{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43484/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43484","id":"gutenberg_43484","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43484","summary":null,"tags":["Aesthetics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Transcriber's Note:\n\n    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as\n    possible.\n\n    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.\n\n\n\n\nBeauty and the Beast\n\n\n\n\n    CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS\n\n    C. F. CLAY, MANAGER\n\n    LONDON: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4\n\n    [Illustration]\n\n    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.\n\n    BOMBAY   }\n    CALCUTTA } MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.\n    MADRAS   }\n\n    TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO.\n    OF CANADA, LTD.\n\n    TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA\n\n    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n\n                          Beauty and the Beast\n\n                                AN ESSAY\n                                   IN\n                         EVOLUTIONARY AESTHETIC\n\n                                   BY\n\n                       STEWART A. McDOWALL, B.D.\n\n          Chaplain and Assistant Master at Winchester College\n            Author of _Evolution and the Need of Atonement_,\n             _Evolution and Spiritual Life_, _Evolution and\n                  the Doctrine of the Trinity_, _etc._\n\n                               CAMBRIDGE\n                        AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS\n                                  1920\n\n\n    For verily all men by nature were but vain who had no perception\n    of God, and from the good things that are seen they gained not\n    power to know him that is, neither by giving heed to the works\n    did they recognise the artificer; but either fire, or wind, or\n    swift air, or circling stars, or raging water, or luminaries of\n    heaven, they thought to be gods that rule the world. And if it was\n    through delight in their beauty that they took them to be gods,\n    let them know how much better than these is their Sovereign Lord;\n    for the first author of beauty created them: but if it was through\n    astonishment at their power and influence, let them understand from\n    them how much more powerful is he that formed them; for from the\n    greatness of the beauty even of created things in like proportion\n    does man form the image of their first maker. But yet for these\n    men there is but small blame, for they too peradventure do but go\n    astray while they are seeking God and desiring to find him. For\n    living among his works they make diligent search, and they yield\n    themselves up to sight, because the things that they look upon are\n    beautiful. But again even they are not to be excused. For if they\n    had power to know so much, that they should be able to explore\n    the course of things, how is it that they did not sooner find the\n    Sovereign Lord of these his works?\n\n                                                       Wisdom xiii. 1-9.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nI wish to take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Mrs R.\nB. Goodden and Mr R. M. Y. Gleadowe for the help they have given me\nin writing this book. With Mrs Goodden the theory was discussed point\nby point, and her criticisms and suggestions are largely responsible\nfor the final shaping of the argument, as well as for an important\ndevelopment of the theory. To Mr Gleadowe I am indebted for some useful\nhints, which led to a partial rearrangement of the material, by which\nthe form of the book has been greatly improved.\n\n                                                              S. A. MCD.\n\n  WINTON,\n    _October 1919_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                          PAGE\n\n    INTRODUCTION                             1\n\n    PART I. THE THEORY                      17\n\n    PART II. BEAUTY IN EVOLUTION            51\n\n    CONCLUSION                              65\n\n    APPENDIX. ART FORMS IN DEVELOPMENT      71\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nAre we to look at the Beautiful with our feet firmly planted on\nthe Natural, or are we to look at the Natural from the apparently\nprecarious height of the Beautiful? This, after all, is the dilemma\nof aesthetic, slow though men have been to realise it. As we read the\nhistory of Aesthetic Theory we are puzzled by the tentativeness and the\nuncertainty even of those philosophers who played the greatest part in\nmoulding human thought, until it dawns on us that, idealist though they\nmight be in all else, in this they were unconsciously disloyal to their\nown systems, being in some measure materialist.\n\nAn attempt to form a philosophy of religion which should start from\nthe generally accepted facts of biological science and pass, through\nthe common experiences of personal relationship, to the ultimate\nproblems of Godhead and manhood, left at the close a keen sense of\nsomething lacking--something more than the lack of unity and balance\ninevitable in work written and published step by step. I had tried to\nfind in Love, which is the very nature of Godhead, an essential impulse\ntowards creation. It was clear that this creation must be the creation\nof something _new_, if it were to be justified; and the conclusion\nwhich forced itself upon me was that the creation of personal beings\nfulfilled this demand.\n\nYet an unsatisfied sense remained either that even the experience of\nlove reciprocated by fresh personal beings could not be new for God\nwith that utter newness which belief in Him as Transcendent and Perfect\nrequired, or else that His experience was not always perfect. At any\nrate something that would make this newness self-evident was missing.\nSomething vital had clearly been left out. The one thing of which no\naccount had been taken was Beauty; and I began to consider whether this\nmissing something, all-pervading yet intangible, was not Beauty itself.\nAnd in Beauty I seemed to find what I had missed.\n\nTo Aesthetic has generally been assigned the fate of Cinderella. Her\nuglier sisters, Epistemology and Metaphysic, have monopolised the court\ninvitations, for the most part. Might she not, after all, be destined\nto marry the Prince? A little thought made it clear that, properly\narrayed, she would bid fair to outshine the others. This book is not an\neffort to dress her in a new fashion. Fairy godmother I cannot claim to\nbe, nor have I a magic wand. I shall only try to strip off some of the\nrags, leaving her, like Psyche, to proclaim her own loveliness.\n\nIt is not my intention to give a systematic account of the development\nof aesthetic theory. Such books as Dr Bosanquet\u2019s _History of\nAesthetic_, and the historical portion of Croce\u2019s _Aesthetic_, from\nwhich works the following summary is chiefly derived, fortunately\nmake the task unnecessary. Nor does any detailed criticism of the\nwork of others fall within the scope of the present essay. My aim is\nmerely to suggest an idea, avoiding technicalities as far as I may,\nand then to link it up with the Christian idea of God on the one hand,\nand with the development of the human soul on the other. The very\nbriefest note on the course of speculation concerning Art and Beauty\nwill suffice to introduce the point of view that I wish to suggest,\nwhich is that Beauty must be a first and not a last consideration for\nmetaphysic. To advocate this is to turn his own weapon against Croce;\nbut that is inevitable. Croce claims that Beauty is the expression\nof that intuition of Reality which constitutes the first stage of\nknowledge; but the philosophy of Croce is anti-metaphysical. Since\nmany, while agreeing with the great and original discovery involved in\nhis affirmation, must disagree profoundly with his negation, it follows\nof necessity that sooner or later they will endeavour to hoist him with\nhis own petard.\n\nAesthetic theories show a steady and yet very remarkable change in\nthe views of philosophers concerning Art and even Beauty itself. The\nGreeks tended, on the whole, to regard Art as mere imitation. Thus, at\nbest, the beauty produced by artistic creation was inferior, because\nsecond-hand; in fact, as Plato argued, the artist\u2019s representation\nwas really third-hand, for there is first the idea, then the concrete\nindividual object, then the representation. Stress was laid on\nharmony, rhythm, order, as being indicative of the homogeneity of\nan ideal world and therefore admirable. But, being an incomplete\nreproduction of nature[1], art could have no primary importance. It\nmight be evil or good, in its own degree; and from the moral standpoint\nit might be judged, for the beautiful and the good are not completely\ndistinguished. Being so judged, it was found wanting. It is one of the\ntragedies of thought that the beauty-loving Plato should have been\ndriven to formulate a theory which is the negation of art, because it\nseemed to him that art was simply the false endeavouring to masquerade\nas the true. In Aristotle we find the beginnings of a freer idea.\nSymbolism in art is implicitly recognised, and there is some escape,\nthough not much, from the moralistic bond; some dawning conception,\nthough not much, of the concrete expressiveness of artistic creation.\nIn the Middle Ages the mystical symbolic conception, characteristic\nof Plotinus, was developed. Symmetry and rhythm are beautiful because\nthey symbolise reason and divinity, and relate the human soul, through\nthe perception of order, to the divine which created that order. St\nThomas Aquinas even goes so far as to say that in beauty desire is\nquieted[2]--presumably because satisfied. We shall be led to disagree\nprofoundly with this statement.\n\nOf Vico (1725), to whom Croce acknowledges so great a debt, we will\nonly here say that he was the discoverer of the creative intuition,\nand this discovery entitles him to the honourable position of first\nfounder of a coherent theory of aesthetic. Vico was primarily concerned\nwith the nature of poetry. He showed that poetry was a \u2018moment\u2019 of the\nspiritual consciousness, by which a man was brought into contact with\nreality--that it represented a stage of knowledge _before_ reflection\n(and was therefore an intuition) and that it expressed this knowledge\n(and was therefore creative); while it was distinct from feeling, and\ntherefore free from the stigma which Plato attached to it, and which\nled to his banishing it from his _Republic_.\n\n    Men first _feel_ without being aware; they then _become aware_\n    with troubled and affected soul; finally they reflect with pure\n    mind. This dignity is the _Principle of the poetical feelings_,\n    which are formed by the senses of _passions_ and of _affections_,\n    as distinct from the _philosophical feelings_, which are formed\n    from _reflection by reasoning_. Hence the philosophical feelings\n    approach more to truth, the more they rise to _universals_; the\n    poetical feelings are more certain the more they approach to\n    _particulars_[3].\n\nPoetry is thus placed on the imaginative plane, says Professor Wildon\nCarr, as distinct from the intellective, and this imaginative plane, or\nas Croce calls it, degree, is furnished with positive value.\n\nBy Kant we first find the problem of aesthetic faced boldly and at\nclose quarters. Kant\u2019s thought had led him to the formulation of two\nCritiques, the one dealing with the world of abstract reason, the other\nwith the world of concrete, practical experience; and no systematic\nbond yet existed between them. The unity of life itself made such a\ndualism intolerable, and Kant sought the unifying medium in aesthetic\njudgment, for judgment is pre-eminently a synthesis. The domain of\naesthetic consciousness, if purely subjective by Kant\u2019s interpretation,\nis yet clearly determined. It furnishes decisions on the quality,\nthe quantity and the relation of those objects with which practical\nexperience makes us acquainted, and with whose existence the intellect\nis occupied. Yet beauty is for Kant subjective, devoid of abstract\nconceptions, pleasing without interest, destitute of content; though he\nfails in achieving more than a verbal consistency in this matter[4].\nSubjective or not, however, it is symbolic of the moral order, and owes\nits apparent rationality to the Order which it symbolises. No doubt\nit is through the doctrine of symbolism that Kant is led on to his\ndiscussion of the sublime as another species of the aesthetic judgment,\nyet more subjective, yet more abstract.\n\nWith Schelling we reach the stage of philosophical appreciation of the\nobjectivity of beauty; and, with this objectivity, of the relation\nof beauty to historical continuity, both in its own expression in\nthe mind of man, and in the sequence of objective episodes. The\nartist recognises the eternal idea in an individual, and expresses\nit outwardly, transforming the individual into a world apart, into a\nspecies, into an eternal idea[5]. The divine, successively expressing\nitself through man, gives a unity and absoluteness to all reality; and\nreality is the object of the aesthetic judgment.\n\nWe have not stayed to discuss, or even state, the many definitions\nof the Beautiful that have been given. Neither have we attempted to\nrepresent the contribution of countless writers to the problem. Our\nonly object in this brief page of summary has been to indicate the\nchanging trend of thought.\n\nThe Greeks reared their philosophic system on an unstable foundation,\nbecause they looked on Beauty as mere imitation. For them Art mimics\nlife as crudely as a company of strolling players at a country fair\nmimics the doings of the great. Art is dramatic rather than true.\n\nBut with less rigorous and honest minds than Plato\u2019s the instinctive\nlove of beauty weighed more strongly. Beauty was, at highest, too\nennobling to be wholly false; it must at least symbolise the true. And\nwhen a more disciplined thought was once more turned upon Reality,\nwithout beauty the world seemed dual--hard and cold, with theory and\npractice divorced. The only bond appeared to lie in the region of\nthe judgment of values, itself essentially aesthetic. Men born out\nof due time there were who showed here and there flashes of deeper\ninsight before Kant\u2019s systematisation was effected, but to them\ncame only sporadic glimpses of the truth. These for the most part\nwere men deeply versed in the life and soul of man--the Dantes, the\nShakespeares, the Goethes. Only one was pre-eminent in the realm of\npure thought--Giambattista Vico. With other thinkers the tide rose and\nfell alternately, yet always moved from the neap of Platonism towards\nthe spring.\n\nThen, at the end, in our own time, Benedetto Croce set himself to\nformulate the first adequate theory of the Aesthetic.\n\nThe importance of Beauty to any system of philosophy that could pretend\nto completeness had been more and more recognised. It was left for\nCroce to grasp the truth that Beauty is not judgment, but expression:\nthe expression of the intuition which is our first contact with\nReality; and that Aesthetic is the science of expressive activity.\nGiven this first movement of the spirit, the other modes of approach\nto Reality follow--or rather are involved, since no temporal series is\nconcerned.\n\nCroce\u2019s philosophy as a whole, and especially his extension of the\nlogical _a priori_ synthesis on which it is founded, is difficult to\ngrasp; and for the sake of those who may not have made acquaintance\nwith his own exposition or with Professor Wildon Carr\u2019s summary, a\nbrief discussion of one or two salient points may be forgiven. It is\nonly fair to state, however, that it is not possible to give a really\nshort and clear _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ that will do justice to the most interesting\nand elusive of modern philosophies.\n\nWe may begin by explaining what Croce means by an intuition, what he\nmeans by the _a priori_ synthesis, and what part the relation of the\ndouble degree plays in his system.\n\nWhen you perceive an object, already you are using two mental\nprocesses, which cannot in fact be separated, or exist the one without\nthe other. In the first place there is simple awareness of a reality.\nYou objectify an impression without arguing as to its reality at all,\nor relating it to yourself or anything else. You merely characterise\nthe thing, and are aware of it as concrete and individual. This is the\nPure Intuition. It has no admixture of intellectual process. And its\nsalient characteristic is _that it is made or expressed by the mind_,\nand is indeed identical with this expression. You cannot separate the\nintuition from its expression. Moreover it is aesthetic in nature. Its\ncharacter is identical with the character of the mind-process which\nmakes the vision of the artist and the poet.\n\nBut this intuition is at once generalised, and related. The process of\ngeneralisation is the formation of the Concept, and is characteristic\nof the logical or intellectual activity. Moreover the Pure Concept is\nuniversal, and expressive, belonging to all individuals; concrete, and\ntherefore real. Pseudo-concepts, which fail either in universality,\nexpressiveness or concreteness, do exist and are of great value, but\nthis value belongs not to the theoretical, but to the practical,\nactivity. \u2018Evolution\u2019 is a pure concept, \u2018chair\u2019 a pseudo-concept. For\nour purpose it is not necessary to elaborate this point.\n\nWhat does interest us is the relation between the two theoretical\nactivities of the spirit--Intuition and Concept. They are \u2018moments in\nthe unity of a single process.\u2019 Neither takes a prior place. \u201cWe cannot\nthink without universalising, and we cannot have an intuition without\nthinking[6].\u201d In other words, they are related in a synthesis that is\n_a priori_. This means that the intellectual activity which relates\nand generalises the intuitions or presentations does not depend upon\nthem, but is as much a condition of experience as are the presentations\nthemselves. Each of the two things, the intuition and the concept, is\nessential to knowledge; the concept is empty of content without the\nintuition, but you cannot have an intuition without thinking it. The\ntwo form an indivisible, organic unity; neither able to exist without\nthe other. You cannot think without universalising, nor intuit without\nthinking. This is the logical _a priori_ synthesis discovered by Kant.\nBut Croce proceeds to use it in a wider sense, as we shall see.\n\nThese two elements then, the intuitional and the conceptual, together\nconstitute the whole theoretic activity of knowing.