{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26842/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26842","id":"gutenberg_26842","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26842","summary":null,"tags":["Aesthetics","Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Ruth Hart\n\n\n\n\n[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents\nto the beginning of the text and slightly modified it to conform\nwith the online format. I have also made one spelling change:\n\"ominiscient intelligence\" to \"omniscient intelligence\".]\n\n\n\nTHE SENSE OF BEAUTY\n\nBEING THE OUTLINES OF AESTHETIC THEORY\n\nby\n\nGEORGE SANTAYANA\n\n\nCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\nNEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1896, BY\nCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPreface\nIntroduction -- The Methods of Aesthetics 1-13\n\nPart I. -- The Nature of Beauty\nSec. 1. The philosophy of beauty is a theory of values 14\nSec. 2. Preference is ultimately irrational 18\nSec. 3. Contrast between moral and aesthetic values 28\nSec. 4. Work and play 25\nSec. 5. All values are in one sense aesthetic 28\nSec. 6. Aesthetic consecration of general principles 31\nSec. 7. Contrast of aesthetic and physical pleasures 35\nSec. 8. The differentia of aesthetic pleasure not its disinterestedness 37\nSec. 9. The differentia of aesthetic pleasure not its universality 40\nSec. 10. The differential of aesthetic pleasure: its objectification 44\nSec. 11. The definition of beauty 49\n\nPart II. -- The Materials of Beauty\nSec. 12. All human functions may contribute to the sense of beauty 53\nSec. 13. The influence of the passion of love 56\nSec. 14. Social instincts and their aesthetic influence 62\nSec. 15. The lower senses 65\nSec. 16. Sound 68\nSec. 17. Colour 72\nSec. 18. Materials surveyed 76\n\nPart III. -- Form\nSec. 19. There is a beauty of form 82\nSec. 20. Physiology of the perception of form 85\nSec. 21. Values of geometrical figures 88\nSec. 22. Symmetry 91\nSec. 23. Form the unity of a manifold 95\nSec. 24. Multiplicity in uniformity 97\nSec. 25. Example of the stars 100\nSec. 26. Defects of pure multiplicity 106\nSec. 27. Aesthetics of democracy 110\nSec. 28. Values of types and values of examples 112\nSec. 29. Origin of types 116\nSec. 30. The average modified in the direction of pleasure 121\nSec. 31. Are all things beautiful? 126\nSec. 32. Effects of indeterminate form 131\nSec. 33. Example of landscape 133\nSec. 34. Extensions to objects usually not regarded aesthetically 138\nSec. 35. Further dangers of indeterminateness 142\nSec. 36. The illusion of infinite perfection 146\nSec. 37. Organized nature the source of apperceptive forms 152\nSec. 38. Utility the principle of organization in nature 155\nSec. 39. The relation of utility to beauty 157\nSec. 40. Utility the principle of organization in the arts 160\nSec. 41. Form and adventitious ornament 163\nSec. 42. Syntactical form 167\nSec. 42. Literary form. The plot 171\nSec. 44. Character as an aesthetic form 174\nSec. 45. Ideal characters 176\nSec. 46. The religious imagination 180\nSec. 47. Preference is ultimately irrational 185\n\nPart IV. -- Expression\nSec. 48. Expression defined 192\nSec. 49. The associative process 198\nSec. 50. Kinds of value in the second term 201\nSec. 51. Aesthetic value in the second term 205\nSec. 52. Practical value in the same 208\nSec. 53. Cost as an element of effect 211\nSec. 54. The expression of economy and fitness 214\nSec. 55. The authority of morals over aesthetics 218\nSec. 56. Negative values in the second term 221\nSec. 57. Influence of the first term in the pleasing expression of evil 226\nSec. 58. Mixture of other expressions, including that of truth 228\nSec. 59. The liberation of self 233\nSec. 60. The sublime independent of the expression of evil 239\nSec. 61. The comic 245\nSec. 62. Wit 250\nSec. 63. Humour 253\nSec. 64. The grotesque 256\nSec. 65. The possibility of finite perfection 258\nSec. 66. The stability of the ideal 263\n\nSec. 67. Conclusion 266-270\nFootnotes\nIndex 271-275\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThis little work contains the chief ideas gathered together for a\ncourse of lectures on the theory and history of aesthetics given at\nHarvard College from 1892 to 1895. The only originality I can\nclaim is that which may result from the attempt to put together the\nscattered commonplaces of criticism into a system, under the\ninspiration of a naturalistic psychology. I have studied sincerity\nrather than novelty, and if any subject, as for instance the\nexcellence of tragedy, is presented in a new light, the change\nconsists only in the stricter application to a complex subject of the\nprinciples acknowledged to obtain in our simple judgments. My\neffort throughout has been to recall those fundamental aesthetic\nfeelings the orderly extension of which yields sanity of judgment\nand distinction of taste.\n\nThe influences under which the book has been written are rather\ntoo general and pervasive to admit of specification; yet the student\nof philosophy will not fail to perceive how much I owe to writers,\nboth living and dead, to whom no honour could be added by my\nacknowledgments. I have usually omitted any reference to them in\nfoot-notes or in the text, in order that the air of controversy might\nbe avoided, and the reader might be enabled to compare what is\nsaid more directly with the reality of his own experience.\n\n G. S.\n September, 1906.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThe sense of beauty has a more important place in life than\naesthetic theory has ever taken in philosophy. The plastic arts, with\npoetry and music, are the most conspicuous monuments of this\nhuman interest, because they appeal only to contemplation, and yet\nhave attracted to their service, in all civilized ages, an amount of\neffort, genius, and honour, little inferior to that given to industry,\nwar, or religion. The fine arts, however, where aesthetic feeling\nappears almost pure, are by no means the only sphere in which\nmen show their susceptibility to beauty. In all products of human\nindustry we notice the keenness with which the eye is attracted to\nthe mere appearance of things: great sacrifices of time and labour\nare made to it in the most vulgar manufactures; nor does man\nselect his dwelling, his clothes, or his companions without\nreference to their effect on his aesthetic senses. Of late we have\neven learned that the forms of many animals are due to the survival\nby sexual selection of the colours and forms most attractive to the\neye. There must therefore be in our nature a very radical and\nwide-spread tendency to observe beauty, and to value it. No account of\nthe principles of the mind can be at all adequate that passes over so\nconspicuous a faculty.\n\nThat aesthetic theory has received so little attention from the world\nis not due to the unimportance of the subject of which it treats, but\nrather to lack of an adequate motive for speculating upon it, and to\nthe small success of the occasional efforts to deal with it. Absolute\ncuriosity, and love of comprehension for its own sake, are not\npassions we have much leisure to indulge: they require not only\nfreedom from affairs but, what is more rare, freedom from\nprepossessions and from the hatred of all ideas that do not make\nfor the habitual goal of our thought.\n\nNow, what has chiefly maintained such speculation as the world\nhas seen has been either theological passion or practical use. All\nwe find, for example, written about beauty may be divided into\ntwo groups: that group of writings in which philosophers have\ninterpreted aesthetic facts in the light of their metaphysical\nprinciples, and made of their theory of taste a corollary or footnote\nto their systems; and that group in which artists and critics have\nventured into philosophic ground, by generalizing somewhat the\nmaxims of the craft or the comments of the sensitive observer. A\ntreatment of the subject at once direct and theoretic has been very\nrare: the problems of nature and morals have attracted the\nreasoners, and the description and creation of beauty have\nabsorbed the artists; between the two reflection upon aesthetic\nexperience has remained abortive or incoherent.\n\nA circumstance that has also contributed to the absence or to the\nfailure of aesthetic speculation is the subjectivity of the\nphenomenon with which it deals. Man has a prejudice against\nhimself: anything which is a product of his mind seems to him to\nbe unreal or comparatively insignificant. We are satisfied\nonly when we fancy ourselves surrounded by objects and laws\nindependent of our nature. The ancients long speculated about the\nconstitution of the universe before they became aware of that mind\nwhich is the instrument of all speculation. The moderns, also, even\nwithin the field of psychology, have studied first the function of\nperception and the theory of knowledge, by which we seem to be\ninformed about external things; they have in comparison neglected\nthe exclusively subjective and human department of imagination\nand emotion. We have still to recognize in practice the truth that\nfrom these despised feelings of ours the great world of perception\nderives all its value, if not also its existence. Things are interesting\nbecause we care about them, and important because we need them.\nHad our perceptions no connexion with our pleasures, we should\nsoon close our eyes on this world; if our intelligence were of no\nservice to our passions, we should come to doubt, in the lazy\nfreedom of reverie, whether two and two make four.\n\nYet so strong is the popular sense of the unworthiness and\ninsignificance of things purely emotional, that those who have\ntaken moral problems to heart and felt their dignity have often\nbeen led into attempts to discover some external right and beauty\nof which, our moral and aesthetic feelings should be perceptions or\ndiscoveries, just as our intellectual activity is, in men's opinion, a\nperception or discovery of external fact. These philosophers seem\nto feel that unless moral and aesthetic judgments are expressions of\nobjective truth, and not merely expressions of human nature, they\nstand condemned of hopeless triviality. A judgment is not trivial,\nhowever, because it rests on human feelings; on the contrary,\ntriviality consists in abstraction from human interests; only those\njudgments and opinions are truly insignificant which wander\nbeyond the reach of verification, and have no function in the\nordering and enriching of life.\n\nBoth ethics and aesthetics have suffered much from the prejudice\nagainst the subjective. They have not suffered more because both\nhave a subject-matter which is partly objective. Ethics deals with\nconduct as much as with emotion, and therefore considers the\ncauses of events and their consequences as well as our judgments\nof their value. Esthetics also is apt to include the history and\nphilosophy of art, and to add much descriptive and critical matter\nto the theory of our susceptibility to beauty. A certain confusion is\nthereby introduced into these inquiries, but at the same time the\ndiscussion is enlivened by excursions into neighbouring provinces,\nperhaps more interesting to the general reader.\n\nWe may, however, distinguish three distinct elements of ethics and\naesthetics, and three different ways of approaching the subject. The\nfirst is the exercise of the moral or aesthetic faculty itself, the\nactual pronouncing of judgment and giving of praise, blame, and\nprecept. This is not a matter of science but of character, enthusiasm,\nniceness of perception, and fineness of emotion. It is aesthetic or\nmoral activity, while ethics and aesthetics, as sciences, are\nintellectual activities, having that aesthetic or moral activity for\ntheir subject-matter.\n\nThe second method consists in the historical explanation of\nconduct or of art as a part of anthropology, and seeks to discover\nthe conditions of various types of character, forms of polity,\nconceptions of justice, and schools of criticism and of art. Of this\nnature is a great deal of what has been written on aesthetics. The\nphilosophy of art has often proved a more tempting subject than\nthe psychology of taste, especially to minds which were not so\nmuch fascinated by beauty itself as by the curious problem of the\nartistic instinct in man and of the diversity of its manifestations in\nhistory.\n\nThe third method in ethics and aesthetics is psychological, as the\nother two are respectively didactic and historical. It deals with\nmoral and aesthetic judgments as phenomena of mind and products\nof mental evolution. The problem here is to understand the origin\nand conditions of these feelings and their relation to the rest of our\neconomy. Such an inquiry, if pursued successfully, would yield an\nunderstanding of the reason why we think anything right or\nbeautiful, wrong or ugly, it would thus reveal the roots of\nconscience and taste in human nature and enable us to distinguish\ntransitory preferences and ideals, which rest on peculiar conditions,\nfrom those which, springing from those elements of mind which all\nmen share, are comparatively permanent and universal.\n\nTo this inquiry, as far as it concerns aesthetics, the following pages\nare devoted. No attempt will be made either to impose particular\nappreciations or to trace the history of art and criticism. The\ndiscussion will be limited to the nature and elements of our\naesthetic judgments. It is a theoretical inquiry and has no directly\nhortatory quality. Yet insight into the basis of our preferences, if it\ncould be gained, would not fail to have a good and purifying\ninfluence upon them. It would show us the futility of a dogmatism\nthat would impose upon another man judgments and emotions for\nwhich the needed soil is lacking in his constitution and experience;\nand at the same time it would relieve us of any undue diffidence or\nexcessive tolerance towards aberrations of taste, when we know\nwhat are the broader grounds of preference and the habits that\nmake for greater and more diversified aesthetic enjoyment.\n\nTherefore, although nothing has commonly been less attractive\nthan treatises on beauty or less a guide to taste than disquisitions\nupon it, we may yet hope for some not merely theoretical gain\nfrom these studies. They have remained so often without practical\ninfluence because they have been pursued under unfavourable\nconditions. The writers have generally been audacious metaphysicians\nand somewhat incompetent critics; they have represented\ngeneral and obscure principles, suggested by other parts\nof their philosophy, as the conditions of artistic excellence\nand the essence of beauty. But if the inquiry is kept close to the\nfacts of feeling, we may hope that the resulting theory may have a\nclarifying effect on the experience on which it is based. That is,\nafter all, the use of theory. If when a theory is bad it narrows our\ncapacity for observation and makes all appreciation vicarious and\nformal, when it is good it reacts favourably upon our powers,\nguides the attention to what is really capable of affording\nentertainment, and increases, by force of new analogies, the range\nof our interests. Speculation is an evil if it imposes a foreign\norganization on our mental life; it is a good if it only brings to light,\nand makes more perfect by training, the organization already\ninherent in it.\n\nWe shall therefore study human sensibility itself and our actual\nfeelings about beauty, and we shall look for no deeper,\nunconscious causes of our aesthetic consciousness. Such value as\nbelongs to metaphysical derivations of the nature of the beautiful,\ncomes to them not because they explain our primary feelings,\nwhich they cannot do, but because they express, and in fact\nconstitute, some of our later appreciations. There is no explanation,\nfor instance, in calling beauty an adumbration of divine attributes.\nSuch a relation, if it were actual, would not help us at all to\nunderstand why the symbols of divinity pleased. But in certain\nmoments of contemplation, when much emotional experience lies\nbehind us, and we have reached very general ideas both of nature\nand of life, our delight in any particular object may consist in\nnothing but the thought that this object is a manifestation of\nuniversal principles. The blue sky may come to please chiefly\nbecause it seems the image of a serene conscience, or of the eternal\nyouth and purity of nature after a thousand partial corruptions. But\nthis expressiveness of the sky is due to certain qualities of the\nsensation, which bind it to all things happy and pure, and, in a\nmind in which the essence of purity and happiness is embodied in\nan idea of God, bind it also to that idea.\n\nSo it may happen that the most arbitrary and unreal theories, which\nmust be rejected as general explanations of aesthetic life, may be\nreinstated as particular moments of it. Those intuitions which we\ncall Platonic are seldom scientific, they seldom explain the\nphenomena or hit upon the actual law of things, but they are often\nthe highest expression of that activity which they fail to make\ncomprehensible. The adoring lover cannot understand the natural\nhistory of love; for he is all in all at the last and supreme stage of\nits development. Hence the world has always been puzzled in its\njudgment of the Platonists; their theories are so extravagant, yet\ntheir wisdom seems so great. Platonism is a very refined and\nbeautiful expression of our natural instincts, it embodies\nconscience and utters our inmost hopes. Platonic philosophers have\ntherefore a natural authority, as standing on heights to which\nthe vulgar cannot attain, but to which they naturally and\nhalf-consciously aspire.\n\nWhen a man tells you that beauty is the manifestation of God to\nthe senses, you wish you might understand him, you grope for a\ndeep truth in his obscurity, you honour him for his elevation of\nmind, and your respect may even induce you to assent to what he\nsays as to an intelligible proposition. Your thought may in\nconsequence be dominated ever after by a verbal dogma, around\nwhich all your sympathies and antipathies will quickly gather, and\nthe less you have penetrated the original sense of your creed, the\nmore absolutely will you believe it. You will have followed\nMephistopheles' advice: --\n\n Im ganzen haltet euch an Worte,\n So geht euch durch die sichere Pforte\n Zum Tempel der Gewissheit ein.\n\nYet reflection might have shown you that the word of the master\nheld no objective account of the nature and origin of beauty, but\nwas the vague expression of his highly complex emotions.\n\nIt is one of the attributes of God, one of the perfections which we\ncontemplate in our idea of him, that there is no duality or\nopposition between his will and his vision, between the impulses\nof his nature and the events of his life. This is what we commonly\ndesignate as omnipotence and creation. Now, in the contemplation\nof beauty, our faculties of perception have the same perfection: it is\nindeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the\noccasional harmony between our nature and our environment, that\nwe draw our conception of the divine life. There is, then, a real\npropriety in calling beauty a manifestation of God to the senses,\nsince, in the region of sense, the perception of beauty exemplifies\nthat adequacy and perfection which in general we objectify in an\nidea of God.\n\nBut the minds that dwell in the atmosphere of these analogies are\nhardly those that will care to ask what are the conditions and the\nvarieties of this perfection of function, in other words, how it\ncomes about that we perceive beauty at all, or have any inkling of\ndivinity. Only the other philosophers, those that wallow in\nEpicurus' sty, know anything about the latter question. But it is\neasier to be impressed than to be instructed, and the public is very\nready to believe that where there is noble language not\nwithout obscurity there must be profound knowledge. We should\ndistinguish, however, the two distinct demands in the case. One is\nfor comprehension; we look for the theory of a human function\nwhich must cover all possible cases of its exercise, whether noble\nor base. This the Platonists utterly fail to give us. The other\ndemand is for inspiration; we wish to be nourished by the maxims\nand confessions of an exalted mind, in whom the aesthetic function\nis pre-eminent. By responding to this demand the same thinkers\nmay win our admiration.\n\nTo feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to\nfeel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried\nby the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this\nis more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be. The\npoets and philosophers who express this aesthetic experience and\nstimulate the same function in us by their example, do a greater\nservice to mankind and deserve higher honour than the discoverers\nof historical truth. Reflection is indeed a part of life, but the last\npart. Its specific value consists in the satisfaction of curiosity, in\nthe smoothing out and explanation of things: but the greatest\npleasure which we actually get from reflection is borrowed from\nthe experience on which we reflect. We do not often indulge in\nretrospect for the sake of a scientific knowledge of human life, but\nrather to revive the memories of what once was dear. And I should\nhave little hope of interesting the reader in the present analyses, did\nI not rely on the attractions of a subject associated with so many of\nhis pleasures.\n\nBut the recognition of the superiority of aesthetics in experience to\naesthetics in theory ought not to make us accept as an explanation\nof aesthetic feeling what is in truth only an expression of it. When\nPlato tells us of the eternal ideas in conformity to which all\nexcellence consists, he is making himself the spokesman of the\nmoral consciousness. Our conscience and taste establish these\nideals; to make a judgment is virtually to establish an ideal, and all\nideals are absolute and eternal for the judgment that involves them,\nbecause in finding and declaring a thing good or beautiful, our\nsentence is categorical, and the standard evoked by our judgment is\nfor that case intrinsic and ultimate. But at the next moment, when\nthe mind is on another footing, a new ideal is evoked, no less\nabsolute for the present judgment than the old ideal was for the\nprevious one. If we are then expressing our feeling and confessing\nwhat happens to us when we judge, we shall be quite right in\nsaying that we have always an absolute ideal before us, and that\nvalue lies in conformity with that ideal. So, also, if we try to define\nthat ideal, we shall hardly be able to say of it anything less noble\nand more definite than that it is the embodiment of an infinite good.\nFor it is that incommunicable and illusive excellence that haunts\nevery beautiful thing, and\n\n like a star\n Beacons from the abode where the eternal are.\n\nFor the expression of this experience we should go to the poets, to\nthe more inspired critics, and best of all to the immortal parables of\nPlato. But if what we desire is to increase our knowledge rather\nthan to cultivate our sensibility, we should do well to close all\nthose delightful books; for we shall not find any instruction there\nupon the questions which most press upon us; namely, how an\nideal is formed in the mind, how a given object is compared with it,\nwhat is the common element in all beautiful things, and what the\nsubstance of the absolute ideal in which all ideals tend to be lost;\nand, finally, how we come to be sensitive to beauty at all, or to\nvalue it. These questions must be capable of answers, if any\nscience of human nature is really possible. -- So far, then, are we\nfrom ignoring the insight of the Platonists, that we hope to explain\nit, and in a sense to justify it, by showing that it is the natural and\nsometimes the supreme expression of the common principles of\nour nature.\n\n\nPART I\n\nTHE NATURE OF BEAUTY\n\n_The philosophy of beauty is a theory of values._\n\nSec. 1. It would be easy to find a definition of beauty that should give\nin a few words a telling paraphrase of the word. We know on\nexcellent authority that beauty is truth, that it is the expression of\nthe ideal, the symbol of divine perfection, and the sensible\nmanifestation of the good. A litany of these titles of honour might\neasily be compiled, and repeated in praise of our divinity. Such\nphrases stimulate thought and give us a momentary pleasure, but\nthey hardly bring any permanent enlightenment. A definition that\nshould really define must be nothing less than the exposition of the\norigin, place, and elements of beauty as an object of human\nexperience. We must learn from it, as far as possible, why, when,\nand how beauty appears, what conditions an object must fulfil to\nbe beautiful, what elements of our nature make us sensible of\nbeauty, and what the relation is between the constitution of the\nobject and the excitement of our susceptibility. Nothing less will\nreally define beauty or make us understand what aesthetic\nappreciation is. The definition of beauty in this sense will be the\ntask of this whole book, a task that can be only very imperfectly\naccomplished within its limits.\n\nThe historical titles of our subject may give us a hint towards the\nbeginning of such a definition. Many writers of the last century\ncalled the philosophy of beauty _Criticism,_ and the word is still\nretained as the title for the reasoned appreciation of works of art.\nWe could hardly speak, however, of delight in nature as criticism.\nA sunset is not criticised; it is felt and enjoyed. The word\n\"criticism,\" used on such an occasion, would emphasize too much\nthe element of deliberate judgment and of comparison with\nstandards. Beauty, although often so described, is seldom so\nperceived, and all the greatest excellences of nature and art are so\nfar from being approved of by a rule that they themselves furnish\nthe standard and ideal by which critics measure inferior effects.\n\nThis age of science and of nomenclature has accordingly adopted a\nmore learned word, _Aesthetics,_ that is, the theory of perception\nor of susceptibility. If criticism is too narrow a word, pointing\nexclusively to our more artificial judgments, aesthetics seems to be\ntoo broad and to include within its sphere all pleasures and pains, if\nnot all perceptions whatsoever. Kant used it, as we know, for his\ntheory of time and space as forms of all perception; and it has at\ntimes been narrowed into an equivalent for the philosophy of art.\n\nIf we combine, however, the etymological meaning of criticism\nwith that of aesthetics, we shall unite two essential qualities of the\ntheory of beauty. Criticism implies judgment, and aesthetics\nperception. To get the common ground, that of perceptions which\nare critical, or judgments which are perceptions, we must widen\nour notion of deliberate criticism so as to include those judgments\nof value which are instinctive and immediate, that is, to include\npleasures and pains; and at the same time we must narrow our\nnotion of aesthetics so as to exclude all perceptions which are not\nappreciations, which do not find a value in their objects. We thus\nreach the sphere of critical or appreciative perception, which is,\nroughly speaking, what we mean to deal with. And retaining the\nword \"aesthetics,\" which is now current, we may therefore say that\naesthetics is concerned with the perception of values. The meaning\nand conditions of value is, then, what we must first consider.\n\nSince the days of Descartes it has been a conception familiar to\nphilosophers that every visible event in nature might be explained\nby previous visible events, and that all the motions, for instance, of\nthe tongue in speech, or of the hand in painting, might have merely\nphysical causes. If consciousness is thus accessory to life and not\nessential to it, the race of man might have existed upon the earth\nand acquired all the arts necessary for its subsistence without\npossessing a single sensation, idea, or emotion. Natural selection\nmight have secured the survival of those automata which made\nuseful reactions upon their environment. An instinct of\nself-preservation would have been developed, dangers would have been\nshunned without being feared, and injuries revenged without being\nfelt.\n\nIn such a world there might have come to be the most perfect\norganization. There would have been what we should call the\nexpression of the deepest interests and the apparent pursuit of\nconceived goods. For there would have been spontaneous and\ningrained tendencies to avoid certain contingencies and to produce\nothers; all the dumb show and evidence of thinking would have\nbeen patent to the observer. Yet there would surely have been no\nthinking, no expectation, and no conscious achievement in the\nwhole process.\n\nThe onlooker might have feigned ends and objects of forethought,\nas we do in the case of the water that seeks its own level, or in that\nof the vacuum which nature abhors. But the particles of matter\nwould have remained unconscious of their collocation, and all\nnature would have been insensible of their changing arrangement.\nWe only, the possible spectators of that process, by virtue of our\nown interests and habits, could see any progress or culmination in\nit. We should see culmination where the result attained satisfied\nour practical or aesthetic demands, and progress wherever such a\nsatisfaction was approached. But apart from ourselves, and our\nhuman bias, we can see in such a mechanical world no element of\nvalue whatever. In removing consciousness, we have removed the\npossibility of worth.\n\nBut it is not only in the absence of all consciousness that value\nwould be removed from the world; by a less violent abstraction\nfrom the totality of human experience, we might conceive beings\nof a purely intellectual cast, minds in which the transformations of\nnature were mirrored without any emotion. Every event would then\nbe noted, its relations would be observed, its recurrence might even\nbe expected; but all this would happen without a shadow of desire,\nof pleasure, or of regret. No event would be repulsive, no situation\nterrible. We might, in a word, have a world of idea without a world\nof will. In this case, as completely as if consciousness were absent\naltogether, all value and excellence would be gone. So that for the\nexistence of good in any form it is not merely consciousness but\nemotional consciousness that is needed. Observation will not do,\nappreciation is required.\n\n_Preference is ultimately irrational._\n\nSec. 2. We may therefore at once assert this axiom, important for all\nmoral philosophy and fatal to certain stubborn incoherences of\nthought, that there is no value apart from some appreciation of it,\nand no good apart from some preference of it before its absence or\nits opposite. In appreciation, in preference, lies the root and\nessence of all excellence. Or, as Spinoza clearly expresses it, we\ndesire nothing because it is good, but it is good only because we\ndesire it.\n\nIt is true that in the absence of an instinctive reaction we can still\napply these epithets by an appeal to usage. We may agree that an\naction is bad, or a building good, because we recognize in them a\ncharacter which we have learned to designate by that adjective; but\nunless there is in us some trace of passionate reprobation or of\nsensible delight, there is no moral or aesthetic judgment. It is all a\nquestion of propriety of speech, and of the empty titles of things.\nThe verbal and mechanical proposition, that passes for judgment of\nworth, is the great cloak of ineptitude in these matters. Insensibility\nis very quick in the conventional use of words. If we appealed\nmore often to actual feeling, our judgments would be more diverse,\nbut they would be more legitimate and instructive. Verbal\njudgments are often useful instruments of thought, but it is not by\nthem that worth can ultimately be determined.\n\nValues spring from the immediate and inexplicable reaction of\nvital impulse, and from the irrational part of our nature. The\nrational part is by its essence relative; it leads us from data to\nconclusions, or from parts to wholes; it never furnishes the data\nwith which it works. If any preference or precept were declared to\nbe ultimate and primitive, it would thereby be declared to be\nirrational, since mediation, inference, and synthesis are the essence\nof rationality. The ideal of rationality is itself as arbitrary, as much\ndependent on the needs of a finite organization, as any other ideal.\nOnly as ultimately securing tranquillity of mind, which the\nphilosopher instinctively pursues, has it for him any necessity. In\nspite of the verbal propriety of saying that reason demands\nrationality, what really demands rationality, what makes it a good\nand indispensable thing and gives it all its authority, is not its own\nnature, but our need of it both in safe and economical action and in\nthe pleasures of comprehension.\n\nIt is evident that beauty is a species of value, and what we have\nsaid of value in general applies to this particular kind. A first\napproach to a definition of beauty has therefore been made by the\nexclusion of all intellectual judgments, all judgments of matter of\nfact or of relation. To substitute judgments of fact for judgments of\nvalue, is a sign of a pedantic and borrowed criticism. If we\napproach a work of art or nature scientifically, for the sake of its\nhistorical connexions or proper classification, we do not approach\nit aesthetically. The discovery of its date or of its author may be\notherwise interesting; it only remotely affects our aesthetic\nappreciation by adding to the direct effect certain associations. If\nthe direct effect were absent, and the object in itself uninteresting,\nthe circumstances would be immaterial. Moliere's _Misanthrope_\nsays to the court poet who commends his sonnet as written in a\nquarter of an hour,\n\n Voyons, monsieur, le temps ne fait rien a l'affaire,\n\nand so we might say to the critic that sinks into the archaeologist,\nshow us the work, and let the date alone.\n\nIn an opposite direction the same substitution of facts for values\nmakes its appearance, whenever the reproduction of fact is made\nthe sole standard of artistic excellence. Many half-trained\nobservers condemn the work of some naive or fanciful masters\nwith a sneer, because, as they truly say, it is out of drawing. The\nimplication is that to be correctly copied from a model is the\nprerequisite of all beauty. Correctness is, indeed, an element of\neffect and one which, in respect to familiar objects, is almost\nindispensable, because its absence would cause a disappointment\nand dissatisfaction incompatible with enjoyment. We learn to value\ntruth more and more as our love and knowledge of nature increase.\nBut fidelity is a merit only because it is in this way a factor in our\npleasure. It stands on a level with all other ingredients of effect.\nWhen a man raises it to a solitary pre-eminence and becomes\nincapable of appreciating anything else, he betrays the decay of\naesthetic capacity. The scientific habit in him inhibits the artistic.\n\nThat facts have a value of their own, at once complicates and\nexplains this question. We are naturally pleased by every\nperception, and recognition and surprise are particularly acute\nsensations. When we see a striking truth in any imitation, we are\ntherefore delighted, and this kind of pleasure is very legitimate,\nand enters into the best effects of all the representative arts. Truth\nand realism are therefore aesthetically good, but they are not\nall-sufficient, since the representation of everything is not equally\npleasing and effective. The fact that resemblance is a source of\nsatisfaction justifies the critic in demanding it, while the aesthetic\ninsufficiency of such veracity shows the different value of truth in\nscience and in art. Science is the response to the demand for\ninformation, and in it we ask for the whole truth and nothing but\nthe truth. Art is the response to the demand for entertainment, for\nthe stimulation of our senses and imagination, and truth enters into\nit only as it subserves these ends.\n\nEven the scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or\nabsolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests.\nAs our ideas are gradually brought into conformity with the facts\nby the painful process of selection, -- for intuition runs equally into\ntruth and into error, and can settle nothing if not controlled\nby experience, -- we gain vastly in our command over our\nenvironment. This is the fundamental value of natural science, and\nthe fruit it is yielding in our day. We have no better vision of\nnature and life than some of our predecessors, but we have greater\nmaterial resources. To know the truth about the composition and\nhistory of things is good for this reason. It is also good because of\nthe enlarged horizon it gives us, because the spectacle of nature is\na marvellous and fascinating one, full of a serious sadness and\nlarge peace, which gives us back our birthright as children of the\nplanet and naturalizes us upon the earth. This is the poetic value of\nthe scientific _Weltanschauung._ From these two benefits, the\npractical and the imaginative, all the value of truth is derived.\n\nAesthetic and moral judgments are accordingly to be classed\ntogether in contrast to judgments intellectual; they are both\njudgments of value, while intellectual judgments are judgments of\nfact. If the latter have any value, it is only derivative, and our\nwhole intellectual life has its only justification in its connexion\nwith our pleasures and pains.\n\n_Contrast between moral and aesthetic values._\n\nSec. 3. The relation between aesthetic and moral judgments, between\nthe spheres of the beautiful and the good, is close, but the\ndistinction between them is important. One factor of this\ndistinction is that while aesthetic judgments are mainly positive,\nthat is, perceptions of good, moral judgments are mainly and\nfundamentally negative, or perceptions of evil. Another factor of\nthe distinction is that whereas, in the perception of beauty, our\njudgment is necessarily intrinsic and based on the character of the\nimmediate experience, and never consciously on the idea of an\neventual utility in the object, judgments about moral worth, on the\ncontrary, are always based, when they are positive, upon the\nconsciousness of benefits probably involved. Both these\ndistinctions need some elucidation.\n\nHedonistic ethics have always had to struggle against the moral\nsense of mankind. Earnest minds, that feel the weight and dignity\nof life, rebel against the assertion that the aim of right conduct is\nenjoyment. Pleasure usually appears to them as a temptation, and\nthey sometimes go so far as to make avoidance of it a virtue. The\ntruth is that morality is not mainly concerned with the attainment\nof pleasure; it is rather concerned, in all its deeper and more\nauthoritative maxims, with the prevention of suffering. There is\nsomething artificial in the deliberate pursuit of pleasure; there is\nsomething absurd in the obligation to enjoy oneself. We feel no\nduty in that direction; we take to enjoyment naturally enough after\nthe work of life is done, and the freedom and spontaneity of our\npleasures is what is most essential to them.\n\nThe sad business of life is rather to escape certain dreadful evils to\nwhich our nature exposes us, -- death, hunger, disease, weariness,\nisolation, and contempt. By the awful authority of these things,\nwhich stand like spectres behind every moral injunction,\nconscience in reality speaks, and a mind which they have duly\nimpressed cannot but feel, by contrast, the hopeless triviality of the\nsearch for pleasure. It cannot but feel that a life abandoned to\namusement and to changing impulses must run unawares into fatal\ndangers. The moment, however, that society emerges from the\nearly pressure of the environment and is tolerably secure against\nprimary evils, morality grows lax. The forms that life will farther\nassume are not to be imposed by moral authority, but are\ndetermined by the genius of the race, the opportunities of the\nmoment, and the tastes and resources of individual minds. The\nreign of duty gives place to the reign of freedom, and the law and\nthe covenant to the dispensation of grace.\n\nThe appreciation of beauty and its embodiment in the arts are\nactivities which belong to our holiday life, when we are redeemed\nfor the moment from the shadow of evil and the slavery to fear,\nand are following the bent of our nature where it chooses to lead us.\nThe values, then, with which we here deal are positive; they were\nnegative in the sphere of morality. The ugly is hardly an exception,\nbecause it is not the cause of any real pain. In itself it is rather a\nsource of amusement. If its suggestions are vitally repulsive, its\npresence becomes a real evil towards which we assume a practical\nand moral attitude. And, correspondingly, the pleasant is never, as\nwe hare seen, the object of a truly moral injunction.\n\n_Work and play._\n\nSec. 4. We have here, then, an important element of the distinction\nbetween aesthetic and moral values. It is the same that has been\npointed to in the famous contrast between work and play. These\nterms may be used in different senses and their importance in\nmoral classification differs with the meaning attached to them. We\nmay call everything play which is useless activity, exercise that\nsprings from the physiological impulse to discharge the energy\nwhich the exigencies of life have not called out. Work will then be\nall action that is necessary or useful for life. Evidently if work and\nplay are thus objectively distinguished as useful and useless action,\nwork is a eulogistic term and play a disparaging one. It would be\nbetter for us that all our energy should be turned to account, that\nnone of it should be wasted in aimless motion. Play, in this sense,\nis a sign of imperfect adaptation. It is proper to childhood, when\nthe body and mind are not yet fit to cope with the environment, but\nit is unseemly in manhood and pitiable in old age, because it marks\nan atrophy of human nature, and a failure to take hold of the\nopportunities of life.\n\nPlay is thus essentially frivolous. Some persons, understanding the\nterm in this sense, have felt an aversion, which every liberal mind\nwill share, to classing social pleasures, art, and religion under the\nhead of play, and by that epithet condemning them, as a certain\nschool seems to do, to gradual extinction as the race approaches\nmaturity. But if all the useless ornaments of our life are to be cut\noff in the process of adaptation, evolution would impoverish\ninstead of enriching our nature. Perhaps that is the tendency of\nevolution, and our barbarous ancestors amid their toils and wars,\nwith their flaming passions and mythologies, lived better lives than\nare reserved to our well-adapted descendants.\n\nWe may be allowed to hope, however, that some imagination may\nsurvive parasitically even in the most serviceable brain. Whatever\ncourse history may take, -- and we are not here concerned with\nprophecy, -- the question of what is desirable is not affected. To\ncondemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are\nuseless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life\nirrespective of its content. For such a system the worthiest function\nof the universe should be to establish perpetual motion.\nUselessness is a fatal accusation to bring against any act which is\ndone for its presumed utility, but those which are done for their\nown sake are their own justification.\n\nAt the same time there is an undeniable propriety in calling all the\nliberal and imaginative activities of man play, because they are\nspontaneous, and not carried on under pressure of external\nnecessity or danger. Their utility for self-preservation may be very\nindirect and accidental, but they are not worthless for that reason.\nOn the contrary, we may measure the degree of happiness and\ncivilization which any race has attained by the proportion of its\nenergy which is devoted to free and generous pursuits, to the\nadornment of life and the culture of the imagination. For it is in the\nspontaneous play of his faculties that man finds himself and his\nhappiness. Slavery is the most degrading condition of which he is\ncapable, and he is as often a slave to the niggardness of the earth\nand the inclemency of heaven, as to a master or an institution. He\nis a slave when all his energy is spent in avoiding suffering and\ndeath, when all his action is imposed from without, and no breath\nor strength is left him for free enjoyment.\n\nWork and play here take on a different meaning, and become\nequivalent to servitude and freedom. The change consists in the\nsubjective point of view from which the distinction is now made.\nWe no longer mean by work all that is done usefully, but only what\nis done unwillingly and by the spur of necessity. By play we are\ndesignating, no longer what is done fruitlessly, but whatever is\ndone spontaneously and for its own sake, whether it have or not an\nulterior utility. Play, in this sense, may be our most useful\noccupation. So far would a gradual adaptation to the environment\nbe from making this play obsolete, that it would tend to abolish\nwork, and to make play universal. For with the elimination of all\nthe conflicts and errors of instinct, the race would do\nspontaneously whatever conduced to its welfare and we should live\nsafely and prosperously without external stimulus or restraint.\n\n_All values are in one sense aesthetic._\n\nSec. 5. In this second and subjective sense, then, work is the\ndisparaging term and play the eulogistic one. All who feel the\ndignity and importance of the things of the imagination, need not\nhesitate to adopt the classification which designates them as play.\nWe point out thereby, not that they have no value, but that their\nvalue is intrinsic, that in them is one of the sources of all worth.\nEvidently all values must be ultimately intrinsic. The useful is\ngood because of the excellence of its consequences; but these must\nsomewhere cease to be merely useful in their turn, or only\nexcellent as means; somewhere we must reach the good that is\ngood in itself and for its own sake, else the whole process is futile,\nand the utility of our first object illusory. We here reach the second\nfactor in our distinction, between aesthetic and moral values,\nwhich regards their immediacy.\n\nIf we attempt to remove from life all its evils, as the popular\nimagination has done at times, we shall find little but aesthetic\npleasures remaining to constitute unalloyed happiness. The\nsatisfaction of the passions and the appetites, in which we chiefly\nplace earthly happiness, themselves take on an aesthetic tinge\nwhen we remove ideally the possibility of loss or variation. What\ncould the Olympians honour in one another or the seraphim\nworship in God except the embodiment of eternal attributes, of\nessences which, like beauty, make us happy only in contemplation?\nThe glory of heaven could not be otherwise symbolized than by\nlight and music. Even the knowledge of truth, which the most\nsober theologians made the essence of the beatific vision, is an\naesthetic delight; for when the truth has no further practical utility,\nit becomes a landscape. The delight of it is imaginative and the\nvalue of it aesthetic.\n\nThis reduction of all values to immediate appreciations, to\nsensuous or vital activities, is so inevitable that it has struck even\nthe minds most courageously rationalistic. Only for them, instead\nof leading to the liberation of aesthetic goods from practical\nentanglements and their establishment as the only pure and\npositive values in life, this analysis has led rather to the denial of\nall pure and positive goods altogether. Such thinkers naturally\nassume that moral values are intrinsic and supreme; and since these\nmoral values would not arise but for the existence or imminence of\nphysical evils, they embrace the paradox that without evil no good\nwhatever is conceivable.\n\nThe harsh requirements of apologetics have no doubt helped them\nto this position, from which one breath of spring or the sight of one\nwell-begotten creature should be enough to dislodge them. Their\nethical temper and the fetters of their imagination forbid them to\nreconsider their original assumption and to conceive that morality\nis a means and not an end; that it is the price of human\nnon-adaptation, and the consequence of the original sin of unfitness. It\nis the compression of human conduct within the narrow limits of\nthe safe and possible. Remove danger, remove pain, remove the\noccasion of pity, and the need of morality is gone. To say \"thou\nshalt not\" would then be an impertinence.\n\nBut this elimination of precept would not be a cessation of life.\nThe senses would still be open, the instincts would still operate,\nand lead all creatures to the haunts and occupations that befitted\nthem. The variety of nature and the infinity of art, with the\ncompanionship of our fellows, would fill the leisure of that ideal\nexistence. These are the elements of our positive happiness, the\nthings which, amid a thousand vexations and vanities, make the\nclear profit of living.\n\n_Aesthetic consecration of general principles._\n\nSec. 6. Not only are the various satisfactions which morals are meant\nto secure aesthetic in the last analysis, but when the conscience is\nformed, and right principles acquire an immediate authority, our\nattitude to these principles becomes aesthetic also. Honour,\ntruthfulness, and cleanliness are obvious examples. When the\nabsence of these virtues causes an instinctive disgust, as it does in\nwell-bred people, the reaction is essentially aesthetic, because it is\nnot based on reflection and benevolence, but on constitutional\nsensitiveness. This aesthetic sensitiveness is, however, properly\nenough called moral, because it is the effect of conscientious\ntraining and is more powerful for good in society than laborious\nvirtue, because it is much more constant and catching. It is\nKalokagathia, the aesthetic demand for the morally good, and\nperhaps the finest flower of human nature.\n\nBut this tendency of representative principles to become\nindependent powers and acquire intrinsic value is sometimes\nmischievous. It is the foundation of the conflicts between\nsentiment and justice, between intuitive and utilitarian morals.\nEvery human reform is the reassertion of the primary interests of\nman against the authority of general principles which have ceased\nto represent those interests fairly, but which still obtain the\nidolatrous veneration of mankind. Nor are chivalry and religion\nalone liable to fall into this moral superstition. It arises wherever\nan abstract good is substituted for its concrete equivalent. The\nmiser's fallacy is the typical case, and something very like it is the\nethical principle of half our respectable population. To the exercise\nof certain useful habits men come to sacrifice the advantage which\nwas the original basis and justification of those habits. Minute\nknowledge is pursued at the expense of largeness of mind, and\nriches at the expense of comfort and freedom.\n\nThis error is all the more specious when the derived aim has in\nitself some aesthetic charm, such as belongs to the Stoic idea of\nplaying one's part in a vast drama of things, irrespective of any\nadvantage thereby accruing to any one; somewhat as the miser's\npassion is rendered a little normal when his eye is fascinated not\nmerely by the figures of a bank account, but by the glitter of the\nyellow gold. And the vanity of playing a tragic part and the glory\nof conscious self-sacrifice have the same immediate fascination.\nMany irrational maxims thus acquire a kind of nobility. An object\nis chosen as the highest good which has not only a certain\nrepresentative value, but also an intrinsic one, -- which is not\nmerely a method for the realization of other values, but a value in\nits own realization.\n\nObedience to God is for the Christian, as conformity to the laws of\nnature or reason is for the Stoic, an attitude which has a certain\nemotional and passionate worth, apart from its original justification\nby maxims of utility. This emotional and passionate force is the\nessence of fanaticism, it makes imperatives categorical, and gives\nthem absolute sway over the conscience in spite of their\none-sidedness and their injustice to the manifold demands of human\nnature.