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 H RDER'S RELATION" TO THE 
 
 AESTHETIC THEORY 
 
 OF HIS TIiME 
 
 A CONTRlBLTfON Bx^SED ON THK FOURTH 
 CRITICAL WALDCHEN 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
 
 OF THE C^ADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 
 
 IN CANDIDACY Fu.^ TH!: DEGREE OF 
 
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 UEPABTMENT OF GERMAN 
 
 iJY 
 
 MALCOLlv! HOWA:a> ;),AVr.V 
 
 Private Edition, Distributed By 
 IHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LlhRAR^ 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 1920 
 
EXCHANGE 
 
aFlf0 Itttwrattij of ffilftragu 
 
 HERDER'S RELATION TO THE 
 
 AESTHETIC THEORY 
 
 OF HIS TIME 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION BASED ON THE FOURTH 
 CRITICAL WALDCHEN 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
 
 OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 
 
 IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
 
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 DEPAKTMEMT O? GEKMAM 
 
 BY 
 
 MALCOLM HO WARDf DEWEY 
 
 *••• J *2 J V • ••• • 
 
 
 Private Edition, Distributed By 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 
 
 CfflCAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 1920 
 
■ftt^JAi^ia^ 
 

 Gratefully Dedicated To 
 KAETHE WELLER DEWEY 
 
 X) 
 
 433ii7i 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 Page 
 
 The French Movement 1 
 
 Boileau 2 
 
 Batteux 4 
 
 The English Movement 9 
 
 Shaftesbury 9 
 
 Hogarth 16 
 
 Home 17 
 
 Burke 23 
 
 The French Movement (continued) 31 
 
 Dubos 31 
 
 Diderot 38 
 
 The German Movement 44 
 
 Baumgarten 47 
 
 Sulzer 49 
 
 Mendelssohn 57 
 
 Winckelmann 63 
 
 PART II 
 
 The First Waldchen and Lessing's Laokoon 68 
 
 The Fourth Waldchen 74 
 
 (a) Part One 76 
 
 (b) Part Two 84 
 
 (c) Part Three 96 
 
 Herder's Relation to the Aesthetic Theory of the Time 97 
 
 (a) Baumgarten 97 
 
 (b) Sulzer 98 
 
 (c) Mendelssohn 102 
 
 (d) Winckelmann 106 
 
 (e) Shaftesbury 109^ 
 
 (f) Home 109 
 
 (g) Burke Ill 
 
 (h) Hogarth 112 
 
 (i) Rousseau 112 
 
 (j) Diderot 112 
 
 Composition of the Fourth Waldchen with Special Reference to 
 
 the Influence of Diderot 119 
 
Note 
 
 In presenting in Part I a brief survey of aesthetic theory in the 
 18th century in France, England and Germany, the author has made 
 no effort to cover the entire field. Selection has been prompted by 
 the desire to bring into relief the leading ideas of those writers who 
 were thought to be of especial moment at the time Herder composed 
 the Fourth Waldchen (1769), a procedure which was deemed neces- 
 sary for a better understanding of the particular purpose of the thesis. 
 
 The Fourth Waldchen has been examined in Part II with particu- 
 lar reference to previous theory, since it offers what amounts to 
 documentary evidence with regard to the conscious relationship in 
 which Herder stood with his contemporaries and predecessors in this 
 field. Within the work itself however Herder seems to abandon 
 what is largely an eclectic attitude owing to the development of a 
 new and original theory of art which occupied a large place in his 
 future development. It has been possible at this point to indicate 
 an interesting relationship which Diderot bears to this new theory. 
 
 The present work is the outcome of special studies prepared for 
 the Herder Seminars conducted by Professor Martin Schlitze of 
 the University of Chicago, to whom I am particularly grateful for 
 many valuable suggestions. I wish to acknowledge indebtedness 
 further to Professor William A. Nitze and Professor Edwin Preston 
 Dargan of the University of Chicago whose lectures on French 
 Criticism were excellent expositions of French theory. My thanks 
 are likewise due Professor John M. Steadman of the Department 
 of EngHsh and Professor Nolan A. Goodyear of the Department of 
 Romance Languages, both of Emory University, for their criticisms 
 and assistance in reading proofs. 
 
THE FRENCH MOVEMENT 
 
 Aesthetic theory in the 18th century in France retained a strong 
 adherence to the principles and manner of the French classic period. 
 This was due in part to the commanding position which the literature 
 of the age of Louis XIV held in the minds of the French. But it is 
 quite as well to be accounted for in the long history of Renaissance 
 theory of art and poetry, with its incessant reinterpretation of Aris- 
 totle, Horace, Quintilian etc., and in its repeated injunction to imitate 
 the ancients, which found its consummation in the Art Poetique of 
 Boileau. The French came to accept a more or less fixed attitude 
 with regard to the formal aspects of poetry and art, with the 
 result that aesthetic theory in the 18th Century in France drew 
 heavily from the past and never seriously brought into question 
 the main tenets of the age of Boileau. Batteux for example accepts 
 completely the traditional point of view. Dubos, whose theory 
 is otherwise so new and interesting, never doubts the existence of 
 good taste as formulated in the classic period and crystalized in 
 poetry and art. Even Diderot never violently broke from the French 
 conception of classic tragedy; his innovations were applied to a 
 completely new genre which he believed he was creating, wherein 
 he retained many formal principles which harmonized none too well 
 with his main purpose and which were clearly an inheritance from 
 which he was unable to detach himself. 
 
 In the matter of content, so far as this can be distinguished from 
 form, the new age in France had definite things to offer. The philo- 
 sophical movement of the time showed the tendency to break away 
 from authority and investigate the facts of experience on their own 
 merits. In poetry and art this meant that the emotional reaction 
 became more and more the thing of interest. The passions aroused in 
 a work of art were compared with the passions aroused in life, and 
 pleasure in art was compared with pleasure in life. In approaching art 
 from this standpoint, in attempting to discover a natural theory of 
 art, in every way comparable to the effort in another field to found a 
 natural theory of morality, the theorists of the 18th century were 
 
2 HEkDER^S RELATION TO THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF HIS TIME 
 
 preparing the way for a revolution in art theory. But this in reality 
 did not take place, generally speaking, either in theory or in practice in 
 France during the century. Traditional form was too strong to 
 permit a complete fruition of these ideas, and theory was not success- 
 ful in fusing the new theories with accepted principles of form. 
 Germany, rather than France, experienced the literary revolution 
 and saw the fruition of the new movement both in theory and in works 
 of real literary art. 
 
 BOILEAU 
 
 It is difficult to determine the full extent of the influence of Boileau 
 on the age which followed, but we know it was very great. The 
 Art Poetique (1674) was constantly quoted and in the main its 
 authority was unquestioned. It had the merit of being a clear state- 
 ment of the principal standards to which the age conformed. In gen- 
 eral it represented an effort to apply the test of reason to accepted prin- 
 ciples of art. The age in which Boileau lived had inherited from 
 Descartes and Corneille a distinct form of rationalism; but the ration- 
 alism which we find in Racine and Boileau differed to this extent : that 
 it formed itself about a conception of art the impulse towards which 
 was found in Renaissance criticism — namely, the Graeco-Roman ideal.^ 
 Boileau had little doubt but that reason sanely applied, sens 
 commun, would confirm the classic conception of art, and if used by 
 the poet would secure the correct result. 
 
 The doctrine of the imitation of nature was accepted by Boileau 
 as one of the cardinal principles of art. Beauty and truth were with 
 him practically identical terms, reason alone determining the question 
 of truth, and reason being in the end the organ which passed upon the 
 question of beauty. Feeling as applied to art was little more than 
 reason acting promptly and perhaps unconsciously, and good taste 
 was taken in the sense of an acquired feeling, it being taken for 
 granted good taste would accept the standards of classic art. In 
 holding therefore to the doctrine of the imitation of nature, he did 
 not intend that the poet should imitate the objects as he saw them in 
 nature, but rather that he should present what he held to be the true 
 and the essential in nature, with the special observance that it be 
 acceptable at the same time to refined society. This meant in general 
 then the depiction of the typical from which the objects which we 
 observe in nature were to a greater or less extent deviations.^ 
 
 ^ Lanson, Hist, de la LitL fr. 10th ed., p. 398. 
 2 See Art Poetique III. 359 ff. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 3 
 
 We can best see Boileau's conception of the truth of nature when 
 we compare his application of reason to that in Descartes and Cor- 
 neille. According to Descartes the mind seeks clear ideas. The ideal 
 for the soul life is to have ideas as clear and distinct as the idea of our 
 own existence {cogito ergo sum) or our idea of God. The effect of 
 the passions and the senses was to create confused ideas, and life 
 consists in the main in a wrestling through from these confused ideas 
 to the clear ideas of reason which is its goal. The best antidote to 
 the passions therefore is a clear idea. Corneille, arriving at his conclu- 
 sions quite independently of Descartes, has the same conception of 
 reason as applied to conduct. The Corneillian hero consistently 
 reasons his way to a clear conception of duty and there is no thought 
 but that the will to act will be the immediate issue of this clear concep- 
 tion. Corneille's dramatic theories represent an effort to interpret 
 Aristotle in conformity with his own theory and practice, the crux 
 of the entire difference being in this particularly rationalistic concep- 
 tion of character. 
 
 Character as conceived in Boileau consisted first of all in a true 
 depiction of the type: 
 
 Quiconque voit bien I'homme, et d'un esprit profond, 
 De tant de coeurs caches a penetre le fond; 
 Qui sait bien ce que c'est qu'un prodigue, un avare, 
 Un honnete homme, un fat, un jaloux, un bizarre; 
 Sur une scene heureuse il pent les Staler. 
 
 m,361ff. 
 
 To this was added a Greek conception of what he was pleased to call 
 mesure, moderation, and which in general meant the elimination of 
 extremes, or in Boileau the avoidance of what was offensive to good 
 taste. 
 
 When Aristotle stated that probable truth was more philosophical 
 than historical truth, he opened the floodgates for later theory. It was 
 on this basis that the Aristotelian imitation of nature was interpreted. 
 Not nature as it is, but nature "as it ought to be." To Boileau this 
 meant the imitation of nature, not as it is phenominally, but of things 
 as they are for all time, the imitation of the eternal truths behind the 
 shifting changes, and it cannot be said that he left much room for 
 the individual as such. This was the truth which the Greeks imitated 
 and hence the eternal value of Greek works. From this standpoint 
 the imitation of the ancients and the imitation of nature can no 
 longer be contradictory terms. 
 
To consider truth and beauty and goodness as eternal and abso- 
 lute is of course to ignore the historical viewpoint and to fail to make 
 allowance for the relation which ideas may have to the environment 
 out of which the poet and artist create. In view of the attention 
 which the coming age was to give. to the question of milieu and 
 historical truth, it is interesting to note how abstract this conception 
 of Greek life and art is. In this respect they went further than 
 the ancients themselves and tended rather to make the ancients 
 after their own image, to modernize antiquity.^ 
 
 Batteux 
 
 From the standpoint of German theory the Abbe Batteux is of 
 considerably more importance than a number of critics, such as 
 Fontenelle, La Motte etc., who stood closer to Boileau in time if 
 perhaps less so from the standpoint of ideas and who have accordingly 
 been omitted from this study. The "Traite des Beaux Arts en 
 General ou Tous les Arts reduits a un seul Principe" (1746)^ was 
 twice translated into German within a comparatively short time 
 after its appearance, by Ramler and by J. A. Schlegel. And for 
 twenty years Batteux became the authority for an important faction 
 in Germany and his followers were only routed finally by the appear- 
 ance of Herder's critique in 1772.^ 
 
 As the title of his work indicates, Batteux attempted to find in 
 the theory of imitation the principle which was at the basis of all 
 arts and which would bring them into a single system. He dijffers 
 from Boileau in that he proceeds from taste rather than reason, but 
 it is an open question whether this point of departure is after all 
 fundamentally different. It depends largely upon Batteux' under- 
 standing of taste. He seems in general to have considered taste in the 
 nature of an immediate^ judgment, where in reality reason and 
 understanding have their place. *' Although this feeling (i.e., taste) 
 seems to arise suddenly and blindly, it is nevertheless always preceded 
 at least by a flash of light, by reason of which we discover the qualities 
 
 ' See Lanson 497. 
 
 * The edition used is Principes de la Litterature, Lyons 1802, of which Vol. I is the 
 Traiti. See also a valuable article by Schencker: "Batteux und die Nachahmungs- 
 theorie in Deutschland." 
 
 ^ Hettner, Gesch. der Lit. des 18t. Jhs. 
 
 « Batteux, pp. 56-57. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 5 
 
 of the object. . . . This operation is so rapid that one is often not 
 conscious of it and when reason takes cognizance of this feeling 
 afterwards, it has difficulty in recognizing the cause." 
 
 Batteux attempts to distinguish the true from the beautiful. The 
 true, he holds, is applied to that which is considered without regard to 
 its relation to ourselves, and beauty is something which has direct 
 bearing upon ourselves, which attracts us to it. Beauty as such must 
 have the quality of perfection, and while the intellect has exclusively 
 to do with truth, it is repeatedly stated that it is the intellect which 
 recognizes beauty so far as it refers to perfection. A work of art is, 
 however, not exhausted in being perfect, that is, in having beauty; it 
 must have goodness as well, which in Batteux is taken to mean 
 that it must bear a positive relation to our moral being. Taste then, 
 in distinction from the intellect {esprit) , is appealed to in a work of art, 
 taste having to do ultimately with moral values whether with respect 
 to art or to life. 
 
 The aim of the artist in a work of art is not to give pleasure but to 
 imitate nature, pleasure necessarily resulting from the imitation.' 
 In the imitation of nature in a work of art genius and taste become 
 4 practically synonymous terms, except in so far as genius may desig- 
 nate in particular an ability to put into a work of art the beauty 
 and goodness which nature reveals. "They are creators only in 
 having observed, and conversely they are observers only to be in a 
 condition to create."^ 
 
 In so far as beauty is concerned Batteux is on classic ground, 
 beauty being conceived in the main as a perfect expression of art. 
 It is the thing itself presented in all its completeness and purity. 
 Nature does not offer perfect objects of imitation. The artist must 
 therefore seek for the perfect in nature by studying the various 
 objects of the kind and selecting the most perfect details wherever 
 they are to be found. The famous example of Zeuxis is cited, whose 
 ideal of a beautiful woman was secured by taking features from many 
 individual women. ^ Moliere's Misanthrope was not a copy of one 
 man, but resulted from seeing many examples of the "humeur noire" 
 to which the author added from his genius.^^ This belle nature or 
 
 'P. 130. 
 8 P. 14. 
 •P.26. 
 
6 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 nature choisie is a sort of higher nature, nature in its perfection, and is 
 the single object of the artist's task. Beauty in Batteux can only 
 mean the formal expression of this ideal nature whereby the mind is 
 enabled to grasp it easily. 
 
 It is largely on ethical grounds that Batteux makes a serious effort 
 to account for the pleasure in art. Nature in Batteux, as it was in 
 Boileau, is essentially man. To imitate nature is to imitate life. 
 Against the imperfections of life there is the ideal life, or the life that 
 ought to be, and herein the Aristotelian distinction of tragedy from 
 history is brought into play. There being a natural impulse in the soul 
 towards its own good,^^ art may appeal to this primal source of pleas- 
 ure by presenting to it nature as it appears when it is free to act in 
 all its perfection. Hence while beauty may of itself "extend and per- 
 fect our ideas," ^^ a purely Cartesian viewpoint, a work of art by appeal- 
 ing to the heart tends ''to the conservation and perfection of our 
 being. "1^ Art thus presents the "example which instructs and which 
 regulates the human race, vivimus ad exempla.''^^ "The example of 
 nature which the Muses propose as model, teaches them to do nothing 
 without a wise design tending to the perfection of those for whom 
 they work. Just as they imitate nature in its principles, in its tastes, 
 in its movement, so they imitate nature in the views and end which 
 it proposes. "^^ 
 
 The imitation of "beautiful nature" does not mean that the artist 
 may not present what is of itself unpleasant. The artist may put 
 serpents and monsters on his canvas, and the poet depict the Misan- 
 thrope. The pleasure comes first by reason of the fact that the illusion 
 is never so perfect but that we recognize the imitation, the "phan- 
 tom." Should we be moved for the moment to accept the imitation as 
 real, the pleasure in suddenly realizing it is not so is itself a pleasure.^^ 
 The explanation however which fits more accurately into his general 
 theory is contained in the statement that "the end of poetry is to 
 please, and to please in moving the passions. But to give us a perfect 
 
 " P. 57. 
 12 p. 80. 
 
 " P. 20. 
 
 ^5 P. 140. On p. Ill Batteux states that "if everyone practiced Christianity the 
 way he believes it, it would accomplish immediately what it mil take art centuries to 
 bring about and then only imperfectly." 
 
 " P. 87 ff. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 7 
 
 and sound (solide) pleasure, it must only move those passions which 
 it is important for us to have and avoid those which are hostile to 
 wisdom." The examples cited are horror of crime, pity for unfortu- 
 nates, admiration of great examples etc. These are the passions for 
 poetry "which is not made to foment corruption in the heart, but to 
 be the delight of virtuous souls. "^^ 
 
 Effective imitation of nature requires that the artist put himself 
 into the character and situation being depicted. This was what 
 Batteux considers to be enthusiasm, SiS opposed to traditional concep- 
 tions of poetic madness, divine inspiration etc., for which he seems 
 to have little patience. While exactness or accuracy is made a 
 requirement with respect to the imitation of nature, the artist was 
 not thereby denied the privilege of licence {liberie) ; in fact the depic- 
 tion of the truth or beauty of nature made this an essential, whereby 
 the artist in the state of enthusiasm was at liberty to give a perfect 
 representation of that which he had in mind. The test of the effec- 
 tiveness of the result in tragedy was that one should be able to seat 
 himself in the parterre and imagine that all he sees is true.^^ This 
 might have led to the" naturalism "of Diderot,who, we remember, made 
 a similar test for tragedy ,^^ had he not held firmly to the classic 
 notion of probability and considered that la belle nature was neces- 
 sarily represented in art by the grand style. ^^ He makes a similar 
 test with regard to painting, namely that all the rules yield to one 
 main purpose, to produce a "deception of the eyes by means of a 
 resemblance, to make us believe that the object is real, although it 
 is only an image. "^^ 
 
 The theories of Batteux in no way contemplate changes in the 
 form or content of French classic tragedy or art. In place of what 
 seemed to him to be a disorganized mass of theory coming down 
 from the past^^ he proposes a single principle of art around which all 
 former observations and rules may organize themselves, and which 
 at the same time is a principle consonant with life, i.e., imitation of 
 nature. 
 
 " P. 135. The entire passage might well be compared with similar views express- 
 ed in Diderot's theory of drama, with which there is a striking resemblance. 
 18 P. 239. 
 1® See Bijoux Indiscrets 
 
 20 Batteux, pp. 243-4. 
 
 21 P. 270. 
 
 22 See Introduction to Traits. 
 
8 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 It is important to note that Batteux did not include architecture 
 among the arts strictly speaking, and considered that in this instance 
 utility rather than imitation was the main interest.^^ Nor does he 
 make use of architecture to indicate his conception of symmetry 
 and order, so frequent among theorists. It is rather painting which 
 gives him these ideas. "Good taste is an habitual love of order. 
 The symmetry of the parts among themselves and with the whole is 
 as necessary in the conduct of a moral action as in a picture."^ 
 
 Imitation of nature applied to lyric poetry had its difficulties. 
 Batteux considered that a lyric differed from other poems in so 
 far that it was not the imitation of an action but of a passion.^ 
 It sings the movements of the heart. He was led to a curious explana- 
 tion of Biblical poetry, to which he hesitated to apply his main 
 principle, stating that it was not imitation at all, but God speaking 
 through man.26 
 
 For logical reasons the French movement is interrupted at this 
 point to consider the English school.^^ 
 
 23 p. 45. 
 
 24 p. 113. 
 26 p. 263. 
 « P. 259. 
 
 2' Stein: die Entstehung der neuem Aesthetik, sets the example in this. 
 
THE ENGLISH MOVEMENT 
 
 The English movement in aesthetic theory took a different stand- 
 point from that of the French. While classicism remained an impor- 
 tant factor it was offset by positive tendencies which were fatal to it, 
 and which made it possible to relish not only the dramas of Shake- 
 speare in spite of their "formlessness" but also the Miltonian epic 
 built up on a theme which had become anathema in French classic 
 theory. The change which was experienced in England following 
 the Revolution of 1688 developed a widespread feeling of political 
 liberty, a fact which strongly impressed Voltaire on the occasion of 
 his English visit. The rise of the middle class was the important 
 moment, and the pronounced moral character which was evidenced 
 in literature indicates a tendency in the direction of a more vital 
 attitude towards all forms of literature and art. In the field of serious 
 thought the new spirit saw in the scientific work of Newton a definite 
 example of the experimental method which had been indicated 
 earlier by Bacon, while Locke set the standard for the manner in 
 which we should approach the subject of the origin of knowledge. 
 And there was still another tendency in philosophy which confined 
 itself rather exclusively to the question of morality and attempted to 
 develop a theory of a natural religion, wherein it was shown that our 
 ideas of right and wrong were a consequence of our natural relation 
 to society. 
 
 Shaftesbury^ 
 Shaftesbury's contribution to the general field of aesthetic theory 
 was one of large importance. In the main, avoiding metaphysical 
 discussion, for which he had little use, and adhering consistently to 
 his general purpose of establishing a moral philosophy, he is of particu- 
 lar importance not only in showing the relation which aesthetics 
 bears to conduct but in interpreting this from the standpoint of a 
 Greek classic ideal. In England this tendency carried, broadly speak- 
 ing, straight through to the theory of Home and was particularly 
 
 ^ Shaftesbury, 3 volume, ed. 1749; works date from 1699 to 1714. 
 
10 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or HIS TIME 
 
 characteristic of English theory. In France, where he was known as 
 early as 1707 through the Journal des Savants, \ns> influence was to be 
 seen especially in Diderot, who however interests himself in certain 
 features of his theory without accepting it in its completeness, lead- 
 ing perhaps to a logical, if onesided development of his position. 
 In Germany the case was quite different. Shaftesbury's general view 
 favored the classical tendency which became particularly influential 
 through Winckelmann, while the general type of optimism inherent 
 in the system harmonized well with the standpoint of Leibnitz. 
 Lessing, Sulzer, Mendelssohn, Herder, Goethe and Schiller are 
 attracted by broad aspects of this theory, and in the Aesthetische 
 Erziehung des Menschen of Schiller we find one of the most complete 
 exemplifications of this general position, where in fact Schiller may be 
 looked upon as making an attempt to harmonize the standpoints of 
 Kant and Shaftesbury. 
 
 We can best grasp the character of Shaftesbury's aesthetic view- 
 point if we consider the notion of totality which was fundamental to 
 his system. According to this view, from the smallest unities of life 
 to the largest there is to be found a series of systems or totalities of 
 ever increasing comprehensiveness, the final totality being the 
 universe itself. Shaftesbury was early in life a follower of Spinoza, 
 but there is this to be noted with regard to Shaftesbury's conception 
 of the universe, that he considers the world not as something which 
 is composed of physical forces or which may be summed up in geomet- 
 rical terms, but rather as a living force behind which is the suggestion 
 of a living organism. The different species of animals, for example, of 
 which man is one, represent such a natural system or totality. Each 
 species is complete in itself and yet subordinate to a larger and more 
 comprehensive order or system. 
 
 From this general standpoint we are in a position to understand 
 two different phases of Shaftesbury's theory. In so far as individuals 
 are organs or parts of a whole they may be judged only with respect 
 to the whole. In so far they are relative and they must be judged in 
 relations. Shaftesbury's optimism is based just on this principle, 
 that whatever is in the world is right, if not apparently in itself alone, 
 at least with respect to the larger whole. '*If everything which exists 
 be according to a good order and for the best; then of necessity there 
 is no such thing'as real i// in^the^universe, nothing ill with respect to 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time U 
 
 the whole. "2 Many things therefore seem imperfect which to an 
 infinite mind would be perfect.^ 
 
 He held that there was a natural state for each individual in the 
 species to which he belonged, however much he might deviate from 
 it. In other words: **We know that every creature has a private good 
 and interest of his own, which nature has compelled him to seek by 
 all the advantages afforded him within the compass of his make. 
 We know that there is in reality a right and a wrong state of every 
 creature, and that his right one is by nature forwarded and by himself 
 affectionately sought. There being therefore in every creature a 
 certain interest or good, there must also be a certain end, to which 
 everything in his constitution must naturally refer."* He finds it 
 to be an energy of nature that every particular nature strives towards 
 its own perfection; unless something foreign disturbs or hinders, it 
 constantly produces what is good for itself. This is illustrated in the 
 effort man makes to throw off sickness, and in the plants which 
 thrive and attain their perfection where nothing from without or 
 foreign may prevent such an end in whole or in part. What is true 
 of particular nature is true finally of the "Nature of the Whole. "^ 
 
 In working out the theory that the individual bears an inherent 
 relation to the whole, Shaftesbury introduces a principle which is 
 purely classic in its conception. He considers that we have "nothing 
 more strongly imprinted in our minds or more closely woven with 
 our souls than the idea or sense of order and proportion.^^ Unity of 
 design is the principle which makes parts constituents of one whole. 
 "Such is a tree with all its branches, an animal with all its members, 
 an edifice with all its exterior and interior ornaments. What else is 
 even a tune or symphony or any excellent piece of music, than a 
 certain system or proportion of sounds?"^ 
 
 In stressing the idea of proportion and harmony, it is not always 
 clear in Shaftesbury whether he had in mind the more formal concep- 
 tion as expressed in the perfect balance of classic architecture or an 
 organic conception that finds an analogy in the human body or the 
 tree. To have brought forward the latter conception at all was of 
 
 HI, p. 7. 
 »II, 235f. 
 
 *n,p. 11. 
 
 ^ II, 233 f . 
 • II, p. 185. 
 
12 
 
 real significance and it occupies a considerable place in his theory. 
 He had no doubt but that taste for proportion was inherent in human 
 nature and needed only the proper training to evidence itself. The 
 sense of proportion in morality was in every way analogous to the 
 sense of proportion in art and therein lay the practical value of art. 
 Art tended to develop this natural sense of harmony and balance, 
 enabling the mind more easily to grasp the idea of totality wherein the 
 individual fact has value only in its relation to the whole. Imitation 
 of nature which is seen in art is nothing more than the establishing of 
 a little world wherein the individual fact is shown in its true relation; 
 but this world, far from being a mere world of fancy, is one built 
 upon a true knowledge of the actual world, so that in art truth and 
 beauty are one. Hence art served the purpose of developing a 
 natural taste for proportion which was applicable not only to matters 
 of beauty, but to morality and truth as well. The man whose nature 
 had been cultivated to that point that his natural sense of harmony 
 and proportion revealed its full authority, he called a "virtuoso." 
 
 The sense of balance or proportion may be considered from two 
 angles. From the standpoint of society it represents a happy 
 adjustment of the selfish and the benevolent acts by virtue of which 
 man occupies his true place, Shaftesbury having little use for the 
 theory of Hobbes, who explained all acts as being prompted by a kind 
 of self-interest.'' Shaftesbury's position is summed up in this manner: 
 "For a creature whose natural end is society to operate as is by nature 
 appointed him towards the good of such his society, or whole, is in 
 reality to pursue his own natural and proper good."^ By applying his 
 theory of harmony to this principle he developed the idea that 
 human nature could be so trained by this means that there results an 
 instinct to act correctly without reflection. The philosopher and the 
 well-bred man agree "in aiming at what is excellent, aspiring to a just 
 taste, and in carrying in view a model of what is beautiful and 
 becoming. . . . The taste of beauty, and the relish of what is 
 decent, just and amiable, perfects the character of the gentleman and 
 the philosopher."^ 
 
 '1,60. 
 •111,152. 
 
From another viewpoint Shaftesbury considers the passions. Far 
 from wishing to subordinate the passions to reason, he sees the 
 passions as a positive factor in life. The aim then is not to conquer 
 and subdue the passions, but rather to bring them into a harmony 
 with what is for the individual's own good. "Men who have the 
 liveliest sense, and are the easiest affected with pain or pleasure, have 
 need of the strongest influence or force of other afections in order to 
 preserve a right balance within.^° Strong passion is to be condemned 
 only in so far as it is seen to destroy what Shaftesbury calls the 
 economy of the passions and bring about a disturbance through a 
 disproportion. This he calls a "moral kind of architecture."^^ 
 
 This theory is valuable not only because it allows for the passions 
 in life as well as through art, but because it is a theory which recog- 
 nizes individual characteristics as distinct from ideal types. "A man 
 is by nothing so much himself as by his temper, and the character of 
 his passions and affections. If he loses what is manly and worthy in 
 these, he is as much lost to himself as when he loses his memory and 
 understanding. "12 Morality consists for Shaftesbury "not in the 
 control of general maxims, not in the subordination of the individual's 
 will to norms and standards, but in the full living out of an entire 
 individuality.'' '^^ 
 
 Attention needs to be called to another viewpoint with regard to 
 the passions, because of similar theories advanced by other writers. 
 It is the notion that "without action, motion and employment the 
 body languishes and becomes subject to disease," and similarly with 
 respect to the mind and soul he states that "the thoughts and 
 passions being unnaturally withheld from their due objects turn 
 against itself and create the highest impatience and ill humor. "^^ 
 Hence the need of social and natural affection.^^ This theory 
 to be sure is not original with Shaftesbury, except perhaps with 
 regard to the increased emphasis on the passions. 
 
 It has been seen from the foregoing that Shaftesbury not merely 
 accepts the Greek ideal of proportion, balance etc., but attempts to 
 
 10 II, 63. 
 
 "11,88, 
 
 12 1,82. 
 
 " Windelband (Tufts) Hist, of Phil. 508. 
 
 " Shaftesbury, n, 85 f ., cf. 105. 
 
 «n,88. 
 
14 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 make it a vital factor in his moral philosophy. It is natural therefore 
 that he should accept the general principle with regard to beauty 
 that "there is a power in numbers, harmony, proportion and beauty 
 of every kind, which naturally captivates the heart and raises the 
 imagination to an opinion or conceit of something majestic and 
 divine. "^^ It is impossible to determine in Shaftesbury's discussion of 
 beauty whether he has in mind merely beauty of form, or beauty in a 
 relationship or rapport. In the following instance it is clearly a matter 
 of form. "A painter" he states^^ "if he has any genius, understands 
 the truth and unity of design, and knows he is even then unnatural, 
 when he follows nature too close and strictly copies life. For his art 
 allows him not to bring all nature into his piece, but a part only. 
 However his piece, if it be beautiful, and carries truth, must be a 
 whole, by itself, complete, independent, and withal great and com- 
 prehensive as he can make it. So that particulars on this occasion 
 must yield to the general design and all things be subservient to that 
 which is principal: in order to form a certain easiness of sight y a, simple 
 clear and united view which would be broken and disturbed by the 
 expression of anything peculiar or distinct." The particular moral 
 application he makes of formal beauty is seen in the same connection. 
 "And thus after all the most natural beauty in all the world is honesty 
 and moral truth. For all beauty is truth. True features make the 
 beauty of the face, and true proportions make the beauty of architec- 
 ture, as true measures that of harmony and music. In poetry, which 
 is all fable, truth still is perfection. And whoever is scholar enough to 
 read the ancient philosopher (Aristotle) or his modern copists, upon 
 the nature of dramatic and epic poems will easily understand this 
 account of truth."^^ 
 
 Relative beauty is not opposed to beauty of form but inherently 
 related to it. "The proportionate and regular state is truly prosper- 
 ous and natural in every subject. The same features which make 
 deformity, create incommodiousness and disease. And the same 
 shapes and proportions which make beauty, afford advantage, by 
 adapting to activity and use. Even in the imitative and designing 
 arts the truth or beauty of every figure or statue is measured from the 
 
 i« III, 24. 
 " I, 96. 
 
 ^' In a footnote Shaftesbury acknowledges indebtedness to Bossu with regard to 
 Aristotle. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 15 
 
 perfection of nature, in her just adapting of every limb and proportion 
 to the activity, strength, dexterity, life and vigor of the particular 
 species or animal designed. Thus beauty and truth are plainly joined 
 with the notion of utility and convenience."^^ This represents part of 
 the rational effort in Shaftesbury to bring beauty, truth and goodness 
 on common ground. It is interesting to note that he puts the so-called 
 beauty in mathematics on a lower basis than other types of beauty, on 
 the grounds that the harmony, proportion, etc., found in mathemat- 
 ics, while pleasurable, have no direct relation to our own good. His 
 general dictum however is this: ''What is harmonious and propor- 
 tionable is true; what is at once both beautiful and true is of conse- 
 quence agreeable and good."^^ 
 
 In the ^^ Judgment of Hercules^' Shaftesbury furnished an interest- 
 ing example for the coming generation of an effort to show the special 
 treatment which would be required in the adaptation of a subject of 
 history to sculpture. Here he not only grasped the fact that 
 sculpture was confined to the depiction of a single moment but 
 showed the reason which favored the acceptance of the most fruitful 
 moment. Considerations of both content and form enter into the 
 discussion. Lessing's indebtedness to Shaftesbury at this point is 
 generally known. 
 