\n\nNow the first of these elements, the intuition, is expression of a\nreality to the self. It is essentially aesthetic, for aesthetic is the\nscience of expressive activity. In forming an intuition, and expressing\nit, we compass Beauty, for Beauty is expression.\n\nBut there is another side to the activity of the spirit. Thinking and\ndoing, willing and acting, go hand in hand.\n\nThe Practical Activity begins as Economic, directed towards\nparticular ends. There is individual action; but there is also action\nuniversalised: directed to general ends: and this action is Ethical.\nUtility passes over into goodness: there is no good action which is not\nin some way useful, there is no useful action which is not in some way\ngood.\n\nHere again, then, we have two inseparable activities, related, as\nare the theoretic activities, as a first and second degree, yet each\ninvolving the other. The relation is identical with that of the _a\npriori_ synthesis, and the term may be extended to cover this relation\nalso.\n\nFinally, the two sides of the activity of the spirit, the theoretic and\nthe practical, are themselves related in this same double degree by a\nrelation of synthesis that we may again term _a priori_. The theoretic\nactivity cannot exist apart from the practical, nor the practical\napart from the theoretic. The relation is again the same as that which\nobtains for the relation of the elements constituting each pair of the\nfour \u2018moments,\u2019 and for the pairs themselves. The _a priori_ synthesis\nis extended to cover all these relations.\n\nWith Croce\u2019s theory of Beauty we have already made acquaintance. As\nwe have seen, Kant laid the foundations by his discussion of the\njudgment of taste; Vico, by distinguishing the imaginative from the\nintellectual plane, had supplied the basal idea; but it was left to\nCroce to see that Beauty is expression, or the form given by the spirit\nto its intuitions, through which it makes contact with Reality. It\nmust, however, be borne in mind that Croce draws an absolutely definite\nline between the expression, which belongs to the Theoretic Activity,\nand the technical embodiment of that expression, which belongs to the\ndomain of the Practical. The work of art affords simply the stimulus\nwhich enables us to recreate the artist\u2019s expression; and it is the\nexpression, not the work of art, that is beautiful. The Beautiful\nis a distinct concept; the Ugly is ugly in so far as it fails in\ndistinctness, through failure to express. Beauty is simply aesthetic\nvalue--the value of the expressed intuition; ugliness the lack of\naesthetic value, through lack of clarity in intuition and expression.\n\nIt is needless for us to follow out the rest of Croce\u2019s system. The\nchief point that remains is his identification of Philosophy with\nHistory--the _thought_ about the presentation of Reality (Philosophy)\nwith that presentation itself as an unfolding of immanent life\n(History). This identification really follows from the relation of the\ndouble degree between the theoretic and the practical. In thinking\npast history you bring it into the present as a practical issue; and\nyou introduce the logical element in thinking it, but you could not\ndo so if there were not an intuitive element in it intrinsically.\nPhilosophy is historically conditioned; without philosophy there could\nbe no history. With this line of argument, whose affinities with\nthe philosophy of Bergson are obvious, Croce rounds off his system,\ncompleting his demonstration that the only Reality is living Spirit,\nimmanent and unfolding.\n\nThus, according to Croce, the expressive nature of the Intuition, as it\nobjectifies itself, and so differentiates itself from mere sensation,\nis appreciated by the mind, and serves as the first step in the\nformation of the Concept or judgment of definition. For the Concept\nis expressive, universal, and concrete. Through the Concept we arrive\nat knowledge of Reality; and this Concept reacts upon the Intuition,\ngiving rise to the individual judgment. Croce shows, by demonstrating\nthat analysis apart from synthesis, and equally synthesis apart from\nanalysis, in any act of thought, is inconceivable, that one must, by an\nextension of the logical _a priori_ synthesis, identify the judgment of\ndefinition and the individual judgment. You cannot, like the idealists,\nseparate the concept from the facts, nor, like the empiricists, the\nfacts from the concept. But neither in the realm of aesthetic interest\ncan you separate the fact from its expressive intuition, or _vice\nversa_. The whole of Croce\u2019s system is, as he says, a philosophy of\nthe spirit, which is itself all Reality. The activity of the spirit is\ntwofold. In its theoretic activity there are two stages, Aesthetic and\nLogic, each involving the other, yet the first in a sense independent\nbecause primary, the second dependent on the first. In its practical\nactivity there are also two degrees, the Economic and the Ethic,\nrelated to each other in the same way. Yet of these two activities,\ntheoretic and practical, each involves the other, and in an _a priori_\nsynthesis each substantiates the other.\n\nIt is not our purpose to examine the philosophy of Croce as a whole.\nSome points of disagreement with him will become manifest as we proceed\nto develop our discussion of the nature of beauty. Notably, we shall\ndisagree with his rejection of a metaphysic and his denial of a God;\nsince their inclusion is not really so inimical to his system as he\nsupposes, their rejection by him would seem to be in a measure an\naccident of his circumstances, while their omission leaves the why? of\nspiritual and personal being unanswered. For the moment all we need\nis his discovery that Beauty is Expression, Aesthetic the Science of\nExpression; that to appreciate a work of art is to create it yourself\nby entering into the mind, and following the same path, as the original\ncreator of it; and, first and most important of all, that our knowledge\nof the Real owes its possibility and its first beginnings to the\nmovement of aesthetic intuition. It is a far cry from Plato to Croce.\n\nIf the fine arts be utterly distinct, having nothing in common save\na background of emotion, this Essay is a meaningless attempt to\nexpress something which does not exist. It stands condemned; and\nthis condemnation it shares with many nobler works. But if, as Croce\nurges, each art aims at presenting, through the practise of its own\nconventions, aspects of Truth which are suitable to that special\nmedium, no effort to find a highest common factor of all arts is\nnecessarily doomed to failure.\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\nTHE THEORY\n\n\nWhat is Beauty? Many have asked it, and could find no answer because\nthey understood their question no more than jesting Pilate understood\nhis \u2018What is Truth?\u2019 But many beside have asked it with at least a real\ndesire to understand. It was already in the mind of the prehistoric\nartist who was the first to draw a pattern or to sketch the mammoth,\nthough no doubt he did not put the question to himself. It has been\nthere, expressed or unexpressed, wherever a man has had vision enough\nto find his spirit stirred by a flower or a cathedral; a fabric or the\nlow October sun upon a sheet of gossamer; wherever a man has tried\nto reproduce nature on canvas or pour out his longing and triumph in\nsound or written words. He has cried out that beauty dwells only in his\nown spirit, for there have been moods and days when he could see no\nbeauty in that which at other times moved him deeply. Yet the agreement\nof civilised mankind, at all events, that this or that particular is\nbeautiful is so widely diffused that he cannot but admit that something\nin the object itself must suggest the idea of beauty. Taste may change,\nbut the sunset and the rose are universally acclaimed by all who have\nany aesthetic perception at all. On the other hand, faced with the\nvagaries of artistic fashion a man finds no absolute beauty, and is\ndriven to a subjective theory, for he cannot admire the protruding,\ndistorted lip so persuasive to certain savages. But no sooner is\nthis theory constructed than he is brought up once more against the\ndifficulty that an object is required before the sense of beauty is\naroused, and that men do agree in attributing beauty to many things.\n\nBecause the perception of beauty involves a judgment (which really\nbelongs to the intellectual process, and not properly to the\naesthetic), beauty itself seems too elusive for definition. It has been\nleft, as we have said, for Croce to formulate the first satisfactory\nconcept of beauty. He saw what no one else had seen--that man\u2019s first\ncontact with the Real, the first movement of the spirit that stretched\nbeyond a mere sensation, was a creative act, an intuition not a\njudgment, expressing the reality to himself. Beauty, says Croce, is\nexpression. Afterwards the man might give his expression objective\nform through some technique. Hence derive pictures, sculpture, music,\ndancing, poetry, drama, architecture, language itself; all the arts.\nOr the expression of his intuition may remain simply as a formative\nagent of his spirit. There are many mute inglorious Miltons. But he\nhas expressed his intuition to himself, and it has formed a new\nmaterial for his conceptual activity, whether or no he brings it far\ninto the domain of the practical, through technique, in order that it\nmay subserve some economic or moral function for himself and other\nmen. That he must bring it into the practical in some measure, whether\nhe does or does not give it technical form, is clear to anyone who\nhas grasped Croce\u2019s main thought. The aesthetic intuition is for the\nindividual, but he is driven to universalise it by thought (_i.e._\nlogic). It is of practical value to himself (economic motive) and it is\ncapable of being made of use to others (ethical motive). Theoretic and\npractical cannot be isolated from one another.\n\nAs aesthetic is to logic, so is economic to ethic, and so is theoretic\nto practical; it is the relation of the double degree.\n\n_A priori_ synthesis unites each of the theoretic and of the practical\nactivities with the other, and the same _a priori_ synthesis unites the\ntheoretic and the practical themselves, of which neither exclusively\nprecedes the other in the circle of Real Being. This _is_ the life of\nthe spirit.\n\nNow in considering this theory of Croce\u2019s we notice at once that mind\nor spirit is for him a datum, and that he assumes further that spirit\nis active and is definable only by its activity. He gives no reason\nfor this activity. The cause of this is not far to seek, for his whole\nsystem is confessedly anti-metaphysical, and so, of necessity, stops\nshort of ultimate things. Life, spirit, is for him the true mystery,\nand this is immanent. There is no room for transcendence. All he can\nsay is that no philosophical system is definite because Life itself is\nnever definite[7].\n\n    Truth is always surrounded with mystery, an ascending to ever\n    higher heights, which are without a summit, as Life is without a\n    summit[8].\n\n    The spirit, which is infinite possibility passing into infinite\n    actuality, has drawn and draws at every moment the cosmos from\n    chaos, has collected diffused life into the concentrated life of\n    the organ, has achieved the passage from animal to human life, has\n    created and creates modes of life ever more lofty. The work of the\n    spirit is not finished and never will be finished. Our yearning\n    for something higher is not vain. The very yearning, the infinity\n    of our desire, is proof of the infinity of that process. The plant\n    dreams of the animal, the animal of man, man of superman; for this,\n    too, is a reality, if it be reality that with every historical\n    movement man surpasses himself. The time will come when the great\n    deeds and the great works now our memory and our boast will be\n    forgotten, as we have forgotten the works and the deeds, no less\n    great, of those beings of supreme genius who created what we call\n    human life and seem to us now to have been savages of the lowest\n    grade, almost men-monkeys. They will be forgotten for the document\n    of progress is in _forgetting_; that is, in the fact being entirely\n    absorbed in the new fact, in which, and not in itself, it has\n    value. But we cannot know what the future states of Reality will\n    be, in their determined physiognomy and succession, owing to the\n    \u2018dignity\u2019 established in the Philosophy of the Practical, by which\n    the knowledge of the action and of the deed follows and does not\n    precede the action and the deed. _Mystery_ is just the _infinity of\n    evolution_; were this not so, that concept would not arise in the\n    mind of man, nor would it be possible to abuse it, as it has been\n    abused by being transported out of its place, that is to say, into\n    the consciousness of itself, which the spiritual activity should\n    have and has to the fullest degree, that is, the consciousness of\n    its eternal categories.\n\n    The neglect of the moment of mystery is the true reason of the\n    error known as the _Philosophy of History_, which undertakes\n    to portray the plan of Providence and to determine the formula\n    of progress. In this attempt (when it does not affirm mere\n    philosophemes, as has very often happened), it makes the effort\n    to enclose the infinite in the finite and capriciously to decree\n    concluded that evolution which the universal spirit itself cannot\n    conclude, for it would thus come to deny itself. In logic that\n    error has been gnoseologically defined as the pretension of\n    treating the individual as though it were the universal, making\n    the universal individual; here it is to be defined in other words\n    as the pretension of treating the finite as though it were the\n    infinite, of making the infinite finite.\n\n    But the unjustified transportation of the concept of mystery from\n    history, where it indicates the future that the past prepares\n    and does not know, into philosophy, causes to be pointed as\n    mysteries which give rise to probabilities and conjectures,\n    problems that consist of philosophical terms, and should therefore\n    be philosophically solved. But if the infinite progress and the\n    infinite perfectibility of man is to be affirmed, although we do\n    not know the concrete forms that progress and perfectibility will\n    assume (not knowing them, because now it imports not to _know_, but\n    to _do_ them), then there is no meaning in positing as a mystery\n    the immortality of the individual soul, or the existence of God;\n    for these are not _facts_ that may or may not happen sooner or\n    later, but _concepts_ that must be proved to be in themselves\n    thinkable and not contradictory. Their thinkability will indeed be\n    a mystery, but of the kind that it is a duty to make clear, because\n    synonymous with obscurity or mental confusion. What has so far been\n    demonstrated has been their unthinkability in the traditional form.\n    Nor is it true that they correspond to profound demands of the\n    human soul. Man does not seek a god external to himself and almost\n    a despot, who commands and benefits him capriciously, nor does he\n    aspire to an immortality of insipid ease; but he seeks for that God\n    which he has in himself, and aspires to that activity which is both\n    Life and Death[9].\n\nThus Croce affirms that evolution, development, is demanded by the\nvery nature of spirit. In spirit the problem of the one and the\nmany is solved. The yearnings of man towards something higher, and\ntowards a unity that shall lie behind and stabilise all thought, are\nbut expressions of the nature of Life. The dissatisfaction of such\na thought is due to psychological illusion, comparable to a \u201cdream\nof an art so sublime that every work of art really existing would by\ncomparison appear contemptible.\u201d There is no intuition that cannot\nbe clearly expressed; vague dreams of the Madonna of the Future end\ninevitably in an empty canvas. So too, according to Croce, is a dream\nof transcendence empty of content, because inexpressible; based on no\nclear intuition, but on a confusion between the historical judgment and\nsome vague conception of the transcendental. And thus the life of the\nspirit is left a mystery.\n\nWe will not attempt any discussion of Croce\u2019s fundamental pantheism,\nneither will we as yet criticise his definition of Beauty. Instead,\nwe will begin our constructive work by considering the psychological\naccompaniment of a perception of beauty and from that starting-point\ntry to reach a conception and a definition that will carry us beyond\nCroce\u2019s into a region less empty of love, a region that shines with a\nlight of its own. Dead moons are lovely, but they owe their loveliness\nto living light. Cold philosophies too are only beautiful when a\nbeautiful spirit makes them seem to live.\n\nLet us, then, turn to the psychological effects of that which appeals\nas beautiful to some individual mind, leaving on one side, for the\ntime, all consideration of the reason why a particular object should\nrouse a sense of beauty in a particular mind.\n\nNow unquestionably the beauty we perceive is never satisfying, or\nif it satisfies at all it does so but for a moment. Almost at once\ndissatisfaction follows, or rather unsatisfaction.\n\nThere is a yearning for something, a sense of something lacking.\nIt is vague--so vague that the only representation of it that has\never adequately expressed at once its aspirations, its lack and its\nindeterminateness, is Blake\u2019s drawing \u201cI want--I want.\u201d Of these three\nthings it is compounded, of lack, of aspiration, and of self-ignorance\nthat knows neither what it lacks nor what it desires; and these three\ndetermine its salient character--that of an impulse. That it is really\nan impulse becomes clear directly we examine its effects. It produces\na desire to create. In the young, the uncontrolled, the illiterate,\nthe creative impulse may be definitely sexual. Passion is undoubtedly\nstimulated in simple natures by the beautiful, and we shall see when we\ncome to discuss the evolution of aesthetic sensibility that this fact\nis of the profoundest spiritual import. For the moment we need only\nnote that this sex-impulse is creative. In natures artistically more\ndeveloped yet not truly originative, the creative impulse is a desire\nto repeat the thing that has given this sense of beauty--to paint the\nsunset, to play the sonata, to declaim the poem. Yet even here we must\nnote the germ of originality. The repetition is no mere reproduction.