\n\nObedience to God or reason can originally recommend itself to a\nman only as the surest and ultimately least painful way of\nbalancing his aims and synthesizing his desires. So necessary is\nthis sanction even to the most impetuous natures, that no martyr\nwould go to the stake if he did not believe that the powers of nature,\nin the day of judgment, would be on his side. But the human mind\nis a turbulent commonwealth, and the laws that make for the\ngreatest good cannot be established in it without some partial\nsacrifice, without the suppression of many particular impulses.\nHence the voice of reason or the command of God, which makes\nfor the maximum ultimate satisfaction, finds itself opposed by\nsundry scattered and refractory forces, which are henceforth\ndenominated bad. The unreflective conscience, forgetting the\nvicarious source of its own excellence, then assumes a solemn and\nincomprehensible immediacy, as if its decrees were absolute and\nintrinsically authoritative, not of to-day or yesterday, and no one\ncould tell whence they had arisen. Instinct can all the more easily\nproduce this mystification when it calls forth an imaginative\nactivity full of interest and eager passion. This effect is\nconspicuous in the absolutist conscience, both devotional and\nrationalistic, as also in the passion of love. For in all these a certain\nindividuality, definiteness, and exclusiveness is given to the\npursued object which is very favourable to zeal, and the heat of\npassion melts together the various processes of volition into the\nconsciousness of one adorable influence.\n\nHowever deceptive these complications may prove to men of\naction and eloquence, they ought not to impose on the critic of\nhuman nature. Evidently what value general goods do not derive\nfrom the particular satisfactions they stand for, they possess in\nthemselves as ideas pleasing and powerful over the imagination.\nThis intrinsic advantage of certain principles and methods is none\nthe less real for being in a sense aesthetic. Only a sordid\nutilitarianism that subtracts the imagination from human nature, or\nat least slurs over its immense contribution to our happiness, could\nfail to give these principles the preference over others practically\nas good.\n\nIf it could be shown, for instance, that monarchy was as apt, in a\ngiven case, to secure the public well-being as some other\nform of government, monarchy should be preferred, and would\nundoubtedly be established, on account of its imaginative and\ndramatic superiority. But if, blinded by this somewhat ethereal\nadvantage, a party sacrificed to it important public interests, the\ninjustice would be manifest. In a doubtful case, a nation decides,\nnot without painful conflicts, how much it will sacrifice to its\nsentimental needs. The important point is to remember that the\nrepresentative or practical value of a principle is one thing, and its\nintrinsic or aesthetic value is another, and that the latter can be\njustly counted only as an item in its favour to be weighed; against\npossible external disadvantages. Whenever this comparison and\nbalancing of ultimate benefits of every kind is angrily dismissed in\nfavour of some absolute principle, laid down in contempt of human\nmisery and happiness, we have a personal and fantastic system of\nethics, without practical sanctions. It is an evidence that the\nsuperstitious imagination has invaded the sober and practical\ndomain of morals.\n\n_Aesthetic and physical pleasure._\n\nSec. 7. We have now separated with some care intellectual and moral\njudgments from the sphere of our subject, and found that we are to\ndeal only with perceptions of value, and with these only when they\nare positive and immediate. But even with these distinctions the\nmost remarkable characteristic of the sense of beauty remains\nundefined. All pleasures are intrinsic and positive values, but all\npleasures are not perceptions of beauty. Pleasure is indeed the\nessence of that perception, but there is evidently in this particular\npleasure a complication which is not present in others and which is\nthe basis of the distinction made by consciousness and language\nbetween it and the rest. It will be instructive to notice the degrees\nof this difference.\n\nThe bodily pleasures are those least resembling perceptions of\nbeauty. By bodily pleasures we mean, of course, more than\npleasures with a bodily seat; for that class would include them all,\nas well as all forms and elements of consciousness. Aesthetic\npleasures have physical conditions, they depend on the activity of\nthe eye and the ear, of the memory and the other ideational\nfunctions of the brain. But we do not connect those pleasures with\ntheir seats except in physiological studies; the ideas with which\naesthetic pleasures are associated are not the ideas of their bodily\ncauses. The pleasures we call physical, and regard as low, on the\ncontrary, are those which call our attention to some part of our own\nbody, and which make no object so conspicuous to us as the organ\nin which they arise.\n\nThere is here, then, a very marked distinction between physical and\naesthetic pleasure; the organs of the latter must be transparent, they\nmust not intercept our attention, but carry it directly to some\nexternal object. The greater dignity and range of aesthetic pleasure\nis thus made very intelligible. The soul is glad, as it were, to forget\nits connexion with the body and to fancy that it can travel over the\nworld with the liberty with which it changes the objects of its\nthought. The mind passes from China to Peru without any\nconscious change in the local tensions of the body. This illusion of\ndisembodiment is very exhilarating, while immersion in the flesh\nand confinement to some organ gives a tone of grossness\nand selfishness to our consciousness. The generally meaner\nassociations of physical pleasures also help to explain their\ncomparative crudity.\n\n_The differetia of aesthetic pleasure not its disinterestedness._\n\nSec. 8. The distinction between pleasure and the sense of beauty has\nsometimes been said to consist in the unselfishness of aesthetic\nsatisfaction. In other pleasures, it is said, we gratify our senses and\npassions; in the contemplation of beauty we are raised above\nourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the\nrecognition of a good that we do not seek to possess. The painter\ndoes not look at a spring of water with the eyes of a thirsty man,\nnor at a beautiful woman with those of a satyr. The difference lies,\nit is urged, in the impersonality of the enjoyment. But this\ndistinction is one of intensity and delicacy, not of nature, and it\nseems satisfactory only to the least aesthetic minds.[1]\n\nIn the second place, the supposed disinterestedness of aesthetic\ndelights is not truly fundamental. Appreciation of a picture is not\nidentical with the desire to buy it, but it is, or ought to be, closely\nrelated and preliminary to that desire. The beauties of nature and of\nthe plastic arts are not consumed by being enjoyed; they retain all\nthe efficacy to impress a second beholder. But this circumstance is\naccidental, and those aesthetic objects which depend upon change\nand are exhausted in time, as are all performances, are things the\nenjoyment of which is an object of rivalry and is coveted as much\nas any other pleasure. And even plastic beauties can often not be\nenjoyed except by a few, on account of the necessity of travel or\nother difficulties of access, and then this aesthetic enjoyment is as\nselfishly pursued as the rest.\n\nThe truth which the theory is trying to state seems rather to be that\nwhen we seek aesthetic pleasures we have no further pleasure in\nmind; that we do not mix up the satisfactions of vanity and\nproprietorship with the delight of contemplation. This is true, but it\nis true at bottom of all pursuits and enjoyments. Every real\npleasure is in one sense disinterested. It is not sought with ulterior\nmotives, and what fills the mind is no calculation, but the image of\nan object or event, suffused with emotion. A sophisticated\nconsciousness may often take the idea of self as the touchstone of\nits inclinations; but this self, for the gratification and\naggrandizement of which a man may live, is itself only a complex\nof aims and memories, which once had their direct objects, in\nwhich he had taken a spontaneous and unselfish interest. The\ngratifications which, merged together, make the selfishness are\neach of them ingenuous, and no more selfish than the most\naltruistic, impersonal emotion. The content of selfishness is a mass\nof unselfishness. There is no reference to the nominal essence\ncalled oneself either in one's appetites or in one's natural affections;\nyet a man absorbed in his meat and drink, in his houses and lands,\nin his children and dogs, is called selfish because these interests,\nalthough natural and instinctive in him, are not shared by others.\nThe unselfish man is he whose nature has a more universal\ndirection, whose interests are more widely diffused.\n\nBut as impersonal thoughts are such only in their object, not in\ntheir subject or agents, since, all thoughts are the thoughts of\nsomebody: so also unselfish interests have to be somebody's\ninterests. If we were not interested in beauty, if it were of no\nconcern to our happiness whether things were beautiful or ugly, we\nshould manifest not the maximum, but the total absence of\naesthetic faculty. The disinterestedness of this pleasure is, therefore,\nthat of all primitive and intuitive satisfactions, which are in no way\nconditioned by a reference to an artificial general concept, like that\nof the self, all the potency of which must itself be derived from the\nindependent energy of its component elements. I care about myself\nbecause \"myself\" is a name for the things I have at heart. To set up\nthe verbal figment of personality and make it an object of concern\napart from the interests which were its content and substance, turns\nthe moralist into a pedant, and ethics into a superstition. The self\nwhich is the object of _amour propre_ is an idol of the tribe, and\nneeds to be disintegrated into the primitive objective interests that\nunderlie it before the cultus of it can be justified by reason.\n\n_The differentia of aesthetic pleasure not its universality._\n\nSec. 9. The supposed disinterestedness of our love of beauty passes\ninto another characteristic of it often regarded as essential, -- its\nuniversality. The pleasures of the senses have, it is said, no\ndogmatism in them; that anything gives me pleasure involves no\nassertion about its capacity to give pleasure to another. But when I\njudge a thing to be beautiful, my judgment means that the thing is\nbeautiful in itself, or (what is the same thing more critically\nexpressed) that it should seem so to everybody. The claim to\nuniversality is, according to this doctrine, the essence of the\naesthetic; what makes the perception of beauty a judgment rather\nthan a sensation. All aesthetic precepts would be impossible, and\nall criticism arbitrary and subjective, unless we admit a paradoxical\nuniversality in our judgment, the philosophical implications of\nwhich we may then go on to develope. But we are fortunately not\nrequired to enter the labyrinth into which this method leads; there\nis a much simpler and clearer way of studying such questions,\nwhich is to challenge and analyze the assertion before us and seek\nits basis in human nature. Before this is done, we should run the\nrisk of expanding a natural misconception or inaccuracy of thought\ninto an inveterate and pernicious prejudice by making it the centre\nof an elaborate construction.\n\nThat the claim of universality is such a natural inaccuracy will not\nbe hard to show. There is notoriously no great agreement upon\naesthetic matters; and such agreement as there is, is based upon\nsimilarity of origin, nature, and circumstance among men, a\nsimilarity which, where it exists, tends to bring about identity in all\njudgments and feelings. It is unmeaning to say that what is\nbeautiful to one man _ought_ to be beautiful to another. If their\nsenses are the same, their associations and dispositions similar,\nthen the same thing will certainly be beautiful to both. If their\nnatures are different, the form which to one will be entrancing will\nbe to another even invisible, because his classifications and\ndiscriminations in perception will be different, and he may see a\nhideous detached fragment or a shapeless aggregate of things, in\nwhat to another is a perfect whole -- so entirely are the unities of\nfunction and use. It is absurd to say that what is invisible to a given\nbeing _ought_ to seem beautiful to him. Evidently this obligation\nof recognizing the same qualities is conditioned by the possession\nof the same faculties. But no two men have exactly the same\nfaculties, nor can things have for any two exactly the same values.\n\nWhat is loosely expressed by saying that any one ought to see this\nor that beauty is that he would see it if his disposition, training, or\nattention were what our ideal demands for him; and our ideal of\nwhat any one should be has complex but discoverable sources. We\ntake, for instance, a certain pleasure in having our own judgments\nsupported by those of others; we are intolerant, if not of the\nexistence of a nature different from our own, at least of\nits expression in words and judgments. We are confirmed or\nmade happy in our doubtful opinions by seeing them accepted\nuniversally. We are unable to find the basis of our taste in our own\nexperience and therefore refuse to look for it there. If we were sure\nof our ground, we should be willing to acquiesce in the naturally\ndifferent feelings and ways of others, as a man who is conscious of\nspeaking his language with the accent of the capital confesses its\narbitrariness with gayety, and is pleased and interested in the\nvariations of it he observes in provincials; but the provincial is\nalways zealous to show that he has reason and ancient authority to\njustify his oddities. So people who have no sensations, and do not\nknow why they judge, are always trying to show that they judge by\nuniversal reason.\n\nThus the frailty and superficiality of our own judgments cannot\nbrook contradiction. We abhor another man's doubt when we\ncannot tell him why we ourselves believe. Our ideal of other men\ntends therefore to include the agreement of their judgments with\nour own; and although we might acknowledge the fatuity of this\ndemand in regard to natures very different from the human, we\nmay be unreasonable enough to require that all races should admire\nthe same style of architecture, and all ages the same poets.\n\nThe great actual unity of human taste within the range of\nconventional history helps the pretension. But in principle it is\nuntenable. Nothing has less to do with the real merit of a work of\nimagination than the capacity of all men to appreciate it; the true\ntest is the degree and kind of satisfaction it can give to him who\nappreciates it most. The symphony would lose nothing if half\nmankind had always been deaf, as nine-tenths of them actually are\nto the intricacies of its harmonies; but it would have lost much if\nno Beethoven had existed. And more: incapacity to appreciate\ncertain types of beauty may be the condition _sine qua non_ for the\nappreciation of another kind; the greatest capacity both for\nenjoyment and creation is highly specialized and exclusive, and\nhence the greatest ages of art have often been strangely intolerant.\n\nThe invectives of one school against another, perverse as they are\nphilosophically, are artistically often signs of health, because they\nindicate a vital appreciation of certain kinds of beauty, a love of\nthem that has grown into a jealous passion. The architects that have\npieced out the imperfections of ancient buildings with their own\nthoughts, like Charles V. when he raised his massive palace beside\nthe Alhambra, may be condemned from a certain point of view.\nThey marred much by their interference; but they showed a\nsplendid confidence in their own intuitions, a proud assertion of\ntheir own taste, which is the greatest evidence of aesthetic sincerity.\nOn the contrary, our own gropings, eclecticism, and archaeology\nare the symptoms of impotence. If we were less learned and less\njust, we might be more efficient. If our appreciation were less\ngeneral, it might be more real, and if we trained our imagination\ninto exclusiveness, it might attain to character.\n\n_The differentia of aesthetic pleasure: its objectification._\n\nSec. 10. There is, however, something more in the claim to\nuniversality in aesthetic judgments than the desire to generalize our\nown opinions. There is the expression of a curious but well-known\npsychological phenomenon, viz., the transformation of an element\nof sensation into the quality of a thing. If we say that other men\nshould see the beauties we see, it is because _we_ think those\nbeauties _are in the object,_ like its colour, proportion, or size. Our\njudgment appears to us merely the perception and discovery of an\nexternal existence, of the real excellence that is without. But this\nnotion is radically absurd and contradictory. Beauty, as we have\nseen, is a value; it cannot be conceived as an independent existence\nwhich affects our senses and which we consequently perceive. It\nexists in perception, and cannot exist otherwise. A beautynot\nperceived is a pleasure not felt, and a contradiction. But modern\nphilosophy has taught us to say the same thing of every element of\nthe perceived world; all are sensations; and their grouping into\nobjects imagined to be permanent and external is the work of\ncertain habits of our intelligence. We should be incapable of\nsurveying or retaining the diffused experiences of life, unless we\norganized and classified them, and out of the chaos of impressions\nframed the world of conventional and recognizable objects.\n\nHow this is done is explained by the current theories of perception.\nExternal objects usually affect various senses at once, the\nimpressions of which are thereby associated. Repeated experiences\nof one object are also associated on account of their similarity;\nhence a double tendency to merge and unify into a single percept,\nto which a name is attached, the group of those memories and\nreactions which in fact had one external thing for their cause. But\nthis percept, once formed, is clearly different from those particular\nexperiences out of which it grew. It is permanent, they are variable.\nThey are but partial views and glimpses of it. The constituted\nnotion therefore comes to be the reality, and the materials of it\nmerely the appearance. The distinction between substance and\nquality, reality and appearance, matter and mind, has no other\norigin.\n\nThe objects thus conceived and distinguished from our ideas of\nthem, are at first compacted of all the impressions, feelings, and\nmemories, which offer themselves for association and fall within\nthe vortex of the amalgamating imagination. Every sensation we\nget from a thing is originally treated as one of its qualities.\nExperiment, however, and the practical need of a simpler\nconception of the structure of objects lead us gradually to reduce\nthe qualities of the object to a minimum, and to regard most\nperceptions as an effect of those few qualities upon us. These few\nprimary qualities, like extension which we persist in treating as\nindependently real and as the quality of a substance, are those\nwhich suffice to explain the order of our experiences. All the rest,\nlike colour, are relegated to the subjective sphere, as merely effects\nupon our minds, and apparent or secondary qualities of the object.\n\nBut this distinction has only a practical justification. Convenience\nand economy of thought alone determine what combination of our\nsensations we shall continue to objectify and treat as the cause of\nthe rest. The right and tendency to be objective is equal in all, since\nthey are all prior to the artifice of thought by which we separate the\nconcept from its materials, the thing from our experiences.\n\nThe qualities which we now conceive to belong to real objects are\nfor the moat part images of sight and touch. One of the first classes\nof effects to be treated as secondary were naturally pleasures and\npains, since it could commonly conduce very little to intelligent\nand successful action to conceive our pleasures and pains as\nresident in objects. But emotions are essentially capable of\nobjectification, as well as impressions of sense; and one may well\nbelieve that a primitive and inexperienced consciousness would\nrather people the world with ghosts of its own terrors and passions\nthan with projections of those luminous and mathematical concepts\nwhich as yet it could hardly have formed.\n\nThis animistic and mythological habit of thought still holds its own\nat the confines of knowledge, where mechanical explanations are\nnot found. In ourselves, where nearness makes observation\ndifficult, in the intricate chaos of animal and human life, we still\nappeal to the efficacy of will and ideas, as also in the remote night\nof cosmic and religious problems. But in all the intermediate realm\nof vulgar day, where mechanical science has made progress, the\ninclusion of emotional or passionate elements in the concept of the\nreality would be now an extravagance. Here our idea of things is\ncomposed exclusively of perceptual elements, of the ideas of form\nand of motion.\n\nThe beauty of objects, however, forms an exception to this rule.\nBeauty is an emotional element, a pleasure of ours, which\nnevertheless we regard as a quality of things. But we are now\nprepared to understand the nature of this exception. It is the\nsurvival of a tendency originally universal to make every effect of\na thing upon us a constituent of its conceived nature. The scientific\nidea of a thing is a great abstraction from the mass of perceptions\nand reactions which that thing produces the aesthetic idea is less\nabstract, since it retains the emotional reaction, the pleasure of the\nperception, as an integral part of the conceived thing.\n\nNor is it hard to find the ground of this survival in the sense of\nbeauty of an objectification of feeling elsewhere extinct. Most of\nthe pleasures which objects cause are easily distinguished and\nseparated from the perception of the object: the object has to be\napplied to a particular organ, like the palate, or swallowed like\nwine, or used and operated upon in some way before the pleasure\narises. The cohesion is therefore slight between the pleasure and\nthe other associated elements of sense; the pleasure is separated in\ntime from the perception, or it is localized in a different organ, and\nconsequently is at once recognized as an effect and not as a quality\nof the object. But when the process of perception itself is pleasant,\nas it may easily be, when the intellectual operation, by which the\nelements of sense are associated and projected, and the concept of\nthe form and substance of the thing produced, is naturally\ndelightful, then we have a pleasure intimately bound up in the\nthing, inseparable from its character and constitution, the seat of\nwhich in us is the same as the seat of the perception. We naturally\nfail, under these circumstances, to separate the pleasure from the\nother objectified feelings. It becomes, like them, a quality of the\nobject, which we distinguish from pleasures not so incorporated in\nthe perception of things, by giving it the name of beauty.\n\n_The definition of beauty._\n\nSec. 11. We have now reached our definition of beauty, which, in the\nterms of our successive analysis and narrowing of the conception,\nis value positive, intrinsic, and objectified. Or, in less technical\nlanguage, Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing.\n\nThis definition is intended to sum up a variety of distinctions and\nidentifications which should perhaps be here more explicitly set\ndown. Beauty is a value, that is, it is not a perception of a matter of\nfact or of a relation: it is an emotion, an affection of our volitional\nand appreciative nature. An object cannot be beautiful if it can give\npleasure to nobody: a beauty to which all men were forever\nindifferent is a contradiction in terms.\n\nIn the second place this value is positive, it is the sense of the\npresence of something good, or (in the case of ugliness) of its\nabsence. It is never the perception of a positive evil, it is never a\nnegative value. That we are endowed with the sense of beauty is a\npure gain which brings no evil with it. When the ugly ceases to be\namusing or merely uninteresting and becomes disgusting, it\nbecomes indeed a positive evil: but a moral and practical, not an\naesthetic one. In aesthetics that saying is true -- often so\ndisingenuous in ethics -- that evil is nothing but the absence of\ngood: for even the tedium and vulgarity of an existence without\nbeauty is not itself ugly so much as lamentable and degrading. The\nabsence of aesthetic goods is a moral evil: the aesthetic evil is\nmerely relative, and means less of aesthetic good than was\nexpected at the place and time. No form in itself gives pain,\nalthough some forms give pain by causing a shock of surprise even\nwhen they are really beautiful: as if a mother found a fine bull pup\nin her child's cradle, when her pain would not be aesthetic in its\nnature.\n\nFurther, this pleasure must not be in the consequence of the utility\nof the object or event, but in its immediate perception; in other\nwords, beauty is an ultimate good, something that gives\nsatisfaction to a natural function, to some fundamental need or\ncapacity of our minds. Beauty is therefore a positive value that is\nintrinsic; it is a pleasure. These two circumstances sufficiently\nseparate the sphere of aesthetics from that of ethics. Moral values\nare generally negative, and always remote. Morality has to do with\nthe avoidance of evil and the pursuit of good: aesthetics only with\nenjoyment.\n\nFinally, the pleasures of sense are distinguished from the\nperception of beauty, as sensation in general is distinguished from\nperception; by the objectification of the elements and their\nappearance as qualities rather of things than of consciousness. The\npassage from sensation to perception is gradual, and the path may\nbe sometimes retraced: so it is with beauty and the pleasures of\nsensation. There is no sharp line between them, but it depends\nupon the degree of objectivity my feeling has attained at the\nmoment whether I say \"It pleases me,\" or \"It is beautiful.\" If I am\nself-conscious and critical, I shall probably use, one phrase; if I am\nimpulsive and susceptible, the other. The more remote, interwoven,\nand inextricable the pleasure is, the more objective it will appear;\nand the union of two pleasures often makes one beauty. In\nShakespeare's LIVth sonnet are these words:\n\n O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem\n By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!\n The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n For that sweet odour which doth in it live.\n The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye\n As the perfumed tincture of the roses,\n Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly\n When summer's breath their masked buds discloses.\n But, for their beauty only is their show,\n They live unwooed and unrespected fade;\n Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so:\n Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.\n\nOne added ornament, we see, turns the deep dye, which was but\nshow and mere sensation before, into an element of beauty and\nreality, and as truth is here the co-operation of perceptions, so\nbeauty is the co-operation of pleasures. If colour, form, and motion\nare hardly beautiful without the sweetness of the odour, how much\nmore necessary would they be for the sweetness itself to become a\nbeauty! If we had the perfume in a flask, no one would think of\ncalling it beautiful: it would give us too detached and controllable\na sensation. There would be no object in which it could be easily\nincorporated. But let it float from the garden, and it will add\nanother sensuous charm to objects simultaneously recognized, and\nhelp to make them beautiful. Thus beauty is constituted by the\nobjectification of pleasure. It is pleasure objectified.\n\n\nPART II\n\nTHE MATERIALS OF BEAUTY\n\n_All human functions may contribute to the sense of beauty._\n\nSec. 12. Our task will now be to pass in review the various elements\nof our consciousness, and see what each contributes to the beauty\nof the world. We shall find that they do so whenever they are\ninextricably associated with the objectifying activity of the\nunderstanding. Whenever the golden thread of pleasure enters that\nweb of things which our intelligence is always busily spinning, it\nlends to the visible world that mysterious and subtle charm which\nwe call beauty.\n\nThere is no function of our nature which cannot contribute\nsomething to this effect, but one function differs very much from\nanother in the amount and directness of its contribution. The\npleasures of the eye and ear, of the imagination and memory, are\nthe most easily objectified and merged in ideas; but it would betray\ninexcusable haste and slight appreciation of the principle involved,\nif we called them the only materials of beauty. Our effort will\nrather be to discover its other sources, which have been more\ngenerally ignored, and point out their importance. For the five\nsenses and the three powers of the soul, which play so large a part\nin traditional psychology, are by no means the only sources or\nfactors of consciousness; they are more or less external divisions of\nits content, and not even exhaustive of that. The nature and\nchanges of our life have deeper roots, and are controlled by less\nobvious processes.\n\nThe human body is a machine that holds together by virtue of\ncertain vital functions, on the cessation of which it is dissolved.\nSome of these, like the circulation of the blood, the growth and\ndecay of the tissues, are at first sight unconscious. Yet any\nimportant disturbance of these fundamental processes at once\nproduces great and painful changes in consciousness. Slight\nalterations are not without their conscious echo: and the whole\ntemper and tone of our mind, the strength of our passions, the grip\nand concatenation of our habits, our power of attention, and the\nliveliness of our fancy and affections are due to the influence of\nthese vital forces. They do not, perhaps, constitute the whole basis\nof any one idea or emotion: but they are the conditions of the\nexistence and character of all.\n\nParticularly important are they for the _value_ of our experience.\nThey constitute health, without which no pleasure can be pure.\nThey determine our impulses in leisure, and furnish that surplus\nenergy which we spend in play, in art, and in speculation. The\nattraction of these pursuits, and the very existence of an aesthetic\nsphere, is due to the efficiency and perfection of our vital processes.\nThe pleasures which they involve are not exclusively bound to any\nparticular object, and therefore do not account for the relative\nbeauty of things. They are loose and unlocalized, having no special\norgan, or one which is internal and hidden within the body. They\ntherefore remain undiscriminated in consciousness, and can serve\nto add interest to any object, or to cast a general glamour over the\nworld, very favourable to its interest and beauty.\n\nThe aesthetic value of vital functions differs according to their\nphysiological concomitants: those that are favourable to ideation\nare of course more apt to extend something of their intimate\nwarmth to the pleasures of contemplation, and thus to intensify the\nsense of beauty and the interest of thought. Those, on the other\nhand, that for physiological reasons tend to inhibit ideation, and to\ndrown the attention in dumb and unrepresentable feelings, are less\nfavourable to aesthetic activity. The double effect of drowsiness\nand reverie will illustrate this difference. The heaviness of sleep\nseems to fall first on the outer senses, and of course makes them\nincapable of acute impressions; but if it goes no further, it leaves\nthe imagination all the freer, and by heightening the colours of the\nfancy, often suggests and reveals beautiful images. There is a kind\nof poetry and invention that comes only in such moments. In them\nmany lovely melodies must first have been heard, and centaurs and\nangels originally imagined.\n\nIf, however, the lethargy is more complete, or if the cause of it is\nsuch that the imagination is retarded while the senses remain\nawake, -- as is the case with an over-fed or over-exercised body, --\nwe have a state of aesthetic insensibility. The exhilaration which\ncomes with pure and refreshing air has a marked influence on our\nappreciations. To it is largely due the beauty of the morning, and\nthe entirely different charm it has from the evening. The opposite\nstate of all the functions here adds an opposite emotion to\nexternally similar scenes, making both infinitely but differently\nbeautiful.\n\nIt would be curious and probably surprising to discover how much\nthe pleasure of breathing has to do with our highest and most\ntranscendental ideals. It is not merely a metaphor that makes us\ncouple airiness with exquisiteness and breathlessness with awe; it\nis the actual recurrence of a sensation in the throat and lungs that\ngives those impressions an immediate power, prior to all reflection\nupon their significance. It is, therefore, to this vital sensation of\ndeep or arrested respiration that the impressiveness of those objects\nis immediately due.\n\n_The influence of the passion of love._\n\nSec. 13. Half-way between vital and social functions, lies the sexual\ninstinct. If nature had solved the problem of reproduction without\nthe differentiation of sex, our emotional life would have been\nradically different. So profound and, especially in woman, so\npervasive an influence does this function exert, that we should\nbetray an entirely unreal view of human nature if we did not\ninquire into the relations of sex with our aesthetic susceptibility.\nWe must not expect, however, any great difference between man\nand woman in the scope or objects of aesthetic interest: what is\nimportant in emotional life is not which sex an animal has, but that\nit has sex at all. For if we consider the difficult problem which\nnature had to solve in sexual reproduction, and the nice adjustment\nof instinct which it demands, we shall see that the reactions and\nsusceptibilities which must be implanted in the individual are for\nthe most part identical in both sexes, as the sexual organization is\nitself fundamentally similar in both. Indeed, individuals of various\nspecies and the whole animal kingdom have the same sexual\ndisposition, although, of course, the particular object destined to\ncall forth the complete sexual reaction, differs with every species,\nand with each sex.\n\nIf we were dealing with the philosophy of love, and not with that\nof beauty, our problem would be to find out by what machinery\nthis fundamental susceptibility, common to all animals of both\nsexes, is gradually directed to more and more definite objects: first,\nto one species and one sex, and ultimately to one individual. It is\nnot enough that sexual organs should be differentiated: the\nconnexion must be established between them and the outer senses,\nso that the animal may recognize and pursue the proper object.\n\nThe case of lifelong fidelity to one mate -- perhaps even to an\nunsatisfied and hopeless love -- is the maximum of differentiation,\nwhich even overleaps the utility which gave it a foothold in nature,\nand defeats its own object. For the differentiation of the instinct in\nrespect to sex, age, and species is obviously necessary to its\nsuccess as a device for reproduction. While this differentiation is\nnot complete, -- and it often is not, -- there is a great deal of\ngroping and waste; and the force and constancy of the instinct must\nmake up for its lack of precision. A great deal of vital energy is\nthus absorbed by this ill-adjusted function. The most economical\narrangement which can be conceived, would be one by which only\nthe one female best fitted to bear offspring to a male should arouse\nhis desire, and only so many times as it was well she should grow\npregnant, thus leaving his energy and attention free at all other\ntimes to exercise the other faculties of his nature.\n\nIf this ideal had been reached, the instinct, like all those perfectly\nadjusted, would tend to become unconscious; and we should miss\nthose secondary effects with which we are exclusively concerned\nin aesthetics. For it is precisely from the waste, from the radiation\nof the sexual passion, that I beauty borrows warmth. As a harp,\nmade to vibrate to the fingers, gives some music to every wind, so\nthe nature of man, necessarily susceptible to woman, becomes\nsimultaneously sensitive to other influences, and capable of\ntenderness toward every object. The capacity to love gives our\ncontemplation that glow without which it might often fail to\nmanifest beauty; and the whole sentimental side of our aesthetic\nsensibility -- without which it would be perceptive and\nmathematical rather than aesthetic -- is due to our sexual\norganization remotely stirred.\n\nThe attraction of sex could not become efficient unless the senses\nwere first attracted. The eye must be fascinated and the ear\ncharmed by the object which nature intends should be pursued.\nBoth sexes for this reason develope secondary sexual characteristics;\nand the sexual emotions are simultaneously extended to various\nsecondary objects. The colour, the grace, the form, which\nbecome the stimuli of sexual passion, and the guides of\nsexual selection, acquire, before they can fulfil that office, a\ncertain intrinsic charm. This charm is not only present for reasons\nwhich, in an admissible sense, we may call teleological, on account,\nthat is, of its past utility in reproduction, but its intensity and power\nare due to the simultaneous stirring of profound sexual impulses.\nNot, of course, that any specifically sexual ideas are connected\nwith these feelings: such ideas are absent in a modest and\ninexperienced mind even in the obviously sexual passions of love\nand jealousy.\n\nThese secondary objects of interest, which are some of the most\nconspicuous elements of beauty, are to be called sexual for these\ntwo reasons: because the contingencies of the sexual function hare\nhelped to establish them in our race, and because they owe their\nfascination in a great measure to the participation of our sexual life\nin the reaction which they cause.\n\nIf any one were desirous to produce a being with a great\nsusceptibility to beauty, he could not invent an instrument better\ndesigned for that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite\nfor the birth and rearing of each generation, might retain a savage\nindependence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision\nshould fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying\ncruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and\npowerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually\ntowards another; makes it one of the dearest employments of his\nlife to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the\nkeenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solitude an\neternal melancholy.\n\nWhat more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest\nmeaning and beauty? The attention is fixed upon a well-defined\nobject, and all the effects it produces in the mind are easily\nregarded as powers or qualities of that object. But these effects are\nhere powerful and profound. The soul is stirred to its depths. Its\nhidden treasures are brought to the surface of consciousness. The\nimagination and the heart awake for the first time. All these new\nvalues crystallize about the objects then offered to the mind. If the\nfancy is occupied by the image of a single person, whose qualities\nhave had the power of precipitating this revolution, all the values\ngather about that one image. The object becomes perfect, and we\nare said to be in love.[2] If the stimulus does not appear as a\ndefinite image, the values evoked are dispersed over the world, and\nwe are said to have become lovers of nature, and to have\ndiscovered the beauty and meaning of things.\n\nTo a certain extent this kind of interest will centre in the proper\nobject of sexual passion, and in the special characteristics of the\nopposite sex; and we find accordingly that woman is the most\nlovely object to man, and man, if female modesty would confess it,\nthe most interesting to woman. But the effects of so fundamental\nand primitive a reaction are much more general. Sex is not the only\nobject of sexual passion. When love lacks its specific object, when\nit does not yet understand itself, or has been sacrificed to some\nother interest, we see the stifled fire bursting out in various\ndirections. One is religious devotion, another is zealous\nphilanthropy, a third is the fondling of pet animals, but not the least\nfortunate is the love of nature, and of art; for nature also is often a\nsecond mistress that consoles us for the loss of a first. Passion then\noverflows and visibly floods those neighbouring regions which it\nhad always secretly watered. For the same nervous organization\nwhich sex involves, with its necessarily wide branchings and\nassociations in the brain, must be partially stimulated by other\nobjects than its specific or ultimate one especially in man, who,\nunlike some of the lower animals, has not his instincts clearly\ndistinct and intermittent, but always partially active, and never\nactive in isolation. We may say, then, that for man all nature is a\nsecondary object of sexual passion, and that to this fact the beauty\nof nature is largely due.\n\n_Social instincts and their aesthetic influence._\n\nSec. 14. The function of reproduction carries with it not only direct\nmodifications of the body and mind, but a whole set of social\ninstitutions, for the existence of which social instincts and habits\nare necessary in man. These social feelings, the parental, the\npatriotic, or the merely gregarious, are not of much direct value for\naesthetics, although, as is seen in the case of fashions, they are\nimportant in determining the duration and prevalence of a taste\nonce formed. Indirectly they are of vast importance and play a\ngreat role in arts like poetry, where the effect depends on what is\nsignified more than on what is offered to sense. Any appeal to a\nhuman interest rebounds in favour of a work of art in which it is\nsuccessfully made. That interest, unaesthetic in itself, helps to fix\nthe attention and to furnish subject-matter and momentum to arts\nand modes of appreciation which are aesthetic. Thus comprehension\nof the passion of love is necessary to the appreciation of\nnumberless songs, plays, and novels, and not a few works of\nmusical and plastic art.\n\nThe treatment of these matters must be postponed until we are\nprepared to deal with expression -- the most complex element of\neffect. It will suffice here to point out why social and gregarious\nimpulses, in the satisfaction of which happiness mainly resides, are\nthose in which beauty finds least support. This may help us to\nunderstand better the relations between aesthetics and _hedonics,_\nand the nature of that objectification in which we have placed the\ndifference between beauty and pleasure.\n\nSo long as happiness is conceived as a poet might conceive it,\nnamely, in its immediately sensuous and emotional factors, so long\nas we live in the moment and make our happiness consist in the\nsimplest things, -- in breathing, seeing, hearing, loving, and\nsleeping, -- our happiness has the same substance, the same\nelements, as our aesthetic delight, for it is aesthetic delight that\nmakes our happiness. Yet poets and artists, with their immediate\nand aesthetic joys, are not thought to be happy men; they\nthemselves are apt to be loud in their lamentations, and to regard\nthemselves as eminently and tragically unhappy. This arises from\nthe intensity and inconstancy of their emotions, from their\nimprovidence, and from the eccentricity of their social habits.\nWhile among them the sensuous and vital functions have the upper\nhand, the gregarious and social instincts are subordinated and often\nderanged; and their unhappiness consists in the sense of their\nunfitness to live in the world into which they are born.\n\nBut man is pre-eminently a political animal, and social needs are\nalmost as fundamental in him as vital functions, and often more\nconscious. Friendship, wealth, reputation, power, and influence,\nwhen added to family life, constitute surely the main elements of\nhappiness. Now these are only very partially composed of definite\nimages of objects. The desire for them, the consciousness of their\nabsence or possession, comes upon us only when we reflect, when\nwe are planning, considering the future, gathering the words of\nothers, rehearsing their scorn or admiration for ourselves,\nconceiving possible situations in which our virtue, our fame or\npower would become conspicuous, comparing our lot with that of\nothers, and going through other discursive processes of thought.\nApprehension, doubt, isolation, are things which come upon us\nkeenly when we reflect upon our lives; they cannot easily become\nqualities of any object. If by chance they can, they acquire a great\naesthetic value. For instance, \"home,\" which in its social sense is a\nconcept of happiness, when it becomes materialized in a cottage\nand a garden becomes an aesthetic concept, becomes a beautiful\nthing. The happiness is objectified, and the object beautified.\n\nSocial objects, however, are seldom thus aesthetic, because they\nare not thus definitely imaginable. They are diffuse and abstract,\nand verbal rather than sensuous in their materials. Therefore the\ngreat emotions that go with them are not immediately transmutable\ninto beauty. If artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because\nhappiness does not interest them. They cannot seriously pursue it,\nbecause its components are not components of beauty, and being in\nlove with beauty, they neglect and despise those unaesthetic social\nvirtues in the operation of which happiness is found. On the other\nhand those who pursue happiness conceived merely in the abstract\nand conventional terms, as money, success, or respectability, often\nmiss that real and fundamental part of happiness which flows from\nthe senses and imagination. This element is what aesthetics\nsupplies to life; for beauty also can be a cause and a factor of\nhappiness. Yet the happiness of loving beauty is either too\nsensuous to be stable, or else too ultimate, too sacramental, to be\naccounted happiness by the worldly mind.\n\n_The lower senses._\n\nSec. 15. The senses of touch, taste, and smell, although capable no\ndoubt of a great development, have not served in man for the\npurposes of intelligence so much as those of sight and hearing. It is\nnatural that as they remain normally in the background of\nconsciousness, and furnish the least part of our objectified ideas,\nthe pleasures connected with them should remain also detached,\nand unused for the purpose of appreciation of nature. They have\nbeen called the unaesthetic, as well as the lower, senses; but the\npropriety of these epithets, which is undeniable, is due not to any\nintrinsic sensuality or baseness of these senses, but to the function\nwhich they happen to have in our experience. Smell and taste, like\nhearing, have the great disadvantage of not being intrinsically\nspatial: they are therefore not fitted to serve for the representation\nof nature, which allows herself to be accurately conceived only in\nspatial terms.[3] They have not reached, moreover, the same\norganization as sounds, and therefore cannot furnish any play of\nsubjective sensation comparable to music in interest.\n\nThe objectification of musical forms is due to their fixity and\ncomplexity: like words, they are thought of as existing in a social\nmedium, and can be beautiful without being spatial. But tastes\nhave never been so accurately or universally classified and\ndistinguished; the instrument of sensation does not allow such nice\nand stable discriminations as does the ear. The art of combining\ndishes and wines, although one which everybody practises with\nmore or less skill and attention, deals with a material far too\nunrepresentable to be called beautiful. The art remains in the\nsphere of the pleasant, and is consequently regarded as servile,\nrather than fine.\n\nArtists in life, if that expression may be used for those who have\nbeautified social and domestic existence, have appealed\ncontinually to these lower senses. A fragrant garden, and savoury\nmeats, incense, and perfumes, soft stuffs, and delicious colours,\nform our ideal of oriental luxuries, an ideal which appeals too\nmuch to human nature ever to lose its charm. Yet our northern\npoets have seldom attempted to arouse these images in their\nsensuous intensity, without relieving them by some imaginative\ntouch. In Keats, for example, we find the following lines: --\n\n And still she slept in azure-lidded sleep,\n In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered,\n While he from forth the closet brought a heap\n Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd,\n With jellies soother than the creamy curd,\n And lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon;\n Manna and dates in argosy transferred\n From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one\n From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.\n\nEven the most sensuous of English poets, in whom the love of\nbeauty is supreme, cannot keep long to the primal elements of\nbeauty; the higher flight is inevitable for him. And how much does\nnot the appeal to things in argosy transferred from Fez, reinforced\nwith the reference to Samarcand and especially to the authorized\nbeauties of the cedars of Lebanon, which even the Puritan may\nsing without a blush, add to our wavering satisfaction and\nreconcile our conscience to this unchristian indulgence of sense!\n\nBut the time may be near when such scruples will be less common,\nand our poetry, with our other arts, will dwell nearer to the\nfountain-head of all inspiration. For if nothing not once in sense is\nto be found in the intellect, much less is such a thing to be found in\nthe imagination. If the cedars of Lebanon did not spread a grateful\nshade, or the winds rustle through the maze of their branches, if\nLebanon had never been beautiful to sense, it would not now be a\nfit or poetic subject of allusion. And the word \"Fez\" would be\nwithout imaginative value if no traveller had ever felt the\nintoxication of the torrid sun, the languors of oriental luxury, or,\nlike the British soldier, cried amid the dreary moralities of his\nnative land: --\n\n Take me somewhere east of Suez\n Where the best is like the worst,\n Where there ain't no ten commandments\n And a man may raise a thirst.\n\nNor would Samarcand be anything but for the mystery of the\ndesert and the picturesqueness of caravans, nor would an argosy be\npoetic if the sea had no voices and no foam, the winds and oars no\nresistance, and the rudder and taut sheets no pull. From these real\nsensations imagination draws its life, and suggestion its power.\nThe sweep of the fancy is itself also agreeable; but the superiority\nof the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety\nof the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty\nof those that can at any time be felt.\n\n_Sound._\n\nSec. 16. Sound shares with the lower senses the disadvantage of\nhaving no intrinsic spatial character; it, therefore, forms no part of\nthe properly abstracted external world, and the pleasures of the ear\ncannot become, in the literal sense, qualities of _things._ But there\nis in sounds such an exquisite and continuous gradation in pitch,\nand such a measurable relation in length, that an object almost as\ncomplex and describable as the visible one can be built out of\nthem. What gives spatial forms their value in description of\nthe environment is the ease with which discriminations and\ncomparisons can be made in spatial objects: they are measurable,\nwhile unspatial sensations commonly are not. But sounds are also\nmeasurable in their own category: they have comparable pitches\nand durations, and definite and recognizable combinations of those\nsensuous elements are as truly _objects_ as chairs and tables. Not\nthat a musical composition exists in any mystical way, as a portion\nof the music of the spheres, which no one is hearing; but that, for a\ncritical philosophy, visible objects are also nothing but possibilities\nof sensation. The real world is merely the shadow of that assurance\nof eventual experience which accompanies sanity. This objectivity\ncan accrue to any mental figment that has enough cohesion,\ncontent, and individuality to be describable and recognizable, and\nthese qualities belong no less to audible than to spatial ideas.