 Diderot accuses Shaftesbury of sacrificing beauty to the sense of 
 utility and sums up Shaftesbury's entire philosophy of art as being 
 what is most perfectly ordered to produce the most perfect effect; 
 he considered Shaftesbury's idea to be that the most beautiful 
 man was one whose organs were best proportioned to perform the 
 animal functions, and that the most beautiful chair would be one 
 whose parts were shaped in a fashion most fitted for its purpose. 
 In other words, he singles out relative beauty in Shaftesbury only 
 to neglect the other beauty of harmony and perfection. This criticism 
 shows a characteristic quality in Diderot himself, that he was unable 
 to grasp the Greek sense of proportion which thus prevented Shaftes- 
 bury's theory from taking the onesided development which Diderot 
 here suggests and which, as will be seen later, became Diderot's 
 particular point of view. Hutcheson on the other hand was impressed 
 by the formal sides of Shaftesbury's view, and instead of grasping his 
 sense of organic totality, confined himself to a consideration of those 
 
 19 III, 124. 
 »°m, 126. 
 
16 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 more static conceptions of unity and order and balance which were 
 illustrated for him in geometric figures. 
 
 Hutcheson accepted Shaftesbury's innate sense of proportion at 
 its full value and proceeds with the conviction that it is a sixth sense. 
 Just as sight gives us colors, though our idea of color may be very 
 different from color itself, so the sixth sense presents us with special 
 ideas which as ideas are quite independent of the object. We secure a 
 sense of pleasure in observing order, symmetry etc., quite indepen- 
 dently of any distinct knowledge of ,^the exact proportions in the 
 object itself. This sense of proportion he attempted to show was 
 as universal as the sense of heat on approaching a fire. His investiga- 
 tion is based upon an examination of the effect made by simple 
 geometrical figures, and the results obtained here he applies to objects 
 of nature, wherein he is led to that confusion of intellectual and 
 sensuous beauty against which Shaftesbury had spoken. He con- 
 siders for example that the beauty of the heavens consists in a 
 comprehension of the movements in the planetary system, apparently 
 quite without regard for the impression made immediately upon 
 the eye. 
 
 Hogarth 
 
 While not entering into an extensive treatment of aesthetic 
 problems, Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty (1753) represents a definite 
 and important contribution to the aesthetic theory of the time, the 
 influence of which is traceable in all the subsequent writers with 
 whom we are here dealing. The theory of the serpentine line which 
 he here examines, was not original with him, as he explains at length in 
 the preface. He gives a reference to indicate that it was consciously 
 used by Michael Angelo and he has no doubt that the principle itself 
 was the secret of Greek art. He finds mention of it in contemporary 
 French theory, but nowhere does he find any effort to account for 
 this principle, it being considered a je ne sais quoi of beauty. 
 Hogarth's task then is to show that the principle is grounded in 
 nature and may be scientifically explained. 
 
 He attempts to show that the eye naturally enjoys "winding roads 
 and serpentine rivers and all objects composed of wavy and serpentine 
 lines."^^ Where "intricacy" is presented in this fashion, he finds that 
 it leads the eye a wanton kind of chase, and the pleasure which arises 
 
 » Chapt V. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 17 
 
 from such objects entitles them to the name of beautiful. Of all the 
 principles of art such as fitness, regularity, symmetry etc., the one 
 principle which seems to be the most important, because the most 
 inclusive, is variety. The mind enjoys a reasonable degree of variety 
 and the effect of the serpentine line, which rests midway between the 
 straight line and the circular, is to lead the mind easily and gracefully 
 into such a degree of variety. Many experiments with lines and 
 objects convince him of a natural choice in favor of the easy, graceful 
 curve as against the straight line or more violent curves. So his 
 deduction is that all great art will necessarily reveal in the lines of 
 the figures, in grouping etc., the adherence to this fundamental princi- 
 ple of beauty. Hogarth also took up the effect of magnitude in 
 securing a "pleasing sense of horror." 
 
 Differing far from many of his contemporaries, he could see 
 consistent beauty in Gothic architecture, where he finds that improve- 
 ments were made following the "natural persuasions of the eye," 
 the eye being naturally attracted through graceful lines to an appre- 
 ciation of a greater amount of variety than would be possible in other 
 forms. The principle which is thus illustrated, is one which he finds 
 in nature and one which too great attention to the theory of imitation 
 might lose sight of. 
 
 Home 
 
 The most logical successor of Shaftesbury, Addison and Hutcheson 
 was unquestionably Home (Lord Kames) whose Elements of Criiicism 
 (1762) represents the most complete treatment of aesthetics up to 
 that time in England. Chronologically he follows Burke, but the 
 strict adherence to the principles of classical formalism as well as the 
 relation which he thought that art bears to moral culture makes this 
 work the culmination of what has been seen to be a definite attitude 
 towards aesthetic problems. 
 
 It will be found that in many ways Home represents a distinct 
 advance in this field. His method was intended to be strictly scienti- 
 fic. It was based upon a thorough investigation of aesthetic pleasure 
 in reality from the standpoint of psychology. It was a theory 
 which took into account the nature of the objects as well as the 
 emotional effect. And far more than any previous critic he took 
 thorough advantage of the Shakespearian drama, which in part 
 accounts for elements of originality in his view point. It was here 
 that he felt emboldened to break away from the sway of authority 
 
18 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or HIS TIME 
 
 and the efficacy of rules and to substitute considerations of psychology, 
 of human nature. But with it all there remains a strongly rationalistic 
 bent in Home's thought which associated itself with a decidedly 
 classic turn of mind. 
 
 Home makes it clear that his purpose was not primarily aesthetics 
 or criticism but through this study the attainment of a greater knowl- 
 edge of the human mind, and in so doing he distinctly occupies a posi- 
 tion similar to both Sulzer and Herder in Germany. "But though 
 criticism is thus his only declared aim," Home states with reference 
 'to himself, "he will not disown that all along it has been his view to 
 explain the nature of Man, considered as a sensitive being capable of 
 pleasure and pain." He will however observe from first to last a 
 scientific method, which consists in "ascending gradually to principles 
 from facts and experiments, instead of beginning with the former 
 handled abstractly and ascending to the latter." 
 
 Home considered it important to note that aesthetics was essen- 
 tially concerned with the sense of sight and hearing. These he 
 distinguishes from the lower senses by the fact that there is no 
 consciousness of an impression made immediately upon the organ of 
 sense, as is the case in the lower three senses, the object on the 
 contrary seeming to be without. Hence he concluded that while all 
 sensation is essentially in the mind, still we are led in the case of sight 
 and hearing to place it directly in those organs, and for this reason 
 sight and hearing were the "more refined and spiritual." So he 
 established a gradation of pleasures from the purely organic through 
 sight and hearing to the pleasures of the intellect which he considered 
 supreme. This arrangement he thought to be in strict accord with 
 the divine plan — a law of nature whereby the mind gradually ascends 
 to the full measure of its dignity. One may readily see how on such a 
 basis the pleasures of the ear and eye served an educative purpose in 
 preparing the mind to attain its highest end. 
 
 He was however careful to note that there was a distinction which 
 set the aesthetic pleasures quite apart from the purely sensual on the 
 one hand and the intellectual on the other, namely that the aesthetic 
 pleasures permitted of a greater duration. Organic pleasures 
 decreased in intensity when continued and intellectual pleasures led 
 to fatigue. Aesthetic pleasure on the other hand tended to rest the 
 mind, furnishing an activity for it which tended to restore it to its 
 original tone, and he is able to agree with Dubos that silence is 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 19 
 
 unable to calm an agitated mind, and that art for that reason fulfilled 
 a real function. 
 
 The important truths that had been laid open by science, such as "a 
 general theorem and the general laws that govern the material and 
 moral worlds," convinced Home of the greater dignity of thfe pleasures 
 of the understanding. Hence he is able to consider the "fine arts 
 studied as a rational science superior far to what they afford as a 
 subject of taste merely."^^ In other words criticism or aesthetics 
 affords a higher order of pleasure than that which arises from the 
 enjoyment of the works of art themselves. This position is explained 
 not alone by the attitude he had towards the rational side of our 
 nature, but by the conception that the art of criticism afforded a 
 means for correcting our taste and directing it towards that perfection 
 which was an absolute standard. 
 
 The same principle holds with regard to morality. Accepting the 
 principle of a natural taste in morals, he finds that the individual is 
 hastened to perfection in virtue, by a consideration of moral principles 
 or laws. Morality and aesthetics were however not merely analogous 
 in this respect, but the one even as a rational science aids the other. 
 Taste in the fine arts, depending on culture, goes "hand in hand with 
 the moral sense to which it is nearly allied; both of them discover what 
 is right and wrong; fashion, temper and education have an influence 
 to preserve them pure and untainted; neither of them is arbitrary and 
 local, being rooted in human nature and governed by principles 
 common to all men." "No occupation attracts a man more to his 
 duty than that of cultivating a taste in fine arts, a just relish of what 
 is beautiful, proper, elegant and ornamental. "^^ 
 
 His conception of a standard of taste is distinctly that of Shaftes- 
 bury. A standard of taste arises from the fact that we have the sense 
 or the conviction of a common nature, not only in our own species, 
 but in every species of animals; and there is the conviction that this 
 common nature or standard is right or perfect and that individuals 
 ought to be conformable to it.^^ There is a proper proportion and a 
 proper office for every passion and every bodily member and any 
 deviation is wrong and disagreeable. This is the origin of the concep- 
 tion of a right or wrong sense in morals. Criticism of art like criticism 
 
 22 Elements of Criticism Ed. 1883. Chapt. XI. P. 175. 
 
 23 Introd. Pp. 13-15. 
 
 24 Chapter II. Part 2 and Chapter XXV. 
 
 ^' 
 
of morals has its high purpose then in making clear what is conform- 
 able to that common nature. Without the existence of such uniform- 
 ity in morals and art we lose the very foundation respectively for 
 happiness in society and beauty in art, each of which tends towards 
 its particular standard of excellence. 
 
 Home enters very exhaustively into the consideration of the 
 passions and emotions, these being the feelings which are raised in 
 us by external objects and in particular by works of art. We are of 
 such a nature that upon the perception of certain external objects we 
 are instantaneously conscious of pleasure or pain. This applies with 
 equal force to internal qualities in others, such as power, courage etc. 
 Actions may awaken this immediate sense, though usually the pleas- 
 ure or pain is here determined by the intention behind the action, 
 and hence our feeling in this instance awaits the act of reflection. 
 Similarly we enjoy the feeling of joy in others and partake of their 
 feeling of distress. And there is this final consideration that the mere 
 recollection of these things is capable of such emotion. 
 
 The part that ''fiction" may play in generating passions in us, 
 which he looked upon "as an admirable contrivance of human 
 nature," is made clear by a very interesting theory which he thought 
 "hath scarce ever been touched by any other writer," namely the 
 theory of the "ideal presence." By "ideal presence" he meant an 
 idea or image which could be raised in the mind by speech, writing or 
 painting, similar in kind to the image which memory may furnish of 
 some situation or event. One is made to believe that he is an eye 
 witness, that everything is passing in his presence. "Upon the whole 
 it is by means of ideal presence that our passions are excited and till 
 words can produce that charm, they avail nothing; even real events 
 entitled to our belief must be conceived present and passing in our 
 sight before they can move us."^^ 
 
 Home, like Burke, distinguishes emotion from passion, but the 
 basis of distinction is different. Burke had made pain an element of 
 passion, while Home finds in desire the essential constituent. "An 
 internal motion or agitation of the mind, when it passes away without 
 desire, is denominated an emotion-, when desire follows, the motion 
 or agitation is denominated a passion. ''^^^ "The cause of passion is 
 
 ^ Chapt. II. Part 1, p. 55. 
 »/Z^.,p. 30;cf.p. 11. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 21 
 
 that being or thing which by raising desire converts an emotion into 
 a passion. "2^ His explanation of emotion and passions takes full 
 account of the general position of the moral philosophers with respect 
 to the natural relationship in which man stands with respect to 
 society, and saw in this relationship an explanation for our pleasures. 
 In other words he recognizes a natural order in society and dismisses 
 quite as vehemently as did Shaftesbury and Burke the view that 
 man's motive for action lies in self-love, but considered rather that 
 "his constitution partly selfish, partly social, fits him much better for 
 his present situation." 
 
 As far as emotion is concerned Home finds a direct relationship 
 between the agreeableness of the object and pleasantness of the emo- 
 tion. But he admits that when sensible beings become the objects of 
 passion, the theory becomes more complex. Here one must account 
 for the element of pain or the disagreeable in the object. Instead of 
 seeing the positive contribution which this pain makes, as did Burke, 
 he develops a theory that pleasure results even where the passion is 
 immediately painful, through the gratification of the desire which, by 
 his definition of passion, was considered an immediate consequence. 
 "A person in distress being so far a disagreeable object, must raise in 
 the spectator a painful passion, and were man a purely selfish being he 
 would desire to be relieved of that pain, by turning from the object. 
 But the principle of benevolence gives an opposite direction to his 
 desire; it makes him desire to afford relief, and by relieving the person 
 from distress his passion is gratified. The painful passion thus 
 directed is termed sympathy , which being painful is yet in its nature 
 attractive. "2^ 
 
 Objects of sight Home classified under those which awakened a 
 sense of beauty and those which awakened a sense of grandeur or 
 sublimity. He distinguished two kinds of beauty, intrinsic and 
 relative beauty. "Intrinsic beauty is an object of sense merely . . . 
 the perception of relative beauty is accompanied with an act of the 
 understanding or reflection. ... In a word, intrinsic beauty is 
 ultimate, relative beauty is that of means relating to some good end 
 or purpose." He admits to intrinsic beauty the classic qualities of 
 regularity, uniformity, familiarity, proportion, order and simplicity, 
 believing that such qualities contributed a certain "readiness of 
 
 "/&«/., p. 31. 
 
 " Chapt. II. Part 7. P. 98. Cf. Burke below, page 30. 
 
22 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 apprehension." He followed Hutcheson among others in attempting 
 to show by an analysis of simple geometric figures that we have a 
 natural taste for certain types of figures as distinguished from others. 
 He was convinced however that beauty was not a primary quality of 
 the object, but has meaning only in the relation of the object to 
 the percipient. This is particularly true in relative beauty, where he 
 clearly saw the part played by reflection. "An old Gothic tower which 
 has no beauty in itself, appears beautiful, considered as proper to 
 defend against an enemy." Home devotes comparatively little 
 space to relative beauty. Since it required an act of reflection it was 
 opposed in a degree to his fundamental position that beauty as such 
 was immediately perceived and gave immediate pleasure. 
 
 Grandeur he considered distinct from beauty by the greatness or 
 magnitude of the subject; agreeableness is the genus of which beauty 
 and grandeur are species. Beauty is characterized by a certain 
 sweetness and gaiety; in grandeur "a large object occupies the whole 
 of the attention, and swells the heart into a vivid emotion, which 
 though extremely pleasant is rather serious than gay." While he 
 admits that in a large work of architecture or in an epic poem irregu- 
 larities may not be so noticeable, he even here upholds a classic notion 
 found in Longinus, that "in works of art we have regard to exact 
 proportion, in those of nature to grandeur and magnificence. "^^ 
 
 A theory fundamental to Home's point of view and one in the 
 application of which he claims originality, is considered under the 
 head of "Perception and Ideas in a train." "A man while awake is 
 conscious of a continued train of perceptions and ideas passing in his 
 mind. Relations by which things are linked together have a great 
 influence in directing the train of thought. Cause and effect, conti- 
 guity in place and time, high and low, resemblance, contrast and a 
 thousand other things connect things together without end." This 
 "sort of law of succession," the origin of which he admits to be 
 in Locke, is used by him to explain our pleasure in what we may call 
 classic beauty. "We are framed by nature to relish order and connec- 
 tion. When an object is introduced by a proper connection, we are 
 conscious of a certain pleasure arising from that circumstance." This 
 leads to the following application: "Every work of art that is con- 
 formable to the natural course of our idea is so far agreeable; and 
 every work of art that reverses that course is so far disagreeable. 
 
 29 Chapt. IV. Pp. 110-112. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 23 
 
 Hence it is required in every such work that its parts be orderly 
 arranged and mutually connected, bearing each of them a relation to 
 the whole." 
 
 Home takes up the question of uniformity and variety, which were 
 contained in the traditional definition of beauty, and applies the 
 principle he has here stated. "A man, when his perceptions flow in 
 their natural course, feels himself light, airy and easy, especially after 
 any forcible acceleration or relaxation. . . . Nature not only pro- 
 vides against a succession too slow or too quick, but makes the middle 
 course extremely pleasant." Hence the value of this theory of per- 
 ceptions in a train, which he held had been too little understood; 
 according to this theory variety as a mere ingredient of beauty is 
 shown to make a train of perceptions pleasant.^^ With regard to 
 unity in variety as a definition of beauty, he has this characteristic 
 statement. "This definition is far from being just with respect to 
 beauty in general; variety contributes no share to the beauty of a 
 moral action nor of a mathematical theorem, and numberless are the 
 beautiful objects of sight that have little or no variety in them; a 
 globe, the most uniform of all figures is of all the most beautiful." 
 
 Burke 
 
 Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful (1756) marked a very 
 definite contribution to the subject of aesthetics. Carrying out a plan 
 already suggested perhaps in Addison, as Morley suggests, he attempts 
 to advance a theory of art which has its starting point not in an 
 analysis of works of art but in a consideration of that part of man's 
 nature which is particularly involved in art. Profiting by what had 
 already been offered in this field by Shaftesbury and Dubos among 
 others, Burke takes up the discussion of passions and emotions as 
 being the chief concern of art and attempts an explanation of them 
 which would hold good as much in respect to nature and to life as it 
 did to art. Part I of the Essay is devoted exclusively to this end. 
 
 Burke's fundamental contention with regard to the emotions is 
 that both pleasure and pain are positive in character. In this he takes 
 deliberate exception to Locke, who held that "the removal or lessening 
 of pain is considered and operates as a pleasure, and the loss or 
 diminishing of pleasure as a pain."^^ In a large class of emotions 
 
 «o Chapt. IX. P. 161ff. 
 
 ^^ Burke's footnote to I, sect. 2. 
 
24 
 
 which we consider to be pleasurable he finds that pain is a necessary 
 constituent. He chose to denote the emotions which arise from this 
 mixed sense of the pleasant and unpleasant as passions, such passions 
 producing the sense of the sublime. Where such an element of pain 
 is lacking, where we are attracted to the object by reason of certain 
 agreeable qualities in the object, the effect in the mind he considered 
 technically as emotion, rather than passion, resulting from the 
 sense of beauty. 
 
 Burke's theory of the passions as involving an element of what is 
 painful or something analogous to it, is extremely important with 
 respect to the influence which it had upon German aesthetic theory, 
 where for example it was reinterpreted in terms of Wolffian philoso- 
 phy by Mendelssohn and entered vitally into Lessing's theory of the 
 drama. Burke is himself not a violent innovator at this point, his 
 theory bearing an intimate relationship with that of Dubos with 
 whose work he was very familiar, Dubos not only making emotion and 
 passion the immediate concern of art, but attempting to explain simi- 
 larly the pleasure arising in emotions even where these are in them 
 selves unpleasant. In many ways he is seen to be closer to Dubos 
 than to his English predecessors. 
 
 The explanation for the pleasure in the passions where pain 
 is involved rests on the general position made familiar by the moral 
 philosophy of the time. On this basis the passions which turn on 
 danger or pain are considered to be the consequence of the natural 
 instinct of self-preservation^ whereas "under this denomination of 
 society the passions are of a complicated kind and branch out into a 
 variety of forms agreeably to that variety of ends they are to serve 
 in the great chain of society. The three principal links in the chain 
 are sympathy, imitations and ambition. "^^ From this standpoint 
 pleasure in the Aristotelian pity and fear may be explained. Sym- 
 pathy or pity is a sort of "substitution by which we are put into the 
 place of another man affected in many respects as he is affected. . . . 
 It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting and other affect- 
 ing arts transfuse their passions from one breast to another and 
 are capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, misery, and 
 death itself. "^^ In this are involved both a sense for society and a 
 sense of self-preservation. 
 
 32 1, sect. 12. 
 33 1, sect. 13. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 25 
 
 Burke is aware of the common observation that objects which in 
 reality would shock us, are in tragical and such like representations 
 the source of a very high species of pleasure. But he objects to the 
 explanation that such pleasure is to be accounted for on the grounds 
 that the beholder realizes the story is only a fiction or that he is him- 
 self free from the evils represented, both of which theories, he holds, 
 imply a more extensive influence of reason in producing our passions 
 than he is willing to admit. As is the case with Dubos, Burke seeks for 
 the explanation outside of art in the normal experiences of men. He 
 is "convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small 
 one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others," from the fact that we 
 do not shun such objects, but approach them. "Terror is a passion 
 which always produces delight when it does not press too closely; 
 and pity is a passion accompanied with pleasure, because it arises 
 from love and social affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to 
 any active purpose, the passion which animates us to it, is attended 
 with delight, or a pleasure of some kind, let the subject-matter be 
 what it will; and as our Creator has designed that we should be 
 united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond by a 
 proportionate delight; and there most where our sympathy is most 
 wanted — in the distresses of others. "^^ Since this holds true of actual 
 life he is unable to attribute any considerable part of our pleasure in 
 tragedy to the consideration that tragedy is a deceit, and its represen- 
 tations no realities. Proof of this is seen in the fact than an audience 
 will leave a theatre even where every effort had been made to produce 
 an illusion, should it be suddenly announced that a state criminal of 
 high rank were on the point of being executed in the adjoining square. 
 "In a moment the emptiness of the seats would demonstrate the 
 comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph 
 of the real sympathy. I believe that this notion of our having a simple 
 pain in the reality, yet a delight in the representation, arises from 
 hence, that we do not sufficiently distinguish what we would by no 
 means choose to do, from what we would be eager enough to see if it 
 was once done."^^ The case is further illustrated with the pleasure in 
 viewing an earthquake or the results of a conflagration. 
 
 Burke's reasoning here indicates a familiarity with Dubos even 
 though he differs from Dubos in his conclusions. In the discussion of 
 
 34 1, sect. 14. 
 86 1, sect. 15. 
 
26 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 imitation he likewise covers ground made familiar by Dubos, who 
 tried to show that the value of the imitation depended on the impor- 
 tance of the thing imitated. ''I shall here venture to lay down a rule, 
 which may inform us with a good degree of certainty when we are to 
 attribute the power of the arts to imitation or to our pleasure in the 
 skill of the imitator merely, and when to sympathy, or some other 
 cause in conjunction with it. When the object represented in poetry 
 or painting is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality, 
 then I may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the 
 power of imitation and to no cause operating in the thing itself. So 
 it is with the most of the pieces which the painters call still-life. In 
 these a cottage, a dunghill, the meanest and most ordinary utensils 
 of the kitchen, are capable of giving us pleasure. But when the object 
 of the painting or poem is such as we should run to see if real, let it 
 affect us with what odd sort of sense it will, we may rely upon it, 
 that the power of the poem or picture is more owing to the nature of 
 the thing itself than to the mere effect of imitation, or to a considera- 
 tion of the skill of the imitator, however excellent. "^^ 
 
 In Part II of the essay Burke takes up particularly the 
 question of the Sublime. Dubos had held that the first consideration 
 of poetry and art was to excite the passions. Moved by logic rather 
 than experience, he had assigned a higher rank to painting than to 
 poetry on the ground that painting was able to offer a clearer idea of 
 the thing imitated. Burke not only rejects Dubos' theory at this 
 point but shows at considerable length that the sublime is hostile to 
 the idea of clearness and is rather concerned with such qualities as 
 magnitude, obscurity, power, privation, vastness, infinity etc. In 
 other words, not clearness of idea but strength of emotion, not the 
 intellect but the passions. The type of sublimity be it said which 
 Burke has here in mind is from the context clearly that found in a 
 Miltonian epic. 
 
 Part III has to do with the consideration of beauty. By beauty 
 he meant "that quality or those qualities in bodies, by which they 
 cause love, or some passion similar to it." Love he considers in this 
 instance to be free from that element of desire or lust which he would 
 define as "an energy of the mind that hurries us on to the possession of 
 certain objects that do not affect us as they are beautiful, but by 
 
 ^ I. sect. 16. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 27 
 
 means altogether different. "^^ In other words Burke looks upon 
 beauty as a quality in the object which directly awakens in us a pleas- 
 ing emotion through the medium of the senses, without in any way 
 being a creature of the understanding or requiring any assistance from 
 the reason. "The appearance of beauty as effectually causes some 
 degree of love in us as the application of ice or fire produces ideas of 
 heat and cold."^^ 
 
 Beauty being an immediate source of pleasure, he dismisses such 
 principles as proportion, fitness, perfection etc., as positive elements 
 of beauty since they are matters purely for the understanding, the 
 reason. His theory at this point marks a distinct break from the 
 rationalistic position found in Shaftesbury or Home or as inter- 
 preted by Diderot. This idea of proportion he thought "arose from 
 false reasonings on the effects of the customary figures in animals; 
 it arose from the Platonic theory of fitness and aptitude.''^^ ^^Deform- 
 ity is opposed not to beauty, but to the complete common form. If 
 one of the legs of a man be found shorter than the other, the man is 
 deformed, because there is something wanting to complete the whole 
 idea we form of a man; and this has the same effect in natural faults, 
 as maiming and mutilation produce from accidents. "^° As to the idea 
 of utility or fitness to an end, this theory does not hold on examination, 
 as is seen in the case of the great hanging bill of the pelican or the 
 swine's snout, etc. "The effect of proportion and fitness, at least so 
 far as they proceed from a mere consideration of the work itself, 
 produces approbation, the acquiescence of the understanding, but not 
 love, nor any passion of that species. When we examine the structure 
 of a watch, when we come to know thoroughly the use of every part of 
 it, satisfied as we are with the fitness of the whole, we are far enough 
 from perceiving anything like beauty in the watch- work itself; but let 
 us look at the case, the work of some curious artist in engraving 
 with little or no idea of use, we shall have a much livelier idea of 
 beauty than we ever could have had from the watch itself, though the 
 master-piece of Graham. . . . We are rational creatures, and in all 
 our works we ought to regard their end and purpose; the gratification 
 of any passion, how innocent soever, ought only to be of a secondary 
 
 " III, sect. 1. 
 
 88 III, sect. 2. 
 
 89 III, sect. 4. 
 ^ III, sect. 5. 
 
consideration. Herein is placed the real power of fitness and propor- 
 tion; they operate on the understanding considering them, which 
 approves the work and acquiesces in it. The passions, and the imagi- 
 nation which principally raise them, have here very little to do."*^ As to 
 whether beauty shall be applied to virtue, Burke again departs 
 decidedly from previous writers. ''The general application of beauty 
 to virtue has a strong tendency to confound our ideas of this and it has 
 given rise to an infinite deal of whimsical theory, as the afiixing the 
 name of beauty to proportion, congruity and perfection has tended 
 to confound our ideas of beauty and left us no standard or rule to 
 judge by. This loose and inaccurate manner of speaking has therefore 
 misled us both in the theory of taste and of morals, and induced us to 
 remove the science of our duties from their proper basis, (our reason, 
 our relations, and our necessities) to rest it upon foundations alto- 
 gether visionary and unsubstantial."^ 
 
 Having thus determined what beauty is not, Burke now seeks to 
 show that "beauty is a thing much too affecting not to depend upon 
 some positive qualities. And, since it is no creature of our reason, 
 since it strikes us without any reference to use, and even where no use 
 at all can be discerned, since the order and method of nature is gen- 
 erally very different from our measurements and proportions, we must 
 conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies 
 acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the 
 senses." 
 
 Part IV is an effort to demonstrate the "efficient cause of the sub- 
 lime and beautiful." It is his aim "to determine what affections of the 
 mind produce certain emotions of the body, and what distinct feeling 
 and qualities of the body shall produce certain determinate passions 
 in the mind, and no other." Why this effect results, he feels to be quite 
 beyond his purpose and in any case impossible to determine; "only the 
 sensible qualities of things can be our concern." 
 
 The explanation which Burke develops is that just as physical pain 
 results in a sort of unnatural tension of the nerves, so fear and terror 
 also. "The only difference between pain and terror is that things 
 which cause pain operate on the mind by the intervention of the body, 
 whereas things that cause terror generally affect the bodily organs by 
 
 « III, sect. 7. 
 42 III, sect. 11. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 29 
 
 the operation of the mind, suggesting the danger; but both agreeing, 
 either primarily or secondarily, in producing a tension, contraction, or 
 violent emotion of the nerves, they agree likewise in everything else."*^ 
 Thus he considers that our minds and bodies are so closely and inti- 
 mately connected that one is incapable of pain or pleasure without 
 the other. 
 
 Since terror produces such an unnatural tension and certain 
 violent emotions of the nerves, anything producing passion similar to 
 terror produces a similar effect and may therefore be a source of the 
 sublime. 
 
 That pain itself may be a positive pleasure is explained in a manner 
 not many removes from Dubos, who however is not concerned 
 with an organic explanation of pleasure. Burke notes the ill 
 effects of too great relaxation in the body and the benefit which 
 arises from labor or exercise. Such labor however represents "a, sur- 
 mounting of difficulties, an exertion of the contracting power of the 
 muscles, and as such resembles pain, which consists in tension and 
 contraction, in everything except degree." But he does not stop 
 with the mere analogy and thinks it probable that the same may be 
 said of the passions as well as the higher powers of the intellect. Terror 
 then may be looked upon as the exercise of the finer parts of the 
 system, and where it is not permitted to be carried to the extent of 
 being noxious or violent, it may be said to produce a delightful 
 horror, a "sort of tranquillity tinged with terror." Its object is the 
 sublime. 
 
 His effort now is to show that certain visual objects are capable of 
 awakening something akin to terror, or the sublime. For example 
 great dimensions, vastness with unity, the infinite, the effect being to 
 bring about an exertion of the nerves of the eye to such an extent 
 as to approach the nature of what is pain. Similarly he explains 
 darkness, there resulting such a contraction of the iris as to make a 
 noticeable tension of the nerves. With respect to what is beautiful to 
 the senses, the effect is quite the opposite ; here those things are con- 
 sidered beautiful which cause no tension of the nerves, but rather a 
 gentle relaxation of the body, producing a passion of love in the mind. 
 Such for example are smoothness, sweetness, variation. 
 
 The last Part of the Essay is devoted to a discussion of words, 
 where Burke clearly sees that words do not bear an exactly analogous 
 
 «IV, sect. 3. 
 
30 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 relation to the means at the disposal of other arts. In nature as 
 in painting there is a connection between certain motions and 
 configurations of bodies and certain consequent feelings in our mind, 
 but words affect us very differently than painting, nature or architec- 
 ture. He comes then to the conclusion that poetry is concerned not so 
 much with imitation, except in dramatic poetry, as it is with evoking a 
 feeling of sympathy; it displays rather the effect of things on the 
 mind of the speaker or others and does not aim to present a clear idea 
 of the things themselves. He finds it necessary then to keep in mind 
 the distinction between a clear expression and a strong expression, 
 the former being for the understanding, the latter belonging to the 
 passions and as such is the concern of the poet; the one describes the 
 thing as it is, the other as it is felt. Thus words by conveying the 
 passions make up for their weaknesses in other respects. 
 
 Burke's theory of taste appears as an introductory discourse to the 
 Essay on the Sublime. Taste he defines as "that faculty or those 
 faculties of the mind which are affected with or which form a judg- 
 ment of, the works of the imagination and the fine arts." The three 
 natural powers of man that he thinks are conversant with external 
 objects, are the senses, the imagination and the judgment. Taste in 
 its most general acceptation "is not a simple idea, but is partly made 
 up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the 
 secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the 
 reasoning faculty concerning various relations of these and concerning 
 the human passions, manners and actions. All this is requisite to form 
 taste, and the ground-work of all these is the same in the human mind." 
 The principles of taste do not vary, variation in taste arising merely 
 from the differences in sensibility of people and in their training and 
 judgment. In any case he held, as did Dubos, that there was "less 
 difference upon matters of taste among mankind than upon most of 
 those which depend upon the naked reason." As regards the theory of 
 the sixth sense Burke does admit that in the passions and the imagi- 
 nation the reason is little consulted so that there is the impression of 
 a separate faculty of the human mind, but taste he held was some thing 
 which could be improved as exactly as we improve our judgment, 
 "by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, 
 and by frequent exercise." 
 