\nElimination and emphasis make it in some measure a new creation. This\nis obvious in the less rigid arts, painting and music; but it is\npresent even where the form is definite. Hear two different people, or\nthe same person in two different moods, read the same poem, and see\nhow different a thing it can be! In more artistic natures still, truly\noriginal, the desire to create is conscious, the desire to reproduce\nless. The thing created need not, probably will not, be of the same\nkind. The moon-glade on the sea enriching by contrast the blackness of\nthe rocky headland, will inspire the musician to write, not a moonlight\nsonata, for true music is free from sensuous symbolism, but a pure\nrhythm of sound. To suggest visual symbols in sound is to prostitute\nmusic, to drive it back into the sensationalism from which it has freed\nitself. It is, further, to confuse the mind by attempting to combine\ntwo incompatible media of technical expression. As animal passion is to\nlove, so is Carrier\u2019s \u201cLa Chasse\u201d to a Bach prelude[10].\n\nWe see, then, that the psychological effect of the beautiful is to\nproduce a creative impulse, based on the lack and the aspiration\nwhich give rise to a sense of yearning desire. We see that it is\nindeterminate, for it attempts to satisfy itself in very various\nways. We see that in so far as it creates successfully, it finds some\nsatisfaction.\n\nNow all this fits admirably with Croce\u2019s theory of beauty. Beauty is\nfor us the expression of that of which we have intuition. In realising\nthe beauty of a symphony or picture we have ourselves re-created the\nintuition of the artist. In realising the beauty of a natural scene\nwe have expressed an intuition of the reality that lies behind that\nscene; a creative act. We shall later go beyond Croce in this matter,\nreferring our creative act to a re-creation of the intuition of God,\nand this will lead us to consider the aesthetic meaning of God\u2019s\ncreation; but for the time we need not pursue this thought.\n\nOur next business is, clearly, to analyse the yearning which precedes\nthe creative act. We have said that this originates in dissatisfaction.\nWhat is this dissatisfaction? One other thing produces a feeling that\nis not merely analogous, but absolutely identical. When you love a\nperson intensely and are uncertain if it is reciprocated, because\nno sign, or no sufficient sign, is given, you experience the same\ndissatisfaction, the same yearning and the same creative impulse. In\nprimitive natures the impulse may fulfil itself in sexual excitement;\nin higher ones it is expressed in art. It is a commonplace to say that\nsome of the world\u2019s greatest creative work is done under the stimulus\nof love. The poems of lovers furnish the most prominent example, not\nonly their love poems, but the poems inspired by their love, like the\n_Divina Commedia_; but we need not seek far for examples in the other\narts. Beethoven\u2019s Fourth Symphony was inspired by his love for the\nCountess Theresa von Brunswick. Tchaikovsky found inspiration in his\nPlatonic love for Nadejda von Meck, whom he had never seen. His sad,\nabnormal friendships were an inspiration to Michael Angelo.\n\nNow in both cases, paradoxical as it may seem, the dissatisfaction\nis due to receiving without giving. At first sight this seems to be\nexactly the opposite of the truth. Surely a man is pouring out his\nlove, and receiving no return, one is inclined to say. But a moment\u2019s\nthought will convince us that the first statement is the true one.\nAll the beauty, all the grace, all the interest and the charms of the\nloved one are given to us in unstinted measure, and we can give nothing\nin return. We may not even express our love, our desire to serve,\nbut in the trivial services that convention allows. Yet how we prize\nthese little services that we can render! How we seek out opportunity\nof rendering them! We receive; we can give no adequate return. It is\nthat which determines our dissatisfaction. If the gift of our love is\nrefused, dissatisfaction is most poignant. Commonly we say that the\nbeloved refuses to give anything in such a case. Exactly the reverse\nis true. The beloved gives, and cannot avoid giving, but will receive\nnothing from us.\n\nNow think of a perfect marriage or a perfect friendship. There is\nlittle trace of dissatisfaction there; only rest and happiness. We\nreceive, but we give again, and our gift may be given without measure;\nmay equal, or nearly equal what we receive; may at least be all that we\ncan give. There is perfect reciprocity, and in reciprocity we find rest.\n\nThe creative impulse does not cease, service and gifts do not cease,\nbut the spirit is free from longing dissatisfaction.\n\nTurn now to the dissatisfaction produced by appreciation of the\nbeautiful. We receive everything, we can give nothing at all (to the\nbeautiful thing); and so dissatisfaction is at its highest. We love\nthe thing in which we find beauty, but the love is one-sided. The\ncases are identical. It is no mere phrase when we speak of the love of\nbeauty and the beauty of love. Unwittingly we express the truth of an\nabsolute interdependence. _Love is relationship, beauty the expression\nof relationship._ In this sentence lies our thesis. Croce calls Beauty\nthe expression of an Intuition; we shall define that intuition as\nthe intuition of Relationship, Love being the relationship itself,\nintuitively known; known, that is, as Reality--as the fundamental\nquality of Personal Being, which is the only ultimate Reality. Because\nthe intuition of Love is expressed, it enters immediately the domain\nof Aesthetic. Doubtless it is conceptualised; and hand in hand with\nthis theoretic activity of the spirit goes the practical. Love is\nessentially practical, and, as Croce says, you can never separate or\ngive priority to either the theoretic or the practical activity. The\ndifference, then, between beauty and love that is returned lies in the\nfact that in the second there is reciprocity. You give, as well as\nreceiving. In all love there is some reciprocity; the loved one cannot\nhelp being conscious of, and receiving, something of the spirit that\nmoves out in such wise. The love of a being seen but once is purely\naesthetic. Only this corresponds to the aesthetic appreciation of a\nscene, and even this not exactly; for the being is potentially capable\nof receiving, the scene is not.\n\nIt is worth noticing at this point that, though Greek thought arrived\nat no adequate idea of beauty, Greek Mythology did arrive at complete\nunderstanding. And this gives little cause for wonder, considering to\nwhat a level the love of the beautiful developed in ancient Greece,\nand considering too how myth represents the unreasoned, intuitive\nwishes and ideas of an infantile age[11]. We often wonder at the depths\nwhich mythology plumbs. Accepting Croce\u2019s scheme, it is the more easy\nto understand. The myth of Pygmalion is subtly suggestive. Pygmalion\ncreated beauty, and longed for it to reciprocate his love, and out of\nhis longing life and love were born. Beauty was for him one-sided love;\nhence his yearning and his dissatisfaction.\n\nBut we are not Pygmalions. Our Galatea never comes to life. Why\nthen should we strive still to create? Why like the man in the old\nplay, should we proceed with an endless task: \u201cWhen will you finish\nCampaspe?\u201d \u201cNever finish, for always in absolute beauty there is\nsomewhat above art[12].\u201d Croce simply takes activity as the character\nof spirit and leaves it at that, admitting, but not really explaining,\nthe fact that men are dissatisfied with the mystery of it all. We,\napproaching with a different presupposition, accepting God and not\nrejecting metaphysic, may hope to find some fuller explanation. We\ndo in fact go on creating something that cannot reciprocate. Why?\nFirst of all, by our creative act we learn more of the meaning of the\nReality that is around us, and the Reality that is ourself. We find the\ncreative godhead of our personality, we exercise our self in its true\nfunction of godhead. Moreover, we create a gift to other men, whether\ntechnically or otherwise. If we cannot give to nature, we can at least\ngive our understanding of nature to our fellows:\n\n    Better to sit at the water\u2019s birth\n    Than a sea of waves to win,\n    To live in the love that floweth forth\n    Than the love that floweth in.\n\n    Be thy heart a well of love, my child,\n    Flowing, and free, and sure,\n    For a cistern of love, though undefiled\n    Keeps not the spirit pure[13].\n\nAnd neither does the spirit that is a cistern of beauty fulfil itself,\nnor remain pure.\n\nOur aesthetic activity is, then, our first contact with Reality,\npaving the way to an understanding of the meaning of that Reality.\nIn spite of Croce, we cannot agree that a full appreciation of\nthis meaning could be considered as achieved if the end is simply\nlonging--dissatisfaction. In the very fact that beauty produces in us\na yearning, that issues in a creative activity which does not, and\ncannot, satisfy the yearning, we have evidence that the solution is not\nfound. In the identity of psychological content produced by beauty and\nby unrequited love we find the clue we seek. In the restfulness of a\nperfect friendship, of an intercourse which knows no subject that must\nnot be touched upon, fears no jarring note, whatever matter comes upon\nthe scene, can give all the keys in perfect trust, knowing that trust\nwill never be regretted, and hold the other\u2019s keys knowing there is the\nsame confidence on that side; that can see with the other\u2019s eyes, and\nnever fear to be itself misunderstood; in that restfulness the problems\nof beauty, of life, of Reality itself find answer.\n\nLet us repeat. The unsatisfyingness of beauty is due to the fact that\nyou are taking and not giving. In order to give _something_, to others,\nthough not to the object that roused in you the sense of beauty, you\ncreate by some technique. What is it you are receiving? An intuition,\nwhich you express to yourself creatively and to others through its\neffect on your character;--to which further, if you are an artist,\nyou give external, technical expression. This intuition which you\nreceive is the first stage of knowledge--of the knowledge of Reality.\nSo far, agreeing with Croce, we agree with Bergson; and moreover we\nleave room for mysticism, since mysticism becomes the appreciation of\nrelationship, and logic paves the way for suitable activity to develop\nour side of the relationship. The meaning of this becomes clearer when\nwe consider Croce\u2019s explanation of the process of perceiving beauty\nin the work of an artist, be it picture, symphony, or poem. He points\nout that in appreciating a work of art you enter into the mind of the\ncreator, follow his intuition, and create the expression afresh for\nyourself. On the degree in which you can do this depends the fullness\nof your appreciation of the work.\n\nBut when you see beauty in a natural object the matter is less clear.\nCroce would say that you are in the first stage of knowing that object,\nand he is unquestionably right so far. But can we not, using the\nanalogy of the picture or the poem, go on to say that you are following\nout the idea of the creator of the natural object--that you are in\ntouch with the Cosmic Idea, which is the Idea of a Personal God? If so,\nthere is indeed room for mysticism, for mysticism becomes simply the\nrealisation that you are in fact doing this. Moreover, Beauty and Love\nat once fall into relation. Beauty is not simply expression, but the\nexpression of a relation, and it is incomplete because the relation is\nnot yet reciprocal. Love is that relation itself.\n\nIn another aspect, beauty is seen as the meeting-place for love, since\nit is the expression of an intuition of Reality, and Reality is rooted\nand grounded in love. Where there is limitation either of one or both\nof two persons, expression is needed to provide a meeting-place--speech\nor sign for the lesser artist, music, poetry, or picture for the\ngreater. Each expression is a symbol of the reality it incarnates;\nin so far as it reaches out beyond its own immediate apprehension of\nthat reality. All expression, all art, is symbolic and has a mystical\naspect, else it would be either complete and all-embracing or devoid of\nreal content. So far the symbolists are right.\n\nBut this opens up a wide problem. If Beauty be the formulated intuition\nof Reality, which, because of its incompleteness, represents in symbols\nthings that are beyond its immediate purview, and if Reality be, as\nwe have elsewhere argued[14], grounded on Personal Relationship, the\nself-expression of Love, does beauty cease when personal relations\nbecome perfect? For we have argued that a symbol belongs to the domain\nof the imperfect, not the perfect[15]. If so, has beauty any meaning\nfor God? At this point we clearly come into contact with the problem of\nGod\u2019s creative activity. We have said[16] that the creation of God must\nbe the creation of something new. We have said that Love, of its own\nnature, demands expansion, is centrifugal as well as centripetal, and\nin this centrifugality of love we sought the Divine Impulse to create\nnew personalities. But behind lurked always the question \u201cHow could\na God whose experience was perfect and embraced already all Reality,\ncreate anything that was new?\u201d The reciprocity of perfected love would\nbe new for the personal beings He had created; but His self-limitation\nwhich the freedom of those beings necessitated would not be new for\nHim, for self-abnegation is an eternal part of love, since love is\nsubstantiated as itself by creative self-surrender, transcendence by\nimmanence. Would the _result_ of His self-limitation be new for Him,\nimplicit as it is in His Being as Love? Would the experience of the\nreciprocal love of His children be a new thing for Him?\n\nNo doubt the problem, as belonging to the domain of the Transcendent,\nis not soluble for us, whose transcendence, whose intuition of the\nReal, is so incomplete. But because in such measure as we do know the\nReal we are ourselves transcendent, we can at least hope to touch the\nfringe of His garment; and Croce\u2019s proof that pure intuition--which\nBergson also urges to be our _point d\u2019appui_ with the Real--belongs to\nthe domain of aesthetic, gives us a fresh clue in our investigation.\n\nBeauty is expression. This is Croce\u2019s statement; and in it we find\nwhat we need, provided that we expand the definition into \u2018the\nexpression of Relation.\u2019 If there be a Personal God as we believe,\nwhose experience is Reality, He must always be expressing that Reality.\nThere is no consciousness without expression. But the expression\nof knowledge of the Real is Beauty. God\u2019s Being must be full of an\noverwhelming Beauty. But part of His Nature, as Love, is centrifugal.\nThat centrifugal part must also be expressed. The artist follows his\nexpression by technical application; he paints for eye or ear, to\nsatisfy himself and to communicate his intuition. In so far as he\nfails in his expression, the result is ugly. In so far, also, as God\u2019s\ncreation fails, through its own inevitable condition of the freedom\nof man, the result is ugly. Ugliness is the aesthetic, or theoretical\naspect of sin; in its practical aspect sin is uneconomic, un-moral.\n\nNow if one thing is more certain than another, it is that Beauty is\nfor ever new. Each sense of beauty is a new creation, a fresh activity\nof the spirit, be it inspired never so often by the same object. And\nthis means that to know the Real is for ever a new thing. God\u2019s love\nis always new for Himself. His self-knowledge is creation perpetually\nrenewed. It follows, _a fortiori_, that His knowledge of the beings He\ncreates and is creating is each moment new. Because knowledge is in its\nfirst movement Beauty, there can be no stagnancy in Eternal Being, no\ndead level of satiety in Eternal Life.\n\nBeauty is expression. For God it is the expression of His relation to\nHimself as transcendent, and of the substantiation of His transcendence\nthrough His relation to others as immanent, in the first stage of\nthe movement of that relation towards and into transcendence. Beauty\nis the expression of a relation, and is ever new. But the relation\nitself is Love. God is Love; that love is expressed as Beauty; and\nBeauty is necessarily eternal, because it is the knowledge of Reality.\nGod is Love. This is to say that God IS because He is a relation,\nto Himself and to others. Here is the inmost heart of Trinitarian\nDoctrine, as we have seen[17]. Because He is Love, He expresses that\nReality in activity. But activity has two sides, the theoretical and\nthe practical. His expression is, on the theoretic side, Beauty, and\nis hence for ever new for Him. He is for Himself a Relation, known\nintuitively and expressed as Beauty, and His intuition of this Reality\nis ever new. On the practical side it is Creation, full of purpose\n(economic aspect) and of goodness (moral aspect); new for us, His\ncreatures, but only achieving, for us even, its full newness as we come\nto know the Reality which is the experience of the Love that is perfect\nin Him alone; only achieving its full newness as we begin ourselves to\nknow, to express, and to create: as we become gods ourselves. And what\nHe creates is real, beautiful, and new.\n\nBeauty is eternal. It is the meeting-place of personal beings for ever;\nbut it is a symbol only so long as these personal beings are imperfect,\nand their knowledge incomplete. Beauty and knowledge become coextensive\nas immediate intuition extends its boundaries till logic has no more\na place, or rather till logic and intuition cover the same ground. So\ntoo with the practical; the useful extends its boundaries till it is\ncoextensive with the good, and the two become one and the same. The\nactivity that remains is as God\u2019s activity. Love is itself because it\nis both knowing and doing; absolute Being is the circle of these two\ninseparables.\n\nBefore we proceed it will be as well to remind ourselves once more of\nthe psychological fact that has caused us to modify Croce\u2019s definition\nof beauty by introducing the idea of relation. This characteristic\nconsequence of a vision of the beautiful is the sense of longing, akin\nto the longing of unreciprocated love, which issues in some creative\nact. This act may be a conscious attempt to produce something of\naesthetic value--a work of art--or it may simply be an attempt to make\nour _milieu_ harmonious. The housewife may be stimulated to re-cover\nthe cushions, to tidy the house, or to re-arrange the room; the mother\nmay try to make her children happier; the selfish man or the fractious\nchild may try to make life more complete and harmonious by loving\ndeeds, however short-lived. The most commonplace mind may feel a\nreligious impulse; a sense of wonder and reverence. Men have always\nbeen perplexed by the apparently close connection between the beautiful\nand the good, between the beautiful and the sublime. This connection\nbecomes clear in the light of our definition. Beauty is seen as the\nfirst step towards an understanding of Reality, and that Reality is\nLove, personal relationship, reciprocity. Relationship between finite\npersons first (yet not transient even here, because personality is\nessentially infinite, and persons are only limited in so far as they\nhave failed as yet to achieve personality), but relationship that finds\nits origin and explanation in the personal, creative, Triune Being of\nGod[18]. The perception of beauty is accompanied by emotion; free, as\nemotion is in itself, though aroused by external conditioning[19];\nyet unsatisfied, thwarted, and so with a vein of sadness in its joy.