\n\nThere is, accordingly, some justification in Schopenhauer's\nspeculative assertion that music repeats the entire world of sense,\nand is a parallel method of expression of the underlying substance,\nor will. The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety\nand, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions; and it has as\nmuch as the world of matter the power to interest us and to stir our\nemotions. It was therefore potentially as full of meaning. But it has\nproved the less serviceable and constant apparition; and, therefore,\nmusic, which builds with its materials, while the purest and most\nimpressive of the arts, is the least human and instructive of them.\n\nThe pleasantness of sounds has a simple physical basis. All\nsensations are pleasant only between certain limits of intensity; but\nthe ear can discriminate easily between noises, that in themselves\nare uninteresting, if not annoying, and notes, which have an\nunmistakable charm. A sound is a note if the pulsations of the air\nby which it is produced recur at regular intervals. If there is no\nregular recurrence of waves, it is a noise. The rapidity of these\nregular beats determines the pitch of tones. That quality or\n_timbre_ by which one sound is distinguished from another of the\nsame pitch and intensity is due to the different complications of\nwaves in the air; the ability to discriminate the various waves in the\nvibrating air is, therefore, the condition of our finding music in it;\nfor every wave has its period, and what we call a noise is a\ncomplication of notes too complex for our organs or our attention\nto decipher.\n\nWe find here, at the very threshold of our subject, a clear instance\nof a conflict of principles which appears everywhere in aesthetics,\nand is the source and explanation of many conflicts of taste. Since\na note is heard when a set of regular vibrations can be\ndiscriminated in the chaos of sound, it appears that the perception\nand value of this artistic element depends on abstraction, on the\nomission from the field of attention, of all the elements which do\nnot conform to a simple law. This may be called the principle of\npurity. But if it were, the only principle at work, there would be no\nmusic more beautiful than the tone of a tuning-fork. Such sounds,\nalthough delightful perhaps to a child, are soon tedious. The\nprinciple of purity must make some compromise with another\nprinciple, which we may call that of interest. The object must have\nenough variety and expression to hold our attention for a while,\nand to stir our nature widely.\n\nAs we are more acutely sensitive to results or to processes, we find\nthe most agreeable effect nearer to one or to the other of these\nextremes of a tedious beauty or of an unbeautiful expressiveness.\nBut these principles, as is clear, are not coordinate. The child who\nenjoys his rattle or his trumpet has aesthetic enjoyment, of\nhowever rude a kind; but the master of technique who should give\na performance wholly without sensuous charm would be a gymnast\nand not a musician, and the author whose novels and poems should\nbe merely expressive, and interesting only by their meaning and\nmoral, would be a writer of history or philosophy, but not an artist.\nThe principle of purity is therefore essential to aesthetic effect, but\nthe principle of interest is subsidiary, and if appealed to alone\nwould fail to produce beauty.\n\nThe distinction, however, is not absolute: for the simple sensation\nis itself interesting, and the complication, if it is appreciable by\nsense and does not require discursive thought to grasp it, is itself\nbeautiful. There may be a work of art in which the sensuous\nmaterials are not pleasing, as a discourse without euphony, if the\nstructure and expression give delight; and there may be an\ninteresting object without perceived structure, like musical notes,\nor the blue sky. Perfection would, of course, lie in the union of\nelements all intrinsically beautiful, in forms also intrinsically so;\nbut where this is impossible, different natures prefer to sacrifice\none or the other advantage.\n\n_Colour._\n\nSec. 17. In the eye we have an organ so differentiated that it is\nsensitive to a much more subtle influence than even that of air\nwaves. There seems to be, in the interstellar spaces, some\npervasive fluid, for the light of the remotest star is rapidly\nconveyed to us, and we can hardly understand how this radiation of\nlight, which takes place beyond our atmosphere, could be realized\nwithout some medium. This hypothetical medium we call the ether.\nIt is capable of very rapid vibrations, which are propagated in all\ndirections, like the waves of sound, only much more quickly.\nMany common observations, such as the apparent interval between\nlightning and thunder, make us aware of the quicker motion of\nlight. Now, since nature was filled with this responsive fluid,\nwhich propagated to all distances vibrations originating at any\npoint, and moreover as these vibrations, when intercepted by a\nsolid body, were reflected wholly or in part, it obviously became\nvery advantageous to every animal to develope an organ sensitive\nto these vibrations -- sensitive, that is, to light. For this would give\nthe mind instantaneous impressions dependent upon the presence\nand nature of distant objects.\n\nTo this circumstance we must attribute the primacy of sight in our\nperception, a primacy that makes light the natural symbol of\nknowledge. When the time came for our intelligence to take the\ngreat metaphysical leap, and conceive its content as permanent and\nindependent, or, in other words, to imagine _things,_ the idea of\nthese _things_ had to be constructed out of the materials already\npresent to the mind. But the fittest material for such construction\nwas that furnished by the eye, since it is the eye that brings us into\nwidest relations with our actual environment, and gives us the\nquickest warning of approaching impressions. Sight has a\nprophetic function. We are less interested in it for itself than for the\nsuggestion it brings of what may follow after. Sight is a method of\npresenting psychically what is practically absent; and as the\nessence of the _thing_ is its existence in our absence, the _thing_ is\nspontaneously conceived in terms of sight.\n\nSight is, therefore, perception _par excellence,_ since we become\nmost easily aware of objects through visual agency and in visual\nterms. Now, as the values of perception are those we call aesthetic,\nand there could be no beauty if there was no conception of\nindependent objects, we may expect to find beauty derived mainly\nfrom the pleasures of sight. And, in fact, form, which is almost a\nsynonym of beauty, is for us usually something visible: it is a\nsynthesis of the seen. But prior to the effect of form, which arises\nin the constructive imagination, comes the effect of colour; this is\npurely sensuous, and no better intrinsically than the effects of any\nother sense: but being more involved in the perception of objects\nthan are the rest, it becomes more readily an element of beauty.\n\nThe values of colours differ appreciably and have analogy to the\ndiffering values of other sensations. As sweet or pungent smells, as\nhigh and low notes, or major and minor chords, differ from each\nother by virtue of their different stimulation of the senses, so also\nred differs from green, and green from violet. There is a nervous\nprocess for each, and consequently a specific value. This emotional\nquality has affinity to the emotional quality of other sensations; we\nneed not be surprised that the high rate of vibration which yields a\nsharp note to the ear should involve somewhat the same feeling\nthat is produced by the high rate of vibration which, to the eye,\nyields a violet colour. These affinities escape many minds; but it is\nconceivable that the sense of them should be improved by accident\nor training. There are certain effects of colour which give all men\npleasure, and others which jar, almost like a musical discord. A\nmore general development of this sensibility would make possible\na new abstract art, an art that should deal with colours as music\ndoes with sound.\n\nWe have not studied these effects, however, with enough attention,\nwe have not allowed them to penetrate enough into the soul, to\nthink them very significant. The stimulation of fireworks, or of\nkaleidoscopic effects, seems to us trivial. But everything which has\na varied content has a potentiality of form and also of meaning.\nThe form will be enjoyed as soon as attention accustoms us to\ndiscriminate and recognize its variations; and meaning will accrue\nto it, when the various emotional values of these forms ally the\nnew object to all other experiences which involve similar emotions,\nand thus give it a sympathetic environment in the mind. The\ncolours of the sunset have a brilliancy that attracts attention, and a\nsoftness and illusiveness that enchant the eye; while the many\nassociations of the evening and of heaven gather about this kindred\ncharm and deepen it. Thus the most sensuous of beauties can be\nfull of sentimental suggestion. In stained glass, also, we have an\nexample of masses of colour made to exert their powerful direct\ninfluence, to intensify an emotion eventually to be attached to very\nideal objects; what is in itself a gorgeous and unmeaning ornament,\nby its absolute impressiveness becomes a vivid symbol of those\nother ultimates which have a similar power over the soul.\n\n_Materials surveyed._\n\nSec. 18. We have now gone over those organs of perception that give\nus the materials out of which we construct objects, and mentioned\nthe most conspicuous pleasures which, as they arise from those\norgans, are easily merged in the ideas furnished by the same. We\nhave also noticed that these ideas, conspicuous as they are in our\ndeveloped and operating consciousness, are not so much factors in\nour thought, independent contributors to it, as they are\ndiscriminations and excisions in its content, which, after they are\nall made, leave still a background of vital feeling. For the outer\nsenses are but a portion of our sensorium, and the ideas of each, or\nof all together, but a portion of our consciousness.\n\nThe pleasures which accompany ideation we have also found to be\nunitary and vital; only just as for practical purposes it is necessary\nto abstract and discriminate the contribution of one sense from that\nof another, and thus to become aware of particular and definable\nimpressions, so it is natural that the diffused emotional tone of the\nbody should also be divided, and a certain modicum of pleasure or\npain should be attributed to each idea. Our pleasures are thus\ndescribed as the pleasures of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight,\nand may become elements of beauty at the same time as the ideas\nto, which they are attached become elements of objects. There is,\nhowever, a remainder of emotion as there is a remainder of\nsensation; and the importance of this remainder -- of the continuum\nin which lie all particular pleasures and pains -- was insisted upon\nin the beginning.\n\nThe beauty of the world, indeed, cannot be attributed wholly or\nmainly to pleasures thus attached to abstracted sensations. It is\nonly the beauty of the materials of things which is drawn from the\npleasures of sensation. By far the most important effects are not\nattributable to these materials, but to their arrangement and their\nideal relations. We have yet to study those processes of our mind\nby which this arrangement and these relations are conceived; and\nthe pleasures which we can attach to these processes may then be\nadded to the pleasures attached to sense as further and more subtle\nelements of beauty.\n\nBut before passing to the consideration of this more intricate\nsubject, we may note that however subordinate the beauty may be\nwhich a garment, a building, or a poem derives from its sensuous\nmaterial, yet the presence of this sensuous material is indispensable.\nForm cannot be the form of nothing. If, then, in finding or creating\nbeauty, we ignore the materials of things, and attend only to their\nform, we miss an ever-present opportunity to heighten our effects.\nFor whatever delight the form may bring, the material might have\ngiven delight already, and so much would have been gained\ntowards the value of the total result.\n\nSensuous beauty is not the greatest or most important element of\neffect, but it is the most primitive and fundamental, and the most\nuniversal. There is no effect of form which an effect of material\ncould not enhance, and this effect of material, underlying that of\nform, raises the latter to a higher power and gives the beauty of the\nobject a certain poignancy, thoroughness, and infinity which it\notherwise would have lacked. The Parthenon not in marble, the\nking's crown not of gold, and the stars not of fire, would be feeble\nand prosaic things. The greater hold which material beauty has\nupon the senses, stimulates us here, where the form is also sublime,\nand lifts and intensifies our emotions. We need this stimulus if our\nperceptions are to reach the highest pitch of strength and acuteness.\nNothing can be ravishing that is not beautiful pervasively.\n\nAnd another point. The wider diffusion of sensuous beauty makes\nit as it were the poor man's good. Fewer factors are needed to\nproduce it and less training to appreciate it. The senses are\nindispensable instruments of labour, developed by the necessities\nof life; but their perfect development produces a harmony between\nthe inward structure and instinct of the organ and the outward\nopportunities for its use; and this harmony is the source of\ncontinual pleasures. In the sphere of sense, therefore, a certain\ncultivation is inevitable in man; often greater, indeed, among\nrude peoples, perhaps among animals, than among those whose\nattention takes a wider sweep and whose ideas are more abstract.\nWithout requiring, therefore, that a man should rise above his\nstation, or develope capacities which his opportunities will seldom\nemploy, we may yet endow his life with aesthetic interest, if we\nallow him the enjoyment of sensuous beauty. This enriches him\nwithout adding to his labour, and flatters him without alienating\nhim from his world.\n\nTaste, when it is spontaneous, always begins with the senses.\nChildren and savages, as we are so often told, delight in bright and\nvariegated colours; the simplest people appreciate the neatness of\nmuslin curtains, shining varnish, and burnished pots. A rustic\ngarden is a shallow patchwork of the liveliest flowers, without that\nreserve and repose which is given by spaces and masses. Noise and\nvivacity is all that childish music contains, and primitive songs add\nlittle more of form than what is required to compose a few\nmonotonous cadences. These limitations are not to be regretted;\nthey are a proof of sincerity. Such simplicity is not the absence of\ntaste, but the beginning of it.\n\nA people with genuine aesthetic perceptions creates traditional\nforms and expresses the simple pathos of its life, in unchanging but\nsignificant themes, repeated by generation after generation. When\nsincerity is lost, and a snobbish ambition is substituted bad taste\ncomes in. The essence of it is a substitution of non-aesthetic for\naesthetic values. To love glass beads because they are beautiful is\nbarbarous, perhaps, but not vulgar; to love jewels only because\nthey are dear is vulgar, and to betray the motive by placing them\nineffectively is an offence against taste. The test is always the same:\nDoes the thing itself actually please? If it does, your taste is real; it\nmay be different from that of others, but is equally justified and\ngrounded in human nature. If it does not, your whole judgment is\nspurious, and you are guilty, not of heresy, which in aesthetics is\northodoxy itself, but of hypocrisy, which is a self-excommunication\nfrom its sphere.\n\nNow, a great sign of this hypocrisy is insensibility to sensuous\nbeauty. When people show themselves indifferent to primary and\nfundamental effects, when they are incapable of finding pictures\nexcept in frames or beauties except in the great masters, we may\njustly suspect that they are parrots, and that their verbal and\nhistorical knowledge covers a natural lack of aesthetic sense.\nWhere, on the contrary, insensibility to higher forms of beauty\ndoes not exclude a natural love of the lower, we have every reason\nto be encouraged; there is a true and healthy taste, which only\nneeds experience to refine it. If a man demands light, sound, and\nsplendour, he proves that he has the aesthetic equilibrium; that\nappearances as such interest him, and that he can pause in\nperception to enjoy. We have but to vary his observation, to\nenlarge his thought, to multiply his discriminations -- all of which\neducation can do -- and the same aesthetic habit will reveal to him\nevery shade of the fit and fair. Or if it should not, and the man,\nalthough sensuously gifted, proved to be imaginatively dull, at\nleast he would not have failed to catch an intimate and wide-spread\nelement of effect. The beauty of material is thus the groundwork of\nall higher beauty, both in the object, whose form and meaning have\nto be lodged in something sensible, and in the mind, where\nsensuous ideas, being the first to emerge, are the first that can\narouse delight.\n\n\nPART III\n\nFORM\n\n_There is a beauty of form._\n\nSec. 19. The most remarkable and characteristic problem of aesthetics\nis that of beauty of form. Where there is a sensuous delight, like\nthat of colour, and the impression of the object is in its elements\nagreeable, we have to look no farther for an explanation of the\ncharm we feel. Where there is expression, and an object indifferent\nto the senses is associated with other ideas which are interesting,\nthe problem, although complex and varied, is in principle\ncomparatively plain. But there is an intermediate effect which is\nmore mysterious, and more specifically an effect of beauty. It is\nfound where sensible elements, by themselves indifferent, are so\nunited as to please in combination. There is something unexpected\nin this phenomenon, so much so that those who cannot conceive its\nexplanation often reassure themselves by denying its existence. To\nreduce beauty of form, however, to beauty of elements would not\nbe easy, because the creation and variation of effect, by changing\nthe relation of the simplest lines, offers too easy an experiment in\nrefutation. And it would, moreover, follow to the comfort of the\nvulgar that all marble houses are equally beautiful.\n\nTo attribute beauty of form to expression is more plausible. If I\ntake the meaningless short lines in the figure and arrange them in\nthe given ways, intended to represent the human face, there appear\nat once notably different aesthetic values.\n\n[Illustration of long and short lines]\n\n[Illustration of lines arranged into three facial profiles]\n\nTwo of the forms are differently grotesque and one approximately\nbeautiful. Now these effects are due to the expression of the lines;\nnot only because they make one think of fair or ugly faces, but\nbecause, it may be said, these faces would in reality be fair or ugly\naccording to their expression, according to the vital and moral\nassociations of the different types.\n\nNevertheless, beauty of form cannot be reduced to expression\nwithout denying the existence of immediate aesthetic values\naltogether, and reducing them all to suggestions of moral good. For\nif the object expressed by the form, and from which the form\nderives its value, had itself beauty of form, we should not advance;\nwe must come somewhere to the point where the expression is of\nsomething else than beauty; and this something else would of\ncourse be some practical or moral good. Moralists are fond of such\nan interpretation, and it is a very interesting one. It puts beauty in\nthe same relation to morals in which morals stand to pleasure and\npain; both would be intuitions, qualitatively new, but with the same\nmaterials; they would be new perspectives of the same object.\n\nBut this theory is actually inadmissible. Innumerable aesthetic\neffects, indeed all specific and unmixed ones, are direct\ntransmutations of pleasures and pains; they express nothing\nextrinsic to themselves, much less moral excellences. The detached\nlines of our figure signify nothing, but they are not absolutely\nuninteresting; the straight line is the simplest and not the least\nbeautiful of forms. To say that it owes its interest to the thought of\nthe economy of travelling over the shortest road, or of other\npractical advantages, would betray a feeble hold on psychological\nreality. The impression of a straight line differs in a certain almost\nemotional way from that of a curve, as those of various curves do\nfrom one another. The quality of the sensation is different, like that\nof various colours or sounds. To attribute the character of these\nforms to association would be like explaining sea-sickness as the\nfear of shipwreck. There is a distinct quality and value, often a\nsingular beauty, in these simple lines that is intrinsic in the\nperception of their form.\n\nIt would be pedantic, perhaps, anywhere but in a treatise on\naesthetics, to deny to this quality the name of expression; we might\ncommonly say that the circle has one expression and the oval\nanother. But what does the circle express except circularity, or the\noval except the nature of the ellipse? Such expression _expresses_\nnothing; it is really impression. There may be analogy between it\nand other impressions; we may admit that odours, colours, and\nsounds correspond, and may mutually suggest one another; but this\nanalogy is a superadded charm felt by very sensitive natures, and\ndoes not constitute the original value of the sensations. The\ncommon emotional tinge is rather what enables them to suggest\none another, and what makes them comparable. Their expression,\nsuch as it is, is therefore due to the accident that both feelings have\na kindred quality; and this quality has its effectiveness for sense\nindependently of the perception of its recurrence in a different\nsphere. We shall accordingly take care to reserve the term\n\"expression\" for the suggestion of some other and assignable\nobject, from which the expressive thing borrows an interest; and\nwe shall speak of the intrinsic quality of forms as their emotional\ntinge or specific value.\n\n_Physiology of the perception of form._\n\nSec. 20. The charm of a line evidently consists in the relation of its\nparts; in order to understand this interest in spatial relations, we\nmust inquire how they are perceived.[4] If the eye had its sensitive\nsurface, the retina, exposed directly to the light, we could never\nhave a perception of form any more than in the nose or ear, which\nalso perceive the object through media. When the perception is not\nthrough a medium, but direct, as in the case of the skin, we might\nget a notion of form, because each point of the object would excite\na single point in the skin, and as the sensations in different parts of\nthe skin differ in quality, a manifold of sense, in which\ndiscrimination of parts would be involved, could be presented to\nthe mind. But when the perception is through a medium, a\ndifficulty arises.\n\nAny point, a, in the object will send a ray to every point, _a', b',\nc',_ of the sensitive surface; every point of the retina will therefore\nbe similarly affected, since each will receive rays from every part\nof the object.\n\n[Illustration of light rays]\n\nIf all the rays from one point of the object, a, are to be concentrated\non a corresponding point of the retina, a which would then\nbecome the exclusive representative of a, we must have one or\nmore refracting surfaces interposed, to gather the rays together.\nThe presence of the lens, with its various coatings, has made\nrepresentation of point by point possible for the eye. The absence\nof such an instrument makes the same sort of representation\nimpossible to other senses, such as the nose, which does not smell\nin one place the effluvia of one part of the environment and in\nanother place the effluvia of another, but smells indiscriminately\nthe combination of all. Eyes without lenses like those possessed by\nsome animals, undoubtedly give only a consciousness of diffused\nlight, without the possibility of boundaries or divisions in the field\nof view. The abstraction of colour from form is therefore by no\nmeans an artificial one, since, by a simplification of the organ of\nsense, one may be perceived without the other.\n\nBut even if the lens enables the eye to receive a distributed image\nof the object, the manifold which consciousness would perceive\nwould not be necessarily a manifold of parts juxtaposed in space.\nBach point of the retina might send to the brain a detached\nimpression; these might be comparable, but not necessarily in their\nspatial position. The ear sends to the brain such a manifold of\nimpressions (since the ear also has an apparatus by which various\nexternal differences in rapidity of vibrations are distributed into\ndifferent parts of the organ). But this discriminated manifold is a\nmanifold of pitches, not of positions. How does it happen that the\nmanifold conveyed by the optic nerve appears in consciousness as\nspatial, and that the relation between its elements is seen as a\nrelation of position?\n\nAn answer to this question has been suggested by various\npsychologists. The eye, by an instinctive movement, turns so as to\nbring every impression upon that point of the retina, near its centre,\nwhich has the acutest sensibility. A series of muscular sensations\ntherefore always follows upon the conspicuous excitement of any\noutlying point. The object, as the eye brings it to the centre of\nvision, excites a series of points upon the retina; and the local sign,\nor peculiar quality of sensation, proper to each of these spots, is\nassociated with that series of muscular feelings involved in turning\nthe eyes. These feelings henceforth revive together; it is enough\nthat a point in the periphery of the retina should receive a ray, for\nthe mind to feel, together with that impression, the suggestion of a\nmotion, and of the line of points that lies between the excited point\nand the centre of vision. A network of associations is thus formed,\nwhereby the sensation of each retinal point is connected with all\nthe others in a manner which is that of points in a plane. Every\nvisible point becomes thus a point in a field, and has a felt\nradiation of lines of possible motion about it. Our notion of visual\nspace has this origin, since the manifold of retinal impressions is\ndistributed in a manner which serves as the type and exemplar of\nwhat we mean by a surface.\n\n_Values of geometrical figures._\n\nSec. 21. The reader will perhaps pardon these details and the strain\nthey put on his attention, when he perceives how much they help\nus to understand the value of forms. The sense, then, of the\nposition of any point consists in the tensions in the eye, that not\nonly tends to bring that point to the centre of vision, but feels the\nsuggestion of all the other points which are related to the given one\nin the web of visual experience. The definition of space as the\npossibility of motion is therefore an accurate and significant one,\nsince the most direct and native perception of space we can have is\nthe awakening of many tendencies to move our organs.\n\nFor example, if a circle is presented, the eye will fall upon its\ncentre, as to the centre of gravity, as it were, of the balanced\nattractions of all the points; and there will be, in that position, an\nindifference and sameness of sensation, in whatever direction some\naccident moves the eye, that accounts very well for the emotional\nquality of the circle. It is a form which, although beautiful in its\npurity and simplicity, and wonderful in its continuity, lacks any\nstimulating quality, and is often ugly in the arts, especially when\nfound in vertical surfaces where it is not always seen in perspective.\nFor horizontal surfaces it is better because it is there always an\nellipse to vision, and the ellipse has a less dull and stupefying\neffect. The eye can move easily, organize and subordinate its parts,\nand its relations to the environment are not similar in all directions.\nSmall circles, like buttons, are not in the same danger of becoming\nugly, because the eye considers them as points, and they diversify\nand help to divide surfaces, without appearing as surfaces\nthemselves.\n\nThe straight line offers a curious object for analysis. It is not for\nthe eye a very easy form to grasp. We bend it or we leave it.\nUnless it passes through the centre of vision, it is obviously a\ntangent to the points which have analogous relations to that centre.\nThe local signs or tensions of the points in such a tangent vary in\nan unseizable progression; there is violence in keeping to it, and\nthe effect is forced. This makes the dry and stiff quality of any long\nstraight line, which the skilful Greeks avoided by the curves of\ntheir columns and entablatures, and the less economical barbarians\nby a profusion of interruptions and ornaments.\n\nThe straight line, when made the direct object of attention, is, of\ncourse, followed by the eye and not seen by the outlying parts of\nthe retina in one eccentric position. The same explanation is good\nfor this more common case, since the consciousness that the eye\ntravels in a straight line consists in the surviving sense of the\nprevious position, and in the manner in which the tensions of these\nvarious positions overlap. If the tensions change from moment to\nmoment entirely, we have a broken, a fragmentary effect, as that of\nzigzag, where all is dropping and picking up again of associated\nmotions; in the straight line, much prolonged, we have a gradual\nand inexorable rending of these tendencies to associated\nmovements.\n\nIn the curves we call flowing and graceful, we have, on the\ncontrary, a more natural and rhythmical set of movements in the\noptic muscles; and certain points in the various gyrations make\nrhymes and assonances, as it were, to the eye that reaches them.\nWe find ourselves at every turn reawakening, with a variation, the\nsense of the previous position. It is easy to understand by analogy\nwith the superficially observed conditions of pleasure, that such\nrhythms and harmonies should be delightful. The deeper question\nof the physical basis of pleasure we have not intended to discuss.\nSuffice it that measure, in quantity, in intensity, and in time, must\ninvolve that physiological process, whatever it may be, the\nconsciousness of which is pleasure.\n\n_Symmetry._\n\nSec. 22. An important exemplification of these physiological\nprinciples is found in the charm of symmetry. When for any reason\nthe eye is to be habitually directed to a single point, as to the\nopening of a gate or window, to an altar, a throne, a stage, or a\nfireplace, there will be violence and distraction caused by the\ntendency to look aside in the recurring necessity of looking\nforward, if the object is not so arranged that the tensions of eye are\nbalanced, and the centre of gravity of vision lies in the point which\none is obliged to keep in sight. In all such objects we therefore\nrequire bilateral symmetry. The necessity of vertical symmetry is\nnot felt because the eyes and head do not so readily survey objects\nfrom top to bottom as from side to side. The inequality of the upper\nand lower parts does not generate the same tendency to motion, the\nsame restlessness, as does the inequality of the right and left sides\nof an object in front of us. The comfort and economy that comes\nfrom muscular balance in the eye, is therefore in some cases the\nsource of the value of symmetry.[5]\n\nIn other cases symmetry appeals to us through the charm of\nrecognition and rhythm. When the eye runs over a facade, and\nfinds the objects that attract it at equal intervals, an expectation,\nlike the anticipation of an inevitable note or requisite word, arises\nin the mind, and its non-satisfaction involves a shock. This shock,\nif caused by the emphatic emergence of an interesting object, gives\nthe effect of the picturesque; but when it comes with no\ncompensation, it gives us the feeling of ugliness and imperfection\n-- the defect which symmetry avoids. This kind of symmetry is\naccordingly in itself a negative merit, but often the condition of the\ngreatest of all merits, -- the permanent power to please. It\ncontributes to that completeness which delights without\nstimulating, and to which our jaded senses return gladly, after all\nsorts of extravagances, as to a kind of domestic peace. The\ninwardness and solidity of this quiet beauty comes from the\nintrinsic character of the pleasure which makes it up. It is no\nadventitious charm; but the eye in its continual passage over the\nobject finds always the same response, the same adequacy; and the\nvery process of perception is made delightful by the object's fitness\nto be perceived. The parts, thus coalescing, form a single object,\nthe unity and simplicity of which are based upon the rhythm and\ncorrespondence of its elements.\n\nSymmetry is here what metaphysicians call a principle of\nindividuation. By the emphasis which it lays upon the recurring\nelements, it cuts up the field into determinate units; all that lies\nbetween the beats is one interval, one individual. If there were no\nrecurrent impressions, no corresponding points, the field of\nperception would remain a fluid continuum, without defined and\nrecognizable divisions. The outlines of most things are\nsymmetrical because we choose what symmetrical lines we find to\nbe the boundaries of objects. Their symmetry is the condition of\ntheir unity, and their unity of their individuality and separate\nexistence.\n\nExperience, to be sure, can teach us to regard unsymmetrical\nobjects as wholes, because their elements move and change\ntogether in nature; but this is a principle of individuation, _a\nposteriori,_ founded on the association of recognized elements.\nThese elements, to be recognized and seen to go together and form\none thing, must first be somehow discriminated; and the symmetry,\neither of their parts, or of their position as wholes, may enable us\nto fix their boundaries and to observe their number. The category\nof unity, which we are so constantly imposing upon nature and its\nparts, has symmetry, then, for one of its instruments, for one of its\nbases of application.\n\nIf symmetry, then, is a principle of individuation and helps us to\ndistinguish objects, we cannot wonder that it helps us to enjoy the\nperception. For our intelligence loves to perceive; water is\nnot more grateful to a parched throat than a principle of\ncomprehension to a confused understanding. Symmetry clarifies,\nand we all know that light is sweet. At the same time, we can see\nwhy there are limits to the value of symmetry. In objects, for\ninstance, that are too small or too diffused for composition,\nsymmetry has no value. In an avenue symmetry is stately and\nimpressive, but in a large park, or in the plan of a city, or the side\nwall of a gallery it produces monotony in the various views rather\nthan unity in any one of them. Greek temples, never being very\nlarge, were symmetrical on all their facades; Gothic churches were\ngenerally designed to be symmetrical only in the west front, and in\nthe transepts, while the side elevation as a whole was eccentric.\nThis was probably an accident, due to the demands of the interior\narrangement; but it was a fortunate one, as we may see by\ncontrasting its effect with that of our stations, exhibition buildings,\nand other vast structures, where symmetry is generally introduced\neven in the most extensive facades which, being too much\nprolonged for their height, cannot be treated as units. The eye is\nnot able to take them in at a glance, and does not get the effect of\nrepose from the balance of the extremes, while the mechanical\nsameness of the sections, surveyed in succession, makes the\nimpression of an unmeaning poverty of resource.\n\nSymmetry thus loses its value when it cannot, on account of the\nsize of the object, contribute to the unity of our perception. The\nsynthesis which it facilitates must be instantaneous. If the\ncomprehension by which we unify our object is discursive, as, for\ninstance, in conceiving the arrangement and numbering of the\nstreets of New York, or the plan of the Escurial, the advantage of\nsymmetry is an intellectual one; we can better imagine the relations\nof the parts, and draw a map of the whole in the fancy; but there is\nno advantage to direct perception, and therefore no added beauty.\nSymmetry is superfluous in those objects. Similarly animal and\nvegetable forms gain nothing by being symmetrically displayed, if\nthe sense of their life and motion is to be given. When, however,\nthese forms are used for mere decoration, not for the expression of\ntheir own vitality, then symmetry is again required to accentuate\ntheir unity and organization. This justifies the habit of\nconventionalizing natural forms, and the tendency of some kinds of\nhieratic art, like the Byzantine or Egyptian, to affect a rigid\nsymmetry of posture. We can thereby increase the unity and force\nof the image without suggesting that individual life and mobility,\nwhich would interfere with the religious function of the object, as\nthe symbol and embodiment of an impersonal faith.\n\n_Form the unity of a manifold._\n\nSec. 23. Symmetry is evidently a kind of unity in variety, where a\nwhole is determined by the rhythmic repetition of similars. We\nhave seen that it has a value where it is an aid to unification. Unity\nwould thus appear to be the virtue of forms; but a moment's\nreflection will show us that unity cannot be absolute and be a form;\na form is an aggregation, it must have elements, and the manner in\nwhich the elements are combined constitutes the character of the\nform. A perfectly simple perception, in which there was no\nconsciousness of the distinction and relation of parts, would not be\na perception of form; it would be a sensation. Physiologically these\nsensations may be aggregates and their values, as in the case of\nmusical tones, may differ according to the manner in which certain\nelements, beats, vibrations, nervous processes, or what not, are\ncombined; but for consciousness the result is simple, and the value\nis the pleasantness of a datum and not of a process. Form, therefore,\ndoes not appeal to the unattentive; they get from objects only a\nvague sensation which may in them awaken extrinsic associations;\nthey do not stop to survey the parts or to appreciate their relation,\nand consequently are insensible to the various charms of various\nunifications; they can find in objects only the value of material or\nof function, not that of form.\n\nBeauty of form, however, is what specifically appeals to an\naesthetic nature; it is equally removed from the crudity of formless\nstimulation and from the emotional looseness of reverie and\ndiscursive thought. The indulgence in sentiment and suggestion, of\nwhich our time is fond, to the sacrifice of formal beauty, marks an\nabsence of cultivation as real, if not as confessed, as that of the\nbarbarian who revels in gorgeous confusion.\n\nThe synthesis, then, which constitutes form is an activity of the\nmind; the unity arises consciously, and is an insight into the\nrelation of sensible elements separately perceived. It differs from\nsensation in the consciousness of the synthesis, and from\nexpression in the homogeneity of the elements, and in their\ncommon presence to sense.\n\nThe variety of forms depends upon the character of the elements\nand on the variety of possible methods of unification. The elements\nmay be all alike, and their only diversity be numerical. Their unity\nwill then be merely the sense of their uniformity.[6] Or they may\ndiffer in kind, but so as to compel the mind to no particular order\nin their unification. Or they may finally be so constituted that they\nsuggest inevitably the scheme of their unity; in this case there is\norganization in the object, and the synthesis of its parts is one and\npre-determinate. We shall discuss these various forms in\nsuccession, pointing out the effects proper to each.\n\n_Multiplicity in uniformity._\n\nSec. 24. The radical and typical case of the first kind of unity in\nvariety is found in the perception of extension itself. This\nperception, if we look to its origin, may turn out to be primitive; no\ndoubt the feeling of \"crude extensity\" is an original sensation;\nevery inference, association, and distinction is a thing that looms\nup suddenly before the mind, and the nature and actuality of which\nis a datum of what -- to indicate its irresistible immediacy and\nindescribability -- we may well call sense. Forms are seen, and if\nwe think of the origin of the perception, we may well call this\nvision a sensation. The distinction between a sensation of form,\nhowever, and one which is formless, regards the content and\ncharacter, not the genesis of the perception. A distinction and\nassociation, or an inference, is a direct experience, a sensible fact;\nbut it is the experience of a process, of a motion between two terms,\nand a consciousness of their coexistence and distinction; it is a\nfeeling of relation. Now the sense of space is a feeling of this kind;\nthe essence of it is the realization of a variety of directions and of\npossible motions, by which the relation of point to point is vaguely\nbut inevitably given. The perception of extension is therefore a\nperception of form, although of the most rudimentary kind. It is\nmerely _Auseinandersein,_ and we might call it the _materia\nprima_ of form, were it not capable of existing without further\ndetermination. For we can have the sense of space without the\nsense of boundaries; indeed, this intuition is what tempts us to\ndeclare space infinite. Space would have to consist of a finite\nnumber of juxtaposed blocks, if our experience of extension\ncarried with it essentially the realization of limits.\n\nThe aesthetic effect of extensiveness is also entirely different from\nthat of particular shapes. Some things appeal to us by their surfaces,\nothers by the lines that limit those surfaces. And this effect of\nsurface is not necessarily an effect of material or colour; the\nevenness, monotony, and vastness of a great curtain of colour\nproduce an effect which is that of the extreme of uniformity in the\nextreme of multiplicity; the eye wanders over a fluid infinity of\nunrecognizable positions, and the sense of their numberlessness\nand continuity is precisely the source of the emotion of extent. The\nemotion is primary and has undoubtedly a physiological ground,\nwhile the idea of size is secondary and involves associations and\ninferences. A small photograph of St. Peter's gives the idea of size;\nas does a distant view of the same object. But this is of course\ndependent on our realization of the distance, or of the scale of the\nrepresentation. The value of size becomes immediate only when\nwe are at close quarters with the object; then the surfaces really\nsubtend a large angle in the field of vision, and the sense of\nvastness establishes its standard, which can afterwards be applied\nto other objects by analogy and contrast. There is also, to be sure, a\nmoral and practical import in the known size of objects, which, by\nassociation, determines their dignity; but the pure sense of\nextension, based upon the attack of the object upon the\napperceptive resources of the eye, is the truly aesthetic value which\nit concerns us to point out here, as the most rudimentary example\nof form.\n\nAlthough the effect of extension is not that of material, the two are\nbest seen in conjunction. Material must appear in some form; but\nwhen its beauty is to be made prominent, it is well that this form\nshould attract attention as little as possible to itself. Now, of all\nforms, absolute uniformity in extension is the simplest and most\nallied to the material; it gives the latter only just enough form to\nmake it real and perceptible. Very rich and beautiful materials\ntherefore do well to assume this form. You will spoil the beauty\nyou have by superimposing another; as if you make a statue of\ngold, or flute a jasper column, or bedeck a velvet cloak. The beauty\nof stuffs appears when they are plain. Even stone gives its specific\nquality best in great unbroken spaces of wall; the simplicity of the\nform emphasizes the substance. And again, the effect of extensity\nis never long satisfactory unless it is superinduced upon some\nmaterial beauty; the dignity of great hangings would suffer if they\nwere not of damask, but of cotton, and the vast smoothness of the\nsky would grow oppressive if it were not of so tender a blue.\n\n_Example of the stars._\n\nSec. 25. Another beauty of the sky -- the stars -- offers so striking and\nfascinating an illustration of the effect of multiplicity in uniformity,\nthat I am tempted to analyze it at some length. To most people, I\nfancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be\nat a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about\nastronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation\nof those orbs. The vague and illusive ideas thus aroused fall in so\nwell with the dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we\nattribute this emotion to those ideas, and persuade ourselves that\nthe power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of\nastronomical facts.\n\nThe idea of the insignificance of our earth and of the\nincomprehensible multiplicity of worlds is indeed immensely\nimpressive; it may even be intensely disagreeable. There is\nsomething baffling about infinity; in its presence the sense of finite\nhumility can never wholly banish the rebellious suspicion that we\nare being deluded. Our mathematical imagination is put on the rack\nby an attempted conception that has all the anguish of a nightmare\nand probably, could we but awake, all its laughable absurdity. But\nthe obsession of this dream is an intellectual puzzle, not an\naesthetic delight. It is not essential to our admiration. Before the\ndays of Kepler the heavens declared the glory of God; and we\nneeded no calculation of stellar distances, no fancies about a\nplurality of worlds, no image of infinite spaces, to make the stars\nsublime.\n\nHad we been taught to believe that the stars governed our fortunes,\nand were we reminded of fate whenever we looked at them, we\nshould similarly tend to imagine that this belief was the source of\ntheir sublimity; and, if the superstition were dispelled, we should\nthink the interest gone from the apparition. But experience would\nsoon undeceive us, and prove to us that the sensuous character of\nthe object was sublime in itself. Indeed, on account of that intrinsic\nsublimity the sky can be fitly chosen as a symbol for a sublime\nconception; the common quality in both makes each suggest the\nother. For that reason, too, the parable of the natal stars governing\nour lives is such a natural one to express our subjection to\ncircumstances, and can be transformed by the stupidity of disciples\ninto a literal tenet. In the same way, the kinship of the emotion\nproduced by the stars with the emotion proper to certain religious\nmoments makes the stars seem a religious object. They become,\nlike impressive music, a stimulus to worship. But fortunately there\nare experiences which remain untouched by theory, and which\nmaintain the mutual intelligence of men through the estrangements\nwrought by intellectual and religious systems. When the\nsuperstructures crumble, the common foundation of human\nsentience and imagination is exposed beneath.\n\nThe intellectual suggestion of the infinity of nature can, moreover,\nbe awakened by other experiences which are by no means sublime.\nA heap of sand will involve infinity as surely as a universe of suns\nand planets. Any object is infinitely divisible and, when we press\nthe thought, can contain as many worlds with as many winged\nmonsters and ideal republics as can the satellites of Sirius. But the\ninfinitesimal does not move us aesthetically; it can only awaken an\namused curiosity. The difference cannot lie in the import of the\nidea, which is objectively the same in both cases. It lies in the\ndifferent immediate effect of the crude images which give us the\ntype and meaning of each; the crude image that underlies the idea\nof the infinitesimal is the dot, the poorest and most uninteresting of\nimpressions; while the crude image that underlies the idea of\ninfinity is space, multiplicity in uniformity, and this, as we have\nseen, has a powerful effect on account of the breadth, volume, and\nomnipresence of the stimulation. Every point in the retina is evenly\nexcited, and the local signs of all are simultaneously felt. This\nequable tension, this balance and elasticity in the very absence of\nfixity, give the vague but powerful feeling that we wish to describe.\nDid not the infinite, by this initial assault upon our senses, awe us\nand overwhelm us, as solemn music might, the idea of it would be\nabstract and moral like that of the infinitesimal, and nothing but an\namusing curiosity.\n\nNothing is objectively impressive; things are impressive only when\nthey succeed in touching the sensibility of the observer, by finding\nthe avenues to his brain and heart. The idea that the universe is a\nmultitude of minute spheres circling, like specks of dust, in a dark\nand boundless void, might leave us cold and indifferent, if not\nbored and depressed, were it not that we identify this hypothetical\nscheme with the visible splendour, the poignant intensity, and the\nbaffling number of the stars. So far is the object from giving value\nto the impression, that it is here, as it must always ultimately be,\nthe impression that gives value to the object. For all worth leads us\nback to actual feeling somewhere, or else evaporates into nothing\n-- into a word and a superstition.\n\nNow, the starry heavens are very happily designed to intensify the\nsensations on which their beauties must rest. In the first place, the\ncontinuum of space is broken into points, numerous enough to give\nthe utmost idea of multiplicity and yet so distinct and vivid that it\nis impossible not to remain aware of their individuality. The\nvariety of local signs, without becoming organized into forms,\nremains prominent and irreducible. This makes the object infinitely\nmore exciting than a plane surface would be. In the second place,\nthe sensuous contrast of the dark background, -- blacker the clearer\nthe night and the more stars we can see, -- with the palpitating fire\nof the stars themselves, could not be exceeded by any possible\ndevice. This material beauty adds incalculably, as we have already\npointed out, to the inwardness and sublimity of the effect. To\nrealize the great importance of these two elements, we need but to\nconceive their absence, and observe the change in the dignity of\nthe result.\n\nFancy a map of the heavens and every star plotted upon it, even\nthose invisible to the naked eye: why would this object, as full of\nscientific suggestion surely as the reality, leave us so\ncomparatively cold? Quite indifferent it might not leave us, for I\nhave myself watched stellar photographs with almost inexhaustible\nwonder. The sense of multiplicity is naturally in no way\ndiminished by the representation; but the poignancy of the\nsensation, the life of the light, are gone; and with the dulled\nimpression the keenness of the emotion disappears. Or imagine the\nstars, undiminished in number, without losing any of their\nastronomical significance and divine immutability, marshalled in\ngeometrical patterns; say in a Latin cross, with the words _In hoc\nsigno vinces_ in a scroll around them. The beauty of the\nillumination would be perhaps increased, and its import, practical,\nreligious, and cosmic, would surely be a little plainer; but where\nwould be the sublimity of the spectacle? Irretrievably lost: and lost\nbecause the form of the object would no longer tantalize us with its\nsheer multiplicity, and with the consequent overpowering sense of\nsuspense and awe.