THE FRENCH MOVEMENT (continued) 
 There appeared during the 18th century in France three promi- 
 nent thinkers who stood in direct opposition to the rationalistic and 
 formalistic aesthetic movement which we have seen typified in the 
 writings of Boileau and Batteux. These men were Dubos, Diderot 
 and Rousseau. Of these three writers only Dubos and Diderot will 
 be considered here. Admitting fully the importance of Rousseau 
 in the philosophic and literary history of the time, and especially his 
 emphasis on the senses and "feeling" as opposed to reason, one may 
 still be at a loss to detect any great contribution in the way of specific 
 theory. Rousseau's general position being so well known it is not 
 necessary to do more than to remind ourselves of the fact that his 
 thought and example gave tremendous weight to the general move- 
 ment which we are here treating. 
 
 Dubos 
 
 In his earlier days the Abbe l)ubos was a Cartesian and a follower 
 of Perrault,^ but his relationship with Bayle was probably responsible 
 to a large degree in preparing him for the definite break which he 
 made with this school. A visit to England, where he came into the 
 most intimate contact with Locke (1698) and where he made the 
 acquaintance of Addison among others, was instrumental in bringing 
 him over completely into the camp of the sensationalists. The 
 Reflexions critiques sur la Poesie et la Peinture, which appeared in 
 1719,2 jg clearly grounded upon the empirical standpoint of English 
 philosophy. 
 
 The Reflexions is perhaps the first systematic treatment of 
 aesthetics in so far as we mean a theory of art which aims to secure 
 the fundamental principles of the arts in general. In keeping aesthetics 
 fairly free from questions of morality and in omitting metaphysical 
 considerations he differed from his English predecessors. The fact 
 that he kept the issue clear, that his treatment was thoroughgoing 
 and in harmony with the essential position in the English movement, 
 were factors which made his work of great importance not only in 
 England, but in Germany as well. Its failure to secure a larger 
 
 ^The apparent neglect of Dubos in the past, e.g., see Schasler, Bosanquet, etc.: 
 seems the more remarkable in view of the position which he is coming more and more 
 to have. Cf. Stein, Lombard, Dubos, un Initiaieur de la PensSe moderne, Paris 1913, 
 etc. Lombard if anything exaggerates Dubos' influence. 
 
 ' Edition 1741 is here used. 
 
32 
 
 following in France has already been largely accounted for in the 
 strength of the traditional movement, and the explanation offered that 
 its literary style militated against its acceptance has a certain 
 amount of weight. 
 
 The first problem which Dubos faced was to account for the 
 emotional pleasure in art and drama. The point which seemed to 
 demand explanation was the fact that we enjoy in art and tragedy 
 the depiction of those things which are in themselves the source of 
 displeasure, a matter discussed among others by Addison. He throws 
 this problem into boldest relief by considering the case of gladia- 
 torial combats, bull fights, etc., where entire peoples were drawn to 
 witness the sufferings of others. The conclusion which he finally 
 reaches as an explanation of the entire phenomenon is that the mind 
 left to itself suffers ennui. "This feeling of ennui which results from 
 the inactivity of the soul is an evil of such a character that one will 
 undertake even the most extreme labor to escape this torment."^ 
 It is true, he adds, that the daily tasks to some extent overcome the 
 difficulty, but where this does not suffice, two ways are open: the 
 mind may be occupied by serious thought, i.e., through philosophy, 
 a resource closed to the majority of people, or there is the larger 
 possibility of emotional excitement, which is the field of emotional art. 
 
 Art and poetry, therefore, offer the best solution for this natural 
 ennui since by these means the passions may be aroused without at 
 the same time exposing the beholder to the evil consequences of 
 what he is witnessing, and of which for the moment he is more or 
 less a part. Thus art afforded a ''pure pleasure."^ He also stated 
 this positively by noting that the mind had needs like the body, e.g., 
 the need of "being occupied." This purely emotional explanation 
 of the source of pleasure in works of art and poetry leads to a con- 
 clusion, generally agreed upon by the critics, that Dubos explains the 
 pathetic, but not the beautiful. He explains the "divertissement" 
 as Lombard puts it, but the sense of beauty and the theory of imita- 
 tion form only a weak portion of his theory. Stein holds his theory 
 to be more a matter of pathology than a theory of the passions. 
 It is in any case an emphasis upon the "sublime" rather than the 
 "beautiful"; it is a question of emotional content rather than form, 
 
 3 1,6. 
 *I, 28. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 33 
 
 and in so far is widely divergent from the main current of French 
 thought. 
 
 Both poetry and painting have, according to Dubos, a common 
 purpose, namely to move the beholder, to arouse in him through 
 artificial or imitative means the same emotions that would have been 
 aroused by the sight of the objects themselves which are imitated. 
 ''The copy of the object must so to speak excite in us a copy of the 
 passion which the object itself would have excited."^ Imitation 
 therefore is only with respect to the emotional content. Form, color, 
 verse are all subordinate considerations. Art did not create an 
 impression as strong as reality; it was at best an imitation and for 
 that reason weaker in effect than the thing imitated, an ''artificial 
 being with borrowed life." It was therefore a cardinal doctrine that 
 "in poetry and in painting imitations of nature touch us only in 
 proportion to the impression which the thing imitated would make 
 upon us were we to see it in reality."^ From this he may consistently 
 conclude that the "imitation would be unable to move us, if the 
 thing imitated were incapable of so doing,"'^ which is an argument 
 used to dispose of realistic genre paintings of the Teniers type. There 
 is nothing in a village fete, he thinks, or the "divertissements ordi- 
 naires d'un corps de garde" which can move us. We can at best 
 merely admire the imitative art of the painter and find fault with 
 him at the same time for a choice of subject which can interest us so 
 little. Likewise still life and landscapes without human figures were 
 considered as inferior to the real purpose of art. "Soyez toujours 
 pathetiques" was the dictum; "ne laissez languir ni vos spectateurs 
 ni vos auditeurs." He reasons however that since painting can 
 convey a clearer impression of the object, it was on a higher plane — 
 a theory to which Burke objected. 
 
 The importance thus given to the emotional content led to the 
 conception that imitation was an "impression of the passions," a 
 copy not of the object, but a "copy of the passion which the object 
 would have excited."^ In fact Dubos held to a certain ideal conception 
 of imitation, which took into account that nature did not after all 
 offer the models for the effects which he desired art to produce. 
 
 » I, 25. 
 • I, 54. 
 U, 51. 
 8 1, 25. 
 
34 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 "One must copy nature without seeing it. One must be able to 
 imagine with accuracy what the movements and circumstances are 
 which one has never seen."^ The model which the painter has 
 before him can give him only a part of what he wants to depict. 
 "To show love crossed by jealousy from a model in repose, is no 
 longer to depict from nature.^*^ The painter must add to the object 
 in nature" — and here is a disappointing and yet illuminating con- 
 clusion — "what he knows from the study of books(!) of the effect of 
 passions upon the face, etc." "Invention" could be defined then as 
 the proper motivation of the passion depicted. Dubos was clearly 
 leaving the way open for the creative artist and he does in one in- 
 stance use the term "create" with respect to this "new nature" which 
 the poet and the artist produce. ^^ 
 
 The Renaissance doctrine of imitation of the ancients was given 
 an interesting turn in that he recommended this be carried out 
 with regard to the spirit, — "in the manner, rather than in direct 
 imitation. "12 j^ showing that a true imitation consists in the 
 adaptation of what has formerly been done to the new conditions of 
 the time in which the artist is living, and in considering Virgil as a 
 model of this procedure in so far that he had adapted Homer to his 
 own times, Dubos was not only anticipating Young, Herder, etc., 
 but was giving clear evidence of the position which "milieu" was 
 beginning to take in 18th century thought. "The man of genius 
 divines how the workman proceeds. He sees him work, so to speak, • 
 in looking at his work and in grasping his manner; it is in the imagina- 
 tion that he gets his booty," an idea recalling Renaissance criticism. 
 
 Dubos did not in general confuse aesthetic pleasure by an insis- 
 tence upon moral ends. For example he ruled out dogmatic poetry 
 almost absolutely, since it made no emotional appeal, maintaining 
 repeatedly that poetry is read for pleasure and not instruction, and 
 
 •1,208. 
 
 ^° A striking resemblance to this passage is in Winckelmann's essay on "Nachah- 
 mungen": "Die innere Empfindung bildet den Charakter der Wahrheit, und der 
 Zeichner, welcher seinen Academien denselben geben will, wird nicht einen Schalter 
 des Wahren erhalten, ohne eigne Ersetzung desjenigen, was eine ungeriihrte und gleich- 
 gUltige Seele des Models nicht empfindet, etc." In contrast to these views Diderot's 
 realism is seen in the fact that he recommended that the artist view the living models 
 in the street rather than the model of the studio. 
 
 " I, 24. 
 
 "1,85. 
 
35 
 
 that one ceases reading the moment the pleasure ceases.^^ That trag- 
 edy may work to a moral end he admits, and this he thinks is what is 
 meant by "purgation." Purgation he interprets in the sense that 
 the spectator is made conscious of the evil consequences of certain 
 passions and may be led to be on his guard in the future. But this 
 moral end is admitted only as a possibility and he distinctly states : 
 "Let no one understand me to say that dramatic poetry is a sovereign 
 and universal remedy in morality. I am too far from thinking any- 
 thing of the kind. I only wish to say that dramatic poems sometimes 
 correct men and of ten give them the desire of bettering themselves."^* 
 The doctrine of "vraisemblance" played an important part in 
 Dubos' theory. From one standpoint he accepted the definition 
 of Aristotle with the significant distinction that he put the weight on 
 passion instead of action. "One deserves the name of poet in render- 
 ing the action which one treats capable of moving us.^^ The subject 
 was approached from another standpoint equally characteristic for 
 Dubos' thought. The ideal subjects for both poetry and art he 
 deemed to be those taken from history, a natural conclusion in view 
 of the practice of Corneille and Racine, Poussin and LeBrun. The 
 probability that he desired was one with direct reference to the partic- 
 ular environment and age in which the original events took place. 
 From this standpoint vraisemblance became associated, if not with 
 historical truth, at any rate with the historical "milieu." "Poetic 
 vraisemblance consists in giving the personages the passions fitting 
 their age, dignity and the temperament which one gives them, as well 
 as their particular interest in the drama. It consists in the observa- 
 tion of what the Italians call il Costume, that is to say, in bringing 
 about a conformity with what we know of the manners (m^oeurs), 
 dress, buildings (the direct reference is clearly here to painting) and 
 the particular arms of the peoples one wishes to represent."^^ "It 
 consists further in retaining the original appearance and character of 
 the personages." That this was the sense in which Dubos most 
 definitely considered vraisemblance is seen in the statement that we 
 "admit in a drama as true the false suppositions which were received 
 at the time the actions took place," thus clearly anticipating the 
 confusion of historical truth and vraisemblance which Voltaire 
 
 " I, 74. 
 
 " I, 430. 
 
 «I,251. Cf. also 255. 
 
36 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 supported particularly in the introduction to Semiramis and for 
 which he was directly attacked by Lessing. 
 
 Dubos openly discards reason as a basis for judgment in matters of 
 art. Reason he associated with an adherence to principles, a testing of 
 the conformity of works with the requirements of the rules. This he 
 completely does away with, permitting to reason the sole task of 
 examination of a work of art after a work has given pleasure and 
 taste is satisfied. The real test of a work of art consisted alone in the 
 effect it produced; if it succeeded in arousing pleasure through the 
 excitement of the emotions, then it was accredited a success, however 
 much it may have been in disagreement with the rules. Practical 
 experience and not the rules was the guide. The man most likely to 
 be chosen for the defense of a city, he states by way of analogy, was 
 not a theorist, not a mathematician, but a man of experience.^^ 
 
 The organ which he considered fitted to determine the merit of a 
 work of art was not reason, but a "sixth sense" which he calls "senti- 
 ment." "It is the same sense that would have judged the objects 
 imitated. For color it is the eye. As to whether the accent of a recit 
 is touching, as to words or melody, it is the ear. But whether the 
 imitation moves or causes pity — It is the sixth sense in us although we 
 cannot see the organ itself. "^^ 
 
 The acceptance of an immediate sense for the merits of a work of 
 art, did not in any way preclude the universal validity of this judg- 
 ment. Men might easily differ with regard to their reasoning, their 
 philosophy, but the hearts of men remained very much the same,^^ 
 a position not infrequently taken by English moral philoso- 
 phers with regard to natural religion. Dubos is directly concerned 
 with the overthrow of reasoning from a hypothesis, from abstract 
 principles, and is putting in its place the rights of the senses. This is 
 clear from the following statement :^^ "Experience has made men see 
 that one is rarely deceived by a distinct report of the senses, and that 
 the habit of reasoning and judging this report conducts to a practice 
 that is simple and sure, in place of erring every day by way of philoso- 
 phy, i.e., by posing general principles and drawing from these a chain 
 of conclusions." 
 
 ^« II, 341. 
 17 II, 325. 
 18 II, 492. 
 " II, 341. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or HIS TIME 37 
 
 The originality of Dubos' position is modified to some extent when 
 we take into account the "public" he had in mind and which he 
 considered as worthy judges of matters of taste. In spite of his 
 arguments for the universal character of the emotional nature, he 
 found no place for the "kitchen maids" of Moliere and in fact for 
 large classes of people. He admitted a public only which like himself 
 was well versed in history, acquainted with ancient and modern art 
 and literature, in short an educated and cultured public, grown up in 
 the tradition of Louis XIV. The requirement which he assumed as 
 necessary in this matter was a "gout de comparaison," which is of 
 itself most illuminating with regard to his position. "Feeling" may 
 well be brought forward to pass upon the universal values of works of 
 art, provided one may assume a background of training and culture. 
 His virtual acceptance of the standards of this age as well as of classi- 
 cal antiquity shows that after all he admitted a universal character of 
 a definite sort in the works themselves which good taste would under 
 the proper conditions recognize. 
 
 There still remains in this intensely interesting and important 
 work of Dubos a consideration of his theory of climate, the influence of 
 which was not confined to Montesquieu but was directly seen in the 
 works of German writers, Winckelmann in particular. Through this 
 theory of climate he hoped to offer a solution for the contemporaneous 
 appearance of great literary and artistic movements and for the essen- 
 tial variation in art and literature both with respect to time and to 
 location. The explanation for these phenomena he finds not in "moral 
 causes," wherein he refers principally to the attitude of princes towards 
 artists and poets, but in the "physical causes." Genius he considered 
 to be the result of a proper disposition of the "organs of the brain"^*' 
 and the quality of the blood. In so far then as the blood was itself 
 conditioned by the character of the air he could point to climate as 
 having a positive effect particularly upon a growing child and upon 
 the development of geniuses. Thus it resulted that certain climates 
 were favorable to the production of great art, where other countries, 
 England for example, would for ever be without a native art, a fact 
 which he believed was confirmed by the failure of such men as Holbein 
 and Van Dyck to develop a school among English artists. The very 
 character of Dutch art is due to the clouded skies of Holland. 
 
 n,52. 
 
This entire theory he practically sums up in the analogy of a 
 plant. "Genius is a plant which grows of itself, but the quality and 
 quantity of its fruits are dependent upon the culture it receives. "^i A 
 plant that might grow to full height in one climate would be unable to 
 do so if removed to another : and similarly the best art was confined 
 by necessity to warm climates. That periods of art should vary 
 within the same country is explicable on the analogy of harvests 
 which vary from season to season in accordance with the weather 
 conditions. 
 
 This theory of genius as the result of the favorable arrangements 
 of the organs and the condition of the blood is interesting not only 
 from the emphasis it throws upon determinative character of 
 "milieu," but from the fact that within this portion of his work the 
 sixth sense is taken literally as a special physical organ. 
 
 Diderot 
 
 It is a significant fact that one of the first works which came from 
 the pen of Diderot was a liberal transcription of Shaftesbury's 
 ''Inquiry concerning Virtue of Merit, ^^ appearing in 1745. It 
 seems to be a well grounded conclusion that the development of 
 Diderot's aesthetic views bore from the first a very interesting relation 
 to the theories of the great English moral philosopher. 
 
 While Shaftesbury considered that beauty was characterized by 
 the harmony and proportion of Greek ideal art, it is true that he 
 pointed out a certain relativity involved in beauty in so far as the 
 individual object or part might be related to the whole. The question 
 therefore of fitness, of adaptation to an end, came under consideration, 
 a point of view, as Burke later pointed out, which often associated 
 itself with the notion of ideal perfection. To approach the subject of 
 beauty from the standpoint of the relation of parts to a whole or its 
 various modifications is to run the risk of making beauty a purely 
 intellectual conception, and if stressed too exclusively might lead far 
 astray from the field of beauty as such. Diderot seems to have done 
 something similar to this. 
 
 In one of Diderot's notes to the Essay on Virtue his interest in the 
 aesthetic aspects of this theory may be noted. "In the universe the 
 duties we have to fulfill determine the organization. The organiza- 
 tion is more or less perfect according to the greater or lesser facility 
 
 21 II, 43. 
 
which the automaton has received to perform its functions. For what 
 is a beautiful man if it is not he whose well-proportioned members 
 conspire in the most advantageous fashion for the performance of his 
 functions." In this connection he states that monsters may be 
 depicted in art provided that attention be paid to the proper organic 
 relations. 
 
 In that portion of the article ^^Beau'^ written for the Encyclopedia 
 in which he reviews previous theory on the subject of beauty, he 
 criticizes Shaftesbury for considering beauty as that which is most 
 perfectly ordered to secure the effect proposed, and for holding that 
 behind the notion of a maximum beauty for each species is the idea 
 that beauty consists in the proper functioning of all parts. In other 
 words Diderot has here caught only a one-sided view of Shaftesbury, 
 and the very thing he is here criticizing, in the end he accepts as a 
 principle of art, if not of beauty, as will be seen later. In this connec- 
 tion, however, he goes on to criticize Shaftesbury for his conception of 
 perfection, and indicates that beauty in an animal is a purely relative 
 matter, the idea of a horse differing from the standpoint of a trainer 
 and a passer-by. This general notion of the essentially relative nature 
 of beauty is developed at considerable length in the body of the 
 essay, and this he considers to be an original contribution to 
 the field, no previous writer having attempted to define beauty and 
 the Germans in particular having confused it with perfection.^ 
 Beauty is essentially a matter of rapport, relativity. An 
 object considered to be beautiful in itself, might not seem so 
 when compared with other objects. I might like an object one 
 minute and not another. An ugly object may contribute to beauty 
 when its proper relationship is understood. In short, the one term 
 which remains permanent through the changing aspects of beauty is 
 rapport, and this very flexible term therefore is considered to be the 
 thing we call beauty. 
 
 Diderot's reasoning leads him finally to pay little attention to 
 beauty as such and to admit into art almost any element. Thus 
 deformity he defends as perfectly proper, and he considers that a 
 hunchback is a distinct source of pleasure in so far as nature has 
 made the entire muscular formation of the body to conform to this 
 deformity. This, it seems to us, is a Shaftesbury conception of 
 totality deprived of the finer sense for Greek beauty. The essential 
 
 22 See Mendelssohn below. 
 
40 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 difference between the two positions is more than an essential diver- 
 gence of ideas; it was temperamental and it was based on a profound 
 difference in philosophic attitude. Shaftesbury had seen the universe 
 as a totality, an organism, so to speak, emanating from a living spirit 
 within, in which everything was conceived as a , perfection 
 inherent in the whole. Diderot's earlier shifting views had gradually 
 given way from a theism not unlike that of Shaftesbury's to a belief 
 in a universe of forces in which determinism of scientific law held 
 sway, and this was applicable finally to man in his relation to the 
 moral order. Every fact was an evidence of world structure, of world 
 order, in which human actions were the resultant of forces. 
 
 Such a materialistic point of view led him far away from the 
 beauty of the classic ideal. ''Nature makes nothing which is incorrect. 
 Every form, beautiful or ugly, has its cause, and of all beings which 
 exist, there is not one which is not as it must be."^^ Art seems there- 
 fore to have no other concern than to make clear the cause which 
 produces the effect. "If causes and effects would be evident, we 
 would have nothing better to do than to represent creatures just as 
 they are. The more perfect the imitation, the more analogous to the 
 causes, the more satisfied we would be." Not ideal beauty , but truth 
 of fact, truth of cause and effect. "A distorted nose gives no offense 
 because in nature everything shows causal relation" {tout se tient). 
 Goethe's commentaries on the Neveu de Rameau of Diderot, which he 
 translated, show the essential divergence between a thinker of 
 Diderot's type and one who accepted the complete notion of a 
 Greek ideal beauty. According to Goethe Diderot had failed to 
 distinguish art from nature.^^ 
 
 Diderot's theories of the drama represent in the main an effort to 
 secure a form of the drama which would be the surest vehicle for 
 the moral end he thought it should have in view. It is perfectly clear 
 in following Diderot that he had little power of appreciation for 
 either tragedy or poetry. "Poetry requires something of the enor- 
 mous, of the barbarous, of the savage. "^^ "Arts of imitation demand 
 something of the savage, the brutal, the striking, the enormous."^^ 
 "When is it that nature prepares the models for art? It is when 
 
 23 Essai sur la Peinture, X, 461. 
 
 24 See Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopedists. 
 
 25 VII, 371. 
 
 26 X, 502. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 41 
 
 children tear each other's hair at the bedside of a dying father, where 
 a mother opens her breast and conjures her son by the breasts he has 
 milked, or when the friend cuts his hair and spreads it over the body 
 of his friend. ... I do not say these moeurs are good, but they are 
 poetic. '^ He undertakes to advance his theory of the drama not in the 
 sense of a reform of tragedy or of comedy, both of which fields he 
 deliberately tries to avoid, but with a positive aim in view, which was 
 the creation of a new and distinct form of dramatic art whose end was 
 virtue, morality. "One distinguishes in every moral object a middle 
 and two extremes. It seems that every dramatic action being a moral 
 object, it would be necessary to have a middle genre and two extremes. 
 We have the two extremes in comedy and tragedy, but one is not 
 always in joy or sadness. There is then a point of separation between 
 the comic and tragic genres. "^^ He shows then that there 
 may be a genre in which neither pity and terror on the one 
 hand nor laughter on the other may be aroused, but rather our 
 interest. ''There will be interest where the subject is important, 
 where the poet uses the tone we have in our business affairs, and 
 where the action advances by perplexity and embarrassment. Then 
 since the actions are the most common in life, the genre which has 
 them for its object must be the most useful and the most extensive. 
 I will call this genre the genre serieux. "I repeat Vhonnete, Vhonnete! 
 It touches us in a more intimate manner or more sweetly than what 
 merely excites our contempt (tragedy) or our laughter (comedy). 
 Pick this chord and you will find a resounding and a trembling in all 
 hearts. The parterre of comedy is the only place where the tears of 
 the virtuous and wicked are mingled. There the wicked man is 
 aroused by the injustices he might have committed, he is indignant 
 at a man of his own character. The impression remains. He leaves 
 the theatre less inclined to do evil, than if he had been harangued by 
 an orator. I wish that all the arts might combine to this end."^^ 
 
 Out of this desire to secure a proper conveyance for moral teaching 
 grew his theory that conditions, professions, etc., {Uats, conditions) 
 should be depicted on the stage rather than individual characters. 
 Comedy, he thought, dealt with types or species, and tragedies with 
 individuals. "There are no longer characters to be put upon the stage, 
 
 27 VII, 134 ff. 
 
 28 VII, 312. 
 
42 
 
 but conditions. Up to the present in comedy, character has been the 
 principal object and conditions etc., accessory. To-day conditions 
 must be the principal object and character accessory." In other 
 words just as he illustrated the case in The Natural Son and The 
 Father of the Family, so he believed that for every profession and 
 station of life there was a possible drama and the individual character 
 which was to represent this particular Hat or condition, was the last 
 and least consideration. 
 
 In spite of Diderot's appeal for a kind of naturalism, he was never 
 willing to break from the traditional form of French dramatic art. 
 A logical development of his views demanded this. Germany did not 
 hesitate to take this step, the Sturm and Stress drama owing much to 
 Diderot after he had been made clear to them through the efforts of 
 Lessing. But it is interesting to note with what tenacity he holds to 
 simplicity in the matter of stage production, in the observance of 
 unities, and in a stricter interpretation of the correspondence between 
 the time of stage production and the time which would have been 
 taken for the events to have transpired in actual life. His appeal 
 for the simplicity of Greek tragedy, was based on the theory that 
 the perfect illusion was thereby facilitated, and from his first attack 
 on stage production in the Bijoux Indiscrets to the end he favored an 
 effort to secure an impression of real life, and complexity of plot and 
 character he consistently opposed because it destroyed illusion. 
 
 Diderot devoted much time to the study of pantomime, that is, to 
 the question of emotional expression through gesture, etc. His letter on 
 the deaf mutes was concerned largely with a question of this nature. 
 He upheld a free display of the emotions in art and was much more 
 concerned with this element of stage production than with the actual 
 words, as his practice of going to the theatre and following the 
 development of the play with ears closed, might well indicate.^^ 
 Out of this same general viewpoint grew his theory of tableaux where 
 he favored the frequent grouping of the actors on the stage so as to 
 give a clear as well as artistic picture of the particular moment. He 
 even favored the view that a poet should leave much to the actor so 
 that the inspiration of the moment would prompt him to give free 
 expression to the emotion. The theory that the actor should lose 
 himself to such an extent in the action that he would be forgetful of 
 
 2^ Lettre sur les Sourds et les Muets. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 43 
 
 himself represents the extreme viewpoint of his earlier ideas with 
 regard to emotional expression on the stage, which was changed later in 
 the Paradoxe sur le Comedien, because he realized finally that acting 
 was a conscious art. 
 
 In painting, which he discusses at great length in the "Salons," one 
 may note the tendency already seen in Dubos to stress the content of 
 the picture, i.e., the story, above considerations of pure art, although 
 he was more and more led to see a technique in color, in design, etc. 
 The historical group picture of a LeBrun was still held in as high repute 
 by Diderot as by his predecessors. But there is this to be noted, that 
 he remained true to his interest in the moral issue, and was led to see a 
 greater value in paintings whose subjects were drawn from common 
 life than had been the case of Dubos, whose theory of imitation was 
 hostile to genre painting. This is seen in his favorable attitude 
 towards Teniers. Appreciation for the ideal beauty of Greek art is 
 consistently lacking. 
 
THE GERMAN MOVEMENT 
 
 The aesthetic movement in Germany was of a more intricate 
 nature than in either England or France. Preceding Gottsched and 
 the Swiss, German theory had been a pale reflection of the various 
 French schools. With the entrance of English influences, partly 
 through the medium of Bodmer and Breitinger and even of Gottsched, 
 the situation at once took on a complex nature. And it is interesting 
 that the French movement had itself assumed a two-fold character and 
 was able to furnish material to opposing camps in Germany; for the 
 struggle between Gottsched and his opponents, which is generally 
 considered to be a rivalry of French and English ideas for mastery in 
 Germany, was superseded by a "quarrel" which centred about the 
 writings of Batteux and in which the opposition was fortified by 
 theories taken in part from Dubos. 
 
 In addition to these various forces at play in Germaiiy there was a 
 fundamental strain of German thought which was responsible for the 
 character of the German contribution in this field and which dis- 
 tinguishes it from either the French or English movements. This 
 proceeded directly from German philosophy and found its first 
 embodiment in the writings of Johann Gottlieb Baumgarten. By 
 the time of the appearance of his first work, de nonnuUis ad poema 
 pertinentibus {1735) Leihnitziein ipMloso-phy wsis not only firmly estab- 
 lished, but the particular turn given it by the efforts of Wolff had 
 directly opened the way for the construction of aesthetic theory. 
 Baumgarten's claim to a pre-eminent position in this movement is in 
 taking this step and initiating aesthetic theory in Germany on a basis 
 of Wolff-Leibnitzian philosophy. 
 
 The origin of this movement is to be found ultimately in Descartes. 
 In fact the full consequences of Cartesian rationalism are to be sought 
 for in Germany rather than in France.^ It has already been pointed 
 out that the idealizing tendency which the French had inherited from 
 Renaissance criticism and art had prevented in part an immediate 
 fruition of Cartesian thought in France and by the time reason had 
 gotten full hold of the "Moderns," a counter influence in Dubos had 
 set in, and the way opened for English empiricism. In Germany, 
 
 ^ See Dilthey, Die drei Epochen der mod. Aesth. Deutsche Rundschau 72:200 ff. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or HIS TIME 45 
 
 where aesthetic theory was in part an outgrowth of philosophy, the 
 case was different, and it is possible to observe the manner in which 
 Cartesian ideas found further development in Leibnitz and quite as 
 much in Wolff, who is more representative of the Cartesian manner of 
 thought than his greater predecessor. 
 
 From Descartes Leibnitz took over the terms "clear" and "dis- 
 tinct" as applied to ideas and gave them a meaning which opened the 
 way for their later use in German aesthetics. He took into account 
 not only the eternal truths, which were the main interest of Descartes, 
 but recognized the facts of experience — an old idea but now fortunate- 
 ly resurrected. "That idea is clear which is surely distinguished 
 from all others and so is adequate for the recognition of its object; 
 that idea is distinct which is clear even to its particular constituent 
 parts and to the knowledge of their combination. According to this 
 the a priori, 'geometrical' or 'metaphysical' eternal truths are clear 
 and distinct ; while on the other hand the a posteriori, or the truths of 
 experience are clear, indeed, but not distinct."^ Through the senses 
 man is able to gain a certain total impression of things which is 
 called a "clear" idea. For an object to be more than "clear," that is, 
 for an object to be "distinct," it is necessary for the mind to grasp 
 every detail with the same distinctness it does the whole and to be 
 conscious of all the relationships. Manifestly with the limitations of 
 the human mind many objects will never be more than "clear," 
 and while admitting this, Leibnitz still insists that the chief aim of 
 the soul is in the direction of "distinct" ideas. We find therefore the 
 use of the terms "clear" and "confused" to indicate the objects of 
 sense where a "clear" totality is necessarily made up of "indistinct" 
 parts. 
 
 The German philosophic movement, following the tendency of the 
 time, began to give increasingly positive value to the facts of experi- 
 ence and to accept less apologetically the "confused" impression of 
 things. In this respect Wolff marked an advance over Leibnitz, 
 showing the influence of the English empiricists. Baumgarten, 
 following him, accepted "confused" ideas as the particular realm of 
 poetry and in so doing took a step which gradually permitted German 
 theory to break away from the rationalistic tendency which was 
 prevailing. It is at this point that Mendelssohn, as opposed to Sul- 
 zer, became the immediate successor of Baumgarten. 
 
 2 Windelband-Tuf ts, History of Philosophy. 
 
46 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 Leibnitz' theory of the monad found its way equally into the 
 aesthetic discussion of the time. According to Leibnitz the sole 
 activity of the monad, or let us say, soul, consisted in what Leibnitz 
 called representations. The universe he conceived quite similarly 
 to Spinoza as a whole in which all parts were involved, each part 
 being a complete representation of the whole. Leibnitz however 
 considered the universe as made up of "immaterial forces," or thought 
 activity. Soul life consisted then in a gradual awakening to a con- 
 sciousness of those ideas which reveal its position in the universe; not 
 acquisition from without but unfolding, developing of latent powers 
 within. The life of the soul was the exercise and development of its 
 function of perception or thought. The very act of perception gives 
 pleasure to the soul in so far as it assists in the exercise or evolution 
 of the monad from confused to distinct ideas. 
 
 The terminology thus brought into favor in Germany by Leibnitz, 
 was given even greater carrying power by Wolff. With greater 
 definiteness than Leibnitz, Wolff points out the positive character in 
 the "dark, confused" ideas. He believed, for example, that the 
 "confused ideas," which represented the contribution of the senses, 
 would in the end confirm the distinct ideas attained through the 
 reason, both being two means of arriving at the same end. However 
 he still tended to consider these "dark faculties," (literally "lower 
 faculties,") as inferior. 
 
 Baumgarten takes the step of considering "confused ideas" as the 
 essential field of poetry and builds up the theoretical portion of his 
 aesthetics on this basis. From now on for several decades the 
 "lower faculties," "dark faculties," "dark," "confused," "clear," 
 "distinct ideas" are accepted as the technical language of an impor- 
 tant group of writers on aesthetics. This is quite as true of the use of 
 "Vorstellung" and "VoUkommenheit." Since these writers accepted 
 "confused ideas" as the field of aesthetic pleasure it was natural that 
 they would take into account a theory of "Vorstellung," i.e., a theory 
 of the manner in which the mind secures ideas or representations. 
 This was the inheritance from Leibnitz and this entire school had one 
 distinct aim in view, to show that the thought processes involved in 
 securing "ideas" of poetry and art, as in the case of other "ideas" 
 was consistent with the fundamental notion that there was one 
 ultimate faculty of the human soul, namely that of securing of "Vor- 
 stellungen," "representations," "ideas." Hence the opposition later to 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory oe his time 47 
 
 followers of Hutcheson in Germany with their three fundamental 
 faculties or departments of the human soul. This is what both 
 Mendelssohn and Herder had in mind when they criticized writers 
 in France and England for not having a knowledge of German phi- 
 losophy. The first consideration of German theory, therefore, as far 
 as the immediate followers of Baumgarten were concerned was not 
 formal, objective, but subjective, considering first of all the manner 
 in which the mind secures ideas of beauty. At just this point Winckel- 
 mann's ideas proceeding from the standpoint of objective art, as far as 
 sculpture is concerned, occupy a distinctly different field. 
 