\nIts joy is the joy of beginning to understand. All understanding is\npleasure. One smiled with pleasure when one first grasped Euclid\u2019s\nforty-seventh proposition, even. But here we understand the beauty as\na symbol and a meeting-place. It makes us feel less lonely and less\nisolated. Its sadness is the sadness of an incomplete understanding.\nWe see in a beautiful thing a thing that can receive nothing from us,\nwhile it gives much to us. Yet the very fact that beauty does make us\n\u2018feel religious\u2019 shows that somehow we do realise that we can give\nsomething to God, and find a little satisfaction in doing so; that even\nnature is not so impersonal as we were inclined to think. Our desire to\ncreate beautiful things is a sign that we understand our self also, our\ndestined godhead, and that we too wish to reveal our self by creating\nfor others, and giving to others. It is a sign that we understand that\nour relations with God and with our fellows are reciprocal.\n\nCroce gives the clue when he shows that aesthetic is the first stage of\nthe spirit\u2019s activity. Bergson strikes a note that wakes an answering\nharmony when he urges that intuition brings us nearer to Reality than\ndoes intellect directed toward practical aims, even though some of his\ndeductions displease; Kant and Hegel indicate the eternal value of\naesthetic when they urge that it belongs to the highest and last stage.\nBut Croce gives no reason for the longing that beauty forces upon us;\nnor indeed for the activity of spirit at all; he merely assumes spirit\nas a datum, and is defined by its activity.\n\nBut if we regard beauty as the expression of a perceived relationship,\nalmost as one-sided love, the whole falls into place. Through beauty we\nget into touch with Reality, which Reality is, in its completeness,\nthe mutual activity of Love. The basis of Love\u2019s activity is Love\u2019s\nfreedom, even its freedom to limit itself. Mankind is winning freedom\nout of determined conditions; which conditions are the creation, the\nexpression, of God\u2019s love, through self-limitation. Because they are\nthe expression of God\u2019s knowledge of the Reality of Love, they are\nbeautiful. The winning of freedom by man is achieved through adaptative\nrelation to the environment. As this adaptation becomes conscious--as\nwe gain intuitive knowledge of the environment--the sense of beauty is\nborn, for we express our knowledge of this relation to ourselves; and\nmake efforts towards further adaptation. These efforts are creative;\nand as we progress our creation becomes more and more altruistic; a\ncreation for others with our relationship to them held consciously\nbefore us. These few words will suffice to show how perfectly our\nthesis fits in with the evolutionary views we have previously\nenunciated. The development of this side of the argument may be left\nfor the present.\n\nOne other matter requires a brief consideration, and then we can\nleave the general outline of our theory and proceed to a more\ndetailed treatment of certain parts of it. This is the old, unsolved\nproblem whether beauty is subjective or objective; whether a thing is\nbeautiful in itself, or whether it is only our thinking that makes it\nso. Croce has made it perfectly clear that the thing or the scene\nwhich we erroneously call beautiful, meaning that it is beautiful in\nitself, physically beautiful, is simply the \u201cstimulus to aesthetic\nreproduction, which presupposes previous production. Without preceding\naesthetic intuitions of the imagination, nature cannot arouse any at\nall.\u201d Perhaps Croce\u2019s own thesis would gain in clearness and coherence\nif, starting from the sense of beauty aroused by a work of art as the\nre-creation of the artist\u2019s intuition by the spectator, he had accepted\nthe religious implication, and argued that appreciation of so-called\nnatural beauty, was the re-creation by man of God\u2019s intuition. But,\nwith his prejudice against religion, he naturally could not boldly\naccept God as the Primal Artist, even though to do so would have made\nhis theory far more complete, and would have saved him from relegating\nthe chief factor of man\u2019s life to the realm of psychological illusion.\n\nTo return to the immediate question, there can, of course, be no doubt\nthat since beauty is an activity of the spirit, the expression of an\nintuition, beauty itself must be purely subjective. Equally, there\ncan be no doubt that without the objective Reality the intuition\ncould never be called into being. (We call it definitely objective\nfor man, since all our argument in previous works has driven us to\nthe conclusion that there is a necessary dualism for man as long as\nfreedom is incomplete, love imperfect; as long, that is, as man is\nbecoming.)\n\nThis grows more and more clear as one analyses the things that have\nroused in oneself the keenest sense of beauty. I think of a copse\nstarred with snowdrops and aconite amid bare trunks under a steel-grey\nsky--a day in late autumn in water-meadows; emerald peacock-tails of\nweed in the river, and lights of madder and old gold--blue sea covered\nwith pearly Portuguese men-o\u2019-war and white surf breaking on black lava\nrocks--perhaps a dozen such landmarks, to me a priceless possession,\nto another about as interesting as an album of picture-postcards from\nsomebody else\u2019s travels. In mercy partly, partly in self-defence, one\nwithholds these things from all but the few who care to understand.\nLet each fill in his own; for there are in every life such moments,\nwhen one is in touch with a larger life, and it is these moments which\nmake a man, as Masefield has wonderfully shown in his poem _Biography_.\nThen there are the hours when human triumphs rouse in us the same\necstasy. Bach preludes and fugues, with their palaces reared by perfect\nstone added architecturally to perfect stone; the dainty certainties\nof Mozart; the sad gaiety and foreboding meditations of Chopin;\nthe delicate cadences of Swinburne; the lusty, open-air searchings\nof Masefield, saddened by the obsession of sunset transience; the\ngentle longing of the refrain of the _Earthly Paradise_; the\nmassive synthesis of the _Dynasts_; the sorrow of _Deirdre_ and\n_Violaine_; the ethereal atmosphere of _A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream_;\npictures--architecture--it is all endless. Now the first thing we\nnotice is that if we are in the wrong mood these things may have\nlittle or no appeal. I may walk in Water-meads and feel nothing of\ntheir charm. Bach may be mere noise, if I want to think of something\nelse. Again the Madonna of the Magnificat may leave me unmoved, if my\nattention is on other matters. Those whose sense of beauty is really\nkeen can never be unstirred by the beautiful, unless their attention\nis so rivetted on other things that they do not observe it at all, but\nmost of us are of commoner clay; we can notice a thing yet hardly be\naware of its beauty.\n\nHere, in either case, our ordinary speech hits the nail exactly on\nthe head: \u201cI am not in a receptive mood,\u201d we say. I do not receive\nwhat these things have to give. In an appreciative mood I take\nsomething from the thing that seems to me beautiful--this act is my\nintuition--and use it as the basis of my creative work--my expression.\nI need the presentation of an external object, or its memory, for that\ncreation. Now, as we have just seen, a host of very different objects\nexcite in an individual emotion of beauty in a pre-eminent degree,\nwhile if we reckon the objects which excite it in a less acute form,\nthe tale is endless; yet the emotion all excite is sufficiently\nthe same in content, in spite of its multiplicity of form, to be\nexpressed by the single term beauty. One is tempted to speak loosely\nof this effect of the beautiful on us as an emotion, though clearly\nit is not one, since it is expression. An emotion may be beautiful\nimmediately it is known and expressed in this act of knowing, but the\nemotion is not beautiful any more than any other object is beautiful.\nNevertheless, this loose usage of the term has one advantage. It draws\nour attention to the close relationship that binds together beauty and\nemotion. We have seen elsewhere that in the realm of emotion exists\nthe freedom that lies between the incoming perception and the outgoing\nactivity, forming the bond between the first and last, and determining\nthe form of the response to the stimulus[20]. In the recognition of\nbeauty there is freedom and emotion, as there is in every creative\nact. But the activity is dependent on stimulus, and every stimulus is\nprimarily perceptual, though not necessarily in the strict sense of\nbeing perceived by an organ of sense. The perception may be wholly\ninternal, the self being its own object in introspection[21]; the\nintuition may be the intuition of love itself. Here we see the origin\nof the common, yet I believe erroneous, statement that \u201cbeauty, as we\nunderstand it, is only for sense and for sensuous imagination[22].\u201d If\nBeauty be the expression of an intuition of Reality, as Croce says, and\nReality be ultimately the activity of Personal Being, which activity\nis relationship, as we have seen reason to claim[23], Beauty is not\ndependent on sense perception alone. Further, because the activity of\npersonal relation is Love, we see in Beauty the creative knowledge of\nlove, which is necessarily linked in closest intimacy with freedom\nand emotion. Love is not beautiful; it is simply the activity of\nrelationship. The knowledge of love is Beauty\u2019s very self. The world\nis not beautiful, but knowledge of the world as the expression of\na part of Reality--of that portion of Reality which is limited and\ndetermined by the self-abnegation of God\u2019s love--is Beauty. In so\nfar as we merely perceive matter the aesthetic side is in abeyance.\nAt this moment we know, not Reality, but Appearance. Our unaesthetic\nmoods are determined by our more or less complete practical concern\nwith Appearance, our more or less complete blindness to Reality.\nWe have gone back to a lower, more primitive stage. In our limited\nand still largely determined existence we are bound to be occupied\nin a great measure with appearance. The practical must dominate the\ntheoretic activity; the spirit must be unbalanced, asymmetrical. Even\nin our moments of greatest symmetry our apprehension of the Real is\nlargely at second hand. _Pace_, Croce, we would say--as we have said\nalready[24]--that the Immanent cannot have immediate contact with the\nReal; man\u2019s intuitions belong to his transcendence where they deal\nwith the absolutely Real. Man immanent and limited is immediately in\ncontact with God immanent and self-limited; only in so far as man is\ntranscendent is he in contact with God Transcendent, and so in touch\nwith the Whole. In his immanence man lives by symbols, which are\nsacraments; and here we find the symbolic aspect of Beauty. It is the\nmaterial basis of this symbolic side of Beauty, rather than Beauty\nabsolute, that has of necessity received most attention hitherto;\nand the puzzles of rival theories have arisen through failure to\nrealise that a symbol is a partial expression of a reality, and that\nit can only be fully grasped when the reality which it symbolises is\nunderstood. A symbol has something of the reality itself, or it would\nnot be a symbol, but it does not represent that reality adequately, or\nit would be co-extensive with it; would _be_ the reality itself. Beauty\nis thus subjective, in so far as it is necessarily the work of the\nspirit. But it is objective in so far as the reality of which it is the\nknowledge is personal and external to the self, and will always remain\nexternal, however complete the interpenetration of personalities, since\npersonalities cannot be merged and lost in each other, but remain\neternally in their self-identity[25].\n\nA natural object _per se_ is not beautiful; only so far as it is\nunderstood as a partial representation of Reality, a symbol, is it\nbeautiful.\n\nNaturally, this statement arouses the objection that to most people\nthe music of Grieg, if not of Bach, the pictures of Leighton, if not\nof Utamaro, are beautiful; and that there is a general consensus of\nopinion that the view over the Severn from the Windcliff, or the view\nof Lisbon from the harbour is more beautiful than Wormwood Scrubbs.\nThe answer to the first part of this objection is obvious. In music,\npainting, verse, we are re-creating for ourselves the artist\u2019s\nintuition. We know that he found beauty, and he has abstracted in his\nart in such a way as to render the beauty more easily recaptured. The\nartist is then our guide. He was an artist because his spirit was more\nsensitive to the reality than ours, and we follow him.\n\nBut in natural beauty, too, is not this true? Primitive peoples who\nlive amid the most lovely scenery have little or no perception of it.\nBut there are places and scenes where nature seems to have performed\na sort of process of abstraction for us. The elements are simplified\nand harmonious, and there is little to distract the attention from\ncertain main features. A comparatively large number of people will\nhave a sufficiently developed spirit to get into touch with something\nbeyond the mere object at such places. More education in abstraction\nand intuition is required to perceive some kinds of beauty; we see the\nsame thing even in the artistic creation of men. Mendelssohn appeals to\nfar more than Bach; Leader to far more than Botticelli. Moreover, the\nmore obvious kinds of natural beauty, as we may loosely term them, will\nappeal to many lesser artists, who will give technical expression to\nthem. We shall be thus familiarised with these representations, through\npianolas and art-magazines and penny readings, or through concerts\nand picture galleries and study; and shall be the more prepared to\nintuit for ourselves when we meet with objective elements of a somewhat\nsimilar type. And we have further argued that even in natural beauty we\nare really following the intuition of Creative Mind.\n\nOne other point is perhaps worthy of remark. Natural science appears\nto compass a very large achievement in knowledge, and to express this\nknowledge with singular felicity; yet in science there is little that\ncan be called beautiful, except in a highly metaphorical sense. The\nexplanation of this anomaly is clear and incontrovertible. The work of\ntheoretical science is essentially abstract, and is concerned wholly\nwith Appearance, not Reality, except where it impinges upon the domain\nof philosophy. The intuition of Beauty is an intuition of Reality.\n\nWe may now put down our conclusions in a brief and more regular form:\n\n(1) External things are required to rouse in me a sense of beauty, but\nthey are not in themselves beautiful.\n\n(2) I create their beauty, by understanding them as parts of a Whole\nwhich is Reality.\n\n(3) Beauty is expression; I must therefore form a clear intuition and\nexpress it to myself. This is my creative act; to which I may, or may\nnot, give a technical embodiment.\n\n(4) But I am not merely creating a photographic image, an imitation. I\nam getting into a certain receptive condition in which I can abstract\nfrom what I see its essence and fit this into my knowledge of Reality.\nI cannot see a thing as beautiful unless in some degree it gives me\nthis impression of relatedness to Reality and to myself--linking me\nwith the Reality of which I am a part. Beauty thus comes to be a felt\nrelationship. My creation is the creation of a fuller understanding of\nrelatedness.\n\n(5) I am always dissatisfied with Beauty, which wakes in me a sense of\nlonging exactly the same as the longing of an unreciprocated love. I\nreceive and cannot give. Yet in this beauty and this love there is joy\nas well as sorrow.\n\n(6) My life is part of an organic Whole whose ultimate meaning and\npurpose is personal relationship--interpenetration. The dissatisfaction\nis due to a sense of imperfect interpenetration. What is needed, and\nis felt to be needed, is equal give and take--reciprocal creative\nactivity. Dissatisfaction comes when giving and taking are not balanced.\n\n(7) Beauty is eternal, since the creative expression of Love\nis eternal, and Love knows eternally what it is--is eternally\nself-conscious. Love is relation, beauty the expression of the\nimmediate knowledge of that relation.\n\n(8) This knowledge is always a new, creative act. God must continually\nexpress His Being as Love else He would cease to be Love and so to be\nat all. In Creative Expression He renews Himself. He is for Himself\never new. And, because Love is centrifugal as well as centripetal, He\nmust for ever express Himself _outwards_, so to speak, in the creation\nof other beings, and this His work of self-abnegation is new and\nbeautiful.\n\n(9) We have hardly touched on the problem of the ugly. We have little\nto add to Croce\u2019s explanation of it as the failure of expression--as\nthe failure to express coherent unity--which involves the failure of\nintuition. We shall just touch upon it hereafter; at the moment all we\nneed do is to remind ourselves that the ugliest thing in the world is\nsin, because it is the failure to understand the whole, and to express\nthe fullest, greatest beauty.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nBEAUTY IN EVOLUTION\n\n\nTheories of aesthetic, so far, have paid little attention to the\ndevelopment of the sense of beauty, except perhaps in the individual.\nThis was natural enough so long as the idea of evolution was\nunformulated, or, if touched upon speculatively, played little part in\nmen\u2019s general attitude to life; and since the doctrine of evolution\ncame to its own, little original work, beyond that of Croce, has been\ndone in this region. Croce touches the evolutionary aspect but lightly,\nthough it is implicit in his identification of History with Philosophy:\n\n    \u201cSince all the characteristics assigned to Philosophy are verbal\n    variants of its unique character, which is the pure concept, so all\n    the characteristics of History can be reduced to the definition\n    and identification of History with the individual judgment[26].\u201d\n    \u201cIf History is impossible without the logical, that is, the\n    philosophical, element, philosophy is not possible without the\n    intuitive, or historical element[27].\u201d \u201cPhilosophy, then, is\n    neither beyond, nor at the beginning, nor at the end of history,\n    nor is it achieved in a moment or in any single moment of history.