\n\nIn a word, the infinity which moves us is the sense of multiplicity\nin uniformity. Accordingly things which have enough multiplicity,\nas the lights of a city seen across water, have an effect similar to\nthat of the stars, if less intense; whereas a star, if alone, because the\nmultiplicity is lacking, makes a wholly different impression. The\nsingle star is tender, beautiful, and mild; we can compare it to the\nhumblest and sweetest of things:\n\n A violet by a mossy stone\n Half hidden from the eye,\n Fair as _a star when only one\n Is shining in the sky._\n\nIt is, not only in fact but in nature, an attendant on the moon,\nassociated with the moon, if we may be so prosaic here, not only\nby contiguity but also by similarity.\n\n Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-regioned star\n Or vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky.\n\nThe same poet can say elsewhere of a passionate lover:\n\n He arose\n Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star,\n Amid the sapphire heaven's deep repose.\n\nHow opposite is all this from the cold glitter, the cruel and\nmysterious sublimity of the stars when they are many! With these\nwe have no Sapphic associations; they make us think rather of\nKant who could hit on nothing else to compare with his categorical\nimperative, perhaps because he found in both the same baffling\nincomprehensibility and the same fierce actuality. Such ultimate\nfeelings are sensations of physical tension.\n\n_Defects of pure multiplicity._\n\nSec. 26. This long analysis will be a sufficient illustration of the\npower of multiplicity in uniformity; we may now proceed to point\nout the limitations inherent in this form. The most obvious one is\nthat of monotony; a file of soldiers or an iron railing is impressive\nin its way, but cannot long entertain us, nor hold us with that depth\nof developing interest, with which we might study a crowd or a\nforest of trees.\n\nThe tendency of monotony is double, and in two directions\ndeadens our pleasure. When the repeated impressions are acute,\nand cannot be forgotten in their endless repetition, their monotony\nbecomes painful. The constant appeal to the same sense, the\nconstant requirement of the same reaction, tires the system, and we\nlong for change as for a relief. If the repeated stimulations are not\nvery acute, we soon become unconscious of them; like the ticking\nof the clock, they become merely a factor in our bodily one, a\ncause, as the case may be, of a diffused pleasure or unrest; but they\ncease to present a distinguishable object.\n\nThe pleasures, therefore, which a kindly but monotonous\nenvironment produces, often fail to make it beautiful, for the\nsimple reason that the environment is not perceived. Likewise the\nhideousness of things to which we are accustomed -- the blemishes\nof the landscape, the ugliness of our clothes or of our walls -- do\nnot oppress us, not so much because we do not see the ugliness as\nbecause we overlook the things. The beauties or defects of\nmonotonous objects are easily lost, because the objects are\nthemselves intermittent in consciousness. But it is of some\npractical importance to remark that this indifference of\nmonotonous values is more apparent than real. The particular\nobject ceases to be of consequence; but the congruity of its\nstructure and quality with our faculties of perception remains, and\nits presence in our environment is still a constant source of vague\nirritation and friction, or of subtle and pervasive delight. And this\nvalue, although not associated with the image of the monotonous\nobject, lies there in our mind, like all the vital and systemic\nfeelings, ready to enhance the beauty of any object that arouses our\nattention, and meantime adding to the health and freedom of our\nlife -- making whatever we do a little easier and pleasanter for us.\nA grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken\nus from without as a fixed hope and affection, or the consciousness\nof a right life, can quicken us from within. To humanize our\nsurroundings is, therefore, a task which should interest the\nphysicians both of soul and body.\n\nBut the monotony of multiplicity is not merely intrinsic in the form;\nwhat is perhaps even of greater consequence in the arts is the fact\nthat its capacity for association is restricted. What is in itself\nuniform cannot have a great diversity of relations. Hence the\ndryness, the crisp definiteness and hardness, of those products of\nart which contain an endless repetition of the same elements. Their\naffinities are necessarily few; they are not fit for many uses, nor\ncapable of expressing many ideas. The heroic couplet, now too\nmuch derided, is a form of this kind. Its compactness and\ninevitableness make it excellent for an epigram and adequate it for\na satire, but its perpetual snap and unvarying rhythm are thin for an\nepic, and impossible for a song. The Greek colonnade, a form in\nmany ways analogous, has similar limitations. Beautiful with a\nfinished and restrained beauty, which our taste is hardly refined\nenough to appreciate, it is incapable of development. The\nexperiments of Roman architecture sufficiently show it; the glory\nof which is their Roman frame rather than their Hellenic ornament.\n\nWhen the Greeks themselves had to face the problem of larger and\nmore complex buildings, in the service of a supernatural and\nhierarchical system, they transformed their architecture into what\nwe call Byzantine, and St. Sophia took the place of the Parthenon.\nHere a vast vault was introduced, the colonnade disappeared, the\narchitrave was rounded into an arch from column to column, the\ncapitals of these were changed from concave to convex, and a\nthousand other changes in structure and ornament introduced\nflexibility and variety. Architecture could in this way, precisely\nbecause more vague and barbarous, better adapt itself to the\nconditions of the new epoch. Perfect taste is itself a limitation, not\nbecause it intentionally excludes any excellence, but because it\nimpedes the wandering of the arts into those bypaths of caprice and\ngrotesqueness in which, although at the sacrifice of formal beauty,\ninteresting partial effects might still be discovered. And this\nobjection applies with double force to the first crystallizations of\ntaste, when tradition has carried us but a little way in the right\ndirection. The authorized effects are then very simple, and if we\nallow no others, our art becomes wholly inadequate to the\nfunctions ultimately imposed upon it. Primitive arts might furnish\nexamples, but the state of English poetry at the time of Queen\nAnne is a sufficient illustration of this possibility. The French\nclassicism, of which, the English school was an echo, was more\nvital and human, because it embodied a more native taste and a\nwider training.\n\n_Aesthetics of democracy._\n\nSec. 27. It would be an error to suppose that aesthetic principles apply\nonly to our judgments of works of art or of those natural objects\nwhich we attend to chiefly on account of their beauty. Every idea\nwhich is formed in the human mind, every activity and emotion,\nhas some relation, direct or indirect, to pain and pleasure. If, as is\nthe case in all the more important instances, these fluid activities\nand emotions precipitate, as it were, in their evanescence certain\npsychical solids called ideas of things, then the concomitant\npleasures are incorporated more or less in those concrete ideas and\nthe things acquire an aesthetic colouring. And although this\naesthetic colouring may be the last quality we notice in objects of\npractical interest, its influence upon us is none the less real, and\noften accounts for a great deal in our moral and practical attitude.\n\nIn the leading political and moral idea of our time, in the idea of\ndemocracy, I think there is a strong aesthetic ingredient, and the\npower of the idea of democracy over the imagination is an\nillustration of that effect of multiplicity in uniformity which we\nhave been studying. Of course, nothing could be more absurd than\nto suggest that the French Revolution, with its immense\nimplications, had an aesthetic preference for its basis; it sprang, as\nwe know, from the hatred of oppression, the rivalry of classes, and\nthe aspiration after a freer social and strictly moral organization.\nBut when these moral forces were suggesting and partly realizing\nthe democratic idea, this idea was necessarily vividly present to\nmen's thoughts; the picture of human life which it presented was\nbecoming familiar, and was being made the sanction and goal of\nconstant endeavour. Nothing so much enhances a good as to make\nsacrifices for it. The consequence was that democracy, prized at\nfirst as a means to happiness and as an instrument of good\ngovernment, was acquiring an intrinsic value; it was beginning to\nseem good in itself, in fact, the only intrinsically right and perfect\narrangement. A utilitarian scheme was receiving an aesthetic\nconsecration. That which was happening to democracy had\nhappened before to the feudal and royalist systems; they too had\ncome to be prized in themselves, for the pleasure men took in\nthinking of society organized in such an ancient, and thereby to\ntheir fancy, appropriate and beautiful manner. The practical value\nof the arrangement, on which, of course, it is entirely dependent for\nits origin and authority, was forgotten, and men were ready to\nsacrifice their welfare to their sense of propriety; that is, they\nallowed an aesthetic good to outweigh a practical one. That seems\nnow a superstition, although, indeed, a very natural and even noble\none. Equally natural and noble, but no less superstitious, is our\nown belief in the divine right of democracy. Its essential right is\nsomething purely aesthetic.\n\nSuch aesthetic love of uniformity, however, is usually disguised\nunder some moral label: we call it the lore of justice, perhaps\nbecause we have not considered that the value of justice also, in so\nfar as it is not derivative and utilitarian, must be intrinsic, or, what\nis practically the same thing, aesthetic. But occasionally the\nbeauties of democracy are presented to us undisguised. The\nwritings of Walt Whitman are a notable example. Never, perhaps,\nhas the charm of uniformity in multiplicity been felt so completely\nand so exclusively. Everywhere it greets us with a passionate\npreference; not flowers but leaves of grass, not music but\ndrum-taps, not composition but aggregation, not the hero but the average\nman, not the crisis but the vulgarest moment; and by this resolute\nmarshalling of nullities, by this effort to show us everything as a\nmomentary pulsation of a liquid and structureless whole, he\nprofoundly stirs the imagination. We may wish to dislike this\npower, but, I think, we must inwardly admire it. For whatever\npractical dangers we may see in this terrible levelling, our aesthetic\nfaculty can condemn no actual effect; its privilege is to be pleased\nby opposites, and to be capable of finding chaos sublime without\nceasing to make nature beautiful.\n\n_Values of types and values of examples._\n\nSec. 28. It is time we should return to the consideration of abstract\nforms. Nearest in nature to the example of uniformity in\nmultiplicity, we found those objects, like a reversible pattern, that\nhaving some variety of parts invite us to survey them in different\norders, and so bring into play in a marked manner the faculty of\napperception.\n\nThere is in the senses, as we have seen, a certain form of\nstimulation, a certain measure and rhythm of waves with which the\naesthetic value of the sensation is connected. So when, in the\nperception of the object, a notable contribution is made by memory\nand mental habit, the value of the perception will be due, not only\nto the pleasantness of the external stimulus, but also to the\npleasantness of the apperceptive reaction; and the latter source of\nvalue will be more important in proportion as the object perceived\nis more dependent, for the form and meaning it presents, upon our\npast experience and imaginative trend, and less on the structure of\nthe external object.\n\nOur apperception of form varies not only with our constitution, age,\nand health, as does the appreciation of sensuous values, but also\nwith our education and genius. The more indeterminate the object,\nthe greater share must subjective forces have in determining our\nperception; for, of course, every perception is in itself perfectly\nspecific, and can be called indefinite only in reference to an\nabstract ideal which it is expected to approach. Every cloud has\njust the outline it has, although we may call it vague, because we\ncannot classify its form under any geometrical or animal species; it\nwould be first definitely a whale, and then would become\nindefinite until we saw our way to calling it a camel. But while in\nthe intermediate stage, the cloud would be a form in the perception\nof which there would be little apperceptive activity little reaction\nfrom the store of our experience, little sense of form; its value\nwould be in its colour and transparency, and in the suggestion of\nlightness and of complex but gentle movement.\n\nBut the moment we said \"Yes, very like a whale,\" a new kind of\nvalue would appear; the cloud could now be beautiful or ugly, not\nas a cloud merely, but as a whale. We do not speak now of the\nassociations of the idea, as with the sea, or fishermen's yarns; that\nis an extrinsic matter of expression. We speak simply of the\nintrinsic value of the form of the whale, of its lines, its movement,\nits proportion. This is a more or less individual set of images which\nare revived in the act of recognition; this revival constitutes the\nrecognition, and the beauty of the form is the pleasure of that\nrevival. A certain musical phrase, as it were, is played in the brain;\nthe awakening of that echo is the act of apperception and the\nharmony of the present stimulation with the form of that phrase;\nthe power of this particular object to develope and intensify that\ngeneric phrase in the direction of pleasure, is the test of the formal\nbeauty of this example. For these cerebral phrases have a certain\nrhythm; this rhythm can, by the influence of the stimulus that now\nreawakens it, be marred or enriched, be made more or less marked\nand delicate; and as this conflict or reinforcement comes, the\nobject is ugly or beautiful in form.\n\nSuch an aesthetic value is thus dependent on two things. The first\nis the acquired character of the apperceptive form evoked; it may\nbe a cadenza or a trill, a major or a minor chord, a rose or a violet,\na goddess or a dairy-maid; and as one or another of these is\nrecognized, an aesthetic dignity and tone is given to the object. But\nit will be noticed that in such mere recognition very little pleasure\nis found, or, what is the same thing, different aesthetic types in the\nabstract have little difference in intrinsic beauty. The great\ndifference lies in their affinities. What will decide us to like or not\nto like the type of our apperception will be not so much what this\ntype is, as its fitness to the context of our mind. It is like a word in\na poem, more effective by its fitness than by its intrinsic beauty,\nalthough that is requisite too. We can be shocked at an incongruity\nof natures more than we can be pleased by the intrinsic beauty of\neach nature apart, so long, that is, as they remain abstract natures,\nobjects recognized without being studied. The aesthetic dignity of\nthe form, then, tells us the kind of beauty we are to expect, affects\nus by its welcome or unwelcome promise, but hardly gives us a\npositive pleasure in the beauty itself.\n\nNow this is the first thing in the value of a form, the value of the\ntype as such; the second and more important element is the relation\nof the particular impression to the form under which it is\napperceived. This determines the value of the object as an example\nof its class. After our mind is pitched to the key and rhythm of a\ncertain idea, say of a queen, it remains for the impression to fulfil,\naggrandize, or enrich this form by a sympathetic embodiment of it.\nThen we have a queen that is truly royal. But if instead there is\ndisappointment, if this particular queen is an ugly one, although\nperhaps she might have pleased as a witch, this is because the\napperceptive form and the impression give a cerebral discord. The\nobject is unideal, that is, the novel, external element is\ninharmonious with the revived and internal element by suggesting\nwhich the object has been apperceived.\n\n_Origin of types._\n\nSec. 29. A most important thing, therefore, in the perception of form\nis the formation of types in our mind, with reference to which\nexamples are to be judged. I say the formation of them, for we can\nhardly consider the theory that they are eternal as a possible one in\npsychology. The Platonic doctrine on that point is a striking\nillustration of an equivocation we mentioned in the beginning;[7]\nnamely, that the import of an experience is regarded as a\nmanifestation of its cause -- the product of a faculty substituted for\nthe description of its function. Eternal types are the instrument of\naesthetic life, not its foundation. Take the aesthetic attitude, and\nyou have for the moment an eternal idea; an idea, I mean, that you\ntreat as an absolute standard, just as when you take the perceptive\nattitude you have an external object which you treat as an absolute\nexistence. But the aesthetic, like the perceptive faculty, can be\nmade an object of study in turn, and its theory can be sought; and\nthen the eternal idea, like the external object, is seen to be a\nproduct of human nature, a symbol of experience, and an\ninstrument of thought.\n\nThe question whether there are not, in external nature or in the\nmind of God, objects and eternal types, is indeed not settled, it is\nnot even touched by this inquiry; but it is indirectly shown to be\nfutile, because such transcendent realities, if they exist, can have\nnothing to do with our ideas of them. The Platonic idea of a tree\nmay exist; how should I deny it? How should I deny that I might\nsome day find myself outside the sky gazing at it, and feeling that I,\nwith my mental vision, am beholding the plenitude of arboreal\nbeauty, perceived in this world only as a vague essence haunting\nthe multiplicity of finite trees? But what can that have to do with\nmy actual sense of what a tree should be? Shall we take the\nPlatonic myth literally, and say the idea is a memory of the tree I\nhave already seen in heaven? How else establish any relation\nbetween that eternal object and the type in my mind? But why, in\nthat case, this infinite variability of ideal trees? Was the Tree\nBeautiful an oak, or a cedar, an English or an American elm? My\nactual types are finite and mutually exclusive; that heavenly type\nmust be one and infinite. The problem is hopeless.\n\nVery simple, on the other hand, is the explanation of the existence\nof that type as a residuum of experience. Our idea of an individual\nthing is a compound and residuum of our several experiences of it;\nand in the same manner our idea of a class is a compound and\nresiduum of our ideas of the particulars that compose it. Particular\nimpressions have, by virtue of their intrinsic similarity or of the\nidentity of their relations, a tendency to be merged and identified,\nso that many individual perceptions leave but a single blurred\nmemory that stands for them all, because it combines their several\nassociations. Similarly, when various objects have many common\ncharacteristics, the mind is incapable of keeping them apart. It\ncannot hold clearly so great a multitude of distinctions and\nrelations as would be involved in naming and conceiving\nseparately each grain of sand, or drop of water, each fly or horse or\nman that we have ever seen. The mass of our experience has\ntherefore to be classified, if it is to be available at all. Instead of a\ndistinct image to represent each of our original impressions, we\nhave a general resultant -- a composite photograph -- of those\nimpressions.\n\nThis resultant image is the idea of the class. It often has very few,\nif any, of the sensible properties of the particulars that underlie it,\noften an artificial symbol -- the sound of a word -- is the only\nelement, present to all the instances, which the generic image\nclearly contains. For, of course, the reason why a name can\nrepresent a class of objects is that the name is the most\nconspicuous element of identity in the various experiences of\nobjects in that class. We have seen many horses, but if we are not\nlovers of the animal, nor particularly keen observers, very likely\nwe retain no clear image of all that mass of impressions except the\nreverberation of the sound \"horse,\" which really or mentally has\naccompanied all those impressions. This sound, therefore, is the\ncontent of our general idea, and to it cling all the associations\nwhich constitute our sense of what the word means. But a person\nwith a memory predominantly visual would probably add to this\nremembered sound a more or less detailed image of the animal;\nsome particular horse in some particular attitude might possibly be\nrecalled, but more probably some imaginative construction,\nsome dream image, would accompany the sound. An image which\nreproduced no particular horse exactly, but which was a\nspontaneous fiction of the fancy, would serve, by virtue of its felt\nrelations, the same purpose as the sound itself. Such a spontaneous\nimage would be, of course, variable. In fact, no image can, strictly\nspeaking, ever recur. But these percepts, as they are called,\nspringing up in the mind like flowers from the buried seeds of past\nexperience, would inherit all the powers of suggestion which are\nrequired by any instrument of classification.\n\nThese powers of suggestion have probably a cerebral basis. The\nnew percept -- the generic idea -- repeats to a great extent, both in\nnature and localization, the excitement constituting the various\noriginal impressions; as the percept reproduces more or less of\nthese it will be a more or less full and impartial representative of\nthem. Not all the suggestions of a word or image are equally ripe.\nA generic idea or type usually presents to us a very inadequate and\nbiassed view of the field it means to cover. As we reflect and seek\nto correct this inadequacy, the percept changes on our hands. The\nvery consciousness that other individuals and other qualities fall\nunder our concept, changes this concept, as a psychological\npresence, and alters its distinctness and extent. When I remember,\nto use a classical example, that the triangle is not isosceles, nor\nscalene, nor rectangular, but each and all of those, I reduce my\npercept to the word and its definition, with perhaps a sense of the\ngeneral motion of the hand and eye by which we trace a three-cornered\nfigure.\n\nSince the production of a general idea is thus a matter of subjective\nbias, we cannot expect that a type should be the exact average of\nthe examples from which it is drawn. In a rough way, it is the\naverage; a fact that in itself is the strongest of arguments against\nthe independence or priority of the general idea. The beautiful\nhorse, the beautiful speech, the beautiful face, is always a medium\nbetween the extremes which our experience has offered. It is\nenough that a given characteristic should be generally present in\nour experience, for it to become an indispensable element of the\nideal. There is nothing in itself beautiful or necessary in the shape\nof the human ear, or in the presence of nails on the fingers and toes;\nbut the ideal of man, which the preposterous conceit of our\njudgment makes us set up as divine and eternal, requires these\nprecise details; without them the human form would be repulsively\nugly.\n\nIt often happens that the accidents of experience make us in this\nway introduce into the ideal, elements which, if they could be\nexcluded without disgusting us, would make possible satisfactions\ngreater than those we can now enjoy. Thus the taste formed by one\nschool of art may condemn the greater beauties created by another.\nIn morals we have the same phenomenon. A barbarous ideal of life\nrequires tasks and dangers incompatible with happiness; a rude and\noppressed conscience is incapable of regarding as good a state\nwhich excludes its own acrid satisfactions. So, too, a fanatical\nimagination cannot regard God as just unless he is represented as\ninfinitely cruel. The purpose of education is, of course, to free us\nfrom these prejudices, and to develope our ideals in the direction of\nthe greatest possible good. Evidently the ideal has been formed by\nthe habit of perception; it is, in a rough way, that average form\nwhich we expect and most readily apperceive. The propriety and\nnecessity of it is entirely relative to our experience and faculty of\napperception. The shock of surprise, the incongruity with the\nformed percept, is the essence and measure of ugliness.\n\n_The average modified in the direction of pleasure._\n\nSec. 30. Nevertheless we do not form aesthetic ideals any more than\nother general types, entirely without bias. We have already\nobserved that a percept seldom gives an impartial compound of the\nobjects of which it is the generic image. This partiality is due to a\nvariety of circumstances. One is the unequal accuracy of our\nobservation. If some interest directs our attention to a particular\nquality of objects, that quality will be prominent in our percept; it\nmay even be the only content clearly given in our general idea; and\nany object, however similar in other respects to those of the given\nclass, will at once be distinguished as belonging to a different\nspecies if it lacks that characteristic on which our attention is\nparticularly fixed. Our percepts are thus habitually biassed in the\ndirection of practical interest, if practical interest does not indeed\nentirely govern their formation. In the same manner, our aesthetic\nideals are biassed in the direction of aesthetic interest. Not all parts\nof an object are equally congruous with our perceptive faculty; not\nall elements are noted with the same pleasure. Those, therefore,\nwhich are agreeable are chiefly dwelt upon by the lover of beauty,\nand his percept will give an average of things with a great\nemphasis laid on that part of them which is beautiful. The ideal\nwill thus deviate from the average in the direction of the observer's\npleasure.\n\nFor this reason the world is so much more beautiful to a poet or an\nartist than to an ordinary man. Each object, as his aesthetic sense is\ndeveloped, is perhaps less beautiful than to the uncritical eye; his\ntaste becomes difficult, and only the very best gives him unalloyed\nsatisfaction. But while each work of nature and art is thus\napparently blighted by his greater demands and keener susceptibility,\nthe world itself, and the various natures it contains, are\nto him unspeakably beautiful. The more blemishes he can see\nin men, the more excellence he sees in man, and the more bitterly\nhe laments the fate of each particular soul, the more reverence and\nlove he has for the soul in its ideal essence. Criticism and\nidealization involve each other. The habit of looking for beauty in\neverything makes us notice the shortcomings of things; our sense,\nhungry for complete satisfaction, misses the perfection it demands.\nBut this demand for perfection becomes at the same time the\nnucleus of our observation; from every side a quick affinity draws\nwhat is beautiful together and stores it in the mind, giving body\nthere to the blind yearnings of our nature. Many imperfect things\ncrystallize into a single perfection. The mind is thus peopled by\ngeneral ideas in which beauty is the chief quality; and these ideas\nare at the same time the types of things. The type is still a natural\nresultant of particular impressions; but the formation of it has been\nguided by a deep subjective bias in favour of what has delighted\nthe eye.\n\nThis theory can be easily tested by asking whether, in the case\nwhere the ideal differs from the average form of objects, this\nvariation is not due to the intrinsic pleasantness or impressiveness\nof the quality exaggerated. For instance, in the human form, the\nideal differs immensely from the average. In many respects the\nextreme or something near it is the most beautiful. Xenophon\ndescribes the women of Armenia as kalai kai megalai, and we\nshould still speak of one as fair and tall and of another as fair but\nlittle. Size is therefore, even where least requisite, a thing in which\nthe ideal exceeds the average. And the reason -- apart from\nassociations of strength -- is that unusual size makes things\nconspicuous. The first prerequisite of effect is impression, and size\nhelps that; therefore in the aesthetic ideal the average will be\nmodified by being enlarged, because that is a change in the\ndirection of our pleasure, and size will be an element of beauty.[8]\n\nSimilarly the eyes, in themselves beautiful, will be enlarged also;\nand generally whatever makes by its sensuous quality, by its\nabstract form, or by its expression, a particular appeal to our\nattention and contribution to our delight, will count for more in the\nideal type than its frequency would warrant. The generic image has\nbeen constructed under the influence of a selective attention, bent\nupon aesthetic worth.\n\nTo praise any object for approaching the ideal of its kind is\ntherefore only a roundabout way of specifying its intrinsic merit\nand expressing its direct effect on our sensibility. If in referring to\nthe ideal we were not thus analyzing the real, the ideal would be an\nirrelevant and unmeaning thing. We know what the ideal is\nbecause we observe what pleases us in the reality. If we allow the\ngeneral notion to tyrannize at all over the particular impression and\nto blind us to new and unclassified beauties which the latter may\ncontain, we are simply substituting words for feelings, and making\na verbal classification pass for an aesthetic judgment. Then the\nsense of beauty is gone to seed. Ideals have their uses, but their\nauthority is wholly representative. They stand for specific\nsatisfactions, or else they stand for nothing at all.\n\nIn fact, the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas\nand laws, fixed and external objects, principles, persons, and gods,\nare so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for\nexperience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and\nsurveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder\nhopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and\ndirect our course by these intellectual devices. Theory helps us to\nbear our ignorance of fact.\n\nThe same thing happens, in a way, in other fields. Our armies\nare devices necessitated by our weakness; our property an\nencumbrance required by our need. If our situation were not\nprecarious, these great engines of death and life would not be\ninvented. And our intelligence is such another weapon against fate.\nWe need not lament the fact, since, after all, to build these various\nstructures is, up to a certain point, the natural function of human\nnature. The trouble is not that the products are always subjective,\nbut that they are sometimes unfit and torment the spirit which they\nexercise. The pathetic part of our situation appears only when we\nso attach ourselves to those necessary but imperfect fictions, as to\nreject the facts from which they spring and of which they seek to\nbe prophetic. We are then guilty of that substitution of means for\nends, which is called idolatry in religion, absurdity in logic, and\nfolly in morals. In aesthetics the thing has no name, but is\nnevertheless very common; for it is found whenever we speak of\nwhat ought to please, rather than of what actually pleases.\n\n_Are all things beautiful?_\n\nSec. 31. These principles lead to an intelligible answer to a question\nwhich is not uninteresting in itself and crucial in a system of\naesthetics. Are all things beautiful? Are all types equally beautiful\nwhen we abstract from our practical prejudices? If the reader has\ngiven his assent to the foregoing propositions, he will easily see\nthat, in one sense, we must declare that no object is essentially ugly.\nIf impressions are painful, they are objectified with difficulty; the\nperception of a thing is therefore, under normal circumstances,\nwhen the senses are not fatigued, rather agreeable than\ndisagreeable. And when the frequent perception of a class of\nobjects has given rise to an apperceptive norm, and we have an\nideal of the species, the recognition and exemplification of that\nnorm will give pleasure, in proportion to the degree of interest\nand accuracy with which we have made our observations. The\nnaturalist accordingly sees beauties to which the academic artist is\nblind, and each new environment must open to us, if we allow it to\neducate our perception, a new wealth of beautiful forms.\n\nBut we are not for this reason obliged to assert that all gradations\nof beauty and dignity are a matter of personal and accidental bias.\nThe mystics who declare that to God there is no distinction in the\nvalue of things, and that only our human prejudice makes us prefer\na rose to an oyster, or a lion to a monkey, have, of course, a reason\nfor what they say. If we could strip ourselves of our human nature,\nwe should undoubtedly find ourselves incapable of making these\ndistinctions, as well as of thinking, perceiving, or willing in any\nway which is now possible to us. But how things would appear to\nus if we were not human is, to a man, a question of no importance.\nEven, the mystic to whom the definite constitution of his own mind\nis so hateful, can only paralyze without transcending his faculties.\nA passionate negation, the motive of which, although morbid, is in\nspite of itself perfectly human, absorbs all his energies, and his\nultimate triumph is to attain the absoluteness of indifference.\n\nWhat is true of mysticism in general, is true also of its\nmanifestation in aesthetics. If we could so transform our taste as to\nfind beauty everywhere, because, perhaps, the ultimate nature of\nthings is as truly exemplified in one thing as in another, we should,\nin fact, have abolished taste altogether. For the ascending series of\naesthetic satisfactions we should have substituted a monotonous\njudgment of identity. If things are beautiful not by virtue of their\ndifferences but by virtue of an identical something which they\nequally contain, then there could be no discrimination in beauty.\nLike substance, beauty would be everywhere one and the same,\nand any tendency to prefer one thing to another would be a proof\nof finitude and illusion. When we try to make our judgments\nabsolute, what we do is to surrender our natural standards and\ncategories, and slip into another genus, until we lose ourselves in\nthe satisfying vagueness of mere being.\n\nRelativity to our partial nature is therefore essential to all our\ndefinite thoughts, judgments, and feelings. And when once the\nhuman bias is admitted as a legitimate, because for us a necessary,\nbasis of preference, the whole wealth of nature is at once organized\nby that standard into a hierarchy of values. Everything is beautiful\nbecause everything is capable in some degree of interesting and\ncharming our attention; but things differ immensely in this\ncapacity to please us in the contemplation of them, and therefore\nthey differ immensely in beauty. Could our nature be fixed and\ndetermined once for all in every particular, the scale of aesthetic\nvalues would become certain. We should not dispute about tastes,\nno longer because a common principle of preference could not be\ndiscovered, but rather because any disagreement would then be\nimpossible.\n\nAs a matter of fact, however, human nature is a vague abstraction;\nthat which is common to all men is the least part of their natural\nendowment. Aesthetic capacity is accordingly very unevenly\ndistributed; and the world of beauty is much vaster and more\ncomplex to one man than to another. So long, indeed, as the\ndistinction is merely one of development, so that we recognize in\nthe greatest connoisseur only the refinement of the judgments of\nthe rudest peasant, our aesthetic principle has not changed; we\nmight say that, in so far, we had a common standard more or less\nwidely applied. We might say so, because that standard would be\nan implication of a common nature more or less fully developed.\n\nBut men do not differ only in the degree of their susceptibility,\nthey differ also in its direction. Human nature branches into\nopposed and incompatible characters. And taste follows this\nbifurcation. We cannot, except whimsically, say that a taste for\nmusic is higher or lower than a taste for sculpture. A man might be\na musician and a sculptor by turns; that would only involve a\nperfectly conceivable enlargement in human genius. But the union\nthus effected would be an accumulation of gifts in the observer, not\na combination of beauties in the object. The excellence of\nsculpture and that of music would remain entirely independent and\nheterogeneous. Such divergences are like those of the outer senses\nto which these arts appeal. Sound and colour have analogies only\nin their lowest depth, as vibrations and excitement; as they grow\nspecific and objective, they diverge; and although the same\nconsciousness perceives them, it perceives them as unrelated and\nuncombinable objects.\n\nThe ideal enlargement of human capacity, therefore, has no\ntendency to constitute a single standard of beauty. These standards\nremain the expression of diverse habits of sense and imagination.\nThe man who combines the greatest range with the greatest\nendowment in each particular, will, of course, be the critic most\ngenerally respected. He will express the feelings of the greater\nnumber of men. The advantage of scope in criticism lies not in the\nimprovement of our sense in each particular field; here the artist\nwill detect the amateur's shortcomings. But no man is a specialist\nwith his whole soul. Some latent capacity he has for other\nperceptions; and it is for the awakening of these, and their\nmarshalling before him, that the student of each kind of beauty\nturns to the lover of them all.\n\nThe temptation, therefore, to say that all things are really equally\nbeautiful arises from an imperfect analysis, by which the\noperations of the aesthetic consciousness are only partially\ndisintegrated. The dependence of the _degrees_ of beauty upon\nour nature is perceived, while the dependence of its _essence_\nupon our nature is still ignored. All things are not equally beautiful\nbecause the subjective bias that discriminates between them is the\ncause of their being beautiful at all. The principle of personal\npreference is the same as that of human taste; real and objective\nbeauty, in contrast to a vagary of individuals, means only an\naffinity to a more prevalent and lasting susceptibility, a\nresponse toa more general and fundamental demand. And the keener\ndiscrimination, by which the distance between beautiful and ugly\nthings is increased, far from being a loss of aesthetic insight, is a\ndevelopment of that faculty by the exercise of which beauty comes\ninto the world.\n\n_Effects of indeterminate organization._\n\nSec. 32. It is the free exercise of the activity of apperception that gives\nso peculiar an interest to indeterminate objects, to the vague, the\nincoherent, the suggestive, the variously interpretable. The more\nthis effect is appealed to, the greater wealth of thought is presumed\nin the observer, and the less mastery is displayed by the artist. A\npoor and literal mind cannot enjoy the opportunity for reverie and\nconstruction given by the stimulus of indeterminate objects; it\nlacks the requisite resources. It is nonplussed and annoyed, and\nturns away to simpler and more transparent things with a feeling of\nhelplessness often turning into contempt. And, on the other hand,\nthe artist who is not artist enough, who has too many irrepressible\ntalents and too little technical skill, is sure to float in the region of\nthe indeterminate. He sketches and never paints; he hints and never\nexpresses; he stimulates and never informs. This is the method of\nthe individuals and of the nations that have more genius than art.\n\nThe consciousness that accompanies this characteristic is the sense\nof profundity, of mighty significance. And this feeling is not\nnecessarily an illusion. The nature of our materials -- be they\nwords, colours, or plastic matter -- imposes a limit and bias upon\nour expression. The reality of experience can never be quite\nrendered through these media. The greatest mastery of technique\nwill therefore come short of perfect adequacy and exhaustiveness;\nthere must always remain a penumbra and fringe of suggestion if\nthe most explicit representation is to communicate a truth. When\nthere is real profundity, -- when the living core of things is most\nfirmly grasped, -- there will accordingly be a felt inadequacy of\nexpression, and an appeal to the observer to piece out our\nimperfections with his thoughts. But this should come only after\nthe resources of a patient and well-learned art have been exhausted;\nelse what is felt as depth is really confusion and incompetence. The\nsimplest thing becomes unutterable, if we have forgotten how to\nspeak. And a habitual indulgence in the inarticulate is a sure sign\nof the philosopher who has not learned to think, the poet who has\nnot learned to write, the painter who has not learned to paint, and\nthe impression that has not learned to express itself -- all of which\nare compatible with an immensity of genius in the inexpressible\nsoul.\n\nOur age is given to this sort of self-indulgence, and on both the\ngrounds mentioned. Our public, without being really trained, -- for\nwe appeal to too large a public to require training in it, -- is well\ninformed and eagerly responsive to everything; it is ready to work\npretty hard, and do its share towards its own profit and\nentertainment. It becomes a point of pride with it to understand and\nappreciate everything. And our art, in its turn, does not overlook\nthis opportunity. It becomes disorganized, sporadic, whimsical,\nand experimental. The crudity we are too distracted to refine, we\naccept as originality, and the vagueness we are too pretentious to\nmake accurate, we pass off as sublimity. This is the secret of\nmaking great works on novel principles, and of writing hard books\neasily.\n\n_Example of landscape._\n\nSec. 33. An extraordinary taste for landscape compensates us for this\nignorance of what is best and most finished in the arts. The natural\nlandscape is an indeterminate object; it almost always contains\nenough diversity to allow the eye a great liberty in selecting,\nemphasizing, and grouping its elements, and it is furthermore rich\nin suggestion and in vague emotional stimulus. A landscape to be\nseen has to be composed, and to be loved has to be moralized. That\nis the reason why rude or vulgar people are indifferent to their\nnatural surroundings. It does not occur to them that the work-a-day\nworld is capable of aesthetic contemplation. Only on holidays,\nwhen they add to themselves and their belongings some unusual\nornament, do they stop to watch the effect. The far more beautiful\ndaily aspects of their environment escape them altogether. When,\nhowever, we learn to apperceive; when we grow fond of tracing\nlines and developing vistas; when, above all, the subtler influences\nof places on our mental tone are transmuted into an expressiveness\nin those places, and they are furthermore poetized by our\nday-dreams, and turned by our instant fancy into so many hints of a\nfairyland of happy living and vague adventure, -- then we feel that\nthe landscape is beautiful. The forest, the fields, all wild or rural\nscenes, are then full of companionship and entertainment.\n\nThis is a beauty dependent on reverie, fancy, and objectified\nemotion. The promiscuous natural landscape cannot be enjoyed in\nany other way. It has no real unity, and therefore requires to have\nsome form or other supplied by the fancy; which can be the more\nreadily done, in that the possible forms are many, and the constant\nchanges in the object offer varying suggestions to the eye. In fact,\npsychologically speaking, there is no such thing as a landscape;\nwhat we call such is an infinity of different scraps and glimpses\ngiven in succession. Even a painted landscape, although it tends to\nselect and emphasize some parts of the field, is composed by\nadding together a multitude of views. When this painting is\nobserved in its turn, it is surveyed as a real landscape would be,\nand apperceived partially and piecemeal; although, of course, it\noffers much less wealth of material than its living original, and is\ntherefore vastly inferior.\n\nOnly the extreme of what is called impressionism tries to give\nupon canvas one absolute momentary view; the result is that when\nthe beholder has himself actually been struck by that aspect, the\npicture has an extraordinary force and emotional value -- like the\nvivid power of recalling the past possessed by smells. But, on the\nother hand, such a work is empty and trivial in the extreme; it is\nthe photograph of a detached impression, not followed, as it would\nbe in nature, by many variations of itself. An object so unusual is\noften unrecognizable, if the vision thus unnaturally isolated has\nnever happened to come vividly into our own experience. The\nopposite school -- what might be called _discursive_ landscape\npainting -- collects so many glimpses and gives so fully the sum of\nour positive observations of a particular scene, that its work is sure\nto be perfectly intelligible and plain. If it seems unreal and\nuninteresting, that is because it is formless, like the collective\nobject it represents, while it lacks that sensuous intensity and\nmovement which might have made the reality stimulating.\n\nThe landscape contains, of course, innumerable things which have\ndeterminate forms; but if the attention is directed specifically to\nthem, we have no longer what, by a curious limitation of the word,\nis called the love of nature. Not very long ago it was usual for\npainters of landscapes to introduce figures, buildings, or ruins to\nadd some human association to the beauty of the place. Or, if\nwildness and desolation were to be pictured, at least one weary\nwayfarer must be seen sitting upon a broken column. He might\nwear a toga and then be Marius among the ruins of Carthage. The\nlandscape without figures would have seemed meaningless; the\nspectator would have sat in suspense awaiting something, as at\nthe theatre when the curtain rises on an empty stage. The\nindeterminateness of the suggestions of an unhumanized scene was\nthen felt as a defect; now we feel it rather as an exaltation. We\nneed to be free; our emotion suffices us; we do not ask for a\ndescription of the object which interests us as a part of ourselves.\nWe should blush to say so simple and obvious a thing as that to us\n\"the mountains are a feeling\"; nor should we think of apologizing\nfor our romanticism as Byron did:\n\n I love not man the less but nature more\n From these our interviews, in which I steal,\n From all I may be, or have been before,\n To mingle with the universe, and feel\n What I can ne'er express.\n\nThis ability to rest in nature unadorned and to find entertainment in\nher aspects, is, of course, a great gain. Aesthetic education consists\nin training ourselves to see the maximum of beauty. To see it in the\nphysical world, which must continually be about us, is a great\nprogress toward that marriage of the imagination with the reality\nwhich is the goal of contemplation.\n\nWhile we gain this mastery of the formless, however, we should\nnot lose the more necessary capacity of seeing form in those things\nwhich happen to have it. In respect to most of those things which\nare determinate as well as natural, we are usually in that state of\naesthetic unconsciousness which the peasant is in in respect to the\nlandscape. We treat human life and its environment with the same\nutilitarian eye with which he regards the field and mountain. That\nis beautiful which is expressive of convenience and wealth; the rest\nis indifferent. If we mean by love of nature aesthetic delight in the\nworld in which we casually live (and what can be more _natural_\nthan man and all his arts?), we may say that the absolute love of\n_nature_ hardly exists among us. What we love is the stimulation\nof our own personal emotions and dreams; and landscape appeals\nto us, as music does to those who have no sense for musical form.\n\nThere would seem to be no truth in the saying that the ancients\nloved nature less than we. They loved landscape less -- less, at\nleast, in proportion to their love of the definite things it contained.\nThe vague and changing effects of the atmosphere, the masses of\nmountains, the infinite and living complexity of forests, did not\nfascinate them. They had not that preponderant taste for the\nindeterminate that makes the landscape a favourite subject of\ncontemplation. But love of nature, and comprehension of her, they\nhad in a most eminent degree; in fact, they actually made explicit\nthat objectification of our own soul in her, which for the romantic\npoet remains a mere vague and shifting suggestion. What are the\ncelestial gods, the nymphs, the fauns, the dryads, but the definite\napperceptions of that haunting spirit which we think we see in the\nsky, the mountains, and the woods? We may think that our vague\nintuition grasps the truth of what their childish imagination turned\ninto a fable. But our belief, if it is one, is just as fabulous, just as\nmuch a projection of human nature into material things; and if we\nrenounce all positive conception of quasi-mental principles in\nnature, and reduce our moralizing of her to a poetic expression of\nour own sensations, then can we say that our verbal and illusive\nimages are comparable as representations of the life of nature to\nthe precision, variety, humour, and beauty of the Greek mythology?\n\n_Extensions to objects usually not regarded authentically._\n\nSec. 34. It may not be superfluous to mention here certain analogous\nfields where the human mind gives a series of unstable forms to\nobjects in themselves indeterminate.[9] History, philosophy,\nnatural as well as moral, and religion are evidently such fields. All\ntheory is a subjective form given to an indeterminate material. The\nmaterial is experience; and although each part of experience is, of\ncourse, perfectly definite in itself, and just that experience which it\nis, yet the recollection and relating together of the successive\nexperiences is a function of the theoretical faculty. The systematic\nrelations of things in time and space, and their dependence upon\none another, are the work of our imagination. Theory can therefore\nnever have the kind of truth which belongs to experience; as\nHobbes has it, no discourse whatsoever can end in absolute\nknowledge of fact.\n\nIt is conceivable that two different theories should be equally true\nin respect to the same facts. All that is required is that they should\nbe equally complete schemes for the relation and prediction of the\nrealities they deal with. The choice between them would be an\narbitrary one, determined by personal bias, for the object being\nindeterminate, its elements can be apperceived as forming all kinds\nof unities. A theory is a form of apperception, and in applying it to\nthe facts, although our first concern is naturally the adequacy of\nour instrument of comprehension, we are also influenced, more\nthan we think, by the ease and pleasure with which we think in its\nterms, that is, by its beauty.