 Baumgarten^ 
 
 Bauingarten's most famous work, the "Aesthetica," was begun in 
 1750, although the essential standpoint with regard to aesthetics was 
 already a part of his earlier work where we find his famous definition 
 of beauty in the terms of the Wolffian school: 'Toema est oratorio 
 sensitiva perfecta." Baumgarten's theory does not take into account 
 any of the arts, confining itself merely to poetry, and he follows the 
 theoretical portion of his work with a sort of poetics where, quite 
 oblivious to his original standpoint, he accepts much of Latin theory 
 as a basis for poetic creation. This latter portion was without 
 influence, the theoretical conception which considered aesthetics as a 
 science being that portion which bore fruit. 
 
 The use of the term sensitiva in his definition of poetry needs 
 explanation. Stein takes this up with considerable fullness. "Con- 
 fused" representations, not ''distinct" representations, are the field of 
 poetry. "Deutliche, vollstandige, entsprechende, griindliche Vor- 
 stellungen sind nicht sensitiv."* Baumgarten implies a sort of 
 fullness and richness in what is presented to the senses. While it is of 
 the nature of sensuous representations to be "confused" it does not 
 follow that they are for that reason obscure. The details to be sure 
 may be indistinct, but the impression of the whole must be clear. 
 This Baumgarten called extensive clear as opposed to intensive clear, 
 
 3 Stein, Die Entstehung der neueren Aesthetik. Hettner, Gesch. d. Lit. des 18. 
 Jhs. IV, 74. Justi, Winckelmann, Seine Werke und seine Zeitgenossen. Leipzig, 
 1866. Sommer, Die poetische Lehre Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens, Miinchen, 
 1911. Baumgarten, Aesthetica. 
 
 * Stein. 
 
48 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or his time 
 
 or distinct. The former is the science of aesthetics, the latter is 
 aesthetic pleasure. Baumgarten's contribution is at this point, i.e. 
 he makes sensuous perception the sole basis for an aesthetic theory. 
 
 Sensitiva has the further meaning, namely that of arousing the 
 emotions. Afectus mover e est poeticum. It is at this point that 
 Baumgarten is considered to evidence the immediate influence of 
 Dubos, with whose work we know he was acquainted. While this is 
 not to be denied, the critics seem not to take sufl&ciently into account 
 that the position which Baumgarten takes toward the question of the 
 emotional effect is one quite different in nature from that of Dubos. 
 Or perhaps it may be correct to say that, convinced of the value of the 
 emotional excitement in poetry, Baumgarten attempts to account for 
 this along lines set down by Leibnitz and Wolff. As did Leibnitz, he 
 recognizes the pleasure that comes to the soul in the act of represen- 
 tation, or securing **ideas," but he puts particular emphasis on the 
 pleasure which arises from grasping a perfection through the lower 
 senses, by the fact that the mind through this means gains a truth not 
 accessible through the upper faculties. According to Stein, Baum- 
 garten goes further with this idea by showing that a poet gives more 
 than he really represents, and on the other hand the reader finds more 
 in a poem than is actually represented. Poetry is not merely descrip- 
 tion, but works through images, through visualizations. Through 
 the suggestion of the image we grasp the content. The image is 
 suggestive of the larger thought. This being true, the pleasure of 
 poetry comes in the fact that it makes accessible through art a truth, 
 by a symbolism if you will, not otherwise possible. Whether or not 
 Baumgarten is subject to this interpretation, there is no doubt of the 
 fact that theoretically he accepted at its full value the positive 
 emotional element in poetry and tried to explain it on a Leibnitzian 
 basis. 
 
 Involved in this conception of the pleasure in art is the notion 
 that the work of art is perfect. The unity of the parts must be clear, 
 in order that the "idea" of the whole may be clearly conveyed 
 through the senses. In a poem Baumgarten considered this unity in 
 the sense of a central theme, a single thought, a single purpose.^ 
 As the work progresses, so the theme reveals itself, just as 
 in nature the plan of the Creator gradually reveals itself. Nature is 
 
 5 These terms are so defined by Stein. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 49 
 
 an extensive (that is to the senses) clear impression of the divine plan. 
 The poet may be said to proceed likewise in putting in extensive 
 clear, that is, sensuous form, his idea. In so far the poet corresponds 
 to the great Creator. 
 
 Beauty is perfection within the realm of sense perception. In deal- 
 ing with perfection Baumgarten tended to throw the stress upon the 
 subjective element and consider less the formal attributes of objects. 
 In any case it is significant to note that instead of considering unity in 
 variety, fitness, uniformity, simplicity etc., as the essential character 
 of beauty, which were the heirlooms of the classic conception of art> 
 he offered quite different categories, which take more directly into 
 account the sensation itself and the content. His requirements are as 
 follows: Uebertas, fullness, abundance; Magnitudo, significance; 
 Veritas, aesthetic truth, rather than intellectual truth; claritas, or 
 lux, concerned with light, shade, coloring etc.,( these two mean a full, 
 complete expression); certitudo, and vita, animation. Lux has to do 
 with the manner of expression, i.e., form, and vita with the content. 
 
 Baumgarten's purpose was clearly an effort to offer a theory of 
 aesthetics which would be in harmony with Leibnitzian philosophy. 
 Whatever theory he may have taken from Dubos and others was 
 made to conform to this viewpoint. It meant in fact that Baumgar- 
 ten considered aesthetics as a part of psychology and it is for this that 
 he is praised by Herder. The weakness of the Aesthetica is that it 
 confined itself to poetry and attempted to look upon aesthetics both 
 as a science and as a school for the poet, both of which weaknesses 
 are pointed out later by Herder. Its strength lay in the positive 
 attitude towards the so-called "lower faculties," in seeing that poetry 
 accepted sensuous ideas as its special field. 
 
 SULZER 
 
 Sulzer and Mendelssohn were the immediate successors of Baum- 
 garten. Sulzer's first real contribution to aesthetics appeared within 
 the first two years following the appearance of Baumgarten's Aesthet- 
 ica, the occasion being his admittance to the Academy at Berlin, 
 At that time aesthetics was for him practically a new field. His early 
 plan to engage in the ministry was abandoned shortly after his 
 ordination, and from the days of his schooling at the Akademischen 
 Gymnasium at Zurich until the late 40's his interests were confined to 
 natural science and to philosophy, in which there was at all times a 
 
50 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 strong moral tendency. His conversion to Wolffian philosophy took 
 place during his academic days, at a time when he was in intimate 
 personal relations with Gessner. The didactic tendency which we are 
 wont to look for in the Swiss revealed itself in a striking manner in 
 1746 when he proposed a system of education in which both philo- 
 sophy and science were to be subordinated to the development of the 
 *'man" and offered a system based on the development of "clear 
 ideas" which should begin with the earliest childhood. 
 
 The "Versuch iiber die angenehmen und unangenehmen Empfind- 
 ungen" was his first and perhaps most important contribution in the 
 field of aesthetics before the appearance of his AUgemeine Theorie 
 (1772), on which his fame finally rested. It was an attempt to explain 
 the nature of all pleasure, aesthetic, moral and intellectual, and to 
 show that this pleasure is due to a single fundamental faculty of the 
 human soul. This effort he considered original. He noted that 
 Wolff had developed the so-called intellectual faculties of the soul, 
 but neither he nor Descartes had shown that the origin of all pleasant 
 and unpleasant sensations lies in the one fundamental impulse 
 (Grundtrieb) of the human soul. Instead of emphasizing the essen- 
 tial differences of the intellectual and 'aesthetic pleasure, as Baumgar- 
 ten had in reality done, Sulzer attempts to explain everything by 
 what is in fact an intellectual principle inherent within the soul, which 
 leads him ultimately to a form of rationalism scarcely equalled by any 
 of his contemporaries. He does not ignore the distinction of distinct 
 and confused ideas, nor does he hold that these two notions will be 
 harmonized; the pleasure in perceiving an object will never cease to be 
 a pleasure in ''confused ideas." But all reduces itself finally to the 
 fact that the soul in exercising its function of thought or perception 
 (Vorstellung) finds pleasure wherever a variety is made accessible by 
 reason of an essential unity. 
 
 Pleasure or displeasure is explained as a question of freedom or 
 hindrance experienced by the mind in exercising its faculty of cogni- 
 tion. Where no obstacle is present, the soul enjoys satisfaction, 
 rather than pleasure. Compared to a state of hindrance this would be 
 pleasure. Pleasure is not merely the absence of hindrance, but 
 results when the soul is aroused to its full activity. An unobstructed 
 impression of many things at once would lead to such a pleasure. 
 The mind notes a larger ''nourishment" and with it comes the desire 
 to centre upon this. The moment the desire is satisfied or ceases, 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 51 
 
 pleasure falls back to the mere sense of satisfaction (Gef alien). 
 Thus pleasure is an extraordinary condition of the soul which experi- 
 ence must satisfy. The only way in which the mind can grasp a 
 number of objects easily, without hindrance, is when there is an 
 arrangement, such that they all bear a relation to the whole. 
 Obviously pleasure is made to consist in the grasping of a totality, 
 and not in the detail. 
 
 Pleasures he divides into three classes : the pleasures of the senses, 
 the pleasures of the heart (morality), and the intellectual pleasures. 
 Since all pleasures are in the end due to the intellectual faculty of the 
 soul, he treats this first, and it is interesting to note that under this 
 category he considers beauty. 
 
 1. Beauty is accepted as unity within multiplicity. It is in the 
 main objective. He notes, for example, that it was first applied to 
 objects of sight^ but is equally applicable to what is received by the 
 other senses. This includes poetry, since imagination he holds to be 
 only a supplement to the senses. ''There are innumerable objects 
 which are called beautiful and which belong neither to the imagination 
 nor the senses. They are presented to the understanding through 
 distinct conceptions (Begriffe). These objects are composed of 
 a number of ideas which united form a beautiful whole. Of such 
 nature is a beautiful theorem (Lehrsatz), a beautiful thought, a 
 beautiful system, a beautiful drawing, a beautiful character, 
 a beautiful action. In mechanics, in the plan of the world, in the 
 marvelous adaptation of its parts, and in the sciences, there is to be 
 found this kind of beauty which I call intellectual beauty." For the 
 unity here involved he suggests the term interest. On such a basis it 
 is not strange that he made the "passions for the arts and the passions 
 for geometry" analogous. 
 
 Of the two elements of unity and variety he puts much the greater 
 emphasis upon the latter. Thus in science and philosophy the greater 
 the diversity of facts comprehended in the unity, the greater the 
 beauty. *'A work of art is the more beautiful, the more perfect it is, 
 the more parts it has and the more these parts contribute to a pur- 
 pose." From this standpoint he proceeded to a purely quantitative 
 application to art. A simile he thought less beautiful than an allegory 
 and a drama less beautiful than an epic purely on the basis of the 
 number of facts thus unified. 
 
 * Cf . Home, Herder. v 
 
52 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 Since taste is intellectual in character, it follows that a variation 
 of taste will be due to the ability of the individual mind to grasp 
 unity in a totality presented. Sulzer goes into an extended considera- 
 tion of this point wherein the question of environment, of education, 
 early training, of opportunity are made responsible for the varying 
 intellectual development among men, in consequence of which arises 
 a variation in the appreciation of beauty. ''Trained to an apprecia- 
 tion of Watteau or Wouwerman, one will find little pleasure in lesser 
 painters." He has much to say further regarding the relativity of 
 our judgments, due to the association of ideas, wherein he shows how 
 our ideas may be affected by earlier impressions or by circumstances, 
 all of which at the moment may rise to the point of consciousness. 
 Our dislike for a person or a picture or a peculiarity in judgment is 
 thus traceable to early impressions.^ It is to be noted however that 
 in spite of the reasons which are thus assigned for a variation of 
 taste, he held most strictly to the notion of fixed and universal 
 standards. It was a question merely of overcoming the restrictions of 
 one's environment. Men thoroughly traveled should arrive at such 
 a standard of judgment. Artists of varying taste would ultimately 
 agree if fully informed of the laws and conditions of their art. 
 
 2. The question of the merely sensuous pleasures Sulzer attempts 
 to explain upon a purely physical basis. The nerves being affected by 
 impressions from without carry to the soul an impression that is 
 analogous to the one received. The senses differ only as the nerves 
 differ, each group of nerves being so located and so sensitized as to 
 receive only its proper sensations — this from a quantitative standpoint. 
 The finer the sense the less its emotional value, hence the following 
 order: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. 
 
 The theory which follows is based undoubtedly upon the mathe- 
 matical theory of music popular at the time^ and applied by analogy 
 to the other senses. The nerves he thought were in no case affected 
 by a single prolonged stroke, but by a series of individual strokes or 
 beats. A regular succession of such strokes would produce a single 
 tone. The rapid succession of the strokes or beats which occur in a 
 high tone gives greater pleasure than the slower succession in low 
 tones, by the increased activity which it brought the soul. Too high 
 
 ' This fact is taken over by Herder. 
 
 * Cf. Euler, Dalembert, Diderot, etc. Sulzer met Euler in Berlin in 1746. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 53 
 
 or too low would be disagreeable. In the matter of combinations of 
 tones, he tried to diagram for the eye the mathematical or rhythmical 
 grouping of beats that would be experienced when a harmonious 
 combination of tones is struck, as for example the common chord 
 of C. In this fashion he found it possible to uphold his theory con- 
 sistently that the soul finds pleasure in its ability to grasp an orderly 
 arrangement of objects or impressions. But the pleasures of the 
 senses he considered below those of the intellect, partly for the reason 
 that they are enjoyed less in memory and therefore cannot be 
 restored readily to the imagination. 
 
 The three different methods of grasping beauty are therefore, 
 according to Sulzer, through the senses, through the imagination and 
 through the intellect. The intellectual beauty is, we may say, the 
 beauty of content. The sensuous beauty is the beauty of colors, 
 figures, symmetry, harmony, melody — and for the latter beauty he 
 sought, as has just been shown, to give an explanation based on the 
 physics of these senses. Admitting that the senses other than sight 
 give pleasure, he excludes them from the realm of ''beauty" because 
 they give only "confused ideas," which again makes clear his funda- 
 mental theory of the one principle within the human mind. The 
 imagination was not taken as a distinct field, but was considered a 
 supplement to the senses, as Herder did later. 
 
 3. Of the three classes of pleasures Sulzer gives the position of 
 pre-eminence to moral pleasures. His position is in the main in 
 harmony at this point with Shaftesbury and the English moralists. 
 He considers the taste for the sensuous, the taste for the beautiful 
 (intellectual) and the taste for the good as "the three graces with a 
 common mother." And he states that virtue can be nothing else than 
 a facility (Fertigkeit) in furthering the happiness of one's self and 
 others. "This is not a question of judgment, nor custom, nor educa- 
 tion, but these selfish and altruistic tendencies are implanted in us. 
 One virtue, one morality." In its natural state the essential impulses 
 of the soul produce a taste for the beautiful and the good, and man is 
 happy. The great interest of man consists in listening to the voice of 
 nature which calls him to the beautiful and the good." 
 
 While Sulzer conceives of the superior rank of moral pleasures, 
 and seems to suggest a moral sense, he actually goes back to the 
 intellectual explanation of the source of moral pleasure, and, it is 
 important to note, does not here discuss aesthetic pleasure as further- 
 
54 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 ing the cause of morality. Man's happiness consists ultimately in 
 adjusting himself as an individual to the demands of society. The 
 pleasure of the mind consists therefore in properly grasping this 
 relationship. What might be a pleasure for the moment would cease 
 to be so when viewed with regard to society or to possible conse- 
 quences. Much of this is suggestive of Shaftesbury. "As soon as a 
 man has accustomed himself to see other men as a part of himself, 
 then he becomes a friend of society, and gets pleasure in its welfare. 
 There is a pleasure for each kind of life and each position or profes- 
 sion."^ That is, one may always feel himself part of a smaller group. 
 Thus moral pleasures are more universal and immediate than intel- 
 lectual pleasures and they have the further advantage in being 
 stronger in their effect upon us. 
 
 On the whole then Sulzer has ranged the three types of pleasure 
 side by side, and has tried to show that the pleasure which the mind 
 ultimately secures in intellectual, sensuous and moral matters is due 
 primarily to the fact that they engage the mind and offer it a large 
 number of facts and in a manner that enables the mind to grasp 
 easily the totality presented, and thus add these facts to its posses- 
 sion. He has in reality distinguished beauty of content from beauty 
 of form but has sought to subject the latter to the same original 
 principle which he has offered to explain the former. The strong 
 rationalistic element is evident. 
 
 After the writing of this first work, Sulzer came into active touch 
 with Mendelssohn and from that time the writings of the two men 
 show a reciprocal influence. 
 
 In 1759 Sulzer took up the "Erklarung eines Paradoxes, etc.," the 
 paradox which had appeared in the first essay, namely that man acts 
 and passes judgment often without incentive (Antrieb) and without 
 any visible reason. His explanation is based upon the distinction of 
 clear and dark ideas, in which he has recourse to the well known 
 example of a picture in which the whole is clear to the beholder, but 
 the individual parts in the main obscure, though in default of any one 
 of the details a difference would be noted. The discussion is valuable 
 to our purpose only in so far as it now emphasized the possibility of 
 art as a basis for moral betterment. Distinct ideas have little power 
 to move; this he had demonstrated quantitatively in the first essay 
 
 "Hume? 
 
55 
 
 wherein it was shown that distinct ideas are possible only in single 
 details, the number of nerves affected is thereby limited and hence the 
 quantity of sensation less. Without discussing the merits or weak- 
 nesses of this position, we may easily see the logical deduction to 
 which this leads him. Since distinct ideas have little power to move, 
 so art might well serve the purpose of putting truths in the form of 
 "confused" ideas, that is in putting them into a form in which the 
 senses grasp an agreeable impression of a whole, and the quantity of 
 sensation or emotion, if you will, is such that it may more readily 
 reflect itself in moral action. In this manner truth would be given 
 greater motive force. In this way the moral value in poetry and art, 
 characteristic of the time, was explained as an integral part of his 
 general conception. 
 
 In the "Essay on Genius" (1757) Sulzer accepts Dubos' definition 
 and defines genius as a greater animation (Lebhaftigkeit) of 
 soul whereby greater desires are engendered, and the individual is 
 gradually led to a more intense development along this or that form 
 of literature or art. 
 
 In the "Philosophische Betrachtungen iiber die Niitzlichkeiten 
 der dramatischen Dichtkunst" (1760) which is intended apparently 
 to serve as a refutation of Rousseau's attack upon the theatre, 
 Sulzer comes out more strongly for the moral possibilities in poetry, 
 particularly drama, than he had done before. He conceives of the 
 drama as something which should represent the "ideally beautiful." 
 However much the dramatist might sin against historical truth, he 
 must be morally true with regard to the situations and characters. 
 "The dramatic action presents the fact not as it should be to an eye 
 witness, but as a higher intelligent being would see it ... " What 
 he desires is perfect moral types. He is accordingly averse to the 
 usual "prejudice" whereby a virtuous man succumbs upon the stage, 
 and sees no reason why a happy outcome should not move quite as 
 much as an unhappy one. The stage would therefore be able to fur- 
 nish man with pictures which would include all the moral truths in 
 material forms. The mere names of Tartuffe and Harpagon would 
 show the hypocrite or the miser better than the best philosopher with 
 his definitions. To a young man going astray one would say: 
 "Young man, remember Barnwell" !^^ This has all been more or 
 
 1" Merchant of London. 
 
56 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 less strongly reminiscent of Diderot, whom he in fact quotes here in 
 support of this position. 
 
 From the formal standpoint Sulzer adhered strictly to classical 
 ideals as he understood them. This is seen in the attempt he made 
 in the early 70's to prepare Cymbeline for the German stage by 
 remodeling it with respect to the three unities, which shows how little 
 he was affected by the Storm and Stress movement of the time. The 
 sense of "visible totality" was an essential part of Sulzer 's rationalis- 
 tic attitude, from which Lessing's conception of dramatic unity is in 
 reality not far removed." 
 
 In an article entitled "Anmerkungen uber die verschiedenen 
 Zustande, worin sich die Seele bei Ausiibung ihrer Hauptvermogen, 
 namlich des Vermogens, sich etwas vorzustellen und des Vermogens 
 etwas zu empfinden befindet" (1763) Sulzer has been brought, 
 possibly because of Mendelssohn, to separate more distinctly these 
 two faculties of the soul. This is interesting in so far as it is an evi- 
 dence of the gradually extended place that is being accorded feeling at 
 this time. The distinction which he brings to the front is found both 
 in Shaftesbury and Mendelssohn and even in Batteux and is part of 
 the attempt to separate intellectual truths from sensuous truths. In 
 the understanding the mind busies itself with the object outside of 
 itself; in the feeling the soul feels itself, is conscious of its own condi- 
 tion (Zustand); in the one case ideas have to do with the objects 
 without relation to ourselves, in the other case the relation to our- 
 selves is prominent and we are the more conscious of our own feeling 
 than of the object. The close connection between moral and aesthetic 
 feeling is as apparent here as in Shaftesbury for example. It may be 
 noted further that one of the outstanding features of the Allgemeine 
 Theorie which did not appear until the 70's, was this relation which 
 poetry and art bear to morality. 
 
 Mendelssohn 
 
 The position of Mendelssohn during this period was one of great 
 prominence. It is necessary only to recall the large number 
 of articles either dedicated to him or issued in the form of letters 
 
 " The discussion of Hamlet's soliloquy in this essay recalls the fact that a transla- 
 tion of this could have been found by him in Mendelssohn's "Hauptgrundziige." 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 57 
 
 addressed to him to realize this. He was either in personal touch or 
 in active correspondence with nearly all the prominent men of his 
 time. He was a person of broad sympathies, and profoundly inter- 
 ested in the intellectual movements of his time. 
 
 In the "Briefe liber die Empfindungen" (1755) Mendelssohn 
 makes it a point to clear up a confusion into which rationalistic 
 thought had brought aesthetic theory, namely the consideration of 
 beauty as synonymous with perfection. Diderot had anticipated him 
 in this regard in his article "Beau" where he called attention to this 
 essential error of the Wolffian school, but his own theory of "rapport" 
 was not accepted in Germany as a solution of the difficulty. Mendels- 
 sohn showed that as far as art is concerned it is incorrect to speak of 
 an antithesis of "distinct" and "confused" ideas. As a rational being, 
 we are capable of "distinct" ideas, but we are by nature predominant- 
 ly sensuous and our ideas are to this extent limited. We are unable 
 to have a distinct idea of an object as a whole and at the same time in 
 all its relations and details. Consequently we have no immediate 
 perception of what is truth or perfection except to a limited extent. 
 This being true with regard to objects in nature it is equally so with 
 regard to art. Beauty is a result or a compensation for the fact that 
 man is limited in his ability to perceive truth. Beauty does not exist 
 for an infinite being to whom everything is accessible as truth. 
 
 Beauty being a matter of "confused" ideas the antithesis which 
 may with accuracy be applied to art is "dark" and "clear," it being 
 the aim of the artist to avoid that which is too extensive or too small, 
 as Aristotle had pointed out, and thereby secure a "clear" impression 
 for the senses. Art being thus viewed with respect to the senses 
 perfection in the object was not viewed by Mendelssohn as a merely 
 logical unity in plurality, i.e., Einheit in Mannigfaltigkeit, but as 
 Einerlei (Einhelligkeit, Uebereinstimmung) in Mannigfaltigkeit, by 
 which he could mean nothing more than a unified sense impression.* 
 A failure to discover the distinction which Mendelssohn here points 
 out, accounts for the fact that rationalistic thought, as in the case of 
 Sulzer, had gone to such extremes as to put pleasure in a geometric 
 theorem or in a principle in science on a par with pleasure in a work 
 of art. 
 
 Mendelssohn's explanation of the distinction between beauty and 
 truth or perfection did not mean, as can be seen later, that he dis- 
 
missed the use of the term perfection as applied to art, but it was 
 intended to make clear that a work of art was not truth or perfection 
 in itself, but only with respect to the beholder, and that it did not 
 follow that the greater the truth or logical perfection of the object, 
 the greater was the proportion of pleasure realized. It was probably 
 for this reason that he ignores Sulzer's explanation of sensation, 
 which implied just such a proportion between excitement from with- 
 out and pleasure within. An object of art might contain what in 
 themselves are imperfections. The true test of art was not therefore 
 in the perfection of the object but in the effect realized in the beholder, 
 so that the aim of the artist cannot be a merely logical or intellectual 
 truth but an appeal to a deeper impulse in human nature. 
 
 Our attitude towards tragedy on the stage makes it clear that 
 there is pleasure in beholding what is in itself unpleasant. Like 
 Dubos and Burke, he is opposed to the theory that the consciousness 
 of a counterfeit or an illusion in art makes it possible for us to enjoy 
 a picture of a shipwreck or a tragedy on the stage. He is rather 
 of the opinion, which as we know from a later passage was cleared up 
 for him by Burke, that such a pleasure is positive in character and must 
 be so accounted for. His conclusions are most interesting and of 
 influence upon later writers. 
 
 His first conclusion is arrived at in connection with the discussion 
 of suicide on the stage, which was continued in his later essays. 
 This discussion made clear that just as truth is distinct from pleasure, 
 so art is not itself life. Everything within a picture or a tragedy has 
 existence only in relation to itself as a work of art and in so far as the 
 whole was aimed to be presented to the senses of those who behold it. 
 From this standpoint the details of a piece of music or of tragedy 
 could be ugly without thereby annulling the beauty of the whole. 
 The blackest crime might be admitted to tragedy, if it served to give 
 a stronger impression of the passion which the whole was aimed to 
 arouse. Suicide therefore which would be condemned in actual life, 
 serves its end on the stage, provided that care be taken to treat 
 morality in the drama so that the audience may not draw conclusions 
 which have not the same application to the morality of actual life. 
 That the stage has its own morality, that art has its own laws, its 
 own totality, was one step he took in aesthetic theory and which 
 came to the front in the theories of Schiller. This view of a work 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 59 
 
 of art as a totality was carried further by Mendelssohn than by 
 Shaftesbury. 
 
 As a rule Mendelssohn insisted strongly on the artificial character 
 of art, that it is after all only an imitation; the artist therefore can- 
 not count on securing except for brief and unguarded moments 
 the effect of a real illusion. He differs from Lessing and particularly 
 Diderot in their efforts in the direction of perfect illusion. His own 
 position in this matter is proved to his satisfaction in the fact that 
 one who never attended the theatre is bored with a play so long as he 
 looks only for an illusion. The same argument he holds to be true 
 with regard to sculpture and answers the question as to whether a 
 statue should be painted or not. Art being unable to produce an 
 extended illusion, he makes it a principle that it shall not attempt 
 to attain it, although he favors any effort in the direction of making 
 the illusion or imitation as powerful as possible, allowing full license 
 in the matter of details. 
 
 So much for the work of art as such. Mendelssohn considered 
 the subject from the standpoint of the emotions themselves. His 
 argument takes into account the theory of Dubos. In the closing 
 pages of this essay he raises objections to Dubos' statement of the 
 case that the soul longs to be moved, even though it be moved by 
 what is in itself unpleasant, agreeing at this time rather with Mau- 
 pertuis, as he states later, that an ''agreeable idea or perception is 
 one we would rather have than not have." "Pleasure like the will," 
 Mendelssohn thinks, "must have a real or an apparent good as a 
 motive force. . . . According to Dubos' hypothesis we would 
 necessarily have pleasure in horror, remorse or terror because the 
 soul is moved by these things; experience proves the contrary." 
 But in the opening pages of the Rhapsodie^^^ Mendelssohn states, "I 
 was wrong in criticising Dubos for saying that the soul longs to be 
 moved, even when moved by the perception of what is unpleasant. 
 This is in the strictest sense true, since the emotion which is produced 
 within the soul by reason of the perception of what is unpleasant 
 may with respect to the object treated (Vorwurf) be none other than 
 pleasant." In other words he accepts Dubos by introducing a prin- 
 ciple not found in Dubos. There is a pleasure in beholding what is 
 unpleasant, but not merely because the soul is thereby moved, but 
 
 ^^* Rhapsodic iiber die Empfindungen. 
 
60 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 by reason of other emotions positive in character appearing simul- 
 taneously with the perception of what is disagreeable. That is to 
 say, the mind works positively. 
 
 Mendelssohn admits, in a later essay, that it was Burke's work 
 on the Sublime which brought him to see clearly, as he may not have 
 before, the actual nature of what he calls the mixed emotions (ver- 
 mischte Empfindungen). In this passage he regrets Burke's lack 
 of familiarity with Wolffian philosophy but nevertheless admires 
 him for the close relationship which he maintained between reason 
 and experience, which he thought made him superior to Dubos. It 
 is clear then that Burke is responsible for the explanation which he 
 had for our pleasure in seeing what is unpleasant in art. Weeping, 
 he now demonstrates, is a mixed emotion involving what is pleasant 
 and what is unpleasant, a sensuous perception which involves a per- 
 fection and an imperfection. Laughter similarly is a mixed emotion, 
 difiFering from weeping only in so far as it touches us less vitally. 
 
 This theory leads to an interesting application with respect to the 
 Aristotelian pity and fear. In the "Brief e uber die Empfindungen" 
 Mendelssohn objected to Dubos' analogy between the pleasure in 
 tragedy and the pleasure in witnessing a bull fight or a gladiatorial 
 combat. Mendelssohn held rather that in the case of the former the 
 poet aims to secure a feeling of pity for the hero, while in the latter 
 case one must first conquer extreme pity as a condition of enjoyment. 
 In the Rhapsodic Mendelssohn allows himself a somewhat similar 
 analogy between art and life, namely the pleasure secured in viewing 
 the Lisbon earthquake. In this instance he finds that the pleasure is 
 positive to the extent that while the beholder would have done all in 
 his power to have prevented the catastrophe, he nevertheless has a 
 sense of pleasure in viewing its results, his pleasure being again a 
 mixed one. The interpretation which he gives to tragic pity and fear 
 is that the displeasure we have in witnessing the tragic experiences of 
 the hero is offset by the love we have for the hero and the desire for 
 his perfection. Lessing's views on this subject in the Hamburgische 
 Dramaturgic show the extent of Mendelssohn's influence on him. 
 
 With this view of the mixed emotions and its relation to perfec- 
 tion and imperfection, we come upon Mendelssohn's theory of the 
 moral value of art, which is developed even more fully in the next 
 essay, "Ueber die Grundsatze der schonen Kunste und Wissenschaf- 
 ten" (1757). He accepts from Leibnitzian philosophy the single 
 
faculty of the human soul which is evidenced in its impulse towards 
 perfection. Pleasure in art can be explained then only as it har- 
 monizes with this leading principle. The pleasure in tragedy aside 
 from its being a perfect totality comes from the fact that in the midst 
 of the sufferings of the hero we form in our own minds an ideal of his 
 perfection. Even in the perception of imperfections the soul is 
 aroused to its original impulse towards perfection. Art then either 
 presents perfection or raises the idea of perfection in our souls. In 
 the Rhapsodie he states: "We are now long past that gloomy moral- 
 ity which condemns all the delights in things and prescribes duties 
 for which the creator has not adapted us. We are destined not only 
 to better our powers of intellect and will, but our emotions as well, 
 through sense perception, and thereby raise the dark impulses of the 
 soul to a higher perfection. "^^ 
 
 Mendelssohn has some interesting remarks with regard to the 
 principle of the imitation of nature. With regard to Batteux he 
 offers the just criticism that he fails to allow for a pleasure in nature 
 itself. He admits that there is a certain pleasure in seeing a good 
 imitation of nature and makes an important point in noting that 
 there is a pleasure experienced in perceiving the greatness of the 
 artist reflected in his work, in seeing how the "perfection of the 
 powers of his soul have united to produce a masterpiece," an idea 
 that is worked out in greater detail in his essay "Ueber das Erhabene, 
 etc." 
 
 It is noteworthy that there is nothing to indicate that Mendels- 
 sohn's conception of art contemplated a change with regard to what 
 had been accepted as the true standard of beauty, namely Greek art. 
 The innovation in his theory does not affect the objects of art at all, 
 but represents merely a new manner of explaining the pleasure we 
 get from these objects. Accordingly the theory which Mendelssohn 
 offers with regard to the relation of art to nature, represents nothing 
 but the classical conception of typical art. The individual objects of 
 the artist's "imitation" are closer to the ideal beauty of nature than 
 nature itself. To imitate beautiful nature, he holds, is to "copy a 
 certain object as God would have created it, had sensuous beauty been 
 his highest aim and there had been no important reason for varying it.*'^ 
 
 ^ Contrast this with Sulzer's rationalistic viewpoint above. 
 ^' Mendelssohn expresses a similar idea in his discussions with Lessing and Nicolai 
 with regard to the Laokoon. 
 
