as it is a mode of knowledge, not +abstract, but concrete, and in so far as it uses the real, without +changing or falsifying it. In so far as it apprehends it immediately, +before it is modified and made clear by the concept, it must be called +_pure intuition_. + +The strength of art lies in being thus simple, nude, and poor. Its +strength (as often happens in life) arises from its very weakness. Hence +its fascination. If (to employ an image much used by philosophers for +various ends) we think of man, in the first moment that he becomes aware +of theoretical life, with mind still clear of every abstraction and of +every reflexion, in that first purely intuitive instant he must be a +poet. He contemplates the world with ingenuous and admiring eyes; he +sinks and loses himself altogether in that contemplation. By creating +the first representations and by thus inaugurating the life of +knowledge, art continually renews within our spirit the aspects of +things, which thought has submitted to reflexion, and the intellect to +abstraction. Thus art perpetually makes us poets again. Without art, +thought would lack the stimulus, the very material, for its hermeneutic +and critical labour. Art is the root of all our theoretic life. To be +the root, not the flower or the fruit, is the function of art. And +without a root, there can be no flower and no fruit. + + + + +II + + +Such is the theory of art as pure intuition, in its fundamental +conception. This theory, then, takes its origin from the criticism of +the loftiest of all the other doctrines of Aesthetic, from the criticism +of mystical or romantic Aesthetic, and contains in itself the criticism +and the truth of all the other Aesthetics. It is not here possible to +allow ourselves to illustrate its other aspects, such as would be those +of the identity, which it lays down, between intuition and expression, +between art and language. Suffice it to say, as regards the former, that +he alone who divides the unity of the spirit into soul and body can have +faith in a pure act of the soul, and therefore in an intuition, which +should exist as an intuition, and yet be without its body, expression. +Expression is the actuality of intuition, as action is of will; and in +the same way as will not exercised in action is not will, so an +intuition unexpressed is not an intuition. As regards the second point, +I will mention in passing that, in order to recognize the identity of +art and language, it is needful to study language, not in its +abstraction and in grammatical detail, but in its immediate reality, and +in all its manifestations, spoken and sung, phonic and graphic. And we +should not take at hazard any proposition, and declare it to be +aesthetic; because, if all propositions have an aesthetic side +(precisely because intuition is the elementary form of knowledge and is, +as it were, the garment of the superior and more complex forms), all are +not _purely_ aesthetic, but some are philosophical, historical, +scientific, or mathematical; some, in fact, of these are more than +aesthetic or logical; they are aestheticological. Aristotle, in his +time, distinguished between semantic and apophantic propositions, and +noted, that if all propositions be _semantic_, not all are _apophantic_. +Language is art, not in so far as it is apophantic, but in so far as it +is, generically, semantic. It is necessary to note in it the side by +which it is expressive, and nothing but expressive. It is also well to +observe (though this may seem superfluous) that it is not necessary to +reduce the theory of pure intuition, as has been sometimes done, to a +historical fact or to a psychological concept. Because we recognize in +poetry, as it were, the ingenuousness, the freshness, the barbarity of +the spirit, it is not therefore necessary to limit poetry to youth and +to barbarian peoples. Though we recognize language as the first act of +taking possession of the world achieved by man, we must not imagine that +language is born _ex nihilo_, once only in the course of the ages, and +that later generations merely adopt the ancient instrument, applying it +to a new order of things while lamenting its slight adaptability to the +usage of civilized times. Art, poetry, intuition, and immediate +expression are the moment of barbarity and of ingenuousness, which +perpetually recur in the life of the spirit; they are youth, that is, +not chronological, but ideal. There exist very prosaic barbarians and +very prosaic youths, as there exist poetical spirits of the utmost +refinement and civilization. The mythology of those proud, gigantic +Patagonians, of whom our Vico was wont to discourse, or of those _bons +Hurons_, who were lately a theme of conversation, must be looked upon as +for ever superseded. + +But there arises an apparently very serious objection to the Aesthetic +of pure intuition, giving occasion to doubt whether this doctrine, if it +represent progress in respect to the doctrines which have preceded it, +yet is also a complete and definite doctrine as regards the fundamental +concept of art. Should it be submitted to a dialectic, by means of which +it must be surpassed and dissolved into a more lofty point of view? The +doctrine of pure intuition makes the value of art to consist of its +power of intuition; in such a manner that just in so far as pure and +concrete intuitions are achieved will art and beauty be achieved. But if +attention be paid to judgments of people of good taste and of critics, +and to what we all say when we are warmly discussing works of art and +manifesting our praise or blame of them, it would seem that what we seek +in art is something quite different, or at least something more than +simple force and intuitive and expressive purity. What pleases and what +is sought in art, what makes beat the heart and enraptures the +admiration, is life, movement, emotion, warmth, the feeling of the +artist. This alone affords the supreme criterion for distinguishing true +from false works of art, those with insight from the failures. Where +there are emotion and feeling, much is forgiven; where they are wanting, +nothing can make up for them. Not only are the most profound thoughts +and the most exquisite culture incapable of saving a work of art which +is looked upon as _cold_, but richness of imagery, ability and certainty +in the reproduction of the real, in description, characterization and +composition, and all other knowledge, only serve to arouse the regret +that so great a price has been paid and such labours endured, in vain. +We do not ask of an artist instruction as to real facts and thoughts, +nor that he should astonish us with the richness of his imagination, but +that he should have a _personality_, in contact with which the soul of +the hearer or spectator may be heated. A personality of any sort is +asked for in this case; its moral significance is excluded: let it be +sad or glad, enthusiastic or distrustful, sentimental or sarcastic, +benignant or malign, but it must be a soul. Art criticism would seem to +consist altogether in determining if there be a personality in the work +of art, and of what sort. A work that is a failure is an incoherent +work; that is to say, a work in which no single personality appears, but +a number of disaggregated and jostling personalities, that is, really, +none. There is no further correct significance than this in the +researches that are made as to the verisimilitude, the truth, the logic, +the necessity, of a work of art. + +It is true that many protests have been made by artists, critics, and +philosophers by profession, against the characteristic of _personality_. +It has been maintained that the bad artist leaves traces of his +personality in the work of art, whereas the great artist cancels them +all. It has been further maintained that the artist should portray the +reality of life, and that he should not disturb it with the opinions, +judgments, and personal feelings of the author, and that the artist +should give the tears of things and not his own tears. Hence +_impersonality_, not personality, has been proclaimed to be the +characteristic of art, that is to say, the very opposite. However, it +will not be difficult to show that what is really meant by this opposing +formula is the same as in the first case. The theory of impersonality +really coincides with that of personality in every point. The opposition +of the artists, critics, and philosophers above mentioned, was directed +against the invasion by the empirical and volitional personality of the +artist of the spontaneous and ideal personality which constitutes the +subject of the work of art. For instance, artists who do not succeed in +representing the force of piety or of love of country, add to their +colourless imaginings declamation or theatrical effects, thinking thus +to arouse such feelings. In like manner certain orators and actors +introduce into a work of art an emotion extraneous to the work of art +itself. Within these limits, the opposition of the upholders of the +theory of impersonality was most reasonable. On the other hand, there +has also been exhibited an altogether irrational opposition to +personality in the work of art. Such is the lack of comprehension and +intolerance evinced by certain souls for others differently constituted +(of calm for agitated souls, for example). + +Here we find at bottom the claim of one sort of personality to deny that +of another. Finally, it has been possible to demonstrate from among the +examples given of impersonal art, in the romances and dramas called +naturalistic, that in so far and to the extent that these are complete +artistic works, they possess personality. This holds good even when this +personality lies in a wandering or perplexity of thought regarding the +value to be given to life, or in blind faith in the natural sciences and +in modern sociology. + +Where every trace of personality was really absent, and its place taken +by the pedantic quest for human documents, the description of certain +social classes and the generic or individual process of certain +maladies, there the work of art was absent. A work of science of more or +less superficiality, and without the necessary proofs and control, +filled its place. There is no upholder of impersonality but experiences +a feeling of fatigue for a work of the utmost exactitude in the +reproduction of reality in its empirical sequence, or of industrious and +apathetic combination of images. He asks himself why such a work was +executed, and recommends the author to adopt some other profession, +since that of artist was not intended for him. + +Thus it is without doubt that if pure intuition (and pure expression, +which is the same thing) are indispensable in the work of art, the +personality of the artist is equally indispensable. If (to quote the +celebrated words in our own way) the _classic_ moment of perfect +representation or expression be necessary for the work of art, the +_romantic_ moment of feeling is not less necessary. Poetry, or art in +general, cannot be exclusively _ingenuous_ or _sentimental_; it must be +both ingenuous and sentimental. And if the first or representative +moment be termed _epic_, and the second, which is sentimental, +passionate, and personal, be termed _lyric_, then poetry and art must be +at once epic and lyric, or, if it please you better, _dramatic_. We use +these words here, not at all in their empirical and intellectualist +sense, as employed to designate special classes of works of art, +exclusive of other classes; but in that of elements or moments, which +must of necessity be found united in every work of art, how diverse +soever it may be in other respects. + +Now this irrefutable conclusion seems to constitute exactly that +above-mentioned apparently serious objection to the doctrine which +defines art as pure intuition. But if the essence of art be merely +theoretic--and it is _intuibility_--can it, on the other hand, be +practical, that is to say, feeling, personality, and _passionality_? Or, +if it be practical, how can it be theoretic? It will be answered that +feeling is the _content_, intuibility the _form_; but form and content +do not in philosophy constitute a duality, like water and its recipient; +in philosophy content is form, and form is content. Here, on the other +hand, form and content appear to be different from one another; the +content is of one quality, the form of another. Thus art appears to be +the sum of two qualities, or, as Herbart used to say in his time, of +_two values_. Accordingly we have an altogether unmaintainable +Aesthetic, as is clear from recent largely vulgarized doctrines of +Aesthetic as operating with the concept of the _infused personality_. +Here we find, on the one hand, things intuible lying dead and soulless; +on the other, the artist's feeling and personality. The artist is then +supposed to put himself into things, by an act of magic, to make them +live and palpitate, love and adore. But if we start with the +_distinction_, we can never again reach _unity_: the distinction +requires an intellectual act, and what the intellect has divided +intellect or reason alone, not art or imagination, can reunite and +synthetize. Thus the Aesthetic of infusion or transfusion--when it does +not fall into the antiquated hedonistic doctrines of agreeable illusion, +of games, and generally of what affords a pleasurable emotion; or of +moral doctrines, where art is a symbol and an allegory of the good and +the true;--is yet not able, despite its airs of modernity and its +psychology, to escape the fate of the doctrine which makes of art a +semi-imaginative conception of the world, like religion. The process +that it describes is mythological, not aesthetic; it is a making of gods +or of idols. "To make one's gods is an unhappy art," said an old Italian +poet; but if it be not unhappy, certainly it is not poetic and not +aesthetic. The artist does not make the gods, because he has other +things to do. Another reason is that, to tell the truth, he is so +ingenuous and so absorbed in the image that attracts him, that he cannot +perform that act of abstraction and conception, wherein the image must +be surpassed and made the allegory of a universal, though it be of the +crudest description. + +This recent theory, then, is of no use. It leads back to the +difficulties arising from the admission of two characteristics of art, +_intuibility_ and _lyricism_, not unified. We must recognize, either +that the duality must be destroyed and proved illusory, _or_ that we +must proceed to a more ample conception of art, in which that of pure +intuibility would remain merely secondary or particular. And to destroy +and prove it illusory must consist in showing that here too form is +content, and that pure intuition is _itself_ lyricism. + +Now, the truth is precisely this: _pure intuition is essentially +lyricism_. All the difficulties concerning this question arise from not +having thoroughly understood that concept, from having failed to +penetrate its true nature and to explore its multiple relations. When we +consider the one attentively, we see the other bursting from its bosom, +or better, the one and the other reveal themselves as one and the same, +and we escape from the desperate trilemma, of either denying the lyrical +and personal character of art, or of asserting that it is adjunctive, +external and accidental, or of excogitating a new doctrine of Aesthetic, +which we do not know where to find. In fact, as has already been +remarked, what can pure intuition mean, but intuition pure of every +abstraction, of every conceptual element, and, for this reason, neither +science, history, nor philosophy? This means that the content of the +pure intuition cannot be either an abstract concept, or a speculative +concept or idea, or a conceptualized, that is historicized, +representation. Nor can it be a so-called perception, which is a +representation intellectually, and so historically, discriminated. But +outside logic in its various forms and blendings, no other psychic +content remains, save that which is called appetites, tendencies, +feelings, and will. These things are all the same and constitute the +practical form of the spirit, in its infinite gradations and in its +dialectic (pleasure and pain). Pure intuition, then, since it does not +produce concepts, must represent the will in its manifestations, that is +to say, it can represent nothing but _states of the soul_. And states of +the soul are passionality, feeling, personality, which are found in +every art and determine its lyrical character. Where this is absent, art +is absent, _precisely because pure intuition is absent_, and we have at +the most, in exchange for it, _that reflex_, philosophical, historical, +or scientific. In the last of these, passion is represented, not +immediately, but mediately, or, to speak exactly, it is no longer +represented, but thought. Thus the origin of language, that is, its true +nature, has several times been placed in _interjection_. Thus, too, +Aristotle, when he wished to give an example of those propositions which +were not _apophantic_, but generically _semantic_ (we should say, not +logical, but purely Aesthetic), and did not predicate the logically true +and false, but nevertheless said something, gave as example invocation +or prayer, _hae enchae_. He added that these propositions do not +appertain to Logic, but to Rhetoric and Poetic. A landscape is a +state of the soul; a great poem may all be contained in an exclamation +of joy, of sorrow, of admiration, or of lament. The more objective is a +work of art, by so much the more is it poetically suggestive. + +If this deduction of lyricism from the intimate essence of pure +intuition do not appear easily acceptable, the reason is to be sought in +two very deep-rooted prejudices, of which it is useful to indicate here +the genesis. The first concerns the nature of the _imagination_, and its +likenesses to and differences from _fancy_. Imagination and fancy have +been clearly distinguished thus by certain aestheticians (and among +them, De Sanctis), as also in discussions relating to concrete art: they +have held fancy, not imagination, to be the special faculty of the poet +and the artist. Not only does a new and bizarre combination of images, +which is vulgarly called _invention_, not constitute the artist, but _ne +fait rien a l'affaire_, as Alceste remarked with reference to the length +of time expended upon writing a sonnet. Great artists have often +preferred to treat groups of images, which had already been many times +used as material for works of art. The novelty of these new works has +been solely that of art or form, that is to say, of the new _accent_ +which they have known how to give to the old material, of the new way in +which they have _felt_ and therefore _intuified_ it, thus creating _new +images_ upon the old ones. These remarks are all obvious and universally +recognized as true. But if mere imagination as such has been excluded +from art, it has not therefore been excluded from the theoretic spirit. +Hence the disinclination to admit that a pure intuition must of +necessity express a state of the soul, whereas it may also consist, as +they believe, of a pure image, without a content of feeling. If we form +an arbitrary image of any sort, _stans pede in uno_, say of a bullock's +head on a horse's body, would not this be an intuition, a pure +intuition, certainly quite without any content of reflexion? Would one +not attain to a work of art in this way, or at any rate to an artistic +motive? Certainly not. For the image given as an instance, and every +other image that may be produced by the imagination, not only is not a +pure intuition, but it is not a _theoretic_ product of any sort. It is a +product of _choice_, as was observed in the formula used by our +opponents; and choice is external to the world of thought and +contemplation. It may be said that imagination is a practical artifice +or game, played upon that patrimony of images possessed by the soul; +whereas the fancy, the translation of practical into theoretical values, +of states of the soul into images, is the _creation_ of that patrimony +itself. + +From this we learn that an image, which is not the expression of a state +of the soul, is not an image, since it is without any theoretical value; +and therefore it cannot be an obstacle to the identification of lyricism +and intuition. But the other prejudice is more difficult to eradicate, +because it is bound up with the metaphysical problem itself, on the +various solutions of which depend the various solutions of the aesthetic +problem, and _vice versa_. If art be intuition, would it therefore be +any intuition that one might have of a _physical_ object, appertaining +to _external nature_? If I open my eyes and look at the first object +that they fall upon, a chair or a table, a mountain or a river, shall I +have performed by so doing an aesthetic act? If so, what becomes of the +lyrical character, of which we have asserted the necessity? If not, what +becomes of the intuitive character, of which we have affirmed the equal +necessity and also its identity with the former? Without doubt, the +perception of a physical object, as such, does not constitute an +artistic fact; but precisely for the reason that it is not a pure +intuition, but a judgment of perception, and implies the application of +an abstract concept, which in this case is physical or belonging to +external nature. And with this reflexion and perception, we find +ourselves at once outside the domain of pure intuition. We could have a +pure perception of a physical object in one way only; that is to say, if +physical or external nature were a metaphysical reality, a truly real +reality, and not, as it is, a construction or abstraction of the +intellect. If such were the case, man would have an immediate intuition, +in his first theoretical moment, both of himself and of external nature, +of the spiritual and of the physical, in an equal degree. This +represents the dualistic hypothesis. But just as dualism is incapable of +providing a coherent system of philosophy, so is it incapable of +providing a coherent Aesthetic. If we admit dualism, we must certainly +abandon the doctrine of art as pure intuition; but we must at the same +time abandon all philosophy. But art on its side tacitly protests +against metaphysical dualism. It does so, because, being the most +immediate form of knowledge, it is in contact with activity, not with +passivity; with interiority, not exteriority; with spirit, not with +matter, and never with a double order of reality. Those who affirm the +existence of two forms of intuition--the one external or physical, the +other subjective or aesthetic; the one cold and inanimate, the other +warm and lively; the one imposed from without, the other coming from the +inner soul--attain without doubt to the distinctions and oppositions of +the vulgar (or dualistic) consciousness, but their Aesthetic is vulgar. + +The lyrical essence of pure intuition, and of art, helps to make clear +what we have already observed concerning the persistence of the +intuition and of the fancy in the higher grades of the theoretical +spirit, why philosophy, history, and science have always an artistic +side, and why their expression is subject to aesthetic valuation. The +man who ascends from art to thought does not by so doing abandon his +volitional and practical base, and therefore he too finds himself in a +particular _state of the soul_, the representation of which is intuitive +and lyrical, and accompanies of necessity the development of his ideas. +Hence the various styles of thinkers, solemn or jocose, troubled or +gladsome, mysterious and involved, or level and expansive. But it would +not be correct to divide intuition immediately into two classes, the one +of _aesthetic_, the other of _intellectual_ or _logical_ intuitions, +owing to the persistence of the artistic element in logical thought, +because the relation of degrees is not the relation of classes, and +copper is copper, whether it be found alone, or in combination as +bronze. + +Further, this close connection of feeling and intuition in pure +intuition throws much light on the reasons which have so often caused +art to be separated from the theoretic and confounded with the practical +activity. The most celebrated of these confusions are those formulated +about the relativity of tastes and of the impossibility of reproducing, +tasting, and correctly judging the art of the past, and in general the +art of others. A life lived, a feeling felt, a volition willed, are +certainly impossible to reproduce, because nothing happens more than +once, and my situation at the present moment is not that of any other +being, nor is it mine of the moment before, nor will be of the moment to +follow. But art remakes ideally, and ideally expresses my momentary +situation. Its image, produced by art, becomes separated from time and +space, and can be again made and again contemplated in its ideal-reality +from every point of time and space. It belongs not to the _world_, but +to the _superworld_; not to the flying moment, but to eternity. Thus +life passes, but art endures. + +Finally, we obtain from this relation between the intuition and the +state of the soul the criterion of exact definition of the _sincerity_ +required of artists, which is itself also an essential request. It is +essential, precisely because it means that the artist must have a state +of the soul to express, which really amounts to saying, that he must be +an artist. His must be a state of the soul really experienced, not +merely imagined, because imagination, as we know, is not a work of +truth. But, on the other hand, the demand for sincerity does not go +beyond asking for a state of the soul, and that the state of soul +expressed in the work of art be a desire or an action. It is altogether +indifferent to Aesthetic whether the artist have had only an aspiration, +or have realized that aspiration in his empirical life. All that is +quite indifferent in the sphere of art. Here we also find the +confutation of that false conception of sincerity, which maintains that +the artist, in his volitional or practical life, should be at one with +his dream, or with his incubus. Whether or no he have been so, is a +matter that interests his biographer, not his critic; it belongs to +history, which separates and qualifies that which art does not +discriminate, but represents. + + + + +III + + +This attitude of indiscrimination and indifference, observed by art in +respect to history and philosophy, is also foreshadowed at that place of +the _De interpretatione_ (_c_. 4), to which we have already referred, to +obtain thence the confirmation of the thesis of the identity of art and +language, and another confirmation, that of the identity of lyric and +pure intuition. It is a really admirable passage, containing many +profound truths in a few short, simple words, although, as is natural, +without full consciousness of their richness. Aristotle, then, is still +discussing the said rhetorical and poetical propositions, semantic and +not apophantic, and he remarks that in them there rules no distinction +between true and false: _to alaetheueion hae pseudeothai ouk +hyparchei_. Art, in fact, is in contact with palpitating reality, but +does not know that it is so in contact, and therefore is not truly in +contact. Art does not allow itself to be troubled with the abstractions +of the intellect, and therefore does not make mistakes; but it does not +know that it does not make mistakes. If art, then (to return to what we +said at the beginning), be the first and most ingenuous form of +knowledge, it cannot give complete satisfaction to man's need to know, +and therefore cannot be the ultimate end of the theoretic spirit. Art is +the dream of the life of knowledge. Its complement is waking, lyricism +no longer, but the concept; no longer the dream, but the judgment. +Thought could not be without fancy; but thought surpasses and contains +in itself the fancy, transforms the image into perception, and gives to +the world of dream the clear distinctions and the firm contours of +reality. Art cannot achieve this; and however great be our love of art, +that cannot raise it in rank, any more than the love one may have for a +beautiful child can convert it into an adult. We must accept the child +as a child, the adult as an adult. + +Therefore, the Aesthetic of pure intuition, while it proclaims +energetically the autonomy of art and of the aesthetic activity, is at +the same time averse to all _aestheticism_, that is, to every attempt at +lowering the life of thought, in order to elevate that of fancy. The +origin of aestheticism is the same as that of mysticism. Both proceed +from a rebellion against the predominance of the abstract sciences and +against the undue abuse of the principle of causation in metaphysic. +When we pass from the stuffed animals of the zoological museums, from +anatomical reconstructions, from tables of figures, from classes and +sub-classes constituted by means of abstract characters, or from the +fixation and mechanization of life for the ends of naturalistic science, +to the pages of the poets, to the pictures of the painters, to the +melodies of the composers, when in fact we look upon life with the eye +of the artist, we have the impression that we are passing from death to +life, from the abstract to the concrete, from fiction to reality. We are +inclined to proclaim that only in art and in aesthetic contemplation is +truth, and that science is either charlatanesque pedantry, or a modest +practical expedient. And certainly art has the superiority of its own +truth; simple, small, and elementary though it be, over the abstract, +which, as such, is altogether without truth. But in violently rejecting +science and frantically embracing art, that very form of the theoretic +spirit is forgotten, by means of which we can criticize science and +recognize the nature of art. Now this theoretic spirit, since it +criticizes science, is not science, and, as reflective consciousness of +art, is not art. Philosophy, the supreme fact of the theoretic world, +is forgotten. This error has been renewed in our day, because the +consciousness of the limits of the natural sciences and of the value of +the truth which belongs to intuition and to art, have been renewed. But +just as, a century ago, during the idealistic and romantic period, there +were some who reminded the fanatics for art, and the artists who were +transforming philosophy, that art was not "the most lofty form of +apprehending the Absolute"; so, in our day, it is necessary to awaken +the consciousness of Thought. And one of the means for attaining this +end is an exact understanding of the limits of art, that is, the +construction of a solid Aesthetic. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesthetic as Science of Expression and +General Linguistic, by Benedetto Croce + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + +This file should be named 7asth10.txt or 7asth10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7asth11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7asth10a.txt + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic + +Author: Benedetto Croce + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9306] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 19, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION + +AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC + + +TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENEDETTO CROCE + + +BY + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE +B.A. (OXON.) + + +1909 + + +THE AESTHETIC IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR TO THE MEMORY OF HIS PARENTS +PASQUALE AND LUISA SIPARI AND OF HIS SISTER MARIA + + +NOTE + +I give here a close translation of the complete _Theory of Aesthetic_, +and in the Historical Summary, with the consent of the author, an +abbreviation of the historical portion of the original work. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +THEORY + +I +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + +Intuitive knowledge--Its independence in respect to the intellect-- +Intuition and perception--Intuition and the concepts of space and +time--Intuition and sensation--Intuition and association--Intuition +and representation--Intuition and expression--Illusions as to their +difference--Identity of intuition and expression. + +II +INTUITION AND ART + +Corollaries and explanations--Identity of art and of intuitive knowledge-- +No specific difference--No difference of intensity--Difference extensive +and empirical--Artistic genius--Content and form in Aesthetic--Critique +of the imitation of nature and of the artistic illusion--Critique of art +conceived as a sentimental, not a theoretic fact--The origin of Aesthetic, +and sentiment--Critique of the theory of Aesthetic senses--Unity and +indivisibility of the work of art--Art as deliverer. + +III +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + +Indissolubility of intellective and of intuitive knowledge--Critique +of the negations of this thesis--Art and science--Content and form: +another meaning. Prose and poetry--The relation of first and second +degree--Inexistence of other cognoscitive forms--Historicity--Identity +and difference in respect of art--Historical criticism--Historical +scepticism--Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural +sciences, and their limits--The phenomenon and the noumenon. + +IV +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + +Critique of the verisimilar and of naturalism--Critique of ideas in +art, of art as thesis, and of the typical--Critique of the symbol and +of the allegory--Critique of the theory of artistic and literary +categories--Errors derived from this theory in judgments on art-- +Empirical meaning of the divisions of the categories. + +V +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORY AND IN LOGIC + +Critique of the philosophy of History--Aesthetic invasions of Logic-- +Logic in its essence--Distinction between logical and non-logical +judgments--The syllogism--False Logic and true Aesthetic--Logic +reformed. + +VI +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + +The will--The will as ulterior grade in respect of knowledge--Objections +and explanations--Critique of practical judgments or judgments of +value--Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic--Critique of +the theory of the end of art and of the choice of content--Practical +innocence of art--Independence of art--Critique of the saying: the +style is the man--Critique of the concept of sincerity in art. + +VII +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + +The two forms of practical activity--The economically useful-- +Distinction between the useful and the technical--Distinction between +the useful and the egoistic--Economic and moral volition--Pure +economicity--The economic side of morality--The merely economical and +the error of the morally indifferent--Critique of utilitarianism and +the reform of Ethic and of Economic--Phenomenon and noumenon in +practical activity. + +VIII +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + +The system of the spirit--The forms of genius--Inexistence of a fifth +form of activity--Law; sociality--Religiosity--Metaphysic--Mental +imagination and the intuitive intellect--Mystical Aesthetic--Mortality +and immortality of art. + +IX +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + +The characteristics of art--Inexistence of modes of expression-- +Impossibility of translations--Critique of rhetorical categories-- +Empirical meaning of rhetorical categories--Their use as synonyms +of the aesthetic fact--Their use as indicating various aesthetic +imperfections--Their use as transcending the aesthetic fact, and +in the service of science--Rhetoric in schools--Similarities of +expressions--Relative possibility of translations. + +X +AESTHETIC SENTIMENTS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE +UGLY + +Various meanings of the word sentiment--Sentiment as activity-- +Identification of sentiment with economic activity--Critique of +hedonism--Sentiment as concomitant of every form of activity--Meaning +of certain ordinary distinctions of sentiments--Value and disvalue: +the contraries and their union--The beautiful as the value of expression, +or expression without adjunct--The ugly and the elements of beauty that +constitute it--Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful +nor ugly--Proper aesthetic sentiments and concomitant and accidental +sentiments--Critique of apparent sentiments. + +XI +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + +Critique of the beautiful as what pleases the superior senses--Critique +of the theory of play--Critique of the theory of sexuality and of the +triumph--Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic--Meaning in it of +content and of form--Aesthetic hedonism and moralism--The rigoristic +negation, and the pedagogic negation of art--Critique of pure beauty. + +XII +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the Aesthetic of the sympathetic-- +Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of its surmounting-- +Pseudo-aesthetic concepts appertain to Psychology--Impossibility of +rigorous definitions of these--Examples: definitions of the sublime, +of the comic, of the humorous--Relation between those concepts and +aesthetic concepts. + +XIII +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND IN ART + +Aesthetic activity and physical concepts--Expression in the aesthetic +sense, and expression in the naturalistic sense--Intuitions and +memory--The production of aids to memory--The physically beautiful-- +Content and form: another meaning--Natural beauty and artificial +beauty--Mixed beauty--Writings--The beautiful that is free and that +which is not free--Critique of the beautiful that is not free-- +Stimulants of production. + +XIV +ERRORS ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + +Critique of aesthetic associationism--Critique of aesthetic physic-- +Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body--Critique of +the beauty of geometrical figures--Critique of another aspect of the +imitation of nature--Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of +the beautiful--Critique of the search for the objective conditions of +the beautiful--The astrology of Aesthetic. + +XV +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION. TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + +The practical activity of externalization--The technique of +externalization--Technical theories of single arts--Critique of the +classifications of the arts--Relation of the activity of externalization +with utility and morality. + +XVI +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + +Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic reproduction-- +Impossibility of divergences--Identity of taste and genius--Analogy +with the other activities--Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and +of aesthetic relativism--Critique of relative relativism--Objections +founded on the variation of the stimulus and of the psychic disposition-- +Critique of the distinction of signs as natural and conventional--The +surmounting of variety--Restorations and historical interpretation. + +XVII +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND OF ART + +Historical criticism in literature and art. Its importance--Artistic and +literary history. Its distinction from historical criticism and from the +aesthetic judgment--The method of artistic and literary history--Critique +of the problem of the origin of art--The criterion of progress and +history--Inexistence of a single line of progress in artistic and +literary history--Errors in respect of this law--Other meanings of +the word "progress" in relation to Aesthetic. + +XVIII +CONCLUSION: IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + +Summary of the inquiry--Identity of Linguistic with Aesthetic-- +Aesthetic formulation of linguistic problems. Nature of language-- +Origin of language and its development--Relation between Grammatic +and Logic--Grammatical categories or parts of speech--Individuality +of speech and the classification of languages--Impossibility of a +normative Grammatic--Didactic organisms--Elementary linguistic +elements, or roots--The aesthetic judgment and the model language-- +Conclusion. + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +Aesthetic ideas in Graeco-Roman antiquity--In the Middle Age and + at the Renaissance--Fermentation of thought in the seventeenth +century--Aesthetic ideas in Cartesianism, Leibnitzianism, and in +the "Aesthetic" of Baumgarten--G.B. Vico--Aesthetic doctrines in +the eighteenth century--Emmanuel Kant--The Aesthetic of Idealism +with Schiller and Hegel--Schopenhauer and Herbart--Friedrich +Schleiermacher--The philosophy of language with Humboldt and +Steinthal--Aesthetic in France, England, and Italy during the first +half of the nineteenth century--Francesco de Sanctis--The Aesthetic +of the epigoni--Positivism and aesthetic naturalism--Aesthetic +psychologism and other recent tendencies--Glance at the history +of certain particular doctrines--Conclusion. + +APPENDIX + +Translation of the lecture on Pure Intuition and the lyrical nature of +art, delivered by Benedetto Croce before the International Congress of +Philosophy at Heidelberg. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +There are always Americas to be discovered: the most interesting in +Europe. + +I can lay no claim to having discovered an America, but I do claim to +have discovered a Columbus. His name is Benedetto Croce, and he dwells +on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Naples, city of the antique +Parthenope. + +Croce's America cannot be expressed in geographical terms. It is more +important than any space of mountain and river, of forest and dale. It +belongs to the kingdom of the spirit, and has many provinces. That +province which most interests me, I have striven in the following pages +to annex to the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon race; an act which cannot +be blamed as predatory, since it may be said of philosophy more truly +than of love, that "to divide is not to take away." + +The Historical Summary will show how many a brave adventurer has +navigated the perilous seas of speculation upon Art, how Aristotle's +marvellous insight gave him glimpses of its beauty, how Plato threw away +its golden fruit, how Baumgarten sounded the depth of its waters, Kant +sailed along its coast without landing, and Vico hoisted the Italian +flag upon its shore. + +But Benedetto Croce has been the first thoroughly to explore it, cutting +his way inland through the tangled undergrowth of imperfect thought. He +has measured its length and breadth, marked out and described its +spiritual features with minute accuracy. The country thus won to +philosophy will always bear his name, _Estetica di Croce_, a new +America. + +It was at Naples, in the winter of 1907, that I first saw the Philosopher +of Aesthetic. Benedetto Croce, although born in the Abruzzi, Province of +Aquila (1866), is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent +from the city, on the shore of that magical sea, where once Ulysses +sailed, and where sometimes yet (near Amalfi) we may hear the Syrens sing +their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the +Theory of Aesthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have +overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this +theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the English-speaking world. + +No one could have been further removed than myself, as I turned over at +Naples the pages of _La Critica_, from any idea that I was nearing the +solution of the problem of Art. All my youth it had haunted me. As an +undergraduate at Oxford I had caught the exquisite cadence of Walter +Pater's speech, as it came from his very lips, or rose like the perfume +of some exotic flower from the ribbed pages of the _Renaissance_. + +Seeming to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, he solved it not--only +delighted with pure pleasure of poetry and of subtle thought as he led +one along the pathways of his Enchanted Garden, where I shall always +love to tread. + +Oscar Wilde, too, I had often heard at his best, the most brilliant +talker of our time, his wit flashing in the spring sunlight of Oxford +luncheon-parties as now in his beautiful writings, like the jewelled +rapier of Mercutio. But his works, too, will be searched in vain by the +seeker after definite aesthetic truth. + +With A.C. Swinburne I had sat and watched the lava that yet flowed from +those lips that were kissed in youth by all the Muses. Neither from him +nor from J.M. Whistler's brilliant aphorisms on art could be gathered +anything more than the exquisite pleasure of the moment: the +_monochronos haedonae_. Of the great pedagogues, I had known, but never +sat at the feet of Jowett, whom I found far less inspiring than any of +the great men above mentioned. Among the dead, I had studied Herbert +Spencer and Matthew Arnold, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Guyau: I had +conversed with that living Neo-Latin, Anatole France, the modern +Rousseau, and had enjoyed the marvellous irony and eloquence of his +writings, which, while they delight the society in which he lives, may +well be one of the causes that lead to its eventual destruction. + +The solution of the problem of Aesthetic is not in the gift of the Muses. + +To return to Naples. As I looked over those pages of the bound volumes +of _La Critica_. I soon became aware that I was in the presence of a +mind far above the ordinary level of literary criticism. The profound +studies of Carducci, of d'Annunzio, and of Pascoli (to name but three), +in which those writers passed before me in all their strength and in all +their weakness, led me to devote several days to the _Critica_. At the +end of that time I was convinced that I had made a discovery, and wrote +to the philosopher, who owns and edits that journal. + +In response to his invitation, I made my way, on a sunny day in November, +past the little shops of the coral-vendors that surround, like a +necklace, the Rione de la Bellezza, and wound zigzag along the +over-crowded Toledo. I knew that Signor Croce lived in the old part of +the town, but had hardly anticipated so remarkable a change as I +experienced on passing beneath the great archway and finding myself in +old Naples. This has already been described elsewhere, and I will not +here dilate upon this world within a world, having so much of greater +interest to tell in a brief space. I will merely say that the costumes +here seemed more picturesque, the dark eyes flashed more dangerously +than elsewhere, there was a quaint life, an animation about the streets, +different from anything I had known before. As I climbed the lofty stone +steps of the Palazzo to the floor where dwells the philosopher of +Aesthetic I felt as though I had stumbled into the eighteenth century +and were calling on Giambattista Vico. After a brief inspection by a +young man with the appearance of a secretary, I was told that I was +expected, and admitted into a small room opening out of the hall. +Thence, after a few moments' waiting, I was led into a much larger room. +The walls were lined all round with bookcases, barred and numbered, +filled with volumes forming part of the philosopher's great library. I +had not long to wait. A door opened behind me on my left, and a rather +short, thick-set man advanced to greet me, and pronouncing my name at +the same time with a slight foreign accent, asked me to be seated beside +him. After the interchange of a few brief formulae of politeness in +French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better +opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held +clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid +gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most +remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, +not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy +which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was +especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the question of Art +and upon the many problems bound up with it. I do not know how long that +first interview lasted, but it seemed a few minutes only, during which +was displayed before me a vast panorama of unknown height and headland, +of league upon league of forest, with its bright-winged birds of thought +flying from tree to tree down the long avenues into the dim blue vistas +of the unknown. + +I returned with my brain awhirl, as though I had been in fairyland, and +when I looked at the second edition of the _Estetica_, with his +inscription, I was sure of it. + +These lines will suffice to show how the translation of the _Estetica_ +originated from the acquaintance thus formed, which has developed into +friendship. I will now make brief mention of Benedetto Croce's other +work, especially in so far as it throws light upon the _Aesthetic_. +For this purpose, besides articles in Italian and German reviews, I +have made use of the excellent monograph on the philosopher, by G. +Prezzolini.[1] + +First, then, it will be well to point out that the _Aesthetic_ forms +part of a complete philosophical system, to which the author gives the +general title of "Philosophy of the Spirit." The _Aesthetic_ is the +first of the three volumes. The second is the _Logic_, the third the +_Philosophy of the Practical_. + +In the _Logic_, as elsewhere in the system, Croce combats that false +conception, by which natural science, in the shape of psychology, makes +claim to philosophy, and formal logic to absolute value. The thesis of +the _pure concept_ cannot be discussed here. It is connected with the +logic of evolution as discovered by Hegel, and is the only logic which +contains in itself the interpretation and the continuity of reality. +Bergson in his _L'Evolution Créatrice_ deals with logic in a somewhat +similar manner. I recently heard him lecture on the distinction between +spirit and matter at the Collège de France, and those who read French +and Italian will find that both Croce's _Logic_ and the book above +mentioned by the French philosopher will amply repay their labour. The +conception of nature as something lying outside the spirit which informs +it, as the non-being which aspires to being, underlies all Croce's +thought, and we find constant reference to it throughout his +philosophical system. + +With regard to the third volume, the _Philosophy of the Practical_, it +is impossible here to give more than a hint of its treasures. I merely +refer in passing to the treatment of the will, which is posited as a +unity _inseparable from the volitional act_. For Croce there is no +difference between action and intention, means and end: they are one +thing, inseparable as the intuition-expression of Aesthetic. The +_Philosophy of the Practical_ is a logic and science of the will, not a +normative science. Just as in Aesthetic the individuality of expression +made models and rules impossible, so in practical life the individuality +of action removes the possibility of catalogues of virtues, of the exact +application of laws, of the existence of practical judgments and +judgments of value _previous to action_. + +The reader will probably ask here: But what, then, becomes of morality? +The question will be found answered in the _Theory of Aesthetic_, and I +will merely say here that Croce's thesis of the _double degree_ of the +practical activity, economic and moral, is one of the greatest +contributions to modern thought. Just as it is proved in the _Theory of +Aesthetic_ that the _concept_ depends upon the _intuition_, which is the +first degree, the primary and indispensable thing, so it is proved in +the _Philosophy of the Practical_ that _Morality_ or _Ethic_ depends +upon _Economic_, which is the _first_ degree of the practical activity. +The volitional act is _always economic_, but true freedom of the will +exists and consists in conforming not merely to economic, but to moral +conditions, to the human spirit, which is greater than any individual. +Here we are face to face with the ethics of Christianity, to which Croce +accords all honour. + +This Philosophy of the Spirit is symptomatic of the happy reaction of +the twentieth century against the crude materialism of the second half +of the nineteenth. It is the spirit which gives to the work of art its +value, not this or that method of arrangement, this or that tint or +cadence, which can always be copied by skilful plagiarists: not so the +_spirit_ of the creator. In England we hear too much of (natural) +science, which has usurped the very name of Philosophy. The natural +sciences are very well in their place, but discoveries such as aviation +are of infinitely less importance to the race than the smallest addition +to the philosophy of the spirit. Empirical science, with the collusion +of positivism, has stolen the cloak of philosophy and must be made to +give it back. + +Among Croce's other important contributions to thought must be mentioned +his definition of History as being aesthetic and differing from Art +solely in that history represents the _real_, art the _possible_. In +connection with this definition and its proof, the philosopher recounts +how he used to hold an opposite view. Doing everything thoroughly, he +had prepared and written out a long disquisition on this thesis, which +was already in type, when suddenly, from the midst of his meditations, +_the truth flashed upon him_. He saw for the first time clearly that +history cannot be a science, since, like art, it always deals with the +particular. Without a moment's hesitation he hastened to the printers +and bade them break up the type. + +This incident is illustrative of the sincerity and good faith of +Benedetto Croce. One knows him to be severe for the faults and +weaknesses of others, merciless for his own. + +Yet though severe, the editor of _La Critica_ is uncompromisingly just, +and would never allow personal dislike or jealousy, or any extrinsic +consideration, to stand in the way of fair treatment to the writer +concerned. Many superficial English critics might benefit considerably +by attention to this quality in one who is in other respects also so +immeasurably their superior. A good instance of this impartiality is his +critique of Schopenhauer, with whose system he is in complete +disagreement, yet affords him full credit for what of truth is contained +in his voluminous writings.[2] + +Croce's education was largely completed in Germany, and on account of +their thoroughness he has always been an upholder of German methods. One +of his complaints against the Italian Positivists is that they only read +second-rate works in French or at the most "the dilettante booklets +published in such profusion by the Anglo-Saxon press." This tendency +towards German thought, especially in philosophy, depends upon the fact +of the former undoubted supremacy of Germany in that field, but Croce +does not for a moment admit the inferiority of the Neo-Latin races, and +adds with homely humour in reference to Germany, that we "must not throw +away the baby with the bath-water"! Close, arduous study and clear +thought are the only key to scientific (philosophical) truth, and Croce +never begins an article for a newspaper without the complete collection +of the works of the author to be criticized, and his own elaborate notes +on the table before him. Schopenhauer said there were three kinds of +writers--those who write without thinking, the great majority; those who +think while they write, not very numerous; those who write after they +have thought, very rare. Croce certainly belongs to the last division, +and, as I have said, always feeds his thought upon complete erudition. +The bibliography of the works consulted for the _Estetica_ alone, as +printed at the end of the Italian edition, extends to many pages and +contains references to works in any way dealing with the subject in all +the European languages. For instance, Croce has studied Mr. B. +Bosanquet's eclectic works on Aesthetic, largely based upon German +sources and by no means without value. But he takes exception to Mr. +Bosanquet's statement that _he_ has consulted all works of importance on +the subject of Aesthetic. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bosanquet reveals his +ignorance of the greater part of the contribution to Aesthetic made by +the Neo-Latin races, which the reader of this book will recognize as of +first-rate importance. + +This thoroughness it is which gives such importance to the literary and +philosophical criticisms of _La Critica_. Croce's method is always +historical, and his object in approaching any work of art is to classify +the spirit of its author, as expressed in that work. There are, he +maintains, but two things to be considered in criticizing a book. These +are, _firstly_, what is its _peculiarity_, in what way is it singular, +how is it differentiated from other works? _Secondly_, what is its +degree of purity?--That is, to what extent has its author kept himself +free from all considerations alien to the perfection of the work as an +expression, as a lyrical intuition? With the answering of these +questions Croce is satisfied. He does not care to know if the author +keep a motor-car, like Maeterlinck; or prefer to walk on Putney Heath, +like Swinburne. This amounts to saying that all works of art must be +judged by their own standard. How far has the author succeeded in doing +what he intended? + +Croce is far above any personal animus, although the same cannot be said +of those he criticizes. These, like d'Annunzio, whose limitations he +points out--his egoism, his lack of human sympathy--are often very +bitter, and accuse the penetrating critic of want of courtesy. This +seriousness of purpose runs like a golden thread through all Croce's +work. The flimsy superficial remarks on poetry and fiction which too +often pass for criticism in England (Scotland is a good deal more +thorough) are put to shame by _La Critica_, the study of which I commend +to all readers who read or wish to read Italian.[3] They will find in +its back numbers a complete picture of a century of Italian literature, +besides a store-house of philosophical criticism. The _Quarterly_ and +_Edinburgh Reviews_ are our only journals which can be compared to _The +Critica_, and they are less exhaustive on the philosophical side. We +should have to add to these _Mind_ and the _Hibbert Journal_ to get even +an approximation to the scope of the Italian review. + +As regards Croce's general philosophical position, it is important to +understand that he is _not_ a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close +follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he +deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may +be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of +Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than +that wondrous edifice was ever before explained, and we realize at the +same time that Croce is quite as independent of Hegel as of Kant, of +Vico as of Spinoza. Of course he has made use of the best of Hegel, just +as every thinker makes use of his predecessors and is in his turn made +use of by those that follow him. But it is incorrect to accuse of +Hegelianism the author of an anti-hegelian _Aesthetic_, of a _Logic_ +where Hegel is only half accepted, and of a _Philosophy of the +Practical_, which contains hardly a trace of Hegel. I give an instance. +If the great conquest of Hegel be the dialectic of opposites, his great +mistake lies in the confusion of opposites with things which are +distinct but not opposite. If, says Croce, we take as an example the +application of the Hegelian triad that formulates becoming (affirmation, +negation and synthesis), we find it applicable for those opposites which +are true and false, good and evil, being and not-being, but _not +applicable_ to things which are distinct but not opposite, such as art +and philosophy, beauty and truth, the useful and the moral. These +confusions led Hegel to talk of the death of art, to conceive as +possible a Philosophy of History, and to the application of the natural +sciences to the absurd task of constructing a Philosophy of Nature. +Croce has cleared away these difficulties by shewing that if from the +meeting of opposites must arise a superior synthesis, such a synthesis +cannot arise from things which are distinct _but not opposite_, since +the former are connected together as superior and inferior, and the +inferior can exist without the superior, but _not vice versa_. Thus we +see how philosophy cannot exist without art, while art, occupying the +lower place, can and does exist without philosophy. This brief example +reveals Croce's independence in dealing with Hegelian problems. + +I know of no philosopher more generous than Croce in praise and +elucidation of other workers in the same field, past and present. For +instance, and apart from Hegel, _Kant_ has to thank him for drawing +attention to the marvellous excellence of the _Critique of Judgment_, +generally neglected in favour of the Critiques of _Pure Reason and of +Practical Judgment_; _Baumgarten_ for drawing the attention of the world +to his obscure name and for reprinting his Latin thesis in which the +word _Aesthetic_ occurs for the first time; and _Schleiermacher_ for the +tributes paid to his neglected genius in the History of Aesthetic. _La +Critica_, too, is full of generous appreciation of contemporaries by +Croce and by that profound thinker, Gentile. + +But it is not only philosophers who have reason to be grateful to Croce +for his untiring zeal and diligence. Historians, economists, poets, +actors, and writers of fiction have been rescued from their undeserved +limbo by this valiant Red Cross knight, and now shine with due +brilliance in the circle of their peers. It must also be admitted that a +large number of false lights, popular will o' the wisps, have been +ruthlessly extinguished with the same breath. For instance, Karl Marx, +the socialist theorist and agitator, finds in Croce an exponent of his +views, in so far as they are based upon the truth, but where he +blunders, his critic immediately reveals the origin and nature of his +mistakes. Croce's studies in Economic are chiefly represented by his +work, the title of which may be translated "Historical Materialism and +Marxist Economic." + +To indicate the breadth and variety of Croce's work I will mention the +further monograph on the sixteenth century Neapolitan Pulcinella (the +original of our Punch), and the personage of the Neapolitan in comedy, a +monument of erudition and of acute and of lively dramatic criticism, +that would alone have occupied an ordinary man's activity for half a +lifetime. One must remember, however, that Croce's average working day +is of ten hours. His interest is concentrated on things of the mind, and +although he sits on several Royal Commissions, such as those of the +Archives of all Italy and of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel, he +has taken no university degree, and much dislikes any affectation of +academic superiority. He is ready to meet any one on equal terms and try +with them to get at the truth on any subject, be it historical, +literary, or philosophical. "Truth," he says, "is democratic," and I can +testify that the search for it, in his company, is very stimulating. As +is well said by Prezzolini, "He has a new word for all." + +There can be no doubt of the great value of Croce's work as an +_educative influence_, and if we are to judge of a philosophical system +by its action on others, then we must place the _Philosophy of the +Spirit_ very high. It may be said with perfect truth that since the +death of the poet Carducci there has been no influence in Italy to +compare with that of Benedetto Croce. + +His dislike of Academies and of all forms of prejudice runs parallel +with his breadth and sympathy with all forms of thought. His activity in +the present is only equalled by his reverence for the past. Naples he +loves with the blind love of the child for its parent, and he has been +of notable assistance to such Neapolitan talent as is manifested in the +works of Salvatore di Giacomo, whose best poems are written in the +dialect of Naples, or rather in a dialect of his own, which Croce had +difficulty in persuading the author always to retain. The original jet +of inspiration having been in dialect, it is clear that to amend this +inspiration at the suggestion of wiseacres at the Café would have been +to ruin it altogether. + +Of the popularity that his system and teaching have already attained we +may judge by the fact that the _Aesthetic_[4], despite the difficulty of +the subject, is already in its third edition in Italy, where, owing to +its influence, philosophy sells better than fiction; while the French +and Germans, not to mention the Czechs, have long had translations of +the earlier editions. His _Logic_ is on the point of appearing in its +second edition, and I have no doubt that the _Philosophy of the +Practical_ will eventually equal these works in popularity. _The +importance and value of Italian thought have been too long neglected in +Great Britain_. Where, as in Benedetto Croce, we get the clarity of +vision of the Latin, joined to the thoroughness and erudition of the +best German tradition, we have a combination of rare power and +effectiveness, which can by no means be neglected. + +The philosopher feels that he has a great mission, which is nothing less +than the leading back of thought to belief in the spirit, deserted by so +many for crude empiricism and positivism. His view of philosophy is that +it sums up all the higher human activities, including religion, and that +in proper hands it is able to solve any problem. But there is no +finality about problems: the solution of one leads to the posing of +another, and so on. Man is the maker of life, and his spirit ever +proceeds from a lower to a higher perfection. Connected with this view +of life is Croce's dislike of "Modernism." When once a problem has been +correctly solved, it is absurd to return to the same problem. Roman +Catholicism cannot march with the times. It can only exist by being +conservative--its only Logic is to be illogical. Therefore, Croce is +opposed to Loisy and Neo-Catholicism, and supports the Encyclical +against Modernism. The Catholic religion, with its great stores of myth +and morality, which for many centuries was the best thing in the world, +is still there for those who are unable to assimilate other food. +Another instance of his dislike for Modernism is his criticism of +Pascoli, whose attempts to reveal enigmas in the writings of Dante he +looks upon as useless. We do not, he says, read Dante in the twentieth +century for his hidden meanings, but for his revealed poetry. + +I believe that Croce will one day be recognized as one of the very few +great teachers of humanity. At present he is not appreciated at nearly +his full value. One rises from a study of his philosophy with a sense of +having been all the time as it were in personal touch with the truth, +which is very far from the case after the perusal of certain other +philosophies. + +Croce has been called the philosopher-poet, and if we take philosophy as +Novalis understood it, certainly Croce does belong to the poets, though +not to the formal category of those who write in verse. Croce is at any +rate a born philosopher, and as every trade tends to make its object +prosaic, so does every vocation tend to make it poetic. Yet no one has +toiled more earnestly than Croce. "Thorough" might well be his motto, +and if to-day he is admitted to be a classic without the stiffness one +connects with that term, be sure he has well merited the designation. +His name stands for the best that Italy has to give the world of +serious, stimulating thought. I know nothing to equal it elsewhere. + +Secure in his strength, Croce will often introduce a joke or some +amusing illustration from contemporary life, in the midst of a most +profound and serious argument. This spirit of mirth is a sign of +superiority. He who is not sure of himself can spare no energy for the +making of mirth. Croce loves to laugh at his enemies and with his +friends. So the philosopher of Naples sits by the blue gulf and explains +the universe to those who have ears to hear. "One can philosophize +anywhere," he says--but he remains significantly at Naples. + +Thus I conclude these brief remarks upon the author of the _Aesthetic_, +confident that those who give time and attention to its study will be +grateful for having placed in their hands this pearl of great price from +the diadem of the antique Parthenope. + +DOUGLAS AINSLIE. + +THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL, _May_ 1909. + +[1] Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi, 1909. + +[2] The reader will find this critique summarized in the historical + portion of this volume. + +[3] _La Critica_ is published every other month by Laterza of Bari. + +[4] This translation is made from the third Italian edition (Bari, + 1909), enlarged and corrected by the author. The _Theory of + Aesthetic_ first appeared in 1900 in the form of a communication + to the _Accademia Pontiana_ of Naples, vol. xxx. The first edition + is dated 1902, the second 1904 (Palermo). + + + + +I + +INTUITION AND EXPRESSION + + + [Sidenote] _Intuitive knowledge._ + +Human knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or +logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or +knowledge obtained through the intellect; knowledge of the individual or +knowledge of the universal; of individual things or of the relations +between them: it is, in fact, productive either of images or of +concepts. + +In ordinary life, constant appeal is made to intuitive knowledge. It +is said to be impossible to give expression to certain truths; that +they are not demonstrable by syllogisms; that they must be learnt +intuitively. The politician finds fault with the abstract reasoner, who +is without a lively knowledge of actual conditions; the pedagogue +insists upon the necessity of developing the intuitive faculty in the +pupil before everything else; the critic in judging a work of art makes +it a point of honour to set aside theory and abstractions, and to judge +it by direct intuition; the practical man professes to live rather by +intuition than by reason. + +But this ample acknowledgment, granted to intuitive knowledge in +ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate acknowledgment +in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists a very ancient +science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all without discussion, +namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge is timidly and with +difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge has appropriated the +lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and devour her companion, +yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little place of maidservant +or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive knowledge without the light +of intellective knowledge? It is a servant without a master; and though +a master find a servant useful, the master is a necessity to the +servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood. Intuition is +blind; Intellect lends her eyes. + + [Sidenote] _Its independence in respect to intellective knowledge._ + +Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive +knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does +not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has most excellent eyes +of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with +intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such a +mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of a +moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a +cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of a +sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in +ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of +intellective relation. But, think what one may of these instances, and +admitting further that one may maintain that the greater part of the +intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet +remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive. +Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions, +are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and fused, +for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have been +concepts, but they have now become simple elements of intuition. +The philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of tragedy +or of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts, but of +characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the red in a +painted figure does not there represent the red colour of the +physicists, but is a characteristic element of the portrait. The whole +it is that determines the quality of the parts. A work of art may be +full of philosophical concepts; it may contain them in greater +abundance and they may be there even more profound than in a +philosophical dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to +overflowing with descriptions and intuitions. But, notwithstanding all +these concepts it may contain, the result of the work of art is an +intuition; and notwithstanding all those intuitions, the result of the +philosophical dissertation is a concept. The _Promessi Sposi_ contains +copious ethical observations and distinctions, but it does not for +that reason lose in its total effect its character of simple story, of +intuition. In like manner the anecdotes and satirical effusions which +may be found in the works of a philosopher like Schopenhauer, do not +remove from those works their character of intellective treatises. The +difference between a scientific work and a work of art, that is, +between an intellective fact and an intuitive fact lies in the result, +in the diverse effect aimed at by their respective authors. This it is +that determines and rules over the several parts of each. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and perception._ + +But to admit the independence of intuition as regards concept does not +suffice to give a true and precise idea of intuition. Another error +arises among those who recognize this, or who, at any rate, do not make +intuition explicitly dependent upon the intellect. This error obscures +and confounds the real nature of intuition. By intuition is frequently +understood the _perception_ or knowledge of actual reality, the +apprehension of something as _real_. + +Certainly perception is intuition: the perception of the room in which I +am writing, of the ink-bottle and paper that are before me, of the pen I +am using, of the objects that I touch and make use of as instruments of +my person, which, if it write, therefore exists;--these are all +intuitions. But the image that is now passing through my brain of a me +writing in another room, in another town, with different paper, pen and +ink, is also an intuition. This means that the distinction between +reality and non-reality is extraneous, secondary, to the true nature of +intuition. If we assume the existence of a human mind which should have +intuitions for the first time, it would seem that it could have +intuitions of effective reality only, that is to say, that it could have +perceptions of nothing but the real. But if the knowledge of reality be +based upon the distinction between real images and unreal images, and if +this distinction does not originally exist, these intuitions would in +truth not be intuitions either of the real or of the unreal, but pure +intuitions. Where all is real, nothing is real. The child, with its +difficulty of distinguishing true from false, history from fable, which +are all one to childhood, can furnish us with a sort of very vague and +only remotely approximate idea of this ingenuous state. Intuition is the +indifferentiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple +image of the possible. In our intuitions we do not oppose ourselves to +external reality as empirical beings, but we simply objectify our +impressions, whatever they be. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and the concepts of space and time._ + +Those, therefore, who look upon intuition as sensation formed and +arranged simply according to the categories of space and time, would +seem to approximate more nearly to the truth. Space and time (they say) +are the forms of intuition; to have intuitions is to place in space and +in temporal sequence. Intuitive activity would then consist in this +double and concurrent function of spatiality and temporality. But for +these two categories must be repeated what was said of intellectual +distinctions, found mingled with intuitions. We have intuitions without +space and without time: a tint of sky and a tint of sentiment, an Ah! of +pain and an effort of will, objectified in consciousness. These are +intuitions, which we possess, and with their making, space and time have +nothing to do. In some intuitions, spatiality may be found without +temporality, in others, this without that; and even where both are +found, they are perceived by posterior reflexion: they can be fused with +the intuition in like manner with all its other elements: that is, they +are in it _materialiter_ and not _formaliter_, as ingredients and not as +essentials. Who, without a similar act of interruptive reflexion, is +conscious of temporal sequence while listening to a story or a piece of +music? That which intuition reveals in a work of art is not space and +time, but character, individual physiognomy. Several attempts may be +noted in modern philosophy, which confirm the view here exposed. Space +and time, far from being very simple and primitive functions, are shown +to be intellectual constructions of great complexity. And further, even +in some of those who do not altogether deny to space and time the +quality of forming or of categories and functions, one may observe the +attempt to unify and to understand them in a different manner from that +generally maintained in respect of these categories. Some reduce +intuition to the unique category of spatiality, maintaining that time +also can only be conceived in terms of space. Others abandon the three +dimensions of space as not philosophically necessary, and conceive the +function of spatiality as void of every particular spatial +determination. But what could such a spatial function be, that should +control even time? May it not be a residuum of criticisms and of +negations from which arises merely the necessity to posit a generic +intuitive activity? And is not this last truly determined, when one +unique function is attributed to it, not spatializing nor temporalizing, +but characterizing? Or, better, when this is conceived as itself a +category or function, which gives knowledge of things in their +concretion and individuality? + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and sensation._ + +Having thus freed intuitive knowledge from any suggestion of +intellectualism and from every posterior and external adjunct, we must +now make clear and determine its limits from another side and from a +different kind of invasion and confusion. On the other side, and before +the inferior boundary, is sensation, formless matter, which the spirit +can never apprehend in itself, in so far as it is mere matter. This it +can only possess with form and in form, but postulates its concept as, +precisely, a limit. Matter, in its abstraction, is mechanism, passivity; +it is what the spirit of man experiences, but does not produce. Without +it no human knowledge and activity is possible; but mere matter produces +animality, whatever is brutal and impulsive in man, not the spiritual +dominion, which is humanity. How often do we strive to understand +clearly what is passing within us? We do catch a glimpse of something, +but this does not appear to the mind as objectified and formed. In such +moments it is, that we best perceive the profound difference between +matter and form. These are not two acts of ours, face to face with one +another; but we assault and carry off the one that is outside us, while +that within us tends to absorb and make its own that without. Matter, +attacked and conquered by form, gives place to concrete form. It is the +matter, the content, that differentiates one of our intuitions from +another: form is constant: it is spiritual activity, while matter is +changeable. Without matter, however, our spiritual activity would not +leave its abstraction to become concrete and real, this or that +spiritual content, this or that definite intuition. + +It is a curious fact, characteristic of our times, that this very form, +this very activity of the spirit, which is essentially ourselves, is so +easily ignored or denied. Some confound the spiritual activity of man +with the metaphorical and mythological activity of so-called nature, +which is mechanism and has no resemblance to human activity, save when +we imagine, with Aesop, that _arbores loquuntur non tantum ferae_. Some +even affirm that they have never observed in themselves this +"miraculous" activity, as though there were no difference, or only one +of quantity, between sweating and thinking, feeling cold and the energy +of the will. Others, certainly with greater reason, desire to unify +activity and mechanism in a more general concept, though admitting that +they are specifically distinct. Let us, however, refrain for the moment +from examining if such a unification be possible, and in what sense, but +admitting that the attempt may be made, it is clear that to unify two +concepts in a third implies a difference between the two first. And here +it is this difference that is of importance and we set it in relief. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and association._ + +Intuition has often been confounded with simple sensation. But, since +this confusion is too shocking to good sense, it has more frequently +been attenuated or concealed with a phraseology which seems to wish to +confuse and to distinguish them at the same time. Thus, it has been +asserted that intuition is sensation, but not so much simple sensation +as _association_ of sensations. The equivoque arises precisely from the +word "association." Association is understood, either as memory, +mnemonic association, conscious recollection, and in that case is +evident the absurdity of wishing to join together in memory elements +which are not intuified, distinguished, possessed in some way by the +spirit and produced by consciousness: or it is understood as association +of unconscious elements. In this case we remain in the world of +sensation and of nature. Further, if with certain associationists we +speak of an association which is neither memory nor flux of sensations, +but is a _productive_ association (formative, constructive, +distinguishing); then we admit the thing itself and deny only its name. +In truth, productive association is no longer association in the sense +of the sensualists, but _synthesis_, that is to say, spiritual activity. +Synthesis may be called association; but with the concept of +productivity is already posited the distinction between passivity and +activity, between sensation and intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and representation._ + +Other psychologists are disposed to distinguish from sensation something +which is sensation no longer, but is not yet intellective concept: _the +representation or image_. What is the difference between their +representation or image, and our intuitive knowledge? The greatest, and +none at all. "Representation," too, is a very equivocal word. If by +representation be understood something detached and standing out from +the psychic base of the sensations, then representation is intuition. +If, on the other hand, it be conceived as a complex sensation, a return +is made to simple sensation, which does not change its quality according +to its richness or poverty, operating alike in a rudimentary or in a +developed organism full of traces of past sensations. Nor is the +equivoque remedied by defining representation as a psychic product of +secondary order in relation to sensation, which should occupy the first +place. What does secondary order mean here? Does it mean a qualitative, +a formal difference? If so, we agree: representation is elaboration of +sensation, it is intuition. Or does it mean greater complexity and +complication, a quantitative, material difference? In that case +intuition would be again confused with simple sensation. + + [Sidenote] _Intuition and expression._ + +And yet there is a sure method of distinguishing true intuition, true +representation, from that which is inferior to it: the spiritual fact +from the mechanical, passive, natural fact. Every true intuition or +representation is, also, _expression_. That which does not objectify +itself in expression is not intuition or representation, but sensation +and naturality. The spirit does not obtain intuitions, otherwise than by +making, forming, expressing. He who separates intuition from expression +never succeeds in reuniting them. + +_Intuitive activity possesses intuitions to the extent that it expresses +them_.--Should this expression seem at first paradoxical, that is +chiefly because, as a general rule, a too restricted meaning is given to +the word "expression." It is generally thought of as restricted to +verbal expression. But there exist also non-verbal expressions, such as +those of line, colour, and sound; to all of these must be extended our +affirmation. The intuition and expression together of a painter are +pictorial; those of a poet are verbal. But be it pictorial, or verbal, +or musical, or whatever else it be called, to no intuition can +expression be wanting, because it is an inseparable part of intuition. +How can we possess a true intuition of a geometrical figure, unless we +possess so accurate an image of it as to be able to trace it immediately +upon paper or on a slate? How can we have an intuition of the contour of +a region, for example, of the island of Sicily, if we are not able to +draw it as it is in all its meanderings? Every one can experience the +internal illumination which follows upon his success in formulating to +himself his impressions and sentiments, but only so far as he is able to +formulate them. Sentiments or impressions, then, pass by means of words +from the obscure region of the soul into the clarity of the +contemplative spirit. In this cognitive process it is impossible to +distinguish intuition from expression. The one is produced with the +other at the same instant, because they are not two, but one. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions as to their difference._ + +The principal reason which makes our theme appear paradoxical as we +maintain it, is the illusion or prejudice that we possess a more +complete intuition of reality than we really do. One often hears people +say that they have in their minds many important thoughts, but that they +are not able to express them. In truth, if they really had them, they +would have coined them into beautiful, ringing words, and thus expressed +them. If these thoughts seem to vanish or to become scarce and poor in +the act of expressing them, either they did not exist or they really +were scarce and poor. People think that all of us ordinary men imagine +and have intuitions of countries, figures and scenes, like painters; of +bodies, like sculptors; save that painters and sculptors know how to +paint and to sculpture those images, while we possess them only within +our souls. They believe that anyone could have imagined a Madonna of +Raphael; but that Raphael was Raphael owing to his technical ability in +putting the Madonna upon the canvas. Nothing can be more false than this +view. The world of which as a rule we have intuitions, is a small thing. +It consists of little expressions which gradually become greater and +more ample with the increasing spiritual concentration of certain +moments. These are the sort of words which we speak within ourselves, +the judgments that we tacitly express: "Here is a man, here is a horse, +this is heavy, this is hard, this pleases me," etc. It is a medley of +light and colour, which could not pictorially attain to any more sincere +expression than a haphazard splash of colours, from among which would +with difficulty stand out a few special, distinctive traits. This and +nothing else is what we possess in our ordinary life; this is the basis +of our ordinary action. It is the index of a book. The labels tied to +things take the place of the things themselves. This index and labels +(which are themselves expressions) suffice for our small needs and small +actions. From time to time we pass from the index to the book, from the +label to the thing, or from the slight to the greater intuitions, and +from these to the greatest and most lofty. This passage is sometimes far +from being easy. It has been observed by those who have best studied the +psychology of artists, that when, after having given a rapid glance at +anyone, they attempt to obtain a true intuition of him, in order, for +example, to paint his portrait, then this ordinary vision, that seemed +so precise, so lively, reveals itself as little better than nothing. +What remains is found to be at the most some superficial trait, which +would not even suffice for a caricature. The person to be painted stands +before the artist like a world to discover. Michael Angelo said, "one +paints, not with one's hands, but with one's brain." Leonardo shocked +the prior of the convent delle Grazie by standing for days together +opposite the "Last Supper" without touching it with the brush. He +remarked of this attitude "that men of the most lofty genius, when they +are doing the least work, are then the most active, seeking invention +with their minds." The painter is a painter, because he sees what others +only feel or catch a glimpse of, but do not see. We think we see a +smile, but in reality we have only a vague impression of it, we do not +perceive all the characteristic traits from which it results, as the +painter perceives them after his internal meditations, which thus enable +him to fix them on the canvas. Even in the case of our intimate friend, +who is with us every day and at all hours, we do not possess intuitively +more than, at the most, certain traits of his physiognomy, which enable +us to distinguish him from others. The illusion is less easy as regards +musical expression; because it would seem strange to everyone to say +that the composer had added or attached notes to the motive, which is +already in the mind of him who is not the composer. As if Beethoven's +Ninth Symphony were not his own intuition and his own intuition the +Ninth Symphony. Thus, just as he who is deceived as to his material +wealth is confuted by arithmetic, which states its exact amount, so is +he confuted who nourishes delusions as to the wealth of his own thoughts +and images. He is brought back to reality, when he is obliged to cross +the Bridge of Asses of expression. We say to the former, count; to the +latter, speak, here is a pencil, draw, express yourself. + +We have each of us, as a matter of fact, a little of the poet, of the +sculptor, of the musician, of the painter, of the prose writer: but how +little, as compared with those who are so called, precisely because of +the lofty degree in which they possess the most universal dispositions +and energies of human nature! How little does a painter possess of the +intuitions of a poet! How little does one painter possess those of +another painter! Nevertheless, that little is all our actual patrimony +of intuitions or representations. Beyond these are only impressions, +sensations, feelings, impulses, emotions, or whatever else one may term +what is outside the spirit, not assimilated by man, postulated for the +convenience of exposition, but effectively inexistent, if existence be +also a spiritual fact. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of intuition and expression._ + +We may then add this to the verbal variants descriptive of intuition, +noted at the beginning: intuitive knowledge is expressive knowledge, +independent and autonomous in respect to intellectual function; +indifferent to discriminations, posterior and empirical, to reality and +to unreality, to formations and perceptions of space and time, even when +posterior: intuition or representation is distinguished as form from +what is felt and suffered, from the flux or wave of sensation, or from +psychic material; and this form this taking possession of, is +expression. To have an intuition is to express. It is nothing else! +(nothing more, but nothing less) than _to express_. + + + + +II + +INTUITION AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Corollaries and explanations._ + +Before proceeding further, it seems opportune to draw certain +consequences from what has been established and to add some explanation. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of art and intuitive knowledge._ + +We have frankly identified intuitive or expressive knowledge with the +aesthetic or artistic fact, taking works of art as examples of intuitive +knowledge and attributing to them the characteristics of intuition, and +_vice versa_. But our identification is combated by the view, held even +by many philosophers, who consider art to be an intuition of an +altogether special sort. "Let us admit" (they say) "that art is +intuition; but intuition is not always art: artistic intuition is of a +distinct species differing from intuition in general by something +_more_." + + [Sidenote] _No specific difference._ + +But no one has ever been able to indicate of what this something more +consists. It has sometimes been thought that art is not a simple +intuition, but an intuition of an intuition, in the same way as the +concept of science has been defined, not as the ordinary concept, but as +the concept of a concept. Thus man should attain to art, by +objectifying, not his sensations, as happens with ordinary intuition, +but intuition itself. But this process of raising to a second power does +not exist; and the comparison of it with the ordinary and scientific +concept does not imply what is wished, for the good reason that it is +not true that the scientific concept is the concept of a concept. If +this comparison imply anything, it implies just the opposite. The +ordinary concept, if it be really a concept and not a simple +representation, is a perfect concept, however poor and limited. Science +substitutes concepts for representations; it adds and substitutes other +concepts larger and more comprehensive for those that are poor and +limited. It is ever discovering new relations. But its method does not +differ from that by which is formed the smallest universal in the brain +of the humblest of men. What is generally called art, by antonomasia, +collects intuitions that are wider and more complex than those which we +generally experience, but these intuitions are always of sensations and +impressions. + +Art is the expression of impressions, not the expression of expressions. + + [Sidenote] _No difference of intensity._ + +For the same reason, it cannot be admitted that intuition, which is +generally called artistic, differs from ordinary intuition as to +intensity. This would be the case if it were to operate differently on +the same matter. But since artistic function is more widely distributed +in different fields, but yet does not differ in method from ordinary +intuition, the difference between the one and the other is not intensive +but extensive. The intuition of the simplest popular love-song, which +says the same thing, or very nearly, as a declaration of love such as +issues at every moment from the lips of thousands of ordinary men, may +be intensively perfect in its poor simplicity, although it be +extensively so much more limited than the complex intuition of a +love-song by Leopardi. + + [Sidenote] _The difference is extensive and empirical._ + +The whole difference, then, is quantitative, and as such, indifferent to +philosophy, _scientia qualitatum_. Certain men have a greater aptitude, +a more frequent inclination fully to express certain complex states of +the soul. These men are known in ordinary language as artists. Some very +complicated and difficult expressions are more rarely achieved and these +are called works of art. The limits of the expressions and intuitions +that are called art, as opposed to those that are vulgarly called +not-art, are empirical and impossible to define. If an epigram be art, +why not a single word? If a story; why not the occasional note of the +journalist? If a landscape, why not a topographical sketch? The teacher +of philosophy in Molière's comedy was right: "whenever we speak we +create prose." But there will always be scholars like Monsieur Jourdain, +astonished at having created prose for forty years without knowing it, +and who will have difficulty in persuading themselves that when they +call their servant John to bring their slippers, they have spoken +nothing less than--prose. + +We must hold firmly to our identification, because among the principal +reasons which have prevented Aesthetic, the science of art, from +revealing the true nature of art, its real roots in human nature, has +been its separation from the general spiritual life, the having made of +it a sort of special function or aristocratic circle. No one is +astonished when he learns from physiology that every cellule is an +organism and every organism a cellule or synthesis of cellules. No one +is astonished at finding in a lofty mountain the same chemical elements +that compose a small stone or fragment. There is not one physiology of +small animals and one of large animals; nor is there a special chemical +theory of stones as distinct from mountains. In the same way, there is +not a science of lesser intuition distinct from a science of greater +intuition, nor one of ordinary intuition distinct from artistic +intuition. There is but one Aesthetic, the science of intuitive or +expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic fact. And this +Aesthetic is the true analogy of Logic. Logic includes, as facts of the +same nature, the formation of the smallest and most ordinary concept and +the most complicated scientific and philosophical system. + + [Sidenote] _Artistic genius._ + +Nor can we admit that the word _genius_ or artistic genius, as distinct +from the non-genius of the ordinary man, possesses more than a +quantitative signification. Great artists are said to reveal us to +ourselves. But how could this be possible, unless there be identity of +nature between their imagination and ours, and unless the difference be +only one of quantity? It were well to change _poeta nascitur_ into _homo +nascitur poeta_: some men are born great poets, some small. The cult and +superstition of the genius has arisen from this quantitative difference +having been taken as a difference of quality. It has been forgotten that +genius is not something that has fallen from heaven, but humanity +itself. The man of genius, who poses or is represented as distant from +humanity, finds his punishment in becoming or appearing somewhat +ridiculous. Examples of this are the _genius_ of the romantic period and +the _superman_ of our time. + +But it is well to note here, that those who claim unconsciousness as the +chief quality of an artistic genius, hurl him from an eminence far above +humanity to a position far below it. Intuitive or artistic genius, like +every form of human activity, is always conscious; otherwise it would be +blind mechanism. The only thing that may be wanting to the artistic +genius is the _reflective_ consciousness, the superadded consciousness +of the historian or critic, which is not essential to artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form in Aesthetic._ + +The relation between matter and form, or between _content and form_, as +it is generally called, is one of the most disputed questions in +Aesthetic. Does the aesthetic fact consist of content alone, or of form +alone, or of both together? This question has taken on various meanings, +which we shall mention, each in its place. But when these words are +taken as signifying what we have above defined, and matter is understood +as emotivity not aesthetically elaborated, that is to say, impressions, +and form elaboration, intellectual activity and expression, then our +meaning cannot be doubtful. We must, therefore, reject the thesis that +makes the aesthetic fact to consist of the content alone (that is, of +the simple impressions), in like manner with that other thesis, which +makes it to consist of a junction between form and content, that is, of +impressions plus expressions. In the aesthetic fact, the aesthetic +activity is not added to the fact of the impressions, but these latter +are formed and elaborated by it. The impressions reappear as it were in +expression, like water put into a filter, which reappears the same and +yet different on the other side. The aesthetic fact, therefore, is form, +and nothing but form. + +From this it results, not that the content is something superfluous (it +is, on the contrary, the necessary point of departure for the expressive +fact); but that _there is no passage_ between the quality of the content +and that of the form. It has sometimes been thought that the content, in +order to be aesthetic, that is to say, transformable into form, should +possess some determinate or determinable quality. But were that so, then +form and content, expression and impression, would be the same thing. It +is true that the content is that which is convertible into form, but it +has no determinable qualities until this transformation takes place. We +know nothing of its nature. It does not become aesthetic content at +once, but only when it has been effectively transformed. Aesthetic +content has also been defined as what is _interesting_. That is not an +untrue statement; it is merely void of meaning. What, then, is +interesting? Expressive activity? Certainly the expressive activity +would not have raised the content to the dignity of form, had it not +been interested. The fact of its having been interested is precisely the +fact of its raising the content to the dignity of form. But the word +"interesting" has also been employed in another not illegitimate sense, +which we shall explain further on. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the imitation of nature and of the artistic + illusion._ + +The proposition that art is _imitation of nature_ has also several +meanings. Now truth has been maintained or at least shadowed with these +words, now error. More frequently, nothing definite has been thought. +One of the legitimate scientific meanings occurs when imitation is +understood as representation or intuition of nature, a form of +knowledge. And when this meaning has been understood, by placing in +greater relief the spiritual character of the process, the other +proposition becomes also legitimate: namely, that art is the +_idealization_ or _idealizing_ imitation of nature. But if by imitation +of nature be understood that art gives mechanical reproductions, more or +less perfect duplicates of natural objects, before which the same tumult +of impressions caused by natural objects begins over again, then the +proposition is evidently false. The painted wax figures that seem to be +alive, and before which we stand astonished in the museums where such +things are shown, do not give aesthetic intuitions. Illusion and +hallucination have nothing to do with the calm domain of artistic +intuition. If an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if +an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we +again have spiritual labour and artistic intuition. Finally, if +photography have anything in it of artistic, it will be to the extent +that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, +the pose and the grouping which he has striven to attain. And if it be +not altogether art, that is precisely because the element of nature in +it remains more or less insubordinate and ineradicable. Do we ever, +indeed, feel complete satisfaction before even the best of photographs? +Would not an artist vary and touch up much or little, remove or add +something to any of them? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of art conceived as a sentimental not a + theoretical fact. Aesthetic appearance and feeling._ + +The statements repeated so often, with others similar, that art is not +knowledge, that it does not tell the truth, that it does not belong to +the world of theory, but to the world of feeling, arise from the failure +to realize exactly the theoretic character of the simple intuition. This +simple intuition is quite distinct from intellectual knowledge, as it is +distinct from the perception of the real. The belief that only the +intellective is knowledge, or at the most also the perception of the +real, also arises from the failure to grasp the theoretic character of +the simple intuition. We have seen that intuition is knowledge, free of +concepts and more simple than the so-called perception of the real. +Since art is knowledge and form, it does not belong to the world of +feeling and of psychic material. The reason why so many aestheticians +have so often insisted that art is _appearance_ (_Schein_), is precisely +because they have felt the necessity of distinguishing it from the more +complex fact of perception by maintaining its pure intuitivity. For the +same reason it has been claimed that art is _sentiment_. In fact, if the +concept as content of art, and historical reality as such, be excluded, +there remains no other content than reality apprehended in all its +ingenuousness and immediateness in the vital effort, in _sentiment_, +that is to say, pure intuition. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of theory of aesthetic senses._ + +The theory of the _aesthetic senses_ has also arisen from the failure to +establish, or from having lost to view the character of the expression +as distinct from the impression, of the form as distinct from the +matter. + +As has just been pointed out, this reduces itself to the error of +wishing to seek a passage from the quality of the content to that of the +form. To ask, in fact, what the aesthetic senses may be, implies asking +what sensible impressions may be able to enter into aesthetic +expressions, and what must of necessity do so. To this we must at once +reply, that all impressions can enter into aesthetic expressions or +formations, but that none are bound to do so. Dante raised to the +dignity of form not only the "sweet colour of the oriental sapphire" +(visual impression), but also tactile or thermic impressions, such as +the "thick air" and the "fresh rivulets" which "parch all the more" the +throat of the thirsty. The belief that a picture yields only visual +impressions is a curious illusion. The bloom of a cheek, the warmth of a +youthful body, the sweetness and freshness of a fruit, the cutting of a +sharpened blade, are not these, also, impressions that we have from a +picture? Maybe they are visual? What would a picture be for a +hypothetical man, deprived of all or many of his senses, who should in +an instant acquire the sole organ of sight? The picture we are standing +opposite and believe we see only with our eyes, would appear to his eyes +as little more than the paint-smeared palette of a painter. + +Some who hold firmly to the aesthetic character of given groups of +impressions (for example, the visual, the auditive), and exclude others, +admit, however, that if visual and auditive impressions enter _directly_ +into the aesthetic fact, those of the other senses also enter into it, +but only as _associated_. But this distinction is altogether arbitrary. +Aesthetic expression is a synthesis, in which it is impossible to +distinguish direct and indirect. All impressions are by it placed on a +level, in so far as they are aestheticised. He who takes into himself +the image of a picture or of a poem does not experience, as it were, a +series of impressions as to this image, some of which have a prerogative +or precedence over others. And nothing is known of what happens prior to +having received it, for the distinctions made after reflexion have +nothing to do with art. + +The theory of the aesthetic senses has also been presented in another +way; that is to say, as the attempt to establish what physiological +organs are necessary for the aesthetic fact. The physiological organ or +apparatus is nothing but a complex of cellules, thus and thus +constituted, thus and thus disposed; that is to say, it is merely +physical and natural fact or concept. But expression does not recognize +physiological facts. Expression has its point of departure in the +impressions, and the physiological path by which these have found their +way to the mind is to it altogether indifferent. One way or another +amounts to the same thing: it suffices that they are impressions. + +It is true that the want of given organs, that is, of given complexes of +cells, produces an absence of given impressions (when these are not +obtained by another path by a kind of organic compensation). The man +born blind cannot express or have the intuition of light. But the +impressions are not conditioned solely by the organ, but also by the +stimuli which operate upon the organ. Thus, he who has never had the +impression of the sea will never be able to express it, in the same way +as he who has never had the impression of the great world or of the +political conflict will never express the one or the other. This, +however, does not establish a dependence of the expressive function on +the stimulus or on the organ. It is the repetition of what we know +already: expression presupposes impression. Therefore, given expressions +imply given impressions. Besides, every impression excludes other +impressions during the moment in which it dominates; and so does every +expression. + + [Sidenote] _Unity and indivisibility of the work of art._ + +Another corollary of the conception of expression as activity is the +_indivisibility_ of the work of art. Every expression is a unique +expression. Activity is a fusion of the impressions in an organic whole. +A desire to express this has always prompted the affirmation that the +world of art should have _unity_, or, what amounts to the same thing, +_unity in variety_. Expression is a synthesis of the various, the +multiple, in the one. + +The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, as a poem into scenes, +episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and +objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem to be an objection to +this affirmation. But such division annihilates the work, as dividing +the organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and so on, turns the +living being into a corpse. It is true that there exist organisms in +which the division gives place to more living things, but in such a +case, and if we transfer the analogy to the aesthetic fact, we must +conclude for a multiplicity of germs of life, that is to say, for a +speedy re-elaboration of the single parts into new single expressions. + +It will be observed that expression is sometimes based on other +expressions. There are simple and there are _compound_ expressions. One +must admit some difference between the _eureka_, with which Archimedes +expressed all his joy after his discovery, and the expressive act +(indeed all the five acts) of a regular tragedy. Not in the least: +expression is always directly based on impressions. He who conceives a +tragedy puts into a crucible a great quantity, so to say, of +impressions: the expressions themselves, conceived on other occasions, +are fused together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we +can cast into a smelting furnace formless pieces of bronze and most +precious statuettes. Those most precious statuettes must be melted in +the same way as the formless bits of bronze, before there can be a new +statue. The old expressions must descend again to the level of +impressions, in order to be synthetized in a new single expression. + + [Sidenote] _Art as the deliverer._ + +By elaborating his impressions, man _frees_ himself from them. By +objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their +superior. The liberating and purifying function of art is another aspect +and another formula of its character of activity. Activity is the +deliverer, just because it drives away passivity. + +This also explains why it is customary to attribute to artists alike the +maximum of sensibility or _passion_, and the maximum insensibility or +Olympic _serenity_. Both qualifications agree, for they do not refer to +the same object. The sensibility or passion relates to the rich material +which the artist absorbs into his psychic organism; the insensibility or +serenity to the form with which he subjugates and dominates the tumult +of the feelings and of the passions. + + + + +III + +ART AND PHILOSOPHY + + + [Sidenote] _Indissolubility of intellective from intuitive knowledge._ + +The two forms of knowledge, aesthetic and intellectual or conceptual, +are indeed diverse, but this does not amount altogether to separation +and disjunction, as we find with two forces going each its own way. If +we have shown that the aesthetic form is altogether independent of the +intellectual and suffices to itself without external support, we have +not said that the intellectual can stand without the aesthetic. This +_reciprocity_ would not be true. + +What is knowledge by concepts? It is knowledge of relations of things, +and those things are intuitions. Concepts are not possible without +intuitions, just as intuition is itself impossible without the material +of impressions. Intuitions are: this river, this lake, this brook, this +rain, this glass of water; the concept is: water, not this or that +appearance and particular example of water, but water in general, in +whatever time or place it be realized; the material of infinite +intuitions, but of one single and constant concept. + +However, the concept, the universal, if it be no longer intuition in one +respect, is in another respect intuition, and cannot fail of being +intuition. For the man who thinks has impressions and emotions, in so +far as he thinks. His impression and emotion will not be love or hate, +but _the effort of his thought itself_, with the pain and the joy, the +love and the hate joined to it. This effort cannot but become intuitive +in form, in becoming objective to the mind. To speak, is not to think +logically; but to _think logically_ is, at the same time, to _speak_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the negations of this thesis._ + +That thought cannot exist without speech, is a truth generally admitted. +The negations of this thesis are all founded on equivoques and errors. + +The first of the equivoques is implied by those who observe that one can +likewise think with geometrical figures, algebraical numbers, +ideographic signs, without a single word, even pronounced silently and +almost insensibly within one. They also affirm that there are languages +in which the word, the phonetic sign, expresses nothing, unless the +written sign also be looked at. But when we said "speech," we intended +to employ a synecdoche, and that "expression" generically, should be +understood, for expression is not only so-called verbal expression, as +we have already noted. It may be admitted that certain concepts may be +thought without phonetic manifestations. But the very examples adduced +to show this also prove that those concepts never exist without +expressions. + +Others maintain that animals, or certain animals, think or reason +without speaking. Now as to how, whether, and what animals think, +whether they be rudimentary, half-savage men resisting civilization, +rather than physiological machines, as the old spiritualists would have +it, are questions that do not concern us here. When the philosopher +talks of animal, brutal, impulsive, instinctive nature and the like, he +does not base himself on conjectures as to these facts concerning dogs +or cats, lions or ants; but upon observations of what is called animal +and brutal in man: of the boundary or animal basis of what we feel in +ourselves. If individual animals, dogs or cats, lions or ants, possess +something of the activity of man, so much the better, or so much the +worse for them. This means that as regards them also we must talk, not +of their nature as a whole, but of its animal basis, as being perhaps +larger and more strong than the animal basis of man. And if we suppose +that animals think, and form concepts, what is there in the line of +conjecture to justify the admission that they do so without +corresponding expressions? The analogy with man, the knowledge of the +spirit, human psychology, which is the instrument of all our conjectures +as to animal psychology, would oblige us to suppose that if they think +in any way, they also have some sort of speech. + +It is from human psychology, that is, literary psychology, that comes +the other objection, to the effect that the concept can exist without +the word, because it is true that we all know books that are _well +thought and badly written_: that is to say, a thought which remains +thought _beyond_ the expression, _notwithstanding_ the imperfect +expression. But when we talk of books well thought and badly written, we +cannot mean other than that in those books are parts, pages, periods or +propositions well thought out and well written, and other parts (perhaps +the least important) ill thought out and badly written, not truly +thought out and therefore not truly expressed. Where Vico's _Scienza +nuova_ is really ill written, it is also ill thought out. If we pass +from the consideration of big books to a short proposition, the error or +the imprecision of this statement will be recognized at once. How could +a proposition be clearly thought and confusedly written out? + +All that can be admitted is that sometimes we possess thoughts +(concepts) in an intuitive form, or in an abbreviated or, better, +peculiar expression, sufficient for us, but not sufficient to +communicate it with ease to another or other definite individuals. Hence +people say inaccurately, that we have the thought without the +expression; whereas it should properly be said that we have, indeed, the +expression, but in a form that is not easy of social communication. +This, however, is a very variable and altogether relative fact. There +are always people who catch our thought on the wing, and prefer it in +this abbreviated form, and would be displeased with the greater +development of it, necessary for other people. In other words, the +thought considered abstractly and logically will be the same; but +aesthetically we are dealing with two different intuition-expressions, +into both of which enter different psychological elements. The same +argument suffices to destroy, that is, to interpret correctly, the +altogether empirical distinction between an _internal_ and an _external_ +language. + + [Sidenote] _Art and science._ + +The most lofty manifestations, the summits of intellectual and of +intuitive knowledge shining from afar, are called, as we know, Art and +Science. Art and Science, then, are different and yet linked together; +they meet on one side, which is the aesthetic side. Every scientific +work is also a work of art. The aesthetic side may remain little +noticed, when our mind is altogether taken up with the effort to +understand the thought of the man of science, and to examine its truth. +But it is no longer concealed, when we pass from the activity of +understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either +developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous +words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or +confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes +termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or +less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically +to be compared with harmonious, coherent, and perfect works. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry._ + +We pardon thinkers and men of science their literary mediocrity. The +fragments console us for the failure of the whole, for it is far more +easy to recover the well-arranged composition from the fragmentary work +of genius than to achieve the discovery of genius. But how can we pardon +mediocre expression in pure artists? _Mediocribus esse poetis non di, +non homines, non concessere columnae_. The poet or painter who lacks +form, lacks everything, because he lacks _himself_. Poetical material +permeates the Soul of all: the expression alone, that is to say, the +form, makes the poet. And here appears the truth of the thesis which +denies to art all content, as content being understood just the +intellectual concept. In this sense, when we take "content" as equal to +"concept" it is most true, not only that art does not consist of +content, but also that _it has no content_. + +In the same way the distinction between _poetry and prose_ cannot be +justified, save in that of art and science. It was seen in antiquity +that such distinction could not be founded on external elements, such as +rhythm and metre, or on the freedom or the limitation of the form; that +it was, on the contrary, altogether internal. Poetry is the language of +sentiment; prose of the intellect; but since the intellect is also +sentiment, in its concretion and reality, so all prose has a poetical +side. + + [Sidenote] _The relation of first and second degree._ + +The relation between intuitive knowledge or expression, and intellectual +knowledge or concept, between art and science, poetry and prose, cannot +be otherwise defined than by saying that it is one of _double degree_. +The first degree is the expression, the second the concept: the first +can exist without the second, but the second cannot exist without the +first. There exists poetry without prose, but not prose without poetry. +Expression, indeed, is the first affirmation of human activity. Poetry +is "the maternal language of the human race"; the first men "were by +nature sublime poets." We also admit this in another way, when we +observe that the passage from soul to mind, from animal to human +activity, is effected by means of language. And this should be said of +intuition or expression in general. But to us it appears somewhat +inaccurate to define language or expression as an _intermediate_ link +between nature and humanity, as though it were a mixture of the one and +of the other. Where humanity appears, the rest has already disappeared; +the man who expresses himself, certainly emerges from the state of +nature, but he really does emerge: he does not stand half within and +half without, as the use of the phrase "intermediate link" would imply. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of other forms of knowledge._ + +The cognitive intellect has no form other than these two. Expression and +concept exhaust it completely. The whole speculative life of man is +spent in passing from one to the other and back again. + + [Sidenote] _History. Its identity with and difference from art._ + +_Historicity_ is incorrectly held to be a third theoretical form. +History is not form, but content: as form, it is nothing but intuition +or aesthetic fact. History does not seek for laws nor form concepts; it +employs neither induction nor deduction; it is directed _ad narrandum, +non ad demonstrandum_; it does not construct universals and +abstractions, but posits intuitions. The this, the that, the _individuum +omni modo determinatum_, is its kingdom, as it is the kingdom of art. +History, therefore, is included under the universal concept of art. + +Faced with this proposition and with the impossibility of conceiving a +third mode of knowledge, objections have been brought forward which +would lead to the affiliation of history to intellective or scientific +knowledge. The greater portion of these objections is dominated by the +prejudice that in refusing to history the character of conceptual +science, something of its value and dignity has been taken from it. This +really arises from a false idea of art, conceived, not as an essential +theoretic function, but as an amusement, a superfluity, a frivolity. +Without reopening a long debate, which so far as we are concerned, is +finally closed, we will mention here one sophism which has been and +still is widely repeated. It is intended to show the logical and +scientific nature of history. The sophism consists in admitting that +historical knowledge has for its object the individual; but not the +representation, it is added, so much as the concept of the individual. +From this it is argued that history is also a logical or scientific form +of knowledge. History, in fact, should elaborate the concept of a +personage such as Charlemagne or Napoleon; of an epoch, like the +Renaissance or the Reformation; of an event, such as the French +Revolution and the Unification of Italy. This it is held to do in the +same way as Geometry elaborates the concepts of spatial form, or +Aesthetic those of expression. But all this is untrue. History cannot do +otherwise than represent Napoleon and Charlemagne, the Renaissance and +the Reformation, the French Revolution and the Unification of Italy as +individual facts with their individual physiognomy: that is, in the same +way as logicians state, that one cannot have a concept of an individual, +but only a representation. The so-called concept of the individual is +always a universal or general concept, full of details, very rich, if +you will, but however rich it be, yet incapable of attaining to that +individuality, to which historical knowledge, as aesthetic knowledge, +alone attains. + +Let us rather show how the content of history comes to be distinguished +from that of art. The distinction is secondary. Its origin will be found +in what has already been observed as to the ideal character of the +intuition or first perception, in which all is real and therefore +nothing is real. The mind forms the concepts of external and internal at +a later stage, as it does those of what has happened and of what is +desired, of object and subject, and the like. Thus it distinguishes +historical from non-historical intuition, the _real_ from the _unreal_, +real fancy from pure fancy. Even internal facts, what is desired and +imagined, castles in the air, and countries of Cockagne, have their +reality. The soul, too, has its history. His illusions form part of the +biography of every individual. But the history of an individual soul is +history, because in it is always active the distinction between the real +and the unreal, even when the real is the illusions themselves. But +these distinctive concepts do not appear in history as do scientific +concepts, but rather like those that we have seen dissolved and melted +in the aesthetic intuitions, although they stand out in history in an +altogether new relief. History does not construct the concepts of the +real and unreal, but makes use of them. History, in fact, is not the +theory of history. Mere conceptual analysis is of no use in realizing +whether an event in our lives were real or imaginary. It is necessary to +reproduce the intuitions in the mind in the most complete form, as they +were at the moment of production, in order to recognize the content. +Historicity is distinguished in the concrete from pure imagination only +as one intuition is distinguished from another: in the memory. + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism._ + [Sidenote] _Historical scepticism._ + +Where this is not possible, owing to the delicate and fleeting shades +between the real and unreal intuitions, which confuse the one with the +other, we must either renounce, for the time at least, the knowledge of +what really happened (and this we often do), or we must fall back upon +conjecture, verisimilitude, probability. The principle of verisimilitude +and of probability dominates in fact all historical criticism. +Examination of the sources and of authority is directed toward +establishing the most credible evidence. And what is the most credible +evidence, save that of the best observers, that is, of those who best +remember and (be it understood) have not desired to falsify, nor had +interest in falsifying the truth of things? From this it follows that +intellectual scepticism finds it easy to deny the certainty of any +history, for the certainty of history is never that of science. +Historical certainty is composed of memory and of authority, not of +analyses and of demonstration. To speak of historical induction or +demonstration, is to make a metaphorical use of these expressions, which +bear quite a different meaning in history to that which they bear in +science. The conviction of the historian is the undemonstrable +conviction of the juryman, who has heard the witnesses, listened +attentively to the case, and prayed Heaven to inspire him. Sometimes, +without doubt, he is mistaken, but the mistakes are in a negligible +minority compared with the occasions when he gets hold of the truth. +That is why good sense is right against the intellectualists, in +believing in history, which is not a "fable agreed upon," but that which +the individual and humanity remember of their past. We strive to enlarge +and to render as precise as possible this record, which in some places +is dim, in others very clear. We cannot do without it, such as it is, +and taken as a whole, it is rich in truth. In a spirit of paradox only, +can one doubt if there ever were a Greece or a Rome, an Alexander or a +Caesar, a feudal Europe overthrown by a series of revolutions, that on +the 1st of November 1517 the theses of Luther were seen fixed to the +door of the church of Wittenberg, or that the Bastile was taken by the +people of Paris on the 14th of July 1789. + +"What proof givest thou of all this?" asks the sophist, ironically. +Humanity replies "I remember." + + [Sidenote] _Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural + sciences, and their limits._ + +The world of what has happened, of the concrete, of history, is the +world that is called real, natural, including in this definition the +reality that is called physical, as well as that which is called +spiritual and human. All this world is intuition; historical intuition, +if it be realistically shown as it is, or imaginary intuition, artistic +in the strict sense, if shown under the aspect of the possible, that is +to say, of the imaginable. + +Science, true science, which is not intuition but concept, not +individuality but universality, cannot be anything but a science of the +spirit, that is, of what is universal in reality: Philosophy. If natural +_sciences_ be spoken of, apart from philosophy, it is necessary to +observe that these are not perfect sciences: they are complexes of +knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed. The so-called natural +sciences themselves recognize, in fact, that they are surrounded by +limitations. These limitations are nothing more than historical and +intuitive data. They calculate, measure, establish equalities, +regularity, create classes and types, formulate laws, show in their own +way how one fact arises out of other facts; but in their progress they +are always met with facts which are known intuitively and historically. +Even geometry now states that it rests altogether on hypotheses, since +space is not three-dimensional or Euclidean, but this assumption is made +use of by preference, because it is more convenient. What there is of +truth in the natural sciences, is either philosophy or historical fact. +What they contain proper to themselves is abstract and arbitrary. When +the natural sciences wish to form themselves into perfect sciences, they +must issue from their circle and enter the philosophical circle. This +they do when they posit concepts which are anything but natural, such as +those of the atom without extension in space, of ether or vibrating +matter, of vital force, of space beyond the reach of intuition, and the +like. These are true and proper philosophical efforts, when they are not +mere words void of meaning. The concepts of natural science are, without +doubt, most useful; but one cannot obtain from them that _system_, which +belongs only to the spirit. + +These historical and intuitive assumptions, which cannot be separated +from the natural sciences, furthermore explain, not only how, in the +progress of knowledge, that which was once considered to be truth +descends gradually to the grade of mythological beliefs and imaginary +illusions, but also how, among natural scientists, there are some who +term all that serves as basis of argument in their teaching _mythical +facts, verbal expedients_, or _conventions_. The naturalists and +mathematicians who approach the study of the energies of the spirit +without preparation, are apt to carry thither these mental habits and to +speak, in philosophy, of such and such conventions "as arranged by man." +They make conventions of truth and morality, and their supreme +convention is the Spirit itself! However, if there are to be +conventions, something must exist about which there is no convention to +be made, but which is itself the agent of the convention. This is the +spiritual activity of man. The limitation of the natural sciences +postulates the illimitation of philosophy. + + [Sidenote] _The phenomenon and the noumenon._ + +These explications have firmly established that the pure or fundamental +forms of knowledge are two: the intuition and the concept--Art, and +Science or Philosophy. With these are to be included History, which is, +as it were, the product of intuition placed in contact with the concept, +that is, of art receiving in itself philosophic distinctions, while +remaining concrete and individual. All the other forms (natural sciences +and mathematics) are impure, being mingled with extraneous elements of +practical origin. The intuition gives the world, the phenomenon; the +concept gives the noumenon, the Spirit. + + + + +IV + +HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC + + +These relations between intuitive or aesthetic knowledge and the other +fundamental or derivative forms of knowledge having been definitely +established, we are now in a position to reveal the errors of a series +of theories which have been, or are, presented, as theories of +Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of verisimilitude and of naturalism._ + +From the confusion between the exigencies of art in general and the +particular exigencies of history has arisen the theory (which has lost +ground to-day, but used to dominate in the past) of _verisimilitude_ as +the object of art. As is generally the case with erroneous propositions, +the intention of those who employed and employ the concept of +verisimilitude has no doubt often been much more reasonable than the +definition given of the word. By verisimilitude used to be meant the +artistic _coherence_ of the representation, that is to say, its +completeness and effectiveness. If "verisimilar" be translated by +"coherent," a most exact meaning will often be found in the discussions, +examples, and judgments of the critics. An improbable personage, an +improbable ending to a comedy, are really badly-drawn personages, +badly-arranged endings, happenings without artistic motive. It has been +said with reason that even fairies and sprites must have verisimilitude, +that is to say, be really sprites and fairies, coherent artistic +intuitions. Sometimes the word "possible" has been used instead of +"verisimilar." As we have already remarked in passing, this word +possible is synonymous with that which is imaginable or may be known +intuitively. Everything which is really, that is to say, coherently, +imagined, is possible. But formerly, and especially by the +theoreticians, by verisimilar was understood historical credibility, or +that historical truth which is not demonstrable, but conjecturable, not +true, but verisimilar. It has been sought to impose a like character +upon art. Who does not recall the great part played in literary history +by the criticism of the verisimilar? For example, the fault found with +the _Jerusalem Delivered_, based upon the history of the Crusades, or of +the Homeric poems, upon that of the verisimilitude of the costume of the +emperors and kings? + +At other times has been imposed upon art the duty of the aesthetic +reproduction of historical reality. This is another of the erroneous +significations assumed by the theory concerning _the imitation of +nature_. Verism and naturalism have since afforded the spectacle of a +confusion of the aesthetic fact with the processes of the natural +sciences, by aiming at some sort of _experimental_ drama or romance. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of ideas in art, of theses in art, and of the + typical._ + +The confusions between the methods of art and those of the philosophical +sciences have been far more frequent. Thus it has often been held to be +within the competence of art to develop concepts, to unite the +intelligible with the sensible, to represent _ideas or universals_, +putting art in the place of science, that is, confusing the artistic +function in general with the particular case in which it becomes +aesthetico-logical. + +The theory of art as supporting _theses_ can be reduced to the same +error, as can be the theory of art considered as individual +representation, exemplifying scientific laws. The example, in so far as +it is an example, stands for the thing exemplified, and is thus an +exposition of the universal, that is to say, a form of science, more or +less popular or vulgarized. + +The same may be said of the aesthetic theory of the _typical_, when by +type is understood, as it frequently is, just the abstraction or the +concept, and it is affirmed that art should make _the species shine in +the individual_. If by typical be here understood the individual, here, +too, we have a merely verbal variation. To typify would signify, in this +case, to characterize; that is, to determine and to represent the +individual. Don Quixote is a type; but of whom is he a type, if not of +all Don Quixotes? A type, that is to say, of himself. Certainly he is +not a type of abstract concepts, such as the loss of the sense of +reality, or of the love of glory. An infinite number of personages can +be thought of under these concepts, who are not Don Quixote. In other +words, we find our own impressions fully determined and verified in the +expression of a poet (for example in a poetical personage). We call that +expression typical, which we might call simply aesthetic. Poetical or +artistic universals have been spoken of in like manner, in order to show +that the artistic product is altogether spiritual and ideal in itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the symbol and of the allegory._ + +Continuing to correct these errors, or to make clear equivoques, we will +note that the _symbol_ has sometimes been given as essence of art. Now, +if the symbol be given as inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is +the synonym of the intuition itself, which always has an ideal +character. There is no double-bottom to art, but one only; in art all is +symbolical, because all is ideal. But if the symbol be looked upon as +separable--if on the one side can be expressed the symbol, and on the +other the thing symbolized, we fall back again into the intellectualist +error: that pretended symbol is the exposition of an abstract concept, +it is an _allegory_, it is science, or art that apes science. But we +must be just toward the allegorical also. In some cases, it is +altogether harmless. Given the _Gerusalemme liberata_, the allegory was +imagined afterwards; given the _Adone_ of Marino, the poet of the +lascivious insinuated afterwards that it was written to show how +"immoderate indulgence ends in pain"; given a statue of a beautiful +woman, the sculptor can write on a card that the statue represents +_Clemency_ or _Goodness_. This allegory linked to a finished work _post +festum_ does not change the work of art. What is it, then? It is an +expression externally _added_ to another expression. A little page of +prose is added to the _Gerusalemme_, expressing another thought of the +poet; a verse or a strophe is added to the _Adone_, expressing what the +poet would like to make a part of his public swallow; while to the +statue nothing more than the single word is added: _Clemency_ or +_Goodness_. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of artistic and literary classes._ + +But the greatest triumph of the intellectualist error lies in the theory +of artistic and literary classes, which still has vogue in literary +treatises, and disturbs the critics and the historians of art. Let us +observe its genesis. + +The human mind can pass from the aesthetic to the logical, just because +the former is a first step, in respect to the latter. It can destroy the +expressions, that is, the thought of the individual with the thought of +the universal. It can reduce expressive facts to logical relations. We +have already shown that this operation in its turn becomes concrete in +an expression, but this does not mean that the first expressions have +not been destroyed. They have yielded their place to the new +aesthetico-logical expressions. When we are on the second step, we have +left the first. + +He who enters a picture-gallery, or who reads a series of poems, may, +after he has looked and read, go further: he may seek out the relations +of the things there expressed. Thus those pictures and compositions, +each of which is an individual inexpressible by logic, are resolved into +universals and abstractions, such as _costumes, landscapes, portraits, +domestic life, battles, animals, flowers, fruit, seascapes, lakes, +deserts, tragic, comic, piteous, cruel, lyrical, epic, dramatic, +knightly, idyllic facts_, and the like. They are often also resolved +into merely quantitative categories, such as _little picture, picture, +statuette, group, madrigal, song, sonnet, garland of sonnets, poetry, +poem, story, romance_, and the like. + +When we think the concept _domestic life_, or _knighthood_, or _idyll_, +or _cruelty_, or any other quantitative concept, the individual +expressive fact from which we started is abandoned. From aesthetes that +we were, we have been changed into logicians; from contemplators of +expression, into reasoners. Certainly no objection can be made to such a +process. In what other way could science be born, which, if aesthetic +expressions be assumed in it, yet has for function to go beyond them? +The logical or scientific form, as such, excludes the aesthetic form. He +who begins to think scientifically has already ceased to contemplate +aesthetically; although his thought will assume of necessity in its turn +an aesthetic form, as has already been said, and as it would be +superfluous to repeat. + +The error begins when we try to deduce the expression from the concept, +and to find in the thing substituting the laws of the thing substituted; +when the difference between the second and the first step has not been +observed, and when, in consequence, we declare that we are standing on +the first step, when we are really standing on the second. This error is +known as _the theory of artistic and literary classes_. + +What is the aesthetic form of domestic life, of knighthood, of the +idyll, of cruelty, and so forth? How should these contents be +_represented_? Such is the absurd problem implied in the theory of +artistic and literary classes. It is in this that consists all search +after laws or rules of styles. Domestic life, knighthood, idyll, +cruelty, and the like, are not impressions, but concepts. They are not +contents, but logico-aesthetic forms. You cannot express the form, for +it is already itself expression. And what are the words cruelty, idyll, +knighthood, domestic life, and so on, but the expression of those +concepts? + +Even the most refined of these distinctions, those that have the most +philosophic appearance, do not resist criticism; as, for instance, when +works of art are divided into the subjective and the objective styles, +into lyric and epic, into works of feeling and works of design. It is +impossible to separate in aesthetic analysis, the subjective from the +objective side, the lyric from the epic, the image of feeling from that +of things. + + [Sidenote] _Errors derived from this theory appearing in judgments + on art._ + +From the theory of the artistic and literary classes derive those +erroneous modes of judgment and of criticism, thanks to which, instead +of asking before a work of art if it be expressive, and what it +expresses, whether it speak or stammer, or be silent altogether, it is +asked if it be obedient to the _laws_ of the epic poem, or to those of +tragedy, to those of historical portraiture, or to those of landscape +painting. Artists, however, while making a verbal pretence of agreeing, +or yielding a feigned obedience to them, have really always disregarded +these _laws of styles_. Every true work of art has violated some +established class and upset the ideas of the critics, who have thus been +obliged to enlarge the number of classes, until finally even this +enlargement has proved too narrow, owing to the appearance of new works +of art, which are naturally followed by new scandals, new upsettings, +and-new enlargements. + +From the same theory come the prejudices, owing to which at one time +(and is it really passed?) people used to lament that Italy had no +tragedy (until a poet arose who gave to Italy that wreath which was the +only thing wanting to her glorious hair), nor France the epic poem +(until the _Henriade_, which slaked the thirsty throats of the critics). +Eulogies accorded to the inventors of new styles are connected with +these prejudices, so much so, that in the seventeenth century the +invention of the _mock-heroic_ poem seemed an important event, and the +honour of it was disputed, as though it were the discovery of America. +But the works adorned with this name (the _Secchia rapita_ and the +_Scherno degli Dei_) were still-born, because their authors (a slight +draw-back) had nothing new or original to say. Mediocrities racked their +brains to invent, artificially, new styles. The _piscatorial_ eclogue +was added to the _pastoral_, and then, finally, the _military_ eclogue. +The _Aminta_ was bathed and became the _Alceo_. Finally, there have been +historians of art and literature, so much fascinated with these ideas of +classes, that they claimed to write the history, not of single and +effective literary and artistic works, but of their classes, those empty +phantoms. They have claimed to portray, not the evolution of the +_artistic spirit_, but the _evolution of classes_. + +The philosophical condemnation of artistic and literary classes is found +in the formulation and demonstration of what artistic activity has ever +sought and good taste ever recognized. What is to be done if good taste +and the real fact, put into formulas, sometimes assume the air of +paradoxes? + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the divisions of classes._ + +Now if we talk of tragedies, comedies, dramas, romances, pictures of +everyday life, battle-pieces, landscapes, seascapes, poems, versicles, +lyrics, and the like, if it be only with a view to be understood, and to +draw attention in general and approximatively to certain groups of +works, to which, for one reason or another, it is desired to draw +attention, in that case, no scientific error has been committed. We +employ _vocables and phrases_; we do not establish _laws and +definitions_. The mistake arises when the weight of a scientific +definition is given to a word, when we ingenuously let ourselves be +caught in the meshes of that phraseology. Pray permit me a comparison. +It is necessary to arrange the books in a library in one way or another. +This used generally to be done by means of a rough classification by +subjects (among which the categories of miscellaneous and eccentric were +not wanting); they are now generally arranged by sizes or by publishers. +Who can deny the necessity and the utility of these groupings? But what +should we say if some one began seriously to seek out the literary laws +of miscellanies and of eccentricities from the Aldine or Bodonian +collection, from size A or size B, that is to say, from these altogether +arbitrary groupings whose sole object has been their practical use? +Well, whoever should undertake an enterprise such as this, would be +doing neither more nor less than those who seek out the aesthetic laws +of literary and artistic classes. + + + + +V + +ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORIC AND LOGIC + + +The better to confirm these criticisms, it will be opportune to cast a +rapid glance over analogous and opposite errors, born of ignorance as to +the true nature of art, and of its relation to history and to science. +These errors have injured alike the theory of history and of science, of +Historic (or Historiology) and of Logic. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the philosophy of history._ + +Historical intellectualism has been the cause of the many researches +which have been made, especially during the last two centuries, +researches which continue to-day, for _a philosophy of history_, for an +_ideal history_, for a _sociology_, for a _historical psychology_, or +however may be otherwise entitled or described a science whose object is +to extract from history, universal laws and concepts. Of what kind must +be these laws, these universals? Historical laws and historical +concepts? In that case, an elementary criticism of knowledge suffices to +make clear the absurdity of the attempt. When such expressions as a +_historical law_, a _historical concept_ are not simply metaphors +colloquially employed, they are true contradictions in terms: the +adjective is as unsuitable to the substantive as in the expressions +_qualitative quantity_ or _pluralistic monism_. History means concretion +and individuality, law and concept mean abstraction and universality. +If, on the other hand, the attempt to draw from history historical laws +and concepts be abandoned, and it be merely desired to draw from it laws +and concepts, the attempt is certainly not frivolous; but the science +thus obtained will be, not a philosophy of history, but rather, +according to the case, either philosophy in its various specifications +of Ethic, Logic, etc., or empirical science in its infinite divisions +and subdivisions. Thus are sought out either those philosophical +concepts which are, as has already been observed, at the bottom of every +historical construction and separate perception from intuition, +historical intuition from pure intuition, history from art; or already +formed historical intuitions are collected and reduced to types and +classes, which is exactly the method of the natural sciences. Great +thinkers have sometimes donned the unsuitable cloak of the philosophy of +history, and notwithstanding the covering, they have conquered +philosophical truths of the greatest magnitude. The cloak has been +dropped, the truth has remained. Modern sociologists are rather to be +blamed, not so much for the illusion in which they are involved when +they talk of an impossible science of sociology, as for the infecundity +which almost always accompanies their illusion. It is but a small evil +that Aesthetic should be termed sociological Aesthetic, or Logic, social +Logic. The grave evil is that their Aesthetic is an old-fashioned +expression of sensualism, their Logic verbal and incoherent. The +philosophical movement, to which we have referred, has borne two good +fruits in relation to history. First of all has been felt the desire to +construct a theory of historiography, that is, to understand the nature +and the limits of history, a theory which, in conformity with the +analyses made above, cannot obtain satisfaction, save in a general +science of intuition, in an Aesthetic, from which Historic would be +separated under a special head by means of the intervention of the +universals. Furthermore, concrete truths relating to historical events +have often been expressed beneath the false and presumptuous cloak of a +philosophy of history; canons and empirical advice have been formulated +by no means superfluous to students and critics. It does not seem +possible to deny this utility to the most recent of philosophies of +history, to so-called historical materialism, which has thrown a very +vivid light upon many sides of social life, formerly neglected or ill +understood. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic invasions into Logic._ + +The principle of authority, of the _ipse dixit_, is an invasion of +historicity into the domains of science and philosophy which has raged +in the schools. This substitutes for introspection and philosophical +analyses, this or that evidence, document, or authoritative statement, +with which history certainly cannot dispense. But Logic, the science of +thought and of intellectual knowledge, has suffered the most grave and +destructive disturbances and errors of all, through the imperfect +understanding of the aesthetic fact. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, +if logical activity come after and contain in itself aesthetic activity? +An inexact Aesthetic must of necessity drag after it an inexact Logic. + +Whoever opens logical treatises, from the _Organum_ of Aristotle to the +moderns, must admit that they all contain a haphazard mixture of verbal +facts and facts of thought, of grammatical forms and of conceptual +forms, of Aesthetic and of Logic. Not that attempts have been wanting to +escape from verbal expression and to seize thought in its effective +nature. Aristotelian logic itself did not become mere syllogistic and +verbalism, without some stumbling and oscillation. The especially +logical problem was often touched upon in the Middle Ages, by the +nominalists, realists, and conceptualists, in their disputes. With +Galileo and with Bacon, the natural sciences gave an honourable place to +induction. Vico combated formalist and mathematical logic in favour of +inventive methods. Kant called attention to _a priori_ syntheses. The +absolute idealists despised the Aristotelian logic. The followers of +Herbart, bound to Aristotle, on the other hand, set in relief those +judgments which they called narrative, which are of a character +altogether different from other logical judgments. Finally, the +linguists insisted upon the irrationality of the word, in relation to +the concept. But a conscious, sure, and radical movement of reform can +find no base or starting-point, save in the science of Aesthetic. + + [Sidenote] _Logic in its essence._ + +In a Logic suitably reformed on this basis, it will be fitting to +proclaim before all things this truth, and to draw from it all its +consequences: the logical fact, _the only logical fact_, is _the +concept_, the universal, the spirit that forms, and in so far as it +forms, the universal. And if be understood by induction, as has +sometimes been understood, the formation of universals, and by deduction +the verbal development of these, then it is clear that true Logic can be +nothing but inductive Logic. But since by the word "deduction" has been +more frequently understood the special processes of mathematics, and by +the word "induction" those of the natural sciences, it will be advisable +to avoid the one and the other denomination, and to say that true Logic +is the Logic of the concept. The Logic of the concept, adopting a method +which is at once induction and deduction, will adopt neither the one nor +the other exclusively, that is, will adopt the (speculative) method, +which is intrinsic to it. + +The concept, the universal, is in itself, abstractly considered, +_inexpressible_. No word is proper to it. So true is this, that the +logical concept remains always the same, notwithstanding the variation +of verbal forms. In respect to the concept, expression is a simple +_sign_ or _indication_. There must be an expression, it cannot fail; but +what it is to be, this or that, is determined by the historical and +psychological conditions of the individual who is speaking. The quality +of the expression is not deducible from the nature of the concept. There +does not exist a true (logical) sense of words. He who forms a concept +bestows on each occasion their true meaning on the words. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between logical and non-logical judgements._ + +This being established, the only truly logical (that is, +aesthetico-logical) propositions, the only rigorously logical judgments, +can be nothing but those whose proper and exclusive content is the +determination of a concept. These propositions or judgments are the +_definitions_. Science itself is nothing but a complex of definitions, +unified in a supreme definition; a system of concepts, or chief concept. + +It is therefore necessary to exclude from Logic all those propositions +which do not affirm universals. Narrative judgments, not less than those +termed non-enunciative by Aristotle, such as the expression of desires, +are not properly logical judgments. They are either purely aesthetic +propositions or historical propositions. "Peter is passing; it is +raining to-day; I am sleepy; I want to read": these and an infinity of +propositions of the same kind, are nothing but either a mere enclosing, +in words the impression of the fact that Peter is passing, of the +falling rain, of my organism inclining to sleep, and of my will directed +to reading, or they are existential affirmation concerning those facts. +They are expressions of the real or of the unreal, of historical or of +pure imagination; they are certainly not definitions of universals. + + [Sidenote] _Syllogistic._ + +This exclusion cannot meet with great difficulties. It is already almost +an accomplished fact, and the only thing required is to render it +explicit, decisive, and coherent. But what is to be done with all that +part of human experience which is called _syllogistic_, consisting of +judgments and reasonings which are based on concepts. What is +syllogistic? Is it to be looked down upon from above with contempt, as +something useless, as has so often been done in the reaction of the +humanists against scholasticism, in absolute idealism, in the +enthusiastic admiration of our times for the methods of observation and +experiment of the natural sciences? Syllogistic, reasoning _in forma_, +is not a discovery of truth; it is the art of exposing, debating, +disputing with oneself and others. Proceeding from concepts already +formed, from facts already observed and making appeal to the persistence +of the true or of thought (such is the meaning of the principle of +identity and contradiction), it infers consequences from these data, +that is, it represents what has already been discovered. Therefore, if +it be an _idem per idem_ from the point of view of invention, it is most +efficacious as a teaching and an exposition. To reduce affirmations to +the syllogistic scheme is a way of controlling one's own thought and of +criticizing that of others. It is easy to laugh at syllogisers, but, if +syllogistic has been born and retains its place, it must have good roots +of its own. Satire applied to it can concern only its abuses, such as +the attempt to prove syllogistically questions of fact, observation, and +intuition, or the neglect of profound meditation and unprejudiced +investigation of problems, for syllogistic formality. And if so-called +_mathematical Logic_ can sometimes aid us in our attempt to remember +with ease, to manipulate the results of our own thought, let us welcome +this form of the syllogism also, long prophesied by Leibnitz and essayed +by many, even in our days. + +But precisely because syllogistic is the art of exposing and of +debating, its theory cannot hold the first place in a philosophical +Logic, usurping that belonging to the doctrine of the concept, which is +the central and dominating doctrine, to which is reduced everything +logical in syllogistic, without leaving a residuum (relations of +concepts, subordination, co-ordination, identification, and so on). Nor +must it ever be forgotten that the concept, the (logical) judgment, and +the syllogism do not occupy the same position. The first alone is the +logical fact, the second and third are the forms in which the first +manifests itself. These, in so far as they are forms, cannot be examined +save aesthetically (grammatically); in so far as they possess logical +content, only by neglecting the forms themselves and passing to the +doctrine of the concept. + + [Sidenote] _False Logic and true Aesthetic._ + +This shows the truth of the ordinary remark to the effect that he who +reasons ill, also speaks and writes ill, that exact logical analysis is +the basis of good expression. This truth is a tautology, for to reason +well is in fact to express oneself well, because the expression is the +intuitive possession of one's own logical thought. The principle of +contradiction, itself, is at bottom nothing but the aesthetic principle +of coherence. It will be said that starting from erroneous concepts it +is possible to write and to speak exceedingly well, as it is also +possible to reason well; that some who are dull at research may yet be +most limpid writers. That is precisely because to write well depends +upon having a clear intuition of one's own thought, even if it be +erroneous; that is to say, not of its scientific, but of its aesthetic +truth, since it is this truth itself. A philosopher like Schopenhauer +can imagine that art is a representation of the Platonic ideas. This +doctrine is absolutely false scientifically, yet he may develop this +false knowledge in excellent prose, aesthetically most true. But we have +already replied to these objections, when we observed that at that +precise point where a speaker or a writer enunciates an ill-thought +concept, he is at the same time speaking ill and writing ill. He may, +however, afterwards recover himself in the many other parts of his +thought, which consist of true propositions, not connected with the +preceding errors, and lucid expressions may with him follow upon turbid +expressions. + + [Sidenote] _Logic reformed._ + +All enquiries as to the forms of judgments and of syllogisms, on their +conversion and on their various relations, which still encumber +treatises on Logic, are therefore destined to become less, to be +transformed, to be reduced to something else. + +The doctrine of the concept and of the organism of the concepts, of +definition, of system, of philosophy, and of the various sciences, and +the like, will fill the place of these and will constitute the only true +and proper Logic. + +Those who first had some suspicion of the intimate connexion between +Aesthetic and Logic and conceived Aesthetic as a _Logic of sensible +knowledge_, were strangely addicted to applying logical categories to +the new knowledge, talking of _aesthetic concepts, aesthetic judgments, +aesthetic syllogisms_, and so on. We are less superstitious as regards +the solidity of the traditional Logic of the schools, and better +informed as to the nature of Aesthetic. We do not recommend the +application of Logic to Aesthetic, but the liberation of Logic from +aesthetic forms. These have given rise to non-existent forms or +categories of Logic, due to the following of altogether arbitrary and +crude distinctions. + +Logic thus reformed will always be _formal_ Logic; it will study the +true form or activity of thought, the concept, excluding single and +particular concepts. The old Logic is ill called formal; it were better +to call it _verbal_ or _formalistic_. Formal Logic will drive out +formalistic Logic. To attain this object, it will not be necessary to +have recourse, as some have done, to a real or material Logic, which is +not a science of thought, but thought itself in the act; not only a +Logic, but the complex of Philosophy, in which Logic also is included. +The science of thought (Logic) is that of the concept, as that of fancy +(Aesthetic) is the science of expression. The well-being of both +sciences lies in exactly following in every particular the distinction +between the two domains. + + + + +VI + +THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY + + +The intuitive and intellective forms exhaust, as we have said, all the +theoretic form of the spirit. But it is not possible to know them +thoroughly, nor to criticize another series of erroneous aesthetic +theories, without first establishing clearly their relations with +another form of the spirit, which is the _practical_ form. + + [Sidenote] _The will._ + +This form or practical activity is the _will_. We do not employ this +word here in the sense of any philosophical system, in which the will is +the foundation of the universe, the principle of things and the true +reality. Nor do we employ it in the ample sense of other systems, which +understand by will the energy of the spirit, the spirit or activity in +general, making of every act of the human spirit an act of will. Neither +such metaphysical nor such metaphorical meaning is ours. For us, the +will is, as generally accepted, that activity of the spirit, which +differs from the mere theoretical contemplation of things, and is +productive, not of knowledge, but of actions. Action is really action, +in so far as it is voluntary. It is not necessary to remark that in the +will to do, is included, in the scientific sense, also what is vulgarly +called not-doing: the will to resist, to reject, the prometheutic will, +is also action. + + [Sidenote] _The will as an ulterior stage in respect to knowledge._ + +Man understands things with the theoretical form, with the practical +form he changes them; with the one he appropriates the universe, with +the other he creates it. But the first form is the basis of the second; +and the relation of _double degree_, which we have already found +existing between aesthetic and logical activity, is repeated between +these two on a larger scale. Knowledge independent of the will is +thinkable; will independent of knowledge is unthinkable. Blind will is +not will; true will has eyes. + +How can we will, without having before us historical intuitions +(perceptions) of objects, and knowledge of (logical) relations, which +enlighten us as to the nature of those objects? How can we really will, +if we do not know the world which surrounds us, and the manner of +changing things by acting upon them? + + [Sidenote] _Objections and elucidations._ + +It has been objected that men of action, practical men in the eminent +sense, are the least disposed to contemplate and to theorize: their +energy is not delayed in contemplation, it rushes at once into will. And +conversely, that contemplative men, philosophers, are often very +mediocre in practical matters, weak willed, and therefore neglected and +thrust aside in the tumult of life. It is easy to see that these +distinctions are merely empirical and quantitative. Certainly, the +practical man has no need of a philosophical system in order to act, but +in the spheres where he does act, he starts from intuitions and concepts +which are most clear to him. Otherwise he could not will the most +ordinary actions. It would not be possible to will to feed oneself, for +instance, without knowledge of the food, and of the link of cause and +effect between certain movements and certain organic sensations. Rising +gradually to the more complex forms of action, for example to the +political, how could we will anything politically good or bad, without +knowing the real conditions of society, and consequently the means and +expedients to be adopted? When the practical man feels himself in the +dark about one or more of these points, or when he is seized with doubt, +action either does not begin or stops. It is then that the theoretical +moment, which in the rapid succession of human actions is hardly noticed +and rapidly forgotten, becomes important and occupies consciousness for +a longer time. And if this moment be prolonged, then the practical man +may become Hamlet, divided between desire for action and his small +amount of theoretical clarity as regards the situation and the means to +be employed. And if he develop a taste for contemplation and discovery, +and leave willing and acting, to a more or less great extent, to others, +there is formed in him the calm disposition of the artist, of the man of +science, or of the philosopher, who are sometimes unpractical or +altogether blameworthy. These observations are all obvious. Their +exactitude cannot be denied. Let us, however, repeat that they are +founded on quantitative distinctions and do not disprove, but confirm +the fact that an action, however slight it be, cannot really be an +action, that is, an action that is willed, unless it be preceded by +cognoscitive activity. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of practical judgments or judgments of value._ + +Some psychologists, on the other hand, place before practical action an +altogether special class of judgments, which they call _practical_ +judgments or judgments _of value_. They say that in order to resolve to +perform an action, it is necessary to have judged: "this action is +useful, this action is good." And at first sight this seems to have the +testimony of consciousness on its side. But he who observes better and +analyses with greater subtlety, discovers that such judgments follow +instead of preceding the affirmation of the will; they are nothing but +the expression of the already exercised volition. A good or useful +action is an action that is willed. It will always be impossible to +distil from the objective study of things a single drop of usefulness or +goodness. We do not desire things because we know them to be good or +useful; but we know them to be good and useful, because we desire them. +Here too, the rapidity, with which the facts of consciousness follow one +another has given rise to an illusion. Practical action is preceded by +knowledge, but not by practical knowledge, or better by the practical: +to obtain this, it is first necessary to have practical action. The +third moment, therefore, of practical judgments, or judgments of value, +is altogether imaginary. It does not come between the two moments or +degrees of theory and practice. That is why there exist no normative +sciences in general, which regulate or command, discover and indicate +values to the practical activity; because there is none for any other +activity, assuming every science already realized and that activity +developed, which it afterwards takes as its object. + + [Sidenote] _Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic._ + +These distinctions established, we must condemn as erroneous every +theory which confuses aesthetic with practical activity, or introduces +the laws of the second into the first. That science is theory and art +practice has been many times affirmed. Those who make this statement, +and look upon the aesthetic fact as a practical fact, do not do so +capriciously or because they are groping in the void; but because they +have their eye on something which is really practical. But the practical +which they are looking at is not Aesthetic, nor within Aesthetic; it is +_outside and beside it_; and although they are often found united, they +are not necessarily united, that is to say, by the bond of identity of +nature. + +The aesthetic fact is altogether completed in the expressive elaboration +of the impressions. When we have conquered the word within us, conceived +definitely and vividly a figure or a statue, or found a musical motive, +expression is born and is complete; there is no need for anything else. +If after this we should open our mouths and _will_ to open them, to +speak, or our throats to sing, and declare in a loud voice and with +extended throat what we have completely said or sung to ourselves; or if +we should stretch out and _will_ to stretch out our hands to touch the +notes of the piano, or to take up the brushes and the chisel, making +thus in detail those movements which we have already done rapidly, and +doing so in such a way as to leave more or less durable traces; this is +all an addition, a fact which obeys quite different laws to the first, +and with these laws we have not to occupy ourselves for the moment. Let +us, however, here recognize that this second movement is a production of +things, a _practical_ fact, or a fact of _will_. It is customary to +distinguish the internal from the external work of art: the terminology +seems here to be infelicitous, for the work of art (the aesthetic work) +is always _internal_; and that which is called _external_ is no longer a +work of art. Others distinguish between _aesthetic_ fact and _artistic_ +fact, meaning by the second the external or practical stage, which may +and generally does follow the first. But in this case, it is simply a +case of linguistic usage, doubtless permissible, although perhaps not +opportune. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the end of art and of the + choice of the content._ + +For the same reasons the search for the _end of art_ is ridiculous, when +it is understood of art as art. And since to fix an end is to choose, +the theory that the content of art must be _selected_ is another form of +the same error. A selection from among impressions and sensations +implies that these are already expressions, otherwise, how can a +selection be made among what is continuous and indistinct? To choose is +to will: to will this and not to will that: and this and that must be +before us, they must be expressed. Practice follows, it does not precede +theory; expression is free inspiration. + +The true artist, in fact, finds himself big with his theme, he knows not +how; he feels the moment of birth drawing near, but he cannot will it or +not will it. If he were to wish to act in opposition to his inspiration, +to make an arbitrary choice, if, born Anacreon, he were to wish to sing +of Atreus and of Alcides, his lyre would warn him of his mistake, +echoing only of Venus and of Love, notwithstanding his efforts to the +contrary. + + [Sidenote] _Practical innocence of art._ + +The theme or content cannot, therefore, be practically or morally +charged with epithets of praise or of blame. When critics of art remark +that a theme is _badly selected_, in cases where that observation has a +just foundation, it is a question of blaming, not the selection of the +theme (which would be absurd), but the manner in which the artist has +treated it. The expression has failed, owing to the contradictions which +it contains. And when the same critics rebel against the theme or the +content as being unworthy of art and blameworthy, in respect to works +which they proclaim to be artistically perfect; if these expressions +really are perfect, there is nothing to be done but to advise the +critics to leave the artists in peace, for they cannot get inspiration, +save from what has made an impression upon them. The critics should +think rather of how they can effect changes in nature and in society, in +order that those impressions may not exist. If ugliness were to vanish +from the world, if universal virtue and felicity were established there, +perhaps artists would no longer represent perverse or pessimistic +sentiments, but sentiments that are calm, innocent, and joyous, like +Arcadians of a real Arcady. But so long as ugliness and turpitude exist +in nature and impose themselves on the artist, it is not possible to +prevent the expression of these things also; and when it has arisen, +_factum infectum fieri nequit_. We speak thus entirely from the +aesthetic point of view, and from that of pure aesthetic criticism. + +We do not delay to pass here in review the damage which the criticism of +choice does to artistic production, with the prejudices which it +produces or maintains among the artists themselves, and with the +contrast which it occasions between artistic impulse and critical +exigencies. It is true that sometimes it seems to do some good also, by +assisting the artists to discover themselves, that is, their own +impressions and their own inspiration, and to acquire consciousness of +the task which is, as it were, imposed upon them by the historical +moment in which they live, and by their individual temperament. In these +cases, criticism of choice merely recognizes and aids the expressions +which are already being formed. It believes itself to be the mother, +where, at most, it is only the midwife. + + [Sidenote] _The independence of art._ + +The impossibility of choice of content completes the theorem of the +_independence of art_, and is also the only legitimate meaning of the +expression: _art for art's sake_. Art is thus independent of science, as +it is of the useful and the moral. Let it not be feared that thus may be +justified art that is frivolous or cold, since that which is truly +frivolous or cold is so because it has not been raised to expression; or +in other words, frivolity and frigidity come always from the form of the +aesthetic elaboration, from the lack of a content, not from the material +qualities of the content. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the saying: the style is the man._ + +The saying: _the style is the man_, can also not be completely +criticized, save by starting from the distinction between the theoretic +and the practical, and from the theoretic character of the aesthetic +activity. Man is not simply knowledge and contemplation: he is also +will, which contains in it the cognoscitive moment. Now the saying is +either altogether void, as when it is understood that the man is the +style, in so far as he is style, that is to say, the man, but only in so +far as he is an expression of activity; or it is erroneous, when the +attempt is made to deduce from what a man has seen and expressed, that +which he has done and willed, inferring thereby that there is a +necessary link between knowing and willing. Many legends in the +biographies of artists have sprung from this erroneous identification, +since it seemed impossible that a man who gives expression to generous +sentiments should not be a noble and generous man in practical life; or +that the dramatist who gives a great many stabs in his plays, should not +himself have given a few at least in real life. Vainly do the artists +protest: _lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba_. They are merely taxed +in addition with lying and hypocrisy. O you poor women of Verona, how +far more subtle you were, when you founded your belief that Dante had +really descended to hell, upon his dusky countenance! Yours was at any +rate a historical conjecture. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the concept of sincerity in art._ + +Finally, _sincerity_ imposed upon the artist as a duty (this law of +ethics which, they say, is also a law of aesthetic) arises from another +equivoke. For by sincerity is meant either the moral duty not to deceive +one's neighbour; and in that case Is foreign to the artist. For he, in +fact, deceives no one, since he gives form to what is already in his +mind. He would deceive, only if he were to betray his duty as an artist +by a lesser devotion to the intrinsic necessity of his task. If lies and +deceit are in his mind, then the form which he gives to these things +cannot be deceit or lies, precisely because it is aesthetic. The artist, +if he be a charlatan, a liar, or a miscreant, purifies his other self by +reflecting it in art. Or by sincerity is meant, fulness and truth of +expression, and it is clear that this second sense has nothing to do +with the ethical concept. The law, which is at once ethical and +aesthetic, reveals itself in this case in a word employed alike by Ethic +and Aesthetic. + + + + +VII + +ANALOGY BETWEEN THE THEORETIC AND THE PRACTICAL + + + [Sidenote] _The two forms of practical activity._ + +The twofold grade of the theoretical activity, aesthetic and logical, +has an important parallel in the practical activity, which has not yet +been placed in due relief. The practical activity is also divided into a +first and second degree, the second implying the first. The first +practical degree is the simply _useful_ or _economical_ activity; the +second the _moral_ activity. + +Economy is, as it were, the Aesthetic of practical life; Morality its +Logic. + + [Sidenote] _The economically useful._ + +If this has not been clearly seen by philosophers; if its suitable place +in the system of the mind has not been given to the economic activity, +and it has been left to wander in the prolegomena to treatises on +political economy, often uncertain and but slightly elaborated, this is +due, among other reasons, to the fact that the useful or economic has +been confused, now with the concept of _technique_, now with that of the +_egoistic_. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the technical._ + +_Technique_ is certainly not a special activity of the spirit. +Technique is knowledge; or better, it is knowledge itself, in general, +that takes this name, as we have seen, in so far as it serves as basis +for practical action. Knowledge which is not followed, or is presumed to +be not easily followed by practical action, is called pure: the same +knowledge, if effectively followed by action, is called applied; if it +is presumed that it can be easily followed by the same action, it is +called technical or applied. This word, then, indicates a _situation_ in +which knowledge already is, or easily can be found, not a special form +of knowledge. So true is this, that it would be altogether impossible to +establish whether a given order of knowledge were, intrinsically, pure +or applied. All knowledge, however abstract and philosophical one may +imagine it to be, can be a guide to practical acts; a theoretical error +in the ultimate principles of morals can be reflected and always is +reflected in some way, in practical life. One can only speak roughly and +unscientifically of truths that are pure and of others that are applied. + +The same knowledge which is called technical, can also be called +_useful_. But the word "useful," in conformity with the criticism of +judgments of value made above, is to be understood as used here in a +linguistic or metaphorical sense. When we say that water is useful for +putting out fire, the word "useful" is used in a non-scientific sense. +Water thrown on the fire is the cause of its going out: this is the +knowledge that serves for basis to the action, let us say, of firemen. +There is a link, not of nature, but of simple succession, between the +useful action of the person who extinguishes the conflagration, and this +knowledge. The technique of the effects of the water is the theoretical +activity which precedes; the _action_ of him who extinguishes the fire +is alone useful. + + [Sidenote] _Distinction between the useful and the egoistic._ + +Some economists identify utility with _egoïsm_, that is to say, with +merely economical action or desire, with that which is profitable to the +individual, in so far as individual, without regard to and indeed in +complete opposition to the moral law. The egoistic is the immoral. In +this case Economy would be a very strange science, standing, not beside, +but facing Ethic, like the devil facing God, or at least like the +_advocatus diaboli_ in the processes of canonization. Such a conception +of it is altogether inadmissible: the science of immorality is implied +in that of morality, as the science of the false is implied in _Logic_, +the science of the true, and a science of ineffectual expression in +Aesthetic, the science of successful expression. If, then, Economy were +the scientific treatment of egoism, it would be a chapter of Ethic, or +Ethic itself; because every moral determination implies, at the same +time, a negation of its contrary. + +Further, conscience tells us that to conduct oneself economically is not +to conduct oneself egoistically; that even the most morally scrupulous +man must conduct himself usefully (economically), if he does not wish to +be inconclusive and, therefore, not truly moral. If utility were egoism, +how could it be the duty of the altruist to behave like an egoist? + + [Sidenote] _Economic will and moral will._ + +If we are not mistaken, the difficulty is solved in a manner perfectly +analogous to that in which is solved the problem of the relations +between the expression and the concept, between Aesthetic and Logic. + +To will economically is to _will an end_; to will morally is to _will +the rational end_. But whoever wills and acts morally, cannot but will +and act usefully (economically). How could he will the _rational_, +unless he willed it also _as his particular end_? + + [Sidenote] _Pure economicity._ + +The reciprocal is not true; as it is not true in aesthetic science that +the expressive fact must of necessity be linked with the logical fact. +It is possible to will economically without willing morally; and it is +possible to conduct oneself with perfect economic coherence, while +pursuing an end which is objectively irrational (immoral), or, better, +an end which would be so judged in a superior grade of consciousness. + +Examples of the economic, without the moral character, are the Prince of +Machiavelli, Caesar Borgia, or the Iago of Shakespeare. Who can help +admiring their strength of will, although their activity is only +economic, and is opposed to what we hold moral? Who can help admiring +the ser Ciappelletto of Boccaccio, who, even on his death-bed, pursues +and realizes his ideal of the perfect rascal, making the small and timid +little thieves who are present at his burlesque confession exclaim: +"What manner of man is this, whose perversity, neither age, nor +infirmity, nor the fear of death, which he sees at hand, nor the fear of +God, before whose judgment-seat he must stand in a little while, have +been able to remove, nor to cause that he should not wish to die as he +has lived?" + + [Sidenote] _The economic side of morality._ + +The moral man unites with the pertinacity and fearlessness of a Caesar +Borgia, of an Iago, or of a ser Ciappelletto, the good will of the saint +or of the hero. Or, better, good will would not be will, and +consequently not good, if it did not possess, in addition to the side +which makes it _good_, also that which makes it _will_. Thus a logical +thought, which does not succeed in expressing itself, is not thought, +but at the most, a confused presentiment of a thought yet to come. + +It is not correct, then, to conceive of the amoral man as also the +anti-economical man, or to make of morality an element of coherence in +the acts of life, and therefore of economicity. Nothing prevents us from +conceiving (an hypothesis which is verified at least during certain +periods and moments, if not during whole lifetimes) a man altogether +without moral conscience. In a man thus organized, what for us is +immorality is not so for him, because it is not so felt. The +consciousness of the contradiction between what is desired as a rational +end and what is pursued egoistically cannot be born in him. This +contradiction is anti-economicity. Immoral conduct becomes also +anti-economical only in the man who possesses moral conscience. The +moral remorse which is the proof of this, is also economical remorse; +that is to say, pain at not having known how to will completely and to +attain to that moral ideal which was willed at the first moment, but was +afterwards perverted by the passions. _Video meliora proboque, deteriora +sequor_. The _video_ and the _probo_ are here an initial will +immediately contradicted and passed over. In the man deprived of moral +sense, we must admit a remorse which is _merely economic_; like that of +a thief or of an assassin who should be attacked when on the point of +robbing or of assassinating, and should abstain from doing so, not owing +to a conversion of his being, but owing to his impressionability and +bewilderment, or even owing to a momentary awakening of the moral +consciousness. When he has come back to himself, that thief or assassin +will regret and be ashamed of his inconsequence; his remorse will not be +due to having done wrong, but to not having done it; his remorse is, +therefore, economic, not moral, since the latter is excluded by +hypothesis. However, a lively moral conscience is generally found among +the majority of men, and its total absence is a rare and perhaps +non-existent monstrosity. It may, therefore, be admitted, that morality +coincides with economicity in the conduct of life. + + [Sidenote] _The merely economic and the error of the morally + indifferent._ + +There need be no fear lest the parallelism affirmed by us should +introduce afresh into the category of the _morally indifferent_, of that +which is in truth action and volition, but is neither moral nor immoral; +the category in sum of the _licit_ and of the _permissible_, which has +always been the cause or mirror of ethical corruption, as is the case +with Jesuitical morality in which it dominated. It remains quite certain +that indifferent moral actions do not exist, because moral activity +pervades and must pervade every least volitional movement of man. But +this, far from upsetting the parallelism, confirms it. Do there exist +intuitions which science and the intellect do not pervade and analyse, +resolving them into universal concepts, or changing them into historical +affirmations? We have already seen that true science, philosophy, knows +no external limits which bar its way, as happens with the so-called +natural sciences. Science and morality entirely dominate, the one the +aesthetic intuitions, the other the economic volitions of man, although +neither of them can appear in the concrete, save in the intuitive form +as regards the one, in the economic as regards the other. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of utilitarianism and the reform of Ethic and + of Economic._ + +This combined identity and difference of the useful and of the moral, of +the economic and of the ethic, explains the fortune enjoyed now and +formerly by the utilitarian theory of Ethic. It is in fact easy to +discover and to show a utilitarian side in every moral action; as it is +easy to show an aesthetic side of every logical proposition. The +criticism of ethical utilitarianism cannot escape by denying this truth +and seeking out absurd and inexistent examples of _useless_ moral +actions. It must admit the utilitarian side and explain it as the +concrete form of morality, which consists of what is _within_ this form. +Utilitarians do not see this within. This is not the place for a more +ample development of such ideas. Ethic and Economic cannot but be +gainers, as we have said of Logic and Aesthetic, by a more exact +determination of the relations that exist between them. Economic science +is now rising to the animating concept of the useful, as it strives to +pass beyond the mathematical phase, in which it is still entangled; a +phase which, when it superseded historicism, was in its turn a progress, +destroying a series of arbitrary distinctions and false theories of +Economic, implied in the confusion of the theoretical with the +historical. With this conception, it will be easy on the one hand to +absorb and to verify the semi-philosophical theories of so-called pure +economy, and on the other, by the introduction of successive +complications and additions, and by passing from the philosophical to +the empirical or naturalistic method, to include the particular theories +of the political or national economy of the schools. + + [Sidenote] _Phenomenon and noumenon in practical activity._ + +As aesthetic intuition knows the phenomenon or nature, and philosophic +intuition the noumenon or spirit; so economic activity wills the +phenomenon or nature, and moral activity the noumenon or spirit. _The +spirit which desires itself_, its true self, the universal which is in +the empirical and finite spirit: that is the formula which perhaps +defines the essence of morality with the least impropriety. This will +for the true self is _absolute liberty_. + + + + +VIII + +EXCLUSION OF OTHER SPIRITUAL FORMS + + + [Sidenote] _The system of the spirit._ + +In this summary sketch that we have given, of the entire philosophy of +the spirit in its fundamental moments, the spirit is conceived as +consisting of four moments or grades, disposed in such a way that the +theoretical activity is to the practical as is the first theoretical +grade to the second theoretical, and the first practical grade to the +second practical. The four moments imply one another regressively by +their concretion. The concept cannot be without expression, the useful +without the one and the other, and morality without the three preceding +grades. If the aesthetic fact is alone independent, and the others more +or less dependent, then the logical is the least so and the moral will +the most. Moral intention operates on given theoretic bases, which +cannot be dispensed with, save by that absurd practice, the jesuitical +_direction of intention_. Here people pretend to themselves not to know +what at bottom they know perfectly well. + + [Sidenote] _The forms of genius._ + +If the forms of human activity are four, four also are the forms of +genius. Geniuses in art, in science, in moral will or heroes, have +certainly always been recognized. But the genius of pure Economic has +met with opposition. It is not altogether without reason that a category +of bad geniuses or of _geniuses of evil_ has been created. The +practical, merely economic genius, which is not directed to a rational +end, cannot but excite an admiration mingled with alarm. It would be a +mere question of words, were we to discuss whether the word "genius" +should be applied only to creators of aesthetic expression, or also to +men of scientific research and of action. To observe, on the other hand, +that genius, of whatever kind it be, is always a quantitative conception +and an empirical distinction, would be to repeat what has already been +explained as regards artistic genius. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a fifth form of activity. Law; + sociality._ + +A fifth form of spiritual activity does not exist. It would be easy to +demonstrate how all the other forms, either do not possess the character +of activity, or are verbal variants of the activities already examined, +or are complex and derived facts, in which the various activities are +mingled, or are filled with special contents and contingent data. + +The _judicial_ fact, for example, considered as what is called objective +law, is derived both from the economic and from the logical activities. +Law is a rule, a formula (whether oral or written matters little here) +in which is contained an economic relation willed by an individual or by +a collectivity. This economic side at once unites it with and +distinguishes it from moral activity. Take another example. Sociology +(among the many meanings the word bears in our times) is sometimes +conceived as the study of an original element, which is called +_sociality_. Now what is it that distinguishes sociality, or the +relations which are developed in a meeting of men, not of subhuman +beings, if it be not just the various spiritual activities which exist +among the former and which are supposed not to exist, or to exist only +in a rudimentary degree, among the latter? Sociality, then, far from +being an original, simple, irreducible conception, is very complex and +complicated. This could be proved by the impossibility, generally +recognized, of enunciating a single sociological law, properly +so-called. Those that are improperly called by that name are revealed as +either empirical historical observations, or spiritual laws, that is to +say judgments, into which are translated the conceptions of the +spiritual activities; when they are not simply empty and indeterminate +generalizations, like the so-called law of evolution. Sometimes, too, +nothing more is understood by sociality than social rule, and so law; +and thus sociology is confounded with the science or theory of law +itself. Law, sociality, and like terms, are to be dealt with in a mode +analogous to that employed by us in the consideration of historicity and +technique. + + [Sidenote] _Religiosity._ + +It may seem fitting to form a different judgment as to _religious_ +activity. But religion is nothing but knowledge, and does not differ +from its other forms and subforms. For it is in truth and in turn either +the expression of practical and ideal aspirations (religious ideals), or +historical narrative (legend), or conceptual science (dogma). + +It can therefore be maintained with equal truth, both that religion is +destroyed by the progress of human knowledge, and that it is always +present there. Their religion was the whole patrimony of knowledge of +primitive peoples: our patrimony of knowledge is our religion. The +content has been changed, bettered, refined, and it will change and +become better and more refined in the future also; but its function is +always the same. We do not know what use could be made of religion by +those who wish to preserve it side by side with the theoretic activity +of man, with his art, with his criticism, and with his philosophy. It is +impossible to preserve an imperfect and inferior kind of knowledge, like +religion, side by side with what has surpassed and disproved it. +Catholicism, which is always coherent, will not tolerate a Science, a +History, an Ethic, in contradiction to its views and doctrines. The +rationalists are less coherent. They are disposed to allow a little +space in their souls for a religion which is in contradiction with their +whole theoretic world. + +These affectations and religious susceptibilities of the rationalists of +our times have their origin in the superstitious cult of the natural +sciences. These, as we know and as is confessed by the mouth of their +chief adepts, are all surrounded by _limits_. Science having been +wrongly identified with the so-called natural sciences, it could be +foreseen that the remainder would be asked of religion; that remainder +with which the human spirit cannot dispense. We are therefore indebted +to materialism, to positivism, to naturalism for this unhealthy and +often disingenuous reflowering of religious exaltation. Such things are +the business of the hospital, when they are not the business of the +politician. + + [Sidenote] _Metaphysic._ + +Philosophy withdraws from religion all reason for existing, because it +substitutes itself for religion. As the science of the spirit, it looks +upon religion as a phenomenon, a transitory historical fact, a psychic +condition that can be surpassed. Philosophy shares the domain of +knowledge with the natural disciplines, with history and with art. It +leaves to the first, narration, measurement and classification; to the +second, the chronicling of what has individually happened; to the third, +the individually possible. There is nothing left to share with religion. +For the same reason, philosophy, as the science of the spirit, cannot be +philosophy of the intuitive datum; nor, as has been seen, _Philosophy of +History, nor Philosophy of Nature_; and therefore there cannot be a +philosophic science of what is not form and universal, but material and +particular. This amounts to affirming the impossibility of _metaphysic_. + +The Method or Logic of history followed the Philosophy of history; a +gnoseology of the conceptions which are employed in the natural sciences +succeeded natural philosophy. What philosophy can study of the one is +its mode of construction (intuition, perception, document, probability, +etc.); of the others she can study the forms of the conceptions which +appear in them (space, time, motion, number, types, classes, etc.). +Philosophy, which should become metaphysical in the sense above +described, would, on the other hand, claim to compete with narrative +history, and with the natural sciences, which in their field are alone +legitimate and effective. Such a competition becomes in fact a labour +spoiling labour. We are _antimetaphysical_ in this sense, while yet +declaring ourselves _ultrametaphysical_, if by that word it be desired +to claim and to affirm the function of philosophy as the +autoconsciousness of the spirit, as opposed to the merely empirical and +classificatory function of the natural sciences. + + [Sidenote] _Mental imagination and the intuitive intellect._ + +In order to maintain itself side by side with the sciences of the +spirit, metaphysic has been obliged to assert the existence of a +specific spiritual activity, of which it would be the product. This +activity, which in antiquity was called _mental or superior +imagination_, and in modern times more often _intuitive intellect or +intellectual intuition_, would unite in an altogether special form the +characters of imagination and of intellect. It would provide the method +of passing, by deduction or dialectically, from the infinite to the +finite, from form to matter, from the concept to the intuition, from +science to history, operating by a method which should be at once unity +and compenetration of the universal and the particular, of the abstract +and the concrete, of intuition and of intellect. A faculty marvellous +indeed and delightful to possess; but we, who do not possess it, have no +means of proving its existence. + + [Sidenote] _Mystical aesthetic._ + +Intellectual intuition has sometimes been considered as the true +aesthetic activity. At others a not less marvellous aesthetic activity +has been placed beside, below, or above it, a faculty altogether +different from simple intuition. The glories of this faculty have been +sung, and to it have been attributed the fact of art, or at the least +certain groups of artistic production, arbitrarily chosen. Art, +religion, and philosophy have seemed in turn one only, or three distinct +faculties of the spirit, now one, now another of these being superior in +the dignity assigned to each. + +It is impossible to enumerate all the various attitudes assumed by this +conception of Aesthetic, which we will call _mystical_. We are here in +the kingdom, not of the science of imagination, but of imagination +itself, which creates its world with the varying elements of the +impressions and of the feelings. Let it suffice to mention that this +mysterious faculty has been conceived, now as practical, now as a mean +between the theoretic and the practical, at others again as a theoretic +grade together with philosophy and religion. + + [Sidenote] _Mortality and immortality of art._ + +The immortality of art has sometimes been deduced from this last +conception as belonging with its sisters to the sphere of absolute +spirit. At other times, on the other hand, when religion has been looked +upon as mortal and as dissolved in philosophy, then the mortality, even +the actual death, or at least the agony of art has been proclaimed. +These questions have no meaning for us, because, seeing that the +function of art is a necessary grade of the spirit, to ask if art can be +eliminated is the same thing as asking if sensation or intelligence can +be eliminated. But metaphysic, in the above sense, since it transplants +itself to an arbitrary world, is not to be criticized in detail, any +more than one can criticize the botany of the garden of Alcina or the +navigation of the voyage of Astolfo. Criticism can only be made by +refusing to join the game; that is to say, by rejecting the very +possibility of metaphysic, always in the sense above indicated. + +As we do not admit intellectual intuition in philosophy, we can also not +admit its shadow or equivalent, aesthetic intellectual intuition, or any +other mode by which this imaginary function may be called and +represented. We repeat again that we do not know of a fifth grade beyond +the four grades of spirit which consciousness reveals to us. + + + + +IX + +INDIVISIBILITY OF EXPRESSION INTO MODES OR GRADES AND CRITIQUE OF +RHETORIC + + + [Sidenote] _The characteristics of art._ + +It is customary to give long enumerations of the characteristics of art. +Having reached this point of the treatise, having studied the artistic +function as spiritual activity, as theoretic activity, and as special +theoretic activity (intuitive), we are able to discern that those +various and copious descriptions mean, when they mean anything at all, +nothing but a repetition of what may be called the qualities of the +aesthetic function, generic, specific, and characteristic. To the first +of these are referred, as we have already observed, the characters, or +better, the verbal variants of _unity_, and of _unity_ in _variety_, +those also of _simplicity_, of _originality_, and so on; to the second of +these, the characteristics of _truth_, of _sincerity_, and the like; to +the third, the characteristics of _life_, of _vivacity_, of _animation_, +of _concretion_, of _individuality_, of _characteristicality_. The words +may vary yet more, but they will not contribute anything scientifically +new. The results which we have shown have altogether exhausted the +analysis of expression as such. + + [Sidenote] _Inexistence of modes of expression._ + +But at this point, the question as to whether there be various _modes or +grades_ of expression is still perfectly legitimate. We have +distinguished two grades of activity, each of which is subdivided into +two other grades, and there is certainly, so far, no visible logical +reason why there should not exist two or more modes of the aesthetic, +that is of expression.--The only objection is that these modes do not +exist. + +For the present at least, it is a question of simple internal +observation and of self consciousness. One may scrutinize aesthetic +facts as much as one will: no formal differences will ever be found +among them, nor will the aesthetic fact be divisible into a first and a +second degree. + +This signifies that a philosophical classification of expressions is not +possible. Single expressive facts are so many individuals, of which the +one cannot be compared with the other, save generically, in so far as +each is expression. To use the language of the schools, expression is a +species which cannot in its turn perform the functions of genus. +Impressions, that is to say contents, vary; every content differs from +every other content, because nothing in life repeats itself; and the +continuous variation of contents follows the irreducible variety of +expressive facts, the aesthetic syntheses of the impressions. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of translations._ + +A corollary of this is the impossibility of _translations_, in so far as +they pretend to effect the transference of one expression into another, +like a liquid poured from a vase of a certain shape into a vase of +another shape. We can elaborate logically what we have already +elaborated in aesthetic form only; but we cannot reduce that which has +already possessed its aesthetic form to another form also aesthetic. In +truth, every translation either diminishes and spoils; or it creates a +new expression, by putting the former back into the crucible and mixing +it with other impressions belonging to the pretended translator. In the +former case, the expression always remains one, that of the original, +the translation being more or less deficient, that is to say, not +properly expression: in the other case, there would certainly be two +expressions, but with two different contents. "Ugly faithful ones or +faithless beauties" is a proverb that well expresses the dilemma with +which every translator is faced. In aesthetic translations, such as +those which are word for word or interlinear, or paraphrastic +translations, are to be looked upon as simple commentaries on the +original. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of rhetorical categories._ + +The division of expressions into various classes is known in literature +by the name of theory of _ornament_ or of _rhetorical categories_. But +similar attempts at classification in the other forms of art are not +wanting: suffice it to mention the _realistic and symbolic forms_, +spoken of in painting and sculpture. + +The scientific value to be attached in Aesthetic and in aesthetic +criticism to these distinctions of _realistic and symbolic_, of _style +and absence of style_, of _objective and subjective_, of _classic and +romantic_, of _simple and ornate_, of _proper and metaphorical_, of the +fourteen forms of metaphor, of the figures of _word_ and of _sentence_, +and further of _pleonasm_, of _ellipse_, of _inversion_, of +_repetition_, of _synonyms and homonyms_, and so on; is _nil_ or +altogether negative. To none of these terms and distinctions can be +given a satisfactory aesthetic definition. Those that have been +attempted, when they are not obviously erroneous, are words devoid of +sense. A typical example of this is the very common definition of +metaphor as of _another word used in place of the word itself_. Now why +give oneself this trouble? Why take the worse and longer road when you +know the shorter and better road? Perhaps, as is generally said, because +the correct word is in certain cases not so _expressive_ as the +so-called incorrect word or metaphor? But in that case the metaphor +becomes exactly the right word, and the so-called right word, if it were +used, would be _but little expressive_ and therefore most improper. +Similar observations of elementary good sense can be made regarding the +other categories, as, for example, the generic one of the ornate. One +can ask oneself how an ornament can be joined to expression. Externally? +In that case it must always remain separate. Internally? In that case, +either it does not assist expression and mars it; or it does form part +of it and is not ornament, but a constituent element of expression, +indistinguishable from the whole. + +It is not necessary to dwell upon the harm done by these distinctions. +Rhetoric has often been declaimed against, but although there has been +rebellion against its consequences, its principles have been carefully +preserved, perhaps in order to show proof of philosophic coherence. +Rhetoric has contributed, if not to make dominant in literary +production, at least to justify theoretically, that particular mode of +writing ill which is called fine writing or writing according to +rhetoric. + + [Sidenote] _Empirical sense of the rhetorical categories._ + +The terms above mentioned would never have gone beyond the schools, +where we all of us learned them (certain of never finding the +opportunity of using them in strictly aesthetic discussions, or even of +doing so jocosely and with a comic intention), save when occasionally +employed in one of the following significations: as _verbal variants _of +the aesthetic concept; as indications of the _anti-aesthetic_, or, +finally (and this is their most important use), in a sense which is no +longer aesthetic and literary, _but merely logical_. + + [Sidenote] _Use of these categories as synonyms of the aesthetic + fact._ + +Expressions are not divisible into classes, but some are successful, +others half-successful, others failures. There are perfect and +imperfect, complete and deficient expressions. The terms already cited, +then, sometimes indicate the successful expression, sometimes the +various forms of the failures. But they are employed in the most +inconstant and capricious manner, for it often happens that the same +word serves, now to proclaim the perfect, now to condemn the imperfect. + +An instance of this is found when someone, criticizing two pictures--the +one without inspiration, in which the author has copied natural objects +without intelligence; the other inspired, but without obvious likeness +to existing objects--calls the first _realistic_, the second _symbolic_. +Others, on the contrary, pronounce the word _realistic_ about a strongly +felt picture representing a scene of ordinary life, while they talk of +_symbolic_ in reference to another picture representing but a cold +allegory. It is evident that in the first case symbolic means artistic, +and realistic inartistic, while in the second, realistic is synonymous +with artistic and symbolic with inartistic. How, then, can we be +astonished when some hotly maintain that the true art form is the +symbolic, and that the realistic is inartistic; others, that the +realistic is the artistic, and the symbolic the inartistic? We cannot +but grant that both are right, since each makes use of the same words in +senses so diverse. + +The great disputes about the _classic_ and the _romantic_ are frequently +based upon such equivokes. Sometimes the former was understood as the +artistically perfect, and the second as lacking balance and imperfect; +at others, the classic was cold and artificial, the romantic sincere, +warm, efficacious, and truly expressive. Thus it was always possible to +take the side of the classic against the romantic, or of the romantic +against the classic. + +The same thing happens as regards the word _style_. Sometimes it is +affirmed that every writer should have style. Here style is synonymous +with form or expression. Sometimes the form of a code of laws or of a +mathematical work is said to be devoid of style. Here the error of +admitting diverse modes of expression is again committed, of admitting +an ornate and a naked form of expression, because, since style is form, +the code and the mathematical treatise must also, strictly speaking, +have each its style. At other times, one hears the critics blaming +someone for "having too much style" or for "writing a style." Here it is +clear that style signifies, not the form, nor a mode of it, but improper +and pretentious expression, which is one form of the inartistic. + + [Sidenote] _Their use to indicate various aesthetic imperfections._ + +Passing to the second, not altogether insignificant, use of these words +and distinctions, we sometimes find in the examination of a literary +composition such remarks as follow: here is a pleonasm, here an ellipse, +there a metaphor, here again a synonym or an equivoke. This means that +in one place is an error consisting of using a larger number of words +than is necessary (pleonasm); that in another the error arises from too +few having been used (ellipse), elsewhere from the use of an unsuitable +word (metaphor), or from the use of two words which seem to express two +different things, where they really express the same thing (synonym); or +that, on the contrary, it arises from having employed one which seems to +express the same thing where it expresses two different things +(equivoke). This pejorative and pathological use of the terms is, +however, more uncommon than the preceding. + + [Sidenote] _Their use in a sense transcending aesthetic, in the + service of science._ + +Finally, when rhetorical terminology possesses no aesthetic +signification similar or analogous to those passed in review, and yet +one is aware that it is not void of meaning and designates something +that deserves to be noted, it is then used in the service of logic and +of science. If it be granted that a concept used in a scientific sense +by a given writer is expressed with a definite term, it is natural that +other words formed by that writer as used to signify the same concept, +or incidentally made use of by him, become, _in respect to_ the +vocabulary fixed upon by him as true, metaphors, synecdoches, synonyms, +elliptic forms, and the like. We, too, in the course of this treatise, +have several times made use of, and intend again to make use of such +terms, in order to make clear the sense of the words we employ, or may +find employed. But this proceeding, which is of value in the +disquisitions of scientific and intellectual criticism, has none +whatever in aesthetic criticism. For science there exist appropriate +words and metaphors. The same concept may be psychologically formed in +various circumstances and therefore be expressed with various +intuitions. When the scientific terminology of a given writer has been +established, and one of these modes has been fixed as correct, then all +other uses of it become improper or tropical. But in the aesthetic fact +exist only appropriate words. The same intuition can only be expressed +in one way, precisely because it is an intuition and not a concept. + + [Sidenote] _Rhetoric in the schools._ + +Some, while they admit the aesthetic insufficiency of the rhetorical +categories, yet make a reserve as regards their utility and the service +they are supposed to render, especially in schools of literature. We +confess that we fail to understand how error and confusion can educate +the mind to logical clearness, or aid the teaching of a science which +they disturb and obscure. Perhaps it may be desired to say that they can +aid memory and learning as empirical classes, as was admitted above for +literary and artistic styles. But there is another purpose for which the +rhetorical categories should certainly continue to be admitted to the +schools: to be criticized there. We cannot simply forget the errors of +the past, and truth cannot be kept alive, save by making it fight +against error. Unless a notion of the rhetorical categories be given, +accompanied by a suitable criticism of these, there is a risk of their +springing up again. For they are already springing up with certain +philologists, disguised as most recent _psychological_ discoveries. + + [Sidenote] _The resemblances of expressions._ + +It would seem as though we wished to deny all bond of likeness among +themselves between expressions and works of art. The likenesses exist, +and owing to them, works of art can be arranged in this or that group. +But they are likenesses such as are observed among individuals, and can +never be rendered with abstract definitions. That is to say, these +likenesses have nothing to do with identification, subordination, +co-ordination, and the other relations of concepts. They consist wholly +in what is called a _family likeness_, and are connected with those +historical conditions existing at the birth of the various works, or in +an affinity of soul between the artists. + + [Sidenote] _The relative possibility of translations._ + +It is in these resemblances that lies the _relative_ possibility of +translations. This does not consist of the reproduction of the same +original expressions (which it would be vain to attempt), but in the +measure that expressions are given, more or less nearly resembling +those. The translation that passes for good is an approximation which +has original value as a work of art and can stand by itself. + + + + +X + +AESTHETIC FEELINGS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE UGLY AND THE +BEAUTIFUL + + +Passing on to the study of more complex concepts, where the aesthetic +activity is found in conjunction with other orders of facts, and showing +the mode of this union or complication, we find ourselves at once face +to face with the concept of _feeling_ and with the feelings which are +called _aesthetic_. + + [Sidenote] _Various significances of the word feeling._ + +The word "feeling" is one of the richest in meanings. We have already +had occasion to meet with it once, among those used to designate the +spirit in its passivity, the matter or content of art, and also as +synonym of _impressions_. Once again (and then the meaning was +altogether different), we have met with it as designating the +_non-logical_ and _non-historical_ character of the aesthetic fact, that +is to say pure intuition, a form of truth which defines no concept and +states no fact. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as activity._ + +But feeling is not here understood in either of these two senses, nor in +the others in which it has nevertheless been used to designate other +_cognoscitive_ forms of spirit. Its meaning here is that of a special +activity, of non-cognoscitive nature, but possessing its two poles, +positive and negative, in _pleasure_ and _pain_. This activity has +always greatly embarrassed philosophers, who have attempted either to +deny it as an activity, or to attribute it to _nature_ and to exclude it +from spirit. Both solutions bristle with difficulties, and these are of +such a kind that the solutions prove themselves finally unacceptable to +anyone who examines them with care. For of what could a non-spiritual +activity consist, an _activity of nature_, when we have no other +knowledge of activity save as spiritual, and of spirituality save as +activity? Nature is, in this case, by definition, the merely passive, +inert, mechanical and material. On the other hand, the negation of the +character of activity to feeling is energetically disproved by those +very poles of pleasure and of pain which appear in it and manifest +activity in its concreteness, and, we will say, all aquiver. + + [Sidenote] _Identification of feeling with economic activity._ + +This critical conclusion ought to place us in the greatest +embarrassment, for in the sketch of the system of the spirit given +above, we have left no room for the new activity, of which we are now +obliged to recognize the existence. But activity of feeling, if it be +activity, is not specially new. It has already had its place assigned to +it in the system which we have sketched, where, however, it has been +indicated under another name, as _economic_ activity. What is called the +activity of feeling is nothing but that more elementary and fundamental +practical activity, which we have distinguished from ethical activity, +and made to consist of the appetite and desire for some individual end, +without any moral determination. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of hedonism._ + +If feeling has been sometimes considered as organic or natural activity, +this has happened precisely because it does not coincide either with +logical, aesthetic, or ethical activity. Looked at from the standpoint +of these three (which were the only ones admitted), it has seemed to lie +_outside_ the true and real spirit, the spirit in its aristocracy, and +to be almost a determination of nature and of the soul, in so far as it +is nature. Thus the thesis, several times maintained, that the aesthetic +activity, like the ethical and intellectual activities, is not feeling, +becomes at once completely proved. This thesis was inexpugnable, when +sensation had already been reduced confusedly and implicitly to economic +volition. The view which has been refuted is known by the name of +_hedonism_. For hedonism, all the various forms of the spirit are +reduced to one, which thus itself also loses its own distinctive +character and becomes something turbid and mysterious, like "the shades +in which all cows are black." Having effected this reduction and +mutilation, the hedonists naturally do not succeed in seeing anything +else in any activity but pleasure and pain. They find no substantial +difference between the pleasure of art and that of an easy digestion, +between the pleasure of a good action and that of breathing the fresh +air with wide-expanded lungs. + + [Sidenote] _Feeling as a concomitant to every form of activity._ + +But if the activity of feeling in the sense here defined must not be +substituted for all the other forms of spiritual activity, we have not +said that it cannot _accompany_ them. Indeed it accompanies them of +necessity, because they are all in close relation, both with one another +and with the elementary volitional form. Therefore each of them has for +concomitants individual volitions and volitional pleasures and pains +which are known as feeling. But we must not confound what is +concomitant, with the principal fact, and take the one for the other. +The discovery of the truth, or the satisfaction of a moral duty +fulfilled, produces in us a joy which makes our whole being vibrate, +for, by attaining to those forms of spiritual activity, it attains at +the same time that to which it was _practically_ tending, as to its end, +during the effort. Nevertheless, economic or hedonistic satisfaction, +ethical satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction, +remain always distinct, even when in union. + +Thus is solved at the same time the much-debated question, which has +seemed, not wrongly, a matter of life or death for aesthetic science, +namely, whether the feeling and the pleasure precede or follow, are +cause or effect of the aesthetic fact. We must enlarge this question, to +include the relation between the various spiritual forms, and solve it +in the sense that in the unity of the spirit one cannot talk of cause +and effect and of what comes first and what follows it in time. + +And once the relation above exposed is established, the statements, +which it is customary to make, as to the nature of aesthetic, moral, +intellectual, and even, as is sometimes said, economic feelings, must +also fall. In this last case, it is clear that it is a question, not of +two terms, but of one, and the quest of economic feeling can be but that +same one concerning the economic activity. But in the other cases also, +the search can never be directed to the substantive, but to the +adjective: aesthetic, morality, logic, explain the colouring of the +feelings as aesthetic, moral, and intellectual, while feeling, studied +alone, will never explain those refractions. + + [Sidenote] _Meaning of certain ordinary distinctions of feelings._ + +A further consequence is, that we can free ourselves from the +distinction between values or feelings _of value_, and feelings that are +merely hedonistic and _without value_; also from other similar +distinctions, like those between _disinterested_ feelings and +_interested_ feelings, between _objective _feelings and the others that +are not _objective_ but simply _subjective_, between feelings of +_approval_ and others of _mere pleasure_ (_Gefallen_ and _Vergnügen_ of +the Germans). Those distinctions strove hard to save the three spiritual +forms, which have been recognised as the triad of the _True_, the +_Good_, and the _Beautiful_, from confusion with the fourth form, still +unknown, yet insidious through its indeterminateness, and mother of +scandals. For us this triad has finished its task, because we are +capable of reaching the distinction far more directly, by welcoming even +the selfish, subjective, merely pleasurable feelings, among the +respectable forms of the spirit; and where formerly antitheses were +conceived of by ourselves and others, between value and feelings, as +between spirituality and naturality, henceforth we see nothing but +difference between value and value. + + [Sidenote] _Value and disvalue: the contraries and their union._ + +As has already been said, the economic feeling or activity reveals +itself as divided into two poles, positive and negative, pleasure and +pain, which we can now translate into useful, and useless or hurtful. +This bipartition has already been noted above, as a mark of the active +character of feeling, precisely because the same bipartition is found in +all forms of activity. If each of these is a _value_, each has opposed +to it _antivalue or disvalue_. Absence of value is not sufficient to +cause disvalue, but activity and passivity must be struggling between +themselves, without the one getting the better of the other; hence the +contradiction, and the disvalue of the activity that is embarrassed, +contested, or interrupted. Value is activity that unfolds itself freely: +disvalue is its contrary. + +We will content ourselves with this definition of the two terms, without +entering into the problem of the relation between value and disvalue, +that is, between the problem of contraries. (Are these to be thought of +dualistically, as two beings or two orders of beings, like Ormuzd and +Ahriman, angels and devils, enemies to one another; or as a unity, which +is also contrariety?) This definition of the two terms will be +sufficient for our purpose, which is to make clear aesthetic activity in +particular, and one of the most obscure and disputed concepts of +Aesthetic which arises at this point: the concept of the _Beautiful_. + + [Sidenote] _The Beautiful as the value of expression, or expression + and nothing more._ + +Aesthetic, intellectual, economic, and ethical values and disvalues are +variously denominated in current speech: _beautiful, true, good, useful, +just_, and so on--these words designate the free development of +spiritual activity, action, scientific research, artistic production, +when they are successful; _ugly, false, bad, useless, unbecoming, +unjust, inexact_ designate embarrassed activity, the product of which is +a failure. In linguistic usage, these denominations are being +continually shifted from one order of facts to another, and from this to +that. _Beautiful_, for instance, is said not only of a successful +expression, but also of a scientific truth, of an action successfully +achieved, and of a moral action: thus we talk of an _intellectual +beauty_, of a _beautiful action_, of a _moral beauty_. Many +philosophers, especially aestheticians, have lost their heads in their +pursuit of these most varied uses: they have entered an inextricable and +impervious verbal labyrinth. For this reason it has hitherto seemed +convenient studiously to avoid the use of the word beautiful to indicate +successful expression. But after all the explanations that have been +given, and all danger of misunderstanding being now dissipated, and +since, on the other hand, we cannot fail to recognize that the +prevailing tendency, alike in current speech and in philosophy, is to +limit the meaning of the vocable _beautiful_ altogether to the aesthetic +value, we may define beauty as _successful expression_, or better, as +_expression_ and nothing more, because expression, when it is not +successful, is not expression. + + [Sidenote] _The ugly, and the elements of beauty which compose it._ + +Consequently, the ugly is unsuccessful expression. The paradox is true, +that, in works of art that are failures, the beautiful is present as +_unity_ and the ugly as _multiplicity_. Thus, with regard to works of +art that are more or less failures, we talk of qualities, that is to say +of _those parts of them that are beautiful_. We do not talk thus of +perfect works. It is in fact impossible to enumerate their qualities or +to designate those parts of them that are beautiful. In them there is +complete fusion: they have but one quality. Life circulates in the whole +organism: it is not withdrawn into certain parts. + +The qualities of works that are failures may be of various degrees. They +may even be very great. The beautiful does not possess degrees, for +there is no conceiving a more beautiful, that is, an expressive that is +more expressive, an adequate that is more than adequate. Ugliness, on +the other hand, does possess degrees, from the rather ugly (or almost +beautiful) to the extremely ugly. But if the ugly were _complete_, that +is to say, without any element of beauty, it would for that very reason +cease to be ugly, because in it would be absent the contradiction which +is the reason of its existence. The disvalue would become nonvalue; +activity would give place to passivity, with which it is not at war, +save when there effectively is war. + + [Sidenote] _Illusions that there exist expressions which are neither + beautiful nor ugly._ + +And because the distinctive consciousness of the beautiful and of the +ugly is based on the contrasts and contradictions in which aesthetic +activity is developed, it is evident that this consciousness becomes +attenuated to the point of disappearing altogether, as we descend from +the more complicated to the more simple and to the simplest cases of +expression. From this arises the illusion that there are expressions +which are neither beautiful nor ugly, those which are obtained without +sensible effort and appear easy and natural being so considered. + + [Sidenote] _True aesthetic feelings and concomitant or accidental + feelings._ + +The whole mystery of the _beautiful_ and the _ugly_ is reduced to these +henceforth most easy definitions. Should any one object that there exist +perfect aesthetic expressions before which no pleasure is felt, and +others, perhaps even failures, which give him the greatest pleasure, it +is necessary to advise him to pay great attention, as regards the +aesthetic fact, to that only which is truly aesthetic pleasure. +Aesthetic pleasure is sometimes reinforced by pleasures arising from +extraneous facts, which are only casually found united with it. The poet +or any other artist affords an instance of purely aesthetic pleasure, +during the moment in which he sees (or has the intuition of) his work +for the first time; that is to say, when his impressions take form and +his countenance is irradiated with the divine joy of the creator. On the +other hand, a mixed pleasure is experienced by any one who goes to the +theatre, after a day's work, to witness a comedy: when the pleasure of +rest and amusement, and that of laughingly snatching a nail from the +gaping coffin, is accompanied at a certain moment by real aesthetic +pleasure, obtained from the art of the dramatist and of the actors. The +same may be said of the artist who looks upon his labour with pleasure, +when it is finished, experiencing, in addition to the aesthetic +pleasure, that very different one which arises from the thought of +self-love satisfied, or of the economic gain which will come to him from +his work. Examples could be multiplied. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of apparent feelings._ + +A category of _apparent_ aesthetic feelings has been formed in modern +Aesthetic. These have nothing to do with the aesthetic sensations of +pleasure arising from the form, that is to say from the work of art. On +the contrary, they arise from the content of the work of art. It has +been observed that "artistic representations arouse pleasure and pain in +their infinite variety and gradations. We tremble with anxiety, we +rejoice, we fear, we laugh, we weep, we desire, with the personages of a +drama or of a romance, with the figures in a picture, or with the melody +of music. But these feelings are not those that would give occasion to +the real fact outside art; that is to say, they are the same in quality, +but they are quantitively an attenuation. Aesthetic and _apparent_ +pleasure and pain are slight, of little depth, and changeable." We have +no need to treat of these _apparent feelings_, for the good reason that +we have already amply discussed them; indeed, we have treated of them +alone. What are ever feelings that become apparent or manifest, but +feelings objectified, intensified, expressed? And it is natural that +they do not trouble and agitate us passionately, as do those of real +life, because those were matter, these are form and activity; those true +and proper feelings, these intuitions and expressions. The formula, +then, of _apparent feelings_ is nothing but a tautology. The best that +can be done is to run the pen through it. + + + + +XI + +CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC HEDONISM + + +As we are opposed to hedonism in general, that is to say, to the theory +which is based on the pleasure and pain intrinsic to Economy and +accompanies every other form of activity, confounding the content and +that which contains it, and fails to recognize any process but the +hedonistic; so we are opposed to aesthetic hedonism in particular, which +looks upon the aesthetic at any rate, if not also upon all other +activities, as a simple fact of feeling, and confounds the _pleasurable +of expression_, which is the beautiful, with the pleasurable and nothing +more, and with the pleasurable of all sorts. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful as that which pleases the + higher senses._ + +The aesthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several +forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which +pleases the sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called superior +senses. When analysis of aesthetic facts first began, it was, in fact, +difficult to avoid the mistake of thinking that a picture and a piece of +music are impressions of sight or of hearing: it was and is an +indisputable fact that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor the +deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the aesthetic fact +does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all +sensible impressions can be raised to aesthetic expression and that none +need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only +when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso +imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to +the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically +to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes +cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the viscerally +beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of play._ + +The theory of _play_ is another form of aesthetic hedonism. The +conception of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the +actifying character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is +not really man, save when he begins to play; that is to say, when he +frees himself from natural and mechanical causality and operates +spiritually; and his first game is art. But since the word _play_ also +means that pleasure which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant +energy of the organism (that is to say, from a practical act), the +consequence of this theory has been, that every game has been called an +aesthetic fact, and that the aesthetic function has been called a game, +in so far as it is possible to play with it, for, like science and every +other thing, Aesthetic can be made part of a game. But morality cannot +be provoked at the intention of playing, on the ground that it does not +consent; on the contrary, it dominates and regulates the act of playing +itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theories of sexuality and of the triumph._ + +Finally, there have been some who have tried to deduce the pleasure of +art from the reaction of the sexual organs. There are some very modern +aestheticians who place the genesis of the aesthetic fact in the +pleasure of _conquering_, of _triumphing_, or, as others add, in the +desire of the male, who wishes to conquer the female. This theory is +seasoned with much anecdotal erudition, Heaven knows of what degree of +credibility! on the customs of savage peoples. But in very truth there +was no necessity for such important aid, for one often meets in ordinary +life poets who adorn themselves with their poetry, like cocks that raise +their crests, or turkeys that spread their tails. But he who does such +things, in so far as he does them, is not a poet, but a poor devil of a +cock or turkey. The conquest of woman does not suffice to explain the +art fact. It would be just as correct to term poetry _economic_, because +there have been aulic and stipendiary poets, and there are poets the +sale of whose verses helps them to gain their livelihood, if it does not +altogether provide it. However, this definition has not failed to win +over some zealous neophytes of historical materialism. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic. Meaning in + it of content and form._ + +Another less vulgar current of thought considers Aesthetic to be the +science of the _sympathetic_, of that with which we sympathize, which +attracts, rejoices, gives us pleasure and excites admiration. But the +sympathetic is nothing but the image or representation of what pleases. +And, as such, it is a complex fact, resulting from a constant element, +the aesthetic element of representation, and from a variable element, +the pleasing in its infinite forms, arising from all the various classes +of values. + +In ordinary language, there is sometimes a feeling of repugnance at +calling an expression beautiful, which is not an expression of the +sympathetic. Hence the continual contrast between the point of view of +the aesthetician or of the art critic and that of the ordinary person, +who cannot succeed in persuading himself that the image of pain and of +turpitude can be beautiful, or, at least, can be beautiful with as much +right as the pleasing and the good. + +The opposition could be solved by distinguishing two different sciences, +one of expression and the other of the sympathetic, if the latter could +be the object of a special science; that is to say, if it were not, as +has been shown, a complex fact. If predominance be given to the +expressive fact, it becomes a part of Aesthetic as science of +expression; if to the pleasurable content, we fall back to the study of +facts which are essentially hedonistic (utilitarian), however +complicated they may appear. The origin, also, of the connexion between +content and form is to be sought for in the Aesthetic of the +sympathetic, when this is conceived as the sum of two values. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic hedonism and moralism._ + +In all the doctrines just now discussed, the art fact is posited as +merely hedonistic. But this view cannot be maintained, save by uniting +it with a philosophic hedonism that is complete and not partial, that is +to say, with a hedonism which does not admit any other form of value. +Hardly has this hedonistic conception of art been received by +philosophers, who admit one or more spiritual values, of truth or of +morality, than the following question must necessarily be asked: What +should be done with art? To what use should it be put? Should a free +course be allowed to its pleasures? And if so, to what extent? The +question of the _end of art_, which in the Aesthetic of expression would +be a contradiction of terms, here appears in place, and altogether +logical. + + [Sidenote] _The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic justification + of art._ + +Now it is evident that, admitting the premisses, but two solutions of +such a question can be given, the one altogether negative, the other +restrictive. The first, which we shall call _rigoristic_ or _ascetic_, +appears several times, although not frequently, in the history of ideas. +It looks upon art as an inebriation of the senses, and therefore, not +only useless, but harmful. According to this theory, then, it is +necessary to drive it with all our strength from the human soul, which +it troubles. The other solution, which we shall call _pedagogic_ or +_moralistico-utilitarian_, admits art, but only in so far as it concurs +with the end of morality; in so far as it assists with innocent pleasure +the work of him who leads to the true and the good; in so far as it +sprinkles with dulcet balm the sides of the vase of wisdom and of +morality. + +It is well to observe that it would be an error to divide this second +view into intellectualist and moralistico-utilitarian, according to +whether the end of leading to the true or to what is practically good, +be assigned to art. The task of instructing, which is imposed upon it, +precisely because it is an end which is sought after and advised, is no +longer merely a theoretical fact, but a theoretical fact become the +material for practical action; it is not, therefore, intellectualism, but +pedagogism and practicism. Nor would it be more exact to subdivide the +pedagogic view into the pure utilitarian and the moralistico-utilitarian; +because those who admit only the individually useful (the desire of the +individual), precisely because they are absolute hedonists, have no +motive for seeking an ulterior justification for art. + +But to enunciate these theories at the point to which we have attained +is to confute them. We therefore restrict ourselves to observing that in +the pedagogic theory of art is to be found another of the reasons why it +has been erroneously claimed that the content of art should be _chosen_ +with a view to certain practical effects. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of pure beauty._ + +The thesis, re-echoed by the artists, that art consists of _pure +beauty_, has often been brought forward against hedonistic and pedagogic +Aesthetic: "Heaven places All our joy in _pure beauty_, and the Verse is +everything." If it is wished that this should be understood in the sense +that art is not to be confounded with sensual pleasure, that is, in +fact, with utilitarian practicism, nor with moralism, then our Aesthetic +also must be permitted to adorn itself with the title of _Aesthetic of +pure beauty_. But if (as is often the case) something mystical and +transcendental be meant by this, something that is unknown to our poor +human world, or something spiritual and beatific, but not expressive, we +must reply that while applauding the conception of a beauty, free of all +that is not the spiritual form of expression, we are yet unable to +conceive a beauty altogether purified of expression, that is to say, +separated from itself. + + + + +XII + +THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS + + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the aesthetic of the + sympathetic._ + +The doctrine of the sympathetic (very often animated and seconded in +this by the capricious metaphysical and mystical Aesthetic, and by that +blind tradition which assumes an intimate connection between things by +chance treated of together by the same authors and in the same books), +has introduced and rendered familiar in systems of Aesthetic, a series +of concepts, of which one example suffices to justify our resolute +expulsion of them from our own treatise. + +Their catalogue is long, not to say interminable: _tragic, comic, +sublime, pathetic, moving, sad, ridiculous, melancholy, tragi-comic, +humoristic, majestic, dignified, serious, grave, imposing, noble, +decorous, graceful, attractive, piquant, coquettish, idyllic, elegiac, +cheerful, violent, ingenuous, cruel, base, horrible, disgusting, +dreadful, nauseating_; the list can be increased at will. + +Since that doctrine took as its special object the sympathetic, it was +naturally unable to neglect any of the varieties of this, or any of the +combinations or gradations which lead at last from the sympathetic to +the antipathetic. And seeing that the sympathetic content was held to be +the _beautiful_ and the antipathetic the _ugly_, the varieties (tragic, +comic, sublime, pathetic, etc.) constituted for it the shades and +gradations intervening between the beautiful and the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of the + ugly surmounted._ + +Having enumerated and defined, as well as it could, the chief among +these varieties, the Aesthetic of the sympathetic set itself the problem +of the place to be assigned to the _ugly in art_. This problem is +without meaning for us, who do not recognize any ugliness save the +anti-aesthetic or inexpressive, which can never form part of the +aesthetic fact, being, on the contrary, its antithesis. But the question +for the doctrine which we are here criticizing was to reconcile in some +way the false and defective idea of art from which it started, reduced +to the representation of the agreeable, with effective art, which +occupies a far wider field. Hence the artificial attempt to settle what +examples of the ugly (antipathetic) could be admitted in artistic +representation, and for what reasons, and in what ways. + +The answer was: that the ugly is admissible, only when it can be +_overcome_, an unconquerable ugliness, such as the _disgusting_ or the +_nauseating_, being altogether excluded. Further, that the duty of the +ugly, when admitted in art, is to contribute towards heightening the +effect of the beautiful (sympathetic), by producing a series of +contrasts, from which the pleasurable shall issue more efficacious and +pleasure-giving. It is, in fact, a common observation that pleasure is +more vividly felt when It has been preceded by abstinence or by +suffering. Thus the ugly in art was looked upon as the servant of the +beautiful, its stimulant and condiment. + +That special theory of hedonistic refinement, which used to be pompously +called the _surmounting of the ugly_, falls with the general theory of +the sympathetic; and with it the enumeration and the definition of the +concepts mentioned above remain completely excluded from Aesthetic. For +Aesthetic does not recognize the sympathetic or the antipathetic In +their varieties, but only the spiritual activity of the representation. + + [Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts belong to Psychology._ + +However, the large space which, as we have said, those concepts have +hitherto occupied in aesthetic treatises makes opportune a rather more +copious explanation of what they are. What will be their lot? As they +are excluded from Aesthetic, in what other part of Philosophy will they +be received? + +Truly, in none. All those concepts are without philosophical value. They +are nothing but a series of classes, which can be bent in the most +various ways and multiplied at pleasure, to which it is sought to reduce +the infinite complications and shadings of the values and disvalues of +life. Of those classes, there are some that have an especially positive +significance, like the beautiful, the sublime, the majestic, the solemn, +the serious, the weighty, the noble, the elevated; others have a +significance especially negative, like the ugly, the horrible, the +dreadful, the tremendous, the monstrous, the foolish, the extravagant; +in others prevails a mixed significance, as is the case with the comic, +the tender, the melancholy, the humorous, the tragi-comic. The +complications are infinite, because the individuations are infinite; +hence it is not possible to construct the concepts, save in the +arbitrary and approximate manner of the natural sciences, whose duty it +is to make as good a plan as possible of that reality which they cannot +exhaust by enumeration, nor understand and surpass speculatively. And +since _Psychology_ is the naturalistic discipline, which undertakes to +construct types and plans of the spiritual processes of man (of which, +in fact, it is always accentuating in our day the merely empirical and +descriptive character), these concepts do not appertain to Aesthetic, +nor, in general, to Philosophy. They must simply be handed over to +Psychology. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of rigoristic definitions of them._ + +As is the case with all other psychological constructions, so is it with +those concepts: no rigorous definitions are possible; and consequently +the one cannot be deduced from the other and they cannot be connected in +a system, as has, nevertheless, often been attempted, at great waste of +time and without result. But it can be claimed as possible to obtain, +apart from philosophical definitions recognised as impossible, empirical +definitions, universally acceptable as true. Since there does not exist +a unique definition of a given fact, but innumerable definitions can be +given of it, according to the cases and the objects for which they are +made, so it is clear that if there were only one, and that the true one, +this would no longer be an empirical, but a rigorous and philosophical +definition. Speaking exactly, every time that one of the terms to which +we have referred has been employed, or any other of the innumerable +series, a definition of it has at the same time been given, expressed or +understood. And each one of these definitions has differed somewhat from +the others, in some particular, perhaps of very small importance, such +as tacit reference to some individual fact or other, which thus became +especially an object of attention and was raised to the position of a +general type. So it happens that not one of such definitions satisfies +him who hears it, nor does it satisfy even him who constructs it. For, +the moment after, this same individual finds himself face to face with a +new case, for which he recognizes that his definition is more or less +insufficient, ill-adapted, and in need of remodelling. It is necessary, +therefore, to leave writers and speakers free to define the sublime or +the comic, the tragic or the humoristic, on every occasion, as they +please and as may seem suitable to their purpose. And if you insist upon +obtaining an empirical definition of universal validity, we can but +submit this one:--The sublime (comic, tragic, humoristic, etc.) is +_everything_ that is or will be so _called_ by those who have employed +or shall employ this _word_. + + [Sidenote] _Examples: definitions of the sublime, the comic, and + the humoristic._ + +What is the sublime? The unexpected affirmation of an ultra-powerful +moral force: that is one definition. But that other definition is +equally good, which also recognizes the sublime where the force which +declares itself is an ultra-powerful, but immoral and destructive will. +Both remain vague and assume no precise form, until they are applied to +a concrete case, which makes clear what is here meant by +_ultra-powerful_, and what by _unexpected_. They are quantitative +concepts, but falsely quantitative, since there is no way of measuring +them; they are, at bottom, metaphors, emphatic phrases, or logical +tautologies. The humorous will be laughter mingled with tears, bitter +laughter, the sudden passage from the comic to the tragic, and from the +tragic to the comic, the comic romantic, the inverted sublime, war +declared against every attempt at insincerity, compassion which is +ashamed to lament, the mockery not of the fact, but of the ideal itself; +and whatever else may better please, according as it is desired to get a +view of the physiognomy of this or that poet, of this or that poem, +which is, in its uniqueness, its own definition, and though momentary +and circumscribed, yet the sole adequate. The comic has been defined as +the displeasure arising from the perception of a deformity immediately +followed by a greater pleasure arising from the relaxation of our +psychical forces, which were strained in anticipation of a perception +whose importance was foreseen. While listening to a narrative, which, +for example, should describe the magnificent and heroic purpose of a +definite person, we anticipate in imagination the occurrence of an +action both heroic and magnificent, and we prepare ourselves to receive +it, by straining our psychic forces. If, however, in a moment, instead +of the magnificent and heroic action, which the premises and the tone of +the narrative had led us to expect, by an unexpected change there occur +a slight, mean, foolish action, unequal to our expectation, we have been +deceived, and the recognition of the deceit brings with it an instant of +displeasure. But this instant is as it were overcome by the one +immediately following, in which we are able to discard our strained +attention, to free ourselves from the provision of psychic energy +accumulated and, henceforth superfluous, to feel ourselves reasonable +and relieved of a burden. This is the pleasure of the comic, with its +physiological equivalent, laughter. If the unpleasant fact that has +occurred should painfully affect our interests, pleasure would not +arise, laughter would be at once choked, the psychic energy would be +strained and overstrained by other more serious perceptions. If, on the +other hand, such more serious perceptions do not arise, if the whole +loss be limited to a slight deception of our foresight, then the +supervening feeling of our psychic wealth affords ample compensation for +this very slight displeasure.--This, stated in a few words, is one of +the most accurate modern definitions of the comic. It boasts of +containing, justified or corrected, the manifold attempts to define the +comic, from Hellenic antiquity to our own day. It includes Plato's +dictum in the _Philebus_, and Aristotle's, which is more explicit. The +latter looks upon the comic as an _ugliness without pain_. It contains +the theory of Hobbes, who placed it in the feeling of _individual +superiority_; of Kant, who saw in it a _relaxation of tension_; and +those of other thinkers, for whom it was _the contrast between great and +small, between the finite and the infinite_. But on close observation, +the analysis and definition above given, although most elaborate and +rigorous in appearance, yet enunciates characteristics which are +applicable, not only to the comic, but to every spiritual process; such +as the succession of painful and agreeable moments and the satisfaction +arising from the consciousness of force and of its free development. The +differentiation here given is that of quantitative determinations, to +which limits cannot be assigned. They remain vague phrases, attaining to +some meaning from their reference to this or that single comic fact. If +such definitions be taken too seriously, there happens to them what Jean +Paul Richter said of all the definitions of the comic: namely, that +their sole merit is _to be themselves comic_ and to produce, in reality, +the fact, which they vainly try to define logically. And who will ever +determine logically the dividing line between the comic and the +non-comic, between smiles and laughter, between smiling and gravity; who +will cut into clearly divided parts that ever-varying continuity into +which life melts? + + [Sidenote] _Relations between those concepts and aesthetic concepts._ + +The facts, classified as well as possible in the above-quoted +psychological concepts, bear no relation to the artistic fact, beyond +the generic that all of them, in so far as they designate the material +of life, can be represented by art; and the other accidental relation, +that aesthetic facts also may sometimes enter into the processes +described, as in the impression of the sublime that the work of a +Titanic artist such as Dante or Shakespeare may produce, and that of the +comic produced by the effort of a dauber or of a scribbler. + +The process is external to the aesthetic fact In this case also; for the +only feeling linked with that is the feeling of aesthetic value and +disvalue, of the beautiful and of the ugly. The Dantesque Farinata is +aesthetically beautiful, and nothing but beautiful: if, in addition, the +force of will of this personage appear sublime, or the expression that +Dante gives him, by reason of his great genius, seem sublime by +comparison with that of a less energetic poet, all this is not a matter +for aesthetic consideration. This consists always and only in adequation +to truth; that is, in beauty. + + + + +XIII + +THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic activity and physical concepts._ + +Aesthetic activity is distinct from practical activity but when it +expresses itself is always physical accompanied by practical activity. +Hence its utilitarian or hedonistic side, and the pleasure and pain, +which are, as it were, the practical echo of aesthetic values and +disvalues, of the beautiful and of the ugly. But this practical side of +the aesthetic activity has also, in its turn, a _physical_ or +_psychophysical_ accompaniment, which consists of sounds, tones, +movements, combinations of lines and colours, and so on. + +Does it _really_ possess this side, or does it only seem to possess it, +as the result of the construction which we raise in physical science, +and of the useful and arbitrary methods, which we have shown to be +proper to the empirical and abstract sciences? Our reply cannot be +doubtful, that is, it cannot be affirmative as to the first of the two +hypotheses. + +However, it will be better to leave it at this point in suspense, for it +is not at present necessary to prosecute this line of inquiry any +further. The mention already made must suffice to prevent our having +spoken of the physical element as of something objective and existing, +for reasons of simplicity and adhesion to ordinary language, from +leading to hasty conclusions as to the concepts and the connexion +between spirit and nature. + + [Sidenote] _Expression in the aesthetic sense, and expression in + the naturalistic sense._ + +It is important to make clear that as the existence of the hedonistic +side in every spiritual activity has given rise to the confusion between +the aesthetic activity and the useful or pleasurable, so the existence, +or, better, the possibility of constructing this physical side, has +generated the confusion between _aesthetic_ expression and expression +_in the naturalistic sense_; between a spiritual fact, that is to say, +and a mechanical and passive fact (not to say, between a concrete +reality and an abstraction or fiction). In common speech, sometimes it +is the words of the poet that are called _expressions_, the notes of the +musician, or the figures of the painter; sometimes the blush which is +wont to accompany the feeling of shame, the pallor resulting from fear, +the grinding of the teeth proper to violent anger, the glittering of the +eyes, and certain movements of the muscles of the mouth, which reveal +cheerfulness. A certain degree of heat is also said to be the +_expression_ of fever, as the falling of the barometer is of rain, and +even that the height of the rate of exchange _expresses_ the discredit +of the paper-money of a State, or social discontent the approach of a +revolution. One can well imagine what sort of scientific results would +be attained by allowing oneself to be governed by linguistic usage and +placing in one sheaf facts so widely different. But there is, in fact, +an abyss between a man who is the prey of anger with all its natural +manifestations, and another man who expresses it aesthetically; between +the aspect, the cries, and the contortions of one who is tortured with +sorrow at the loss of a dear one, and the words or song with which the +same individual portrays his torture at another moment; between the +distortion of emotion and the gesture of the actor. Darwin's book on the +expression of the feelings in man and animals does not belong to +Aesthetic; because there is nothing in common between the science of +spiritual expression and a _Semiotic_, whether it be medical, +meteorological, political, physiognomic, or chiromantic. + +Expression in the naturalistic sense simply lacks expression in the +spiritual sense, that is to say, the characteristic itself of activity +and of spirituality, and therefore the bipartition into poles of beauty +and of ugliness. It is nothing more than a relation between cause and +effect, fixed by the abstract intellect. The complete process of +aesthetic production can be symbolized in four steps, which are: _a_, +impressions; _b_, expression or spiritual aesthetic synthesis; _c_, +hedonistic accompaniment, or pleasure of the beautiful (aesthetic +pleasure); _d_, translation of the aesthetic fact into physical +phenomena (sounds, tones, movements, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.). Anyone can see that the capital point, the only one that is +properly speaking aesthetic and truly real, is in that _b_, which is +lacking to the mere manifestation or naturalistic construction, +metaphorically also called expression. + +The expressive process is exhausted when those four steps have been +taken. It begins again with new impressions, a new aesthetic synthesis, +and relative accompaniments. + + [Sidenote] _Intuitions and memory._ + +Expressions or representations follow and expel one another. Certainly, +this passing away, this disassociation, is not perishing, it is not +total elimination: nothing of what is born dies with that complete death +which would be identical with never having been born. Though all things +pass away, yet none can die. The representations which we have +forgotten, also persist in some way in our spirit, for without them we +could not explain acquired habits and capacities. Thus, the strength of +life lies in this apparent forgetting: one forgets what has been +absorbed and what life has superseded. + +But many other things, many other representations, are still efficacious +elements in the actual processes of our spirit; and it is incumbent on +us not to forget them, or to be capable of recalling them when necessity +demands them. The will is always vigilant in this work of preservation, +for it aims at preserving (so to say) the greater and more fundamental +part of all our riches. Certainly its vigilance is not always +sufficient. Memory, we know, leaves or betrays us in various ways. For +this very reason, the vigilant will excogitates expedients, which help +memory in its weakness, and are its _aids_. + + [Sidenote] _The production of aids to memory._ + +We have already explained how these aids are possible. Expressions or +representations are, at the same time, practical facts, which are also +called physical facts, in so far as to the physical belongs the task of +classifying them and reducing them to types. Now it is clear, that if we +can succeed in making those facts in some way permanent, it will always +be possible (other conditions remaining equal) to reproduce in us, by +perceiving it, the already produced expression or intuition. + +If that in which the practical concomitant acts, or (to use physical +terms) the movements have been isolated and made in some sort permanent, +be called the object or physical stimulus, and if it be designated by +the letter _e_; then the process of reproduction will take place in the +following order: _e_, the physical stimulus; _d-b_, perceptions of +physical facts (sounds, tones, mimic, combinations of lines and colours, +etc.), which form together the aesthetic synthesis, already produced; +_c_, the hedonistic accompaniment, which is also reproduced. + +And what are those combinations of words which are called poetry, prose, +poems, novels, romances, tragedies or comedies, but _physical stimulants +of reproduction_ (the _e_ stage); what are those combinations of sound +which are called operas, symphonies, sonatas; and what those of lines +and of colours, which are called pictures, statues, architecture? The +spiritual energy of memory, with the assistance of those physical facts +above mentioned, makes possible the preservation and the reproduction of +the intuitions produced, often so laboriously, by ourselves and by +others. If the physiological organism, and with it memory, become +weakened; if the monuments of art be destroyed; then all the aesthetic +wealth, the fruit of the labours of many generations, becomes lessened +and rapidly disappears. + + [Sidenote] _The physically beautiful._ + +Monuments of art, which are the stimulants of aesthetic reproduction, +are called _beautiful things or the physically beautiful_. This +combination of words constitutes a verbal paradox, because the beautiful +is not a physical fact; it does not belong to things, but to the +activity of man, to spiritual energy. But henceforth it is clear through +what wanderings and what abbreviations, physical things and facts, which +are simply aids to the reproduction of the beautiful, end by being +called, elliptically, beautiful things and physically beautiful. And now +that we have made the existence of this ellipse clear, we shall +ourselves make use of it without hesitation. + + [Sidenote] _Content and form: another meaning._ + +The intervention of the physically beautiful serves to explain another +meaning of the words _content and form_, as employed by aestheticians. +Some call "content" the internal fact or expression (which is for us +already form), and they call "form" the marble, the colours, the rhythm, +the sounds (for us form no longer); thus they look upon the physical +fact as the form, which may or may not be joined to the content. This +serves to explain another aspect of what is called aesthetic ugliness. +He who has nothing definite to express may try to hide his internal +emptiness with a flood of words, with sounding verse, with deafening +polyphony, with painting that dazzles the eye, or by collocating great +architectonic masses, which arrest and disturb, although, at bottom, +they convey nothing. Ugliness, then, is the arbitrary, the +charlatanesque; and, in reality, if the practical will do not intervene +in the theoretic function, there may be absence of beauty, but never +effective presence of the ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Natural and artificial beauty._ + +Physical beauty is wont to be divided into _natural_ and _artificial_ +beauty. Thus we reach one of the facts, which has given great labour to +thinkers: _the beautiful in nature_. These words often designate simply +facts of practical pleasure. He alludes to nothing aesthetic who calls a +landscape beautiful where the eye rests upon verdure, where bodily +motion is easy, and where the warm sun-ray envelops and caresses the +limbs. But it is nevertheless indubitable, that on other occasions the +adjective "beautiful," applied to objects and scenes existing in nature, +has a completely aesthetic signification. + +It has been observed, that in order to enjoy natural objects +aesthetically, we should withdraw them from their external and +historical reality, and separate their simple appearance or origin from +existence; that if we contemplate a landscape with our head between our +legs, in such a way as to remove ourselves from our wonted relations +with it, the landscape appears as an ideal spectacle; that nature is +beautiful only for him who contemplates her _with the eye of the +artist_; that zoologists and botanists do not recognize beautiful +animals and flowers; that natural beauty is _discovered_ (and examples +of discovery are the points of view, pointed out by men of taste and +imagination, and to which more or less aesthetic travellers and +excursionists afterwards have recourse in pilgrimage, whence a more or +less collective _suggestion_); that, _without the aid of the +imagination_, no part of nature is beautiful, and that with such aid the +same natural object or fact is now expressive, according to the +disposition of the soul, now insignificant, now expressive of one +definite thing, now of another, sad or glad, sublime or ridiculous, +sweet or laughable; finally, that _natural beauty_, which an artist +would not _to some extent correct, does not exist_. + +All these observations are most just, and confirm the fact that natural +beauty is simply a _stimulus_ to aesthetic reproduction, which +presupposes previous production. Without preceding aesthetic intuitions +of the imagination, nature cannot arouse any at all. As regards natural +beauty, man is like the mythical Narcissus at the fountain. They show +further that since this stimulus is accidental, it is, for the most +part, imperfect or equivocal. Leopardi said that natural beauty is +"rare, scattered, and fugitive." Every one refers the natural fact to +the expression which is in his mind. One artist is, as it were, carried +away by a laughing landscape, another by a rag-shop, another by the +pretty face of a young girl, another by the squalid countenance of an +old ruffian. Perhaps the first will say that the rag-shop and the ugly +face of the old ruffian are _disgusting_; the second, that the laughing +landscape and the face of the young girl are _insipid_. They may dispute +for ever; but they will never agree, save when they have supplied +themselves with a sufficient dose of aesthetic knowledge, which will +enable them to recognize that they are both right. _Artificial_ beauty, +created by man, is a much more ductile and efficacious aid to +reproduction. + + [Sidenote] _Mixed beauty._ + +In addition to these two classes, aestheticians also sometimes talk in +their treatises of a _mixed_ beauty. Of what is it a mixture? Just of +natural and artificial. Whoso fixes and externalizes, operates with +natural materials, which he does not create, but combines and +transforms. In this sense, every artificial product is a mixture of +nature and artifice; and there would be no occasion to speak of a mixed +beauty, as of a special category. But it happens that, in certain cases, +combinations already given in nature can be used a great deal more than +in others; as, for instance, when we design a beautiful garden and +include in our design groups of trees or ponds which are already there. +On other occasions externalization is limited by the impossibility of +producing certain effects artificially. Thus we may mix the colouring +matters, but we cannot create a powerful voice or a personage and an +appearance appropriate to this or that personage of a drama. We must +therefore seek for them among things already existing, and make use of +them when we find them. When, therefore, we adopt a great number of +combinations already existing in nature, such as we should not be able +to produce artificially if they did not exist, the result is called +_mixed_ beauty. + + [Sidenote] _Writings._ + +We must distinguish from artificial beauty those instruments of +reproduction called _writings_, such as alphabets, musical notes, +hieroglyphics, and all pseudo-languages, from the language of flowers +and flags, to the language of patches (so much the vogue in the society +of the eighteenth century). Writings are not physical facts which arouse +directly impressions answering to aesthetic expressions; they are simple +_indications_ of what must be done in order to produce such physical +facts. A series of graphic signs serves to remind us of the movements +which we must execute with our vocal apparatus in order to emit certain +definite sounds. If, through practice, we become able to hear the words +without opening our mouths and (what is much more difficult) to hear the +sounds by running the eye down the page of the music, all this does not +alter anything of the nature of the writings, which are altogether +different from direct physical beauty. No one calls the book which +contains the _Divine Comedy_, or the portfolio which contains _Don +Giovanni_, beautiful in the same sense as the block of marble which +contains Michael Angelo's _Moses_, or the piece of coloured wood which +contains the _Transfiguration_ are metaphorically called beautiful. Both +serve for the reproduction of the beautiful, but the former by a far +longer and far more indirect route than the latter. + + [Sidenote] _The beautiful as free and not free._ + +Another division of the beautiful, which is still found in treatises, is +that into _free and not free_. By beauties that are not free, are +understood those objects which have to serve a double purpose, +extra-aesthetic and aesthetic (stimulants of intuitions); and since it +appears that the first purpose limits and impedes the second, the +beautiful object resulting therefrom has been considered as a beauty +that is not free. + +Architectural works are especially cited; and precisely for this reason, +has architecture often been excluded from the number of the so-called +fine arts. A temple must be above all things adapted to the use of a +cult; a house must contain all the rooms requisite for commodity of +living, and they must be arranged with a view to this commodity; a +fortress must be a construction capable of resisting the attacks of +certain armies and the blows of certain instruments of war. It is +therefore held that the architect's field is limited: he may be able to +_embellish_ to some extent the temple, the house, the fortress; but his +hands are bound by the _object_ of these buildings, and he can only +manifest that part of his vision of beauty in their construction which +does not impair their extrinsic, but fundamental, objects. + +Other examples are taken from what is called art applied to industry. +Plates, glasses, knives, guns, and combs can be made beautiful; but it +is held that their beauty must not so far exceed as to prevent our +eating from the plate, drinking from the glass, cutting with the knife, +firing off the gun, or combing one's hair with the comb. The same is +said of the art of printing: a book should be beautiful, but not to the +extent of its being difficult or impossible to read it. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful that is not free._ + +In respect to all this, we must observe, in the first place, that the +external purpose, precisely because it is such, does not of necessity +limit or trammel the other purpose of being a stimulus to aesthetic +reproduction. Nothing, therefore, can be more erroneous than the thesis +that architecture, for example, is by its nature not free and imperfect, +since it must also fulfil other practical objects. Beautiful +architectural works, however, themselves undertake to deny this by their +simple presence. + +In the second place, not only are the two objects not necessarily in +opposition; but, we must add, the artist always has the means of +preventing this contradiction from taking place. In what way? By taking, +as the material of his intuition and aesthetic externalization, +precisely the _destination_ of the object, which serves a practical end. +He will not need to add anything to the object, in order to make it the +instrument of aesthetic intuitions: it will be so, if perfectly adapted +to its practical purpose. Rustic dwellings and palaces, churches and +barracks, swords and ploughs, are beautiful, not in so far as they are +embellished and adorned, but in so far as they express the purpose for +which they were made. A garment is only beautiful because it is quite +suitable to a given person in given conditions. The sword bound to the +side of the warrior Rinaldo by the amorous Armida was not beautiful: "so +adorned that it seemed a useless ornament, not the warlike instrument of +a warrior." It was beautiful, if you will, in the eyes and imagination +of the sorceress, who loved her lover in this effeminate way. The +aesthetic fact can always accompany the practical fact, because +expression is truth. + +It cannot, however, be denied that aesthetic contemplation sometimes +hinders practical use. For instance, it is a quite common experience to +find certain new things so well adapted to their purpose, and yet so +beautiful, that people occasionally feel scruples in maltreating them by +using after contemplating them, which amounts to consuming them. It was +for this reason that King Frederick William of Prussia evinced +repugnance to ordering his magnificent grenadiers, so well suited for +war, to endure the strain of battle; but his less aesthetic son, +Frederick the Great, obtained from them excellent services. + + [Sidenote] _The stimulants of production._ + +It might be objected to the explanation of the physically beautiful as a +simple adjunct for the reproduction of the internally beautiful, that is +to say, of expressions, that the artist creates his expressions by +painting or by sculpturing, by writing or by composing, and that +therefore the physically beautiful, instead of following, sometimes +precedes the aesthetically beautiful. This would be a somewhat +superficial mode of understanding the procedure of the artist, who never +makes a stroke with his brush without having previously seen it with his +imagination; and if he has not yet seen it, he will make the stroke, not +in order to externalize his expression (which does not yet exist), but +as though to have a rallying point for ulterior meditation and for +internal concentration. The physical point on which he leans is not the +physically beautiful, instrument of reproduction, but what may be called +a pedagogic means, similar to retiring into solitude, or to the many +other expedients, frequently very strange, adopted by artists and +philosophers, who vary in these according to their various +idiosyncrasies. The old aesthetician Baumgarten advised poets to ride on +horseback, as a means of inspiration, to drink wine in moderation, and +(provided they were chaste) to look at beautiful women. + + + + +XIV + +MISTAKES ARISING FROM THE CONFUSION BETWEEN PHYSIC AND AESTHETIC + + +It is necessary to mention a series of scientific mistakes which have +arisen from the failure to understand the purely external relation +between the aesthetic fact or artistic vision, and the physical fact or +instrument, which serves as an aid to reproduce it. We must here +indicate the proper criticism, which derives from what has already been +said. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic associationism_ + +That form of associationism which identifies the aesthetic fact with the +_association of two_ images finds a place among these errors. By what +path has it been possible to arrive at such a mistake, against which our +aesthetic consciousness, which is a consciousness of perfect unity, +never of duality, rebels? Just because the physical and the aesthetic +facts have been considered separately, as two distinct images, which +enter the spirit, the one drawn forth from the other, the one first and +the other afterwards. A picture is divided into the image of the +_picture_ and the image of the _meaning_ of the picture; a poem, into +the image of the words and the image of the _meaning_ of the words. But +this dualism of images is non-existent: the physical fact does not enter +the spirit as an image, but causes the reproduction of the image (the +only image, which is the aesthetic fact), in so far as it blindly +stimulates the psychic organism and produces an impression answering to +the aesthetic expression already produced. + +The efforts of the associationists (the usurpers of to-day in the field +of Aesthetic) to emerge from the difficulty, and to reaffirm in some way +the unity which has been destroyed by their principle of associationism, +are highly instructive. Some maintain that the image called back again +is unconscious; others, leaving unconsciousness alone, hold that, on the +contrary, it is vague, vaporous, confused, thus reducing the _force_ of +the aesthetic fact to the _weakness_ of bad memory. But the dilemma is +inexorable: either keep association and give up unity, or keep unity and +give up association. No third way out of the difficulty exists. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of aesthetic physic._ + +From the failure to analyze so-called natural beauty thoroughly, and to +recognize that it is simply an incident of aesthetic reproduction, and +from having, on the contrary, looked upon it as given in nature, is +derived all that portion of treatises upon Aesthetic which is entitled +_The Beautiful in Nature or Aesthetic Physic_; sometimes even +subdivided, save the mark! into Aesthetic Mineralogy, Botany, and +Zoology. We do not wish to deny that such treatises contain many just +remarks, and are sometimes themselves works of art, in so far as they +represent beautifully the imaginings and fantasies, that is the +impressions, of their authors. But we must state that it is +scientifically false to ask oneself if the dog be beautiful, and the +ornithorhynchus ugly; if the lily be beautiful, and the artichoke ugly. +Indeed, the error is here double. On one hand, aesthetic Physic falls +back into the equivoke of the theory of artistic and literary classes, +by attempting to determine aesthetically the abstractions of our +intellect; on the other, fails to recognize, as we said, the true +formation of so-called natural beauty; for which the question as to +whether some given individual animal, flower, or man be beautiful or +ugly, is altogether excluded. What is not produced by the aesthetic +spirit, or cannot be referred to it, is neither beautiful nor ugly. The +aesthetic process arises from the ideal relations in which natural +objects are arranged. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body._ + +The double error can be exemplified by the question, upon which whole +volumes have been written, as to the _Beauty of the human body_. Here it +is necessary, above all things, to urge those who discuss this subject +from the abstract toward the concrete, by asking: "What do you mean by +the human body, that of the male, of the female, or of the androgyne?" +Let us assume that they reply by dividing the inquiry into two distinct +inquiries, as to the virile and feminine beauty (there really are +writers who seriously discuss whether man or woman is the more +beautiful); and let us continue: "Masculine or feminine beauty; but of +what race of men--the white, the yellow, or the black, and whatever +others there may be, according to the division of races?" Let us assume +that they limit themselves to the white race, and let us continue: "What +sub-species of the white race?" And when we have restricted them +gradually to one section of the white world, that is to say, to the +Italian, Tuscan, Siennese, or Porta Camollia section, we will continue: +"Very good; but at what age of the human body, and in what condition and +state of development--that of the new-born babe, of the child, of the +boy, of the adolescent, of the man of middle age, and so on? and is the +man at rest or at work, or is he occupied as is Paul Potter's cow, or +the Ganymede of Rembrandt?" + +Having thus arrived, by successive reductions, at the individual +_omnimode determinatum_, or, better, at the man pointed out with the +finger, it will be easy to expose the other error, by recalling what has +been said about the natural fact, which is now beautiful, now ugly, +according to the point of view, according to what is passing in the mind +of the artist. Finally, if the Gulf of Naples have its detractors, and +if there be artists who declare it inexpressive, preferring the "gloomy +firs," the "clouds and perpetual north winds," of the northern seas; let +it be believed, if possible, that such relativity does not exist for the +human body, source of the most various suggestions! + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the beauty of geometric figures._ + +The question of the _beauty of geometrical figures_ is connected with +aesthetic Physic. But if by geometrical figures be understood the +concepts of geometry, the concept of the triangle, the square, the cone, +these are neither beautiful nor ugly: they are concepts. If, on the +other hand, by such figures be understood bodies which possess definite +geometrical forms, these will be ugly or beautiful, like every natural +fact, according to the ideal connexions in which they are placed. Some +hold that those geometrical figures are beautiful which point upwards, +since they give the suggestion of firmness and of force. It is not +denied that such may be the case. But neither must it be denied that +those also which give the impression of instability and of being crushed +down may possess their beauty, where they represent just the ill-formed +and the crushed; and that in these last cases the firmness of the +straight line and the lightness of the cone or of the equilateral +triangle would, on the contrary, seem elements of ugliness. + +Certainly, such questions as to the beauty of nature and the beauty of +geometry, like the others analogous of the historically beautiful and of +human beauty, seem less absurd in the Aesthetic of the sympathetic, +which means, at bottom, by the words "aesthetic beauty" the +representation of what is pleasing. But the pretension to determine +scientifically what are the sympathetic contents, and what are the +irremediably antipathetic, is none the less erroneous, even in the +sphere of that doctrine and after the laying down of those premises. One +can only answer such questions by repeating with an infinitely long +postscript the _Sunt quos_ of the first ode of the first book of Horace, +and the _Havvi chi_ of Leopardi's letter to Carlo Pepoli. To each man +his beautiful ( = sympathetic), as to each man his fair one. Philography +is not a science. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of another aspect of the imitation of nature._ + +The artist sometimes has naturally existing facts before him, in +producing the artificial instrument, or physically beautiful. These are +called his _models_: bodies, stuffs, flowers, and so on. Let us run over +the sketches, the studies, and the notes of the artists: Leonardo noted +down in his pocket-book, when he was working on the Last Supper: +"Giovannina, fantastic appearance, is at St. Catherine's, at the +Hospital; Cristofano di Castiglione is at the Pietà, he has a fine head; +Christ, Giovan Conte, is of the suite of Cardinal Mortaro." And so on. +From this comes the illusion that the artist _imitates nature_; when it +would perhaps be more exact to say that nature imitates the artist, and +obeys him. The theory that _art imitates nature_ has sometimes been +grounded upon and found sustenance in this illusion, as also its +variant, more easily to be defended, which makes art the _idealizer of +nature_. This last theory presents the process in a disorderly manner, +indeed inversely to the true order; for the artist does not proceed from +extrinsic reality, in order to modify it by approaching it to the ideal; +but he proceeds from the impression of external nature to expression, +that is to say, to his ideal, and from this he passes to the natural +fact, which he employs as the instrument of reproduction of the ideal +fact. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of the + beautiful._ + +Another consequence of the confusion between the aesthetic and the +physical fact is the theory of the _elementary forms of the beautiful_. +If expression, if the beautiful, be indivisible, the physical fact, in +which it externalizes itself, can well be divided and subdivided; for +example, a painted surface, into lines and colours, groups and curves of +lines, kinds of colours, and so on; a poem, into strophes, verses, feet, +syllables; a piece of prose, into chapters, paragraphs, headings, +periods, phrases, words, and so on. The parts thus obtained are not +aesthetic facts, but smaller physical facts, cut up in an arbitrary +manner. If this path were followed, and the confusion persisted in, we +should end by concluding that the true forms of the beautiful are +_atoms_. + +The aesthetic law, several times promulgated, that beauty must have +_bulk_, could be invoked against the atoms. It cannot be the +imperceptibility of the too small, nor the unapprehensibility of the too +large. But a bigness which depends upon perceptibility, not measurement, +derives from a concept widely different from the mathematical. For what +is called imperceptible and incomprehensible does not produce an +impression, because it is not a real fact, but a concept: the requisite +of bulk in the beautiful is thus reduced to the effective reality of the +physical fact, which serves for the reproduction of the beautiful. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the search for the objective conditions of + the beautiful._ + +Continuing the search for the _physical laws_ or for the _objective +conditions of the beautiful_, it has been asked: To what physical facts +does the beautiful correspond? To what the ugly? To what unions of +tones, colours, sizes, mathematically determinable? Such inquiries are +as if in Political Economy one were to seek for the laws of exchange in +the physical nature of the objects exchanged. The constant infecundity +of the attempt should have at once given rise to some suspicion as to +its vanity. In our times, especially, has the necessity for an +_inductive_ Aesthetic been often proclaimed, of an Aesthetic starting +_from below_, which should proceed like natural science and not hasten +its conclusions. Inductive? But Aesthetic has always been both inductive +and deductive, like every philosophical science; induction and deduction +cannot be separated, nor can they separately avail to characterize a +true science. But the word "inductive" was not here pronounced +accidentally and without special intention. It was wished to imply by +its use that the aesthetic fact is nothing, at bottom, but a physical +fact, which should be studied by applying to it the methods proper to +the physical and natural sciences. With such a presupposition and in +such a faith did inductive Aesthetic or Aesthetic of the inferior (what +pride in this modesty!) begin its labours. It has conscientiously begun +by making a collection of _beautiful things_, for example of a great +number of envelopes of various shapes and sizes, and has asked which of +these give the impression of the beautiful and which of the ugly. As was +to be expected, the inductive aestheticians speedily found themselves in +a difficulty, for the same objects that appeared ugly in one aspect +would appear beautiful in another. A yellow, coarse envelope, which +would be extremely ugly for the purpose of enclosing a love-letter, is, +however, just what is wanted for a writ served by process on stamped +paper. This in its turn would look very bad, or seem at any rate an +irony, if enclosed in a square English envelope. Such considerations of +simple common sense should have sufficed to convince inductive +aestheticians, that the beautiful has no physical existence, and cause +them to remit their vain and ridiculous quest. But no: they have had +recourse to an expedient, as to which we would find it difficult to say +how far it belongs to natural science. They have sent their envelopes +round from one to the other and opened a _referendum_, thus striving to +decide by the votes of the majority in what consists the beautiful and +the ugly. + +We will not waste time over this argument, because we should seem to be +turning ourselves into narrators of comic anecdotes rather than +expositors of aesthetic science and of its problems. It is an actual +fact, that the inductive aestheticians have not yet discovered _one +single law_. + + [Sidenote] _Astrology of Aesthetic._ + +He who dispenses with doctors is prone to abandon himself to charlatans. +Thus it has befallen those who have believed in the natural laws of the +beautiful. Artists sometimes adopt empirical canons, such as that of the +proportions of the human body, or of the golden section, that is to say, +of a line divided into two parts in such a manner that the less is to +the greater as is the greater to the whole line (_bc: ac=ac: ab_). Such +canons easily become their superstitions, and they attribute to such the +success of their works. Thus Michael Angelo left as a precept to his +disciple Marco del Pino of Siena that "he should always make a pyramidal +serpentine figure multiplied by one, two, three," a precept which did +not enable Marco di Siena to emerge from that mediocrity which we can +yet observe in his many works, here in Naples. Others extracted from the +sayings of Michael Angelo the precept that serpentine undulating lines +were the true _lines of beauty_. Whole volumes have been composed on +these laws of beauty, on the golden section and on the undulating and +serpentine lines. These should in our opinion be looked upon as the +_astrology of Aesthetic_. + + + + +XV + +THE ACTIVITY OF EXTERNALIZATION, TECHNIQUE AND THE THEORY OF THE ARTS + + + [Sidenote] _The practical activity of externalization._ + +The fact of the production of the physically beautiful implies, as has +already been remarked, a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing +certain visions, intuitions, or representations, to be lost. Such a will +must be able to act with the utmost rapidity, and as it were +instinctively, and also be capable of long and laborious deliberations. +Thus and only thus does the practical activity enter into relations with +the aesthetic, that is to say, in effecting the production of physical +objects, which are aids to memory. Here it is not merely a concomitant, +but really a distinct moment of the aesthetic activity. We cannot will +or not will our aesthetic vision: we can, however, will or not will to +externalize it, or better, to preserve and communicate, or not, to +others, the externalization produced. + + [Sidenote] _The technique of externalization._ + +This volitional fact of externalization is preceded by a complex of +various kinds of knowledge. These are known as _techniques_, like all +knowledge which precedes the practical activity. Thus we talk of an +artistic technique in the same metaphorical and elliptic manner that we +talk of the physically beautiful, that is to say (in more precise +language), _knowledge employed by the practical activity engaged in +producing stimuli to aesthetic reproduction_. In place of employing so +lengthy a phrase, we shall here avail ourselves of the vulgar +terminology, since we are henceforward aware of its true meaning. + +The possibility of this technical knowledge, at the service of artistic +reproduction, has caused people to imagine the existence of an aesthetic +technique of internal expression, which is tantamount to saying, _a +doctrine of the means of internal expression_, which is altogether +inconceivable. And we know well the reason why it is inconceivable; +expression, considered in itself, is primary theoretic activity, and, in +so far as it is this, it precedes the practical activity and the +intellectual knowledge which illumines the practical activity, and is +thus independent alike of the one and of the other. It also helps to +illumine the practical activity, but is not illuminated by it. +Expression does not employ _means_, because it has not an _end_; it has +intuitions of things, but does not will them, and is thus indivisible +into means and end. Thus if it be said, as sometimes is the case, that a +certain writer has invented a new technique of fiction or of drama, or +that a painter has discovered a new mode of distribution of light, the +word is used in a false sense; because the so-called _new technique is +really that romance itself, or that new picture_ itself. The +distribution of light belongs to the vision itself of the picture; as +the technique of a dramatist is his dramatic conception itself. On other +occasions, the word "technique" is used to designate certain merits or +defects in a work which is a failure; and it is said, euphemistically, +that the conception is bad, but the technique good, or that the +conception is good, and the technique bad. + +On the other hand, when the different ways of painting in oils, or of +etching, or of sculpturing in alabaster, are discussed, then the word +"technique" is in its place; but in such a case the adjective "artistic" +is used metaphorically. And if a dramatic technique in the artistic +sense be impossible, a theatrical technique is not impossible, that is +to say, processes of externalization of certain given aesthetic works. +When, for instance, women were introduced on the stage in Italy in the +second half of the sixteenth century, in place of men dressed as women, +this was a true and real discovery in theatrical technique; such too was +the perfecting in the following century by the impresarios of Venice, of +machines for the rapid changing of the scenes. + + [Sidenote] _The theoretic techniques of the individual arts._ + +The collection of technical knowledge at the service of artists desirous +of externalizing their expressions, can be divided into groups, which +may be entitled _theories of the arts_. Thus is born a theory of +Architecture, comprising mechanical laws, information relating to the +weight or to the resistance of the materials of construction or of +fortification, manuals relating to the method of mixing chalk or stucco; +a theory of Sculpture, containing advice as to the instruments to be +used for sculpturing the various sorts of stone, for obtaining a +successful fusion of bronze, for working with the chisel, for the exact +copying of the model in chalk or plaster, for keeping chalk damp; a +theory of Painting, on the various techniques of tempera, of +oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportions of the +human body, on the laws of perspective; a theory of Oratory, with +precepts as to the method of producing, of exercising and of +strengthening the voice, of mimic and gesture; a theory of Music, on the +combinations and fusions of tones and sounds; and so on. Such +collections of precepts abound in all literatures. And since it soon +becomes impossible to say what is useful and what useless to know, books +of this sort become very often a sort of encyclopaedias or catalogues of +desiderata. Vitruvius, in his treatise on Architecture, claims for the +architect a knowledge of letters, of drawing, of geometry, of +arithmetic, of optic, of history, of natural and moral philosophy, of +jurisprudence, of medicine, of astrology, of music, and so on. +Everything is worth knowing: learn the art and lay it aside. + +It should be evident that such empirical collections are not reducible +to a science. They are composed of notions, taken from various sciences +and teachings, and their philosophical and scientific principles are to +be found in them. To undertake the construction of a scientific theory +of the different arts, would be to wish to reduce to the single and +homogeneous what is by nature multiple and heterogeneous; to wish to +destroy the existence as a collection of what was put together precisely +to form a collection. Were we to give a scientific form to the manuals +of the architect, the painter, or the musician, it is clear that nothing +would remain in our hands but the general principles of Mechanic, Optic, +or Acoustic. Or if the especially artistic observations disseminated +through it be extracted and isolated, and a science be made of them, +then the sphere of the individual art is deserted and that of Aesthetic +entered upon, for Aesthetic is always general Aesthetic, or better, it +cannot be divided into general and special. This last case (that is, the +attempt to furnish a technique of Aesthetic) is found, when men +possessing strong scientific instincts and a natural tendency to +philosophy, set themselves to work to produce such theories and +technical manuals. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the aesthetic theories of the individual + arts._ + +But the confusion between Physic and Aesthetic has attained to its +highest degree, when aesthetic theories of the different arts are +imagined, to answer such questions as: What are the _limits_ of each +art? What can be represented with colours, and what with sounds? What +with simple monochromatic lines, and what with touches of various +colours? What with notes, and what with metres and rhymes? What are the +limits between the figurative and the auditional arts, between painting +and sculpture, poetry and music? + +This, translated into scientific language, is tantamount to asking: What +is the connexion between Acoustic and aesthetic expression? What between +the latter and Optic?--and the like. Now, if _there is no passage_ from +the physical fact to the aesthetic, how could there be from the +aesthetic to particular groups of aesthetic facts, such as the phenomena +of Optic or of Acoustic? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the classifications of the arts._ + +The things called _Arts_ have no aesthetic limits, because, in order to +have them, they would need to have also aesthetic existence; and we have +demonstrated the altogether empirical genesis of those divisions. +Consequently, any attempt at an aesthetic classification of the arts is +absurd. If they be without limits, they are not exactly determinable, +and consequently cannot be philosophically classified. All the books +dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned +without any loss whatever. (We say this with the utmost respect to the +writers who have expended their labours upon them.) + +The impossibility of such classifications finds, as it were, its proof +in the strange methods to which recourse has been had to carry them out. +The first and most common classification is that into arts of _hearing, +sight_, and _imagination_; as if eyes, ears, and imagination were on the +same level, and could be deduced from the same logical variable, as +foundation of the division. Others have proposed the division into arts +of _space and time_, and arts of _rest_ and _motion_; as if the concepts +of space, time, rest, and motion could determine special aesthetic +forms, or have anything in common with art as such. Finally, others have +amused themselves by dividing them into _classic and romantic_, or into +_oriental, classic, and romantic_, thereby conferring the value of +scientific concepts on simple historical denominations, or adopting +those pretended partitions of expressive forms, already criticized +above; or by talking of arts _that can only be seen from one side_, like +painting, and of arts _that can be seen from all sides_, like +sculpture--and similar extravagances, which exist neither in heaven nor +on the earth. + +The theory of the limits of the arts was, perhaps, at the time when it +was put forward, a beneficial critical reaction against those who +believed in the possibility of the flowing of one expression into +another, as of the _Iliad_ or of _Paradise Lost_ into a series of +paintings, and thus held a poem to be of greater or lesser value, +according as it could or could not be translated into pictures by a +painter. But if the rebellion were reasonable and victorious, this does +not mean that the arguments adopted and the theories made as required +were sound. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the union of the arts._ + +Another theory which is a corollary to that of the limits of the arts, +falls with them; that of the _union of the arts_. Granted different +arts, distinct and limited, the questions were asked: Which is the most +powerful? Do we not obtain more powerful effects by uniting several? We +know nothing of this: we know only, in each individual case, that +certain given artistic intuitions have need of definite physical means +for their reproduction, and that other artistic intuitions have need of +other physical means. We can obtain the effect of certain dramas by +simply reading them; others need declamation and scenic display: some +artistic intuitions, for their full extrinsication, need words, song, +musical instruments, colours, statuary, architecture, actors; while +others are beautiful and complete in a single delicate sweep of the pen, +or with a few strokes of the pencil. But it is false to suppose that +declamation and scenic effects, and all the other things we have +mentioned together, are _more powerful_ than simply reading, or than the +simple stroke with the pen and with the pencil; because each of these +facts or groups of facts has, so to say, a different object, and the +power of the different means employed cannot be compared when the +objects are different. + + [Sidenote] _Connexion of the activity of externalization with utility + and morality._ + +Finally, it is only from the point of view of a clear and rigorous +distinction between the true and proper aesthetic activity, and the +practical activity of externalization, that we can solve the involved +and confused questions as to the relations between _art and utility_, +and _art and morality_. + +That art as art is independent alike of utility and of morality, as also +of every volitional form, we have above demonstrated. Without this +independence, it would not be possible to speak of an intrinsic value of +art, nor indeed to conceive an aesthetic science, which demands the +autonomy of the aesthetic fact as a necessity of its existence. + +But it would be erroneous to maintain that this independence of the +vision or intuition or internal expression of the artist should be at +once extended to the practical activity of externalization and of +communication, which may or may not follow the aesthetic fact. If art be +understood as the externalization of art, then utility and morality have +a perfect right to deal with it; that is to say, the right one possesses +to deal with one's own household. + +We do not, as a matter of fact, externalize and fix all of the many +expressions and intuitions which we form in our mind; we do not declare +our every thought in a loud voice, or write down, or print, or draw, or +colour, or expose it to the public gaze. _We select_ from the crowd of +intuitions which are formed or at least sketched within us; and the +selection is governed by selection of the economic conditions of life +and of its moral direction. Therefore, when we have formed an intuition, +it remains to decide whether or no we should communicate it to others, +and to whom, and when, and how; all of which considerations fall equally +under the utilitarian and ethical criterion. + +Thus we find the concepts of _selection_, of the _interesting_, of +_morality_, of an _educational end_, of _popularity_, etc., to some +extent justified, although these can in no wise be justified as imposed +upon art as art, and we have ourselves denounced them in pure Aesthetic. +Error always contains an element of truth. He who formulated those +erroneous aesthetic propositions had his eye on practical facts, which +attach themselves externally to the aesthetic fact in economic and moral +life. + +By all means, be partisans of a yet greater liberty in the vulgarization +of the means of aesthetic reproduction; we are of the same opinion, and +let us leave the proposals for legislative measures, and for actions to +be instigated against immoral art, to hypocrites, to the ingenuous, and +to idlers. But the proclamation of this liberty, and the fixation of its +limits, how wide soever they be, is always the affair of morality. And +it would in any case be out of place to invoke that highest principle, +that _fundamentum Aesthetices_, which is the independence of art, in +order to deduce from it the guiltlessness of the artist, who, in the +externalization of his imaginings, should calculate upon the unhealthy +tastes of his readers; or that licenses should be granted to the hawkers +who sell obscene statuettes in the streets. This last case is the affair +of the police; the first must be brought before the tribunal of the +moral conscience. The aesthetic judgment on the work of art has nothing +to do with the morality of the artist, in so far as he is a practical +man, nor with the precautions to be taken that art may not be employed +for evil purposes alien to its essence, which is pure theoretic +contemplation. + + + + +XVI + +TASTE AND THE REPRODUCTION OF ART + + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic + reproduction._ + +When the entire aesthetic and externalizing process has been completed, +when a beautiful expression has been produced and fixed in a definite +physical material, what is meant by _judging it_? _To reproduce it in +oneself_, answer the critics of art, almost with one voice. Very good. +Let us try thoroughly to understand this fact, and with that object in +view, let us represent it schematically. + +The individual A is seeking the expression of an impression, which he +feels or has a presentiment of, but has not yet expressed. Behold him +trying various words and phrases, which may give the sought-for +expression, which must exist, but which he does not know. He tries the +combination _m_, but rejects it as unsuitable, inexpressive, incomplete, +ugly: he tries the combination _n_, with a like result. _He does not see +anything, or he does not see clearly_. The expression still flies from +him. After other vain attempts, during which he sometimes approaches, +sometimes leaves the sign that offers itself, all of a sudden (almost as +though formed spontaneously of itself) he creates the sought-for +expression, and _lux facta est_. He enjoys for an instant aesthetic +pleasure or the pleasure of the beautiful. The ugly, with its +correlative displeasure, was the aesthetic activity, which had not +succeeded in conquering the obstacle; the beautiful is the expressive +activity, which now displays itself triumphant. + +We have taken this example from the domain of speech, as being nearer +and more accessible, and because we all talk, though we do not all draw +or paint. Now if another individual, whom we shall term B, desire to +judge this expression and decide whether it be beautiful or ugly, he +_must of necessity place himself at A's point of view_, and go through +the whole process again, with the help of the physical sign, supplied to +him by A. If A has seen clearly, then B (who has placed himself at A's +point of view) will also see clearly and will find this expression +beautiful. If A has not seen clearly, then B also will not see clearly, +and will find the expression more or less ugly, _just as A did_. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of divergences._ + +It may be observed that we have not taken into consideration two other +cases: that of A having a clear and B an obscure vision; and that of A +having an obscure and B a clear vision. Philosophically speaking, these +two cases are _impossible_. + +Spiritual activity, precisely because it is activity, is not a caprice, +but a spiritual necessity; and it cannot solve a definite aesthetic +problem, save in one way, which is the right way. Doubtless certain +facts may be adduced, which appear to contradict this deduction. Thus +works which seem beautiful to artists, are judged to be ugly by the +critics; while works with which the artists were displeased and judged +imperfect or failures, are held to be beautiful and perfect by the +critics. But this does not mean anything, save that one of the two is +wrong: either the critics or the artists, or in one case the artist and +in another the critic. In fact, the producer of an expression does not +always fully realize what has happened in his soul. Haste, vanity, want +of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, make people say, and sometimes +others almost believe, that works of ours are beautiful, which, if we +were truly to turn inwards upon ourselves, we should see ugly, as they +really are. Thus poor Don Quixote, when he had mended his helmet as well +as he could with cardboard--the helmet that had showed itself to possess +but the feeblest force of resistance at the first encounter,--took good +care not to test it again with a well-delivered sword-thrust, but simply +declared and maintained it to be (says the author) _por celada finisima +de encaxe_. And in other cases, the same reasons, or opposite but +analogous ones, trouble the consciousness of the artist, and cause him +to disapprove of what he has successfully produced, or to strive to undo +and do again worse, what he has done well, in his artistic spontaneity. +An example of this is the _Gerusalemme conquistata_. In the same way, +haste, laziness, want of reflexion, theoretic prejudices, personal +sympathies, or animosities, and other motives of a similar sort, +sometimes cause the critics to proclaim beautiful what is ugly, and ugly +what is beautiful. Were they to eliminate such disturbing elements, they +would feel the work of art as it really is, and would not leave to +posterity, that more diligent and more dispassionate judge, to award the +palm, or to do that justice, which they have refused. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of taste and genius._ + +It is clear from the preceding theorem, that the judicial activity, +which criticizes and recognizes the beautiful, is identical with that +which produces it. The only difference lies in the diversity of +circumstances, since in the one case it is a question of aesthetic +production, in the other of reproduction. The judicial activity is +called _taste_; the productive activity is called _genius_: genius and +taste are therefore substantially _identical_. + +The common remark, that the critic should possess some of the genius of +the artist and that the artist should possess taste, reveals a glimpse +of this identity; or that there exists an active (productive) taste and +a passive (reproductive) taste. But a denial of this is contained in +other equally common remarks, as when people speak of taste without +genius, or of genius without taste. These last observations are +meaningless, unless they be taken as alluding to quantitative +differences. In this case, those would be called geniuses without taste +who produce works of art, inspired in their culminating parts and +neglected and defective in their secondary parts, and those men of taste +without genius, who succeed in obtaining certain isolated or secondary +effects, but do not possess the power necessary for a vast artistic +synthesis. Analogous explanations can easily be given of other similar +propositions. But to posit a substantial difference between genius and +taste, between artistic production and reproduction, would render +communication and judgment alike inconceivable. How could we judge what +remained extraneous to us? How could that which is produced by a given +activity be judged by a different activity? The critic will be a small +genius, the artist a great genius; the one will have the strength of +ten, the other of a hundred; the former, in order to raise himself to +the altitude of the latter, will have need of his assistance; but the +nature of both must be the same. In order to judge Dante, we must raise +ourselves to his level: let it be well understood that empirically we +are not Dante, nor Dante we; but in that moment of judgment and +contemplation, our spirit is one with that of the poet, and in that +moment we and he are one single thing. In this identity alone resides +the possibility that our little souls can unite with the great souls, +and become great with them, in the universality of the spirit. + + [Sidenote] _Analogy with the other activities._ + +Let us remark in passing that what has been said of the aesthetic +_judgment_ holds good equally for every other activity and for every +other judgment; and that scientific, economic, and ethical criticism is +effected in a like manner. To limit ourselves to this last, it is only +if we place ourselves ideally in the same conditions in which he who +took a given resolution found himself, that we can form a judgment as to +whether his resolution were moral or immoral. An action would otherwise +remain incomprehensible, and therefore impossible to judge. A homicide +may be a rascal or a hero: if this be, within limits, indifferent as +regards the safety of society, which condemns both to the same +punishment, it is not indifferent to him who wishes to distinguish and +to judge from the moral point of view, and we cannot dispense with +studying again the individual psychology of the homicide, in order to +determine the true nature of his deed, not merely in its judicial, but +also in its moral aspect. In Ethic, a moral taste or tact is sometimes +referred to, which answers to what is generally called moral conscience, +that is to say, to the activity itself of good-will. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of absolutism (intellectualism) and of aesthetic + relativism._ + +The explanation above given of aesthetic judgment or reproduction at +once affirms and denies the position of the absolutists and relativists, +of those, that is to say, who affirm and of those who deny the existence +of an absolute taste. + +The absolutists, who affirm that they can judge of the beautiful, are +right; but the theory on which they found their affirmation is not +maintainable. They conceive of the beautiful, that is, of aesthetic +value, as of something placed outside the aesthetic activity; as if it +were a model or a concept which an artist realizes in his work, and of +which the critic avails himself afterwards in order to judge the work +itself. Concepts and models alike have no existence in art, for by +proclaiming that every art can be judged only in itself, and has its own +model in itself, they have attained to the denial of the existence of +objective models of beauty, whether they be intellectual concepts, or +ideas suspended in the metaphysical sky. + +In proclaiming this, the adversaries, the relativists, are perfectly +right, and accomplish a progress. However, the initial rationality of +their thesis becomes in its turn a false theory. Repeating the old adage +that there is no accounting for tastes, they believe that aesthetic +expression is of the same nature as the pleasant and the unpleasant, +which every one feels in his own way, and as to which there is no +disputing. But we know that the pleasant and the unpleasant are +utilitarian and practical facts. Thus the relativists deny the +peculiarity of the aesthetic fact, again confounding expression with +impression, the theoretic with the practical. + +The true solution lies in rejecting alike relativism or psychologism, +and false absolutism; and in recognizing that the criterion of taste is +absolute, but absolute in a different way from that of the intellect, +which is developed by reason. The criterion of taste is absolute, with +the intuitive absoluteness of the imagination. Thus every act of +expressive activity, which is so really, will be recognized as +beautiful, and every fact in which expressive activity and passivity are +found engaged with one another in an unfinished struggle, will be +recognized as ugly. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of relative relativism._ + +There lies, between absolutists and relativists, a third class, which +may be called that of the relative relativists. These affirm the +existence of absolute values in other fields, such as Logic and Ethic, +but deny their existence in the field of Aesthetic. To them it appears +natural and justifiable to dispute about science and morality; because +science rests on the universal, common to all men, and morality on duty, +which is also a law of human nature; but how, they say, can one dispute +about art, which rests on imagination? Not only, however, is the +imaginative activity universal and belongs to human nature, like the +logical concept and practical duty; but we must oppose a capital +objection to this intermediary thesis. If the absolute nature of the +imagination were denied, we should be obliged to deny also that of +intellectual or conceptual truth, and, implicitly, of morality. Does not +morality presuppose logical distinctions? How could these be known, +otherwise than by expressions and words, that is to say, in imaginative +form? If the absoluteness of the imagination were removed, spiritual +life would tremble to its base. One individual would no longer +understand another, nor indeed his own self of a moment before, which, +when considered a moment after, is already another individual. + + [Sidenote] _Objection founded on the variation of the stimulus and + on the psychic disposition._ + +Nevertheless, variety of judgments is an indisputable fact. Men are at +variance in their logical, ethical, and economical appreciations; and +they are equally, or even more at variance in their aesthetic +appreciations. If certain reasons detailed by us, above, such as haste, +prejudices, passions, etc., may be held to lessen the importance of this +disagreement, they do not thereby annul it. We have been cautious, when +speaking of the stimuli of reproduction, for we said that reproduction +takes place, _if all the other conditions remain equal_. Do they remain +equal? Does the hypothesis correspond to reality? + +It would appear not. In order to reproduce several times an impression +by employing a suitable physical stimulus, it is necessary that this +stimulus be not changed, and that the organism remain in the same +psychical conditions as those in which was experienced the impression +that it is desired to reproduce. Now it is a fact, that the physical +stimulus is continually changing, and in like manner the psychological +conditions. + +Oil paintings grow dark, frescoes pale, statues lose noses, hands, and +legs, architecture becomes totally or partially a ruin, the tradition of +the execution of a piece of music is lost, the text of a poem is +corrupted by bad copyists or bad printing. These are obvious instances +of the changes which daily occur in objects or physical stimuli. As +regards psychological conditions, we will not dwell upon the cases of +deafness or blindness, that is to say, upon the loss of entire orders of +psychical impressions; these cases are secondary and of less importance +compared with the fundamental, daily, inevitable, and perpetual changes +of the society around us, and of the internal conditions of our +individual life. The phonic manifestations, that is, the words and +verses of the Dantesque _Commedia_, must produce a very different +impression on a citizen engaged in the politics of the third Rome, to +that experienced by a well-informed and intimate contemporary of the +poet. The Madonna of Cimabue is still in the Church of Santa Maria +Novella; but does she speak to the visitor of to-day as she spoke to the +Florentines of the thirteenth century? Even though she were not also +darkened by time, would not the impression be altogether different? And +finally, how can a poem composed in youth make the same impression on +the same individual poet when he re-reads it in his old age, with his +psychic dispositions altogether changed? + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the division of signs into natural and + conventional._ + +It is true, that certain aestheticians have attempted a distinction +between stimuli and stimuli, between _natural and conventional_ signs. +They would grant to the former a constant effect on all; to the latter, +only on a limited circle. In their belief, signs employed in painting +are natural, while the words of poetry are conventional. But the +difference between the one and the other is only of degree. It has often +been affirmed that painting is a language which all understand, while +with poetry it is otherwise. Here, for example, Leonardo placed one of +the prerogatives of his art, "which hath not need of interpreters of +different languages as have letters," and in it man and brute find +satisfaction. He relates the anecdote of that portrait of the father of +a family, "which the little grandchildren were wont to caress while they +were still in swaddling-clothes, and the dogs and cats of the house in +like manner." But other anecdotes, such as those of the savages who took +the portrait of a soldier for a boat, or considered the portrait of a +man on horseback as furnished with only one leg, are apt to shake one's +faith in the understanding of painting by sucklings, dogs, and cats. +Fortunately, no arduous researches are necessary to convince oneself +that pictures, poetry, and every work of art, produce no effects save on +souls prepared to receive them. Natural signs do not exist; because they +are all conventional in a like manner, or, to speak with greater +exactitude, all are _historically conditioned_. + + [Sidenote] _The surmounting of variety._ + +This being so, how are we to succeed in causing the expression to be +reproduced by means of the physical object? How obtain the same effect, +when the conditions are no longer the same? Would it not, rather, seem +necessary to conclude that expressions cannot be reproduced, despite the +physical instruments made by man for the purpose, and that what is +called reproduction consists in ever new expressions? Such would indeed +be the conclusion, if the variety of physical and psychic conditions +were intrinsically unsurmountable. But since the insuperability has none +of the characteristics of necessity, we must, on the contrary, conclude: +that the reproduction always occurs, when we can replace ourselves in +the conditions in which the stimulus (physical beauty) was produced. + +Not only can we replace ourselves in these conditions, as an abstract +possibility, but as a matter of fact we do so continually. Individual +life, which is communion with ourselves (with our past), and social +life, which is communion with our like, would not otherwise be possible. + + [Sidenote] _Restorations and historical interpretation._ + +As regards the physical object, paleographers and philologists, who +_restore_ to texts their original physiognomy, _restorers_ of pictures +and of statues, and similar categories of workers, exert themselves to +preserve or to give back to the physical object all its primitive +energy. These efforts certainly do not always succeed, or are not +completely successful, for never, or hardly ever, is it possible to +obtain a restoration complete in its smallest details. But the +unsurmountable is only accidentally present, and cannot cause us to fail +to recognize the favourable results which are nevertheless obtained. + +_Historical interpretation_ likewise labours to reintegrate in us +historical conditions which have been altered in the course of history. +It revives the dead, completes the fragmentary, and affords us the +opportunity of seeing a work of art (a physical object) as its author +saw it, at the moment of production. + +A condition of this historical labour is tradition, with the help of +which it is possible to collect the scattered rays and cause them to +converge on one centre. With the help of memory, we surround the +physical stimulus with all the facts among which it arose; and thus we +make it possible for it to react upon us, as it acted upon him who +produced it. + +When the tradition is broken, interpretation is arrested; in this case, +the products of the past remain _silent_ for us. Thus the expressions +contained in the Etruscan or Messapian inscriptions are unattainable; +thus we still hear discussions among ethnographers as to certain +products of the art of savages, whether they be pictures or writings; +thus archaeologists and prehistorians are not always able to establish +with certainty, whether the figures found on the ceramic of a certain +region, and on other instruments employed, be of a religious or of a +profane nature. But the arrest of interpretation, as that of +restoration, is never a definitely unsurmountable barrier; and the daily +discoveries of historical sources and of new methods of better +exploiting antiquity, which we may hope to see ever improving, link up +broken tradition. + +We do not wish to deny that erroneous historical interpretation produces +at times what we may term _palimpsests_, new expressions imposed upon +the antique, artistic imaginings instead of historical reproductions. +The so-called fascination of the past depends in part upon these +expressions of ours, which we weave into historical expressions. Thus in +hellenic plastic art has been discovered the calm and serene intuition +of life of those peoples, who feel, nevertheless, so poignantly, the +universality of sorrow; thus has recently been discerned on the faces of +the Byzantine saints "the terror of the millennium," a terror which is +an equivoke, or an artificial legend invented by modern scholars. But +_historical criticism_ tends precisely to circumscribe _vain imaginings_ +and to establish with exactitude the point of view from which we must +look. + +Thus we live in communication with other men of the present and of the +past; and we must not conclude, because sometimes, and indeed often, we +find ourselves face to face with the unknown or the badly known, that +when we believe we are engaged in a dialogue, we are always speaking a +monologue; nor that we are unable even to repeat the monologue which, in +the past, we held with ourselves. + + + + +XVII + +THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND ART + + + [Sidenote] _Historical criticism in literature and art. Its + importance._ + +This brief exposition of the method by which is obtained reintegration +of the original conditions in which the work of art was produced, and by +which reproduction and judgment are made possible, shows how important +is the function fulfilled by historical research concerning artistic and +literary works; that is to say, by what is usually called _historical +criticism_, or method, in literature and art. + +Without tradition and historical criticism, the enjoyment of all or +nearly all works of art produced by humanity, would be irrevocably lost: +we should be little more than animals, immersed in the present alone, or +in the most recent past. Only fools despise and laugh at him who +reconstitutes an authentic text, explains the sense of words and +customs, investigates the conditions in which an artist lived, and +accomplishes all those labours which revive the qualities and the +original colouring of works of art. + +Sometimes the depreciatory or negative judgment refers to the presumed +or proved uselessness of many researches, made to recover the correct +meaning of artistic works. But, it must be observed, in the first place, +that historical research does not only fulfil the task of helping to +reproduce and judge artistic works: the biography of a writer or of an +artist, for example, and the study of the costume of a period, also +possess their own interest, foreign to the history of art, but not +foreign to other forms of history. If allusion be made to those +researches which do not appear to have interest of any kind, nor to +fulfil any purpose, it must be replied that the historical student must +often reconcile himself to the useful, but little glorious, office of a +cataloguer of facts. These facts remain for the time being formless, +incoherent, and insignificant, but they are preserves, or mines, for the +historian of the future and for whomsoever may afterwards want them for +any purpose. In the same way, books which nobody asks for are placed on +the shelves and are noted in the catalogues, because they may be asked +for at some time or other. Certainly, in the same way that an +intelligent librarian gives the preference to the acquisition and to the +cataloguing of those books which he foresees may be of more or better +service, so do intelligent students possess the instinct as to what is +or may more probably be useful from among the mass of facts which they +are investigating. Others, on the other hand, less well-endowed, less +intelligent, or more hasty in producing, accumulate useless selections, +rejections and erasures, and lose themselves in refinements and gossipy +discussions. But this appertains to the economy of research, and is not +our affair. At the most, it is the affair of the master who selects the +subjects, of the publisher who pays for the printing, and of the critic +who is called upon to praise or to blame the students for their +researches. + +On the other hand, it is evident, that historical research, directed to +illuminate a work of art by placing us in a position to judge it, does +not alone suffice to bring it to birth in our spirit: taste, and an +imagination trained and awakened, are likewise presupposed. The greatest +historical erudition may accompany a taste in part gross or defective, a +lumbering imagination, or, as it is generally phrased, a cold, hard +heart, closed to art. Which is the lesser evil?--great erudition and +defective taste, or natural good taste and great ignorance? The question +has often been asked, and perhaps it will be best to deny its +possibility, because one cannot tell which of two evils is the less, or +what exactly that means. The merely learned man never succeeds in +entering into communication with the great spirits, and keeps wandering +for ever about the outer courts, the staircases, and the antechambers of +their palaces; but the gifted ignoramus either passes by masterpieces +which are to him inaccessible, or instead of understanding the works of +art, as they really are, he invents others, with his imagination. Now, +the labour of the former may at least serve to enlighten others; but the +ingenuity of the latter remains altogether sterile. How, then, can we +fail to prefer the conscientious learned man to the inconclusive man of +talent, who is not really talented, if he resign himself, and in so far +as he resigns himself, to come to no conclusion? + + [Sidenote] _Literary and artistic history. Its distinction from + historical criticism and from artistic judgement._ + +It is necessary to distinguish accurately _the history, of art and +literature_ from those historical labours which make use of works of +art, but for extraneous purposes (such as biography, civil, religious, +and political history, etc.), and also from historical erudition, whose +object is preparation for the Aesthetic synthesis of reproduction. + +The difference between the first of these is obvious. The history of art +and literature has the works of art themselves for principal subject; +the other branches of study call upon and interrogate works of art, but +only as witnesses, from which to discover the truth of facts which are +not aesthetic. The second difference to which we have referred may seem +less profound. However, it is very great. Erudition devoted to rendering +clear again the understanding of works of art, aims simply at making +appear a certain internal fact, an aesthetic reproduction. Artistic and +literary history, on the other hand, does not appear until such +reproduction has been obtained. It demands, therefore, further labour. +Like all other history, its object is to record precisely such facts as +have really taken place, that is, artistic and literary facts. A man +who, after having acquired the requisite historical erudition, +reproduces in himself and tastes a work of art, may remain simply a man +of taste, or express at the most his own feeling, with an exclamation of +beautiful or ugly. This does not suffice for the making of a historian +of literature and art. There is further need that the simple act of +reproduction be followed in him by a second internal operation. What is +this new operation? It is, in its turn, an expression: the expression of +the reproduction; the historical description, exposition, or +representation. There is this difference, then, between the man of taste +and the historian: the first merely reproduces in his spirit the work of +art; the second, after having reproduced it, represents it historically, +thus applying to it those categories by which, as we know, history is +differentiated from pure art. Artistic and literary history is, +therefore, _a historical work of art founded upon one or more works of +art_. + +The denomination of artistic or literary critic is used in various +senses: sometimes it is applied to the student who devotes his services +to literature; sometimes to the historian who reveals the works of art +of the past in their reality; more often to both. By critic is sometimes +understood, in a more restricted sense, he who judges and describes +contemporary literary works; and by historian, he who is occupied with +less recent works. These are but linguistic usages and empirical +distinctions, which may be neglected; because the true difference lies +_between the learned man, the man of taste, and the historian of art_. +These words designate, as it were, three successive stages of work, of +which each is relatively independent of the one that follows, but not of +that which precedes. As we have seen, a man may be simply learned, yet +possess little capacity for understanding works of art; he may indeed be +both learned and possess taste, yet be unable to write a page of +artistic and literary history. But the true and complete historian, +while containing in himself, as necessary pre-requisites, both the +learned man and the man of taste, must add to their qualities the gift +of historical comprehension and representation. + + [Sidenote] _The method of artistic and literary history._ + +The method of artistic and literary history presents problems and +difficulties, some common to all historical method, others peculiar to +it, because they derive from the concept of art itself. + + [Sidenote] _Critique of the problem of the origin of art._ + +History is wont to be divided into the history of man, the history or +nature, and the mixed history of both the preceding. Without examining +here the question of the solidity of this division, it is clear that +artistic and literary history belongs in any case to the first, since it +concerns a spiritual activity, that is to say, an activity proper to +man. And since this activity is its subject, the absurdity of +propounding the historical _problem of the origin of art_ becomes at +once evident. We should note that by this formula many different things +have in turn been included on many different occasions. _Origin_ has +often meant _nature_ or _disposition_ of the artistic fact, and here was +a real scientific or philosophic problem, the very problem, in fact, +which our treatise has tried to solve. At other times, by origin has +been understood the ideal genesis, the search for the reason of art, the +deduction of the artistic fact from a first principle containing in +itself both spirit and nature. This is also a philosophical problem, and +it is complementary to the preceding, indeed it coincides with it, +though it has sometimes been strangely interpreted and solved by means +of an arbitrary and semi-fantastic metaphysic. But when it has been +sought to discover further exactly in what way the artistic function was +_historically formed_, this has resulted in the absurdity to which we +have referred. If expression be the first form of consciousness, how can +the historical origin be sought of what is _presupposed_ not to be a +product of nature and of human history? How can we find the historical +genesis of that which is a category, by means of which every historical +genesis and fact are understood? The absurdity has arisen from the +comparison with human institutions, which have, in fact, been formed in +the course of history, and which have disappeared or may disappear in +its course. There exists between the aesthetic fact and a human +institution (such as monogamic marriage or the fief) a difference to +some extent comparable with that between simple and compound bodies in +chemistry. It is impossible to indicate the formation of the former, +otherwise they would not be simple, and if this be discovered, they +cease to be simple and become compound. + +The problem of the origin of art, historically understood, is only +justified when it is proposed to seek, not for the formation of the +function, but where and when art has appeared for the first time +(appeared, that is to say, in a striking manner), at what point or in +what region of the globe, and at what point or epoch of its history; +when, that is to say, not the origin of art, but its most antique or +primitive history, is the object of research. This problem forms one +with that of the appearance of human civilization on the earth. Data for +its solution are certainly wanting, but there yet remains the abstract +possibility, and certainly attempts and hypotheses for its solution +abound. + + [Sidenote] _History and the criterion of progress._ + +Every form of human history has the concept of _progress_ for +foundation. But by progress must not be understood the imaginary and +metaphysical _law of progress_, which should lead the generations of man +with irresistible force to some unknown destiny, according to a +providential plan which we can logically divine and understand. A +supposed law of this sort is the negation of history itself, of that +accidentality, that empiricity, that contingency, which distinguish the +concrete fact from the abstraction. And for the same reason, progress +has nothing to do with the so-called _law of evolution_. If evolution +mean the concrete fact of reality which evolves (that is, which is +reality), it is not a law. If, on the other hand, it be a law, it +becomes confounded with the law of progress in the sense just described. +The progress of which we speak here, is nothing but the _concept of +human activity itself_, which, working upon the material supplied to it +by nature, conquers obstacles and bends nature to its own ends. + +Such conception of progress, that is to say, of human activity applied +to a given material, is the _point of view_ of the historian of +humanity. No one but a mere collector of stray facts, a simple seeker, +or an incoherent chronicler, can put together the smallest narrative of +human deeds, unless he have a definite point of view, that is to say, an +intimate personal conviction regarding the conception of the facts which +he has undertaken to relate. The historical work of art cannot be +achieved among the confused and discordant mass of crude facts, save by +means of this point of view, which makes it possible to carve a definite +figure from that rough and incoherent mass. The historian of a practical +action should know what is economy and what morality; the historian of +mathematics, what are mathematics; the historian of botany, what is +botany; the historian of philosophy, what is philosophy. But if he do +not really know these things, he must at least have the illusion of +knowing them; otherwise he will never be able to delude himself that he +is writing history. + +We cannot delay here to demonstrate the necessity and the inevitability +of this subjective criterion in every narrative of human affairs. We +will merely say that this criterion is compatible with the utmost +objectivity, impartiality, and scrupulosity in dealing with data, and +indeed forms a constitutive element of such subjective criterion. It +suffices to read any book of history to discover at once the point of +view of the author, if he be a historian worthy of the name and know his +own business. There exist liberal and reactionary, rationalist and +catholic historians, who deal with political or social history; for the +history of philosophy there are metaphysical, empirical, sceptical, +idealist, and spiritualist historians. Absolutely historical historians +do not and cannot exist. Can it be said that Thucydides and Polybius, +Livy and Tacitus, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Giannone and Voltaire, +were without moral and political views; and, in our time, Guizot or +Thiers, Macaulay or Balbo, Ranke or Mommsen? And in the history of +philosophy, from Hegel, who was the first to raise it to a great +elevation, to Ritter, Zeller, Cousin, Lewes, and our Spaventa, was there +one who did not possess his conception of progress and criterion of +judgment? Is there one single work of any value in the history of +Aesthetic, which has not been written from this or that point of view, +with this or that bias (Hegelian or Herbartian), from a sensualist or +from an eclectic point of view, and so on? If the historian is to escape +from the inevitable necessity of taking a side, he must become a +political and scientific eunuch; and history is not the business of +eunuchs. They would at most be of use in compiling those great tomes of +not useless erudition, _elumbis atque fracta_, which are called, not +without reason, monkish. + +If, then, the concept of progress, the point of view, the criterion, be +inevitable, the best to be done is not to try and escape from them, but +to obtain the best possible. Everyone strives for this end, when he +forms his own convictions, seriously and laboriously. Historians who +profess to wish to interrogate the facts, without adding anything of +their own to them, are not to be believed. This, at the most, is the +result of ingenuousness and illusion on their part: they will always add +what they have of personal, if they be truly historians, though it be +without knowing it, or they will believe that they have escaped doing +so, only because they have referred to it by innuendo, which is the most +insinuating and penetrative of methods. + + [Sidenote] _Non-existence of a unique line of progress in artistic + and literary history._ + +Artistic and literary history cannot dispense with the criterion of +progress any more easily than other history. We cannot show what a given +work of art is, save by proceeding from a conception of art, in order to +fix the artistic problem which the author of such work of art had to +solve, and by determining whether or no he have solved it, or by how +much and in what way he has failed to do so. But it is important to note +that the criterion of progress assumes a different form in artistic and +literary history to that which it assumes (or is believed to assume) in +the history of science. + +The whole history of knowledge can be represented by one single line of +progress and regress. Science is the universal, and its problems are +arranged in one single vast system, or complex problem. All thinkers +weary themselves over the same problem as to the nature of reality and +of knowledge: contemplative Indians and Greek philosophers, Christians +and Mohammedans, bare heads and heads with turbans, wigged heads and +heads with the black berretta (as Heine said); and future generations +will weary themselves with it, as ours has done. It would take too long +to inquire here if this be true or not of science. But it is certainly +not true of art; art is intuition, and intuition is individuality, and +individuality is never repeated. To conceive of the history of the +artistic production of the human race as developed along a single line +of progress and regress, would therefore be altogether erroneous. + +At the most, and working to some extent with generalizations and +abstractions, it may be admitted that the history of aesthetic products +shows progressive cycles, but each cycle has its own problem, and is +progressive only in respect to that problem. When many are at work on +the same subject, without succeeding in giving to it the suitable form, +yet drawing always more nearly to it, there is said to be progress. When +he who gives to it definite form appears, the cycle is said to be +complete, progress ended. A typical example of this would be the +progress in the elaboration of the mode of using the subject-matter of +chivalry, during the Italian Renaissance, from Pulci to Ariosto. (If +this instance be made use of, excessive simplification of it must be +excused.) Nothing but repetition and imitation could be the result of +employing that same material after Ariosto. The result was repetition or +imitation, diminution or exaggeration, a spoiling of what had already +been achieved; in sum, decadence. The Ariostesque epigoni prove this. +Progress begins with the commencement of a new cycle. Cervantes, with +his more open and conscious irony, is an instance of this. In what did +the general decadence of Italian literature at the end of the sixteenth +century consist? Simply in having nothing more to say, and in repeating +and exaggerating motives already found. If the Italians of this period +had even been able to express their own decadence, they would not have +been altogether failures, but have anticipated the literary movement of +the Renaissance. Where the subject-matter is not the same, a progressive +cycle does not exist. Shakespeare does not represent a progress as +regards Dante, nor Goethe as regards Shakespeare. Dante, however, +represents a progress in respect to the visionaries of the Middle Ages, +Shakespeare to the Elizabethan dramatists, Goethe, with _Werther_ and +the first part of _Faust_, in respect to the writers of the _Sturm und +Drang_. This mode of presenting the history of poetry and art contains, +however, as we have remarked, something of abstract, of merely +practical, and is without rigorous philosophical value. Not only is the +art of savages not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, +provided it be correlative to the impressions of the savage; but every +individual, indeed every moment of the spiritual life of an individual, +has its artistic world; and all those worlds are, artistically, +incomparable with one another. + + [Sidenote] _Errors committed in respect to this law._ + +Many have sinned and continue to sin against this special form of the +criterion of progress in artistic and literary history. Some, for +instance, talk of the infancy of Italian art in Giotto, and of its +maturity in Raphael or in Titian; as though Giotto were not quite +perfect and complete, in respect to his psychic material. He was +certainly incapable of drawing a figure like Raphael, or of colouring it +like Titian; but was Raphael or Titian by any chance capable of creating +the _Matrimonio di San Francesco con la Povertà_, or the _Morte di San +Francesco_? The spirit of Giotto had not felt the attraction of the body +beautiful, which the Renaissance studied and raised to a place of +honour; but the spirits of Raphael and of Titian were no longer curious +of certain movements of ardour and of tenderness, which attracted the +man of the fourteenth century. How, then, can a comparison be made, +where there is no comparative term? + +The celebrated divisions of the history of art suffer from the same +defect. They are as follows: an oriental period, representing a +disequilibrium between idea and form, with prevalence of the second; a +classical, representing an equilibrium between idea and form; a +romantic, representing a new disequilibrium between idea and form, with +prevalence of the idea. There are also the divisions into oriental art, +representing imperfection of form; classical, perfection of form; +romantic or modern, perfection of content and of form. Thus classic and +romantic have also received, among their many other meanings, that of +progressive or regressive periods, in respect to the realization of some +indefinite artistic ideal of humanity. + + [Sidenote] _Other meanings of the word "progress" in respect to + Aesthetic._ + +There is no such thing, then, as an _aesthetic_ progress of humanity. +However, by aesthetic progress is sometimes meant, not what the two +words coupled together really signify, but the ever-increasing +accumulation of our historical knowledge, which makes us able to +sympathize with all the artistic products of all peoples and of all +times, or, as is said, to make our taste more catholic. The difference +appears very great, if the eighteenth century, so incapable of escaping +from itself, be compared with our own time, which enjoys alike Hellenic +and Roman art, now better understood, Byzantine, mediaeval, Arabic, and +Renaissance art, the art of the Cinque Cento, baroque art, and the art +of the seventeenth century. Egyptian, Babylonian, Etruscan, and even +prehistoric art, are more profoundly studied every day. Certainly, the +difference between the savage and civilized man does not lie in the +human faculties. The savage has speech, intellect, religion, and +morality, in common with civilized man, and he is a complete man. The +only difference lies in that civilized man penetrates and dominates a +larger portion of the universe with his theoretic and practical +activity. We cannot claim to be more spiritually alert than, for +example, the contemporaries of Pericles; but no one can deny that we are +richer than they--rich with their riches and with those of how many +other peoples and generations besides our own? + +By aesthetic progress is also meant, in another sense, which is also +improper, the greater abundance of artistic intuitions and the smaller +number of imperfect or decadent works which one epoch produces in +respect to another. Thus it may be said that there was aesthetic +progress, an artistic awakening, at the end of the thirteenth or of the +fifteenth centuries. + +Finally, aesthetic progress is talked of, with an eye to the refinement +and to the psychical complications exhibited in the works of art of the +most civilized peoples, as compared with those of less civilized +peoples, barbarians and savages. But in this case, the progress is that +of the complex conditions of society, not of the artistic activity, to +which the material is indifferent. + +These are the most important points concerning the method of artistic +and literary history. + + + + +XVIII + +CONCLUSION: + +IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND AESTHETIC + + + [Sidenote] _Summary of the inquiry._ + +A glance over the path traversed will show that we have completed the +entire programme of our treatise. We have studied the nature of +intuitive or expressive knowledge, which is the aesthetic or artistic +fact (I. and II.), and we have described the other form of knowledge, +namely, the intellectual, with the secondary complications of its forms +(III.). Having done this, it became possible to criticize all erroneous +theories of art, which arise from the confusion between the various +forms, and from the undue transference of the characteristics of one +form to those of another (IV.), and in so doing to indicate the inverse +errors which are found in the theory of intellectual knowledge and of +historiography (V.). Passing on to examine the relations between the +aesthetic activity and the other spiritual activities, no longer +theoretic but practical, we have indicated the true character of the +practical activity and the place which it occupies in respect to the +theoretic activity, which it follows: hence the critique of the invasion +of aesthetic theory by practical concepts (VI.). We have also +distinguished the two forms of the practical activity, as economic and +ethic (VII.), adding to this the statement that there are no other forms +of the spirit beyond the four which we have analyzed; hence (VIII.) the +critique of every metaphysical Aesthetic. And, seeing that there exist +no other spiritual forms of equal degree, therefore there are no +original subdivisions of the four established, and in particular of +Aesthetic. From this arises the impossibility of classes of expressions +and the critique of Rhetoric, that is, of the partition of expressions +into simple and ornate, and of their subclasses (IX.). But, by the law +of the unity of the spirit, the aesthetic fact is also a practical fact, +and as such, occasions pleasure and pain. This led us to study the +feelings of value in general, and those of aesthetic value, or of the +beautiful, in particular (X.), to criticize aesthetic hedonism in all +its various manifestations and complications (XI.), and to expel from +the system of Aesthetic the long series of pseudo-aesthetic concepts, +which had been introduced into it (XII.). Proceeding from aesthetic +production to the facts of reproduction, we began by investigating the +mode of fixing externally the aesthetic expression, with the view of +reproduction. This is the so-called physically beautiful, whether it be +natural or artificial (XIII.). We then derived from this distinction the +critique of the errors which arise from confounding the physical with +the aesthetic side of things (XIV.). We indicated the meaning of +artistic technique, that which is the technique serving for +reproduction, thus criticizing the divisions, limits, and +classifications of the individual arts, and establishing the connections +between art, economy, and morality (XV.). Because the existence of the +physical objects does not suffice to stimulate to the full aesthetic +reproduction, and because, in order to obtain this result, it is +necessary to recall the conditions in which the stimulus first operated, +we have also studied the function of historical erudition, directed +toward the end of re-establishing our communication with the works of +the past, and toward the creation of a base for aesthetic judgment +(XVI.). We have closed our treatise by showing how the reproduction thus +obtained is afterwards elaborated by the intellectual categories, that +is to say, by an excursus on the method of literary and artistic history +(XVII.). + +The aesthetic fact has thus been considered both in itself and in its +relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings of +pleasure and of pain, with the facts that are called physical, with +memory, and with historical elaboration. It has passed from the position +of _subject_ to that of _object_, that is to say, from the moment of +_its birth_, until gradually it becomes changed for the spirit into +_historical argument_. + +Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre, when compared with the +great volumes usually consecrated to Aesthetic. But it will not seem so, +when it is observed that these volumes, as regards nine-tenths of their +contents, are full of matter which does not appertain to Aesthetic, such +as definitions, either psychical or metaphysical, of pseudo-aesthetic +concepts (of the sublime, the comic, the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or +of the exposition of the supposed Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy of +Aesthetic, and of universal history judged from the aesthetic +standpoint. The whole history of concrete art and literature has also +been dragged into those Aesthetics and generally mangled; they contain +judgments upon Homer and Dante, upon Ariosto and Shakespeare, upon +Beethoven and Rossini, Michelangelo and Raphael. When all this has been +deducted from them, our treatise will no longer be held to be too +meagre, but, on the contrary, far more copious than ordinary treatises, +for these either omit altogether, or hardly touch at all, the greater +part of the difficult problems proper to Aesthetic, which we have felt +it to be our duty to study. + + [Sidenote] _Identity of Linguistic and Aesthetic._ + +Aesthetic, then, as the science of expression, has been here studied by +us from every point of view. But there yet remains to justify the +sub-title, which we have joined to the title of our book, _General +Linguistic_, and to state and make clear the thesis that the science of +art is that of language. Aesthetic and Linguistic, in so far as they are +true sciences, are not two different sciences, but one single science. +Not that there is a special Linguistic; but the linguistic science +sought for, general Linguistic, _in so far as what it contains is +reducible to philosophy_, is nothing but Aesthetic. Whoever studies +general Linguistic, that is to say, philosophical Linguistic, studies +aesthetic problems, and _vice versa_. _Philosophy of language and +philosophy of art are the same thing_. + +Were Linguistic a _different_ science from Aesthetic, it should not have +expression, which is the essentially aesthetic fact, for its object. +This amounts to saying that it must be denied that language is +expression. But an emission of sounds, which expresses nothing, is not +language. Language is articulate, limited, organized sound, employed in +expression. If, on the other hand, language were a _special_ science in +respect to Aesthetic, it would necessarily have for its object a +_special class_ of expressions. But the inexistence of classes of +expression is a point which we have already demonstrated. + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic formulization of linguistic problems. Nature + of language._ + +The problems which Linguistic serves to solve, and the errors with which +Linguistic strives and has striven, are the same that occupy and +complicate Aesthetic. If it be not always easy, it is, on the other +hand, always possible, to reduce the philosophic questions of Linguistic +to their aesthetic formula. + +The disputes as to the nature of the one find their parallel in those as +to the nature of the other. Thus it has been disputed, whether +Linguistic be a scientific or a historical discipline, and the +scientific having been distinguished from the historical, it has been +asked whether it belong to the order of the natural or of the +psychological sciences, by the latter being understood empirical +Psychology, as much as the science of the spirit. The same has happened +with Aesthetic, which some have looked upon as a natural science, +confounding aesthetic expression with physical expression. Others have +looked upon it as a psychological science, confounding expression in its +universality, with the empirical classification of expressions. Others +again, denying the very possibility of a science of such a subject, have +looked upon it as a collection of historical facts. Finally, it has been +realized that it belongs to the sciences of activity or of values, which +are the spiritual sciences. + +Linguistic expression, or speech, has often seemed to be a fact of +_interjection_, which belongs to the so-called physical expressions of +the feelings, common alike to men and animals. But it was soon admitted +that an abyss yawns between the "Ah!" which is a physical reflex of +pain, and a word; as also between that "Ah!" of pain and the "Ah!" +employed as a word. The theory of the interjection being abandoned +(jocosely termed the "Ah! Ah!" theory by German linguists), the theory +of _association or convention_ appeared. This theory was refuted by the +same objection which destroyed aesthetic associationism in general: +speech is unity, not multiplicity of images, and multiplicity does not +explain, but presupposes the existence of the expression to explain. A +variant of linguistic associationism is the imitative, that is to say, +the theory of the onomatopoeia, which the same philologists deride under +the name of the "bow-wow" theory, after the imitation of the dog's bark, +which, according to the onomatopoeists, gives its name to the dog. + +The most usual theory of our times as regards language (apart from mere +crass naturalism) consists of a sort of eclecticism or mixture of the +various theories to which we have referred. It is assumed that language +is in part the product of interjections and in part of onomatopes and +conventions. This doctrine is altogether worthy of the scientific and +philosophic decadence of the second half of the nineteenth century. + + [Sidenote] _Origin of language and its development._ + +We must here note a mistake into which have fallen those very +philologists who have best penetrated the active nature of language. +These, although they admit that language was _originally a spiritual +creation_, yet maintain that it was largely increased later by +_association_. But the distinction does not prevail, for origin in this +case cannot mean anything but nature or essence. If, therefore, language +be a spiritual creation, it will always be a creation; if it be +association, it will have been so from the beginning. The mistake has +arisen from not having grasped the general principle of Aesthetic, which +we have noted: namely, that expressions already produced must redescend +to the rank of impressions before they can give rise to new impressions. +When we utter new words, we generally transform the old ones, varying or +enlarging their meaning; but this process is not associative. It is +creative, although the creation has for material the impressions, not of +the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who has lived long ages in +society, and who has, so to say, stored so many things in his psychic +organism, and among them so much language. + + [Sidenote] _Relation between Grammar and Logic._ + +The question of the distinction between the aesthetic and the +intellectual fact has appeared in Linguistic as that of the relations +between Grammar and Logic. This question has found two solutions, which +are partially true: that of the indissolubility of Logic and Grammar, +and that of their dissolubility. The complete solution is this: if the +logical form be indissoluble from the grammatical (aesthetic), the +grammatical is dissoluble from the logical. + + [Sidenote] _Grammatical classes or parts of speech._ + +If we look at a picture which, for example, portrays a man walking on a +country road, we can say: "This picture represents a fact of movement, +which, if conceived as volitional, is called _action_. And because every +movement implies _matter_, and every action a being that acts, this +picture also represents either _matter_ or a _being_. But this movement +takes place in a definite place, which is a part of a given _star_ (the +Earth), and precisely in that part of it which is called _terra-firma_, +and more properly in a part of it that is wooded and covered with grass, +which is called _country_, cut naturally or artificially, in a manner +which is called _road_. Now, there is only one example of that given +star, which is called Earth: Earth is an _individual_. But +_terra-firma_, _country_, _road_, are _classes or universals_, because +there are other terra-firmas, other countries, other roads." And it +would be possible to continue for a while with similar considerations. +By substituting a phrase for the picture that we have imagined, for +example, one to this effect, "Peter is walking on a country road," and +by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts of _verb_ (motion or +action), of _noun_ (matter or agent), of _proper noun_, of _common +nouns_; and so on. + +What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than to submit to +logical elaboration what was first elaborated only aesthetically; that +is to say, we have destroyed the aesthetical by the logical. But, as in +general Aesthetic, error begins when It is wished to return from the +logical to the aesthetical, and it is asked what is the expression of +movement, action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, +etc.; thus in like manner with language, error begins when motion or +action are called verb, being, or matter, noun or substantive, and when +linguistic categories, or _parts of speech_, are made of all these, noun +and verb and so on. The theory of parts of speech is at bottom +altogether the same as that of artistic and literary classes, already +criticized in the Aesthetic. + +It is false to say that the verb or the noun is expressed in definite +words, truly distinguishable from others. Expression is an indivisible +whole. Noun and verb do not exist in themselves, but are abstractions +made by our destroying the sole linguistic reality, which is _the +proposition_. This last is to be understood, not in the usual mode of +grammarians, but as an organism expressive of a complete meaning, from +an exclamation to a poem. This sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless a +most simple truth. + +And as in Aesthetic, the artistic productions of certain peoples have +been looked upon as imperfect, owing to the error above mentioned, +because the supposed kinds have seemed still to be indiscriminate or +absent with them; so, in Linguistic, the theory of the parts of speech +has caused the analogous error of dividing languages into formed and +unformed, according to whether there appear in them or not some of those +supposed parts of speech; for example, the verb. + + [Sidenote] _The individuality of speech and the classification of + languages._ + +Linguistic also discovered the irreducible individuality of the +aesthetic fact, when it affirmed that the word is what is really spoken, +and that two truly identical words do not exist. Thus were synonyms and +homonyms destroyed, and thus was shown the impossibility of really +translating one word into another, from so-called dialect into so-called +language, and from a so-called mother-tongue into a so-called foreign +tongue. + +But the attempt to classify languages agrees ill with this correct view. +Languages have no reality beyond the propositions and complexes of +propositions really written and pronounced by given peoples for definite +periods. That is to say, they have no existence outside the works of +art, in which they exist concretely. What is the art of a given people +but the complex of all its artistic products? What is the character of +an art (say, Hellenic art or Provençal literature), but the complex +physiognomy of those products? And how can such a question be answered, +save by giving the history of their art (of their literature, that is to +say, of their language in action)? + +It will seem that this argument, although possessing value as against +many of the wonted classifications of languages, yet is without any as +regards that queen of classifications, the historico-genealogical, that +glory of comparative philology. And this is certainly true. But why? +Precisely because the historico-genealogical method is not a +classification. He who writes history does not classify, and the +philologists themselves have hastened to say that the languages which +can be arranged in a historical series (those whose series have been +traced) are, not distinct and definite species, but a complex of facts +in the various phases of its development. + + [Sidenote] _Impossibility of a normative grammar._ + +Language has sometimes been looked upon as an act of volition or of +choice. But others have discovered the impossibility of creating +language artificially, by an act of will. _Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare +potes homini, verbo non poles!_ was once said to the Roman Emperor. + +The aesthetic (and therefore theoretic) nature of expression supplies +the method of correcting the scientific error which lies in the +conception of a (normative) _Grammar_, containing the rules of speaking +well. Good sense has always rebelled against this error. An example of +such rebellion is the "So much the worse for grammar" of Voltaire. But +the impossibility of a normative grammar is also recognized by those who +teach it, when they confess that to write well cannot be learned by +rules, that there are no rules without exceptions, and that the study of +Grammar should be conducted practically, by reading and by examples, +which form the literary taste. The scientific reason of this +impossibility lies in what we have already proved: that a technique of +the theoretical amounts to a contradiction in terms. And what could a +(normative) grammar be, but just a technique of linguistic expression, +that is to say, of a theoretic fact? + + [Sidenote] _Didactic purposes._ + +The case in which Grammar is understood merely as an empirical +discipline, that is to say, as a collection of groups useful for +learning languages, without any claim whatever to philosophic truth, is +quite different. Even the abstractions of the parts of speech are in +this case both admissible and of assistance. + +Many books entitled treatises of Linguistic have a merely didactic +purpose; they are simply scholastic manuals. We find in them, in truth, +a little of everything, from the description of the vocal apparatus and +of the artificial machines (phonographs) which can imitate it, to +summaries of the most important results obtained by Indo-European, +Semitic, Coptic, Chinese, or other philologies; from philosophic +generalizations on the origin or nature of language, to advice on +calligraphy, and the arrangement of schedules for philological spoils. +But this mass of notions, which is here taught in a fragmentary and +incomplete manner as regards the language in its essence, the language +as expression, resolves itself into notions of Aesthetic. Nothing exists +outside _Aesthetic_, which gives knowledge of the nature of language, +and _empirical Grammar_, which is a pedagogic expedient, save the +_History of languages_ in their living reality, that is, the history of +concrete literary productions, which is substantially identical with the +_History of literature_. + + [Sidenote] _Elementary linguistic facts or roots._ + +The same mistake of confusing the physical with the aesthetic, from +which the elementary forms of the beautiful originate, is made by those +who seek for elementary aesthetic facts, decorating with that name the +divisions of the longer series of physical sounds into shorter series. +Syllables, vowels, and consonants, and the series of syllables called +words which give no definite sense when taken alone, are not facts of +language, but simple physical concepts of sounds. + +Another mistake of the same sort is that of roots, to which the most +able philologists now accord but a very limited value. Having confused +physical with linguistic or expressive facts, and observing that, in the +order of ideas, the simple precedes the complex, they necessarily ended +by thinking that _the smaller_ physical facts were _the more simple_. +Hence the imaginary necessity that the most antique, primitive +languages, had been monosyllabic, and that the progress of historical +research must lead to the discovery of monosyllabic roots. But (to +follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first +man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: it may +have been exteriorised, not in a sound but in a gesture. And assuming +that it was exteriorised in a sound, there is no reason to suppose that +sound to have been monosyllabic rather than plurisyllabic. Philologists +frequently blame their own ignorance and impotence, if they do not +always succeed in reducing plurisyllabism to monosyllabism, and they +trust in the future. But their faith is without foundation, as their +blame of themselves is an act of humility arising from an erroneous +presumption. + +Furthermore, the limits of syllables, as those of words, are altogether +arbitrary, and distinguished, as well as may be, by empirical use. +Primitive speech, or the speech of the uncultured man, is _continuous_, +unaccompanied by any reflex consciousness of the divisions of the word +and of the syllables, which are taught at school. No true law of +Linguistic can be founded on such divisions. Proof of this is to be +found in the confession of linguists, that there are no truly phonetic +laws of the hiatus, of cacophony, of diaeresis, of synaeresis, but +merely laws of taste and convenience; that is to say, _aesthetic_ laws. +And what are the laws of _words_ which are not at the same time laws of +_style_? + + [Sidenote] _Aesthetic judgment and the model language._ + +The search for a _model language_, or for a method of reducing +linguistic usage to _unity_, arises from the misconception of a +rationalistic measurement of the beautiful, from the concept which we +have termed that of false aesthetic absoluteness. In Italy, we call this +question that of the _unity of the language_. + +Language is perpetual creation. What has been linguistically expressed +cannot be repeated, save by the reproduction of what has already been +produced. The ever-new impressions give rise to continuous changes of +sounds and of meanings, that is, to ever-new expressions. To seek the +model language, then, is to seek the immobility of motion. Every one +speaks, and should speak, according to the echoes which things arouse in +his soul, that is, according to his impressions. It is not without +reason that the most convinced supporter of any one of the solutions of +the problem of the unity of language (be it by the use of Latin, of +fourteenth-century Italian, or of Florentine) feels a repugnance in +applying his theory, when he is speaking in order to communicate his +thoughts and to make himself understood. The reason for this is that he +feels that were he to substitute Latin, fourteenth-century Italian, or +Florentine speech for that of a different origin, but which answers to +his impressions, he would be falsifying the latter. He would become a +vain listener to himself, instead of a speaker, a pedant in place of a +serious man, a histrion instead of a sincere person. To write according +to a theory is not really to write: at the most, it is _making +literature_. + +The question of the unity of language is always reappearing, because, +put as it is, there can be no solution to it, owing to its being based +upon a false conception of what language is. Language is not an arsenal +of ready-made arms, and it is not _vocabulary_, which, in so far as it +is thought of as progressive and in living use, is always a cemetery, +containing corpses more or less well embalmed, that is to say, a +collection of abstractions. + +Our mode of settling the question of the model language, or of the unity +of the language, may seem somewhat abrupt, and yet we would not wish to +appear otherwise than respectful towards the long line of literary men +who have debated this question in Italy for centuries. But those ardent +debates were, at bottom, debates upon aestheticity, not upon aesthetic +science, upon literature rather than upon literary theory, upon +effective speaking and writing, not upon linguistic science. Their error +consisted in transforming the manifestation of a want into a scientific +thesis, the need of understanding one another more easily among a people +dialectically divided, in the philosophic search for a language, which +should be one or ideal. Such a search was as absurd as that other search +for a _universal language_, with the immobility of the concept and of +the abstraction. The social need for a better understanding of one +another cannot be satisfied save by universal culture, by the increase +of communications, and by the interchange of thought among men. + + [Sidenote] _Conclusion._ + +These observations must suffice to show that all the scientific problems +of Linguistic are the same as those of Aesthetic, and that the truths +and errors of the one are the truths and errors of the other. If +Linguistic and Aesthetic appear to be two different sciences, this +arises from the fact that people think of the former as grammar, or as a +mixture between philosophy and grammar, that is, an arbitrary mnemonic +scheme. They do not think of it as a rational science and as a pure +philosophy of speech. Grammar, or something grammatical, also causes the +prejudice in people's minds, that the reality of language lies in +isolated and combinable words, not in living discourse among expressive +organisms, rationally indivisible. + +Those linguists, or glottologists with philosophical endowments, who +have best fathomed questions of language, resemble (to employ a worn but +efficacious figure) workmen piercing a tunnel: at a certain point they +must hear the voices of their companions, the philosophers of Aesthetic, +who have been piercing it from the other side. At a certain stage of +scientific elaboration, Linguistic, in so far as it is philosophy, must +be merged in Aesthetic; and indeed it is merged in it, without leaving a +residue. + + + + +HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +I + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN GRAECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY + + +The question, as to whether Aesthetic should be looked upon as ancient +or modern, has often been discussed. The answer will depend upon the +view taken of the nature of Aesthetic. + +Benedetto Croce has proved that Aesthetic is _the science of expressive +activity_. But this knowledge cannot be reached, until has been defined +the nature of imagination, of representation, of expression, or whatever +we may term that faculty which is theoretic, but not intellectual, which +gives knowledge of the individual, but not of the universal. + +Now the deviations from this, the correct theory, may arise in two ways: +by _defect_ or by _excess_. Negation of the special aesthetic activity, +or of its autonomy, is an instance of the former. This amounts to a +mutilation of the reality of the spirit. Of the latter, the substitution +or superposition of another mysterious and non-existent activity is an +example. + +These errors each take several forms. That which errs by defect may be: +(_a_) pure hedonism, which looks upon art as merely sensual pleasure; +(_b_) rigoristic hedonism, agreeing with (_a_), but adding that art is +irreconcilable with the loftiest activities of man; (_c_) moralistic or +pedagogic hedonism, which admits, with the two former, that art is mere +sensuality, but believes that it may not only be harmless, but of some +service to morals, if kept in proper subjection and obedience. + +The error by excess also assumes several forms, but these are +indeterminable _a priori_. This view is fully dealt with under the name +of _mystic_, in the Theory and in the Appendix. + +Graeco-Roman antiquity was occupied with the problem in all these forms. +In Greece, the problem of art and of the artistic faculty arose for the +first time after the sophistic movement, as a result of the Socratic +polemic. + +With the appearance of the word _mimesis_ or _mimetic_, we have a first +attempt at grouping the arts, and the expression, allegoric, or its +equivalent, used in defence of Homer's poetry, reminds us of what Plato +called "the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry." + +But when internal facts were all looked upon as mere phenomena of +opinion or feeling, of pleasure or of pain, of illusion or of arbitrary +caprice, there could be no question of beautiful or ugly, of difference +between the true and the beautiful, or between the beautiful and the +good. + +The problem of the nature of art assumes as solved those problems +concerning the difference between rational and irrational, material and +spiritual, bare fact and value, etc. This was first done in the Socratic +period, and therefore the aesthetic problem could only arise after +Socrates. + +And in fact it does arise, with Plato, _the author of the only great +negation of art which appears in the history of ideas_. + +Is art rational or irrational? Does it belong to the noble region of the +soul, where dwell philosophy and virtue, or does it cohabit with +sensuality and with crude passion in the lower regions? This was the +question that Plato asked, and thus was the aesthetic problem stated for +the first time. + +His Gorgias remarks with sceptical acumen, that tragedy is a deception, +which brings honour alike to deceived and to deceiver, and therefore it +is blameworthy not to know how to deceive and not to allow oneself to be +deceived. This suffices for Gorgias, but Plato, the philosopher, must +resolve the doubt. If it be in fact deception, down with tragedy and the +other arts! If it be not deception, then what is the place of tragedy in +philosophy and in the righteous life? His answer was that art or mimetic +does not realize the ideas, or the truth of things, but merely +reproduces natural or artificial things, which are themselves mere +shadows of the ideas. Art, then, is but a shadow of a shadow, a thing of +third-rate degree. The artificer fashions the object which the painter +paints. The artificer copies the divine idea and the painter copies him. +Art therefore does not belong to the rational, but to the irrational, +sensual sphere of the soul. It can serve but for sensual pleasure, which +disturbs and obscures. Therefore must mimetic, poetry, and poets be +excluded from the perfect Republic. + +Plato observed with truth, that imitation does not rise to the logical +or conceptual sphere, of which poets and painters, as such, are, in +fact, ignorant. But he _failed to realize_ that there could be any form +of knowledge other than the intellectual. + +We now know that Intuition lies on this side or outside the Intellect, +from which it differs as much as it does from passion and sensuality. + +Plato, with his fine aesthetic sense, would have been grateful to anyone +who could have shown him how to place art, which he loved and practised +so supremely himself, among the lofty activities of the spirit. But in +his day, no one could give him such assistance. His conscience and his +reason saw that art makes the false seem the true, and therefore he +resolutely banished it to the lower regions of the spirit. + +The tendency among those who followed Plato in time was to find some +means of retaining art and of depriving it of the baleful influence +which it was believed to exercise. Life without art was to the +beauty-loving Greek an impossibility, although he was equally conscious +of the demands of reason and of morality. Thus it happened that art, +which, on the purely hedonistic hypothesis, had been treated as a +beautiful courtezan, became in the hands of the moralist, a pedagogue. +Aristophanes and Strabo, and above all Aristotle, dwell upon the +didactic and moralistic possibility of poetry. For Plutarch, poetry +seems to have been a sort of preparation for philosophy, a twilight to +which the eyes should grow accustomed, before emerging into the full +light of day. + +Among the Romans, we find Lucretius comparing the beauties of his great +poem to the sweet yellow honey, with which doctors are wont to anoint +the rim of the cup containing their bitter drugs. Horace, as so +frequently, takes his inspiration from the Greek, when he offers the +double view of art: as courtezan and as pedagogue. In his _Ad Pisones_ +occur the passages, in which we find mingled with the poetic function, +that of the orator--the practical and the aesthetic. "Was Virgil a poet +or an orator?" The triple duty of pleasing, moving, and teaching, was +imposed upon the poet. Then, with a thought for the supposed +meretricious nature of their art, the ingenious Horace remarks that both +must employ the seductions of form. + +The _mystic_ view of art appeared only in late antiquity, with Plotinus. +The curious error of looking upon Plato as the head of this school and +as the Father of Aesthetic assumes that he who felt obliged to banish +art altogether from the domain of the higher functions of the spirit, +was yet ready to yield to it the highest place there. The mystical view +of Aesthetic accords a lofty place indeed to Aesthetic, placing it even +above philosophy. The enthusiastic praise of the beautiful, to be found +in the _Gorgias_, _Philebus_, _Phaedrus_, and _Symposium_ is responsible +for this misunderstanding, but it is well to make perfectly clear that +the beautiful, of which Plato discourses in those dialogues, has nothing +to do with the _artistically_ beautiful, nor with the mysticism of the +neo-Platonicians. + +Yet the thinkers of antiquity were aware that a problem lay in the +direction of Aesthetic, and Xenophon records the sayings of Socrates +that the beautiful is "that which is fitting and answers to the end +required." Elsewhere he says "it is that which is loved." Plato likewise +vibrates between various views and offers several solutions. Sometimes +he appears almost to confound the beautiful with the true, the good and +the divine; at others he leans toward the utilitarian view of Socrates; +at others he distinguishes between what is beautiful In itself and what +possesses but a relative beauty. At other times again, he is a hedonist, +and makes it to consist of pure pleasure, that is, of pleasure with no +shadow of pain; or he finds it in measure and proportion, or in the very +sound, the very colour itself. The reason for all this vacillation of +definition lay in Plato's exclusion of the artistic or mimetic fact from +the domain of the higher spiritual activities. The _Hippias major_ +expresses this uncertainty more completely than any of the other +dialogues. What is the beautiful? That is the question asked at the +beginning, and left unanswered at the end. The Platonic Socrates and +Hippias propose the most various solutions, one after another, but +always come out by the gate by which they entered in. Is the beautiful +to be found in ornament? No, for gold embellishes only where it is in +keeping. Is the beautiful that which seems ugly to no man? But it is a +question of being, not of seeming. Is it their fitness which makes +things seem beautiful? But in that case, the fitness which makes them +appear beautiful is one thing, the beautiful another. If the beautiful +be the useful or that which leads to an end, then evil would also be +beautiful, because the useful may also end evilly. Is the beautiful the +helpful, that which leads to the good? No, for in that case the good +would not be beautiful, nor the beautiful good, because cause and effect +are different. + +Thus they argued in the Platonic dialogues, and when we turn to the +pages of Aristotle, we find him also uncertain and inclined to vary his +definitions.[5] Sometimes for him the good and pleasurable are the +beautiful, sometimes it lies in actions, at others in things motionless, +or in bulk and order, or is altogether undefinable. Antiquity also +established canons of the beautiful, and the famous canon of +Polycleitus, on the proportions of the human body, fitly compares with +that of later times on the golden line, and with the Ciceronian phrase +from the Tusculan Disputations. But these are all of them mere empirical +observations, mere happy remarks and verbal substitutions, which lead to +unsurmountable difficulties when put to philosophical test. + +One important identification is absent in all those early attempts at +truth. The beautiful is never identified with art, and the artistic fact +is always clearly distinguished from beauty, mimetic from its content. +Plotinus first identified the two, and with him the beautiful and art +are dissolved together in a passion and mystic elevation of the spirit. +The beauty of natural objects is the archetype existing in the soul, +which is the fountain of all natural beauty. Thus was Plato (he said) in +error, when he despised the arts for imitating nature, for nature +herself imitates the idea, and art also seeks her inspiration directly +from those ideas whence nature proceeds. We have here, with Plotinus and +with Neoplatonism, the first appearance in the world of mystical +Aesthetic, destined to play so important a part in later aesthetic +theory. + +Aristotle was far more happy in his attempts at defining Aesthetic as +the science of representation and of expression than in his definitions +of the beautiful. He felt that some element of the problem had been +overlooked, and in attempting in his turn a solution, he had the +advantage over Plato of looking upon the ideas as simple concepts, not +as hypostases of concepts or of abstractions. Thus reality was more +vivid for Aristotle: it was the synthesis of matter and form. He saw +that art, or mimetic, was a theoretic fact, or a mode of contemplation. +"But if Poetry be a theoretic fact, in what way is it to be distinguished +from science and from historical knowledge?" Thus magnificently does the +great philosopher pose the problem at the commencement of his _Poetics_, +and thus alone can it be posed successfully. We ask the same question in +the same words to-day. But the problem is difficult, and the masterly +statement of it was not equalled by the method of solution then +available. He made an excellent start on his voyage of discovery, but +stopped half way, irresolute and perplexed. Poetry, he says, differs from +history, by portraying the possible, while history deals with what has +really happened. Poetry, like philosophy, aims at the universal, but in a +different way, which the philosopher indicates as something more (_mallon +tha katholon_) which differentiates poetry from history, occupied with the +particular (_malon tha kath ekaston_). What, then, is the possible, the +something more, and the particular of poetry? Aristotle immediately falls +into error and confusion, when he attempts to define these words. Since +art has to deal with the absurd and with the impossible, it cannot be +anything rational, but a mere imitation of reality, in accordance with +the Platonic theory--a fact of sensual pleasure. Aristotle does not, +however, attain to so precise a definition as Plato, whose erroneous +definition he does not succeed in supplanting. The truth is that he +failed of his self-imposed task; he failed to discern the true nature of +Aesthetic, although he restated and re-examined the problem with such +marvellous acumen. + +After Aristotle, there comes a lull in the discussion, until Plotinus. +The _Poetics_ were generally little studied, and the admirable statement +of the problem generally neglected by later writers. Antique psychology +knew the fancy or imagination, as preserving or reproducing sensuous +impressions, or as an intermediary between the concepts and feeling: its +autonomous productive activity was not yet understood. In the _Life of +Apollonius of Tyana_, Philostratus is said to have been the first to +make clear the difference between mimetic and creative imagination. But +this does not in reality differ from the Aristotelian mimetic, which is +concerned, not only with the real, but also with the possible. Cicero +too, before Philostratus, speaks of a kind of exquisite beauty lying +hidden in the soul of the artist, which guides his hand and art. +Antiquity seems generally to have been entrammelled in the meshes of the +belief in mimetic, or the duplication of natural objects by the artist +Philostratus and the other protagonists of the imagination may have +meant to combat this error, but the shadows lie heavy until we reach +Plotinus. + +We find already astir among the sophists the question as to the nature +of language. Admitting that language is a sign, are we to take that +as signifying a spiritual necessity (_phusis_) or as a psychological +convention (_nomos_)? Aristotle made a valuable contribution to this +difficult question, when he spoke of a kind of proposition other than +those which predicate truth or falsehood, that is, logic. With him +_euchae_ is the term proper to designate desires and aspirations, +which are the vehicle of poetry and of oratory. (It must be remembered +that for Aristotle words, like poetry, belonged to mimetic.) The +profound remark about the third mode of proposition would, one would +have thought, have led naturally to the separation of linguistic +from logic, and to its classification with poetry and art. But the +Aristotelian logic assumed a verbal and formal character, which set +back the attainment of this position by many hundred years. Yet the +genius of Epicurus had an intuition of the truth, when he remarked +that the diversity of names for the same things arose, not from +arbitrary caprice, but from the diverse impression derived from the +same object. The Stoics, too, seem to have had an inkling of the +non-logical nature of speech, but their use of the word _lekton_ +leaves it doubtful whether they distinguished by it the linguistic +representation from the abstract concept, or rather, generically, the +meaning from the sound. + +[5] In the Appendix will be found further striking quotations from + and references to Aristotle.--(D.A.) + + + + +II + +AESTHETIC IDEAS IN THE MIDDLE AGE AND IN THE RENAISSANCE + + +Well-nigh all the theories of antique Aesthetic reappear in the Middle +Ages, as it were by spontaneous generation. Duns Scotus Erigena +translated the Neoplatonic mysticism of the pseudo-Dionysus. The +Christian God took the place of the chief Good or Idea: God, wisdom, +goodness, supreme beauty are the fountains of natural beauty, and these +are steps in the stair of contemplation of the Creator. In this manner +speculation began to be diverted from the art fact, which had been so +prominent with Plotinus. Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in +distinguishing the beautiful from the good, and applied his doctrine of +imitation to the beauty of the second person of the Trinity (_in quantum +est imago expressa Patris_). With the troubadours, we may find traces of +the hedonistic view of art, and the rigoristic hypothesis finds in +Tertullian and in certain Fathers of the Church staunch upholders. The +retrograde Savonarola occupied the same position at a later period. But +the narcotic, moralistic, or pedagogic view mostly prevailed, for it +best suited an epoch of relative decadence in culture. It suited +admirably the Middle Age, offering at once an excuse for the new-born +Christian art, and for those works of classical or pagan art which yet +survived. Specimens of this view abound all through the Middle Age. We +find it, for instance, in the criticism of Virgil, to whose work were +attributed four distinct meanings: literal, allegorical, moral, and +anagogic. For Dante poetry was _nihil aliud quam fictio rhetorica in +musicaque posita_. "If the vulgar be incapable of appreciating my inner +meaning, then they shall at least incline their minds to the perfection +of my beauty. If from me ye cannot gather wisdom, at the least shall ye +enjoy me as a pleasant thing." Thus spoke the Muse of Dante, whose +_Convivio_ is an attempt to aid the understanding in its effort to grasp +the moral and pedagogic elements of verse. Poetry was the _gaia +scienza_, "a fiction containing many useful things covered or veiled." + +It would be inexact to identify art in the Middle Age with philosophy +and theology. Its pleasing falsity could be adapted to useful ends, much +in the same way as matrimony excuses love and sexual union. This, +however, implies that for the Middle Age the ideal state was celibacy; +that is, pure knowledge, divorced from art. + +The only line of explanation that was altogether neglected in the Middle +Age was the right one. + +The _Poetics_ of Aristotle were badly rendered into Latin, from the +faulty paraphrase of Averroes, by one Hermann (1256). The nominalist and +realist dispute brought again into the arena the relations between +thought and speech, and we find Duns Scotus occupied with the problem in +his _De modis significandi seu grammatica speculativa_. Abelard had +defined sensation as _confusa conceptio_, and with the importance given +to intuitive knowledge, to the perception of the individual, of the +_species specialissima_ in Duns Scotus, together with the denomination +of the forms of knowledge as _confusae, indistinctae_, and _distinctae_, +we enter upon a terminology, which we shall see appearing again, big +with results, at the commencement of modern Aesthetic. + +The doctrine of the Middle Age, in respect to art and letters, may thus +be regarded as of interest rather to the history of culture than to that +of general knowledge. A like remark holds good of the Renaissance. +Theories of antiquity are studied, countless treatises in many forms are +written upon them, but no really new Ideas as regards aesthetic science +appear on the horizon. + +We find among the spokesmen of mystical Aesthetic in the thirteenth +century such names as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Bembo +and many others wrote on the Beautiful and on Love in the century that +followed. The _Dialogi di Amore_, written in Italian by a Spanish Jew +named Leone and published in 1535, had a European success, being +translated into many languages. He talks of the universality of love and +of its origin, of beauty that is grace, which delights the soul and +impels it to love. Knowledge of lesser beauties leads to loftier +spiritual beauties. Leone called these remarks _Philographia_. + +Petrarch's followers versified similar intuitions, while others wrote +parodies and burlesques of this style; Luca Paciolo, the friend of +Leonardo, made the (false) discovery of the golden section, basing his +speculating upon mathematics; Michael Angelo established an empirical +canon for painting, attempting to give rules for imparting grace and +movement to figures, by means of certain arithmetical proportions; +others found special meanings in colours; while the Platonicians placed +the seat of beauty in the soul, the Aristotelians in physical qualities. +Agostino Nifo, the Averroist, after some inconclusive remarks, is at +last fortunate enough to discover where natural beauty really dwells: +its abode is the body of Giovanna d'Aragona, Princess of Tagliacozzo, to +whom he dedicates his book. Tasso mingled the speculations of the +_Hippias major_ with those of Plotinus. + +Tommaso Campanella, in his _Poetica_, looks upon the beautiful as +_signum boni_, the ugly as _signum mali_. By goodness, he means Power, +Wisdom, and Love. Campanella was still under the influence of the +erroneous Platonic conception of the beautiful, but the use of the word +_sign_ in this place represents progress. It enabled him to see that +things in themselves are neither beautiful nor ugly. + +Nothing proves more clearly that the Renaissance did not overstep the +limits of aesthetic theory reached in antiquity, than the fact that the +pedagogic theory of art continued to prevail, in the face of +translations of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle and of the diffuse labours +expended upon that work. This theory was even grafted upon the +_Poetics_, where one is surprised to find it. There are a few hedonists +standing out from the general trend of opinion. The restatement of the +pedagogic position, reinforced with examples taken from antiquity, was +disseminated throughout Europe by the Italians of the Renaissance. +France, Spain, England, and Germany felt its influence, and we find the +writers of the period of Louis XIV. either frankly didactic, like Le +Bossu (1675), for whom the first object of the poet is to instruct, or +with La Ménardière (1640) speaking of poetry as "cette science agréable +qui mêle la gravité des préceptes avec la douceur du langage." For the +former of these critics, Homer was the author of two didactic manuals +relating to military and political matters: the _Iliad_ and the +_Odyssey_. + +Didacticism has always been looked upon as the Poetic of the +Renaissance, although the didactic is not mentioned among the kinds of +poetry of that period. The reason of this lies in the fact that for the +Renaissance all poetry was didactic, in addition to any other qualities +which it might possess. The active discussion of poetic theory, the +criticism of Aristotle and of Plato's exclusion of poetry, of the +possible and of the verisimilar, if it did not contribute much original +material to the theory of art, yet at any rate sowed the seeds which +afterwards germinated and bore fruit. Why, they asked with Aristotle, at +the Renaissance, does poetry deal with the universal, history with the +particular? What is the reason for poetry being obliged to seek +verisimilitude? What does Raphael mean by the "certain idea," which he +follows in his painting? + +These themes and others cognate were dealt with by Italian and by +Spanish writers, who occasionally reveal wonderful acumen, as when +Francesco Patrizio, criticizing Aristotle's theory of imitation, +remarks: "All languages and all philosophic writings and all other +writings would be poetry, because they are made of words, and words are +imitations." But as yet no one dared follow such a clue to the +labyrinth, and the Renaissance closes with the sense of a mystery yet to +be revealed. + + + + +III + +SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES + + +The seventeenth century is remarkable for the ferment of thought upon +this difficult problem. Such words as genius, taste, imagination or +fancy, and feeling, appear in this literature, and deserve a passing +notice. As regards the word "genius," we find the Italian "ingegno" +opposed to the intellect, and Dialectic adorned with the attributes of +the latter, while Rhetoric has the advantage of "ingegno" in all its +forms, such as "concetti" and "acutezze." With these the English word +ingenious has an obvious connection, especially in its earlier use as +applied to men of letters. The French worked upon the word "ingegno" and +evolved from it in various associations the expressions "esprit," "beaux +Esprits." The manual of the Spanish Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian, became +celebrated throughout Europe, and here we find "ingegno" described as +the truly inventive faculty, and from it the English word "genius," the +Italian "genio," the French "génie," first enter into general use. + +The word "gusto" or taste, "good taste," in its modern sense, also +sprang into use about this time. Taste was held to be a judicial +faculty, directed to the beautiful, and thus to some extent distinct +from the intellectual judgment. It was further bisected into active and +passive; but the former ran into the definition of "ingegno," the latter +described sterility. The word "gusto," or taste as judgment, was in use +in Italy at a very early period; and in Spain we find Lope di Vega and +his contemporaries declaring that their object is to "delight the taste" +of their public. These uses of the word are not of significance as +regards the problem of art, and we must return to Baltasar Gracian +(1642) for a definition of taste as a special faculty or attitude of the +soul. Italian writers of the period echo the praises of this laconic +moralist, who, when he spoke of "a man of taste," meant to describe what +we call to-day "a man of tact" in the conduct of life. + +The first use of the word in a strictly aesthetic sense occurs in France +in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. La Bruyère writes in his +_Caractères_ (1688): "Il y a dans l'art un point de perfection, comme de +bonté ou de maturité dans la nature: celui qui le sent et qui l'aime, a +le goût parfait; celui qui ne le sent pas, et qui aime au deçà ou au +delà, a le goût défectueux. Il y a donc un bon et un mauvais goût, et +l'on dispute des goûts avec fondement." Delicacy and variability or +variety were appended as attributes of taste. This French definition of +the Italian word was speedily adopted in England, where it became "good +taste," and we find it used in this sense in Italian and German writers +of about this period. + +The words "imagination" and "fancy" were also passed through the +crucible in this century. We find the Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino (1644) +blaming those who look for truth or falsehood, for the verisimilar or +for historical truth, in poetry. Poetry, he holds, has to do with the +primary apprehensions, which give neither truth nor falsehood. Thus the +fancy takes the place of the verisimilar of certain students of +Aristotle. The Cardinal continues his eloquence with the clinching +remark that if the intention of poetry were to be believed true, then +its real end would be falsehood, which is absolutely condemned by the +law of nature and by God. The sole object of poetic fables is, he says, +to adorn our intellect with sumptuous, new, marvellous, and splendid +imaginings, and so great has been the benefits accruing from this to the +human race, that poets have been rewarded with a glory superior to any +other, and their names have been crowned with divine honours. This, he +says in his treatise, _Del Bene_, has been the just reward of poets, +albeit they have not been bearers of knowledge, nor have they manifested +truth. + +This throwing of the bridle on the neck of Pegasus seemed to Muratori +sixty years later to be altogether too risky a proceeding--although +advocated by a Prince of the Church! He reinserts the bit of the +verisimilar, though he talks with admiration of the fancy, that +"inferior apprehensive" faculty, which is content to "represent" things, +without seeking to know if they be true or false, a task which it leaves +to the "superior apprehensive" faculty of the intellect. The severe +Gravina, too, finds his heart touched by the beauty of poetry, when he +calls it "a witch, but wholesome." + +As early as 1578, Huarte had maintained that eloquence is the work of +the imagination, not of the intellect; in England, Bacon (1605) +attributed knowledge to the intellect, history to memory, and poetry to +the imagination or fancy; Hobbes described the manifestations of the +latter; and Addison devoted several numbers of the _Spectator_ to the +analysis of "the pleasures of the imagination." + +During the same period, the division between those who are accustomed "à +juger par le sentiment" and those who "raisonnent par les principes" +became marked in France, Du Bos (1719) is an interesting example of the +upholder of the feelings as regards the production of art. Indeed, there +is in his view no other criterion, and the feeling for art is a sixth +sense, against which intellectual argument is useless. This French +school of thought found a reflex in England with the position assigned +there to emotion in artistic work. But the confusion of such words as +imagination, taste, feeling, wit, shows that at this time there was a +suspicion that these words were all applicable to the same fact. +Alexander Pope thus distinguished wit and judgment: + + For wit and judgment often are at strife, + Though meant each other's aid like man and wife. + +But there was a divergence of opinion as to whether the latter should be +looked upon as part of the intellect or not. + +There was the same divergence of opinion as to taste and intellectual +judgment. As regards the former, the opposition to the intellectual +principle was reinforced in the eighteenth century by Kant in his +_Kritik der Urtheilskraft_. But Voltaire and writers anterior to him +frequently fell back into intellectualist definitions of a word invented +precisely to avoid them. Dacier (1684) writes of taste as "Une harmonie, +un accord de l'esprit et de la raison." The difficulties surrounding a +true definition led to the creation of the expression _non so che_, or +_je ne sais quoi_, or _no se qué_, which throws into clear relief the +confusion between taste and intellectual judgment. + +As regards imagination and feeling, or sentiment, there was a strong +tendency to sensualism. The Cardinal Sforza-Pallavicino talks of poetry +as ignoring alike truth or falsehood and yet delighting the senses. He +approves of the remark that poetry should make us "raise our eyebrows," +but in later life this keen-eyed prince seems to have fallen back from +the brilliant intuition of his earlier years into the pedagogic theory. +Muratori was convinced that fancy was entirely sensual, and therefore he +posted the intellect beside it, "to refrain its wild courses, like a +friend having authority." Gravina practically coincides in this view of +poetic fancy, as a subordinate faculty, incapable of knowledge, fit only +to be used by moral philosophy for the introduction into the mind of the +true, by means of novelty and the marvellous. + +In England, also, Bacon held poetry to belong to the fancy, and assigned +to it a place between history and science. Epic poetry he awarded to the +former, "parabolic" poetry to the latter. Elsewhere he talks of poetry +as a dream, and affirms that it is to be held "rather as an amusement of +the intelligence than as a science." For him music, painting, sculpture, +and the other arts are merely pleasure-giving. Addison reduced the +pleasures of the imagination to those caused by visible objects, or by +ideas taken from them. These pleasures he held to be inferior to those +of the senses and less refined than those of the intellect. He looked +upon imaginative pleasure as consisting in resemblances discovered +between imitations and things imitated, between copies and originals, an +exercise adapted to sharpen the spirit of observation. + +The sensualism of the writers headed by Du Bos, who looked upon art as a +mere pastime, like a tournament or a bull-fight, shows that the truth +about Aesthetic had not yet succeeded in emerging from the other +spiritual activities. Yet the new words and the new views of the +seventeenth century have great importance for the origins of Aesthetic; +they were the direct result of the restatement of the problem by the +writers of the Renaissance, who themselves took it up where Antiquity +had left it. These new words, and the discussions which arose from them, +were the demands of Aesthetic for its theoretical justification. But +they were not able to provide this justification, and it could not come +from elsewhere. + +With Descartes, we are not likely to find much sympathy for such studies +as relate to wit, taste, fancy, or feelings. He ignored the famous _non +so che_; he abhorred the imagination, which he believed to result from +the agitation of the animal spirits. He did not altogether condemn +poetry, but certainly looked upon it as the _folle du logis_, which must +be strictly supervised by the reason. Boileau is the aesthetic +equivalent of Cartesian intellectualism, Boileau _que la raison à ses +règles engage_, Boileau the enthusiast for allegory. France was infected +with the mathematical spirit of Cartesianism and all possibility of a +serious consideration of poetry and of art was thus removed. Witness the +diatribes of Malebranche against the imagination, and listen to the +Italian, Antonio Conti, writing from France in 1756 on the theme of the +literary disputes that were raging at the time: "They have introduced +the method of M. Descartes into belles-lettres; they judge poetry and +eloquence independently of their sensible qualities. Thus they also +confound the progress of philosophy with that of the arts. The Abbé +Terrasson says that the moderns are greater geometricians than the +ancients; therefore they are greater orators and greater poets." La +Motte, Fontenelle, Boileau, and Malebranche carried on this battle, +which was taken up by the Encyclopaedists, and when Du Bos published his +daring book, Jean Jacques le Bel published a reply to it (1726), in +which he denied to sentiment its claim to judge of art. Thus +Cartesianism could not possess an Aesthetic of the imagination. The +Cartesian J.P. de Crousaz (1715) found the beautiful to consist in what +is approved of, and thereby reduced it to ideas, ignoring the pleasing +and sentiment. + +Locke was as intellectualist in the England of this period as was +Descartes in France. He speaks of wit as combining ideas in an agreeable +variety, which strikes the imagination, while the intellect or judgment +seeks for differences according to truth. The wit, then, consists of +something which is not at all in accordance with truth and reason. For +Shaftesbury, taste is a sense or instinct of the beautiful, of order and +proportion, identical with the moral sense and with its "preconceptions" +anticipating the recognition of reason. Body, spirit, and God are the +three degrees of beauty. Francis Hutcheson proceeded from Shaftesbury +and made popular "the internal sense of beauty, which lies somewhere +between sensuality and rationality and is occupied with discussing unity +in variety, concord in multiplicity, and the true, the good, and the +beautiful in their substantial identity." Hutcheson allied the pleasure +of art with this sense, that is, with the pleasure of imitation and of +the likeness of the copy to the original. This he looked upon as +relative beauty, to be distinguished from absolute beauty. The same view +dominates the English writers of the eighteenth century, among whom may +be mentioned Reid, the head of the Scottish school, and Adam Smith. + +With far greater philosophical vigour, Leibnitz in Germany opened the +door to that crowd of psychic facts which Cartesian intellectualism had +rejected with horror. His conception of reality as _continuous_ (_natura +non facit saltus_) left room for imagination, taste, and their +congeners. Leibnitz believed that the scale of being ascended from the +lowliest to God. What we now term aesthetic facts were then identified +with what Descartes and Leibnitz had called "confused" knowledge, which +might become "clear," but not distinct. It might seem that when he +applied this terminology to aesthetic facts, Leibnitz had recognized +their peculiar essence, as being neither sensual nor intellectual. They +are not sensual for him, because they have their own "clarity," +differing from pleasure and sensual emotion, and from intellectual +"distinctio." But the Leibnitzian law of continuity and intellectualism +did not permit of such an interpretation. Obscurity and clarity are here +to be understood as quantitative grades of a _single_ form of knowledge, +the distinct or intellectual, toward which they both tend and reach at a +superior grade. Though artists judge with confused perceptions, which +are clear but not distinct, these may yet be corrected and proved true +by intellective knowledge. The intellect clearly and distinctly knows +the thing which the imagination knows confusedly but clearly. This view +of Leibnitz amounts to saying that the realization of a work of art can +be perfected by intellectually determining its concept. Thus Leibnitz +held that there was only one true form of knowledge, and that all other +forms could only reach perfection in that. His "clarity" is not a +specific difference; it is merely a partial anticipation of his +intellective "distinction." To have posited this grade is an important +achievement, but the view of Leibnitz is not fundamentally different +from that of the creators of the words and intuitions already studied. +All contributed to attract attention to the peculiarity of aesthetic +facts. + +Speculation on language at this period revealed an equally determined +intellectualist attitude. Grammar was held to be an exact science, and +grammatical variations to be explainable by the ellipse, by +abbreviation, and by failure to grasp the typical logical form. In +France, with Arnauld (1660), we have the rigorous Cartesian +intellectualism; Leibnitz and Locke both, speculated upon this subject, +and the former all his life nourished the thought of a universal +language. The absurdity of this is proved in this volume. + +A complete change of the Cartesian system, upon which Leibnitz based his +own, was necessary, if speculation were ever to surpass the Leibnitzian +aesthetic. But Wolff and the other German pupils of Leibnitz were as +unable to shake themselves free of the all-pervading intellectualism as +were the French pupils of Descartes. + +Meanwhile a young student of Berlin, named Alexander Amedeus Baumgarten, +was studying the Wolffian philosophy, and at the same time lecturing in +poetry and Latin rhetoric. While so doing, he was led to rethink and +pose afresh the problem of how to reduce the precepts of rhetoric to a +rigorous philosophical system. Thus it came about that Baumgarten +published in September 1735, at the age of twenty-one, as the thesis for +his degree of Doctor, an opuscule entitled, _Meditationes philosophicae +de nonnullis ad poèma pertinentibus_, and in it we find written +_for the first time_ the word "Aesthetic," as the name of a special +science. Baumgarten ever afterwards attached great importance to his +juvenile discovery, and lectured upon it by request in 1742, at +Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and again in 1749. It is interesting to know that +in this way Emmanuel Kant first became acquainted with the theory of +Aesthetic, which he greatly altered when he came to treat of it in his +philosophy. In 1750, Baumgarten published the first volume of a more +ample treatise, and a second part in 1762. But illness, and death in +1762, prevented his completing his work. + +What is Aesthetic for Baumgarten? It is the science of sensible +knowledge. Its objects are the sensible facts (_aisthaeta_), +which the Greeks were always careful to distinguish from the mental +facts (_noaeta_). It is therefore _scientia cognitionis +sensitivae, theoria liberalium artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre +cogitandi, ars analogi rationis_. Rhetoric and Poetic are for him +special cases of Aesthetic, which is a general science, embracing both. +Its laws are diffused among all the arts, like the mariner's star +(_cynosura quaedam_), and they must be always referred to in all cases, +for they are universal, not empirical or merely inductive (_falsa regula +pejor est quam nulla_). Aesthetic must not be confounded with +Psychology, which supplies only suppositions. Aesthetic is an +independent science, which gives the rules for knowing sensibly, and is +occupied with the perfection of sensible knowledge, which is beauty. Its +contrary is ugliness. The beauty of objects and of matter must be +excluded from the beauty of sensible knowledge, because beautiful +objects can be badly thought and ugly objects beautifully thought. +Poetic representations are those which are confused or imaginative. +Distinction and intellectuality are not poetic. The greater the +determination, the greater the poetry; individuals absolutely determined +(_omnimodo determinata_) are very poetical, as are images or fancies, +and everything which refers to feeling. The judgment of sensible and +imaginative representations is taste. + +Such are, in brief, the truths which Baumgarten stated in his +_Meditationes_, and further developed and exemplified in his +_Aesthetica_. Close study of the two works above-mentioned leads to the +conviction that Baumgarten did not succeed in freeing himself from the +unity of the Leibnitzian monadology. He obtained from Leibnitz his +conception of the poetic as consisting of the confused, but German +critics are wrong in believing that he attributed to it a positive, not +a negative quality. Had he really done this, he would have broken at a +blow the unity of the Leibnitzian monad, and conquered the science of +Aesthetic. + +This giant's step he did not take: he failed to banish the +contradictions of Leibnitz and of the other intellectualists. To posit a +_perfection_ did not suffice. It was necessary to maintain it against +the _lex continui_ of Leibnitz and to proclaim its independence of all +intellectualism. Aesthetic truths for Baumgarten were those which did +not seem altogether false or altogether true: in fact, the verisimilar. +If it were objected to Baumgarten that one should not occupy oneself +with what, like poetry, he defines as confused and obscure, he would +reply that confusion is a condition of finding the truth, that we do not +pass at once from night to dawn. Thus he did not surpass the thought of +Leibnitz in this respect. Poor Baumgarten was always in suspense lest he +should be held to occupy himself with things unworthy of a philosopher! +"How can you, a professor of philosophy, dare to praise lying and the +mixture of truth and falsehood?" He imagined that some such reproach +might be addressed to him on account of his purely philosophical +speculations, and true enough he actually received a criticism of his +theory, in which it was argued, that if poetry consisted of sensual +perfection, then it was a bad thing for mankind. Baumgarten +contemptuously replied that he had not the time to argue with those +capable of confounding his _oratio perfecta sensitiva_ with an _oratio +perfecte (omnino!) sensitiva_. + +The fact about Baumgarten is that apart from baptizing the new science +Aesthetic, and apart from his first definitions, he does not stray far +from the old ruts of scholastic thought. The excellent Baumgarten, with +all his ardour and all his convictions, is a sympathetic and interesting +figure in the history of Aesthetic not yet formed, but in process of +formation. + +The revolutionary who set aside the old definitions of Aesthetic, and +for the first time revealed the true nature of art and poetry, is the +Italian, Giambattista Vico. + +What were the ideas developed by Vico in his _Scienza nuova_ (1725)? +They were neither more nor less than the solution of the problem, posed +by Plato, attempted in vain by Aristotle, again posed and again unsolved +at the Renaissance. + +Is poetry a rational or an irrational thing? Is it spiritual or animal? +If it be spiritual, what is its true nature, and in what way does it +differ from art and science? + +Plato, we know, banished poetry to the inferior region of the soul, +among the animal spirits. Vico on the contrary raises up poetry, and +makes of it a period in the history of humanity. And since Vico's is an +ideal history, whose periods are not concerned with contingent facts, +but with spiritual forms, he makes of it a moment of the ideal history +of the spirit, a form of knowledge. Poetry comes before the intellect, +but _after_ feeling. Plato had _confused_ it with feeling, and for that +reason banished it from his Republic. "Men _feel_," says Vico, "before +observing, then they observe with perturbation of the soul, finally they +reflect with the pure intellect," He goes on to say, that poetry being +composed of passion and of feeling, the nearer it approaches to the +_particular_, the more _true_ it is, while exactly the reverse is true +of philosophy. + +Imagination is independent and autonomous as regards the intellect. Not +only does the intellect fail of perfection, but all it can do is to +destroy it. "The studies of Poetry and Metaphysic are _naturally +opposed_. Poets are the feeling, philosophers the intellect of the human +race." The weaker the reason, the stronger the imagination. Philosophy, +he says, deals with abstract thought or universals, poetry with the +particular. Painters and poets differ only in their material. Homer and +the great poets appear in barbaric times. Dante, for instance, appeared +in "the renewed barbarism of Italy." The poetic ages preceded the +philosophical, and poetry is the father of prose, by "necessity of +nature," not by the "caprice of pleasure." Fables or "imaginary +universals" were conceived before "reasoned or philosophical +universals." To Homer, says Vico, belongs wisdom, but only poetic +wisdom. "His beauties are not those of a spirit softened and civilized +by any philosophy." + +If any one make poetry in epochs of reflexion, he becomes a child again; +he does not reflect with his intellect, but follows his fancy and dwells +upon particulars. If the true poet make use of philosophic ideas, he +only does so that he may change logic into imagination. + +Here we have a profound statement of the line of demarcation between +science and art. _They cannot be confused again_. + +His statement of the difference between poetry and history is a trifle +less clear. He explains why to Aristotle poetry seemed more +philosophical than history, and at the same time he refutes Aristotle's +error that poetry deals with the universal, history with the particular. +Poetry equals science, not because it is occupied with the intellectual +concept, but because, like science, it is ideal. A good poetical fable +must be all ideal: "With the idea the poet gives their being to things +which are without it. Poetry is all fantastic, as being the art of +painting the idea, not icastic, like the art of painting portraits. That +is why poets, like painters, are called divine, because in that respect +they resemble God the Creator." Vico ends by identifying poetry and +history. The difference between them is posterior and accidental. "But, +as it is impossible to impart false ideas, because the false consists of +a vicious combination of ideas, so it is impossible to impart a +tradition, which, though it be false, has not at first contained some +element of truth. Thus mythology appears for the first time, not as the +invention of an individual, but as the spontaneous vision of the truth +as it appears to primitive man." + +Poetry and language are for Vico substantially identical. He finds in +the origins of poetry the origins of languages and letters. He believed +that the first languages consisted in mute acts or acts accompanied by +bodies which had natural relations to the ideas that it was desired to +signify. With great cleverness he compared these pictured languages to +heraldic arms and devices, and to hieroglyphs. He observed that during +the barbarism of the Middle Age, the mute language of signs must return, +and we find it in the heraldry and blazonry of that epoch. Hence come +three kinds of languages: divine silent languages, heroic emblematic +languages, and speech languages. + +Formal logic could never satisfy a man with such revolutionary ideas +upon poetry and language. He describes the Aristotelian syllogism as a +method which explains universals In their particulars, rather than +unites particulars to obtain universals, looks upon Zeno and the sorites +as a means of subtilizing rather than sharpening the intelligence, and +concludes that Bacon is a great philosopher, when he advocates and +illustrates _induction_, "which has been followed by the English to the +great advantage of experimental philosophy." Hence he proceeds to +criticize mathematics, which, had hitherto always been looked upon as +the type of the _perfect science_. + +Vico is indeed a revolutionary, a pioneer. He knows very well that he is +in direct opposition to all that has been thought before about poetry. +"My new principles of poetry upset all that first Plato and then +Aristotle have said about the origin of poetry, all that has been said +by the Patrizzi, by the Scaligers, and by the Castelvetri. I have +discovered that It was through lack of human reason that poetry was born +so sublime that neither the Arts, nor the Poetics, nor the Critiques +could cause another equal to it to be born, I say equal, and not +superior." He goes as far as to express shame at having to report the +stupidities of great philosophers upon the origin of song and verse. He +shows his dislike for the Cartesian philosophy and its tendency to dry +up the imagination "by denying all the faculties of the soul which come +to it from the body," and talks of his own time as of one "which freezes +all the generous quality of the best poetry and thus precludes it from +being understood." + +As regards grammatical forms, Vico may be described as an adherent of +the great reaction of the Renaissance against scholastic verbalism and +formalism. This reaction brought back as a value the experience of +feeling, and afterwards with Romanticism gave its right place to the +imagination. Vico, in his _Scienza nuova_, may be said to have been the +first to draw attention to the imagination. Although he makes many +luminous remarks on history and the development of poetry among the +Greeks, his work is not really a history, but a science of the spirit or +of the ideal. It is not the ethical, logical, or economic moment of +humanity which interests him, but the _imaginative_ moment. _He +discovered the creative imagination_, and it may almost be said of the +_Scienza nuova_ of Vico that it is Aesthetic, the discovery of a new +world, of a new mode of knowledge. + +This was the contribution of the genius of Vico to the progress of +humanity: he showed Aesthetic to be an autonomous activity. It remained +to distinguish the science of the spirit from history, the modifications +of the human spirit from the historic vicissitudes of peoples, Aesthetic +from Homeric civilization. + +But although Goethe, Herder, and Wolf were acquainted with the _Scienza +nuova_, the importance of this wonderful book did not at first dawn upon +the world. Wolf, in his prolegomena to Homer, thought that he was +dealing merely with an ingenious speculator on Homeric themes. He did +not realize that the intellectual stature of Vico far surpassed that of +the most able philologists. + +The fortunes of Aesthetic after Vico were very various, and the list of +aestheticians who fell back into the old pedagogic definition, or +elaborated the mistakes of Baumgarten, is very long. Yet with C.H. +Heydenreich in Germany and Sulzer in Switzerland we find that the truths +contained in Baumgarten have begun to bear fruit. J.J. Herder (1769) was +more important than these, and he placed Baumgarten upon a pedestal, +though criticizing his pretension of creating an _ars pulchre cogitandi_ +instead of a simple _scientia de pulchro et pulchris philosophice +cogitans_. Herder admitted Baumgarten's definition of poetry as _oratio +sensitiva perfecta_, perfect sensitived speech, and this is _probably +the best definition of poetry that has ever been given_. It touches the +real essence of poetry and opens to thought the whole of the philosophy +of the beautiful. Herder, although he does not cite Vico upon aesthetic +questions, yet praises him as a philosopher. His remarks about poetry as +"the maternal language of humanity, as the garden is more ancient than +the cultivated field, painting than writing, song than declamation, +exchange than commerce," are replete with the spirit of the Italian +philosopher. + +But despite similar happy phrases, Herder is philosophically the +inferior of the great Italian. He is a firm believer in the Leibnitzian +law of continuity, and does not surpass the conclusions of Baumgarten. + +Herder and his friend Hamann did good service as regards the philosophy +of language. The French encyclopaedists, J.J. Rousseau, d'Alembert, and +many others of this period, were none of them able to get free of the +idea that a word is either a natural, mechanical fact, or a sign +attached to a thought. The only way out of this difficulty is to look +upon the imagination as itself active and expressive in _verbal +imagination_, and language as the language of _intuition_, not of the +intelligence. Herder talks of language as "an understanding of the soul +with itself." Thus language begins to appear, not as an arbitrary +invention or a mechanical fact, but as a primitive affirmation of human +activity, as a _creation_. + +But all unconscious of the discoveries of Vico, the great mass of +eighteenth century writers try their hands at every sort of solution. +The Abbé Batteux published in 1746 _Les Beaux-arts réduits a un seul +principe_, which is a perfect little bouquet of contradictions. The Abbé +finds himself confronted with difficulties at every turn, but with "un +peu d'esprit on se tire de tout," and when for instance he has to +explain artistic enjoyment of things displeasing, he remarks that the +imitation never being perfect like reality, the horror caused by reality +disappears. + +But the French were equalled and indeed surpassed by the English in +their amateur Aesthetics. The painter Hogarth was one day reading in +Italian a speech about the beauty of certain figures, attributed to +Michael Angelo. This led him to imagine that the figurative arts depend +upon a principle which consists of conforming to a given line. In 1745 +he produced a serpentine line as frontispiece of his collection of +engravings, which he described as "the line of beauty." Thus he +succeeded in exciting universal curiosity, which he proceeded to satisfy +with his "Analysis of Beauty." Here he begins by rightly combating the +error of judging paintings by their subject and by the degree of their +imitation, instead of by their form, which is the essential in art. He +gives his definition of form, and afterwards proceeds to describe the +waving lines which are beautiful and those which are not, and maintains +that among them all there is but one that is really worthy to be called +"the line of beauty," and one definite serpentine line "the line of +grace." The pig, the bear, the spider, and the frog are ugly, because +they do not possess serpentine lines. E. Burke, with a like assurance in +his examples, was equally devoid of certainty in his general principles. +He declares that the natural properties of an object cause pleasure or +pain to the imagination, but that the latter also procures pleasure from +their resemblance to the original. He does not speak further of the +second of these, but gives a long list of the natural properties of the +sensible, beautiful object. Having concluded his list, he remarks that +these are in his opinion the qualities upon which beauty depends and +which are the least liable to caprice and confusion. But "comparative +smallness, delicate structure, colouring vivid but not too much so," are +all mere empirical observations of no more value than those of Hogarth, +with whom Burke must be classed as an aesthetician. Their works are +spoken of as "classics." Classics indeed they are, but of the sort that +arrive at no conclusion. + +Henry Home (Lord Kaimes) is on a level a trifle above the two just +mentioned. He seeks "the true principles of the beaux-arts," in order to +transform criticism into "a rational science." He selects facts and +experience for this purpose, but in his definition of beauty, which he +divides into two parts, relative and intrinsic, he is unable to explain +the latter, save by a final cause, which he finds in the Almighty. + +Such theories as the three above mentioned defy classification, because +they are not composed by any scientific method. Their authors pass from +physiological sensualism to moralism, from imitation of nature to +finalism, and to transcendental mysticism, without consciousness of the +incongruity of their theses, at variance each with itself. + +The German, Ernest Platner, at any rate did not suffer from a like +confusion of thought. He developed his researches on the lines of +Hogarth, but was only able to discover a prolongation of sexual pleasure +in aesthetic facts. "Where," he exclaims, "is there any beauty that does +not come from the feminine figure, the centre of all beauty? The +undulating line is beautiful, because it is found in the body of woman; +essentially feminine movements are beautiful; the notes of music are +beautiful, when they melt into one another; a poem is beautiful, when +one thought embraces another with lightness and facility." + +French sensualism shows itself quite incapable of understanding +aesthetic production, and the associationism of David Hume is not more +fortunate in this respect. + +The Dutchman Hemsterhuis (1769) developed an ingenious theory, mingling +mystical and sensualist theory with some just remarks, which afterwards, +in the hands of Jacobi, became sentimentalism. Hemsterhuis believed +beauty to be a phenomenon arising from the meeting by the +sentimentalism, which gives multiplicity, with the internal sense, which +tends to unity. Consequently the beautiful will be that which presents +the greatest number of ideas in the shortest space of time. To man is +denied supreme unity, but here he finds approximative unity. Hence the +joy arising from the beautiful, which has some analogy with the joy of +love. + +With Winckelmann (1764) Platonism or Neo-platonism was vigorously +renewed. The creator of the history of the figurative arts saw in the +divine indifference and more than human elevation of the works of Greek +sculpture a beauty which had descended from the seventh heaven and +become incarnate in them. Mendelssohn, the follower of Baumgarten, had +denied beauty to God: Winckelmann, the Neoplatonician, gave it back to +Him. He holds that perfect beauty is to be found only in God. "The +conception of human beauty becomes the more perfect in proportion as it +can be thought as in agreement with the Supreme Being, who is +distinguished from matter by His unity and indivisibility." To the other +characteristics of supreme beauty, Winckelmann adds "the absence of any +sort of signification" (Unbezeichnung). Lines and dots cannot explain +beauty, for it is not they alone which form it. Its form is not proper +to any definite person, it expresses no sentiment, no feeling of +passion, for these break up unity and diminish or obscure beauty. +According to Winckelmann, beauty must be like a drop of pure water taken +from the spring, which is the more healthy the less it has of taste, +because it is purified of all foreign elements. + +A special faculty is required to appreciate this beauty, which +Winckelmann is inclined to call intelligence, or a delicate internal +sense, free of all instinctive passions, of pleasure, and of friendship. +Since it becomes a question of perceiving something immaterial, +Winckelmann banishes colour to a secondary place. True beauty, he says, +is that of form, a word which describes lines and contours, as though +lines and contours could not also be perceived by the senses, or could +appear to the eye without any colour. + +It is the destiny of error to be obliged to contradict itself, when it +does not decide to dwell in a brief aphorism, in order to live as well +as may be with facts and concrete problems. The "History" of Winckelmann +dealt with historic concrete facts, with which it was necessary to +reconcile the idea of a supreme beauty. His admission of the contours of +lines and his secondary admission of colours is a compromise. He makes +another with regard to the principle of expression. "Since there is no +intermediary between pain and pleasure in human nature, and since a +human being without these feelings is inconceivable, we must place the +human figure in a moment of action and of passion, which is what is +termed expression in art." So Winckelmann studied expression after +beauty. He makes a third compromise between his one, indivisible, +supreme, and constant beauty and individual beauties. Winckelmann +preferred the male to the female body as the most complete incarnation +of supreme beauty, but he was not able to shut his eyes to the +indisputable fact that there also exist beautiful bodies of women and +even of animals. + +Raphael Mengs, the painter, was an intimate friend of Winckelmann and +associated himself with him in his search for a true definition of the +beautiful. His ideas were generally in accordance with those of +Winckelmann. He defines beauty as "the visible idea of perfection, which +is to perfection what the visible is to the mathematical point." He +falls under the influence of the argument from design. The Creator has +ordained the multiplicity of beauties. Things are beautiful according to +our ideas of them, and these ideas come from the Creator. Thus each +beautiful thing has its own type, and a child would appear ugly if it +resembled a man. He adds to his remarks in this sense: "As the diamond +is alone perfect among stones, gold among metals, and man among living +creatures, so there is distinction in each species, and but little is +perfect." In his _Dreams of Beauty_, he looks upon beauty as "an +intermediate disposition," which contains a part of perfection and a +part of the agreeable, and forms a _tertium quid_, which differs from +the other two and deserves a special name. He names four sources of the +art of painting: beauty, significant or expressive character, harmony, +and colouring. The first of these he finds among the ancients, the +second with Raphael, the third with Correggio, the fourth with Titian. +Mengs does not succeed in rising above this empiricism of the studio, +save to declaim about the beauty of nature, virtue, forms, and +proportions, and indeed everything, including the First Cause, which is +the most beautiful of all. + +The name of G.E. Lessing (1766) is well known to all concerned with art +problems. The ideas of Winckelmann reappear in Lessing, with less of a +metaphysical tinge. For Lessing, the end of art is the pleasing, and +since this is "a superfluous thing," he thought that the legislator +should not allow to art the liberty indispensable to science, which +seeks the truth, necessary to the soul. For the Greeks painting was, as +it should always be, "imitation of beautiful bodies." Everything +disagreeable or ill-formed should be excluded from painting. "Painting, +as clever imitation, may imitate deformity. Painting, as a fine art, +does not permit this." He was more inclined to admit deformity in +poetry, as there it is less shocking, and the poet can make use of it to +produce in us certain feelings, such as the ridiculous or the terrible. +In his _Dramaturgie_ (1767), Lessing followed the Peripatetics, and +believed that the rules of Aristotle were as absolute as the theorems of +Euclid. His polemic against the French school is chiefly directed to +claiming a place in poetry for the verisimilar, as against absolute +historical exactitude. He held the universal to be a sort of mean of +what appears in the individual, the catharsis was in his view a +transformation of the passions into virtuous dispositions, and he held +the duty of poetry to be inspiration of the love of virtue. He followed +Winckelmann in believing that the expression of physical beauty was the +supreme object of painting. This beauty exists only as an ideal, which +finds its highest expression in man. Animals possess it to a slighter +extent, vegetable and inanimate nature not at all. Those mistaken enough +to occupy themselves with depicting the latter are imitating beauties +deprived of all ideal. They work only with eye and hand; genius has +little if any share in their productions. Lessing found the physical +ideal to reside chiefly in form, but also in the ideal of colour, and in +permanent expression. Mere colouring and transitory expression were for +him without ideal, "because nature has not imposed upon herself anything +definite as regards them." At bottom he does not care for colouring, +finding in the pen drawings of artists "a life, a liberty, a delicacy, +lacking to their pictures." He asks "whether even the most wonderful +colouring can make up for such a loss, and whether it be not desirable +that the art of oil-painting had never been invented." + +This "ideal beauty," wonderfully constructed from divine quintessence +and subtle pen and brush strokes, this academic mystery, had great +success. In Italy it was much discussed in the environment of Mengs and +of Winckelmann, who were working there. + +The first counterblast to their aesthetic Neo-platonism came from an +Italian named Spalletti, and took the form of a letter addressed to +Mengs. He represents the _characteristic_ as the true principle of art. +The pleasure obtained from beauty is intellectual, and truth is its +object. When the soul meets with what is characteristic, and what really +suits the object to be represented, the work is held to be beautiful. A +well-made man with a woman's face is ugly. Harmony, order, variety, +proportion, etc.--these are elements of beauty, and man enjoys the +widening of his knowledge before disagreeable things characteristically +represented. Spalletti defines beauty as "that modification inherent to +the object observed, which presents it, as it should appear, with an +infallible characteristic." + +Thus the Aristotelian thesis found a supporter in Italy, some years +before any protestation was heard in Germany. Louis Hirt, the historian +of art (1797) observed that ancient monuments represented all sorts of +forms, from the most beautiful and sublime to the most ugly and most +common. He therefore denied that ideal beauty was the principle of art, +and for it substituted the _characteristic_, applicable equally to gods, +heroes, and animals. + +Wolfgang Goethe, in 1798, forgetting the juvenile period, during which +he had dared to raise a hymn to Gothic architecture, now began seriously +to seek a middle term between beauty and expression. He believed that he +had found it, in certain characteristic contents presenting to the +artist beautiful shapes, which the artist would then develop and reduce +to perfect beauty. Thus for Goethe at this period, the characteristic +was simply the _starting-point_, or framework, from which the beautiful +arose, through the power of the artist. + +But these writers mentioned after J.B. Vico are not true philosophers. +Winckelmann, Mengs, Hogarth, Lessing, and Goethe are great in other +ways. Meier called himself a historian of art, but he was inferior both +to Herder and to Hamann. From J.B. Vico to Emmanuel Kant, European +thought is without a name of great importance as regards this subject. + +Kant took up the problem, where Vico had left it, not in the historical, +but in the ideal sense. He resembled the Italian philosopher, in the +gravity and the tenacity of his studies in Aesthetic, but he was far +less happy in his solutions, which did not attain to the truth, and to +which he did not succeed in giving the necessary unity and +systematization. The reader must bear in mind that Kant is here +criticized solely as an aesthetician: his other conclusions do not enter +directly into the discussion. + +What was Kant's idea of art? The answer is: the same in substance as +Baumgarten's. This may seem strange to those who remember his sustained +polemic against Wolf and the conception of beauty as confused +perception. But Kant always thought highly of Baumgarten. He calls him +"that excellent analyst" in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and he used +Baumgarten's text for his University lectures on Metaphysic. Kant looked +upon Logic and Aesthetic as cognate studies, and in his scheme of +studies for 1765, and in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, he proposes to +cast a glance at the Critique of Taste, that is to say, Aesthetic, +"since the study of the one is useful for the other and they are +mutually illuminative." He followed Meier in his distinctions between +logical and aesthetic truth. He even quoted the Instance of the young +girl, whose face when distinctly seen, i.e. with a microscope, is no +longer beautiful. It is true, aesthetically, he said, that when a man is +dead he cannot come to life, although this be opposed both to logical +and to moral truth. It is aesthetically true that the sun plunges into +the sea, although that is not true logically or objectively. + +No one, even among the greatest, can yet tell to what extent logical +truth should mingle with aesthetic truth. Kant believed that logical +truth must wear the habit of Aesthetic, in order to become _accessible_. +This habit, he thought, was discarded only by the rational sciences, +which tend to depth. Aesthetic certainly is subjective. It is satisfied +with authority or with an appeal to great men. We are so feeble that +Aesthetic must eke out our thoughts. Aesthetic is a vehicle of Logic. +But there are logical truths which are not aesthetic. We must exclude +from philosophy exclamations and other emotions, which belong to +aesthetic truth. For Kant, poetry is the harmonious play of thought and +sensation, differing from eloquence, because in poetry thoughts are +fitted to suggestions, in eloquence the reverse is true. Poetry should +make virtue and intellect visible, as was done by Pope in his _Essay on +Man_. Elsewhere, he says frankly that logical perfection is the +foundation of all the rest. + +The confirmation of this is found in his _Critique of Judgment_, which +Schelling looked upon as the most important of the three _Critiques_, +and which Hegel and other metaphysical idealists always especially +esteemed. + +For Kant art was always "a sensible and imaged covering for an +intellectual concept." He did not look upon art as pure beauty without a +concept. He looked upon it as a beauty adherent and fixed about a +concept. The work of genius contains two elements: imagination and +intelligence. To these must be added taste, which combines the two. Art +may even represent the ugly in nature, for artistic beauty "is not a +beautiful thing but a beautiful representation of a thing." But this +representation of the ugly has its limits in the arts (here Kant +remembers Lessing and Winckelmann), and an absolute limit in the +disgusting and the repugnant, which kills the representation itself. He +believes that there may be artistic productions without a concept, such +as are flowers in nature, and these would be ornaments to frameworks, +music without words, etc., etc., but since they represent nothing +reducible to a definite concept, they must be classed, like flowers, +with free beauties. This would certainly seem to exclude them from +Aesthetic, which, according to Kant, should combine imagination and +intelligence. + +Kant is shut in with intellectualist barriers. A complete definition of +the _imagination_ is _wanting_ to his system. He does not admit that the +imagination belongs to the powers of the mind. He relegates it to the +facts of sensation. He is aware of the reproductive and combinative +imagination, but he does not recognize _fancy_ (_fantasia_), which is +the true productive imagination. + +Yet Kant was aware that there exists an activity other than the +intellective. Intuition is referred to by him as preceding intellective +activity and differing from sensation. He does not speak of it, however, +in his critique of art, but in the first section of the _Critique of +Pure Reason_. Sensations do not enter the mind, until it has given them +_form_. This is neither sensation nor intelligence. It is _pure +intuition_, the sum of the _a priori_ principles of sensibility. He +speaks thus: "There must, then, exist a science that forms the first +part of the transcendental doctrine of the elements, distinct from that +which contains the principles of pure thought and is called +transcendental Logic." + +What does he call this new science? He calls it _Transcendental +Aesthetic_, and refuses to allow the term to be used for the Critique of +Taste, which could never become a science. + +But although he thus states so clearly the necessity of a science of the +form of the sensations, that is of _pure intuition_, Kant here appears +to fall into grave error. This arises from _his inexact idea_ of the +_essence of the aesthetic faculty or of art_, which, as we now know, is +pure intuition. He conceives the form of sensibility to be reducible to +the _two categories of space and time_. + +Benedetto Croce has shown that space and time are far from being +categories or functions: they are complex posterior formations. Kant, +however, looked upon density, colour, etc., as material for sensations; +but the mind only observes colour or hardness when it has _already_ +given a form to its sensations. Sensations, in so far as they are _crude +matter_, are _outside_ the mind: they are a _limit_. Colour, hardness, +density, etc., are _already_ intuitions. _They are the aesthetic +activity in its rudimentary manifestation._ + +Characterizing or qualifying imagination, that is, _aesthetic activity_, +should therefore _take the place occupied by the study of space and +time_ in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, and constitute the true +_Transcendental Aesthetic_, prologue to Logic. + +Had Kant done this, he would have surpassed Leibnitz and Baumgarten; he +would have equalled Vico. + +Kant did not identify the Beautiful with art. He established what he +called "the four moments of Beauty," amounting to a definition of it. +The two negative moments are, "That is beautiful which pleases _without +interest_"; this thesis was directed against the sensualist school of +English writers, with whom Kant had for a time agreed; and "That is +beautiful which pleases without a concept," directed against the +intellectualists. Thus he affirmed the existence of a spiritual domain, +distinct from that of organic pleasure, of the useful, the good, and the +true. The two other moments are, "That is beautiful which has the form +of finality without the representation of an end," and "That is +beautiful which is the object of universal pleasure." What is this +disinterested pleasure that we experience before pure colours, pure +sounds, and flowers? Benedetto Croce replies that this mysterious domain +has no existence; that the instances cited represent, either instances +of organic pleasure, or are artistic facts of expression. + +Kant was less severe with the Neoplatonicians than with the two schools +of thought above mentioned. His _Critique of Judgment_ contains some +curious passages, in one of which he gives his distinction of form from +matter: "In music, the melody is the matter, harmony the form: in a +flower, the scent is the matter, the shape or configuration the form." +In the other arts, he found that the design was the essential. "Not what +pleases in sensation, but what is approved for its form, is the +foundation of taste." + +In his pursuit of the phantom of a beauty, which is neither that of art +nor of sensual pleasure, exempt alike from expression and from +enjoyment, he became enveloped in inextricable contradictions. Little +disposed as he was to let himself be carried away by the imagination, he +expressed his contempt for philosopher-poets like Herder, and kept +saying and unsaying, affirming and then immediately criticizing his own +affirmations as to this mysterious beauty. The truth is that _this +mystery is simply his own individual uncertainty before a problem which +he could not solve_, owing to his having no clear idea of an activity of +sentiment. Such an activity represented for him a logical contradiction. +Such expressions as "necessary universal pleasure," "finality without +the idea of end," are verbal proofs of his uncertainty. + +How was he to emerge from this uncertainty, this contradiction? He fell +back upon the concept of a base of subjective finality as the base of +the judgment of taste, that is of the subjective finality of nature by +the judgment. But nothing can be known or disclosed to the object by +means of this concept, which is indeterminate in itself and not adapted +for knowledge. Its determining reason is perhaps situated in "the +suprasensible substratum of humanity." Thus beauty becomes a symbol of +morality. "The subjective principle alone, that is, the indeterminate +idea of the suprasensible in us, can be indicated as the sole key to +reveal this faculty, which remains unknown to us in its origin. Nothing +but this principle can make that hidden faculty comprehensible." + +Kant had a tendency to mysticism, which this statement does not serve to +conceal, but it was a mysticism without enthusiasm, a mysticism almost +against the grain. His failure to penetrate thoroughly the nature of the +aesthetic activity led him to see double and even triple, on several +occasions. Art being unknown to him in its essential nature, he invents +the functions of _space_ and _time_ and terms this _transcendental +aesthetic_; he develops the theory of the imaginative beautifying of the +intellectual concept by genius; he is finally forced to admit a +mysterious power of feeling, intermediate between the theoretic and the +practical activity. This power is cognoscitive and non-cognoscitive, +moral and indifferent to morality, agreeable and yet detached from the +pleasure of the senses. His successors hastened to make use of this +mysterious power, for they were glad to be able to find some sort of +justification for their bold speculations in the severe philosopher of +Königsberg. + +In addition to Schelling and Hegel, for whom, as has been said, the +_Critique of Judgment_ seemed the most important of the three Critiques, +we must now mention the name of a poet who showed himself as great in +philosophical as in aesthetic achievement. + +_Friedrich Schiller_ first elaborated that portion of the Kantian +thought contained in the _Critique of Judgment_. Before any professional +philosopher, Schiller studied that sphere of activity which unites +feeling with reason. Hegel talks with admiration of this artistic +genius, who was also so profoundly philosophical and first announced the +principle of reconciliation between life as duty and reason on the one +hand, and the life of the senses and feeling on the other. + +To Schiller belongs the great merit of having opposed the subjective +idealism of Kant and of having made the attempt to surpass it. + +The exact relations between Kant and Schiller, and the extent to which +the latter may have been influenced by Leibnitz and Herder, are of less +importance to the history of Aesthetic than the fact that Schiller +_unified_ once for all art and beauty, which had been separated by Kant, +with his distinctions between adherent and pure beauty. Schiller's +artistic sense must doubtless have stood him here in good stead. + +Schiller found a very unfortunate and misleading term to apply to the +aesthetic sphere. He called it the sphere of _play_ (Spiel). He strove +to explain that by this he did not mean ordinary games, nor material +amusement. For Schiller, this sphere of play lay intermediate between +thought and feeling. Necessity in art gives place to a free disposition +of forces; mind and nature, matter and form are here reconciled. The +beautiful is life, but not physiological life. A beautiful statue may +have life, and a living man be without it. Art conquers nature with +form. The great artist effaces matter with form. The less we are +sensible of the material in a work of art, the greater the triumph of +the artist. The soul of the spectator should leave the magic sphere of +art as pure and as perfect as when it left the hands of the Creator. The +most frivolous theme should be so treated that we can pass at once from +it to the most rigorous, and _vice versa_. Only when man has placed +himself outside the world and contemplates it aesthetically, can he know +the world. While he is merely the passive receiver of sensations, he is +one with the world, and therefore cannot realize it. Art is +indeterminism. With the help of art, man delivers himself from the yoke +of the senses, and is at the same time free of any rational or moral +duty: he may enjoy for a moment the luxury of serene contemplation. + +Schiller was well aware that the moment art is employed to teach morals +directly, it ceases to be art. All other teachings give to the soul a +special imprint. Art alone is favourable to all without prejudice. Owing +to this indifference of art, it possesses a great educative power, by +opening the path to morality without preaching or persuasion; without +determining, it produces determinability. This was the main theme of the +celebrated "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man," which Schiller +wrote to his patron the Duke of Holstein-Augustenburg. Here, and in his +lectures at the University of Jena, it is clear that Schiller addresses +himself to a popular audience. He began a work, on scientific Aesthetic, +which he intended to entitle "Kallias," but unfortunately died without +completing it. We possess only a few fragments, contained in his +correspondence with his friend Körner. Körner did not feel satisfied +with the formula of Schiller, and asks for some more precise and +objective mark of the beautiful. Schiller tells him that he has found +it, but what he had found we shall never know, as there is no document +to inform us. + +The fault of Schiller's aesthetic theory was its lack of precision. His +artistic faculty enabled him to give unsurpassable descriptions of the +catharsis and of other effects of art, but he fails to give a precise +definition of the aesthetic function. True, he disassociates it from +morality, yet admits that it may in a measure be associated with it. The +only formal activities that he recognizes are the moral and the +intellectual, and he denies altogether (against the sensualists) that +art can have anything to do with passion or sensuality. His intellectual +world consisted only of the logical and the intellectual, leaving out +the imaginative activity. + +What is art for Schiller? He admits four modes of relation between man +and external things. They are the physical, the logical, the moral, and +the aesthetic. He describes this latter as a mode by which things affect +the whole of our different forces, without being a definite object for +any one in particular. Thus a man may be said to please aesthetically, +"when he does so without appealing to any one of the senses directly, +and without any law or end being thought of in connection with him." +Schiller cannot be made to say anything more definite than this. His +general position was probably much like Kant's (save in the case above +mentioned, where he made a happy correction), and he probably looked +upon Aesthetic as a mingling of several faculties, as a play of +sentiment. + +Schiller was faithful to Kant's teaching in its main lines, and his +uncertainty was largely due to this. The existence of a _third sphere_ +uniting form and matter was for Schiller rather an ideal conformable to +reason than a _definite_ activity; it was supposititious, rather than +effective. + +But the Romantic movement in literature, which was at that time gaining +ground, with its belief in a superhuman faculty called imagination, in +genius breaker of rules, found no such need for restraint. Schiller's +modest reserve was set aside, and with J.P. Richter we approach a +mythology of the imagination. Many of his observations are, however, +just, and his distinction between productive and reproductive +imagination is excellent. How could humanity appreciate works of genius, +he asks, were it without some common measure? All men who can go as far +as saying "this is beautiful" before a beautiful thing, are capable of +the latter. He then proceeds to establish to his own satisfaction +categories of the imagination, leading from simple talent to the supreme +form of male genius in which all faculties flourish together: a faculty +of faculties. + +The Romantic conception of art is, in substance, that of idealist German +philosophy, where we find it in a more coherent and systematic form. It +is the conception of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel. + +Fichte, Kant's first great pupil, cannot be included with these, for his +view of Aesthetic, largely influenced by Schiller, is transformed in the +Fichtian system to a moral activity, to a representation of the ethical +ideal. The subjective idealism of Fichte, however, generated an +Aesthetic: that of irony as the base of art. The I that has created the +universe can also destroy it. The universe is a vain appearance, smiled +at by the Ego its creator, who surveys it as an artist his work, from +without and from above. For Friedrich Schlegel, art was a perpetual +farce, a parody of itself; and Tieck defined irony as a force which +allows the poet to dominate his material. + +Novalis, that Romantic Fichtian, dreamed of a magical idealism, an art +of creating by an instantaneous act of the Ego. But Schelling's "system +of transcendental idealism" was the first great philosophical +affirmation of Romanticism and of conscious Neo-platonism reborn in +Aesthetic. + +Schelling has obviously studied Schiller, but he brings to the problem a +mind more purely philosophical and a method more exactly scientific. He +even takes Kant to task for faultiness of method. His remarks as to +Plato's position are curious, if not conclusive. He says that Plato +condemned the art of his time, because it was realistic and +naturalistic: like all antique art, it exhibited a _finite_ character. +Plato's judgment would have been quite different had he known Christian +art, of which the character is _infinity_. + +Schelling held firm to the fusion of art and beauty effected by +Schiller, but he combated Winckelmann's theory of abstract beauty with +its negative conception of the characteristic, assigning to art the +limits of the individual. Art is characteristic beauty; it is not the +individual, but the living conception of the individual. When the artist +recognizes the eternal idea in an individual, and expresses it +outwardly, he transforms the individual into a world apart, into a +species, into an eternal idea. Characteristic beauty is the fulness of +form which slays form: it does not silence passion, but restrains it as +the banks of a river the waters that flow between them, but do not +overflow. + +Schelling's starting-point is the criticism of teleological judgment, as +stated by Kant in his third Critique. Teleology is the union of +theoretic with practical philosophy. But the system would not be +complete, unless we could show the identity of the two worlds, theoretic +and practical, in the subject itself. He must demonstrate the existence +of an activity, which is at once unconscious as nature and conscious as +spirit. This activity we find in Aesthetic, which is therefore "the +general organ of philosophy, the keystone of the whole building." + +Poetry and philosophy alone possess the world of the ideal, in which the +real world vanishes. True art is not the impression of the moment, but +the representation of infinite life: it is transcendental intuition +objectified. The time will come when philosophy will return to poetry, +which was its source, and on the new philosophy will arise a new +mythology. Philosophy does not depict real things, but their ideas; so +too, art. Those same ideas, of which real things are, as philosophy +shows, the imperfect copies, reappear in art objectified as ideas, and +therefore in their perfection. Art stands nearest to philosophy, which +itself stands nearest to the Idea, and therefore nearest to perfection. +Art differs from philosophy only by its _specialization_: in all other +ways it is the ideal world in its most complete expression. The three +Ideas of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty correspond to the three powers of +the ideal and of the real world. Beauty is not the universal whole, +which is truth, nor is it the only reality, which is action: it is the +perfect mingling of the two. "Beauty exists where the real or particular +is so adequate to its concept that this infinite thing enters into the +finite, and is contemplated in the concrete." Philosophy unites truth, +morality, and beauty, in what they possess in common, and deduces them +from their unique Source, which is God. If philosophy assume the +character of science and of truth, although it be superior to truth, the +reason for this lies in the fact that science and truth are simply the +formal determination of philosophy. + +Schelling looked upon mythology as a necessity for every art. Ideas are +Gods, considered from the point of view of reality; for the essence of +each is equal to God in a _particular_ form. The characteristics of all +Gods, including the Christian, are _pure limitation and absolute +indivisibility_. Minerva has wisdom and strength, but lacks womanly +tenderness; Juno has power and wisdom, but is without amorous charm, +which she borrows with the girdle of Venus, who in her turn is without +the wisdom of Minerva. What would these Gods become without their +limitations? They would cease to be the objects of Fancy. Fancy is a +faculty, apart from the pure intellect and from the reason. Distinct +from imagination, which develops the products of art, Fancy has +intuitions of them, grasps them herself, and herself represents them. +Fancy is to imagination as intellectual intuition is to reason. Fancy, +then, is intellectual intuition in art. In the thought of Schelling, +fancy, the new or artistic intuition, sister of intellectual intuition, +came to dominate alike the intellect and the old conception of the fancy +and the imagination, in a system for which reason alone did not suffice. + +C.G. Solger followed Schelling and agreed with him in finding but little +truth in the theories of Kant, and especially of Fichte. He held that +their dialectic had failed to solve the difficulty of intellectual +intuition. He too conceived of fancy as distinct from imagination, and +divided the former into three degrees. Imagination he held to appertain +to ordinary knowledge, "which re-establishes the original intuition to +infinity." Fancy "originates from the original antithesis in the idea, +and so operates that the opposing elements which are separated from the +idea become perfectly united in reality. By means of fancy, we are able +to understand things more lofty than those of common knowledge, and in +them we recognize the idea itself as real. In art, fancy is the faculty +of transforming the idea into reality." + +For Solger as for Schelling, beauty belongs to the region of Ideas, +which are inaccessible to common knowledge. Art is nearly allied to +religion, for as religion is the abyss of the idea, into which our +consciousness plunges, that it may become essential, so Art and the +Beautiful resolve, in their way, the world of distinctions, the +universal and the particular. Artistic activity is more than +theoretical: it is practical, realized and perfect, and therefore +belongs to practical, not to theoretic philosophy, as Kant wrongly +believed. Since art must touch infinity on one side, it cannot have +ordinary nature for its object. Art therefore _ceases_ in the portrait, +and this explains why the ancients generally chose Gods or Heroes as +models for sculpture. Every deity, even in a limited and particular +form, expresses a definite modification of the Idea. + +G.G.F. Hegel gives the same definition of art as Solger and Schelling, +All three were mystical aestheticians, and the various shades of +mystical Aesthetic, presented by these three writers, are not of great +interest. Schelling forced upon art the abstract Platonic ideas, while +Hegel reduced it to the _concrete idea_. This concrete idea was for +Hegel the first and lowest of the three forms of the liberty of the +spirit. It represented immediate, sensible, objectified knowledge; while +Religion filled the second place, as representative consciousness with +adoration, which is an element foreign to art alone. The third place was +of course occupied by Philosophy, the free thought of the absolute +spirit. Beauty and Truth are one for Hegel; they are united in the Idea. +The beautiful he defined as _the sensible appearance of the Idea_. + +Some writers have erroneously believed that the views of the three +philosophers above mentioned lead back to those of Baumgarten. But that +is not correct. They well understood that art cannot be made a medium +for the expression of philosophic concepts. Not only are they opposed to +the moralistic and intellectualistic view, but they are its active +opponents. Schelling says that aesthetic production is in its essence +absolutely free, and Hegel that art does not contain the universal as +such. + +Hegel accentuated the _cognoscitive_ character of art, more than any of +his predecessors. We have seen that he placed it with Philosophy and +Religion in the sphere of the absolute Spirit. But he does not allow +either to Art or to Religion any difference of function from that of +Philosophy, which occupies the highest place in his system. They are +therefore inferior, necessary, grades of the Spirit. Of what use are +they? Of none whatever, or at best, they merely represent transitory and +historical phases of human life. + +Thus we see that the tendency of Hegelianism is _anti-artistic_, as it +is rationalistic and anti-religious. + +This result of thought was a strange and a sad thing for one who loved +art so fervently as Hegel. Our memories conjure up Plato, who also loved +art well, and yet found himself logically obliged to banish the poet +from his ideal Republic, after crowning him with roses. But the German +philosopher was as staunch to the (supposed) command of reason as the +Greek, and felt himself obliged to announce the death of art. Art, he +says, occupies a lofty place in the human spirit, but not the most +lofty, for it is limited to a restricted content and only a certain +grade of truth can be expressed in art. Such are the Hellenic Gods, who +can be transfused in the sensible and appear in it adequately. The +Christian conception of truth is among those which cannot be so +expressed. The spirit of the modern world, and more precisely the spirit +of our religion and rational development, seem to have gone beyond the +point at which art is the chief way of apprehending the Absolute. The +peculiarity of artistic production no longer satisfies our highest +needs. Thought and reflexion have surpassed art, the beautiful. He goes +on to say that the reason generally given for this is the prevalence of +material and political interests. But the true reason is the inferiority +in