\n\nThe case of two alternative theories of nature, both exhaustive and\nadequate, may seem somewhat imaginary. The human mind is,\nindeed, not rich and indeterminate enough to drive, as the saying is,\nmany horses abreast; it wishes to have one general scheme of\nconception only, under which it strives to bring everything. Yet the\nphilosophers, who are the scouts of common sense, have come in\nsight of this possibility of a variety of methods of dealing with the\nsame facts. As at the basis of evolution generally there are many\nvariations, only some of which remain fixed, so at the origin of\nconception there are many schemes; these are simultaneously\ndeveloped, and at most stages of thought divide the intelligence\namong themselves. So much is thought of on one principle -- say\nmechanically -- and so much on another -- say teleologically. In\nthose minds only that have a speculative turn, that is, in whom the\ndesire for unity of comprehension outruns practical exigencies,\ndoes the conflict become intolerable. In them one or another of\nthese theories tends to swallow all experience, but is commonly\nincapable of doing so.\n\nThe final victory of a single philosophy is not yet won, because\nnone as yet has proved adequate to all experience. If ever unity\nshould be attained, our unanimity would not indicate that, as the\npopular fancy conceives it, the truth had been discovered; it would\nonly indicate that the human mind had found a definitive way of\nclassifying its experience. Very likely, if man still retained his\ninveterate habit of hypostatizing his ideas, that definitive scheme\nwould be regarded as a representation of the objective relations of\nthings; but no proof that it was so would ever be found, nor even\nany hint that there were external objects, not to speak of relations\nbetween them. As the objects are hypostatized percepts, so the\nrelations are hypostatized processes of the human understanding.\n\nTo have reached a final philosophy would be only to have\nformulated the typical and satisfying form of human apperception;\nthe view would remain a theory, an instrument of comprehension\nand survey fitted to the human eye; it would be for ever utterly\nheterogeneous from fact, utterly unrepresentative of any of those\nexperiences which it would artificially connect and weave into a\npattern. Mythology and theology are the most striking illustrations\nof this human method of incorporating much diffuse experience\ninto graphic and picturesque ideas; but steady reflection will hardly\nallow us to see anything else in the theories of science and\nphilosophy. These, too, are creatures of our intelligence, and have\ntheir only being in the movement of our thought, as they have their\nonly justification in their fitness to our experience.\n\nLong before we can attain, however, the ideal unification of\nexperience under one theory, the various fields of thought demand\nprovisional surveys; we are obliged to reflect on life in a variety of\ndetached and unrelated acts, since neither can the whole material\nof life be ever given while we still live, nor can that which is given\nbe impartially retained in the human memory. When omniscience\nwas denied us, we were endowed with versatility. The picturesqueness\nof human thought may console us for its imperfection.\n\nHistory, for instance, which passes for the account of facts, is in\nreality a collection of apperceptions of an indeterminate material;\nfor even the material of history is not fact, but consists of\nmemories and words subject to ever-varying interpretation. No\nhistorian can be without bias, because the bias defines the history.\nThe memory in the first place is selective; official and other\nrecords are selective, and often intentionally partial. Monuments\nand ruins remain by chance. And when the historian has set\nhimself to study these few relics of the past, the work of his own\nintelligence begins. He must have some guiding interest. A history\nis not an indiscriminate register of every known event; a file of\nnewspapers is not an inspiration of Clio. A history is a view of the\nfortunes of some institution or person; it traces the development of\nsome interest. This interest furnishes the standard by which the\nfacts are selected, and their importance gauged. Then, after the\nfacts are thus chosen, marshalled, and emphasized, comes the\nindication of causes and relations; and in this part of his work the\nhistorian plunges avowedly into speculation, and becomes a\nphilosophical poet. Everything will then depend on his genius, on\nhis principles, on his passions, -- in a word, on his apperceptive\nforms. And the value of history is similar to that of poetry, and\nvaries with the beauty, power, and adequacy of the form in which\nthe indeterminate material of human life is presented.\n\n_Further dangers of indeterminateness._\n\nSec. 35. The fondness of a race or epoch for any kind of effect is a\nnatural expression of temperament and circumstances, and cannot\nbe blamed or easily corrected. At the same time we may stop to\nconsider some of the disadvantages of a taste for the indeterminate.\nWe shall be registering a truth and at the same time, perhaps,\ngiving some encouragement to that rebellion which we may\ninwardly feel against this too prevalent manner. The indeterminate\nis by its nature ambiguous; it is therefore obscure and uncertain in\nits effect, and if used, as in many arts it often is, to convey a\nmeaning, must fail to do so unequivocally. Where a meaning is not\nto be conveyed, as in landscape, architecture, or music, the\nillusiveness of the form is not so objectionable: although in all\nthese objects the tendency to observe forms and to demand them is\na sign of increasing appreciation. The ignorant fail to see the forms\nof music, architecture, and landscape, and therefore are insensible\nto relative rank and technical values in these spheres; they regard\nthe objects only as so many stimuli to emotion, as soothing or\nenlivening influences. But the sensuous and associative values of\nthese things -- especially of music -- are so great, that even without\nan appreciation of form considerable beauty may be found in them.\n\nIn literature, however, where the sensuous value of the words is\ncomparatively small, indeterminateness of form is fatal to beauty,\nand, if extreme, even to expressiveness. For meaning is conveyed\nby the _form_ and order of words, not by the words themselves,\nand no precision of meaning can be reached without precision of\nstyle. Therefore no respectable writer is voluntarily obscure in the\nstructure of his phrases -- that is an abuse reserved for the clowns\nof literary fashion. But a book is a larger sentence, and if it is\nformless it fails to mean anything, for the same reason that an\nunformed collection of words means nothing. The chapters and\nverses may have said something, as loose words may have a\nknown sense and a tone; but the book will have brought no\nmessage.\n\nIn fact, the absence of form in composition has two stages: that in\nwhich, as in the works of Emerson, significant fragments are\ncollected, and no system, no total thought, constructed out of them;\nand secondly, that in which, as in the writings of the Symbolists of\nour time, all the significance is kept back in the individual words,\nor even in the syllables that compose them. This mosaic of\nword-values has, indeed, a possibility of effect, for the absence of form\ndoes not destroy materials, but, as we have observed, rather allows\nthe attention to remain fixed upon them; and for this reason\nabsence of sense is a means of accentuating beauty of sound and\nverbal suggestion. But this example shows how the tendency to\nneglect structure in literature is a tendency to surrender the use of\nlanguage as an instrument of thought The descent is easy from\nambiguity to meaninglessness.\n\nThe indeterminate in form is also indeterminate in value. It needs\ncompletion by the mind of the observer and as this completion\ndiffers, the value of the result must vary. An indeterminate object\nis therefore beautiful to him who can make it so, and ugly to him\nwho cannot. It appeals to a few and to them diversely. In fact, the\nobserver's own mind is the storehouse from which the beautiful\nform has to be drawn. If the form is not there, it cannot be applied\nto the half-finished object; it is like asking a man without skill to\ncomplete another man's composition. The indeterminate object\ntherefore requires an active and well-equipped mind, and is\notherwise without value.\n\nIt is furthermore unprofitable even to the mind which takes it up; it\nstimulates that mind to action, but it presents it with no new object.\nWe can respond only with those forms of apperception which we\nalready are accustomed to. A formless object cannot _inform_ the\nmind, cannot mould it to a new habit. That happens only when the\ndata, by their clear determination, compel the eye and imagination\nto follow new paths and see new relations. Then we are introduced\nto a new beauty, and enriched to that extent. But the indeterminate,\nlike music to the sentimental, is a vague stimulus. It calls forth at\nrandom such ideas and memories as may lie to hand, stirring the\nmind, but leaving it undisciplined and unacquainted with any new\nobject. This stirring, like that of the pool of Bethesda, may indeed\nhave its virtue. A creative mind, already rich in experience and\nobservation, may, under the influence of such a stimulus, dart into\na new thought, and give birth to that with which it is already\npregnant; but the fertilizing seed came from elsewhere, from study\nand admiration of those definite forms which nature contains, or\nwhich art, in imitation of nature, has conceived and brought to\nperfection.\n\n_Illusion of infinite perfection._\n\nSec. 36. The great advantage, then, of indeterminate organization is\nthat it cultivates that spontaneity, intelligence, and imagination\nwithout which many important objects would remain unintelligible,\nand because unintelligible, uninteresting. The beauty of landscape,\nthe forms of religion and science, the types of human nature itself,\nare due to this apperceptive gift. Without it we should have a chaos;\nbut its patient and ever-fresh activity carves out of the fluid\nmaterial a great variety of forms. An object which stimulates us to\nthis activity, therefore, seems often to be more sublime and\nbeautiful than one which presents to us a single unchanging form,\nhowever perfect. There seems to be a life and infinity in\nthe incomplete, which the determinate excludes by its own\ncompleteness and petrifaction. And yet the effort in this very\nactivity is to reach determination; we can only see beauty in so far\nas we introduce form. The instability of the form can be no\nadvantage to a work of art; the determinate keeps constantly what\nthe indeterminate reaches only in those moments in which the\nobserver's imagination is especially propitious. If we feel a certain\ndisappointment in the monotonous limits of a definite form and its\neternal, unsympathizing message, might we not feel much more\nthe melancholy transiency of those glimpses of beauty which elude\nus in the indeterminate? Might not the torment and uncertainty of\nthis contemplation, with the self-consciousness it probably\ninvolves, more easily tire us than the quiet companionship of a\nconstant object? May we not prefer the unchangeable to the\nirrecoverable?\n\nWe may; and the preference is one which we should all more\nclearly feel, were it not for an illusion, proper to the romantic\ntemperament, which lends a mysterious charm to things which are\nindefinite and indefinable. It is the suggestion of infinite perfection.\nIn reality, perfection is a synonym of finitude. Neither in nature\nnor in the fancy can anything be perfect except by realizing a\ndefinite type, which excludes all variation, and contrasts sharply\nwith every other possibility of being. There is no perfection apart\nfrom a form of apperception or type; and there are as many kinds\nof perfection as there are types or forms of apperception latent in\nthe mind.\n\nNow these various perfections are mutually exclusive. Only in a\nkind of aesthetic orgy -- in the madness of an intoxicated\nimagination -- can we confuse them. As the Roman emperor\nwished that the Roman people had but a single neck, to murder\nthem at one blow, so we may sometimes wish that all beauties had\nbut one form, that we might behold them together. But in the\nnature of things beauties are incompatible. The spring cannot\ncoexist with the autumn, nor day with night; what is beautiful in a\nchild is hideous in a man, and _vice versa;_ every age,\nevery country, each sex, has a peculiar beauty, finite and\nincommunicable; the better it is attained the more completely it\nexcludes every other. The same is evidently true of schools of art,\nof styles and languages, and of every effect whatsoever. It exists\nby its finitude and is great in proportion to its determination.\n\nBut there is a loose and somewhat helpless state of mind in which\nwhile we are incapable of realizing any particular thought or vision\nin its perfect clearness and absolute beauty, we nevertheless feel its\nhaunting presence in the background of consciousness. And one\nreason why the idea cannot emerge from that obscurity is that it is\nnot alone in the brain; a thousand other ideals, a thousand other\nplastic tendencies of thought, simmer there in confusion; and if any\ndefinite image is presented in response to that vague agitation of\nour soul, we feel its inadequacy to our need in spite of, or perhaps\non account of, its own particular perfection. We then say that the\nclassic does not satisfy us, and that the \"Grecian cloys us with his\nperfectness.\" We are not capable of that concentrated and serious\nattention to one thing at a time which would enable us to sink into\nits being, and enjoy the intrinsic harmonies of its form, and the\nbliss of its immanent particular heaven; we flounder in the vague,\nbut at the same time we are full of yearnings, of half-thoughts and\nsemi-visions, and the upward tendency and exaltation of our mood\nis emphatic and overpowering in proportion to our incapacity to\nthink, speak, or imagine.\n\nThe sum of our incoherences has, however, an imposing volume\nand even, perhaps, a vague, general direction. We feel ourselves\nladen with an infinite burden; and what delights us most and seems\nto us to come nearest to the ideal is not what embodies any one\npossible form, but that which, by embodying none, suggests many,\nand stirs the mass of our inarticulate imagination with a pervasive\nthrill. Each thing, without being a beauty in itself, by stimulating\nour indeterminate emotion, seems to be a hint and expression of\ninfinite beauty. That infinite perfection which cannot be realized,\nbecause it is self-contradictory, may be thus suggested, and on\naccount of this suggestion an indeterminate effect may be regarded\nas higher, more significant, and more beautiful than any\ndeterminate one.\n\nThe illusion, however, is obvious. The infinite perfection\nsuggested is an absurdity. What exists is a vague emotion, the\nobjects of which, if they could emerge from the chaos of a\nconfused imagination, would turn out to be a multitude of\ndifferently beautiful determinate things. This emotion of infinite\nperfection is the _materia prima -- rudis indigestaque moles --_ out\nof which attention, inspiration, and art can bring forth an infinity of\nparticular perfections. Every aesthetic success, whether in\ncontemplation or production, is the birth of one of these\npossibilities with which the sense of infinite perfection is pregnant.\nA work of art or an act of observation which remains indeterminate\nis, therefore, a failure, however much it may stir our emotion. It is\na failure for two reasons. In the first place this emotion is seldom\nwholly pleasant; it is disquieting and perplexing; it brings a desire\nrather than a satisfaction. And in the second place, the emotion, not\nbeing embodied, fails to constitute the beauty of anything; and\nwhat we have is merely a sentiment, a consciousness that values\nare or might be there, but a failure to extricate those values, or to\nmake them explicit and recognizable in an appropriate object.\n\nThese gropings after beauty have their worth as signs of aesthetic\nvitality and intimations of future possible accomplishment; but in\nthemselves they are abortive, and mark the impotence of the\nimagination. Sentimentalism in the observer and romanticism in\nthe artist are examples of this aesthetic incapacity. Whenever\nbeauty is really seen and loved, it has a definite embodiment: the\neye has precision, the work has style, and the object has perfection.\nThe kind of perfection may indeed be new; and if the discovery of\nnew perfections is to be called romanticism, then romanticism is\nthe beginning of all aesthetic life. But if by romanticism we mean\nindulgence in confused suggestion and in the exhibition of turgid\nforce, then there is evidently need of education, of attentive labour,\nto disentangle the beauties so vaguely felt, and give each its\nadequate embodiment. The breadth of our inspiration need not be\nlost in this process of clarification, for there is no limit to the\nnumber and variety of forms which the world may be made to wear;\nonly, if it is to be appreciated as beautiful and not merely felt as\nunutterable, it must be seen as a kingdom of forms. Thus the works\nof Shakespeare give us a great variety, with a frequent marvellous\nprecision of characterization, and the forms of his art are definite\nalthough its scope is great.\n\nBut by a curious anomaly, we are often expected to see the greatest\nexpressiveness in what remains indeterminate, and in reality\nexpresses nothing. As we have already observed, the sense of\nprofundity and significance is a very detachable emotion; it can\naccompany a confused jumble of promptings quite as easily as it\ncan a thorough comprehension of reality. The illusion of infinite\nperfection is peculiarly apt to produce this sensation. That illusion\narises by the simultaneous awakening of many incipient thoughts\nand dim ideas; it stirs the depths of the mind as a wind stirs the\nthickets of a forest; and the unusual consciousness of the life and\nlonging of the soul, brought by that gust of feeling, makes us\nrecognize in the object a singular power, a mysterious meaning.\n\nBut the feeling of significance signifies little. All we have in this\ncase is a potentiality of imagination; and only when this\npotentiality begins to be realized in definite ideas, does a real\nmeaning, or any object which that meaning can mean, arise in the\nmind. The highest aesthetic good is not that vague potentiality, nor\nthat contradictory, infinite perfection so strongly desired; it is the\ngreatest number and variety of finite perfections. To learn to see in\nnature and to enshrine in the arts the typical forms of things; to\nstudy and recognize their variations; to domesticate the\nimagination in the world, so that everywhere beauty can be seen,\nand a hint found for artistic creation, -- that is the goal of\ncontemplation. Progress lies in the direction of discrimination and\nprecision, not in that of formless emotion and reverie.\n\n_Organized nature the source of apperceptive forms; example of\nsculpture._\n\nSec. 37. The form of the material world is in one sense always\nperfectly definite, since the particles that compose it are at each\nmoment in a given relative position; but a world that had no other\nform than that of such a constellation of atoms would remain\nchaotic to our perception, because we should not be able to survey\nit as a whole, or to keep our attention suspended evenly over its\ninnumerable parts. According to evolutionary theory, mechanical\nnecessity has, however, brought about a distribution and\naggregation of elements such as, for our purposes, constitutes\nindividual things. Certain systems of atoms move together as units;\nand these organisms reproduce themselves and recur so often in\nour environment, that our senses become accustomed to view their\nparts together. Their form becomes a natural and recognizable one.\nAn order and sequence is established in our imagination by virtue\nof the order and sequence in which the corresponding impressions\nhave come to our senses. We can remember, reproduce, and in\nreproducing vary, by kaleidoscopic tricks of the fancy, the forms in\nwhich our perceptions have come.\n\nThe mechanical organization of external nature is thus the source\nof apperceptive forms in the mind. Did not sensation, by a constant\nrepetition of certain sequences, and a recurring exactitude of\nmathematical relations, keep our fancy clear and fresh, we should\nfall into an imaginative lethargy. Idealization would degenerate\ninto indistinctness, and, by the dulling of our memory, we should\ndream a world daily more poor and vague.\n\nThis process is periodically observable in the history of the arts.\nThe way in which the human figure, for instance, is depicted, is an\nindication of the way in which it is apperceived. The arts give back\nonly so much of nature as the human eye has been able to master.\nThe most primitive stage of drawing and sculpture presents man\nwith his arms and legs, his ten fingers and ten toes, branching out\ninto mid-air; the apperception of the body has been evidently\npractical and successive, and the artist sets down what he knows\nrather than any of the particular perceptions that conveyed that\nknowledge. Those perceptions are merged and lost in the haste to\nreach the practically useful concept of the object. By a naive\nexpression of the same principle, we find in some Assyrian\ndrawings the eye seen from the front introduced into a face seen in\nprofile, each element being represented in that form in which it\nwas most easily observed and remembered. The development of\nGreek sculpture furnishes a good example of the gradual\npenetration of nature into the mind, of the slowly enriched\napperception of the object. The quasi-Egyptian stiffness melts\naway, first from the bodies of the minor figures, afterwards of\nthose of the gods, and finally the face is varied, and the hieratic\nsmile almost disappears.[10]\n\nBut this progress has a near limit; once the most beautiful and\ninclusive apperception reached, once the best form caught at its\nbest moment, the artist seems to have nothing more to do. To\nreproduce the imperfections of individuals seems wrong, when\nbeauty, after all, is the thing desired. And the ideal, as caught by\nthe master's inspiration, is more beautiful than anything his pupils\ncan find for themselves in nature. From its summit, the art\ntherefore declines in one of two directions. It either becomes\nacademic, forsakes the study of nature, and degenerates into empty\nconvention, or else it becomes ignoble, forsakes beauty, and sinks\ninto a tasteless and unimaginative technique. The latter was the\ncourse of sculpture in ancient times, the former, with moments of\nreawakening, has been its dreadful fate among the moderns.\n\nThis reawakening has come whenever there has been a return to\nnature, for a new form of apperception and a new ideal. Of this\nreturn there is continual need in all the arts; without it our\napperceptions grow thin and worn, and subject to the sway of\ntradition and fashion. We continue to judge about beauty, but we\ngive up looking for it. The remedy is to go back to the reality, to\nstudy it patiently, to allow new aspects of it to work upon the mind,\nsink into it, and beget there an imaginative offspring after their\nown kind. Then a new art can appear, which, having the same\norigin in admiration for nature which the old art had, may hope to\nattain the same excellence in a new direction.\n\nIn fact, one of the dangers to which a modern artist is exposed is\nthe seduction of his predecessors. The gropings of our muse, the\ndistracted experiments of our architecture, often arise from the\nattraction of some historical school; we cannot work out our own\nstyle because we are hampered by the beauties of so many others.\nThe result is an eclecticism, which, in spite of its great historical\nand psychological interest, is without aesthetic unity or permanent\npower to please. Thus the study of many schools of art may\nbecome an obstacle to proficiency in any.\n\n_Utility the principle of organization in nature._\n\nSec. 38. Utility (or, as it is now called, adaptation, and natural\nselection) organizes the material world into definite species and\nindividuals. Only certain aggregations of matter are in equilibrium\nwith the prevailing forces of the environment. Gravity, for instance,\nis in itself a chaotic force; it pulls all particles indiscriminately\ntogether without reference to the wholes into which the human eye\nmay have grouped them. But the result is not chaos, because matter\narranged in some ways is welded together by the very tendency\nwhich disintegrates it when arranged in other forms. These forms,\nselected by their congruity with gravity, are therefore fixed in\nnature, and become types. Thus the weight of the stones keeps the\npyramid standing: here a certain shape has become a guarantee of\npermanence in the presence of a force in itself mechanical and\nundiscriminating. It is the utility of the pyramidal form -- its fitness\nto stand -- that has made it a type in building. The Egyptians\nmerely repeated a process that they might have observed going on\nof itself in nature, who builds a pyramid in every hill, not indeed\nbecause she wishes to, or because pyramids are in any way an\nobject of her action, but because she has no force which can easily\ndislodge matter that finds itself in that shape.\n\nSuch an accidental stability of structure is, in this moving world, a\nsufficient principle of permanence and individuality. The same\nmechanical principles, in more complex applications, insure the\npersistence of animal forms and prevent any permanent deviation\nfrom them. What is called the principle of self-preservation, and\nthe final causes and substantial forms of the Aristotelian\nphilosophy, are descriptions of the result of this operation. The\ntendency of everything to maintain and propagate its nature is\nsimply the inertia of a stable juxtaposition of elements, which are\nnot enough disturbed by ordinary accidents to lose their\nequilibrium; while the incidence of a too great disturbance causes\nthat disruption we call death, or that variation of type, which, on\naccount of its incapacity to establish itself permanently, we call\nabnormal.\n\nNature thus organizes herself into recognizable species; and the\naesthetic eye, studying her forms, tends, as we have already shown,\nto bring the type within even narrower limits than do the external\nexigencies of life.\n\n_The relation of utility to beauty._\n\nSec. 39. This natural harmony between utility and beauty, when its\norigin is not understood, is of course the subject of much perplexed\nand perplexing theory. Sometimes we are told that utility is itself\nthe essence of beauty, that is, that our consciousness of the\npractical advantages of certain forms is the ground of our aesthetic\nadmiration of them. The horse's legs are said to be beautiful\nbecause they are fit to run, the eye because it is made to see, the\nhouse because it is convenient to live in. An amusing application --\nwhich might pass for a _reductio ad absurdum,_ -- of this dense\ntheory is put by Xenophon into the mouth of Socrates. Comparing\nhimself with a youth present at the same banquet, who was about\nto receive the prize of beauty, Socrates declares himself more\nbeautiful and more worthy of the crown. For utility makes beauty,\nand eyes bulging out from the head like his are the most\nadvantageous for seeing; nostrils wide and open to the air, like his,\nmost appropriate for smell; and a mouth large and voluminous, like\nhis, best fitted for both eating and kissing.[11]\n\nNow since these things are, in fact, hideous, the theory that shows\nthey _ought to be_ beautiful, is vain and ridiculous. But that\ntheory contains this truth: that had the utility of Socratic features\nbeen so great that men of all other type must have perished,\nSocrates would have been beautiful. He would have represented\nthe human type. The eye would have been then accustomed to that\nform, the imagination would have taken it as the basis of its\nrefinements, and accentuated its naturally effective points. The\nbeautiful does not depend on the useful; it is constituted by the\nimagination in ignorance and contempt of practical advantage; but\nit is not independent of the necessary, for the necessary must also\nbe the habitual and consequently the basis of the type, and of all its\nimaginative variations.\n\nThere are, moreover, at a late and derivative stage in our aesthetic\njudgment, certain cases in which the knowledge of fitness and\nutility enters into our sense of beauty. But it does so very indirectly,\nrather by convincing us that we should tolerate what practical\nconditions have imposed on an artist, by arousing admiration of his\ningenuity, or by suggesting the interesting things themselves with\nwhich the object is known to be connected. Thus a cottage-chimney,\nstout and tall, with the smoke floating from it, pleases because\nwe fancy it to mean a hearth, a rustic meal, and a comfortable\nfamily. But that is all extraneous association. The most\nordinary way in which utility affects us is negatively; if we\nknow a thing to be useless and fictitious, the uncomfortable\nhaunting sense of waste and trickery prevents all enjoyment, and\ntherefore banishes beauty. But this is also an adventitious\ncomplication. The intrinsic value of a form is in no way affected by it.\n\nOpposed to this utilitarian theory stands the metaphysical one that\nwould make the beauty or intrinsic rightness of things the source of\ntheir efficiency and of their power to survive. Taken literally, as it\nis generally meant, this idea must, from our point of view, appear\npreposterous. Beauty and rightness are relative to our judgment\nand emotion; they in no sense exist in nature or preside over her.\nShe everywhere appears to move by mechanical law. The types of\nthings exist by what, in relation to our approbation, is mere chance,\nand it is our faculties that must adapt themselves to our\nenvironment and not our environment to our faculties. Such is the\nnaturalistic point of view which we have adopted.\n\nTo say, however, that beauty is in some sense the ground of\npractical fitness, need not seem to us wholly unmeaning. The fault\nof the Platonists who say things of this sort is seldom that of\nemptiness. They have an intuition; they have sometimes a strong\nsense of the facts of consciousness. But they turn their discoveries\ninto so many revelations, and the veil of the infinite and absolute\nsoon covers their little light of specific truth. Sometimes, after\npatient digging, the student comes upon the treasure of some\nsimple fact, some common experience, beneath all their mystery\nand unction. And so it may be in this case. If we make allowances\nfor the tendency to express experience in allegory and myth, we\nshall see that the idea of beauty and rationality presiding over\nnature and guiding her, as it were, for their own greater glory, is a\nprojection and a writing large of a psychological principle.\n\nThe mind that perceives nature is the same that understands and\nenjoys her; indeed, these three functions are really elements of one\nprocess. There is therefore in the mere perceptibility of a thing a\ncertain prophecy of its beauty; if it were not on the road to beauty,\nif it had no approach to fitness to our faculties of perception, the\nobject would remain eternally unperceived. The sense, therefore,\nthat the whole world is made to be food for the soul; that beauty is\nnot only its own, but all things' excuse for being; that universal\naspiration towards perfection is the key and secret of the world, --\nthat sense is the poetical reverberation of a psychological fact -- of\nthe fact that our mind is an organism tending to unity, to\nunconsciousness of what is refractory to its action, and to\nassimilation and sympathetic transformation of what is kept within\nits sphere. The idea that nature could be governed by an aspiration\ntowards beauty is, therefore, to be rejected as a confusion, but at\nthe same time we must confess that this confusion is founded on a\nconsciousness of the subjective relation between the perceptibility,\nrationality, and beauty of things.\n\n_Utility the principle of organization in the arts._\n\nSec. 40. This subjective relation is, however, exceedingly loose. Most\nthings that are perceivable are not perceived so distinctly as to be\nintelligible, nor so delightfully as to be beautiful. If our eye had\ninfinite penetration, or our imagination infinite elasticity, this\nwould not be the case; to see would then be to understand and to\nenjoy. As it is, the degree of determination needed for perception is\nmuch less than that needed for comprehension or ideality. Hence\nthere is room for hypothesis and for art. As hypothesis organizes\nexperiences imaginatively in ways in which observation has not\nbeen able to do, so art organizes objects in ways to which nature,\nperhaps, has never condescended.\n\nThe chief thing which the imitative arts add to nature is\npermanence, the lack of which is the saddest defect of many\nnatural beauties. The forces which determine natural forms,\ntherefore, determine also the forms of the imitative arts. But the\nnon-imitative arts supply organisms different in kind from those\nwhich nature affords. If we seek the principle by which these\nobjects are organized, we shall generally find that it is likewise\nutility. Architecture, for instance, has all its forms suggested by\npractical demands. Use requires our buildings to assume certain\ndeterminate forms; the mechanical properties of our materials, the\nexigency of shelter, light, accessibility, economy, and convenience,\ndictate the arrangements of our buildings.\n\nHouses and temples have an evolution like that of animals and\nplants. Various forms arise by mechanical necessity, like the cave,\nor the shelter of overhanging boughs. These are perpetuated by a\nselection in which the needs and pleasures of man are the\nenvironment to which the structure must be adapted. Determinate\nforms thus establish themselves, and the eye becomes accustomed\nto them. The line of use, by habit of apperception, becomes the line\nof beauty. A striking example may be found in the pediment of the\nGreek temple and the gable of the northern house. The exigencies\nof climate determine these forms differently, but the eye in each\ncase accepts what utility imposes. We admire height in one and\nbreadth in the other, and we soon find the steep pediment heavy\nand the low gable awkward and mean.\n\nIt would be an error, however, to conclude that habit alone\nestablishes the right proportion in these various types of building.\nWe have the same intrinsic elements to consider as in natural\nforms. That is, besides the unity of type and correspondence of\nparts which custom establishes, there are certain appeals to more\nfundamental susceptibilities of the human eye and imagination.\nThere is, for instance, the value of abstract form, determined by the\npleasantness and harmony of implicated retinal or muscular\ntensions. Different structures contain or suggest more or less of\nthis kind of beauty, and in that proportion may be called\nintrinsically better or worse. Thus artificial forms may be arranged\nin a hierarchy like natural ones, by reference to the absolute values\nof their contours and masses. Herein lies the superiority of a Greek\nto a Chinese vase, or of Gothic to Saracenic construction. Thus\nalthough every useful form is capable of proportion and beauty,\nwhen once its type is established, we cannot say that this beauty is\nalways potentially equal; and an iron bridge, for instance, although\nit certainly possesses and daily acquires aesthetic interest, will\nprobably never, on the average, equal a bridge of stone.\n\n_Form and adventitious ornament._\n\nSec. 41. Beauty of form is the last to be found or admired in artificial\nas in natural objects. Time is needed to establish it, and training\nand nicety of perception to enjoy it. Motion or colour is what first\ninterests a child in toys, as in animals; and the barbarian artist\ndecorates long before he designs. The cave and wigwam are\ndaubed with paint, or hung with trophies, before any pleasure is\ntaken in their shape; and the appeal to the detached senses, and to\nassociations of wealth and luxury, precedes by far the appeal to the\nperceptive harmonies of form. In music we observe the same\ngradation; first, we appreciate its sensuous and sentimental value;\nonly with education can we enjoy its form. The plastic arts begin,\ntherefore, with adventitious ornament and with symbolism. The\naesthetic pleasure is in the richness of the material, the profusion of\nthe ornament, the significance of the shape -- in everything, rather\nthan in the shape itself.\n\nWe have accordingly, in works of art two independent sources of\neffect. The first is the useful form, which generates the type, and\nultimately the beauty of form, when the type has been idealized by\nemphasizing its intrinsically pleasing traits. The second is the\nbeauty of ornament, which comes from the excitement of the\nsenses, or of the imagination, by colour, or by profusion or\ndelicacy of detail. Historically, the latter is first developed, and\napplied to a form as yet merely useful. But the very presence of\nornament attracts contemplation; the attention lavished on the\nobject helps to fix its form in the mind, and to make us\ndiscriminate the less from the more graceful. The two kinds of\nbeauty are then felt, and, yielding to that tendency to unity which\nthe mind always betrays, we begin to subordinate and organize\nthese two excellences. The ornament is distributed so as to\nemphasize the aesthetic essence of the form; to idealize it even\nmore, by adding adventitious interests harmoniously to the\nintrinsic interest of the lines of structure.\n\nThere is here a great field, of course, for variety of combination\nand compromise. Some artists are fascinated by the decoration, and\nthink of the structure merely as the background on which it can be\nmost advantageously displayed. Others, of more austere taste,\nallow ornament only to emphasize the main lines of the design, or\nto conceal such inharmonious elements as nature or utility may\nprevent them from eliminating.[12] We may thus oscillate between\ndecorative and structural motives, and only in one point, for each\nstyle, can we find the ideal equilibrium, in which the greatest\nstrength and lucidity is combined with the greatest splendour.\n\nA less subtle, but still very effective, combination is that hit upon\nby many oriental and Gothic architects, and found, also, by\naccident perhaps, in many buildings of the plateresque style; the\nornament and structure are both presented with extreme emphasis,\nbut locally divided; a vast rough wall, for instance, represents the\none, and a profusion of mad ornament huddled around a central\ndoor or window represents the other.\n\nGothic architecture offers us in the pinnacle and flying buttress a\nstriking example of the adoption of a mechanical feature, and its\ntransformation into an element of beauty. Nothing could at first\nsight be more hopeless than the external half-arch propping the\nside of a pier, or the chimney-like weight of stones pressing it\ndown from above; but a courageous acceptance of these necessities,\nand a submissive study of their form, revealed a new and strange\neffect: the bewildering and stimulating intricacy of masses\nsuspended in mid-air; the profusion of line, variety of surface, and\npicturesqueness of light and shade. It needed but a little applied\nornament judiciously distributed; a moulding in the arches; a florid\ncanopy and statue amid the buttresses; a few grinning monsters\nleaning out of unexpected nooks; a leafy budding of the topmost\npinnacles; a piercing here and there of some little gallery, parapet,\nor turret into lacework against the sky -- and the building became a\npoem, an inexhaustible emotion. Add some passing cloud casting\nits moving shadow over the pile, add the circling of birds about the\ntowers, and you have an unforgettable type of beauty; not perhaps\nthe noblest, sanest, or most enduring, but one for the existence of\nwhich the imagination is richer, and the world more interesting.\n\nIn this manner we accept the forms imposed upon us by utility, and\ntrain ourselves to apperceive their potential beauty. Familiarity\nbreeds contempt only when it breeds inattention. When the mind is\nabsorbed and dominated by its perceptions, it incorporates into\nthem more and more of its own functional values, and makes them\nultimately beautiful and expressive. Thus no language can be ugly\nto those who speak it well, no religion unmeaning to those who\nhave learned to pour their life into its moulds.\n\nOf course these forms vary in intrinsic excellence; they are by their\nspecific character more or less fit and facile for the average mind.\nBut the man and the age are rare who can choose their own path;\nwe have generally only a choice between going ahead in the\ndirection already chosen, or halting and blocking the path for\nothers. The only kind of reform usually possible is reform from\nwithin; a more intimate study and more intelligent use of the\ntraditional forms. Disaster follows rebellion against tradition or\nagainst utility, which are the basis and root of our taste and\nprogress. But, within the given school, and as exponents of its\nspirit, we can adapt and perfect our works, if haply we are better\ninspired than our predecessors. For the better we know a given\nthing, and the more we perceive its strong and weak points, the\nmore capable we are of idealizing it.\n\n_Form in words._\n\nSec. 42. The main effect of language consists in its meaning, in the\nideas which it expresses. But no expression is possible without a\npresentation, and this presentation must have a form. This form of\nthe instrument of expression is itself an element of effect, although\nin practical life we may overlook it in our haste to attend to the\nmeaning it conveys. It is, moreover, a condition of the kind of\nexpression possible, and often determines the manner in which the\nobject suggested shall be apperceived. No word has the exact value\nof any other in the same or in another language.[13] But the\nintrinsic effect of language does not stop there. The single word is\nbut a stage in the series of formations which constitute language,\nand which preserve for men the fruit of their experience, distilled\nand concentrated into a symbol.\n\nThis formation begins with the elementary sounds themselves,\nwhich have to be discriminated and combined to make recognizable\nsymbols. The evolution of these symbols goes on spontaneously,\nsuggested by our tendency to utter all manner of sounds,\nand preserved by the ease with which the ear discriminates\nthese sounds when made. Speech would be an absolute and\nunrelated art, like music, were it not controlled by utility. The\nsounds have indeed no resemblance to the objects they symbolize;\nbut before the system of sounds can represent the system of objects,\nthere has to be a correspondence in the groupings of both. The\nstructure of language, unlike that of music, thus becomes a mirror\nof the structure of the world as presented to the intelligence.\n\nGrammar, philosophically studied, is akin to the deepest\nmetaphysics, because in revealing the constitution of speech, it\nreveals the constitution of thought, and the hierarchy of those\ncategories by which we conceive the world. It is by virtue of this\nparallel development that language has its function of expressing\nexperience with exactness, and the poet -- to whom language is an\ninstrument of art -- has to employ it also with a constant reference\nto meaning and veracity; that is, he must be a master of experience\nbefore he can become a true master of words. Nevertheless,\nlanguage is primarily a sort of music, and the beautiful effects\nwhich it produces are due to its own structure, giving, as it\ncrystallizes in a new fashion, an unforeseen form to experience.\n\nPoets may be divided into two classes: the musicians and the\npsychologists. The first are masters of significant language\nas harmony; they know what notes to sound together and in\nsuccession; they can produce, by the marshalling of sounds and\nimages, by the fugue of passion and the snap of wit, a thousand\nbrilliant effects out of old materials. The Ciceronian orator, the\nepigrammatic, lyric, and elegiac poets, give examples of this art.\nThe psychologists, on the other hand, gain their effect not by the\nintrinsic mastery of language, but by the closer adaptation of it to\nthings. The dramatic poets naturally furnish an illustration.\n\nBut however transparent we may wish to make our language,\nhowever little we may call for its intrinsic effects, and direct our\nattention exclusively to its expressiveness, we cannot avoid the\nlimitations of our particular medium. The character of the tongue a\nman speaks, and the degree of his skill in speaking it, must always\ncount enormously in the aesthetic value of his compositions; no\nskill in observation, no depth of thought or feeling, but is spoiled\nby a bad style and enhanced by a good one. The diversities of\ntongues and their irreducible aesthetic values, begins with the very\nsound of the letters, with the mode of utterance, and the\ncharacteristic inflections of the voice; notice, for instance, the\neffect of the French of these lines of Alfred de Musset,\n\n Jamais deux yeux plus doux n'ont du ciel le plus pur\n Sonde la profondeur et reflechi l'azur.\n\nand compare with its flute-like and treble quality the breadth, depth,\nand volume of the German in this inimitable stanza of Goethe's:\n\n Ueber alien Gipfeln\n Ist Ruh,\n In allen Wipfeln\n Spuerest du\n Kaum einen Hauch;\n Die Voegelein schweigen im Walde.\n Warte nur, balde\n Ruhest du auch.\n\nEven if the same tune could be played on both these vocal\ninstruments, the difference in their _timbre_ would make the value\nof the melody entirely distinct in each case.\n\n_Syntactical form._\n\nSec. 43. The known impossibility of adequate translation appears here\nat the basis of language. The other diversities are superadded upon\nthis diversity of sound. The syntax is the next source of effect.\nWhat could be better than Homer, or what worse than almost any\ntranslation of him? And this holds even of languages so closely\nallied as the Indo-European, which, after all, have certain\ncorrespondences of syntax and inflection. If there could be a\nlanguage with other parts of speech than ours, -- a language\nwithout nouns, for instance, -- how would that grasp of experience,\nthat picture of the world, which all our literature contains, be\nreproduced in it? Whatever beauties that language might be\nsusceptible of, none of the effects produced on us, I will not say by\npoets, but even by nature itself, could be expressed in it.\n\nNor is such a language inconceivable. Instead of summarizing all\nour experiences of a thing by one word, its name, we should have\nto recall by appropriate adjectives the various sensations we had\nreceived from it; the objects we think of would be disintegrated, or,\nrather, would never have been unified. For \"sun,\" they would say\n\"high, yellow, dazzling, round, slowly moving,\" and the\nenumeration of these qualities (as we call them), without any\nsuggestion of a unity at their source, might give a more vivid, and\nprofound, if more cumbrous, representation of the facts. But how\ncould the machinery of such an imagination be capable of\nrepeating the effects of ours, when the objects to us most obvious\nand real would be to those minds utterly indescribable?\n\nThe same diversity appears in the languages we ordinarily know,\nonly in a lesser degree. The presence or absence of case-endings in\nnouns and adjectives, their difference of gender, the richness of\ninflections in the verbs, the frequency of particles and conjunctions,\n-- all these characteristics make one language differ from another\nentirely in genius and capacity of expression. Greek is probably the\nbest of all languages in melody, richness, elasticity, and simplicity;\nso much so, that in spite of its complex inflections, when once a\nvocabulary is acquired, it is more easy and natural for a modern\nthan his ancestral Latin itself. Latin is the stiffer tongue; it is by\nnature at once laconic and grandiloquent, and the exceptional\ncondensation and transposition of which it is capable make its\neffects entirely foreign to a modern, scarcely inflected, tongue.\nTake, for instance, these lines of Horace:\n\n me tabula sacer\n votiva paries indicat uvida\n suspendisse potenti\n vestimenta maris deo,\n\nor these of Lucretius:\n\n Jauaque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator\n Crebrius incassum magnum cecidisse laborem.\n\nWhat conglomerate plebeian speech of our time could utter the\nstately grandeur of these Lucretian words, every one of which is\nnoble, and wears the toga?\n\nAs a substitute for the inimitable interpenetration of the words in\nthe Horatian strophe, we might have the external links of rhyme;\nand it seems, in fact, to be a justification of rhyme, that besides\ncontributing something to melody and to the distribution of parts, it\ngives an artificial relationship to the phrases between which it\nobtains, which, but for it, would run away from one another in a\nrapid and irrevocable flux. In such a form as the sonnet, for\ninstance, we have, by dint of assonance, a real unity forced upon\nthe thought; for a sonnet in which the thought is not distributed\nappropriately to the structure of the verse, has no excuse for being\na sonnet. By virtue of this interrelation of parts, the sonnet, the\n_non plus ultra_ of rhyme, is the most classic of modern poetical\nforms: much more classic in spirit than blank verse, which lacks\nalmost entirely the power of synthesizing the phrase, and making\nthe unexpected seem the inevitable.\n\nThis beauty given to the ancients by the syntax of their language,\nthe moderns can only attain by the combination of their rhymes. It\nis a bad substitute perhaps, but better than the total absence of form,\nfavoured by the atomic character of our words, and the flat\njuxtaposition of our clauses. The art which was capable of making\na gem of every prose sentence, -- the art which, carried, perhaps, to,\na pitch at which it became too conscious, made the phrases of\nTacitus a series of cameos, -- that art is inapplicable to our looser\nmedium; we cannot give clay the finish and nicety of marble. Our\npoetry and speech in general, therefore, start out upon a lower level;\nthe same effort will not, with this instrument, attain the same\nbeauty. If equal beauty is ever attained, it comes from the wealth of\nsuggestion, or the refinement of sentiment. The art of words\nremains hopelessly inferior. And what best proves this, is that\nwhen, as in our time, a reawakening of the love of beauty has\nprompted a refinement of our poetical language, we pass so soon\ninto extravagance, obscurity, and affectation. Our modern\nlanguages are not susceptible of great formal beauty.\n\n_Literary form. The plot._\n\nSec. 44. The forms of composition in verse and prose which are\npractised in each language are further organizations of words, and\nhave formal values. The most exacting of these forms and that\nwhich has been carried to the greatest perfection is the drama; but\nit belongs to rhetoric and poetics to investigate the nature of these\neffects, and we have here sufficiently indicated the principle which\nunderlies them. The plot, which Aristotle makes, and very justly,\nthe most important element in the effect of a drama, is the formal\nelement of the drama as such: the ethos and sentiments are the\nexpression, and the versification, music, and stage settings are the\nmaterials. It is in harmony with the romantic tendency of modern\ntimes that modern dramatists -- Shakespeare as well as Moliere,\nCalderon, and the rest -- excel in ethos rather than in plot; for it is\nthe evident characteristic of modern genius to study and enjoy\nexpression, -- the suggestion of the not-given, -- rather than form,\nthe harmony of the given.\n\nEthos is interesting mainly for the personal observations which it\nsummarizes and reveals, or for the appeal to one's own actual or\nimaginative experience; it is portrait-painting, and enshrines\nsomething we love independently of the charm which at this\nmoment and in this place it exercises over us. It appeals to our\naffections; it does not form them. But the plot is the synthesis of\nactions, and is a reproduction of those experiences from which our\nnotion of men and things is originally derived; for character can\nnever be observed in the world except as manifested in action.