62 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 Nature being below the standard of art he sees, with Winckelmann, 
 the value of the study of Greek works, in other words, the old theory 
 of the imitation of the ancients comes here to light again. With such 
 a viewpoint Mendelssohn had little that was new to offer with regard 
 to such formal principles as unity, order, simplicity, etc., 
 which were made to conform to his general theory of art 
 as a perfect representation to the senses. But these were theories 
 relative to sculpture. When one thinks of the fact that he 
 considered the ideal of modern times as Carl Grandison! 
 and the increased importance accorded the emotions, we are inclined 
 to believe that Mendelssohn followed the same course pursued by 
 Lessing, namely that for sculpture he retained the refined simplicity 
 of the Greeks, but in poetry he welcomed a larger display of the 
 emotions and would probably have welcomed, quite in the manner 
 of Diderot in France, a definite place for moral improvement. 
 
 Mendelssohn was aware that there was a basis for the distinction 
 of arts by taking into account the nature of the signs used, i.e., 
 colors, words, figures, etc., and he furnishes an important link in the 
 development which led up to Lessing's Laokoon and Herder's 
 Waldchen. The signs of poetry he consistently held to be arbitrary, 
 those of painting and the arts in general natural. He accepts the 
 Baumgarten definition of poetry as sensuous perfect speech, just 
 as he had based his theory of the essential in all arts on artificial 
 sensuous perfect representation. Poetry is made sensuous by the use 
 of sufficient marks or traits to suggest the object itself to the imagina- 
 tion which builds on former experience. Everything may be pre- 
 sented by arbitrary signs if the mind already has a clear notion of the 
 things themselves. The arts which have to confine themselves to the 
 natural signs are therefore more limited than poetry. Each art must 
 accommodate itself to the part allowed it by the nature of its signs. 
 Music cannot depict the rose, nor painting a chord. The eye and the 
 ear only are involved in the beautiful arts. Paintings deal with 
 surfaces, sculpture and architecture with bodies. Mendelssohn was, 
 however, conscious of the limitations which this was putting on the 
 arts and consequently indicated to what extent one art may reach 
 over into the field of another, allowing action in painting and words 
 as natural signs in poetry. Painting was given the liberty of express- 
 ing abstract thoughts" and to a reasonable extent allegory.^^ 
 
 " Dubos. 
 
 " Winckelmann. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 63 
 
 In the essay on the Sublime Mendelssohn lays claim to originality 
 in calling attention to an essential distinction between subject and 
 object. There is a sublime, he holds, in a work of art when we consider 
 the object itself, when we see how more has been indicated than has 
 been given to the senses. The sublime then is an imitation of what is 
 beyond the reach of the senses through a direct appeal to the senses. 
 This awakens admiration. The object alone is able to bring about 
 such a feeling. An example given is Hamlet's soliloquy, *'To be or 
 not to be," which is quoted. 
 
 But there is another form of sublimity than that awakened by the 
 object. It is an admiration for the work of the artist, a position which 
 has already been indicated in another connection. The admiration 
 for what the artist has done when the object itself has offered little of 
 itself is a form of the sublime. The scene with the flute in Hamlet is 
 an example given among others. 
 
 WiNCKELMANN 
 
 Winckelmann's position in the movement of the time was impor- 
 tant particularly from the fact that he tended to concentrate the 
 attention of the public upon the ideal of Greek art. At a time when 
 Mendelssohn and Sulzer were laboring upon the nature of aesthetic 
 pleasure with the aim of arriving at a theory of art, Winckelmann was 
 discussing art without reference to the terminology of the Baumgar- 
 ten school.^^ In 1755 Winckelmann, at that time 38 years of age, 
 gave out a concise und definite statement of what was to remain 
 almost unchanged his position with regard to the essential character 
 of art. The ''Gedanken iiber die Nachahmungen der griechischen 
 Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst" had the advantage over 
 the theory of Mendelssohn and Sulzer of dealing concretely with art. 
 It came at a time when the Barock and Rokoko had been dominating 
 forms and when the influence of Shaftesbury and the French school 
 were aiding the gradual wakening of interest in Greek standards. 
 What Winckelmann did was not merely to take a definite stand with 
 regard to ancient art, but to do it so completely, with so much concen- 
 tration, that his position was at once clear and his influence 
 immediate. 
 
 " Justi, Winckelmann, seine Werke und seine Zeitgenossen. Winckelmann heard 
 Baumgarten at Halle. 
 
64 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 It was an important moment for Germany that Winckelmann 
 secured his ideas of ancient art ultimately from' a study of ancient 
 works themselves. In urging therefore a direct and immediate study 
 of Greek art, he was paving the way for a real classicism, to which the 
 misguided efforts of Gottsched and the other adherents of the French 
 would never have attained. What he was attempting to^4ojor art, 
 Lessing later did for drama, holding up Aristotle and Greek drai 
 tists as a true source for the fundamental principles of an art adhered 
 to even by Shakespeare. 
 
 Art (and by art Wickelmann meant almost exclusively sculpture) 
 was before anything else a question of eternal beauty, a question of 
 form, an ideal which was not only secured from a study of Greek 
 art, but was reinforced at least by Hogarth's theory of the beautiful 
 line, which appeared in 1753. According to Winckelmann, ideal 
 beauty which was found in Greek works, as nowhere else, was not a 
 detail copy of the human form, but was an ideal arrived at only after 
 the study of many human figures. In fact Winckelmann, as Justi 
 shows, was for a long time convinced that many parts of the human 
 figure, as they appeared in Greek art, were due to a consideration for 
 the beauty of form, and was surprised when later he found in Italy 
 examples of the Grecian nose as well as other details of the Greek 
 figures, which he formerly considered as concessions to the law of 
 beauty. This convinced him that the Greeks stood closer to their 
 models than he had thought, although he never believed the Greeks 
 worked directly from single models. 
 
 The sacrifice of details to secure what he terms "sanften 
 Schwung"^^ he calls, in the "Nachahmung," the use of the ''probable." 
 By this means the artist was able to secure "a, unity of the whole 
 structure, a nobler relation of parts and a richer measure of fuU- 
 ness."i8 
 
 In the process of securing ideal beauty, Winckelmann was in 
 search of an absolute ideal. He proceeded with a fixed notion that 
 there was only one beauty, and his history of Greek art shows how 
 lacking he was in any real historic sense. The ideal which he 
 sought was therefore one in which all characteristic features, all 
 personal and individual qualities were absent. Beauty was a form 
 "peculiar neither to this or that person." 
 
 "16. 
 "Fulle. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or HIS TIME 65 
 
 The notion of ideal beauty was thus not in the case of Winckel- 
 mann a nature choisie of the French school. He was fully aware that 
 the conditions were not such that objects in nature often attained to 
 their full measure of beauty. In certain countries conditions favored 
 the production of beautiful objects, (and by beautiful objects he 
 means the human form), and these were countries where the climate 
 permitted the full development of beautiful bodies. The theory of 
 climate thus took a different turn in Winckelmann than in Dubos 
 with whose work he was familiar. Coupled with the favorable condi- 
 tions under which the human form was able to develop, was the fact 
 that Greek customs were such that the body itself was exposed 
 constantly to the eye. Hence he urges the superiority of Greek works, 
 since their artists were afforded greater opportunity to get close to 
 the ideal beauty in nature. 
 
 His conception of the ideal form went further than this. In the 
 first place religion and heroic legend had joined in imposing upon the 
 artist the necessity of creating forms for which nature itself could by 
 no possibility furnish models. Here it was no longer a question of 
 judgment and taste, but of imagination and inspiration (in the sense 
 of enthusiasm. )^^ The poets were the founders of Greek religion and 
 were responsible for the ''exalted conception, which gave wings to the 
 imagination and caused them to raise their works above themselves 
 and the sensuous." With this Winckelmann comes close to the 
 realm of abstract ideas, which he urged with considerable force in 
 the ''Nachahmungen," and where in a similar vein he defended the use 
 of allegory. In the attempt to arrive at the expression of what was 
 more than human, namely "das Gottliche," he saw the necessity 
 of proceeding not merely from nature, but from the idea which the 
 artist had himself conceived. 
 
 The conception of ideal content, which Winckelmann proposed, 
 apart from ideal form, was an ideal which he found in ancient Greece 
 and which was brought out to a degree in the writings of his favorite 
 philosopher Shaftesbury. Justi^^ finds in his attitude of the Greek 
 philosophers towards the emotions the same predominance of the 
 intellectual. The ideal was a repose and happiness secured only when 
 the mind even in suffering was in full mastery of itself. "This subor- 
 
 » Justi 166. 
 «oni, 175flF. 
 
66 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 dination of the life of the senses, the emotions, the feelings, this 
 intellectual impassivity and divine peace of soul, this national and 
 philosophical Ataxic and Apathie hovers on the forehead of their 
 sculptured figures." When therefore Winckelmann seeks for "edle 
 Einfalt und stille Grosse" he is not allowing art a full expression of 
 passion, but he is insisting upon an ideal moment "when the storm 
 is perhaps past and one beholds in calm the full depth of passion." 
 This was his notion when he praised the statue of Laokoon and found 
 that the sculptor had depicted the priest, not as crying out in the 
 intensity of his suffering, but in full mastery of himself. It would fol- 
 low then that Winckelmann was concerned in the greatness of a soul 
 under suffering. Thus Winckelman had a double ideal in Greek art, 
 an ideal of form and of content, both of which representing a type 
 rather than a particular instance, might well be brought into harmony 
 in art. 
 
 Lessing took "expression" in the sense of extreme or individual 
 emotional content, and subordinated it absolutely to the law of for- 
 mal beauty, whereby it became necessary for an artist to avoid 
 extreme moments of passion. Winckelmann would have agreed to 
 this perfectly. He realized too that extremes of passion distort the 
 line of beauty. "In the state of passion the features of the face and 
 the attitude of the body change and the greater the change the more to 
 the disadvantage of beauty. . . . The soul is great and noble in the 
 state of unity, of repose; although it is more characteristic (kennt- 
 licher und bezeichneter) in violent passions." 
 
 In its final form the ideal of Winckelmann was a presentation of 
 what in every possible respect was above nature. Everything sug- 
 gestive of the sensuous, or of the organic body, gave way to what was 
 purely beautiful and within the range of pure ideas. "With such 
 conceptions beauty was raised from the sensuous to what was un- 
 created, and the hand of artists brought forth creatures which were 
 free from human needs, figures which represented human kind in 
 a higher dignity. . . . They raised themselves into the realm of 
 incorporal ideas and became creators of pure spirits and heavenly 
 souls, which awaken no sensual desires, but bring about a visualized 
 contemplation of all beauty, for they seem not to be formed out of 
 passions, but only to have assumed these." 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 67 
 
 This concludes our survey of the aesthetic field so far as it is 
 deemed necessary for this study. Lessing, whose position is naturally 
 one of great importance, has been touched upon in various connec- 
 tions. It will be perhaps sufficient if we make a special study of the 
 relation of Herder to the Laokoon, which is the work of chief moment 
 at this time. A discussion of Kant has been omitted since even at this 
 early date Herder sensed the marked alienation of his thought from 
 that of his former teacher, and this breach only grew wider until 
 Herder was emboldened to attempt an extended refutation of Kant's 
 aesthetic viewpoint in his Kalligone. 
 
i<(o?-H 
 
 II 
 
 Bi^ this general survey of the aesthetic movement of the 18th 
 century up to the end of the 60's, a common basis has been established 
 fr0m which to enter upon a more particular examination of Herder's 
 position with regard to this movement. The aim of this study is not 
 to enter upon a complete exposition of Herder's views on the subject 
 of aesthetics, but to investigate particularly the Fourth Waldchen, 
 which, we think, furnishes documentary evidence of his relation to 
 his predecessors at the time when his views on aesthetics were round- 
 ing into completeness. 
 
 THE FIRST WALDCHEN AND LESSING'S LAOKOON 
 In the First Waldchen Herder had undertaken a thorough investi- 
 gation of the principles laid down by Lessing in the Laokoon,^ (1766). 
 However fundamentally he differed with regard to many details, the 
 fact remains that the First Waldchen accepts the main position of 
 Lessing that it was possible to distinguish the arts on the basis of 
 their ''signs," so that this work represents an effort to arrive at a 
 more accurate solution of this principle. This is particularly impor- 
 tant because it is a point wherein the Fourth Waldchen differs 
 essentially from the First. In the later work a division of the arts 
 according to the ''signs" is no longer considered final; the idea is 
 promulgated that a scientific theory of aesthetics must take into 
 account the individual sense ultimately affected by each art, this 
 being the original standpoint from which to determine a fundamental 
 division of the arts. The First Waldchen was concerned mainly 
 with the object; the later position takes into account both the subject 
 and the object — an attempt apparently to bridge the gap between 
 the more objective consideration of art in Winckelmann and in the 
 Laokoon and the sensationalist theories of Sulzer, Mendelssohn, etc. 
 While the First Waldchen is an aesthetic document of real impor- 
 tance and in some respects more truly representative of Herder's 
 characteristic attitude of mind than the last Waldchen, it is true 
 that the general method of aesthetic investigation and the specific 
 
 ^ W. G. Howard, Laokoon, an indispensible work for the study of the subject. 
 1766. — References to Herder apply to Suphan Ed. 1878. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 69 
 
 position relative to the problems of aesthetics had not yet been 
 determined in this earlier work. Our present interest in the First 
 Waldchen is to witness Herder's effort to readjust the principles 
 laid down by Lessing, which, as already noted, he in a general way 
 accepted. 
 
 In the Laokoon Lessing had set about to distinguish the field 
 of painting-sculpture^ from that of poetry. Shorn of its details 
 one of the main conclusions to which he arrives is that plastic art 
 in distinction from poetry is restrained from a free expression of the 
 emotions by the necessity imposed upon it of representing formal 
 beauty, which is its first law. A main difficulty observable in this 
 position is that Lessing does not have a common basis for compari- 
 son, but assigns to painting-sculpture the supreme law of beauty of 
 form and to poetry a freedom of emotional expression, i.e. content. 
 This incidentally accounts for the commanding place given to con- 
 siderations of form in the Laokoon and on the other hand to the emo- 
 tions in the Hamburgische Dramaturgie. 
 
 Lessing's theory of the distinction between poetry from the plastic 
 arts was based upon the "signs," i.e. words, colors, figures, etc., which 
 were their peculiar medium. These signs he felt to be in a degree 
 elemental, so that a consideration of their nature would reveal an 
 inherent difference between poetry and painting-sculpture. He 
 concluded therefore that in as much as the signs of painting-sculpture, 
 necessarily existed side by side, or were coexistent, it followed that 
 these arts would confine themselves to the depiction of objects as 
 they would present themselves to the vision, i.e. side by side. WprdSj_ 
 on the other hand, as the signs of poetry necessarily appeared in suc- 
 cession and therefore he argued that poetry had to do solely with 
 successions, which he also called^ai;LtiQIJ.5*.S.o that actions and not the 
 presentation of objects for the vision, was the field of poetry. J 
 
 Herder at once noted that in making succession the characteristic 
 quality of the signs of poetry and of its subject matter, Lessing had 
 failed to take into account the fact that succession was quite as well 
 applicable to music. Further than this he saw that the signs of 
 poetry were not to the same extent natural with regard to poetry as 
 the signs of "painting" were to painting, and pointed out the essen- 
 tially arbitrary nature of words which had been particularly insisted 
 
 2 Lessing uses the term Malerei — but his viewpoint is almost exclusively that of 
 sculpture. 
 
70 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 / 
 
 I 
 
 upon b}/ Mendelssohn. To overcome the first difl&culty Herder put 
 all the ^rts under two categories : those which present themselves to 
 the senses in their entirety such as sculpture and painting, and those 
 which/secure their effect only in the progress of presentation such as^ 
 poetry, music and the dance. For these two categories he used the _ 
 terms "work" and ''energy," respectively, borrowing admittedly 
 from the Englishman Harris. 
 
 To overcome the second difficulty he introduced a new termin- 
 ology. It is to be regretted that Herder here adopted terms taken^ 
 from the language of metaphysics since it has led men to seek a 
 deeper meaning in these terms than Herder meant they should carry. 
 In place of "succession" and "coexistence" Herder substituted 
 "time" and "space" without intending that they should have a dif- 
 ferent general significance than the Lessing terms. As a term properly 
 fitting the nature of words he added "Kraft" or power. Just as 
 words had value not primarily as sounds but by reason of the inner 
 meaning or force behind the word, so^^etry;— continuing the analogy 
 in the spirit of Lessing — should deal with inner forces or genuine 
 ^actions. The advantage in this position was that it permitted a use 
 of the term action which was far more accurate than in Lessing. 
 Mere succession does not of itself signify action, according to Herder, 
 but requires an actuating cause behind the series of events. We 
 judge of causation in physics by noting a succession of phenomena; 
 in the same way we consider a succession of events as actions only 
 in so far as they are an expression of an energizing principle originat-, 
 ing in the human soul.^ 
 
 If his explanation is confused it may be due to the effort to illus- 
 trate his position with regard to the case of the shield of Achilles, 
 the bow of Pindarus and the chariot of Juno. Lessing had brought 
 these forward as instances where Homer had sought to visualize 
 objects for the reader by describing them in the act of making, i.e. 
 in succession or as action. Herder correctly enough points out that ^ 
 Homer's aim was not to produce a picture for the eye, but sensuous 
 
 3 "Power is not an object of sense. All that we observe is succession. But when 
 we see one thing invariably succeeded by another we not only connect the one as 
 effect and the other as cause, and view them under that relation, but we frame the 
 idea of power, and conclude there is a virtue, an efl&cacy, a force, in the one thing to 
 originate or produce the other (Hume). 'In the strict sense, power and agency are 
 attributes of mind only' (Reid)" Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophy, p. 379.. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 71 
 
 impressions of the essential virtue or power associated with thgsg^ 
 ^bj[ects^ Action in Herder is consistently in terms of personality^ 
 so that these objects have little value for Homer in so far as they 
 do not have direct bearing upon the personage for whom they are 
 constructed. The character of the shield for example reflects itself 
 ultimately in the personality of Achilles. It enters into the action 
 as one of the forces and is not to be considered as something having 
 existence only for its pictorial value. From this standpoint Herder's 
 position is now seen to be consistent with a vital conception of action 
 throughout the Waldchen; since the succeeding events which com- 
 pose such action bear a causal relation to an originating power 
 lTSrraf£)"wItEiir'tTie'^ffiM"6^^^ the ihdividual,They are therefore a sen- 
 suour"representation of his persohairty. 
 
 Action is in fact the critical word in the First Waldchen. Where 
 Lessing had sought to limit it to certain arts, Herder seeks to restore 
 it to its own. Action is the ^''poetic" element Jar excellence, and he' 
 demands for sculpture and painting as well as large a use of the poetic 
 element (which in this essay is at all time synonymous with action) 
 as possible. When for example Lessing attempted to draw general 
 conclusions with regard to the fact that certain Greek heroes and 
 divinities wept by reason of physical pain, Herder sees in this an 
 individual act and a sign of cowardice. Far from being able to 
 talk ingeneral terms with regard to the Homeric heroes, as Lessing 
 had done, he states ''jeder ist cine eigne Menschenseele, die sich in 
 keinem andern aussert."^ Not ASY]iaLJ3D£ClJaJX. but wha^L the.y..do"^ ■ 
 is the point of interest, and in what they do we characterize them as 
 individuals. Hence ins Lead of accepting_^with Lessing that the gods ^ 
 are abstract personalities he considers them as definite individual!-^ 
 ties from whom our abstract conceptions of their general character^ _ 
 have been later deduced. 
 
 While Herder accepted in a general way the point of view^gf^ 
 Winckelmann and Lessing that beauty of form was the supreme law 
 of sculpture and agrees even more particularly with Winckelmann 
 that a certain repose and exaltation of soul arises from viewing 
 
 ^ The conception of personality in Herder has been clearly worked out by 
 Professor Martin Schiitze, Herder Seminar Lectures, U. of Chicago. 
 6 III, 19. 
 •m,88. 
 
72 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 ^idealized Greek sculpture, he seeks at all times a greater amount of 
 actioni In view of a change of position in later essays, it is signi- 
 ficant/that he speaks deprecatingly here of the depiction of the single 
 figu^ because it forces upon the sculptor the necessity of 
 holding to a certain typical conception of character in order to 
 insure its identity. Against the depiction of the single figure he 
 favors the group since this makes possible the expression of a ''higher 
 beauty," i.e., the expression of action and thereby individuality. "In 
 every single figure, and so in the works of the sculptors who create 
 single figures, it is the fault (Mangel), the limitations and not the 
 essential character of their art, that it depicts its personages in a 
 characteristic (here in sense of typical) manner rather than as indivi- 
 duals." "The entire mythology is in reality a land of poetic 
 ideas; even when the artist depicts them, he is a poet."^ 
 
 One does not need to be reminded that in a general way what 
 Herder had to say with regard to poetry and the depiction of actions 
 in poetry would have been subscribed to by Lessing. Where Lessing 
 
 jattempted however to keep the fields of poetry distinct from that of 
 p ainting-sculpture , Herder reverses the process and by insisting 
 upon a generous depiction of action, which as we have seen he calls 
 the poetic element, he re-establishes the rapprochement of the two 
 arts. Because it could express action, painting, which was practically 
 
 Tgnored by Lessing, was given a large place. "It (painting) has a 
 drama of figures; they are so arranged as to represent action. . . . 
 
 JThe painter in the treatment of a poetic subject is a poet. . . . 
 In reality one law and one freedom.^ ^^ This position is consistently 
 adhered to by Herder who discusses paintings solely on the basis of 
 the story told and its emotional content. In this he is strikingly in 
 harmony with the position of both Dubos and Diderot, both of whom 
 were wont to discuss painting from the standpoint of the story 
 depicted. The large position given to the emotional content in all 
 art shows to what extent Herder was justified in introducing within 
 the Waldchen a theory of elegiac poetry wherein the universal charac- 
 
 ^ter of the emotional nature and the conditions most favorable to 
 emotional expression are discussed at length. 
 
 It remains to note that after having broken through the bounda- 
 
 jies between painting and poetry, by giving action the first place in 
 
 ' III, 90. 
 8 III, 93 f. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 73 
 
 aH art, he completes the work by restoring to poetry the right to 
 descriptions. In opposition to Lessing he states that complete 
 .visualization is not necessarily the purpose of poetic description, 
 and that on the other hand visualization is perfectly possible where 
 the objects themselves or the means of depicting them are sufficiently 
 familiar to require only the mention of a few traits for the mind to 
 secure a fairly complete picture of the object described.^ From this 
 one may conclude that the arbitrary character of the signs of poetry 
 free it from the limitations naturally imposed upon it by Lessing. 
 In spite of the fact that by giving a larger scope to action and 
 by defending descriptive poetry, Herder has apparently restored the 
 confusion against which Lessing wrote the Laokoon, it may be re- 
 called that Lessing had not intended to offer merely a theory, but 
 was opposing an actual condition obtaining in poetry and art. He 
 acted therefore no doubt with discretion in holding to the fundamen- 
 tal principles and would, as is generally believed, have qualified his 
 statements in the continuation of the discussion which he had 
 planned. It may also not be„ioslsi^ht._^^^^ that Herdfir^aQtiially. 
 accepted the main principles in this Anti-Laokoo.n, his demonstrations.-, 
 however indicating to what extent he had attached himself to^ 
 a new mode of thought which was hostile to many forms of rational-^ 
 J.sm. And the fact remains that the form of the Laokoon, its clean- 
 cut distinctions etc., gave Lessing a following to which the First 
 Waldchen never attained. It may be safely said that Lessing's Laokoon 
 was definitely responsible for the general tendency in Herder's 
 aesthetic views, the Laokoon furnishing the rneans for Herder to 
 cri ticize and analyze onl y to d e velop along lines peculiar to his 
 type of thought. ' 
 
 ""T^he Second and Third Waldchen followed close upon the First, 
 but since they were not concerned with the immediate problem of 
 aesthetics, but were mostly in the form of polemics against Klotz, 
 they furnished no occasion for an expression of view with regard 
 to the question of present interest. The moment these were in the 
 hands of the publisher he turned to a consideration of a possible 
 Fourth Waldchen. This was about the first of December, 1768. 
 
 ^ Cf. Mendelssohn above, p. 62. 
 
THE FOURTH WALDCHEN 
 
 T^e direct occasion for this particular essay is to be seen in part 
 in the quarrel which centered about the person of Klotz, whose chief 
 claim to fame seems to have been his dispute with Lessing. Riedel 
 as a member of the Klotzian paity had been involved both in the 
 recent surreptitious acquisition from the pi inter of advanced copy of 
 the revised Fragmente and the fairly acrid criticism of them which fol- 
 lowed in Klotz's literary organ, so that Herder's feeling of antagonism 
 had been roused to a high pitch. The Second and Third Waldchen 
 had left little doubt with regard to his attitude toward Klotz in par- 
 ticular, but the matter had become somewhat involved by the fact 
 that his own criticism of Lessing in the First Waldchen had seemed 
 to indicate a split in the forces of the Anti-Klotzians, which we know 
 from Herder's correspondence was a matter of no little solicitude. 
 No better opportunity could have been afforded Herder than Riedel's 
 comparatively recent work on aesthetics^ not only to make his posi- 
 tion clear as regards his opponents but to come to the defense of the 
 main position of his own friends. The importance of this allignment 
 into opposing camps is fully indicated in Herder's correspondence, 
 wherein it is seen that he puts himself definitely on the side of Nicolai, 
 Mendelssohn, Lessing, etc. 
 
 Riedel's work was in no sense original, being in fact as the title 
 indicates, an assembling of theories particularly from German and 
 English writers. The basis for his discussion was the Anti- Wolffian 
 philosophy which seems to have attached itself to the theories of 
 Hutcheson. This work must however not be underestimated since, 
 as Haym suggests,^ it tended to replace the ''shallow Batteux with 
 the newest ideas of Home, Burke, Mendelssohn, Sulzer, Hagedorn 
 and Winckelmann and was an eclectic treatment of everything from 
 Dubos down to Herder and Lessing." In seeking to establish a true 
 theory of aesthetics over against the theory of Riedel, Herder was in 
 turn compelled to examine previous theory, but in so doing he at- 
 
 1 Theorie der schonen Kiinste und Wissenschaften. Ein Auszug aus den Werken 
 verschiedener Schriftsteller. Jena 1767. 
 
 2 1,249. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 75 
 
 tempts, as may be seen in the following pages, to retain what he 
 considers to be the standpoint of German philosophy. Aside from 
 giving an insight into Herder's conception of Leibnitz-Wolffian 
 philosophy the work has particular value in offering authoritative 
 evidence of Herder's attitude towards the theories of his predecessors 
 in the field of aesthetics. 
 
 One of the original aims of the Fourth Waldchen was to define 
 the nature of aesthetics and to demonstrate the method by which to 
 arrive at a complete system. Herder hoped by making this clear to 
 further the ends of aesthetic study in Germany, putting the entire 
 subject on a thoroughly scientific and philosophic basis. Not losing 
 sight of the fact that Herder may have taken this general position 
 to motivate certain theories of his own, it remains true, particularly 
 in view of Riedel's work, that there was need at the time for some 
 one to define with some precision the true nature of aesthetic inves- 
 tigation and theory. 
 
 At the time Herder was at work upon his essay Sulzer's plans for 
 the publication of the first part of his ''Allgemeine Theorie der 
 schonen Kunste und Wissenschaften" were reported to be fast 
 nearing completion. Herder seems not to have called into question 
 Sulzer's own notion with regard to the real nature of aesthetics, nor 
 the proper method of arriving at a ''general theory"; his main con- 
 tention is that the proposed work of Sulzer, valuable as it might be of 
 itself, could not in the form of a dictionary lay claim to being a theory 
 of aesthetics. The road was still open to carry out the end he pro- 
 posed. "Perhaps should I convince Sulzer of my point of view (i.e., 
 the incompatibility of the form of a dictionary with a general theory of 
 aesthetics) my opinion will come too late to take from his hands the 
 Penelope work before he has unwoven it again. "^ 
 
 The Fourth Waldchen and the correspondence bear repeated 
 witness to the impatience with which Herder seems to have 
 looked forward to the appearance of Sulzer's proposed work. As a 
 member of the Academy at Berlin and as the author of important 
 articles in philosopihy, ethics and aesthetics, as well as in the field of 
 natural science, Sulzer had attained a position of commanding impor- 
 tance. This accounts to a degree for the marked tendency in Herder 
 to avoid anything but a most discrete criticism of Sulzer, particularly 
 
 •IV, 146. 
 
76 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 in anticibation of a work which had as many possibilities as this 
 "dictionary." In any case he seems awed by the fact that behind 
 such a wbrk was necessarily the examination of a vast amount of data, 
 and this/ we know was one of the chief demands which Herder made 
 for any theory. "And I read" he states towards the end of the second 
 part of the Waldchen^ "that Sulzer's dictionary is about to appear;^ 
 evep as a dictionary this will be an agreeable sight and perhaps the last 
 preparatory contri^Dution to the theory which I wish and seek for. 
 My own critical Waldchen (plural), the care which I have shown in 
 the development of the ideas of beauty which others like so much to 
 confuse — these bear witness as to whether I shall deserve to be one of 
 its readers." 
 
 It seemed advisable to make these preliminary remarks with regard 
 to Herder's position in order to make clear one of the original 
 purposes which prompted Herder to write this work. 
 
 (a) Part One of the Fourth Waldchen 
 The first part of the Waldchen is concerned chiefly with the effort 
 to establish a general philosophic basis for a study of aesthetics. It is 
 on the one hand an attack upon the "new philosophy" of which 
 Riedel was representative and on the other a reassertion of the rights 
 of reason inherent in the Wolffian method It represents an effort to 
 hold firmly to a Leibnitzian standpoint and at the same time bring 
 forward a theory of knowledge which shows to what extent he was a 
 follower of Locke. In the realm of aesthetics it was a definite alUance 
 with the Baumgarten - Sulzer - Mendelssohn school over against 
 that of Hutcheson-Riedel. 
 
 1. Riedel as a representative of the "new philosophy" held that 
 there was within the mind an intuitive sense which passed immediate 
 judgment upon the question of beauty, just as there was an intuitive 
 sense for truth and for moral right and wrong. These three faculties 
 he considered to be taste, conscience and common sense. It was 
 one of the legacies of Hutcheson.® 
 
 4 IV, 168 f . 
 
 ^ In the original draft Herder had incorrectly stated "was ready for the press." 
 Cf. IV, 168 footnote. 
 
 ^ IV, 5, note 1. "Man sieht die sogenannten Grundkrafte einer neuern (zuerst: 
 der Crusisch-Darjesisch-Hutchesonschen) Philosophie. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 77 
 
 In direct contradiction to this view Herder maintained there 
 was only one original faculty of the human soul, so that what ap- 
 peared to be immediate perceptions of beauty, truth, moral right, 
 are not intuitive, but represent the normal activity of the mind 
 trained by experience to pass immediate judgment. The only 
 immediate cognition in the sense in which Riedel meant it was the 
 original feeling that ''I am, I feel" and that there is something outside 
 of me. Otherwise he held that impressions from without would 
 remain isolated impressions except for the fact that an active faculty 
 within the human mind definitely relates and connects the impres- 
 sions. "To feel through the perceptive faculty of my organs that 
 there is something outside of me was sensation; the least discrimination 
 was judgment; the first distinct discrimination in what was at first 
 judgment, is a double-reflection of the activity of the soul, and there- 
 fore an act of the reason." 
 
 This position was further emphasized by a consideration of the 
 origin of ideas of impenetrability, color, figure, etc., which are not 
 acquired by a single "feeling," but by many single sensations, i.e. 
 by comparison, by judgment. Our conceptions of size, distance, 
 breadth seem to be perception, immediate "sensation," but are as a 
 matter of fact acquired. And if this be true of such ideas as size, 
 distance etc., how much more is this the case with beauty, goodness, 
 truth. It is of course the familiar reasoning with regard to the 
 "primary" and "secondary" qualities of reality. In place therefore 
 of three fundamental faculties there is only one activity of the human 
 soul acting upon experience. 
 
 The chapter ends in this manner: "The mind unconsciously takes 
 on at once a dark and sober expression when, after viewing psychology 
 in the simplicity and neatness and exact precision in which the fol- 
 lowers of Leibnitz had formulated it and in which Mendelssohn and 
 Sulzer have cleared up so many paradoxes^ in the field of dark and 
 confused ideas, it must wander into the Crusius-Riedel labyrinth, 
 etc." 
 
 2. Riedel's assumption of an immediate sense of beauty, goodness 
 and truth leads Herder to a further analysis of the inherent weakness 
 in this position "which is destructive at once of all philosophy." 
 That the "philosophy"^ he had immediately in mind was the Leib- 
 
 ' The use of the term paradox has no doubt direct reference to Sulzer 's essay: 
 Erklarung eines psychologischen paradoxen Satzes, etc. 1759. 
 