\n    It is achieved _at every moment_ and is always completely united\n    to facts and conditioned by historical knowledge.--The _a priori_\n    synthesis, which is the reality of the individual judgment and of\n    the definition, is also the reality of philosophy and of history.\n    It is the formula of thought which by constituting itself qualifies\n    intuition and constitutes history. History does not precede\n    philosophy, nor philosophy history; both are born at one birth[28].\u201d\n\nThis view, however interesting and suggestive it may be in the realm\nof pure thought, for the simple reason that it does not boldly grapple\nwith the fact of _practical_ dualism, is difficult of application to\nthe process of the dawn of consciousness. Croce\u2019s whole philosophy\nis directed to the denial of dualism; it is a new form of idealistic\nmonism. We have been led in our earlier reasonings to deny an ultimate\ndualism[29], but we have also been led to affirm dualism as existent\nin Time, through the self-limitation and immanence of Eternal Spirit.\nOn this basis, at which we arrived through a detailed consideration of\nthe process of inorganic and organic evolution, we reared our whole\nsuperstructure. On this same basis, then, we will attempt to reason\nout a view of the evolution of beauty that shall be in harmony both\nwith the facts of evolution and with the theocentric system that issued\nfrom our discussion as apparently the only possible explanation of the\nuniverse, so far, at least, as its broad outline was concerned.\n\nIf beauty be the expression of an intuition, and if, further, the\nintuition required involves a sense of relation, there can be no\ntrue perception of beauty until self-consciousness arises. Broadly\nspeaking, this is to say there can be no sense of beauty except in man.\n\nBut here at once we are brought up against the fact of sexual\nselection. Surely the posturings of spiders, the dance of the ruff,\nthe display of the peacock and the Bird of Paradise, the song of the\nwarbler (if indeed this be a courting and hymeneal song) do imply\nsome aesthetic preference in the mate? Still more does the elaborate\nperformance of the Bower-bird, with its love-chase through the gay\nparterres of its carefully decked garden and in and out of the\ndouble-doored bower, suggest some sense of beauty.\n\nThis fact, which at first sight seems fatal to our whole theory, really\nsupplies us with the clue we lacked.\n\nPerhaps, even at this moment of courting, there is no true\nself-consciousness. Our previous discussions have led us to question\nwhether this exists at all in animals, except possibly in a few\nof those most developed through contact with man. But there is\nunquestionably a sense of relation. The male and female are urged to\nlove-play by the sexual impulse, and this necessarily involves a sense\nof inter-relatedness. It may not be--probably is not--sufficiently\nconscious of the self and the other to be termed love. It is a mere\nsense of the necessity of the other for fulfilling a need as urgent and\nas little understood as hunger.\n\nBut in the sex-impulse we find a beginning of the fact of\ninter-relation; and this is the foundation we require. The elaborate\ninstances we have mentioned go a step farther than the simple\nsex-need. There is a definite attempt to make that need reciprocal by\nstimulating the dormant sense of relation in the mate through the use\nof objects to which a _meaning_ is given through emphasis or through\narrangement and juxtaposition. And this meaning is recognised, though\nperhaps not as beauty exactly; that would imply the expression of\nthe meaning to the self, and it is doubtful if the self yet exists.\nBut it is very hard to draw any line. At all events we can say that\nhere there is relation--and _self-conscious_ relation is love; and\nthat here is expression of a meaning and a need--and a _recognised_\nmeaning, or intuition, when expressed to the self is beauty. We are\non the confines of aesthetic. Now at first sight this idea may raise\na feeling of antagonism, almost of disgust. We seem to have reduced\nbeauty to terms of the sexual impulse. Further consideration will serve\nto dispel this sense of a derogation of beauty, and will even give\nto the sex-impulse itself a nobler significance, making it appear as\nthe first stage in the emergence of Love and Beauty; rendering to it\nthe honour due from an understanding of the end which it subserves.\nThere can be little doubt that in man the perception of beauty in\nthe opposite sex--not _as_ beauty perhaps, but as simple attraction\nto a beautiful person--does very generally precede that of more\nimpersonal forms of beauty. Amid savage races this is unquestionably\nthe case. The strange decoration of the body and other rites in the\ninitiation of the adolescent, are undoubtedly expressions connected\nwith sex-relations. To us they are ugly because they fail to express\nour fuller understanding; to the savage they are beautiful. And I\nbelieve that in the children of a highly developed artistic race it\nis true also in some measure. The love-admiration of boys and girls\nbegins at a very tender age; and the psychoanalytic work of Freud and\nJung gives a significance, no doubt often exaggerated, to acts and\nthoughts and dreams of children which, if not strictly sexual in the\ncommon sense, are yet connected with the impulse--called by Jung the\n_libido_--that underlies the evolution of the race. If we employ the\nterminology of Bergson and Driesch, we may say that the _\u00e9lan vital_,\nor _entelechy_, is the _libido_ of Jung; that, as the animal progresses\nalong the path of evolution, it becomes the sexual impulse in the\nwider sense given to the term by Freud; and that in one aspect it\nfinally becomes the sexual impulse in the sense in which the term is\ncommonly understood, while it achieves infinitely higher levels in the\ndirection of spiritual progress at the same time. But observe what this\nimplies. We have just noticed the obvious fact that the sex-impulse\ninvolves a sense of relation. It is probable that the first dawnings\nof relationship, albeit in a primitive, almost sensational form, arise\nhere. The using of inanimate objects as tools is probably evolved later\nthan conjugation, even in the protozoa. _Difflugia_ may make use of\ngrains of sand to form its test, but all protozoa conjugate. Anyhow,\nthis is a minor matter. The important point is that in the sex-impulse\narises first the sense of a relation between individuals, which is\ndestined, far later, to grow into the first stages of love; and in the\ndevelopment of the child we find traces of this origin, distorted and\nchronologically misplaced, exactly as one would expect from the Law of\nRecapitulation.\n\nAnother point of interest arises here. Many psychoanalysts, and notably\nJung[30], have shown that mythology has an overwhelmingly sexual\ncontent. Further, Rivers[31], and others, have extended the conception\nof the primitive, or infantile, character of myth in relation to the\nprimitive or infantile character of dreams, showing that both belong\nto a lower level of culture than does the waking self. As time goes\non more and more, not only of the minor activities of the individual,\nbut of the earlier activities of the race, are relegated to the\nunconscious. Psychologists have long recognised this fact in dealing\nwith habit-formation, but these recent writers have given it a deeper\nsignificance. The spirit uses the past as something on which to build\nthe future. In old days, and among primitive peoples still to-day, the\nexplanation of life was sought in a very childish manner. The impulse\nof sex was not understood, its relation to procreation was largely\nhidden, as witness the ceremonies of Intichiuma, and many others\nthat, by symbolic magic, should confer fertility. It was mysterious,\nyet immensely powerful. It had some sort of relation to the birth of\nchildren and animals. The creation of all things was mysterious, but\nsince the new was born these two mysteries must be connected. Hence\nthe sexual symbolism of myths that were predominantly aetiological in\ncharacter--that were predominantly attempts to answer the great Why? of\nthe universe.\n\nIn the present connection, then, the chief interest of the work of\nFreud and Jung on infantile phenomena associated with sex, in so far\nas it is not exaggerated, lies in the fact that here too we have an\ninstance of the working of von Baer\u2019s Law of Recapitulation. In the\nanimal the sense of relation begins with sex; in the child we have\nstrange, fragmentary primitive sex-phenomena (if these psychoanalysts\nbe right), dissociated from many of their natural concomitants;\nphenomena suggesting some close analogy with the temporary appearance\nin the embryo of structures that disappear again, having lost their\nsignificance. Can it be that the purely animal basis on which man\u2019s\ngreat structure of relationship is raised, is merely a foundation,\nbecoming gradually hidden, covered up?\n\nLove is, no doubt, in origin an impulse of sex. Yet the highest love\nwe know and experience in ourselves has nothing sexual in it. When a\nman and a maid fall in love there is no thought of such things in the\nmind of either. Primarily, true love is utterly pure from admixture\nwith animal instincts, though it may be, and is, founded on them in the\nevolutionary sense, and though they still play a vastly important part,\nmade beautiful by the love they subserve. But the love that _begins_\nas conscious sex-instinct is no love at all. There is love between\nmen and women, even young men and women, as well as between those of\nthe same sex, that is either utterly free from all sexual content,\nor in which that content is so trivial in amount, and so completely\ndismissed from attention, that it is practically non-existent. If\none is conscious of it at any moment, one is so by a definite effort\nof the mind, and for the specific purpose of bringing before oneself\nthe wonderful emergence of the purest and highest activity of the\nspirit from so lowly and physical an origin. Such love is far higher\nthan the love between husband and wife often is, where the sexual\nside is primary as well as primitive, and friendship secondary. Only\nwhen husband and wife are first friends, and then, after that, live\ntogether with a full realisation of the sacramental meaning of sex as\nthe foundation on which the eternal temple of love has been and is\nbeing built, can their union approach the highest level. Then it is\nindeed the best of all in this life. It takes them closer to the heart\nof things than mere friendship would, and enables them to make their\nother friendships perfect through the understanding which it brings.\nThe physical subserves the spiritual, and even in the physical the two\nare united. The physical and the spiritual are for them one--parts of a\nwhole. Their own friendship is perfect as far as anything human can be\nperfect, and by it their friendships with others are made perfect.\n\nWe see, then, in the founding and development of the sexual impulse the\nfirst movement of the _\u00e9lan vital_ along its true path of evolution.\nThe _\u00e9lan vital_ determines progress; it is the unrest, the divine\ndiscontent of spirit creating itself in matter[32]. It progresses along\nvarious roads, but the road that leads it to its own fulfilment lies\nthrough sex. The _\u00e9lan vital_ becomes _libido_ in an even narrower\nsense than that, almost co-extensive with Bergson\u2019s term, which Jung\ngives to the word. For through sex the sense of individual, and\nsubsequently personal, inter-relationship comes into being[33]. With\nthe arousing of self-consciousness we find the dawn of love. This\nis the beginning of understanding. In the intuition of love is born\nthe knowledge of Reality. Faint, partial, obscured by the sex-basis\non which it is built up, it is yet the key to the mystery of being.\nGradually, slowly, amid disappointing foulness and blind passion, it\nstill grows. In its insistence on relationship it is manifested as the\nhuman aspect of religion. Side by side with it grows the knowledge\nand love of God. This is the divine aspect of religion, and the two\ntogether make the world and the activity of the spirit an intelligible\nwhole. The \u201cWhat is Truth\u201d of jesting Pilate finds here its answer. All\ntruth, all life, all process, in short Reality itself, is known in the\nknowledge of the creative love which is the activity of spirit. We see\nsex growing to greater and greater importance until we reach man. Then\nself-consciousness intervenes; the ideas of relation and of fellowship\ndawn; love finds a beginning, and then sex begins to lose its\nprivileged place. From pre-eminence it sinks to a secondary position.\nIts spiritual part is nearly played, and something higher carries on\nthe work. Love is more than passion. Sex must continue to function,\nfor man has still a physical body; but its spiritual significance is\nunderstood, and that is a thing far greater than itself. As love grows,\npassion sinks and sinks from its first prominence, till love is all.\n\u201cThey neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.\u201d\nIf this means anything at all, it means that in the end the physical\nbody will have played its noble part and pass away, with its passions\nand its failures; while the life goes on, revealed in a body spiritual.\n\nIn the light of this understanding nothing is left unclean. Even in\nthe work of Freud, in so far as it is true, and not coloured by the\noverstrained interpretations of a pathologist, there is nothing to\nshock, though much to sadden us. Where in man there is over-emphasis\nof sex there is a return to the lower, animal stage. Men are\nregarding life in terms of what has been, and not of what shall be.\nThey are falling short of their own possibilities. In what degree\nthis phenomenon is pathological, due to some neurosis or psychosis,\nwe may not judge them; in what degree their over-concentration on\nanimal passion, to the exclusion of true spiritual activity, is\nunder the control of the will we are in presence of sin. For, from\nthe evolutionary point of view, sin is the refusal to live up to the\nstandard that is at present possible, the acquiescence in a standard\nthat belongs properly to a stage outgrown; lower; more animal, less\ndivine. It is content with an anachronism; the willing acceptance,\nthe welcome of failure to progress--and this means _refusal_ to\nprogress[34].\n\nBut to see in the sex-impulse the _explanation_ of love is to fall into\nthe same error as do the materialists, though the error has assumed a\nnew and more subtle guise. You can no more explain love by sex than you\ncan explain mind by matter. In both cases you are using terms to which\nyou can attach no meaning. Ultimately I cannot think of matter and yet\nexclude mind; I cannot think of sex and yet exclude relation, and so,\nultimately, love. For scientific purposes no doubt I can do both, for\nscience is a process of abstraction in which we disregard everything\nthat is not relevant to an immediate and narrow purpose. But philosophy\nmay not abstract. She deals with the concrete and the real.\n\nWe have apparently lost sight of the question of beauty; but those who\nhave followed the thought of the first chapter will realise that we\nhave not in fact gone far afield. Upon the foundation of sex, as we\nhave seen, the sexless activity of love is being slowly reared; and\nlove is relation--relation is the reciprocal, creative activity which\nis spirit, and spirit is Reality. God is Love; men perfected are,\nor will be, love. The being of God and men alike is the activity of\npersonal relationship, made perfect in union while yet each retains\nhis self-identity[35]. The knowledge of this relation, the expression\nof it, is Beauty; and in Beauty the whole theoretic activity is\ncomprehended in the ultimate resort, when intuition, the immediate\ncontact, and logic, the mediate contact, are made one through perfect\nknowledge.\n\nSince then, the first origin of the realisation of relationship is\nborn in the sex-impulse, here the beginnings of beauty must be sought.\nBut to search for them in any developed form--to search for what we\nunderstand by beauty--in the animal consciousness is vain. There can\nexist in it only some dim fore-shadowing, some preference. Not until\ntrue self-consciousness arises can there be any real sense of beauty,\nif beauty be the intuition of a relation expressed to the self and\nto others. And arguing from the psychological effect of beauty upon\nourselves--the longing it produces, and the creative impulse--we have\nbeen driven to define beauty as the expression of a relation. The\ngerm from which love and beauty will spring is already there in the\nrelation between animals, but who would guess that from the least of\nseeds should be born so great and noble a tree?\n\nMany have sought the origin of the sense of beauty in the attraction\nof sex, and have then hanged Beauty under this bad name. To do this\nis to proclaim oneself a materialist. Our idea is far different.\nReasoning from the standpoint to which we are driven by an examination\nof evolution that does not neglect the phenomenon of personality;\nfinding the only explanation of evolution itself in free personal\nrelationship; we see in sex the primitive ground-work of that\nrelationship. Physically, the sex relation subserves many purposes;\nit provides a chief mode of introducing variation, it blindly helps\non the evolutionary process through selective mating, it provides the\nchemical stimulus to the development of a new organism from the gamete\nor sex cell. But it does more. In the light of the end we see in sex\na far nobler function; of a significance not transient but abiding.\nIn the great adventure of Creative Love, to sex is given the task of\nbringing about those relations which constitute the ground-work of the\npersonal union which is Love. Of the understanding and the expression\nof this relation is born the sense of beauty, destined gradually to\ntransfigure the world for man, as he learns to see order and purpose\nand significant relation in the whole, and to endure eternal and yet\nalways new.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\nThroughout this essay, in our quest for the meaning of Beauty we\nhave been driven to reject the ground of the Natural as the proper\nstandpoint for viewing the Beautiful. Rather, in Nature regarded from\nthe point of view of ultimate Reality, we have found a value only\nthrough relation; and it is the intuition of this relation, expressed\nto conscious mind, that constitutes Beauty. No relation is, however,\nsatisfying but one which is mutual. There is beauty in all expressed\nrelations, even those of mathematics and physics, but because these\nrelations are primarily expressed for the purpose of the science as\nbetween thing and thing, and their relation to the perceiving mind is\nrelegated to the background, the sense of beauty is not roused in any\ngreat degree. By scenery a far more vivid sense of beauty is kindled,\nand hand in hand with this goes a keener sense of dissatisfaction and\ncreative longing. By pictures and the like we are brought into touch\nwith the mind of the artist; he has felt a relation and given to it\ntechnical expression, and we follow anew his creative intuition. In\ndoing so we get in some degree into relation with his mind as well as\nwith the thing in which he saw beauty; and we derive additional joy\nfrom this personal relation, mediate though it be. But still there is\ndissatisfaction, as well as creative desire. This longing is identical\nwith the longing of one-sided love. We receive and cannot give. Only in\nperfectly reciprocal love is the longing absent, while yet the creative\naspect is most vividly present.