\n\nIndeed, it would be more fundamentally accurate to say that a\ncharacter is a symbol and mental abbreviation for a peculiar set of\nacts, than to say that acts are a manifestation of character. For the\nacts are the data, and the character the inferred principle, and a\nprinciple, in spite of its name, is never more than a description _a\nposteriori,_ and a summary of what is subsumed under it. The plot,\nmoreover, is what gives individuality to the play, and exercises\ninvention; it is, as Aristotle again says, the most difficult portion of\ndramatic art, and that for which practice and training are most\nindispensable. And this plot, giving by its nature a certain picture\nof human experience, involves and suggests the ethos of its actors.\n\nWhat the great characterizes, like Shakespeare, do, is simply to\nelaborate and develope (perhaps far beyond the necessities of the\nplot) the suggestion of human individuality which that plot\ncontains. It is as if, having drawn from daily observation some\nknowledge of the tempers of our friends, we represented them\nsaying and doing all manner of ultra-characteristic things, and in\nan occasional soliloquy laying bare, even more clearly than by any\npossible action, that character which their observed behaviour had\nled us to impute to them. This is an ingenious and fascinating\ninvention, and delights us with the clear discovery of a hidden\npersonality; but the serious and equable development of a plot has\na more stable worth in its greater similarity to life, which allows us\nto see other men's minds through the medium of events, and not\nevents through the medium of other men's minds.\n\n_Character as an aesthetic form._\n\nSec. 45. We have just come upon one of the unities most coveted in\nour literature, and most valued by us when attained, -- the portrait,\nthe individuality, the character. The construction of a plot we call\ninvention, but that of a character we dignify with the name of\ncreation. It may therefore not be amiss, in finishing our discussion\nof form, to devote a few pages to the psychology of character-drawing.\nHow does the unity we call a character arise, how is it described, and\nwhat is the basis of its effect?\n\nWe may set it down at once as evident that we have here a case of\nthe type: the similarities of various persons are amalgamated, their\ndifferences cancelled, and in the resulting percept those traits\nemphasized which have particularly pleased or interested us. This,\nin the abstract, may serve for a description of the origin of an idea\nof character quite as well as of an idea of physical form. But the\ndifferent nature of the material -- the fact that a character is not a\npresentation to sense, but a rationalistic synthesis of successive\nacts and feelings, not combinable into any image -- makes such a\ndescription much more unsatisfying in this case than in that\nof material forms. We cannot understand exactly how these\nsummations and cancellings take place when we are not dealing\nwith a visible object. And we may even feel that there is a\nwholeness and inwardness about the development of certain ideal\ncharacters, that makes such a treatment of them fundamentally\nfalse and artificial. The subjective element, the spontaneous\nexpression of our own passion and will, here counts for so much,\nthat the creation of an ideal character becomes a new and peculiar\nproblem.\n\nThere is, however, a way of conceiving and delineating character\nwhich still bears a close resemblance to the process by which the\nimagination produces the type of any physical species. We may\ngather, for instance, about the nucleus of a word, designating some\nhuman condition or occupation, a number of detached observations.\nWe may keep a note-book in our memory, or even in our pocket,\nwith studious observations of the language, manners, dress, gesture,\nand history of the people _we_ meet, classifying our statistics\nunder such heads as innkeepers, soldiers, housemaids, governesses,\nadventuresses, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Americans, actors,\npriests, and professors. And then, when occasion offers, to describe,\nor to put into a book or a play, any one of these types, all we have\nto do is to look over our notes, to select according to the needs of\nthe moment, and if we are skilful in reproduction, to obtain by that\nmeans a life-like image of the sort of person we wish to represent.\n\nThis process, which novelists and playwrights may go through\ndeliberately, we all carry on involuntarily. At every moment\nexperience is leaving in our minds some trait, some expression,\nsome image, which will remain there attached to the name of a\nperson, a class, or a nationality. Our likes and dislikes, our\nsummary judgments on whole categories of men, are nothing but\nthe distinct survival of some such impression. These traits have\nvivacity. If the picture they draw is one-sided and inadequate, the\nsensation they recall may be vivid, and suggestive of many other\naspects of the thing. Thus the epithets in Homer, although they are\noften far from describing the essence of the object -- glankopis Athena\nenkeides Achaioi -- seem to recall a sensation, and to give\nvitality to the narrative. By bringing you, through one sense, into\nthe presence of the object, they give you that same hint of further\ndiscovery, that same expectation of experience, which we have at\nthe sight of whatever we call real.\n\nThe graphic power of this method of observation and aggregation\nof characteristic traits is thus seen to be great. But it is not by this\nmethod that the most famous or most living characters have been\nconceived. This method gives the average, or at most the salient,\npoints of the type, but the great characters of poetry -- a Hamlet, a\nDon Quixote, an Achilles -- are no averages, they are not even a\ncollection of salient traits common to certain classes of men. They\nseem to be persons; that is, their actions and words seem to spring\nfrom the inward nature of an individual soul. Goethe is reported to\nhave said that he conceived the character of his Gretchen entirely\nwithout observation of originals. And, indeed, he would probably\nnot have found any. His creation rather is the original to which we\nmay occasionally think we see some likeness in real maidens. It is\nthe fiction here that is the standard of naturalness. And on this, as\non so many occasions, we may repeat the saying that poetry is\ntruer than history. Perhaps no actual maid ever spoke and acted so\nnaturally as this imaginary one.\n\nIf we think there is any paradox in these assertions, we should\nreflect that the standard of naturalness, individuality, and truth is in\nus. A real person seems to us to have character and consistency\nwhen his behaviour is such as to impress a definite and simple\nimage upon our mind. In themselves, if we could count all their\nundiscovered springs of action, all men have character and\nconsistency alike: all are equally fit to be types. But their\ncharacters are not equally intelligible to us, their behaviour is not\nequally deducible, and their motives not equally appreciable.\nThose who appeal most to us, either in themselves or by the\nemphasis they borrow from their similarity to other individuals, are\nthose we remember and regard as the centres around which\nvariations oscillate. These men are natural: all others are more or\nless eccentric.\n\n_Ideal characters._\n\nSec. 46. The standard of naturalness being thus subjective, and\ndetermined by the laws of our imagination, we can understand why\na spontaneous creation of the mind can be more striking and living\nthan any reality, or any abstraction from realities. The artist can\ninvent a form which, by its adaptation to the imagination, lodges\nthere, and becomes a point of reference for all observations, and a\nstandard of naturalness and beauty. A type may be introduced to\nthe mind suddenly, by the chance presentation of a form that by its\nintrinsic impressiveness and imaginative coherence, acquires that\npre-eminence which custom, or the mutual reinforcement of\nconverging experiences, ordinarily gives to empirical percepts.\n\nThis method of originating types is what we ordinarily describe as\nartistic creation. The name indicates the suddenness, originality,\nand individuality of the conception thus attained. What we call\nidealization is often a case of it. In idealization proper, however,\nwhat happens is the elimination of individual eccentricities; the\nresult is abstract, and consequently meagre. This meagreness is\noften felt to be a greater disadvantage than the accidental and\npicturesque imperfection of real individuals, and the artist\ntherefore turns to the brute fact, and studies and reproduces that\nwith indiscriminate attention, rather than lose strength and\nindividuality in the presentation of an insipid type. He seems\nforced to a choice between an abstract beauty and an unlovely\nexample.\n\nBut the great and masterful presentations of the ideal are somehow\nneither the one nor the other. They present ideal beauty with just\nthat definiteness with which nature herself sometimes presents it.\nWhen we come in a crowd upon an incomparably beautiful face,\nwe know it immediately as an embodiment of the ideal; while it\ncontains the type, -- for if it did not we should find it monstrous\nand grotesque, -- it clothes that type in a peculiar splendour of\nform, colour, and expression. It has an individuality. And just so\nthe imaginary figures of poetry and plastic art may have an\nindividuality given them by the happy affinities of their elements\nin the imagination. They are not idealizations, they are\nspontaneous variations, which can arise in the mind quite as easily\nas in the world. They spring up in\n\n The wreathed trellis of a working brain;\n . . . With all the gardener fancy e'er could feign\n Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same.\n\nImagination, in a word, generates as well as abstracts; it observes,\ncombines, and cancels; but it also dreams. Spontaneous syntheses\narise in it which are not mathematical averages of the images it\nreceives from sense; they are effects of diffused excitements left in\nthe brain by sensations. These excitements vary constantly in their\nvarious renewals, and occasionally take such a form that the soul is\nsurprised by the inward vision of an unexampled beauty. If this\ninward vision is clear and steady, we have an aesthetic inspiration,\na vocation to create; and if we can also command the technique of\nan appropriate art, we shall hasten to embody that inspiration, and\nrealize an ideal. This ideal will be gradually recognized as\nsupremely beautiful for the same reason that the object, had it been\npresented in the real world, would have been recognized as\nsupremely beautiful; because while embodying a known type of\nform, -- being, that is, a proper man, animal, or vegetable, -- it\npossessed in an extraordinary degree those direct charms which\nmost subjugate our attention.\n\nImaginary forms then differ in dignity and beauty not according to\ntheir closeness to fact or type in nature, but according to the ease\nwith which the normal imagination reproduces the synthesis they\ncontain. To add wings to a man has always been a natural fancy;\nbecause man can easily imagine himself to fly, and the idea is\ndelightful to him. The winged man is therefore a form generally\nrecognized as beautiful; although it can happen, as it did to\nMichael Angelo, that our appreciation of the actual form of the\nhuman body should be too keen and overmastering to allow us to\nrelish even so charming and imaginative an extravagance. The\ncentaur is another beautiful monster. The imagination can easily\nfollow the synthesis of the dream in which horse and man melted\ninto one, and first gave the glorious suggestion of their united\nvitality.\n\nThe same condition determines the worth of imaginary\npersonalities. From the gods to the characters of comedy, all are, in\nproportion to their beauty, natural and exhilarating expressions of\npossible human activity. We sometimes remould visible forms into\nimaginary creatures; but our originality in this respect is meagre\ncompared with the profusion of images of action which arise in us,\nboth asleep and awake; we constantly dream of new situations,\nextravagant adventures, and exaggerated passions. Even our\nsoberer thoughts are very much given to following the possible\nfortunes of some enterprise, and foretasting the satisfactions of\nlove and ambition. The mind is therefore particularly sensitive to\npictures of action and character; we are easily induced to follow\nthe fortunes of any hero, and share his sentiments.\n\nOur will, as Descartes said in a different context, is infinite, while\nour intelligence is finite; we follow experience pretty closely in our\nideas of things, and even the furniture of fairyland bears a sad\nresemblance to that of earth; but there is no limit to the elasticity of\nour passion; and we love to fancy ourselves kings and beggars,\nsaints and villains, young and old, happy and unhappy. There\nseems to be a boundless capacity of development in each of us,\nwhich the circumstances of life determine to a narrow channel; and\nwe like to revenge ourselves in our reveries for this imputed\nlimitation, by classifying ourselves with all that we are not, but\nmight so easily have been. We are full of sympathy for every\nmanifestation of life, however unusual; and even the conception of\ninfinite knowledge and happiness -- than which nothing could be\nmore removed from our condition or more unrealizable to our\nfancy -- remains eternally interesting to us.\n\nThe poet, therefore, who wishes to delineate a character need not\nkeep a note-book. There is a quicker road to the heart -- if he has\nthe gift to find it. Probably his readers will not themselves have\nkept note-books, and his elaborate observations will only be\neffective when he describes something which they also happen to\nhave noticed. The typical characters describable by the empirical\nmethod are therefore few: the miser, the lover, the old nurse, the\ningenue, and the other types of traditional comedy. Any greater\nspecification would appeal only to a small audience for a short\ntime, because the characteristics depicted would no longer exist to\nbe recognized. But whatever experience a poet's hearers may have\nhad, they are men. They will have certain imaginative capacities to\nconceive and admire those forms of character and action which,\nalthough never actually found, are felt by each man to express\nwhat he himself might and would have been, had circumstances\nbeen more favourable.\n\nThe poet has only to study himself, and the art of expressing his\nown ideals, to find that he has expressed those of other people. He\nhas but to enact in himself the part of each of his personages, and if\nhe possesses that pliability and that definiteness of imagination\nwhich together make genius, he may express for his fellows those\ninward tendencies which in them have remained painfully dumb.\nHe will be hailed as master of the human soul. He may know\nnothing of men, he may have almost no experience; but his\ncreations will pass for models of naturalness, and for types of\nhumanity. Their names will be in every one's mouth, and the lives\nof many generations will be enriched by the vision, one might\nalmost say by the friendship, of these imaginary beings. They have\nindividuality without having reality, because individuality is a\nthing acquired in the mind by the congeries of its impressions.\nThey have power, also, because that depends on the appropriateness\nof a stimulus to touch the springs of reaction in the soul.\nAnd they of course have beauty, because in them is embodied\nthe greatest of our imaginative delights, -- that of giving body to\nour latent capacities, and of wandering, without the strain and\ncontradiction of actual existence, into all forms of possible being.\n\n_The religious imagination._\n\nSec. 47. The greatest of these creations hare not been the work of any\none man. They have been the slow product of the pious and poetic\nimagination. Starting from some personification of nature or some\nmemory of a great man, the popular and priestly tradition has\nrefined and developed the ideal; it has made it an expression of\nmen's aspiration and a counterpart of their need. The devotion of\neach tribe, shrine, and psalmist has added some attribute to the god\nor some parable to his legend; and thus, around the kernel of some\noriginal divine function, the imagination of a people has gathered\nevery possible expression of it, creating a complete and beautiful\npersonality, with its history, its character, and its gifts. No poet has\never equalled the perfection or significance of these religious\ncreations. The greatest characters of fiction are uninteresting and\nunreal compared with the conceptions of the gods; so much so that\nmen have believed that their gods have objective reality.\n\nThe forms men see in dreams might have been a reason for\nbelieving in vague and disquieting ghosts; but the belief in\nindividual and well-defined divinities, with which the visions of\nthe dreams might be identified, is obviously due to the intrinsic\ncoherence and impressiveness of the conception of those deities.\nThe visions would never have suggested the legend and attributes\nof the god; but when the figure of the god was once imaginatively\nconceived, and his name and aspect fixed in the imagination, it\nwould be easy to recognize him in any hallucination, or to interpret\nany event as due to his power. These manifestations, which\nconstitute the evidence of his actual existence, can be regarded as\nmanifestations of him, rather than of a vague, unknown power,\nonly when the imagination already possesses a vivid picture of him,\nand of his appropriate functions. This picture is the work of a\nspontaneous fancy.\n\nNo doubt, when the belief is once specified, and the special and\nintelligible god is distinguished in the night and horror of the\nall-pervading natural power, the belief in his reality helps to\nconcentrate our attention on his nature, and thus to develope and\nenrich our idea. The belief in the reality of an ideal personality\nbrings about its further idealization. Had it ever occurred to any\nGreek seer to attribute events to the influence of Achilles, or to\noffer sacrifices to him in the heat of the enthusiasm kindled by the\nthought of his beauty and virtue, the legend of Achilles, now\nbecome a god, would have grown and deepened; it would have\nbeen moralized like the legend of Hercules, or naturalized like that\nof Persephone, and what is now but a poetic character of\nextraordinary force and sublimity would have become the adored\npatron of generation after generation, and a manifestation of the\ndivine man.\n\nAchilles would then have been as significant and unforgettable a\nfigure as Apollo or his sister, as Zeus, Athena, and the other\ngreater gods. If ever, while that phase of religion lasted, his\ncharacter had been obscured and his features dimmed, he would\nhave been recreated by every new votary: poets would never have\ntired of singing his praises, or sculptors of rendering his form.\nWhen, after the hero had been the centre and subject of so much\nimaginative labour, the belief in his reality lapsed, to be transferred\nto some other conception of cosmic power, he would have\nremained an ideal of poetry and art, and a formative influence of\nall cultivated minds. This he is still, like all the great creations of\navowed fiction, but he would have been immensely more so, had\nbelief in his reality kept the creative imagination continuously\nintent upon his nature.\n\nThe reader can hardly fail to see that all this applies with equal\nforce to the Christian conception of the sacred personalities. Christ,\nthe Virgin Mary, and the saints may have been exactly what our\nimagination pictures them to be; that is entirely possible; nor can I\nsee that it is impossible that the conceptions of other religions\nmight themselves have actual counterparts somewhere in the\nuniverse. That is a question of faith and empirical evidence with\nwhich we are not here concerned. But however descriptive of truth\nour conceptions may be, they have evidently grown up in our\nminds by an inward process of development. The materials of\nhistory and tradition have been melted and recast by the devout\nimagination into those figures in the presence of which our piety\nlives.\n\nThat is the reason why the reconstructed logical gods of the\nmetaphysicians are always an offence and a mockery to the\nreligious consciousness. There is here, too, a bare possibility that\nsome one of these absolutes may be a representation of the truth;\nbut the method by which this representation is acquired is violent\nand artificial; while the traditional conception of God is the\nspontaneous embodiment of passionate contemplation and long\nexperience.\n\nAs the God of religion differs from that of metaphysics, so does\nthe Christ of tradition differ from that of our critical historians.\nEven if we took the literal narrative of the Gospels and accepted it\nas all we could know of Christ, without allowing ourselves any\nimaginative interpretation of the central figure, we should get an\nideal of him, I will not say very different from that of St. Francis or\nSt. Theresa, but even from that of the English, prayer-book. The\nChrist men have loved and adored is an ideal of their own hearts,\nthe construction of an ever-present personality, living and\nintimately understood, out of the fragments of story and doctrine\nconnected with a name. This subjective image has inspired all the\nprayers, all the conversions, all the penances, charities, and\nsacrifices, as well as half the art of the Christian world.\n\nThe Virgin Mary, whose legend is so meagre, but whose power\nover the Catholic imagination is so great, is an even clearer\nillustration of this inward building up of an ideal form. Everything\nis here spontaneous sympathetic expansion of two given events:\nthe incarnation and the crucifixion. The figure of the Virgin, found\nin these mighty scenes, is gradually clarified and developed, until\nwe come to the thought on the one hand of her freedom from\noriginal sin, and on the other to that of her universal maternity. We\nthus attain the conception of one of the noblest of conceivable\nroles and of one of the most beautiful of characters. It is a pity that\na foolish iconoclasm should so long have deprived the Protestant\nmind of the contemplation of this ideal.\n\nPerhaps it is a sign of the average imaginative dulness or fatigue of\ncertain races and epochs that they so readily abandon these\nsupreme creations. For, if we are hopeful, why should we not\nbelieve that the best we can fancy is also the truest; and if we are\ndistrustful in general of our prophetic gifts, why should we cling\nonly to the most mean and formless of our illusions? From the\nbeginning to the end of our perceptive and imaginative activity, we\nare synthesizing the material of experience into unities the\nindependent reality of which is beyond proof, nay, beyond the\npossibility of a shadow of evidence. And yet the life of intelligence,\nlike the joy of contemplation, lies entirely in the formation and\ninter-relation of these unities. This activity yields us all the objects\nwith which we can deal, and endows them with the finer and more\nintimate part of their beauty. The most perfect of these forms,\njudged by its affinity to our powers and its stability in the presence\nof our experience, is the one with which we should be content; no\nother kind of veracity could add to its value.\n\nThe greatest feats of synthesis which the human mind has yet\naccomplished will, indeed, be probably surpassed and all ideals yet\nformed be superseded, because they were not based upon enough\nexperience, or did not fit that experience with adequate precision.\nIt is also possible that changes in the character of the facts, or in\nthe powers of intelligence, should necessitate a continual\nreconstruction of our world. But unless human nature suffers an\ninconceivable change, the chief intellectual and aesthetic value of\nour ideas will always come from the creative action of the\nimagination.\n\n\nPART IV\n\nEXPRESSION\n\n_Expression defined._\n\nSec. 48. We have found in the beauty of material and form the\nobjectification of certain pleasures connected with the process of\ndirect perception, with the formation, in the one case of a sensation,\nor quality, in the other of a synthesis of sensations or qualities. But\nthe human consciousness is not a perfectly clear mirror, with\ndistinct boundaries and clear-cut images, determinate in number\nand exhaustively perceived. Our ideas half emerge for a moment\nfrom the dim continuum of vital feeling and diffused sense, and are\nhardly fixed before they are changed and transformed, by the\nshifting of attention and the perception of new relations, into ideas\nof really different objects. This fluidity of the mind would make\nreflection impossible, did we not fix in words and other symbols\ncertain abstract contents; we thus become capable of recognizing\nin one perception the repetition of another, and of recognizing in\ncertain recurrences of impressions a persistent object. This\ndiscrimination and classification of the contents of consciousness\nis the work of perception and understanding, and the pleasures that\naccompany these activities make the beauty of the sensible world.\n\nBut our hold upon our thoughts extends even further. We not only\nconstruct visible unities and recognizable types, but remain aware\nof their affinities to what is not at the time perceived; that is, we\nfind in them a certain tendency and quality, not original to them, a\nmeaning and a tone, which upon investigation we shall see to have\nbeen the proper characteristics of other objects and feelings,\nassociated with them once in our experience. The hushed\nreverberations of these associated feelings continue in the brain,\nand by modifying our present reaction, colour the image upon\nwhich our attention is fixed. The quality thus acquired by objects\nthrough association is what we call their expression. Whereas in\nform or material there is one object with its emotional effect, in\nexpression there are two, and the emotional effect belongs to the\ncharacter of the second or suggested one. Expression may thus\nmake beautiful by suggestion things in themselves indifferent, or it\nmay come to heighten the beauty which they already possess.\n\nExpression is not always distinguishable in consciousness\nfrom the value of material or form, because we do not always\nhave a distinguishable memory of the related idea which the\nexpressiveness implies. When we have such a memory, as at\nthe sight of some once frequented garden, we clearly and\nspontaneously attribute our emotion to the memory and not to the\npresent fact which it beautifies. The revival of a pleasure and its\nembodiment in a present object which in itself might have been\nindifferent, is here patent and acknowledged.\n\nThe distinctness of the analysis may indeed be so great as to\nprevent the synthesis; we may so entirely pass to the suggested\nobject, that our pleasure will be embodied in the memory of that,\nwhile the suggestive sensation will be overlooked, and the\nexpressiveness of the present object will fail to make it beautiful.\nThus the mementos of a lost friend do not become beautiful by\nvirtue of the sentimental associations which may make them\nprecious. The value is confined to the images of the memory; they\nare too clear to let any of that value escape and diffuse itself over\nthe rest of our consciousness, and beautify the objects which we\nactually behold. We say explicitly: I value this trifle for its\nassociations. And so long as this division continues, the worth of\nthe thing is not for us aesthetic.\n\nBut a little dimming of our memory will often make it so. Let the\nimages of the past fade, let them remain simply as a halo and\nsuggestion of happiness hanging about a scene; then this scene,\nhowever empty and uninteresting in itself, will have a deep and\nintimate charm; we shall be pleased by its very vulgarity. We shall\nnot confess so readily that we value the place for its associations;\nwe shall rather say: I am fond of this landscape; it has for me an\nineffable attraction. The treasures of the memory have been melted\nand dissolved, and are now gilding the object that supplants them;\nthey are giving this object expression.\n\nExpression then differs from material or formal value only as habit\ndiffers from instinct -- in its origin. Physiologically, they are both\npleasurable radiations of a given stimulus; mentally, they are both\nvalues incorporated in an object. But an observer, looking at the\nmind historically, sees in the one case the survival of an experience,\nin the other the reaction of an innate disposition. This experience,\nmoreover, is generally rememberable, and then the extrinsic source\nof the charm which expression gives becomes evident even to the\nconsciousness in which it arises. A word, for instance, is often\nbeautiful simply by virtue of its meaning and associations; but\nsometimes this expressive beauty is added to a musical quality in\nthe world itself. In all expression we may thus distinguish two\nterms: the first is the object actually presented, the word, the image,\nthe expressive thing; the second is the object suggested, the further\nthought, emotion, or image evoked, the thing expressed.\n\nThese lie together in the mind, and their union constitutes\nexpression. If the value lies wholly in the first term, we have no\nbeauty of expression. The decorative inscriptions in Saracenic\nmonuments can have no beauty of expression for one who does not\nread Arabic; their charm is wholly one of material and form. Or if\nthey have any expression, it is by virtue of such thoughts as they\nmight suggest, as, for instance, of the piety and oriental\nsententiousness of the builders and of the aloofness from us of all\ntheir world. And even these suggestions, being a wandering of our\nfancy rather than a study of the object, would fail to arouse a\npleasure which would be incorporated in the present image. The\nscroll would remain without expression, although its presence\nmight have suggested to us interesting visions of other things. The\ntwo terms would be too independent, and the intrinsic values of\neach would remain distinct from that of the other. There would be\nno visible expressiveness, although there might have been\ndiscursive suggestions.\n\nIndeed, if expression were constituted by the external relation of\nobject with object, everything would be expressive equally,\nindeterminately, and universally. The flower in the crannied wall\nwould express the same thing as the bust of Caesar or the _Critique\nof Pure Reason._ What constitutes the individual expressiveness of\nthese things is the circle of thoughts allied to each in a given mind;\nmy words, for instance, express the thoughts which they actually\narouse in the reader; they may express more to one man than to\nanother, and to me they may have expressed more or less than to\nyon. My thoughts remain unexpressed, if my words do not arouse\nthem in you, and very likely your greater wisdom will find in what\nI say the manifestation of a thousand principles of which I never\ndreamed. Expression depends upon the union of two terms, one of\nwhich must be furnished by the imagination; and a mind cannot\nfurnish what it does not possess. The expressiveness of everything\naccordingly increases with the intelligence of the observer.\n\nBut for expression to be an element of beauty, it must, of course,\nfulfil another condition. I may see the relations of an object, I may\nunderstand it perfectly, and may nevertheless regard it with entire\nindifference. If the pleasure fails, the very substance and\nprotoplasm of beauty is wanting. Nor, as we have seen, is even the\npleasure enough; for I may receive a letter full of the most joyous\nnews, but neither the paper, nor the writing, nor the style, need\nseem beautiful to me. Not until I confound the impressions, and\nsuffuse the symbols themselves with the emotions they arouse, and\nfind joy and sweetness in the very words I hear, will the\nexpressiveness constitute a beauty; as when they sing, _Gloria in\nexcelsis Deo_.\n\nThe value of the second term must be incorporated in the first; for\nthe beauty of expression is as inherent in the object as that of\nmaterial or form, only it accrues to that object not from the bare act\nof perception, but from the association with it of further processes,\ndue to the existence of former impressions. We may conveniently\nuse the word \"expressiveness\" to mean all the capacity of\nsuggestion possessed by a thing, and the word \"expression\" for the\naesthetic modification which that expressiveness may cause in it.\nExpressiveness is thus the power given by experience to any image\nto call up others in the mind; and this expressiveness becomes an\naesthetic value, that is, becomes expression, when the value\ninvolved in the associations thus awakened are incorporated in the\npresent object.\n\n_The associative process._\n\nSec. 49. The purest case in which, an expressive value could arise\nmight seem to be that in which both terms were indifferent in\nthemselves, and what pleased was the activity of relating them. We\nhave such a phenomenon in mathematics, and in any riddle, puzzle,\nor play with symbols. But such pleasures fall without the aesthetic\nfield in the absence of any objectification; they are pleasures of\nexercise, and the objects involved are not regarded as the\nsubstances in which those values inhere. We think of more or less\ninteresting problems or calculations, but it never occurs to the\nmathematician to establish a hierarchy of forms according to their\nbeauty. Only by a metaphor could he say that (a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab +\nb2 was a more beautiful formula than 2 + 2 = 4. Yet in proportion\nas such conceptions become definite and objective in the mind,\nthey approach aesthetic values, and the use of aesthetic epithets in\ndescribing them becomes more constant and literal.\n\nThe beauties of abstract music are but one step beyond such\nmathematical relations -- they are those relations presented in a\nsensible form, and constituting an imaginable object. But, as we\nsee clearly in this last case, when the relation and not the terms\nconstitute the object, we have, if there is beauty at all, a beauty of\nform, not of expression; for the more mathematical the charm of\nmusic is the more form and the less expression do we see in it. In\nfact, the sense of relation is here the essence of the object itself,\nand the activity of passing from term to term, far from taking us\nbeyond our presentation to something extrinsic, constitutes that\npresentation. The pleasure of this relational activity is therefore the\npleasure of conceiving a determined form, and nothing could be\nmore thoroughly a formal beauty.\n\nAnd we may here insist upon a point of fundamental importance;\nnamely, that the process of association enters consciousness as\ndirectly, and produces as simple a sensation, as any process in any\norgan. The pleasures and pains of cerebration, the delight and the\nfatigue of it, are felt exactly like bodily impressions; they have the\nsame directness, although not the same localization. Their seat is\nnot open to our daily observation, and therefore we leave them\ndisembodied, and fancy they are peculiarly spiritual and intimate to\nthe soul. Or we try to think that they flow by some logical\nnecessity from the essences of objects simultaneously in our mind.\nWe involve ourselves in endless perplexities in trying to deduce\nexcellence and beauty, unity and necessity, from the describable\nqualities of things; we repeat the rationalistic fiction of turning the\nnotions which we abstract from the observation of facts into the\npowers that give those facts character and being.\n\nWe have, for instance, in the presence of two images a sense of\ntheir incongruity; and we say that the character of the images\ncauses this emotion; whereas in dreams we constantly have the\nmost rapid transformations and patent contradictions without any\nsense of incongruity at all; because the brain is dozing and the\nnecessary shock and mental inhibition is avoided. Add this\nstimulation, and the incongruity returns. Had such a shock never\nbeen felt, we should not know what incongruity meant; no more\nthan without eyes we should know the meaning of blue or yellow.\n\nIn saying this, we are not really leaning upon physiological theory.\nThe appeal to our knowledge of the brain facilitates the conception\nof the immediacy of our feelings of relation; but that immediacy\nwould be apparent to a sharp introspection. We do not need to\nthink of the eye or skin to feel that light and heat are ultimate data;\nno more do we need to think of cerebral excitements to see that\nright and left, before and after, good and bad, one and two, like and\nunlike, are irreducible feelings. The categories are senses without\norgans, or with organs unknown. Just as the discrimination of our\nfeelings of colour and sound might never have been distinct and\nconstant, had we not come upon the organs that seem to convey\nand control them; so perhaps our classification of our inner\nsensations will never be settled until their respective organs are\ndiscovered; for psychology has always been physiological, without\nknowing it. But this truth remains -- quite apart from physical\nconceptions, not to speak of metaphysical materialism -- that\nwhatever the historical conditions of any state of mind may be said\nto be, it exists, when it does exist, immediately and absolutely;\neach of its distinguishable parts might conceivably have been\nabsent from it; and its character, as well as its existence, is a mere\ndatum of sense.\n\nThe pleasure that belongs to the consciousness of relations is\ntherefore as immediate as any other; indeed, our emotional\nconsciousness is always single, but we treat it as a resultant of\nmany and even of conflicting feelings because we look at it\nhistorically with a view to comprehending it, and distribute it into\nas many factors as we find objects or causes to which to attribute it.\nThe pleasure of association is an immediate feeling, which we\naccount for by its relation to a feeling in the past, or to cerebral\nstructure modified by a former experience; just as memory itself,\nwhich we explain by a reference to the past, is a peculiar\ncomplication of present consciousness.\n\n_Kinds of value in the second term._\n\nSec. 50. These reflections may make less surprising to us what is the\nmost striking fact about the philosophy of expression; namely, that\nthe value acquired by the expressive thing is often of an entirely\ndifferent kind from that which the thing expressed possesses. The\nexpression of physical pleasure, of passion, or even of pain, may\nconstitute beauty and please the beholder. Thus the value of the\nsecond term may be physical, or practical, or even negative; and it\nmay be transmuted, as it passes to the first term, into a value at\nonce positive and aesthetic. The transformation of practical values\ninto aesthetic has often been noted, and has even led to the theory\nthat beauty is utility seen at arm's length; a premonition of pleasure\nand prosperity, much as smell is a premonition of taste. The\ntransformation of negative values into positive has naturally\nattracted even more attention, and given rise to various theories of\nthe comic, tragic, and sublime. For these three species of aesthetic\ngood seem to please us by the suggestion of evil; and the problem\narises how a mind can be made happier by having suggestions of\nunhappiness stirred within it; an unhappiness it cannot understand\nwithout in some degree sharing in it. We must now turn to the\nanalysis of this question.\n\nThe expressiveness of a smile is not discovered exactly through\nassociation of images. The child smiles (without knowing it) when\nhe feels pleasure; and the nurse smiles back; his own pleasure is\nassociated with her conduct, and her smile is therefore expressive\nof pleasure. The fact of his pleasure at her smile is the ground of\nhis instinctive belief in her pleasure in it. For this reason the\ncircumstances expressive of happiness are not those that are\nfavourable to it in reality, but those that are congruous with it in\nidea. The green of spring, the bloom of youth, the variability of\nchildhood, the splendour of wealth and beauty, all these are\nsymbols of happiness, not because they have been known to\naccompany it in fact, -- for they do not, any more than their\nopposites, -- but because they produce an image and echo of it in\nus aesthetically. We believe those things to be happy which it\nmakes us happy to think of or to see; the belief in the blessedness\nof the supreme being itself has no other foundation. Our joy in the\nthought of omniscience makes us attribute joy to the possession of\nit, which it would in fact perhaps be very far from involving or\neven allowing.\n\nThe expressiveness of forms has a value as a sign of the life that\nactually inhabits those forms only when they resemble our own\nbody; it is then probable that similar conditions of body involve, in\nthem and in us, similar emotions; and we should not long continue\nto regard as the expression of pleasure an attitude that we know, by\nexperience in our own person, to accompany pain. Children,\nindeed, may innocently torture animals, not having enough sense\nof analogy to be stopped by the painful suggestions of their\nwrithings; and, although in a rough way we soon correct these\ncrying misinterpretations by a better classification of experience,\nwe nevertheless remain essentially subject to the same error. We\ncannot escape it, because the method which involves it is the only\none that justifies belief in objective consciousness at all. Analogy\nof bodies helps us to distribute and classify the life we conceive\nabout us; but what leads us to conceive it is the direct association\nof our own feeling with images of things, an association which\nprecedes any clear representation of our own gestures and attitude.\nI know that smiles mean pleasure before I have caught myself\nsmiling in the glass; they mean pleasure because they give it.\n\nSince these aesthetic effects include some of the most moving and\nprofound beauties, philosophers have not been slow to turn the\nunanalyzed paradox of their formation into a principle, and to\nexplain by it the presence and necessity of evil. As in the tragic and\nthe sublime, they have thought, the sufferings and dangers to\nwhich a hero is exposed seem to add to his virtue and dignity, and\nto our sacred joy in the contemplation of him, so the sundry evils\nof life may be elements in the transcendent glory of the whole.\nAnd once fired by this thought, those who pretend to justify the\nways of God to man have, naturally, not stopped to consider\nwhether so edifying a phenomenon was not a hasty illusion. They\nhave, indeed, detested any attempt to explain it rationally, as\ntending to obscure one of the moral laws of the universe. In\nventuring, therefore, to repeat such an attempt, we should not be\ntoo sanguine of success; for we have to encounter not only the\nintrinsic difficulties of the problem, but also a wide-spread and\narrogant metaphysical prejudice.\n\nFor the sake of greater clearness we may begin by classifying the\nvalues that can enter into expression; we shall then be better able to\njudge by what combinations of them various well-known effects\nand emotions are produced. The intrinsic value of the first term can\nbe entirely neglected, since it does not contribute to expression. It\ndoes, however, contribute greatly to the beauty of the expressive\nobject. The first term is the source of stimulation, and the\nacuteness and pleasantness of this determine to a great extent the\ncharacter and sweep of the associations that will be aroused. Very\noften the pleasantness of the medium will counterbalance the\ndisagreeableness of the import, and expressions, in themselves\nhideous or inappropriate, may be excused for the sake of the object\nthat conveys them. A beautiful voice will redeem a vulgar song, a\nbeautiful colour and texture an unmeaning composition. Beauty in\nthe first term -- beauty of sound, rhythm, and image -- will make\nany thought whatever poetic, while no thought whatever can be so\nwithout that immediate beauty of presentation.[14]\n\n_Aesthetic value in the second term._\n\nSec. 51. That the noble associations of any object should embellish\nthat object is very comprehensible. Homer furnishes us with a\ngood illustration of the constant employment of this effect. The\nfirst term, one need hardly say, leaves with him little to be desired.\nThe verse is beautiful. Sounds, images, and composition conspire\nto stimulate and delight. This immediate beauty is sometimes used\nto clothe things terrible and sad; there is no dearth of the tragic in\nHomer. But the tendency of his poetry is nevertheless to fill the\noutskirts of our consciousness with the trooping images of things\nno less fair and noble than the verse itself. The heroes are virtuous.\nThere is none of importance who is not admirable in his way. The\npalaces, the arms, the horses, the sacrifices, are always excellent.\nThe women are always stately and beautiful. The ancestry and the\nhistory of every one are honourable and good. The whole Homeric\nworld is clean, clear, beautiful, and providential, and no small part\nof the perennial charm of the poet is that he thus immerses us in an\natmosphere of beauty; a beauty not concentrated and reserved for\nsome extraordinary sentiment, action, or person, but permeating\nthe whole and colouring the common world of soldiers and sailors,\nwar and craft, with a marvellous freshness and inward glow. There\nis nothing in the associations of life in this world or in another to\ncontradict or disturb our delight. All is beautiful, and beautiful\nthrough and through.\n\nSomething of this quality meets us in all simple and idyllic\ncompositions. There is, for instance, a popular demand that stories\nand comedies should \"end well.\" The hero and heroine must be\nyoung and handsome; unless they die, -- which is another matter, --\nthey must not in the end be poor. The landscape in the play must\nbe beautiful; the dresses pretty; the plot without serious mishap. A\npervasive presentation of pleasure must give warmth and ideality\nto the whole. In the proprieties of social life we find the same\nprinciple; we study to make our surroundings, manner, and\nconversation suggest nothing but what is pleasing. We hide the\nugly and disagreeable portion of our lives, and do not allow the\nleast hint of it to come to light upon festive and public occasions.\nWhenever, in a word, a thoroughly pleasing effect is found, it is\nfound by the expression, as well as presentation, of what is in itself\npleasing -- and when this effect is to be produced artificially, we\nattain it by the suppression of all expression that is not suggestive\nof something good.\n\nIf our consciousness were exclusively aesthetic, this kind of\nexpression would be the only one allowed in art or prized in nature.\nWe should avoid as a shock or an insipidity, the suggestion of\nanything not intrinsically beautiful. As there would be no values\nnot aesthetic, our pleasure could never be heightened by any other\nkind of interest. But as contemplation is actually a luxury in our\nlives, and things interest us chiefly on passionate and practical\ngrounds, the accumulation of values too exclusively aesthetic\nproduces in our minds an effect of closeness and artificiality. So\nselective a diet cloys, and our palate, accustomed to much daily\nvinegar and salt, is surfeited by such unmixed sweet.\n\nInstead we prefer to see through the medium of art -- through the\nbeautiful first term of our expression -- the miscellaneous world\nwhich is so well known to us -- perhaps so dear, and at any rate so\ninevitable, an object. We are more thankful for this presentation, of\nthe unlovely truth in a lovely form, than for the like presentation of\nan abstract beauty; what is lost in the purity of the pleasure is\ngained in the stimulation of our attention, and in the relief of\nviewing with aesthetic detachment the same things that in practical\nlife hold tyrannous dominion over our souls. The beauty that is\nassociated only with other beauty is therefore a sort of aesthetic\ndainty; it leads the fancy through a fairyland of lovely forms,\nwhere we must forget the common objects of our interest. The\ncharm of such an idealization is undeniable; but the other\nimportant elements of our memory and will cannot long be\nbanished. Thoughts of labour, ambition, lust, anger, confusion,\nsorrow, and death must needs mix with our contemplation and lend\ntheir various expressions to the objects with which in experience\nthey are so closely allied. Hence the incorporation in the beautiful\nof values of other sorts, and the comparative rareness in nature or\nart of expressions the second term of which has only aesthetic\nvalue.\n\n_Practical value in the same._\n\nSec. 52. More important and frequent is the case of the expression of\nutility. This is found whenever the second term is the idea of\nsomething of practical advantage to us, the premonition of which\nbrings satisfaction; and this satisfaction prompts an approval of the\npresented object. The tone of our consciousness is raised by the\nforetaste of a success; and this heightened pleasure is objectified in\nthe present image, since the associated image to which the\nsatisfaction properly belongs often fails to become distinct. We do\nnot conceive clearly what this practical advantage will be; but the\nvague sense that an advantage is there, that something desirable\nhas been done, accompanies the presentation, and gives it\nexpression.\n\nThe case that most resembles that of which we have been just\nspeaking, is perhaps that in which the second term is a piece of\ninteresting information, a theory, or other intellectual datum. Our\ninterest in facts and theories, when not aesthetic, is of course\npractical; it consists in their connexion with our interests, and in\nthe service they can render us in the execution of our designs.\nIntellectual values are utilitarian in their origin but aesthetic in\ntheir form, since the advantage of knowledge is often lost sight of,\nand ideas are prized for their own sake. Curiosity can become a\ndisinterested passion, and yield intimate and immediate satisfaction\nlike any other impulse.\n\nWhen we have before us, for instance, a fine map, in which the line\nof coast, now rocky, now sandy, is clearly indicated, together with\nthe windings of the rivers, the elevations of the land, and the\ndistribution of the population, we have the simultaneous\nsuggestion of so many facts, the sense of mastery over so much\nreality, that we gaze at it with delight, and need no practical motive\nto keep us studying it, perhaps for hours together. A map is not\nnaturally thought of as an aesthetic object; it is too exclusively\nexpressive. The first term is passed over as a mere symbol, and the\nmind is filled either with imaginations of the landscape the country\nwould really offer, or with thoughts about its history and\ninhabitants. These circumstances prevent the ready objectification\nof our pleasure in the map itself. And yet, let the tints of it be a\nlittle subtle, let the lines be a little delicate, and the masses of land\nand sea somewhat balanced, and we really have a beautiful thing; a\nthing the charm of which consists almost entirely in its meaning,\nbut which nevertheless pleases us in the same way as a picture or a\ngraphic symbol might please. Give the symbol a little intrinsic\nworth of form, line, and colour, and it attracts like a magnet all the\nvalues of the things it is known to symbolize. It becomes beautiful\nin its expressiveness.\n\nHardly different from this example is that of travel or of reading;\nfor in these employments we get many aesthetic pleasures, the\norigin of which is in the satisfaction of curiosity and intelligence.\nWhen we say admiringly of anything that it is characteristic, that it\nembodies a whole period or a whole man, we are absorbed by the\npleasant sense that it offers innumerable avenues of approach to\ninteresting and important things. The less we are able to specify\nwhat these are, the more beautiful will the object be that expresses\nthem. For if we could specify them, the felt value would\ndisintegrate, and distribute itself among the ideas of the suggested\nthings, leaving the expressive object bare of all interest, like the\nletters of a printed page.