 8 "Philosophic" may at times be moreaccurately translated by the word "science." 
 
78 he|ider's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 nitzian is clear from what follows. Philosophy he considers to 
 have this essential aim: ''It seeks to bring out the ideas already in 
 us, to make distinct the truths which we only knew 'darkly' . . . 
 To dp this judgments and conclusions are necessary: judgments 
 which begin with the comparison of two ideas and continue in the 
 development of conclusions until the relation of the two is evident " 
 This is a restatement of the view of Leibnitz that the soul life con- 
 sists not in securing new material from without but in the develop- 
 ment from confused ideas which make up the soul life from the 
 first to distinct ideas which is the ultimate goal. Consistently with 
 this point of view he speaks of a certain educative value in philosophy, 
 although he departs from this standpoint later in the work. "Here 
 lies the real nature and the formative power of philosophy, that 
 through it I see truths at least in an evidence, in a certainty, which I 
 either did not see before, or at any rate did not see distinctly: that 
 through it / make judgments of taste with a certainty, and distinguish 
 beauties in a light in which they formerly did not appear to me. . . ." 
 
 In spite of the weaknesses of the Wolffian system, it had the 
 merit of recognizing the function of the reason without which no 
 philosophy may proceed, reason being here considered by Herder 
 only in the sense of a means at man's disposal for arriving at clear 
 ideas in philosophy and science and not as an adjunct with regard 
 to our judgment in matters of beauty. In line with this position he 
 considers that the beauty of the Baumgarten system lay in the fact 
 that aesthetics was treated from the standpoint of psychology, in 
 accordance with which mental experiences with respect to works of 
 art were the subject of investigation, i.e. a study of the sensations of 
 beauty. Baumgarten represents in other words the empirical 
 method, which begins with the experiences of the human soul and 
 works up to a complete system. Herder concludes that "a commen- 
 tary of Baumgarten would be a book of the human soul, a plan for 
 education and the gate to an encyclopedia of arts and letters." 
 
 3. In opposition to Riedel Herder defends the methods of Aris- 
 totle, Home and Baumgarten. "The sensation of beauty is the 
 object of investigation whether you search for it in the work of art 
 (Aristotle) or in the mind (Home) and the result arrived at will take 
 the form of definition (Baumgarten) ." Riedel's difficulty with regard 
 to Aristotle is in mistaking scientific observations to be mere rules for 
 the creation of art. Herder is very well aware that great geniuses 
 
79 
 
 do not proceed from "clear" ideas with regard to the laws of beauty. 
 But whether Sophocles was conscious or not of the laws which 
 Aristotle found in his dramas, the whole of Aristotle is there. "Be- 
 cause it is impossible for dissected animals to increase, shall the 
 anatomist for that reason cease to dissect?"^ Riedel's objection 
 to Baumgarten that beauty is treated in the same manner as truth 
 represents a similar misunderstanding. Herder does not need to 
 be told that "beauty is an apprjTov which is more felt than taught." 
 But beauty as a sensation, and the sensation of beauty as an object 
 of investigation are two different things. Beauty, he admits, is 
 inexpressible "im Augenblicke des verworrenen siissen Gefuhls, der 
 sanften Betaubung. . . ." but there is nothing to hinder our making 
 this momentary impression the subject of analysis. The immediate 
 perception of beauty is a question of "confused ideas" but aesthetics 
 as such has for its end truth or "distinct ideas." Home like Baum- 
 garten was representative of no one method but had a true concep- 
 tion of aesthetics which united all three methods. 
 
 4. Herder makes it clear at this point that Baumgarten had two 
 distinct conceptions of aesthetics one of which was completely un- 
 tenable. While he was correct in viewing aesthetics as a science, it 
 had not of itself anything to do with what Baumgarten was pleased 
 to call the "art of beautiful thinking" (die Kunst schon zu denken). 
 i.e. poetry. Baumgarten's pupil Meier followed the incorrect notion 
 of aesthetics which is here indicated and consequently Herder uses 
 him rather than Baumgarten as the object of his more violent criti- 
 cism towards the end of the section. It is important to note in this 
 connection that the educative value of aesthetics is here denied, 
 since he holds that it can do no more towards training the "lower 
 faculties" than logic the "upper faculties" of the mind. 
 
 5. The question of taste is next taken up for consideration. The 
 discussion is founded on the principle that "we are all capable of 
 perceiving beauty in so far as we are all capable of sensuous percep- 
 tions (sinnHche Vorstellungen.)" The germs of this are to be seen 
 in the acceptance of Baumgarten's definition of beauty as "sensuous 
 perfection"; the argument however is reminiscent of Leibnitz. "In 
 accordance with the measure of its powers, the human soul within the 
 sphere of its existence has formed a number of organs to perceive that 
 
 •IV, 19. 
 
80 hierder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 which is about it, to receive it into itself for its own enjoyment. The 
 number of these organs . . . show to what extent man is a sensuous 
 creattire."^^ A point of variation between men is therefore located 
 in a^ original variation of powers within the soul. "If no human 
 soul is quite like another so also in its nature there is an infinite 
 variety and modification in its powers, while having the same quan- 
 tity of reality. As the body forms itself in harmony with the soul, 
 this inner variation evidences itself throughout life, so that in one 
 person one sense predominates over the other, in another this power 
 is greater, etc. This then is equally true of our aesthetic nature 
 where an endless variation of powers is possible." 
 
 How closely the Leibnitzian philosophy is involved in this is seen 
 in what follows where Herder attempts to show the genesis and 
 development of the human soul. Here is expressed the idea that 
 from the first the soul has a conception of the universe (Begriff des 
 Weltalls) and its development consists in an evolution of powers 
 within as is the case in the visible world of the tree "which the 
 embryo bears within itself and where every leaf is an image of the 
 whole." "In the soul is everything which it feels outside itself. — 
 At every sensation it (the embryo) will be awakened as from a dream 
 to a recollection of its position in the universe. Thus its powers 
 
 . develop through a suffering from without; but the inner activity of 
 development is its end, its inner dark pleasure, a constant perfecting 
 of itself." 
 
 So far reflection has played no part, so that Herder again takes up 
 the question of the origin of ideas within the mind. Repeated sensa- 
 tions from without lead to the conclusion that it is the same sensation 
 and the soul admits a truth outside itself. The mind was not con- 
 scious of reflection but sUch was its origin, and through the habit of 
 receiving the same sensation the mind accepts it as immediate percep- 
 tion. Our notions of figure, form, size and distance represent the same 
 active participation of the mind although all the mechanical processes 
 may be forgotten and only effects are left. The ordering of the 
 materials of thought continues. The time comes when things are 
 considered in relation to ourselves, and the notion of good arises; 
 
 /ideas of order, of harmony, of perfection follow and since beauty 
 is only sensuous perfections^ also the idea of beauty. The point here 
 
 " IV, 28. 
 
 " Baumgarten. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 81 
 
 emphasized is that in the process of securing ideas the soul actually 
 exerts its active capacity of thought with relation to experience, 
 although this activity of the mind may not be apparent and we 
 have the impression of immediate sensations or perceptions. In 
 fact, for practical purposes he sees no reason why they should not be 
 so considered. 
 
 A new point is now brought in. Sulzer had noted the effect of 
 early impressions upon the mind and on this basis had shown that 
 through a sort of association of ideas our later judgments are affected. 
 The importance of this position is that a basis for a variation in 
 judgments, in taste, is located in environment, while above the 
 emphasis was on original variations in soul faculties. With direct 
 reference to Sulzer Herder develops the following: "Our childhood 
 is a dark dream of 'Vorstellungen,' but in this dark dream the 
 soul works with all its powers. What it seizes upon it incorporates 
 into the innermost part of its being; it gradually awakens from its 
 sleep. . . . These dark ideas (recollections of childhood) lie in us 
 by the thousands: they form the unusual, the peculiar, and the 
 strange in our conceptions and forms of beauty and pleasure: they 
 often cause us to feel a sense of repulsion or attraction without our 
 knowing it or wishing it: they arise in us as latent impulses to sud- 
 denly love this person or hate that one . . . they are the dark 
 grounds in us which change and shade the images and colors which 
 come to us later. Sulzer has explained a few paradoxes in this 
 depth of the human mind; perhaps with these remarks I am throwing 
 in a few rays, which may awaken another psychologist to bring in 
 more light." 
 
 The chapter ends with a statement in regard to taste. "When 
 our soul has practised so long in passing judgment upon the perfec- 
 tion and imperfection in things, when judgment has become as ready, 
 evident, active as a sensation, then taste is there, 'an habitual 
 faculty of judging the sensuous perfection and imperfection of 
 things, as if one perceived them immediately.' " 
 
 6. Herder's objection^ to the acceptance of Riedel's innate taste 
 was that it did away with the universal "character of beauty and 
 took from it all objective rules, so that taste would differ as indi- 
 viduals differed. To say that beauty was perceived through the 
 senses (and he ridicules Riedel for attempting to demonstrate this 
 to Mendelssohn) and on the other hand to say that we have an innate 
 
82 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 sense of what is beautiful is to be self-contradictory, and that is the 
 crux of the difficulty. "Is the feeling of beauty innate? Yes, but 
 only as/aesthetic nature, which has the faculty and the organs to 
 perceiVe sensuous perfection and which has its pleasure in developing 
 these faculties and using these organs to enrich itself with ideas of 
 this Kind. Everything is in him, but only in embryo for develop- 
 ment] . . . everything comes from a single faculty of the soul, the 
 securing of perceptions (sich Vorstellungen zu fiihlen) and by this 
 means to secure its pleasure. How beautiful the human soul be- 
 comes I Unity at the basis, thousand fold variety in its development, 
 perfection in the sum of the whole. None of these three fundamental 
 faculties is ready made by nature, but everything is formed from 
 one, to be raised up to the most manifold perfection. "^^ 
 
 Common sense, conscience, taste are then not innate faculties 
 but represent an acquired facility in judgment. The ''common 
 sense" of the Greenlander and the Hottentot is not our common 
 sense, but is proportionate to their training and their world. It is 
 possible for whole departments of our soul to remain empty and for 
 whole faculties to remain latent, if they are not awakened. Our 
 common sense knows no truths it has not learned, not one truth it 
 has not had opportunity to acquire. ''I find a constantly active 
 force within me to have knowledge, and where this has been able to 
 work, where it has had opportunity to have perceptions, form judg- 
 ments and draw conclusions, this common sense will be found to 
 exist. ... I see no inner, immediate, universal, infallible teacher 
 of truth; I see a facility in the use of our cognitive faculties dependent 
 upon the measure of this development." 
 
 In a similar way Herder takes up the question of conscience with 
 relation to what is morally good or bad; but nowhere does he find 
 judgment more apparent than in the question of beauty, i.e. taste. 
 "If taste is nothing but judgment with regard to certain classes of 
 objects, then it is originally formed as a judgment; it will be lacking 
 in those things completely where this judgment could not be formed; 
 it will err completely in those things where this judgment was falsely 
 formed; it is coarse or weak, strong or delicate, according to that 
 upon which we have secured our judgment. It is not a fundamental 
 faculty, a universal power of the soul; it is an habitual application 
 of our judgment to objects of beauty." 
 
 »IV,34. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 83 
 
 Herder now shows the possibility for a variation in our senses 
 themselves due to the varying opportunity which may exist for them 
 in the environment in which the individual develops. "A spirit thus 
 formed for music can be a very different creature from the genius 
 who has been formed for the plastic arts in the same degree that the 
 former was for tonal art: the one is purely eye, the other ear; the 
 one to see beauty, the other to hear it." These men would have 
 very different ideas of beauty. But from the variation of taste in 
 such cases one may not conclude there are not uniform laws of grace 
 and beauty. The variation lies in the sense and accordingly Herder 
 points out the possibility of valuable conclusions should the one 
 whose ear or eye has been thus trained have sufficient of the scientific 
 (philosophisch) spirit to analyze his own sense, and Herder suggests 
 the examination of "men who by nature have been born for one art 
 or another." 
 
 The variation of taste due to geographical location does not 
 change the principle above stated. That true taste does not vary is 
 proved for him by the fact that wheresoever born men "will always 
 find the song of the nightingale and the simple charms of nature 
 beautiful." Where a variation of taste exists one may arrive at 
 what is true taste by attempting to account for the variation. In 
 other words, to explain the variation, is to confirm the rule. "Na- 
 tions, centuries, times and men do not all attain a similar degree of 
 aesthetic culture and this puts its seal on the variation of taste." 
 Here follows a two-page quotation from Diderot which had been 
 written to show that only in past ages are moeurs to be found which 
 are truly poetic. Herder uses the passage for a different end. He 
 concludes that "Greek, Gothic, Moorish taste in architecture and 
 sculpture, in mythology and poetry, were not the same, and may be 
 explained only on the basis of times, customs, peoples, etc. There 
 is only one principle of taste, but the understanding and application 
 of it varies. Does not this Proteus of taste which changes in all 
 climes, in every change of atmosphere which it inhales, does it not 
 prove in the very reason for its change that beauty is one, just as 
 perfection is one and truth is one?" "There is an ideal for every art 
 for all kinds of poetry and for taste in general and it is to be found 
 in peoples, in times, subjects and works." 
 
 With this section Herder abandons the general theme and takes 
 up in the following chapters those particular theories which are more 
 specific and more original. 
 
84 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 / (b) Part Two of the Fourth Waldchen 
 
 Tlie second part of the Waldchen is immediately concerned with 
 a theory of aesthetics that takes into account an essential distinction 
 in tUe senses themselves. 
 
 i. Herder points out first of all that the terminology of beauty 
 had been determined largely from objects of sight and applied meta- 
 phorically to the objects of the hearing and imagination. The 
 development of "schon" from "schauen" seemed to him to exemplify 
 this ! The reason lay in tl\e fact that objects of sight were of such a 
 nature that they could be coolly examined and hence a terminology 
 based on sight was the natural result. He advises therefore a 
 thorough study of the objects of sight since "such a theory would 
 teach us to see beauty before we apply it to reflected objects of the 
 imagination, and before we speak of it as the blind man does of a 
 mirror. . . . Here aesthetics awaits its optical Newton." 
 
 Expressions applicable to aesthetic pleasure through the medium 
 of the hearing have been limited, but that this need not be so is 
 attested by the richer vocabulary of the Italians with reference to 
 music and by the case of the blind who show themselves capable of 
 much finer nuances of sensation than those who see. In anticipation, 
 therefore, of his own theory he proposes that a philosopher treat 
 such a theory from the standpoint not of harmony but of tone 
 (Wohllaut) which he holds to be the elemental consideration. This, 
 he states, would be the ''second portal to this aesthetic structure." 
 
 Feeling, i.e. touch, is the sense which ought first of all to be 
 examined whereas in the past it had been relegated to a position of 
 no importance under the name of a rude or coarse sense, (unfeinere 
 Sinne)^^ and excluded from the arts of beauty. The very term 
 aesthetics, which "is a philosophy of feeling," shows that it should 
 occupy a commanding position, a statement which shows a con- 
 fusion with regard to "feeling" which not infrequently occurs.^^ 
 
 In opposition to what he considered was the general opinion and 
 in particular the view of Mendelssohn, he states that it is not our 
 sense of sight which gives us our conceptions of bodies and forms, 
 but that through this sense we acquire our ideas merely of surfaces, 
 colors and images, and hence the necessity of taking touch into 
 
 " This is particularly applicable to Sulzer. 
 " See Haym: Herder. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 85 
 
 account where bodies are concerned. As a proof of his statement 
 he gives a synopsis of Diderot's Letter on the Blind, omitting all the 
 metaphysical considerations which were Diderot's chief concern. 
 The case of Chesselden is however discussed with greater detail than 
 in Diderot, his source being here, as we learn from a note to his 
 "Plastik," the Englishman Robert Smith. He notes further the 
 contribution of Rousseau (Emile) who wished to make practical 
 application of this principle to education by bringing about a more 
 specialized development of this ''truer" sense. This does not prevent 
 Herder from implying that the application of this principle to aesthet- 
 ics was original and stating that it "will give it a completely new 
 form. Everything in factv^hich is beauty of form, corporal beauty, 
 is not a visual, but a tactuaF (f iihlbar) conception; each one of these 
 beauties must be sought for originally in the sense of touch." ''With- 
 out such a distinction there is the same confusion as when the blind 
 say, 'Now I understand, red is like the sound of a trumpet. ' " 
 
 Taste and smell he excludes from consideration, holding them 
 (as did Sulzer) to be variations of the sense of touch. 
 
 2. Herder returns now to the general question of aesthetics which 
 characterized the first Part. He speaks broadly of the necessity 
 of considering the senses separately and points out the essential 
 unity within the human mind for which the organs of sense are as so 
 many streams flowing into an ocean.^^ Once more he strikes at 
 what he considers the prevalent method of the time: "Their defini- 
 tions begin 'von oben herab,' from beauty and the sublime; they begin 
 with that which should be last, namely, beauty." One should begin 
 with data. It is a question of analysis which is considered the only 
 true philosophic method. He wants above all a physiology of the 
 senses.^^ 
 
 The chapter ends with a discussion of the confusion in philosophy 
 due to the conventional manner in which words are accepted without 
 due regard to the original sensuous impression which these words 
 were intended to give. A theory of the origin of language is here 
 touched upon. 
 
 ^ Sulzer's figure is of a spring as the constant source of many streams, which 
 indicates to what greater extent the contribution of the senses is emphasized in Herder. 
 
 " Sulzer, we recall, desired the physics of the senses, and his theory illustrated 
 this, and here again Herder is seen in advance of Sulzer. 
 
y. The discussion is now taken up where it was interrupted by 
 the generalizations of chapter 2. 
 
 / This new theory of aesthetics based on the senses does not mean 
 that the theory of Lessing proposed in the Laokoon is fully aban- 
 doned. The relation of the "parts" of an object is an essential 
 factor in the new position, but the attempt is here made to put the 
 matter on a basis that is more representative of the facts and more 
 inclusive of the entire field of art. In making the division Herder 
 takes into account two things: whether the effect seems to be with- 
 out as in the case of objects of sight, or more within as in the case of 
 the objects of hearing and feeling, and in the second place as to how 
 far the objects present themselves to the senses essentially in succes- 
 sion or simultaneously. This leads therefore to a threefold division 
 which represents a step in advance of the First Waldchen: 
 
 1. Sight: Parts are without and yet coexistent. 
 
 2. Hearing: parts within and in succession. 
 
 3. Touch: parts within and coexistent. 
 
 The first has to do with surfaces, the second with tones and the third 
 with solid bodies; a sense therefore for surfaces, for tones, for 
 bodies, and, when it comes to beauty, for beauty in surfaces, in tones 
 and in bodies. The three arts are painting, music and sculpture. 
 Poetry is excluded from these categories since, as is indicated later, 
 it does not deal with natural signs and borrows from all arts equally. 
 Sculpture is considered first. The impossibility of treating 
 sculpture from the standpoint of sight is effectively answered by the 
 statement that the mind left to the sense of sight would never secure 
 a conception of solid bodies. It is a question therefore of touch. 
 This permits him to bring into use the theory of Hogarth relative to 
 the line of beauty and to find in the "elliptical line" rather than in 
 color or proportion of parts, the essential beauty of sculpture. To 
 this idea is added the notion that the form of a body bears an organic 
 relation to the soul within.^' Beauty therefore does not rest with 
 the mere line of beauty, but lies deeper. "To describe a painting 
 one describes what is before him, one shows figures in their relation- 
 ships; to describe an Apollo, the touch, the imagination takes the 
 place of the colder eye. One feels Hercules in the whole body and 
 
 1^ Cf. Herder's early essay on Schonheit als Bote der Seele. One sees clearly the 
 influence of Winckelmann throughout this section. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 87 
 
 the body in all its actions." In painting totality is in the entire 
 grouping, in the entire situation, wherein each individual is a part 
 only of a larger whole. In sculpture each figure is a totality by 
 itself. 
 
 The question now as to whether art shall deal with beautiful 
 bodies is for Herder settled. Where the individual body counts for 
 less and where the effect is in the whole, as in painting, it is not a 
 requirement.^^ In sculpture it is an absolute rule. Here the 
 force of Hogarth's theory is evidenced. *'The ugly and disgusting 
 statue which I touch in my thought, and continue to feel in its dis- 
 tortion and its 'Unnatur' is disagreeable. Instead of feeling beauty, 
 I come upon breaks in the body, which cause a cold tremor to pass 
 through my limbs; I feel an unharmonious vibration of my nerves of 
 feeling and an inner disturbance of my nature." 
 
 On this theory of touch he disposes of the question as to whether 
 the sculptor shall depict hair on ''Myron's Cow" or whether statues 
 should be painted. It gives him the explanation he desires with 
 regard to the characteristic features of Greek art, the nude, the 
 clinging drapery, the beautiful contour. Sculpture must be made 
 with due regard to touch which even in the imagination passes over 
 bodies and reveals the soul within. It must work essentially for this 
 sense and not for the sense of sight. This gives him the standpoint 
 for defending the ^^edle Einfalt und selige Ruhe of Greek art." Here 
 can be nothing ugly, nothing distorted or broken in its main expres- 
 sion, for if the inner feeling or touch stumbles upon some malforma- 
 tions, it is repelled with horror, and both exaggerations and ugly 
 features arising merely from touch, prevent a free and pleasing play 
 of the imagination. "Selige Ruhe^' is the first condition since this 
 alone gives room for the beauty which eternally pleases the touch 
 and cradles the imagination into gentle dreams. 
 
 At the close of the section he states that he ''has gathered many 
 other observations and has found important explanations with 
 regard to this art, so that he has not only a new logic for the lover of 
 art, but also a new way for artists by which they may approach the 
 perfection of the ancients, so that it would be most agreeable time 
 spent to gather these observations under the eye of an artist and 
 bring them to scientific perfection." 
 
 ^8 Mendelssohn's theory of "mixed sensations" practically setUed this question. 
 
A. A theory of painting is now developed based solely upon sight, 
 an illustration for which is found in the case of Chesselden mentioned 
 in Diderot's letter. He notes that the blind restored to sight see all 
 /objects as a great color picture surface immediately upon the eye. 
 The case is the same with children iSrst learning to see. The sky, 
 woods, etc., are all surf aces. Here Herder finds the first material for 
 painting. It imitates this great tablet of nature with all its images 
 in the small and like nature puts everything upon a single surface. 
 Therefore the representation of things upon a flat surface in accord- 
 ance with their external appearance or form as they appear in a 
 straight "continuum" with others — this is the primal conception of 
 painting. 
 
 Thus then there is a distinction from sculpture. Sculpture imi- 
 tates things only as substance existing of itself, but never in a "con- 
 tinuum" with others; a sculptor can make shepherdesses but never a 
 shepherd landscape.^® Painting can depict everything, and this 
 everything is its field. It never represents things by themselves, but 
 in the expansum of visible things. Shepherds are never painted as 
 shepherds, but as they appear in their shepherd world. The very 
 thing that sculpture cannot do, namely depict the expansum of 
 things, is the essence of painting." 
 
 In the main therefore no art can take another for a model. 
 Brooks and trees are for example excluded from sculpture. The phe- 
 nomena of space as such are the subjects of painting; tangible beautiful 
 bodies are the subject for sculpture. Hence it follows that the com- 
 position, the arrangement of parts plays an important role in painting. 
 
 The question of light is an important factor. The difference 
 between painting and etching is that in the latter case light is treated 
 as an unbroken whole, whereas color tends to final perfection, giving 
 a greater element of truth to appearances in space. 
 
 Returning to the question of sculpture he finds that a theory of 
 sight enters into the explanation of two phenomena in the realm of 
 art. The first of these was the remarkable skill shown by the Greeks 
 in being able to make figures which close at hand were without form 
 and proportion, but which at a distance fulfill their end as statues. 
 This he felt was the abandoning of one art to make it an illusion for 
 another sense. The second of these theories is a theory of colossal 
 
 ^" Neither Winckelmann nor Lessing found place for landscapes, nor were they 
 particularly popular in Dubos and Batteux. 
 
figures in Aegyptian art, which is based directly upon the experience 
 of Chesselden. 
 
 5. The digression concerning the colossal figures in Aegyptian art 
 is continued through this chapter. The chapter closes with the 
 expression of the need for a ''physical and mathematical optics of 
 beauty," for a ''science of beautiful phenomena" such as a Lambert 
 might write. Not only the character of the German language which 
 is adapted to fine analysis, but the fact that there exist already in 
 the works of Winckelmann, Mengs, Hagedorn, etc., splendid contri- 
 butions to the theory of beauty (beauty however treated merely from 
 the standpoint of sight) convince Herder that the Germans are best 
 able to carry this out. 
 
 6. This and the following two chapters deal with the sense of 
 hearing. The aesthetics of hearing is seen to differ from that of sight 
 as the ear differs from the eye, as tone from color, space from time. 
 Beauty for the eye is before us, is colder, more easy to analyze and 
 remains where it may be found again; the pleasure of tonal art is 
 within us; it works as a sort of intoxication; it vanishes and leaves 
 as little trace as a ship in the sea or the arrow in the air. One cannot 
 put this inner feeling outside oneself and separate the indivisible tone 
 as is the case with color; one cannot feel and at the same time think 
 and capture the fleeting moment and fix it for eternity. Such are 
 the difficulties which Herder finds in this subject. 
 
 He recognizes the work done by Euler, Dalembert, Diderot etc., 
 but indicates that physics and mathematics applied to the question 
 of music can only deal with harmony and with sound as such; it 
 cannot clear up the question of tone which is the fundamental con- 
 sideration. The number of "beats" cannot tell the quality of a tone 
 which is the elemental consideration. 
 
 The objection to a theory based on harmony, is that the ear as 
 ear does not hear relations. Sulzer's theory of the individual moment 
 wherein the pleasure is proportioned to the number of beats which the 
 ear detects, is dismissed by Herder on the grounds that it explains 
 the limits of sensation but does not explain how two instruments 
 producing the same tone occasion different degrees of pleasure, or 
 how two men with different degrees of sensitiveness are differently 
 affected by the same tone. 
 
 The explanations offered have failed to distinguish sound from 
 tone. The general questions of strength and weakness, of velocity 
 
90 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 / 
 
 etc., may be taken up by the mathematician and the physicist, who 
 may thereby arrive at a theory of sound which strikes the ear, but 
 a/ the question of a simple tone, analogous to a simple line,^^ is no 
 longer a question of mere physics but inner feeling. It is ultimately 
 not a question of acoustics but of a "physics of the soul." As far as 
 physical origin is concerned sound and tone are the same. That the 
 tone is the ultimate basis for differentiation is illustrated in the case 
 of the different effect produced by the same tone played on a violin 
 and on a flute. Sound is therefore a corporeal aggregate of tones, 
 and tones the single powerful moments. 
 
 7. It is not a question of high or low tones,^^ loud or weak,^^ 
 but the sensation of the essential character of tone (Empfind- 
 barkeit der Beschaffenheit). With this there follows a physiological 
 explanation of tone. Just as when singing into a piano causes the 
 vibration of the corresponding string, so we have by analogy an 
 explanation of the varying sensitiveness to tones. We must go 
 beyond the inner structure of the ear which shows by what means 
 sound is prepared for its reception by the nerves, and consider the 
 variation to be found there. "In the variation of the nerve branches 
 of hearing are to be found the essential and specific differences in 
 tones and tone qualities, that is in sounds, in so far as the variation 
 in quality may be the source of pleasant or unpleasant musical tone. 
 Sound, like a body, or its element, the tone, like a line, strikes its 
 string in playing on the hearing; and on whether it does so in this 
 direction or that, homogeneously or not, depends the disagreeable or 
 on the other hand the smooth quality of tone. A tone is disagreeable 
 which causes a vibration in the nerve in opposing directions, so that 
 all the fibers are put into unnatural motion against each other, as if 
 the nerve would break. ... A tone is considered agreeable when 
 all the fibers of the nerve are affected in a homogeneous and har- 
 monious manner. Obviously there are two degrees of agreeableness. 
 The nerve may be drawn homogenously, but the fibres suddenly 
 made more tense; or it may be permitted to slacken and a gentle 
 releasing of the fibers occurs. The former corresponds to what we 
 call the sublime and the latter to what we know as beauty." 
 
 2° Sulzer made the same analogy. The theory of the line is of course from Hogarth. 
 
 21 Euler. 
 
 22 Sulzer. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 91 
 
 That the origin of this theory lay with Burke is left beyond doubt 
 by Herder's own statement. *'We have a British empirical philoso- 
 pher, who has followed these two feelings deep down into our nature 
 and as it were to the very fibres that surround the soul and every- 
 where has reduced the sublime to a feeling of tension and beauty 
 to a feeling of relaxation of the nerves — it is Burke, the author of the 
 philosophical ''inquiry into Beauty and the Sublime," whom 
 Mendelssohn made known to us and whom Lessing has long promised 
 us (in translation) .23 The objections to Burke are that he did not 
 carry his examination far enough, and Herder points out the road 
 to what he calls the "Pathetik of all simple musical accents, which 
 would examine the relation which certain tones and their effect 
 upon the brain would have to certain sensations of the soul; how 
 certain sounds occasion certain states of mind, and how there is 
 after all a material soul whose external points of contact would not 
 completely disappear before investigation." 
 
 A historical application of this theory follows wherein an attempt 
 is made to explain primitive music as a pleasure in tones in con- 
 trast with the modern interest in harmony. The relation of individ- 
 ual tones to individual passions and ideas is seen in the songs of 
 war, of peace, of anger, etc. Once again the case of the blind is 
 brought forward whose sense for the elements of sound is keener and 
 who feel more in a single tone (Anton) than we in the harmony of a 
 whole piece. And what is true of him is true of the ancients. 
 
 8. The idea that sound as such is external, but that tone is more 
 in the soul itself, that sound affects the external hearing and tone 
 the internal hearing is more fully developed. The fact that 
 hearing lies closer to the soul is therefore given as a reason for the 
 superiority of hearing over other senses. 
 
 There follows then a theory of the history of music. Music he 
 considers not so natural to man as to birds. The first expressions 
 of pain or pleasure in man are inarticulate, but as such are a basis 
 for language. This first rude language was not music in that it 
 lacked a pleasant succession of tones. Song is however the language 
 of birds since that is expressive of the bird itself. They have their 
 language from the first as a kind of instinct, while man only gradu- 
 ally arrives at a language. Music as such did not arrive through an 
 imitation of birds, as some had thought, but was itself an expression 
 
 23 IV, 103. 
 
of passion, of feeling. Thus poetry and music were inseparable 
 sisters. A true relation was seen early in Italy where poems were 
 sung and where melodrama was still melodious poetry. The change 
 cande with the introduction of instruments which tended to make 
 language more philosophical and prosaic and led to the introduction 
 of harmony. In this latter art he held that the Germans excel. 
 
 9. Dance is now considered as an expression of the passions to 
 the same extent music is. In the man of nature the accents of 
 passion are from the innermost soul. Gestures become a visible 
 language. Language, music and dance all have their rhythms. 
 Dance is seen as the consummation of all the arts. This, rather than 
 painting, he believes deserves the name of "stumme Dichtkunst." 
 
 10. Herder summarizes the work thus far as follows: *'We have 
 gone through the senses of beauty in order to assign to each its chief 
 art, and through a physiology of the sense to find the means of 
 analyzing the essential character of the respective art; we have 
 considered the arts of beauty themselves in order to note in each 
 case the ideas that are original and peculiar to their nature; we have 
 followed for the most part in beaten paths and have been compelled 
 to show more what ought to be done than what has been done." This 
 has led to an "aesthetics of the feeling of beauty," "a philosophy of 
 the phenomena of beauty" and "an aesthetic science of music." 
 These three roads are necessary to a complete theory of the arts. In 
 psychology much has already been accomplished, but from the stand- 
 point of the objects and "their beautiful sensuousness" without which 
 there can be no theory of all the arts, he believed little had been done. 
 As against the method proposed he finds in looking over the field 
 that poetics are based on painting and theories of painting based on 
 poetry; he finds endless discussion of unity and variety, of imitation, 
 etc., etc. wherein each man has an idea of the art about which he 
 writes analogous to a blind man's idea of color. Hence the impor- 
 tance of his own contribution. 
 
 The remainder of this chapter is devoted to a criticism of Riedel. 
 Riedel had accepted the Baumgarten definition of poetry, painting, 
 etc. and had expanded them so as to explain more clearly their 
 meaning and to include the distinctions made by Lessing in his 
 Laokoon. Herder attacks these definitions in considerable detail 
 and ends by restoring the brevity of Baumgarten's definition that 
 * 'poetry is perfect sensuous speech," oratio sensitiva perfecta; paint- 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 93 
 
 ing is "the fine art which depicts surfaces"; sculpture is the "fine art 
 which forms bodies"; music is "the fine art which works through 
 harmonious and melodious tones, or the fine art of tone (Wohllauty'; 
 pantomime is "the fine art of giving living expression to actions." 
 