degree of art as compared with pure thought. Art is dead, and +Philosophy can therefore supply its complete biography. + +Hegel's _Vorlesungen Über Aesthetik_ amounts therefore to a funeral +oration upon Art. + +Romanticism and metaphysical idealism had placed art, sometimes above +the clouds, sometimes within them, and believing that it was no good +there to anyone, Hegel provided a decent burial. + +Nothing perhaps better shows how well this fantastic conception of art +suited the spirit of the time, than the fact that even the adversaries +of Schelling, Solger, and Hegel either admit agreement with that +conception, or find themselves involuntarily in agreement with it, while +believing themselves to be very remote. They too are mystical +aestheticians. + +We all know with what virulence Arthur Schopenhauer attacked and +combated Schelling, Hegel, and all the "charlatans" and "professors" who +had divided among them the inheritance of Kant. + +Well, Schopenhauer's theory of art starts, just like Hegel's, from the +difference between the abstract and the concrete concept, which is the +_Idea_. Schopenhauer's ideas are the Platonic ideas, although in the +form which he gives to them, they have a nearer resemblance to the Ideas +of Schelling than to the Idea of Hegel. + +Schopenhauer takes much trouble to differentiate his ideas from +intellectual concepts. He calls the idea "unity which has become +plurality by means of space and time. It is the form of our intuitive +apperception. The concept is, on the contrary, unity extracted from +plurality by means of abstraction, which is an act of our intellect. The +concept may be called _unitas post rem_, the idea _unitas ante rem_." + +The origin of this psychological illusion of the ideas or types of +things is always to be found in the changing of the empirical +classifications created for their own purposes by the natural sciences, +into living realities. + +Thus each art has for its sphere a special category of ideas. +Architecture and its derivatives, gardening (and strange to say +landscape-painting is included with it), sculpture and animal-painting, +historical painting and the higher forms of sculpture, etc., all possess +their special ideas. Poetry's chief object is man as idea. Music, on the +contrary, does not belong to the hierarchy of the other arts. Schelling +had looked upon music as expressing the rhythm of the universe itself. +For Schopenhauer, music does not express ideas, but the _Will itself_. + +The analogies between music and the world, between fundamental notes and +crude matter, between the scale and the scale of species, between melody +and conscious will, lead Schopenhauer to the conclusion that music is +not only an arithmetic, as it appeared to Leibnitz, but indeed a +metaphysic: "the occult metaphysical exercise of a soul not knowing that +it philosophizes." + +For Schopenhauer, as for his idealist predecessors, art is beatific. It +is the flower of life; he who is plunged in artistic contemplation +ceases to be an individual; he is the conscious subject, pure, freed +from will, from pain, and from time. + +Yet in Schopenhauer's system exist elements for a better and a more +profound treatment of the problem of art. He could sometimes show +himself to be a lucid and acute analyst. For instance, he continually +remarks that the categories of space and time are not applicable to art, +_but only the general form of representation_. He might have deduced +from this that art is the most immediate, not the most lofty grade of +consciousness, since it precedes even the ordinary perceptions of space +and time. Vico had already observed that this freeing oneself from +ordinary perception, this dwelling in imagination, does not really mean +an ascent to the level of the Platonic Ideas, but, on the contrary, a +redescending to the sphere of immediate intuition, a return to +childhood. + +On the other hand, Schopenhauer had begun to submit the Kantian +categories to impartial criticism, and finding the two forms of +intuition insufficient, added a third, causality. + +He also drew comparisons between art and history, and was more +successful here than the idealist excogitators of a philosophy of +history. Schopenhauer rightly saw that history was irreducible to +concepts, that it is the contemplation of the individual, and therefore +not a science. Having proceeded thus far, he might have gone further, +and realized that the material of history is always the particular in +its particularity, that of art what is and always is identical. But he +preferred to execute a variation on the general motive that was in +fashion at this time. + +The fashion of the day! It rules in philosophy as elsewhere, and we are +now about to see the most rigid and arid of analysts, the leader of the +so-called _realist_ school, or school of _exact science_ in Germany in +the nineteenth century, plunge headlong into aesthetic mysticism. + +G.F. Herbart (1813) begins his Aesthetic by freeing it from the +discredit attaching to Metaphysic and to Psychology. He declares that +the only true way of understanding art is to study particular examples +of the beautiful and to note what they reveal as to its essence. + +We shall now see what came of Herbart's analysis of these examples of +beauty, and how far he succeeded in remaining free of Metaphysic. + +For Herbart, beauty consists of _relations_. The science of Aesthetic +consists of an enumeration of all the fundamental relations between +colours, lines, tones, thoughts, and will. But for him these relations +are not empirical or physiological. They cannot therefore be studied in +a laboratory, because thought and the will form part of them, and these +belong as much to Ethics as to the external world. But Herbart +explicitly states that no true beauty is sensible, although sensation +may and does often precede and follow the intuition of beauty. There is +a profound distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable or +pleasant: the latter does not require a representation, while the former +consists in representations of relations, which are immediately followed +by a judgment expressing unconditioned approval. Thus the merely +pleasurable becomes more and more indifferent, but the beautiful appears +always as of more and more permanent value. The judgment of taste is +universal, eternal, immutable. The complete representation of the same +relations always carries with it the same judgment. For Herbart, +aesthetic judgments are the general class containing the sub-class of +ethical judgments. The five ethical ideas, of internal liberty, of +perfection, of benevolence, of equity, and of justice, are five +aesthetic ideas; or better, they are aesthetic concepts applied to the +will in its relations. + +Herbart looked upon art as a complex fact, composed of an external +element possessing logical or psychological value, the content, and of a +true aesthetic element, which is the form. Entertainment, instruction, +and pleasure of all sorts are mingled with the beautiful, in order to +obtain favour for the work in question. The aesthetic judgment, calm and +serene in itself, may be accompanied by all sorts of psychic emotions, +foreign to it. But the content is always transitory, relative, subject +to moral laws, and judged by them. The form alone is perennial, +absolute, and free. The true catharsis can only be effected by +separating the form from the content. Concrete art may be the sum of two +values, _but the aesthetic fact is form alone_. + +For those capable of penetrating beneath appearances, the aesthetic +doctrines of Herbart and of Kant will appear very similar. Herbart is +notable as insisting, in the manner of Kant, on the distinction between +free and adherent beauty (or adornment as sensuous stimulant), on the +existence of pure beauty, object of necessary and universal judgments, +and on a certain mingling of ethical with his aesthetic theory. Herbart, +indeed, called himself "a Kantian, but of the year 1828." Kant's +aesthetic theory, though it be full of errors, yet is rich in fruitful +suggestions. Kant belongs to a period when philosophy is still young and +pliant. Herbart came later, and is dry and one-sided. The romantics and +the metaphysical idealists had unified the theory of the beautiful and +of art. Herbart restored the old duality and mechanism, and gave us an +absurd, unfruitful form of mysticism, void of all artistic inspiration. + +Herbart may be said to have taken all there was of false in the thought +of Kant and to have made it into a system. + +The beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany is notable for the +great number of philosophical theories and of counter-theories, broached +and rapidly discussed, before being discarded. None of the most +prominent names in the period belong to philosophers of first-rate +importance, though they made so much stir in their day. + +The thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher was obscured and misunderstood +amid those crowding mediocrities; yet it is perhaps the most interesting +and the most noteworthy of the period. + +Schleiermacher looked upon Aesthetic as an altogether modern form of +thought. He perceived a profound difference between the "Poetics" of +Aristotle, not yet freed from empirical precepts, and the tentative of +Baumgarten in the eighteenth century. He praised Kant as having been the +first to include Aesthetic among the philosophical disciplines. He +admitted that with Hegel it had attained to the highest pinnacle, being +connected with religion and with philosophy, and almost placed upon +their level. + +But he was dissatisfied with the absurdity of the attempt made by the +followers of Baumgarten to construct a science or theory of sensuous +pleasure. He disapproved of Kant's view of taste as being the principle +of Aesthetic, of Fichte's art as moral teaching, and of the vague +conception of the beautiful as the centre of Aesthetic. + +He approved of Schiller's marking of the moment of spontaneity in +productive art, and he praised Schelling for having drawn attention to +the figurative arts, as being less liable than poetry to be diverted to +false and illusory moralistic ends. Before he begins the study of the +place due to the artistic activity in Ethic, he carefully excludes from +the study of Aesthetic all practical rules (which, being empirical, are +incapable of scientific demonstration). + +For Schleiermacher, the sphere of Ethic included the whole Philosophy of +the Spirit, in addition to morality. These are the two forms of human +activity--that which, like Logic, is the same in all men, and is called +activity of identity, and the activity of difference or individuality. +There are activities which, like art, are internal or immanent and +individual, and others which are external or practical. _The true work +of art is the internal picture_. Measure is what differentiates the +artist's portrayal of anger on the stage and the anger of a really angry +man. Truth is not sought in poetry, or if it be sought there, it is +truth of an altogether different kind. The truth of poetry lies in +coherent presentation. Likeness to a model does not compose the merit of +a picture. Not the smallest amount of knowledge comes from art, which +expresses only the truth of a particular consciousness. Art has for its +field the immediate consciousness of self, which must be carefully +distinguished from the thought of the Ego. This last is the +consciousness of identity in the diversity of moments as they pass; the +immediate consciousness of self is the diversity itself of the moments, +of which we should be aware, for life is nothing but the development of +consciousness. In this field, art has sometimes been confused with two +facts which accompany it there: these are sentient consciousness (that +is, the feelings of pleasure and of pain) and religion. Schleiermacher +here alludes to the sensualistic aestheticians of the eighteenth +century, and to Hegel, who had almost identified art and religion. He +refutes both points of view by pointing out that sentient pleasure and +religious sentiment, however different they may be from other points of +view, are yet both determined by an objective fact; while art, on the +contrary, is free productivity. + +Dream is the best parallel and proof of this free productivity. All the +essential elements of art are found in dream, which is the result of +free thoughts and of sensible intuitions, consisting simply of images. +But dream, as compared with art, is chaotic: when measure and order is +established in dream, it becomes art. Thoughts and images are alike +essential to art, and to both is necessary ponderation, reflexion, +measure, and unity, because otherwise every image would be confused with +every other image. Thus the moments of inspiration and of ponderation +are both necessary to art. + +Schleiermacher's thought, so firm and lucid up to this point, begins to +become less secure, with the discussion of typicity and of the extent to +which the artist should follow Nature. He says that ideal figures, which +Nature would give, were she not impeded by external obstacles, are the +products of art. He notes that when the artist represents something +really given, such as a portrait or a landscape, he renounces freedom of +production and adheres to the real. In the artist is a double tendency, +toward the perfection of the type and toward the representation of +natural reality. He should not fall into the abstraction of the type, +nor into the insignificance of empirical reality. Schleiermacher feels +all the difficulty of such a problem as whether there be one or several +ideals of the human figure. This problem may be transferred to the +sphere of art, and we may ask whether the poet is to represent only the +ideal, or whether he should also deal with those obstacles to it that +impede Nature in her efforts to attain. Both views contain half the +truth. To art belongs the representation of the ideal as of the real, of +the subjective and of the objective alike. The representation of the +comic, that is of the anti-ideal and of the imperfect ideal, belongs to +the domain of art. For the human form, both morally and physically, +oscillates between the ideal and caricature. + +He arrives at a most important definition as to the independence of art +in respect to morality. The nature of art, as of philosophic +speculation, excludes moral and practical effects. Therefore, _there is +no other difference between works of art than their respective artistic +perfection (Vollkommenheit in der Kunst)_. If we could correctly +predicate volitional acts in respect of works of art, then we should +find ourselves admiring only those works which stimulated the will, and +there would thus be established a difference of valuation, independent +of artistic perfection. The true work of art depends upon the degree of +perfection with which the external in it agrees with the internal. + +Schleiermacher rightly combats Schiller's view that art is in any sense +a game. That, he says, is the view held by mere men of business, to whom +business alone is serious. But artistic activity is universal, and a man +completely deprived of it unthinkable, although the difference here +between man and man, is gigantic, ranging from the simple desire to +taste of art to the effective tasting of it, and from this, by infinite +gradations, to productive genius. + +The regrettable fact that Schleiermacher's thought has reached us only +in an imperfect form, may account for certain of its defects, such as +his failure to eliminate aesthetic classes and types, his retention of a +certain residue of abstract formalism, his definition of art as the +activity of difference. Had he better defined the moment of artistic +reproduction, realized the possibility of tasting the art of various +times and of other nations, and examined the true relation of art to +science, he would have seen that this difference is merely empirical and +to be surmounted. He failed also to recognize the identity of the +aesthetic activity, with language as the base of all other theoretic +activity. + +But Schleiermacher's merits far outweigh these defects. He removed from +Aesthetic its _imperativistic_ character; he distinguished _a form of +thought_ different from logical thought. He attributed to our science a +_non-metaphysical, anthropological_ character. He _denied_ the concept +of the beautiful, substituting for it _artistic perfection_, and +maintaining the aesthetic equality of a small with a great work of art, +he looked upon the aesthetic fact as an exclusively _human +productivity_. + +Thus Schleiermacher, the theologian, in this period of metaphysical +orgy, of rapidly constructed and as rapidly destroyed systems, +perceived, with the greatest philosophical acumen, what is really +characteristic of art, and distinguished its properties and relations. +Even where he fails to see clearly his way, he never abandons analysis +for mere guess-work. + +Schleiermacher, thus exploring the obscure region of the _immediate +consciousness_, or of the aesthetic fact, can almost be heard crying out +to his straying contemporaries: _Hic Rhodus, hi salta_! + +Speculation upon the origin and nature of language was rife at this time +in Germany. Many theories were put forward, among the most curious being +that of Schelling, who held language and mythology to be the product of +a pre-human consciousness, allegorically expressed as the diabolic +suggestions which had precipitated the Ego from the infinite to the +finite. + +Even Wilhelm von Humboldt was unable to free himself altogether from the +intellectualistic prejudice of the substantial identity and the merely +historical and accidental diversity of logical thought and language. He +speaks of a _perfect_ language, broken up and diminished with the lesser +capacities of lesser peoples. He believed that language is something +standing outside the individual, independent of him, and capable of +being revived by use. But there were two men in Humboldt, an old man and +a young one. The latter was always suggesting that language should be +looked upon as a living, not as a dead thing, as an activity, not as a +word. This duality of thought sometimes makes his writing difficult and +obscure. Although he speaks of an internal form of speech, he fails to +identify this with art as expression. The reason is that he looks upon +the word in too unilateral a manner, as a means of developing logical +thought, and his ideas of Aesthetic are too vague and too inexact to +enable him to discover their identity. Despite his perception of the +profound truth that poetry precedes prose, Humboldt gives grounds for +doubt as to whether he had clearly recognized and firmly grasped the +fact that language is always poetry, and that prose (science) is a +distinction, not of aesthetic form, but of content, that is, of logical +form. + +Steinthal, the greatest follower of Humboldt, solved his master's +contradictions, and in 1855 sustained successfully against the Hegelian +Becker the thesis that words are necessary for thought. He pointed to +the deaf-mute with his signs, to the mathematician with his formulae, to +the Chinese language, where the figurative portion is an essential of +speech, and declared that Becker was wrong in believing that the +Sanskrit language was derived from twelve cardinal concepts. He showed +effectively that the concept and the word, the logical judgment and the +proposition, are not comparable. The proposition is not a judgment, but +the representation of a judgment; and all propositions do not represent +logical judgments. Several judgments can be expressed with one +proposition. The logical divisions of judgments (the relations of +concepts) have no correspondence in the grammatical division of +propositions. "If we speak of a logical form of the proposition, we fall +into a contradiction in terms not less complete than his who should +speak of the angle of a circle, or of the periphery of a triangle." He +who speaks, in so far as he speaks, has not thoughts, but language. + +When Steinthal had several times solemnly proclaimed the independence of +language as regards Logic, and that it produces its forms in complete +autonomy, he proceeded to seek the origin of language, recognizing with +Humboldt that the question of Its origin is the same as that of its +nature. Language, he said, belongs to the great class of reflex +movements, but this only shows one side of it, not its true nature. +Animals, like men, have reflex actions and sensations, though nature +enters the animal by force, takes it by assault, conquers and enslaves +it. With man is born language, because he is resistance to nature, +governance of his own body, and liberty. "Language is liberation; even +to-day we feel that our soul becomes lighter, and frees itself from a +weight, when we speak." Man, before he attains to speech, must be +conceived of as accompanying all his sensations with bodily movements, +mimetic attitudes, gestures, and particularly with articulate sounds. +What is still lacking to him, that he may attain to speech? The +connexion between the reflex movements of the body and the state of the +soul. If his sentient consciousness be already consciousness, then he +lacks the consciousness of consciousness; if it be already intuition, +then he lacks the intuition of intuition. In sum, he lacks the _internal +form of language_. With this comes speech, which forms the connexion. +Man does not choose the sound of his speech. This is given to him and he +adopts it instinctively. + +When we have accorded to Steinthal the great merit of having rendered +coherent the ideas of Humboldt, and of having clearly separated +linguistic from logical thought, we must note that he too failed to +perceive the _identity_ of the internal form of language, or "intuition +of the intuition," as he called it, with the aesthetic _imagination_. +Herbart's psychology, to which Steinthal adhered, did not afford him any +means for this identification. Herbart separated logic from psychology, +calling it a normative science; he failed to discern the exact limits +between feeling and spiritual formation, psyche or soul, and spirit, and +to see that one of these spiritual formations is logical thought or +activity, which is not a code of laws imposed from without. For Herbart, +Aesthetic, as we know, was a code of beautiful formal relations. Thus +Steinthal, following Herbart in psychology, was bound to look upon Art +as a beautifying of thought, Linguistic as the science of speech, +Rhetoric and Aesthetic as the science of beautiful speech. + +Steinthal never realized that to speak is to speak well or beautifully, +under penalty of _not_ speaking, and that the revolution which he and +Humboldt had effected in the conception of language must inevitably +react upon and transform Poetic, Rhetoric, and Aesthetic. + +Thus, despite so many efforts of conscientious analysis on the part of +Humboldt and of Steinthal, the unity of language and of poetry, and the +identification of the science of language and the science of poetry +still found its least imperfect expression in the prophetic aphorisms of +Vico. + +The philosophical movement in Germany from the last quarter of the +eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth, notwithstanding +its many errors, is yet so notable and so imposing with the philosophers +already considered, as to merit the first place in the European thought +of that period. This is even more the case as regards Aesthetic than as +regards philosophy in general. + +France was the prey of Condillac's sensualism, and therefore incapable +of duly appreciating the spiritual activity of art. We hardly get a +glimpse of Winckelmann's transcendental spiritualism in Quatremère de +Quincy, and the frigid academics of Victor Cousin were easily surpassed +by Theodore Jouffroy, though he too failed of isolating the aesthetic +fact. French Romanticism defined literature as "the expression of +society," admired under German influence the grotesque and the +characteristic, declared the independence of art in the formula of "art +for art's sake," but did not succeed in surpassing philosophically the +old doctrine of the "imitation of nature." F. Schlegel and Solger indeed +were largely responsible for the Romantic movement in France--Schlegel +with his belief in the characteristic or _interesting_ as the principle +of modern art, which led him to admire the cruel and the ugly; Solger +with his dialectic arrangement, whereby the finite or terrestrial +element is absorbed and annihilated in the divine and thus becomes the +tragic, or _vice versa_, and the result is the comic. Rosenkranz +published in Königsberg an Aesthetic of the Ugly, and the works of +Vischer and Zeising abound in subtleties relating to the Idea and to its +expression in the beautiful and sublime. These writers conceived of the +Idea as the Knight Purebeautiful, constrained to abandon his tranquil +ease through the machinations of the Ugly; the Ugly leads him into all +sorts of disagreeable adventures, from all of which he eventually +emerges victorious. The Sublime, the Comic, the Humorous, and so on, are +his Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. Another version of their knight's +adventures might be described as his conquest by his enemies, but at the +moment of conquest he transforms and irradiates his conquerors. To such +a mediocre and artificial mythology led the much-elaborated theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. + +In England, the associationist psychology continued to hold sway, and +showed, with Dugald Stewart's miserable attempt at establishing two +forms of association, its incapacity to rise to the conception of the +imagination. With the poet Coleridge, England also showed the influence +of German thought, and Coleridge elaborated with Wordsworth a more +correct conception of poetry and of its difference from science. But the +most notable contribution in English at that period came from another +poet, P.B. Shelley, whose _Defence of Poetry_ contains profound, though +unsystematic views, as to the distinction between reason and +imagination, prose and poetry, on primitive language, and on the poetic +power of objectification. + +In Italy, Francesco de Sanctis gave magnificent expression to the +independence of art. He taught literature in Naples from 1838 to 1848, +in Turin and Zurich from 1850 to 1860, and after 1870 he was a professor +in the University of Naples. His _Storia della letteratura italiana_ is +a classic, and in it and in monographs on individual writers he exposed +his doctrines. + +Prompted by a natural love of speculation, he began to examine the old +grammarians and rhetoricians, with a view to systematize them. But very +soon he proceeded to criticize and to surpass their theories. The cold +rules of reason did not find favour with him, and he advised young men +to go direct to the original works. + +The philosophy of Hegel began to penetrate Italy, and the study of Vico +was again taken up. De Sanctis translated the _Logic_ of Hegel in +prison, where the Bourbon Government had thrown him for his liberalism. +Benard had begun his translation of the _Aesthetic_ of Hegel, and so +completely in harmony was De Sanctis with the thought of this master, +that he is said to have guessed from a study of the first volume what +the unpublished volumes must contain, and to have lectured upon them to +his pupils. Traces of mystical idealism and of Hegelianism persist even +in his later works, and the distinction, which he always maintained, +between imagination and fancy certainly came to him from Hegel and +Schelling. He held fancy alone to be the true poetic faculty. + +De Sanctis absorbed all the juice of Hegel, but rejected the husks of +his pedantry, of his formalism, of his apriority. + +Fancy for De Sanctis was not the mystical transcendental apperception of +the German philosophers, but simply the faculty of poetic synthesis and +creation, opposed to the imagination, which reunites details and always +has something mechanical about it. Faith and poetry, he used to say, are +not dead, but transformed. His criticism of Hegel amounted in many +places to the correction of Hegel; and as regards Vico, he is careful to +point out, that when, in dealing with the Homeric poems, Vico talks of +generic types, he is no longer the critic of art, but the historian of +civilization. De Sanctis saw that, _artistically_, Achilles must always +be Achilles, never a force or an abstraction. + +Thus De Sanctis succeeded in keeping himself free from the Hegelian +domination, at a moment when Hegel was the acknowledged master of +speculation. + +But his criticism extended also to other German aestheticians. By a +curious accident, he found himself at Zurich in the company of Theodore +Vischer, that ponderous Hegelian, who laughed disdainfully at the +mention of poetry, of music, and of the decadent Italian race. De +Sanctis laughed at Vischer's laughter. Wagner appeared to him a +corrupter of music, and "nothing in the world more unaesthetic than the +Aesthetic of Theodore Vischer." His lectures on Ariosto and Petrarch, +before an international public at Zurich, were delivered with the desire +of correcting the errors of these and of other German philosophers and +learned men. He gave his celebrated definitions of French and German +critics. The French critic does not indulge in theories: one feels +warmth of impression and sagacity of observation in his argument. He +never leaves the concrete; he divines the quality of the writer's genius +and the quality of his work, and studies the man, in order to understand +the writer. His great fault is shown in substituting for criticism of +the actual art work a historical criticism of the author and of his +time. For the German, on the other hand, there is nothing so simple that +he does not contrive to distort and to confuse it. He collects shadows +around him, from which shoot vivid rays. He laboriously brings to birth +that morsel of truth which he has within him. He would seize and define +what is most fugitive and impalpable in a work of art. Although nobody +talks so much of life as he does, yet no one so much delights in +decomposing and generalizing it. Having thus destroyed the particular, +he is able to show you as the result of this process, final in +appearance, but in reality preconceived and apriorist, one measurement +for all feet, one garment for all bodies. + +About this time he studied Schopenhauer, who was then becoming the +fashion. Schopenhauer said of this criticism of De Sanctis: "That +Italian has absorbed me _in succum et sanguinem_." What weight did he +attach to Schopenhauer's much-vaunted writings on art? Having exposed +the theory of Ideas, he barely refers to the third volume, "which +contains an exaggerated theory of Aesthetic." + +In his criticism of Petrarch, De Sanctis finally broke with metaphysical +Aesthetic, saying of Hegel's school that it believed the beautiful to +become art when it surpassed form and revealed the concept or pure idea. +This theory and the subtleties derived from it, far from characterizing +art, represent its contrary: the impotent velleity for art, which cannot +slay abstractions and come in contact with life. + +De Sanctis held that outside the domain of art all Is shapeless. The +ugly is of the domain of art, if art give it form. Is there anything +more beautiful than Iago? If he be looked upon merely as a contrast to +Othello, then we are in the position of those who looked upon the stars +as placed where they are to serve as candles for the earth. + +Form was for De Sanctis the word which should be inscribed over the +entrance to the Temple of Art. In the work of art are form and content, +but the latter is no longer chaotic: the artist has given to it a new +value, has enriched it with the gift of his own personality. But if the +content has not been assimilated and made his own by the artist, then +the work lacks generative power: it is of no value as art or literature, +though as history or scientific document its value may be great. The +Gods of Homer's _Iliad_ are dead, but the _Iliad_ remains. Guelf and +Ghibelline have disappeared from Italy: not so the _Divine Comedy_, +which is as vigorous to-day as when Dante first took pen in hand. Thus +De Sanctis held firmly to the independence of art, but he did not accept +the formula of "art for art's sake," in so far as it meant separation of +the artist from life, mutilation of the content, art reduced to mere +dexterity. + +For De Sanctis, form was identical with imagination, with the artist's +power of expressing or representing his artistic vision. This much must +be admitted by his critics. But he never attained to a clear definition +of art. His theory of Aesthetic always remained a sketch: wonderful +indeed, but not clearly developed and deduced. The reason for this was +De Sanctis' love of the concrete. No sooner had he attained from general +ideas a sufficient clarity of vision for his own purposes, than he +plunged again into the concrete and particular. He did not confine his +activity to literature, but was active also in politics and in the +prosecution and encouragement of historical studies. + +As a critic of literature, De Sanctis is far superior to Sainte-Beuve, +Lessing, Macaulay, or Taine. Flaubert's genial intuition adumbrated what +De Sanctis achieved. In one of his letters to Georges Sand, Flaubert +speaks of the lack of an _artistic_ critic. "In Laharpe's time, +criticism was grammatical; in the time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, it +is historical. They analyse with great subtlety the historical +environment in which the work appeared and the causes which have +produced it. But the _unconscious_ element In poetry? Whence does It +come? And composition? And style? And the point of view of the author? +Of all that they never speak. For such a critic, great imagination and +great goodness are necessary. I mean an ever-ready faculty of +enthusiasm, and then _taste_, a quality so rare, even among the best, +that it is never mentioned." + +De Sanctis alone fulfilled the conditions of Flaubert, and Italy has in +his writings a looking-glass for her literature unequalled by any other +country. + +But with De Sanctis, the philosopher of art, the aesthetician, is not so +great as the critic of literature. The one is accessory to the other, +and his use of aesthetic terminology is so inconstant that a lack of +clearness of thought might be found in his work by anyone who had not +studied it with care. But his want of system is more than compensated by +his vitality, by his constant citation of actual works, and by his +intuition of the truth, which never abandoned him. His writings bear the +further charm of suggesting new kingdoms to conquer, new mines of +richness to explore. + +While the cry of "Down with Metaphysic" was resounding in Germany, and a +furious reaction had set in against the sort of Walpurgisnacht to which +the later Hegelians had reduced science and history, the pupils of +Herbart came forward and with an insinuating air they seemed to say: +"What is this? Why, it is a rebellion against Metaphysic, the very thing +our master wished for and tried to achieve, half a century ago! But here +we are, his heirs and successors, and we want to be your allies! An +understanding between us will be easy. Our Metaphysic is in agreement +with the atomic theory, our Psychology with mechanicism, our Ethic and +Aesthetic with hedonism." Herbart, who died in 1841, would probably have +disdained and rejected his followers, who thus courted popularity and +cheapened Metaphysic, putting a literal interpretation on his realities, +his ideas and representations, and upon all his most lofty +excogitations. + +The protagonist of these neo-Herbartians was Robert Zimmermann. He +constructed his system of Aesthetic out of Herbart, whom he perverted to +his own uses, and even employed the much-abused Hegelian dialectic in +order to introduce modifications of the beautiful into pure beauty. The +beautiful, he said, is a model which possesses greatness, fulness, +order, correction, and definite compensation. Beauty appears to us in a +characteristic form, as a copy of this model. + +Vischer, against whom was directed this work of Zimmermann, found it +easy to reply. He ridiculed Zimmermann's meaning of the symbol as the +object around which are clustered beautiful forms. "Does an artist paint +a fox, simply that he may depict an object of animal nature. No, no, my +dear sir, far from it. This fox is a symbol, because the painter here +employs lines and colours, in order to express something different from +lines and colours. 'You think I am a fox,' cries the painted animal. +'You are mightily mistaken; I am, on the contrary, a portmanteau, an +exhibition by the painter of red, white, grey, and yellow tints.'" +Vischer also made fun of Zimmermann's enthusiasm for the aesthetic value +of the sense of touch. "What joy it must be to touch the back of the +bust of Hercules in repose! To stroke the sinuous limbs of the Venus of +Milo or of the Faun of Barberini must give a pleasure to the hand equal +to that of the ear as it listens to the puissant fugues of Bach or to +the suave melodies of Mozart." Vischer defined the formal Aesthetic of +Zimmermann as a queer mixture of mysticism and mathematic. + +Lotze, in common with the great majority of thinkers, was dissatisfied +with Zimmermann, but could only oppose his formalism with a variety of +the old mystical Aesthetic. Who, he asked, could believe that the human +form pleases only by its external proportions, regardless of the spirit +within. Art, like beauty, should "enclose the world of values in the +world of forms." This struggle between the Aesthetic of the content and +the Aesthetic of the form attained its greatest height in Germany +between 1860 and 1870, with Zimmermann, Vischer, and Lotze as +protagonists. + +These writers were followed by J. Schmidt, who in 1875 ventured to say +that both Lotze and Zimmermann had failed to see that the problem of +Aesthetic concerned, not the beauty or ugliness of the content or of the +form as mathematical relations, but their representation; Köstlin, who +erected an immense artificial structure with the materials of his +predecessors modified; Schasler, who is interesting as having converted +the old Vischer to his thesis of the importance of the Ugly, as +introducing modifications into the beautiful and being the principle of +movement there. Vischer confesses that at one time he had followed the +Hegelian method and believed that in the essence of beauty is born a +disquietude, a fermentation, a struggle: the Idea conquers, hurls the +image into the unlimited, and the Sublime is born; but the image, +offended in its finitude, declares war upon the Idea, and the Comic +appears. Thus the fight is finished and the Beautiful returns to itself, +as the result of these struggles. But now, he says, Schasler has +persuaded him that the Ugly is the leaven which is necessary to all the +special forms of the Beautiful. + +E. von Hartmann is in close relation with Schasler. His Aesthetic (1890) +also makes great use of the Ugly. Since he insists upon appearance as a +necessary characteristic of the beautiful, he considers himself +justified in calling his theory concrete idealism. Hartmann considers +himself in opposition to the formalism of Herbart, inasmuch as he +insists upon the idea as an indispensable and determining element of +beauty. Beauty, he says, is truth, but it is not historical truth, nor +scientific nor reflective truth: it is metaphysical and ideal. "Beauty +is the prophet of idealistic truth in an age without faith, hating +Metaphysic, and acknowledging only realistic truth." Aesthetic truth is +without method and without control: it leaps at once from the subjective +appearance to the essence of the ideal. But in compensation for this, it +possesses the fascination of conviction, which immediate intuition alone +possesses. The higher Philosophy rises, the less need has she of passing +through the world of the senses and of science: she approaches ever more +nearly to art. Thus Philosophy starts on the voyage to the ideal, like +Baedeker's traveller, "without too much baggage." In the Beautiful is +immanent logicity, the microcosmic idea, the unconscious. By means of +the unconscious, the process of intellectual intuition takes place in +it. The Beautiful is a mystery, because its root is in the Unconscious. + +No philosopher has ever made so great a use of the Ugly as Hartmann. He +divides Beauty into grades, of which the one below is ugly as compared +with that above it. He begins with the mathematical, superior to the +sensibly agreeable, which is unconscious. Thence to formal beauty of the +second order, the dynamically agreeable, to formal beauty of the third +order, the passive teleological; to this degree belong utensils, and +language, which in Hartmann's view is a dead thing, inspired with +seeming life, only at the moment of use. Such things did the philosopher +of the Unconscious dare to print in the country of a Humboldt during the +lifetime of a Steinthal! He proceeds in his list of things beautiful, +with formal beauty of the fourth degree, which is the active or living +teleological, with the fifth, which is that of species. Finally he +reaches concrete beauty, or the individual microcosm, the highest of +all, because the individual idea is superior to the specific, and is +beauty, no longer formal, but of content. + +All these degrees of beauty are, as has been said, connected with one +another by means of the ugly, and even in the highest degree, which has +nothing superior to it, the ugly continues its office of beneficent +titillation. The outcome of this ultimate phase is the famous theory of +the Modifications of the Beautiful. None of these modifications can +occur without a struggle, save the sublime and the graceful, which +appear without conflict at the side of supreme beauty. Hartmann gives +four instances: the solution is either immanent, logical, +transcendental, or combined. The idyllic, the melancholy, the sad, the +glad, the elegiac, are instances of the immanent solution; the comic in +all its forms is the logical solution; the tragic is the transcendental +solution; the combined form is found in the humorous, the tragi-comic. +When none of these solutions is possible, we have the ugly; and when an +ugliness of content is expressed by a formal ugliness, we have the +maximum of ugliness, the true aesthetic devil. + +Hartmann is the last noteworthy representative of the German +metaphysical school. His works are gigantic in size and appear +formidable. But if one be not afraid of giants and venture to approach +near, one finds nothing but a big Morgante, full of the most commonplace +prejudices, quite easily killed with the bite of a crab! + +During this period, Aesthetic had few representatives in other +countries. The famous conference of the Academy of Moral and Political +Sciences, held in Paris in 1857, gave to the world the "Science du Beau" +of Lévèque. No one is interested in it now, but it is amusing to note +that Lévèque announced himself to be a disciple of Plato, and went on to +attribute eight characteristics to the beautiful. These he discovered by +closely examining the lily! No wonder he was crowned with laurels! He +proved his wonderful theory by instancing a child playing with its +mother, a symphony of Beethoven, and the life of Socrates! One of his +colleagues, who could not resist making fun of his learned friend, +remarked that he would be glad to know what part was played in the life +of a philosopher by the normal vivacity of colour! + +Thus German theory made no way in France, and England proved even more +refractory. + +J. Ruskin showed a poverty, an incoherence, and a lack of system in +respect to Aesthetic, which puts him almost out of court. His was the +very reverse of the philosophic temperament. His pages of brilliant +prose contain his own dreams and caprices. They are the work of an +artist and should be enjoyed as such, being without any value for +philosophy. His theoretic faculty of the beautiful, which he held to be +distinct alike from the intelligence and from feeling, is connected with +his belief in beauty as a revelation of the divine intentions, "the seal +which God sets upon his works." Thus the natural beauty, which is +perceived by the pure heart, when contemplating some object untouched by +the hand of man, is far superior to the work of the artist. Ruskin was +too little capable of analysis to understand the complicated +psychologico-aesthetic process taking place within him, as he +contemplated some streamlet, or the nest of some small bird. + +At Naples flourished between 1861 and 1884 Antonio Tari, who kept +himself in touch with the movement of German thought, and followed the +German idealists in placing Aesthetic in a sort of middle kingdom, a +temperate zone, between the glacial, inhabited by the Esquimaux of +thought, and the torrid, dwelt in by the giants of action. He dethroned +the Beautiful, and put Aesthetic in its place, for the Beautiful is but +the first moment; the later ones are the Comic, the Humorous, and the +Dramatic. His fertile imagination found metaphors and similes in +everything: for instance, he called the goat the Devil, opposed to the +lamb, Jesus. His remarks on men and women are full of quaint fancies. He +granted to women grace, but not beauty, which resides in equilibrium. +This is proved by her falling down so easily when she walks; by her bow +legs, which have to support her wide hips, made for gestation; by her +narrow shoulders, and her opulent breast. She is therefore a creature +altogether devoid of equilibrium! + +I wish that it were possible to record more of the sayings of the +excellent Tari, "the last joyous priest of an arbitrary Aesthetic, +source of confusion." + +The ground lost to the German school of metaphysicians was occupied +during the second half of the nineteenth century by the evolutionary and +positivist metaphysicians, of whom Herbert Spencer is the most notable +representative. The peculiarity of this school lies in repeating at +second or third hand certain idealist views, deprived of the element of +pure philosophy, given to them by a Schelling or a Hegel, and in +substituting a quantity of minute facts and anecdotes, with a view to +providing the positivist varnish. These theories are dear to vulgar +minds, because they correspond to inveterate religious beliefs, and the +lustre of the varnish explains the good fortune of Spencerian positivism +in our time. Another notable trait of this school is its barbaric +contempt for history, especially for the history of philosophy, and its +consequent lack of all link with the series composed of the secular +efforts of so many thinkers. Without this link, there can be no fruitful +labour and no possibility of progress. + +Spencer is colossal in his ignorance of all that has been written or +thought on the subject of Aesthetic (to limit ourselves to this branch +alone). He actually begins his work on the Philosophy of Style with +these words: "No one, I believe, has ever produced a complete theory of +the art of writing." This in 1852! He begins his chapter on aesthetic +feelings in the _Principles of Psychology_ by admitting that he has +heard of the observation made by a German author, whose name he forgets +(Schiller!), on the connexion between art and play. Had Spencer's +remarks on Aesthetic been written in the eighteenth century, they might +have occupied a humble place among the first rude attempts at aesthetic +speculation, but appearing in the nineteenth century, they are without +value, as the little of value they contain had been long said by others. + +In his _Principles of Psychology_ Spencer looks upon aesthetic feelings +as arising from the discharge of the exuberant energy of the organism. +This he divides into degrees, and believes that we attain complete +enjoyment when these degrees are all working satisfactorily each on its +own plane, and when what is painful in excessive activity has been +avoided. His degrees are sensation, sensation accompanied by +representative elements, perception accompanied by more complex elements +of representation, then emotion, and that state of consciousness which +surpasses sensations and perceptions. But Spencer has no suspicion of +what art really is. His views oscillate between sensualism and moralism, +and he sees little in the whole art of antiquity, of the Middle Ages, or +of modern times, which can be looked upon as otherwise than imperfect! + +The Physiology of Aesthetics has also had its votaries in Great Britain, +among whom may be mentioned J. Sully, A. Bain, and Allen. These at any +rate show some knowledge of the concrete fact of art. Allen harks back +to the old distinction between necessary and vital activities and +superfluous activities, and gives a physiological definition, which may +be read in his _Physiological Aesthetics_. More recent writers also look +upon the physiological fact as the cause of the pleasure of art; but for +them it does not alone depend upon the visual organ, and the muscular +phenomena associated with it, but also on the participation of some of +the most important bodily functions, such as respiration, circulation, +equilibrium, intimate muscular accommodation. They believe that art owes +its origin to the pleasure that some prehistoric man must have +experienced in breathing regularly, without having to re-adapt his +organs, when he traced for the first time on a bone or on clay regular +lines separated by regular intervals. + +A similar order of physico-aesthetic researches has been made in +Germany, under the auspices of Helmholtz, Brücke, and Stumpf. But these +writers have succeeded better than the above-mentioned, by restricting +themselves to the fields of optic and acoustic, and have supplied +information as to the physical processes of artistic technique and as to +the pleasure of visual and auditive impressions, without attempting to +melt Aesthetic into Physic, or to deprive the former of its spiritual +character. They have even occasionally indicated the difference between +the two kinds of research. Even the degenerate Herbartians, converting +the metaphysical forms of their master into physiological phenomena, +made soft eyes at the new sensualists and aesthetico-physiologists. + +The Natural Sciences have become in our day a sort of superstition, +allied to a certain, perhaps unconscious, hypocrisy. Not only have +chemical, physical, and physiological laboratories become a sort of +Sibylline grots, where resound the most extraordinary questions about +everything that can interest the spirit of man, but even those who +really do prosecute their researches with the old inevitable method of +internal observation, have been unable to free themselves from the +illusion that they are, on the contrary, employing _the method of the +natural sciences_. + +Hippolyte Taine's Philosophy of Art represents such an illusion. He +declares that when we have studied the diverse manifestations of art in +all peoples and at all epochs, we shall then possess a complete +Aesthetic. Such an Aesthetic would be a sort of Botany applied to the +works of man. This mode of study would provide moral science with a +basis equally as sure as that which the natural sciences already +possess. Taine then proceeds to define art without regard to the natural +sciences, by analysing, like a simple mortal, what passes in the human +soul when brought face to face with a work of art. But what analysis and +what definitions! + +Art, he says, is imitation, but of a sort that tries to express an +essential characteristic. Thus the principal characteristic of a lion is +to be "a great carnivore," and we observe this characteristic in all its +limbs. Holland has for essential characteristic that of being a land +formed of alluvial soil. + +Now without staying to consider these two remarkable instances, let us +ask, what is this essential characteristic of Taine? It is the same as +the ideas, types, or concepts that the old aesthetic teaching assigned +to art as its object. Taine himself removes all doubt as to this, by +saying that this characteristic is what philosophers call the essence of +things, and for that reason they declare that the purpose of art is to +manifest things. He declares that he will not employ the word essence, +which is technical. But he accepts and employs the thought that the word +expresses. He believes that there are two routes by which man can attain +to the superior life: science and art. By the first, he apprehends +fundamental laws and causes, and expresses them in abstract terms; by +the second, he expresses these same laws and causes in a manner +comprehensible to all, by appealing to the heart and feeling, as well as +to the reason of man. Art is both superior and popular; it makes +manifest what is highest, and makes it manifest to all. + +That Taine here falls into the old pedagogic theory of Aesthetic is +evident. Works of art are arranged for him in a scale of values, as for +the aesthetic metaphysicians. He began by declaring the absurdity of all +judgment of taste, "à chacun son goût," but he ends by declaring that +personal taste is without value, that we must establish a common measure +before proceeding to praise or blame. His scale of values is double or +triple. We must first fix the degree of importance of the +characteristic, that is, the greater or less generality of the idea, and +the degree of good in it, that is to say, its greater or lesser moral +value. These, he says, are two degrees of the same thing, strength, seen +from different sides. We must also establish the degree of convergence +of the effects, that is, the fulness of expression, the harmony between +the idea and the form. + +This half-moral, half-metaphysical exposition is accompanied with the +usual protestations, that the matter in hand is to be studied +methodically, analytically, as the naturalist would study it, that he +will try to reach "a law, not a hymn." As if these protestations could +abolish the true nature of his thought! Taine actually went so far as to +attempt dialectic solutions of works of art! "In the primitive period of +Italian art, we find the soul without the body: Giotto. At the +Renaissance, with Verrocchio and his school, we find the body without +the soul. With Raphael, in the sixteenth century, we find expression and +anatomy in harmony: body and soul." Thesis, antithesis, synthesis! + +With G.T. Fechner we find the like protestations and the like +procedure. He will study Aesthetic inductively, from beneath. He seeks +clarity, not loftiness. Proceeding thus inductively, he discovers a long +series of laws or principles of Aesthetic, such as unity in variety, +association and contrast, change and persistence, the golden mean, etc. +He exhibits this chaos with delight at showing himself so much of a +physiologist, and so inconclusive. Then he proceeds to describe his +experiments in Aesthetics. These consist of attempts to decide, for +instance, by methods of choice, which of certain rectangles of cardboard +is the most agreeable, and which the most disagreeable, to a large +number of people arbitrarily chosen. Naturally, these results do not +agree with others obtained on other occasions, but Fechner knows that +errors correct themselves, and triumphantly publishes long lists of +these valuable experiments. He also communicates to us the shapes and +measurements of a large number of pictures in museums, as compared with +their respective subjects! Such are the experiments of physiological +aestheticians. + +But Fechner, when he comes to define what beauty and what art really +are, is, like everyone else, obliged to fall back upon introspection. +But his definition is trivial, and his comparison of his three degrees +of beauty to a family is simply grotesque in its _naïveté_. He terms +this theory the eudemonistic theory, and we are left wondering why, when +he had this theory all cut and dried in his mind, he should all the same +give himself the immense trouble of compiling his tables and of +enumerating his laws and principles, which do not agree with his theory. +Perhaps it was all a pastime for him, like playing at patience, or +collecting postage-stamps? + +Another example of superstition in respect to the natural sciences +is afforded by Ernest Grosse. Grosse abounds in contempt for what +he calls speculative Aesthetic. Yet he desires a Science of Art +(Kunstwissenschaft), which shall formulate its laws from those +historical facts which have hitherto been collected. + +But Grosse wishes us to complete the collection of historical evidence +with ethnographical and prehistoric materials, for we cannot obtain +really general laws of art from the exclusive study of cultivated +peoples, "just as a theory of reproduction exclusively based upon the +form it takes with mammifers, must necessarily be imperfect!" + +He is, however, aware that the results of experiences among savages and +prehistoric races do not alone suffice to furnish us with an equipment +for such investigations as that concerning the nature of Art, and, like +any ordinary mortal, he feels obliged to interrogate, before starting, +the spirit of man. He therefore proceeds to define Aesthetic on +apriorist principles, which, he remarks, can be discarded when we shall +have obtained the complete theory, in like manner with the scaffolding +that has served for the erection of a house. + +Words! Words! Vain words! He proceeds to define Aesthetic as the +activity which in its development and result has the immediate value of +feeling, and is, therefore, an end in itself. Art is the opposite of +practice; the activity of games stands intermediate between the two, +having also its end in its own activity. + +The Aesthetics of Taine and of Grosse have been called sociological. +Seeing that any true definition of sociology as a science is impossible, +for it is composed of psychological elements, which are for ever +varying, we do not delay to criticize the futile attempts at definition, +but pass at once to the objective results attained by the sociologists. +This superstition, like the naturalistic, takes various forms in +practical life. We have, for instance, Proudhon (1875), who would hark +back to Platonic Aesthetic, class the aesthetic activity among the +merely sensual, and command the arts to further the cause of virtue, on +pain of judicial proceedings in case of contumacy. + +But M. Guyau is the most important of sociological aestheticians. His +works, published in Paris toward the end of last century, and his +posthumous work, entitled _Les problèmes de l'Esthétique contemporaine_, +substitute for the theory of play, that of _life_, and the posthumous +work above-mentioned makes it evident that by life he means social life. +Art is the development of social sympathy, but the whole of art does not +enter into sociology. Art has two objects; the production of agreeable +sensations (colours, sounds, etc.) and of phenomena of psychological +induction, which include ideas and feelings of a more complex nature +than the foregoing, such as sympathy for the personages represented, +interest, piety, indignation, etc. Thus art becomes the expression of +life. Hence arise two tendencies: one for harmony, consonance, for all +that delights the ear and eye; the other transforming life, under the +dominion of art. True genius is destined to balance these two +tendencies; but the decadent and the unbalanced deprive art of its +sympathetic end, setting aesthetic sympathy against human sympathy. If +we translate this language into that with which we are by this time +quite familiar, we shall see that Guyau admits an art that is merely +hedonistic, and places above it another art, also hedonistic, but +serving the ends of morality. + +M. Nordau wages war against the decadent and unbalanced, in much the +same manner as Guyau. He assigns to art the function of re-establishing +the integrity of life, so much broken up and specialized in our +industrial civilization. He remarks that there is such a thing as art +for art's sake, the simple expression of the internal states of the +individual, but it is the art of the cave-dweller. + +C. Lombroso's theory of genius as degeneration may be grouped with the +naturalistic theories. His argument is in essence the following. Great +mental efforts, and total absorption in one dominant thought, often +produce physiological disorders or atrophy of important vital functions. +Now these disorders often lead to madness; therefore, genius may be +identified with madness. This proof, from the particular to the general, +does not follow that of traditional Logic. But with Lombroso, Büchner, +Nordau, and the like we have come to the boundary between specious and +vulgar error. They confuse scientific analysis with historical research. +Such inquiries may have value for history, but they have none for +Aesthetic. Thus, too, A. Lang maintains that the doctrine of the origin +of art as disinterested expression of the mimetic faculty is not +confirmed in what we know of primitive art, which is rather decorative +than expressive. But primitive art, which is a given fact to be +interpreted, cannot ever become its own criterion of interpretation. + +The naturalistic misunderstanding has had a bad effect on linguistic +researches, which have not been carried out on the lofty plane to which +Humboldt and Steinthal had brought them. + +Max Müller is popular and exaggerated. He fails clearly to distinguish +thought from logical thought, although in one place he remarks that the +formation of names has a more intimate connexion with wit than with +judgment. He holds that the science of language is not historical, but +natural, because language is not the invention of man, altogether +ignoring the science of the spirit, philosophy, of which language is a +part. For Max Müller, the natural sciences were the only sciences. The +consciousness of the science of the spirit becomes ever more obscured, +and we find the philologist W.D. Whitney combating Max Müller's +"miracles" and maintaining the separability of thought and speech. + +With Hermann Paul (1880) we have an awakening of Humboldt's spirit. Paul +maintains that the origin of language is the speech of the individual +man, and that a language has its origin every time it is spoken. Paul +also showed the fallacies contained in the _Völkerpsychologie_ of +Steinthal and Lazarus, demonstrating that there is no such thing as a +collective soul, and that there is no language save that of the +individual. + +W. Wundt (1886), on the other hand, commits the error of connecting +language with Ethnopsychology and other non-existent sciences, and +actually terms the glorious doctrine of Herder and of Humboldt +_Wundertheorie_, or theory of miracle, accusing them of mystical +obscurity. Wundt confuses the question of the historical appearance of +language with that of its internal nature and genesis. He looks upon the +theory of evolution as having attained to its complete triumph, in its +application to organic nature in general, and especially to man. He has +no suspicion whatever of the function of fancy, and of the true relation +between thought and expression, between expression in the naturalistic, +and expression in the spiritual and linguistic sense. He looks upon +speech as a specially developed form of psycho-physical vital +manifestations, of expressive animal movements. Language is developed +continuously from such facts, and thus is explained how, "beyond the +general concept of expressive movement, there is no specific quality +which delimits language in a non-arbitrary manner." + +Thus the philosophy of Wundt reveals its weak side, showing itself +incapable of understanding the spiritual nature of language and of art. +In the _Ethic_ of the same author, aesthetic facts are presented as a +mixture of logical and ethical elements, a special normative aesthetic +science is denied, and Aesthetic is merged in Logic and Ethic. + +The neo-critical and neo-Kantian movement in thought was not able to +maintain the concept of the spirit against the hedonistic, moralistic, +and psychological views of Aesthetic, in vogue from about the middle of +last century. Neo-criticism inherited from Kant his view as to the +slight importance of the creative imagination, and appears indeed to have +been ignorant of any form of knowledge, other than the intellective. + +Kirchmann (1868) was one of the early adherents to psychological +Aesthetic, defining the beautiful as the idealized image of pleasure, +the ugly as that of pain. For him the aesthetic fact is the idealized +image of the real. Failing to apprehend the true nature of the aesthetic +fact, Kirchmann invented a new psychological category of ideal or +apparent feelings, which he thought were attenuated images from those +of real life. + +The aged Theodore Fischer describes Aesthetic in his auto-criticism as +the union of mimetic and harmony, and the beautiful as the harmony of +the universe, which is never realized in fact, because it is infinite. +When we think to grasp the beautiful, we experience that exquisite +illusion, which is the aesthetic fact. Robert Fischer, son of the +foregoing, introduced the word _Einfühlung_, to express the vitality +which he believed that man inspired into things with the help of the +aesthetic process. + +E. Siebeck and M. Diez, the former writing in 1875, the latter in 1892, +unite a certain amount of idealistic influence, derived from Kant and +Herbart, with the merely empirical and psychological views that have of +late been the fashion. Diez, for instance, would explain the artistic +function as the ideal of feeling, placing it parallel to science; the +ideal of thought, morality; the ideal of will and religion, the ideal of +the personality. But this ideal of feeling escapes definition, and we +see that these writers have not had the courage of their ideas: they +have not dared to push their thought to its logical conclusion. + +The merely psychological and associationist view finds in Theodore Lipps +its chief exponent. He criticizes and rejects a series of aesthetic +theories, such as those of play, of pleasure, of art as recognition of +real life, even if disagreeable, of emotionality, of syncretism, which +attaches to art a number of other ends, in addition to those of play and +of pleasure. + +The theory of Lipps does not differ very greatly from that of Jouffroy, +for he assumes that artistic beauty is the sympathetic. "Our ego, +transplanted, objectified, and recognized in others, is the object of +sympathy. We feel ourselves in others, and others in us." Thus the +aesthetic pleasure is entirely composed of sympathy. This extends even +to the pleasure derived from architecture, geometrical forms, etc. +Whenever we meet with the positive element of human personality, we +experience this feeling of beatitude, which is the aesthetic emotion. +But the value of the personality is an ethical value: the whole sphere +of ethic is included in it. Therefore all artistic or aesthetic pleasure +is the enjoyment of something which has ethical value, but this value is +not an element of a compound, but the object of aesthetic intuition. +Thus is aesthetic activity deprived of all autonomous existence and +reduced to a mere retainer of Ethic. + +C. Groos (1895) shows some signs of recognizing aesthetic activity as a +theoretic value. Feeling and intellect, he says, are the two poles of +knowledge, and he recognizes the aesthetic fact as internal imitation. +Everything beautiful belongs to aestheticity, but not every aesthetic +fact is beautiful. The beautiful is the representation of sensible +pleasure, and the ugly of sensible displeasure. The sublime is the +representation of something powerful, in a simple form. The comic is the +representation of an inferiority, which provokes in us the pleasurable +feeling of "superiority." Groos very wisely makes mock of the supposed +function of the Ugly, which Hartmann and Schasler had inherited and +developed from a long tradition. Lipps and Groos agree in denying +aesthetic value to the comic, but Lipps, although he gives an excellent +analysis of the comic, is nevertheless in the trammels of his moralistic +thesis, and ends by sketching out something resembling the doctrine of +the overcoming of the ugly, by means of which may be attained a higher +aesthetic and (sympathetic) value. + +Labours such as those of Lipps have been of value, since they have +cleared away a number of errors that blocked the way, and restrained +speculation to the field of the internal consciousness. Similar is the +merit of E. Véron's treatise (1883) on the double form of Aesthetic, in +which he combats the academic view of the absolute beauty, and shows +that Taine confuses Art and Science, Aesthetic and Logic. He acutely +remarks that if the object of art were to reveal the essence of things, +the greatest artists would be those who best succeeded in doing this, +and the greatest works would all be _identical_; whereas we know that +the very opposite is the case. Véron was a precursor of Guyau, and we +seek for scientific system in vain in his book. Véron looks upon art as +two things: the one _decorative_, pleasing eye and ear, the other +_expressive_, "l'expression émue de la personalité humaine." He thought +that decorative art prevailed in antiquity, expressive art in modern +times. + +We cannot here dwell upon the aesthetic theories of men of letters, such +as that of E. Zola, developing his thesis of natural science and history +mixed, which is known as that of the human document or as the +experimental theory, or of Ibsen and the moralization of the art +problem, as presented by him and by the Scandinavian school. Perhaps no +French writer has written more profoundly upon art than Gustave +Flaubert. His views are contained in his Correspondence, which has been +published. L. Tolstoï wrote his book on art while under the influence of +Véron and his hatred of the concept of the beautiful. Art, he says, +communicates the feelings, as the word communicates the thoughts. But +his way of understanding this may be judged from the comparison which he +institutes between Art and Science. According to this, "Art has for its +mission to make assimilable and sensible what may not have been +assimilated in the form of argument. There is no science for science's +sake, no art for art's sake. Every human effort should be directed +toward increasing morality and suppressing violence." This amounts to +saying that well-nigh all the art that the world has hitherto seen is +false. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Dante, Tasso, +Milton, Shakespeare, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Bach, Beethoven, are all, +according to Tolstoï, "false reputations, made by the critics." + +We must also class F. Nietzsche with the artists, rather than with the +philosophers. We should do him an injustice (as with J. Ruskin) were we +to express in intellectual terminology his aesthetic affirmations. The +criticism which they provoke would be too facile. Nowhere has Nietzsche +given a complete theory of art, not even in his first book, _Die Geburt +der Tragödie oder Griechentum und Pessimismus_. What seems to be theory +there, is really the confession of the feelings and aspirations of the +writer. Nietzsche was the last, splendid representative of the romantic +period. He was, therefore, deeply preoccupied with the art problem and +with the relation of art to natural science and to philosophy, though he +never succeeded in definitely fixing those relations. From Romanticism, +rather than from Schopenhauer, he gathered those elements of thought out +of which he wove his conception of the two forms of art: the Apollonian, +all serene contemplation, as expressed in the epic and in sculpture; the +Dionysaïc, all tumult and agitation, as expressed in music and the +drama. These doctrines are not rigorously proved, and their power of +resistance to criticism is therefore but slender, but they serve to +transport the mind to a more lofty spiritual level than any others of +the second half of the nineteenth century. + +The most noteworthy thought on aesthetic of this period is perhaps to be +found among the aestheticians of special branches of the arts, and since +we know that laws relating only to special branches are not conceivable, +this thought may be considered as bearing upon the general theory of +Aesthetic. + +The Bohemian critic E. Hanslick (1854) is perhaps the most important of +these writers. His work _On Musical Beauty_ has been translated into +several languages. His polemic is chiefly directed against R. Wagner and +the pretension of finding in music a determined content of ideas and +feelings. He expresses equal contempt for those sentimentalists who +derive from music merely pathological effects, passionate excitement, or +stimulus for practical activity, in place of enjoying the musical works. +"If a few Phrygian notes sufficed to instil courage into the soldier +facing the enemy, or a Doric melody to assure the fidelity of a wife +whose husband was absent, then the loss of Greek music may cause pain to +generals and to husbands, but aestheticians and composers will have no +reason to deplore it." "If every Requiem, every lamenting Adagio, +possessed the power to make us sad, who would be able to support +existence in such conditions? But if a true musical work look upon us +with the clear and brilliant eyes of beauty, we feel ourselves bound by +its invincible fascination, though its theme be all the sorrows of the +century." + +For Hanslick, the only end of music was form, or musical beauty. The +followers of Herbart showed themselves very tender towards this +unexpected and vigorous ally, and Hanslick, not to be behindhand in +politeness, returned their compliments, by referring to Herbart and to +R. Zimmermann, in the later editions of his work, as having "completely +developed the great aesthetic principle of form." Unfortunately Hanslick +meant something altogether different from the Herbartians by his use of +the word form. Symmetry, merely acoustic relations, and the pleasure of +the ear, did not constitute the musically beautiful for him. Mathematics +were in his view useless in the Aesthetic of music. "Sonorous forms are +not empty, but perfectly full; they cannot be compared to simple lines +enclosing a space; they are the spirit, which takes form, making its own +bodily configuration. Music is more of a picture than is an arabesque; +but it is a picture of which the subject is inexpressible in words, nor +is it to be enclosed in a precise concept. In music, there is a meaning +and a connexion, but of a specially musical nature: it is a language +which we speak and understand, but which it is impossible to translate." +Hanslick admits that music, if it do not render the quality of +sentiments, renders their tone or dynamic side; it renders adjectives, +if it fail to render substantives; if not "murmuring tenderness" or +"impetuous courage," at any rate the "murmuring" and the "impetuous." + +The essence of his book is contained in the negation that it is possible +to separate form and content in music. "Take any motive you will, and +say where form begins and content ends. Are we to call the sounds +content? Very good, but they have already received form. What are we to +call form? Sounds again? But they are already form filled, that is to +say, possessing a content." These observations testify to an acute +penetration of the nature of art. Hanslick's belief that they were +characteristics peculiar to music, not common to every form of art, +alone prevented him from seeing further. + +C. Fiedler, published in German (in 1887) an extremely luminous work on +the origin of artistic activity. He describes eloquently how the passive +spectator seems to himself to grasp all reality, as the shows of life +pass before him; but at the moment that he tries to realize this +artistically, all disappears, and leaves him with the emptiness of his +own thoughts. Yet by concentration alone do we attain to expression; art +is a language that we gradually learn to speak. Artistic activity is +only to be attained by limiting ourselves; it must consist of "forms +precisely determined, tangible, sensibly demonstrable, precisely because +it is spiritual." Art does not imitate nature, for what is nature, but +that vast confusion of perceptions and representations that were +referred to above? Yet in a sense art does imitate nature; it uses +nature to produce values of a kind peculiar to itself. Those values are +true visibility. + +Fiedler's views correspond with those of his predecessor, Hanslick, but +are more rigorously and philosophically developed. The sculptor A. +Hildebrand may be mentioned with these, as having drawn attention to the +nature of art as architectonic rather than imitative, with special +application to the art of sculpture. + +What we miss with these and with other specialists, is a broad view of +art and language, as one and the same thing, the inheritance of all +humanity, not of a few persons, specially endowed. H. Bergson in his +book on laughter (1900) falls under the same criticism. He develops his +theory of art in a manner analogous to Fiedler, and errs like him in +looking upon it as something different and exceptional in respect to the +language of every moment. He declares that in life the individuality of +things escapes us: we see only as much as suffices for our practical +ends. The influence of language aids this rude simplification: all but +proper names are abstractions. Artists arise from time to time, who +recover the riches hidden beneath the labels of ordinary life. + +Amid the ruin of idealist metaphysics, is to be desired a healthy return +to the doctrine of Baumgarten, corrected and enriched with the +discoveries that have been made since his time, especially by +romanticism and psychology. C. Hermann (1876) announced this return, but +his book is a hopeless mixture of empirical precepts and of metaphysical +beliefs regarding Logic and Aesthetic, both of which, he believes, deal +not with the empirical thought and experience of the soul, but with the +pure and absolute. + +B. Bosanquet (1892) gives the following definition of the beautiful, as +"that which has a characteristic or individual expressivity for the +sensible perception, or for the imagination, subject to the conditions +of general or abstract expressivity for the same means." The problem as +posed by this writer by the antithesis of the two German schools of form +and content, appears to us insoluble. + +Though De Sanctis left no school in Italy, his teaching has been cleared +of the obscurities that had gathered round it during the last ten years; +and the thesis of the true nature of history, and of its nature, +altogether different from natural science, has been also dealt with in +Germany, although its precise relation to the aesthetic problem has not +been made clear. Such labours and such discussions constitute a more +favourable ground for the scientific development of Aesthetic than the +stars of mystical metaphysic or the stables of positivism and of +sensualism. + +We have now reached the end of the inquiry into the history of aesthetic +speculation, and we are struck with the smallness of the number of those +who have seen clearly the nature of the problem. No doubt, amid the +crowd of artists, critics, and writers on other subjects, many have +incidentally made very just remarks, and if all these were added to the +few philosophers, they would form a gallant company. But if, as Schiller +truly observed, the rhythm of philosophy consist in a withdrawal from +public opinion, in order to return to it with renewed vigour, it is +evident that this withdrawal is essential, and indeed that in it lies +the whole progress of philosophy. + +During our long journey, we have witnessed grave aberrations from the +truth, which were at the same time attempts to reach it; such were the +hedonism of the sophists and rhetoricians of antiquity, of the +sensualists of the eighteenth and second half of the nineteenth +centuries; the moralistic hedonism of Aristophanes and the Stoics, of +the Roman eclectics, of the writers of the Middle Age and of the +Renaissance; the ascetic and logical hedonism of Plato and the Fathers +of the Church; the aesthetic mysticism of Plotinus, reborn to its +greatest triumphs, during the classic period of German thought. + +Through the midst of these variously erroneous theories, that traverse +the field of thought in all directions, runs a tiny rivulet of golden +truth. Starting from the subtle empiricism of Aristotle, it flows in the +profound penetration of Vico to the nineteenth century, where it appears +again in the masterly analyses of Schleiermacher, Humboldt, and De +Sanctis. + +This brief list shows that the science of Aesthetic is no longer to be +discovered, but it also shows _that it is only at its beginning_. + +The birth of a science is like the birth of a human being. In order to +live, a science, like a man, has to withstand a thousand attacks of all +sorts. These appear in the form of errors, which must be extirpated, if +the science is not to perish. And when one set has been weeded, another +crops up; when these have been dealt with, the former errors often +return. Therefore _scientific criticism_ is always necessary. No science +can repose on its laurels, complete, unchallenged. Like a human being, +it must maintain its position by constant efforts, constant victories +over error. The general errors which reveal a negation of the very +concept of art have already been dealt with in the Historical Summary. +The particular errors have been exposed in the Theory. They may be +divided under three heads: (i.) Errors as to the characteristic quality +of the aesthetic fact, or (ii.) as to its specific quality, or (iii.) as +to its generic quality. These are contradictions of the characteristics +of intuition, of theoretic contemplation, and of spiritual activity, +which constitute the aesthetic fact. + +The principal bar to a proper understanding of the true nature of +language has been and still is Rhetoric, with the modern form it has +assumed, as style. The rhetorical categories are still mentioned in +treatises and often referred to, as having definite existence among the +parts of speech. Side by side with such phrases goes that of the double +form, or metaphor, which implies that there are two ways of saying the +same thing, the one simple, the other ornate. + +Kant, Herbart, Hegel, and many minor personages, have been shown to be +victims of the rhetorical categories, and in our own day we have writers +in Italy and in Germany who devote much attention to them, such as R. +Bonghi and G. Gröber; the latter employs a phraseology which he borrows +from the modern schools of psychology, but this does not alter the true +nature of his argument. De Sanctis gave perhaps the clearest and most +stimulating advice in his lectures on Rhetoric, which he termed +Anti-rhetoric. + +But even he failed to systematize his thought, and we may say that the +true critique of Rhetoric can only be made from the point of view of the +aesthetic activity, which is, as we know, _one_, and therefore does not +give rise to divisions, and _cannot express the same content now in one +form, now in another_. Thus only can we drive away the double monster of +naked form deprived of imagination, and of decorated form, which would +represent something more than imagination. The same remarks apply to +artistic and literary styles, and to their various laws or rules. In +modern times they have generally been comprised with rhetoric, and +although now discredited, they cannot be said to have altogether +disappeared. + +J.C. Scaliger may be entitled the protagonist of the unities in +comparatively modern times: he it was who "laid the foundations of the +classical Bastille," and supplied tyrants of literature, like Boileau, +with some of their best weapons. Lessing opposed the French rules and +restrictions with German rules and restrictions, giving as his opinion +that Corneille and others had wrongly interpreted Aristotle, whose rules +did not really prevent Shakespeare from being included among correct +writers! Lessing undoubtedly believed in intellectual rules for poetry. +Aristotle was the tyrant, father of tyrants, and we find Corneille +saying "qu'il est aisé de s'accommoder avec Aristote," much in the same +way as Tartuffe makes his "accommodements avec le ciel." In the next +century, several additions were made to the admitted styles, as for +instance the "tragédie bourgeoise." + +But these battles of the rules with one another are less interesting +than the rebellion against all the rules, which began with Pietro +Aretino in the sixteenth century, who makes mock of them in the +prologues to his comedies. Giordano Bruno took sides against the makers +of rules, saying that the rules came from the poetry, and "therefore +there are as many genuses and species of true rules as there are genuses +and species of true poets." When asked how the true poets are to be +known, he replies, "by repeating their verses, which either cause +delight, or profit, or both." Guarini, too, said that "the world judges +poetry, and its sentence is without appeal." + +Strangely enough, it was priest-ridden Spain that all through the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led the van of revolt against the +rules and precepts of the grammarians. While Torquato Tasso remained the +miserable slave of grammarians unworthy to lick the dust from his feet, +Lope de Vega slyly remarked that when he wrote his comedies, he locked +up the givers of precepts with six keys, that they might not reproach +him. J.B. Marino declared that he knew the rules better than all the +pedants in the world; "but the true rule is to know when to break the +rules, in accordance with the manners of the day and the taste of the +age." Among the most acute writers of the end of the seventeenth century +is to be mentioned Gravina, who well understood that a work of art must +be its own criterion, and said so clearly when praising a contemporary +for a work which did not enter any one of the admitted categories. +Unfortunately Gravina did not clearly formulate his views. + +France of the eighteenth century produced several writers like Du Bos, +who declared that men will always prefer the poems that move them, to +those composed according to rule. La Motte combated the unities of place +and time, and Batteux showed himself liberal in respect to rules. +Voltaire, although he opposed La Motte and described the three unities +as the three great laws of good sense, was also capable of declaring +that all styles but the tiresome are good, and that the best style is +that which is best used. In England we find Home in his _Elements of +Criticism_ deriding the critics for asserting that there must be a +precise criterion for distinguishing epic poetry from all other forms of +composition. Literary compositions, he held, melt into one another, just +like colours. + +The literary movement of the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of +the nineteenth centuries attacked rules of all sorts. We will not dwell +upon the many encounters of these periods, nor record the names of those +that conquered gloriously, or their excesses. In France the preface to +the _Cromwell_ of V. Hugo (1827), in Italy the _Lettera semiseria di +Grisostomo_, were clarions of rebellion. The principle first laid down +by A.W. Schlegel, that the form of compositions must be organic and not +mechanic, resulting from the nature of the subject, from its internal +development not from an external stamp, was enunciated in Italy. Art is +always a whole, a synthesis. + +But it would be altogether wrong to believe that this empirical defeat +of the styles and rules implied their final defeat in philosophy. Even +writers who were capable of dispensing with prejudice when judging works +of art, once they spoke as philosophers, were apt to reassume their +belief in those categories which, empirically, they had discarded. The +spectacle of these literary or rhetorical categories, raised by German +philosophers to the honours of philosophical deduction, is even more +amusing than that which afforded amusement to Home. The truth is that +they were unable to free their aesthetic systems of intellectualism, +although they proclaimed the empire of the mystic idea. Schelling (1803) +at the beginning, Hartmann (1890) at the end of the century, furnish a +good example of this head and tail. + +Schelling, in his Philosophy of Art, declares that, historically +speaking, the first place in the styles of poetry is due to Epic, but, +scientifically speaking, it falls to Lyric. In truth, if poetry be the +representation of the infinite in the finite, then lyric poetry, in +which prevails the finite, must be its first moment. Lyric poetry +corresponds to the first of the ideal series, to reflection, to +knowledge; epic poetry corresponds to the second power, to action. This +philosopher finally proceeds to the unification of epic and lyric +poetry, and from their union he deduces the dramatic form, which is in +his view "the supreme incarnation of the essence and of the _in-se_ of +every art." + +With Hartmann, poetry is divided into poetry of declamation and poetry +for reading. The first is subdivided into Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic; the +Epic is divided into plastic epic, proper epic, pictorial epic, and +lyrical epic; Lyric is divided into epical lyric, lyrical lyric, and +dramatic lyric; Dramatic is divided into lyrical dramatic, epical +dramatic, and dramatical dramatic. The second (readable poetry) is +divided into poetry which is chiefly epical, lyrical, and dramatic, with +the tertiary division of moving, comic, tragic, and humoristic; and +poetry which can all be read at once, like a short story, or that +requires several sittings, like a romance. + +These brief extracts show of what dialectic pirouettes and sublime +trivialities even philosophers are capable, when they begin to treat +of the Aesthetic of the tragic, comic, and humorous. Such false +distinctions are still taught in the schools of France and Germany, and +we find a French critic like Ferdinand Brunetière devoting a whole +volume to the evolution of literary styles or classes, which he really +believes to constitute literary history. This prejudice, less frankly +stated, still infests many histories of literature, even in Italy. + +We believe that the falsity of these rules of classes should be +scientifically demonstrated. In our Theory of Aesthetic we have shown +how we believe that it should be demonstrated. + +The proof of the theory of the limits of the arts has been credited to +Lessing, but his merit should rather be limited to having been the first +to draw attention to the problem. His solution was false, but his +achievement nevertheless great, in having posed the question clearly. No +one before him, in antiquity, in the Middle Age, or in modern times, had +seriously asked: What is the value of the distinctions between the arts? +Which of them comes first? Which second? Leonardo da Vinci had declared +his personal predilection for painting, Michael Angelo for sculpture, +but the question had not been philosophically treated before Lessing. + +Lessing's attention was drawn to the problem, through his desire to +disprove the assertions of Spence and of the Comte de Caylus, the former +in respect to the close union between poetry and painting in antiquity, +the latter as believing that a poem was good according to the number of +subjects which it should afford the painter. Lessing argued thus: +Painting manifests itself in space, poetry in time: the mode of +manifestation of painting is through objects which coexist, that of +poetry through objects which are consecutive. The objects which coexist, +or whose parts are coexistent, are called bodies. Bodies, then, owing to +their visibility, are the true objects of painting. Objects which are +consecutive, or whose parts are consecutive, are called, in general, +actions. Actions, then, are the suitable object of poetry. He admitted +that painting might represent an action, but only by means of bodies +which make allusion to it; that poetry can represent bodies, but only by +means of actions. Returning to this theme, he explained the action or +movement in painting as added by our imagination. Lessing was greatly +preoccupied with the naturalness and the unnaturalness of signs, which +is tantamount to saying that he believed each art to be strictly limited +to certain modes of expression, which are only overstepped at the cost +of coherency. In the appendix to his _Laocoön_, he quotes Plutarch as +saying that one should not chop wood with a key, or open the door with +an axe. He who should do so would not only be spoiling both those +utensils, but would also be depriving himself of the utility of both. He +believed that this applied to the arts. + +The number of philosophers and writers who have attempted empirical +classifications of the arts is enormous: it ranges in comparatively +recent times from Lessing, by way of Schasler, Solger, and Hartmann, to +Richard Wagner, whose theory of the combination of the arts was first +mooted in the eighteenth century. + +Lotze, while reflecting upon the futility of these attempts, himself +adopts a method, which he says is the most "convenient," and thereby +incurs the censure of Schasler. This method is in fact suitable for his +studies in botany and in zoology, but useless for the philosophy of the +spirit. Thus both these thinkers maintained Lessing's wrong principle as +to the constancy, the limits, and the peculiar nature of each art. + +Who among aestheticians has criticized this principle? Aristotle had a +glimpse of the truth, when he refused to admit that the distinction +between prose and poetry lay in an external fact, the metre. +Schleiermacher seems to have been the only one who was thoroughly aware +of the difficulty of the problem. In analysis, indeed, he goes so far as +to say that what the arts have in common is not the external fact, which +is an element of diversity; and connecting such an observation as this +with his clear distinction between art and what is called technique, we +might argue that Schleiermacher looked upon the divisions between the +arts as non-existent. But he does not make this logical inference, and +his thought upon the problem continues to be wavering and undecided. +Nebulous, uncertain, and contradictory as is this portion of +Schleiermacher's theory, he has yet the great merit of having doubted +Lessing's theory, and of having asked himself by what right are special +arts held to be distinct in art. + +Schleiermacher _absolutely denied the existence of a beautiful in +nature_, and praised Hegel for having sustained this negation. Hegel did +not really deserve this praise, as his negation was rather verbal than +effective; but the importance of this thesis as stated by Schleiermacher +is very great, in so far as he denied the existence of an objective +natural beauty not produced by the spirit of man. This theory of the +beautiful in nature, when taken in a metaphysical sense, does not +constitute an error peculiar to aesthetic science. It forms part of a +fallacious general theory, which can be criticized together with its +metaphysic. + +The theory of aesthetic senses, that is, of certain superior senses, +such as sight and hearing, being the only ones for which aesthetic +impressions exist, was debated as early as Plato. The _Hippias major_ +contains a discussion upon this theme, which Socrates leads to the +conclusion that there exist beautiful things, which do not reach us +through impressions of eye or ear. But further than this, there exist +things which please the eye, but not the ear, and _vice versa_; +therefore the reason of beauty cannot be visibility or audibility, but +something different from, yet common to both. Perhaps this question has +never been so acutely and so seriously dealt with as in this Platonic +dialogue. Home, Herder, Hegel, Diderot, Rousseau, Berkeley, all dealt +with the problem, but in a more or less arbitrary manner. Herder, for +instance, includes touch with the higher aesthetic senses, but Hegel +removes it, as having immediate contact with matter as such, and with +its immediate sensible qualities. + +Schleiermacher, with his wonted penetration, saw that the problem was +not to be solved so easily. He refuted the distinction between clear and +confused senses. He held that the superiority of sight and hearing over +the other senses lay in their free activity, in their capacity of an +activity proceeding from within, and able to create forms and sounds +without receiving external impressions. The eye and the ear are not +merely means of perception, for in that case there could be no visual +and no auditive arts. They are also functions of voluntary movements, +which fill the domain of the senses. Schleiermacher, however, considered +that the difference was rather one of quantity, and that we should allow +to the other senses a minimum of independence. + +The sensualists, as we know, maintain that all the senses are aesthetic. +That is the hedonistic hypothesis, which has been dealt with and +disproved in this book. We have shown the embarrassment in which the +hedonists find themselves, when they have dubbed all the senses +"aesthetic," or have been obliged to differentiate in an absurd manner +some of the senses from the others. The only way out of the difficulty +lies in abandoning the attempt to unite orders of facts so diverse as +the representative form of the spirit and the conception of given +physical organs or of a given material of impressions. + +The origin of classes of speech and of grammatical forms is to be found +in antiquity, and as regards the latter, the disputes among the +Alexandrian philosophers, the analogists, and the anomalists, resulted +in logic being identified with grammar. Anything which did not seem +logical was excluded from grammar as a deviation. The analogists, +however, did not have it all their own way, and grammar in the modern +sense of the word is a compromise between these extreme views, that is, +it contains something of the thought of Chrysippus, who composed a +treatise to show that the same thing can be expressed with different +sounds, and of Apollonius Discolus, who attempted to explain what the +rigorous analogists refused to admit into their schemes and +classifications. It is only of late years that we have begun to emerge +from the superstitious reverence for grammar, inherited from the Middle +Age. Such writers as Pott, in his introduction to Humboldt, and Paul in +his _Principien d. Sprachgeschichte_, have done good service in throwing +doubt upon the absolute validity of the parts of speech. If the old +superstitions still survive tenaciously, we must attribute this partly +to empirical and poetical grammar, partly to the venerable antiquity of +grammar itself, which has led the world to forget its illegitimate and +turbid origin. + +The theory of the relativity of taste is likewise ancient, and it would +be interesting to know whether the saying "there's no accounting for +tastes" could be traced to a merely gustatory origin. In this sense, the +saying would be quite correct, as it is _quite wrong_ when applied to +aesthetic facts. The eighteenth century writers exhibit a piteous +perplexity of thought on this subject. Home, for instance, after much +debate, decides upon a common "standard of taste," which he deduces from +the necessity of social life and from what he calls "a final cause." Of +course it will not be an easy matter to fix this "standard of taste." As +regards moral conduct, we do not seek our models among savages, so with +regard to taste, we must have recourse to those few whose taste has not +been corrupted nor spoilt by pleasure, who have received good taste from +nature, and have perfected it by education and by the practice of life. +If after this has been done, there should yet arise disputes, it will be +necessary to refer to the principles of criticism, as laid down in his +book by the said Home. + +We find similar contradictions and vicious circles in the _Discourse on +Taste_ of David Hume. We search his writings in vain for the distinctive +characteristics of the man of taste, whose judgments should be final. +Although he asserts that the general principles of taste are universal +in human nature, and admits that no notice should be accorded to +perversions and ignorance, yet there exist diversities of taste that are +irreconcilable, insuperable, and blameless. + +But the criticism of the sensualist and relativist positions cannot be +made from the point of view of those who proclaim the absolute nature of +taste and yet place it among the intellectual concepts. It has been +shown to be impossible to escape from sensualism and relativity save by +falling into the intellectualist error. Muratori in the eighteenth +century is an instance of this. He was one of the first to maintain the +existence of a rule of taste and of universal beauty. André also spoke +of what appears beautiful in a work of art as being not that which +pleases at once, owing to certain particular dispositions of the +faculties of the soul and of the organs of the body, but that which has +the right of pleasing the reason and reflection through its own +excellence. Voltaire admitted an "universal taste," which was +"intellectual," as did many others. Kant appeared, and condemned alike +the intellectualist and the sensualistic error; but placing the +beautiful in a symbol of morality, he failed to discover the imaginative +absoluteness of taste. Later speculative philosophy did not attach +importance to the question. + +The correct solution was slow in making its way. It lies, as we know, in +the fact that to judge a work of art we must place ourselves in the +position of the artist at the time of production, and that to judge is +to reproduce. Alexander Pope, in his _Essay on Criticism_, was among the +first to state this truth: + + A perfect judge will read each work of wit + With the same spirit that its author writ. + +Remarks equally luminous were made by Antonio Conti, Terrasson, and +Heydenreich in the eighteenth century, the latter with considerable +philosophical development. De Sanctis gave in his adhesion to this +formula, but a true theory of aesthetic criticism had not yet been +given, because for such was necessary, not only an exact conception of +nature in art, but also of the relations between the aesthetic fact and +its historical conditions. In more recent times has been denied the +possibility of aesthetic criticism; it has been looked upon as merely +individual and capricious, and historical criticism has been set up in +its place. This would be better called a criticism of extrinsic +erudition and of bad philosophical inspiration--positivist and +materialist. The true history of literature will always require the +reconstruction and then the judgment of the work of art. Those who have +wished to react against such emasculated erudition have often thrown +themselves into the opposite extreme, that is, into a dogmatic, +abstract, intellectualistic, or moralistic form of criticism. + +This mention of the history of certain doctrines relating to Aesthetic +suffices to show the range of error possible in the theory. Aesthetic +has need to be surrounded by a vigilant and vigorous critical literature +which shall derive from it and be at once its safeguard and its source +of strength. + + + + +APPENDIX + +I here add as an appendix, at the request of the author, a translation +of his lecture which he delivered before the Third International +Congress of Philosophy, at Heidelberg, on 2nd September 1908. + +The reader will find that it throws a vivid light upon Benedetto Croce's +general theory of Aesthetic. + + +PURE INTUITION AND THE LYRICAL CHARACTER OF ART. + +_A Lecture delivered at Heidelberg at the second general session of the +Third International Congress of Philosophy._ + +There exists an _empirical_ Aesthetic, which although it admits the +existence of facts, called aesthetic or artistic, yet holds that they +are irreducible to a single principle, to a rigorous philosophical +concept. It wishes to limit itself to collecting as many of those facts +as possible, and in the greatest possible variety, thence, at the most, +proceeding to group them together in classes and types. The logical +ideal of this school, as declared on many occasions, is zoology or +botany. This Aesthetic, when asked what art is, replies by indicating +successively single facts, and by saying: "Art is this, and this, and +this too is art," and so on, indefinitely. Zoology and botany renew the +representatives of fauna and of flora in the same way. They calculate +that the species renewed amount to some thousand, but believe that they +might easily be increased to twenty or a hundred thousand, or even to a +million, or to infinity. + +There is another Aesthetic, which has been called hedonistic, +utilitarian, moralistic, and so on, according to its various +manifestations. Its complex denomination should, however, be +_practicism_, because that is precisely what constitutes its essential +character. This Aesthetic differs from the preceding, in the belief that +aesthetic or artistic facts are not a merely empirical or nominalistic +grouping together, but that all of them possess a common foundation. Its +foundation is placed in the practical form of human activity. Those +facts are therefore considered, either generically, as manifestations of +pleasure and pain, and therefore rather as economic facts; or, more +particularly, as a special class of those manifestations; or again, as +instruments and products of the ethical spirit, which subdues and turns +to its own ends individual hedonistic and economic tendencies. + +There is a third Aesthetic, the _intellectualist_, which, while also +recognizing the reducibility of aesthetic facts to philosophical +treatment, explains them as particular cases of logical thought, +identifying beauty with intellectual truth; art, now with the natural +sciences, now with philosophy. For this Aesthetic, what is prized in art +is what is learned from it. The only distinction that it admits between +art and science, or art and philosophy, is at the most that of more or +less, or of perfection and imperfection. According to this Aesthetic, +art would be the whole mass of easy and popular truths; or it would be a +transitory form of science, a semi-science and a semi-philosophy, +preparatory to the superior and perfect form of science and of +philosophy. + +A fourth Aesthetic there is, which may be called _agnostic_. It springs +from the criticism of the positions just now indicated, and being guided +by a powerful consciousness of the truth, rejects them all, because it +finds them too evidently false, and because it is too loth to admit that +art is a simple fact of pleasure or pain, an exercise of virtue, or a +fragmentary sketch of science and philosophy. And while rejecting them, +it discovers, at the same time, that art is not now this and now that of +those things, or of other things, indefinitely, but that it has its own +principle and origin. However, it is not able to say what this principle +may be, and believes that it is impossible to do so. This Aesthetic +knows that art cannot be resolved into an empirical concept; knows that +pleasure and pain are united with the aesthetic activity only in an +indirect manner; that morality has nothing to do with art; that it is +impossible to rationalize art, as is the case with science and +philosophy, and to prove it beautiful or ugly with the aid of reason. +Here this Aesthetic is content to stop, satisfied with a knowledge +consisting entirely of negative terms. + +Finally, there is an Aesthetic which I have elsewhere proposed to call +_mystic_. This Aesthetic avails itself of those negative terms, to +define art as a spiritual form without a practical character, because it +is theoretic, and without a logical or intellective form, because it is +a theoretic form, differing alike from those of science and of +philosophy, and superior to both. According to this view, art would be +the highest pinnacle of knowledge, whence what is seen from other points +seems narrow and partial; art would alone reveal the whole horizon or +all the abysses of Reality. + +Now, the five Aesthetics so far mentioned are not referable to +contingent facts and historical epochs, as are, on the other hand, the +denominations of Greek and Mediaeval Aesthetic, of Renaissance and +eighteenth-century Aesthetic, the Aesthetic of Wolff and of Herbart, of +Vico and of Hegel. These five are, on the contrary, mental attitudes, +which are found in all periods, although they have not always +conspicuous representatives of the kind that are said to become +historical. Empirical Aesthetic is, for example, called Burke in the +eighteenth, Fechner in the nineteenth century; moralistic Aesthetic is +Horace or Plutarch in antiquity, Campanella in modern times; +intellectualist or logical Aesthetic is Cartesian in the seventeenth, +Leibnitzian in the eighteenth, and Hegelian in the nineteenth century; +agnostic Aesthetic is Francesco Patrizio at the Renaissance, Kant in the +eighteenth century; mystic Aesthetic is called Neoplatonism at the end +of the antique world, Romanticism at the beginning of the nineteenth +century, and if it be adorned during the former period with the name of +Plotinus, in the latter it will bear the name of Schelling or of Solger, +And not only are those attitudes and mental tendencies common to all +epochs, but they are also all found to some extent developed or +indicated in every thinker, and even in every man. Thus it is somewhat +difficult to classify philosophers of Aesthetic according to one or the +other category, because each philosopher also enters more or less into +some other, or into all the other categories. + +Nor can these five conceptions and points of view be looked upon as +increasable to ten or twenty, or to as many as desired, or that I have +placed them in a certain order, but that they could be capriciously +placed in another order. If this were so, they would be altogether +heterogeneous and disconnected among themselves, and the attempt to +examine and criticize them would seem altogether desperate, as also +would be that of comparing one with the other, or of stating a new one, +which should dominate them all. It is precisely thus that ordinary +sceptics look upon various and contrasting scientific views. They group +them all in the same plane, and believing that they can increase them at +will, conclude that one is as good as another, and that therefore every +one is free to select that which he prefers from a bundle of falsehoods. +The conceptions of which we speak are definite in number, and appear in +a necessary order, which is either that here stated by me, or another +which might be proposed, better than mine. This would be the necessary +order, which I should have failed to realize effectively. They are +connected one with the other, and in such a way that the view which +follows includes in itself that which precedes it. + +Thus, if the last of the five doctrines indicated be taken, which may be +summed up as the proposition that art is a form of the theoretic spirit, +superior to the scientific and philosophic form--and if it be submitted +to analysis, it will be seen that in it is included, in the first place, +the proposition affirming the existence of a group of facts, which are +called aesthetic or artistic. If such facts did not exist, it is evident +that no question would arise concerning them, and that no +systematization would be attempted. And this is the truth of empirical +Aesthetic. But there is also contained in it the proposition: that the +facts examined are reducible to a definite principle or category of the +spirit. This amounts to saying, that they belong either to the practical +spirit, or to the theoretical, or to one of their subforms. And this is +the truth of practicist Aesthetic, which is occupied with the enquiry as +to whether these ever are practical facts, and affirms that in every +case they are a special category of the spirit. Thirdly, there is +contained in it the proposition: that they are not practical facts, but +facts which should rather be placed near the facts of logic or of +thought. This is the truth of intellectualistic Aesthetic. In the fourth +place, we find also the proposition; that aesthetic facts are neither +practical, nor of that theoretic form which is called logical and +intellective. They are something which cannot be identified with the +categories of pleasure, nor of the useful, nor with those of ethic, nor +with those of logical truth. They are something of which it is necessary +to find a further definition. This is the truth of that Aesthetic which +is termed agnostic or negative. + +When these various propositions are severed from their connection; when, +that is to say, the first is taken without the second, the second +without the third, and so on,--and when each, thus mutilated, is +confined in itself and the enquiry which awaits prosecution is +arbitrarily arrested, then each one of these gives itself out as the +whole of them, that is, as the completion of the enquiry. In this way, +each becomes error, and the truths contained in empiricism, in +practicism, in intellectualism, in agnostic and in mystical Aesthetic, +become, respectively, falsity, and these tendencies of speculation are +indicated with names of a definitely depreciative colouring. Empiria +becomes empiricism, the heuristic comparison of the aesthetic activity +with the practical and logical, becomes a conclusion, and therefore +practicism and intellectualism. The criticism which rejects false +definitions, and is itself negative, affirms itself as positive and +definite, becoming agnosticism; and so on. + +But the attempt to close a mental process in an arbitrary manner is +vain, and of necessity causes remorse and self-criticism. Thus it comes +about, that each one of those unilateral and erroneous doctrines +continually tends to surpass itself and to enter the stage which follows +it. Thus empiricism, for example, assumes that it can dispense with any +philosophical conception of art; but, since it severs art from +non-art--and, however empirical it be, it will not identify a +pen-and-ink sketch and a table of logarithms, as if they were just the +same thing, or a painting and milk or blood (although milk and blood +both possess colour)--thus empiricism too must at last resort to some +kind of philosophical concept. Therefore, we see the empiricists +becoming, turn and turn about, hedonists, moralists, intellectualists, +agnostics, mystics, and sometimes they are even better than mystics, +upholding an excellent conception of art, which can only be found fault +with because introduced surreptitiously and without justification. If +they do not make that progress, it is impossible for them to speak in +any way of aesthetic facts. They must return, as regards such facts, to +that indifference and to that silence from which they had emerged when +they affirmed the existence of these facts and began to consider them in +their variety. The same may be said of all other unilateral doctrines. +They are all reduced to the alternative of advancing or of going back, +and in so far as they do not wish to do either, they live amid +contradictions and in anguish. But they do free themselves from these, +more or less slowly, and thus are compelled to advance, more or less +slowly. And here we discover why it is so difficult, and indeed +impossible, exactly to identify thinkers, philosophers, and writers with +one or the other of the doctrines which we have enunciated, because each +one of them rebels when he finds himself limited to one of those +categories, and it seems to him that he is shut up in prison. It is +precisely because those thinkers try to shut themselves up in a +unilateral doctrine, that they do not succeed, and that they take a +step, now in one direction, now in another, and are conscious of being +now on this side, now on the other, of the criticisms which are +addressed to them. But the critics fulfil their duty by putting them in +prison, thus throwing into relief the absurdity into which they are led +by their irresolution, or their resolution not to resolve. + +And from this necessary connection and progressive order of the various +propositions indicated arise also the resolve, the counsel, the +exhortation, to "return," as they say, to this or that thinker, to this +or that philosophical school of the past. Certainly, such returns are +impossible, understood literally; they are also a little ridiculous, +like all impossible attempts. We can never return to the past, precisely +because it is the past. No one is permitted to free himself from the +problems which are put by the present, and which he must solve with all +the means of the present (which includes in it the means of the past). +Nevertheless, it is a fact that the history of philosophy everywhere +resounds with cries of return. Those very people who in our day deride +the "return to Hume" or the "return to Kant," proceed to advise the +"return to Schelling," or the "return to Hegel." This means that we must +not understand those "returns" literally and in a material way. In +truth, they do not express anything but the necessity and the +ineliminability of the logical process explained above, for which the +affirmations contained in philosophical problems appear connected with +one another in such a way that the one follows the other, surpasses it, +and includes it in itself. Empiricism, practicism, intellectualism, +agnosticism, mysticism, are _eternal stages of the search for truth_. +They are eternally relived and rethought in the truth which each +contains. Thus it would be necessary for him who had not yet turned his +attention to aesthetic facts, to begin by passing them before his eyes, +that is to say, he must first traverse the empirical stage (about +equivalent to that occupied by mere men of letters and mere amateurs of +art); and while he is at this stage, he must be aroused to feel the want +of a principle of explanation, by making him compare his present +knowledge with the facts, and see if they are explained by it, that is +to say, if they be utilitarian and moral, or logical and intellective. +Then we should drive him who has made this examination to the +conclusion, that the aesthetic activity is something different from all +known forms, a form of the spirit, which it yet remains to characterize. +For the empiricists of Aesthetic, intellectualism and moralism represent +progress; for the intellectualists, hedonistic and moralistic alike, +agnosticism is progress and may be called Kant. But for Kantians, who +are real Kantians (and not neo-Kantians), progress is represented by the +mystical and romantic point of view; not because this comes after the +doctrine of Kant chronologically, but because it surpasses it ideally. +In this sense, and in this sense alone, we should now "return" to the +romantic Aesthetic. We should return to it, because it is ideally +superior to all the researches in Aesthetic made in the studies of +psychologists, of physio-psychologists, and of psycho-physiologists of +the universities of Europe and of America. It is ideally superior to the +sociological, comparative, prehistoric Aesthetic, which studies +especially the art of savages, of children, of madmen, and of idiots. It +is ideally superior also to that other Aesthetic, which has recourse to +the conceptions of the genetic pleasure, of games, of illusion, of +self-illusion, of association, of hereditary habit, of sympathy, of +social efficiency, and so on. It is ideally superior to the attempts at +logical explanation, which have not altogether ceased, even to-day, +although they are somewhat rare, because, to tell the truth, fanaticism +for Logic cannot be called the failing of our times. Finally, it is +ideally superior to that Aesthetic which repeats with Kant, that the +beautiful is finality without the idea of end, disinterested pleasure, +necessary and universal, which is neither theoretical nor practical, but +participates in both forms, or combines them in itself in an original +and ineffable manner. But we should return to it, bringing with us the +experience of a century of thought, the new facts collected, the new +problems that have arisen, the new ideas that have matured. Thus we +shall return again to the stage of mystical and romantic Aesthetic, but +not to the personal and historical stage of its representatives. For in +this matter, at least, they are certainly inferior to us: they lived a +century ago and therefore inherited so much the less of the problems and +of the results of thought which day by day mankind laboriously +accumulates. + +They should return, but not to remain there; because, if a return to the +romantic Aesthetic be advisable for the Kantians (while the idealists +should not be advised to "return to Kant," that is to say, to a lower +stage, which represents a recession), so those who come over, or already +find themselves on the ground of mystical Aesthetic, should, on the +other hand be advised to proceed yet further, in order to attain to a +doctrine which represents a stage above it. This doctrine is that of the +_pure intuition_ (or, what amounts to the same thing, of pure +expression); a doctrine which also numbers representatives in all times, +and which may be said to be immanent alike in all the discourses that +are held and in all the judgments that are passed upon art, as in all +the best criticism and artistic and literary history. + +This doctrine arises logically from the contradictions of mystical +Aesthetic; I say, _logically_, because it contains in itself those +contradictions and their solution; although _historically_ (and this +point does not at present concern us) that critical process be not +always comprehensible, explicit, and apparent. + +Mystical Aesthetic, which makes of art the supreme function of the +theoretic spirit, or, at least, a function superior to that of +philosophy, becomes involved in inextricable difficulties. How could art +ever be superior to philosophy, if philosophy make of art its object, +that is to say, if it place art beneath itself, in order to analyse and +define it? And what could this new knowledge be, supplied by art and by +the aesthetic activity, appearing when the human spirit has come full +circle, after it has imagined, perceived, thought, abstracted, +calculated, and constructed the whole world of thought and history? + +As the result of those difficulties and contradictions, mystical +Aesthetic itself also exhibits the tendency, either to surpass its +boundary, or to sink below its proper level. The descent takes place +when it falls back into agnosticism, affirming that art is art, that is, +a spiritual form, altogether different from the others and ineffable; or +worse, where it conceives art as a sort of repose or as a game; as +though diversion could ever be a category and the spirit know repose! We +find an attempt at overpassing its proper limit, when art is placed +below philosophy, as inferior to it; but this overpassing remains a +simple attempt, because the conception of art as instrument of universal +truth is always firmly held; save that this instrument is declared less +perfect and less efficacious than the philosophical instrument. Thus +they fall back again into intellectualism from another side. + +These mistakes of mystical Aesthetic were manifested during the Romantic +period in some celebrated paradoxes, such as those of _art as irony_ and +of the _death of art_. They seemed calculated to drive philosophers to +desperation as to the possibility of solving the problem of the nature +of art, since every path of solution appeared closed. Indeed, whoever +reads the aestheticians of the romantic period, feels strongly inclined +to believe himself at the heart of the enquiry and to nourish a +confident hope of immediate discovery of the truth. Above all, the +affirmation of the theoretic nature of art, and of the difference +between its cognitive method and that of science and of logic, is felt +as a definite conquest, which can indeed be combined with other +elements, but which must not in any case be allowed to slip between the +fingers. And further, it is not true that all ways of solution are +closed, or that all have been attempted. There is at least one still +open that can be tried; and it is precisely that for which we resolutely +declare ourselves: the Aesthetic of the pure intuition. + +This Aesthetic reasons as follows:--Hitherto, in all attempts to define +the place of art, it has been sought, either at the summit of the +theoretic spirit, above philosophy, or, at least, in the circle of +philosophy itself. But is not the loftiness of the search the reason why +no satisfactory result has hitherto been obtained? Why not invert the +attempt, and instead of forming the hypothesis that art is _one of the +summits or the highest grade_ of the theoretic spirit, form the very +opposite hypothesis, namely, that it is _one of the lower grades_, or +the lowest of all? Perhaps such epithets as "lower" and "lowest" are +irreconcilable with the dignity and with the splendid beauty of art? But +in the philosophy of the spirit, such words as lowest, weak, simple, +elementary, possess only the value of a scientific terminology. All the +forms of the spirit are necessary, and the higher is so only because +there is the lower, and the lower is as much to be despised or less to +be valued to the same extent as the first step of a stair is despicable, +or of less value in respect to the topmost step. + +Let us compare art with the various forms of the theoretic spirit, and +let us begin with the sciences which are called _natural_ or _positive_. +The Aesthetic of pure intuition makes it clear that the said sciences +are more _complex_ than History, because they presuppose historical +material, that is, collections of things that have happened (to men or +animals, to the earth or to the stars). They submit this material to a +further treatment, which consists in the abstraction and systematization +of the historical facts. _History_, then, is less complex than the +natural sciences. History further presupposes the world of the +imagination and the pure philosophical concepts or categories, and +produces its judgments or historical propositions, by means of the +synthesis of the imagination with the concept. And _Philosophy_ may be +said to be even less complex than History, in so far as it is +distinguished from the former as an activity whose special function it +is to make clear the categories or pure concepts, neglecting, in a +certain sense at any rate, the world of phenomena. If we compare _Art_ +with the three forms above mentioned, it must be declared inferior, that +is to say, less complex than the _natural Sciences_, in so far as it is +altogether without abstractions. In so far as it is without conceptual +determinations and does not distinguish between the real and the unreal, +what has really happened and what has been dreamed, it must be declared +inferior to _History_. In so far as it fails altogether to surpass the +phenomenal world, and does not attain to the definitions of the pure +concepts, it is inferior to _Philosophy_ itself. It is also inferior to +_Religion_, assuming that religion is (as it is) a form of speculative +truth, standing between thought and imagination. Art is governed +entirely by imagination; its only riches are images. Art does not +classify objects, nor pronounce them real or imaginary, nor qualify +them, nor define them. Art feels and represents them. Nothing more. Art +therefore is _intuition_, in so far as it is a mode of knowledge, not +abstract, but concrete, and in so far as it uses the real, without +changing or falsifying it. In so far as it apprehends it immediately, +before it is modified and made clear by the concept, it must be called +_pure intuition_. + +The strength of art lies in being thus simple, nude, and poor. Its +strength (as often happens in life) arises from its very weakness. Hence +its fascination. If (to employ an image much used by philosophers for +various ends) we think of man, in the first moment that he becomes aware +of theoretical life, with mind still clear of every abstraction and of +every reflexion, in that first purely intuitive instant he must be a +poet. He contemplates the world with ingenuous and admiring eyes; he +sinks and loses himself altogether in that contemplation. By creating +the first representations and by thus inaugurating the life of +knowledge, art continually renews within our spirit the aspects of +things, which thought has submitted to reflexion, and the intellect to +abstraction. Thus art perpetually makes us poets again. Without art, +thought would lack the stimulus, the very material, for its hermeneutic +and critical labour. Art is the root of all our theoretic life. To be +the root, not the flower or the fruit, is the function of art. And +without a root, there can be no flower and no fruit. + + + + +II + + +Such is the theory of art as pure intuition, in its fundamental +conception. This theory, then, takes its origin from the criticism of +the loftiest of all the other doctrines of Aesthetic, from the criticism +of mystical or romantic Aesthetic, and contains in itself the criticism +and the truth of all the other Aesthetics. It is not here possible to +allow ourselves to illustrate its other aspects, such as would be those +of the identity, which it lays down, between intuition and expression, +between art and language. Suffice it to say, as regards the former, that +he alone who divides the unity of the spirit into soul and body can have +faith in a pure act of the soul, and therefore in an intuition, which +should exist as an intuition, and yet be without its body, expression. +Expression is the actuality of intuition, as action is of will; and in +the same way as will not exercised in action is not will, so an +intuition unexpressed is not an intuition. As regards the second point, +I will mention in passing that, in order to recognize the identity of +art and language, it is needful to study language, not in its +abstraction and in grammatical detail, but in its immediate reality, and +in all its manifestations, spoken and sung, phonic and graphic. And we +should not take at hazard any proposition, and declare it to be +aesthetic; because, if all propositions have an aesthetic side +(precisely because intuition is the elementary form of knowledge and is, +as it were, the garment of the superior and more complex forms), all are +not _purely_ aesthetic, but some are philosophical, historical, +scientific, or mathematical; some, in fact, of these are more than +aesthetic or logical; they are aestheticological. Aristotle, in his +time, distinguished between semantic and apophantic propositions, and +noted, that if all propositions be _semantic_, not all are _apophantic_. +Language is art, not in so far as it is apophantic, but in so far as it +is, generically, semantic. It is necessary to note in it the side by +which it is expressive, and nothing but expressive. It is also well to +observe (though this may seem superfluous) that it is not necessary to +reduce the theory of pure intuition, as has been sometimes done, to a +historical fact or to a psychological concept. Because we recognize in +poetry, as it were, the ingenuousness, the freshness, the barbarity of +the spirit, it is not therefore necessary to limit poetry to youth and +to barbarian peoples. Though we recognize language as the first act of +taking possession of the world achieved by man, we must not imagine that +language is born _ex nihilo_, once only in the course of the ages, and +that later generations merely adopt the ancient instrument, applying it +to a new order of things while lamenting its slight adaptability to the +usage of civilized times. Art, poetry, intuition, and immediate +expression are the moment of barbarity and of ingenuousness, which +perpetually recur in the life of the spirit; they are youth, that is, +not chronological, but ideal. There exist very prosaic barbarians and +very prosaic youths, as there exist poetical spirits of the utmost +refinement and civilization. The mythology of those proud, gigantic +Patagonians, of whom our Vico was wont to discourse, or of those _bons +Hurons_, who were lately a theme of conversation, must be looked upon as +for ever superseded. + +But there arises an apparently very serious objection to the Aesthetic +of pure intuition, giving occasion to doubt whether this doctrine, if it +represent progress in respect to the doctrines which have preceded it, +yet is also a complete and definite doctrine as regards the fundamental +concept of art. Should it be submitted to a dialectic, by means of which +it must be surpassed and dissolved into a more lofty point of view? The +doctrine of pure intuition makes the value of art to consist of its +power of intuition; in such a manner that just in so far as pure and +concrete intuitions are achieved will art and beauty be achieved. But if +attention be paid to judgments of people of good taste and of critics, +and to what we all say when we are warmly discussing works of art and +manifesting our praise or blame of them, it would seem that what we seek +in art is something quite different, or at least something more than +simple force and intuitive and expressive purity. What pleases and what +is sought in art, what makes beat the heart and enraptures the +admiration, is life, movement, emotion, warmth, the feeling of the +artist. This alone affords the supreme criterion for distinguishing true +from false works of art, those with insight from the failures. Where +there are emotion and feeling, much is forgiven; where they are wanting, +nothing can make up for them. Not only are the most profound thoughts +and the most exquisite culture incapable of saving a work of art which +is looked upon as _cold_, but richness of imagery, ability and certainty +in the reproduction of the real, in description, characterization and +composition, and all other knowledge, only serve to arouse the regret +that so great a price has been paid and such labours endured, in vain. +We do not ask of an artist instruction as to real facts and thoughts, +nor that he should astonish us with the richness of his imagination, but +that he should have a _personality_, in contact with which the soul of +the hearer or spectator may be heated. A personality of any sort is +asked for in this case; its moral significance is excluded: let it be +sad or glad, enthusiastic or distrustful, sentimental or sarcastic, +benignant or malign, but it must be a soul. Art criticism would seem to +consist altogether in determining if there be a personality in the work +of art, and of what sort. A work that is a failure is an incoherent +work; that is to say, a work in which no single personality appears, but +a number of disaggregated and jostling personalities, that is, really, +none. There is no further correct significance than this in the +researches that are made as to the verisimilitude, the truth, the logic, +the necessity, of a work of art. + +It is true that many protests have been made by artists, critics, and +philosophers by profession, against the characteristic of _personality_. +It has been maintained that the bad artist leaves traces of his +personality in the work of art, whereas the great artist cancels them +all. It has been further maintained that the artist should portray the +reality of life, and that he should not disturb it with the opinions, +judgments, and personal feelings of the author, and that the artist +should give the tears of things and not his own tears. Hence +_impersonality_, not personality, has been proclaimed to be the +characteristic of art, that is to say, the very opposite. However, it +will not be difficult to show that what is really meant by this opposing +formula is the same as in the first case. The theory of impersonality +really coincides with that of personality in every point. The opposition +of the artists, critics, and philosophers above mentioned, was directed +against the invasion by the empirical and volitional personality of the +artist of the spontaneous and ideal personality which constitutes the +subject of the work of art. For instance, artists who do not succeed in +representing the force of piety or of love of country, add to their +colourless imaginings declamation or theatrical effects, thinking thus +to arouse such feelings. In like manner certain orators and actors +introduce into a work of art an emotion extraneous to the work of art +itself. Within these limits, the opposition of the upholders of the +theory of impersonality was most reasonable. On the other hand, there +has also been exhibited an altogether irrational opposition to +personality in the work of art. Such is the lack of comprehension and +intolerance evinced by certain souls for others differently constituted +(of calm for agitated souls, for example). + +Here we find at bottom the claim of one sort of personality to deny that +of another. Finally, it has been possible to demonstrate from among the +examples given of impersonal art, in the romances and dramas called +naturalistic, that in so far and to the extent that these are complete +artistic works, they possess personality. This holds good even when this +personality lies in a wandering or perplexity of thought regarding the +value to be given to life, or in blind faith in the natural sciences and +in modern sociology. + +Where every trace of personality was really absent, and its place taken +by the pedantic quest for human documents, the description of certain +social classes and the generic or individual process of certain +maladies, there the work of art was absent. A work of science of more or +less superficiality, and without the necessary proofs and control, +filled its place. There is no upholder of impersonality but experiences +a feeling of fatigue for a work of the utmost exactitude in the +reproduction of reality in its empirical sequence, or of industrious and +apathetic combination of images. He asks himself why such a work was +executed, and recommends the author to adopt some other profession, +since that of artist was not intended for him. + +Thus it is without doubt that if pure intuition (and pure expression, +which is the same thing) are indispensable in the work of art, the +personality of the artist is equally indispensable. If (to quote the +celebrated words in our own way) the _classic_ moment of perfect +representation or expression be necessary for the work of art, the +_romantic_ moment of feeling is not less necessary. Poetry, or art in +general, cannot be exclusively _ingenuous_ or _sentimental_; it must be +both ingenuous and sentimental. And if the first or representative +moment be termed _epic_, and the second, which is sentimental, +passionate, and personal, be termed _lyric_, then poetry and art must be +at once epic and lyric, or, if it please you better, _dramatic_. We use +these words here, not at all in their empirical and intellectualist +sense, as employed to designate special classes of works of art, +exclusive of other classes; but in that of elements or moments, which +must of necessity be found united in every work of art, how diverse +soever it may be in other respects. + +Now this irrefutable conclusion seems to constitute exactly that +above-mentioned apparently serious objection to the doctrine which +defines art as pure intuition. But if the essence of art be merely +theoretic--and it is _intuibility_--can it, on the other hand, be +practical, that is to say, feeling, personality, and _passionality_? Or, +if it be practical, how can it be theoretic? It will be answered that +feeling is the _content_, intuibility the _form_; but form and content +do not in philosophy constitute a duality, like water and its recipient; +in philosophy content is form, and form is content. Here, on the other +hand, form and content appear to be different from one another; the +content is of one quality, the form of another. Thus art appears to be +the sum of two qualities, or, as Herbart used to say in his time, of +_two values_. Accordingly we have an altogether unmaintainable +Aesthetic, as is clear from recent largely vulgarized doctrines of +Aesthetic as operating with the concept of the _infused personality_. +Here we find, on the one hand, things intuible lying dead and soulless; +on the other, the artist's feeling and personality. The artist is then +supposed to put himself into things, by an act of magic, to make them +live and palpitate, love and adore. But if we start with the +_distinction_, we can never again reach _unity_: the distinction +requires an intellectual act, and what the intellect has divided +intellect or reason alone, not art or imagination, can reunite and +synthetize. Thus the Aesthetic of infusion or transfusion--when it does +not fall into the antiquated hedonistic doctrines of agreeable illusion, +of games, and generally of what affords a pleasurable emotion; or of +moral doctrines, where art is a symbol and an allegory of the good and +the true;--is yet not able, despite its airs of modernity and its +psychology, to escape the fate of the doctrine which makes of art a +semi-imaginative conception of the world, like religion. The process +that it describes is mythological, not aesthetic; it is a making of gods +or of idols. "To make one's gods is an unhappy art," said an old Italian +poet; but if it be not unhappy, certainly it is not poetic and not +aesthetic. The artist does not make the gods, because he has other +things to do. Another reason is that, to tell the truth, he is so +ingenuous and so absorbed in the image that attracts him, that he cannot +perform that act of abstraction and conception, wherein the image must +be surpassed and made the allegory of a universal, though it be of the +crudest description. + +This recent theory, then, is of no use. It leads back to the +difficulties arising from the admission of two characteristics of art, +_intuibility_ and _lyricism_, not unified. We must recognize, either +that the duality must be destroyed and proved illusory, _or_ that we +must proceed to a more ample conception of art, in which that of pure +intuibility would remain merely secondary or particular. And to destroy +and prove it illusory must consist in showing that here too form is +content, and that pure intuition is _itself_ lyricism. + +Now, the truth is precisely this: _pure intuition is essentially +lyricism_. All the difficulties concerning this question arise from not +having thoroughly understood that concept, from having failed to +penetrate its true nature and to explore its multiple relations. When we +consider the one attentively, we see the other bursting from its bosom, +or better, the one and the other reveal themselves as one and the same, +and we escape from the desperate trilemma, of either denying the lyrical +and personal character of art, or of asserting that it is adjunctive, +external and accidental, or of excogitating a new doctrine of Aesthetic, +which we do not know where to find. In fact, as has already been +remarked, what can pure intuition mean, but intuition pure of every +abstraction, of every conceptual element, and, for this reason, neither +science, history, nor philosophy? This means that the content of the +pure intuition cannot be either an abstract concept, or a speculative +concept or idea, or a conceptualized, that is historicized, +representation. Nor can it be a so-called perception, which is a +representation intellectually, and so historically, discriminated. But +outside logic in its various forms and blendings, no other psychic +content remains, save that which is called appetites, tendencies, +feelings, and will. These things are all the same and constitute the +practical form of the spirit, in its infinite gradations and in its +dialectic (pleasure and pain). Pure intuition, then, since it does not +produce concepts, must represent the will in its manifestations, that is +to say, it can represent nothing but _states of the soul_. And states of +the soul are passionality, feeling, personality, which are found in +every art and determine its lyrical character. Where this is absent, art +is absent, _precisely because pure intuition is absent_, and we have at +the most, in exchange for it, _that reflex_, philosophical, historical, +or scientific. In the last of these, passion is represented, not +immediately, but mediately, or, to speak exactly, it is no longer +represented, but thought. Thus the origin of language, that is, its true +nature, has several times been placed in _interjection_. Thus, too, +Aristotle, when he wished to give an example of those propositions which +were not _apophantic_, but generically _semantic_ (we should say, not +logical, but purely Aesthetic), and did not predicate the logically true +and false, but nevertheless said something, gave as example invocation +or prayer, _hae enchae_. He added that these propositions do not +appertain to Logic, but to Rhetoric and Poetic. A landscape is a +state of the soul; a great poem may all be contained in an exclamation +of joy, of sorrow, of admiration, or of lament. The more objective is a +work of art, by so much the more is it poetically suggestive. + +If this deduction of lyricism from the intimate essence of pure +intuition do not appear easily acceptable, the reason is to be sought in +two very deep-rooted prejudices, of which it is useful to indicate here +the genesis. The first concerns the nature of the _imagination_, and its +likenesses to and differences from _fancy_. Imagination and fancy have +been clearly distinguished thus by certain aestheticians (and among +them, De Sanctis), as also in discussions relating to concrete art: they +have held fancy, not imagination, to be the special faculty of the poet +and the artist. Not only does a new and bizarre combination of images, +which is vulgarly called _invention_, not constitute the artist, but _ne +fait rien à l'affaire_, as Alceste remarked with reference to the length +of time expended upon writing a sonnet. Great artists have often +preferred to treat groups of images, which had already been many times +used as material for works of art. The novelty of these new works has +been solely that of art or form, that is to say, of the new _accent_ +which they have known how to give to the old material, of the new way in +which they have _felt_ and therefore _intuified_ it, thus creating _new +images_ upon the old ones. These remarks are all obvious and universally +recognized as true. But if mere imagination as such has been excluded +from art, it has not therefore been excluded from the theoretic spirit. +Hence the disinclination to admit that a pure intuition must of +necessity express a state of the soul, whereas it may also consist, as +they believe, of a pure image, without a content of feeling. If we form +an arbitrary image of any sort, _stans pede in uno_, say of a bullock's +head on a horse's body, would not this be an intuition, a pure +intuition, certainly quite without any content of reflexion? Would one +not attain to a work of art in this way, or at any rate to an artistic +motive? Certainly not. For the image given as an instance, and every +other image that may be produced by the imagination, not only is not a +pure intuition, but it is not a _theoretic_ product of any sort. It is a +product of _choice_, as was observed in the formula used by our +opponents; and choice is external to the world of thought and +contemplation. It may be said that imagination is a practical artifice +or game, played upon that patrimony of images possessed by the soul; +whereas the fancy, the translation of practical into theoretical values, +of states of the soul into images, is the _creation_ of that patrimony +itself. + +From this we learn that an image, which is not the expression of a state +of the soul, is not an image, since it is without any theoretical value; +and therefore it cannot be an obstacle to the identification of lyricism +and intuition. But the other prejudice is more difficult to eradicate, +because it is bound up with the metaphysical problem itself, on the +various solutions of which depend the various solutions of the aesthetic +problem, and _vice versa_. If art be intuition, would it therefore be +any intuition that one might have of a _physical_ object, appertaining +to _external nature_? If I open my eyes and look at the first object +that they fall upon, a chair or a table, a mountain or a river, shall I +have performed by so doing an aesthetic act? If so, what becomes of the +lyrical character, of which we have asserted the necessity? If not, what +becomes of the intuitive character, of which we have affirmed the equal +necessity and also its identity with the former? Without doubt, the +perception of a physical object, as such, does not constitute an +artistic fact; but precisely for the reason that it is not a pure +intuition, but a judgment of perception, and implies the application of +an abstract concept, which in this case is physical or belonging to +external nature. And with this reflexion and perception, we find +ourselves at once outside the domain of pure intuition. We could have a +pure perception of a physical object in one way only; that is to say, if +physical or external nature were a metaphysical reality, a truly real +reality, and not, as it is, a construction or abstraction of the +intellect. If such were the case, man would have an immediate intuition, +in his first theoretical moment, both of himself and of external nature, +of the spiritual and of the physical, in an equal degree. This +represents the dualistic hypothesis. But just as dualism is incapable of +providing a coherent system of philosophy, so is it incapable of +providing a coherent Aesthetic. If we admit dualism, we must certainly +abandon the doctrine of art as pure intuition; but we must at the same +time abandon all philosophy. But art on its side tacitly protests +against metaphysical dualism. It does so, because, being the most +immediate form of knowledge, it is in contact with activity, not with +passivity; with interiority, not exteriority; with spirit, not with +matter, and never with a double order of reality. Those who affirm the +existence of two forms of intuition--the one external or physical, the +other subjective or aesthetic; the one cold and inanimate, the other +warm and lively; the one imposed from without, the other coming from the +inner soul--attain without doubt to the distinctions and oppositions of +the vulgar (or dualistic) consciousness, but their Aesthetic is vulgar. + +The lyrical essence of pure intuition, and of art, helps to make clear +what we have already observed concerning the persistence of the +intuition and of the fancy in the higher grades of the theoretical +spirit, why philosophy, history, and science have always an artistic +side, and why their expression is subject to aesthetic valuation. The +man who ascends from art to thought does not by so doing abandon his +volitional and practical base, and therefore he too finds himself in a +particular _state of the soul_, the representation of which is intuitive +and lyrical, and accompanies of necessity the development of his ideas. +Hence the various styles of thinkers, solemn or jocose, troubled or +gladsome, mysterious and involved, or level and expansive. But it would +not be correct to divide intuition immediately into two classes, the one +of _aesthetic_, the other of _intellectual_ or _logical_ intuitions, +owing to the persistence of the artistic element in logical thought, +because the relation of degrees is not the relation of classes, and +copper is copper, whether it be found alone, or in combination as +bronze. + +Further, this close connection of feeling and intuition in pure +intuition throws much light on the reasons which have so often caused +art to be separated from the theoretic and confounded with the practical +activity. The most celebrated of these confusions are those formulated +about the relativity of tastes and of the impossibility of reproducing, +tasting, and correctly judging the art of the past, and in general the +art of others. A life lived, a feeling felt, a volition willed, are +certainly impossible to reproduce, because nothing happens more than +once, and my situation at the present moment is not that of any other +being, nor is it mine of the moment before, nor will be of the moment to +follow. But art remakes ideally, and ideally expresses my momentary +situation. Its image, produced by art, becomes separated from time and +space, and can be again made and again contemplated in its ideal-reality +from every point of time and space. It belongs not to the _world_, but +to the _superworld_; not to the flying moment, but to eternity. Thus +life passes, but art endures. + +Finally, we obtain from this relation between the intuition and the +state of the soul the criterion of exact definition of the _sincerity_ +required of artists, which is itself also an essential request. It is +essential, precisely because it means that the artist must have a state +of the soul to express, which really amounts to saying, that he must be +an artist. His must be a state of the soul really experienced, not +merely imagined, because imagination, as we know, is not a work of +truth. But, on the other hand, the demand for sincerity does not go +beyond asking for a state of the soul, and that the state of soul +expressed in the work of art be a desire or an action. It is altogether +indifferent to Aesthetic whether the artist have had only an aspiration, +or have realized that aspiration in his empirical life. All that is +quite indifferent in the sphere of art. Here we also find the +confutation of that false conception of sincerity, which maintains that +the artist, in his volitional or practical life, should be at one with +his dream, or with his incubus. Whether or no he have been so, is a +matter that interests his biographer, not his critic; it belongs to +history, which separates and qualifies that which art does not +discriminate, but represents. + + + + +III + + +This attitude of indiscrimination and indifference, observed by art in +respect to history and philosophy, is also foreshadowed at that place of +the _De interpretatione_ (_c_. 4), to which we have already referred, to +obtain thence the confirmation of the thesis of the identity of art and +language, and another confirmation, that of the identity of lyric and +pure intuition. It is a really admirable passage, containing many +profound truths in a few short, simple words, although, as is natural, +without full consciousness of their richness. Aristotle, then, is still +discussing the said rhetorical and poetical propositions, semantic and +not apophantic, and he remarks that in them there rules no distinction +between true and false: _to alaetheueion hae pseudeothai ouk +hyparchei_. Art, in fact, is in contact with palpitating reality, but +does not know that it is so in contact, and therefore is not truly in +contact. Art does not allow itself to be troubled with the abstractions +of the intellect, and therefore does not make mistakes; but it does not +know that it does not make mistakes. If art, then (to return to what we +said at the beginning), be the first and most ingenuous form of +knowledge, it cannot give complete satisfaction to man's need to know, +and therefore cannot be the ultimate end of the theoretic spirit. Art is +the dream of the life of knowledge. Its complement is waking, lyricism +no longer, but the concept; no longer the dream, but the judgment. +Thought could not be without fancy; but thought surpasses and contains +in itself the fancy, transforms the image into perception, and gives to +the world of dream the clear distinctions and the firm contours of +reality. Art cannot achieve this; and however great be our love of art, +that cannot raise it in rank, any more than the love one may have for a +beautiful child can convert it into an adult. We must accept the child +as a child, the adult as an adult. + +Therefore, the Aesthetic of pure intuition, while it proclaims +energetically the autonomy of art and of the aesthetic activity, is at +the same time averse to all _aestheticism_, that is, to every attempt at +lowering the life of thought, in order to elevate that of fancy. The +origin of aestheticism is the same as that of mysticism. Both proceed +from a rebellion against the predominance of the abstract sciences and +against the undue abuse of the principle of causation in metaphysic. +When we pass from the stuffed animals of the zoological museums, from +anatomical reconstructions, from tables of figures, from classes and +sub-classes constituted by means of abstract characters, or from the +fixation and mechanization of life for the ends of naturalistic science, +to the pages of the poets, to the pictures of the painters, to the +melodies of the composers, when in fact we look upon life with the eye +of the artist, we have the impression that we are passing from death to +life, from the abstract to the concrete, from fiction to reality. We are +inclined to proclaim that only in art and in aesthetic contemplation is +truth, and that science is either charlatanesque pedantry, or a modest +practical expedient. And certainly art has the superiority of its own +truth; simple, small, and elementary though it be, over the abstract, +which, as such, is altogether without truth. But in violently rejecting +science and frantically embracing art, that very form of the theoretic +spirit is forgotten, by means of which we can criticize science and +recognize the nature of art. Now this theoretic spirit, since it +criticizes science, is not science, and, as reflective consciousness of +art, is not art. Philosophy, the supreme fact of the theoretic world, +is forgotten. This error has been renewed in our day, because the +consciousness of the limits of the natural sciences and of the value of +the truth which belongs to intuition and to art, have been renewed. But +just as, a century ago, during the idealistic and romantic period, there +were some who reminded the fanatics for art, and the artists who were +transforming philosophy, that art was not "the most lofty form of +apprehending the Absolute"; so, in our day, it is necessary to awaken +the consciousness of Thought. And one of the means for attaining this +end is an exact understanding of the limits of art, that is, the +construction of a solid Aesthetic. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesthetic as Science of Expression and +General Linguistic, by Benedetto Croce + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION *** + +This file should be named 8asth10.txt or 8asth10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8asth11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8asth10a.txt + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Beth Trapaga +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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