\n\nThe courtiers of Philip the Second probably did not regard his\nrooms at the Escurial as particularly interesting, but simply as\nsmall, ugly, and damp. The character which we find in them and\nwhich makes us regard them as eminently expressive of whatever\nwas sinister in the man, probably did not strike them. They knew\nthe king, and had before them words, gestures, and acts enough in\nwhich to read his character. But all these living facts are wanting to\nour experience; and it is the suggestion of them in their\nunrealizable vagueness that fills the apartments of the monarch\nwith such pungent expression. It is not otherwise with all emphatic\nexpressiveness -- moonlight and castle moats, minarets and\ncypresses, camels filing through the desert -- such images get their\ncharacter from the strong but misty atmosphere of sentiment and\nadventure which clings about them. The profit of travel, and the\nextraordinary charm of all visible relics of antiquity, consists in the\nacquisition of images in which to focus a mass of discursive\nknowledge, not otherwise felt together. Such images are concrete\nsymbols of much latent experience, and the deep roots of\nassociation give them the same hold upon our attention which\nmight be secured by a fortunate form or splendid material.\n\n_Cost as an element of effect._\n\nSec. 53. There is one consideration which often adds much to the\ninterest with which we view an object, but which we might be\nvirtuously inclined not to admit among aesthetic values. I mean\ncost. Cost is practical value expressed in abstract terms, and from\nthe price of anything we can often infer what relation it has to the\ndesires and efforts of mankind. There is no reason why cost, or the\ncircumstances which are its basis, should not, like other practical\nvalues, heighten the tone of consciousness, and add to the pleasure\nwith which we view an object. In fact, such is our daily experience;\nfor great as is the sensuous beauty of gems, their rarity and price\nadds an expression of distinction to them, which they would never\nhave if they were cheap.\n\nThe circumstance that makes the appreciation of cost often\nunaesthetic is the abstractness of that quality. The price of an\nobject is an algebraic symbol, it is a conventional term, invented to\nfacilitate our operations, which remains arid and unmeaning if we\nstop with it and forget to translate it again at the end into its\nconcrete equivalent. The commercial mind dwells in that\nintermediate limbo of symbolized values; the calculator's senses\nare muffled by his intellect and by his habit of abbreviated thinking.\nHis mental process is a reckoning that loses sight of its original\nvalues, and is over without reaching any concrete image. Therefore\nthe knowledge of cost, when expressed in terms of money, is\nincapable of contributing to aesthetic effect, but the reason is not\nso much that the suggested value is not aesthetic, as that no real\nvalue is suggested at all. No object of any kind is presented to the\nmind by the numerical expression. If we reinterpret our price,\nhowever, and translate it back into the facts which constitute it,\ninto the materials employed, their original place and quality, and\nthe labour and art which transformed them into the present thing,\nthen we add to the aesthetic value of the object, by the expression\nwhich we find in it, not of its price in money, but of its human cost.\nWe have now the consciousness of the real values which it\nrepresents, and these values, sympathetically present to the fancy,\nincrease our present interest and admiration.\n\nI believe economists count among the elements of the value of an\nobject the rarity of its material, the labour of its manufacture, and\nthe distance from which it is brought. Now all these qualities, if\nattended to in themselves, appeal greatly to the imagination. We\nhave a natural interest in what is rare and affects us with unusual\nsensations. What comes from a far country carries our thoughts\nthere, and gains by the wealth and picturesqueness of its\nassociations. And that on which human labour has been spent,\nespecially if it was a labour of love, and is apparent in the product,\nhas one of the deepest possible claims to admiration. So that the\nstandard of cost, the most vulgar of all standards, is such only\nwhen it remains empty and abstract. Let the thoughts wander back\nand consider the elements of value, and our appreciation, from\nbeing verbal and commercial, becomes poetic and real.\n\nWe have in this one more example of the manner in which\npractical values, when suggested by and incorporated in any object,\ncontribute to its beauty. Our sense of what lies behind, unlovely\nthough that background may be, gives interest and poignancy to\nthat which is present; our attention and wonder are engaged, and a\nnew meaning and importance is added to such intrinsic beauty as\nthe presentation may possess.\n\n_The expression of economy and fitness._\n\nSec. 54. The same principle explains the effect of evident cleanliness,\nsecurity, economy, and comfort. This Dutch charm hardly needs\nexplanation; we are conscious of the domesticity and neatness\nwhich pleases us in it. There are few things more utterly\ndiscomforting to our minds than waste: it is a sort of pungent\nextract and quintessence of folly. The visible manifestation of it is\ntherefore very offensive; and that of its absence very reassuring.\nThe force of our approval of practical fitness and economy in\nthings rises into an appreciation that is half-aesthetic, and which\nbecomes wholly so when the fit form becomes fixed in a type, to\nthe lines of which we are accustomed; so that the practical\nnecessity of the form is heightened and concentrated into the\naesthetic propriety of it.\n\nThe much-praised expression of function and truth in architectural\nworks reduces itself to this principle. The useful contrivance at\nfirst appeals to our practical approval; while we admire its\ningenuity, we cannot fail to become gradually accustomed to its\npresence, and to register with attentive pleasure the relation of its\nparts. Utility, as we have pointed out in its place, is thus the\nguiding principle in the determination of forms.\n\nThe recurring observation of the utility, economy, and fitness of\nthe traditional arrangement in buildings or other products of art,\nre-enforces this formal expectation with a reflective approval. We are\naccustomed, for instance, to sloping roofs; the fact that they were\nnecessary has made them familiar, and the fact that they are\nfamiliar has made them objects of study and of artistic enjoyment.\nIf at any moment, however, the notion of condemning them passes\nthrough the mind, -- if we have visions of the balustrade against\nthe sky, -- we revert to our homely image with kindly loyalty,\nwhen we remember the long months of rain and snow, and the\ncomfortless leaks to be avoided. The thought of a glaring, practical\nunfitness is enough to spoil our pleasure in any form, however\nbeautiful intrinsically, while the sense of practical fitness is enough\nto reconcile us to the most awkward and rude contrivances.\n\nThis principle is, indeed, not a fundamental, but an auxiliary one;\nthe expression of utility modifies effect, but does not constitute it.\nThere would be a kind of superstitious haste in the notion that what\nis convenient and economical is necessarily and by miracle\nbeautiful. The uses and habits of one place and society require\nworks which are or may easily become intrinsically beautiful; the\nuses and habits of another make these beautiful works impossible.\nThe beauty has a material and formal basis that we have already\nstudied; no fitness of design will make a building of ten equal\nstoreys as beautiful as a pavilion or a finely proportioned tower; no\nutility will make a steamboat as beautiful as a sailing vessel. But\nthe forms once established, with their various intrinsic characters,\nthe fitness we know to exist in them will lend them some added\ncharm, or their unfitness will disquiet us, and haunt us like a\nconscientious qualm. The other interests of our lives here mingle\nwith the purely aesthetic, to enrich or to embitter it.\n\nIf Sybaris is so sad a name to the memory -- and who is without\nsome Sybaris of his own? -- if the image of it is so tormenting and\nin the end so disgusting, this is not because we no longer think its\nmarbles bright, its fountains cool, its athletes strong, or its roses\nfragrant; but because, mingled with all these supreme beauties,\nthere is the ubiquitous shade of Nemesis, the sense of a vacant will\nand a suicidal inhumanity. The intolerableness of this moral\ncondition poisons the beauty which continues to be felt. If this\nbeauty did not exist, and was not still desired, the tragedy would\ndisappear and Jehovah would be deprived of the worth of his\nvictim. The sternness of moral forces lies precisely in this, that the\nsacrifices morality imposes upon us are real, that the things it\nrenders impossible are still precious.\n\nWe are accustomed to think of prudence as estranging us only\nfrom low and ignoble things; we forget that utility and the need of\nsystem in our lives is a bar also to the free flights of the spirit. The\nhighest instincts tend to disorganization as much as the lowest,\nsince order and benefit is what practical morality everywhere\ninsists upon, while sanctity and genius are as rebellious as vice.\nThe constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man\nonly an incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the\nunderstanding. For this reason, utility keeps close watch over\nbeauty, lest in her wilfulness and riot she should offend against our\npractical needs and ultimate happiness. And when the conscience\nis keen, this vigilance of the practical imagination over the\nspeculative ceases to appear as an eventual and external check. The\nleast suspicion of luxury, waste, impurity, or cruelty is then a\nsignal for alarm and insurrection. That which emits this _sapor\nhoereticus_ becomes so initially horrible, that naturally no beauty\ncan ever be discovered in it; the senses and imagination are in that\ncase inhibited by the conscience.\n\nFor this reason, the doctrine that beauty is essentially nothing but\nthe expression of moral or practical good appeals to persons of\npredominant moral sensitiveness, not only because they wish it\nwere the truth, but because it largely describes the experience of\ntheir own minds, somewhat warped in this particular. It will further\nbe observed that the moralists are much more able to condemn\nthan to appreciate the effects of the arts. Their taste is delicate\nwithout being keen, for the principle on which they judge is one\nwhich really operates to control and extend aesthetic effects; it is a\nsource of expression and of certain _nuances_ of satisfaction; but it\nis foreign to the stronger and more primitive aesthetic values to\nwhich the same persons are comparatively blind.\n\n_The authority of morals over aesthetics._\n\nSec. 55. The extent to which aesthetic goods should be sacrificed is,\nof course, a moral question; for the function of practical reason is\nto compare, combine, and harmonize all our interests, with a view\nto attaining the greatest satisfactions of which our nature is capable.\nWe must expect, therefore, that virtue should place the same\nrestraint upon all our passions -- not from superstitious aversion to\nany one need, but from an equal concern for them all. The\nconsideration to be given to our aesthetic pleasures will depend\nupon their greater or less influence upon our happiness; and as this\ninfluence varies in different ages and countries, and with different\nindividuals, it will be right to let aesthetic demands count for more\nor for less in the organization of life.\n\nWe may, indeed, according to our personal sympathies, prefer one\ntype of creature to another. We may love the martial, or the angelic,\nor the political temperament. We may delight to find in others that\nbalance of susceptibilities and enthusiasms which we feel in our\nown breast. But no moral precept can require one species or\nindividual to change its nature in order to resemble another, since\nsuch a requirement can have no power or authority over those on\nwhom we would impose it. All that morality can require is the\ninward harmony of each life: and if we still abhor the thought of a\npossible being who should be happy without love, or knowledge,\nor beauty, the aversion we feel is not moral but instinctive, not\nrational but human. What revolts us is not the want of excellence\nin that other creature, but his want of affinity to ourselves. Could\nwe survey the whole universe, we might indeed assign to each\nspecies a moral dignity proportionate to its general beneficence\nand inward wealth; but such an absolute standard, if it exists, is\nincommunicable to us; and we are reduced to judging of the\nexcellence of every nature by its relation to the human.\n\nAll these matters, however, belong to the sphere of ethics, nor\nshould we give them here even a passing notice, but for the\ninfluence which moral ideas exert over aesthetic judgments. Our\nsense of practical benefit not only determines the moral value of\nbeauty, but sometimes even its existence as an aesthetic good.\nEspecially in the right _selection_ of effects, these considerations\nhave weight. Forms in themselves pleasing may become disagreeable\nwhen the practical interests then uppermost in the mind\ncannot, without violence, yield a place to them. Thus too\nmuch eloquence in a diplomatic document, or in a familiar letter,\nor in a prayer, is an offence not only against practical sense, but\nalso against taste. The occasion has tuned us to a certain key of\nsentiment, and deprived us of the power to respond to other stimuli.\n\nIf things of moment are before us, we cannot stop to play with\nsymbols and figures of speech. We cannot attend to them with\npleasure, and therefore they lose the beauty they might elsewhere\nhave had. They are offensive, not in themselves, -- for nothing is\nintrinsically ugly, -- but by virtue of our present demand for\nsomething different. A prison as gay as a bazaar, a church as dumb\nas a prison, offend by their failure to support by their aesthetic\nquality the moral emotion with, which we approach them. The arts\nmust study their occasions; they must stand modestly aside until\nthey can slip in fitly into the interstices of life. This is the\nconsequence of the superficial stratum on which they flourish;\ntheir roots, as we have seen, are not deep in the world, and they\nappear only as unstable, superadded activities, employments of our\nfreedom, after the work of life is done and the terror of it is allayed.\nThey must, therefore, fit their forms, like parasites, to the stouter\ngrowths to which they cling.\n\nHerein lies the greatest difficulty and nicety of art. It must not only\ncreate things abstractly beautiful, but it must conciliate all the\ncompetitors these may have to the attention of the world, and must\nknow how to insinuate their charms among the objects of our\npassion. But this subserviency and enforced humility of beauty is\nnot without its virtue and reward. If the aesthetic habit lie under the\nnecessity of respecting and observing our passions, it possesses the\nprivilege of soothing our griefs. There is no situation so terrible\nthat it may not be relieved by the momentary pause of the mind to\ncontemplate it aesthetically.\n\nGrief itself becomes in this way not wholly pain; a sweetness is\nadded to it by our reflection. The saddest scenes may lose their\nbitterness in their beauty. This ministration makes, as it were, the\npiety of the Muses, who succour their mother, Life, and repay her\nfor their nurture by the comfort of their continual presence. The\naesthetic world is limited in its scope; it must submit to the control\nof the organizing reason, and not trespass upon more useful and\nholy ground. The garden must not encroach upon the corn-fields;\nbut the eye of the gardener may transform the corn-fields\nthemselves by dint of loving observation into a garden of a soberer\nkind. By finding grandeur in our disasters, and merriment in our\nmishaps, the aesthetic sense thus mollifies both, and consoles us\nfor the frequent impossibility of a serious and perfect beauty.\n\n_Negative values in the second term._\n\nSec. 56. All subjects, even the most repellent, when the\ncircumstances of life thrust them before us, can thus be observed\nwith curiosity and treated with art. The calling forth of these\naesthetic functions softens the violence of our sympathetic reaction.\nIf death, for instance, did not exist and did not thrust itself upon\nour thoughts with painful importunity, art would never have been\ncalled upon to soften and dignify it, by presenting it in beautiful\nforms and surrounding it with consoling associations. Art does not\nseek out the pathetic, the tragic, and the absurd; it is life that has\nimposed them upon our attention, and enlisted art in their service,\nto make the contemplation of them, since it is inevitable, at least as\ntolerable as possible.\n\nThe agreeableness of the presentation is thus mixed with the horror\nof the thing; and the result is that while we are saddened by the\ntruth we are delighted by the vehicle that conveys it to us. The\nmixture of these emotions constitutes the peculiar flavour and\npoignancy of pathos. But because unlovely objects and feelings are\noften so familiar as to be indifferent or so momentous as to be\nalone in the mind, we are led into the confusion of supposing that\nbeauty depends upon them for its aesthetic value; whereas the truth\nis that only by the addition of positive beauties can these evil\nexperiences be made agreeable to contemplation.\n\nThere is, in reality, no such paradox in the tragic, comic, and\nsublime, as has been sometimes supposed. We are not pleased by\nvirtue of the suggested evils, but in spite of them; and if ever the\ncharm of the beautiful presentation sinks so low, or the vividness\nof the represented evil rises so high, that the balance is in favour of\npain, at that very moment the whole object becomes horrible,\npasses out of the domain of art, and can be justified only by its\nscientific or moral uses. As an aesthetic value it is destroyed; it\nceases to be a benefit; and the author of it, if he were not made\nharmless by the neglect that must soon overtake him, would have\nto be punished as a malefactor who adds to the burden of mortal\nlife. For the sad, the ridiculous, the grotesque, and the terrible,\nunless they become aesthetic goods, remain moral evils.\n\nWe have, therefore, to study the various aesthetic, intellectual, and\nmoral compensations by which the mind can be brought to\ncontemplate with pleasure a thing which, if experienced alone,\nwould be the cause of pain. There is, to be sure, a way of avoiding\nthis inquiry. We might assert that since all moderate excitement is\npleasant, there is nothing strange in the fact that the representation\nof evil should please; for the experience is evil by virtue of the\npain it gives; but it gives pain only when felt with great intensity.\nObserved from afar, it is a pleasing impression; it is vivid enough\nto interest, but not acute enough to wound. This simple explanation\nis possible in all those cases where aesthetic effect is gained by the\ninhibition of sympathy.\n\nThe term \"evil\" is often a conventional epithet; a conflagration\nmay be called an evil, because it usually involves loss and\nsuffering; but if, without caring for a loss and suffering we do not\nshare, we are delighted by the blaze, and still say that what pleases\nus is an evil, we are using this word as a conventional appellation,\nnot as the mark of a felt value. We are not pleased by an evil; we\nare pleased by a vivid and exciting sensation, which is a good, but\nwhich has for objective cause an event which may indeed be an\nevil to others, but about the consequences of which we are not\nthinking at all. There is, in this sense, nothing in all nature, perhaps,\nwhich is not an evil; nothing which is not unfavourable to some\ninterest, and does not involve some infinitesimal or ultimate\nsuffering in the universe of life.\n\nBut when we are ignorant or thoughtless, this suffering is to us as\nif it did not exist. The pleasures of drinking and walking are not\ntragic to us, because we may be poisoning some bacillus or\ncrushing some worm. To an omniscient intelligence such acts may\nbe tragic by virtue of the insight into their relations to conflicting\nimpulses; but unless these impulses are present to the same mind,\nthere is no consciousness of tragedy. The child that, without\nunderstanding of the calamity, should watch a shipwreck from the\nshore, would hare a simple emotion of pleasure as from a jumping\njack; what passes for tragic interest is often nothing but this. If he\nunderstood the event, but was entirely without sympathy, he would\nhave the aesthetic emotion of the careless tyrant, to whom the\nnotion of suffering is no hindrance to the enjoyment of the lyre. If\nthe temper of his tyranny were purposely cruel, he might add to\nthat aesthetic delight the luxury of _Schadenfreude;_ but the\npathos and horror of the sight could only appeal to a man who\nrealized and shared the sufferings he beheld.\n\nA great deal of brutal tragedy has been endured in the world\nbecause the rudeness of the representation, or of the public, or of\nboth, did not allow a really sympathetic reaction to arise. We all\nsmile when Punch beats Judy in the puppet show. The treatment\nand not the subject is what makes a tragedy. A parody of _Hamlet_\nor of _King Lear_ would not be a tragedy; and these tragedies\nthemselves are not wholly such, but by the strain of wit and\nnonsense they contain are, as it were, occasional parodies on\nthemselves. By treating a tragic subject bombastically or satirically\nwe can turn it into an amusement for the public; they will not feel\nthe griefs which we have been careful to harden them against by\narousing in them contrary emotions. A work, nominally a work of\nart, may also appeal to non-aesthetic feelings by its political bias,\nbrutality, or obscenity. But if an effect of true pathos is sought, the\nsympathy of the observer must be aroused; we must awaken in him\nthe emotion we describe. The intensity of the impression must not\nbe so slight that its painful quality is not felt; for it is this very\nsense of pain, mingling with the aesthetic excitement of the\nspectacle, that gives it a tragic or pathetic colouring.\n\nWe cannot therefore rest in the assertion that the slighter degree of\nexcitement is pleasant, when a greater degree of the same would be\ndisagreeable; for that principle does not express the essence of the\nmatter, which is that we must be aware of the evil, and conscious\nof it as such, absorbed more or less in the experience of the\nsufferer, and consequently suffering ourselves, before we can\nexperience the essence of tragic emotion. This emotion must\ntherefore be complex; it must contain an element of pain\noverbalanced by an element of pleasure; in our delight there must\nbe a distinguishable touch of shrinking and sorrow; for it is this\nconflict and rending of our will, this fascination by what is\nintrinsically terrible or sad, that gives these turbid feelings their\ndepth and pungency.\n\n_Influence of the first term in the pleasing expression of self._\n\nSec. 57. A striking proof of the compound nature of tragic effects can\nbe given by a simple experiment. Remove from any drama -- say\nfrom _Othello_ -- the charm of the medium of presentation; reduce\nthe tragedy to a mere account of the facts and of the words spoken,\nsuch as our newspapers almost daily contain; and the tragic dignity\nand beauty is entirely lost. Nothing remains but a disheartening\nitem of human folly, which may still excite curiosity, but which\nwill rather defile than purify the mind that considers it. A French\npoet has said:\n\n Il n'est de vulgaire chagrin\n Qua celui d'une ame vulgaire.\n\nThe counterpart of this maxim is equally true. There is no noble\nsorrow except in a noble mind, because what is noble is the\nreaction upon the sorrow, the attitude of the man in its presence,\nthe language in which he clothes it, the associations with which he\nsurrounds it, and the fine affections and impulses which shine\nthrough it. Only by suffusing some sinister experience with this\nmoral light, as a poet may do who carries that light within him, can\nwe raise misfortune into tragedy and make it better for us to\nremember our lives than to forget them.\n\nThere are times, although rare, when men are noble in the very\nmoment of passion: when that passion is not unqualified, but\nalready mastered by reflection and levelled with truth. Then the\nexperience is itself the tragedy, and no poet is needed to make it\nbeautiful in representation, since the sufferer has been an artist\nhimself, and has moulded what he has endured. But usually these\ntwo stages have to be successive: first we suffer, afterwards we\nsing. An interval is necessary to make feeling presentable, and\nsubjugate it to that form in which alone it is beautiful.\n\nThis form appeals to us in itself, and without its aid no\nsubject-matter could become an aesthetic object. The more terrible the\nexperience described, the more powerful must the art be which is\nto transform it. For this reason prose and literalness are more\ntolerable in comedy than in tragedy; any violent passion, any\noverwhelming pain, if it is not to make us think of a demonstration\nin pathology, and bring back the smell of ether, must be rendered\nin the most exalted style. Metre, rhyme, melody, the widest nights\nof allusion, the highest reaches of fancy, are there in place. For\nthese enable the mind swept by the deepest cosmic harmonies, to\nendure and absorb the shrill notes which would be intolerable in a\npoorer setting.\n\nThe sensuous harmony of words, and still more the effects of\nrhythm, are indispensable at this height of emotion. Evolutionists\nhave said that violent emotion naturally expresses itself in rhythm.\nThat is hardly an empirical observation, nor can the expressiveness\nof rhythms be made definite enough to bear specific association\nwith complex feelings. But the suspension and rush of sound and\nmovement have in themselves a strong effect; we cannot undergo\nthem without profound excitement; and this, like martial music,\nnerves us to courage and, by a sort of intoxication, bears us along\namid scenes which might otherwise be sickening. The vile effect of\nliteral and disjointed renderings of suffering, whether in writing or\nacting, proves how necessary is the musical quality to tragedy -- a\nfact Aristotle long ago set forth. The afflatus of rhythm, even if it\nbe the pomp of the Alexandrine, sublimates the passion, and\nclarifies its mutterings into poetry. This breadth and rationality are\nnecessary to art, which is not skill merely, but skill in the service\nof beauty.\n\n_Mixture of other expressions, including that of truth._\n\nSec. 58. To the value of these sensuous and formal elements must be\nadded the continual suggestion of beautiful and happy things,\nwhich no tragedy is sombre enough to exclude. Even if we do not\ngo so far as to intersperse comic scenes and phrases into a pathetic\nsubject, -- a rude device, since the comic passages themselves need\nthat purifying which they are meant to effect, -- we must at least\nrelieve our theme with pleasing associations. For this reason we\nhave palaces for our scene, rank, beauty, and virtue in our heroes,\nnobility in their passions and in their fate, and altogether a sort of\nglorification of life without which tragedy would lose both in depth\nof pathos -- since things so precious are destroyed -- and in\nsubtlety of charm, since things so precious are manifested.\n\nIndeed, one of the chief charms that tragedies have is the\nsuggestion of what they might have been if they had not been\ntragedies. The happiness which glimmers through them, the hopes,\nloves, and ambitions of which it is made, these things fascinate us,\nand win our sympathy; so that we are all the more willing to suffer\nwith our heroes, even if we are at the same time all the more\nsensitive to their suffering. Too wicked a character or too\nunrelieved a situation revolts us for this reason. We do not find\nenough expression of good to make us endure the expression of the\nevil.\n\nA curious exception to this rule, which, however, admirably\nillustrates the fundamental principle of it, is where by the diversity\nof evils represented the mind is relieved from painful absorption in\nany of them. There is a scene in _King Lear,_ where the horror of\nthe storm is made to brood over at least four miseries, that of the\nking, of the fool, of Edgar in his real person, and of Edgar in his\nassumed character. The vividness of each of these portrayals, with\nits different note of pathos, keeps the mind detached and free,\nforces it to compare and reflect, and thereby to universalize the\nspectacle. Yet even here, the beautiful effect is not secured without\nsome touches of good. How much is not gained by the dumb\nfidelity of the fool, and by the sublime humanity of Lear, when he\nsays, \"Art cold? There is a part of me is sorry for thee yet.\"\n\nYet all these compensations would probably be unavailing but for\nanother which the saddest things often have, -- the compensation\nof being true. Our practical and intellectual nature is deeply\ninterested in truth. What describes fact appeals to us for that reason;\nit has an inalienable interest. However unpleasant truth may prove,\nwe long to know it, partly perhaps because experience has shown\nus the prudence of this kind of intellectual courage, and chiefly\nbecause the consciousness of ignorance and the dread of the\nunknown is more tormenting than any possible discovery. A\nprimitive instinct makes us turn the eyes full on any object that\nappears in the dim borderland of our field of vision -- and this all\nthe more quickly, the more terrible that object threatens to be.\n\nThis physical thirst for seeing has its intellectual extension. We\ncovet truth, and to attain it, amid all accidents, is a supreme\nsatisfaction. Now this satisfaction the representation of evil can\nalso afford. Whether we hear the account of some personal\naccident, or listen to the symbolic representation of the inherent\ntragedy of life, we crave the same knowledge; the desire for truth\nmakes us welcome eagerly whatever comes in its name. To be sure,\nthe relief of such instruction does not of itself constitute an\naesthetic pleasure: the other conditions of beauty remain to be\nfulfilled. But the satisfaction of so imperious an intellectual instinct\ninsures our willing attention to the tragic object, and strengthens\nthe hold which any beauties it may possess will take upon us. An\nintellectual value stands ready to be transmuted into an aesthetic\none, if once its discursiveness is lost, and it is left hanging about\nthe object as a vague sense of dignity and meaning.\n\nTo this must be added the specific pleasure of recognition, one of\nthe keenest we have, and the sentimental one of nursing our own\ngriefs and dignifying them by assimilation to a less inglorious\nrepresentation of them. Here we have truth on a small scale;\nconformity in the fiction to incidents of our personal experience.\nSuch correspondences are the basis of much popular appreciation\nof trivial and undigested works that appeal to some momentary\nphase of life or feeling, and disappear with it. They have the value\nof personal stimulants only; they never achieve beauty. Like the\nsouvenirs of last season's gayeties, or the diary of an early love,\nthey are often hideous in themselves in proportion as they are\nredolent with personal associations. But however hopelessly mere\nhistory or confession may fail to constitute a work of art, a work of\nart that has an historical warrant, either literal or symbolical, gains\nthe support of that vivid interest we have in facts. And many\ntragedies and farces, that to a mind without experience of this\nsublunary world might seem monstrous and disgusting fictions,\nmay come to be forgiven and even perhaps preferred over all else,\nwhen they are found to be a sketch from life.\n\nTruth is thus the excuse which ugliness has for being. Many people,\nin whom the pursuit of knowledge and the indulgence in sentiment\nhave left no room for the cultivation of the aesthetic sense, look in\nart rather for this expression of fact or of passion than for the\nrevelation of beauty. They accordingly produce and admire works\nwithout intrinsic value. They employ the procedure of the fine arts\nwithout an eye to what can give pleasure in the effect. They invoke\nrather the _a priori_ interest which men are expected to have in the\nsubject-matter, or in the theories and moral implied in the\npresentation of it. Instead of using the allurements of art to inspire\nwisdom, they require an appreciation of wisdom to make us endure\ntheir lack of art.\n\nOf course, the instruments of the arts are public property and any\none is free to turn them to new uses. It would be an interesting\ndevelopment of civilization if they should now be employed only\nas methods of recording scientific ideas and personal confessions.\nBut the experiment has not succeeded and can hardly succeed.\nThere are other simpler, clearer, and more satisfying ways of\nexpounding truth. A man who is really a student of history or\nphilosophy will never rest with the vague and partial oracles of\npoetry, not to speak of the inarticulate suggestions of the plastic\narts. He will at once make for the principles which art cannot\nexpress, even if it can embody them, and when those principles are\nattained, the works of art, if they had no other value than that of\nsuggesting them, will lapse from his mind. Forms will give place\nto formulas as hieroglyphics have given place to the letters of the\nalphabet.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the primary interest is really in beauty, and\nonly the confusion of a moral revolution has obscured for a while\nthe vision of the ideal, then as the mind regains its mastery over the\nworld, and digests its new experience, the imagination will again\nbe liberated, and create its forms by its inward affinities, leaving\nall the weary burden, archaeological, psychological, and ethical, to\nthose whose business is not to delight. But the sudden inundation\nof science and sentiment which has made the mind of the\nnineteenth century so confused, by overloading us with materials\nand breaking up our habits of apperception and our ideals, has led\nto an exclusive sense of the value of expressiveness, until this has\nbeen almost identified with beauty. This exaggeration can best\nprove how the expression of truth may enter into the play of\naesthetic forces, and give a value to representations which, but for\nit, would be repulsive.\n\n_The liberation of self._\n\nSec. 59. Hitherto we have been considering those elements of a\npathetic presentation which may mitigate our sympathetic emotion,\nand make it on the whole agreeable. These consist in the intrinsic\nbeauties of the medium of presentation, and in the concomitant\nmanifestation of various goods, notably of truth. The mixture of\nthese values is perhaps all we have in mildly pathetic works, in the\npresence of which we are tolerably aware of a sort of balance and\ncompensation of emotions. The sorrow and the beauty, the\nhopelessness and the consolation, mingle and merge into a kind of\njoy which has its poignancy, indeed, but which is far too passive\nand penitential to contain the louder and sublimer of our tragic\nmoods. In these there is a wholeness, a strength, and a rapture,\nwhich still demands an explanation.\n\nWhere this explanation is to be found may be guessed from the\nfollowing circumstance. The pathetic is a quality of the object, at\nonce lovable and sad, which we accept and allow to flow in upon\nthe soul; but the heroic is an attitude of the will, by which the\nvoices of the outer world are silenced, and a moral energy, flowing\nfrom within, is made to triumph over them. If we fail, therefore, to\ndiscover, by analysis of the object, anything which could make it\nsublime, we must not be surprised at our failure. We must\nremember that the object is always but a portion of our\nconsciousness: that portion which has enough coherence and\narticulation to be recognized as permanent and projected into the\nouter world. But consciousness remains one, in spite of this\ndiversification of its content, and the object is not really\nindependent, but is in constant relation to the rest of the mind, in\nthe midst of which it swims like a bubble on a dark surface of\nwater.\n\nThe aesthetic effect of objects is always due to the total emotional\nvalue of the consciousness in which they exist. We merely attribute\nthis value to the object by a projection which is the ground of the\napparent objectivity of beauty. Sometimes this value may be\ninherent in the process by which the object itself is perceived; then\nwe have sensuous and formal beauty; sometimes the value may be\ndue to the incipient formation of other ideas, which the perception\nof this object evokes; then we have beauty of expression. But\namong the ideas with which every object has relation there is one\nvaguest, most comprehensive, and most powerful one, namely, the\nidea of self. The impulses, memories, principles, and energies\nwhich we designate by that word baffle enumeration; indeed, they\nconstantly fade and change into one another; and whether the self\nis anything, everything, or nothing depends on the aspect of it\nwhich we momentarily fix, and especially on the definite object\nwith which we contrast it.\n\nNow, it is the essential privilege of beauty to so synthesize and\nbring to a focus the various impulses of the self, so to suspend\nthem to a single image, that a great peace falls upon that perturbed\nkingdom. In the experience of these momentary harmonies we\nhave the basis of the enjoyment of beauty, and of all its mystical\nmeanings. But there are always two methods of securing harmony:\none is to unify all the given elements, and another is to reject and\nexpunge all the elements that refuse to be unified. Unity by\ninclusion gives us the beautiful; unity by exclusion, opposition,\nand isolation gives us the sublime. Both are pleasures: but the\npleasure of the one is warm, passive, and pervasive; that of the\nother cold, imperious, and keen. The one identifies us with the\nworld, the other raises us above it.\n\nThere can be no difficulty in understanding how the expression of\nevil in the object may be the occasion of this heroic reaction of the\nsoul. In the first place, the evil may be felt; but at the same time the\nsense that, great as it may be in itself, it cannot touch us, may\nstimulate extraordinarily the consciousness of our own wholeness.\nThis is the sublimity which Lucretius calls \"sweet\" in the famous\nlines in which he so justly analyzes it. We are not pleased because\nanother suffers an evil, but because, seeing it is an evil, we see at\nthe same time our own immunity from it. We might soften the\npicture a little, and perhaps make the principle even clearer by so\ndoing. The shipwreck observed from the shore does not leave us\nwholly unmoved; we suffer, also, and if possible, would help. So,\ntoo, the spectacle of the erring world must sadden the philosopher\neven in the Acropolis of his wisdom; he would, if it might be,\ndescend from his meditation and teach. But those movements of\nsympathy are quickly inhibited by despair of success; impossibility\nof action is a great condition of the sublime. If we could count the\nstars, we should not weep before them. While we think we can\nchange the drama of history, and of our own lives, we are not awed\nby our destiny. But when the evil is irreparable, when our life is\nlived, a strong spirit has the sublime resource of standing at bay\nand of surveying almost from the other world the vicissitudes of\nthis.\n\nThe more intimate to himself the tragedy he is able to look back\nupon with calmness, the more sublime that calmness is, and the\nmore divine the ecstasy in which he achieves it. For the more of\nthe accidental vesture of life we are able to strip ourselves of, the\nmore naked and simple is the surviving spirit; the more complete\nits superiority and unity, and, consequently, the more unqualified\nits joy. There remains little in us, then, but that intellectual essence,\nwhich several great philosophers have called eternal and identified\nwith the Divinity.\n\nA single illustration may help to fix these principles in the mind.\nWhen Othello has discovered his fatal error, and is resolved to take\nhis own life, he stops his groaning, and addresses the ambassadors\nof Venice thus:\n\n Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate,\n Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak\n Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well;\n Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,\n Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,\n Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away\n Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,\n Albeit unused to the melting mood,\n Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees\n Their medicinal gum. Set you down this:\n And say, besides, that in Aleppo once\n When a malignant and a turbaned Turk\n Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state,\n I took by the throat the circumcised dog,\n And smote him, thus.\n\nThere is a kind of criticism that would see in all these allusions,\nfigures of speech, and wandering reflections, an unnatural\nrendering of suicide. The man, we might be told, should have\nmuttered a few broken phrases, and killed himself without this\npomp of declamation, like the jealous husbands in the daily papers.\nBut the conventions of the tragic stage are more favourable to\npsychological truth than the conventions of real life. If we may\ntrust the imagination (and in imagination lies, as we have seen, the\ntest of propriety), this is what Othello would have felt. If he had\nnot expressed it, his dumbness would have been due to external\nhindrances, not to the failure in his mind of just such complex and\nrhetorical thoughts as the poet has put into his mouth. The height\nof passion is naturally complex and rhetorical. Love makes us\npoets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.\nWhen a man knows that his life is over, he can look back upon it\nfrom a universal standpoint. He has nothing more to live for, but if\nthe energy of his mind remains unimpaired, he will still wish to\nlive, and, being cut off from his personal ambitions, he will impute\nto himself a kind of vicarious immortality by identifying himself\nwith what is eternal. He speaks of himself as he is, or rather as he\nwas. He sums himself up, and points to his achievement. This I\nhave been, says he, this I have done.\n\nThis comprehensive and impartial view, this synthesis and\nobjectification of experience, constitutes the liberation of the soul\nand the essence of sublimity. That the hero attains it at the end\nconsoles us, as it consoles him, for his hideous misfortunes. Our\npity and terror are indeed purged; we go away knowing that,\nhowever tangled the net may be in which we feel ourselves caught,\nthere is liberation beyond, and an ultimate peace.\n\n_The sublime independent of the expression of evil._\n\nSec. 60. So natural is the relation between the vivid conception of\ngreat evils, and that self-assertion of the soul which gives the\nemotion of the sublime, that the sublime is often thought to depend\nupon the terror which these conceived evils inspire. To be sure,\nthat terror would have to be inhibited and subdued, otherwise we\nshould have a passion too acute to be incorporated in any object;\nthe sublime would not appear as an aesthetic quality in things, but\nremain merely an emotional state in the subject. But this subdued\nand objectified terror is what is commonly regarded as the essence\nof the sublime, and so great an authority as Aristotle would seem\nto countenance some such definition. The usual cause of the\nsublime is here confused, however, with the sublime itself. The\nsuggestion of terror makes us withdraw into ourselves: there with\nthe supervening consciousness of safety or indifference comes a\nrebound, and we have that emotion of detachment and liberation in\nwhich the sublime really consists.\n\nThoughts and actions are properly sublime, and visible things only\nby analogy and suggestion when they induce a certain moral\nemotion; whereas beauty belongs properly to sensible things, and\ncan be predicated of moral facts only by a figure of rhetoric. What\nwe objectify in beauty is a sensation. What we objectify in the\nsublime is an act. This act is necessarily pleasant, for if it were not\nthe sublime would be a bad quality and one we should rather never\nencounter in the world. The glorious joy of self-assertion in the\nface of an uncontrollable world is indeed so deep and entire, that it\nfurnishes just that transcendent element of worth for which we\nwere looking when we tried to understand how the expression of\npain could sometimes please. It can please, not in itself, but\nbecause it is balanced and annulled by positive pleasures,\nespecially by this final and victorious one of detachment. If the\nexpression of evil seems necessary to the sublime, it is so only as a\ncondition of this moral reaction.\n\nWe are commonly too much engrossed in objects and too little\ncentred in ourselves and our inalienable will, to see the sublimity\nof a pleasing prospect. We are then enticed and flattered,\nand won over to a commerce with these external goods, and\nthe consummation of our happiness would lie in the perfect\ncomprehension and enjoyment of their nature. This is the office of\nart and of love; and its partial fulfilment is seen in every perception\nof beauty. But when we are checked in this sympathetic endeavour\nafter unity and comprehension; when we come upon a great evil or\nan irreconcilable power, we are driven to seek our happiness by the\nshorter and heroic road; then we recognize the hopeless\nforeignness of what lies before us, and stiffen ourselves against it.\nWe thus for the first time reach the sense of our possible separation\nfrom our world, and of our abstract stability; and with this comes\nthe sublime.\n\nBut although experience of evil is the commonest approach to this\nattitude of mind, and we commonly become philosophers only\nafter despairing of instinctive happiness, yet there is nothing\nimpossible in the attainment of detachment by other channels. The\nimmense is sublime as well as the terrible; and mere infinity of the\nobject, like its hostile nature, can have the effect of making the\nmind recoil upon itself. Infinity, like hostility, removes us from\nthings, and makes us conscious of our independence. The\nsimultaneous view of many things, innumerable attractions felt\ntogether, produce equilibrium and indifference, as effectually as\nthe exclusion of all. If we may call the liberation of the self by the\nconsciousness of evil in the world, the Stoic sublime, we may\nassert that there is also an Epicurean sublime, which consists in\nliberation by equipoise. Any wide survey is sublime in that fashion.\nEach detail may be beautiful. We may even be ready with a\npassionate response to its appeal. We may think we covet every\nsort of pleasure, and lean to every kind of vigorous, impulsive life.\nBut let an infinite panorama be suddenly unfolded; the will is\ninstantly paralyzed, and the heart choked. It is impossible to desire\neverything at once, and when all is offered and approved, it is\nimpossible to choose everything. In this suspense, the mind soars\ninto a kind of heaven, benevolent but unmoved.\n\nThis is the attitude of all minds to which breadth of interest or\nlength of years has brought balance and dignity. The sacerdotal\nquality of old age comes from this same sympathy in disinterestedness.\nOld men full of hurry and passion appear as fools, because\nwe understand that their experience has not left enough\nmark upon their brain to qualify with the memory of other\ngoods any object that may be now presented. We cannot venerate\nany one in whom appreciation is not divorced from desire. And\nthis elevation and detachment of the heart need not follow upon\nany great disappointment; it is finest and sweetest where it is the\ngradual fruit of many affections now merged and mellowed into a\nnatural piety. Indeed, we are able to frame our idea of the Deity on\nno other model.\n\nWhen the pantheists try to conceive all the parts of nature as\nforming a single being, which shall contain them all and yet have\nabsolute unity, they find themselves soon denying the existence of\nthe world they are trying to deify; for nature, reduced to the unity it\nwould assume in an omniscient mind, is no longer nature, but\nsomething simple and impossible, the exact opposite of the real\nworld. Such an opposition would constitute the liberation of the\ndivine mind from nature, and its existence as a self-conscious\nindividual. The effort after comprehensiveness of view reduces\nthings to unity, but this unity stands out in opposition to the\nmanifold phenomena which it transcends, and rejects as unreal.\n\nNow this destruction of nature, which the metaphysicians since\nParmenides have so often repeated (nature nevertheless surviving\nstill), is but a theoretical counterpart and hypostasis of what\nhappens in every man's conscience when the comprehensiveness of\nhis experience lifts him into thought, into abstraction. The sense of\nthe sublime is essentially mystical: it is the transcending of distinct\nperception in favour of a feeling of unity and volume. So in the\nmoral sphere, we have the mutual cancelling of the passions in the\nbreast that includes them all, and their final subsidence beneath the\nglance that comprehends them. This is the Epicurean approach to\ndetachment and perfection; it leads by systematic acceptance of\ninstinct to the same goal which the stoic and the ascetic reach by\nsystematic rejection of instinct. It is thus possible to be moved to\nthat self-enfranchisement which constitutes the sublime, even\nwhen the object contains no expression of evil.\n\nThis conclusion supports that part of our definition of beauty\nwhich declares that the values beauty contains are all positive; a\ndefinition which we should have had to change if we had found\nthat the sublime depended upon the suggestion of evil for its effect.\nBut the sublime is not the ugly, as some descriptions of it might\nlead us to suppose; it is the supremely, the intoxicatingly beautiful.\nIt is the pleasure of contemplation reaching such an intensity that it\nbegins to lose its objectivity, and to declare itself, what it always\nfundamentally was, an inward passion of the soul. For while in the\nbeautiful we find the perfection of life by sinking into the object, in\nthe sublime we find a purer and more inalienable perfection by\ndefying the object altogether. The surprised enlargement of vision,\nthe sudden escape from our ordinary interests and the identification\nof ourselves with something permanent and superhuman, something\nmuch more abstract and inalienable than our changing personality,\nall this carries us away from the blurred objects before us,\nand raises us into a sort of ecstasy.\n\nIn the trite examples of the sublime, where we speak of the vast\nmass, strength, and durability of objects, or of their sinister aspect,\nas if we were moved by them on account of our own danger, we\nseem to miss the point. For the suggestion of our own danger\nwould produce a touch of fear; it would be a practical passion, or if\nit could by chance be objectified enough to become aesthetic, it\nwould merely make the object hateful and repulsive, like a\nmangled corpse. The object is sublime when we forget our danger,\nwhen we escape from ourselves altogether, and live as it were in\nthe object itself, energizing in imitation of its movement, and\nsaying, \"Be thou me, impetuous one!\" This passage into the object,\nto live its life, is indeed a characteristic of all perfect contemplation.