 In the course of the discussion Herder takes up the term sen- 
 suous (sinnlich, sensitiva). "To those who don't know the meaning of 
 the word it will be an algebraic formula, and they will find Batteux 
 more clear. Others who understand it only in a shadowy way will 
 use it incorrectly; and there are many such in Germany. The only 
 proper use will be found in those followers of Wolff who will see the 
 idea in it clearly and distinctly, and only those will see Baumgar ten's 
 meaning in its true light." This leaves little doubt that in Herder's 
 mind the approach to aesthetics from the standpoint of the sensuous 
 part of our nature involved in art was in direct opposition to the 
 theory of imitation as preached by the followers of Batteux in Ger- 
 many. This same position is made clear in the Fragment on Baum- 
 garten.^^ 
 
 11. Herder states with regard to Riedel's work that "as an 
 abstract from the writings of various authors his Theory may have 
 value, even if the author should fail to offer a theory of his own." 
 But he is unwilling to concede that he has been successful in making 
 such an abstract and blames him for finding no better explanations 
 of the arts in view of the excellent authorities he used. Herder 
 accordingly reviews some of the leading theories of his predecessors 
 with the apparent purpose of correcting false impressions left by 
 the Riedel work. Incidentally he makes clear his own general 
 position. The men thus taken up include Sulzer, Mendelssohn, 
 Diderot, Home, Gerard. Herder's views on these men are discussed 
 later in this study.^^ 
 
 In view of the fact that Herder had already summarized his posi- 
 tion and given a complete theory of art, it is not at first clear why 
 he should do so again at this point. Here we find a reiteration of the 
 statement that a theory of poetry and the fine arts must take into 
 account all the arts to arrive at its main principles; that there are 
 no principles without data and phenomena, and these from the 
 individual arts; that words "von oben herab" are complex "Trugi- 
 
 24 XXXII. 
 
 28 See below, pp. 97ff. 
 
94 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory or his time 
 
 deeii"; that ideas not secured directly from the product cannot be 
 applied to the products: by reason of such views he finds himself in 
 direct opposition to the defenders of the so-called pure aesthetics. 
 *^Here are my ideas and general lines for the course which one must 
 pursue through all the arts to arrive at a theory of beauty; the main 
 thing is the course, the method itself (with direct reference to an 
 objection raised with regard to Sulzer's dictionary)." 
 
 He begins with architecture, since this gives- him the clearest 
 idea of unity and variety, of proportions, symmetry as well as the 
 question of size and the resulting admiration.^^ Here is an ideal 
 of visualized perfection (anschauliche Vollkommenheit). "From 
 this you take away not only an image, but you arrange your soul 
 accordingly, in order to give it greatness, strength, simplicity, rich- 
 ness, order and fitness; in order to build it like a beautiful building. "^^ 
 Architecture is the "logic" of beauty. 
 
 Architecture has nothing to do with imitation; there is no ideal 
 of beauty, but only a question of perfection in lines, surfaces and 
 bodies, all of which are arbitrary. Only with the statue do we come 
 to the ideal of living beauty. Here is nature, real resemblance, even 
 to touch, which is the surest sense of truth. ''Here is beauty, not 
 merely in the imperfect waves and serpentine lines^^ which are only on 
 the surface, and a constant source of dispute, but in rotundity, in 
 that which is essential to touch. Here is original expression, the soul 
 speaking through the body, i.e., illusion. Here is insatiable fullness 
 of thought in the action. If one stand before the statue of Lysippus 
 with closed eyes, one may grasp the original force of the word feeling. 
 You will find that in this world of the sensuous-beautiful, touch is 
 the first true sense of experience." 
 
 Sculpture has to do with the single figure. ^^ We now take up what 
 is essentially the group. Variety on a single ground, in a single 
 continuum, in a single position of light and shade. Figures no longer 
 work as individuals, but the impression is of a whole composed of 
 figures, lights, color and space. They all together make a single 
 
 2« Burke. 
 
 ^^ The relation of architecture to life recalls immediately Shaftesbury and the 
 English school. 
 28 Hogarth. 
 " We recall how little space was given the single figure in the First Waldchen. 
 
impression. This is painting. The further we proceed, the more 
 artificial art becomes. Here it is not touch, but the practised eye 
 which gathers up the various parts of the pictures. Drawing has a 
 two-fold purpose, namely to establish probability and visual beauty, 
 the latter a matter of waves, lines etc.^^ Color comes in to make the 
 illusion perfect. In painting, picturesque illusion; in sculpture 
 tactual illusion: the difference between sight and touch. In the 
 one case the body becomes alive, in the other the pictured surface 
 becomes present to us. Succession is here impossible where every- 
 thing is intended for a single moment for the eye. 
 
 Compared to painting which is the art of visualization music is 
 energy .^1 Music as such is an imitation of human passions; it arouses 
 a succession of inner sensations which are not visualized, but only 
 extremely "dark." One laments, sighs, rages, rejoices etc., with 
 music, all of which are indefinite emotions. As yet there is not the 
 suggestion of a picture. The next step would be language, but the 
 difficulty here is that language is at once too definite and arbitrary^ 
 lacking strength on the one hand (as compared to music) and not so 
 closely connected with the emotion to which art is given expression. 
 Therefore the dance is chosen as the next art, since this too is an 
 expression of passion, but in the form of attitudes and motions and 
 actions. Music and the dance, instead of supporting each other are 
 considered together as a complete expression of the soul, a totality. 
 Such was Herder's conception of the dance of the ancients. The 
 other elements of music, such as the beautiful succession of tones 
 and harmony, are mentioned. 
 
 Poetry. From all the senses the sensation of beauty enters 
 the imagination and from all the arts they flow therefore into 
 poetry. Imagination is nothing without the senses, and poetry is 
 nothing without the arts. Each art contributes its share to poetry so 
 that there is justification for the picturesque, the plastic and the 
 musical element in poetry. This is an important consideration. 
 Although Herder warns decidedly against a confusion of the arts this 
 does not apply to the relation of poetry to the arts, whereby the main 
 distinction made by Lessing in the Laokoon which we have seen was 
 broken down in part by Herder in the First Waldchen, seems here 
 to be practically abandoned. 
 
 30 Hogarth. 
 
 " See use of these terms m the Laokoon and the First Waldchen. 
 
96 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 /what Herder has here presented he considers to be the essential 
 ii/a philosophic theory of beauty, which has nothing to do with the 
 practical phases of poetry and art. Such a system he considers has 
 the advantage of being open to the young from the very first, since it is 
 a question not of principles, but of experience, of phenomena which 
 lead finally up to the conception of beauty. This he considered to be 
 the Greek manner of education which did not begin with vague and 
 abstract ideas, but with real ideas of beauty, which developed until 
 the soul was filled with Greek feeling and Greek philosophy. It 
 always remained experience, a training of eye, ear, hand and imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 The second part closes with a reference to Sulzer's coming work 
 which he feels will be the last preparation for the theory he desires. 
 
 (c) Part Three of the Fourth Waldchen 
 The third part of the Waldchen is obviously incomplete. It 
 seems to have been Herder's intention at this point to enter into a 
 detailed criticism of Riedel's interpretation of those properties or 
 qualities which have been traditionally associated with the subject 
 of beauty, such as questions of unity and plurality, the sublime, 
 imitation of nature etc. It was his conception that a fallacy had 
 arisen in the past, and particularly in the case of Riedel, in con- 
 sidering these qualities only with respect to a single art, and that a 
 true study of aesthetic problems required that every question of this 
 kind should not only be traced to its source, but that this should be 
 done with equal care in every art concerned, if one were to expect to 
 approach fundamental truth. Throughout the discussions which 
 Herder gives these matters, he remains in the main negative and there 
 is little in the way of good to be gained in following him through this 
 more or less controversial argument. 
 
HERDER'S RELATION TO THE AESTHETIC 
 THEORY OF THE TIME 
 
 From the foregoing survey of Herder's Waldchen it is clear that 
 Herder's views on aesthetics bear a close relationship to previous 
 aesthetic theory. It is possible in a very satisfactory degree to deter- 
 mine through this Waldchen the extent of obligation which Herder 
 owed to his predecessors in building up what was in part an eclectic 
 theory, but which led finally into a definite and original channel. 
 
 a. Baumgarten 
 
 Herder's position with regard to Baumgarten seems fairly clear. 
 We may take it as a straightforward statement of the case when he 
 says ''that the Baumgarten psychology had always seemed to him a 
 rich treasure chamber of the human soul and that a commentary upon 
 it would be a book of the human soul, a plan for education and a gate- 
 way to an encyclopedia of all the arts and poetry. ... If one does 
 not take offense at the 'lower soul-faculties' he will be found to be the 
 first philosopher of our times to carry a philosophic and often poetic 
 torch into these regions of the soul." The fragment on Baumgarten 
 written previous to this time,^ reveals a similar attitude. He notes that 
 there are plenty of books on a logic of the "higher faculties" but 
 "if what is beautiful and good lie just in this "dark ground," then let 
 a Montaigne or a Rousseau, a Locke or a Home come and explain the 
 Baumgarten psychology and fill me full of it."^ 
 
 This position he now contrasts with that of Batteux and Aristotle 
 with regard to imitation, and upholds the Baumgarten position in 
 that it has to do with a living part of the human soul rather than a 
 dry "Vorwurf." This general view that beauty must be treated as 
 sensuous perfection^ may be taken to represent Herder's standpoint 
 so that the contrast of this position with the imitation theory as cham- 
 pioned by Batteux and his followers in Germany is made clear. The 
 entire discussion of Herder ultimately goes back to this question of 
 the senses and concerned itself with the nature of what Baumgarten 
 
 1 See XXII, 184 ff. 
 
 2 Cf. Letter to Kant 1767, "Welch ein Mann ware es der iiber Baumgartens 
 reiche Psychologie mit eines Montaigne's Seelenerfahrung redete. Fourth Waldchen 
 (IV, 15): such a commentary is mentioned also for Montaigne, Klopstock and 
 Leibnitz. 
 
 8 IV, 30. 
 
called "sensitiva." In the discussion of Riedel's definitions of poetry, 
 pointing etc., we have already seen how fully Herder attempts 
 t6 uphold the Baumgarten standpoint directly. 
 / To what extent Baumgarten may be taken as an immediate source 
 for Herder's theory is not so easy to determine in view of the fact that 
 there were followers of Baumgarten who developed his main positions, 
 and who were careful not to confuse the character of aesthetics as did 
 Baumgarten. In any case the position of Herder with relation to 
 Baumgarten will need to be kept in general terms, since his own 
 criticism of him shows to what extent he differed in detail. He finds 
 fault with him, for example, for developing a theory of aesthetics from 
 a theory of sight whereby it became a mere metaphor* and so he 
 thinks it would have remained had Baumgarten completed his work. 
 Perhaps it is with reference to this that he holds Riedel up to ridicule 
 for having attempted to demonstrate to Mendelssohn that beauty 
 must take the form of a sensation, "as if Mendelssohn were a second 
 feelingless Baumgarten."^ That he considered Baumgarten had 
 anticipated most of Home is stated more than once, and he tends to 
 classify him with Home as proceeding from too little data. But his 
 position with regard to the senses and the general philosophic method 
 were the moments which gave Baumgarten his position in Herder's 
 thought. 
 
 b. SULZER 
 
 The Fourth Waldchen would leave little doubt as to the impor- 
 tance which Herder attached to the writings of Sulzer in the field of 
 aesthetics. We know from his correspondence that at the very outset 
 of his work on this Waldchen he had been reading some of Sulzer's 
 essays and saw in them a refutation of Riedel's theory.^ Again in 
 Nantes at the time of the revision of the Waldchen we learn that he 
 had come upon all the essays of Sulzer which had appeared in German. 
 It remains to be seen what Herder found in these treatises of Sulzer 
 which directly appealed to him and what he saw reason to reject. 
 
 In Part II, Chapter 11 of the Waldchen, devoted to a critique of 
 previous writings on aesthetics which he thought of particular value,^ 
 
 * IV, 53, 
 
 5 IV, 34. 
 
 « To Nicolai. Jan. 10, 1769. 
 
 ' Part II, chapter 11. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 99 
 
 Herder begins with Sulzer and 'devotes considerably more space to him 
 than to any of the other writers. It was first of all because Herder saw 
 in him the disciple of Wolff and Leibnitz, that he was glad to look 
 upon him as a worthy predecessor and contemporary in the field of 
 aesthetics. The effort to deduce everything from a "simple yet mani- 
 fold, ever active principle within the human soul" was a consequence 
 of Sulzer's position relative to German philosophy, and it is this fact 
 which prompts Herder to speak of Sulzer's first aesthetic treatise, the 
 ''Theorie der Empfindungen" as a "small monument in Germany 
 . . . worthy of the hands of a Leibnitz or a Wolff." ^ This principle 
 struck at the very heart of the Riedel theory which accepted three 
 fundamental faculties, rather than one, within the human soul. 
 Herder is accordingly moved in various places in the Waldchen to 
 pay tribute to the work both of Mendelssohn and Sulzer in proceeding 
 from this principle. Thus he speaks of the "Simplicity and precision 
 and accuracy with which the followers of Leibnitz have treated 
 psychology and in which Mendelssohn and Sulzer have cleared up 
 many paradoxes in the field of dark and confused ideas. "^ Again: 
 "Sulzer has explained a couple of paradoxes in the depths of the 
 mind: perhaps with these few remarks I may throw in a few rays and 
 awaken another psychologist to bring in more light. "^° The "para- 
 dox" alluded to is unquestionably an allusion to the title of Sulzer's 
 essay "Erklarung eines Paradoxes, etc." 
 
 However much Herder might be pleased to accept in general 
 Sulzer's attitude towards this single faculty of the soul one cannot 
 lose sight of the fact that Sulzer interpreted this in a far more rational- 
 istic manner than did Herder. As compared to Herder, Sulzer still holds 
 to the superiority of purely intellectual ideas, and we have seen to 
 what extent he attempts to subordinate pleasures of the senses and 
 even moral pleasures to the pleasure of the soul in securing a perfect 
 "idea," thus conceiving beauty as a perfection in the object which 
 makes possible a ready grasp of a perfect totality. Herder agrees 
 with him no farther than to accept the general principle of a single 
 faculty of the human soul which may be accounted for in Leibnitzian 
 philosophy. 
 
 8 IV, 144. 
 »W, 12. 
 "IV, 33. 
 
100 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 lierder was in perfect accord with Sulzer that taste with respect 
 tc/art was in reality a rational judgment, however spontaneous this 
 Judgment might seem. In other words taste did not require a dis- 
 tinct faculty of the human soul. Both agreed further as to the part 
 which environment played in bringing about a variation in taste both 
 with respect to nations and individuals, in both instances the "Hot- 
 tentot and Greenlander" is contrasted with civilized man. Both 
 accepted the existence of a standard of taste from which the so-called 
 variations in taste are merely deviations from the normal. This 
 notion with regard to taste was of course very general throughout the 
 18th century, and Herder's previous studies had brought him into 
 contact with this principle; it is only Herder's method of argumenta- 
 tion at this point that can be called reminiscent of Sulzer. 
 Fundamentally the men differed, Sulzer upholding his one-sided 
 rationalistic position. Herder seeing in the variation of opportunity 
 and environment a source of variation in sense experience and 
 sense training. 
 
 Of particular importance to Herder were those portions of 
 Sulzer's "Theorie der Empfindungen" which had to do with the 
 senses. From the discussion of Sulzer's theories already given it will 
 be remembered that he divided pleasures into three classes, the 
 pleasures of the senses being considered to have the least merit. He 
 then offers a theory of sensation which presumes five gradations of 
 nerves according to their capability of receiving fine or coarse impres- 
 sions, sight being considered to be the finest sense, and touch being 
 placed at the bottom of the list. In the manner of a physicist he 
 seeks to indicate how the quantity of pleasure may be measured, the 
 nerves making possible a certain definite proportion between the 
 object without to the sense perception within. This is followed by a 
 theory of music which follows beaten paths, but which, as in the case 
 of all sensation, is submitted to the original principle that the soul 
 knows only one faculty. 
 
 Herder's Waldchen leaves no doubt with regard to his familiarity 
 with every step of Sulzer's reasoning at this point. His own theory of 
 pleasure in music, for example, is offered in direct refutation of 
 Sulzer's position. Sulzer's theory was a "physical and quantitative" 
 explanation, his own was "qualitative and physiological." There is 
 no indication that he objected to Sulzer's theory except that it did 
 not get beyond a certain point, namely to show the manner in which 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time lOl 
 
 any sound or noise affected the nerves of the ear; but the reasoning 
 as to when pleasure resulted in such sensations was not accepted by 
 Herder. Further, the fact that Sulzer distinguished the senses, is of 
 course of tremendous importance in view of Herder's position later. 
 Here at least was a valuable suggestion even though Herder must 
 object to the position accorded the sense of touch. It is unques- 
 tionably with relation to Sulzer that he states that in the past "we 
 have banished touch under the name of coarse sense."" In the cri- 
 tique in part II, chapter 11 he sums up this position briefly when he 
 states, that "if I may except his weighing of the sensations, and the 
 explanation for the differentiation of the senses etc., this work, as far 
 as its formal part is concerned, is even in its smallest detail a meta- 
 physical basis for a future aesthetics. I am using the expressions 
 'formal part' and 'metaphysical basis' advisedly, for Sulzer's little 
 work is not a theory derived from objects of beauty. It indicates 
 only a metaphysical position with regard to the sensation of pleasure; 
 it calculates the agreeable play of the nerves following sensation 
 more from the standpoint of quantity of impression, than quality 
 etc."^^ In spite of Herder's objection to Sulzer's theory one cannot 
 fail to see in Sulzer's work at this point an opportunity so necessary 
 to Herder's type of thought at this time, namely of offering a theory 
 which he could tear down in part only to build up along lines satis- 
 factory to his general viewpoint. 
 
 In spite of differences of opinion in some matters, Herder fully 
 recognized the importance of Sulzer in the field of aesthetics. In 
 fact he speaks of him in one place in the Waldchen as the "Haupt- 
 autor der Aesthetik."^^ His theories had already given him high 
 standing, but the extensive project of a "Universal Theory of Poetry 
 and Art" which would take the form of a dictionary or encyclopedia 
 put him far more into the lime light. In proposing to offer in the 
 Fourth Waldchen his own theories with regard to what constitutes a 
 true theory of aesthetics. Herder realized the exact position which 
 this put him into with regard to Sulzer. Herder was unquestionably 
 concerned lest after all the new work might prove to be a refutation 
 of his own theories. As a matter of fact it did not appear until 
 
 " IV, 48. 
 «IV, 144f. 
 "IV, 43. 
 
102 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 after the completion of the present Waldchen and then was in many 
 respects coolly received by Herder, since at that time his studies on 
 the Plastik had convinced him of the positive character of his new 
 standpoint, which was of course unknown to Sulzer. 
 
 The Fourth Waldchen commits itself to a rather extended criti- 
 cism of the proposed work in so far as it hopes to offer a theory of 
 aesthetics in the form of an encyclopedia, form and content being to 
 Herder incompatible. The source for Sulzer's idea Herder finds in 
 Rousseau's Dictionary of Music, in Bayle's dictionary and the 
 Encyclopedic, but "why a dictionary?" Herder's objections are 
 that a dictionary is opposed to the notion of the "inner relationship 
 which exists between all arts." That is, instead of making clear the 
 single fundamental principles running through all art, this method 
 tends rather to disconnect and destroy what is implied in the term 
 "universal theory." Herder would imply then that his own work 
 here may come too late "to take the Penelope work out of his hands. "^* 
 
 While this work may be misnamed. Herder admits the great 
 value it will have in so far that "it will furnish material for any one 
 in the future wishing to make a true analysis." He wishes to see in 
 it exactly what Sulzer proposed, namely, as Herder quotes from 
 Sulzer, "an edifice of aesthetics from the standpoint of times, peoples, 
 tastes in poetry and all the arts," and Herder adds that "if an ency- 
 clopedia is not of this kind that all the articles taken together form a 
 complete and historical whole of art, then it is imperfect, deceptive 
 and useless." His suggestion then is that it stand as such and no 
 further effort be made to carry on the original project of constructing 
 a theory which would necessitate the "cutting to pieces of the whole 
 which he has worked out." After some additional criticism to the 
 general idea of the dictionary form he welcomes it, for it makes it 
 necessary for Riedel "to improve his work, or since that cannot be 
 done without a palingenesis, to sacrifice it to the flames." 
 
 c. Mendelssohn 
 
 There are many reasons for the opinion that Mendelssohn stood 
 
 much closer to Herder's thought than did Sulzer, even though 
 
 Herder seems to accord to Sulzer the ranking position with regard 
 
 to aesthetics. It has already been suggested that Mendelssohn 
 
 "IV, 146. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 103 
 
 rather than Sulzer is the logical successor of Baumgarten, both by- 
 insisting on the sensuous nature of beauty and by going a step further 
 and making a distinction between beauty and perfection. There 
 may be considerable truth then in Herder's own admission in the 
 Fragment on Baumgarten^^ that Mendelssohn had made him "more 
 certain of the real value of Baumgarten." And it is generally true 
 that Mendelssohn's position with regard to the sensuous part of our 
 nature is much more acceptable to Herder than the rationalism which 
 still characterized Sulzer. 
 
 In the discussion of Mendelssohn in the eleventh chapter of 
 Part II, the following works are singled out: Brief e liber die 
 Empfindungen, die Rhapsodie, die Hauptgrundsatze and his contribu- 
 tions to the Bibliothek der schonen Wissenschaften and the 
 Literaturbriefe. Herder states that ''Mendelssohn's Briefe (iiber die 
 Empfindungen) establish the distinction between beauty and perfec- 
 tion, between dark, clear and distinct pleasures, between the contribu- 
 tion of the body (i.e. the senses) and the soul to our pleasant emotions, 
 more closely than does Sulzer, and with insight and the most 
 agreeable enthusiasm he supplements Sulzer at the very point where 
 Sulzer takes for beauty what is not beauty. These Letters and the 
 Rhapsodie which followed comprehend man in the broad totality 
 of his mixed nature and offer with greater accuracy as far as quantity 
 (of sensation?) is concerned, a very philosophic theory of mixed sen- 
 sations (or emotions)." 
 
 This is a fairly accurate statement with regard to Herder's atti- 
 tude towards Mendelssohn, which is confirmed in those portions of 
 the Waldchen which deal with the general aspects of a theory of 
 aesthetics, and it indicates how carefully Herder had analyzed the 
 works of these two men and had discovered the essential differences. 
 Herder proceeds definitely from Mendelssohn's position that beauty, 
 that the very term ''aesthetics," rests on the predominantly sensuous 
 part of our nature. What Mendelssohn had to offer from this stand- 
 point was fully acceptable to him and throughout the Waldchen he 
 has nothing but praise for his position in this matter. It was only 
 the failure to get beyond the consideration of the sensuous character 
 of beauty to a more definite consideration of the objects of art in 
 their relation to the sense of pleasure that Herder finds reason to 
 
 "XXXII, 189. 
 
104 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 criticize him. Hence he states with regard to the "Hauptgrundsatze" 
 that while it may serve as a ''general map for one wishing to survey 
 the field, it is too lacking in the matter of data (immateriell) and too 
 little analyzed or explained for any one to wish to travel by or to 
 mark out the boundaries of art. To determine these boundaries 
 and to give each art its peculiar and original conception, was not 
 Mendelssohn's intention; he only showed or worked out a main 
 principle which he developed deductively."^^ In other words 
 Herder's idea is that it is time to go farther and employ the experi- 
 mental method with regard to art, taking into account both the 
 object and the subjective impression. 
 
 Herder has continual praise for Mendelssohn as well as Sulzer be- 
 cause of the fact that they remained true to the principle that pleasure 
 in art goes back to a single faculty of the soul. It is time that we 
 determine Herder's position with regard to this matter. Sulzer's 
 interpretation has already been noted.^^ Mendelssohn differed from 
 Sulzer in giving larger place to the sensuous nature. Like Sulzer 
 he believed that the primary impulse of the soul was towards per- 
 fection. This Mendelssohn interpreted however not as ultimately a 
 logical perfection which was never satisfied with the confused per- 
 ception of the senses, but rather accepted the limitation of the senses 
 as a fact of our finite existence and the chief means at our disposal 
 for satisfying the soul's desire for perfection. Herder makes num- 
 erous efforts to explain Leibnitz's theory of the monad and the 
 pleasure|which comes to it through securing "ideas," but his real 
 contribution to this matter was to take the entire question out of 
 the realm of the purely metaphysical and consider it a question of 
 epistemology. In other words the reasons which had induced Locke 
 to take up a theory of knowledge were just as applicable to Herder. 
 Just as the senses have a certain definite function with regard to 
 our ideas in general so why not to our ideas in the realm of art was 
 Herder's proposition. In other words the soul knows only one active 
 principle acting on experience. Hence it happens that while Herder 
 in general terms can take sides with Sulzer and Mendelssohn, because 
 they in distinction from Riedel, etc. upheld a single principle of the 
 soul, it must be said that the moment he took up the theory of the 
 senses on the basis of Lockian philosophy to found aesthetic theory, 
 
 18 IV, 148. 
 
 " Above, p. 99. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 105 
 
 that moment he took a step decidedly in advance of his predecessors. 
 That he is outdistancing Mendelssohn at this point is clear from the 
 statement he makes with regard to Mendelssohn just before he 
 quotes Diderot's Letter on the Blind, to the effect that he had not 
 taken into account the fact that the sense of sight does not give us 
 our ideas of forms and bodies. And yet it does not follow that 
 Herder changed his views with regard to the general principle which 
 he thought at the basis of German philosophy as can be seen from a 
 letter written to Mendelssohn from Paris^^ after completing the 
 Waldchen. "According to your elucidations^^ our ideas with regard 
 to the nature of the human soul are very similar. . . . Pardon me 
 if I don't always speak transcendentally and in the language of 
 'system,' and if I don't express myself accurately; try to put my 
 thoughts in your own words; in the end we must agree. Cultivation 
 of the soul powers leads to the development of abilities; these abili- 
 ties are realities, and where proportionately cultivated become per- 
 fections." In other words Leibnitz and Shaftesbury. Then occurs 
 this significant statement, which indicates how Herder's theory of 
 art built on the study of the sense activity fits into this general 
 scheme. ''This seems to me first of all certain; all our cultivation, 
 learning, Fertigwerden, is only a development of powers that lie in us, 
 which are brought complete into this world, which make up the 
 essential of the soul. As impossible as it is for us to give ourselves 
 another sense, so little can we add powers, realities, perfections. It 
 is only the modification of the formal part of our perceptions that 
 we may give ourselves; the dark idea becomes clear, the clear be- 
 comes distinct, the sensuous-imperfect becomes the sensuous- 
 perfect." 
 
 In the problem which Lessing took up in the Laokoon Herder 
 stood much closer to Mendelssohn than he did to Lessing. As 
 against Lessing's position with regard to words as the natural signs 
 of poetry Herder could have found in Mendelssohn plenty of support 
 for the view that words were not natural, but were arbitrary signs. 
 Mendelssohn's theory of pleasure led naturally to a consideration of 
 emotional content rather than beauty of form, so that Herder's 
 position was consistent with that of Mendelssohn when he sought 
 in the First Waldchen to make clear the value of action or the ''poeti- 
 cs Dec. 1, 1769. 
 " Mendelssohn's letter to Herder is lost. 
 
106 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 cal" element not merely in poetry but in all the arts. The Fourth 
 Waldchen approached the subject from a totally different standpoint 
 so that except for Herder's own statements with regard to his atti- 
 tude towards Mendelssohn's theories there is no way of knowing 
 how closely Herder accepted Mendelssohn's theory of emotions. 
 In fact the interpretation which he puts on sculpture shows a reaction 
 in favor of Winckelmann in so far as he is able to see the value now 
 of a single figure in sculpture. 
 
 Mendelssohn's importance to Herder's aesthetic theories lies in the 
 fact that he made perfectly clear to Herder the role of the senses with 
 respect to art. ''Have men naturally a leaning towards the perception 
 of what is beautiful? In the widest sense, yes, because they are all 
 capable of sensuous ideas. We are at the same time animal spirits; 
 our sensuous powers, if I may say so, seem to occupy a larger space 
 in our soul than the few 'upper' powers; they develop earlier, they 
 are more effective; they belong more in the visible part of our exis- 
 tence than the others; since we do not come to full fruition here, they 
 are the flower of our perfection. The whole background of our soul 
 is made up of these 'dark' ideas, ... they become the motive 
 forces of our life, they are the greatest contribution to our happiness 
 and unhappiness."2o This was all made clear in Mendelssohn. But 
 Mendelssohn did not go farther with the consideration of the senses 
 than to note the distinction between sight and hearing, ideas which 
 were to be found in the distinction of painting and music in the 
 Laokoon but which did not require an analysis of these senses. 
 Herder's theory in the Waldchen has this general theory only in the 
 background, his own position being not in contradiction to, but in 
 advance of what he found thus far. The explanation of art by a 
 sixth sense, Herder dismisses^^ for the same reasons which Mendels- 
 sohn once suggested, namely that it cuts off at once any further 
 philosophy on the subject. 
 
 d. Winckelmann 
 Winckelmann's idealistic attitude towards Greek sculpture occu- 
 pies a definite place in Herder's theory, although perhaps differently 
 interpreted. In the First Waldchen Herder had in general cham- 
 pioned Winckelmann where he was opposed by Lessing. While 
 
 20 IV, 28. 
 
 21 IV. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 107 
 
 accepting the position, as did both Lessing and Winckelmann, that 
 beauty of form was an essential law of sculpture, he refused to go to 
 the length Lessing did and fail to accord positive rights to emotional 
 content. He therefore openly emphasizes "expression" in which 
 Lessing saw the source for the vagaries of modern art. 
 
 That Herder had a clear conception of the character of Winckel- 
 mann's idealism is seen in the following passage from the 1st Wald- 
 chen.22 ''Like to that Greek artist to whom beauty itself (but of 
 course beauty of art) had appeared, enchanted he sought its form 
 painted with fire in his mind, burning in his eye, stirring in his heart; 
 — this figure of beauty, the image of love, he sought everywhere, even 
 in reflected splendor ; he fancied he saw it, as Kleist's Amynte did his 
 beloved Lalage, even in footprints, in the reflection of the water, the 
 breath of the zephyr, which to be sure might come from another 
 Lalage — the beauty of the poet. So in the feeling of this graphic 
 rather than poetic beauty, he stood before Virgil's Laokoon, as before 
 the Laokoon of Polydorus (Agesander) and in this manner he must 
 be read, for this is the limitation of human nature, that we may see 
 only one thing at one time. — This one thing in Winckelmann was 
 art." 
 
 Again within the First Waldchen Herder comes back to the posi- 
 tion of Winckelmann with regard to ideal beauty as against the idea 
 of Mendelssohn. By the fact that plastic art is a "work" and may 
 therefore present only a single moment, the work must be of such a 
 nature that the "soul may forget itself in viewing it, may have a 
 sense of repose and lose the measure of time." "In bodies this 
 eternal moment iS perfect beauty; and in so far as the soul may work 
 through bodies, it is Greek repose (Ruhe). This lies between a dead 
 inactivity and a wrought up exaggerated effect; the imagination can 
 soar to either side, and finds the most prolonged enjoyment in this 
 moment. Dead inactivity cuts off the thread of thought with a 
 single stroke; the figure is dead, who will awaken it? On the other 
 side the exaggeration of expression cuts off the flight of fancy; who 
 can conceive anything higher than the highest? But the blessed 
 repose of Greek expression rocks the soul to both sides, and in this 
 sight we imagine the quiet sea (a frequent figure in Winckelmann) 
 from which the gentle wave of motion and passion rises. What if the 
 
 22in, 10. 
 
108 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory oe his time 
 
 wave should become higher? What if from this gentle zephyr there 
 should arise a destructive storm of passion? How the waves would 
 tower and expression swell up? What a broad field for thought lies 
 in the gentle repose of Greek expression." This is clearly an attempt 
 to express the Winckelmann point of view, but with the obvious 
 distinction that Herder stresses much more the latent passion, than 
 the Greek conception of moderation and strength of character as 
 Winckelmann saw it. 
 