\n\nThe study of Philosophy irradiates the world for us, increasing our\nsense of the beauty that is in it. We understand more; the world\u2019s\nrelation to us is more real, deeper, wider. Religion has the same\neffect, though in so far as it sometimes belittles the world it tends\nalso to deaden our understanding of the world\u2019s beauty. But if our\nphilosophy coincides with our religion and our scientific theory is a\npart of both, Beauty has a chance of winning her proper position. If\nthis philosophy and this religion find their ultimate Reality in the\npersonal relationship we call love; if in their \u2018science\u2019 the creative\nprocess of that love\u2019s activity in self-limitation stands revealed;\nBeauty indeed comes to her own. In our intuition of the world\u2019s beauty\nwe are in touch with the creative idea of the Master Mind. Only a\nphilosophy and a religion that are rooted and grounded in the God\nwho is Love, yet take the fullest account of the time-processes of\nlove which we call evolution, can reveal the fulness of Beauty. Then\nBeauty is seen as Spirit\u2019s grasp upon the relation between all the\nparts of the whole--a relation that is not yet complete, and can only\nbe complete when the sole relation is that of love between personal\nbeings, of whom God is the first in timeless Being. Then, when matter\nis seen as the expression of God\u2019s self-limitation for the sake of His\npeople\u2019s freedom, realisation dawns that matter is instinct with beauty\nfor the understanding mind. Aesthetic becomes the link that binds all\nour theoretic knowledge together, making it one--serviceable as an\nequal partner with the practical activity. In this partnership the\nactivity of the spirit is perfected[36]. The beauty of relationship is\nalways new, just as love is always new. Our creation is our expression\nof our personal being in relationship, which is ultimately love. God\u2019s\ncreation is the expression of His Personal Being in relationship.\nWithout relationship He would not be personal; but more is implied in\nthis statement than merely internal relations. Personality, the \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2\nof \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1, is centrifugally creative, as we have seen elsewhere,\nand the thing created, because it is a relationship, is beautiful,\nand is new. In the perennial newness of beauty we find the key to\nGod\u2019s creative activity. He creates new persons, because His relation\nto them is new and beautiful. Just because His experience is the\nexperience of Perfect Personality new things are perpetually added.\nWithout this activity His Being would not be perfect. Its perfection\nis substantiated by its power of finding beauty new. Only the inactive\ndullard fails to see beauty and is bored, and in his very dulness he\nloses the prerogative of personality.\n\nFrom the height of such a conception, standing upon ultimate Reality,\nwe have looked down upon the humble beginnings of the intuition of\nrelation, or of beauty. These we found pre-eminently in sex, and so\nfar we were in accord with the psychoanalytic schools of Vienna and\nof Zurich. But we saw sex transformed and made beautiful, because our\neyes were fixed, not on low, immediate purposes, but on the wonderful\nthings that were to come. Mainly out of the relationship of sex spring\nmusic, art, literature--all the beauty that is so far removed from\nits physical origin--and it is in these things of eternal value that\nwe find the true purpose of sex, as opposed to its immediate physical\nmeaning. In music, art, literature we see the expression of growing\nunderstanding. The Reality is brought nearer and nearer to man.\n\nCould Philosophy but bring our thought in closer contact with\nAesthetic, as Croce has nobly endeavoured to bring it, understanding\nwould quicken marvellously. Could religion embrace the arts and use\nthem, the world would move Godward with fresh inspiration; the arts\nthemselves would be enriched, coming into their true heritage. Croce\nhas paved the way to understanding, but he missed the goal because he\ndid not perceive that the content of Reality is relationship. This\nessay attempts to indicate how much is lost by his omission. God is\nLove; Reality is Love. Love is relationship. Beauty is the expression\nof our understanding of that relationship. The Good, the True, the\nBeautiful are seen as different aspects of the same Reality; each\ndefinable only in terms of another; each involving, and indeed being,\nthe same system of relations seen from a different angle. Goodness is\nthe relation of spirit to spirit, Truth the relation of part to part\nand part to whole, Beauty the expression of the spirit\u2019s knowledge\nof the relations that make up Reality. Our understanding of these\nrelations--yes, and God\u2019s understanding--is perpetually creative, and\nits creation is a new thing for Perfect Being; for the Perfection\nof Being is only substantiated by its power to create the new, the\nbeautiful, the related. Matter is beautiful because it is understood\nas the expression of the infinite activity of the spirit of love. As\nPersonal Being is the one thing that lasts beyond Time, and carries in\nitself the character of absoluteness, so it appears that Beauty, the\nknowledge and expression of the relationship of Personal Being, is also\neternal. Beauty can never cease, for it is a necessary part of God\u2019s\nexperience and ours.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nART FORMS IN DEVELOPMENT\n\n\nAlthough any detailed treatment of the concrete forms of art is\nentirely foreign to the intention of this essay, it is desirable that\nwe should devote a little consideration to the way in which these\ntechnical expressions arise and to the psychological effects they\nproduce. In doing this we shall refer to the work of various artists,\nbut only for purposes of illustration. The part of the art critic is as\nunnecessary to our purpose as it is beyond our powers.\n\nTo omit all reference to concrete matters seemed undesirable, as\nleaving the theory rather in the air. On the other hand any detailed\ndiscussion of the theory as applied to the development of concrete\nart-forms must necessarily introduce debatable propositions, and must\nbe tentative. It therefore seemed desirable to relegate the discussion\nof concrete matters to an Appendix, and to state clearly that what was\nthere said was meant rather to suggest ideas than to lay down definite\nprinciples. Applications that may be open to question do not invalidate\na theory, while they do make for clear understanding of it.\n\nThe question whether beauty itself is a universal or a particular\nhas already found implicit answer. Since beauty is the expression\nof a relation that is understood as an essential determination of\nReality, the concept of beauty is a pure concept. It is expressive,\nit is concrete, it is universal. It is clearly expressed to the self\nas a cognitive product, expressible in words (definition) and symbols\n(technique). It answers to Croce\u2019s test that though \u201cuniversal and\ntranscendent in relation to the single representation, it is yet\nimmanent in the single, and therefore in all representations,\u201d and is\ntherefore concrete. It also transcends the single representations, \u201cso\nthat no single representation, and no number of them can be equivalent\nto the concept\u201d and so is universal.\n\nBut the foundation of every universal concept exists in an intuition\nof the particular. The intuition and its expression to the self come\nfirst, then follows the extension of the theoretic activity in logic.\nThe concept of beauty must, then, have arisen, and at every fresh\nrealisation must still arise, like all concepts, from an intuition of\nReality as existent in a particular; and we must therefore seek its\norigin in specific individual cases.\n\nNow we have argued that beauty is most probably associated initially\nwith sex, since with sex the idea of personal relationship first\narises. Our main thesis would not however be invalidated if it could be\nshown that a vague intuition of relation with inorganic or non-personal\nobjects arose first. The intuition of relation may well have several\nseparate starting points. Only, in this case, the reciprocal element\nwould be absent (though its lack might not be felt except as a vague\ndissatisfaction) and could only arise when the sex-relation was the\nsubject of a similar intuition. But most likely the intuition of\nrelation did arise with sex, and, since our argument is concerned to\nshow that ultimately the intuition of beauty leads to the expression\nof mutual relationship--love--and finds there the explanation both of\nits peculiar quality, and of the creative longing it produces, we will\nconfine our argument mainly to this aspect.\n\nNow if this be so, the sense of beauty is likely to be associated in\nits earliest stages with sight, and only in a secondary degree with\nsound, in the mating-call and in the beginnings of language. This is\nborne out by the fact that music usually lags behind, and is more\nprimitive in expression than the visual arts--personal ornamentation\nand even decoration of objects. True, the first formal _expression_\nis likely to be in sound--in the beginnings of language. The dynamic\nrelation between persons maybe accompanied and expressed throughout by\nspeech. But at this primitive level it will be a very limited intuition\nor understanding that is expressed, and moreover, an intuition that\nis based on visual stimuli. We may therefore leave the question of\nlanguage for the present. Its importance in the earlier stages is\nmainly practical. Through sight (when the stage of simple chemiotaxis\nis passed) arises the perception of desirability in the opposite\nsex[37], which is the animal starting-point from which love is evolved.\nThis desirability and this relation are expressed to the self, and\nthis expression is beauty in its humblest beginning. Then, later, the\ncreative aspect enters into consciousness. At first it was satisfied,\nunconsciously, in mating; but soon this unconscious satisfaction is\nfelt to be inadequate. The representative process begins.\n\nNow here we find a difficulty. According to our theory, the earliest\nattempts at the pictorial art should be pictures of men and women,\nbut this is not, I believe, the case[38]. We must, however, remember\nthat the idea of symbolic magic arises very early. This is natural.\nThe representation of a thing is that thing in some degree. You have\npower over your representations, therefore you have power over the\nthing. The use of such power has an anti-social aspect, which forbids\nits common or public use except in the form, of a magico-religious\nceremony. It is unlikely, therefore, that if such representations were\nmade, they should have come down to us. Moreover, it is unnecessary\nthat the magic object should bear any superficial resemblance to the\nthing it symbolises; indeed it is undesirable that it should be\nrecognisable by others, since the practice for which it is destined\nis nefarious and illicit. An esoteric significance is enough. There\nis a very close connection between primitive art and religion. Thus\nthe Palaeolithic drawings of animals in the dark caves of P\u00e9rigord and\nAltamira, are undoubtedly connected with magico-religious ceremonies\nto give power over the beasts. For this reason then--the acquiring\nof a _prise_ over the object represented--we should hardly expect to\nfind many early drawings of men and women, other than divinities.\nEven to-day many savages evince the greatest fear of having their\nlikeness drawn. Nevertheless, these Neolithic drawings do exist,\nproving that there was no universal tabu on such representations.\nMoreover such drawings as those of the Bushmen show that primitive\nart at times uses drawings to record historical events, such as raids\nby other tribes. The comparative scarcity of primitive drawings is,\nhowever, easily explicable when we take the fact of magical beliefs\ninto account. And there are sufficiently numerous examples of drawings\nof animals--bear, rhinoceros, lion, mammoth, bison, reindeer, to show\nthat prehistoric man did have an intuition of his relation to other\ncreatures. Furthermore, since the creative impulse does receive some,\nif unconscious, satisfaction in sex-relationship, expressed in word and\naction, there is the less need for technical expression in the early\nstages. We find at all events enough prehistoric drawings to show the\nrecognition of relation, and the expressive activity, and these are the\ndesiderata for an aesthetic fact.\n\nLeaving the most primitive level, we find the development of\ndecoration. Pottery is shaped with some regard to form and symmetry,\nand simple ornament of a geometric character makes its appearance[39].\nMuch might be said on this subject, but we will confine ourselves to a\nfew fundamental considerations.\n\nIn the first place we notice that here man\u2019s art is practically\nunfettered by religious and magical inhibitions. Geometric forms do\nnot generally represent any person or power[40]. Artistic creation\ntherefore can move freely. Next, we observe that the art is reaching\na higher level, and that consciously. There is conscious elimination\nand abstraction at work in the construction of patterns made of simple\nlines and curves. We find also the rudiments of an endeavour to find a\nharmony and rhythm that may give a sense of satisfied understanding.\nMen are beginning to feel the need of unity and harmony and order,\nand in so far as geometric ornament gives the feeling of these and\nof purpose, it is beautiful, for it expresses their intuition of an\nordered reality.\n\nIt is unnecessary for us to discuss the intrinsic beauty of curves, or\nthe mental satisfaction afforded by the golden section. The Greeks,\nand later writers such as Fechner, have expended much ingenuity in\ndoing this. But their conclusions amounted to little more than that\nthe aesthetic pleasure given by geometric form was due to the sense\nof symmetry and order and unity that were brought about by elaborate\ndifferentiation of detail subordinated to a single idea. As we have\njust said, Geometric ornament expresses man\u2019s intuition of an ordered\nrelation and interdependence in Reality.\n\nWe have introduced the ideas of elimination and abstraction. These\nare present in all artistic representation, and probably in all\nartistic perception. Because the power is rare in any high degree of\ndevelopment, artistic genius is rare. Moreover it frequently happens\nin ordinary people that the perception of beauty is first aroused\nconsciously by pictures rather than by natural scenes. A flower is\nsimple enough for a child to understand, and we find that in many\nchildren, especially artistic ones, the perception of beauty is first\nawakened by flowers. The elements of a sunset, or a moonlight scene\nwith clear tones and silhouetted outlines, are simple enough for the\nuntrained mind to appreciate. But it requires an artistic genius to see\nthe beauty of a complex landscape. In representing this technically\nhe simplifies, emphasises, eliminates and abstracts. The man who\nlooks at his picture follows the creative process of his mind, and,\nthe elimination being already done for him, is able to appreciate.\nMoreover he receives training in the process, and is the more ready\nto eliminate for himself; to appreciate natural beauty of a complex\norder. Even if our artistic development is not high, we love pictures\nbecause in looking at them and understanding them we perform a creative\nact ourselves; but it is the artist who has made it possible for us to\nperform the act by his simplification of the problem. Browning clearly\nunderstood this, for he wrote:\n\n    We\u2019re made so that we love\n    First, when we see them painted, things we have passed\n    Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see[41].\n\nSometimes the artist achieves his emphasis by means not wholly\nagreeable to the medium which he is using. Many artists of\ngreat technical ability link human sympathies with an admirably\ninterpretative _mise-en-sc\u00e8ne_ which carries out their vision.\nNevertheless the picture that tells a story calls in adventitious aid.\nIt is like the illustrated reading book of a child; by the child mind\nit is created, and to the child mind it appeals. It cannot express a\nclear intuition by a simple representation in a single medium, but\nuses two, appealing not only in pictorial symbols, but in dramatic as\nwell, and the intuition itself is obscured by the process. Owing to\nthis confusion of media and of intuition the result is unsatisfactory\nto minds more developed aesthetically, for reasons that we shall adduce\nlater, while yet the double appeal makes the meaning more evident to\nthe beginner. Again certain landscape artists of the second rank by\ninsistence on simple elements of natural beauty, by emphasis, and by\nelimination of distracting ideas, open a new vision to minds hardly\nprepared yet for such intuition in face of the natural object. Add to\nthis the half conscious yet acutely pleasurable process of following\nout the technical means by which the artist has impressed his intuition\nupon canvas, and we can understand the joy of looking at their pictures.\n\nBut where the artist\u2019s vision goes deeper, where the reality is\nmore clearly seen, and where in order to express this intuition, to\nrepresent it, and to bring out its less obvious harmony and order,\na more sweeping process of elimination and abstraction is needed,\nthe simple mind is unable to follow. Not everyone is at the stage to\nappreciate the subtle symphonies of Whistler, the bare simplicity of\nD. Y. Cameron, the rigorous certainty of Botticelli. The conventions\nand purposeful line of an early Japanese print; the vibrant light\nof the post-impressionist landscape artists; the wilful, obtrusive,\nalmost harsh insistence of the cubist that you _shall_ turn your mind\naway from curves that hitherto you have deemed essential, in order to\ngrasp other truths, not only seem ugly--that is to say, meaningless--to\nthe mind whose artistic perception is little developed, but may even\ndistract it, in rebellious protest, from the truth the artist wishes\nto proclaim, though others further advanced find in some of their work\na very high type of beauty. And, be it added, the artist himself fails\nin his expression if he overdoes the emphasis in such a way that his\nrepresentation of the Reality becomes lopsided and inharmonious, as is\ntoo often the case. Further where he is not a creative artist at all,\nbut a slavish imitator of a method not really his own, we are presented\nwith the meaningless monstrosities that here and there defile the\nSalon des Ind\u00e9pendants--and other less catholic exhibitions! In some,\ntoo, the animal basis is the only intuition expressed, and art gobbles\ngreedily at its mess of pottage.