\nBut when in thus translating ourselves we rise and play a higher\npersonage, feeling the exhilaration of a life freer and wilder than\nour own, then the experience is one of sublimity. The emotion\ncomes not from the situation we observe, but from the powers we\nconceive; we fail to sympathize with the struggling sailors because\nwe sympathize too much with the wind and waves. And this\nmystical cruelty can extend even to ourselves; we can so feel the\nfascination of the cosmic forces that engulf us as to take a fierce\njoy in the thought of our own destruction. We can identify\nourselves with the abstractest essence of reality, and, raised to that\nheight, despise the human accidents of our own nature. Lord, we\nsay, though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee. The sense of\nsuffering disappears in the sense of life and the imagination\noverwhelms the understanding.\n\n_The comic._\n\nSec. 61. Something analogous takes place in the other spheres where\nan aesthetic value seems to arise out of suggestions of evil, in the\ncomic, namely, and the grotesque. But here the translation of our\nsympathies is partial, and we are carried away from ourselves only\nto become smaller. The larger humanity, which cannot be absorbed,\nremains ready to contradict the absurdity of our fiction. The\nexcellence of comedy lies in the invitation to wander along some\nby-path of the fancy, among scenes not essentially impossible, but\nnot to be actually enacted by us on account of the fixed\ncircumstances of our lives. If the picture is agreeable, we allow\nourselves to dream it true. We forget its relations; we forbid the\neye to wander beyond the frame of the stage, or the conventions of\nthe fiction. We indulge an illusion which deepens our sense of the\nessential pleasantness of things.\n\nSo far, there is nothing in comedy that is not delightful, except,\nperhaps, the moment when it is over. But fiction, like all error or\nabstraction, is necessarily unstable; and the awakening is not\nalways reserved for the disheartening moment at the end.\nEverywhere, when we are dealing with pretension or mistake, we\ncome upon sudden and vivid contradictions; changes of view,\ntransformations of apperception which are extremely stimulating to\nthe imagination. We have spoken of one of these: when the sudden\ndissolution of our common habits of thought lifts us into a mystical\ncontemplation, filled with the sense of the sublime; when the\ntransformation is back to common sense and reality, and away\nfrom some fiction, we have a very different emotion. We feel\ncheated, relieved, abashed, or amused, in proportion as our\nsympathy attaches more to the point of view surrendered or to that\nattained.\n\nThe disintegration of mental forms and their redintegration is the\nlife of the imagination. It is a spiritual process of birth and death,\nnutrition and generation. The strongest emotions accompany these\nchanges, and vary infinitely with their variations. All the qualities\nof discourse, wit, eloquence, cogency, absurdity, are feelings\nincidental to this process, and involved in the juxtapositions,\ntensions, and resolutions of our ideas. Doubtless the last\nexplanation of these things would be cerebral; but we are as yet\nconfined to verbal descriptions and classifications of them, which\nare always more or less arbitrary.\n\nThe most conspicuous headings under which comic effects are\ngathered are perhaps incongruity and degradation. But clearly it\ncannot be the logical essence of incongruity or degradation that\nconstitutes the comic; for then contradiction and deterioration\nwould always amuse. Amusement is a much more directly physical\nthing. We may be amused without any idea at all, as when we are\ntickled, or laugh in sympathy with others by a contagious imitation\nof their gestures. We may be amused by the mere repetition of a\nthing at first not amusing. There must therefore be some nervous\nexcitement on which the feeling of amusement directly depends,\nalthough this excitement may most often coincide with a sudden\ntransition to an incongruous or meaner image. Nor can we suppose\nthat particular ideational excitement to be entirely dissimilar to all\nothers; wit is often hardly distinguishable from brilliancy, as\nhumour from pathos. We must, therefore, be satisfied with saying\nvaguely that the process of ideation involves various feelings of\nmovement and relation, -- feelings capable of infinite gradation\nand complexity, and ranging from sublimity to tedium and from\npathos to uncontrollable merriment.\n\nCertain crude and obvious cases of the comic seem to consist of\nlittle more than a shock of surprise: a pun is a sort of jack-in-the-box,\npopping from nowhere into our plodding thoughts. The liveliness\nof the interruption, and its futility, often please; _dulce est\ndesipere in loco;_ and yet those who must endure the society of\ninveterate jokers know how intolerable this sort of scintillation can\nbecome. There is something inherently vulgar about it; perhaps\nbecause our train of thought cannot be very entertaining in itself\nwhen we are so glad to break in upon it with irrelevant nullities.\nThe same undertone of disgust mingles with other amusing\nsurprises, as when a dignified personage slips and falls, or some\ndisguise is thrown off, or those things are mentioned and described\nwhich convention ignores. The novelty and the freedom please, yet\nthe shock often outlasts the pleasure, and we have cause to wish\nwe had been stimulated by something which did not involve this\ndegradation. So, also, the impossibility in plausibility which tickles\nthe fancy in Irish bulls, and in wild exaggerations, leaves an\nuncomfortable impression, a certain aftertaste of foolishness.\n\nThe reason will be apparent if we stop to analyze the situation. We\nhave a prosaic background of common sense and every-day reality;\nupon this background an unexpected idea suddenly impinges. But\nthe thing is a futility. The comic accident falsifies the nature before\nus, starts a wrong analogy in the mind, a suggestion that cannot be\ncarried out. In a word, we are in the presence of an absurdity; and\nman, being a rational animal, can like absurdity no better than he\ncan like hunger or cold. A pinch of either may not be so bad, and\nhe will endure it merrily enough if you repay him with abundance\nof warm victuals; so, too, he will play with all kinds of nonsense\nfor the sake of laughter and good fellowship and the tickling of his\nfancy with a sort of caricature of thought. But the qualm remains,\nand the pleasure is never perfect. The same exhilaration might\nhave come without the falsification, just as repose follows more\nswiftly after pleasant than after painful exertions.\n\nFun is a good thing, but only when it spoils nothing better. The\nbest place for absurdity is in the midst of what is already absurd --\nthen we have the play of fancy without the sense of ineptitude.\nThings amuse us in the mouth of a fool that would not amuse us in\nthat of a gentleman; a fact which shows how little incongruity and\ndegradation have to do with our pleasure in the comic. In fact,\nthere is a kind of congruity and method even in fooling. The\nincongruous and the degraded displease us even there, as by their\nnature they must at all times. The shock which they bring may\nsometimes be the occasion of a subsequent pleasure, by attracting\nour attention, or by stimulating passions, such as scorn, or cruelty,\nor self-satisfaction (for there is a good deal of malice in our love of\nfun); but the incongruity and degradation, as such, always remain\nunpleasant. The pleasure comes from the inward rationality and\nmovement of the fiction, not from its inconsistency with anything\nelse. There are a great many topsy-turvy worlds possible to our\nfancy, into which we like to drop at times. We enjoy the\nstimulation and the shaking up of our wits. It is like getting into a\nnew posture, or hearing a new song.\n\nNonsense is good only because common sense is so limited. For\nreason, after all, is one convention picked out of a thousand. We\nlove expansion, not disorder, and when we attain freedom without\nincongruity we have a much greater and a much purer delight. The\nexcellence of wit can dispense with absurdity. For on the same\nprosaic background of common sense, a novelty might have\nappeared that was not absurd, that stimulated the attention quite as\nmuch as the ridiculous, without so baffling the intelligence. This\npurer and more thoroughly delightful amusement comes from what\nwe call wit.\n\n_Wit._\n\nSec. 62. Wit also depends upon transformation and substitution of\nideas. It has been said to consist in quick association by similarity.\nThe substitution must here be valid, however, and the similarity\nreal, though unforeseen. Unexpected justness makes wit, as sudden\nincongruity makes pleasant foolishness. It is characteristic of wit to\npenetrate into hidden depths of things, to pick out there some\ntelling circumstance or relation, by noting which the whole object\nappears in a new and clearer light. Wit often seems malicious\nbecause analysis in discovering common traits and universal\nprinciples assimilates things at the poles of being; it can apply to\ncookery the formulas of theology, and find in the human heart a\ncase of the fulcrum and lever. We commonly keep the departments\nof experience distinct; we think that different principles hold in\neach and that the dignity of spirit is inconsistent with the\nexplanation of it by physical analogy, and the meanness of matter\nunworthy of being an illustration of moral truths. Love must not be\nclassed under physical cravings, nor faith under hypnotization.\nWhen, therefore, an original mind overleaps these boundaries, and\nrecasts its categories, mixing up our old classifications, we feel that\nthe values of things are also confused. But these depended upon a\ndeeper relation, upon their response to human needs and\naspirations. All that can be changed by the exercise of intelligence\nis our sense of the unity and homogeneity of the world. We may\ncome to hold an object of thought in less isolated respect, and\nanother in less hasty derision; but the pleasures we derive from all,\nor our total happiness and wonder, will hardly be diminished. For\nthis reason the malicious or destructive character of intelligence\nmust not be regarded as fundamental. Wit belittles one thing and\ndignifies another; and its comparisons are as often flattering as\nironical.\n\nThe same process of mind that we observed in wit gives rise to\nthose effects we call charming, brilliant, or inspired. When\nShakespeare says,\n\n Come and kiss me, _sweet and twenty,_\n Youth's a stuff will not endure,\n\nthe fancy of the phrase consists in a happy substitution, a merry\nway of saying something both true and tender. And where could\nwe find a more exquisite charm? So, to take a weightier example,\nwhen St. Augustine is made to say that pagan virtues were\n_splendid vices,_ we have -- at least if we catch the full meaning --\na pungent assimilation of contrary things, by force of a powerful\nprinciple; a triumph of theory, the boldness of which can only be\nmatched by its consistency. In fact, a phrase could not be more\nbrilliant, or better condense one theology and two civilizations.\nThe Latin mind is particularly capable of this sort of excellence.\nTacitus alone could furnish a hundred examples. It goes with the\npower of satirical and bitter eloquence, a sort of scornful rudeness\nof intelligence, that makes for the core of a passion or of a\ncharacter, and affixes to it a more or less scandalous label. For in\nour analytical zeal it is often possible to condense and abstract too\nmuch. Reality is more fluid and elusive than reason, and has, as it\nwere, more dimensions than are known even to the latest geometry.\nHence the understanding, when not suffused with some glow of\nsympathetic emotion or some touch of mysticism, gives but a dry,\ncrude image of the world. The quality of wit inspires more\nadmiration than confidence. It is a merit we should miss little in\nany one we love.\n\nThe same principle, however, can have more sentimental\nembodiments. When our substitutions are brought on by the\nexcitement of generous emotion, we call wit inspiration. There is\nthe same finding of new analogies, and likening of disparate things;\nthere is the same transformation of our apperception. But the\nbrilliancy is here not only penetrating, but also exalting. For\ninstance:\n\n Peace, peace, he is not dead, he doth not sleep,\n He hath awakened from the dream of life:\n 'Tis we that wrapped in stormy visions keep\n With phantoms an unprofitable strife.\n\nThere is here paradox, and paradox justified by reflection. The poet\nanalyzes, and analyzes without reserve. The dream, the storm, the\nphantoms, and the unprofitableness could easily make a satirical\npicture. But the mood is transmuted; the mind takes an upward\nflight, with a sense of liberation from the convention it dissolves,\nand of freer motion in the vagueness beyond. The disintegration of\nour ideal here leads to mysticism, and because of this effort\ntowards transcendence, the brilliancy becomes sublime.\n\n_Humour._\n\nSec. 63. A different mood can give a different direction to the same\nprocesses. The sympathy by which we reproduce the feeling of\nanother, is always very much opposed to the aesthetic attitude to\nwhich the whole world is merely a stimulus to our sensibility. In\nthe tragic, we have seen how the sympathetic feeling, by which\nsuffering is appreciated and shared, has to be overlaid by many\nincidental aesthetic pleasures, if the resulting effect is to be on the\nwhole good. We have also seen how the only way in which the\nridiculous can be kept within the sphere of the aesthetically good is\nabstracting it from its relations, and treating it as an independent\nand curious stimulus; we should stop laughing and begin to be\nannoyed if we tried to make sense out of our absurdity. The less\nsympathy we have with men the more exquisite is our enjoyment\nof their folly: satirical delight is closely akin to cruelty. Defect and\nmishap stimulate our fancy, as blood and tortures excite in us the\npassions of the beast of prey. The more this inhuman attitude\nyields to sympathy and reason, the less are folly and error capable\nof amusing us. It would therefore seem impossible that we should\nbe pleased by the foibles or absurdities of those we love. And in\nfact we never enjoy seeing our own persons in a satirical light, or\nany one else for whom we really feel affection. Even in farces, the\nhero and heroine are seldom made ridiculous, because that would\njar upon the sympathy with which we are expected to regard them.\nNevertheless, the essence of what we call humour is that amusing\nweaknesses should be combined with an amicable humanity.\nWhether it be in the way of ingenuity, or oddity, or drollery, the\nhumorous person must have an absurd side, or be placed in an\nabsurd situation. Yet this comic aspect, at which we ought to wince,\nseems to endear the character all the more. This is a parallel case to\nthat of tragedy, where the depth of the woe we sympathize with\nseems to add to our satisfaction. And the explanation of the\nparadox is the same. We do not enjoy the expression of evil, but\nonly the pleasant excitements that come with it; namely, the\nphysical stimulus and the expression of good. In tragedy, the\nmisfortunes help to give the impression of truth, and to bring out\nthe noble qualities of the hero, but are in themselves depressing, so\nmuch so that over-sensitive people cannot enjoy the beauty of the\nrepresentation. So also in humour, the painful suggestions are felt\nas such, and need to be overbalanced by agreeable elements. These\ncome from both directions, from the aesthetic and the sympathetic\nreaction. On the one hand there is the sensuous and merely\nperceptive stimulation, the novelty, the movement, the vivacity of\nthe spectacle. On the other hand, there is the luxury of imaginative\nsympathy, the mental assimilation of another congenial experience,\nthe expansion into another life.\n\nThe juxtaposition of these two pleasures produces just that tension\nand complication in which the humorous consists. We are satirical,\nand we are friendly at the same time. The consciousness of the\nfriendship gives a regretful and tender touch to the satire, and the\nsting of the satire makes the friendship a trifle humble and sad.\nDon Quixote is mad; he is old, useless, and ridiculous, but he is the\nsoul of honour, and in all his laughable adventures we follow him\nlike the ghost of our better selves. We enjoy his discomfitures too\nmuch to wish he had been a perfect Amadis; and we have besides a\nshrewd suspicion that he is the only kind of Amadis there can ever\nbe in this world. At the same time it does us good to see the\ncourage of his idealism, the ingenuity of his wit, and the simplicity\nof his goodness. But how shall we reconcile our sympathy with his\ndream and our perception of its absurdity? The situation is\ncontradictory. We are drawn to some different point of view, from\nwhich the comedy may no longer seem so amusing. As humour\nbecomes deep and really different from satire, it changes into\npathos, and passes out of the sphere of the comic altogether. The\nmischances that were to amuse us as scoffers now grieve us as men,\nand the value of the representation depends on the touches of\nbeauty and seriousness with which it is adorned.\n\n_The grotesque._\n\nSec. 64. Something analogous to humour can appear in plastic forms,\nwhen we call it the grotesque. This is an interesting effect\nproduced by such a transformation of an ideal type as exaggerates\none of its elements or combines it with other types. The real\nexcellence of this, like that of all fiction, consists in re-creation; in\nthe formation of a thing which nature has not, but might\nconceivably have offered. We call these inventions comic and\ngrotesque when we are considering their divergence from the\nnatural rather than their inward possibility. But the latter\nconstitutes their real charm; and the more we study and develope\nthem, the better we understand it. The incongruity with the\nconventional type than disappears, and what was impossible and\nridiculous at first takes its place among recognized ideals. The\ncentaur and the satyr are no longer grotesque; the type is accepted.\nAnd the grotesqueness of an individual has essentially the same\nnature. If we like the inward harmony, the characteristic balance of\nhis features, we are able to disengage this individual from the class\ninto which we were trying to force him; we can forget the\nexpectation which he was going to disappoint. The ugliness then\ndisappears, and only the reassertion of the old habit and demand\ncan make us regard him as in any way extravagant.\n\nWhat appears as grotesque may be intrinsically inferior or superior\nto the normal. That is a question of its abstract material and form.\nBut until the new object impresses its form on our imagination, so\nthat we can grasp its unity and proportion, it appears to us as a\njumble and distortion of other forms. If this confusion is absolute,\nthe object is simply null; it does not exist aesthetically, except by\nvirtue of materials. But if the confusion is not absolute, and we\nhave an inkling of the unity and character in the midst of the\nstrangeness of the form, then we have the grotesque. It is the\nhalf-formed, the perplexed, and the suggestively monstrous.\n\nThe analogy to the comic is very close, as we can readily conceive\nthat it should be. In the comic we have this same juxtaposition of a\nnew and an old idea, and if the new is not futile and really\ninconceivable, it may in time establish itself in the mind, and cease\nto be ludicrous. Good wit is novel truth, as the good grotesque is\nnovel beauty. But there are natural conditions of organization, and\nwe must not mistake every mutilation for the creation of a new\nform. The tendency of nature to establish well-marked species of\nanimals shows what various combinations are most stable in the\nface of physical forces, and there is a fitness also for survival in the\nmind, which is determined by the relation of any form to our fixed\nmethod of perception. New things are therefore generally bad\nbecause, as has been well said, they are incapable of becoming old.\nA thousand originalities are produced by defect of faculty, for one\nthat is produced by genius. For in the pursuit of beauty, as in that\nof truth, an infinite number of paths lead to failure, and only one to\nsuccess.\n\n_The possibility of finite perfection._\n\nSec. 65. If these observations have any accuracy, they confirm this\nimportant truth, -- that no aesthetic value is really founded on the\nexperience or the suggestion of evil. This conclusion will doubtless\nseem the more interesting if we think of its possible extension to\nthe field of ethics and of the implied vindication of the ideal of\nmoral perfection as something essentially definable and attainable.\nBut without insisting on an analogy to ethics, which might be\nmisleading, we may hasten to state the principle which emerges\nfrom our analysis of expression. Expressiveness may be found in\nany one thing that suggests another, or draws from association with\nthat other any of its emotional colouring. There may, therefore, of\ncourse, be an expressiveness of evil; but this expressiveness will\nnot have any aesthetic value. The description or suggestion of\nsuffering may have a worth as science or discipline, but can never\nin itself enhance any beauty. Tragedy and comedy please in spite\nof this expressiveness and not by virtue of it; and except for the\npleasures they give, they have no place among the fine arts. Nor\nhave they, in such a case, any place in human life at all; unless they\nare instruments of some practical purpose and serve to preach a\nmoral, or achieve a bad notoriety. For ugly things can attract\nattention, although they cannot keep it; and the scandal of a new\nhorror may secure a certain vulgar admiration which follows\nwhatever is momentarily conspicuous, and which is attained even\nby crime. Such admiration, however, has nothing aesthetic about it,\nand is only made possible by the bluntness of our sense of beauty.\n\nThe effect of the pathetic and comic is therefore never pure; since\nthe expression of some evil is mixed up with those elements by\nwhich the whole appeals to us. These elements we have seen to be\nthe truth of the presentation, which involves the pleasures of\nrecognition and comprehension, the beauty of the medium, and the\nconcomitant expression of things intrinsically good. To these\nsources all the aesthetic value of comic and tragic is due; and the\nsympathetic emotion which arises from the spectacle of evil must\nnever be allowed to overpower these pleasures of contemplation,\nelse the entire object becomes distasteful and loses its excuse for\nbeing. Too exclusive a relish for the comic and pathetic is\naccordingly a sign of bad taste and of comparative insensibility to\nbeauty.\n\nThis situation has generally been appreciated in the practice of the\narts, where effect is perpetually studied; but the greatest care has\nnot always succeeded in avoiding the dangers of the pathetic, and\nhistory is full of failures due to bombast, caricature, and\nunmitigated horror. In all these the effort to be expressive has\ntransgressed the conditions of pleasing effect. For the creative and\nimitative impulse is indiscriminate. It does not consider the\neventual beauty of the effect, but only the blind instinct of\nself-expression. Hence an untrained and not naturally sensitive mind\ncannot distinguish or produce anything good. This critical\nincapacity has always been a cause of failure and a just ground for\nridicule; but it remained for some thinkers of our time -- a time of\nlittle art and much undisciplined production -- to erect this abuse\ninto a principle and declare that the essence of beauty is to express\nthe artist and not to delight the world. But the conditions of effect,\nand the possibility of pleasing, are the only criterion of what is\ncapable and worthy of expression. Art exists and has value by its\nadaptation to these universal conditions of beauty.\n\nNothing but the good of life enters into the texture of the beautiful.\nWhat charms us in the comic, what stirs us in the sublime and\ntouches us in the pathetic, is a glimpse of some good; imperfection\nhas value only as an incipient perfection. Could the labours and\nsufferings of life be reduced, and a better harmony between man\nand nature be established, nothing would be lost to the arts; for the\npure and ultimate value of the comic is discovery, of the pathetic,\nlove, of the sublime, exaltation; and these would still subsist.\nIndeed, they would all be increased; and it has ever been,\naccordingly, in the happiest and most prosperous moments of\nhumanity, when the mind and the world were knit into a brief\nembrace, that natural beauty has been best perceived, and art has\nwon its triumphs. But it sometimes happens, in moments less\npropitious, that the soul is subdued to what it works in, and loses\nits power of idealization and hope. By a pathetic and superstitious\nself-depreciation, we then punish ourselves for the imperfection of\nnature. Awed by the magnitude of a reality that we can no longer\nconceive as free from evil, we try to assert that its evil also is a\ngood; and we poison the very essence of the good to make its\nextension universal. We confuse the causal connexion of those\nthings in nature which we call good or evil by an adventitious\ndenomination with the logical opposition between good and evil\nthemselves; because one generation makes room for another, we\nsay death is necessary to life; and because the causes of sorrow and\njoy are so mingled in this world, we cannot conceive how, in a\nbetter world, they might be disentangled.\n\nThis incapacity of the imagination to reconstruct the conditions of\nlife and build the frame of things nearer to the heart's desire is\ndangerous to a steady loyalty to what is noble and fine. We\nsurrender ourselves to a kind of miscellaneous appreciation,\nwithout standard or goal; and calling every vexatious apparition by\nthe name of beauty, we become incapable of discriminating its\nexcellence or feeling its value. We need to clarify our ideals, and\nenliven our vision of perfection. No atheism is so terrible as the\nabsence of an ultimate ideal, nor could any failure of power be\nmore contrary to human nature than the failure of moral\nimagination, or more incompatible with healthy life. For we have\nfaculties, and habits, and impulses. These are the basis of our\ndemands. And these demands, although variable, constitute an\never-present intrinsic standard of value by which we feel and judge.\nThe ideal is immanent in them; for the ideal means that\nenvironment in which our faculties would find their freest\nemployment, and their most congenial world. Perfection would be\nnothing but life under those conditions. Accordingly our\nconsciousness of the ideal becomes distinct in proportion as we\nadvance in virtue and in proportion to the vigour and definiteness\nwith which our faculties work. When the vital harmony is\ncomplete, when the _act_ is _pure,_ faith in perfection passes into\nvision. That man is unhappy indeed, who in all his life has had no\nglimpse of perfection, who in the ecstasy of love, or in the delight\nof contemplation, has never been able to say: It is attained. Such\nmoments of inspiration are the source of the arts, which have no\nhigher function than to renew them.\n\nA work of art is indeed a monument to such a moment, the\nmemorial to such a vision; and its charm varies with its power of\nrecalling us from the distractions of common life to the joy of a\nmore natural and perfect activity.\n\n_The stability of the ideal._\n\nSec. 66. The perfection thus revealed is relative to our nature and\nfaculties; if it were not, it could have no value for us. It is revealed\nto us in brief moments, but it is not for that reason an unstable or\nfantastic thing. Human attention inevitably flickers; we survey\nthings in succession, and our acts of synthesis and our realization\nof fact are only occasional. This is the tenure of all our possessions;\nwe are not uninterruptedly conscious of ourselves, our physical\nenvironment, our ruling passions, or our deepest conviction. What\nwonder, then, that we are not constantly conscious of that\nperfection which is the implicit ideal of all our preferences and\ndesires? We view it only in parts, as passion or perception\nsuccessively directs our attention to its various elements. Some of\nus never try to conceive it in its totality. Yet our whole life is an act\nof worship to this unknown divinity; every heartfelt prayer is\noffered before one or another of its images.\n\nThis ideal of perfection varies, indeed, but only with the variations\nof our nature of which it is the counterpart and entelechy. There is\nperhaps no more frivolous notion than that to which Schopenhauer\nhas given a new currency, that a good, once attained, loses all its\nvalue. The instability of our attention, the need of rest and repair in\nour organs, makes a round of objects necessary to our minds; but\nwe turn from a beautiful thing, as from a truth or a friend, only to\nreturn incessantly, and with increasing appreciation. Nor do we\nlose all the benefit of our achievements in the intervals between\nour vivid realizations of what we have gained. The tone of the\nmind is permanently raised; and we live with that general sense of\nsteadfastness and resource which is perhaps the kernel of\nhappiness. Knowledge, affection, religion, and beauty are not less\nconstant influences in a man's life because his consciousness of\nthem is intermittent. Even when absent, they fill the chambers of\nthe mind with a kind of fragrance. They have a continual efficacy,\nas well as a perennial worth.\n\nThere are, indeed, other objects of desire that if attained leave\nnothing but restlessness and dissatisfaction behind them. These are\nthe objects pursued by fools. That such objects ever attract us is a\nproof of the disorganization of our nature, which drives us in\ncontrary directions and is at war with itself. If we had attained\nanything like steadiness of thought or fixity of character, if we\nknew ourselves, we should know also our inalienable satisfactions.\nTo say that all goods become worthless in possession is either a\npiece of superficial satire that intentionally denies the normal in\norder to make the abnormal seem more shocking, or else it is a\nconfession of frivolity, a confession that, as an idiot never learns to\ndistinguish reality amid the phantasms of his brain, so we have\nnever learned to distinguish true goods amid our extravagances of\nwhim and passion. That true goods exist is nevertheless a fact of\nmoral experience. \"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever\"; a great\naffection, a clear thought, a profound and well-tried faith, are\neternal possessions. And this is not merely a fact, to be asserted\nupon the authority of those who know it by experience. It is a\npsychological necessity. While we retain the same senses, we must\nget the same impressions from the same objects; while we keep our\ninstincts and passions, we must pursue the same goods; while we\nhare the same powers of imagination, we must experience the same\ndelight in their exercise. Age brings about, of course, variation in\nall these particulars, and the susceptibility of two individuals is\nnever exactly similar. But the eventual decay of our personal\nenergies does not destroy the natural value of objects, so long as\nthe same will embodies itself in other minds, and human nature\nsubsists in the world. The sun is not now unreal because each one\nof us in succession, and all of us in the end, must close our eyes\nupon it; and yet the sun exists for us only because we perceive it.\nThe ideal has the same conditions of being, but has this advantage\nover the sun, that we cannot know if its light is ever destined to fail\nus.\n\nThere is then a broad foundation of identity in our nature, by virtue\nof which we live in a common world, and have an art and a\nreligion in common. That the ideal should be constant within these\nlimits is as inevitable as that it should vary beyond them. And so\nlong as we exist and recognize ourselves individually as persons or\ncollectively as human, we must recognize also our immanent ideal,\nthe realization of which would constitute perfection for us. That\nideal cannot be destroyed except in proportion as we ourselves\nperish. An absolute perfection, independent of human nature and\nits variations, may interest the metaphysician; but the artist and the\nman will be satisfied with a perfection that is inseparable from the\nconsciousness of mankind, since it is at once the natural vision of\nthe imagination, and the rational goal of the will.\n\n_Conclusion._\n\nSec. 67. We have now studied the sense of beauty in what seem to be\nits fundamental manifestations, and in some of the more striking\ncomplications which it undergoes. In surveying so broad a field we\nstand in need of some classification and subdivision; and we have\nchosen the familiar one of matter, form, and expression, as least\nlikely to lead us into needless artificiality. But artificiality there\nmust always be in the discursive description of anything given in\nconsciousness. Psychology attempts what is perhaps impossible,\nnamely, the anatomy of life. Mind is a fluid; the lights and\nshadows that flicker through it have no real boundaries, and no\npossibility of permanence. Our whole classification of mental facts\nis borrowed from the physical conditions or expressions of them.\nThe very senses are distinguished because of the readiness with\nwhich we can isolate their outer organs. Ideas can be identified\nonly by identifying their objects. Feelings are recognized by their\nouter expression, and when we try to recall an emotion, we must\ndo so by recalling the circumstances in which it occurred.\n\nIn distinguishing, then, in our sense of beauty, an appreciation of\nsensible material, one of abstract form, and another of associated\nvalues, we have been merely following the established method of\npsychology, the only one by which it is possible to analyze the\nmind. We have distinguished the elements of the object, and\ntreated the feeling as if it were composed of corresponding parts.\nThe worlds of nature and fancy, which are the object of aesthetic\nfeeling, can be divided into parts in space and time. We can then\ndistinguish the material of things from the various forms it may\nsuccessively assume; we can distinguish, also, the earlier and the\nlater impressions made by the same object; and we can ascertain\nthe coexistence of one impression with another, or with the\nmemory of others. But aesthetic feeling itself has no parts, and this\nphysiology of its causes is not a description of its proper nature.\n\nBeauty as we feel it is something indescribable: what it is or what\nit means can never be said. By appealing to experiment and\nmemory we can show that this feeling varies as certain things vary\nin the objective conditions; that it varies with the frequency, for\ninstance, with which a form has been presented, or with the\nassociates which that form has had in the past. This will justify a\ndescription of the feeling as composed of the various contributions\nof these objects. But the feeling itself knows nothing of\ncomposition nor contributions. It is an affection of the soul, a\nconsciousness of joy and security, a pang, a dream, a pure pleasure.\nIt suffuses an object without telling why; nor has it any need to ask\nthe question. It justifies itself and the vision it gilds; nor is there\nany meaning in seeking for a cause of it, in this inward sense.\nBeauty exists for the same reason that the object which is beautiful\nexists, or the world in which that object lies, or we that look upon\nboth. It is an experience: there is nothing more to say about it.\nIndeed, if we look at things teleologically, and as they ultimately\njustify themselves to the heart, beauty is of all things what least\ncalls for explanation. For matter and space and time and principles\nof reason and of evolution, all are ultimately brute, unaccountable\ndata. We may describe what actually is, but it might have been\notherwise, and the mystery of its being is as baffling and dark as\never.\n\nBut we, -- the minds that ask all questions and judge of the validity\nof all answers, -- we are not ourselves independent of this world in\nwhich we live. We sprang from it, and our relations in it determine\nall our instincts and satisfactions. This final questioning and sense\nof mystery is an unsatisfied craving which nature has her way of\nstilling. Now we only ask for reasons when we are surprised. If we\nhad no expectations we should have no surprises. And what gives\nus expectation is the spontaneous direction of our thought,\ndetermined by the structure of our brain and the effects of our\nexperience. If our spontaneous thoughts came to run in harmony\nwith the course of nature, if our expectations were then continually\nfulfilled, the sense of mystery would vanish. We should be\nincapable of asking why the world existed or had such a nature,\njust as we are now little inclined to ask why anything is right, but\nmightily disinclined to give up asking why anything is wrong.\n\nThis satisfaction of our reason, due to the harmony between our\nnature and our experience, is partially realized already. The sense\nof beauty is its realization. When our senses and imagination find\nwhat they crave, when the world so shapes itself or so moulds the\nmind that the correspondence between them is perfect, then\nperception is pleasure, and existence needs no apology. The duality\nwhich is the condition of conflict disappears. There is no inward\nstandard different from the outward fact with which that outward\nfact may be compared. A unification of this kind is the goal of our\nintelligence and of our affection, quite as much as of our aesthetic\nsense; but we have in those departments fewer examples of success.\nIn the heat of speculation or of love there may come moments of\nequal perfection, but they are unstable. The reason and the heart\nremain deeply unsatisfied. But the eye finds in nature, and in some\nsupreme achievements of art, constant and fuller satisfaction. For\nthe eye is quick, and seems to have been more docile to the\neducation of life than the heart or the reason of man, and able\nsooner to adapt itself to the reality. Beauty therefore seems to be\nthe clearest manifestation of perfection, and the best evidence of its\npossibility. If perfection is, as it should be, the ultimate\njustification of being, we may understand the ground of the moral\ndignity of beauty. Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity\nbetween the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in\nthe supremacy of the good.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n1 Schopenhauer, indeed, who makes much of it, was a good critic,\nbut his psychology suffered much from the pessimistic generalities\nof his system. It concerned him to show that the will was bad, and,\nas he felt beauty to be a good if not a holy thing, he hastened to\nconvince himself that it came from the suppression of the will. But\neven in his system this suppression is only relative. The desire of\nindividual objects, indeed, is absent in the perception of beauty,\nbut there is still present that initial love of the general type and\nprinciples of things which is the first illusion of the absolute, and\ndrives it on to the fatal experiment of creation. So that, apart from\nSchopenhauer's mythology, we have even in him the recognition\nthat beauty gives satisfaction to some dim and underlying demand\nof our nature, just as particular objects give more special and\nmomentary pleasures to our individualized wills. His psychology\nwas, however, far too vague and general to undertake an analysis\nof those mysterious feelings.\n\n2 Cf. Stendhal, _De L'Amour, passim._\n\n3 This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the\nmetaphysical value of the idea of space. Suffice it to point out that\nin human experience serviceable knowledge of our environment is\nto be had only in spatial symbols, and, for whatever reason or\naccident, this is the language which the mind must speak if it is to\nadvance in clearness and efficiency.\n\n4 The discussion is limited in this chapter to visible form, audible\nform is probably capable of a parallel treatment, but requires\nstudies too technical for this place.\n\n5 The relation to stability also makes us sensitive to certain kinds\nof symmetry; but this is an adventitious consideration with which\nwe are not concerned.\n\n6 Cf. Fechner, _Vorschule der Aesthetik,_ Erster Theil, S. 73, a\npassage by which the following classification of forms was first\nsuggested.\n\n7 See Introduction, p. 12.\n\n8 The contention of Burke that the beautiful is small is due to an\narbitrary definition. By beautiful he means pretty and charming;\nagreeable as opposed to impressive. He only exaggerates the then\nusual opposition of the beautiful to the sublime.\n\n9 When we speak of things definite in themselves, we of course\nmean things made definite by some human act of definition. The\nsenses are instruments that define and differentiate sensation; and\nthe result of one operation is that definite object upon which the\nnext operation is performed. The memory, for example, classifies\nin time what the senses may have classified in space. We are\nnowhere concerned with objects other than objects of human\nexperience, and the epithets, definite and indefinite, refer\nnecessarily to their relation to our various categories of perception\nand comprehension.\n\n10 In the Aegina marbles the wounded and dying warriors still\nwear this Buddha-like expression: their bodies, although\nconventional, show a great progress in observation, compared with\nthe impossible Athena in the centre with her sacred feet in\nEgyptian profile and her owl-like visage.\n\n11 Symposium of Xenophon, V.\n\n12 It is a superstition to suppose that a refined taste would\nnecessarily find the actual and useful to be the perfect; to conceal\nstructure is as legitimate as to emphasize it, and for the name\nreason. We emphasize in the direction of abstract beauty, in the\ndirection of absolute pleasure; and we conceal or eliminate in the\nsame direction. The most exquisite Greek taste, for instance,\npreferred to drape the lower part of the female figure, as in the\nVenus of Milo; also in men to shave the hair of the face and body,\nin order to maintain the purity and strength of the lines. In the one\ncase we conceal structure, in the other we reveal it, modifying\nnature into greater sympathy with our faculties of perception. For,\nafter all, it must be remembered that beauty, or pleasure to be\ngiven to the eye, is not a guiding principle in the world of nature or\nin that of the practical arts. The beauty is in nature a result of the\nfunctional adaptation of our senses and imagination to the\nmechanical products of our environment. This adaptation is never\ncomplete, and there is, accordingly, room for the fine arts, in which\nbeauty is a result of the intentional adaptation of mechanical forms\nto the functions which our senses and imagination already have\nacquired. This watchful subservience to our aesthetic demands is\nthe essence of fine art. Nature is the basis, but man is the goal.\n\n13 Not only are words untranslatable when the exact object has no\nname in another language, as \"home\" or \"mon ami,\" but even when\nthe object is the same, the attitude toward it, incorporated in one\nword, cannot be rendered by another. Thus, to my sense, \"bread\" is\nas inadequate a translation of the human intensity of the Spanish\n\"pan\" as \"Dios\" is of the awful mystery of the English \"God.\" This\nlatter word does not designate an object at all, but a sentiment, a\npsychosis, not to say a whole chapter of religious history. English\nis remarkable for the intensity and variety of the colour of its\nwords. No language, I believe, has so many words specifically\npoetic.\n\n14 Curiously enough, common speech here reverses our use of\nterms, because it looks at the matter from the practical instead of\nfrom the aesthetic point of view, regarding (very unpsychologically)\nthe thought as the source of the image, not the image as the\nsource of the thought. People call the words the expression\nof the thought: whereas for the observer, the hearer (and generally\nfor the speaker, too), the words are the datum and the thought is\ntheir expressiveness -- that which they suggest.\n\n\nINDEX\n\nAchilles, 179, 187.\nAesthetic feeling, its importance, 1.\n speculation, causes of its neglect, 2.\n theory, its uses, 6, 7.\nAesthetics, Use of the word, 15.\nAngels, 55, 182.\nApperception, 96 _et seq._\nArabic inscriptions as ornament, 195.\nArchitecture, Effects of Gothic, 165, 166.\n governed by use, 161, 162.\nAristotelian forms, 156.\nAristotle, 174, 175, 288.\nAssociative process, 198 _et seq._\nAugustine, Saint, quoted, 252.\n\n\nBeauty a value, 14 _et seq._\n as felt is indescribable, 267, 268.\n a justification of things, 268, 269.\n defined, 49 _et seq._\n verbal definitions quoted, 14.\nBeethoven, 43.\nBreathing related to the sense of beauty, 56.\nBurke, 124, note.\nByron, quoted, 136.\nByzantine architecture, 108, 109.\n\nCalderon, 174.\nCentaurs, 183, 256.\nCharacter as an aesthetic form, 176 _et seq._\nCharacters, Ideal, 180 _et seq._\nCharles V.'s palace at the Alhambra, 44.\nChrist, the various ideas of his nature, 189.\nCircle, its aesthetic quality, 89.\nClassicism, French and English, 109.\nColonnades, 108.\nColour, 72 _et seq._\n its analogy to other sensations, 74, 75.\n possibility of an abstract art of colour, 75.\nComic, The, 245 _et seq._\nConscience, its representative character, 33, 34.\nCost as an element of effect, 211 _et seq._\nCouplet, The, 108.\nCriticism, Use of the word, 15.\n\nDefinite and indefinite, meaning of the terms, 138, note.\nDegradation not what pleases in the comic, 247 _et seq._\nDemocracy, aesthetics of it, 109\nDescartes, 16, 183.\nDisinterestedness not the differentia of aesthetic pleasure,\n 37 _et seq._\nDon Quixote, 179, 255.\n\nEconomy and fitness, 214 _et seq._\nEmerson, 144.\nEpicurean esthetics, 10, 11.\n sublime, The, 241, 243.\nEscurial, The, 95, 210.\nEthos, 174, 175.\nEvil, life without it aesthetic, 29, 30.\n in the second term of expression, 221 _et seq._\n conventional use of the word, 223.\n an occasion of the sublime, 235 _et seq._\n excluded from the beautiful, 260, 261.\nEvolution, its possible tendency to eliminate imagination, 26\nExclusiveness a sign of aesthetic vigour, 44.\nExperience superior to theory in aesthetics, 11, 12.\nExpression defined, 192 _et seq._\n of feeling in another, 202, 203.\n of practical values, 208 _et seq._\nExpressiveness, Use of the word, 197.\n\nFechner, 97.\nForm, There is a beauty of, 82 _et seq._\n the unity of a manifold, 95 _et seq._\nFunctions of the mind may all contribute to the sense of beauty,\n 53 _et seq._\n\nGeometrical figures, 88 _et seq._\nGod, the idea of him in tradition and in metaphysics, 188, 189.\nGods, development of their ideal characters, 185 _et seq._\nGoethe, 9, 170, 179.\nGrammar, its analogy to metaphysics, 169.\nGretchen, 179.\nGrotesque, The, 256 _et seq._\n\nHamlet, 179.\nHappiness and aesthetic interest, 63, 65.\nHealth a condition of aesthetic life, 54.\nHedonism opposed by the moral sense, 23, 24.\nHistory an imaginative thing, 141, 142.\nHome as a social and as an aesthetic idea, 64.\nHomer, 171.\n his aesthetic quality, 205, 206.\n his epithets, 179.\nHorace, quoted, 172.\nHumour, 253 _et seq._\n\nIdeals are modified averages, 121 _et seq._\n immanent in human nature, 262.\n stable, 263 _et seq._\nImagination has a universal creative function, 190, 191.\n and sense alternately active, 55, 56.\nImpression distinguished from expression, 84, 85.\nImpressionism in painting, 134, 136.\nincongruity not what pleases in the comic, 247 _et seq._\nIndeterminate organizational _et seq._\nInfinite beauty, the idea impossible, 148 _et seq._\nInspiration, 252, 253.\n\nKalokagathia, 31.\nKant, 105.\nKeats, quoted, 67, 105, 181, 264.\nKing Lear, 229.\nKipling, R., quoted, 68.\n\nLandscape, 133 _et seq._\n with figures, 135, 136.\nLiberation of self, 233 _et seq._\nLove, influence of the passion, 56 _et seq._\nLowell, J. R., quoted, 148.\nLower senses, 65 _et seq._\nLucretius, quoted, 172.\n on the sublime, 236.\n\nMaps, 209, 210.\nMaterial beauty most easily appreciated, 78 _et seq._\n its effect the fundamental one, 78.\nMaterials of beauty surveyed, 76 _et seq._\nMethods in aesthetics, 5.\nMichael Angelo, 182.\nMiser's fallacy, its parallel in morals and aesthetics, 31, 32.\nModern languages inferior to the ancient, 173, 174.\nMoliere, 174; quoted, 20.\nMonarchy, its imaginative value, 34, 35.\nMoral and aesthetic values, 23 _et seq._\n the authority of morals over aesthetics, 218 _et seq._\nMorality and utility jealous of art, 216, 217.\nMultiplicity in uniformity, 97 _et seq._\n its defects, 106 _et seq._\nMusset, Alfred de, quoted, 170, 226.\nMysticism in aesthetics, 126 _et seq._\n\nNaturalism, the ground of its value, 21.\nNature, its organization the source of apperceptive forms,\n 152 _et seq._\n the love of it among the ancients, 137, 138.\nNew York, the plan of the streets, 95.\nNouns, idea of a language without them, 171.\n\nObjectification the differentia of aesthetic pleasure, 44 _et seq._\nOrnament and form, 63 _et seq._\nOthello, 237.\nOvid, quoted, 149.\n\nPantheism, its contradictions, 242, 243.\nPerception, the psychological theory of it, 45 _et seq._\nPerfection, illusion of infinite, 146 _et seq._\n possibility of finite, 258 _et seq._\nPhysical pleasure distinguished from aesthetic, 35 _et seq._\nPhysiology of the perception of form, 85 _et seq._\nPicturesqueness contrasted with symmetry, 92.\nPlatonic ideas useless in explaining types, 117, 118.\nPlatonic intuitions, their nature and value, 8 _et seq._\nPlatonists, 159.\nPlot, The, 174 _et seq._\nPreference ultimately irrational, 18 _et seq._\n necessary to value, 17, 18.\nPrinciples consecrated aesthetically, 31 _et seq._\nPurity, The aesthetic principle of, 70 _et seq._\n\nRationality, the source of its value, 19, 20.\nReligious characters, their truth, 188.\n imagination, 185 _et seq._\nRhyme, 173, 174.\nRomanticism, 150.\n\nSchopenhauer, 263.\n criticised, 37,\n note, on music, 69.\nScientific attitude in criticism opposed to the aesthetic, 20, 21.\nSculpture, its development, 153, 154.\nSelf not a primary object of interest, 39, 40.\nSensuous beauty of fundamental importance, 80, 81.\nSex, its relation to aesthetic life, 56 _et seq._\nShakespeare, 151, 174, 175;\n quoted, 51, 114, 229, 237, 251.\nShelley quoted, 12, 244, 253.\nSight, its primacy in perception, 73, 74.\nSize related to beauty, 123, 124.\nSky, The, its expressiveness, 8.\nSocial interests and their aesthetic influence, 62 _et seq._\nSocrates, his utilitarian aesthetics, 157.\nSonnet, The, 173.\nSound, 68 _et seq._\nSpace, its metaphysical value, 66, note.\nStars, the effect analyzed, 100 _et seq._\nStendhal, 61.\nStoic Sublime, The, 241.\nStraight lines, 89, 90.\nSubjectivity of aesthetic values, 3,4.\nSublime, The, its independence of the expression of evil,\n 239 _et seq._\nSublimity, 233 _et seq._\nSybaris, 216.\nSymbolists, 144.\nSymmetry, 91 _et seq._\n a principle of individuation, 93.\n limits of its application, 95.\nSyntactical form, 171 _et seq._\n\nTacitus, 173, 252.\nTerms, the first and second terms in expression defined, 195.\n influence of the first term in the pleasing expression of evil,\n 226 _et seq._\nTheory a method of apperception, 138 _et seq._\nTragedy mitigated by beauty of form and the expression of good,\n 228, 229.\n mitigated by the diversity of evils, 229.\n mixed with comedy, 224, 225, 228.\n consists in treatment not in subject, 224.\nTranslation necessarily inadequate, 168.\nTruth, grounds of its value, 22, 23.\nTruth, mixture of the expression of truth with that of evil,\n 228 _et seq._\nTypes, their origin, 116 _et seq._\n their value and that of examples, 112 _et seq._\n\nUgly, The, not a cause of pain, 25.\nUniversality not the differentia of aesthetic pleasure, 40 _et seq._\nUtility the principle of organization in nature, 155 _et seq._\n its relation to beauty, 157 _et seq._\n the principle of organization in the arts, 160 _et seq._\n\nValue, aesthetic value in the second term of expression, 205 _et\nseq._\n all in one sense aesthetic, 28 _et seq._\n physical, practical, and negative transformed into aesthetic,\n 201 _et seq._\nVenus of Milo, 165, note.\nVirgin Mary, The, 189, 190.\n\nWhitman, 112.\nWit, 250 _et seq._\nWords, 167 _et seq._\nWordsworth quoted, 105.\nWork and play, 25 _et seq._\n\nXenophon quoted, 123.\n his _Symposium,_ 157.","title":"The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":70675}