 The First Waldchen clearly showed that in his demand for a 
 larger expression of emotion. Herder had favored group sculpture to 
 the single figure. The interesting fact is that the Fourth Waldchen 
 offers a theory which looks upon the single figure as the true field of 
 sculpture and permits a more accurate acceptation of Winckelmann's 
 view. He states with regard to "beautiful form" (in which idea 
 he here associates the name of Webb with that of Winckelmann): 
 "This is the explanation for the greater enthusiasm of the lovers of 
 sculpture than those of painting. When the connoisseur of painting 
 describes his painting, he has surfaces before him; he depicts 
 the figures in their situation, their presence; he describes what he sees 
 before him. But let the lover of Apollo Belvedere and the torso and 
 Niobe describe what is before him. He does not have surfaces, it is 
 for him to describe the body which he feels, or rather not describe but 
 make it felt. Then his touch-imagination steps into the place of the 
 colder and analytical eye ; then he feels Hercules in his whole body and 
 this body in all its deeds. In the mighty outlines of his body he feels 
 the strength of the conqueror of giants, in the gentle outlines the agile 
 combatant of Achelous; he feels the great and splendid breast which 
 crushed Geryon. The touch-imagination has here no measure or 
 limitations. "23 xhe wise simplicity of the ancients, and the 
 blessed repose, and the exact contour and the clinging drapery 
 which the Greeks give their statues, is explained obviously 
 from this sense of touch which feels as if it were in the dark 
 in order not to be distracted by sight and gives itself over 
 to the outpourings of imagination. Here there can be nothing 
 ugly, nothing distorted and drawn in the main expression 
 ... for only in the actual perfection which a line this way or that 
 shows, lies the sensual pleasure of art."^^ In these passages we are 
 
 23 IV, 66 f . 
 
 24 IV, 72. See also IV, 157. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 109 
 
 able to see how Herder's theory of sculpture, built up on Hogarth's 
 theory of the line, which Winckelmann also accepted, is brought into 
 harmony with Winckelmann's ideal conception of sculpture.^^ 
 
 In a paragraph devoted in part to a discussion of Winckelmann 
 Herder has this to say: *'If, as Winckelmann says, beauty has not 
 since Plato's time been written about with feeling (Empfindung) then 
 Winckelmann's own works have been composed not after a fleeting 
 survey, but in living touch (Handgefiihl) with sculptural beauty. 
 His first work on Imitation was formed with the richest unction and in 
 the awakening glow of sensation (Empfindung). This work and his 
 "Empfindung des Schonen selbst" and the esssential part of his 
 history of art, are a mine full of veins of gold for the treasure of 
 aesthetics. If he speaks in too general terms, one need only limit 
 his judgment to his particular art and point of view, which was 
 pre-eminently that of sculpture. "^^ 
 
 e. Shaftesbury 
 Herder accepted Shaftesbury's standpoint relative to the good, 
 the beautiful and the true as it was understood in Germany. The 
 passage quoted on page 94 relative to architecture indicates clearly 
 this position and is an additional evidence of the extent to which 
 Shaftesbury's views were in accord with the classical conception of 
 art which obtained in Germany throughout the 18th Century. 
 
 f. Home 
 Herder's references to Home are of such a nature that one may 
 conclude that Herder shared the opinion of the time with regard to 
 the importance of Home in the field of aesthetics. What individual 
 ideas he accepted from Home, if any, it is difficult to determine. 
 His discussion of sight indicates a familiarity with Home's view, a 
 fact that is confirmed by his note on page 46, although a similar dis- 
 cussion is found elsewhere, in Sulzer for example. He seems at one 
 point to dismiss Home with the statement that ''many of the obser- 
 vations made by Home he had known a long time and in a more exact 
 language in Baumgarten,"^^ a statement which would need qualifica- 
 
 26 See above. 
 2« IV, 89. 
 27 IV, 16. 
 
110 HERBERTS RELATION TO THE AESTHETIC THEORY OF HIS TIME 
 
 tion. Home's possible contribution to Herder's thought must in the 
 end be looked for rather in the general method and in his understand- 
 ing of the term aesthetics than in individual theories, and in view of 
 Herder's original purpose of giving a general theory and method of 
 aesthetics, this is very important. 
 
 Herder could find his way clear as a rule to praise Home for his 
 general manner in approaching the subject of aesthetics. "Home 
 analyzed works of art, viz., Shakespeare and Ossian; and he drew 
 deductions from ideas thus secured just as did Baumgarten,"^^ and it is 
 just this "strict analysis" which Herder so highly praised. Likewise 
 in showing that aesthetics was a science and not the pleasure in art 
 itself, he may well have had Home for a model, his reasoning being 
 identical except that Home attempts to show the moral value of such 
 exercise. But while Herder finds reasons in general for praising 
 Home, he offers fairly accurate criticism from his standpoint in the 
 critique in Part II, Chapter 11. In the first place he finds that his 
 discussionof novelty, beauty, sublime, etc., are treated without being 
 brought into any vital relation with a fundamental idea or system; 
 in other words these main ideas seem to him to be detached. His 
 book may be used only as a compilation of principles or observations, 
 but certainly not as a theory of art. In the second place he has taken 
 into account human nature and poetry, but has omitted the fine arts, 
 so that the criticism which may be applied to Baumgarten or Meier is 
 applicable to him, namely a lack of complete data, and this he con- 
 siders unfortunate since poetry in his estimation has the arts for its 
 very foundation. Home has, he thinks, confined his attention more 
 to the emotional side of human nature than to beauty in objects, and 
 as far as it goes is the most valuable contribution to the subjective 
 side of aesthetics. Finally he concludes that after all Home does not 
 proceed experimentally, inductively, but begins with passions and 
 emotions and then seeks for examples to support them, and Herder 
 finds great offense in detaching excerpts from the body of a work of 
 poetic art whereby the original spirit must be missing. But whether 
 the examples are effective or not Herder sees no reason for taking 
 exception to his conclusions on the passions. 
 
 We are led to conclude that there is little indication that Herder 
 was thoroughly familiar with Home's work further than to grasp his 
 
 MIV,21. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 111 
 
 general position and manner. As a matter of fact Herder stood much 
 farther from Home than these general criticisms would indicate. 
 
 g. Burke 
 Burke, on the other hand, stood much closer to Herder than 
 Home. He had read Burke^® just before taking up his Waldchen and 
 had immediately seen the relation in which his essay stood to such 
 theory as proposed by Riedel. He must however have been prepared 
 for Burke's viewpoint through Mendelssohn, who, we have shown, 
 was indebted to him for important views on art, particularly with 
 regard to the distinctions of beauty and truth, and with regard to 
 the passions in both of which Herder concurred. There is however a 
 distinct portion of the Waldchen which is clearly a Burke product, 
 namely the theory of music. And Herder leaves us little doubt, had 
 the argument itself been not convincing, by acknowledging the fact. 
 "We have a British empirical philosopher, who has followed these two 
 feelings (beauty and sublimity) deep into our nature and at the same 
 time into the very fibres which immediately surround the soul, and 
 has everywhere reduced the sublime to a feeling of tension and 
 beauty to a feeling of relaxation of the nerves — it is Burke, the author 
 of the philosophic Inquiry of Beauty and the Sublime, whom Mendels- 
 sohn made known to us and whom Lessing has promised us so long. 
 He may have the pairing of his two feelings with the impulses of sel- 
 fish and social affections: he may have his qualitates occultas of ideas 
 which no longer can be justified in an intellectual point of view: 
 he may have all that is system (hypothetical theory) ; the real obser- 
 vations in Burke are genuine discoveries. "^° He continues the dis- 
 cussion of Burke at some length, expressing regret that he had not 
 carried the investigation farther with respect to the relation of the 
 nerves to these finer feelings, and more particularly because he did 
 not get beyond general emotions to an examination of the relations 
 of the various arts to our sensitive nature. In other words Herder 
 leads one to believe that this will be his own field, to continue Burke 
 where he left off, taking into account his own distinction of the 
 arts on the basis of the senses. 
 
 29 See below, p. 122. 
 
 30 IV, 104 ff. Cf. IV, 173 ff. 
 
112 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 h. Hogarth 
 Hogarth's theory of the line had been accepted generally in Ger- 
 many. It is hardly necessary to repeat here the essential position 
 which this theory held in Herder's theory of touch with respect to 
 sculpture. It is such an important factor that one wonders whether 
 Herder would have found his way clear to advance this theory except 
 with the aid of this principle. For what he does at this point is to 
 take over the serpentine or elliptical line and make the immediate 
 impression of beauty in sculpture to rest on the effect this has on 
 touch. As to the use of this principle by analogy, with respect to 
 the theory of sound he had Sulzer for example as a model. 
 
 i. Rousseau 
 
 The immediate effect of Rousseau on Herder's thought is not 
 indicated in the Fourth Waldchen, further than that he cites Rousseau 
 in considering the effect which would result were education to proceed 
 from the principle that many of our ideas originate with touch, a 
 theory which he developed in Emile.^''^ We know from the correspon- 
 dence that Herder at this time thinks he is no longer a follower of Rous- 
 seau, but this had reference no doubt to certain theories. Generally 
 speaking one cannot lose sight of the fact that Herder owes much to 
 both Rousseau and Hamann for the attitude toward what may be 
 called feeling, as opposed to a rational point of view, and yet from 
 the standpoint of specific theory Rousseau seemed to have con- 
 tributed little, although one may not under-estimate the value of 
 this contribution which may have emboldened Herder to suggest an 
 aesthetic education which would proceed not from the reason, but the 
 senses. ^^^ 
 
 j. Diderot 
 
 The study of the relation of Diderot to Herder's thought has 
 often been suggested, but so far has not been worked out in detail. 
 Haym, for example,^^ speaks of a general kinship between the two 
 men, but confines himself to generalities in this connection. Rosen- 
 kranz^2 states: "I marvel that instead of the parallel between Diderot 
 and Lessing which has become monotonous, one does not compare 
 
 30a IV, 52. ♦ 
 
 30b IV, 167 ff. 
 
 31 1, 348. 
 
 32 Diderot II, 398. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 113 
 
 the former with Herder, with whom he offers many points of contact 
 by reason of his many sided receptivity, his declamatory pathos and 
 his enthusiasm for everything that is concerned with humanity," 
 all of which is in general terms. SiegeP^ likewise points this out. In 
 view of this very general feeling that such an investigation should be 
 undertaken, it may be that the present work may perform some ser- 
 vice in pointing out what seems to be a very definite point of relation- 
 ship between these two men. 
 
 References to Diderot occur in the earlier works of Herder. They 
 had to do in the main with Diderot's theory of pantomime both as 
 regards the origin of language, inversions, etc., and in regard to stage 
 representation, thus showing a familiarity with both the Lettre sur 
 les Sourds et Muets and the essays on the drama. He was acquainted 
 further with Diderot's general position with regard to the relation of 
 what we know as milieu to taste and poetic expression. Herder's 
 essay on the Ode follows very closely a development of thought found 
 in Diderot. There is little question of the high respect with which 
 Herder held the French encyclopedist during these years, so that he 
 had no prejudice of mind to overcome in order to accept the sugges- 
 tion for those ideas which come to light for the first time in the Fourth 
 Waldchen and which from then on to the end of his life form an inte- 
 gral part of his thought. 
 
 The first of the important references to Diderot in the Fourth 
 Waldchen is an extended translation taken from the "Essai sur la 
 Poesie Dramatique."^* His purpose in using the passage was to 
 indicate a kind of milieu which would lead to a variation of taste, 
 whereas Diderot had intended to illustrate what he considered to be 
 a type of moeurs which was naturally poetic. The use, however, 
 which Herder made of the reference was in no way contrary to 
 Diderot's point of view, which was held rather generally throughout 
 the 18th Century, for example in Dubos, Shaftesbury, etc. 
 
 In another place^^ Herder takes up the discussion of Diderot's 
 article *'Beau." This had been written by Diderot for the Encyclo- 
 pHie and was circulated in advance along with a copy of the Discours 
 Preliminaire to advertise the coming work. Here he states that 
 
 ^ Herder als Philosoph., p. 34. 
 84 IV, 39, Diderot VII, 370. 
 « IV, 149. 
 
114 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 Diderot's philosophical thoughts on the "formation of the conception 
 of beauty in us, the point of view which dififerent languages have 
 toward this conception, and its variations, everywhere betray the 
 keen philosopher, which makes him so distinct in his nation. The 
 entire article would be worthy of translation and interpretation, 
 especially with reference to the position of Crousaz, Andre and 
 Hutcheson towards beauty." While at work on the Fourth Wald- 
 chen Herder had referred to this same article in a letter to Hamann.^^ 
 "I have read Diderot's article "Beau" and except for some of my 
 favorite theories as to how beauty develops in us (probably in refer- 
 ence to the fact that our taste for beauty is in reality an acquired 
 readiness of judgment) and a good critique of what has been written 
 on beauty before this time, I found nothing that may be called new 
 theory." Reference is further made within the Waldchen to Diderot's 
 theory of dramatic picture or tableau with respect to stage represen- 
 tation as well as his theory of dramatic expression.^^ In another 
 passage he mentions his theory of music along with that of Euler, 
 Dalembert, etc. 
 
 But the real importance of Diderot to the development of 
 thought in the Waldchen is seen in the extensive references to the 
 Letter on the Blind, as may be seen from the following. "The 
 sense of sight is the most artificial and the most philosophical of the 
 senses; it is attained, as those who have been blind tell us, only with 
 the greatest effort and practice. "^^ A theory of sight "would teach 
 us to see beauty . . . and not to speak as the blind do of color and 
 the mirror. "^^ "The blind tell us that many unknown nuances are 
 distinguishable to the hearing which now only belong to sight. "^^ To 
 show us that touch is the sense which gives us impressions of 
 bodies, and incidentally to make clear that his theory is in advance of 
 that of Mendelssohn for this reason, he cites Diderot's "Letter on the 
 Blind" and gives as complete an outline as possible without including 
 Diderot's metaphysical deductions and the conclusions which had 
 no direct bearing on Herder's purpose.*^ Part II, chapter 3, taken up 
 
 38 Middle March 1769. 
 " IV, 18. 
 88 IV, 45. 
 
 "rv,47. 
 
 « IV, 49 ff. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 115 
 
 with a development of the theory that touch is the sense appealed to 
 in sculpture, is of course at the very heart of his theory and while no 
 immediate reference may be found to Diderot on the blind, the source 
 for this general position is clear. In the discussion of painting which 
 follows he states "The blind one who regained his sight saw all the 
 objects like a large colored picture surface lying immediately upon 
 his eye. "^2 The entire theory of the colossal in art is based on the 
 experience of the blind who immediately after sight was restored 
 saw everything as a "gigantic form in the eye" and he mentions the case 
 of'Chesselden "who did not through sight find that in the faces of his 
 friends which he had formerly found through touch. "^^ In the theory 
 of music, he states that "the blind have much deeper feeling for the 
 first moments of agreeable tone than those who see, whose inner sense 
 of tone feeling is diverted by a thousand external distracting surface 
 images. "^^ And finally the reference to Riedel as the "man who has 
 a conception of each art about which he writes comparable to the 
 blind man's conception of color. "^^ 
 
 Diderot's Letter on the Blind which was the apparent source for 
 the idea which Herder is seen to apply thus zealously was not written 
 with a view to furnishing a basis for aesthetic theory. It had been 
 written in part to take up the discussion of the problem which had 
 originally been raised by Molineux in a letter to Locke as to whether 
 a man whose sight was restored would be able to distinguish a cube 
 from a sphere. This problem was discussed among others by Berkeley 
 and by Robert Smith, whose "Complete System of Opticks" was 
 well known in his day, both of whom take up the case of a blind 
 lad whose sight was restored by Dr. Chesselden and reported in the 
 Philosophical Transactions, as a support for their particular view- 
 points. The discussion was taken up in France by Voltaire, Condil- 
 lac, Bufifon and Diderot and also reported in the article "Aveugle'* 
 in the Encyclopedic, in every instance the case of Chesselden being 
 used as a basis for argument. Diderot's Letter attaches itself nor- 
 mally to this discussion, but to the case of Chesselden he adds other 
 cases of men born blind. In addition to taking up the question of 
 
 ^IV, 74. 
 «IV, 82, also85. 
 « IV, 106. 
 « IV, 128. 
 
116 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 the sphere and the cube Diderot interested himself in certain meta- 
 physical considerations with respect to the existence of God, the 
 atheistical tendency of which was in part responsible for his imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 The history of this discussion is interesting from the fact that of 
 all the writers mentioned who have taken up the question of the 
 blind, Diderot was the only one to hint at the possibilities of its 
 application to aesthetics, which he however does only casually. He 
 raises the question for example as to whether a blind man Will have 
 an idea of beauty and what his ideas of symmetry and order really 
 are. He states further that touch gives the idea of relief^^ and that 
 the blind have no sense of painting."*^ It is in fact Herder who takes 
 the final step in this story of making this case of the blind the real 
 basis for an aesthetic theory. 
 
 During the period covered by the composition of the Fourth 
 Waldchen there is no indication in the correspondence nor in the 
 "Journal" of the value of Diderot's Letter to Herder. Except for the 
 reading of the article Beau*^ and two references to the fact that he had 
 found in Nantes Diderot's Eloge de Richardson,^^ for which he two 
 years before expressed enthusiasm particularly for the style,^^ the 
 only indication we have that Herder may have come into contact 
 with the writings of Diderot are in connection with the reading of the 
 Encyclopedic. 
 
 In contrast to the Nantes period the portions of the Journal 
 written in Paris as well as the correspondence from there have much 
 to say with respect to Diderot. In the Journal he wonders whether 
 Diderot has "outlived himself. "^^ He writes Nicolai (Nov. 30) that 
 Diderot is "the best philosopher in France and regrets only that he 
 "knows too little of German philosophy"; he speaks also of a treatise 
 "on the imitation of different nations in the different fine 
 arts" which Diderot is preparing and promises to write more 
 of him and of French literature another time. In the Journal, 
 
 « I, 282. Diderot (Assezat Ed.) 
 
 *8 See above. 
 
 « To Hartknoch, Aug. 4; to Hamann Lb. II, 2.3, p. 62. 
 
 60 IV, 225. 
 
 « IV, 435. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 117 
 
 written in Paris,^^ we find this highly pertinent statement: 
 "I have worked out something with regard to aesthetics and believe 
 it to be really new; but in how little? In the proposition that sight 
 sees only surfaces, touch feels only forms; this was already known to 
 us through optics.^^ Only the application remains therefore that 
 painting is for the eye and sculpture for the touch, a discovery which 
 is still slight and if expanded too much will lead to absurd conse- 
 quences. Therefore let this proposition be a guide for more experi- 
 ments with regard to sight and touch. I must become a blind man in 
 order to examine the philosophy of this sense ! I believe I am on some 
 new paths, let me see!" There follow some outlines bearing these 
 headings: ''Illusion der Statue vom Fleische," "Vom Schonen durchs 
 Gefuhl," ''Von der Philosophie des Gefiihls iiberhaupt," "Illusion 
 der Statue vom Geiste." He continues: "This is a plan which had 
 been previously made, which however needs to be enlivened through 
 an association with and a study of the blind and the deaf and dumb. 
 Diderot can he my model in making experiments, but not merely to 
 build on his experiments and theorize (systematisiren) on them."^^ 
 
 The earliest studies for the Plastik, in which Herder embodies his 
 new theories, date back to this time. The first of these as well as the 
 later ones are introduced by an outline of Diderot's Letter on the 
 Blind and even more than in the Fourth Waldchen the case of the 
 blind man is used to make clear the particular point in mind. But in 
 Paris Herder's enthusiasm extended beyond this one idea and 
 included other theories indicating a familiarity with Diderot's Letter 
 on the Deaf and Dumb and the Dramatic essays. In the Journal 
 under date of Dec. 2^^ Herder writes: "I have heard whole pieces and 
 not found a single inarticulate cry of nature and passion which could 
 be called natural, have seen pieces with no movement, not a step 
 which could have moved a person who was deaf." This was with 
 reference to Diderot's theory of pantomime. Diderot reports that 
 he often went to the theatre and stopped his ears that he might 
 the better judge of the action of a piece and the expression of the 
 emotion through gestures etc. Herder speaks further of simplicity as 
 
 62 IV, 443 f . 
 
 " See reference to Smith above, p. 115. 
 
 " IV, 443 S. 
 
 « IV, 481. 
 
118 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 the real expression of passion and states that the stage could be the 
 best school of morals by the production of honnete comedies. ^*0h, 
 could I contribute to this end. I will at least strengthen Diderot's 
 voice. "^® With respect to opera: "A deaf man who could see and a 
 blind man who could hear, which would get more from the opera? 
 The former among the French and the latter among the Italians." 
 He then proposes an opera where the story can be followed .by the 
 eye without the necessity of hearing.^^ 
 
 Diderot's contribution to Herder's thought in view of these state- 
 ments is unquestionable. It would be interesting to determine at 
 just what time the possibility of applying a theory of the blind to 
 aesthetic theory had occurred to him since with this theory Herder is 
 able to advance along peculiarly positive lines. As has been stated 
 in no writing previous to the Paris period do we find any mention of 
 this theory except within the Fourth Waldchen and the question 
 may here be asked whether or not this theory was itself a part of the 
 original draft of the Waldchen made in Riga or was an essential part 
 of the ^'revision" which took place in Nantes. A brief discussion of 
 this point will form the concluding section of this study. 
 
 w IV, 483. 
 " IV, 484. 
 
COMPOSITION OF THE FOURTH WALDCHEN 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE 
 
 INFLUENCE OF DIDEROT 
 
 From what has been stated in the preceding section with regard to 
 Diderot, it is clear that the new theory of the relation of the sense of 
 touch to sculpture had become an all engrossing subject with Herder 
 so far as the field of aesthetics was concerned. It has been seen that 
 in the development of this theory Diderot's study of the blind played 
 an exceedingly important part since Herder not only never fails to 
 include an analysis of the Letter on the Blind in every draft of the 
 Plastik, but the argument from the blind forms an integral part of the 
 discussion not only here but in all of his future aesthetic works, this 
 being notably the case in the Kalligone wherein Herder attempts to 
 combat the position of Kant. Since the first use which was made of 
 the Letter on the Blind occurs in certain sections of the Fourth 
 Waldchen and since the first evidences of enthusiasm for this phase of 
 Diderot's thought appear during the French Visit, and especially 
 during his stay in Paris, one is drawn to the conclusion that this 
 particular turn in Herder's interest not only represents a late develop- 
 ment within the work, but was probably coincident with his French 
 visit. 
 
 When Herder undertook to write the fourth of the Critical 
 Waldchen he had a full program before him in combating Riedel's 
 theory or aesthetics and in setting up a general theory of his own. 
 In this connection then it is of no little significance that Herder's 
 publisher Hartknoch, after having had access to the Riga Manuscript 
 before Herder took it with him to France, should fail to see in it any- 
 thing further than an "attack on Riedel" together with "much 
 thorough investigation."^ It may be further noted that Hartknoch 
 made no mention at all of the Waldchen in the first letter he wrote 
 Herder after his departure, so that there seems to be good grounds to 
 believe that the "new theory" did not form a part of the Riga Manu- 
 script, since no reader of the Waldchen in its present form would 
 fail to point out Herder's new and positive contribution, the original- 
 ity of which Herder is not lax in emphasizing. 
 
 » See below, p. 124. 
 
120 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 The correspondence indicates that Herder's first interest after his 
 arrival in Nantes was the perusal of the Encyclopedie, which might 
 well have furnished the occasion for familiarizing himself with Did- 
 erot's position, since the article Aveugle contained a good 
 synopsis of the Letter, although one may not suppose Herder to have 
 been unacquainted with the existence of this work of Diderot. It is 
 on the other hand worthy of note that in a reference to Diderot in 
 the correspondence of the Riga period during the composition of the 
 Waldchen, wherein Herder mentions that he had been reading the 
 article "Beau" of Diderot, and had found nothing there which was 
 new to him, he makes no mention at all of the article on the Blind 
 which later figured so vitally in his work. 
 
 We have no information concerning the extent of revision which 
 Herder undertook in his Waldchen after his arrival in France further 
 than that contained in a letter written to his publisher in October. 
 "I am just on the point of leaving Nantes, and Heaven knows I have 
 so much to do that I don't know how I shall get through. I have 
 worked over the Fourth Waldchen and still have one part to change 
 before sending it off." And later in the same letter he states that he 
 is going ''to besiege" him with books, and first of all is the Fourth 
 Waldchen. "It is quite different from the preceding ones; the style 
 is much more dignified and has very interesting passages, which 
 however must be searched for." 
 
 In this connection it is illuminating to consider the effect of the 
 departure from Riga on Herder's general state of mind as he seems 
 to recognize it himself. To Hartknoch (Aug. 4) he writes that he will 
 discontinue the controversy with Klotz "because of a more dignified 
 bearing which he owes himself and the public." He promises for the 
 future to get beyond the "elende kurze Zeitverbindungen" and to 
 write only such things as will "add to the sum of human thought." 
 In a letter to Nicolai (Aug. 5) he makes it clear that the quarrels with 
 the Klotzian school had gotten on his nerves and for this and other 
 reasons he found that his own future development rested on his 
 breaking away from Riga,^ and later in the same letter he wishes 
 that Lessing would no longer have anything to do with this "nest of 
 hornets." On the eve of leaving Nantes for Paris, he writes to Hart- 
 knoch (Oct. 1769) "Picture to yourself the first rest after long public 
 
 2 See also to Hamann End of August. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 121 
 
 activities, the first feeling of giving oneself over to the Muses without 
 having the hours call to duty, the first sensation of not having to lie 
 in wait anxiously for the next Klotzian papers, or of fermenting 
 Critical Waldchen and studying literature as literature. Feeling 
 demands rest and progress and I should have been unworthy of any 
 further attempt with the Muses if I had not had such a splendid 
 pause between work and travel, between mouldering monotony and 
 too sudden dissipation, between sea and land, between Riga and 
 Paris. And I may say, now that I am closing up everything, that I 
 am not leaving Nantes as I came here, even in respect to many phases 
 of my thought." "Many ideas and prejudices with regard to my writ- 
 ings have changed." Whether or not these reference have directly 
 to do with the Fourth Waldchen, they emphasize a fact, which of 
 course is well known, that the period in Nantes was in the real sense of 
 the word a period of transition. It is clear that controversial writing 
 had become distasteful to him, and that he was impatient to apply 
 himself to original work. From this standpoint the Waldchen under 
 discussion finds its place in so far as it reveals what is in part critical 
 and polemic, and what on the other hand is distinctly new theory and 
 to which his future writing in this field naturally attaches itself. 
 
 The earliest references to the Waldchen leave no doubt with 
 regard to its original purpose, namely to combat the theory of Riedel. 
 Such a purpose was consistent with the general character of the 
 critical "Waldchen" which with the second and third Waldchen had 
 taken on a distinctly polemic character. In fact all of Herder's pre- 
 ceding work had been essentially critical, no independently construc- 
 tive work having appeared up to this time from his pen. The desire 
 to combat Riedel in particular had its immediate source in the 
 controversy with the Klotz school which had been brought to a head, 
 as far as Herder himself was concerned, by Riedel's participation in 
 securing a copy of the revised third volume of the Fragmente before 
 it was ready for the public, his purpose being to publish an early 
 critique of the work. Herder was deeply incensed and his entire 
 correspondence at this time indicates to what extent he was willing 
 to play the partisan in lining up|the forces of Lessing, Sulzer, Mendels- 
 sohn etc., against the entire Riedel-Klotz school. Out of this 
 "quarrel" grew the Fourth Waldchen. 
 
 Since Riedel's work offered what he called a theory of aesthetics, 
 and at the same time represented an eclectic assemblage of ideas 
 
122 
 
 gleaned from many writers on aesthetics in France, England and 
 Germany, Herder found it necessary first to show that the funda- 
 mental position of the Riedel School, which accepted the general 
 viewpoint of Hutcheson with regard to three fundamental faculties 
 of the soul was not in accord with the main position of Wolffian 
 philosophy; in the second place to reinterpret these same writers 
 whom Riedel had quoted, and in the third place to establish a general 
 theory of his own. The correspondence makes this in the main clear. 
 At the moment he is turning his attention to the composition of this 
 work he writes to Hamann (Nov. 1769) that Burke's work on the 
 Sublime "overthrows the Darje-Riedel-Hutcheson philosophy," 
 which calls to mind that in the older manuscript of page 1, of the 
 Waldchen in attacking Riedel's position there is this similar state- 
 ment: "One sees the so-called fundamental faculties of the Crusius- 
 Darje-Hutcheson philosophy."^ In a letter to Nicolai (Jan. 10) he 
 looked upon Sulzer's work from exactly this angle. After mentioning 
 the reading of Sulzer's essays he proceeds, "I am thinking of giving 
 my views on Riedel's Theory, I wanted to say Rhapsody, and even 
 undigested Rhapsody of poetry and art, and pfui! this compositor 
 doesn't know any Sulzer, nor his theory of Sensation, etc. But 
 between us, I am hoping to be able to give a coherent treatment of 
 my views on aesthetics and in so doing to fill in part of my Fragmente 
 which is lacking."^ A reference to Sulzer's work three months later 
 indicates that Herder's main concern continues to be the overthrow 
 of Riedel's position, "The Theory of Riedel will be completely 
 blotted out and extinguished by this work."^ 
 
 Suphan has gathered together the data concerning the composition 
 of the Fourth Waldchen in the Introduction to Volume III of his 
 Edition of Herder, and the conclusions there arrived at are in the 
 main acceptable to Haym. Mention is there made of scattered pages 
 of several manuscripts, but it is to be regretted that a more thorough 
 examination of these manuscripts was not presented, and particularly 
 from the standpoint of content. So thoroughly are we convinced by 
 every evidence at hand that the "revisions" which took place after 
 the departure from Riga were partly of a positive nature that we 
 
 « IV, 5 note. 
 
 * See Haym I, 248. 
 
 6 To Nicolai, March 1769. 
 
herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 123 
 
 believe these "scattered pages" if they lend themselves to examination 
 will confirm the general conclusions here reached. It is of course 
 difficult to conjecture how far Herder had developed in his own mind 
 the ''general theory of aesthetics." There is to be sure a reasonable 
 possibility that he was in fact prepared earlier to announce a 
 theory which would take into account the senses, working in the sug- 
 gestion of Sulzer or Mendelssohn, and following the analogy of Burke. 
 There is a basis for this supposition in several passages in the Wald- 
 chen where ''feeling" is used in a sort of general sense, and we might 
 conclude therefore that not until Diderot had furnished definite view- 
 points did Herder see the matter with the precision which character- 
 ized his later thought, and which allowed him to set forth boldly a 
 theory of touch. 
 
 There is nothing in the discussion of Suphan which militates 
 against any of the conclusions stated above. While we may agree 
 with Suphan that a portion of the original manuscript ending with the 
 statement "Eben lese ich, dass Sulzers Worterbuch zum Druck fertig 
 liege" was probably written by March 1768, from the fact that the 
 correspondence of March contains a similar error of statement with 
 regard to Sulzer's work which was corrected later to read "erscheinen 
 werde,"^ one does not find it necessary to accept the inference that the 
 two-thirds of the original work completed at that time corresponds 
 with two-thirds of the Waldchen in its present form. An examination 
 of the Fourth Waldchen for example, makes it clear that Part I of the 
 Waldchen may well have represented older material, since there is no 
 indication of the new position and only once a hint of the possibility 
 of a division of the arts according to the senses involved, this however, 
 being confined to the senses of sight and hearing. But in Part II, the 
 first section and sections 3 to 9 proceed so clearly in the manner of the 
 later Plastik, and with scarcely a reference to Riedel and his own 
 general theory, that one is inclined to attribute this to a later work- 
 manship, and this possibility Suphan does not in any way take into 
 account. 
 
 With regard to the completion of the Riga manuscript Suphan 
 leaves a similar inference, namely that the present form of the work 
 was not essentially different from its original form. The letter, 
 
 « IV, 168. 
 
124 herder's relation to the aesthetic theory of his time 
 
 however, from which this conclusion is drawn states surprisingly 
 little. Hartknoch writes Herder after his departure, as follows: 
 "And now the last volume of the critical Waldchen against Riedel. 
 In the Preface to the Third Waldchen } ou have called this Theory 
 the most wretched of books, so now out with the whole story. I 
 think the Waldchen should crown the entire work; there is much 
 thorough investigation in it." To conclude from this that the work 
 was practically completed before Herder left Riga is a rather bold 
 procedure and in any case does not solve the question of the extent 
 of later "revision." 
 
 In a note to Chapter 3 of Part II of the Fourth Waldchen Suphan 
 draws a final conclusion that the discussion of sculpture as the art of 
 touch was in fact a part of the Riga manuscript. There is no con- 
 vincing argument against this supposition, but when he substan- 
 tiates this by noting Diderot's familiarity with Diderot's Letter on 
 the Deaf and Dumb, which we know of course he made use of in the 
 Fragmente, he fails to see the vital relation which the Letter on the 
 Blind bears to this Fourth Waldchen, and we have little doubt Her- 
 der's enthusiasm for this new study was not only intimately con- 
 nected with Diderot's letter on the Blind, but closely connected with 
 his French journey, which is our point of contention. 
 
 While nothing here stated with regard to the composition of the 
 Waldchen affects any of the preceding study, we believe that the 
 problem of the composition of this Waldchen has more than passing 
 interest so far as it concerns the history of Herder's development of 
 thought. This might not be so true were it not that the composition 
 of the Waldchen bridges a period of such marked transition in Herder's 
 thought. For this reason if for no other we hold that a more thorough 
 analysis of the manuscripts of this work are due to the public than 
 Suphan has ventured to offer. 
 
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