\n\nYet as a whole we have moved a long way from the animal expression of\na need of its complementary animal. The whole world is related to us,\nand in that relation we find beauty. And beautiful as it is we find it\nvery lovable, even though we cannot but feel that our love can never be\nsatisfied since we can give nothing back.\n\nYet something we can give, though not to it--something that makes\nthings clearer. In our minds we can give to this world a meaning, as\nitself subordinate, yet the necessary means of our self-realisation,\nand we can share this meaning with others. We find a meaning in life,\nand that meaning is fellowship. We find a meaning in nature, and that\nmeaning dwells in the Creative Being of the God who is Love. Beauty,\nmore clearly day by day, becomes for us the expression of Reality, and\nthat Reality is the reciprocal relationship of persons. Religion gives\none pathway of approach, Beauty another, but both join to form the\nhighway of our God. There is more than room for beauty in religion;\nthere is more than room for aesthetic in theology; there is an absolute\nneed, if they are not to be in a measure inexpressive, lopsided, and\ntherefore ugly. Our concept of Reality must be symmetrical, or fail of\nadequacy.\n\nWhat is true of pictorial art is equally true of other forms.\nStyle--the higher art of language--demands education before it can be\nappreciated. In literature again, the general public prefers Longfellow\nto Keats, _The Passing of Arthur_ to _A Death in the Desert_, Ella\nWheeler Willcox to the _Divina Commedia_. Henry James demands a more\nintimate appreciation of the spirit of man than does Dickens. In all\nthese there is beauty--the expression of an intuition--but those who\nsee furthest and most clearly have the smallest public. Most men cannot\neven follow where they lead, and few indeed are the pioneers.\n\nBefore we leave the question of literature and language, we may just\nglance at its development. This is comparatively an easy matter\nto understand. The warning, the expression of satisfaction, the\nmating-call are common among animals. The powers of communication and\nof speech develop with the development of self-consciousness. They are\nexpressions of the relation between the self and its \u2018others,\u2019 and\nespecially of the relation between the self and other selves. They\ncarry the germs of understanding, and as they lead from the particular\nto the more general they bear in them the quality of the beautiful.\nThe relations between the self and the other selves, and between the\nself and the environment, become more and more universalised. In speech\nthey are communicated, but speech is transient. A more permanent\nrecord is required, and here again resort is had to symbolism, less\ngenerally intelligible, more esoteric, than the pictorial symbol,\nsince there is no one universal language; the symbolism of written\nspeech. Speech, however, is episodic and dramatic. It moves along with\nthe march of events. So too with literature, for the most part. The\nPictorial and Plastic arts represent beauty as static; yet they are\nnot lifeless. Activity, movement, is implicit in them, while yet the\nbeauty they express is restful, and has in it something of the quality\nof absoluteness and transcendence. Language, literature, drama are\ndynamic. In them beauty moves; immanent and unquiet at first sight; yet\nhere too there is something that expresses the eternal meaning. Purpose\nmoves to its fulfilment, and, while it moves, the end is in view.\nNevertheless in pictorial art the static side is the most prominent, in\nlinguistic the dynamic side. We may observe, however, that in order to\ncounteract the transitoriness of purely episodic speech, recourse is\nhad to visual symbolism as well. The graphic art aims at perpetuating\nthe episode, and by doing so renders possible the development to which\nwe shall immediately draw attention.\n\nNow the untrained mind appreciates the dynamic aspect of literature,\nwhether it be the originative mind or the mind of the reader. This\nexplains the output and the popularity of the thrilling tale of\nadventure. At its lowest we find the Penny Dreadful. Through Stanley\nWeyman and Dumas we move towards Conrad and Meredith and Hardy, where\nthe dynamic element is thrillingly present (as present it must be\nindeed even in the most quiet essays) but where it is subordinated to\na clear vision of the permanent and eternal which we have mis-termed\nstatic. In poetry this truth is obvious. Even in drama, though our\nattention is distracted by the action, it is the chief quality if the\ndrama is really great. In Sophocles, in Euripides, in Shakespeare;\nperhaps almost too consciously in Galsworthy, and Paul Claudel and\nSynge, for conscious art loses the sincerity of a first vision; it is\nnot the episodic sequence that interests us, except from the point\nof view of technique. Our attention is focussed upon the motive,\nthe fundamental intuition to which the dramatist is trying to give\ntechnical expression. Moreover in all the infinite variety of literary\nart the motive is the same. One definite intuition is expressed--that\nof relationship; relation between person and person, relation between\nperson and machine, relation between person and some ever-ruling\nOrder, be it Fate, Chance, or God also personal. It is the reality\nof personal inter-relationship that underlies all literature, be it\nlove-poem, novel, or some drama of Fate in which personal relationship\nis overshadowed by the impersonal, or at least the unsympathetic;\nor else it is the one-sided relation of a person to a thing, as in\ndescriptive science, which has only the beauty of order. But can we\nsay that the intuition which the pictorial artist represents is the\nsame as this? Hardly, unless the picture tells a story; and in so far\nas it does this we feel that the realm of pictorial art is invaded by\nan alien influence. It may at first sight seem surprising that art\nshould not gain by the introduction of various intuitions of relation;\nthat it does not, as a rule, is certain. All the arts overlap; we shall\nsee the most marked example of this when we come to consider music and\ndeal further with this point; but intrinsically each is peculiar in its\nscope and method.\n\nNow it is worth while to observe that the longing aroused by the beauty\nof literature is rather different from that induced by pictures. It is\nless vague. Because literature deals with the relation between persons\nour attention is directed towards the persons we know--our longings\nand aspirations reach out consciously towards them and towards God.\nWe think of particular people and our relation to them. Our creative\nlonging is directed towards them, in active relation, or towards\ncreative literary work of which, more or less consciously to ourselves\nthey are the background. Moreover we always identify ourselves, in a\ngreater or less degree, with one or more of the protagonists of the\nstory; in them we suffer, we love, we adventure at second-hand. This\nphenomenon of identification, closely allied as it is to day-dreaming,\nhas of late come much under the attention of psychoanalysts under the\ntitle of phantasy; a term covering all attempts to achieve through\nthe imagination the satisfaction denied to us in actual life. For our\npresent purpose this is only noteworthy as confirming the truth of our\nobservation that in literary creation, whether at first or second hand,\nit is human relation--the relation of ourselves and others--that lies\nbehind our intuition and its expression.\n\nIn some pictorial art this relation between persons, this personal\ntouch, does not obtain. In landscape the artist\u2019s intuition obviously\ndeals with the relation of things to men--a relation much more\nonesided. Correspondent to this, we find our intuition and our longing\nfar more vague, far more dissatisfied. There needs a higher knowledge\nof Reality to understand how man has relation to things. The intuition\nof this relation is generally expressed with far less understanding.\nHuman relations may intrude, and we get the story-picture and the\nproblem-picture. Moral relations may intrude, and we get the symbolic\npicture, such as those of Watts and Blake. Drama, myth and legend may\nintrude and we get the Ladies of Shallot, the Ledas, and the Calumnies\nof Apelles.\n\nBut pictorial art reaches its highest plane in the religious picture\nand the portrait. Have we not, here, the intrusion of the story in the\nfirst case; and in the second have we not the purely human relations\nbetween artist and sitter?\n\nI think it is just to say that the religious picture is not episodic.\nIt represents what, for want of a better word, we have termed a static\nintuition. In the greatest Madonnas, even those of the beginning of the\ndecadence, such as Raphael\u2019s, all the birth-pangs, all the pain, and\nall the achievement of life at its highest go to make up the intuition\nof the artist. I venture to think that in one picture at least, the\nMadonna of the Magnificat, the artist even hints subtly that he is\nexpressing in an image the whole meaning of the world, by distorting\nhis figures and modifying his lights as they would be distorted and\nmodified when reflected in a convex mirror. \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd is for all\nart, but the fact is not evident to him who only glances. The artist\u2019s\nintuition must be understood, by a mind that follows it creatively;\neven if its creation be at times over-ingenious.\n\nThe religious picture, no doubt, could not have been painted but\nfor the historic episode which it represents. But there is a strong\npresumption that it does not owe its intuition to one episode, nor even\nto the whole history of a life; though a Crucifixion, an Entombment,\nand indeed a Madonna, would only be intelligible in their fulness to\none who knew the life of Christ. It is the relation of a whole Life,\nDivine yet Human, to the life of each one of us that lies at the bottom\nof the artist\u2019s vision. Only a great Christian can paint a great\nMadonna, however sin-stained he may be. Magdalene, who loved much,\ncould see deeper than jesting Pilate, deeper than the self-righteous\nPharisee.\n\nThere is here no intrusion of an alien element; a vision of Reality\nis represented in one medium. The episode no doubt is there, but it\nis incidental, and does not constitute the vision. Episode is always\nthere, even in a landscape; the question is whether the appeal--the\noriginal intuition--is episodic or universal. But no doubt the human\nrelation is emphasised; and in this respect we have moved far away from\nlandscape. The relation of man to inanimate nature is however included\nand interpreted in the artist\u2019s vision. I think that the half-conscious\nperception of this lies behind the frequent introduction of landscape\nin such pictures. It may be said that these simply help to complete\nthe composition, but to say this is to beg the question. Why do they\ncomplete the composition? Why do they satisfy us? Is it not that they\nform an intrinsic part of the artist\u2019s intuition; that in the harmony\nof figures and landscape he symbolises, and we after him, the universal\nharmony which he has seen?\n\nIn a portrait, too, we read not only the relation between sitter and\nartist, which must be a relation of deep sympathy and understanding if\nthe portrait is to be anything but an imitation, but also the relation\nof the sitter to all the events of his life. Think of Raeburn\u2019s\nportrait of James Wardrop. The strength, the kindliness, the rugged\npurpose, the humour with which the old man faced his life all through\nare there. It is the face of a man who has fought and won, and in\nfighting and winning has learned much wisdom. Think of Giorgione\u2019s\nPortrait of a Gentleman, with its wealth of refinement; with its\nconviction that \u201cmanners makyth man,\u201d sustained with gentleness already\nmany times when courtesy and calm were not easy. Yet here too there is\nno representation of episode. The painter\u2019s art is faithful to itself\nand allows no alien intrusion. The harmony, the unity of a man\u2019s life,\ncompounded though that life be of sequent episodes, makes the artist\u2019s\nintuition. History has become philosophy. An absolute thing, an aspect\nof Reality, is presented, and we feel somehow that it is not set\nagainst the world but includes the world.\n\nThe same kind of thing may be said of lapidary art, and we will not\ndwell on it in detail. The sculptor sees beauty in the human or\nanimal form and in three dimensional representation generalises from\nit, whether his work represent an individual or an ideal; for the\nindividual is used to express an ideal, the ideal is localised in an\nindividual. The problem of the architect is somewhat different, being\non the theoretic side the attempt to portray in three dimensions that\nwhich the designer of geometric patterns expresses in two--rhythm and\norder; multiplicity that establishes a unity; unity that interprets\na multiplicity. But here, more than in other arts, the practical has\nto be kept in mind, and a harmony preserved between the economic and\nthe theoretic activities. Generally one or other predominates, no one\nclear idea is expressed, and in consequence, much modern architecture,\nespecially domestic and civic architecture, is unpleasing. To build\na house is harder than to paint a picture, because men have to live\nin a house; and in a contention between two ideas the artistic side\nis overbalanced by the practical. Moreover the idea of relationship\nis comparatively subordinate here just because two ideas are set over\nagainst one another. The relationship of a thing to a man is in view.\nThe aim is primarily economic, and beauty takes a second place because\nthe intuition of harmony is vague and its expression imperfect.\n\nIf, however, a house is built, as some Tudor and Georgian houses were,\nwith an eye to simple proportion which must not be violated, but\notherwise with the realisation that it had to be lived in, and that it\nmust be designed solely with this end in view, the result is eminently\npleasing. There is no falsity, no attempt to mingle irreconcileables,\nno striving after a beauty that cannot be achieved because it is\nwithout meaning in such a connection.\n\nWe may now turn to music, in some ways the most difficult of all.\nBeginning with the evolutionary aspect, as with linguistic art we find\nits origin in the relation of beasts to each other and to the world.\nThe mating-call, the crooning of passion and of satisfied well-being,\nthe warning of danger, the hunting call, the sound of the wind, the\nsea, the river, the \u201cgoing in the tops of the trees,\u201d provide the\nground-work of both, expressing the relation of beast to beast, and\nbeast to thing. But, as we have seen, such calls, such sounds, and the\nlanguage to which they give rise, are episodic. The sense of unity and\nendurance is lost. Just as, over against the visual symbols of episode\nwhich constitute the beginnings of literature we find the visual\nsymbols of unity and static endurance which characterise pictorial art,\nso too we find the auditory symbols of episode that make speech, and\nthe auditory symbols of unity that make music. We saw that, to preserve\nthe episode of speech, visual symbolism is eventually called in. Even\nto-day the untrained reader has to form the sound with his lips as he\nreads; for the more expert the visual symbol definitely represents\nthe sound: the written symbols have their own timbre. So too with\nmusic. To preserve the unity from being lost, it comes at last to be\nsymbolised visually, and there are many who can hear the music as they\nread the score. Both the letter on the page and the notes on the stave\nare symbols of the second degree--symbols of symbols--for what they\nsymbolise is in itself the symbol of the artist\u2019s intuition of a unity\nin multiplicity. This in parenthesis.\n\nWe have said that in purely episodic sound such as the danger-call\nand the mating-call the sense of unity is absent. Doubtless no call\nis really and wholly episodic, in man at any rate, but it cannot be\nquestioned that the episode is predominant. The sense of relation is\ntransient; the economic need is all important.\n\nBut the theoretic activity cannot be left out of account for long.\nThe man of to-day, when he feels his whole being in harmony, his\nbody tingling from the cold bath, sings lustily. When we are well and\ncheerful we sing. So too when a bird is well and cheerful, with all his\nbodily needs satisfied or soon to be satisfied--so readily satisfied\nas to be themselves a pleasure of anticipation--he sings. No doubt the\ncave-mother sang to her baby in quiet murmurs; no doubt the cave-father\nhummed as he lolled in the cave-mouth after dinner, idly binding an\narrow-head upon the shaft. Somehow, in a rhythmic sequence of sound\nthe satisfaction of a body in harmonious rhythm with itself and its\nsurroundings is expressed. Then, we may imagine, the singer becomes\naware of his song, and begins to think about it. The beauty of the song\nas a whole, the beauty of a sequence in sound that makes a unity, is\nconsciously perceived, and a new art dawns. It is an art very similar\nto that of the designer of geometric patterns. Unity is established\nthrough infinite multiplicity of details, in forming no one of which\nis the unity forgotten. The music mirrors an intuition of harmony in a\nReality that owes its unity to its multiplicity and its multiplicity to\nits unity; a Reality that is based on relationship of parts.\n\nIn music, then, we find rhythm, order, sequence. It is both episodic\nand static, though episode and unity are in symbolic form. In the\nindividual sequences, the internal multiplicity, the episode is given;\nin the whole, the unity of Reality, the static, or better, the absolute\nelement.\n\nBecause in good music these two aspects must of necessity be perfectly\nbalanced, music can rouse the keenest, highest sense of beauty in a\ngreater degree than any other of the arts.\n\nBut often music falls short of this. Mendelssohn for instance, too\noften sacrifices everything to prettiness. The individual sequences are\ntrivial and empty. Multiplicity of episode is lost sight of in a rather\npetty unity; the two are not balanced. The fourth sound is simply a\nfourth note, not a star. Not only is the intuition limited, but the\nbalance is not preserved between the notes and the whole in its\nexpression. Bach owes his pre-eminence to the perfect balance between\nattention to detailed sequence and expression of a great intuition.\nFuture musicians may see further than he did, but unless they can\nachieve his perfect balance they will fail to express what they see,\nand in so far as they fail they will be rewarded with ugliness.\n\nThe music-hall tune has but a very paltry vision to express; generally\nthe relationship it portrays is one of vulgar intrigue or animal\ndesire, at best one of elementary aspiration; and its notes have\na purely subordinate and utilitarian _r\u00f4le_. If it is pretty or\ningenious it has got far beyond the average. Generally, moreover,\nit is constrained by considerations alien to music. The words are\nwritten, and the tune has to illustrate them. In this it differs\nfrom folk-tunes, where words and music grow together, each shaping,\nmoulding, modifying the other, till the song is one thing.\n\nThis brings us back to a question which we have several times touched\nupon, and as often shelved--the question of the overlapping of\ndifferent arts. Opera, oratorio, and ballet give us excellent examples,\nand from them we will draw the material of our brief discussion.\n\nIn Opera we have drama, episode expressed in language, set in a more or\nless accordant scene with histrionic accompaniment, and woven in with\na musical interpretation. In Oratorio we have the same thing without\nthe scenery and the histrionics. In Ballet--and of this art the Russian\nBallet is especially in my mind--we have the drama, the scene, the\nhistrionic accompaniment in choregraphic form, and the music.\n\nLet us take Opera first. There are two appeals to the ear and two\nto the eye. The music and the words; the acting and the scenery.\nThe scenery, if subdued and perfectly in accord with the action,\ndoes not much distract the attention, for it is purely a pictorial\nsetting. Nevertheless a sense is growing that in drama it ought to\nbe so much subordinated that it does not distract the attention at\nall, being confined to a few patterns that help in our understanding\nof the motive, or to simple draperies. As far as I am aware this has\nnot yet been attempted in opera[42], but opera is such a jumble of\nincongruities that it can never be an artistic whole, much as we may\nrejoice in individual parts of it. The words, however, do constrain\nthe music in a manner thoroughly unjustifiable: \u201cIn composing an opera\nthe stage should be the musician\u2019s first thought, he must not abuse\nthe confidence of the theatre-goer who comes to _see_ as well as to\n_hear_.... The stage often paralyses a composer\u2019s inspiration, that\nis why symphonic and chamber music are so far superior to opera. A\nsymphony or a sonata imposes no limitations, but in opera, the first\nnecessity is to speak the musical language of the great public[43].\u201d\nMoreover the action and the music are so incompatible that we are\nforced to leave our sense of humour outside the theatre door. When\nthe hero explains for ten minutes that the heroine is in acute danger\nand that therefore he must hurry away; when Tristan and Isolde sing\ntheir passion with complete detachment for more than half an hour; we\ncannot feel that the action helps the music or the music the action. In\nOratorio, since action is absent, we feel this particular incongruity\nless, for we manage mentally to eliminate time; but few will be found\nto defend the oratorio as a form of aesthetic expression. It is the\nanthem prolonged into a \u201cuseless Alexandrine,\u201d \u201cwhich like a wounded\nsnake drags its slow length along.\u201d The fatal fact about opera and\noratorio is that the music is constrained to do something that is alien\nto itself. It is interpretive of episode, and the episode forces it\ninto shape. It is not free. This is the root trouble always when two\narts overlap. Art must be completely free to express its intuition\ntechnically, subject only to the inevitable restrictions of the\ntechnique proper to it. From _these_ restrictions it even gains, since\nthe lines of simplification are to some extent determined, and this\nvery determination helps the artist towards clear expression of a clear\nintuition. It would, of course, be absurd to say that music does not\nexpress definite intuitions that are expressible through other media as\nwell. \u201cI do not in the least agree with you that music cannot interpret\nthe universal nature of love,\u201d writes Tchaikovsky to Nadejda von Meck.\n\u201cOn the contrary, I think only music is capable of doing so. You say\nwords are necessary. O no! This is just where words are not needed, and\nwhere they have no power; a more eloquent language comes in, which is\nmusic. Look at the poetical forms to which poets have recourse in order\nto sing of love; they simply usurp the spheres which belong inseparably\nto music. Words clothed in poetical forms cease to be mere words; they\nbecome partly music[44].\u201d But if there is a restriction alien to the\nart and imposed from without, which prevents full expression in that\nmedium, the result is bound to be more or less a failure. The dramatic\nepisode and the verbal form in opera constitute such a restriction,\nintroducing a vein of unreality that is fatal to aesthetic expression.\nIn oratorio, where the words demand a representation they do not get,\nand where yet the music is bound by the words, we feel the same thing.\nEven to take a poem and set it to music is almost bound to lead to\naesthetic disappointment. The intuition of the artist is not single\nnor free. The writer of the melody may recreate the intuition of the\npoet, he may try to express the same intuition in his setting, but the\nsetting is none the less constrained by the words. The musician is not\nat liberty to form one clear intuition and give it free play[45]. The\nform of the expression is already fixed in part, and the knowledge\nof this fixation forms a second intuition which generally obscures\nand confuses the main one. Moreover both expressions appeal to the\nsame sense, that of hearing, and this, apparently, produces greater\nconfusion, more lack of clarity, in the auditor. The same fact accounts\nfor the unsatisfactoriness of music which moves out of its proper\nsphere and endeavours to tell a definite story or paint a definite\nscene. The 1812 Overture, fine though it is, can never be said to be\npre-eminent as music; nor can Haydn\u2019s Creation, nor any of the music\nthat, intentionally or unintentionally, is not single-hearted, but\ncalls up visual images as well as depending on them. This statement\ndoes not constitute an indictment of programme-music. The _Adagio_\nof Beethoven\u2019s Fourth Symphony cannot be thus lightly dismissed[46].\nIn Tchaikovsky\u2019s introspective letters we find most interesting\naccounts of the inspiration from which he worked, and an eloquent\ndefence of programme-music in general, and his own Fourth Symphony in\nparticular[47]. To N. F. von Meck he writes[48]: \u201cLaroche is entirely\nopposed to a programme. He thinks the composer should leave the hearer\nto interpret the meaning of the work as he pleases; that the programme\nlimits his freedom; that music is incapable of expressing the concrete\nphenomena of the physical and mental world.... If you care to hear my\nopinion on the subject, I will give it in a few words.... I think the\ninspiration of a symphonic work can be of two kinds: subjective or\nobjective. In the first instance it expresses the personal emotion of\njoy or sorrow, as when a lyric poet lets his soul flow out in verse.\nHere a programme is not only unnecessary, but impossible. It is very\ndifferent when the composer\u2019s inspiration is stirred by the perusal of\nsome poem, or by the sight of a fine landscape, and he endeavours to\nexpress his impressions in musical forms. In this case a programme is\nindispensable.... To my mind, both kinds of music have their _raison\nd\u2019\u00eatre_, and I cannot understand those who will only admit one of these\nstyles. Of course every subject is not equally suitable for a symphony,\nany more than for an opera; but, all the same, programme-music can and\nmust exist. Who would insist, in literature, upon ignoring the epic and\nadmitting only the lyric element?\u201d\n\nTchaikovsky seems to me to ignore the deepest side of music, however;\nthat intuition of an ordered, universal harmony which gives to Bach his\npre-eminence. Programme-music, then, is not necessarily limited to any\ngreat extent by that which it represents, provided the representation\nis sufficiently generalised to allow the music free scope. But it is\nalways in danger of losing touch with the universal in over-emphasis of\nthe particular, becoming constrained by its subject. Moreover it loses\nsomething of the freedom, and independence of phenomenal existence,\nwhich is the peculiar privilege of music and its unique prerogative\namong the arts, taking on something that belongs to painting or\nlanguage. In so far as the wrong technical medium is used, just so far\naesthetic expression fails.\n\nThese strictures do not apparently apply, at any rate in the same\ndegree, where two media appealing to two different senses are used\nsimultaneously. We are accustomed to correlate sight and hearing\nand to form through them a single intuition. This may explain the\nextraordinary satisfyingness of the Russian Ballet, in spite of its\nfrequent artificiality and the perverted themes and imagery that pass\nunnoticed by the more healthy-minded public of England. The episodic\nside, made rhythmical and ordered in its choregraphic presentation,\nparallels, but does not constrain in any great degree, the musical\nside. In Les Sylphides especially the same intuition is expressed in\ntwo media. The choregraphic artist has studied and followed out the\nintuition of Chopin, and has expressed it in a different medium. But\nmusic and dancing have much ground in common, and consequently both\nare capable of serving as the technical medium for one or the same\nintuition. Therefore Les Sylphides[49] is more of an artistic whole\nthan almost any other compound aesthetic expression. Art must be free,\nand if it use two media, both must express the same intuition--this is\nthe root of the matter. You may appeal simultaneously to two senses,\nbut you must do so in the medium proper to each sense and the intuition\nmust be capable of expression in those media. To appeal to one sense\nthrough the medium proper to another is to court disaster. We see that\nthis must be so if, as is the case, the aesthetic intuition has to\nbe founded on the particular before it can move out to discover the\nuniversal; and the particular cannot be faithfully represented if the\nrepresentation is not as clear-cut as the intuition and the reality\nintuited. Art must be free, for it is the intuition of a relation free\non one side at least, and not finally satisfied till it finds rest\nin mutuality, love, free on both sides. It is the expression of our\ngrowing understanding of the meaning of Reality.\n\nNo doubt music, like all other arts, has been transformed from its\noriginal character. It is no longer imitative, though it may have been\nfirst roused by imitative attempts; it is no longer dependent on the\nharmony of bodily well-being, though it may first have expressed such\nharmony. In it spirit calls to spirit, no longer body to body. But this\nneed not surprise us. The foundations contribute nothing to the beauty\nof a building, though upon them the building is reared. All that is\ngreatest in man had a very humble beginning. Even his limbs and lungs\nhad a plebeian ancestry.\n\nWe have said nothing of the aesthetic problem of simple tone and\ncolour. Though Plato, and even Hegel, discussed these, it is generally\naccepted to-day that they do not in fact exist in isolation from other\nsuggestions. They always derive a value from their suggested relations\nand cannot be conceived apart from these. Such aesthetic value as\nclear tones and colours have is due to the fact that the elements they\nsuggest and imply are few, like a sunset sky, and therefore they do not\ndemand any great degree of elimination in the mind of the observer.\n\nNeither have we dealt with the problem of the relative importance of\ncolour and form, except implicitly. The essential factor here is, of\ncourse, that colour does not exist _per se_. You cannot isolate a thing\nfrom its colour, in aesthetic intuition. To begin with, colour is the\nbasis of visual perception, for the light by means of which the eye\nperceives an object must be of some definite series of wave-lengths of\ncertain amplitudes balanced against one another in some definite manner\nthrough the selective absorption of that object, and wave-length is the\nphysical basis of colour. Then, secondly, colour belongs to, and is\nan integral part of form. Form is not mere shape; it is determined by\ntone (or wave-amplitude) and colour (or wave-frequency) as well as by\noutline; and these are essential factors in the unity and order of the\nwhole, and so are essential factors of the intuition.\n\nWhat we have said, then, of symmetry and geometric form, and of\nclearness of expression, together with what we have said of the\nelimination that is involved in aesthetic intuition, really covers the\nproblem.\n\nTogether, yet each in its own way, colour and form arouse in us the\nsense of unity and appeal to us as being in harmony with the intuition\nderived from other particulars; that in the world, under all its\napparent multiplicity, there subsists a unity which relates all things\ntogether.\n\n\nCAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Bosanquet, _Hist. Aesth._ p. 18.\n\n[2] _Ibid._ p. 148.\n\n[3] G. Vico, _Scienza nuova seconda, Elementi liii_, quoted in Croce\u2019s\n_Aesthetic_.\n\n[4] Bosanquet, _Hist. Aesth._ p. 267, _seq._\n\n[5] Croce, _Aesthetic_, trs. Ainslie, p. 303.\n\n[6] Wildon Carr, _The Philosophy of Croce_, p. 97.\n\n[7] The clearest summary of Croce\u2019s position is to be found in the\nbrief third section of the first part of his _Philosophy of the\nPractical_. Prof. Wildon Carr also has given a very clear account\nof Croce\u2019s philosophy as a whole in his book on _The Philosophy of\nBenedetto Croce_.\n\n[8] _Philosophy of the Practical_, p. 591.\n\n[9] _Philosophy of the Practical_, pp. 258-261.\n\n[10] This is not to condemn programme music altogether, for much of the\nbest programme music does not attempt to paint a scene in such a way as\nto call up visual images. _Vide infra._\n\n[11] Cf. the work of the psychoanalytic school, especially Jung\u2019s\n_Psychology of the Unconscious_ and Rivers\u2019 _Dreams and Primitive\nCulture_.\n\n[12] Lyly\u2019s _Campaspe_.\n\n[13] G. Macdonald, _Phantastes_.\n\n[14] _Evolution and Spiritual Life_ and _Evolution and the Doctrine of\nthe Trinity_.\n\n[15] _Evolution and Spiritual Life._\n\n[16] _Opp. citt. passim._\n\n[17] _Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity._\n\n[18] I make no apology for not entering here on any discussion of how\nGod can be Love. I have endeavoured to offer suggestions on this matter\nin my earlier books, and especially in _Evolution and the Doctrine of\nthe Trinity_.\n\n[19] _Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity_, ch. III.\n\n[20] _Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity_, ch. III.\n\n[21] _Ibid._ See also Strong, _The Origin of Consciousness_.\n\n[22] Bosanquet, _History of Aesthetic_, p. 37.\n\n[23] McDowall, _opp. citt._\n\n[24] _Evolution and Spiritual Life._\n\n[25] _Evolution and Spiritual Life_, ch. VI, and _Evolution and the\nDoctrine of the Trinity_, ch. VI.\n\n[26] Croce, _Logic_, p. 279.\n\n[27] _Ibid._ p. 310.\n\n[28] Croce, _Logic_, pp. 324-325.\n\n[29] McDowall, _opp. citt._\n\n[30] _The Psychology of the Unconscious._\n\n[31] _Dreams and Primitive Culture._\n\n[32] For the exact sense in which these words are used, and for their\nimplications in regard to God\u2019s creative activity, see _Evolution and\nthe Need of Atonement_.\n\n[33] A word may be said concerning the personal relationship of fear\nand hate. Here in self-defence the \u2018other\u2019 is not regarded as in\npersonal relation to the person threatened, at all events in early\nstages of development; he is as external as a flood or a precipice.\nNevertheless in fear and hate, when they have reached a high stage of\ndevelopment, there is a feeling of personal relation. But only in one\nsense can this relation be termed personal; the \u2018other\u2019 is recognised\nas a person, but in concentrating our attention on the things in him we\nfear and hate we concentrate it on his \u2018otherness\u2019--on his lack of any\nbut an external relation to us. There is nothing reciprocal; we refuse\nto give or receive. It is this externality of relation that makes hate\nand fear so poignant and so bitter.\n\n[34] Cf. _Evolution and the Need of Atonement_, ch. IV. _et passim_.\n\n[35] McDowall, _opp. citt. passim_.\n\n[36] For detailed consideration of the nature of evolutionary process\nin material conditions reference may be made to my earlier works, to\nwhich the present essay constitutes a postscript.\n\n[37] Even though there may be a mating-call.\n\n[38] I believe that I am right in saying that it is not until the\nNeolithic period that human (female) images are found, and some of\nthese are probably divinities, though Dr A. C. Haddon informs me that\nthere are Neolithic paintings of human beings on rocks in Spain which\npresumably do not represent divinities.\n\n[39] Really, geometric art seems to have arisen nearly contemporaneously\nwith representative art, for patterns of considerable complexity and\nsymmetry are found in the later palaeolithic period.\n\n[40] Though the representation of an eye is frequently included in\nthe pattern as a counter-charm, and indeed many of the patterns _may_\noriginally have had a magical significance, though most seem to be\nmerely inspired by woven basket-work and the like.\n\n[41] _Fra Lippo Lippi._\n\n[42] I understand that Purcell\u2019s _Fairy Queen_ has just been played at\nCambridge with draped scenes only.\n\n[43] Tchaikovsky, letter to N. F. von Meck, Nov. 27th, 1879.\n\n[44] Tchaikovsky, letter to N. F. von Meck, Feb. 9th, 1878.\n\n[45] Tchaikovsky\u2019s letters to N. F. von Meck give an interesting\ninsight into the process by which the intuition comes to the composer,\nand his method of working it out. See especially the letters of Feb.\n17th, March 5th, and June 24th, 1878.\n\n[46] If one can say that it has a programme and not simply an\ninspiration.\n\n[47] Letter to Taneiev, March 27th, 1878.\n\n[48] Dec. 5th, 1878.\n\n[49] Petrouchka is said to be equally homogeneous, but I have not seen\nit, and Carnaval approaches this level.","title":"Beauty and the Beast: An Essay in Evolutionary Aesthetic","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":25126}